Newsdesk Archive
Scientists from the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast and Almac Discovery Ltd have developed a new treatment for cancer which rather than attacking tumours directly, prevents the growth of new blood vessels in tumours, starving them of oxygen and nutrients, thereby preventing their growth.
Coastal mangrove forests store more carbon than almost any other forest on Earth, according to a study conducted by a team of U.S. Forest Service and university scientists.Their findings are published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.
A new study reveals that a group of ancient enzymes adapted to substantial changes in ocean temperature and acidity during the last four billion years, providing evidence that life on Early Earth evolved from a much hotter, more acidic environment to the cooler, less acidic global environment that exists today.The study found that a group of ancient enzymes known as thioredoxin were chemically stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than their modern counterparts. The enzymes, which were several billion years old, also showed increased activity at lower pH levels -- which correspond to greater acidity.
"Careful -- do not touch anything with your bare hands!" warned the guide as we entered the kindergarten and our Geiger counter hissed like an angry rattlesnake.On the floor and shelves were plastic cubes and teddy bears and kiddies' books, just the things you would expect to find in a children's playgroup.But these toys were coated in a thick leprous white dust, for they had lain undisturbed for almost a quarter of a century.And scattered among them were infant-sized gas masks.
Sex or nice weather. That's the agonizing choice some birds face, according to a new University of Guelph study.A team led by Guelph researchers discovered that for some male birds traveling to areas with lighter rainfall comes at the cost of attracting a female when they return home.
Do you know what the future will look like? Few people do, but one South Florida man, a very brilliant man, does because he is designing it. A place where there will be no food shortages, no fear of hurricanes and no war. It's called the Venus Project, and Patrick Fraser went there.WSVN -- Driving down a quiet road near Lake Okeechobee, you see cows on one side, orange groves on the other, a sugar mill in the distance. Then you arrive at a gate in Venus, Florida to possibly get a look at the future of the world.
In many crowded, concrete-filled Turkish cities, the most reliable places to find a little patch of green are the cemeteries near large mosques, where believers are laid to rest in peaceful surroundings. The association between holy places and natural ones is even stronger among the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia, whose belief in creating a living symbol of the garden of Eden around their places of worship has led to the existence of some 35,000 "church forests" -- many of them islands of green growth in an almost entirely deforested landscape.
Darwin's notion that only the fittest survive has been called into question by new research published in the journal Nature. A collaboration between the Universities of Exeter and Bath in the UK, with a group from San Diego State University in the US, challenges our current understanding of evolution by showing that biodiversity may evolve where previously thought impossible.The work represents a new approach to studying evolution that may eventually lead to a better understanding of the diversity of bacteria that cause human diseases.
In a week of ridiculously gorgeous astronomy pictures hitting the 'net, I keep thinking they can't get cooler... and then this happens: a seriously cool picture of the Sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory!Given that SDO orbits the Earth and sees the Sun from space, why is the bottom half of the Sun gone in this picture? It's because we're seeing a solar eclipse which is actually more like a lunar eclipse except the Moon is not involved. Hmm, yeah, maybe I'd better explain.
The renewable energy company Ze-gen is converting construction waste into near zero-emissions energy. Discovery News finds out how they're doing it.
Paleontologists have just announced the discovery of Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, a.k.a. "Tyrant from Zhucheng," which was not only one of the world's largest carnivorous dinosaurs, but it also was a cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex.Check out its estimated body size:Length- 36 feetHeight- 13 feetWeight- Well over 13,000 poundsThis "Tyrant" dino was unearthed in China and is described in the latest issue of the journal Cretaceous Research. Its remains consist of a fossilized skull and jaw bones. In life, as you can see from the drawing, this meat lover sported a mouth full of very sharp teeth, the better to bite into its victims.
The majestic remains of Mesa Verde stand as icons to the legacy of the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. Anyone visiting them or the many other Pueblo sites that dot the picturesque desert landscape of the American Four Corners region and the southwestern states cannot help but walk away impressed. But who really built them, where did they come from, and what is their story? Archaeologists of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center now hope to find answers through major new investigations at a promising site in Colorado.
THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLEA team of geologists is studying how changes in landscape affect herbivore diets in African animals."It's an exciting study because it shows how different animals respond when you end up with a new food resource," said Thure Cerling, a professor of geology and geophysics who has been working on the project for about 30 years.
For a man whose view of the world has slowly faded to black over 30 years, a device that allows him to see flashes of light has kindled his hope of one day gazing upon his grandson's face.A career electrician who grew up in Greece and came to the United States as a young man, Elias Konstantopoulos first noticed his vision getting poorer when at age 43 he absentmindedly tried on a relative's eyeglasses and found he could see more clearly with them than without.
In "Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza," Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole recount the discovery of a treasure trove of antique documents from 10 centuries of Jewish life in the storage room of a Cairo synagogue.
