Newsdesk Archive
In 2008, NASA beamed the Beatles song "Across the Universe" into deep space, sending a message of peace to any extraterrestrial who happens to be in the region of Polaris, also called the North Star, in 2439."Amazing! Well done, NASA!" Paul McCartney said. "Send my love to the aliens."Who could argue with such a well-meaning, positive initiative?Quite a few, actually.As the citizens of Planet Earth strive ever more enthusiastically to reach E.T., some experts say numerous messages zipping through the cosmos are confusing or little more than space spam.Others ask who has the right to represent our world to the galaxy -- or question the wisdom of bellowing out our presence in what may be a hostile neighbourhood.
"IN MONTH XI, 15th day, Venus in the west disappeared, 3 days in the sky it stayed away. In month XI, 18th day, Venus in the east became visible."What's remarkable about these observations of Venus is that they were made about 3500 years ago, by Babylonian astrologers. We know about them because a clay tablet bearing a record of these ancient observations, called the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, was made 1000 years later and has survived largely intact. Today, it can be viewed at the British Museum in London.We, of course, have knowledge undreamt of by the Babylonians. We don't just peek at Venus from afar, we have sent spacecraft there. Our astronomers now observe planets round alien suns and peer across vast chasms of space and time, back to the beginning of the universe itself.
A PRESSURE sensor that mimics the way a fish's lateral line works could help submersible craft navigate.The technology could improve underwater robots' ability to detect hazards, such as deep sea vents and shipwrecks, when the water is too murky for a camera to work effectively, or the object is too close for sonar, says Douglas Jones at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The lateral line is a sense organ that runs along the sides of most fish and enables them to detect changes in water pressure.
CHAM, Iran - Thousands of Iranians gathered at dusk against a snowy mountain backdrop to light giant bonfires in an ancient mid-winter festival dating back to Iran's pre-Islamic past that is drawing new interest from Muslims.Saturday's celebration was the first in which the dwindling remnants of Iran's once plentiful Zoroastrian religious minority were joined by thousands of Muslims, reflecting a growing interest in the strict Islamic society for the country's ancient traditions.
As if aerial robots and bionic limbs didn't make the Army seem futuristic enough, it looks like another hallmark of sci-fi, X-ray vision, will ship off to Afghanistan later this year. The device in question is the TiaLinx Eagle Scanner, which uses radio waves to see through the ground, walls, and other kinds of cover.Like the earlier discovery that Wi-Fi signals provide X-ray vision, the Eagle Scanners measure how radio waves bounce around, and move through, different objects. By measuring the various densities of the materials its radio waves pass through, these hand-held scanners can look through concrete as if it were glass.The models deploying with the troops to Afghanistan can see up to 20 feet behind an eight-inch-thick concrete wall, and identify whether or not there are any people on the other side. The sensor can also detect whether a seemingly uniform wall or road contains any hidden compartments. Plus, the device can communicate wireless, and send images back to HQ immediately.
No doubt the Air Force purchasing department gets some odd requests from time to time, but we'd love to have seen the grin on the face of the officer tasked with procuring some 1,700 Playstation 3s for a USAF facility in Rome, NY.Before you complain about your tax dollars being spent on toys, the machines aren't for gaming. Instead, the facility -- an Air Force research lab -- will join them into a parallel-computing cluster that, when complete, will number well over 2,000 PS3s.The supercomputer -- snappily monikered "500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster" -- will be put to work playing 2,000 simultaneous games of God of War III.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Virgin unveiled the latest addition to Richard Branson's luxury fleet on Friday: an underwater plane that will fly riders into the depths of the Caribbean Sea.Guests on Necker Island, a retreat in the British Virgin Islands, will be able to dive underwater in a submarine dubbed the Necker Nymph for $25,000 a week. But that's only after shelling out around $300,000 for a one-week stay on Necker, the private island owned by billionaire and Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson.Beginning on Feb. 20, two riders and a pilot will be able to take the plunge from land, or from a boat. The underwater plane uses the downward pressure on its wings to fly through the water for up to two hours at a time, while an open cockpit will give riders a 360-degree view.
(CNN) -- A mysterious X-shaped pattern of space debris seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was probably two asteroids that collided, scientists said Tuesday.The object, called P/2010 A2, was discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research sky survey, or LINEAR, on January 6, NASA said.The shape, and the streamers of dust shooting off of it, were photographed by Hubble on January 25 and 29, according to NASA.Astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being ground down because of collisions, but such a head-on crash had never been seen before.
More than 1,500 years before Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed to the New World, Native Americans had already domesticated turkeys twice: first in south-central Mexico at around 800 B.C. and again in what is now the southwestern U.S. at about 200 B.C., according to a new study.The two instances of domestication appear to have been separate, based on DNA analysis of ancient turkey remains. However, the different Native American groups could have been in contact with each other, sharing turkey-raising tips.While turkeys today conjure up thoughts of bountiful roast meat meals and deli sandwiches, Native Americans were not driven by their dinner needs, according to the study, published in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
WARSAW, Poland -- A team of Polish scientists said Monday they have discovered three Neanderthal teeth in a cave, a find they hope may shed light on how similar to modern humans our ancestors were.Neanderthal artifacts have been unearthed in Poland before. But the teeth are the first bodily Neanderthal remains found in the country, according to Mikolaj Urbanowski, an archaeologist with Szczecin University and the project's lead researcher.Urbanowski said the teeth were unearthed in the Stajnia Cave, north of the Carpathian Mountains, along with flint tools and the bones of the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, both extinct Ice Age species.
