Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from Space.com.
Virgin Galactic's Private Spaceship Makes First Crewed Flight
By Clara Moskowitz
A private suborbital spaceship built for the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic made its first flight with a crew onboard Thursday as it soared over California's Mojave Desert beneath its enormous mothership.
The commercial spaceliner – called VSS Enterprise, one of the company's fleet of SpaceShipTwo spacecraft – did not try to reach space in the test flight. Instead, it stayed firmly attached to its WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve mothership.
The two crewmembers riding onboard VSS Enterprise evaluated all of the spacecraft's systems and functions during the 6-hour, 12-minute flight, Virgin Galactic officials said in a statement. In addition, automated sensors and ground crews conducted thorough vehicle systems tests.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
DarkSyde: This Week in Science
Meteor Blades: Green diary rescue and open thread
Oke: Overnight News Digest-UPDATED
tcorse: The Surprising Science of Motivation - Animated!
Slideshows/Videos
Examiner.com: President Barrack Obama gets seat time in the 2011 Chevrolet Volt
By Patrick Rall, Detroit Autos Examiner
President Barrack Obama made a stop Thursday during his trip to Michigan at the new Compact Power battery plant in Holland. Compact Power (a subsidiary of LG Chem) will be responsible for the battery cells of the 2011 Chevy Volt so while the President was in Holland, the folks from LG and GM offered President Obama a chance to check out the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The pictures in the gallery below courtesy of Chevrolet via Saul Loeb/Getty Images show the President speaking before climbing in to the 2011 Chevy Volt.
Bob Walker and Eugenio Arima describe their research trip along the western Transamazon Highway in Brazil.
BBC: Bats, rats and frogs found in Kenya's Matthews Range
An international team of scientists has begun exploring one of the most isolated patches of tropical mountain forest in East Africa.
Botanists have already uncovered more than 100 species never recorded there before - including animals like tiny rats, bats and butterflies as well as plants.
But the forest is also threatened by growing numbers of local herders, looking for new places to graze their cattle.
The BBC's Peter Greste joined the expedition and spoke to Patrick Milonza, entomologist Dino Martins and mammologist Judith Mbao at their base camp to find out what they have discovered so far.
National Science Foundation: Good Vibrations
Columbia University bioengineer Elisa Konofagou is making waves when it comes to researching treatments for degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. These aren't just any waves; they're ultrasound waves.
"Ultrasound denotes acoustic wave propagation. If you increase the intensity and pressure of these waves, you can cause biological effects on tissues," says Konofagou.
With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Konofagou is experimenting with ultrasound technology and how it could become part of a comprehensive treatment for various degenerative brain diseases.
Nature: A piece in the monkey puzzle
Astronomy/Space
Science News: A violent tail
Mercury surprises with powerful magnetic storms, signs of volcanism
By Ron Cowen
The solar system’s innermost planet is even more mercurial than planetary scientists had thought, a trio of reports posted online July 15 in Science reveals.
When NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury for the third time in September 2009, it found evidence that magnetic storms are much more intense and rapid-fire there than on Earth.
One of the Science articles also provides new details about findings from the flyby, first announced last November, that suggest Mercury was volcanically active much more recently — as little as 1 billion years ago — than researchers had previously thought.
Space.com via MSNBC: Skydiver plans supersonic space jump
by Zoe Macintosh
A skydiver is making progress with plans to leap from near the edge of space in a dive that would break world records and the sound barrier.
Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner is a step closer to attempting the feat after a series of recent high-altitude test jumps. He plans to make his ambitious jump attempt later this year.
Starting in the stratosphere at 120,000 feet above the ground, Baumgartner will leap from a capsule suspended by a helium balloon near the boundary of space.
Red Orbit: Researchers Puzzled By Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere
NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.
"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). "It's a Space Age record."
The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.
"Something is going on that we do not understand," says Emmert.
Evolution/Paleontology
Physorg.com: Large predatory fish fossil found near Isisford
July 14, 2010
The fossil of a large, fast-swimming predatory fish, similar to the modern day Indo-Pacific tarpon, has been found near Isisford, central-western Queensland.
The new fossil comes from the same locality that produced the skeleton of Isisfordia duncani, the world's first modern crocodilian, and is estimated to be between 98 and 95 million years old.
The Isisford tarpon was found in the mid-1990s by then local grazier Ian Duncan.
