Newsdesk Archive

NASA deliberately killed off its Stardust spacecraft on Thursday, burning up its last fuel reserves in an experiment designed to help engineers plan future missions.Stardust launched in 1999 and in 2004 became the first and so far only mission to collect samples of comet dust when it flew by comet Wild 2. The samples parachuted to Earth in a capsule in 2006.

The outer edges of the Milky Way's appear to be orbited by innumerable invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own. Back in 2005 astronomers discovered the first evidence of mysterious dark galaxies with no starlight - VIRGOHI 21 - a mysterious cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster 50 million light-years from the Earth found to be colliding with our galaxy - revealed its existence from radio waves from neutral hydrogen coming from a rotating cloud containing enough hydrogen gas to spawn 100 million stars like the sun and fill a small galaxy.

In a finding that has global implications for climate research, scientists have discovered that when icebergs cool and dilute the seas through which they pass for days, they also raise chlorophyll levels in the water that may in turn increase carbon dioxide absorption in the Southern Ocean.An interdisciplinary research team supported by the National Science Foundation highlighted the research this month in the journal Nature Geosciences.

Government officials in Siberia are planning to set up a special research institute dedicated to the study of yetis following a number of recent mysterious sightings of the folkloric creatureHominology experts, who are lined up to lead the studies at Kemerovo University, are eager to prove their existence after people in remote parts of the region claim to have caught a glimpse of the elusive being.According to 15 witness statements by Siberian locals in the Kemerovo region, 7-ft tall, hairy, manlike creatures have been spotted wandering the Mount Shoria wilderness, with one man even claiming to have saved a yeti from drowning in a river while hunting.

Large numbers of tourists and Mexicans are expected to descend on historic sites such as Chichen-Itza and the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan this Sunday.Many people in Mexico believe that gathering at these locations during the equinox - when the sun is positioned directly over the equator - will provide them with a special "charge of energy".But the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH), the government agency entrusted with protecting Mexico's rich cultural heritage, takes rather a different view.

Study has important implications to how "sensitive" landscapes are to land-use and farming strategies(Waco, Texas - March 21, 2011) A new study by Baylor University geology researchers shows that Native Americans' land use nearly a century ago produced a widespread impact on the eastern North American landscape and floodplain development several hundred years prior to the arrival of major European settlements.

Someday a future intelligent organism could sweep away a million years of dust and find the bones of a Homo sapiens and wonder what he was.Further research would show Homo sapiens walked upright, lived in communities and buried their dead. But this future intelligent organism might be faced with an old puzzle--determining where Homo sapiens came from.

Today, looking out across a seemingly boundless cosmos filled with an unimaginable variety of exotic objects, it's easy to forget that the Universe we currently admire is the product of a violent event that occurred 13.75 billion years ago.As we know, the leading theory for universal birth is the Big Bang, where everything came from nothing, in a single energetic burst of inexplicable creation. So, if we turn back the clock back 13.75 billion years, what would we see?My instinct would be to say "energy, the Universe was filled with pure, violent energy," but according to some mind-bending work by Jonas Mureika from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Calif., and Dejan Stojkovic from SUNY at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, the answer may be a little more complicated than that. In fact, it may be so weird that we can't even imagine what it would have been like.

Brian Greene claims that every decision we make creates a parallel universe - and the proof is in the maths; plus, we join Tim Jackson as he takes a Q&A session on whether rampant consumerism is ruining our lives.

The oldest printed star maps in the world, drawn by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, which show the northern skies teeming with the creatures of the zodiac, are to be sold at a Sotheby's auction in London with an estimate of up to £180,000.Only a handful of surviving copies are known of the woodcut prints, published in Nuremberg. The charts were a commercial venture by Dürer and two astronomers, the German Conrad Heinfogel and the Viennese Johannes Stabius.

Etched into the surviving art of the Moche, one of South America's most ancient and mysterious civilisations, is a fearsome creature dubbed the Decapitator. Also known as Ai Apaec, the octopus-type figure holds a knife in one hand and a severed head in the other in a graphic rendition of the human sacrifices the Moche practiced in northern Peru 1,500 years ago.For archaeologists, the horror here is not in Moche iconography, which you see in pottery and mural fragments, but in the hundreds of thousands of trenches scarring the landscape: a warren of man-made pillage. Gangs of looters, known as huaqueros, are ransacking Peru's heritage to illegally sell artefacts to collectors and tourists.

Japan's wind turbines survived last week's earthquake and as a result utilities have now asked wind farm operators to boost power output to make up for energy shortages in the country, the leader of the Japanese wind energy association has revealed.Writing on the Huffington Post, Kelly Rigg, chief executive of the Global Campaign for Climate Action, yesterday revealed she had spoken to Yoshinori Ueda, leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association and Japan Wind Energy Association, who told her that none of its members reported damage to wind turbines after last week's natural disasters.

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.The team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.

Three renowned French archaeologists have been travelling through the country to document the existence of cave art. Their findings at Morazan and La Union shed new light on the ancient inhabitants of El Salvador.French archaeologists Philippe Costa, Eric Gelliot and Simon Merci from the Sorbonne University in Paris have been travelling through eastern El Salvador to document cave art found in this part of the country and try to better understand who and when created this.