An ancient Roman temple, discovered following the first excavations in the chancel of the church of Sant Feliu Girona.The temple, with cross-shaped plan, apse, three naves and two side chapels, and several tombs from the sixth and seventh centuries, have appeared.This intervention is part of the European project "Sopra e sotto. Euopea La Città", the culture program involving the City of Brindisi (Italy) as main organizer, with participation as members of L'Ecole Nationale Superiore d ' Architetture of Toulouse (France), the University and the city of Girona.The work that has lasted three weeks have also brought to light several tombs and a Roman Christian who, according to experts, could belong to some bishops or individuals from that epoch. Professor Josep Maria Nolla, archaeologist and head of the excavations, said human remains have not been found, suggesting that the bodies were moved elsewhere.
WHEN, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises. One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000. A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome. This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.
Just before Christmas of 2007, almost exactly a year ago, I steered into a Starbucks drive-thru line for a cup of tea on my way to teach a morning tai chi lesson. There were a few cars in line, and I got in behind them. When my turn came I gave my order at the billboard menu and moved up as far as I could while waiting patiently for the cars in front of me to get through the cashier line. While the South Florida weather would probably would have felt tropical to much of the rest of the country, I was a bit chilled and was looking forward to my hot drink.
New research suggests that there is enough oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms.
Giant squid weighing up to 60 pounds (27 kilograms) have swum into waters off Newport Beach and are being caught by sport fishermen by the hundreds.The squid were noticed last week and fishermen started booking twilight fishing trips to catch them the huge creatures.Robert Woodbury, from Newport Landing Sportfishing, told the LA Times that the anglers come in two main types: those hungry for the relatively pricey delicacy, and the sports angler eager to tangle with a feistier sea creature.
The government had already approved plans for a human space flight project by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and last year gave the go-ahead for funding of around 2.8 billion dollars.
It sounds too good to be true: a non-toxic spray invisible to the human eye that protects almost any surface against dirt and bacteria, whether it is hospital equipment and medical bandages or ancient stone monuments and expensive fabrics.But true it is. The spray is a form of "liquid glass" and is harmless to living things and the wider environment. It is being touted as one of the most important, environmentally-friendly products to emerge from the field of nanotechnology, which deals in objects at the molecular end of the size scale.
It is thought that sulphur produced by volcanoes erupting led to oxygen disappearing from large areas of the oceans.This caused up to 27 per cent of ocean life being destroyed, according to a report published in the journal Nature Geoscience.It is feared that a similar effect is being witnessed today as rising sea temperatures and fertilisers washing into the oceans cause oxygen levels to fall.
The Brazilian government has given the green light to the construction of a controversial hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rainforest that environmentalists and indigenous activists claim will displace indigenous tribes and further damage the Amazon basin.Brazil's environment ministry granted the Belo Monte dam project an environmental licence late on Monday paving the way for tenders from companies interested in constructing the world's third largest hydroelectric plant, on the Amazon's Xingu river.
XI'AN, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The family tombs of an high-ranking general of the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) was unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, providing evidence to China's military history, archaeologists said Friday.The tomb in Weiqu Town of suburban Xi'an, provincial capital of Shaanxi, belonged to Zhang Anshi (?-62 B.C.), a major general of Han Dynasty and he was conferred the titled of Liehou, top level of entitled officials of the dynasty, after helping Liu Xun (91 B.C.-49 B.C.) to become the emperor, said Zhang Zhongli, vice president of Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.The identification of the tomb owner was confirmed by the archaeologists based on the discovery of the official seals and the seal carved with the family name Zhang from the tomb, which is only six kilometers away from the emperor's tomb, Zhang Zhongli said.
The archaeological discoveries of the excavation expeditions working at 17 archaeological sites in Aleppo city (north Syria) contribute to highlighting Aleppo's role in the human civilization during various eras.Chairman of the Ruins Excavation Section in Aleppo Ruins and Museums Department Youssef Kanjo pointed out that the Syrian-Japanese joint expedition working in Didarieh Cave, northern Aleppo, unearthed lots of stony tools dating back to the Yabroudi civilization.He added that excavation works included the part returned to the Musterian Civilization, as hundreds of flint and bony tools were used by the Neanderthal Man, to whom the Musterian Civilization belongs.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets has yielded its first significant results. The findings confirm that its unique approach has some potential to be developed as a new way of creating a power-producing plant based on nuclear fusion -- the process that generates the sun's prodigious output of energy.Fusion has been a cherished goal of physicists and energy researchers for more than 50 years. That's because it offers the possibility of nearly endless supplies of energy with no carbon emissions and far less radioactive waste than that produced by today's nuclear plants, which are based on fission, the splitting of atoms (the opposite of fusion, which involves fusing two atoms together). But developing a fusion reactor that produces a net output of energy has proved to be more challenging than initially thought.
The shuttle is due to blast off on February 7 from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida on the last night launch before the shuttle program is set to be mothballed at the end of September."The main goal of this mission is to deliver Node 3, also called Tranquility, and the cupola to the International Space Station, or ISS," said Kwatsi Alibaruho, lead shuttle flight director for the mission."Tranquility will contain life-support systems that will enable continued human presence aboard the ISS," Alibaruho told a news conference.
