Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, and ScottyUrb, guest editor 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 Discovery News on YouTube.
Why We Have Daylight Saving Time
Daylight savings is back! But why do we do it exactly? We've all heard different explanations, so Anthony hit the books in search of a definitive reason why we change our clocks.
Spring ahead, everyone!
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
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Green Diary Rescue: A weekly series of what's happening on the eco-front
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This week in science: Fire and ice in the sky
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
Wired: Storm Aftermath Photos That Will Make You Look for Higher Ground
By Jakob Schiller
03.07.13
Mario Tama spent more than his fair share of 2012 in a helicopter, surveying and photographing the destruction of some of that year’s many powerful storms. But it was on the ground where he felt the real impact, as he photographed the people affected by these extreme meteorological events. Like Melanie Martinez, a resident of Braithwaite, Louisiana, as she looked through her flooded house after Hurricane Isaac.
“There was no specific plan to focus on climate change in 2012, as much of what we do as photojournalists is reactive,” says Tama, a photojournalist for Getty Images. “But I suppose the evolution of the project was a natural progression given the multitude of weather-related events of 2012 in this country.”
His edit of these photos, titled 2012 Climate Change: A New Normal in America?, just won a Judge’s Special Recognition award in the Environmental Awareness Award category at Picture of the Year International contest. Climate change is a broad, diffuse subject, and it’s hard to illustrate it with photographs, but Tama’s photos capture the sheer size of the destruction while also humanizing the impacts.
University of Michigan on YouTube: U.S. changing attitudes toward global warming
University of Michigan Professor Barry Rabe discusses survey results regarding global warming.
See the related article under Climate/Environment.
Discovery News on YouTube: How Scary Sinkholes Are Formed
Sinkholes are eating up buildings! You've seen 'em on the news, maybe even in your own neighborhoods... but what exactly causes them in the first place? Trace takes a look.
Discovery News on YouTube: Weirdest Sharks in the Sea!
The ocean is a strange and scary place. And few ocean animals are scarier than sharks! Laci introduces us to the strangest and scariest sharks from the past and present.
NASA Television on YouTube: Next Space Men Ready for Launch on This Week @NASA
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and his Expedition 35/36 crewmates have completed final training for their upcoming mission to the International Space Station. Conducted at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside Moscow, this qualification training all but clears the way for Cassidy, and Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, to launch to the orbiting laboratory later this month aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Also, Dragon at Station; Practice Makes Perfect; Cassini Spies Venus; MarsFest; Glenn's Ice Lab; Biofuel Research; Seas' Salinity; and more!
NASA Television on YouTube: ScienceCasts: Stormy Space Weather.
Forecasters say solar maximum is due in 2013. To prepare, the UN is organizing an international response to stormy space weather.
WCPO: Asteroid to pass by earth this weekend t.
The asteroid was only discovered Sunday due to its size.
Also see the story under Astronomy/Space.
Astronomy/Space
LiveScience: Did a Comet Really Chill and Kill Clovis Culture?
Nola Taylor Redd, LiveScience Contributor
A comet crashing into the Earth some 13,000 years ago was thought to have spelled doom to a group of early North American people, and possibly the extinction of ice age beasts in the region.
But the space rock was wrongly accused, according to a group of 16 scientists in fields ranging from archaeology to crystallography to physics, who have offered counterevidence to the existence of such a collision.
"Despite more than four years of trying by many qualified researchers, no unambiguous evidence has been found [of such an event]," Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, told LiveScience.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story..
Wired: Europa’s Oceans Might Taste Like Earth’s Oceans
By Adam Mann
03.05.13
The subsurface water on Jupiter’s moon Europa probably has a similar salty taste to Earth’s oceans.
This is according to scientists who mapped the frozen moon in greater detail than ever before and discovered a new salt compound on its surface. Their research suggests that if you could somehow get to the distant, tiny world, survive the deadly radiation at its surface, drill through its 100-km-thick icy shell, and drink the water without dying, the taste would be somewhat familiar.
Europa is an odd dynamic world covered in strange cracks and mysterious salty chemicals. The moon is thought to have a gigantic ocean with two or three times the amount of water on Earth sitting below its frozen exterior. Because of this, it is considered to be one of the most likely places to find life in our solar system outside of Earth and this new finding definitely kicks the moon’s badassness up a few notches.
Wired: Curiosity Rover Put to Sleep to Wait Out Solar Storm
By Adam Mann
03.07.13
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been ordered to batten down the hatches to avoid getting damaged while a solar storm rages around Mars.
Solar storms occur when the surface of the sun erupts, spewing out a jet of radiation and charged particles at millions of kilometers per hour. People on Earth are protected by our planet’s magnetic field so the effects are generally limited to extra-bright auroras. But a space storm can cause problems with satellites, communications, and, in the case of really big events, can wreak havoc on electronics and power lines.
“Space weather can be nasty!” wrote geologist Ken Herkenhoff, who works with the rover’s science team, in an update from the USGS’s Astrogeology Science Center explaining the decision to put the rover to sleep.
