Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, Interceptor7, 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, health, energy, and the environment.
My able assistant and guest editor annetteboardman has returned. To celebrate, I'm using one of the articles she submitted as this week's featured story.
22 Words: Scientists explain their processes with a little too much honesty [17 pictures]
June 27, 2013
Back in January, scientists started making “secret” confessions on Twitter using the hashtag “#overlyhonestmethods.” And now some kind soul (who probably should have been doing their research instead of playing around on the internet) combined a few of these Tweets with lab photos for the rest of us to enjoy…
Welcome back!
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
This week in science: Every day is a winding road
by DarkSyde
Water in a Dry Land
by Desert Scientist
How Homo sapiens Populated the Earth: Part Two
by Yosef 52
Green diary rescue: Unlicensed mercenaries in the north woods, Republicans in the hot zones
by Meteor Blades
Slideshows/Videos
CNN: Inside Cambodia's stunning new temple discoveries
By Lara Dunston, for CNN
Siem Reap, Cambodia (CNN) -- Visit Cambodia's number one tourist attraction, Angkor Wat, with the average tour guide and you'll probably leave the UNESCO World Heritage Site with your head swimming in dates, dimensions and unpronounceable names of kings.
Jaya-who?
You might also get the impression, as I did when I first visited two years ago, that the magnificent temple complex you scrambled around in sweltering heat is confined within its sturdy walls and scenic moat, and the city ended there.
Turns out that's not the case.
Huffington Post: Mystery Of The Swastika Forests
For more than 60 years a cluster of larch trees grew, unnoticed, in the formation of a swastika in a forest in the German state of Brandenburg.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
The Weather Channel: Solar Plane Completes Flight.
A solar-powered aircraft completed the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight Saturday night, gliding to a smooth stop at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Also read the associated story under Energy.
Discovery News: 4-Day Workweek Is Better For Everyone
Imagine having a three day weekend, every weekend. Sounds good, eh? Well that's becoming the reality for many workers around the globe as scientists, governments, and companies realize the benefit of the four-day workweek. And some of those benefits are ones you probably wouldn't even think of.
The Weather Channel: How Bad Could a Solar Storm Be?
Meteorologist Jen Carfagno talks to Brent Gordon with the Space Weather Prediction Center. They are responsible for warning us about solar storms that could cause massive power outages.
NASA Television: Station Spacewalk on This Week @NASA
Outside the International Space Station, Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency conducted a 6-hour, 7-minute spacewalk July 9 to replace a communications receiver, relocate grapple bars for future spacewalks and install cables for a future Russian laboratory module. The spacewalk was the fifth for Cassidy and the first for Parmitano, who became the first Italian astronaut to walk in space. Also, Curiosity Rover Update, Mars 2020 Report, Target NEO 2 Workshop, Green Propellant, Bolden at Goddard, Rocket Engine Injector Tested, Game Changing Cryo Fuel Tank, The Solar System's Tail and more!
NASA Television: NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Report -- July 11, 2013
A NASA Mars Curiosity rover team member gives an update on developments and status of the planetary exploration mission. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered Curiosity to its target area on Mars at 1:31:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6, 2012 which includes the 13.8 minutes needed for confirmation of the touchdown to be radioed to Earth at the speed of light. The rover will conduct a nearly two-year prime mission to investigate whether the Gale Crater region of Mars ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.
Science at NASA: ScienceCasts: The Zero Gravity Coffee Cup
Drinking coffee in space is surprisingly tricky. Physicists researching the strange behavior of fluids onboard the International Space Station have invented a zero-g coffee cup to make the morning "cuppa Joe" a little easier to swallow.
Space.com: Destination Mars: NASA's 2020 Mars Rover Science Plan | Video
A team of scientists and engineers gives proposals for NASA's 2020 Mars rover mission, a mission that will borrow the design of the 1-ton Curiosity and seek out 'biosignatures' on Mars.
Astronomy/Space
BBC: Russian Chelyabinsk meteorite pieces go under microscope
Scientists have released microscopic images of fragments of the meteorite that hit central Russia in February.
A team from the Ural Federal University was able to analyse some of the dozens of samples as soon as they were found.
But the technique they used allowed them to assess the rock's chemical make-up at the microscopic level even as they snapped pictures of the fragments.
This will provide extra information on the space rock's formation and journey.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
ESA via PhysOrg: True colour of exoplanet measured for the first time
July 11, 2013
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. If seen up close this planet, known as HD 189733b, would be a deep azure blue, reminiscent of Earth's colour as seen from space.
But that's where the similarities end. This "deep blue dot" is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds.
At a distance of 63 light-years from us, this turbulent alien world is one of the nearest exoplanets to Earth that can be seen crossing the face of its star. It has been intensively studied by Hubble and other telescopes, and its atmosphere has been found to be dramatically changeable and exotic, with hazes and violent flares. Now, this planet is the subject of an important first: the first measurement of an exoplanet's visible colour.