THE molecular equivalent of a Venus flytrap could capture water-borne nuclear waste.So say Mercouri Kanatzidis and Nan Ding from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They have synthesised a sulphide-containing material with a flexible structure that mimics the flytrap's jaws.The structure has "windows" measuring 0.8 nanometres by 0.3 nanometres - just large enough for caesium ions to squeeze through. Once inside, the caesium bonds with sulphide ions, and this changes the material's structure in a way that closes the windows and traps the caesium."The trigger for closing the trap comes from the caesium-sulphide interactions in the material," says Kanatzidis.
If we ever travel to the nearest solar system, it would be good to know the kind of planets to expect. Now we have the best hint yet.The Alpha Centauri dual star system is thought to host rocky Earth-mass worlds, but this assumes they could form in the turbulent conditions associated with the opposing gravitational tugs of paired star systems.Rocky planets are created from the merger of moon-sized planetary embryos which, in turn, form from the accretion of kilometre-sized planetesimals. However, there is no guarantee that such embryos could form in turbulent conditions.
The scientists say the Bc* meson will have been produced fleetingly in collisions in the Tevatron accelerator in Illinois, USA and at CERN in Switzerland, but has not yet been spotted by experimentalists searching through the debris.However, a team led by Professor Christine Davies, head of the University's Particle Physics Theory Group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and an expert in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) theory, used supercomputers to predict the mass of the meson, which might help scientists understand the strong force that dictates the behaviour of particles at the sub-atomic level.The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe and is what holds quarks together - the smallest units of matter found to date. It is this force that QCD theory seeks to understand.
This month saw two stories of mysterious monsters crop up in rapid succession. In Britain, the inhabitants of Buckshaw Village fear a creature that looks like a cross between a boar, a dog and large cat that upends trash bins and devours deer. And in the county of Wise, Texas citizens thought they had caught the elusive Chubacabra. But it turned out to be a bald raccoon. Disappointments aside, monster sightings are a welcome departure from the commonplace and it left us wondering what hellions lurk the hills of the Bay Area. Turns out, a lot.California's geography lends itself easily to sea serpent sightings, and there have been several.
Could the world's religions survive the discovery of extraterrestrial life? Or would their beliefs be so shaken that they would eventually collapse?A survey (pdf) discussed on Tuesday at a meeting on the search for alien life at the Royal Society in London suggests religion would survive.The survey, designed by Ted Peters, a professor of Systematic Theology at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, asked 1300 people whether they thought the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence would shake their individual belief, the strength of their religion as a whole or would adversely affect the beliefs of other religions. The survey included both religious and non-religious people, and most respondents were based in the US.
Elderly survivors of Auschwitz, bundled tightly against the cold and snow, gathered Wednesday at the site of the former death camp to mark the 65th anniversary of its liberation.Survivors, some with grown children -- and others there to honor the millions killed by the Nazis -- moved among the barracks and watchtowers of Auschwitz and Birkenau, neighboring camps that stand as powerful symbols of the Holocaust.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was joining Polish leaders later in the day for commemorative ceremonies at Birkenau, the larger of the two camps, where about 1 million Jews were murdered.
The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. Shoes made of the material may one day harvest the pounding of walking and running to power mobile electrical devices. Placed against the lungs, sheets of the material could use breathing motions to power pacemakers, obviating the current need for surgical replacement of the batteries which power the devices.A paper on the new material, titled "Piezoelectric Ribbons Printed onto Rubber for Flexible Energy Conversion," was published online Jan. 26, in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was funded by the United States Intelligence Community, a cooperative of federal intelligence and national security agencies.
PHOBOS is a name you are going to hear a lot in the coming years. It may be little more than an asteroid - just two-billionths of the mass of our planet, with no atmosphere and hardly any gravity - yet the largest of Mars's two moons is poised to become our next outpost in space, our second home.Although our own moon is enticingly close, its gravity means that relatively large rockets are needed to get astronauts to and from the surface. The same goes for Mars, making it expensive to launch missions there too - perhaps even prohibitively expensive if President Obama's review of NASA's human space exploration policy is to be believed. Last October, a committee of independent experts chaired by industrialist Norman Augustine concluded that NASA faced a shortfall of around $3 billion a year if it still intends to send astronauts back to the moon - let alone Mars - by 2020. But that doesn't mean that humans have nowhere to go.
A LUCKY few seem to be able to laugh in the face of death, surviving massive blood loss and injuries that would kill others. Now a drug has been found that might turn virtually any injured person into a "super-survivor", by preventing certain biological mechanisms from shutting down.The drug has so far only been tested in animals. If it has a similar effect in humans, it could vastly improve survival from horrific injuries, particularly in soldiers, by allowing them to live long enough to make it to a hospital.
LET'S hear it for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A big round of applause, please. Really. It has done amazing, Herculean work.The IPCC was tasked by the governments of the world to deliver an encyclopedic consensus on the state of knowledge about one of the most far-reaching yet divisive questions of our time. And this grouping of thousands of scientists, taking time out from their regular jobs has, for more than two decades, delivered. Thanks to the IPCC's work, the world's nations have come together to decide that we must prevent our planet warming by more than 2 °C - even if achieving that goal is proving difficult, to say the least.The serious error, reported here two weeks ago, that led to the inclusion in an IPCC report of mistaken claims about how fast Himalayan glaciers are melting is undoubtedly damaging to the panel's reputation.