Space.com: Watch Big Asteroid Buzz Earth This Weekend: 2 Live Webcasts.
An asteroid the size of a city block is due to make a close pass by Earth on Saturday (March 9), and you can get a front-row view via two back-to-back webcasts.
The asteroid 2013 ET was discovered March 3 by the Catalina Sky Survey based at the University of Arizona. During the flyby, the space rock will fly within 2.5 times the moon's distance from Earth. On average, the moon is about 238,000 miles (about 383,000 kilometers) from Earth.
Asteroid 2013 ET is about 210 feet by 460 feet (64 meters by 140 m) in size, with some astronomers comparing its width to a football field. Its close approach to Earth comes just days after another space rock, the 33-foot (10 meters) asteroid 2013 EC, buzzed the Earth on Monday (March 4) at a range just inside the moon's orbit.
Space.com: Russian Satellite Hit by Debris from Chinese Anti-Satellite Test
by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist
Date: 08 March 2013 Time: 05:25 PM ET
A small Russian spacecraft in orbit appears to have been struck by Chinese space junk from a 2007 anti-satellite test, likely damaging the Russian craft, possibly severely, SPACE.com has learned.
The space collision appears to have occurred on Jan. 22, when a chunk of China's Fengyun 1C satellite, which was intentionally destroyed by that country in a 2007 anti-satellite demonstration, struck the Russian spacecraft, according to an analysis by the Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
CSSI technical program manager T.S. Kelso reported that the collision involved the Chinese space junk and Russia's small Ball Lens In The Space (BLITS) retroreflector satellite, a 17-pound (7.5 kilograms). The Fengyun 1C satellite debris was created during China's anti-satellite test on Jan. 11, 2007, and has posed a threat to satellites and crewed spacecraft ever since.
Scientific American: Naked-Eye Comet Pan-STARRS Climbing into Northern Skies
By John Matson
March 7, 2013
This year is shaping up to be a great one for amateur sky-watchers. Toward the end of 2013, astronomers expect the recently discovered Comet ISON (officially designated C/2012 S1) to shine mightily as it approaches the sun—possibly glowing as bright as the full moon. (Comets are unpredictable beasts, though, and often fail to meet the most optimistic predictions for their visibility.)
Before the main event, though, Comet Pan-STARRS should provide a nice warm-up act. Pan-STARRS (aka C/2011 L4) is already visible in the southern hemisphere, and will ease into northern skies in the coming days.
Climate/Environment
Scientific American: Global Average Temperatures Are Close to 11,000-Year Peak
By the end of this century, Earth is set to get hotter than at any time since the last ice age
By Sid Perkins and Nature magazine
March 8, 2013
Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years, a study suggests. And if climate models are any indication, by the end of this century they will be the highest ever since the end of the most recent ice age.
Instrumental records of climate extend back to only the late nineteenth century. Beyond that, scientists depend on analyses of natural chronicles such as tree rings and isotope ratios in cave formations.
But even these archives have their limits: many detailed reconstructions of climate, particularly of temperature, apply to only limited regions or extend back at most a couple of millennia, says Shaun Marcott, a climate scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
Examiner.com: U-M study: Two-thirds of Americans accept global warming is real
By Vince Lamb, Detroit Science News Examiner
Two-thirds (67%) of all Americans now accept the evidence that global warming is real, according to a study by the University of Michigan released March 4th. This is the most positive response since Fall 2008, when 72 percent of all Americans surveyed thought that climate change was real, and fifteen percent higher than Spring 2010, when only 52 percent gave a positive response.
Much of the rise came from increasing acceptance among Republicans, 51 percent of whom agreed with the statement that there is "solid evidence that the average temperature of the Earth has been getting warming over the past four decades." This is the highest level of agreement with that statement among Republicans since Fall 2008, when 53 percent said yes to the survey question, and eighteen percent higher than Spring 2010, when only 33 percent agreed while 55 percent said no. In contrast, 79 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents agreed with the same statement.
In a press release, University of Michigan Professor Barry Rabe, director of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Ford School of Government said, "The only individual characteristic that reveals stark differences among Americans regarding the existence of global warming continues to be partisan standing."
This study came on the heels of one released last December showing that a majority of Americans surveyed favored government action to reduce greenhouse gases. Both reports used information gathered as part of the Fall 2012 climate change survey, one of the National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE).
ScienceNOW via Wired: Recent Global Warming Slowed by Volcanoes
By Sid Perkins, ScienceNOW
03.05.13
Global average temperatures have been rising in recent years, but not as much as they might have, thanks to a series of small-to-moderate-sized volcanic eruptions that have spewed sunlight-blocking particles high into the atmosphere. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which also finds that microscopic particles derived from industrial smokestacks have done little to cool the globe.