CNN: Space probe sees solar system's tail
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
updated 6:37 PM EDT, Wed July 10, 2013
Thanks to solar wind blowing out from the sun in all directions at a million miles per hour, material from comets gets whipped back into a formation that looks like a tail.
Now, scientists know that our solar system has a tail of its own, with a surprising shape.
NASA researchers working with data from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer announced Wednesday they have for the first time mapped the solar system's tail, called the heliotail. Their study is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Space.com: NASA Spacecraft Photographs Pluto's Largest Moon Charon
by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor
Date: 11 July 2013 Time: 11:54 AM ET
A NASA spacecraft bound for Pluto has captured its first photo of the dwarf planet's largest moon Charon, a cosmic snapshot snapped from nearly 550 million miles away.
The new Charon photo was taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is closing in on Pluto and due to fly by the icy world in July 2015. The black-and-white image shows Charon as a dim object that is near, but clearly separate from, the brighter object that is Pluto.
NASA unveiled the new Charon photo Wednesday (July 10), hailing the image as a "major milestone" for New Horizon's 9 1/2-year trek to Pluto.
Space.com: Sun's 2013 Solar Activity Peak Is Weakest in 100 Years
by Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 01:00 PM ET
Though the sun is currently in the peak year of its 11-year solar weather cycle, our closest star has been rather quiet over all, scientists say.
This year's solar maximum is shaping up to be the weakest in 100 years and the next one could be even more quiescent, scientists said Thursday (July 11).
"It's the smallest maximum we've seen in the Space Age," David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., told reporters in a teleconference.
Climate/Environment
BBC: Antarctic's Pine Island glacier produces giant iceberg
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Pine Island Glacier (PIG), the longest and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic, has spawned a huge iceberg.
The block measures about 720 sq km in area - roughly eight times the size of Manhattan Island in New York.
Scientists have been waiting for the PIG to calve since October 2011 when they first noticed a spectacular crack spreading across its surface.
Confirmation that the fissure had extended the full width of the glacier was obtained on Monday.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Biodiversity
LiveScience: Big Lionfish Found at Disturbing Depths
By Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 13 July 2013 Time: 08:37 PM ET
The relentless scourge of lionfish has crept to unexpected depths: Off the coast of Florida, researchers say they found the venomous invader thriving around a sunken ship at 300 feet (91 meters) below the water's surface.
"We expected some populations of lionfish at that depth, but their numbers and size were a surprise," researcher Stephanie Green, of Oregon State University, said in a statement.
Last month, Green and colleagues investigated the seafloor near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in a deep-diving Antipodes sub. At 300 feet (91 m) deep, the team witnessed a large number of the spiny fish near the intentionally sunken Bill Boyd cargo ship, an artificial reef created in 1986.
Biotechnology/Health
BBC: Clue to why cat virus turns deadly
By Jonathan Ball BBC News
Scientists believe they are closer to understanding why a common virus infecting cats can turn deadly.
The virus, a distant relative of the Mers and Sars coronaviruses, usually causes mild illness but in some cats the infection can be fatal.
The new findings show that the severe disease is associated with mutations in one of the viral proteins.
Details of the work have been published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The researchers hope that their findings will lead to better diagnosis and future treatment of this killer disease.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
University of Southampton (UK) via MedicalXpress: Scientists develop ground-breaking new method of 'starving' cancer cells
July 10, 2013
A University of Southampton Professor, in collaboration with colleagues at the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre, have discovered a novel way of killing cancer cells. The research, recently published in the journal Cell, has found a new potential treatment for cancer, which leaves the body's healthy cells undamaged, unlike traditional therapies such as radiotherapy.
Chris Proud, Professor of Cellular Regulation in Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton says: "Cancer cells grow and divide much more rapidly than normal cells, meaning they have a much higher demand for and are often starved of, nutrients and oxygen. We have discovered that a cellular component, eEF2K, plays a critical role in allowing cancer cells to survive nutrient starvation, whilst normal, healthy cells do not usually require eEF2K in order to survive. Therefore, by blocking the function of eEF2K, we should be able to kill cancer cells, without harming normal, healthy cells in the process."
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center via MedicalXpress: Study confirms link between omega-3 fatty acids and increased prostate cancer risk
July 10, 2013
A second large, prospective study by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has confirmed the link between high blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids and an increased risk of prostate cancer.
Published July 11 in the online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the latest findings indicate that high concentrations of EPA, DPA and DHA – the three anti-inflammatory and metabolically related fatty acids derived from fatty fish and fish-oil supplements – are associated with a 71 percent increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer. The study also found a 44 percent increase in the risk of low-grade prostate cancer and an overall 43 percent increase in risk for all prostate cancers.
The increase in risk for high-grade prostate cancer is important because those tumors are more likely to be fatal.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory via MedicalXpress: Study links vitamin D deficiency to accelerated aging of bones
by Lynn Yarris
July 10, 2013
Everyone knows that as we grow older our bones become more fragile. Now a team of U.S. and German scientists led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has shown that this bone-aging process can be significantly accelerated through deficiency of vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin.
