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 Agence France Presse via physorg.com.
BP, Transocean, Halliburton cited for violations
October 13, 2011
The US government slapped BP, Transocean and Halliburton with citations for violating oil industry regulations in what is expected to lead to massive fines for the deadly 2010 oil spill.
The decision to also cite BP's subcontractors could strengthen the British energy giant's legal case for recovering some of the multi-billion dollar costs of the spill from Halliburton, which performed the cement job, and drilling rig owner Transocean.
"The issuance today of notices of non-compliance to BP, Transocean and Halliburton makes clear that contractors, like operators, are responsible for properly conducting their deepwater drilling activities and are accountable to the US government and the American public for their conduct," BP said in a statement.
"We continue to encourage other parties, including Transocean and Halliburton, to acknowledge their responsibilities in the accident, make changes to help prevent similar accidents in the future, and step forward to fulfill their obligations to Gulf communities."
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Scientists Revolt
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The Daily Bucket - First White Crowns
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Bacyard Science - tools
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This week in science: Relativity safe for now
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Slideshows/Videos
Kowch737 on YouTube: Administrator Charlie Bolden led members of the media on a tour of NASA's new mobile launcher at the Kennedy Space Center.
The launch of NASA's National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project is fast approaching.
The 15th annual NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations experiments are underway off Key Largo, Florida.
Four NASA scientists named by President Obama as recipients of the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers were presented with their medals at a Headquarters ceremony.
With NASA's support, Space Adventures, Ltd. of Vienna, Va., will conduct a global competition for students ages 14 to 18 years to design space-based experiments in either life sciences or physics.
This ceremony in Los Angeles marked NASA's official title transfer and ownership of space shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center.
The four members of the STS-135 crew paid an extended visit to the Nation's Capital.
This is part of a video pieced together by the Opportunity team at the Jet Propulsion Lab to show the Mars Exploration Rover's three-year trek from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater.
Astronomy/Space
University of California, Santa Cruz via physorg.com: Galaxy mergers not the trigger for most black hole feeding frenzies
October 14, 2011
A survey of distant galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope has put another nail in the coffin of the theory that galaxy mergers are the main trigger for turning quiescent supermassive black holes into radiation-blasting active galactic nuclei.
Led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the new study examined the morphology and structure of distant galaxies hosting active central black holes. The researchers found that these galaxies were no more likely to be involved in an ongoing merger than non-active galaxies of similar mass.
"Theoretical models show that a merger is a great way to trigger an active galactic nucleus, because it funnels a lot of gas to the center of the galaxy. But we found that most of the host galaxies did not look disturbed. They look like disk galaxies, and a disk would be destroyed by a merger," said Dale Kocevski, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz and first author of a paper on the findings to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
European Space Agency/Hubble Information Centre via physorg.com: Hubble survey carries out a dark matter census
October 13, 2011
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to make an image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The apparently distorted shapes of distant galaxies in the background is caused by an invisible substance called dark matter, whose gravity bends and distorts their light rays. MACS 1206 has been observed as part of a new survey of galaxy clusters using Hubble.
Cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 (or MACS 1206 for short) is one of the first targets in a Hubble survey that will allow astronomers to construct the highly detailed dark matter maps of more galaxy clusters than ever before. These maps are being used to test previous but surprising results that suggest that dark matter is more densely packed inside clusters than some models predict. This might mean that galaxy cluster assembly began earlier than commonly thought.
University of Michigan via physorg.com: Clearing the cosmic fog of the early universe: Massive stars may be responsible
October 12, 2011
The space between the galaxies wasn't always transparent. In the earliest times, it was an opaque, dense fog. How it cleared is an important question in astronomy. New observational evidence from the University of Michigan shows how high energy light from massive stars could have been responsible.
Astronomers believed that early star-forming galaxies could have provided enough of the right kind of radiation to evaporate the fog, or turn the neutral hydrogen intergalactic medium into the charged hydrogen plasma that remains today. But they couldn't figure out how that radiation could escape a galaxy. Until now.
New York University via physorg.com: Astrophysicists find evidence of black holes' destruction of stars
October 11, 2011
Astrophysicists have found evidence of black holes destroying stars, a long-sought phenomenon that provides a new window into general relativity. The research, reported in the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal, also opens up a method to search for the possible existence of a large population of presently undetectable "intermediate mass" black holes which are hypothesized to be precursors to the super-massive black holes at the centers of most large galaxies.
University of Florida via physorg.com: Discovery refutes previous theory about galaxies
by Javier Barbuzano
October 11, 2011
The world’s largest optical telescope has allowed University of Florida astronomers to see new details about deep space galaxies, finding new clues to explain the evolution of galaxies like our own.
Before these new observations, it was believed that galaxies in the young universe were much denser and compact than they are now, undergoing at some point a mysterious transformation growing in size and mass. Astronomers around the world struggled to find an explanation.