For his children, the mystery surrounding Joe Yee's past started with his name.Growing up in Sacramento, Steve Yee, now 56, remembers piling into his father's big Pontiac Streamliner to visit the Ong family association. The group's members welcomed his father in a Cantonese dialect and addressed him as one of their own.But Joe Yee never explained to his six American-born children why, if he were part of the group, his last name was not Ong. Odder still, their father claimed to be an only son, with no surviving relatives in China or America."For us, the question was always 'so who are you anyway?' " Steve said. "There was the sense that you have no past."It wasn't until years after their father's death in 1979 that his children learned the answer to that childhood mystery. What they learned shed light on a chapter of Chinese life in California that is little known today but was key to shaping the immigrant communities of the last century.
VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.The book "Why He's a Saint" also includes previously unpublished speeches and documents written by John Paul, including one 1989 signed memo in which he said he would resign if he became incapacitated.The book also reported for the first time that John Paul forgave his would-be assassin in the ambulance on the way to the hospital moments after he was shot on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter's Square. And it reported that he initially thought his attacker was a member of the Italian terrorist organization the Red Brigades.
JERUSALEM - A majority of Israel's Holocaust survivors suffer from depression, sleeping disorders or other emotional distress, according to a survey released Tuesday by a leading advocacy group.The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel issued its report on the eve of International Holocaust Memorial Day, which this year marks the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in the waning days of World War II.
Professor Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona University will tell a meeting at the Royal Society that the best way of proving that extra-terrestrial life exists elsewhere in the universe is to use evidence from earth.The meeting at the Royal Society, which will include representatives from Nasa, the European Space Agency and the UN Office for Outer space Affairs marks the 5th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme. Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society will also lead one of the sessions.
A team of scientists from China and the UK has now revealed that the bristles of this 125-million-year-old dinosaur were in fact ginger-coloured feathers.The researchers say that the diminutive carnivore had a "Mohican" of feathers running along its head and back. It also had a striped tail.The team revealed details of the dinosaur's coloured feathers in an article published on Nature's website.The team began by studying the fossilised remains of a bird, Confuciusornis, which also lived during the early cretaceous period.
The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, according to a new report.The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2.It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming - but much less than recent research has suggested.The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises.Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.
"Rising and falling sea levels over relatively short periods do not indicate long-term trends. An assessment of hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems an irregular phenomenon today is in fact nothing new," explains Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research.*The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. "Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend.
NASA's Opportunity rover has discovered a peculiar rock on Mars that scientists think originated deep within the red planet.The stone could reveal new secrets about the makeup of Mars' interior.Dubbed "Marquette Island," the rock is a dark boulder not much bigger than a basketball that sits on a rippled Martian plain."Marquette Island is different in composition and character from any known rock on Mars or meteorite from Mars," said Opportunity principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "It is one of the coolest things Opportunity has found in a very long time."
A group of investigators from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the Universidad de Valencia working deep in the jungles of Guatemala have found a decorated Mayan figurehead dating back to between 300 and 600 AD.The figurehead, which has remained buried for centuries under the dense vegetation which covers the archaeological ruins at Chilonché in the northern part of Guatemala, appears to pre-date the other remains at the site by some considerable amount of time.Gaspar Muñoz Cosme, from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, said that the discovery "gives us some very important scientific data which affords us a greater understanding of the architecture of this era and the ancient Mayan people".
Work to uncover the tomb in Yancang, a village near Jingmen, began on Jan 17 and experts believe the site dates back to the Warring States Period (475 BC to 221 BC)."We cannot tell how many we've got and we have no idea what's written on them, but the discovery of bamboo strips itself is exciting," ShenHaining, director of the provincial cultural heritage bureau, told China Daily.Archaeologists will have to wait until excavation of the tomb is completed next week to attempt to read the strips, he said. "Sorting out those bamboo strips is like sorting out well-cooked noodles, you have to be really careful so as not to damage them."There is a possibility the strips contain an introduction written by the owner of the tomb, "like a letter of recommendation the deceased would carry with them to the underworld to give Yanluo, the god of death", Shen said.
A rocky cave in the shape of a natural grotto was unearthed in Daraa city (south Syria), a new one to be added to a series of caves already discovered in Lajat and al-Zaidi Vallies in this Syrian southern governorate.Chairman of Nimer Council Ziad Moussa said the cave unearthed so far is 5-meters deep and 6-meter high, extending 10-15 meters sideways.Director of Daraa Archaeology Department Hussein Mashhadawi said the cave resembles natural grottos commonly known in Daraa.''The cave is a black basalt rock which is semi-circular in shape, with limestone stalactiles, which are presumably the effect of volcanoes the southern region witnessed in the past decades.
The trail to the great cave of Inanke in southern Zimbabwe begins confidently with arrows painted on bare patches of granite and soon vanishes into four miles of often pathless wandering through fields of shoulder-high grass, dense scrub forests and formidable thorn bushes. Without the direction of our guide, the archaeologist Paul Hubbard, our group would never have found this cave containing some of the most magnificent prehistoric paintings in the world. But reach the approximately 30-foot-long frieze of intricately varied paintings and you will find it free of the man-made barriers, tourist hype and even substitution by reproductions that prevent modern visitors from directly experiencing most of the ancient sites in Europe.
