Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, 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.
With the general election concluded, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in cities and states with runoff elections and unresolved contests. Louisiana held a runoff for U.S. Senator today, Vermont has an unresolved race for Governor, and Austin, Texas, has a runoff election for Mayor on December 16th. Also, between now and the first NCAA Division 1-A College Football Championship decided by playoff, OND will feature the research stories from universities with teams in post-season play. This week, stories will come from schools involved in conference championships.
This week's featured story comes from NASA and Space.com.
Orion Flight Test
After years of design, fabrication and testing Orion completed a perfect launch into Earth's orbit. After returning to Earth NASA's Orion spacecraft is seen from an unpiloted aircraft descending under three massive red and white main parachutes and then shortly after its bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles southwest of San Diego. During the uncrewed test, Orion traveled twice through the Van Allen belt, where it experienced periods of intense radiation, and reached an altitude of 3,600 miles above Earth. The spacecraft hit speeds of 20,000 mph and weathered temperatures approaching 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
Orion’s first flight on This Week @NASA
The successful first flight test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Dec. 5 not only was a historic moment for the agency – but also was a critical step on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Orion rode to space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a Delta IV heavy rocket with no crew, but loaded with about 1,200 sensors. The flight test basically was a compilation of the riskiest events that will happen when astronauts fly on Orion on deep space missions. Also, Journey to Mars briefing, 1st SLS flight barrel and Commercial crew milestone.
NASA's Orion Spaceship Test a 'Textbook Spaceflight'
by Miriam Kramer, Space.com Staff Writer
December 06, 2014 09:49am ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's first capsule built to take humans to Mars aced a seemingly flawless first test flight on Friday (Dec. 5), with the space agency overjoyed with the spacecraft's performance.
The Orion spacecraft appeared to function spectacularly during the risky unmanned test flight in space, and also as it came back through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Some people are comparing this historic capsule to the capsules flown during the Apollo program that brought NASA astronauts to the moon for the first time.
"It was just such a textbook spaceflight," said NASA astronaut Rex Walheim, who worked with the Orion team to develop the spacecraft. "That's what we want for our first flight."
More videos and articles about this and other stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
An Oatmeal Presentation on Charles Darwin versus Faith
by xaxnar
On - Waging Peace - Health & Prosperity through "clean" power technology.
by DKAtoday
Spotlight on green news & views: COP 20 climate talks in Lima, fracking heading toward the wall?
by Meteor Blades
This week in science: High flight
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
Radio New Zealand: Maori welcome ancestral remains home
Laura Bootham, Te Manu Korihi
December 5, 2014
A moving ceremony at Te Papa was held today to welcome home ancestral remains of tangata whenua to Aotearoa.
The repatriation to the national museum in Wellington is the largest of its kind in New Zealand's history.
The ancestral Maori and Moriori remains were taken from New Zealand in the 1800s and eventually housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The iwi in residence at Te Papa, Nga-ti Toa, greeted their ancestors with karanga, wailing and the recitation of ancient Ma-ori incantations to clear a pathway for the tu-puna to return home.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Discovery News: Why Do We Love James Bond?
The new James Bond movie, titled Spectre, was announced this week, and the Internet exploded with anticipation! Why does everyone love fictional characters so much?
Discovery News: Why We Can’t Have Lightsabers
The new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released last week, and it got us thinking: Why can’t we have lightsabers?
Science at NASA: ScienceCasts: Climate Change and the Yin-Yang of Polar Sea Ice
Arctic and Antarctic sea ice are both affected by climate change, but the two poles of Earth are behaving in intriguingly different ways.
PBS NewsHour: Can humans become a multi-planet species?
NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay studies the most extreme parts of Earth to understand how life might survive in other perts of the universe. But he's also studying another life form living in space: humans.
JPL/NASA: What's Up for December 2014
The December Geminids and Ursids offer up two more chances to see meteor showers this year. Plus, there are two comets to look for through telescopes.
Hubble Space Telescope: Tonight's Sky: December 2014
Backyard stargazers get a monthly guide to the northern hemisphere's skywatching events with "Tonight's Sky." In December, get great views of Venus, Mars and Jupiter.
Discovery News: The Mystery Of Venus’ Green Glow
Venus glows green, and for years, astronomers had no idea why. What could be causing it?
Astronomy/Space
University of Wisconsin: Letting off steam: Gas discharge terminates galaxy’s star formation
By Terry Devitt
December 3, 2014
With the help of a radio telescope in the French Alps, an international team of astronomers, including two from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has observed a never-before-seen stage of galactic evolution.
Writing in this week’s Nature, a group that includes UW-Madison astronomers Aleks Diamond-Stanic and Christy Tremonti, reports measurements of dense, cold hydrogen gas being blasted from a distant star-forming galaxy, the first direct observation of the “blow out” phase of a galaxy’s evolution.