PUNE: Archaeologists at the Deccan College here have found lateritic blocks, which form the outer enclosing walls of earthen mounds that bear similarity to the earthen stupas associated with early Buddhism, during excavations at Sisupalgarh, an early historic city on the outskirts of Bhubaneshwar.

In addition to using Hieratic script, the ancient Egyptian workers also developed their own identity marking system. The Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1150-1070 B.C.E.) in particular provides many examples of these marks, but although Hieratic has now been deciphered, the system of marks is still a mystery.In an effort to understand more about these marks, Egyptologist Dr Ben Haring from the University of Leiden, has been awarded a grant to carry out a more detailed research.

Two new articles are now available on the newsdesk. See April's AOM here: http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/LaughtonMS1.phpAnd see current AOM's new article here: http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/NightingaleE2.php

The pod of whales apparently died after becoming stranded on the uninhabited Speedwell island to the south west of East Falkland and were discovered by Christopher May a local sheep farmer.Chris May told Mercopress he discovered the stranded whales around 12 March when he visited his sheep farm on Speedwell Island to the south of East Falklands.He estimated that they had been dead for around 10 days, when he discovered the unaccountable incident which scientists have long attempted to diagnose.

This morning Daniel Pinchbeck received a message from the Foundation for the Law of Time informing the Reality Sandwich community that Valum Votan/Jose Arguelles has passed away.According to the Foundation for the Law of Time, Jose Arguelles "departed this Planet on Solar Moon 17 (March 23), Red Spectral Moon, at 6:10 a.m (the exact same time that he was born in 1939 in the Red Spectral Moon year).""After a short illness, he slipped away in complete peace. We are asking for those who loved him to hold a synchronized vigil and/or ceremony on his behalf at noon (Pacific standard time) on Solar Moon 19, Kin 91. Send him your prayers, light and blessings to continue his spirit journey - and also visualize the rainbow bridge and the Return of Light."We are saddened to report his passing, but his influence and his message lives on through his teachings. Though this galactic guide is no longer with us on the material plane, his presence will continue to guide us through the turning of the cycle and leaves us with one final message: "EVERYTHING IS PERFECT!!! Love everyone. Hate no one. God bless everyone."

NORTH PORT - Archaeologists hope a major find in a spring an hour and a half south of Tampa helps piece together how Florida's earliest inhabitants lived.On Friday, dive teams from The Florida Aquarium and the University of Miami exploring and excavating Little Salt Spring in southern Sarasota County carried to the surface a spear that dates back about 10,000 years.When archaeologists put pieces of it back together, the artifact will measure more than a foot long.

Experts have found many Great Wall remains in the territory of Qinghai Province in northwest China after more than two years' field investigation.The discoveries included a 480-meter-long wall section, 51 beacon towers and 158 pass towers, according to Ren Xiaoyan, a researcher with Qinghai's Archeological Institute.

Archaeologists working at the pre-Neolithic site of Rhoudias, situated in the south foothills of the Troodos Mountains next to the Xenos river in Cyprus have recently revealed that this site was repeatedly visited by groups of hunter-gatherers.The field season was conducted in late November 2010 by a group of postgraduate students from the University of Thessaloniki along with other Cypriot archaeologists and researchers. The director, Professor Nikolaos Efstratiou said the site was part of a route from the coast to the mountains and vice-versa where hunter-gatherers would stay for short periods of time on the journey..

It was one of the biggest and probably the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil. Such was its ferocity almost 1 per cent of the English population was wiped out in a single day. Yet mention the Battle of Towton to most people and you would probably get a blank stare.Next week marks the 550th anniversary of the engagement that changed the course of the Wars of the Roses. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 soldiers took part in the battle in 1461 between the Houses of York and Lancaster for control of the English throne. An estimated 28,000 men are said to have lost their lives.

A dramatic First Nations historical site, seen by only a few handfuls of non-aboriginal people over the last century, will soon be on B.C.'s list of tourist attractions.Kiixin (pronounced Key-hin), the ancient capital of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, sits beside pristine beaches about two kilometres south of Bamfield and can be reached only by shallow-bottomed boat, followed by a hike through the forest."We have kept Kiixin covered for 100 years and now we're almost ready to share it with the world," said Huu-ay-aht Chief Councillor Robert Dennis, who wants to make the village a cornerstone of the community's cultural tourism strategy.

In the past 15 months several devastating earthquakes have rumbled beneath the Pacific. In February 2010 a magnitude 8.8 temblor slammed central Chile; this past September a magnitude 7 quake walloped Christchurch, New Zealand, leading to a magnitude 6.3 aftershock this past February. The magnitude 9 megaquake that devastated Japan March 11 was the fifth largest in the last 110 years.