Can a man's technology make him more attractive to women? A new study says it can. But before you run out and upgrade your smart phone, take note.The technology in this story includes stone axes and other basic tools of agriculture. And the smitten women are the hunter-gatherers of prehistoric Europe. Those technologies were not simply cutting edge about 10,000 years ago; they were revolutionary."You can regard it as the most important cultural change in the history of modern humans," says Prof. Mark Jobling at the University of Leicester in England. "It allowed people to generate their own food, and populations to grow and society to become specialized."It was the foundation of modern civilization and so there's a big scientific push to understand just how agriculture spread from where it originated, which was in present-day Turkey and Iraq.
The underground spring lies behind a concealed door beneath an abandoned 13th century church on the shores of Lake Bracciano, 35 miles north of Rome.Exploration of the site has shown that water percolating through volcanic bedrock was collected in underground grottoes and chambers and fed into a subterranean aqueduct, the Aqua Traiana, which took it all the way to the imperial capital.Centuries later, it provided water for the very first Vatican, after Rome began to convert to Christianity under the Emperor Constantine.The underground complex, which is entangled with the roots of huge fig trees, was discovered by father and son documentary makers Edward and Michael O'Neill, who stumbled on it while researching the history of Rome's ancient aqueducts.
WHEN THE Assembly's Public Safety Committee voted 12 days ago to approve the legalization and regulation of marijuana in California, knee-jerk reactions were sure to follow.This was only a first step toward legislation, but San Mateo police Chief Susan Manheimer quickly described the looming possibility as "mind-boggling."John Lovell, speaking for the California Peace Officers Association, said it was "the last thing our society needs."It wasn't hard to envision lawmen up and down the state nodding in agreement.The viewpoint is understandable. It is part of the internal wiring of police agencies. The War on Drugs declared by President Nixon in 1971 has spanned four decades and seven administrations.The thing is, it has failed. A far better idea is to legalize and regulate marijuana sales.There are at least 1,500 current and former law enforcement professionals who agree. They are members of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), who base their opinions on years of experience.
SYDNEY: Large, flightless birds such as ostriches and emus, originated in the northern hemisphere, according to an Australian study that suggests they became grounded after dinosaurs went extinct.Reconstructed migration patterns have raised questions about whether flightless birds could have their evolutionary origins in the planet's north.Until now, most scientists thought these birds originated in the southern behemoth Gondwanaland, according to the study published in Systematic Biology.Matthew Phillips of the Australian National University and his team have also dismissed previous theories that asserted all large, flightless birds - or 'ratites' - share a flightless common ancestor.
Even the finest super-soldier suit can end up as expensive deadweight if the batteries run out of juice. Lockheed Martin wants to avoid that fate for its robotic exoskeleton by turning to fuel cells that can power the suit for days, The Register reports.Lockheed's Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) is a mechanized frame that allows soldiers to march or even run easily with loads of 200 pounds, as well as squat or kneel without trouble. But the current li-ion batteries supporting the suit typically run down after just a few hours of walking, not to mention running.That could all change with fuel cells that could sustain 72-hour missions on a single charge, and provide power sockets to spare for military accessories that require their own batteries. Lockheed announced its choice of the Protonex Technology Corporation to develop such fuel cells on Wednesday.
Ask a GM employee, any barstool economist, or your dad, and they'll all likely tell you the same thing: American manufacturing ain't what she used to be. But who will think us out of this economic box we've trapped ourselves in? DARPA, of course. DARPA's director told the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that by replicating the successful model that the semiconductor industry is built upon, other manufacturing sectors can experience similar booms as well.DARPA -- better known for seeking flying cars and weather control devices -- is currently integrating more than 20 programs that have implications in the manufacturing sector, synthesizing ideas that collectively have $200 million federal dollars backing them up. The key tenet of DARPA's plan: decouple the manufacturing and design processes.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Planet Earth has warmed much less than expected during the industrial era based on current best estimates of Earth's "climate sensitivity" -- the amount of global temperature increase expected in response to a given rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2). In a study to be published in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society, Stephen Schwartz, of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and colleagues examine the reasons for this discrepancy.
Remains of one of the earliest members of the English royal family may have been unearthed in a German cathedral, a Bristol University research team says.They believe a near-complete female skeleton, aged 30 to 40, found wrapped in silk in a lead coffin in Magdeburg Cathedral is that of Queen Eadgyth.The granddaughter of Alfred the Great, she married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 929. She died 17 years later, at 36.The team aims to prove her identity by tracing isotopes in her bones.
A team of chemists from the University of Valencia (UV) has confirmed that the substance used to hermetically seal an amphora found among remains at Lixus, in Morocco, was pine resin. The scientists also studied the metallic fragments inside the 2,000-year-old vessel, which could be fragments of material used for iron-working.
The so-called "relics of Joan of Arc," overseen by the Archbishop of Tours in Chinon, France, do not contain the charred remains of the Catholic saint.Rather, the artifacts consist of a mummified cat leg bone and human rib, both dating to the 6th-3rd century B.C., according to a new study.SLIDE SHOW: Think you could spot a forgery? Take a look at these ancient artifacts to see if you can tell the difference between a fake and the genuine article.The "relics," which have fooled onlookers for decades, did resemble burnt bones, in keeping with historical accounts of the death of Joan of Arc (ca. 1412-1431), who was convicted of heresy and executed by burning.
Reporting in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers write of creating working neurons from embryonic stem cells. When transplanted into an infant mouse brain, the cells hooked into the correct brain areas, as normal neurons would. Study author James Weimann discusses the findings.