Between 2000 and 2010, the average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide — a planet-warming greenhouse gas — rose more than 5%, from about 370 parts per million to nearly 390 parts per million. If that uptick were the only factor driving climate change during the period, global average temperature would have risen about 0.2°C, says Ryan Neely III, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. But a surge in the concentration of light-scattering particles in the stratosphere countered as much as 25% of that potential temperature increase, he notes.
Scientific American: Clearing Forests May Transform Local—and Global—Climate
Researchers are finding that massive deforestation may have a profound, and possibly catastrophic, impact on local weather
By Judith D. Schwartz
March 4, 2013
In the last 15 years 200,000 hectares of the Mau Forest in western Kenya have been converted to agricultural land. Previously called a “water tower” because it supplied water to the Rift Valley and Lake Victoria, the forest region has dried up; in 2009 the rainy season—from August to November—saw no rain, and since then precipitation has been modest. Whereas hydropower used to provide the bulk of Kenya’s power ongoing droughts have led investors to pull out of hydro projects; power rationing and epic blackouts are common. In a desperate move to halt environmental disaster by reducing population pressure, the Kenyan government evicted tens of thousands of people from the land.
Severe drought, temperature extremes, formerly productive land gone barren: this is climate change. Yet, says botanist Jan Pokorny of Charles University in Prague, these snippets from Kenya are not about greenhouse gases, but rather the way that land-use changes—specifically deforestation—affect climate; newly tree-free ground “represents huge amounts of solar energy changed into sensible heat, i.e. hot air.” Pokorny, who uses satellite technology to measure changes in land-surface and temperatures, has done research in western Kenya for 25 years, and watched the area grow hotter and drier. The change from forest cover to bare ground leads to more heat and drought, he says. More than half the country used to be forested; it's now less than 2 percent.
Each year Earth loses 12 million to 15 million hectares of forest, according to the World Wildlife Fund, the equivalent of 36 football fields disappearing per minute. Although forests are ebbing throughout the world, in Africa forest-climate dynamics are easily grasped: according to the United Nations Environmental Programme, the continent is losing forests at twice the global rate. Says Pokorny, the conversion of forest to agricultural land, a change that took centuries in Europe, “happened during one generation in western Kenya.” Pokorny's work, coupled with a controversial new theory called the “biotic pump,” suggests that transforming landscapes from forest to field has at least as big an impact on regional climate as greenhouse gas–induced global warming.
Biodiversity
Scientific American: Melting Arctic Ice Will Make Way for More Ships--and More Species Invasions
A new study shows immense increases in shipping are likely over the North Pole and Arctic Ocean in the coming years, alerting scientists who study invasive species
By Lisa Palmer
March 6, 2013
The rare ships that have ventured through the harsh, icebound Arctic Ocean require reinforced hulls and ice-breaking bows that allow them to plow through dense ice as much as two meters deep, and face hazardous conditions in remote locations for long periods of time. Arctic sea ice now is melting so rapidly each summer due to global warming, however, that ships without ice-breaking hulls will be able to cross previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean by 2050. And light-weight ships equipped to cut through one meter of ice will be able to travel over the North Pole regularly in late summer, according to a new study published March 4 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Plus.
That’s good news for economic development because it offers many new and faster routes from east to west, shaving 40 percent off transportation time and fuel costs compared with shipments via the Suez Canal. But the geographic extent of trade routes across the Arctic is worrisome for scientists who study invasive species.
Ships traveling regularly in the Northwest Passage, beyond the Northern Sea Route and through the central Arctic Ocean, will likely bring new invaders to the Arctic as well as to northern ports. Mosquitoes and forest beetles are expected to survive hidden in cargo, for example. Hearty marine organisms, such as mussels and barnacles, will likely tag along as larvae in ballast tanks or in niche areas on vessel hulls. When new species flourish in a new environment they can become harmful, damaging local ecosystems and threatening native plants and animals, much as the Japanese vine known as kudzu has overrun the southern U.S. Economic costs associated with new pests have been significant—for example, the influx of zebra mussels into the Great Lakes has been estimated at $1 billion annually.
Biotechnology/Health
ScienceNOW via Wired: Early Treatment May Have Cured Baby’s HIV Infection
By Jon Cohen, ScienceNOW
03.04.13
ATLANTA — A baby in rural Mississippi appears to have been cured of an HIV infection, likely because doctors started treatment 30 hours after birth. This is “the first well-documented case” of its kind, said pediatrician Deborah Persaud at a press conference held at the start of the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections here. Persaud, who works at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, has not treated the child herself, but did intensive studies of blood samples that led her and colleagues to conclude that unusually early treatment may have set the stage for the two-and-a-half -year-old from rural Mississippi – whose gender and caretakers aren’t being identified for privacy reasons – to clear a robust infection.
As Persaud explained, the child was born in July 2010 at a rural hospital after 35 weeks of gestation, and doctors only learned of the mother’s HIV infection from a rapid test given to her when she was in labor. Because of the premature birth, doctors decided to move the baby to the University of Mississippi Medical School (UMMS) in Jackson. UMMS performed separate tests on the 2-day-old infant and found both HIV RNA and DNA. Doctors decided to begin a cocktail of AZT and two other anti-HIV drugs 31 hours after birth. Typically, noted Persaud, up to six weeks can pass before labs perform the two tests required to determine that a newborn has an HIV infection, but this baby’s hospitalization led to more aggressive testing and treatment.
