Pouring grape juice and other liquids on 3,000-year-old Olmec sculptures in Mexico, people performing a ritual badly damaged the treasures.

Within the last decade, the Chubut province in Argentina has become a paradise for paleontologists seeking fossilized clues about the flora and fauna from millions of years hence.

Animal-skin pages of early medieval manuscripts contain genetic material capable of solving long-standing mysteries about the works, according to new research.

Confiscated from a smuggler in Egypt, an ancient bronze statuette—perhaps of a goddess—has been returned to Iraq.

Some 93 million years ago, dinosaur-era "sea monsters" swam the seas above what is now Utah. Thanks to paleontologists, more evidence of the ancient beasts is now surfacing.

Two Australian tourists were killed when giant chunks of ice slid off New Zealand's Fox Glacier. The brothers had ventured into an off-limits zone.

Motivated by the high price of the precious metal and the economic meltdown, tens of thousands of Americans are seeking their share of the yellow stuff.

A piglet nuzzles a chicken as Ebola threatens, a Chinese mummy has a surprisingly good hair day, and more in the week's best news photos.

Geologists in Hungary have been exploring a newfound underground lake beneath the capital, Budapest. The lake system is believed to extend 25 miles (40 kilometers).

Complete with canons and jars of olive oil, an 18th-century Spanish ship has been found at a Buenos Aires, Argentina, construction site.

See the National Geographic Digital Media photo editors' favorite photos from National Geographic News's 2008 "Week in Photos" galleries.

In the country of Georgia each new year, handcrafted, decorated trees sprout around the capital, Tbilisi, as emblems of prosperity and happiness.

Kayakers survive an encounter with a great white shark. Amateur video shows the shark circling the kayakers in the waters near Sydney, Australia.

A one-of-a-kind train that runs through the African desert in Mauritania is uniquely adapted to extreme heat and blowing sand.

In a remote corner of Finland near the Arctic Circle, an international team of elves helps Santa respond to hundreds of thousands of letters from children around the world.