Charles Darwin's inner demons - and his inner angels - come to light in a film that traces the roots of his 150-year-old masterwork, "The Origin of Species." The movie version of the story, titled "Creation," dwells on the personal conflicts and travails that helped shape Darwin's thinking on the theory of evolution."Creation" goes into limited U.S. release today, months after the filmmakers spoke out about their own conflicts and travails. Last September, when the movie made its debut in dozens of other countries, director Jeremy Thomas complained that the film had no U.S. distributor.
When human measures for intelligence are applied to other species, dolphins come in just behind humans in brainpower, according to new research. Dolphins demonstrate skills and awareness previously thought to be present only in humans.New MRI scans show that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size when compared to another animal of similar size, according to Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, and one of the world's leading dolphin experts. Humans also possess an impressive brain-to-body ratio.
Europe's biggest space company is seeking partners to fly a demonstration solar power mission in orbit.EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun's energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity.Space solar power has been talked about for more than 30 years. However, there have always been question marks over its cost, efficiency and safety.But Astrium believes the technology is close to proving its maturity."Today we are not at an operational stage; it's just a test," said chief executive officer Francois Auque. "In order to implement a solution, of course, we would need to find partnerships and to invest, to develop operational systems," he told BBC News.
Most men in Britain are descended from the first farmers to migrate across Europe from the Near East 10,000 years ago, scientists say.Ancient farmers left their genetic mark on modern males by breeding more successfully than indigenous hunter-gatherer men as they made their way west, a study has found.As a result, more than 60% of British men, and nearly all of those in Ireland, can trace their Y chromosome back to the agricultural revolution, or more precisely the sexual success of the men behind it.The farmers' Y chromosome becomes more common in the west of England and reaches a national peak of 78% in Cornwall, scientists found.
A team of researchers from Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Study (CSIC) are examining a marshy area of Andalusian parkland to find evidence of a 3,000-year-old settlement.They believe that Tartessos, a wealthy civilization in southern Iberia that predates the Phoenicians, may have had its capital in the heart of what is now the Donana national park.
A new model for primate origins is presented in Zoologica Scripta, published by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The paper argues that the distributions of the major primate groups are correlated with Mesozoic tectonic features and that their respective ranges are congruent with each evolving locally from a widespread ancestor on the supercontinent of Pangea about 185 million years ago.Michael Heads, a Research Associate of the Buffalo Museum of Science, arrived at these conclusions by incorporating, for the first time, spatial patterns of primate diversity and distribution as historical evidence for primate evolution. Models had previously been limited to interpretations of the fossil record and molecular clocks.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 2,000-year-old temple in Alexandria dedicated to a cat goddess.The temple is the first trace of the royal quarters of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be revealed in Alexandria.The find confirms the Greek dynasty of Egyptians continued the worship of ancient animal deities.Many more ruins of the ancient capital of Hellenistic Egypt lie preserved under the modern city, yet to be unearthed, archaeologists say.The temple, discovered in the Kom el-Dekkah neighbourhood of the city, is believed to belong to Queen Berenike II, wife of Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the third century BC, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has said.
What's cooler than a hover-capable, electric-powered, super-quiet personal VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft? If you answered "absolutely nothing," do read on, because NASA is preparing to oblige you. The space agency's Puffin aircraft design will be officially unveiled tomorrow, showing just how far personal, electrically propelled flight could change the ways we live and get around.
The Puffin is something of a personal V-22 Osprey, complete with vertical-takeoff and landing capability (but minus the squad of Marines). But rather than tilting the rotors forward for horizontal flight, the whole craft -- cockpit and all -- pitches forward, meaning the pilot flies from a prone position. During takeoff and landing the tail splits into four legs that serve as landing gear, and flaps on the wings deploy to keep the aircraft stable as it lifts and descends.
But despite their having gone the way of the dodo and the woolly mammoth, there are plans to bring the giant animals back to life.The huge cattle with sweeping horns which once roamed the forests of Europe have not been seen for nearly 400 years.Now Italian scientists are hoping to use genetic expertise and selective breeding of modern-day wild cattle to recreate the fearsome beasts which weighed around 2,200lb and stood 6.5 feet at the shoulder.Breeds of large cattle which most closely resemble Bos primigenius, such as Highland cattle and the white Maremma breed from Italy, are being bred with each other in a technique known as "back-breeding".
Based at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, it is used to research thermonuclear reactions - for example, what happens at the heart of a hydrogen bomb detonation. Now it has a more productive application: finding a way to fuse heavy water atoms to create fusion power. Fusion is the Holy Grail of the power industry: cheap, clean, safe and unlimited. The downside is, with current technology, the reaction is difficult to control.When the machine fires, 36 cables - each as thick as a horse's torso - spark simultaneously. The cables fire a pulse of 50 trillion watts into a target the size of a cotton reel. Inside the target is a can filled with wires finer than a human hair. The wires vaporise, creating temperatures as high as 3.5 billion degrees C, the highest ever created by man and an X-ray pulse in excess of 290 terawatts.
FIRE sweeping through the inner solar system may have scorched away much of the carbon from Earth and the other inner planets.Though our planet supports carbon-based life, it has a mysterious carbon deficit. The element is thousands of times more abundant in comets in the outer solar system than on Earth, relative to the amount of silicon each body contains. The sun is similarly rich in carbon. "There really wasn't that much carbon that made it onto Earth compared to what was available," says Edwin Bergin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Nearly 20 years ago Huntington Potter kicked up a storm of controversy with the idea that Down syndrome and Alzheimer's were the same disease. Now the evidence is in: He was right.