Laboratory tests at 6, 12, and 20 days confirmed that the baby had HIV in the plasma. But by 29 days, the virus had become undetectable on standard tests, as commonly happens with effective cocktails of antiretroviral drugs. For unknown reasons, the baby’s caretaker decided to stop treatment at 18 months. In the fall of 2012, when the baby was 21 months old and returned to care, UMMS pediatrician Hannah Gay couldn’t find HIV antibodies or the virus on standard tests. Gay then contacted Katherine Luzuriga at the University of Massachusetts Medical School at Worcester for help, who in turn asked Persaud’s group at Hopkins to scour the blood samples for evidence of HIV persistence.
ScienceNOW via Wired: Human Nature Sinks HIV Prevention Trial
By Jon Cohen, ScienceNOW
03.08.13
ATLANTA — A large-scale study of a biomedical intervention that potentially offers novel options for women to protect themselves from HIV infection has, to the surprise of many researchers, failed. But the results say more about the participants’ behavior than the effectiveness of the products being tested.
At the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections held here from 3 to 6 March, infectious disease specialist Jeanne Marrazzo of the University of Washington, Seattle, reported the disappointing results of the study known as VOICE, which stands for Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic. As Marrazzo explained, VOICE began in September 2009 and ended in August 2012, enrolling 5029 women from South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The study assessed three different strategies to what’s known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which aims to protect uninfected people by giving them anti-HIV drugs each day either orally or vaginally. In one approach, women took a pill that contained the anti-HIV drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine. A second arm of VOICE tested tenofovir pills alone, whereas women in the third arm were given a vaginal gel that contained tenofovir. Other trial participants received inert gel or dummy pills.
In all, 312 women became infected with HIV during the study, and there was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between women who received the placebos or PrEP. Tenofovir gel and oral PrEP have worked in other studies with women. But Marrazzo stressed that the VOICE participants simply didn’t use the products as instructed. “By several measures the adherence was disappointingly low,” Marrazzo said.
Psychology/Behavior
Wired: The Hidden Costs of Cognitive Enhancement
By Greg Miller
03.05.13
Gentle electrical zaps to the brain can accelerate learning and boost performance on a wide range of mental tasks, scientists have reported in recent years. But a new study suggests there may be a hidden price: Gains in one aspect of cognition may come with deficits in another.
Researchers who study transcranial electrical stimulation, which uses electrodes placed on the scalp, see it as a potentially promising way to enhance cognition in neurological patients, struggling students, and perhaps even ordinary people. Scientists have used it to speed up rehab in people whose speech or movement has been affected by a stroke, and DARPA has studied it as a way to accelerate learning in intelligence analysts or soldiers on the lookout for bad guys and bombs.
Until now, the papers coming out of this field have reported one good-news finding after another.
“This is the first paper to my knowledge to show a cost associated with the gains in cognitive function,” said neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico, who was not associated with the study. “It’s a really nice demonstration.”
Nature via Scientific American: Monkeys Stay Away from Mean People
Capuchin monkeys show biases against humans who deny help to others. This finding suggests that being able to identify undesirable social partners has ancient evolutionary roots
By Helen Shen and Nature magazine
March 5, 2013
When does a monkey turn down a free treat? When it is offered by a selfish person, apparently.
Given the choice between accepting goodies from helpful, neutral or unhelpful people, capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) tend to avoid individuals who refuse aid to others, according to a study published today in Nature Communications.
“Humans can build up an impression about somebody just based on what we see,” says author James Anderson, a comparative psychologist at the University of Stirling, UK. The capuchin results suggest that this skill “probably extends to other species”, he says.
Archeology/Anthropology
LiveScience: Stone-Age Skeletons Unearthed In Sahara Desert
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 07 March 2013 Time: 07:19 AM ET
Archaeologists have uncovered 20 Stone-Age skeletons in and around a rock shelter in Libya's Sahara desert, according to a new study.
The skeletons date between 8,000 and 4,200 years ago, meaning the burial place was used for millennia.
"It must have been a place of memory," said study co-author Mary Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. "People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their people, over and over, generation after generation."
The Canal (Spain): The governors of Ancient Egypt suffered from malnutrition and infectious diseases, dying before they were 30 years old
Researchers from the universities of Granada and Jaen take part in the excavation of the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis, in the Egyptian region of Aswan
After analyzing more than 200 mummies and skeletons found in tomb no. 33, they have come to the conclusion that not even the chief governors lived in such good conditions as was thought up to now
The ancient Egyptians did not live in such good conditions and were not surrounded by such opulence as was thought up to now, but, rather, suffered from hunger and malnutrition, a whole range of infectious diseases and an extremely high infant mortality rate. Furthermore, the governors of Aswan, on the border with Sudan, as well as their families, interbred with the black peoples of the neighbouring country.