Physorg.com: Remarkable fossil cave shows how ancient marsupials grew
By Bob Beale
July 14, 2010
(PhysOrg.com) -- The discovery of a remarkable 15-million-year-old Australian fossil limestone cave packed with even older animal bones has revealed almost the entire life cycle of a large prehistoric marsupial, from ...
The discovery of a remarkable 15-million-year-old Australian fossil limestone cave packed with even older animal bones has revealed almost the entire life cycle of a large prehistoric marsupial, from suckling young in the pouch still cutting their milk teeth to elderly adults.
In an unprecedented find, a team of UNSW researchers has unearthed from the cave floor hundreds of beautifully preserved fossils of the extinct browsing wombat-like marsupial Nimbadon lavarackorum, along with the remains of galloping kangaroos, primitive bandicoots, a fox-sized thylacine and forest bats.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Reuters Africa: Gabon halts rock quarry to protect ancient fossils
LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Gabon's government shut down a rock quarry in the country's remote eastern region to protect ancient fossils scientists say could prove complex life on earth is more than two billion years old.
Researchers found thumb-sized fossils in the central African state they say pre-dates other evidence of multi-cellular life on the planet by nearly a half a billion years, according to a report published in Nature magazine last month.
Examiner.com: University of Michigan paleontologist finds ancestor of apes and Old World monkeys
By Vince Lamb, Detroit Science News Examiner
It is not every day that one goes out looking for dinosaur bones, but instead finds a fossil that may not be as glamorous, but is even more important to science than yet another dinosaur. University of Michigan paleontologist Iyad Zalmout found that out for himself last year, when he went exploring western Saudi Arabia for dinosaur fossils, but instead discovered what may be one of the last common ancestors of apes and Old World monkeys.
What Dr. Zalmout found was the partial skull of Saadanius hijazensis, a primitive primate that displayed all the shared characteristics of both Old World monkeys, such as baboons, macaques, and colubus monkeys, and apes, such as gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and, oh, yes, humans, but lacked the specialized distinguishing features of either group. This combination of traits is exactly what a common ancestor of both groups would have.
Note only does Saadanius hijazensis fill in a chapter in the fossil history leading to humans that scientists had long suspected to have existed but never had read before, it puts a date on that chapter with greater precision than scientists working from previously available evidence had been able to infer. Paleontologits working from fossil evidence speculated that the split between the apes and Old World monkeys could have occurred as recently as 23 million to 25 million years ago (National Science Foundation). On the other hand, analysis of DNA from living apes and monkeys indicted the same event happened as long ago as 30 million to 35 million years ago (Scientific American and Red Orbit). The preliminary age for Saadanius hijazensis of 28 million to 29 million years narrows down the timing of the divergence between apes and Old World monkeys to no earlier and not much later than 29 million years ago, splitting the difference between the two estimates.
In a press release from the National Science Foundation (NSF), University of Michigan anthropologist William Sanders said, "This new primate gives researchers a better idea of the time of the divergence of Old World monkeys and apes, and a better knowledge about what the ancestor of Old World monkeys and apes looked like. This discovery also helps identify difficult-to-recognize early apes, which had few features of modern apes."
For more on this story, read the original at Nature: New Oligocene primate from Saudi Arabia and the divergence of apes and Old World monkeys (abstract only; full article only if you have a subscription or are willing to pay US$32). Publicly available news article here.
Biodiversity
BBC: Plants 'can think and remember'
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
Plants are able to "remember" and "react" to information contained in light, according to researchers.
Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems.
These "electro-chemical signals" are carried by cells that act as "nerves" of the plants.
Biotechnology/Health
University of Illinois: Engineering could give reconstructive surgery a face-lift
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Facial reconstruction patients may soon have the option of custom-made bone replacements optimized for both form and function, thanks to researchers at the University of Illinois and the Ohio State University Medical Center.
Whether resulting from illness or injury, loss of facial bones poses problems for reconstructive surgeons beyond cosmetic implications: The patient’s chewing, swallowing, speaking or even breathing abilities may be impaired.
"The mid-face is perhaps the most complicated part of the human skeleton," said Glaucio Paulino, the Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering at U. of I. "What makes mid-face reconstruction more complicated is its unusual unique shape (bones are small and delicate) and functions, and its location in an area susceptible to high contamination with bacteria."
io9.com: Human sperm gene hasn't changed at all in 600 million years
Alasdair Wilkins
The sex genes are some of the fastest-changing throughout animal genomes. But one particular sex gene is so perfectly evolved that it hasn't changed in 600 million years: the sperm gene.
