Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from MSNBC: The top ancient mysteries of 2011
By Alan Boyle
Do archaeologists ever get tired of delving into ancient mysteries? One of my all-time favorite articles from The Onion is the one about the archaeologist who's fed up with "unearthing unspeakable ancient evils," but in real life, you can't beat a good story about archaeology, paleontology or paleoanthropology.
I'm combining several different scientific disciplines in this end-of-year roundup of ancient mysteries. Archaeology has to do with studying the peoples of the past through an analysis of the things they've left behind, ranging from the bones of Ötzi the Iceman to the pigeon nests built in a cave near Jerusalem. Paleontology is the branch of geology that focuses on the fossil record left behind by bygone organisms, including dinosaur dung. And paleoanthropology focuses on our prehistoric ancestors and their relationships to other species.
It's been a busy year for archaeologists coping with the tumult that swept over Egypt and Libya ... for paleontologists debating where different species fit on the org chart for extinct organisms ... and for anthropologists analyzing how humans swapped DNA with heaven knows what other kinds of hominids. Here's a quick rundown, with assists from the editors of Archaeology magazine and paleo-blogger Brian Switek.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
More stories over the jump.
Slideshows/Videos
More of the Space Advent Calendar from MSNBC.
Dec. 11: Beauty of the Inland Sea
Dec. 12: Drone-spotting stirs up debate
Dec. 13: Light up your St. Lucy's Day
Dec. 14: Satellite spots Chinese aircraft carrier
Dec. 15: Hooray for Hollywood
Dec. 16: Olympics under construction
Holiday calendar: Mystery in the Gobi Desert
The Atlantic: 2011 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar
Continuing with a holiday tradition I started a few years ago, I'm happy to bring you the 2011 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Every day until Sunday, December 25, this page will present one new image of our universe from NASA's Hubble telescope.
Astronomy/Space
Space.com: Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, NASA Says
By Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
A newfound comet defied long odds on Thursday (Dec. 15), surviving a suicidal dive through the sun's hellishly hot atmosphere, according to NASA scientists.
Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. EST today (midnight GMT on Dec. 16), coming within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.
But Lovejoy proved to be made of tough stuff. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Space.com via MSNBC: Hubble snaps view of dazzling celestial 'snow angel'
Photo and video capture furious activity in Milky Way nebula 2,000 light-years away
December 15, 2011
Just in time for the holidays, the Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular view of a star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy that looks like a snow angel in deep space.
This region, called Sharples 2-106 (or S106 for short) is located nearly 2,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan). The nebula is found in a relatively isolated part of the Milky Way, researchers said.
The S106 nebula measures several light-years across, and contains vast clouds of gas that resemble outstretched wings amidst an hourglass shape. The light from the glowing gas is colored blue in this image. A video and photo of the "snow angel" based on Hubble's observations reveal a spectacular view of the cosmic sight.
Space.com via MSNBC: X-ray 'heartbeat' may reveal smallest black hole ever found
December 16, 2011
Scientists may have found the smallest black hole yet by listening to its X-ray "heartbeat."
The black hole, if it truly exists, would weigh less than three times the mass of the sun, putting it near the theoretical minimum mass required for a black hole to be stable.
The researchers can't directly observe the black hole, but they measured a rise and fall in X-ray light coming from a binary star system in our Milky Way galaxy that they think signals the presence of a black hole.
Until now, this X-ray pattern, which is similar to a heartbeat registered on an electrocardiogram, has been seen in only one other black hole system.
Space.com via MSNBC: Alien planets with no spin may be too harsh to support life
Drastic climate changes on tidally-locked orbs could threaten evolution of life there
By Nola Taylor Redd
December 16, 2011
Tidally-locked planets — planets with one side perpetually facing their star while the other remains shrouded in darkness — tend to be warmer on one side than the other. The presence of an atmosphere can help distribute the heat across the planet, equalizing the temperatures. But tidal locking could result in wide climate variations, a result that could threaten the evolution of life on the surface of these planets.
Tidal locking depends on the planet's mass and its distance from its star. For planets orbiting M-type stars, which are slightly smaller than our sun, the region where planets become tidally locked overlaps with the so-called habitable zone, where water can remain as a liquid on a planet’s surface.