The poetically named SDSS J0905+57, a compact “starburst” galaxy roughly 6 billion light years from Earth, was observed using the Institute of Millimeter Radio Astronomy’s Plateau de Bure Interferometer, a radio telescope poised high in the Alps. The observations, made by a team led by James Geach of the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, show relatively cold molecular gas from the center of the galaxy being ejected to distances of tens of thousands of light years and at speeds up to 2 million miles per hour by pressure exerted from rapidly forming stars at the center of the galaxy.
Climate/Environment
Science China Press via PhysOrg: Chinese scientists create new global wetland suitability map
December 4, 2014
Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. Yet with increasing urbanization and agricultural expansion, wetlands around the globe are in danger. Better mapping of wetlands worldwide will help in their protection.
But compiling globe-spanning maps of wetlands is impeded by the dramatic diversity and evolving dynamics of wetlands, and by myriad difficulties in doing field work.
To develop a better model, Gong Peng and other scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing incorporated hydrologic, climatic and topographic data sets into a global wetland suitability map; this new map also matches individual wetland sites with local water table depth.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
LSU: LSU Researchers Funded to Address Oil Spill Issues
December 1, 2014
BATON ROUGE – The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, or GoMRI, recently announced its second round of BP-funded consortium research grants to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In this round, GoMRI has granted $140 million to 12 collaborative research projects, which support several LSU researchers’ work. One of the projects LSU sociologists are leading is the first GoMRI-funded study of the oil spill’s impact on human health and coastal communities.
“It was clear that research on public health is needed,” said Rita Colwell, chairman of the GoMRI Research Board. “I’m pleased that in this round of awards there are funds to study public health issues in the Gulf of Mexico region associated with the oil spill.”
Since 2010, LSU researchers have collected data on the mental and physical health impacts of the oil spill on residents in coastal Louisiana. LSU will receive $1.2 million from GoMRI to continue this research as part of the Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities project. This consortium, which consists of experts from RAND Corporation, Tulane University, Louisiana Public Health Institute, the University of South Alabama and LSU, received $8 million to extend the research to the Gulf Coast communities that were impacted most directly by the oil spill.
Georgia Tech: Looking at El Nino’s past to predict its future
Posted December 2, 2014 | Atlanta, GA
The El Niño Southern Oscillation is Earth’s main source of year-to-year climate variability, but its response to global warming remains highly uncertain.
Scientists see a large amount of variability in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) when looking back at climate records from thousands of years ago. Without a clear understanding of what caused past changes in ENSO variability, predicting the climate phenomenon’s future is a difficult task. A new study shows how this climate system responds to various pressures, such as changes in carbon dioxide and ice cover, in one of the best models used to project future climate change.
“All of the natural climate fluctuations are in this model, and what we see is that the El Niño responds to every single one of these, significantly,” said Kim Cobb, an associate professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon controls how the climate changes in the tropics (and also influences weather patterns elsewhere, including the United States).
Biodiversity
Boise State University: ‘Can You See Me Now?’ — Examining the Quality of Landscape Cover
By: Kathleen Tuck
Published 9:05 am / December 3, 2014
As the two foolish pigs learned before running to their brother’s solidly built house of bricks for safety, when the wolf comes calling, the quality of your shelter is everything.
Animals in the wild have always instinctively known this. But changes to their habitat in the wake of human encroachment, climate change and a variety of environmental influences are affecting the predator-prey relationship and creating new “fearscapes” dotted with predation risks.
To better understand what’s happening, researchers are using innovative imaging techniques to map the properties of vegetation that influence how and when they are used for cover from the elements and from predators. Their data could help dictate land management decisions and restoration of the landscape.
Georgia Tech: Computational tools will help identify microbes in complex environmental samples
Posted December 1, 2014 | Atlanta, GA
Microbes of interest to clinicians and environmental scientists rarely exist in isolation. Organisms essential to breaking down pollutants or causing illness live in complex communities, and separating one microbe from hundreds of companion species can be challenging for researchers seeking to understand environmental issues or disease processes.
A new National Science Foundation-supported project will provide computational tools designed to help identify and characterize the gene diversity of the residents of these microbial communities. The project, being done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Michigan State University, will allow clinicians and scientists to compare the genomic information of organisms they encounter against the growing volumes of data provided by the world’s scientific community.
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“Across many areas of science, we are dealing with communities of microorganisms, and one challenge we’ve had is to identify them because we haven’t had good tools to tell apart individual microbes from the mixtures,” said Kostas Konstantinidis, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech and the project’s principal investigator. “Our tools will be designed to deal with the genomes of whole communities of organisms.”
University of Missouri: Mizzou’s New Lizard Guru: Manuel Leal joins biology’s faculty
December 2, 2014
It takes quick reflexes to catch small, colorful lizards called anoles. Manuel Leal has mastered the task, which involves lassoing the lizard with a dental floss noose suspended from a pole. The only quicker reaction may be that of the Division of Biological Sciences when it learned the evolutionary biologist might be persuaded to join the Mizzou community.
