Newsdesk Archive
An odd underwater ballet has been unfolding in the Mediterranean port of Toulon these past few days.Under the scrutiny of their masters, whose eyes are glued to computer screens, the world's first fleet of "marine drones" is being put through its paces.
The waters off the Pacific Northwest are becoming more acidic, making life more difficult for the animals that live there, especially oysters and the approximately 3,200 people employed in the shellfish industry.Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set sail Monday (July 29) on a month-long research cruise off the U.S. and Canadian West Coast to see how ocean acidification is affecting the chemistry of the ocean waters and the area's sea life.
Imagine Earth 4 billion years ago. The world was covered in an acidic ocean, its bottom studded with mineral chimneys or hydrothermal vents. These were not ordinary chimneys. They had pores that allowed selective molecules to pass through, setting up a chemical gradient.The vents were the origins of all life on earth, according to a 25-year-old theory proposed by Mike Russell, a research scientist at NASA
The riddle of the age of meteorites from Mars might now be solved, with researchers finding these rocks from the Red Planet might not be billions of years old as some studies have suggested.The new findings shed light on when the Martian crust formed, suggesting the Red Planet has a relatively young, volcanic crust with an ancient, largely inactive, mantle layer below it, scientists added.
LONDON: An advanced laser system offering incredibly faster data speeds to link with spacecraft beyond the Earth has successfully passed a crucial ground test, scientists say.European Space Agency ESA's observatory in Spain will use the laser to communicate with a Nasa Moon orbiter later this year.
From ribosomes assembling proteins to viruses attacking cells, the main dramas in biology happen on a scale that is, tantalizingly, just one order of magnitude below the resolution of the best optical microscopes. Conventional lenses have a hard limit: The light waves propagating through them cannot carry details much smaller than their own crests and troughs. Clever workarounds have emerged, such as structured illumination microscopy, but all have limitations: They are too slow to image dynamic processes, or they poison cells with too much light.
Washington, Aug 15 (ANI): Scientists have discovered that a curious dead star has been hiding one of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe all along.The object, known as SGR 0418+5729 (or SGR 0418 for short), is a magnetar, a particular kind of neutron star.A neutron star is the dead core of a once massive star that collapsed in on itself after burning up all its fuel and exploding in a dramatic supernova event. They are extraordinarily dense objects, packing more than the mass of our Sun into a sphere only some 20 km across - about the size of a city.
In a discovery that further demonstrates just how unexpected and unusual nature can be, scientists have found two strains of bacteria whose symbiotic relationship is unlike anything seen before.Long, thin, hairlike Thioploca (meaning "sulfur braids" in Spanish) trichomes form chains down into marine sediment, which tiny Anammox cells ride down like an elevator. At the bottom, the Anammox cells consume nitrite and ammonium, or "fixed" nitrogen, the waste products of the Thioploca.
There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr. Eugene McCarthy, a geneticist who's proposing that humans first arose from an ancient hybrid cross between pigs and chimpanzees. Despite the large number of comments, here at Phys.org, on macroevolution.net, and on several other discussion forums, little in the way of a scientific consensus has emerged. By and large, those coming out against the theory had surprisingly little science to offer in their sometimes personal attacks against McCarthy.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago
THE "Garden of Eden" has been saved, even as chaos grows all around. Last week, amid a wave of bombings on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq's Council of Ministers found time to approve the creation of the country's first national park
The discovery of an "early modern human" dating from 40,000 years ago in a cave outside Beijing, and a comparison of the individual's DNA with that of populations around the globe, are providing new pieces in the puzzle of how Homo sapiens left their African origins to expand across the continents.
Artists and craftsmen more than 2,000 years ago developed thin-film coating technology unrivaled even by today's standards for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products. Understanding these sophisticated metal-plating techniques from ancient times, described in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research, could help preserve priceless artistic and other treasures from the past.
Phrases like
The year is
Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recently found the decapitated skull of an individual still lying in the offering bowl, dating back 500 years ago at the Tlatelolco temple site in Mexico City.Tlatelolco is a site in Mexico City where remains of the pre-Columbian city-state of the same name have been found centred on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which is a large square surrounded on three sides by a excavated Aztec monuments and a seventeenth-century church called the Templo de Santiago.