Now, a UF-led team has used the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, to point out the solution to the mystery: The data gathered by lesser telescopes was not accurate enough, which led to misinterpretation.
University of Toronto (Canada) via physorg.com: Astronomers find bounty of failed stars
October 11, 2011
A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has discovered over two dozen new free-floating brown dwarfs, including a lightweight youngster only about six times heftier than Jupiter, that reside in two young star clusters. What's more, one cluster contains a surprising surplus of them, harbouring half as many of these astronomical oddballs as normal stars.
"Our findings suggest once again that objects not much bigger than Jupiter could form the same way as stars do. In other words, nature appears to have more than one trick up its sleeve for producing planetary mass objects," says Professor Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and leader of the international team that made the discovery.
Astrobio.net via physorg.com: The hazy history of Titan's air
by Shaun McCormack
October 13, 2011
What rocky moon has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Earth-like weather patterns and geology, liquid hydrocarbon seas and a relatively good chance to support life? The answer is Titan, the fascinating moon of Saturn.
Titan's many similarities to Earth is why astrobiologists are so fascinated by this unusual moon. Its atmosphere is often viewed as an analog to what the Earth's atmosphere may have been like billions of years ago. Despite the 800 million miles between the two worlds, both may have had their atmospheres created through the gravitational layering and processing of asteroids and comets.
"Titan provides an extraordinary environment to better understand some of the chemical processes that led to the appearance of life on Earth,” says Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez, of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC) in Barcelona, Spain. “Titan’s atmosphere is a natural laboratory that, in many aspects, seems to have a strong similitude with our current picture of the pre-biotic atmosphere of Earth."
This is remarkable, because it was thought that Earth and Titan were made from a vastly different recipe of materials in drastically different temperatures, he says.
JPL/NASA via phyorg.com: NASA's Dawn science team presents early science results
October 13, 2011
Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission are sharing with other scientists and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, Minn.
Dawn, which has been orbiting Vesta since mid-July, has found that the asteroid's southern hemisphere boasts one of the largest mountains in the solar system. Other findings show that Vesta's surface, viewed by Dawn at different wavelengths, has striking diversity in its composition, particularly around craters. Science findings also include an in-depth analysis of a set of equatorial troughs on Vesta and a closer look at the object's intriguing craters. The surface appears to be much rougher than most asteroids in the main asteroid belt. In addition, preliminary dates from a method that uses the number of craters indicate that areas in the southern hemisphere are as young as 1 billion to 2 billion years old, much younger than areas in the north.
Scientists do not yet understand how all the features on Vesta's surface formed, but they did announce today, after analysis of northern and southern troughs, that results are consistent with models of fracture formation due to giant impact.
Geological Society of America via physorg.com: New mystery on Mars' forgotten plains
October 12, 2011
One of the supposedly best understood and least interesting landscapes on Mars is hiding something that could rewrite the planet's history. Or not. In fact, about all that is certain is that decades of assumptions regarding the wide, flat Hesperia Planum are not holding up very well under renewed scrutiny with higher-resolution, more recent spacecraft data.
"Most scientists don't want to work on the flat things," noted geologist Tracy Gregg of University at Buffalo, State University of New York. So after early Mars scientists decided Hesperia Planum looked like a lava-filled plain, no one really revisited the matter and the place was used to exemplify something rather important: The base of a major transitional period in the geologic time scale of Mars. The period is aptly called the Hesperian and it is thought to have run from 3.7 to 3.1 billion years ago.
But when Gregg and her student Carolyn Roberts started looking at this classic Martian lava plain with modern data sets, they ran into trouble.
Evolution/Paleontology
The Salt Lake Tribune: Dinosaur renaissance: A new look at old creatures in Utah
By Tom Wharton
For creatures that wandered through Utah millions of years ago, dinosaurs certainly are making news these days.
Whether paleontologists are announcing the discovery of a new species, or working a dig in places such as Hanksville, Moab, Emery County or the Uinta Basin, or buildings and exhibits are either being rebuilt or constructed from scratch, dinosaurs are enjoying a renaissance in Utah.
The state already featured what is billed as the world’s largest display of mounted dinosaurs at the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point, the world’s best collection of dinosaur tracks at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm and the densest concentration of Jurassic-aged dinosaurs ever found at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in Emery County.
Field Museum via physorg.com: T. rex was bigger than thought: study
October 12, 2011
The iconic T. rex dinosaur grew bigger and faster than previously estimated, according to new methods based on actual skeletons instead of scale models, British and US scientists said Wednesday.
In a new study just published in the journal PLoS One, a team of scientists led by Professor John R. Hutchinson of The Royal Veterinary College, London, and Peter Makovicky, PhD, curator of dinosaurs at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago applied cutting edge technology and computer modeling to "weigh" five Tyrannosaurus rex specimens, including The Field Museum's iconic SUE skeleton. Their results reveal that T. rex grew more quickly and reached significantly greater masses than previously estimated.