Leal has been studying anole lizard behavior for over two decades, with the objective of understanding the mechanisms that shape the evolution of behavioral and physiological traits, and their role in promoting species diversity. He spends a significant amount of time catching and researching lizards on the islands of the Bahamas, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, where hundreds of species of anole can be found. His studies have appeared in top scientific journals including Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, The American Naturalist, as well as featured in the New York Times, The Economist, National Geographic, Der Spiegel (Germany), The Daily Mail and in a Canadian TV series “The Nature of Things” a well known series hosted by the inimitable David Suzuki and on NPR and CBC Radio.
So what was the lure of Missouri, where anoles can only be found in pet shops? Leal says he was attracted to the diversity of labs studying animal behavior and evolutionary ecology at MU. “We hope that our arrival here at Mizzou can broaden what is already an impressively broad research program in animal communication, which includes work on acoustic and vibratory signals and evolutionary ecology,” he says.
University of Wisconsin: Collaboration yields new organic sweet corn variety
December 4, 2014
When the time comes for Wisconsin’s organic farmers to decide which crops to plant next year, they’ll have a tasty new variety of sweet corn — with a particularly sweet name — among their choices.
The new variety, called “Who Gets Kissed?,” is the first in a series of organic, open-pollinated sweet corns being developed through a plant-breeding project led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA). Farmers and professional breeders are also involved.
With yellow and white kernels, Who Gets Kissed? is named in honor of a game played at corn husking bees of old, when communities gathered to husk corn and dance. Corn was much more genetically diverse back then, and when a person found an ear with all red kernels, known as a “pokeberry ear,” they could choose one person among the group to kiss.
Biotechnology/Health
The Canadian Press via CBC: Scientists find ancient case of human cancer in man who died 4,500 years ago
Findings refute claim that cancer is a modern phenomenon
The Canadian Press
December 4, 2014
A group of researchers, including a Saskatchewan scientist, have found what may be the oldest case of human cancer in the world.
Bones of a man exhumed in Siberia that date back 4,500 years to the Early Bronze Age show he had lung or prostate cancer, which eventually spread through his body from his hip to his head. He died between 35 and 45 years old.
"This is one of — if not the oldest — absolute cases of cancer that we can be really, really confident saying that it's cancer," said Angela Lieverse, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Texas: Alcohol Abuse Linked to Newly Identified Gene Network
December 2, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas — Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have identified a network of genes that appear to work together in determining alcohol dependence. The findings, which could lead to future treatments and therapies for alcoholics and possibly help doctors screen for alcoholism, are being published this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
By comparing patterns of genetic code from the brain tissue of alcoholics and nonalcoholics, the researchers discovered a particular set of genes co-expressed together in the individuals who had consumed the most alcohol. Specifically, certain sets of genes were strongly linked as networks in alcoholics, but not in nonalcoholics.
“This provides the most comprehensive picture to date of the gene sets that drive alcohol dependence,” said R. Adron Harris, director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research. “We now have a much clearer picture of where specific traits related to alcohol dependence overlap with specific expressions in genetic code.”
Boise State University: Cloak and Dagger in the Biochemistry Lab
By: Kathleen Tuck
Published 11:11 am / December 1, 2014
It sounds like a plot straight out of a 1940s B movie. Enemy agents slowly invade an unsuspecting target, sneaking around in the shadows and signaling clandestinely to one another as they patiently wait to reach ideal mass and coordinate an offensive attack. Their every move is perfectly choreographed and the invasion is carried off without a hitch, and without uttering a single word.
Only it’s not a movie. And it’s not taking place 70 years ago outside a French chalet or an English cottage. It’s a scene repeated over and over inside living organisms — inside of you.
The agents are bacteria.
Marshall University: Marshall School of Medicine researcher receives grant to continue musculoskeletal research
December 1, 2014
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. Maria A. Serrat, Ph.D, assistant professor in the department of anatomy and pathology at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, and a team of multidisciplinary researchers from several institutions have received federal grant funds totaling $383,000 to continue research into the effects of temperature on bone elongation.
Serrat says the three-year award from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases is an extension of work initially funded from a bridge grant from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
"We hope our results will facilitate the design of heat-based, drug-targeting approaches to enhance bone length using noninvasive techniques such as warm temperature applications," Serrat said. "This work is significant because it has the potential to produce transformative findings that link heat, bone lengthening and vascular access to the growing skeleton which could lead to better clinical therapies for children in particular."
Psychology/Behavior
University of Arizona: Two UA Scientists Give Extra Thought to the Brain
By Raymond Sanchez, NASA Space Grant intern, University Relations - Communications
December 1, 2014
With funding from President Barack Obama's BRAIN initiative, two researchers are developing better ways of measuring how neurons communicate with each other.
Learning, moving, making decisions — these are all simple things we do on a daily basis without giving them much thought.
However, these processes are mediated by complex systems of circuitry in the brain relaying vast amounts of information thousands of times per second. Few people realize that this organ in the space between our ears is one of the most mysterious and least understood places in the universe.
Georgia Tech: New effort underway to help people living with epilepsy
Posted December 4, 2014 | Atlanta, GA
The Interoperability and Integration Innovation Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology (I3L) and UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company, announced today a new collaboration to explore how predictive analytics can help inform treatment decisions for people living with epilepsy.