The gene, dubbed Boule, is found in everything from flies to roosters to sea anemones to trout to humans. As far as its discoverers can tell, it's the only gene that is exclusively required for sperm production throughout the animal kingdom.
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Because the gene is exclusively involved in sperm production, it's a great target for the development of new male contraceptives. It might also help treat male infertility.
Agence France Presse: Scientists in Britain close to cracking chicken-egg puzzle
LONDON — What came first, the chicken or the egg? Scientists in Britain think it was probably the chicken, after using new computer technology to try and crack the age-old riddle.
Researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick, in northern and central England, say the secret lies in the eggshell -- specifically the vital role played by a chicken protein in forming it.
Scientists already knew that the protein, vocledidin-17 (OC-17), plays a part in eggshell formation, but the new technology allowed the team to demonstrate exactly how the protein makes it happen.
Climate/Environment
Examiner.com: Michigan State professor returns from the Amazon, confirms predictions both bad and good
By Vince Lamb, Detroit Science News Examiner
Late last month, Michigan State University geographer Bob Walker, a veteran Amazon researcher whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation, led the first reseach expedition to a newly opened 700-mile stretch of the Transamazon Highway in western Brazil. He and his team returned with both bad and expected news and good yet surprising news.
The bad news was that his team confirmed the existence of illegal logging and gold-mining operations that threaten further damage to the world’s largest rainforest.
The good news was that they discovered surprising evidence that many of the Brazilian government’s efforts to protect the environment have been working. In fact, the researchers found massive areas of undisturbed forest in the form of nationally protected areas and indigenous reserves, as well as examples of where the government had halted unofficial road building.
In a press release, Walker said, "We were kind of amazed by the number of good stories we actually saw. The environmental enforcement agencies in Brazil often do seem to be doing what they’re supposed to do."
io9.com: Antidepressants in the water are making shrimp suicidal
Alasdair Wilkins
Improving human mental health is having some serious unintended consequences for our friends in the ocean. Exposure to antidepressants makes shrimp five times more likely to place themselves in life-threatening situations, and the broader effects could damage the entire ecosystem.
Exposure to the antidepressant fluoxetine causes shrimp to radically alter their behavior. While normal shrimp are more likely to avoid swimming towards light because it's often associated with prey like birds or fishermen, those exposed to fluoxetine become five times more likely to swim towards light than away from it. That change in behavior places them in harm's way, and if enough shrimp are exposed to the antidepressant the entire population could be at risk.
National Science Foundation: Tiny Marine Microbes Exert Influence on Global Climate
New research indicates that the interactions of microscopic organisms around a particular organic material may alter the chemical properties of the ocean--influencing global climate by affecting cloud formation in the atmosphere.
Justin Seymour, a research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, is the lead author of a paper reporting the results, published in this week's issue of the journal Science.
The paper describes how a relative of the chemical that seabirds and seals use to locate prey, dimethylsulfide (DMS), may serve a similar purpose at the microbial scale, helping marine microorganisms find food and cycle chemicals that are important to climate.
National Science Foundation: Indian Ocean Sea-Level Rise Threatens Coastal Areas
Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threatening residents in some densely populated coastal areas and islands, a new study concludes.
The study, led by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., finds that the sea-level rise is at least partly a result of climate change.
Sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, as well as the islands of Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, the authors found.
The rise--which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India--could have future impacts on both regional and global climate.
Geology
The Hindu (India): Why tectonic plates move the way they do
Researchers at Monash University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography have developed a new theory to explain the global motions of tectonic plates on the earth’s surface.
The new theory extends the theory of plate tectonics - a kinematic description of plate motion without reference to the forces behind it - with a dynamical theory that provides a physical explanation for both the motions of tectonic plates as well as motion of plate boundaries. The new findings have implications for how scientists understand the geological evolution of Earth, and in particular, the tectonic evolution of western North America, in the past 50 million years.
The research, led by Monash University’s Wouter Schellart, appears in the journal Science.
Bernama (Malaysia): Huge Undersea Volcano Mapped Off Indonesia
JAKARTA, July 14 (Bernama) -- A joint Indonesia-US exploration of the deep ocean north of Sulawesi have discovered a huge undersea volcano in the first week of its expedition, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported.