Vitamin D deficiency is a widespread medical condition that has been linked to the health and fracture risk of human bone on the basis of low calcium intake and reduced bone density. However, working at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light ALS), a DOE national user facility, the international team demonstrated that vitamin D deficiency also reduces bone quality.
"The assumption has been that the main problem with vitamin D deficiency is reduced mineralization for the creation of new bone mass, but we've shown that low levels of vitamin D also induces premature aging of existing bone," says Robert Ritchie, who led the U.S. portion of this collaboration. Ritchie holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and the University of California (UC) Berkeley's Materials Science and Engineering Department.
Indiana University via PhysOrg: Researchers create the inner ear from stem cells, opening potential for new treatments
July 10, 2013
Indiana University scientists have transformed mouse embryonic stem cells into key structures of the inner ear. The discovery provides new insights into the sensory organ's developmental process and sets the stage for laboratory models of disease, drug discovery and potential treatments for hearing loss and balance disorders.
A research team led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., Ruth C. Holton Professor of Otolaryngology at Indiana University School of Medicine, reported that by using a three-dimensional cell culture method, they were able to coax stem cells to develop into inner-ear sensory epithelia—containing hair cells, supporting cells and neurons—that detect sound, head movements and gravity. The research was reportedly online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Previous attempts to "grow" inner-ear hair cells in standard cell culture systems have worked poorly in part because necessary cues to develop hair bundles—a hallmark of sensory hair cells and a structure critically important for detecting auditory or vestibular signals—are lacking in the flat cell-culture dish. But, Dr. Hashino said, the team determined that the cells needed to be suspended as aggregates in a specialized culture medium, which provided an environment more like that found in the body during early development.
Psychology/Behavior
Cornell University via MedicalXpress: Extroverts have more sensitive brain-reward system
by Karene Booker
July 11, 2013
Extroverts may be more outgoing and cheerful in part because of their brain chemistry, reports a study by Cornell neuroscientists.
People's brains respond differently to rewards, say the neuroscientists. Some people's brains release more of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which ultimately gives them more reasons to be excited and engaged with the world, says Richard Depue, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, who co-authored the study with graduate student Yu Fu.
Their study, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Vol. 7) in June, sheds new light on how differences in the way the brain responds to reward translate into extraverted behavior, the authors say.
Archeology/Anthropology
Wall Street Journal: Archeologist Ralph Solecki Recalls His Neanderthal Cave Discovery
Uncovering a Neanderthal skeleton in Iraq's Shanidar Cave.
Discovering my first Neanderthal skeleton in Iraq's Shanidar Cave in the spring of 1957 took my breath away.
Archaeology is a time-consuming, labor-intensive science, so when you find remains in a former residential space dating back 40,000 years, you start to imagine what life must have been like then and how anyone could have survived for long.
Neanderthals were an early subspecies of Homo sapiens that became extinct 30,000 years ago.
Neanderthals tended to be shorter and stockier than modern humans and their faces had low brow ridges, wide noses and less pronounced chins. But they were hardly the dumb brutes of cartoons.
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Germany) via Science Daily: Neandertals Shared Speech and Language With Modern Humans, Study Suggests
July 9, 2013
Fast-accumulating data seem to indicate that our close cousins, the Neandertals, were much more similar to us than imagined even a decade ago. But did they have anything like modern speech and language? And if so, what are the implications for understanding present-day linguistic diversity? The MPI for Psycholinguistics researchers Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson argue in their paper in Frontiers in Language Sciences that modern language and speech can be traced back to the last common ancestor we shared with the Neandertals roughly half a million years ago.
Science Magazine: Farming was so Nice, It was Invented at Least Twice
by Michael Balter
4 July 2013
The invention of farming some 10,000 years ago set the stage for the rise of civilizations in the Near East. Yet archaeologists disagree about how it happened. Some say it arose in a single spot near the Mediterranean, and spread from there. Others argue it had multiple independent origins, a view that is getting new credence, thanks to findings from an early farming site in Iran.
Whether farming arose once or a hundred times, it happened first in the Fertile Crescent, a broad region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran. Most research over the past decades has focused on the western stretches of the Fertile Crescent-including modern-day Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Turkey-in large part because those were the easiest areas to work in, both logistically and politically. Recent excavations in those areas have suggested that hunter-gatherers first began to gather and plant seeds from wild cereals and legumes, such as wheat, barley, and lentils, as early as 13,000 years ago. Over a few thousand years of such cultivation, the wild forms of these plants mutated into new, domesticated species that were easier to manage and harvest, making farming more productive and efficient.
Agence France Presse via PhysOrg: Unique Egyptian sphinx unearthed in north Israel (Update)
by Jonah Mandel
Jul 09, 2013
Part of an ancient Egyptian king's unique sphinx was unveiled at a dig in northern Israel on Tuesday, with researchers struggling to understand just how the unexpected find ended up there.