...
According to new research published in the December edition of the Astrophysical Journal,strong heating of a planet at a single point can change or even control how much weathering occurs on the planet, which can lead to significant and even unstable climate changes. These dramatic climate effects could make planets that otherwise have the potential for life to instead be uninhabitable.
Space.com via MSNBC: NASA spacecraft gets best look yet at giant asteroid Vesta
Dawn's 'eye-opening' visit shows 'troughs and peaks that telescopes only hinted at'
By Clara Moskowitz
December 16, 2011
A NASA spacecraft is getting its best look yet at the asteroid Vesta as it zooms closer than ever to the giant space rock's surface.
At 330 miles (530 kilometers) wide, Vesta is the second-most-massive object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The huge rock is considered a protoplanet that could have developed into a full-fledged planet like Earth or Mars if the nearby Jupiter hadn't stripped too much material away in the early days of the solar system.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is in the middle of a yearlong campaign to study Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres to learn more about our solar system's history using these leftover pieces of its formation.
Space.com via MSNBC: NASA wants harpoon, and the point? To shoot comets
Designers hope astronauts may soon be able to fire weapon to collect samples
By Joseph Castro
December 16, 2011
Captain Ahab may have wanted to harpoon a giant white whale, but NASA has a whole other target in mind.
Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center are designing a small harpoon that would fire into and collect samples from nearby comets. Because comets are frozen chunks of ice and dust dating back to the formation of our solar system, they may hold clues to the origin of the planets and life as we know it.
"One of the most inspiring reasons to go through the trouble and expense of collecting a comet sample is to get a look at the 'primordial ooze' – biomolecules in comets that may have assisted the origin of life," Donald Wegel, lead engineer for the project, said in a statement.
MSNBC: Next steps in a new space race
By Alan Boyle
If you think America's space effort is in a state of flux now, you ain't seen nothing yet: Just wait until billionaires Richard Branson and Robert Bigelow are vying to offer orbital hotels, or until there are as many brands of spaceships built in the United States as commercial jets.
Or not.
That's the curious thing about Space Race 2.0: It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint, and the field of contestants have had dropouts (like the bankrupt Rocketplane Kistler) as well as drop-ins (like the Boeing Co.).
If any of the racers make it to the finish line, NASA will once again be able to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station on U.S.-built spacecraft, ending the post-shuttle spaceship gap. There may also be opportunities for businesses and foreign governments to purchase their own presence in space, in the form of private-sector space stations. Regular folks may be able to buy vacation packages that include a quick up-and-down on a suborbital spacecraft, or even a stay on one of those space stations.
MSNBC: Billionaire plans world's biggest plane for orbital launches
By Alan Boyle
The band is getting back together: Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.
Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.
Evolution/Paleontology
University of Adelaide (AU) via physorg.com: 500 million-year-old super predator had remarkable vision
December 7, 2011
South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide scientists working on fossils from Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have found eyes belonging to a giant 500 million-year-old marine predator that sat at the top of the earth's first food chain.
This important discovery will be accompanied by an artist's impression of the super predator on the front cover of the 8 December 2011 issue of Nature.
Palaeontologists have discovered exceptionally preserved fossil eyes of the top predator in the Cambrian ocean from over 500 million years ago: the fearsome metre-long Anomalocaris.
The scientists show that the world's first apex predator had highly acute vision, rivalling or exceeding that of most living insects and crustaceans.
The Guardian (UK): When dinosaurs roamed the earth - especially Sunderland
At least one sensible iguanodon may have paid a call on Wearside 130 million years ago
Posted by Martin Wainwright
Wednesday 14 December 2011
They are billing it as a mystery but if I were an iguanodon I would head for Sunderland like a shot.
The city has lovely beaches nearby, fine stretches of river not far up the Wear and lots of greenery reaching right into its heart.
There's also the Stadium of Light, a fab winter gardens complex and three very lively women MPs. Stir in the recently-retired Chris Mullin and you have an excellent place to live, work, raise a family – or just be an iguanodon.