Decades after he died penniless, Nikola Tesla is elbowing aside his old adversary Thomas Edison in the pantheon of geek gods.When California engineers wanted to brand their new $100,000 electric sports car, one name stood out: Tesla. When circuit designers at microchip producer Nvidia Corp. in 2007 launched a new line of advanced processors, they called them Tesla. And when videogame writers at Capcom Entertainment in Silicon Valley needed a character who could understand alien spaceships for their new Dark Void saga, they found him in Nikola Tesl.
CALAKMUL, MEXICO -- The dawn had crept slowly through the jungle, seeking out the places the night had been and shining its light onto the ruins of this ancient Mayan metropolis.
Scientists are reporting that "biochar" -- a material that the Amazonian Indians used to enhance soil fertility centuries ago -- has potential in the modern world to help slow global climate change. Mass production of biochar could capture and sock away carbon that otherwise would wind up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.Their report appears in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a bi-weekly journal.
Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.
New insights about a tiny snail that lives on the ocean floor could help scientists design better armor for soldiers and vehicles, according to MIT researchers.A team of materials scientists, led by MIT Associate Professor Christine Ortiz, report that the shell of the so-called "scaly-foot" snail is unlike any other naturally occurring or manmade armor. The study suggests that its unique three-layer structure dissipates energy that would cause weaker shells to fracture.
In classical physics there are no uncertainties - the properties of matter on an atomic level are deterministic, that is to say predetermined. The theories of quantum mechanics, however, only say something about how likely the properties are and the two interpretations of the laws of physics were a source of great controversy between Einstein and Niels Bohr. New research strengthens Bohr's quantum theories. The results have just been published in the academic journal, Physical Review Letters.
AS THE disappointment of the Copenhagen climate summit sinks in, you could be forgiven for despairing of science ever being put at the centre of international policy-making. But scientists are not giving up the fight.This week, an important meeting is taking place at the Royal Society in London. The outcome will determine how the world's finest scientific minds engage collectively with governments worldwide to make sure they have the benefit of the best possible scientific advice.
Records of more than a century of weather data from the southern hemisphere's oldest, coldest weather station have revealed an extraordinary burst of warming since 1950 -- but it's not all caused by global warming.The base at the Islas Orcadas, a remote band of land that looks as if it's been whipped off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, was founded by Scots in 1903, and has been manned by Argentines ever since, all of whom collected daily weather data.
Medical researchers in California have developed a procedure for implanting artificial muscles that allow people with facial injuries to blink.If that sounds insignificant, keep in mind that blinking is vital to eyesight. Without the cleansing and lubricating effects of a blinking eyelid, the eye can develop ulcers - leading to blindness.
Becoming the pilot of a spaceship may seem the stuff of science fiction, but it could be a regular job in just 20 years time, a report has concluded.That is one of the findings of a government study into jobs of the future, which also suggests people will be employed to make human body parts.It names 20 jobs that could be common by 2030, including "vertical farmers" growing food in multi-storey buildings.It also says surgeons may be employed to give people extra memory capacity.
A new study using motion sensitive video cameras has revealed how New Caledonian crows use tools in the wild.Previous work has shown the sophisticated ways in which crows can use tools in the laboratory, but now a team of scientists from Oxford University and the University of Birmingham have investigated tool use in its full ecological context. The researchers recorded almost 1,800 hours of video footage for the study and published their findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
I used to believe that democracy was a process whereby the representatives we elect were there to represent the people. Stephen Conroy, the minister for Broadband and Communications, has taken this concept and trashed it in new and exciting ways.While we, the citizens of Australia, have made it blatantly clear that we neither want nor require the nanny-state of Australia to impinge on our rights further by restricting our access to the internet in the name of "child protection", Conroy continues to soldier on with his censorship plans regardless of what the majority thinks.
This winter, many Brits have been shivering through their coldest cold snap in 30 years.Beijing's residents witnessed their city's biggest one-day snowfall in nearly 60 years.And on a flight from Dallas to Washington, D.C., an All Things Considered producer encountered a headwind strong enough to delay his plane. That's uncommon, because the wind usually blows the other direction.
NASA's original concept for a balloon scout on Saturn's moon Titan called for using waste heat from a radioisotope power system. But such systems come with the major downside of not providing enough heat for sudden course changes -- a problem that one company plans to solve by using hot air balloon technology, The Register reports.
Every now and then you have to salute a genius. Both the Daily Mail and the Metro report research analysing the positions of Britain's ancient sites, and the results are startling: primitive man had his own form of satnav.Researcher Tom Brooks analysed 1,500 prehistoric monuments, and found them all to be on a grid of isosceles triangles, each pointing to the next site, allowing our ancestors to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy. The papers even carried an example of his map work, which I have reproduced here.
Up to 200,000 people are feared dead as a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has destroyed much of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, officials in the Caribbean country say.Lorries have been trying to collect the bodies that have been visible on the streets across Port-au-Prince for burial in mass graves outside the city."We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, Haiti's interior minister, told the Reuters news agency.
The use of live animals in scientific research has long been a testy subject (right out the gate with a pun, hm?), but ongoing experiments on lab mice don't seem to grab too many headlines anymore. No, it takes a particularly controversial or cruel-seeming experiment to get animal rights activists into the papers these days.Take for instance, the most recent study that's stirring the ire of animal lovers everywhere: European researchers have planned an experiment in which 29 live pigs are to be buried under snow, and where they will essentially be observed dying. The experiment was set to begin last week, but has been postponed due to a firestorm of protest.