The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer's built-in multibeam sonar mapped the towering undersea volcano while cameras on the ship's remotely-operated vehicle took high-definition images of the feature called Kawio Barat, an ocean area west of Kawio Islands, the US embassy said on its official website here Wednesday.
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"This is a huge undersea volcano, taller than all but three or four mountains in Indonesia, and rising more than ten thousand feet from the seafloor in water more than eighteen thousand feet deep," said Jim Holden, US chief scientist for the first leg of the joint expedition.
Psychology/Behavior
Discover Magazine: Robins can literally see magnetic fields, but only if their vision is sharp
Ed Yong
Some birds can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and orientate themselves with the ease of a compass needle. This ability is a massive boon for migrating birds, keeping frequent flyers on the straight and narrow. But this incredible sense is closely tied to a more mundane one – vision. Thanks to special molecules in their retinas, birds like the European robins can literally see magnetic fields. The fields appear as patterns of light and shade, or even colour, superimposed onto what they normally see.
Katrin Stapput from Goethe University has shown that this ‘magnetoreception’ ability depends on a clear image from the right eye. If the eye is covered by a translucent frosted goggle, the birds become disorientated; if the left eye is covered, they can navigate just fine. So the robin’s vision acts as a gate for its magnetic sense. Darkness (or even murkiness) keeps the gate shut, but light opens it, allowing the internal compass to work.
The magnetic sense of birds was first discovered in robins in 1968, and its details have been teased out ever since. Years of careful research have told us that the ability depends on light and particularly on the right eye and the left half of the brain. The details still aren’t quite clear but, for now, the most likely explanation involves a molecule called cryptochrome. Cryptochrome is found in the light-sensitive cells of a bird’s retina and scientists think that it affects just how sensitive those cells are.
Science Daily: Wild Cat Found Mimicking Monkey Calls; Predatory Trickery Documented for the First Time in Wild Felids in Americas
In a fascinating example of vocal mimicry, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas) have documented a wild cat species imitating the call of its intended victim: a small, squirrel-sized monkey known as a pied tamarin. This is the first recorded instance of a wild cat species in the Americas mimicking the calls of its prey.
The extraordinary behavior was recorded by researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and UFAM in the Amazonian forests of the Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke in Brazil. The observations confirmed what until now had been only anecdotal reports from Amazonian inhabitants of wild cat species -- including jaguars and pumas -- actually mimicking primates, agoutis, and other species in order to draw them within striking range.
The observations appear in the June issue of Neotropical Primates.
Archeology/Anthropology
Physorg.com: Oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem
A tiny clay fragment - dating from the 14th century B.C.E. - that was found in excavations outside Jerusalem's Old City walls contains the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The find, believed to be part of a tablet from a royal archives, further testifies to the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the Late Bronze Age, long before its conquest by King David, they say.
The clay fragment was uncovered recently during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century B.C.E. tower dating from the period of King Solomon in the Ophel area, located between the southern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem and the City of David to its south. Details of the discovery appear in the current issue of the Israel Exploration Journal.
Excavations in the Ophel have been conducted by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Funding for the project has been provided by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York, who also have provided funds for completion of the excavations and opening of the site to the public by the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Company for the Development of East Jerusalem. The sifting work was led by Dr.Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Zweig at the Emek Zurim wet-sieving facility site.
The Daily Telegraph (UK): 'Biggest canal ever built by Romans' discovered
By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 8:17PM BST 11 Jul 2010
Scholars discovered the 100-yard-wide (90-metre-wide) canal at Portus, the ancient maritime port through which goods from all over the Empire were shipped to Rome for more than 400 years.
The archaeologists, from the universities of Cambridge and Southampton and the British School at Rome, believe the canal connected Portus, on the coast at the mouth of the Tiber, with the nearby river port of Ostia, two miles away.
It would have enabled cargo to be transferred from big ocean-going ships to smaller river vessels and taken up the River Tiber to the docks and warehouses of the imperial capital.
BBC: Roman cemetery found on Co-op development in Caistor
Archaeologists have found what is thought to be a 4th Century Roman cemetery on the site of a supermarket development in Caistor.
The discovery was made at the site of the derelict Talbot Inn, as builders moved in to build a new Co-op store.
Archaeologists found 46 sets of human remains, including whole skeletons.