These are some of the conclusions drawn from the Qubbet el-Hawa research project, carried out by the University of Jaen, in which anthropologists from the University of Granada have participated, as well as the Supreme Council of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
The Times and Star (UK): Scrap of wool unravels Christian church find
Last updated at 12:47, Friday, 08 March 2013
A tiny scrap of wool found during an archaeological dig in Maryport has unlocked a piece of history.
Archaeologists revealed this week that the dig at Camp Farm last summer has unearthed what appears to be a Christian church, dating back to the 5th or 6th century.
Experts believe the possible church, built in an east-west direction, was positioned so it could be seen at Whithorn, the cradle of Christianity in Scotland, on the other side of the Solway Firth.
Cambodia Daily: The Ancient Ironworks of Angkor
By Michelle Vachon and Kuch Naren
March 5, 2013
The discovery of pre-Angkorian ironworks sites in Preah Vihear province in 2010 is a tale of perseverance with a measure of luck, as is so often the case with important archeological finds.
For years, archeologist Thuy Chanthourn had been exploring the countryside along the path of an Angkorian-era road that linked Preah Vihear temple and the Stung Treng City area, hoping to find the site of a large settlement named Mlu Prei mentioned decades ago in an obscure French research document.
In 1943, Paul Levy of the French research institution Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient had published a report on that settlement that some historians believed was the area’s major center 1,500 years ago.
But all Mr. Chanthourn had been able to find of this center were a few houses and a shaky wooden footbridge over a stream in Preah Vihear province.
LiveScience: Grotesque Mummy Head Reveals Advanced Medieval Science
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
In the second century, an ethnically Greek Roman named Galen became doctor to the gladiators. His glimpses into the human body via these warriors' wounds, combined with much more systematic dissections of animals, became the basis of Islamic and European medicine for centuries.
Galen's texts wouldn't be challenged for anatomical supremacy until the Renaissance, when human dissections — often in public — surged in popularity. But doctors in medieval Europe weren't as idle as it may seem, as a new analysis of the oldest-known preserved human dissection in Europe reveals.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
The Independent (UK): Giant camel fossil unearthed in the Arctic
MICHAEL McCARTHY
Tuesday 05 March 2013
Think animals of the frozen north and you think polar bear, musk ox, and walrus – but now you can also think camel.
Canadian researchers have discovered the first evidence of an extinct giant camel in the High Arctic. A 3.5 million-year-old fossil was unearthed on Ellesmere Island, the most northerly part of Canada, which faces the Arctic Ocean.
The finding extends the previous known range of camels in North America northwards by about 750 miles, and suggests the lineage that gave rise to modern camels may have been originally adapted to living in an Arctic forest environment. It was initially unclear which species the bone came from, so the researchers, led by Dr Natalia Rybczynski, a vertebrate paleontologist with the Canadian Museum of Nature, enlisted the help of Mike Buckley from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.
University of Arizona via Science Daily: Human Y Chromosome Much Older Than Previously Thought
Mar. 4, 2013 — The discovery and analysis of an extremely rare African American Y chromosome pushes back the time of the most recent common ancestor for the Y chromosome lineage tree to 338,000 years ago. This time predates the age of the oldest known anatomically modern human fossils.
University of Arizona geneticists have discovered the oldest known genetic branch of the human Y chromosome -- the hereditary factor determining male sex.
The new divergent lineage, which was found in an individual who submitted his DNA to Family Tree DNA, a company specializing in DNA analysis to trace family roots, branched from the Y chromosome tree before the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in the fossil record.
LiveScience: Dogs Domesticated 33,000 Years Ago, Skull Suggests
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 06 March 2013 Time: 05:00 PM ET
A canine skull found in the Altai Mountains of Siberia is more closely related to modern domestic dogs than to wolves, a new DNA analysis reveals.
The findings could indicate that dogs were domesticated around 33,000 years ago. The point at which wolves went from wild to man's best friend is hotly contested, though dogs were well-established in human societies by about 10,000 years ago. Dogs and humans were buried together in Germany about 14,000 years ago, a strong hint of domestication, but genetic studies have pinpointed the origin of dog domestication in both China and the Middle East.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Geology
OurAmazingPlanet via Space.com: Evidence Oceans Flowed on 'Snowball Earth'
Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor
Date: 08 March 2013 Time: 05:06 PM ET
When ice possibly swathed the entire world, the oceans underneath may have nevertheless surprisingly churned, potentially helping to provide life with vital nutrients, new research suggests.
For decades, scientists have proposed that the planet may once have been a "Snowball Earth," with geological evidence suggesting ice reached all the way to the equator at least twice during the Neoproterozoic era (about 635 million to 750 million years ago) in stints lasting millions of years. The ice sheets blanketing Earth were not completely solid — there were likely many holes or thin patches around warm spots such as volcanoes — but in many other places, ice may have been more than a half-mile thick.