The broken granite sphinx statue—including the paws and some of the mythical creature's forearms—displayed at Tel Hazor archaeological site in Israel's Galilee, is the first such find in the region.
Its discovery also marks the first time ever that researchers have found a statue dedicated to Egyptian ruler Mycerinus who ruled circa 2,500 BC and was builder of one of the three Giza pyramids, an expert said
.
LiveScience: How X-Rays Demystified a 2,500-Year-Old Battle Wound (Op-Ed)
Dr. Helise Coopersmith, North Shore-LIJ Health System
Date: 02 July 2013
Dr. Helise Coopersmith is a musculoskeletal and body imaging radiologist for the North Shore-LIJ Health System, assistant professor of radiology at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and a member of the Hofstra medical school's admissions committee. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
I have worked as a musculoskeletal radiologist for many years and have seen a wide range of bone injuries. But recently, I found myself for the first time using my X-ray table to look at a 2,500-year-old bone and a piece of an ancient arrow.
The bone, discovered in Northern Greece, was brought to me by Anagnostis Agelarakis, a professor and chair of anthropology at Adelphi University. It was a section of the ulna bone, which is the inner of two forearm bones.
BBC: Volunteer army drafted to map every ancient hill fort
By Judith Burns BBC News education reporter
Archaeologists are drafting a volunteer army to help map every ancient hill fort across Britain and Ireland.
It is part of a project to create an online atlas of around 5,000 of these Iron Age monuments.
Prehistory enthusiasts are being asked to identify and record features such as ramparts, ditches and entrances.
Prof Gary Lock, of Oxford University, said: "We want to shed new light on why they were created and how they were used."
Haaretz (Israel): Israeli archaeologists uncover base of 6th Roman Legion in Galilee
Legion camp served as a type of headquarters for managing Rome's military. From there, 3,500 soldiers ruled over the Galilee and part of Samaria 1,800 years ago.
By Eli Ashkenazi | 18:09 03.07.13
Israeli archaeologists have found ruins they believe are the site of one of the two Roman legions based in the country between 120 and 300 C.E.
University of York (UK) via Science Daily: Archaeologists Unearth a Virtually Intact Late Roman Well
July 8, 2013
Archaeologists from the University of York say a virtually intact Late Roman well discovered near Heslington, on the outskirts of the city, may have had significance in contemporary local agricultural cycles and fertility practices.
The well, which is thought to have been in use for several decades in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, was unearthed during archaeological excavations on the site of the University's campus expansion at Heslington East.
From at least the Early Bronze Age, a range of methods were used here to access natural springs, including watering holes and primitive wells. In contrast, this Late Roman feature was carefully engineered, positioned high on a hillside and used newly acquired, good-quality masonry.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology via ScienceDaily: Clues from an Ancient Viking Trading Centre: A Tantalizing Hint of an Ancient Trading Town
July 9, 2013
It was a routine archaeological dig, necessitated by the expansion of Norway's main north-south highway, the E6, just north of Trondheim, the country's third largest city. But the finds surprised archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's University Museum, who now believe they have solved a centuries-old puzzle posed in Norse sagas.
A silver button.
A set of balance scales.
When archaeologists Geir Grønnesby and Ellen Grav Ellingsen found these and other artefacts during a dig in mid-Norway, they realized they had intriguing evidence of a Viking-age trading area mentioned in the Norse Sagas.
The Guardian (UK): Medieval ruins discovered in Somerset puzzle archaeologists
Wessex Archaeology team aim to crack mystery of unidentified foundations before work begins on housing estate at the site
Maev Kennedy, The Guardian
Sunday 7 July 2013
Foundations of a mysterious collection of medieval buildings, once an imposing complex with beautiful expensive floor and roof tiles, and substantial stone buildings set around courtyards, which vanished apparently leaving no trace of its existence 600 years ago, have been uncovered under farmland in Somerset.
The handsome floor tiles match some from nearby Glastonbury Abbey, suggesting that the site may have had religious connections. But although thousands of monastic foundations were demolished and their materials sold or scavenged for new buildings, this site appears to have been abandoned well before the dissolution of the monasteries. It is rare for one of any significance to disappear completely – this was a major complex, covering 0.4 hectares – leaving no evidence either in the landscape or in historical accounts.
Polish Radio's The News from Poland: Vampire graveyard found in Poland?
12.07.2013 09:21
Archaeologists in Gliwice, southern Poland have discovered a burial ground where the dead were laid to rest in accordance with practices for alleged vampires.
Four skeletons were found at the site, where mandatory digs were being carried out prior to the construction of a ring road.
In each case, the deceased had been buried with the head between the legs.
According to folk beliefs, this prevented a possible vampire from finding his or her way back to the land of the living.
Australian Geographic: Ancient skull from NSW could rewrite history
A skull found in NSW may belong to a white man born in 1650 - long before the first arrival of Captain Cook.