The Art Newspaper: Discovery of earliest illuminated manuscript
What could be the world’s earliest illustrated Christian manuscript has been found in a remote Ethiopian monastery. The Garima Gospels were previously assumed to date from about 1100AD, but radiocarbon dating conducted in Oxford suggests they were made between 330 and 650AD.
This discovery looks set to transform our knowledge about the development of illuminated manuscripts. It also throws new light on the spread of Christianity into sub-Saharan Africa.
This is London: Hidden history under Sainsbury’s car park
Kieran Long
14.07.10
Merton Priory is not a landmark known to many in London. One of the most significant
religious buildings in Britain from the 12th century until its destruction during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, the abbey remains make it an equally important medieval archaeological site.
The Priory is now on a tentative list, drawn up last week by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to become a World Heritage Site, a classification endowed by Unesco and reserved for the most significant sites of historical, architectural or ecological interest in the world. If it is to be successful after a long assessment process (which could take a couple of years) it will put Merton alongside the capital's four existing World Heritage Sites — the Tower of London, Westminster Palace and Abbey, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and Maritime Greenwich — as well as some of the world-famous attractions such as the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal and Stonehenge.
The only thing is, what's left of this monument of potentially global significance in Colliers Wood is buried under a Sainsbury's supermarket and part of the A24. The perfectly preserved outline of the chapter house of the abbey is in a strange underpass cavern of a dual carriageway. It is inaccessible, except on the occasions when the Merton Priory Trust, an organisation staffed by committed volunteers, is able to open it for visits or events.
Sify: Archaeologists uncover skeletons, weapons from 1628 battle
2010-07-13 21:00:00
Two skeletons and abandoned weapons found on the outskirts of a German town give an unparalleled insight into life in 1628 during Europe's worst conflict before the two world wars, archaeologists said Tuesday.
Tatters of clothing and old muskets with the owners' initials still etched into the butts helped scientists identify the bodies as soldiers in the Habsburg monarchy's army during the Thirty Years War.
The Florida Times-Union: Cauldron from rare wreckage will shed light on St. Augustine’s colonial heritage
Finding will also engage students, museum director says.
By Dan Scanlan
It sure didn’t look like the proverbial pot at the end of a rainbow as it emerged from an estimated 250-plus years of slumber 30 feet under the waves off St. Augustine.
Encrustations of century’s-old mud marred the cauldron’s shape as it was hauled onto the dive boat Wednesday by the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program team.
But there could be historical gold in the pot removed from a shipwreck within sight of the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Chuck Meide, Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program director, found what could be a spoon stuck inside.
The Independent (UK): Ground Zero builders uncover centuries-old hull
From David Usborne
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Archaeologists at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan are racing to dig out what appears to be remains of the wooden hull of a stubby 18th century ship that construction crews stumbled upon earlier this week as they prepared foundations for the new World Trade Centre complex.
It has been almost 30 years since such a significant remnant of New York’s ocean-going past has been found beneath its pavements. As work continues unabated at the site, archeologists with a firm already hired to document finds of interest there, spearheaded efforts for the hull’s removal to safe ground and more detailed analysis.
N.Y. Times: Speculation, and Clues, About Unearthed Ship
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
Two days after construction workers discovered the keel of a centuries-old wooden ship at the site of the new World Trade Center, New Yorkers continued to speculate about what might have caused the mysterious vessel to come to rest amid layers of landfill.
Physorg.com: Archaeology find sheds new light on family pets
July 12, 2010
A University of Leicester archaeologist has discovered a bone belonging to a late19th-century tortoise from Stafford Castle, Staffordshire - believed to be the earliest archaeological evidence of a tortoise kept as a family pet.
As reported in Post-Medieval Archaeology (volume 44/1) by University of Leicester archaeologist Dr Richard Thomas, the significance of the find is in the insights it gives on the early importation of tortoises and the changing attitude of British society towards family pets.
The Stafford Castle tortoise bone was found amongst the skeletons of cats and dogs, in a context that suggests it was kept as a pet, possibly by the family who were caretakers at the castle at the time. The date of the find coincides with the late 19th-century increase in the trade of live animals and with the widespread importation of tortoises in particular.
Associated Press via Victoria Advocate: Tribal students on path to cultural discovery
BIGHORN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Mont. (AP) - When they talk quietly together standing among the dozens of tepee rings at the south end of this modern-day park, James Vallie, Aspen Brugh and Ross Pretty On Top envision how it must have been for their Crow ancestors hundreds of years ago.
