Daily alternative news articles at the News Desk for GrahamHancock.com. Featuring alternative history, science, archaeology, ancient egypt, paranormal & supernatural, environment, and much more. Check in daily for updates!

If you judged by the recent buzz in the media world, you might think that 3D printers are good for one thing only: creating untraceable guns, on demand, in the privacy of your home. What makes the 3D printer such an intriguing technology, though, is the extremely broad nature of their applications. They can be used to print replacement auto parts (or maybe, someday, entire vehicles). They are great for cranking out rapid prototypes of new kinds of objects–anything from sculptures to false teeth to custom iPod cases. The focus on gun ethics misses the big picture.

More here: NASA investing in 3-D food printer for astronauts

A video showing what is thought to be first ever 3D-printed bullet being fired has appeared on YouTube.

In the video, from user Taofledermaus, three bullets of different weights and shapes are fired at various targets using a Mossberg 590 shotgun.

According to the video, each plastic pellet has been 3D-printed. A small lead shot was then added to give the bullet weight.

In the video, Taofledermaus is heard saying: 'You've heard of a 3D-printed gun? How about 3D-printed bullets.'.

A working plastic gun has been printed using a self-assembled 3D printer, a nail and some household screws.

The gun, based on blueprints made available online by Defense Distributed last month, cost just $25 (£16) to make and has already successfully fired nine .38 caliber shots by the Wisconsin engineer who built it.

Up until now, the blueprints for the 'Liberator' gun have been mainly printed using industrial-grade 3D printers that cost around £5,250 ($8,000).

When April and Bryan Gionfriddo brought home their newborn son, Kaiba, in October 2011, he seemed like a healthy baby. But one night, when the family was out to dinner, Kaiba stopped being able to breathe and turned blue. Bryan laid Kaiba, just 6 weeks old, on the restaurant table and performed chest compressions on him before he was rushed to the hospital.

After 10 days, Kaiba was sent home, but he turned blue again two days later. That's when doctors realized Kaiba had a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, in which the windpipe is so weak that it collapses, preventing air from flowing to the lungs.

A study showing how ants tunnel their way through confined spaces could aid the design of search-and-rescue robots, according to US scientists.

A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology found fire ants can use their antennae as "extra limbs" to catch themselves when they fall, and can build stable tunnels in loose sand.

Researchers used high speed cameras to record in detail this behaviour.

The findings are published in the journal PNAS.

The Solar Impulse plane has set a new distance record for solar-powered flight on the second leg of its trans-American journey on Wednesday evening.

The craft landed in Dallas, Texas, after an 18-hour flight from Phoenix, Arizona - a journey of 1,541km (958mi).

In the coming weeks, it will also stop over in St Louis, Missouri, and Washington DC before heading to New York in early July.

Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.

Speaking on the UN's International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a "mutually reinforcing" relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed.

"We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met," Ban said.

OTTAWA — The personal use of illegal drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine, should be decriminalized as part of a federal-provincial strategy to tackle drug abuse, a B.C.-based national coalition of drug policy experts argue.

In a report to be released Thursday, the coalition denounces the Harper government’s aggressive war on drugs, which puts the emphasis on law enforcement while steering money away from harm-reduction initiatives like Vancouver’s supervised injection site.

“While countries all around the world are adopting forward-thinking, evidence-based drug policies, Canada is taking a step backwards and strengthening punitive policies that have been proven to fail,” states a summary of the 112-page report from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, which is based at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.

Excavations at an archaeological site in Bahrain are shedding light on one of the oldest trading civilisations.

Despite its antiquity, comparatively little is known about the advanced culture represented at Saar.

The site in Bahrain, thought to be the location of the enigmatic Dilmun civilisation, was recently discussed at a conference in Manama, the Gulf nation's capital, organised by the UN's educational, scientific and cultural body (Unesco).

TIBERIAS, Israel (AP) -- The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologists dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated.

It's thousands of years old - a conical, manmade behemoth weighing hundreds of tons, practically begging to be explored.

The problem is - it's at the bottom of the biblical Sea of Galilee.

Related: See Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization by Graham Hancock.

Humans today eat gorillas and chimpanzees, so why would our prehistoric ancestors flinch at sitting down to a nicely roasted Neanderthal?

That's the shocking new hypothesis being raised by anthropologists in Spain, who wonder if our closest extinct relative was exterminated in the same way as 178 other large mammals, so-called megafauna, which are suspected of going at least partially by the hand of hungry human hunters.

Related: See Graham's book Entangled

Anthropologists have discovered a beautiful Greek waterfront paradise once inhabited by generations of Neanderthals up to 100,000 years ago, according to a new study.

This particular population was based at what is known as The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic Cave site on the Mani peninsula of southern Greece.

Aboriginals had the continent to themselves for 50,000 years. Today they make up less than 3 percent of the population, and their traditional lifestyle is disappearing. Almost. In the homelands the ancient ways live on.

A finger across the throat and a glance seaward. That’s the signal. The two men grip their spears, hand-carved from stringybark trees, and walk barefoot over the red soil to the water’s edge. Then into the aluminum dinghy, engine revved, and across a warm shallow bay of the Arafura Sea, at the wild edge of Australia’s Northern Territory.

Abrupt climate change in Africa helped trigger technological and cultural advances in early modern humans, according to new research.

Archaeologists had long noted that the complexity displayed by human groups moved in fits and starts.

But there has been a debate about the causes of this stop-start pattern.

Analysis of marine sediments suggest a close link between changes in human behaviour and changes in the southern African climate.