Had James Watson not been quite so chauvinistic, Rosalind Franklin might today be remembered mainly as a scientist, and not as a victim.But that wasn't to be. In Dr. Watson's memoir, "The Double Helix," which recounts the two years the molecular biologist spent at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory attempting, with his colleague Francis Crick, to discover the structure of DNA, here is how he described Dr. Franklin, whom he called "Rosy".
Different strokes for different folks? Not when it comes to the aquatic ape: the first detailed observations of swimming chimpanzees and orang-utans suggest that they, like us, tend to swim using a form of breaststroke. The findings imply that we may owe our swimming style to our evolutionary past.Apart from humans, great apes usually avoid deep water for fear of unseen predators that might be lurking there, but anecdotal evidence shows that they will go for a dip if they feel safe enough.
An odd underwater ballet has been unfolding in the Mediterranean port of Toulon these past few days.Under the scrutiny of their masters, whose eyes are glued to computer screens, the world's first fleet of "marine drones" is being put through its paces.
The waters off the Pacific Northwest are becoming more acidic, making life more difficult for the animals that live there, especially oysters and the approximately 3,200 people employed in the shellfish industry.Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set sail Monday (July 29) on a month-long research cruise off the U.S. and Canadian West Coast to see how ocean acidification is affecting the chemistry of the ocean waters and the area's sea life.
Imagine Earth 4 billion years ago. The world was covered in an acidic ocean, its bottom studded with mineral chimneys or hydrothermal vents. These were not ordinary chimneys. They had pores that allowed selective molecules to pass through, setting up a chemical gradient.The vents were the origins of all life on earth, according to a 25-year-old theory proposed by Mike Russell, a research scientist at NASA
The riddle of the age of meteorites from Mars might now be solved, with researchers finding these rocks from the Red Planet might not be billions of years old as some studies have suggested.The new findings shed light on when the Martian crust formed, suggesting the Red Planet has a relatively young, volcanic crust with an ancient, largely inactive, mantle layer below it, scientists added.
LONDON: An advanced laser system offering incredibly faster data speeds to link with spacecraft beyond the Earth has successfully passed a crucial ground test, scientists say.European Space Agency ESA's observatory in Spain will use the laser to communicate with a Nasa Moon orbiter later this year.
From ribosomes assembling proteins to viruses attacking cells, the main dramas in biology happen on a scale that is, tantalizingly, just one order of magnitude below the resolution of the best optical microscopes. Conventional lenses have a hard limit: The light waves propagating through them cannot carry details much smaller than their own crests and troughs. Clever workarounds have emerged, such as structured illumination microscopy, but all have limitations: They are too slow to image dynamic processes, or they poison cells with too much light.
Washington, Aug 15 (ANI): Scientists have discovered that a curious dead star has been hiding one of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe all along.The object, known as SGR 0418+5729 (or SGR 0418 for short), is a magnetar, a particular kind of neutron star.A neutron star is the dead core of a once massive star that collapsed in on itself after burning up all its fuel and exploding in a dramatic supernova event. They are extraordinarily dense objects, packing more than the mass of our Sun into a sphere only some 20 km across - about the size of a city.
In a discovery that further demonstrates just how unexpected and unusual nature can be, scientists have found two strains of bacteria whose symbiotic relationship is unlike anything seen before.Long, thin, hairlike Thioploca (meaning "sulfur braids" in Spanish) trichomes form chains down into marine sediment, which tiny Anammox cells ride down like an elevator. At the bottom, the Anammox cells consume nitrite and ammonium, or "fixed" nitrogen, the waste products of the Thioploca.
There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr. Eugene McCarthy, a geneticist who's proposing that humans first arose from an ancient hybrid cross between pigs and chimpanzees. Despite the large number of comments, here at Phys.org, on macroevolution.net, and on several other discussion forums, little in the way of a scientific consensus has emerged. By and large, those coming out against the theory had surprisingly little science to offer in their sometimes personal attacks against McCarthy.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago
THE "Garden of Eden" has been saved, even as chaos grows all around. Last week, amid a wave of bombings on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq's Council of Ministers found time to approve the creation of the country's first national park
The discovery of an "early modern human" dating from 40,000 years ago in a cave outside Beijing, and a comparison of the individual's DNA with that of populations around the globe, are providing new pieces in the puzzle of how Homo sapiens left their African origins to expand across the continents.
Artists and craftsmen more than 2,000 years ago developed thin-film coating technology unrivaled even by today's standards for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products. Understanding these sophisticated metal-plating techniques from ancient times, described in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research, could help preserve priceless artistic and other treasures from the past.