Public Library of Science via physorg.com: Controversy over Triceratops identity continues
December 14, 2011
Despite their extinction millions of years ago, Triceratops continue to incite controversy. In the latest chapter, researchers present further evidence that three genera thought at one time or another to be distinct – Triceratops, Torosaurus, and Nedoceratops – actually represent different individuals that all belong to the Triceratops genus.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Biodiversity
MSNBC: New species found ... and lost?
By Alan Boyle
Scientists are tallying up scores, or even hundreds, of newfound species — but they're also musing on how many species will be lost before they're found.
This year's count from the California Academy of Sciences demonstrates that the pace of discovery is, if anything, increasing: Researchers associated with the academy added 140 species to the big biological list, and a 42-day expedition to the Philippines could eventually add hundreds more.
Among the highlights are four new species of deep-sea sharks, six completely new genera of African goblin spiders, three new genera of barnacles and 31 new sea-slug species. This year's tally of 140 compares favorably with the count of 110 species that were added during 2010.
Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC: Great Barrier Reef corals frozen for future conservation
Marine ecosystems threatened with extinction, so scientists step in to help out
December 16, 2011
The Great Barrier Reef, like most other coral reefs around the world's oceans, is under threat from a number of sources, from the steadily acidifying waters of the sea to the impact of commercial fishing. But a new effort to collect samples from the reef has established the first frozen repository of Great Barrier Reef corals that could one day be used to restore coral populations.
Coral reefs are dynamic ecosystems made up of coral polyps, the hard skeletons they live in, the symbiotic algae that feed them and the myriad fish and other plants and animals that support and are supported by the corals.
Corals are under severe pressure because of to pollution from industrial waste, sewage, chemicals, oil spills, fertilizer, runoff and sedimentation from land; climate change; acidification; and destructive fishing practices. Some marine scientists think that coral reefs and the marine creatures that rely on them may die off within the next 50 to 100 years, causing the first global extinction of a worldwide ecosystem since prehistoric times.
LiveScience via MSNBC: How Borneo orangutans avoid starvation in lean times
They use body fat and muscles as energy until bounty of food is available, study shows
By Joseph Castro
December 15, 2011
Orangutans in Borneo can survive potential starvation by using their body fat and muscles as energy until a bounty of food is available, researchers find, adding that the results may someday shed light on the eating habits of our earliest ancestors.
The findings may also speak to various low-carb, high-protein diets, because essentially weight comes down to caloric intake for these orangutans as it does us, the researchers say.
In Borneo, an island in Southeast Asia, forests go through periods of high fruit yield, where around 80 percent or more of the plants will produce fruit all at once. Following these "masting" periods, the forests endure stretches of sparse fruit availability that can last anywhere from two to eight years. To survive in this unpredictable environment, orangutans put on fat by gorging on fruits when they're available, and then live off of these reserves until the next masting year.
Biotechnology/Health
Discovery News: Football Players' Tendons Can't Handle Lockout
After an extended off-season due to a four-month lockout, professional football players tore their Achilles tendons at unprecedented rates.
By Emily Sohn
Fri Dec 16, 2011
Returning to the football field after a four-month lockout late last summer may have led to an unprecedented number of injuries for NFL players.
The findings raise concerns about what will happen to professional basketball players in the coming weeks as they return from a lockout of their own.
In just the first two weeks of preseason football training this year, according to a new study, the league reported more Achilles tendon ruptures than normally occur an entire season. To date, the number of Achilles ruptures in professional football players is between two and five times higher than normal.
Discovery News: Tiny Human Hairs Beat Back Bugs
The short, fine hair on our bodies turns out to be quite useful when it comes to fooling bugs and parasites.
By Jennifer Viegas
Tue Dec 13, 2011
Human body hair, such as the “peach fuzz” on our arms and faces, turns out to be quite useful.
This hair has the ability to enhance the detection of parasites and can even prevent pests from biting.
A study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, helps to explain why the human body looks relatively hairless compared to that of other furrier apes, but yet still has the same density of hair follicles as would be expected of a chimp or gorilla of the same size.
Climate/Environment
Discovery News: Time to Take Sulfur Out of Jet Fuel
Analysis by Sarah Simpson
Fri Dec 16, 2011
It’s a win-win situation: Take sulfur out of jet fuel and you can improve air quality and cool climate at the same time.