During these Snowball Earth periods, it is also thought that ancient life may have begun its drive toward explosive diversity. However, until now, little was done to model how water and nutrients might have flowed in the ice-capped oceans in which this primordial life dwelled. Past research did suggest that oceans might have flowed sluggishly due to ice shielding the waters from wind, and such relatively stagnant water would not have been as conducive to driving the developing diversity of primordial life in the oceans. But such studies failed to account for geothermal heat from the planet that could potentially drive ocean mixing, researchers said.
Energy
Scientific American: Still in Search of the Energy Unknown: A Q&A with ARPA-E Director Cheryl Martin
Amid rising oil and gas production, can the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy get the U.S. to develop alternative, cleaner-energy solutions?
By David Biello
March 7, 2013
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Can a government agency capture the explorer's urge of Christopher Columbus, Neil Armstrong or James Cameron? That's what the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy hopes to do, in the words of Deputy Director Cheryl Martin, who is currently heading ARPA–E.
The mission of the agency is simple: “to advance high-potential, high-impact transformative energy technologies that are too early [in their development] for private investors,” Martin said at the agency's recent summit here. The goal is to enhance U.S. economic, environmental and energy security or, as Martin put it: “to think big, to think bold, to think differently in order to discover new paths, accelerate technology adoption and, ultimately, change the way our country produces, transports and consumes energy.”
The world is actually headed in almost the exact opposite direction. Whereas the use of renewables for electricity has quadrupled since the turn of the 21st century, the demand for coal grew 10 times faster. So the mission of ARPA–E remains critical if the U.S. and the world are serious about combating climate change and solving challenges like energy poverty. After all, the planet has to prepare for the emissions of 10 billion people by 2050, all seeking the benefits of using more energy.
Scientific American: Will Canada’s Proposed Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Muck Up Its Pacific Coast?
Large cracks remain in the science assessing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline Project
By Anne Casselman
March 5, 2013
As controversy continues around the Keystone XL Pipeline that would snake through the U.S., a similar drama plays out north of the border. Canadian officials are deciding whether to green-light a pipeline that would carry a semiliquid hydrocarbon mix for 1,172 kilometers from Alberta's tar sands over the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific coast of British Columbia. Near its proposed terminus, the proposal has met with public outcry and fierce opposition from the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of indigenous tribes.
Calgary, Alberta–based energy company Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline would cross over 1,000 fish-bearing streams and bring 255 oil supertankers each year to the coastline, making the issue highly contentious in Canada's famously outdoor-loving province. Of 1,161 British Columbians to give oral statements as part of the pipeline's federal review process, only two were in favor of the project.
What's more, the pipeline would be carrying an oil product that no one knows much about: diluted bitumen, or dilbit. University and government scientists emphasize an urgent need to fill the knowledge gaps surrounding what diluted bitumen is made of, how it reacts in the environment when spilled, and what its long-term biological effects are.
Physics
LiveScience via Space.com: Newfound Particle Still Looks Like a Higgs Boson
Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 08 March 2013 Time: 04:52 PM ET
If it looks like a Higgs, acts like a Higgs, and decays like a Higgs, it's probably a Higgs.
That's essentially the news from the physicists at Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) who found a new particle last summer. So far, all evidence points to the conclusion that the particle is the long-sought Higgs boson, which would explain how other particles get their mass.
Still, the case isn't closed on the new particle just yet. For now, all scientists can say is that the particle, which was found by two experiments at the LHC called ATLAS and CMS, is consistent with predictions for the Higgs.
Chemistry
Nature via Scientific American: Metal Oxide Chips Show Promise as Transistors
Materials that flip from insulator to conductor could make more energy-efficient transistors, although the metals are not yet close to competing with silicon
By Eugenie Samuel Reich and Nature magazine
March 7, 2013
The switches in most electronic circuits are made of silicon, one of the commonest elements. But their successors might contain materials that, for now, are lab-grown oddities: strongly correlated metal oxides.
The allure of these materials lies in the outer shells of electrons surrounding their metal atoms. The shells are incomplete, leaving the electrons free to participate in coordinated quantum-mechanical behavior. In some materials, electrons pair up to produce superconductivity, or coordinate their spins to produce magnetism. Other materials can switch from being an insulator to a conductor.
Unlike transitions to superconductivity, which happen as temperatures approach absolute zero, the insulating-to-conducting transition typically happens as temperature increases, and sometimes occurs near room temperature. That has raised hopes that metal oxides could be used instead of silicon to make transistors. A spate of results is now making that look feasible. “People are interested in seeing if oxides can make it to applications,” says Manuel Bibes, a physicist at the Joint Physics Unit in Palaiseau, France, which is run by the French National Research Center and electronics company Thales.
Science Crime Scenes
The Times (UK) via The Austrialian: Germans helped to rescue ancient Islamic scripts
by: David Charter
From: The Times
AN audacious rescue of hundreds of thousands of ancient handwritten books and manuscripts from Islamist rebels in Mali was made possible by secret help from German diplomats, it emerged yesterday.