In a departure from earlier methods, the new study uses mounted skeletons to generate body mass estimates. Makovicky notes, "Previous methods for calculating mass relied on scale models, which can magnify even minor errors, or on extrapolations from living animals with very different body plans from dinosaurs. We overcame such problems by using the actual skeletons as a starting point for our study."
University of Colorado at Boulder via physorg.com: Worms among first animals to surface after K-T extinction event, study finds
October 11, 2011
A new study of sediments laid down shortly after an asteroid plowed into the Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago, an event that is linked to widespread global extinctions including the demise of big dinosaurs, suggests that lowly worms may have been the first fauna to show themselves following the global catastrophe.
While the focus on the so-called K-T boundary extinction is often on the survival and proliferation of mammals, paleo-botanical studies show some of the earliest terrestrial ecosystems to emerge were dominated by low-diversity and opportunistic aquatic plants, said University of Colorado Boulder geological sciences Associate Professor Karen Chin. And while sediments laid down immediately following the impact event generally have relatively few animal fossils, new evidence from North Dakota shows networks of crisscrossing burrows less than three inches above the K-T boundary layer.
"Fossil burrows provide direct evidence of animal activity that occurred right at that spot, and these burrows are quite extensive," said Chin, who said their characteristics suggest they were probably produced by worms. "To my knowledge, such burrows haven't been documented in terrestrial environments this close to the K-T boundary. This is a glimpse of a world we don't know very much about yet.""Fossil burrows provide direct evidence of animal activity that occurred right at that spot, and these burrows are quite extensive," said Chin, who said their characteristics suggest they were probably produced by worms. "To my knowledge, such burrows haven't been documented in terrestrial environments this close to the K-T boundary. This is a glimpse of a world we don't know very much about yet."
Inside Science News Service via physorg.com: Fossil moths reveal their true colors
By Kirsten Weir
October 12, 2011
Moths dead for 47 million years are again showing their true colors. For the first time, scientists have reconstructed the colors of an ancient fossil moth. The findings detailed not just a few spots of color, but the appearance of the entire organism.
Maria McNamara, a researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., presented the findings October 9 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, Minn.
In recent years, scientists have begun painting a colorful picture of prehistoric life on Earth by reconstructing colors from fossilized animals including dinosaurs and early birds.
Those dinosaur colors were preserved as pigments within the fossils. The palette of the fossil moths was produced not by pigments, however, but by physical structure.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Geological Society of America via physorg.com: Giant kraken lair discovered
October 10, 2011
Long before whales, the oceans of Earth were roamed by a very different kind of air-breathing leviathan. Snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs larger than school buses swam at the top of the Triassic Period ocean food chain, or so it seemed before Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin took a look at some of their remains in Nevada. Now he thinks there was an even larger and more cunning sea monster that preyed on ichthyosaurs: a kraken of such mythological proportions it would have sent Captain Nemo running for dry land. McMenamin will be presenting the results of his work on Monday, 10 October at the Annual Meeting of The Geological Society of America in Minneapolis.
The evidence is at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada, where McMenamin and his daughter spent a few days this summer. It's a site where the remains of nine 45-foot (14-meter) ichthyosaurs, of the species Shonisaurus popularis can be found. These were the Triassic's counterpart to today's predatory giant squid-eating sperm whales. But the fossils at the Nevada site have a long history of perplexing researchers, including the world's expert on the site: the late Charles Lewis Camp of U.C. Berkeley.
"Charles Camp puzzled over these fossils in the 1950s," said McMenamin. "In his papers he keeps referring to how peculiar this site is. We agree, it is peculiar."
I'm a paleontologist, and I'm not convinced.
Biodiversity
Michigan Technological University via physorg.com: Ecosystem management must consider human impact too
By Jennifer Donovan
October 14, 2011
For a long time, ecologists have believed—and others accepted—that when it comes to whether a land mass is covered with forests or grasslands, climate controls the show. They thought that the amount of rain, temperature and frequency of wildfires determine whether the ground will be covered with trees or grasses.
Maybe not, say two scientists writing in the Oct. 14, 2011, issue of the journal Science. In a review of their papers in a Perspectives article in the same issue of Science, Michigan Technological University researcher Audrey Mayer suggests that future studies also need to consider other factors—specifically, grazing patterns and human activities—when planning for sustainable management of the world’s forests and savannas or prairies. .
“Humans like to think everything is linear,” says Mayer, an assistant professor of ecology and environmental policy with joint appointments in Michigan Tech’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science and the College of Sciences and Arts Department of Social Science. “So we have assumed that if we want to restore a forest where there is now savanna, that we just need to plant some trees and the spaces between them will fill in with trees. Not so.”
Biotechnology/Health
N.Y. Times: Scientists Solve Puzzle of Black Death’s DNA
By NICHOLAS WADE
After the Black Death reached London in 1348, about 2,400 people were buried in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in a cemetery that had been prepared for the plague’s arrival. From the teeth of four of those victims, researchers have now reconstructed the full DNA of a microbe that within five years felled one-third to one-half of the population of Western Europe.