That’s good news, considering that air transportation is the fastest-growing fossil-fuel-based sector of the global economy: heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from jet planes are projected to double over year 2005 values as soon as 2025.
Until now, the push to remove sulfur from jet fuel has been motivated by a need to improve air quality around airports. Sulfur-rich exhaust particles get lodged in the lungs and can cause respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses. Since 2006, when the U.S. introduced an ultralow sulfur standard for emissions from diesel trucks on the nation’s highways, the Federal Aviation Administration has been interested in setting similar sulfur-reduction standards for jets.
So, if doing the right thing is so easy, why isn’t it already being done? One reason has been the fear that improving air quality might actually worsen global warming.
Geology
Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC: Christmas Island seamounts: Is the mystery finally solved?
By Crystal Gammon
December 16, 2011
If you ever find yourself on a leisurely submarine ride through the northeastern Indian Ocean, be on the lookout for some amazing views: more than 50 large seamounts, or underwater mountains, dot the ocean floor, some rising as high as 3 miles (4,500 meters).
The Christmas Island Seamount Province, as the area is known, spans a 417,000-square-mile (1 million square kilometers) swath of seafloor.
Just how the massive underwater structures got there has been up for debate, but some new geochemical detective work may have solved the mystery.
The seamounts are made of recycled rocks from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, said geochemist Kaj Hoernle of the University of Kiel in Germany. Their turbulent geological history explains the massive size and puzzling placement of these features.
Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC: Rock fractures could amplify shaking during earthquakes
New findings from Switzerland are undermining notion that bedrock is stable
By Charles Q. Choi
OurAmazingPlanet
December 15, 2011
Strong earthquakes may fracture bedrock in a way that amplifies shaking during subsequent seismic events, increasing the chances of future rockslides and other quake-linked hazards, researchers find.
Loose soils are known to amplify shaking and damage from earthquakes in a process called liquefaction, where the ground takes on a soupy character. Seismic waves moving through bedrock slow down as they enter soil, but since their overall energy is conserved, the waves become stronger and deadlier.
In addition, soil generally emphasizes lower frequencies of shaking over higher ones, and lower frequencies typically shake manmade structures more than higher ones do. Moreover, seismic waves can get trapped in basins of sediment, prolonging shaking.
Bedrock, on the other hand, is generally not thought to amplify seismic waves, remaining much more stable. However, new findings in the most seismically active part of Switzerland are undermining this notion.
Psychology/Behavior
LiveScience via MSNBC: Can ignorance make a better democracy? In fish it can...
Minority can persuade majority, until the unknowing come along, study finds
By Joseph Castro
updated 12/15/2011 5:03:30 PM ET
Ignorance can be bliss, but it seems it can also promote democracy.
Strongly opinionated members can determine a group's consensus decision, even when they make up only a small minority. New research of animal behavior shows, however, that adding ignorant or uninformed members to the group can counteract the minority’s powerful influence and promote a more democratic outcome.
Researchers used several computer models to investigate the decision-making process in various animal groups when a majority wants to travel in one direction and a minority wants to go in another.
When the strength of the two packs' preferences was equal, the group was much more likely to follow the majority. But when the minority had stronger feelings than the rest of the group about its direction, it was able to control the decision.
When the researchers added a third crowd that was ignorant of the options, the majority was able to spontaneously wrestle the decision back from the minority.
Discovery News: Men Think They're Hot -- And It Works
By overestimating how much women want them, men may increase their chances of scoring.
By Emily Sohn
Thu Dec 15, 2011
It's a classic tale of unrequited love: Boy meets Girl. Boy likes Girl. Girl is not really that into Boy. Totally failing to take the hint, Boy pursues Girl anyway.
The storyline is common, and not just in Hollywood romance films. A new study found that men tend to overestimate how attractive they are to women, while women most often underestimate how much men want them.
While the outcome of these scenarios can go either way, researchers suspect that there may be deeply rooted reasons why signals get crossed when men and women check each other out. The findings may offer insight for women who are sick of unwanted advances and advice for men who are repeatedly confused by women's reactions to their solicitations.
