Top Ten News Stories of 2007

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December 13, 2007

A dinosaur "mummy," mass plague graves in Venice, and a stone box that might have held Jesus' remains were just some of the blockbuster stories covered this year by National Geographic News.

Relive fond memories or catch up on what you missed with our lineup of the most viewed articles of 2007. (Related: Check out the year's most popular galleries.)

10. Meteor Crash in Peru Caused Mysterious Illness (September 21, 2007)
Headaches and nausea in residents who visited the impact crater were caused by arsenic fumes from a rare kind of meteorite, scientists announced.

9. Jesus' Tomb Found in Israel, Filmmakers Claim (February 26, 2007)
A tomb that once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth—and those of his wife and son—has been found in a suburb of Jerusalem, according to the makers of a controversial film.

8. Interspecies Sex: Evolution's Hidden Secret? (March 14, 2007)
Hybridization is not only widespread in nature, but it might also spawn many more new species than previously thought, a new study says.

7. Huge Underground "Ocean" Found Beneath Asia (February 27, 2007)
A giant blob of water the size of the Arctic Ocean has been discovered hundreds of miles beneath eastern Asia, scientists report.

6. "Dinosaur Mummy" Found; Has Intact Skin, Tissue (December 3, 2007)
Scientists announced the discovery of an extraordinarily preserved "dinosaur mummy"—a 67-million-year-old hadrosaur with much of its tissues and bones still encased in an uncollapsed envelope of skin.

5. Crater From 1908 Russian Space Impact Found, Team Says (November 7, 2007)
Almost a century after a mysterious explosion in Russia flattened a huge swath of Siberian forest, scientists have found what they believe is a crater made by the cosmic object that created the blast.

4. Stonehenge Settlement Found: Builders' Homes, "Cult Houses" (January 30, 2007)
A major prehistoric village unearthed near Stonehenge likely housed the builders of the famous monument, archaeologists say, and was an important ceremonial site.

3. Mass Plague Graves Found on Venice "Quarantine" Island (August 29, 2007)
Ancient mass graves containing more than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been discovered on a small island in Italy's Venetian Lagoon.

2. Monster Glowing Squid Caught on Camera (February 14, 2007)
Monster-size, deep-sea squid that use their glowing arms to blind and stun their prey have been filmed in the wild for the first time off southeastern Japan, scientists say.

1. Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (February 28, 2007)
Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to a controversial theory.

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