Earlier this week, more than 60 seed businesses and organic farmers banded together to file a federal lawsuit in New York against Monsanto (yes, again; see last week's suit in California over alfalfa).The organic folks, organized partly by the Public Patent Foundation, hope to erect a sort of legal shield against the St. Louis-based agrochemical behemoth this time around.
How is it that some people smell the same thing differently?One group of researchers believes its work studying neurons, or nerve cells, gives clues to how smell is transmitted to the brain.The findings, featured in the journal Nature, suggest that the neural wiring, or the pathways of neurons, from the olfactory bulb to the brain is unique to each person. Or at least that's what the science suggests in mice, which have similar brain structures as humans.
Brazil's biggest bank - the state-run Banco do Brasil - is being sued for allegedly funding deforestation in the Amazon.Public prosecutors say the bank lent money to companies that illegally cleared the rainforest and used labour practices bordering on slavery.The smaller state-owned Banco da Amazonia is also being sued.
Russia is making its final preparations for the launch of its Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station ahead of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned journey into space.The TMA-21 rocket is being moved into position at the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan before the scheduled blast off date on Tuesday.The craft will have an international crew of US astronaut Ron Garan, and Russian cosmonauts Aleksander Samokutyaev and Andrei Borisenko.
WATER molecules may be trapped in pits on the moon's surface.In 2009, the Kaguya probe spotted potholes on the moon 50 to 100 metres wide and a similar distance deep. The holes are thought to be the caved-in ceilings of caverns called lava tubes.Now Junichi Haruyama of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and colleagues say these pits could trap water formed when hydrogen in the solar wind combines with oxygen in rocks.
CT scans of Egyptian mummies show that many of them suffered from hardening of their arteries, researchers said Sunday. Cardiologists have generally believed that atherosclerosis is a byproduct of the modern lifestyle, caused by eating foods that are too high in fats, lack of exercise and smoking. The new findings indicate that "we may understand atherosclerosis less well than we think," Dr. Gregory S. Thomas, a cardiologist at UC Irvine, told a New Orleans meeting of the American College of Cardiology. It may be that humans "are predisposed to atherosclerosis," he said, "that it is part of our genetic makeup.
New research on Auckland's volcanic field has uncovered a volcano which had been all but forgotten, and this work will better define what is most likely to happen when the next volcano forms in Auckland. The research is part of the Devora project, a seven-year study to better understand the volcanic history of Auckland, thus preparing the city for a future eruption.
Scientists say that strange ripples observed in the ring systems of Saturn and Jupiter were caused by comets.The ripples, which the researchers say resemble the undulations of corrugated metal, were detected in both Saturn's rings and in Jupiter's lesser-known rings.The ripples in Jupiter's rings are believed to have been caused by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which struck the planet in 1994. Details are published in two separate papers in the journal Science.
Nanotechnology, which is the production and use of materials at the smallest possible scale, will be used to restore and protect ancient rock tombs in the Aegean province of Muğla. A project has been prepared and will be presented to TÜBITAK for the protection of tombs with this technology. It will be the first time nanotechnology will be used for protecting cultural assets in Turkey.
During a congressional hearing in 1988, Goddard Institute for Space Studies climatologist James Hansen predicted that a perceptive person would be able to notice the climate was changing by the early 21st century. Has his prediction panned out? He digs into the topic in a discussion published this week on his website.
SHAHAAT -- A toga-clad statue that would be a prize museum piece elsewhere lies half buried among cow dung at the ancient Greek city of Cyrene in eastern Libya, where tourism has suffered decades of neglect.Goats and cows graze among the towering Greek and Roman columns of the ruined city, a UNESCO world heritage site perched on a mountainside with stunning views over verdant plains and the Mediterranean Sea beyond.
Vancouver may be celebrating its 125th birthday, but there's another birthday that could be celebrated in the city dating back 9,000 years.The oldest known residents of Vancouver are the Musqueam First Nations, who also happen to have the only reserve that falls within the city's boundaries, adjacent to the wealthy enclave known as Southlands.
LOCUST GROVE - Scientists have been trying to uncover the secrets of Serpent Mound for 165 years. A new effort, which will include ground-penetrating radar and radiocarbon dating of soil samples, is to begin April 8 at the Adams County earthwork.Nearly a quarter-mile long as measured by the centerline of its curves, Serpent Mound is the largest prehistoric effigy of its kind in the world. It was built on a ridge above the valley of Ohio Brush Creek by an unknown people, perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 years ago.Proving when it was built could indicate who those people were - and why they undertook an engineering feat that demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of geometry and astronomy, said William F. Romain of suburban Cleveland, an archaeo-astronomer who will lead a team of archaeologists.
In a resent paper posted at arXiv.org and submitted to Astrophysical Journal, Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen, physicists at Fermilab in Illinois, present the theory that cold and dark planets, not heated by a star, could be heated by dark matter. In theory, this dark matter could produce habitable planets outside of what is known as a habitable zone.While no one knows exactly what dark matter is, it is believed to make up about 83 percent of the universe. The most accepted theory is this dark matter is made up of what are called WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles.