Galaxies are sometimes found in large clusters with many hundreds of members. Typically there is a giant elliptical galaxy near the center; most of these ellipticals are very bright emitters of radio radiation as a result of activity around supermassive black holes at their nuclei.The environment of a black hole can also eject tremendous jets of charged particles into the rest of the cluster. How the intracluster medium is enriched by these jets, and how the energy input might affect the future development of the cluster, its galaxies and their stars, are important unsolved problems.

Garbage mounds left by prehistoric humans might have driven the formation of many of the Florida Everglades' tree islands, distinctive havens of exceptional ecological richness in the sprawling marsh that are today threatened by human development.Tree islands are patches of relatively high and dry ground that dot the marshes of the Everglades. Typically a meter (3.3 feet) or so high, many of them are elevated enough to allow trees to grow. They provide a nesting site for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife.

A 60-year-old albatross ranked as America's oldest free-flying bird has thrilled biologists by surviving a tsunami that struck the Pacific island where it nests, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has said.The elderly bird named Wisdom and her recently hatched chick were spotted alive about a week after Sand Island in the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge was struck by a 1.5 metre tidal wave unleashed by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan on March 11.

Two of the major compounds in marijuana -- THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol) have cancer-fighting properties, according to scientists researching them. But while the biological mechanisms THC uses are well documented, there are still mysteries surrounding the lesser-known CBD.Clinical trials prove that CBD eases pain and inflammation, reports Dana M. Nichols at the Stockton Record. Sean McAllister, a scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, has, along with his research associates, used CBD to shrink cancerous tumors.

The people living beside the Colonia River in the Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia are under constant threat of a sudden catastrophic flood sweeping down from the mountains above them.The region has experienced an unprecedented seven events called glacial-lake outburst floods since April 2008. Each time, Lake Cachet 2, which lies on the Colonia glacier, has drained its 200 million cubic metres of water in a matter of hours into the Colonia Lake and River, sending the water on to the river's confluence with Baker River, Chile's largest in terms of volume, and generating a wave as far as 25 kilometres upstream and 100 kilometres downstream to the Pacific Ocean.

One of the most complex efforts toward a quantum computer has been shown off at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas in the US.It uses the strange "quantum states" of matter to perform calculations in a way that, if scaled up, could vastly outperform conventional computers.The 6cm-by-6cm chip holds nine quantum devices, among them four "quantum bits" that do the calculations.The team said further scaling up to 10 qubits should be possible this year.

Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday."I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

Roughly one out of every 37 to one out of every 70 sunlike stars in the sky might harbor an alien Earth, a new study reveals.These findings hint that billions of Earthlike planets might exist in our galaxy, researchers added.These new calculations are based on data from the Kepler space telescope, which in February wowed the globe by revealing more than 1,200 possible alien worlds, including 68 potentially Earth-size planets. The spacecraft does so by looking for the dimming that occurs when a world transits or moves in front of a star.

A robust new phylogenetic tree resolves many long-standing issues in primate taxonomy. The genomes of living primates harbor remarkable differences in diversity and provide an intriguing context for interpreting human evolution. The phylogenetic analysis was conducted by international researchers to determine the origin, evolution, patterns of speciation, and unique features in genome divergence among primate lineages.This evolutionary history will be published on March 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.The authors sequenced 54 gene regions from 186 species spanning the primate radiation. The analysis illustrates the importance of resolving complex, species-rich phylogenies using large-scale comparative genomic approach. Patterns of species and gene sequence evolution and adaptation relate not only to human genome organization and genetic disease sensitivity, but also to global emergence of zoonoses (human pathogens originating from non-human disease reservoirs), to mammalian comparative genomics, to primate taxonomy and to species conservation.

The tendency to perceive others as "us versus them" isn't exclusively human but appears to be shared by our primate cousins, a new study led by Yale researchers has found.In a series of ingenious experiments, Yale researchers led by psychologist Laurie Santos showed that monkeys treat individuals from outside their groups with the same suspicion and dislike as their human cousins tend to treat outsiders, suggesting that the roots of human intergroup conflict may be evolutionarily quite ancient.The findings are reported in the March issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

A month and a half after the Cairo Museum break-in, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has posted online a listing of sixty-three objects that were found to be missing following the looting. Amongst the missing Ancient Egyptian treasures are ritual statues and a fan belonging to King Tut, Yuya's shabtis, amulets, as well as amulets and jewellery.Final List of Objects Missing from the Egyptian Museum, as released by the SCA, March 15th 2011:* Gilded Wooden Figure of Tutankhamun on a Skiff, Throwing a Harpoon (the figure) - Carter no 275c?.

Massive methane reservoirs in the ancient ocean could account for an unexplained hiccup in Earth's carbon cycle.In the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Christian J. Bjerrum and Don E. Canfield devised a mathematical model to examine the Shuram-Wonoka anomaly, a planet-wide shift in the chemical composition of marine sediments some 550 million years ago.

Marine biologists have solved a conundrum that has stumped them for years -- how to count reef fish. It may sound simple, but the task is actually complex and critical in helping to evaluate the state of our oceans, coral reefs and the marine life that populate them.In an article published in the journal Fisheries Research scientists from the University of Miami (UM) and NOAA Fisheries Service have collaborated to create a framework that extends and increases the effectiveness of reef monitoring techniques. The new methodology uses a probabilistic survey approach to more precisely count the numbers of fish in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The framework can be used to determine management strategies best suited to ensure the long-term sustainability of reef resources -- whether in the Florida Keys, Hawaii or in the Indo-Pacific's Coral Triangle.