Archeology/Anthropology
University of Tel Aviv (Israel) via physorg.com: The disappearance of the elephant caused the rise of modern man 400,000 years ago
December 12, 2011
Elephants have long been known to be part of the Homo erectus diet. But the significance of this specific food source, in relation to both the survival of Homo erectus and the evolution of modern humans, has never been understood — until now.
When Tel Aviv University researchers Dr. Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies examined the published data describing animal bones associated with Homo erectus at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, they found that elephant bones made up only two to three percent the total. But these low numbers are misleading, they say. While the six-ton animal may have only been represented by a tiny percentage of bones at the site, it actually provided as much as 60 percent of animal-sourced calories.
Traverse City Record-Eagle: Traverse Corridor: A prehistoric crossroads
Some artifacts from the area date back 10,000 years
By LORAINE ANDERSON landerson@record-eagle.com
TRAVERSE CITY — Little was known about prehistoric northwestern lower Michigan in 1966, when anthropologist Charles Cleland and his college archaeology students started 40 summers of digging around.
Cleland, then a Michigan State University professor looking for field-study opportunities for his students, had a hypothesis. He postulated that a prehistoric "Traverse Corridor," stretching from the base of Grand Traverse Bay to the Mackinac Straits, was used by early Native Americans during their warm-season migrations thousands of years ago.
His theory earned a National Science Foundation grant that funded the initial discovery in the late 1960s and 1970s of 30 to 40 prehistoric summer villages and many smaller camp locations in this region.
The Daily Mail (UK): Dog walker stumbles across 4,000-year-old Stone Age camp
- Finds flint 'flakes' which could be from Stone Age tools
- Archaeologists call for full excavation of the site
By Chris Slack
A team of historians believe they have unearthed evidence of a 4,000-year-old Stone Age camp - thanks to a dog walker.
Roger Hall was walking his pet at Cannock Wood in Staffordshire, when he discovered a handful of strange-shaped rocks.
Experts later identified the rocks as flint 'flakes', which are the off-cuts from tools crafted by Stone Age Man 4,000 years ago.
The Ottawa Citizen (Canada): One in a Million: The Amateur Egyptologist
By Bruce Deachman, The Ottawa Citizen
December 12, 2011
OTTAWA — Dominic Raina’s business card is a simple affair bearing his name, phone number and an equilateral triangle resting on one side. Written underneath the triangle is the service Raina offers: “PYRAMID CONSTRUCTION DEMO’S.” Above the triangle, his nickname — “NO-MOSS-NICK” — hints at Raina’s solution to the question of how ancient Egyptians transported huge blocks of stone and raised them in place to construct the great pyramids: A rolling stone, he says, gathers no moss.
In the living room of his Nepean home, he’s set out paving stones, wooden planks, ropes, cribbage boards and croquet posts to demonstrate his theories. Numerous books on Egypt and the pyramids sit on the coffee table, with scores of red ribbons marking pages of interest.
Cambs Times (UK): GALLERY: Extraordinary Bronze Age artefacts discovered at Hanson quarry in Whittlesey
Story by: TOM JACKSON, Editorial Content Manager
Friday, December 9, 2011 5:17 PM
ONE of the best preserved examples of prehistoric river life ever found in Britain has been unearthed at a Fenland quarry - including six logboats some 3,000 years old.
The extraordinary find at Hanson’s quarry in Must Farm, Whittlesey, has doubled the total of Bronze Age logboats found in the UK.
One of the logboats could date from as long ago as 1300BC - making it the oldest ever discovered.
Swords, spears, fish weirs and eel traps have also been found in the ancient water course, which runs along the southern ends of the Flag Fen Basin. It is home to the Oxford Clay that Hanson uses to create its bricks.
The London Evening Standard (UK): London built with the blood of British slaves
Emine Sinmaz
15 Dec 2011
The Romans founded London as a centre of trade and business in about AD 50 - or so archaeologists have long believed.
But new evidence suggests the capital has a more chilling history, built as a military base by slaves who were then slaughtered. Hundreds of skulls discovered along the course of the "lost" river Walbrook suggest London may have been built by forced labour.
Dominic Perring, director of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at University College London, says the skulls could be those of Queen Boudica's rebel Iceni tribesmen who were brought to London to build a new military base.