By:AAP with AG staff
July-2-2013
THE CENTURIES-OLD SKULL of a white man found in New South Wales is raising questions about whether Captain James Cook really was the first European to land on Australia's east coast.
The skull was found near Taree in the state's north in late 2011, and police initially prepared themselves for a gruesome murder investigation.
But scientific testing has revealed that the skull is much older than expected, possibly having belonged to a white man born around 1650, well before Englishman Cook reached the eastern seaboard on the HMB Endeavour in 1770.
The Miami Herald via Bradenton Herald: Getting to the bottom of the Pickles Reef mystery in the Florida Keys
By CAMMY CLARK - The Miami Herald
Published: July 7, 2013
On shallow Pickles Reef, three and a half miles off the shore of Key Largo, the sun lit up a mishmash of metal, iron and barrel-shaped cement artifacts that have been commingling with colorful coral and tropical fish for a century or more.
As two curious spotted eagle rays cruised by, a group of divers from the Washington-based Maritime Archeological and Historical Society surveyed the unidentified wreckage that hurricanes, tropical storms and strong currents have scattered over a site larger than a football field.
"Mother Nature has a way of mixing it up in a soup that is hard to sort out what we have," the society's president, Steven Anthony, said during a June trip to the Keys. "We are trying to put all that puzzle back together, like putting back together Humpty Dumpty, to solve the mystery."
Associated Press via KHOU-TV: Ancient Jewish tombstones found in Vienna
Associated Press
Posted on July 10, 2013 at 12:32 PM
Updated Wednesday, Jul 10 at 3:35 PM
VIENNA (AP) — It was 1943 when Vienna's Nazi overlords gave the order to destroy the city's oldest Jewish cemetery, demanding it be leveled and the tombstones attesting to centuries of Jewish existence there be destroyed.
Desperate to save their heritage, the city's shrinking Jewish community decided to act. Defying the possibility of prison, deportation or execution, they buried the gravestones and kept them from Nazi hands.
Some 70 years later, Jewish leaders in the Austrian capital say the long-lost stones have been rediscovered. It is a find they say could transform a small obscure graveyard into one that rivals the significance of Prague's Jewish cemetery, the oldest known burial ground of its kind.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
The Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) via the Alpha Galileo Foundation: Asian origins of native American dogs confirmed
KTH The Royal Institute of Technology
10 July 2013
Once thought to have been extinct, native American dogs are on the contrary thriving, according to a recent study that links these breeds to ancient Asia.
The arrival of Europeans in the Americas has generally been assumed to have led to the extinction of indigenous dog breeds; but a comprehensive genetic study has found that the original population of native American dogs has been almost completely preserved, says Peter Savolainen, a researcher in evolutionary genetics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
In fact, American dog breeds trace their ancestry to ancient Asia, Savolainen says. These native breeds have 30 percent or less modern replacement by European dogs, he says.
“Our results confirm that American dogs are a remaining part of the indigenous American culture, which underscores the importance of preserving these populations,” he says.
University of Tubingen (Germany) via Science Daily: Medieval Leprosy Genomes Shed Light On Disease's History
June 13, 2013
An international team of scientists reconstructed a dozen medieval and modern leprosy genomes -- suggesting a European origin for the North American leprosy strains found in armadillos and humans, and a common ancestor of all leprosy bacteria within the last 4000 years.
It is the first time scientists have reconstructed an ancient genome without a reference sequence (de novo) due to the extraordinary preservation of the medieval pathogen's DNA. This finding indicates that ancient bacterial DNA may survive in some cases much beyond the one million year boundary suggested for vertebrate DNA.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Geology
BBC: Distant quakes 'can trigger wastewater-site temblors'
By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Earthquakes can be triggered at the sites of wastewater injection by quakes on the other side of the world, research suggests.
The injection of wastewater from underground operations such as oil drilling is known to increase local seismic activity.
Now a study in Science suggests that waves from the most distant temblors can cause quakes at wastewater sites.
Researchers suggest this can act as a kind of "stress meter" for the sites.
The notion of natural earthquake triggering is not new; in hydrothermal and volcanic areas, tremors can be triggered by large, distant earthquakes. But the new study suggests what is in effect a new category: natural triggering of seismic events primed by human activity.
BBC: New idea tackles Earth core puzzle
By Simon Redfern BBC News
Scientists have proposed a radical new model for the make-up of the Earth's core.
The study may explain a longstanding puzzle about the most inaccessible part of our planet.
It suggests that differences between the east and west hemispheres of the core are explained by the way iron atoms pack together.
Details appear in the journal Scientific Reports.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Space.com: Earth's 6-Year Twitch Changes Day Length
By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer
Date: 10 July 2013 Time: 02:42 PM ET
Periodic wobbles in Earth's core change the length of a day every 5.9 years, according to a study published today (July 10) in the journal Nature.