The incidence of melanoma appears higher in non-Hispanic white adolescent girls and young women living in higher socioeconomic neighborhoods than those living in lower socioeconomic areas, according to a report posted online that will appear in the July print issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals."Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer and represents a substantial cause of productive years of life lost to cancer, especially when occurring in young persons," the authors write as background information in the study. "Among non-Hispanic white girls and women aged 15 to 39 years in the United States, age-adjusted incidence rates of cutaneous melanoma among adolescents have more than doubled during a 3-decade period (1973-2004), with a 2.7 percent increase annually since 1992."

Using mathematics to tackle some of biology's biggest questions, Martin Nowak has concluded that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity's success. He talks to Michael Marshall about drawing fire from Richard Dawkins, the perils of punishment, and devising the mathematical equivalent of the rules of religionWhy are you so fascinated by our ability to help each other out?Cooperation is interesting because it essentially means that you help someone else, someone who is a potential competitor. You reduce your own success in order to increase the success of somebody else. Why should you do that? Why should natural selection favour such behaviour? To answer these questions I use evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary game theory and experimental tests of human behaviour.

THE spy approaches the target building under cover of darkness, taking a zigzag path to avoid well-lit areas and sentries. He selects a handy vantage point next to a dumpster, taking cover behind it when he hears the footsteps of an unseen guard. Once the coast is clear, he is on the move again - trundling along on four small wheels.This is no human spy but a machine, a prototype in the emerging field of covert robotics. It was being put through its paces at a demonstration late last year by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories at Cherry Hill, New Jersey. With an aerial drone to their credit (see "Unseen watcher in the sky"), the company now wants to design autonomous robots that can operate around humans without being detected.

Alerts have been issued on radiation levels in Japanese milk, spinach, leeks and tap water. Food shipments from four prefectures around the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been suspended. So how hazardous are the radiation levels found, and should people panic about what they're eating?Which goods have been contaminated?Today the Japanese government ordered four prefectures to stop selling spinach and leeks after levels of radiation above the legal limit were picked up in them. The affected prefectures were Fukushima, where the nuclear plant damaged by the tsunami is based, and the nearby Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures.

The honeymoon is over for NASA and the European Space Agency. Tight budgets at NASA have put ambitious joint space missions on the chopping block.In recent years, NASA and ESA have been planning joint missions to places like Jupiter's moons and Mars. The idea was that by joining forces, they could mount bigger missions than either could afford alone.But with NASA's budget expected to stay flat in the coming years, it now appears unable to pay its share of the bill for these missions, calling their future into question.NASA planetary science chief James Green announced in a 17 March meeting with outer planet scientists that the agency is postponing indefinitely (pdf) an orbiter for Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which may harbour an ocean of liquid water beneath its surface.

In a significant discovery, archaeologists have stumbled upon an ancient rain water harvesting site having 13 rock-cut reservoirs, in central Maharashtra, which they say is the largest one in the country.The site is unique as the harvesting area, a hill in this case, has been carved in circular and pyramidal shape, with steep natural ridges retouched to maintain security and isolation.

One day - maybe eight or 10 centuries ago - some people knelt on an expanse of rock and ground mesquite pods into meal in mortar holes etched in the stone.Those people, members of a civilization known today as the Hohokam, are long gone. But their bedrock mortars - or morteros - remain perfectly intact at a remote site in the Tortolita Mountains northwest of Tucson.The Tortolita morteros, and hundreds of others in deserts and canyons around Tucson, amount to mini-archaeological sites for passing hikers.

Phillip Overholtzer's voyage of discovery into the past began behind a farm plow.His family's spread was on Mineral Springs Mountain in southern Burke County.Every time he turned up an arrowhead or pottery fragment, his imagination began spinning.He had visions of the ancient civilizations that produced the curious stuff he pulled out of the ground.

SIDON: The southern coastal city of Sidon has many archeological sites that still await discovery, according to report prepared by a Lebanese archeological association.The report, prepared by Dr. Sami Farhat, a member of the Lebanese Association for Heritage and Archeological Studies, revealed that besides the famous Phoenician Eshmoun temple which lies at the northern entrance of Sidon, a temple to the goddess Astarte is located in the southern part of the city.The report said that the structure used to stand in place of Hajj hospital, which is located near Saint Joseph school.

After four and a half field seasons, I have finally reached bedrock in the deep trench in the East Court! We managed to take the front 2-by-2-meter unit farther down after shoring up some very nasty loose fill from Preclassic days (600 to 300 B.C.). The pit ultimately reached 6.5 meters, and we found several construction episodes that date to the earliest occupation of the site.Drawing the last part of the pit wall profiles was a bit of a challenge. The excavation was so deep and dark that I needed a lantern to be able to see the construction layers. Most of the construction fills are dark brown or gray, which does not help.