The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, is still highly virulent today but has different symptoms, leading some historians to doubt that it was the agent of the Black Death.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (France Switzerland--thanks PeterHug) via physorg.com: From blue whales to earthworms, a common mechanism gives shape to living beings
October 13, 2011
Why don't our arms grow from the middle of our bodies? The question isn't as trivial as it appears. Vertebrae, limbs, ribs, tailbone ... in only two days, all these elements take their place in the embryo, in the right spot and with the precision of a Swiss watch. Intrigued by the extraordinary reliability of this mechanism, biologists have long wondered how it works. Now, researchers at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the University of Geneva (Unige) have solved the mystery. Their discovery will be published October 13, 2011 in the journal Science.
...
During the development of an embryo, everything happens at a specific moment. In about 48 hours, it will grow from the top to the bottom, one slice at a time – scientists call this the embryo's segmentation. "We're made up of thirty-odd horizontal slices," explains Denis Duboule, a professor at EPFL and Unige. "These slices correspond more or less to the number of vertebrae we have."
Every hour and a half, a new segment is built. The genes corresponding to the cervical vertebrae, the thoracic vertebrae, the lumbar vertebrae and the tailbone become activated at exactly the right moment one after another. "If the timing is not followed to the letter, you'll end up with ribs coming off your lumbar vertebrae," jokes Duboule. How do the genes know how to launch themselves into action in such a perfectly synchronized manner? "We assumed that the DNA played the role of a kind of clock. But we didn't understand how."
Northwestern University via medicalxpress.com: Peanut allergy turned off by tricking immune system
October 11, 2011
Researchers have turned off a life-threatening allergic response to peanuts by tricking the immune system into thinking the nut proteins aren't a threat to the body, according to a new preclinical study from Northwestern Medicine. The peanut tolerance was achieved by attaching peanut proteins onto blood cells and reintroducing them to the body -- an approach that ultimately may be able to target more than one food allergy at a time.
"We think we've found a way to safely and rapidly turn off the allergic response to food allergies," said Paul Bryce, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of allergy-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Bryce and Stephen Miller, professor of microbiology-immunology at Feinberg, are co-senior authors of a paper published in the Journal of Immunology.
It's the first time this method for creating tolerance in the immune system has been used in allergic diseases. It has previously been used in autoimmune diseases.
The approach also has a second benefit. It creates a more normal, balanced immune system by increasing the number of regulatory T cells, immune cells important for recognizing the peanut proteins as normal.
McMaster University (Canada) via physorg.com: Eating your greens can change the effect of your genes on heart disease, say researchers
October 11, 2011
A long-held mantra suggests that you can't change your family, the genes they pass on, or the effect of these genes. Now, an international team of scientists, led by researchers at McMaster and McGill universities, is attacking that belief.
The researchers discovered the gene that is the strongest marker for heart disease can actually be modified by generous amounts of fruit and raw vegetables. The results of their study are published in the current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.
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The research, which represents one of the largest gene-diet interaction studies ever conducted on cardiovascular disease, involved the analysis of more than 27,000 individuals from five ethnicities -- European, South Asian, Chinese, Latin American and Arab -- and the affect that their diets had on the effect of the 9p21 gene. The results suggest that individuals with the high risk genotype who consumed a prudent diet, composed mainly of raw vegetables, fruits and berries, had a similar risk of heart attack to those with the low risk genotype.
The Scripps Research Institute via medicalxpress.com: Scientists reveal surprising picture of how powerful antibody neutralizes HIV
October 13, 2011
Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered the surprising details of how a powerful anti-HIV antibody grabs hold of the virus. The findings, published in Science Express on October 13, 2011, highlight a major vulnerability of HIV and suggest a new target for vaccine development.
"What's unexpected and unique about this antibody is that it not only attaches to the sugar coating of the virus but also reaches through to grab part of the virus's envelope protein," said the report's co-senior author Dennis Burton, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute and scientific director of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative's (IAVI) Neutralizing Antibody Center, based on the Scripps Research La Jolla campus.
"We can now start to think about constructing mimics of these viral structures to use in candidate vaccines," said co-senior author Ian Wilson, who is Hansen Professor of Structural Biology and member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research.
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute via medicalxpress.com: New gene therapy methods accurately correct mutation in patient's stem cells
October 12, 2011
For the first time, scientists have cleanly corrected a human gene mutation in a patient's stem cells. The result, reported in Nature on Wednesday 12 October, brings the possibility of patient-specific therapies closer to becoming a reality.
The team, led by researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, targeted a gene mutation responsible for both cirrhotic liver disease and lung emphysema. Using cutting-edge methods, they were able to correct the sequence of a patient's genome, remove all exogenous DNA and show that the corrected gene worked normally.