The goal is to develop an interactive system that can convert large amounts of anonymous patient data into real-time insights that health care providers can consult at the point-of-care to inform treatment decisions.
Epilepsy, one of the most common diseases of the central nervous system, affects approximately 65 million people worldwide and more than 2 million people in the United States.
UCB will contribute its expertise as a leader in epilepsy treatment and access to large sets of epilepsy data. I3L will supply access to an extensive collection of health IT resources as well as collaborators who are experts at connecting critical data to electronic heath records systems.
Archeology/Anthropology
Griffith University (Australia) via Science Daily: New evidence of ancient rock art across Southeast Asia
The latest research on the oldest surviving rock art of Southeast Asia shows that the region's first people, hunter-gatherers who arrived over 50,000 years ago, brought with them a rich art practice.
Published this week in the archaeological journal Antiquity, the research shows that these earliest people skilfully produced paintings of animals in rock shelters from southwest China to Indonesia. Besides these countries, early sites were also recorded in Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia.
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The oldest paintings were identified by analysing overlapping superimpostions of art in various styles as well as numerical dating. It was found that the oldest art mainly consists of naturalistic images of wild animals and, in some locations, hand stencils.
The research shows that 35,000 -- 40,000 year old dates for some rock art in Sulawesi, Indonesia announced in October by Griffith University Senior Research Fellow Maxime Aubert is not an anomaly. Instead, the practice was widespread across the region.
Relaxnews via Canoe.ca: 23,000-year-old limestone 'Venus' dug up in France
November 28, 2014
A limestone statuette of a shapely woman some 23,000 years old has been discovered in northern France in what archaeologists Thursday described as an "exceptional" find.
Archaeologists stumbled on the Paleolithic-era sculpture during a dig in the summer in Amiens, the first such find in half a century.
"The discovery of this masterpiece is exceptional and internationally significant," said Nicole Phoyu-Yedid, the head of cultural affairs in the area, on showing the find to the media.
The Cairo Post (Egypt): Sphinx unearthed at Karnak temple
By RANY MOSTAFA
CAIRO: A limestone statuette of a Sphinx has been unearthed during a routine excavation north of Luxor’s Karnak temple complex, according to Abdel-Hakim Karar, director of the Upper Egypt Antiquities Department, Friday.
“The 60-centimeter tall statue was discovered to the east of the sanctuary of the temple of God Ptah, one of the four main temple enclosures that make up the immense Karnak temple complex,” Karar told The Cairo Post Friday.
It was discovered by archaeologists from the French-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Karnak Temples, currently excavating at the northern area of the precinct of Amun-Re temple, according to Karar.
ANSA (Italian National Press Association): Largest ancient Roman water basin uncovered
Massive structure dates back to 3rd century BC
(ANSA) - Rome, December 3 - A dig in Rome related to work on the city's new C metro line has uncovered the largest ancient Roman water basin ever found, Rossella Rea, the scientific head of the excavation, said on Wednesday. "It was inside an ancient Roman farm, the nearest to the centre of Rome ever found," said Rea, who leads an all-women team at a site for the construction of a new metro station that also features archaeologists Francesca Montella and Simona Morretta. The ancient structure, situated in the San Giovanni district of modern-day Rome, is a monster.
"It's so big that it goes beyond the perimeter of the (metro) work site and it has not been possible to uncover it completely," Rea explained. "It was lined with hydraulic plaster and, on the basis the size that had been determined so far, it could hold more than four million litres of water".
The Telegraph and Argus (UK): Bradford researchers find "amazing insights" into Roman funerals from dirt found on skeletons and pots
by Julie Tickner, Bradford Chief Reporter
DIRT and debris from ancient burial pots, plaster body casings and skeletal remains have led Bradford researchers to a Christmas themed discovery about Roman burial rites in Britain.
Analysis of the residue, previously thought to be of little interest, has led to the first scientific evidence of frankincense being used in such rituals.
Archaeological scientists, led by the University of Bradford, have proven that even while the Roman Empire was in decline, these precious substances were being transported to its furthest northern outpost.
BBC: Old Sarum archaeologists reveal plan of medieval city
December 3, 2014
A detailed plan of a medieval city has been produced by experts without any digging at the site.
The latest scanning techniques were used to uncover a network of buildings at the 11th Century Old Sarum near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The results include a series of large structures, possibly defences, with open areas of ground behind possibly for mustering resources or people.
Old Sarum was the original site of Salisbury, which is two miles away.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Texas: DNA Reveals Local Adoption of New Technologies, Not Migration, Caused Cultural Changes in Ancient Illinois
December 2, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas — DNA samples from North Americans who lived more 1,000 years ago in Illinois reveal that rapid cultural changes came from acceptance of new practices rather than from a population influx into the region, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin and Indiana University.