Teasing out this subtle cycle, which subtracts and adds mere milliseconds to each day, also revealed a match between abrupt changes in the length of day and Earth's magnetic field. During these short-lived lurches in the magnetic field intensity, events called geomagnetic jerks, Earth's day also shifts by 0.1 millisecond, the researchers report. Since 1969, scientists have detected 10 geomagnetic jerks lasting less than a year.
Seemingly negligible, these fleeting variations are mighty to those who study the planet and its core. All of a sudden, a planet changes its spin like a figure skater open or closing her arms. The rotational effect helps scientists understand what's happening inside the Earth's core. Shifts in the magnetic field also provide clues to the inaccessible iron core. But their source remains a mystery.
Energy
NBC News: Solar Impulse plane ends American odyssey with fears, tears and cheers
The Swiss-built Solar Impulse airplane ended its two-month-long, solar-powered trip across America with a nail-biter of a flight from Washington to New York on Saturday.
"Maybe if I didn't have 10 cameras pointed at me, I would cry," Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, one of the pilots for the coast-to-coast journey, said just before the 11:09 p.m. ET landing at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The extra drama came from the discovery in the trip's final hours that the ultra-light airplane had suffered an 8-foot-long (2.5-meter-long) tear in the fabric on the lower side of the left wing. Andre Borschberg, who was filling the pilot's seat for the Washington-to-New York segment of the "Across America" journey, noticed a balance issue with the wings on Saturday afternoon — and pictures taken by a helicopter flying nearby confirmed the damage.
Neither Borschberg nor the plane were thought to be in danger; nevertheless, the Solar Impulse team did everything it could to reduce the risk. That meant considering all the options for ending the flight, including the possibility of bailing out over the Atlantic. It meant passing up a Statue of Liberty photo op and working out a deal with air traffic controllers to land the plane three hours earlier than originally planned. And it meant changing the landing procedure.
Agence France Presse via PhysOrg: Human-powered helicopter wins Sikorsky prize
by Kerry Sheridan
Jul 12, 2013
A Canadian-built helicopter that is powered by a human riding a bicycle has become the first winner of a decades-old $250,000 engineering prize, the US awarder said Friday.
The American Helicopter Society had never given out its Igor Sikorsky Human-Powered Helicopter Award—initiated 33 years ago—until the team from the University of Toronto snatched it this week.
The challenge was to create a flying machine that would be able to reach a height of three meters (yards), fly for 30 seconds by human power alone, and stay in a 10 by 10 meter area.
PhysOrg: Russians to deploy floating nuclear power plant
by Bob Yirka
Jul 10, 2013
The general director of one of Russia's largest shipbuilders, Aleksandr Voznesensky, has announced to reporters that a floating nuclear power plant is currently under construction at one of Russia's ship yards. He added that it will likely be ready for use by 2016. The Russians are calling it a "floating power" station, abbreviated to PEB. The vessel has been given the name Akademik Lomonosov.
Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology via PhysOrg: New phenomenon could lead to novel types of lasers and sensors
by David Chandler
Jul 10, 2013
There are several ways to "trap" a beam of light—usually with mirrors, other reflective surfaces, or high-tech materials such as photonic crystals. But now researchers at MIT have discovered a new method to trap light that could find a wide variety of applications.
The new system, devised through computer modeling and then demonstrated experimentally, pits light waves against light waves: It sets up two waves that have the same wavelength, but exactly opposite phases—where one wave has a peak, the other has a trough—so that the waves cancel each other out. Meanwhile, light of other wavelengths (or colors) can pass through freely.
The researchers say that this phenomenon could apply to any type of wave: sound waves, radio waves, electrons (whose behavior can be described by wave equations), and even waves in water.
Chemistry
LiveScience: NASA's Quest for Green Rocket Fuel Passes Big Test
By Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 11 July 2013 Time: 03:46 PM ET
For decades, NASA has relied on an efficient but highly toxic fuel known as hydrazine to power satellites and manned spacecraft. Now the agency is laying the groundwork to replace that propellant with a safer, cleaner alternative.
NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission, or GPIM, has passed its first thruster pulsing test, a major milestone that paves the way for a planned test flight in 2015, agency officials said. NASA unveiled the rocket thruster success Tuesday (July 9) in Washington, D.C., during a briefing with aerospace industry officials and Colorado Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO).
The GPIM initiative aims to demonstrate that a green fuel with nearly 50 percent better performance than hydrazine could power Earth-circling satellites and eventually deep space missions.
Science Crime Scenes
N.Y. Times: Tale of Glorious Art and Not So Glorious Thieves
Etruscan Artifacts Looted by Amateurs Are Prize Objects
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: July 5, 2013
PERUGIA, Italy — As tomb heists go, it was an odd job.
The robbers were not professional tombaroli, the looters of ancient sites who have over the centuries despoiled countless graves in Italy. They were people, the authorities said, who had stumbled onto a trove of important Etruscan artifacts a decade ago while digging to build a garage in a villa just outside the city center here.
Rather than notify authorities, investigators say the looters divided up the stash and looked around for years before trying to cash in on their good fortune.