University of Rochester Medical Center via medicalxpress.com: Precision with stem cells a step forward for treating MS, other diseases
October 13, 2011
Scientists have improved upon their own previous world-best efforts to pluck out just the right stem cells to address the brain problem at the core of multiple sclerosis and a large number of rare, fatal children's diseases.
Details of how scientists isolated and directed stem cells from the human brain to become oligodendrocytes – the type of brain cell that makes myelin, a crucial fatty material that coats neurons and allows them to signal effectively – were published in Nature Biotechnology by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the University at Buffalo.
Scientists injected the cells into the brains of mice that were born without the ability to make myelin. Twelve weeks later, the cells had become oligodendrocytes and had coated more than 40 percent of the brain's neurons with myelin – a four-fold improvement over the team's previous results published in Cell Stem Cell and Nature Medicine.
Climate/Environment
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: Environmentalists call for toilets on Everest
October 13, 2011
An environmental group is asking the Nepal government to consider installing portable toilets on Mount Everest for climbers caught short at the roof of the world.
Eco Himal says the thousands of trekkers who set off from the South Base Camp in Nepal each year would do a better job of keeping the place clean if they and their porters had somewhere civilised to go when nature called.
"Human waste is a problem, of course," said the group's director, Phinjo Sherpa. "I am merely suggesting that if we have public toilets they can be used."
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres via phyorg.com: Pesticides pollute European waterbodies more than previously thought
October 13, 2011
Pesticides are a bigger problem than had long been assumed. This is the conclusion of a study in which scientists analysed data on 500 organic substances in the basins of four major European rivers. It was revealed that 38 per cent of these chemicals are present in concentrations which could potentially have an effect on organisms. According to scientists writing in the journal Science of the Total Environment, this conclusion clearly shows that contamination by organic chemicals is a problem throughout Europe. Most of the substances classified as a risk to the environment in the study were pesticides; the majority of these are not on the European list of priority substances which have to be monitored regularly. They therefore believe that the list of chemicals specified by the EU Water Framework Directive as having to be monitored by national authorities urgently needs to be revised.
McGill University (Canada) via physorg.com: Feeding the world while protecting the planet
October 12, 2011
The problem is stark: One billion people on earth don't have enough food right now. It's estimated that by 2050 there will be more than nine billion people living on the planet.
Meanwhile, current agricultural practices are amongst the biggest threats to the global environment. This means that if we don't develop more sustainable practices, the planet will become even less able to feed its growing population than it is today.
But now a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany has come up with a plan to double the world's food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.
Geology
Red Orbit: Luminous Grains Of Sand Help Determine Year Of Historic Storm Flood
Scientists at TU Delft have successfully matched a layer of sediment from the dunes near Heemskerk to a severe storm flood that occurred in either 1775 or 1776. This type of information helps us gain more insight into past storm floods and predict future surges more accurately. The scientists’ findings have been published in the online edition of the scientific magazine Geology, and will be on the cover of the paper edition of November.
Historic knowledge
Our historic knowledge about storm floods (and water levels) on the Dutch coast is relatively limited. Records were not kept consistently until the late nineteenth century. This is unfortunate, because the limited historical archive makes it difficult to formulate statistical conclusions and predictions about future storm floods. It is also harder for us to establish whether storm floods are becoming more severe over the years.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Psychology/Behavior
California Institute of Technology via medicalxpress.com: Neuroscientists pinpoint specific social difficulties in people with autism
October 11, 2011
People with autism process information in unusual ways and often have difficulties in their social interactions in everyday life. While this can be especially striking in those who are otherwise high functioning, characterizing this difficulty in detail has been challenging. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have isolated a very specific difference in how high-functioning people with autism think about other people, finding that—in actuality—they don’t tend to think about what others think of them at all.
This finding, described online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds light on what researchers call "theory of mind" abilities—our intuitive skill for figuring out what other people think, intend, and believe. One key aspect of such abilities in terms of social interactions is to be able to figure out what others think of us—in other words, to know what our social reputation is. It is well known that social reputation usually has a very powerful influence on our behavior, motivating us to be nice to others.
Agence France Presse via medicalxpress.com: Women on Pill pick a dud in bed but a dude in the home
October 12, 2011
Women who take the Pill tend to choose as partners men who are less attractive and worse in bed but a sounder bet for a long-term relationship, according to an unusual study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Tuesday.
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"Our results show some positive and negative consequences of using the Pill when a woman meets her partner," said Craig Roberts of Stirling University, Scotland, who led the investigation.
"Such women may, on average, be less satisfied with the sexual aspects of their relationship but more so with non-sexual aspects. Overall, women who met their partner on the Pill had longer relationships -- by two years on average -- and were less likely to separate."
Archeology/Anthropology
University of Colorado at Boulder via physorg.com: New technologies challenge old ideas about early hominid diets
October 13, 2011
New assessments by researchers using the latest high-tech tools to study the diets of early hominids are challenging long-held assumptions about what our ancestors ate, says a study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Arkansas.