Phrases like
The year is
Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recently found the decapitated skull of an individual still lying in the offering bowl, dating back 500 years ago at the Tlatelolco temple site in Mexico City.Tlatelolco is a site in Mexico City where remains of the pre-Columbian city-state of the same name have been found centred on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which is a large square surrounded on three sides by a excavated Aztec monuments and a seventeenth-century church called the Templo de Santiago.
Had James Watson not been quite so chauvinistic, Rosalind Franklin might today be remembered mainly as a scientist, and not as a victim.But that wasn't to be. In Dr. Watson's memoir, "The Double Helix," which recounts the two years the molecular biologist spent at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory attempting, with his colleague Francis Crick, to discover the structure of DNA, here is how he described Dr. Franklin, whom he called "Rosy".
Different strokes for different folks? Not when it comes to the aquatic ape: the first detailed observations of swimming chimpanzees and orang-utans suggest that they, like us, tend to swim using a form of breaststroke. The findings imply that we may owe our swimming style to our evolutionary past.Apart from humans, great apes usually avoid deep water for fear of unseen predators that might be lurking there, but anecdotal evidence shows that they will go for a dip if they feel safe enough.
An odd underwater ballet has been unfolding in the Mediterranean port of Toulon these past few days.Under the scrutiny of their masters, whose eyes are glued to computer screens, the world's first fleet of "marine drones" is being put through its paces.
The waters off the Pacific Northwest are becoming more acidic, making life more difficult for the animals that live there, especially oysters and the approximately 3,200 people employed in the shellfish industry.Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set sail Monday (July 29) on a month-long research cruise off the U.S. and Canadian West Coast to see how ocean acidification is affecting the chemistry of the ocean waters and the area's sea life.
Imagine Earth 4 billion years ago. The world was covered in an acidic ocean, its bottom studded with mineral chimneys or hydrothermal vents. These were not ordinary chimneys. They had pores that allowed selective molecules to pass through, setting up a chemical gradient.The vents were the origins of all life on earth, according to a 25-year-old theory proposed by Mike Russell, a research scientist at NASA
The riddle of the age of meteorites from Mars might now be solved, with researchers finding these rocks from the Red Planet might not be billions of years old as some studies have suggested.The new findings shed light on when the Martian crust formed, suggesting the Red Planet has a relatively young, volcanic crust with an ancient, largely inactive, mantle layer below it, scientists added.
LONDON: An advanced laser system offering incredibly faster data speeds to link with spacecraft beyond the Earth has successfully passed a crucial ground test, scientists say.European Space Agency ESA's observatory in Spain will use the laser to communicate with a Nasa Moon orbiter later this year.
From ribosomes assembling proteins to viruses attacking cells, the main dramas in biology happen on a scale that is, tantalizingly, just one order of magnitude below the resolution of the best optical microscopes. Conventional lenses have a hard limit: The light waves propagating through them cannot carry details much smaller than their own crests and troughs. Clever workarounds have emerged, such as structured illumination microscopy, but all have limitations: They are too slow to image dynamic processes, or they poison cells with too much light.
Washington, Aug 15 (ANI): Scientists have discovered that a curious dead star has been hiding one of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe all along.The object, known as SGR 0418+5729 (or SGR 0418 for short), is a magnetar, a particular kind of neutron star.A neutron star is the dead core of a once massive star that collapsed in on itself after burning up all its fuel and exploding in a dramatic supernova event. They are extraordinarily dense objects, packing more than the mass of our Sun into a sphere only some 20 km across - about the size of a city.
In a discovery that further demonstrates just how unexpected and unusual nature can be, scientists have found two strains of bacteria whose symbiotic relationship is unlike anything seen before.Long, thin, hairlike Thioploca (meaning "sulfur braids" in Spanish) trichomes form chains down into marine sediment, which tiny Anammox cells ride down like an elevator. At the bottom, the Anammox cells consume nitrite and ammonium, or "fixed" nitrogen, the waste products of the Thioploca.
There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr. Eugene McCarthy, a geneticist who's proposing that humans first arose from an ancient hybrid cross between pigs and chimpanzees. Despite the large number of comments, here at Phys.org, on macroevolution.net, and on several other discussion forums, little in the way of a scientific consensus has emerged. By and large, those coming out against the theory had surprisingly little science to offer in their sometimes personal attacks against McCarthy.