An experiment has shed light on how Iron Age people communicated from their hilltop homes 2,500 years ago.About 200 volunteers stood on the summit of 10 hillforts in north Wales, the Wirral and Cheshire, and signalled to each other with torches.Their aim was to learn if communities used the summits to warn each other."It was a success," said archaeologist Erin Robinson. "It captured the public's imagination and we made extra links we did not think were possible.

NIH researchers suggest unexpected disappointment may underlie loss of control and violent behaviorCalls to the police reporting men's assaults on their wives or intimate partners rose 10 percent in areas where the local National Football League team lost a game they were favored to win, according to an analysis of 900 regular-season NFL games reports researchers in a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Ecologists have developed a better way of rearing bee larvae in the laboratory that could help discover why honey bee populations worldwide are declining. The technique, together with details of how statistics adapted from other areas of ecology can aid bee research, is published this week in the British Ecological Society's journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

STARS plunging into the giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy can explain two huge bubbles of gamma rays that NASA's Fermi space telescope discovered last year. The bubbles tower 25,000 light years above and below the Milky Way's disc of stars.More than 100,000 stars swarm within a light year of the black hole. Now, Kwong Sang Cheng of the University of Hong Kong and his colleagues calculate that the black hole's gravity tears one of these stars apart every 30,000 years (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in press). Half the star's mass falls into the black hole, while the other half shoots away at high speed, shocking gas that lies in the halo around the Milky Way's disc until it emits gamma rays.However, Douglas Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, thinks individual stars dribbling into the black hole would probably not produce the sharp edges seen around the Fermi bubbles.

The disclosure Saturday by Japanese authorities that milk and spinach have shown higher-than-normal levels of radiation contamination has raised concerns about food safety and supplies in one of Japan's most heavily populated regions.Tainted milk was found 30 kilometers (18 1/2 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and spinach was collected as far as 100 kilometers (65 miles) to the south, almost halfway to Tokyo. The plant was badly damaged after a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the coast on March 11.

A new gallery is now online and available at GrahamHancock.com, displaying the visionary art of Edward Foster.

"This is a problem of lifestyle in children across the social classes," Southampton orthopaedic surgeon Prof Nicholas Clarke reflects on the rise in cases of rickets.For years rickets was seen as a problem of poverty.Children growing up in Victorian slums suffered from bone deformities, such as bowed legs and curvature of the spine.It was discovered to be caused by a lack of vitamin D - manufactured when the skin is exposed to sunlight.

Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum says that the red dwarfs they have discovered are over 10 billion years old, which means they've had enough time for complex life to develop and evolve, summarizing about research recently conducted at Hawaii's Keck Observatory that discovered that the number of stars in the universe is triple what was previously thought.Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way, accounting for three fourths of its stellar population. And like our Sun, red dwarfs generate energy by converting hydrogen into helium at their centers; however, the stars have less mass---between 8 and 60 percent of the solar value---so they are smaller, fainter, and cooler than the Sun.

One of the largest hauls of Roman coins ever to be found in Britain and a hoard of exquisitely decorated Iron Age gold neck ornaments unearthed in Scotland are to be saved for the nation.Both national treasures were in danger of being sold to private collectors and may have disappeared abroad if museums had not been able to raise money to secure them.

A study with at-risk urban middle school studentsThe Transcendental Meditation® technique may be an effective approach to improve math and English academic achievement in low-performing students, according to a new study published in the journal Education.The study was conducted at a California public middle school with 189 students who were below proficiency level in English and math. Change in academic achievement was evaluated using the California Standards Tests (CST).

Researchers have constructed a 226-year history of fire in southern Illinois by looking at fire scars in tree stumps.Their study, the most in-depth fire history reported for the upper Midwest, reveals that changes in the frequency of fires dating back to the time of early European settlement permanently altered the ecology of the region.

A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren't dimwitted brutes as often portrayed.The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The region around the center of our Milky Way galaxy glows colorfully in this new version of an image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.The data were previously released as part of a long, 120-degree view of the plane our galaxy. Now, data from the very center of that picture are being presented at a different contrast to better highlight this jam-packed region. In visible-light pictures, it is all but impossible to see the heart of our galaxy, but infrared light penetrates the shroud of dust giving us this unprecedented view.

As emergency workers battle to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Japanese government has suspended food shipments from four prefectures following the detection of increased radiation levels in spinach, milk, fava beans and tap water. Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures were ordered to suspend shipments of milk and two kinds of vegetable.An unnamed state minister in charge of consumer affairs and food safety was quoted by Kyodo saying that the radiation levels are "not expected to immediately affect human health". But, as a precaution, the health ministry has encouraged residents of Itate village in Fukushima Prefecture - where tap water radiation showed more than triple the level allowed by the government - to avoid drinking it.