By analyzing microscopic pits and scratches on hominid teeth, as well as stable isotopes of carbon found in teeth, researchers are getting a very different picture of the diet habitats of early hominids than that painted by the physical structure of the skull, jawbones and teeth. While some early hominids sported powerful jaws and large molars -- including Paranthropus boisei, dubbed "Nutcracker Man" -- they may have cracked nuts rarely if at all, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, study co-author.
Such findings are forcing anthropologists to rethink long-held assumptions about early hominids, aided by technological tools that were unknown just a few years ago.
LiveScience via MSNBC: Oldest paint-making studio ever is discovered in cave
Exciting find shows ancient humans used toolkits, recipe at site 100,000 years ago
By Stephanie Pappas
A group of Homo sapiens came across a picturesque cave on the coast of South Africa around 100,000 years ago. They unloaded their gear and set to work, grinding iron-rich dirt and mixing it gently with heated bone in abalone shells to create a red, paint-like mixture. Then they dipped a thin bone into the mixture to transfer it somewhere before leaving the cave — and their toolkits — behind.
Researchers now have uncovered those paint-making kits, sitting in the cave in a layer of dune sand, just where they had been left 100,000 years ago. The find is the oldest-known example of a human-made compound mixture, said study researcher Christopher Henshilwood, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It's also the first known example of the use of a container anywhere in the world, 40,000 years older than the next example, Henshilwood told LiveScience.
NPR: The World's First Temple! Or ... Not?
by Barbara J King
In Turkey over 11,000 years ago, people created a massive structure at a hilltop site called Gobekli Tepe. After carving limestone pillars with all sorts of animal images, they hauled the 16-ton stones into multiple huge rings — without the help of wheeled vehicles or domesticated animals.
I have been fascinated by this site for years. For one thing, Gobekli Tepe (the accepted story goes) was constructed by hunter-gatherers. When announced, this was major news. Ancient hunter-gatherers, who neither farmed nor lived in settled villages, had long been thought to be too simply organized to pull off anything on the scale of Gobekli Tepe.
New Scientist (UK): New twist in the tale of Tutankhamun's club foot
by Jo Marchant
11 October 2011
"IT IS normal," Robert Connolly exclaims, poring over the faded pages of an obscure, decades-old book. Connolly has found an image that appears to settle the controversy over whether the boy king Tutankhamun had a club foot. As with many mysteries related to the famous mummy, the truth is hard to pin down.
The argument started last year when a team led by Egypt's then-chief of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, reported that Tutankhamun's left foot was severely deformed.
Hawass's team CAT-scanned the mummy in January 2005. Their subsequent paper, published in 2009, noticed no foot-related problems. Then a reanalysis concluded that Tutankhamun's left foot was in a sorry state. The authors diagnosed club foot, two diseased metatarsals, and a missing toe bone (Journal of the American Medical Association, DOI: 10.1001/jama.2010.121).
Times of India: Chennai's links to ancient Rome found
D Madhavan, TNN
Oct 14, 2011, 07.03AM IST
CHENNAI: Ancient Romans did not restrict themselves to coastal Tamil Nadu; they set up trading centres even far inland. A team of archaeologists exploring a dry lake bed in Naduvirapattu village, some 12km from Tambaram, unearthed a few days ago some artefacts, including broken pieces of amphorae (jars used by Romans).
The team comprised assistant professor Jinu Koshy and students S Vasanthi and K Vignesh of the department of history and archaeology of the Madras Christian College.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory via physorg.com: Ancient artifacts yield their secrets under neutron imaging
by Agatha Bardoel
October 13, 2011
For the first time, neutron images in 3 dimensions have been taken of rare archaeological artifacts here at ORNL. Bronze and brass artifacts excavated at the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan were recently imaged in 3 dimensions using neutrons at HFIR's CG-1D Neutron Imaging instrument. The data that is now being analyzed will for the first time give eager archeologists and ancient historians significant, otherwise wholly inaccessible insight into the manufacturing and lives of cultures that once occupied settlements within the Roman Empire, Middle East, and Colonial-period New England.
The Forward: Archeologist Blasts City of David Project
An archaeologist who worked with the Elad association in Jerusalem’s City of David claims that the association and the Antiquities Authority are carrying out excavations “without any commitment to scientific archaeological work.”
Dr. Eilat Mazar - a Hebrew University archaeologist who worked in close cooperation with Elad over past years, and who is considered one of the most productive researchers in Jerusalem and in the City of David area in particular - has castigated Elad for the excavation of a large subterranean pit, called “Jeremiah’s Pit,” at the entrance to the City of David visitors’ center complex.
In a sharply worded letter she sent 10 days ago to Prof. Ronny Reich, chairman of the Archaeological Council, Mazar demanded an urgent discussion of the excavations, which she says are being carried out in violation of accepted procedures.
