Man's life and a cornflake for sale on eBay
Ian Usher, 44, a British man whose marriage failed six years after he immigrated to Perth, Australia, in 2002, is offering his entire life on eBay ­ his three-bedroom house and its contents. The plan is to pocket what he gets and start a new life somewhere else. Even his job, at a furniture store, is included.

Then there are the two Virginia sisters, age 15 and 23, who noticed that a cornflake was shaped remarkably like the state of Illinois. So they did what anyone in this Internet age would do ­ they posted it on eBay. And, it sold for $1,350 to the owner of a trivia website (www.TriviaMania.com). A spokesman said someone would pick up the flake by hand, lest it be crushed in shipment.

Disney art coming home from Japan
Chiba University in Japan said it will return about 250 pieces of original animation art to the Walt Disney Company that were put into storage there almost 50 years ago and forgotten. The trove includes cels, backgrounds, preliminary paintings and storyboard sketches, personally selected by Disney himself in 1960 before being sent to Japan for a touring exhibition timed to the opening of the movie, Sleeping Beauty. The exhibition opened at the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo and then traveled to 16 other stores throughout Japan.

Most of the art is from the movie, but the collection also includes rare set-ups from two Silly Symphony cartoons: "Flowers and Trees" (1932) and "Three Little Pigs" (1933). Both won Oscars. After the department store tour, Mr. Disney donated the art to the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, which in turn gave it to Chiba University. But the material was relegated to a janitor's closet and forgotten until being found, by chance, four years ago. Some of the artwork was damaged due to dampness.

Ancient jawbone fossil is discovered in Spain
A small chunk of jawbone, as well as some primitive stone tools, have been discovered in a cave in northern Spain, significant because the jawbone fossil is thought to be 1.3 million years old ­ about 500,000 years older than when researchers have generally pegged the time people migrated from Africa to Europe. The jawbone seems to be from the same species (Homo antecessor, or Pioneer Man) that was identified in a 1997 find dated to only about 800,000 years ago. Pioneer Man is believed to be a common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern humans.

Archaeologists have been arguing for years over when humans first occupied Europe. A popular theory suggests it was a "stop-and-go" process, in which species of hominines (a group that includes the extinct ancestors of modern-day humans) emerged, but died out quickly for reasons unknown, only to be replaced by others, making for a slow spread across the continent. The discovery of this new fossil ­ similar to ones dug up in Russia in 1983 that are up to 1.8 million years old ­ suggests people have been in Europe far longer than believed.

Gold necklace oldest one ever in Americas
A necklace apparently made from gold nuggets and radiocarbon dated to be 4,000 years old, has been found by researchers in southern Peru. It is the oldest known gold object made not just in Peru but anywhere in the Americas. It was crafted, along with turquoise beads, at a time when hunter-gatherers occupied the area. Researchers think the use of gold jewelry may have signified status, before the appearance of more complex societies in the Andes. The find, made near Lake Titicaca, was noted in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The necklace was found alongside the jawbone of an adult skull, in a burial site next to primitive pit houses at Jiskairumoko, a hamlet settled between 3,300 and 1,500 B.C. The researchers think it had been worn by an adult, probably an elderly female. Marks on the necklace suggest the gold nuggets had been flattened with a stone hammer, then carefully bent or hammered around a hard, cylindrical object. That would have created its tubular shape.

HP garage is where hi-tech history began
Seventy years ago this September, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard rented a 12-by-18-foot garage on Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, Calif., and gave birth to the modern high-tech industry and Silicon Valley. The rent was $45 a month (and for that they also got a first-floor apartment in the house out front, where Dave and his wife lived; as well as a gardener's shed, where Bill, a bachelor, lived). Their first product was an oscillator used to test sound equipment. Walt Disney Co. ordered eight of the oscillators for use in developing the movie, Fantasia.

Today, Hewlett-Packard is one of the largest hi-tech firms in the world, with $108 billion in revenues and operations worldwide. HP bought the garage and property in 2000 for $1.7 million and spent the next five years restoring it. Today, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. HP also uses it for private company events.

Museum dedicated to the news reopens
The Newseum, a catchy-named museum dedicated to the celebration of news in all of its various forms, has reopened in Washington, D.C. Visitors are greeted with a 74-foot-tall marble tablet on the front facade, etched with the words of the First Amendment.

Inside, there's lots to see and do, in seven levels and 14 galleries: thousands of newspapers to peruse; hundreds of daily front pages to look at; hundreds of news broadcasts to view; and Pulitzer Prize-winning photos to examine. Artifacts include: 3,200-year-old cuneiform tablets; the pencil of the reporter killed at the Little Big Horn; the bullet-pocked truck used by Time reporters and photographers during the siege of Sarajevo during the 1990s; giant pieces of the Berlin Wall; and a broadcast antenna from the World Trade Center. Admission costs $20.