The discovery of an "early modern human" dating from 40,000 years ago in a cave outside Beijing, and a comparison of the individual's DNA with that of populations around the globe, are providing new pieces in the puzzle of how Homo sapiens left their African origins to expand across the continents.
Artists and craftsmen more than 2,000 years ago developed thin-film coating technology unrivaled even by today's standards for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products. Understanding these sophisticated metal-plating techniques from ancient times, described in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research, could help preserve priceless artistic and other treasures from the past.
Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recently found the decapitated skull of an individual still lying in the offering bowl, dating back 500 years ago at the Tlatelolco temple site in Mexico City.Tlatelolco is a site in Mexico City where remains of the pre-Columbian city-state of the same name have been found centred on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which is a large square surrounded on three sides by a excavated Aztec monuments and a seventeenth-century church called the Templo de Santiago.
Had James Watson not been quite so chauvinistic, Rosalind Franklin might today be remembered mainly as a scientist, and not as a victim.But that wasn't to be. In Dr. Watson's memoir, "The Double Helix," which recounts the two years the molecular biologist spent at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory attempting, with his colleague Francis Crick, to discover the structure of DNA, here is how he described Dr. Franklin, whom he called "Rosy".
An odd underwater ballet has been unfolding in the Mediterranean port of Toulon these past few days.Under the scrutiny of their masters, whose eyes are glued to computer screens, the world's first fleet of "marine drones" is being put through its paces.
The waters off the Pacific Northwest are becoming more acidic, making life more difficult for the animals that live there, especially oysters and the approximately 3,200 people employed in the shellfish industry.Researchers from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set sail Monday (July 29) on a month-long research cruise off the U.S. and Canadian West Coast to see how ocean acidification is affecting the chemistry of the ocean waters and the area's sea life.
The riddle of the age of meteorites from Mars might now be solved, with researchers finding these rocks from the Red Planet might not be billions of years old as some studies have suggested.The new findings shed light on when the Martian crust formed, suggesting the Red Planet has a relatively young, volcanic crust with an ancient, largely inactive, mantle layer below it, scientists added.
LONDON: An advanced laser system offering incredibly faster data speeds to link with spacecraft beyond the Earth has successfully passed a crucial ground test, scientists say.European Space Agency ESA's observatory in Spain will use the laser to communicate with a Nasa Moon orbiter later this year.
From ribosomes assembling proteins to viruses attacking cells, the main dramas in biology happen on a scale that is, tantalizingly, just one order of magnitude below the resolution of the best optical microscopes. Conventional lenses have a hard limit: The light waves propagating through them cannot carry details much smaller than their own crests and troughs. Clever workarounds have emerged, such as structured illumination microscopy, but all have limitations: They are too slow to image dynamic processes, or they poison cells with too much light.
Washington, Aug 15 (ANI): Scientists have discovered that a curious dead star has been hiding one of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe all along.The object, known as SGR 0418+5729 (or SGR 0418 for short), is a magnetar, a particular kind of neutron star.A neutron star is the dead core of a once massive star that collapsed in on itself after burning up all its fuel and exploding in a dramatic supernova event. They are extraordinarily dense objects, packing more than the mass of our Sun into a sphere only some 20 km across - about the size of a city.
In a discovery that further demonstrates just how unexpected and unusual nature can be, scientists have found two strains of bacteria whose symbiotic relationship is unlike anything seen before.Long, thin, hairlike Thioploca (meaning "sulfur braids" in Spanish) trichomes form chains down into marine sediment, which tiny Anammox cells ride down like an elevator. At the bottom, the Anammox cells consume nitrite and ammonium, or "fixed" nitrogen, the waste products of the Thioploca.
Six scientists emerged from a space habitat on Hawaii's Big Island Tuesday (Aug. 13), ending a four-month simulated mission designed to study how best to feed astronauts during the long trip to Mars.The mission, known as Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation (or HI-SEAS for short), began in mid-April and wrapped up Tuesday morning, when the six explorers stepped onto a lava field about 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) above sea level on the northern slope of Mauna Loa."We have landed. #hiseas Mission 1 is officially over,"
In recently released court documents, Google argues that its customers can
On the west side of Nevada's dried-up Winnemucca Lake, there are several limestone boulders with deep, ancient carvings; some resemble trees and leaves, whereas others are more abstract designs that look like ovals or diamonds in a chain.The true age of this rock art had not been known, but a new analysis suggests these petroglyphs are the oldest North America, dating back to between 10,500 and 14,800 years ago.Though Winnemucca Lake is now barren, at other times in the past it was so full of water the lake would have submerged the rocks where the petroglyphs were found and spilled its excess contents over Emerson Pass to the north.