The Friday Times (Pakistan): Ancient wonders of Sallari Valley
The Khirthar range abounds in sites of archaeological and historical significance. During my documentation of rock art sites in the Nain (valley) Sallari I discovered some settlement sites. I also discovered some gorbandis (ancient dams and wall terraces) in the valley.
Nain Sallari is 20 km from Khairpur Nathan Shah tehsil of Dadu. The lower Sallari valley looks like a Nain Gaj and the upper Valley of Sallari is a narrow gorge. Like Nain Gaj it also takes shrap turns at some places. This is locally called kund or khund in Sindhi language meaning corner. Some of the famous kunds of Sallari where people irrigate the land are Khazani Wari Kund, Shero Kund, Darbani Kund and Bero Kund.
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The nain is rich in archaeological sites. During my recent excursion in Sallari I documented one old graveyard, two settlement sites, three rock art sites, a dolmen, two Menhirs, Thanas of British period and four Gorbandis.
Discovery News via MSNBC: What the Donner Party consumed in their last days
In desperate bid to live, they ate pets, bones, twigs, 'glue' — and finally, human remains
By Jennifer Viegas
They had endured months of cold and hunger. The Donner-Reed party had set out for California in 1846 in a journey that normally took four to six months. But after trying a new route, called Hastings Cutoff, rugged terrain left the group snowbound in the Sierra Nevada.
Now a new book analyzing one of the most spectacular tragedies in American history reveals what the 81 pioneers ate before resorting to eating each other in a desperate attempt to survive. On the menu: family pets, bones, twigs, a concoction described as "glue," strings and, eventually, human remains.
The book, "An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp," centers on recent archaeological investigations at that campsite near Truckee, Calif., where one quarter of the 81 emigrants spent their nightmarish winter of 1846-47.
No human bone was identified in the fragments analyzed from the extensive bone sample at Alder Creek, but the researchers conclude that "some Donner Party members participated in cannibalism" during the last week of February 1847.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
University of Arizona via physorg.com: Time reversal: A simple particle could reveal new physics
By Shelly Littin
October 11, 2011
A simple atomic nucleus could reveal properties associated with the mysterious phenomenon known as time reversal and lead to an explanation for one of the greatest mysteries of physics: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.
The physics world was rocked recently by the news that a class of subatomic particles known as neutrinos may have broken the speed of light.
Adding to the rash of new ideas, University of Arizona theoretical physicist Bira van Kolck recently proposed that experiments with another small particle called a deuteron could lead to an explanation for one of the most daunting puzzles physicists face: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.
Universe Today via physorg.com: Light speed
By Steve Nerlich, Universe Today
October 10, 2011
The recent news of neutrinos moving faster than light might have got everyone thinking about warp drive and all that, but really there is no need to imagine something that can move faster than 300,000 kilometres a second. Indeed, the whole idea is illogical.
Light speed, or 300,000 kilometers a second, might seem like a speed limit, but this is just an example of 3 + 1 thinking – where we still haven’t got our heads around the concept of four dimensional space-time and hence we think in terms of space having three dimensions and think of time as something different.
For example, while it seems to us that it takes a light beam 4.3 years to go from Earth to the Alpha Centauri system, if you were to hop on a spacecraft going at 99.999 per cent of the speed of light you would get there in a matter of days, hours or even minutes – depending on just how many .99s you add on to that proportion of light speed.
Chemistry
University of Cambridge (UK) via physorg.com: Golden touch makes low-temperature graphene production a reality
October 12, 2011
A method which more than halves the temperature at which high-quality graphene can be produced has been pioneered by researchers.
The technique opens up new opportunities for the use of graphene, which is widely regarded as a potential “wonder substance” for the 21st century.
The researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering added a very small amount of gold to the surface of a nickel film, on which the graphene was then grown. The resulting alloy meant that they were able to grow graphene at 450ºC as opposed to the 1,000ºC that is normally required.
Energy
American Chemical Society via physorg.com: New Saudi Arabias of solar energy: Himalaya Mountains, Andes, Antarctica
October 12, 2011
Mention prime geography for generation of solar energy, and people tend to think of hot deserts. But a new study concludes that some of the world's coldest landscapes -- including the Himalaya Mountains, the Andes, and even Antarctica -- could become Saudi Arabias of solar. The research appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Kotaro Kawajiri and colleagues explain that the potential for generating electricity with renewable solar energy depends heavily on geographic location. Arid and semi-arid areas with plenty of sunshine long have been recognized as good solar sites. However, the scientists point out that, as a result of the limited data available for critical weather-related conditions on a global scale, gaps still exist in knowledge about the best geographical locations for producing solar energy.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
St. Petersburg Times: Anthropologists take aim at Gov. Scott
October 11, 2011
The American Anthropological Association this afternoon released a letter is has sent to Gov. Rick Scott over comments he made Monday that Florida "doesn't need a lot more anthropologists in this state." "We don't need them here," he told a Daytona Beach radio host.