Abdel Kader Haidara, the Malian academic who oversaw the operation to smuggle the documents to safety before rebels torched Timbuktu's libraries, relied on the Germans for expert help and funding. Embassy staff paid for numerous private car trips to ferry the 4000 most important manuscripts dating back to the 9th Century to safety in Bamako, the capital, concealed under cargos of lettuce and fruit.
Marianas Variety (Micronesia): Archaeologist, researchers caution reliance on Earhart eyewitness accounts
Written by By Alexie Villegas Zotomayor - avz@mvariety.com - Variety News Staff
MOST of the eyewitness accounts and those of U.S. military personnel are subject to unintentional manipulation, memory reconstruction, and faulty interpretation.
In the wake of the persistent interest to probe the mystery surrounding the disappearance of famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, Dr. Thomas F. King, Thomas A. Roberts and Joseph A. Cerniglia, in a paper titled “Amelia Earhart, Saipan, and the Reliability of eyewitnesses” examine the hypothesis claiming that Earhart and Noonan were on Saipan based on accounts given by residents and some U.S. military personnel and also how these so-called “eyewitness accounts” could be tainted.
Columbus Dispatch: Archaeology: Magic caves in Illinois and other archaeological myths
By Bradley T. Lepper
Perhaps you have heard of Burrows Cave. I sort of hope you haven’t.
In the May 2012 issue of Public Archaeology, Joseph Wilson, a University of New Haven anthropologist, describes it as a phantasmagorical cave in southern Illinois that contains “life-sized solid-gold statues and a series of gigantic black stone statues in Egyptian and Carthaginian dress, solid gold sarcophagi and coffins containing mummies, stone sarcophagi, pagan idols, arsenals of bronze weapons, suits of armor ...” It goes on, but you get the idea.
Why haven’t you read about this amazing discovery in National Geographic? Burrows Cave has been largely ignored by archaeologists because there is no evidence to back up any of the extravagant claims made about the site.
Chemical and Engineering News (American Chemical Society): Crystal Skulls Deemed Fake
A potpourri of analytical techniques reveals purported Aztec sculptures are not bona fide
By Sarah Everts
Humans seem to have a predilection for fake quartz-crystal Aztec skulls. Since the 1860s, dozens of skull sculptures have appeared on the art market purporting to be pre-Columbian artifacts from Mesoamerica, that is, created by the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America prior to Spanish exploration and conquest in the 16th century. Three such skulls have graced the collections of major museums on both sides of the Atlantic: the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the British Museum in London, and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.
As early as the 1930s, some experts began to have doubts about the authenticity of the skulls, says Margaret Sax, a conservation scientist at the British Museum. But for a long time researchers “didn’t have the scientific means to follow up” on their hunches, she adds. Over the past two decades researchers at all three museums have capitalized on analytical science innovations to show that these peculiar skulls are not unusual Aztec artifacts but post-Columbian fakes.
Yemen Times: Smugglers thwarted at airport, ancient artifacts headed to museum in Sana’a
Published on 7 March 2013
Amal Al-Yarisi (author)
SANA'A, March 6 — Over the past seven years, around 1,500 antiques—including coins, and pre-Islamic stone carvings—have been confiscated at Sana’a International Airport. Smugglers have been tucking these ancient artifacts inside clothing and hiding them in bags, hoping to sell them abroad.
Now, instead of entering the black market or ending up on a wealthy collector’s shelf, these relics are headed to the Sana’a National Museum next week, Muhanad Al-Saiani, head of the Heritage Authority said.
Egyptian Independent: Antinoupolis archaeological site being 'destroyed systematically'
Ahmed Zaki Osman
An Egyptian independent archaeologist has warned on Friday that Antinoupolis, one of the country’s largest archaeological sites located in Minya, is being “destroyed systematically” by residents amid a complete failure from the government to protect the site.
Monica Hanna, a researcher with the University of Humboldt in Berlin, told Egypt Independent that she received information from archaeologists who work at the site of the ancient Roman Antinoupolis, also known as Sheikh Abada, saying the site faces grave danger.
Hanna said that some of the damages occurred to the site, saying that the area near the Ramses II temple has been bulldozed and leveled. She added that the northwestern corner of the walled city has been bulldozed and for agricultural use.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Space.com: Congressman Suspects NASA Let in Chinese Spies
Marshall Honorof, TechNewsDaily Staff Writer
Date: 08 March 2013 Time: 06:30 PM ET
Given recent budget cuts, it's refreshing to see a politician lobbying for additional NASA funding. Astrophiles may be less encouraged, however, to learn the rationale behind Congressman Frank Wolf's plea. Wolf claims that a Chinese national with ties to a potentially dangerous organization brought sensitive NASA information back to his native country, and the representative wants to channel resources into tightening security at the space agency.