Ernest Shackleton's famous ship, the Endurance, which he had to abandon in 1915 on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition, is probably still in very good condition on the ocean floor. This is one conclusion from research that studied how sunken wood degrades in southern polar waters.Experiments that submerged planks for over a year found they returned to the surface in near-pristine condition. Scientists point to the absence in the region of wood-boring "ship worms". Anywhere else in the world, these molluscs would normally devour sunken wood rapidly.But Adrian Glover from London's Natural History Museum says the currents that circle the Antarctic likely prevent the organisms from getting anywhere near the continent.
According to a University of Oxford press release dated August 13, a research team led by scientists from the prestigious British university discovered that, after examining fossils from the Cretaceous Period (145-66 million years ago), a fundamental shortening of the bony tails of the earliest birds caused the development of versatile legs and gave these animals an evolutionary edge. The findings are reported this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, under the title,
Scientists in Istanbul are pleased with the success of their latest scientific achievement: glowing green rabbits.Two rabbits born from a litter of eight at the University of Istanbul proved again that genetic manipulation is possible prior to birth. The unique coloration was achieved by injecting the DNA of jellyfish into a female rabbit
According to an August 12 news release from the University of Michigan Health System, a recent animal study conducted by university researchers shows that after clinical death has been declared, there is a high level of electrical activity in the brain. The presence of this activity in the brain may provide a scientific explanation for near-death experiences reported worldwide by cardiac arrest survivors. As to whether and how the dying brain is capable of creating conscious activity has been a hot-button issue among the scientific community, the UM researchers embarked on a study of the phenomenon using rats.
Light speeds through space, bouncing off objects as it races at about 186,282 miles per second. Now, scientists may have found a way to halt this mad dash. They've discovered that they can slow light by using embedded dye molecules in a liquid crystal matrix; the findings could one day lead to new technologies in remote sensing and measurement science.Scientists have long known that a wave packet of light becomes more sluggish when it travels through matter. Yet the magnitude of this slow-down in typical materials such as glass or water is less than a factor of two. That's why researchers decided to see if there was another way to slow down light a bit further.
There is much more to Mars than meets the eye. By using the radar on Mars Express, we can see several kilometres below the surface to see what lies beneath. The radar creates subsurface images of Mars by beaming low-frequency radio waves towards the planet, which are reflected from any surface they encounter.While most are reflected by the planet's surface, some travel deeper and bounce off interfaces between layers of different material, such as between rock, water or ice.The strength and timing of the radar echoes that arrive back at Mars Express are a gauge of the depths of different types of underground interfaces.
How was our universe created 14 billion years ago? That's a good question. Scientists believe that the same conditions prevailed everywhere shortly after the Big Bang in an originally symmetrical universe. Yet this raises the question: how could a breaking of symmetry occur to form stars and galaxies? That's what researchers set to find out. Using laser-cooled ions, researchers discovered how symmetry breaking can be generated in a controlled manner and how the occurrence of defects can then be observed.Using so-called ion Culomb crystals, the researchers demonstrated topological defects in an atomic-optical experiment.
In quite an eerie feat, physicists have floated microscopic diamonds in midair using laser beams.Researchers have already used lasers to levitate extremely small particles, such as individual atoms, but this is the first time that the technique has worked on a nanodiamond, which, in this case, measures just 100 nanometers (3.9 x 10-8 inches) across, or more than 1,000 times thinner than a fingernail.In the new study, the physicists from the University of Rochester relied on the fact that a laser beam, which is made up of photons, creates a tiny force that usually can't be felt.
