Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and jlms qkw, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from LiveScience.
Monkey Feared Extinct Rediscovered
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 07:07 AM ET
An elusive monkey feared extinct has shown up in the remote forests of Borneo, posing for the first good pictures of the animal ever taken.
The mug shots reveal a furry Count Dracula of sorts, with the monkey's black head, face tipped with white whiskers and a pointy collar made of fluffy white fur.
The Miller's grizzled langur, an extremely rare primate that has suffered from habitat loss over the last 30 years, popped up unexpectedly in the protected Wehea Forest in east Kalimantan, Borneo.
"We knew we had found this primate that some people had speculated was potentially extinct," said study researcher Stephanie Spehar, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. "It was really exciting."
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
This week in science: He who controls the spin controls the universe!
By DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
LiveScience: Ocean's 8, a Golden Eye, Count Dracula Primates and more ...
A brilliant figure-8 glowing on the sea, a golden eye nebula in space and a gory, yet stunning, image of a boa constrictor strangling its prey. These are just some of the dazzling science images from the past week. Take a look.
Wired: The Best Fictional Scientists From TV and Movies
By Wired Staff
January 19, 2012
There is a great argument to be made for Star Trek's Spock, as a real-life scientist eloquently does in an op-ed today for our From the Fields series. But he got us thinking about all the other smart, scary, sexy, silly and sinister scientists we love to watch, so we've compiled a list (in no particular order) of our favorites.
As always, we trust you'll let us know where we went wrong and whose absence offended you most.
Astronomy/Space
BBC: Alien hunters: What if ET ever phones our home?
By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
For decades we've been sending signals - both deliberate and accidental - into space, and listening out for alien civilisations' broadcasts. But what is the plan if one day we were to hear something?
If we ever detect signs of intelligent alien life, the people likely to be on the receiving end of a cosmic signal are the scientists of Seti, aka Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
This loose band of a couple of dozen researchers around the world doggedly listens to the cosmos in the hope of catching alien communications. It's often in the face of scant funding and even ridicule.
They watch signals coming from the world's largest radio telescopes, looking for anything unusual, or even the flashes of laser "lighthouses" designed to catch our attention.
BBC: Stargazing viewer in planet coup
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
The public push initiated on BBC Two's Stargazing Live series to find planets beyond our Solar System has had an immediate result.
A viewer who answered the call has helped spot a world that appears to be circling a star dubbed SPH10066540.
The planet is described as being similar in size to our Neptune and circles its parent every 90 days.
Chris Holmes from Peterborough found it by looking through time-lapsed images of stars on Planethunters.org.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
BBC: Prehistoric bear skulls found underwater in Mexico
The ancient remains of four prehistoric bears have been uncovered by archaeologists diving in underwater caves in Mexico.
Scientists think the extinct species lived in the caves in the ice age before they became filled with water.
Human remains were also found.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
LiveScience: 500-Million-Year-Old 'Tulip' Creature Had Bizarre Gut
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 18 January 2012 Time: 05:49 PM ET
A weird tulip-shaped creature discovered fossilized in 500-million-year-old rocks had a feeding system like no other known animal, researchers reported today (Jan. 18).
The animal was a filter feeder, with a tulip-shaped body and a stem that anchored it to the seafloor. Named Siphusauctum gregarium, the creature was about the length of a dinner knife at 8 inches (20 cm) and had a bulbous structure that contained its feeding system and gut.
Biodiversity
MSNBC: Cougars extinct in East? No way, say those who claim sightings
By Jim Gold, msnbc.com
Cougar sightings persist in the East nearly a year after the big predators were declared extinct in the region, a determination that some don't believe. Others want to make cougars' presence a big reality.
Just this month Gary Sanderson, sports editor at the Greenfield, Mass.-based Recorder newspaper, reported cougar sightings on a farm near the Vermont border, by an Amtrak engineer who claimed his train's video captured images of the creatures near Leverett, and from readers in the region who claim to have pictures of cougars.
Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC: Rare sea creature climbs onto woman's dock
Surprise was a ribbon seal, an Arctic species that spends most of its life at sea
By Andrea Mustain
A Seattle resident recently got a big surprise when she discovered a strange-looking furry visitor on her property.
"She woke up and it was lying on her dock, hanging out and sleeping — just chilling," said Matthew Cleland, district supervisor in western Washington for the USDA's Wildlife Services, and the recipient of a photo of the bizarre intruder.
"I thought, 'That's an interesting-looking creature,'" Cleland told OurAmazingPlanet. "I had no idea what it was."
A quick glance through a book in his office soon revealed it was a ribbon seal, an Arctic species that spends most of its life at sea, swimming the frigid waters off Alaska and Russia.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Biotechnology/Health
LiveScience: Deadliest Skin Cancer Hides in Plain Sight, Study Says
Lauren Cox, MyHealthNewsDaily Contributor
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 01:22 PM ET
More people survive melanoma now than in generations past, but the death rate of one type of melanoma has not budged for the past 30 years, a new study shows.
Nodular melanoma consistently accounts for 14 percent of diagnosed melanomas, but makes up 37 percent of ultimately fatal cases, according to the study published in the January issue of the Archives of Dermatology.
Part of the reason that nodular melanoma contributes to a disproportionate number of melanoma deaths may be that it doesn't always look like the cancerous moles described in public health campaigns.
LiveScience: Teardrops' Proteins Chomp Bacteria Like Corn on the Cob
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 08:09 AM ET
Teardrops hold more than painful tales: Disease-fighting proteins also hide out in them. Long puzzled by the specifics of how the proteins in these weepy droplets destroy dangerous bacteria, scientists have finally figured out their secret: The proteins, known as lysozymes, have jawlike structures that latch onto bacterial cell walls and chomp through rows of them as if devouring an ear of corn.
"The enzyme grabs onto the walls of the bacteria and it doesn't let go; it starts chewing and it doesn't let up," study researcher Gregory Weiss, a molecular biologist and chemistry professor at the University of California, Irvine, told LiveScience. "It's basically scissoring all the way across the wall of bacteria."
Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming first discovered these antiseptic proteins in teardrops about a century ago. While scientists have known the proteins devour their opponents' cell walls, they weren't sure exactly how the process worked — for instance, Weiss said, did the protein "jump on and take a bite and then jump off"?
Climate/Environment
BBC: La Nina 'linked' to flu pandemics
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
La Nina events may make flu pandemics more likely, research suggests.
US-based scientists found that the last four pandemics all occurred after La Nina events, which bring cool waters to the surface of the eastern Pacific.
In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they say that flu-carrying birds may change migratory patterns during La Nina conditions.
However, many other La Nina events have not seen novel flu strains spread around the world, they caution.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Geology
LiveScience: Small, Migrating Quakes Preceded Japan Megaquake
Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 10:40 AM ET
The devastating earthquake that struck Japan in early 2011 was apparently preceded by small, repeating quakes that migrated slowly to where the disaster eventually took place, scientists now find.
The magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki temblor in March was the most powerful earthquake known to ever hit Japan and the fifth-most powerful quake ever recorded.
To find out more about why it happened — in the hopes of predicting any other such disaster — seismologists combed through records of seismic activity from before the rupture occurred. Their analysis identified small earthquakes that are normally obscured by overlapping seismic waves.
Psychology/Behavior
LiveScience via MSNBC: Belief in evolution boils down to a gut feeling
How we feel may trump facts as well as religious beliefs, research suggests
January 20, 2012
Gut feelings may trump good old-fashioned facts, and even religious beliefs, when it comes to accepting the theory of evolution, new research suggests.
"The whole idea behind acceptance of evolution has been the assumption that if people understood it, if they really knew it, they would see the logic and accept it," study co-author David Haury, an associate professor of education at Ohio State University, said in a statement.