The Greek Reporter: Chersonesus, Crimea, 2300-Year-Old Massacre
By Maria Korologou
July 6, 2013
Chersonesus, an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2,500 years ago in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula, known then as Taurica, was established in the 6th Century BC by settlers from Heraclea Pontica.
“We’ve learned things that have changed our view of what life was like in the Chersonesean countryside, which the Greeks called chora. The city’s rural territory, particularly on the Herakleian and Tarkhankut peninsulas, is incredibly well preserved. The houses of the rural population dating back to about 300 BC lie dotted around the untouched landscape in the form of ruins that are still visible. For instance, in one of the excavated ruins we have found the remains of a whole family. So we’re working on a murder scene dating back 2,300 years,” reports project director Vladimir Stolba, an archaeologist from Aarhus University.
Cincinnati Enquirer: $10K worth of artifacts stolen from Miami U.
Written by Sharon Coolidge
Jul. 1, 2013
Where’s Indiana Jones when you need him?
Last week somebody broke into a Miami University classroom and stole almost two-dozen ancient artifacts. Professors and students Monday said they want them returned.
The items had a total maximum value of about $10,000, but Miami University Anthropology Professor Jeb Card said the value is more than monetary.
“These are the kind of things I would study in books, but here we could hold them, something that was 4,000 years old,” Card said. “We could put our hands on the past.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Sicily cancels a major exhibition of ancient treasures at the Cleveland Museum of Art
By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
on July 10, 2013 at 11:45 AM, updated July 11, 2013 at 10:01 PM
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sicily has canceled a major traveling exhibition of ancient treasures scheduled to open Sept. 29 at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The cancellation comes several weeks after Sicilian cultural authorities complained publicly that the prolonged loan of important antiquities to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where the show is now on view, was hurting the island's tourism economy.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Space.com: NASA Authorization Act Approved by House Panel in Party-Line Vote
by Dan Leone, Space News
Date: 11 July 2013 Time: 01:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON — On the same day that another House panel approved the smallest NASA budget since 2007, the House Science space subcommittee approved — on a straight party-line vote — a two-year NASA authorization bill that would ban a proposed asteroid capture mission, cut back NASA's Earth science program, and mandate more crewed exploration of lunar space in preparation for an expedition to Mars.
The NASA Authorization Act of 2013, written by the subcommittee’s Republican leadership, passed by a vote of 11 to 9, with no Democrats supporting the proposal and one Republican abstaining. The bill must still be approved by the full House Science, Space and Technology Committee before the House can vote on whether to send the proposal to the Senate.
The subcommittee bill authorizes $16.87 billion for NASA in both 2014 and 2015, a level consistent with the across-the-board sequestration cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011, but about 5 percent lower than NASA's budget in 2012.
Space.com: Moon Bill Would Create National Park to Protect Apollo Landing Sites
by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist
Date: 10 July 2013 Time: 06:02 PM ET
A new bill introduced into the U.S. Congress would establish the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park on the moon.
Called the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, the bill was introduced Monday (July 8) by Rep. Donna Edwards of (D-Md.) and was co-sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas).
The bill (House Resolution 2617) was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and in addition to the House Committee on Natural Resources.
LiveScience: New Legislation Could Yield Net Loss for Animal Welfare (Op-Ed)
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO, The Humane Society of the United States
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 09:24 PM ET
This past week, lawmakers on Capitol Hill took a step forward in their efforts to get laboratory chimps to sanctuaries, but animals suffered a setback in the House with the passage of a highly partisan, retrograde farm bill that could derail state policies on animal welfare and represents a missed opportunity to advance an historic agreement to reduce the misery that laying hens endure in battery cages.
With not a single Democrat supporting the Farm Bill, and only 12 Republicans voting against it, the House narrowly passed its pared-down version, which excluded all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding (more commonly known as food stamps), by a vote of 216 to 208. The bill approved by the House includes the dangerous and overreaching King amendment, which could nullify dozens of state laws to protect animals, the environment, worker safety and food safety. Introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), it seeksto erode the progress that states have made ensuring that farm animals are treated humanely.
Republican leaders blocked consideration of a series of other animal welfare amendments relating to banning barren battery cages, cracking down on horse slaughter, and upgrading the federal law against horse soring. (Horse soring is the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves, which forces the horse into an artificial, exaggerated gait, a practice often associated with Tennessee walking horses.) The farm bill does, however, include one top HSUS priority — an upgrade of the federal animal-fighting law, making it a crime to attend or bring a minor to a dogfight or a cockfight.
LiveScience: Why Is Arsenic Bad for You?
By Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 10:15 AM ET
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that it will now limit the amount of arsenic allowed in apple juice.
The limit is set at 10 parts per billion (ppb), which is the same amount allowed in drinking water. This means the FDA can have products removed from the market if their levels of arsenic exceed that level.