University of Sydney astrophysicists are behind a major breakthrough in the study of stars known as red giants, finding a way to peer deep into their cores to discover which ones are in early infancy, which are fresh-faced teenagers, and which are facing their dying days.The discovery, published in the latest edition of the journal Nature and made possible by observations using NASA's powerful Kepler space telescope, is shedding new light on the evolution of stars, including our own sun.
In the single largest cancer genomics investigation reported to date, scientists have sequenced the whole genomes of tumors from 50 breast cancer patients and compared them to the matched DNA of the same patients' healthy cells. This comparison allowed researchers to find mutations that only occurred in the cancer cells.They uncovered incredible complexity in the cancer genomes, but also got a glimpse of new routes toward personalized medicine. The work was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 102nd Annual Meeting 2011.
Bombardments of 'micro-meteorites' on Earth and Mars four billion years ago may have caused the planets' climates to cool dramatically, hampering their ability to support life, according to research published today in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
There has been a small earthquake on the Lancashire coast, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has confirmed.A small earth tremor was felt in the Blackpool area at about 0330 BST, it said.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---World population will reach 7 billion this year, prompting new concerns about whether the world will soon face a major population crisis."In spite of 50 years of the fastest population growth on record, the world did remarkably well in producing enough food and reducing poverty," said University of Michigan economist David Lam, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America.
STARS orbiting the wrong way in their galaxy's heart are probably the remnants of another galaxy that was eaten.Astronomers have noted for years that the stars at the heart of some galaxies orbit in the opposite direction to that of their neighbours further out.
Looking at this land area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers today, one sees mostly desert with scattered settlements. In recent years, it has been part of the visible backdrop for combat and military operations, land patrolled by soldiers executing their duties in the war-torn country of Iraq. But below the surface, according to a team of researchers, lie what could be new evidence of the remains of ancient man-made systems and settlements that defined the beginnings of urbanization and the foundations of the great Mesopotamian civilizations that followed.
A rising tide lifts all boats, but in a surprising twist, ascending sea levels launched a flotilla of rafts or canoes on voyages from China to Taiwan around 5,000 years ago, a new study suggests.At a time when rice farming dominated in other regions, the inundation of the Fuzhou Basin in southeastern China starting about 9,000 years ago led to the creation of a maritime culture that eventually took to the seas, says a team led by archaeologist Barry Rolett of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
Astronomers are probably just a few years from the first-ever finding of an Earth twin outside our solar system, that is, a planet roughly the size of Earth orbiting at a similarly temperate distance from a sunlike star. The idea is that finding Earths outside the solar system just might be a first step toward finding alien life. Earth has been exceptionally supportive of life-forms, so perhaps a similar planet would also be habitable.NASA's Kepler spacecraft is leading this charge, and has already sniffed out hints of planets that look remarkably Earth-like, at least from Kepler's distant vantage point; it will take a few more years of observations to solidify these tentative findings. The spacecraft is keeping tabs on more than 150,000 stars to find out how often Earth-like worlds form around sunlike stars.
Scientists believe images from space could reveal important details about gravity's impact on Earth.A European spacecraft has mapped the Earth's gravity with unrivalled precision - a feat that may ultimately help scientists predict earthquakes.Scientists say the images will be crucial in measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics - all driven by gravity - as the planet warms in response to climate change.
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
A virus, dubbed "Organic Lake Virophage" or OLV, was discovered in Organic Lake, a 6,000-year-old body of saltwater in eastern Antarctica. Researchers found its genome hidden in sequences of local Phycodnaviruses -- giant viruses that basically live in the lake and attack algae. Evidence suggests these two viruses have been swapping genes and co-evolving. Scientists have concluded that the OLV depends on the Phycodnaviruses for survival. The scientists also believe there may be other virus-eating viruses lurking in the depths.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit, a study said Monday.The shortage threatens sanitation in some of the world's fastest-growing cities but also poses risks for wildlife if cities pump in water from outside, said the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit, a study said Monday.The shortage threatens sanitation in some of the world's fastest-growing cities but also poses risks for wildlife if cities pump in water from outside, said the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This spring, scientists will try to retrieve the deepest types of rock ever extracted from beneath the seabed.The drilling project is taking place off Costa Rica, and will attempt to reach some 2km under the ocean floor.Writing in the journal Nature, the co-chief scientists say their ultimate goal is to return even deeper samples - from the mantle layer below the crust.
The Adena culture occupied Ohio and neighboring parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana from around 800 B.C. to A.D. 100. Their conical burial mounds and circular enclosures represent the beginnings of monumental architecture in the region.Christopher Hays, an archaeologist at the University of Wisconsin, Washington County, studied Adena mortuary patterns in central Ohio. His results appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of the journal Southeastern Archaeology.He examined nine sites within about 12 miles of Columbus, including five mound sites in the Alum Creek drainage area and four in the Columbus area - two along Big Walnut Creek, one near the Scioto River and one along the Olentangy River.
