Great Wall of China

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China's Great Wall Has Its Own Wall of Protection
China's Great Wall Has
Its Own Wall of Protection
NEW STUDY
Dec 12, 2023 8:53 AM CST

China's Great Wall Has Its Own Wall of Protection

Biocrusts shield rammed earth sections of wall from erosion, researchers find

(Newser) - The Great Wall of China continues to stand millennia after its first sections were built around 221 BC, but not without help from bacteria, moss, and lichens. Biocrusts, communities of living organisms that develop on the soil surface and prevent erosion in arid ecosystems, cover about 12% of Earth's...

2 Accused of Using Excavator to Make Shortcut at Great Wall of China

The 2 construction workers have been detained

(Newser) - An excavator reportedly carved out a gap in the Great Wall of China on August 24, and two people were detained in the country over what officials say is "irreversible" damage. A 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman are accused of creating the breach because they wanted a shortcut...

NBA Player Apologizes for Big 'Mistake' in China

Houston Rockets' Bobby Brown says he's sorry after sharing photo of tagged Great Wall

(Newser) - It's not quite as bad as peeing on the Alamo , but Bobby Brown of the Houston Rockets is still getting a hard time from commenters in China after leaving graffiti on the country's Great Wall. Brown, who played in China for three seasons, not only tagged the wall...

Attempt to Repair Part of China's Great Wall Ruins It

A 'wild' section of the wall now looks more like a road

(Newser) - It may be the worst repair job ever: What began as an effort to patch up a crumbling 700-year-old portion of China's Great Wall ended up as an unsightly trail of what looks like smooth gray concrete. CNN reports the patch job took place in 2014, but after a...

Guy in Wingsuit Hits Target on Great Wall While Going 120mph

Wow

(Newser) - Jeb Corliss proved Sunday that his nickname, "Human Arrow," is quite accurate. The 40-year-old daredevil jumped from a helicopter 6,000 feet in the air while wearing a wingsuit, then flew through the air at 120mph toward an apple-sized target on the Great Wall of China—a target...

Great Wall of China Is Disappearing

A report out of the country puts a number on just how much no longer exists

(Newser) - In a 2008 article headlined "The Great Wall of China Is Under Siege," Smithsonian reported that "no one knows just how much of the wall has already been lost." A Sunday report in the Beijing Times changed that. It reported via the State Administration of Cultural...

Why China Is Building 'Great Wall of Sand'

Hint: Beijing is not trying to make its neighbors happy

(Newser) - China is no stranger to herculean feats of construction , and its current one is both fascinating and more than a little controversial: As the New York Times reports, Beijing is building itself islands. One, dubbed Mischief Reef, is an actual reef that's part of the Spratly Islands in the...

China's 'Great Wall' Wasn't Its First Great Wall

Archaeologist Gary Feinman is studying an even earlier one

(Newser) - As NPR tells it, archaeologist Gary Feinman was "simply walking around eastern China's Shandong province" on a hunt for pottery shards when he found something much, well, greater: a rammed earth wall that reached as high as 15 feet in places. That there had been a wall built...

Bieber Makes Bodyguards Carry Him Up the Great Wall

A day after forcing them to run after him while he skateboarded

(Newser) - One nice thing about being Justin Bieber: You don't have to actually climb the steps of famous landmarks, because that's what bodyguards are for. Bieber is currently on tour in China, and pictures emerged on social media of the pop star being carried to the top of the...

China: Great Wall Even More Great Than Thought

Beijing says the wall is more that twice as long as estimated in 2009

(Newser) - Last month, China adjusted its estimate of the Great Wall's length to 13,171 miles—more than half the Earth's circumference and 2.5 times the length estimated in 2009, as China found vast new swaths as it measured it for the first time. (The measurement considers how...

Explorer Finds Lost Piece of China's Great Wall

William Lindesay got an assist from Google Earth

(Newser) - The Great Wall of China is bigger than we thought. An undiscovered stretch of the wall was located last fall by a British explorer in the deserts of Mongolia, reports the Telegraph . Carbon testing reveals the 62-mile section, made of earth and branches, has been standing since the 11th or...

Great Wall of China 'Magical': Obama

President visits landmark, heads to South Korea

(Newser) - Following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon and every president since then, Barack Obama today wound up his visit to China with a stop at the Great Wall, where he stoked his hosts' pride in ancient Chinese civilization by reflecting on the wall's enduring nature. "It's magical," Obama...

China Finds Vast New Stretches of Great Wall

High-tech study finds hundreds of hidden miles

(Newser) - Chinese scientists have discovered huge sections of the Great Wall of China that have been concealed by sandstorms over time, reports the BBC. A high-tech study using infrared and GPS technology found that the barrier built to protect against northern invaders is up to 1000 miles longer than experts previously...

7 New Wonders Wear Crown
7 New Wonders Wear Crown
Jul 7, 2007 6:26 PM CDT

7 New Wonders Wear Crown

Online poll spreads the wealth to South America, Asia

(Newser) - The largest online poll ever conducted wrapped up yesterday, and today the results became official. The seven wonders of the modern world, which were announced in Portugal, include an Asian engineering triumph and a South American religious monument, but not the Great Pyramid of Giza—the Egyptian government refused to...

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