The FDA stressed that levels of arsenic in apple juice are generally low, and an analysis by the agency released last year did not find any apple-juice products that would be disallowed under the new regulations.
Science Education
Space.com: Student Team Set for Zero-Gravity Fire Experiment on NASA 'Vomit Comet'
Rod Pyle, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 10:13 PM ET
A team of university students is counting down toward the ultimate science ride, a weightless flight aboard a modified NASA jet to see just how certain fires burn in zero gravity.
The experiment, led by engineering undergraduate Sam Avery of the University of California, San Diego, is aimed at testing how biofuels burn in weightless conditions. And with a target flight date of Thursday (July 18), Avery and his crew are getting pumped.
"The team is really excited about this experiment," Avery said just two weeks ahead of takeoff. "We've been working hard to get the equipment ready and tested for the parabolic flights with NASA in a couple of weeks."
Space.com: Revamped Space Shuttle Enterprise Exhibit Awes New Yorkers
by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor
Date: 11 July 2013 Time: 07:00 AM ET
NEW YORK — Crowds showed up in force Wednesday (July 10) to see the space shuttle Enterprise open to the public — again. The display of the prototype shuttle, which was donated to Manhattan's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum by NASA, reopened after its first exhibition was closed due to damage from last October's Hurricane Sandy.
The hurricane devastated the temporary structure that had been erected around the orbiter on the deck of the aircraft carrier-turned-museum. That first show opened July 19, 2012, but closed for extensive refurbishment after the storm. Finally, the Enterprise display is again open for business.
"One word: wow," said Zina Best of Brooklyn, N.Y., who brought her 6-year-old son, A.J. to see the exhibition. "I'm speechless. They did a superb job."
Science Writing and Reporting
Gawker: Yes Virginia, There Is a Darwin
Hamilton Nolan
Yesterday 2:00pm
Virginia Heffernan was once a high-profile tech and culture writer for the New York Times. For this reason, she is taken seriously. Yesterday, she wrote an essay entitled "Why I'm a Creationist." It amounts to a very specific guide as to why Virginia Heffernan should no longer be taken seriously.
Let us stipulate up front that it is perfectly "okay" to be a creationist, in the sense that everyone is entitled to freedom of religious beliefs and the right to be an ignoramus, which we all are in our own special ways. That said, it is not really "okay" to be a creationist technology writer, any more than it is okay to be a drunk schoolbus driver. It's the mixing of incompatible pastimes that causes the problem.
Heffernan's creationism is not of the heavy Bible-thumping variety; rather, it is (based on her own explanation) of the dreamy, borderline hippie variety, predicated on a general disinterest in the non-poetic language of science and an attraction towards a good story to explain things, underlying "scientific facts" be damned. She refers to her love of technology as "trippy," in contrast to those elitist scientists who "denigrate religion, fear climate change, and think most people—most Americans—are dopey sheep." Heffernan considers herself a poetic populist, you see:
Science is Cool
Space.com: Superman's Origins Possibly Born from Star Explosion
by Laura Poppick, Staff Writer
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 03:57 PM ET
NEW YORK — One of the brightest stellar explosions of the 20th century may have inspired Superman's origin story, one scholar says.
Nova Herculis — the cataclysmic explosion in the constellation Hercules that captivated the public for several years during the mid-1930s — could have given rise to the superhero's now-famous birth on Krypton.
"I think that Nova Herculis may have played a role in turning Superman from a time travel story into an astronomical one," Brad Ricca, an English professor at Case Western Reserve University, said in a presentation Wednesday (July 10) during the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena Conference held here at the American Museum of Natural History. "Krypton is a planet, not a star — so it's not exploding — but the way it is presented echoes the popular articles about the nova."
Space.com: Sci-Fi Film 'Europa Report' Uses Science to Show Space Travel Perils
by Miriam Kramer, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 12 July 2013 Time: 05:00 AM ET
The new science fiction movie "Europa Report" is billed by some admirers as one of the most accurate depictions of human spaceflight ever put on film, and that realism is no accident.
Screenwriters, expert consultants, actors and others worked to bring a sense of reality to "Europa Report," paying meticulous attention to the world they were creating in the spaceship and depicting on the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
'Europa Report' Astronaut POV
"One of the first things that drew me to the script was the fact that, as I was reading it, everything in there seemed to be at least inspired by what we know both about space travel and the possibility of what could be found on Europa while at the same time keeping a great equilibrium with making a movie that was also thrilling and interesting that kept me gripped until I finished the last page of the script," Sebastián Cordero, the director of "Europa Report," said.
CNN: Startup says it can predict soccer results
By Alanna Petroff @AlannaPetroff
July 12, 2013: 11:49 AM E
What if you could predict 9 out of 10 soccer matches? You might be tempted to bet big.
A new startup says it can do precisely that by using a complex algorithm that considers everything from the weather to a coach's birthday.
"We do your homework for you," said Alex Kornilov, the Ukrainian founder and CEO of Betegy. "We take all the data, put it in our algorithm and we get a result."