Science News
Human ancestors at West Asian site deemed two species
Disputed fossil study splits a pivotal early Homo species in two
by Bruce Bower
A controversial fossil and soil analysis concludes that a key West Asian site hosted not one but two Homo species, one living around 1.8 million years ago and another several hundred thousand years later.
A team that excavated partial skeletons at Dmanisi, in the nation of Georgia, categorized the finds as part of one species, Homo erectus, that lived in Africa and West Asia 1.8 million years ago (SN: 11/16/13, p. 6). But disparities in several skeletal features that emerge early in life distinguish a large Dmanisi lower jaw from two smaller ones, signaling the presence of separate species, asserts a team led by paleoanthropologist José María Bermúdez de Castro of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain. The small jaws come from a population that was closely related to early African Homo populations, the scientists conclude February 20 in PLOS ONE. The team suggests the larger jaw belonged to Homo georgicus, a poorly understood species.
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A Fluid New Path in Grand Math Challenge
A daring speculation offers a potential way forward in one of the great unsolved problems of mathematics: the behavior of the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow
By Erica Klarreich and Quanta Magazine
In Dr. Seuss’s book “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back,” the Cat makes a stain he can’t clean up, so he calls upon the help of Little Cat A, a smaller, perfect replica of the Cat who has been hiding under the Cat’s hat. Little Cat A then calls forth Little Cat B, an even smaller replica hidden under Little Cat A’s hat. Each cat in turn lifts his hat to reveal a smaller cat who possesses all the energy and good cheer of the original Cat, just crammed into a tinier package. Finally, Little Cat Z, who is too small to see, unleashes a VOOM like a giant explosion of energy, and the stain disappears.
A similar process lies at the heart of a speculative new approach to a problem that has bedeviled mathematicians for more than 150 years: understanding the solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid flow, which physicists use to model ocean currents, weather patterns and other phenomena. These equations are so complex that in most cases, no one knows whether the solution will be smooth and well-behaved, without any sudden shifts of direction or explosions of energy, for instance. And computer models of the solutions run aground, unable to accurately capture the behavior of small eddies.
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Technology News
Uh-oh, this computer virus can spread via Wi-Fi
Researchers at England's University of Liverpool have created Chameleon, a virus that can proliferate via Wi-Fi as efficiently as the common cold infects humans.
by Michelle Starr
British researchers have created a computer virus that they say is the first to spread like a real airborne contagion.
Chameleon can spread through densely populated areas like the common cold, the University of Liverpool researchers claim, by hopping from network to network via access points, spreading rapidly among homes and businesses. If as that wasn't bad enough, the virus can avoid detection and identify weak wireless access points -- those that are least protected by encryption and passwords.
"Wi-Fi connections are increasingly a target for computer hackers because of well-documented security vulnerabilities, which make it difficult to detect and defend against a virus," said Alan Marshall, a professor of network security at the school. "It was assumed, however, that it wasn't possible to develop a virus that could attack Wi-Fi networks; but we demonstrated that this is possible and that it can spread quickly. We are now able to use the data generated from this study to develop a new technique to identify when an attack is likely."
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California court: Drivers can use smartphone maps, for now
Unlike talking on a cell phone or texting while driving, a court of appeals rules that using a map app is OK under the law.
by Dara Kerr
Texting or chatting on the phone while driving is illegal in California, but the law seems still to be catching up with technology when it comes to other aspects of smartphone use behind the wheel.
A court of appeals has reversed an earlier court decision that ruled map reading on a cell phone was taboo under the law, according to the Associated Press. The 5th District Court of Appeal said the law currently applies only to talking and texting on mobile devices and doesn't yet have legal language for app use.
The case came about in January 2012 after Fresno resident Steven Spriggs got a ticket for checking his iPhone 4 map when he was caught in a traffic jam, according to the AP. While he was searching for a better route on his phone, a California Highway Patrol officer stopped him and fined him $165.
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Environmental News
Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land
Stanford University
Computer simulations by Professor Mark Z. Jacobson have shown that offshore wind farms with thousands of wind turbines could have sapped the power of three real-life hurricanes, significantly decreasing their winds and accompanying storm surge, and possibly preventing billions of dollars in damages.
For the past 24 years, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has been developing a complex computer model to study air pollution, energy, weather and climate. A recent application of the model has been to simulate the development of hurricanes. Another has been to determine how much energy wind turbines can extract from global wind currents.