Colombia Missourian: Lost artifacts from Rocheport archaeological excavation recovered 29 years later
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 | 12:01 a.m. CST; updated 10:30 p.m. CST, Wednesday, December 14, 2011
BY Alex Baumhardt
COLUMBIA — Almost 30 years ago, several thousand years worth of Rocheport history was excavated, put into 10 boxes and forgotten.
On Dec. 7, several Rocheport residents met at the MU Anthropology Museum Support Center to open those boxes for the first time.
Brett Dufur, a former mayor of Rocheport, began his search for the lost artifacts about 10 years ago after meeting Matt Shaw, a Lincoln University anthropology professor.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
MSNBC: Higgs vs. hype: a mini-guide
By Alan Boyle
Physicists have revealed what they've found so far in their quest for the Higgs boson at Europe's Large Hadron Collider on Tuesday, after days of buildup that put the "God particle" on a par with Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Force. But the Higgs boson isn't a religious experience, and it won't help you destroy the Death Star. So what is the Higgs? And what do scientists know about it? Here's a small guide to the Large Hadron Collider's latest:
MSNBC: Camera captures light particles moving through space
By John Roach
A new imaging system that captures visual data at a rate of one-trillion-frames per second is fast enough to create virtual super-slow-motion videos of light particles traveling and scattering through space.
For reference, light particles — photons — travel about a million times faster than a speeding bullet.
While that's fast, researchers at MIT's Media Lab have developed a system for capturing data on the movement of photons through space and time and then stitching that data together in a computer to create virtual slow-motion videos.
Chemistry
Science News: Metallic hydrogen makes its debut, maybe
German scientists claim to have produced a long-sought material
By Devin Powell
December 17th, 2011; Vol.180 #13 (p. 9)
Hydrogen gas squeezed at tremendous pressures has transformed into a metal in the laboratory. So say a pair of scientists in Germany, whose bold claim is being met with skepticism.
Many scientists have tried to make metallic hydrogen since its existence was first predicted in 1935. The exotic substance is thought to form at high pressures, such as those in Jupiter’s core. It may be a superconductor at room temperature, useful for making wires that carry electricity with little loss of current. And NASA hopes to one day put it to work as a rocket fuel that would be more powerful than anything around today.
“Making metallic hydrogen is often considered the Holy Grail for high-pressure physics,” says Mikhail Eremets, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, who with Ivan Troyan reported the results online November 13 in Nature Materials.
Energy
Discovery News: Paper Powers This Battery
Analysis by Jesse Emspak
Thu Dec 15, 2011
Electronics giant Sony has demonstrated a battery that runs on shredded paper and produces water as a waste product.
At the Eco-Products conference in Tokyo, Sony had a group of kids put paper in a solution of water mixed with enzymes that break down the cellulose and generate current. In the demo, it powered a small fan.
Sony’s spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse that the mechanism is similar to the one used by termites to digest wood. In this case, though, the enzymes eat the paper and make electrons and hydrogen ions. The latter mix with air and produce water, while the electrons make a current just like any other battery.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
The Herald: Deal protects tribal artifacts on museum land in Fort Mill
York Co. museum, state history officials agree to protect Catawba interests
By Jamie Self - jself@heraldonline.com
FORT MILL -- The Catawba Indian Nation, state history and archaeology officials and the county's museum foundation have reached a new agreement about how best to protect land on the Catawba River that is home to two known 18th century tribal villages.
The agreement, signed Friday, will ensure that existing and yet undiscovered archaeological sites on the property at Sutton Road and Interstate 77 in Fort Mill Township are protected if the land is developed, according to a release from Dr. Wenonah Haire, the tribe's historic preservation officer.
"It will allow progress but at the same time guard what is vitally important to us from a historic standpoint," Haire said Tuesday.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
MSNBC: NASA revises its spaceship plans
By Alan Boyle
Budget uncertainties have led NASA to change its policy on funding the development of commercial spaceships, shifting to a process that provides more flexibility but also more risk for the space agency.
More than $365 million has already been devoted to NASA's commercial crew development program, or CCDev. Congress has approved another $406 million to be paid to would-be spaceship builders, with the aim of having U.S.-made, crew-capable successors to the space shuttle fleet flying to the International Space Station by 2017.