If you've seen films like "Armageddon," you know the potential threat asteroids can be for Earth. To meet that threat, NASA has built a map like no other: a plot of every dangerous asteroid that could potentially endanger our planet
Fore more than one-hundred years scientists have been aware that the planet
Astronomers have found that some asteroids in the main belt region are not dead rocks after all, but are dormant comets that may yet come back to life if the energy that they receive from the Sun increases by a few percent.A team of astronomers from the University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia, has discovered a graveyard of comets. The researchers, led by Ignacio Ferrin describe how some of these objects, inactive for millions of years, have returned to life, leading them to name the group the
It might seem like something straight from the Star Trek universe, but two new research experiments
By the time modern humans arrived in Europe, Neanderthals had already made the continent their home. What
Grown by the Aztecs and then all but eliminated in the Spanish conquest, the ancient crop amaranth may become the next quinoa. Advocates hope amaranth can help Mexicans eat healthier, better connect to their roots, and lessen their impact on the environment. But will people eat it?Amaranth is a broad-leafed, bushy plant that grows about six feet (1.8 meters) tall. It produces a brightly colored flower that can contain up to 60,000 seeds. The seeds are nutritious and can be made into a flour. Not a true grain, amaranth is often called a pseudocereal, like its relative quinoa.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- If aliens ever target Earth, Jon Gibson and Amanda White are counting on them having an appreciation for pop art and a sense of humor.The duo created an elaborate, Andy Warhol-like design that has been etched into a satellite's panel, transforming the spacecraft into a replica of an oversized electrical charging device.If someone is going to invade our planet, presumably they're going to come in some sort of electronic, electricity-powered ship," Gibson notes whimsically. "Maybe this will make them stop for a moment and say, `These guys are nice. We're not going to destroy their planet.'"Related Video: "Art in Space" - The Universe's First Celestial Charging Station
Six scientists emerged from a space habitat on Hawaii's Big Island Tuesday (Aug. 13), ending a four-month simulated mission designed to study how best to feed astronauts during the long trip to Mars.The mission, known as Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation (or HI-SEAS for short), began in mid-April and wrapped up Tuesday morning, when the six explorers stepped onto a lava field about 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) above sea level on the northern slope of Mauna Loa."We have landed. #hiseas Mission 1 is officially over,"
In recently released court documents, Google argues that its customers can
On the west side of Nevada's dried-up Winnemucca Lake, there are several limestone boulders with deep, ancient carvings; some resemble trees and leaves, whereas others are more abstract designs that look like ovals or diamonds in a chain.The true age of this rock art had not been known, but a new analysis suggests these petroglyphs are the oldest North America, dating back to between 10,500 and 14,800 years ago.Though Winnemucca Lake is now barren, at other times in the past it was so full of water the lake would have submerged the rocks where the petroglyphs were found and spilled its excess contents over Emerson Pass to the north.
Ernest Shackleton's famous ship, the Endurance, which he had to abandon in 1915 on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition, is probably still in very good condition on the ocean floor. This is one conclusion from research that studied how sunken wood degrades in southern polar waters.Experiments that submerged planks for over a year found they returned to the surface in near-pristine condition. Scientists point to the absence in the region of wood-boring "ship worms". Anywhere else in the world, these molluscs would normally devour sunken wood rapidly.But Adrian Glover from London's Natural History Museum says the currents that circle the Antarctic likely prevent the organisms from getting anywhere near the continent.
According to a University of Oxford press release dated August 13, a research team led by scientists from the prestigious British university discovered that, after examining fossils from the Cretaceous Period (145-66 million years ago), a fundamental shortening of the bony tails of the earliest birds caused the development of versatile legs and gave these animals an evolutionary edge. The findings are reported this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, under the title,
Scientists in Istanbul are pleased with the success of their latest scientific achievement: glowing green rabbits.Two rabbits born from a litter of eight at the University of Istanbul proved again that genetic manipulation is possible prior to birth. The unique coloration was achieved by injecting the DNA of jellyfish into a female rabbit
According to an August 12 news release from the University of Michigan Health System, a recent animal study conducted by university researchers shows that after clinical death has been declared, there is a high level of electrical activity in the brain. The presence of this activity in the brain may provide a scientific explanation for near-death experiences reported worldwide by cardiac arrest survivors. As to whether and how the dying brain is capable of creating conscious activity has been a hot-button issue among the scientific community, the UM researchers embarked on a study of the phenomenon using rats.
Light speeds through space, bouncing off objects as it races at about 186,282 miles per second. Now, scientists may have found a way to halt this mad dash. They've discovered that they can slow light by using embedded dye molecules in a liquid crystal matrix; the findings could one day lead to new technologies in remote sensing and measurement science.Scientists have long known that a wave packet of light becomes more sluggish when it travels through matter. Yet the magnitude of this slow-down in typical materials such as glass or water is less than a factor of two. That's why researchers decided to see if there was another way to slow down light a bit further.