But, he noted, research on the matter has been inconsistent. While one study would find a strong relationship between knowledge level and acceptance, another would not. Likewise, studies have contradicted each other on the relationship between religious identity and acceptance of evolution, he said.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
N.Y. Times: A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/health/research/new-autism-definition-would-exclude-many-study-suggests.html?src=recg">New Definition of Autism Will Exclude Many, Study Suggests
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: January 19, 2012
Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests.
The definition is now being reassessed by an expert panel appointed by the American Psychiatric Association, which is completing work on the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the first major revision in 17 years. The D.S.M., as the manual is known, is the standard reference for mental disorders, driving research, treatment and insurance decisions. Most experts expect that the new manual will narrow the criteria for autism; the question is how sharply.
The results of the new analysis are preliminary, but they offer the most drastic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis. For years, many experts have privately contended that the vagueness of the current criteria for autism and related disorders like Asperger syndrome was contributing to the increase in the rate of diagnoses — which has ballooned to one child in 100, according to some estimates.
Commentary in
Experts Consider Changing the Definition of Autism.
LiveScience: Bowerbird Bachelor Pads With Best Illusion Snag Mates
Joseph Castro, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 19 January 2012 Time: 02:01 PM ET
Everyone likes a good optical illusion, and that includes at least one animal. Male bowerbirds woo females by constructing a bachelor pad that creates an illusion of uniform décor (and the illusion that their owners are much more robust lads than they really are).
And a new study suggests the females tend to choose mates from those who produce the best illusion.
Male great bowerbirds —pigeon-size birds native to Australia — spend the majority of their time building and maintaining their courtship sites, called bowers. A bower consists of a tunnel-like avenue made of densely woven sticks that leads to a court of gray stones, shells and bones. Previous research suggested the birds arrange items in such a way that the court appears uniform and small to a female viewing it from within the avenue, which makes the male appear much larger and more impressive than he really is.
Bowerbirds are the only animals so far that have been shown to use illusions for mating.
Archeology/Anthropology
Edge: Rethinking "Out of Africa"
Christopher Stringer [11.12.11]
I'm thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I've come around to thinking that it wasn't a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa.
Life's Little Mysteries via MSNBC: What if there were another advanced species?
Would we break bread with our brainy cohabitants or be locked in battle?
By Natalie Wolchover
What if Neanderthals, who bit the dust just 28,000 years ago, had instead wised up and were now living next door? Or what if, during all these millennia that humans have been evolving, some unrelated creature had evolved cognitive and technological prowess in keeping with our own? Another scenario: what if humans had split into two separate species — the original gangsters, and a successful evolutionary offshoot?
These are all perfectly reasonable histories of the world that would have resulted in two advanced species of Earthlings living side-by-side today. They're just not the histories that happen to have happened.
But what if they had? Would we break bread with our brainy cohabitants or be locked in a constant battle for supremacy?
LiveScience via MSNBC: Oldest-known astrologer's board is pieced together
2,000-year-old ivory fragments engraved with zodiac signs found in Croatian cave
By Owen Jarus
A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologer's board, engraved with zodiac signs and used to determine a person's horoscope.
Dating back more than 2,000 years, the board was discovered in Croatia, in a cave overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The surviving portion of the board consists of 30 ivory fragments engraved with signs of the zodiac. Researchers spent years digging them up and putting them back together. Inscribed in a Greco-Roman style, they include images of Cancer, Gemini and Pisces.
BBC: Roman villa 'rare and important for Peterborough' says archaeologist
A "substantial, high-status" Roman villa discovered in Peterborough has shed new light on the city's occupants 2,000 years ago, archaeologists say.
Although the city - known as Durobrivae - was well-documented as a strategic area for the movement of Roman troops, there was little evidence of occupation - and no evidence of wealthy occupants in the east of the city.
Now Oxford Archaeology East and archaeologists from Peterborough City Council have discovered a 2nd Century villa and farm complex on the site of former allotments at Walton.
