Skull

A human skull with a bullet hole in it has been found in the Angeles National Forest. Two hikers came across it Thursday evening on a hillside that had been burned in the Station fire. Homicide detectives are overseeing the investigation but don't yet know how long the skull was there, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore. "It appears to be burned," Whitmore said. The Station fire, which started Aug. 26, burned 250 square miles of forest.

The skull of an ice age giant ground sloth was recently uncovered at a construction site in Riverside County and could be headed for display at the San Bernardino County Museum. The bones dating back 1.8 million years were discovered Nov. 18 on the site of a future Southern California Edison substation as earthmovers flattened the land in a hilly area west of Beaumont, said Rick Greenwood, director of Edison's environment health and safety division. Work in the area was immediately halted.

Remains of four more people were unearthed from the backyard of a Cleveland home, raising to 10 the number of bodies found in and near Anthony Sowell's house. Sowell, 50, a registered sex offender, has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder. Police Chief Michael McGrath said the four bodies were buried in the backyard and a skull was found in a bucket in the basement. Authorities do not know whether the skull belongs to an 11th victim, said Lt. Thomas Stacho, a police spokesman.

More than 14,000 volunteers -- armed with disposable trash bags -- gathered at Los Angeles County beaches, parks and creeks Saturday and removed 150 tons of trash during the region's annual cleanup day. This year's haul marked a 65% increase from last year's total of 181,000 pounds of refuse, organizers said. In addition, the number of volunteers rose by 15% from last year. "Volunteers removed a record amount of trash," said Karin Hall, executive director of Heal the Bay. "But the biggest benefit of the day is raising so much awareness about the everyday steps people can take to reduce marine-bound pollution throughout the year."

Massachusetts photographers have unearthed the only known image of legendary brain-injury patient Phineas Gage, a daguerreotype showing the former railroad worker sitting in repose and holding the nearly 4-foot-long iron rod that pierced his brain without killing him.

When you're running a matchbook-size theater that contains only 38 seats, it quickly becomes obvious that certain productions are just not physically possible -- extravagant musicals, historical epics and opulent period comedies are just some of the genres that are guaranteed to bust the fourth wall and spill out of the proscenium. Theatre Tribe's micro space in North Hollywood isn't just intimate, it's arguably a claustrophobe's nightmare.

Researchers imaging the fossil of a 300-million-year-old fish from Kansas have unexpectedly found a fossilized brain in the animal's skull -- the oldest known brain found to date. The find was a double surprise, said John G. Maisey, a paleontologist at New York's American Museum of Natural History who co-wrote a report on the findings.