A rare particle containing equal parts weird antimatter and normal matter has popped up in experiments at the world's largest particle accelerator.Scientists recently observed new behavior of this particle, called a B meson, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) atom smasher, a 17-mile long (27-km) underground ring at the CERN laboratory near Geneva. B mesons are made up of one quark (the building block of protons and neutrons) and one anti-quark, which is the antimatter partner to the quark.
LONDON (Reuters) - America's bats are dying in their hundreds of thousands due to a mysterious illness called white-nose syndrome, and efforts to save them could prevent billions of dollars in agricultural losses, scientists say.In a paper published in the journal Science, bat researchers estimated that a single colony of 150 brown bats in the U.S. state of Indiana eats around 1.3 million pest insects a year, and that the value of such bats to agriculture may be around $22.9 billion a year.
See Graham's latest interview by KnowDrugs.net. He discusses the war on drugs, the meaning behind drug control and the implications it has upon human freedom.Go straight to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huFp-vaY_Ok
Structures thought of as the oldest known fossils of microbes might actually be microscopic mineral formations not associated with life, suggesting that astrobiologists must be careful calling alien objects "life" when scientists have trouble telling what is or was alive on Earth.More than 20 years ago, microscopic structures uncovered in the roughly 3.5-billion-year-old Apex Chert formation in western Australia were described as the oldest microbial fossils. These structures were interpreted as cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae, embedded in a silica-loaded rock formed in a shallow marine setting. These structures were all detected in slices of rock just 300 microns thick, or roughly three times the diameter of a human hair.
New research conducted by Minna Krejci and her colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago, and published in ChemSusChem, suggests that the algae, Closterium moniliferum, might one day soon be used to help separate strontium from calcium in nuclear waste. If successful, the process could lead to a reduction in the amount of nuclear waste that is left over from nuclear power facilities, and might even help in cleanup when accidents occur such as the one in Chernobyl, Ukraine, that spewed great quantities of strontium into the surrounding environment (but not like the current situation in Fukushima, because there the problem is xenon and iodine). This is important because the amount of waste is piling up; currently around hundred million gallons of toxic sludge exist in just the United States.
The pioneer who produced the first organism programmed with synthetic DNA admits that the creature's genetically coded message really needs to be corrected.Last year, geneticist J. Craig Venter and his colleagues announced that they basically hijacked the genetic machinery of a strain of bacteria known as Mycoplasma capricolum, by implanting the synthetically produced DNA patterned after a different strain, M. mycoides. The researchers added a few coded "watermarks" to the DNA, to prove that the resulting organism really did reflect the synthetic genome.
Our search for life beyond Earth could take us down the road to a shocking look into the mirror -- a climax straight out of a Twilight Zone plot.A team of researchers at MIT is proposing to apply forensic science testing on the Martian surface. Specifically, the task would be to do DNA and RNA sequencing on Martian microbes (if they exist) to see if they share a common genetic origin with us.This addresses the novel question of panspermia -- that we are descended from Mars life that migrated to Earth. Such testing could also offer key insights into how serious a risk Martian microbes would present to human colonists.The MIT team led by Christopher Carr and Maria Zuber (head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences) and Gary Ruvkun, a molecular biologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, are proposing to build an instrument to send to Mars and test for extraterrestrial genomes.
This is the story of how the largest contiguous empire humanity has ever seen was forged. Based on historical records, it is written as a fictionalized account of the Mongol war machine, known to aterrorized Europe as the Golden Horde. "Empire of Silver" is the fourth in a series on the 13th century Mongol empire . The central theme is the rise of Gengis Khan, his consolidation of warring tribes into a formidable 'nation' and his conquests.
LONDON: A US scholar has claimed that the Bible may have been forged as several New Testament books were actually written by people who lied about their identity , pretending to be the apostles Peter, Paul or James.Bart D Ehrman, the bestselling author of 'Misquoting Jesus' and 'Jesus, Interrupted' , has said that many religious scholars were well aware of the "lies" of the Bible. While some were happy to acknowledge them, others refer to them as "pseudepigrapha " meaning a falsely attributed work, he wrote in 'The Huffington Post' . Even in his new book , 'Why the Bible's authors are not who we think they are' , Prof Ehrman claims 'The Second Epistle of Peter' was forged.
A six-day exorcism conference in Rome attracted 60 Catholic clergy as well as doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers and youth workers to talk about how to deal with devil worship.The Telegraph reports that Carlo Climati, a writer and employee of the Vatican's Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, which hosted the conference, thinks that satanism is on the rise thanks to the Internet. The Telegraph adds:"The internet makes it much easier than in the past to find information about Satanism," said ... Climati, a member of the university who specialises in the dangers posed to young people by Satanism.