Seeking an explanation for a major cultural transition that occurred between the Late Woodland (A.D. 400-1050) and Mississippian (A.D. 1050-1500) periods in the Lower Illinois River Valley, researchers examined the mitochondrial DNA of 39 individuals at a site in western Illinois and compared it with samples from other sites in the region. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child and allows researchers to trace maternal relationships and female migration. The researchers wanted to know whether the cultural transition in the Lower Illinois River Valley was caused by migration of a new group into the region, or whether the population in place adopted new cultural practices through existing social networks.
“This cultural transition, seen across the Midwest, is one of the most significant events in North American prehistory,” says Jennifer Raff, a research fellow in UT Austin’s Department of Anthropology and one of the two lead authors of the study. “It involved changes to social and political structure, the adoption of intensive maize agriculture, changes to mortuary practices and the development of new art, technologies and religious practices. These cultural changes first appeared at the nearby site of Cahokia, just east of present-day St. Louis, so we wanted to know if migration from there had brought the changes to the Lower Illinois River Valley.”
Paleontology/Evolution
The Daily Telegraph (UK): Booze culture may date back 10 million years, say scientists
A new study suggests that primates may have begun drinking alchol 10 million years ago, as fermented fruit on the forest floor
By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
8:00PM GMT 01 Dec 2014
Alcohol was thought to have been first brewed by Neolithic farmers around 9,000 years ago when northern Chinese villagers made the happy discovery that fruit and honey could be fermented into an intoxicating liquor.
But new evidence suggests our ancestors had become accustomed to drinking nearly 10 million years before.
Scientists now believe that when primates left the trees and began walking on two feet they also started scooping up mushy, fermented fruit which was lying on the ground. And over time their bodies learned to process the ethanol present.
Science Magazine: Dwindling African tribe may have been most populous group on planet
By Ann Gibbons 4 December 2014 4:30 pm
The famous Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa have long been in decline. For more than a century, the people, who speak Khoisan languages, have been pushed off their land by farmers and brutalized by colonialists.
Yet for tens of thousands of years, the Khoisan’s ancestors were members of “the largest population” on the planet, according to a new study.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Geology
Agence France Presse via Manila Bulletin (Philippenes) and Yahoo!News: Ancient earthquake uncovered in China: Xinhua
Manila Bulletin – Sat, Dec 6, 2014
BEIJING (AFP) - Scientists have found evidence of a powerful earthquake 3,000 years ago in central China, apparently the earliest known tremor in the country's history, state media reported.
The earthquake, which hit an area now part of Henan province, was of magnitude 6.8 to 7.1, archaeologists told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday.
Signs of the quake were first found in 2005 in seriously damaged ash pits, residences and graves that lay buried under a village in the province, Xinhua said.
Carbon dating indicated the earthquake struck the area sometime between 1500 BC and 1260 BC, it added. China did not start keeping seismological records until 843 BC.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Energy
LiveScience: How to Cool Buildings Without Electricity? Beam Heat into Space
by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor
November 28, 2014 09:27am ET
A new superthin material can cool buildings without requiring electricity, by beaming heat directly into outer space, researchers say.
In addition to cooling areas that don't have access to electrical power, the material could help reduce demand for electricity, since air conditioning accounts for nearly 15 percent of the electricity consumed by buildings in the United States.
The heart of the new cooler is a multilayered material measuring just 1.8 microns thick, which is thinner than the thinnest sheet of aluminum foil. In comparison, the average human hair is about 100 microns wide.
Physics
Georgia Tech: Smaller lidars could allow UAVs to conduct underwater scans
Posted December 3, 2014 | Atlanta, GA
Bathymetric lidars – devices that employ powerful lasers to scan beneath the water's surface – are used today primarily to map coastal waters. At nearly 600 pounds, the systems are large and heavy, and they require costly, piloted aircraft to carry them.
GTRI lightweight lidar prototype
A team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has designed a new approach that could lead to bathymetric lidars that are much smaller and more efficient than the current full-size systems. The new technology, developed under the Active Electro-Optical Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AEO-ISR) project, would let modest-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carry bathymetric lidars, lowering costs substantially.
And, unlike currently available systems, AEO-ISR technology is designed to gather and transmit data in real time, allowing it to produce high-resolution 3-D undersea imagery with greater speed, accuracy, and usability.
Chemistry
LiveScience: New 'Super-Repellent' Material Could Protect Medical Implants
by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor
November 27, 2014 02:00pm ET
Scientists have created the most non-stick surfaces yet, using microscopic liquid-repellent structures instead of plastic coatings such as Teflon.
These new surfaces could help protect medical implants from gunk that can build up on and ruin the devices, endangering patients, researchers say.
Natural materials such as insect wings and duck feathers are often water-repellent, or hydrophobic. Many other substances are oleophobic, which means they repel oil.
Science Crime Scenes
Agence France Presse via The Australian: Remains of the camps: Poland unearths dark secrets from WWII
AFP
December 6, 2014
ANASTASIA carefully digs through the earth with her trowel. Bit by bit, a human skeleton emerges, piled on top of more bones.