The batteries in Illinois professor Paul Braun's lab look like any others, but they pack a surprise inside.Braun's group developed a three-dimensional nanostructure for battery cathodes that allows for dramatically faster charging and discharging without sacrificing energy storage capacity. The researchers' findings will be published in the March 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

A team of scientists from Princess Margaret Hospital have created an organic nanoparticle* that is completely non-toxic, biodegradable and nimble in the way it uses light and heat to treat cancer and deliver drugs.The findings, published online March 20 in Nature Materials are significant because unlike other nanoparticles, the new nanoparticle has a unique and versatile structure that could potentially change the way tumors are treated, says principal investigator Dr. Gang Zheng, Senior Scientist, Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), Princess Margaret Hospital at University Health Network.

NASA's versatile Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began orbiting Mars five years ago March 10, has radically expanded our knowledge of the Red Planet and is now working overtime.The mission has provided copious information about ancient environments, ice-age-scale climate cycles and present-day changes on Mars.The orbiter observes Mars' surface, subsurface and atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The spacecraft's large solar panels and dish antenna have enabled it to transmit more data to Earth -- 131 terabits and counting, including more than 70,000 images -- than all other interplanetary missions combined. Yet many things had to go well for the mission to achieve these milestones.

As spring continues to unfold at Saturn, April showers on the planet's largest moon, Titan, have brought methane rain to its equatorial deserts, as revealed in images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This is the first time scientists have obtained current evidence of rain soaking Titan's surface at low latitudes.Extensive rain from large cloud systems, spotted by Cassini's cameras in late 2010, has apparently darkened the surface of the moon. The best explanation is these areas remained wet after methane rainstorms. The observations released in the journal Science, combined with earlier results in Geophysical Research Letters last month, show the weather systems of Titan's thick atmosphere and the changes wrought on its surface are affected by the changing seasons.

COPEMISH -- Redwoods and sequoias towering majestically over California's northern coast. Oaks up to 1,000 years old nestled in a secluded corner of Ireland. The legendary cedars of Lebanon.They are among the most iconic trees on Earth, remnants of once-vast populations decimated by logging, development, pollution and disease.Now, a nonprofit organization called Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is rushing to collect their genetic material and replant clones in an audacious plan to restore the world's ancient forests and put them to work cleansing the environment and absorbing the greenhouse gas largely responsible for global warming.

Two pharaonic statues that were stolen on Saturday were found today, a security source said.They were stolen when a group of armed men attacked a temporary storehouse for the German mission operating in the temple of Amenhotep III and the Wadi al-Hitan area.The source added that combined police and army forces in Luxor arrested three members of the 15-strong gang that carried out the theft.

Egypt has announced that 12 of the artifacts, which were stolen during the recent uprising in the country, have been restored to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.Authorities said on March 17, 2011, that the relics were found with three suspects who are currently being questioned, Bikyamasr reported.The items were examined by museum employees who confirmed them to be authentic.Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities released a list on March 15, 2011, announcing 63 items missing from the Egyptian Museum including ritual statues and a fan belonging to King Tut, Yuya's shabtis, amulets and jewelry.

God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.

A lot of changes happens throughout the world when it comes to archaeology. One country that might see major changes in the exploratory archaeology is Sweden.The Swedish Government have during the end of February presented a proposition from the Cultural Department "Increased competition in the misson/exploratory archaeological field some changes to the Cultural Heritage Act (DS 2011:6) which is now out for consultation among 110 departments and institutions in Sweden.

A highly reactive form of rust could be used to contain radioactive neptunium waste from nuclear power plants.Green rust (pictured above) is a type of clay consisting of iron that has not entirely rusted. It has a deficit of electrons, making it react easily with other substances, including common pollutants.Now, Bo Christiansen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and colleagues say it can help contain radioactive neptunium, a byproduct of uranium reactors with a half-life of more than 2 million years. The waste is disposed of in iron-lined copper vessels that are submerged in water.

Step far enough back from the tree of life and it begins to look quite simple. At its heart are just three stout branches, representing the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. But that's too simple, according to a band of biologists who believe we may be on the verge of discovering the fourth domain of life.The bold statement is the result of an analysis of water samples collected from the world's seas. Jonathan Eisen at the University of California, Davis, Genome Center has identified gene sequences hidden within these samples that are so unusual they seem to have come from organisms that are only distantly related to cellular life as we know it. So distantly related, in fact, that they may belong to an organism that sits in an entirely new domain.

The growing concern surrounding the release of radiation from an earthquake and tsunami-stricken nuclear complex in Japan has raised fears of radiation exposure to populations in North America from the potential plume of radioactivity crossing the Pacific Ocean. To help Americans understand their radiation-related health risks, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), the American Thyroid Association (ATA), The Endocrine Society and the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) issued a joint statement.The statement suggests that the principal radiation source of concern, in regard to impact on health, is radioactive iodine including iodine-131.This presents a special risk to health because exposure of the thyroid to high levels may lead to development of thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer years later.

On March 17, after a roundabout, nearly seven-year journey, NASA's MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.MESSENGER, which stands for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, launched in 2004 on an inward-spiraling path through the inner solar system that covered nearly eight billion kilometers and included a number of planetary flybys before reaching Mercury orbit. With MESSENGER reaching its destination, humankind now has orbiters in place around Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn and the moon.