During the first two phases of the program, the effort has been managed through a set of Space Act Agreements, which award money to the companies in stages as they reach agreed-upon milestones. For the third phase, known as CCDev3, NASA had planned to switch to a different fixed-price contracting system that would give the space agency more control over the management of the companies' development efforts. NASA was scheduled to issue a request for proposals under that system on Monday.
But because of the uncertainties surrounding the federal budget for the next couple of years, NASA has decided to stick with the Space Act arrangement, said Bill Gerstenmaier, the agency's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.
Science Education
AAAS News: Linda G. Roberts: The Incredible Power—and Untapped Potential—of Education Technology
Edward W. Lempinen
13 December 2011
Nearly 25 years ago, a report initiated by the United States Congress explored the future of educational technology, and reading it today, one is struck by how profoundly things have changed in a relatively short time. The big, slow boxes of the past have been replaced by sleek hand-held icons of speed and power, and the once-primitive architecture of the Internet now offers wireless connections to vibrant online classes and course materials, distant laboratories, and libraries around the world.
But that picture of progress may be misleading, says Linda G. Roberts, who directed the 1988 report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Many school districts still haven’t fully committed to classroom technology. Other districts, staggered by the ongoing economic malaise, are scaling back their investments. And while research suggests that the technology drives improved learning, Roberts says, that’s often not reflected in overall test scores.
Science Writing and Reporting
PR News Channel: New book depicts forgery, intrigue, scandal among Victorian archaeologists
“Cornerstone of Deception” by Cheryl Simani reveals the worldly motives and questionable dealings of early archaeologists in the Near East
December 12, 2011
“Cornerstone of Deception” (ISBN 1461052815), an historical account by Cheryl Simani, tells the story of Sir Henry Creswick Rawlinson and his assistant George Smith, dubbed the ‘patron saints of archaeology,’ and other early Europeans caught up in the furor of discovery in the Tigris-Euphrates region in the years 1849-1876.
Simani’s account is a study of the opportunistic motives and maneuverings of Rawlinson and Smith, who are credited with much of the current understanding of ancient Near Eastern chronology that rendered the Biblical timeline defunct. She shows how Rawlinson commandeered the discoveries of other scholars as his entrée to the circles of the rich and powerful and went on to ruin the careers of any who stood between him and his goal. The book seeks to answer the central question of whether Rawlinson and Smith effectively forged their way to success.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
Merco Press (Uruguay): Controversial plan to excavate Falklands’ conflict battlefields
A television archaeologist has revealed plans to excavate the battlefields of the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict. The initiative belongs to Glasgow University academic Dr Tony Pollard who is preparing the major project.
Pollard who is the presenter of the BBC series, “Two Men In A Trench”, believes the Falklands conflict is in danger of being forgotten and insists his expedition would be a fitting way to mark the 30th anniversary of the Islands’ liberation next June.
“The Scotsman” reported that in a move which is certain to prove contentious Pollard plans to invite a team of Argentine archaeologists to take part in the venture, which, if approved, will be televised. Famous battle sites to be targeted include Mount Tumbledown, Mount Harriet and Goose Green.
Input/Output published by Hewlett-Packard: 7 Awesome Bits of Tech That Just Freakin’ Disappeared
by Pinchefsky on 12-12-2011 07:35 AM - last edited on 12-14-2011 04:30 PM
Recently, my husband and I were arguing about TiVos, and it’s not just because we like to argue. He says that our homegrown MythTV system is a customizable, open-source way to record television, and I say that I miss the chirpy little noise a TiVo remote control made when I fast-forwarded through the commercials. Then we paused to remember Tivo’s competitor, ReplayTV. What the heck happened to it?
It got me thinking about awesome technology that we somehow ditched. The airship? Awesome. Slide rules? Awesome awesome. Mir Space Station? Boss-level awesome. And now just thinking about wristwatches with calculators makes me suffer a sense of short-term nostalgia (as in Douglas Coupland’s Generation X).
One of the "awesome bits of tech" that is fading away is Usenet.
The Scientist: The Scientist‘s 2011 Geeky Gift Guide
By Bob Grant | December 16, 2011
Find the perfect present for the devoted life scientist in your life.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.