The bone of a large extinct creature, once treasured by the ancient Greeks, has finally found a permanent home in England.Known as the Nichoria bone, the blackened fossil is part of the thigh bone of an immense extinct mammal that roamed southern Greece perhaps a million years ago. The bone was collected by ancient Greeks and may have even helped inspire certain beasts in Greek classical mythology. It was then rediscovered 40 years ago.Since then the fossil had largely vanished from the public eye.
Elena Grothe writes:Almost 100 years old now, photojournalist Ruth Gruber has worn many hats throughout her extraordinary career. Writer, lecturer and once the youngest Ph.D in the world, Ruth took on a dangerous secret mission for the Roosevelt administration during the Nazi Germany period and photographed Holocaust refugees. A documentary of her life, 'Ahead of Time,' airs on Showtime this evening. See a selection of her images and check out Ann Curry's fascinating interview with Ruth, below.
Attic pottery is the iconic red and black figure-pottery produced in ancient Greece from the 6th to the 4th centuries B.C. Like the vessel shown here from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, such pottery required immense precision to produce, and the means by which craftsman created these vessels is still not completely understood.Now, thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation Chemistry and Materials Research in Cultural Heritage Science program, a collaborative group of California scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), The Aerospace Corporation, and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) at Stanford is investigating the ancient technology used to create these works of art. From their study of the makeup of this iconic pottery, the researchers hope to further current conservation practice and future space travel.
They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.
Stanford researchers have developed a battery that takes advantage of the difference in salinity between freshwater and seawater to produce electricity.Anywhere freshwater enters the sea, such as river mouths or estuaries, could be potential sites for a power plant using such a battery, said Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research team.The theoretical limiting factor, he said, is the amount of freshwater available. "We actually have an infinite amount of ocean water; unfortunately we don't have an infinite amount of freshwater," he said.
The long-held theory of how humans first populated the Americas may have been well and truly broken.Archaeologists have unearthed thousands of stone tools that predate the technology widely assumed to have been carried by the first settlers.The discoveries in Texas are seen as compelling evidence that the so-called Clovis culture does not represent America's original immigrants.Details of the 15,500-year-old finds are reported in Science magazine.
On the second floor of the downtown campus, a motley group of students listens to a lecture titled "Palliative and Curative Relief Through a Safe and Effective Herbal Medicine." Not the sexiest of topics on the face of it, but there's a catch: this is Oaksterdam University, and the medicine being discussed is marijuana. At "America's first cannabis college," in Oakland, Calif., the sallow-faced hippy-skater types that one expects to find sit beside middle-aged professionals in business attire, united in their zeal for the pungent green leaf. No one dares speak out of turn, until instructor Paul Armentano, a marijuana-policy expert, cites a news report that U.S. antidrug authorities plan to legalize pot's active ingredient exclusively for drug companies' use. "More stinking profits for Big Business," mumbles a young man wearing a baseball cap. His classmates groan in agreement.
With no sign of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi being resolved any time soon, plans are now afoot to spray a resin over the embattled nuclear power plant.Kyodo News explains:Within the compound, masses of debris are strewn about the plant as a result of explosions, and this is making it very difficult for plant workers to bring the crisis under control. While frantic efforts are under way to cool reactors and remove water contaminated with high levels of radiation from facilities in the plant, the government hopes to facilitate the task by making it safe for workers to perform. The resin is designed to prevent dirt containing radioactive substances being scattered in the wind, the officials said.
As dead dolphins wash up along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, it is tempting to attribute the deaths to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That remains to be seen, but a new study suggests that whatever the cause, as many as 50 times more whales and dolphins may have been killed than is being reported.The most recent report on wildlife deaths from the US government's task force states that 100 marine mammals have been collected dead in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet according to a paper in Conservation Letters, as few as one in 50 carcasses are ever recovered, suggesting the US government's figure is an underestimation of total deaths.Now, it shouldn't be surprising that not all the carcasses of dead marine mammals will eventually wash up on our shores.
Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have stumbled upon a geological colossus in a remote corner of Afghanistan: a natural stone arch spanning more than 200 feet across its base.Located at the central highlands of Afghanistan, the recently discovered Hazarchishma Natural Bridge is more than 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above sea level, making it one of the highest large natural bridges in the world. It also ranks among the largest such structures known.
Scientists have come up with new evidence in support of the controversial idea that humanity's influence on climate began not during the industrial revolution, but thousands of years ago. Proposed by palaeoclimatologist William Ruddiman in 2003, the theory says that human influences offset the imminent plunge into another ice age and helped create the relatively stable climate that we are familiar with today. It has been repeatedly panned as implausible by palaeoclimate researchers, but eight years on, Ruddiman and others say that they have the data to support early anthropogenic climate change.