She removes them with care, slipping them gently into a plastic container. Was it an Italian soldier? Or a Soviet? Identifying the bodies, while possible, is tricky.
What is known is the man died in one of numerous stalags where Red Army and Allied troops — including Italians after Italy switched sides — were interned by the Germans.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Texas: Texas Slavery Mapping Project Will Address Human Trafficking in Texas
December 4, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas — The scope of human trafficking in modern-day Texas will be charted by researchers working on the Texas Slavery Mapping Project, a new two-year initiative funded by a $500,000 state grant to help prevent exploitation and to care for survivors.
The Criminal Justice Division of the Governor’s Office awarded the grant to the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA) and the Bureau of Business Research at The University of Texas at Austin, working in partnership with Allies Against Slavery to document the extent of human trafficking across the state.
The project’s first year will involve gathering existing data from sources across Texas such as district attorneys and local law enforcement, and from state and national anti-trafficking advocate organizations. During the first year, the team also plans to catalog available services for trafficking survivors in Texas, including legal advice, shelters, counseling and job-skill development. The second year will be spent mapping slavery in several key regions of the state and conducting an economic analysis of the tangible and human costs of the crime.
University of Texas: Theft Researcher: Avoid Using Your Debit Card This Holiday Season
By Tricia Bailey, Center for Identity
Published: Dec. 5
It’s the holiday season, and for many of us that means shopping.
But this year, leave your debit card at home.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t find the perfect gifts for your loved ones. Just use a credit card—or better yet, cash—to do it, if you can.
Why? If your credit card is stolen or fraudulently used, you’re never on the hook for more than $50 in fraudulent charges. But with a debit card, your protection decreases as time goes on, leaving you liable for the entire stolen amount 60 days after your statement is sent to you.
Use a debit card only to get cash at an ATM, and stick to cash or a credit card for point-of-sale transactions.
Science, Space, Health, Environment, and Energy Policy
University of Louisiana at Lafayette: Federal officials accept NIRC improvements
December 1, 2014
Federal officials will take no action in response to accidents that resulted in the death of a primate and the amputation of another primate’s hind limb at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center over a year ago.
Both incidents were self-reported by the University.
A pigtailed macaque was found electrocuted Oct. 21, 2013, in an outdoor enclosure after workers began testing heaters to prepare for cooler fall temperatures. Two technicians who attempted to retrieve the animal’s body received mild electric shocks.
University of Texas: Smarter U.S. Prostitution Laws Would Help AIDS Fight
By Noel Busch-Armendariz, Professor & Director of the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault; Stephanie Wahab, Associate Professor of Social Work at Portland State University
Published: Dec. 1
World AIDS Day is Dec. 1 and it provides an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
For social workers and academic researchers like us, one thing is clear: If we truly want HIV/AIDS prevention to succeed, Americans need to have a courageous conversation about decriminalizing prostitution.
Let’s be honest. Paying for sex has been around a long time, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Recent court cases have established sexual rights and privacy in protecting what consenting adults do behind closed doors, but those rights end for people who wish to exchange sex for money.
University of Vermont: New Report: Vermonters Willing to Pay for Lake Champlain Clean-up
Regardless of their proximity to Lake Champlain, a majority of Vermonters are willing to pay at least $40 a year to improve the health of the lake, according to a new report by UVM researchers.
By Jeffrey R. Wakefield
December 3, 2014
A new report by the Vermont EPSCoR Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin (RACC) project found that Vermonters rank water quality as a top public policy priority and are willing to pay to improve the health of Vermont’s waterways. The report is based on surveys conducted in 2013 and 2014.
More than 95 percent of respondents to the 2013 survey ranked water quality as either “moderately important” or “very important,” a higher percentage than for all other public issues in the survey, including preserving the working landscape and economic development.
The 2014 survey found that 65 percent of Vermonters were willing to pay at least $40 a year to improve the health of Lake Champlain. Respondents were willing to finance the clean-up either as part of a water utility tax or as an added fee to their motor vehicle registration.
University of Arizona: How the U.S. Is Running Up Its Water Bill, and What Can Be Done
By Amanda Ballard, University Relations - Communications
December 1, 2014
Approximately one-third of the country is in at least a moderate state of drought, and UA professor Robert Glennon says current levels of consumption can't continue.
If dollar bills flowed out of the faucet and down the drain every time you turned on the tap, would you pay more attention to how long you kept it running?
Stated simply, that's the thinking of a University of Arizona professor, who says U.S. water law policy needs a serious overhaul to solve the country's severe drought conditions.
Florida State University: 'GAP' awards help propel research from lab to market
Kathleen Haughney
12/05/2014 12:00 pm
Four Florida State University researchers are getting some extra cash from the university to help transform their cutting edge research into viable products that can find success in the global marketplace.
Researchers Lukas Graber, Peggy Hsieh, Bruce Locke and Mei Zhang will receive a combined amount of $164,000 to continue their work on a variety of commercialized projects including an advanced electrical switch for power grids, plasma reactors used in organic farming, a test kit to ensure blood is not present in certain foods and supplements and an innovative nanocarbon foam material that could be used in a variety of products including sensors, filters and even joint replacements.