"I was recently contacted by whistleblowers who provided me with a report alerting me to a very potential situation at NASA Langley Research Center involving a Chinese national who was allegedly provided access and information he should have otherwise been restricted from receiving," said Wolf in a press conference. "It is my understanding that this Chinese national is affiliated with an institution in China that has been designated as an 'entity of concern' by other U.S. government agencies."
The national in question was able to return to China and share the information he learned with others, Wolf said. While NASA itself is not allowed to hire Chinese nationals unless they have U.S. citizenships or green cards, subcontractors that provide the agency with talent may employ whomever they wish.
In addition to security concerns, Wolf cites preserving and growing the American aerospace industry as a reason behind his irritation. "If we can't keep cutting-edge technology protected from espionage, we will never be able to commercialize it and create the jobs our country needs," he said.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
LiveScience: Archaeological Crusade: US Tries to Save Ancient Treasures
Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 08 March 2013 Time: 10:58 AM ET
TORONTO — The fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones has long enthralled movie audiences, taking on assorted villains in quests to find mythical treasures, with some limited help from the government.
Minus any bullwhips, the real-life U.S. State Department works with other federal departments in a journey to protect important archaeological sites and ancient treasures in the face of conflict, according to professional archaeologists Morag Kersel and Christina Luke in their new book "U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage" (Routledge, 2012).
Tehran Times (Iran): Iran completes first phase of mapping of archaeological sites
TEHRAN -- The first phase of the project to map all of Iran’s archaeological sites has been completed by a team of experts.
The map was unveiled during a ceremony at the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) in Tehran on Monday.
A total of 45,000 archaeological sites appear on the map, team director Abbas Moqaddam said at the ceremony.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science Education
Scientific American: North Carolina Citizens Are Not the Problem
By Scott Huler
March 8, 2013
I’ve complained a lot in this space about North Carolina’s state legislature and governor fighting against science, and unless something drastically changes I probably will continue to do so. But a new survey makes an excellent counterpoint, and something North Carolina’s citizenry should be screaming as often as possible:
We are not the problem!
Scientific American: Will “Call of Duty” Be Assigned for 10th Grade (Gaming) Homework?
By Gary Stix
March 6, 2013
Two prominent neuroscientists have published a commentary in the Feb. 28th Nature suggesting that video games might be crafted to improve brain function and enhance personal well-being. In “Games To Do You Good,” they cite prospects for bettering performance on behavioral measures ranging from visual perception to altruism.
Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester and Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin put forward a plan calling for neuroscientists and game designers to work together to determine what aspects of play can improve cognitive performance—and for enabling game designers from academia to get their products to market, a process they compare to transferring drugs from the lab to patients.
The promise of video games for enhancing perception, recollection and other cognitive skills was highlighted as well in the January/February issue of Scientific American Mind in an article that points out that games like Call of Duty can improve visual ability, attention, spatial reasoning and decision making. The article mentions the work of Bavelier, an advisor to a game company, and others who are trying to realize the vision of neural enhancement either through action play or explicitly labeled brain training.
Science Writing and Reporting
Leicester Mercury (UK) via This is Leicester: Richard III: Top archaeology award for University of Leicester team
By Laura Elvin
The dig for the car park king has scooped a top archaeology award.
Readers of Current Archaeology voted the University of Leicester's search for Richard III as research project of the year. Richard Buckley, the dig's lead archaeologist picked up the award at a ceremony in London, hosted by the best-selling archaeology magazine.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
The Independent (UK): It didn't sink! Full-size, sewn-together replica of a Bronze Age boat launched to trials success
David Keys Archaeology Correspondent
Wednesday 06 March 2013
For the first time in almost 3000 years – a full size Bronze Age style sea-going boat has been launched in Britain. Slipping gracefully down a slipway today into Falmouth Harbour, Cornwall, the 15m-long vessel was then paddled by its 18 person crew for two 500m trial trips.
The launch – part of a long-term experimental archaeology investigation into Bronze Age marine technology – is already providing valuable new insights into prehistoric seafaring.
“I’m so happy with the responsiveness of the boat. We always said you had to build the whole boat to understand what Bronze Age people experienced,” said the project’s leader, University of Exeter archaeologist, Professor Robert Van de Noort, who is working together with the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
The Guardian (UK): Dig it: is archaeology the new art?
The British Museum's exhibition of ice age art and its forthcoming blockbuster Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum show the beauty of all things past
Two exciting exhibitions at the British Museum this spring delight the eye as much as the mind with ancient artefacts that also happen to be thrilling objects. Ice Age Art is an eye-opening encounter with carvings that still fascinate and beguile tens of thousands of years after they were created. What do these things tell us about hunter-gatherers in ice age Europe? It's a complex question, but the exhibition wants us to start by just appreciating this art as art.
Soon, some equally seductive art will be on show in the museum's old Reading Room, when ancient Roman paintings form part of the eagerly anticipated blockbuster Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Roman paintings revitalise the luxury of a lost way of life frozen under the ash of Vesuvius. As with ice age wonders, when you look at frescoes from Pompeii the pleasure of art makes ancient history immediate.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.