L.A. Times via Wenatchee World: Researchers hope science solves an art mystery
Cracking a real-life da Vinci code
By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times
Friday, January 20, 2012
LOS ANGELES — At three o’clock on a cold December morning, a team of researchers huddled together on scaffolding 25 feet high in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, holding a tablet computer up to a huge 16th-century fresco.
But the researchers weren’t interested in the dramatic battle scene, the work of Renaissance artist Georgio Vasari.
Their goal was to solve one of art history’s greatest mysteries — whether Vasari preserved a long-lost work of Leonardo da Vinci, “The Battle of Anghiari,” behind his own.
Sea Coast Online: Archaeologist works to uncover possible 1700s garrison in South Berwick
By Ruth Baker
news@seacoastonline.com
January 20, 2012 2:00 AM
SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Usually there's a negative connotation when a person says they've been stonewalled.
Not so for historian and archaeologist Neill DePaoli of Portsmouth. The wall — or, more accurately, stone foundation — was discovered at the end of last summer where, for the past year or so, DePaoli has been conducting an intermittent dig on the old Ichabod-Goodwin property, owned since 2004 by Paula and Harvey Bennett.
How he came to be sifting through the grounds of the property was a piece of luck.
The Florida Times-Union via The Miami Herald: Metal detectorist finds rare treasures under sands
By SHELDON GARDNER
The Florida Times-Union
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Bob Spratley has a lot of secrets.
He knows where to find 20 shipwrecks around St. Augustine, he can find gold and silver buried beneath the sands of local beaches, and he discovered one of the sites of the nation's most notorious slaughters.
"He found the Matanzas site, the massacre site," said John Powell, living history interpreter at the Fountain of Youth. "Bob is beyond a metal detectorist. Bob is touched by God."
Spratley has been hunting with a metal detector for 41 years. Research, skill and maybe a little luck have led him to shipwrecks, Spanish outposts and historical sites that archaeologists wish they knew about.
His collection contains thousands of relics, and the walls of his home read like a museum: 16th century Spanish and French gold coins and weapons, buttons and buckles, crosses and amulets, cannons and guns.
The GW Hatchet (George Washington University): Anthropology researcher searches for slave-era shipwreck
by Liza Dee
Anthropology professor Stephen Lubkemann thinks his planned trek into the sea will soon help shape the understanding of one of the ugliest aspects of human history: the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Lubkemann has spent two years pinpointing the site of a shipwreck near Cape Town, South Africa that killed more than 200 slaves being transported between East Africa and the Americas during the 1790s. If he reaches the sunken ship, he says the findings will add the first archaeological evidence to the 18th-Century slave trade.
Port Clinton News-Herald: Recovery of Fremont native's WWII plane in holding pattern
FREMONT -- Nearly 70 years after a Fremont native's World War II plane capsized near a remote Canadian village and more than two years after the wreckage was found, authorities are in a holding pattern on its recovery.
Storied pilot Lt. Col. Jack Zimmerman of the U.S. Army Air Corps flew the amphibious plane in November 1942 to Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan in Quebec so he and military officials could assess construction on an airfield.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
University of Notre Dame via EurekAlert: Notre Dame physicists use ion beams to detect art forgery
University of Notre Dame nuclear physicists Philippe Collon and Michael Wiescher are using accelerated ion beams to pinpoint the age and origin of material used in pottery, painting, metalwork and other art. The results of their tests can serve as powerful forensic tools to reveal counterfeit art work, without the destruction of any sample as required in some chemical analysis.
Their research is featured on the front cover of the current issue of Physics Today in an article titled, "Accelerated ion beams for art forensics." Wiescher and Collon say, "Art experts play an important role in identifying the style, history and context of a painting, but a solid scientific basis for the proper identification and classification of a piece of art must rely on information from other sources.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Chemistry
Max Planck Institute (Germany) via physorg.com: The chemistry of exploding stars
January 20, 2011
Fundamental chemical processes in predecessors of our solar system are now a bit better understood: An international team led by Peter Hoppe, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, has now examined dust inclusions of the 4.6 billion years old Murchison, meteorite, which had been already found in 1969, using a very sensitive method. The stardust grains originate from a supernova, and are older than our solar system. The scientists discovered chemical isotopes, which indicate that sulfur compounds such as silicon sulfide originate from the ejecta of exploding stars. Sulfur molecules are central to many processes and important for the emergence of life.