Archaeologists in Indonesia have uncovered a 1,000-year-old temple that could shed light on the country's Hindu past.The intricately carved statues and reliefs are some of the best preserved in Indonesia, but the dig is being conducted under tight security to protect the site from well-organised relic thieves.The temple was found on the grounds of Yogyakarta's Islamic University as workers probed the ground to lay foundations for a new library, and they realised the earth beneath their feet was not stable.
Late medieval walls and the foundations of what appears to be a military spur, which formed part of the outer defences at Edinburgh Castle, have been found.The defences, which date from at least the 16th Century, were discovered by archaeologists during foundation works for new Military Tattoo stands.Service trenches were opened which revealed two structures about 2m beneath the esplanade.Archaeologists will record the remains before they are reburied.The first trench, which was discovered earlier this week by experts from CFA Archaeology, revealed the remains of a wall about 2ft wide, which is thought to be part of the north perimeter boundary wall between the city and the castle.
Conservation experts have uncovered historic hidden text inscribed on the wall of Salisbury Cathedral.The text in gothic lettering, thought to be more than 350 years old, was found behind the Henry Hyde monument.Conservator Tom Beattie said: "We are used to uncovering information about the fabric of the building as we go about our daily work."But this has to be one of the best finds. We are all left wondering what the writing was for and what it says.".
Rian Malan, the South African journalist and author, once made a spiky defence of Johannesburg in a British newspaper."Foreigners think we are nuts, coming back to a doomed city on a damned continent, but there is something you do not understand: it is boring where you are," he wrote a decade ago. "You will probably live longer than us and acquire more possessions, but there is no ferment in your societies, no excitement, no edge. Your newspapers are bland and your politics are inconsequential, so many storms in teacups.".
Researchers are using the latest imaging technology on an Egyptian mummy to try to unlock secrets of the ancient world, including whether a mysterious packet inside her was an offering to the gods to help secure a place in the afterlife.
Abbasid gold coins in Fayoum, two rock- hewn tombs in Saqqara and a four- cornered, mud-brick tower on the wall of Islamic Cairo are the latest antiquities discovered in Egypt.Wherever a mission digs in Egypt it is obvious that they will come up with a treasure. An archaeological mission from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of Warsaw University excavating in a monastic building at Deir Al-Malah Monastery at Naqlun in Fayoum recently unearthed a decorated clay cup of Aswan production full of coins. The hoard consists of 18 gold coins and 62 fragments of coins, all of them provisionally dated to the Abbasid period.
Rising sea levels and more storms could mean that parts of at-risk cities will need to be surrendered to protect homes and businesses, a report warns.The authors say that "radical thinking" is needed to develop sea defences that can cope with the future threats.About 10 million people in England and Wales live in flood risk areas.The project, launched on Friday, is a joint venture between the Institution of Civil Engineers (Ice) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba).
Europe wants a decision in 2010 on an extension to the life of the International Space Station (ISS).At the moment, no programme for its use nor any funding has been put in place to support the platform beyond 2015.But the European Space Agency's (Esa) Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, told the BBC the uncertainty was undermining best use of the ISS.He said he was persuaded of its worth, and expressed the desire to keep flying the station until at least 2020.
Biologists have cast doubt on the long-held theory that fish gills evolved primarily for the purpose of breathing.The researchers studied the development of gills in rainbow trout larvae.Their experiment suggests that it is likely that fish evolved gills for the primary purpose of regulating the chemicals in their bodies.The team reports in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B that this developmental study gives an insight into the evolution of fish gills.
Researchers have demonstrated a simple, cheap way to create self-assembling electronic devices using a property crucial to salad dressings.It uses the fact that oil- and water-based liquids do not mix, forming devices from components that align along the boundary between the two.The idea joins a raft of approaches toward self-assembly, but lends itself particularly well to small components.The work is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nasa's Mars Odyssey orbiter is set to listen for possible radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars lander, to check if it has survived the Martian winter.The agency said that communication from the lander was "extremely unlikely".Phoenix's last communication was on 2 November 2008, after it completed its study of an arctic Martian site.Since then, this landing site has gone through autumn, winter and part of spring, and Phoenix was not designed to survive such temperature extremes.
Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus atop Greece's Mount Lykaion have revealed that ritual activities occurred there for roughly 1,500 years, from the height of classic Greek civilization around 3,400 years ago until just before Roman conquest in 146."We may have the first documented mountaintop shrine from the ancient Greek world," says project director David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Oceans of liquid diamond, filled with solid diamond icebergs, could be floating on Neptune and Uranus, according to a recent article in the journal Nature Physics.The research, based on first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, found diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, with solid forms floating atop liquid forms. The surprising revelation gives scientists a new understanding about diamonds and some of the most distant planets in our solar system.
On Monday, Jan. 18, 2010, the United States will commemorate the achievements of civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr.While today we look at King with great respect and admiration, any student of history will know that this wasn't always the case.King's efforts to end racial discrimination were seen as a threat by segregationists, white supremacists and even the government of the United States.
The man who financed the search for King Tut's tomb had his own buried treasures. And now, long-hidden artifacts from Lord Carnarvon's collection are on public display in his castle.