“Mamlambo first misidentified it as petrified wood and then as a dolphin skull. The video, of his first scientifically valuable fossil he found, went viral. Researcher and author Dr Seabourne Rust got in touch with Mamlambo following the video and was the lead author on the paper describing the fossil along with Rodrigo Otero and Marianna Terezow.” (Source: “‘I was so excited’: Man discovers new 50-million-year-old species of fish at NZ beach,” By Poppy Clark, November 18, www.stuff.co.nz).

5 stars – what a fantastic find and a great result for Morne’s inquisitiveness and sharp eyesight!

Composer’s works performed for first time in three centuries

For the first time in over three centuries, works recently attributed to composer Johann Sebastian Bach have been performed in Germany. While the sheet music was found in 1992, it has taken over 30 years to prove that they are in fact Bach’s work.

“Germany’s Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer called the discovery of the two pieces a ‘great moment for the world of music’. They first caught the attention of the Peter Wollny, a researcher of the German composer and musician, in 1992 when he was cataloguing Bach manuscripts at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels. The organ works – the Chaconne in D minor BWV 1178 and Chaconne in G minor BWV 1179 – were undated and unsigned. Mr Wollny spent the next 30 years working to confirm the identity of the pieces.

“They were performed at the St Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach is buried and where he worked as a cantor for 27 years. The two pieces were played by Dutch organist Ton Koopman, who said he was proud to be able to perform them for the first time in 320 years. He said the pieces were ‘of a very high quality’ and would be ‘a great asset for organists today, as they are also suitable for smaller organs’. They are believed to have been composed early in Bach’s career, when he was working as an organ teacher in the town of Arnstadt in Thuringia.” (Source: “Lost Bach pieces performed for first time in 320 years,” by Bethany Bell, November 17, www.bbc.com).

5 stars – what a fantastic discovery and a wonderful addition to the incredible body of work of a much loved and respected composer! Total upside!

Watch from Titanic up for auction

Few shipwrecks have captured the public imagination to the same degree as the RMS Titanic that sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. That fascination has doubtless been amplified by the blockbuster film of the 1990s that turned the siking into a tragic love story and the fruitless quest for a valuable jewel.

Proving that the Titanic still generates a great deal of interest, a pocket watch from a famous passenger lost in the sinking will come up for auction in the UK soon, and may sell for over one million pounds.

“Isidor Straus and his wife Ida were among the more than 1,500 people who died when the vessel travelling from Southampton to New York sank after hitting an iceberg on 14 April 1912. His body was recovered from the Atlantic days after the disaster and among his possessions was an 18 carat gold Jules Jurgensen pocket watch that will go under the hammer on 22 November. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire, told Ben Prater on BBC Radio Wiltshire: ‘With the watch, we are retelling Isidor’s story. It’s a phenomenal piece of memorabilia. Everyone would know them from the end of James Cameron’s Titanic movie, when there is an elderly couple hugging as the ship is sinking – that’s Isidor and Ida.'” (Source: “Titanic passenger’s watch expected to fetch £1m,” by Curtis Lancaster and Danai Nesta Kupemba, November 13, www.bbc.com).

5 stars – whilst its difficult to know why the huge interest in Titanic endures after more than a century, it’s incredible that artefacts from the sinking still come up for auction and sell for such huge amounts of money.