Energy
Brigham Young University via physorg.com: Hydrogen peroxide goes green in undergrad's published paper on renewable energy
January 20, 2012
Most of us know hydrogen peroxide as a way to bleach hair, but MacKenzie Mayo is using it to help turn yard waste into renewable energy.
A chemistry major, MacKenzie applies hydrogen peroxide to algae, sawdust and grass clippings so that they can be more easily converted to biofuels like natural gas. She’s the lead author of an academic journal article on the topic.
What’s more, the hydrogen peroxide changes to water in the process.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Agence France Presse via Google: Ancient Greek sites could soon be available for rent
(AFP) – 4 days ago
ATHENS — Available for rent: The Acropolis.
In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece's culture ministry said Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.
The ministry says the move is a common-sense way of helping "facilitate" access to the country's ancient Greek ruins, and money generated would fund the upkeep and monitoring of sites. The first site to be opened would be the Acropolis.
The Birmingham News: New Alabama law could mean finders-keepers for historic artifacts found underwater
By Thomas Spencer -- The Birmingham News
Published: Monday, January 16, 2012, 7:45 AM
Alabama -- A battle over historic artifacts hidden below the surface of Alabama's rivers, lakes and bays is surfacing in advance of the opening of Legislature's 2012 regular session on Feb. 7.
Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, has introduced a bill to amend the Alabama Cultural Resources Act, a law that requires underwater explorers to get a permit from the Alabama Historical Commission before going after submerged wrecks and relics.
In Ward's version, the law would still require permits for recovery of artifacts related to shipwrecks and would forbid disturbing Native American burial sites. But treasure hunters would otherwise be able to search state waters and keep what they find.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
LiveScience: New US Wildlife Refuge Established in Florida
Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 19 January 2012 Time: 11:05 AM ET
The first parcel of land has been put aside for a new wildlife refuge to protect one of the last remaining grassland and savanna landscapes in eastern North America.
Government officials accepted a donation of land in south-central Florida as part of the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area effort.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar accepted the 10-acre (4-hectare) donation, which will make up the 556th unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. The new addition to the system comes as part of the Obama administration's America’s Great Outdoors initiative.
Science Education
PennLive: Archaeology class will dig into tavern’s history
By Roger Quigley
If you missed your chance to dig through history last year, you’re getting another opportunity.
Archaeologist Steve Warfel, who led a dig at Dills Tavern last summer, is returning this year to teach a hands-on class on archaeology at the tavern at 227 N. Baltimore St.
The Northern York County Historical and Preservation Society, which owns and operates the tavern as a living museum, offers classes and events to showcase the property and its place in the area’s history.
This class will last a little over three weeks and include two five-day periods of field work digging at the tavern.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science Writing and Reporting
LiveScience: Mutant Bird Flu Researchers Offer to Suspend Work
Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 02:04 PM ET
Controversy surrounding research on highly transmissible bird flu has prompted scientists, including those who altered bird flu viruses so they could spread between mammals, to call for a 60-day hiatus on the work to allow for discussion.
"We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks," write about 40 scientists.
"We propose to do so in an international forum in which the scientific community comes together to discuss and debate these issues," they write in a letter released by the journals Science and Nature today, Jan. 20.
Science is Cool
LiveScience: Could the Internet Ever Be Destroyed?
Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 09:09 AM ET
The raging battle over SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy laws, is looking more and more likely to end in favor of Internet freedom — but it won't be the last battle of its kind. Although, ethereal as it is, the Internet seems destined to survive in some form or another, experts warn that there are many threats to its status quo existence, and there is much about it that could be ruined or lost.