“FSU’s mission as a research university is to produce new knowledge and make new discoveries that can make the world a better place,” said Vice President for Research Gary K. Ostrander. “As part of that mission, we try to support our researchers as they take their work to the next level, moving it out of the laboratory into the marketplace."
University of Oregon: UO's Richmond named as a U.S. science envoy
Add another honor to the long list of awards and titles bestowed on one of the UO's most acclaimed researchers
EUGENE, Ore. — Dec. 4, 2014 — The U.S. State Department announced today that chemistry professor and Presidential Chair Geri Richmond of the University of Oregon has been selected as a United States science envoy to work with researchers in other nations on global issues. She was one of four researchers named as science envoys by Secretary of State John Kerry.
The State Department has asked Richmond to focus on countries along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
"I am so excited and honored to be chosen as the U.S. envoy for this region of the world,” Richmond said. “My recent experiences in working with scientists in developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia has convinced me of the importance of U.S. scientists developing networks and partnerships with the extraordinary talent and energy of scientists in these countries, many of whom are currently experiencing the environmental, water and health problems that foreshadow what we in developing countries will likely face in the future. I can't wait to get started.”
Science Education
Yale Daily News: Exhibit explores technology in architecture
By Gayatri Sabharwal and Caroline Wray
Staff Reporter
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
In an upcoming exhibition, the Yale School of Architecture gallery will be home to a variety of revolutionary contraptions, including a morphing wall that can read the “digital mood” of the room.
On Dec. 8, the school will open “Media and Machines,” an exploration of how digital tools allow for innovation in and different perspectives on architectural works. The exhibition marks the second part of a three-year project titled “Archaeology of the Digital,” which comes from the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. School of Architecture professor Brennan Buck said the exhibit highlights important technological developments in the field of architecture over the last several decades.
“We’re really at a point where digital technology has been an integral part of being a student or instructor in the school,” Buck said.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Louisiana Tech: Louisiana Tech, Envoy Air partner on pilot training program
December 5, 2014
Louisiana Tech University’s Department of Professional Aviation and Envoy Air have partnered on a pilot mentoring and hiring program that will help students transition to a first officer position with Envoy Air and provide an opportunity for a $10,000 scholarship.
The program selects Louisiana Tech professional aviation students as early as their sophomore year, from specific academic aviation majors. The $10,000 scholarship can be secured by students once the graduate is hired and commits to a two-year term as a first officer with Envoy Air. As the students progress through their respective academic programs, they will be mentored by Louisiana Tech professional aviation faculty and staff, and by Envoy Air pilots and members of the recruitment team.
University of Arizona: The Lord of the Tree Rings
By Daniel Stolte, University Relations, Communications and Mari N. Jensen, College of Science
December 3, 2014
Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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As part of the Section on Geology and Geography, Swetnam was elected as an AAAS Fellow for his investigations of tree rings as a record of past changes in climate, allowing scientists to predict future forest-fire frequencies in the Southwest.
"It is very nice to be recognized in this way by my colleagues and AAAS, which is such a venerable scientific society," Swetnam said. "In addition to publishing Science Magazine, one of the top scientific journals in the world, I especially admire AAAS for their leadership in communicating science to the public and decision makers."
As one of the world's leading scientists in dendrochronology, or tree-ring research, Swetnam studies tree rings from the world's largest trees, the giant sequoias found on the West Coast of the U.S., and the oldest, the bristlecone pines in the highest mountains in the West dating back 9,000 years.
Florida State University: Researchers join ranks of AAAS fellows
Jeffery Seay
12/03/2014 1:32 pm
Two Florida State University researchers — David C. Larbalestier and Harrison B. Prosper — have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
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Larbalestier, one of the world’s foremost authorities in the field of materials science, has profoundly influenced the development of high-field magnets for high-energy physics and other applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging, that have evolved from them.
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Prosper, a high-energy physics experimentalist, is among the U.S. scientists who played a significant role in the search for and 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that proves the existence of the Higgs field, which gives mass to elementary particles. His research interests include high-energy physics, cosmology, advanced analysis methods and Bayesian statistics.
Science Writing and Reporting
The Inquisitr: Is ‘Cosmos’ Season 2 Finally Happening? Neil deGrasse Tyson Reportedly Meeting With Producers
December 3, 2014
The clamor for Cosmos season 2 has never been more overwhelming. Ever since Fox aired the science show’s series finale last June, the science-hungry selfie generation has been extraordinarily persistent in bugging Neil deGrasse Tyson and Seth McFarlane’s big-time, begging for more adventures of discovery with the Ship of Imagination.