The fastest man-made object ever built, the half-ton NASA New Horizons spacecraft, crosses the orbit of Uranus today on its nearly decade-long odyssey to the dwarf planet Pluto.The probe is now 1.8 billion miles from Earth, but still has nearly 1.2 billion miles to go before encountering Pluto. To underscore the enormity of that distance, it now takes a radio signal 2.5 hours to travel back to Earth from the spacecraft.The nuclear-powered craft is hurtling though the interplanetary void at 35,000 miles per hour. That's fast enough to escape the solar system forever and join the ranks as one of our earliest starships (albeit poking along so slowly it will take 80,000 years to reach the distance of the nearest star).

We've heard the story; a time traveler goes back in time, killing his grandfather. The upshot is that the time traveler ceases to exist. If the time traveler doesn't exist, how could he have traveled back in time to kill his grandfather?This logical paradox is known as the "Grandfather Paradox," and although it makes for a great science fiction storyline -- or a seriously creepy Futurama "Grandma Paradox" adaptation -- it is a perplexing conundrum that has physicists scratching their heads.If it is possible to travel back in time, wouldn't that cause a tangle in time? If, in the future, something is sent to a date in the past, shouldn't we already see it? How does the Universe prevent such paradoxes from occurring? If it doesn't, how can we exist at all?.

A new article is available from the articles section of the site.PrefaceIn this essay, we'll be exploring the following question:Does the precision of the astronomical knowledge required to create the Maya calendar prove that extraterrestrials created it?Don't worry! The astronomy is easy! During the most important part of this essay, the astronomy that we'll be talking about is simply the length of the year so that is something that you are already familiar with. But let me warn you: the precision of the astronomy is completely mind-blowing!

People who are overweight may have different gut bacteria from those in their slender fellow human beings. This is the contention of Willem de Vos, professor of Microbiology at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, in his dies lecture on 9 March.

Monkeys at Longleat Safari Park have been given their own car to play with.The Monkey Jungle drive-through at the Wiltshire attraction was closed to the public in 2008 after a macaque tested positive for a rare virus.But last month the monkey enclosure was reopened, and for the first time in two years, cars were allowed back in."To get them back in training for the new season we decided to give them their very own car," said deputy head warden Ian Turner.

A team of scientists from the University of Oxford, U.K. have taken lessons from Adam Smith and Charles Darwin to devise a new strategy that could one day slow, possibly even prevent, the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. In a new research report published in the March 2011 issue of GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), the scientists show that bacterial gene mutations that lead to drug resistance come at a biological cost not borne by nonresistant strains. They speculate that by altering the bacterial environment in such a way to make these costs too great to bear, drug-resistant strains would eventually be unable to compete with their nonresistant neighbors and die off.

Berkeley researchers find enhanced and controllable magnetization in unique bismuth ferrite films"The nation that controls magnetism will control the universe," famed fictional detective Dick Tracy predicted back in 1935. Probably an overstatement, but there's little doubt the nation that leads the development of advanced magnetoelectronic or "spintronic" devices is going to have a serious leg-up on its Information Age competition. A smaller, faster and cheaper way to store and transfer information is the spintronic grand prize and a key to winning this prize is understanding and controlling a multiferroic property known as "spontaneous magnetization.

A puzzling example of altruism in nature has been debunked with researchers showing that purple-crowned fairy wrens are in reality cunningly planning for their own future when they assist in raising other birds' young by balancing the amount of assistance they give with the benefits they expect to receive in the future.Dr Anne Peters, of the Monash University School of Biological Sciences, together with co-authors Sjouke Kingma from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Michelle L. Hall of the Australian National University, have conducted a long term study of the cooperative breeding behaviour of fairy-wrens in tropical Australia.

Chalk it up to a case of mistaken identity?Over twenty years ago, researchers came upon what they said were the 3.5 billion-year-old remains of bacteria fossils in western Australia's Apex Chert Formation. But new research by a team of geologists from the University of Kansas debunks that claim, arguing instead that what was under review was actually an assortment of minerals - basically a "series of quartz and haematite-filled fractures."If their contention holds up, it would overturn what had supposedly been the oldest example of evidence of life found on Earth.

Astronomers have found a tool to probe deep into the heart of a dying star, known as a red giant.The discovery reported in the journal Science, will help researchers understand the eventual fate the Sun, when it dies in about 5 billion years time.One of the paper's authors, astroseismologist Professor Tim Bedding from the University of Sydney, says his team used NASA's Kepler space telescope to look for oscillations in a distant swollen red giant called KIC 6928997.

Modern humans may have originated from southern Africa, an extensive genetic study has suggested.Data showed that hunter-gatherer populations in the region had the greatest degree of genetic diversity, which is an indicator of longevity.It says that the region was probably the best location for the origin of modern humans, challenging the view that we came from eastern Africa.The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Elephants pay close attention to their elders, especially when they hear the sound of an approaching predator, scientists have found.A research team monitored African elephants' reactions when they heard the sound of lions roaring.Groups of animals with older female leaders, or matriarchs, very quickly organised themselves into a defensive "bunch" when they heard a male lion.