"There would have been elk and deer and horses all out there grazing," Vallie, crew leader at the archaeology field school, said as he stood in the middle of a stone circle gazing down a broad, sloping plateau.
"If they were all out here at once, it would have been just like Crow Fair," Brugh suggested of the tepee rings that cover most of wide plateau above and below the park road.
The Art Newspaper: Looted from Italy and now in a major Spanish museum?
Madrid’s National Archaeological Museum may have bought trafficked items
By Fabio Isman
ROME. Madrid’s National Archaeological Museum, founded in 1867, may have acquired 22 antiquities that were illegally excavated and exported from Italy. Research suggests that the objects may have passed through the hands of antiquities dealers Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina. Medici was discovered with a store full of antiquities, photographs (many of them Polaroids without any scientific method) and documents, in Geneva in 1995, while Becchina was identified as the owner of three warehouses in Basel in 2001, allegedly containing thousands of suspicious artefacts and photographs, along with an archive of files on clients, shipping documents, invoices and bank statements. Medici was finally found guilty in 2009 in Rome of trafficking in antiquities (he is appealing: he initially received ten years in prison, reduced by two on first appeal, and a €10m fine payable to the state as compensation for damage to Italy’s cultural heritage), while the trial of Becchina is now beginning. He denies charges of trafficking in illegally excavated antiquities.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
N.Y. Times: A Scientist Takes On Gravity
By DENNIS OVERBYE
It’s hard to imagine a more fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of life on the Earth than gravity, from the moment you first took a step and fell on your diapered bottom to the slow terminal sagging of flesh and dreams.
But what if it’s all an illusion, a sort of cosmic frill, or a side effect of something else going on at deeper levels of reality?
So says Erik Verlinde, 48, a respected string theorist and professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, whose contention that gravity is indeed an illusion has caused a continuing ruckus among physicists, or at least among those who profess to understand it. Reversing the logic of 300 years of science, he argued in a recent paper, titled "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton," that gravity is a consequence of the venerable laws of thermodynamics, which describe the behavior of heat and gases.
Princeton University: Princeton scientists find unusual electrons that go with the flow
On a quest to discover new states of matter, a team of Princeton University scientists has found that electrons on the surface of specific materials act like miniature superheroes, relentlessly dodging the cliff-like obstacles of imperfect microsurfaces, sometimes moving straight through barriers.
The Princeton work represents the first time such behavior of electrons has been tracked and recorded, and hints at the possibilities of speeding up integrated circuits that process information by flow of electrons between different devices. The new materials potentially could break the bottleneck that occurs when metallic interconnects get so small that even the tiniest atomic imperfection hinders their performance.
Physics professor Ali Yazdani and his team observed the extraordinary physics behavior in a "topological surface state" on a microscopic wedge of the metal antimony. The work is reported in the July 15 issue of Nature.
Chemistry
Science Daily: Chemists Grow Crystals With a Twist -- And Untwist
Chemists from New York University and Russia's St. Petersburg State University have created crystals that can twist and untwist, pointing to a much more varied process of crystal growth than previously thought. Their work, which appears in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, may explain some of the properties of high-polymers, which are used in clothing and liquid crystal displays, among other consumer products.
Crystal growth has traditionally been viewed as a collection of individual atoms, molecules, or small clusters adding to a larger block that remains in a fixed translational relationship to the rest.
But the NYU and St. Petersburg State University chemists discovered a wholly new phenomenon for growth -- a crystal that continually changes its shape as it grows.
Energy
Science Daily: Reports Detail Global Investment and Other Trends in Green Energy
In 2009, for the second year in a row, both the US and Europe added more power capacity from renewable sources such as wind and solar than conventional sources like coal, gas and nuclear, according to twin reports launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).
Renewables accounted for 60 per cent of newly installed capacity in Europe and more than 50 per cent in the USA in 2009. This year or next, experts predict, the world as a whole will add more capacity to the electricity supply from renewable than non-renewable sources.
The reports detail trends in the global green energy sector, including which sources attracted the greatest attention from investors and governments in different world regions.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Nature: Ancient Italian artefacts get the blues
Scientists accuse officials of neglect as chemicals discolour stored relics.
Alison Abbott.