Houseplants clean the air and brighten a room. Occasionally, they drive us mad as we wonder how exactly we managed to kill yet another "unkillable" houseplant. (In that way, they provide great lessons in perseverance as well!) But it looks like there's one more great reason to grow houseplants: their presence in your workspace might actually make you smarter.According to a recent study published in The Journal of Environmental Psychology, just having plants in your work space is enough to increase your attention span. An increase in attention span means that we're able to remember more of what we read. To test the hypotheses, the study's authors gave subjects a Reading Span Task, which requires reading sentence aloud, then remembering the last word in each sentence. This requires reading, memorization, and recall abilities, and switching between the three.
Ten tons of 'cookies' laced with poison bait, which will entice rats but repulse other wildlife such as sea lions, birds, marine iguanas and sea turtles, were dumped from a helicopter during two fly-overs.Black rats and Norway rats, which were introduced to the islands via pirates' ships in the 17th century, pose a significant threat to several of the unique Galapagos species.They eat the eggs and hatchlings of turtles and Galapagos giant tortoises, spread disease and are capable of climbing to feed on the eggs of tree-nesting birds.
With a quick dart of the arm, snake catcher Nigel Hand snares his prey and holds the wriggling adder aloft.The bronze snake, hissing and flicking out its black forked tongue, has been snatched from under its gorse-bush home as part of the first ever genetic survey of the UK's only venomous snake, amid fears that dwindling populations are behind worrying signs of inbreeding, such as missing eyes and deformed spines.But the young female caught by Hand looks healthy, barring a 3cm-long scar on her back left by a buzzard or a kestrel. She squirms friskily, despite having just emerged from a five-month hibernation, as a bright spring sun shines through the alders and birches that fringe the riverside meadow.
China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected.That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy.The country that invented the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing is set for a globally important comeback.An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science.The study, Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge to the traditional dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Plutonium found in soil at the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex heightened alarm on Tuesday over Japan's protracted battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years.In parliament, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan was lambasted for his handling of the disaster, which was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami that slammed into the coastline north of Tokyo.
Boreal forests across the Northern hemisphere are undergoing rapid, transformative shifts as a result of a warming climate that, in some cases, is triggering feedback loops producing even more regional warming, according to several new studies.Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees, according to new research by University of Virginia researchers.In Alaska, where the larch were largely devastated by a disease outbreak in the late '90s, vast swathes of forest are becoming inhospitable to the dominant white and black spruc.
You could be forgiven for thinking the bird in this video is real, especially when filmed from a distance. But it's actually an energy-efficient robot, weighing just 500 grams, that captures the elegance of a bird in flight.The robot, aptly named SmartBird, has just been unveiled by Festo, the robotics company known for its bionic animal designs. It has previously created penguins that can communicate with each other to avoid collisions and a robotic elephant's trunk designed to grip objects and safely interact with humans.
We can say that the bulk of the development of the Harappan civilization happened in the Indus Valley itself. What can you comment about their relationship with other cities in Anatolia after the discovery of the city of Catal Huyuk by the English archaeologist James Mellaart in 1958. Is Catal Huyuk a more primitive precursor of this civilization or they parallel developments? Submitted by Martin Piattini Velthuis.
Why civilizations emerge is still very much a matter of debate among archaeologists. In essence, civilizations are the result of societies coping with the managerial needs of the situation that develops as a population grows large and densely settled:* many people living together in close proximity inevitably need organisations that will manage disputes and other problems* there are often environmental constraints in regions that support high populations eg inadequate or excessive quantities of water for agriculture; lack of certain essential or desirable raw materials; differences in resource potential between different areas* there may be environmental unpredictability, such as annually changing river courses, drought or floods, volcanoes and earthquakes, which tends to favour religion to explain why and priests to mediate with deities on the community's behalf* there may competition between neighbouring communities, resulting in warfare and/or competitive ostentation* there are opportunities for increasing occupational specialisation, including fulltime craftsmen and women, creating the need to manage the circulation of raw materials, goods and food.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Scientists along Buttermilk Creek north of Austin, Texas, have found flint knife blades, chisels and other human artifacts lying in a soil layer nearly 16,000 years old - a discovery they say will rewrite a major chapter of ancient human history.For one thing, it is now the oldest and arguably most credible site of human occupation in North or South America; but there's more.
Syria (Swaida) - The small village unearthed in the archaeological site of Tel Qarasa (hill) in the west of Swaida province, dating back to around 11000 years constitute a clear example of the first models of urban life in the prehistoric times.The excavations of the Syrian-French archaeological mission conducted at the site over the last two years showed that Qarasa region knew human presence in the form of tiny villages of 8 round houses whose inhabitants depended on fishing and growing cereal crops and wild fruits for their living.
Finds unearthed in southeastern India offer a cutting-edge revision of hominid migrations out of Africa more than 1 million years ago that spread pivotal tool-making methods.Makers of a specific style of teardrop-shaped stone hand ax, flat-edged cleavers and other implements that originated in Africa around 1.6 million years ago (SN: 1/31/09, p. 11) reached South Asia not long afterward, between 1.5 and 1 million years ago, say archaeologist Shanti Pappu of the Sharma Center for Heritage Education in Tamil Nadu, India and her colleagues.
The Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (JPICRA) and the cultural heritage administrative departments of Jinxian County conducted archaeological excavations at the Nantudun site in Jinxian County and explored scores of human activity sites dating back 3,000 years ago and unearthed a group of precious early celadon, pottery and stone tools as well as a small amount of bronze ware.
Striking discoveries in archaeology are being made possible by strong beams of X-rays, say researchers.A report at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, showed how X-ray sources known as synchrotrons can unravel an artefact's mysteries.Light given off after an X-ray blast yields a neat list of the atoms within.The technique can illuminate layers of pigment beneath the surfaces of artefacts, or even show the traces of tools used thousands of years ago.This X-ray fluorescence or XRF works by measuring the after-effects of X-ray illumination.
There's more grim news coming out of Japan this morning as officials there widen the evacuation band near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant over concerns that additional radiation may leak from the damaged facility. Earlier this week, Tokyo parents were warned not to give infants tap water, which has tested positive for radioactive iodine; and despite import bans, some Japanese vegetables that have tested positive for radiation found their way to Singapore.Radiation fears are also migrating to seafood. Japanese officials said they have detected higher levels of radiation in ocean waters near the damaged nuclear power plant, fueling fears on the impact this may have on Japan's fishing industry. The catastrophe has left the famed Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo reeling.
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Cairo's Egyptian Museum houses some of the world's greatest ancient treasures, but last month's unrest prompted fears over the fate of its historical artifacts.Among the prized objects at the Egyptian Museum are towering statues of ancient pharaohs, a rare collection of royal mummies and intricately painted sarcophagi.
King Tut's grandmother, the powerful and beautiful Queen Tiye, might have had an unattractive flat wart on her forehead, according to a mummy expert.Located between the eyes, the small protuberance was found on the mummy of the so-called Elder Lady (KV35EL). Boasting long reddish hair falling across her shoulders, the mummy was identified in February 2010 by DNA testing as Queen Tiye, the daughter of Yuya and Thuya, wife of Amenhotep III, and mother of Akhenaten.The skin growth had gone unnoticed until Mercedes González, director of the Instituto de Estudios Científicos en Momias in Madrid, spotted it looking at the mummy during a visit to the Cairo Museum.
The Anglesey Rock Art Project recently extended their programme to include excavation and recording of megalithic rock art on a stone at Llwydiarth Esgob Farm. The stone, made from a distinctive localised hornblende picrite, stands within the garden of the farmhouse and was moved there by the noted antiquary Thomas Pritchard at the beginning of the 20th century.This intriguing stone was brought to the attention of archaeologist Frances Lynch by the owners of the Farm in the 1970s. Lynch noted that the stone possessed two cup-and-ring marks connected by linear grooves and cupules, and provided a reasonably accurate sketch plan. Although this boulder has not been designated a scheduled monument, it is registered with the regional archaeology authority, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, and is on the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historic Monuments for Wales CARN database.[i] However, the primary function and location of this stone remains unknown.
A powerful NASA probe has created the most detailed view yet of the far side of the moon.NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took the picture, which was released along with a flood of other data from the spacecraft last week. The photo is actually a mosaic of thousands of different lunar far side images taken by the lunar orbiter's Wide Angle Camera.The new picture provides the most complete look at the history and composition of the moon's farside to date, and should serve as a valuable resource for the scientific community, researchers said.
A unique image, for the first time, has mapped organic compounds that are still surviving in a 50-million-year-old sample of reptile skin.The infra-red picture reveals the chemical profile of the skin, offering an insight into how it was preserved.A team of UK scientists say the sample was so well preserved that it was hard to tell the difference between the fossil and the fresh samples.The details appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Venus passes between Earth and the sun as little more than a mote of dust, overlooked as ever beside our Martian dreams of water, life, footprints and flags. What would it be like to survey the Venusian surface firsthand -- to set foot on Earth's strange twin?The Venusian SurfaceAssuming your imagined space suit protects you from Venus' intense heat and crushing atmospheric pressure, the first thing you'll notice will be the gloom.
A creature initially mistaken for an extinct tortoise has turned out to be a giant bunny that had tiny ears and couldn't hop.The 5-million-year-old remains of Nuralagus rex were found on the Spanish island of Minorca by independent researcher Josep Quintana. At an estimated 12 kilograms, it was around 10 times the weight of wild Spanish rabbits today.Quintana came across the first fossil in the early 1990s when he was 19. He initially thought it was part of an extinct Minorcan tortoise. Later, Meike Köhler and Salvador Moya-Sola of the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Catalan Institute of Paleontology identified it as a giant rabbit.