Rumors about a Cosmos season 2 started as soon as the “first” season was halfway through the episodes. Fearing that the program will mimic the original single-season format hosted by Carl Sagan in the 80s, fans on social media have pleaded with producers to allow the show at least another go next year. Despite lack of confirmation of a Cosmos season 2 from the showrunners, the show’s fans were eager to speculate possible science topics and potential new hosts for the show. Topics like neuroscience, psychology, archaeology, GMOs — matters that weren’t covered adequately in the reboot run — were fancied to be the next subject matters of the dreamed second season, while thinkers like science guy Bill Nye, physicist Michio Kaku and biologist Richard Dawkins were a few names proposed to replace Tyson as ship captain.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Bowling Green State University: Dietetics program uses social media to boost learning
December 4, 2014
BOWLING GREEN, O.—You might find dietetics students tweeting in Carrie Hamady’s classes, but far from casual conversations with friends, their Twitter chats are responses to their assigned readings and interactions with Hamady or even other professionals in the field. Hamady and her colleagues in the dietetics program have incorporated the social media form into their classwork and professional development.
Hamady, an instructor and coordinator of undergraduate dietetics in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences, recently won the Innovations in Dietetics Education Award at the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE), at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics annual meeting, with her presentation "Using Twitter to Enhance Engagement in Undergraduate Nutrition Courses."?FNCE is the world's largest meeting of food and nutrition professionals.
She and colleagues Drs. Mary-Jon Ludy and Dawn Anderson used an innovative teaching grant to develop new ways to structure their classes. Graduate student Molly Kayser was also involved with the project.
“We wanted to integrate more technology into our coursework to prepare our students for 21st-century health-care education and to teach them to use Twitter professionally,” said Hamady.
Ohio State University:
Fighting Air Pollution in China with Social Media
Study shows limits of ‘liberation technology’ in advancing change
By: Jeff Grabmeier
Published on December 02, 2014
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The serious air pollution problem in China has attracted the attention of online activists who want the government to take action, but their advocacy has had only limited success, a new study has revealed.
Instead, much of the online conversation has been co-opted by corporations wanting to sell masks, filters and other products and by government officials advancing its own environmental narrative, the study finds.
Researchers at The Ohio State University analyzed about 250,000 posts on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo (similar to Twitter) that discussed the pollution problem in the country.
They concluded that online activists did force the Chinese government to take some actions to tackle the pollution problem. But they also found that business and government dominated much of the conversation and used it to their own advantage.
University of Vermont: The Social Contagion of Fear: Clark Analyzes Ebola Discussions on Twitter
by Carolyn Shapiro
December 3, 2014
As the Ebola epidemic expanded overseas and reached U.S. shores in late September, concern – and misinformation – flew across social media networks.
Twitter lit up with references to “virus” and “death” and descriptions of “scary” and “terrifying.” Some less-worried tweets mentioned “cure” and even “jokes.”
These words became building blocks for Eric Clark’s latest “social contagion” study. A mathematician and doctoral candidate working in the University of Vermont Department of Surgery, Clark is finding ways to use data-processing power and social media to take the public’s temperature on health issues and current events. He works under the mentorship of Assistant Professor of Surgery Christopher Jones, Ph.D., director of the Global Health Economics Unit in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science.
University of Wisconsin: Computer equal to or better than humans at cataloging science
By David Tenenbaum
December 1, 2014
In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat chess wizard Garry Kasparov. This year, a computer system developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison equaled or bested scientists at the complex task of extracting data from scientific publications and placing it in a database that catalogs the results of tens of thousands of individual studies.
“We demonstrated that the system was no worse than people on all the things we measured, and it was better in some categories,” says Christopher Ré, who guided the software development for a project while a UW professor of computer sciences.
The development, described in the current issue of PLoS, marks a milestone in the quest to rapidly and precisely summarize, collate and index the vast output of scientists around the globe, says first author Shanan Peters, a professor of geoscience at UW-Madison.
Science is Cool
LiveScience: It's Really Richard: DNA Confirms King's Remains
by Megan Gannon, News Editor
Battled-scarred bones found under an English parking lot two years ago really do belong to the medieval King Richard III, according to a new analysis of genetic and genealogical evidence.
"The evidence is overwhelming that these are indeed the remains of Richard III," University of Leicester geneticist Turi King said during a press conference.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Bowling Green State University: Comics and mental health
BGSU alumnus creates unique career path
December 1, 2014
Villains are one of the most important aspects of a comic book. Without them, there would be no superheroes. But why do villains do what they do?
Valentino Zullo, who received dual master’s degrees in English and women’s, gender and sexuality studies from BGSU, is using his combined knowledge base to study the psychological underpinning of villains in comics and apply what he learns to working with patients in mental health services.
“I’m both a social worker and a scholar,” Zullo said. “I study how mental health disciplines such as psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis and social work intersect with comics.”
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Zullo offers the example of the Joker from Batman. Everyone knows he’s psychotic, but no one really understands why.
“Diagnosis asks the question ‘What are you?’ whereas the superhero narrative asks the question ‘Where have you been?’ To understand that a villain has a traumatic history, it humanizes them. It doesn’t correct what they’ve done, nor does it justify it, but if they have a beginning, then they can also have an ending. They are not forever stuck doing what they do as villains,” he said.