A mysterious blue sheen that is creeping over precious archaeological artefacts has sparked a political firestorm in Italy. Scientists are battling local authorities to save the damaged collection — and determine who is to blame.
The prehistoric treasures — including human bones and stone tools — come from sites near Verona, which were inhabited by some of Europe's last known Neanderthals when anatomically modern humans were beginning to dominate the region. Scientists say that comparing DNA from the remains with DNA from Neanderthal bones found elsewhere may show how the last Neanderthals moved across the continent seeking refuge, for example.
But now some of the remains face irreparable damage, as they lie deteriorating in a former military armoury in northern Italy. The artefacts were moved there in 2007 and 2008 after Verona's town council sold their original home — an eighteenth-century castle that provided overflow storage for Verona's Natural History Museum. The money from the sale was intended to refurbish the arsenal to provide a new home for all of the museum's collections, but the funds were subsequently reallocated.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
L.A. Times: Scientists expected Obama administration to be friendlier
A culture of politics trumping science, many say, persists despite the president's promises. The use of potentially toxic dispersants to fight the gulf oil spill is cited as just one example.
By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington — When he ran for president, Barack Obama attacked the George W. Bush administration for putting political concerns ahead of science on such issues as climate change and public health. And during his first weeks in the White House, President Obama ordered his advisors to develop rules to "guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch."
Many government scientists hailed the president's pronouncement. But a year and a half later, no such rules have been issued. Now scientists charge that the Obama administration is not doing enough to reverse a culture that they contend allowed officials to interfere with their work and limit their ability to speak out.
"We are getting complaints from government scientists now at the same rate we were during the Bush administration," said Jeffrey Ruch, an activist lawyer who heads an organization representing scientific whistle-blowers.
Women's Rights at Change.org: The Toxicity of Nail Salons
By Brittany Shoot
You don't have to be a gal who gets her nails done to have experienced the fumes of a modern nail salon. Walk past any nail kiosk in a mall and you'll be smacked in the face by the toxic odors emanating from small shops, almost always staffed by young immigrant women of color.
A 2007 report (pdf) from Women's Voices of the Earth details what many of us may already know, to some extent: nail salons are oppressive, dangerous places for women to work. Staffed primarily by some of the most at-risk young immigrant women in the nation, workers are not only underpaid; their health is threatened by simply showing up for work every day.
Science Education
The Telegraph (UK): School children disprove theory that spiders are scared of conkers
A group of primary school children have been honoured by the Royal Society of Chemistry for disproving the theory that spiders are afraid of conkers.
Published: 6:45AM BST 15 Jul 2010
For generations, housewives have placed horse chestnuts near doors and on window ledges in a bid to repel arachnids.
It was thought that spiders were frightened off by conkers - either by their shiny surface or unique odour.
But pupils from Roselyon School in Par, Cornwall, set about testing whether the theory was just a myth with a series of experiments.
Science Writing and Reporting
L.A. Times: UC takes scientific journals to task over fees
A proposed 400% increase in the online access fee by one publisher has some academic researchers questioning the pay model.
By Michael Hiltzik
People who cite Stewart Brand's insight that "information wants to be free" almost always forget the rest of the quote, which is: "Information also wants to be expensive."
Brand, a futurist best known for editing "The Whole Earth Catalog," meant that while the cost of disseminating information was falling sharply, the value of that information was rising. Technology makes the tension between those two poles constantly worse, he observed — which helps explain the current conflict between the University of California and a major publisher of scientific and technical journals.
The publisher is Nature Publishing Group, which puts out Nature as well as about 90 other specialized journals, many of which long have been viewed by faculty and students in the hard sciences as must-have publications.
And now, a reminder of how the news cycle works in science.
Original at Piled Higher and Deeper.
Science is Cool
The Stir on Cafe Mom: Vampire Facelift: A Shocking Anti-Aging Treatment
With everyone ultra obsessive over all things vampires, even drinking blood, it makes sense that one of the hottest new plastic surgery procedures going is something called the Vampire Facelift, using a cosmetic filler called Selphyl.
Not it's not really a facelift, because there is no cutting of skin involved. Yes, it involves blood -- your own. But you don't drink it, a doctor injects it into you. You won't come out looking like Kristen Stewart or one of the sexy vamps on True Blood (sorry), but as a slightly fresher, younger looking version of yourself, as is the goal of any filler.