In light of these recent model studies and in the aftermath of hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, he said, it was natural to wonder: What would happen if a hurricane encountered a large array of offshore wind turbines? Would the energy extraction due to the storm spinning the turbines' blades slow the winds and diminish the hurricane, or would the hurricane destroy the turbines?
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Climate engineering: Minor potential, major risk of side-effects?
Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
With global greenhouse gas emissions continuing to increase proposals to limit the effects of climate change through the large-scale manipulation of Earth system are increasingly being discussed. Researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now studied with computer simulations the long-term global consequences of several "climate engineering" methods. They show that all the proposed methods would either be unable to significantly reduce global warming if CO2 emissions remain high, or they could not be stopped without causing dangerous climate disruption.
The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Despite international agreements on climate protection and political declarations of intent, global greenhouse gas emissions have not decreased. On the contrary, they continue to increase. With a growing world population and significant industrialization in emerging markets such as India and China the emission trend reversal necessary to limit global warming seems to be unlikely. Therefore, large-scale methods to artificially slow down global warming are increasingly being discussed. They include proposals to fertilize the oceans, so that stimulated plankton can remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, or to reduce the Sun's incoming radiation with atmospheric aerosols or mirrors in space, so as to reduce climate warming. All of these approaches can be classified as "climate engineering." "However, the long-term consequences and side effects of these methods have not been adequately studied," says Dr. David Keller from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. Together with colleagues the expert in earth system modelling has compared several Climate Engineering methods using a computer model.
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Medical News
Fluorescent Injections Used to Create Comprehensive Map of Mouse Brain
The detailed map could be used to help scientists understand the basis of neurological or psychiatric disorders in humans
By Stephanie Pappas and LiveScience
Glowing new images of the mouse brain represent the most comprehensive mapping yet of the mammalian cortex.
Using fluorescent injections, researchers tracked the connections between regions of the mouse cortex, the outermost, wrinkled layer of the brain.
The project is important because the mouse brain is structured basically like other mammal brains — including humans', said study leader Hong-Wei Dong, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California. Understanding how healthy brain structures chat back and forth should help researchers figure out how to fix problems when something goes wrong.
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Jazz Improvisers Appear To Use Language Brain Areas
Brain scans of musicians as they improvised in a musical dialog with another player showed that the improvisers used regions involved in syntax during production of language.
By Sophie Bushwick
Jazz musicians are skilled improvisers. And now we know that they craft their spontaneous melodies the same way you craft a sentence.
Researchers scanned the brains of 11 professional musicians doing what’s called “trading fours”: two soloists take turns playing short riffs of about four bars. During each 10 minute session, a subject in a cramped functional MRI machine with a small keyboard traded fours with a second musician outside the scanner.
As the musicians played, the language areas of their brains lit up. Specifically, the players were using the regions that normally fit words together into phrases and sentences, using the rules of syntax. The study is in the journal PLOS ONE.
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Space News
Closest, brightest supernova in decades is also a little weird
University of California - Berkeley
A bright supernova discovered only six weeks ago in a nearby galaxy is provoking new questions about the exploding stars that scientists use as their main yardstick for measuring the universe.
A color composite of SN 2014J, located in the "cigar galaxy" M82, 11.4 million light years away, made from KAIT images obtained through several different filters. The supernova is marked with an arrow. Other round objects are relatively nearby stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Image by W. Zheng and A. Filippenko, UC Berkeley.
Called SN 2014J, the glowing supernova was discovered by a professor and his students in the United Kingdom on Jan. 21, about a week after the stellar explosion first became visible as a pinprick of light in its galaxy, M82, 11.4 million light years away in the Big Dipper. Still visible today through small telescopes, it is the brightest supernova seen from Earth since SN1987A, 27 years ago, and may be the closest Type Ia supernova -- the kind used to measure cosmic distances -- in more than 77 years.
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Tiny Crystal Is Oldest Known Piece of Earth, Scientists Say
Reuters
Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday, the researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth's crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it.
John Valley, a University of Wisconsin geoscience professor who led the research, said the findings suggest that the early Earth was not as harsh a place as many scientists have thought.
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Odd News
Strange State of Matter Found in Chicken's Eye
By Megan Gannon, News Editor
Never before seen in biology, a state of matter called "disordered hyperuniformity" has been discovered in the eye of a chicken.
This arrangement of particles appears disorganized over small distances but has a hidden order that allows material to behave like both a crystal and a liquid.
The discovery came as researchers were studying cones, tiny light-sensitive cells that allow for the perception of color, in the eyes of chickens.
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