There is much more to Mars than meets the eye. By using the radar on Mars Express, we can see several kilometres below the surface to see what lies beneath. The radar creates subsurface images of Mars by beaming low-frequency radio waves towards the planet, which are reflected from any surface they encounter.While most are reflected by the planet's surface, some travel deeper and bounce off interfaces between layers of different material, such as between rock, water or ice.The strength and timing of the radar echoes that arrive back at Mars Express are a gauge of the depths of different types of underground interfaces.
How was our universe created 14 billion years ago? That's a good question. Scientists believe that the same conditions prevailed everywhere shortly after the Big Bang in an originally symmetrical universe. Yet this raises the question: how could a breaking of symmetry occur to form stars and galaxies? That's what researchers set to find out. Using laser-cooled ions, researchers discovered how symmetry breaking can be generated in a controlled manner and how the occurrence of defects can then be observed.Using so-called ion Culomb crystals, the researchers demonstrated topological defects in an atomic-optical experiment.
In quite an eerie feat, physicists have floated microscopic diamonds in midair using laser beams.Researchers have already used lasers to levitate extremely small particles, such as individual atoms, but this is the first time that the technique has worked on a nanodiamond, which, in this case, measures just 100 nanometers (3.9 x 10-8 inches) across, or more than 1,000 times thinner than a fingernail.In the new study, the physicists from the University of Rochester relied on the fact that a laser beam, which is made up of photons, creates a tiny force that usually can't be felt.
If you've seen films like "Armageddon," you know the potential threat asteroids can be for Earth. To meet that threat, NASA has built a map like no other: a plot of every dangerous asteroid that could potentially endanger our planet
Fore more than one-hundred years scientists have been aware that the planet
Astronomers have found that some asteroids in the main belt region are not dead rocks after all, but are dormant comets that may yet come back to life if the energy that they receive from the Sun increases by a few percent.A team of astronomers from the University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia, has discovered a graveyard of comets. The researchers, led by Ignacio Ferrin describe how some of these objects, inactive for millions of years, have returned to life, leading them to name the group the
It might seem like something straight from the Star Trek universe, but two new research experiments
By the time modern humans arrived in Europe, Neanderthals had already made the continent their home. What
Grown by the Aztecs and then all but eliminated in the Spanish conquest, the ancient crop amaranth may become the next quinoa. Advocates hope amaranth can help Mexicans eat healthier, better connect to their roots, and lessen their impact on the environment. But will people eat it?Amaranth is a broad-leafed, bushy plant that grows about six feet (1.8 meters) tall. It produces a brightly colored flower that can contain up to 60,000 seeds. The seeds are nutritious and can be made into a flour. Not a true grain, amaranth is often called a pseudocereal, like its relative quinoa.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- If aliens ever target Earth, Jon Gibson and Amanda White are counting on them having an appreciation for pop art and a sense of humor.The duo created an elaborate, Andy Warhol-like design that has been etched into a satellite's panel, transforming the spacecraft into a replica of an oversized electrical charging device.If someone is going to invade our planet, presumably they're going to come in some sort of electronic, electricity-powered ship," Gibson notes whimsically. "Maybe this will make them stop for a moment and say, `These guys are nice. We're not going to destroy their planet.'"Related Video: "Art in Space" - The Universe's First Celestial Charging Station
Six scientists emerged from a space habitat on Hawaii's Big Island Tuesday (Aug. 13), ending a four-month simulated mission designed to study how best to feed astronauts during the long trip to Mars.The mission, known as Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation (or HI-SEAS for short), began in mid-April and wrapped up Tuesday morning, when the six explorers stepped onto a lava field about 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) above sea level on the northern slope of Mauna Loa."We have landed. #hiseas Mission 1 is officially over,"
In recently released court documents, Google argues that its customers can
On the west side of Nevada's dried-up Winnemucca Lake, there are several limestone boulders with deep, ancient carvings; some resemble trees and leaves, whereas others are more abstract designs that look like ovals or diamonds in a chain.The true age of this rock art had not been known, but a new analysis suggests these petroglyphs are the oldest North America, dating back to between 10,500 and 14,800 years ago.Though Winnemucca Lake is now barren, at other times in the past it was so full of water the lake would have submerged the rocks where the petroglyphs were found and spilled its excess contents over Emerson Pass to the north.