Beaked whales are disturbed by naval sonar, according to scientists.A new study suggests that the whales are particularly sensitive to unusual sounds.Measuring their reactions to both simulated sonar calls and during actual naval exercises, researchers found the whales fell silent and moved away from the loud noises.The use of sonar for naval communication has been linked to beaked whales stranding in the past.

CHINA DAILYChinese and Australian scientists have found remains of a prehistoric mill that produced stone implements 600,000 years ago in today's Henan Province.The site, found in Lushi County, contained more than 100 stone implements that dated back 600,000 to 620,000 years, said Prof. Lu Huayu with Nanjing University.

A contentious plan to erect a wind turbine may put under threat a prehistoric stone circle in Aberdeenshire (Scotland). The proposed development at Newbigging Farm, Chapel of Garioch, near Inverurie, lies just north of the Easter Aquhorthies monument. The stone circle is thought to be one of the earliest built in Aberdeenshire, and is classed as a scheduled monument, which is a protected site of national importance.

Archaeologists working on a housing development in Oxfordshire claim to have found one of the oldest complete pots in the country.The neolithic find was discovered on a housing development in Didcot and is thought to be about 5,500 years old.Archaeologist Rob Masefield said they could determine its age by the nature of the pot.He said: "Pots change shape and form, and in the Neolithic, this is the first farmers, they had round based pottery.

Five periods of mass extinctions of species have occurred on Earth. We characterize these b ig f ive events according to the rate at which species were lost and the proportion of species lost.During these events, at least 75 percent of all animal species perished during relatively brief periods of time.Generally, we estimate extinction events to last 2 million to 3 million years. The most recent extinction - the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs and many other groups disappeared - might have lasted less than one year.

A major tidal energy project is to be built in the Sound of Islay off the west coast of Scotland.The Scottish government has approved plans for 10 tidal turbines, which will generate enough electricity to power more than 5,000 homes.Scottish Power Renewables is behind the scheme.It put forward plans to invest £40m installing the turbines in the waters off Islay, which offer strong tidal flows and shelter from storms.

An official from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in December 2008 that safety rules were out of date and strong earthquakes would pose a "serious problem" for nuclear power stations.The Japanese government pledged to upgrade safety at all of its nuclear plants, but will now face inevitable questions over whether it did enough.While it responded to the warnings by building an emergency response centre at the Fukushima plant, it was only designed to withstand magnitude 7.0 tremors. Friday's devastating earthquake was a magnitude 9.0 shock.

A new population of the Andean cat, a house cat-sized feline thought to live exclusively in the high mountains of South America, has been discovered at lower elevations, extending the range of the endangered and elusive species.Previously, it was believed the Andean cat lived only at and above elevations of 9,800 feet (3,000 meters), among the arid, rocky slopes of the high Andes. However, a lone photograph of two Andean cats in the foothills of central Argentina, captured in 2004, prompted a search for the species in the region.

A desk-sized NASA spacecraft is riding the brakes all the way to Mercury, about to pull a tricky maneuver Thursday night to become the first man-made object to orbit the tiny planet.After a trip of 4.9 billion miles and nearly six-and-a-half years, the Messenger spacecraft will try to careen into an egg-shaped orbit and fight off the gigantic gravitational pull of the sun. To do so, it will have to use more than half of the fuel it was launched with in 2004 to reduce speed dramatically in just fifteen minutes.If all works well, Messenger will circle as close as 120 miles from the surface and survey the entire planet for a year, beginning April 4. It will learn about Mercury's mysterious magnetic field and - most tantalizing of all - discover if the closest-planet-to-the-sun has ice in its permanently dark frigid craters near its poles.

Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years."The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. "I'd say it's worth a look.

Animals often seem to know things that people don't. So far there have been few reports of animals sensing the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan this week, but with the thousands of missing people and looming threat of nuclear disaster, the focus has understandably not been on animals. In time, we might learn more about how the animals of Japan reacted to this recent geological nightmare.We do know that animals in areas affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami most certainly did seem to sense that something disastrous and dangerous had happened. Witnesses report wild animals such as elephants and monkeys moving towards higher ground as well as anxiety and distress in cattle, dogs and other domestic animals. Given the destructiveness of that disaster, surprisingly few dead animals were recovered.

Tiny hairs from a 500 million year old sea species could repair damaged muscle, according to new research.British scientists say plant-like creatures known as tunicates have amazing regeneration properties.Researchers claim microscopic hairs on the creatures are made of a compound which could act as building blocks for working human muscle tissue.The discovery could potentially pave the way for treating patients with serious injuries or permanent disabilities.Scientists at Manchester University have turned to the natural world to uncover new medical materials.

An international study, with Spanish participation, has shown that the phenotypic plasticity of plants, which enables them to change their structure and function, helps them to adapt to environmental change. This research will make it easier to anticipate plants' response to current climate change.The study, which has been published in Trends in Plant Science, provides an overview of plants' molecular and genetic mechanisms, which is important for ecologists, physiologists and molecular biologists, since it covers the prime requirements for anticipating plants' response to global change.