The National Geographic team set up cameras inside the shrine to capture the moment when the slabs were lifted for renovation work last year.

They will screen a documentary on 3 December on the National Geographic cable channel.

The team recently opened its "Tomb of Christ: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre Experience" virtual exhibit, which uses 3-D and virtual reality technology to provide visitors to its Washington museum.

Some of this exhibit will air in the documentary. Read more

In 1892, he went gum digging in Northland, then tried his hand at gold mining on the West Coast. He settled in Hokitika, where he married and raised a family. His youngest daughter, Gertrude, was my grandmother.

Maori genealogical narratives go back many more generations than this, suggesting, along with radiocarbon dating of the earliest burial sites, that the first Polynesians arrived here some 800 years ago.

But how many were there? And where did they come from?

The pattern of mutations in the DNA of modern humans reveals that if you go back far enough, we all came from Africa - all people alive today have a common ancestor who lived in Africa 160,000 years ago.

About 60,000 years ago, our human ancestors began to migrate out of Africa. Recent discoveries suggest that as they travelled, they occasionally interbred with other hominids, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Work by population geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the National Geographic's Genographic Project, and Lisa Matisoo-Smith, professor of biological anthropology at University of Otago and the Genographic Project's Oceania investigator, is filling in the gaps between family genealogies and the broad narratives about our species' journey from Africa. Continue reading.

More on the Genographic Project in NZ can be found at genographic.com

Source: The Listener

Image: National Geographic

Monsignor Cristobal Garcia is quoted in the October issue of the magazine as describing how to bring ivory figurines into the United States.

Monsignor Garcia is already the subject of sexual abuse allegations involving an altar boy in Los Angeles in the US during the 1980s which prompted the Vatican to suspend him this year pending the conclusion of an investigation.

Sixto Comia of the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation said authorities are investigating the origin of ivory icons. Garcia will also be questioned.

An international ban on trade in ivory and elephant tusks has been in effect since 1990. But poaching for the black market is rife and endangering elephant populations.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines said it regretted not doing more to stamp out illegal ivory used to produce religious symbols.

Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu said he has directed the Archdiocesan Commission on the Cultural Heritage of the Church to conduct an inventory of the collection.

"Let it be made clear that the Church supports the ban on ivory as it is consistent with her doctrine on stewardship of creation," said Palma.

He said the church "does not condone ivory smuggling or other illegal activities, although in the past, ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship."

Garcia, who is based in Talisay city in Cebu province, is reportedly ill and in a hospital.

He was expelled from the Dominican order in 1986 after he allegedly sexually abused an altar boy in Los Angeles. He remains a priest but Palma said Garcia's "past" case is being investigated by the Vatican.

Sources

• AP/SunStar
• UCA News
• CNN
• Image: National Geographic