Magnetic fields play an important role in the formation and evolution of stars, as they stretch around a hot medium like a rubber band and help to determine the flow of material onto or away from the star.One key uncertainty is the amount of energy in the magnetic field as compared with the energy in turbulent motions of the gas. Unfortunately, magnetic fields are poorly understood, in part because they are very difficult to measure directly.
Dinosaur or mud stain? An ancient cave drawing high on a rock formation in southeastern Utah has stirred a skirmish of sorts between creationists who believe it's proof that humans and dinosaurs lived together, and scientists who say no way.A new research paper out on the subject probably won't change too many minds, but it is giving food for thought to those who wonder what the fuss is about.The petroglyph at the Kachina Bridge formation in Natural Bridges Natural Monument has drawn curious visitors for years. By many accounts, it appears to be a hand-drawn plant-eating dino, like the happy green diplodocus that was the old Sinclair oil logo.
It's nearly 300 million miles away and barreling toward us. The intruder from deep space, called called comet Elenin, crosses Earth's orbit on its inbound leg and again on its outbound swing around the sun later this year.Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin discovered the innocuous little comet on Dec. 10, 2010, at International Scientific Optical Network's robotic observatory near Mayhill, New Mexico.Presently the comet is a faint smudge of light in deep sky exposures. By late August comet Elenin should be visible to the naked eye as a dim "fuzzy star" with a tail. Over a few weeks the visitor will speed across the spring constellation Virgo and toward Leo on its outbound leg.
Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.The world's fourth-largest economy stands alone among leading industrialized nations in its decision to stop using nuclear energy because of its inherent risks. It is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.
MSNBCAfter a burst appendix nearly cost 4-year-old Colton Burpo his life in 2003, his parents were thankful just to have him alive and well. But when he opened up about his brush with death a few months later, they were shocked when he described a very vivid trip to heaven, and spoke of matters about which he had no apparent way of knowing.
The long-standing idea that the Clovis people of ancient North America were the first tool-using humans on the continent 13,200 years ago is being overturned by the discovery of human artefacts in a Texan creek bed that are even older.Michael Waters, a geoarchaeologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, and his team unearthed more than 15,000 stone artefacts from the Debra L. Friedkin archaeological site in Texas. Using luminescence dating, which dates the last time samples were exposed to sunlight, the researchers found that the artefacts are between 13,200 and 15,500 years old. They seem to have been left undisturbed by any sort of soil movement, suggesting that the artefacts come from a time before the Clovis people came to dominate the landscape.
The northeastern part of Myanmar was hit with a magnitude 6.8 earthquake Thursday night. One woman was reported killed when a roof collapsed in Chiang Rai.The quake was felt in Bangkok, 480 miles to the south of the epicenter, where buildings reportedly swayed.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was six miles deep and that it is possible that 600,000 people could feel shaking anywhere from strong to violent and that damage could be widespread.The quake was comparable in magnitude and depth to last year's Haiti earthquake.
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian oil sands, a vast expanse of tar and sand being mined for crude oil, yielded treasure of another kind this week when an oil company worker unearthed a 110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil that wasn't supposed to be there.The fossil is an ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail. Finding it in this region of northern Alberta was a surprise because millions of years ago the area was covered by water.
RECENTLY DISCOVERED ARTIFACTS IN SOUTH INDIA SUGGEST THAT EARLY HUMANS LIVED IN THE REGION MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS AGO, CONTEMPORARY WITH OTHER EARLY HUMAN POPULATIONS THAT LIVED IN AFRICA AND SOUTHWEST ASIA. The discovery may finally answer the long-standing question about when early humans migrated into South Asia, a question that has puzzled scientists for years.
From the age of 12 until 30, virtually nothing is known or documented about the incredible life of the man called Jesus, the "author" of what is today the most populous religion in the world -- Christianity. Research and archaeological investigation can shed some light on this, but study of this enigma raises more questions than answers. Nevertheless, study and thought on the issue makes a very interesting and fascinating journey, as illustrated by this recent National Geographic film.
If you are looking for a way to tour some fascinating archaeological sites without spending a dime or a great deal of time, Dr. Nicolae Roddy and Ronald Simkins of Creighton University have developed a viable option worth considering: The "Virtual World Project". It is a web-based teaching and study tool that presents interactive virtual reality tours of the ancient world. Updated continuously, it is an ongoing project with a primary focus on the Levant, although one will also find there some of the best known classical sites of ancient Greece and Turkey. To date, many important archaeological sites in Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Greece have been extensively photographed and graphically represented to allow the visitor to "walk" through the sites, many of which offer an audio component as well. The real fun, however, is in the personal control the website user has to explore the area and features of the ancient sites. From a selected start point, you can choose your "walking" direction and pace and control the area of your visual scan. For most of us, for the present, this is as close as we are going to get to these places.
Radiation fears escalated inJapan on Friday after workers suffered burns as they tried tocool an earthquake-crippled nuclear power station, while thegovernment sowed confusion over whether it was widening anevacuation zone around the plant.