Scott's larger point was that Florida students would have an easier time finding jobs and help fulfill his campaign promise if they studied science, technology, engineering or math. In a move universities will oppose, Scott wants to move state money from liberal arts programs to other degrees he says will give students a better chance of finding work.
St. Petersburg Times: USF anthropology students to Scott: We matter
By Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA — Justin Shiver came away from a year in Iraq with one overriding thought: We need more anthropologists.
They are the ones really making a difference over there, said Shiver, who worked as a combat medic. They help soldiers and locals work together. They are the reason Americans haven't been rejected as enemies. More than anyone with a gun, Shiver says, anthropologists save lives.
That's why the 26-year-old University of South Florida student, who's studying to become an anthropologist himself, was so confused by Gov. Rick Scott's comments this week.
While promoting his jobs plan, Scott said the state doesn't need a whole lot more anthropologists. Rather, Florida should prioritize degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM fields), the governor said.
The party that doesn't believe in science wants more scientists. Yeah, right. Also it turns out that
Scott's daughter has an anthropology degree, so he's taking a swipe at her. As Bill Maher says, there is no bottom when it comes to Republicans.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Astrobio.net via physorg.com: Mission to mysterious Uranus
by Michael Schirber
October 12, 2011
Scientists want to send an orbiter and probe to the ice giant planet Uranus, but do the resources exist to support such an ambitious project?
Earlier this year, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey recommended that NASA consider sending a mission to the planet Uranus. With all the attention paid to Mars, Jupiter, and even poor little Pluto, what's the draw in going to Uranus?
Lots, says Mark Hofstadter of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: Australian parliament passes divisive carbon tax
by Madeleine Coorey
October 12, 2011
Australia's lower house on Wednesday passed a contentious new tax on carbon pollution to combat climate change which has angered many voters and threatens Prime Minister Julia Gillard's hold on power.
After years of heated debate, the government won the count on what it said was the most important environmental and economic reform in a generation.
"Today is a significant day for Australians and the Australians of the future who want to see a better environment," Gillard said ahead of the parliamentary vote, which must now win approval in the upper house Senate.
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: China invests billions to avert water crisis
October 12, 2011
China is to invest up to 4 trillion yuan ($600 billion) over the next decade to overcome a huge water shortage that threatens the country's economic growth, a senior official said on Wednesday.
The vice minister of water resources said China's unbridled economic growth had left up to 40 percent of its rivers badly polluted and the country faced "huge pressures" on supplies of water.
"Industrialisation and urbanisation, including ensuring grain and food security, are exerting higher demands on water supplies... while our water use remains crude and wasteful," Jiao Yong said at a press briefing.
Science Education
The Oklahoma Daily: Students help trace state’s past with American bison bones
By Kathleen Evans, The Oklahoma Daily
Lee Bement’s lab has an interesting choice of decor — bison skulls — adorning the walls and lining the long lab benches, where more skulls and bones rest for analysis.
Bement, an Oklahoma Archaeological Survey employee, ran an archaeological field school during the summer for OU students and others interested in archaeology to excavate a bison kill site.
“I have been doing this for 20 years, but my research tends to be attracted to buffalo kill sites,” Bement said. “That’s why there’s all this bison bone out there.”
The Oklahoma Daily: Archaeology group offers forensics lessons for local police
By Kathleen Evans, The Oklahoma Daily
Published: October 13, 2011
Kent Buehler and his team of six investigators are taking forensics beyond the courtroom or a Thursday night episode of “Bones.”
Buehler, a tall, mustached man, is the director of the OU Crime Scene Archaeology Recovery Group, a seven-member team that helps excavate sites and teaches law enforcement about forensic techniques.
The group was officially created in 2009, but the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, which houses the group, has helped law enforcement officers since 1978, Buehler said.
“There are certain procedures and techniques that we know how to use that can be put into a forensic setting and ensure that as much information is recovered as possible,” Buehler said. “To my knowledge, this is … among the first programs of its kinds in the country.”
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science Writing and Reporting
The St. Augustine Record: The tale of the Jefferson Davis, sunk off St. Augustine
The story of the most successful privateer of the Civil War is told in documentary
By MARCIA LANE
Most successful privateer ship of Civil War featured in factual film
Peter Pepe has a visual reminder of time spent in St. Augustine — a skull and crossbones on his kayak.
It’s a reminder not of pirates, but of a Civil War privateer known as the Jefferson Davis that sank off the coast of St. Augustine in 1861. In 2009 Pepe and his production crew came to St. Augustine to film marine archaeologists from the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program exploring a wreck thought to be the Jeff Davis.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
Vanderbilt University via physorg.com: Robot biologist solves complex problem from scratch
October 13, 2011
First it was chess. Then it was Jeopardy. Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Vanderbilt University, Cornell University and CFD Research Corporation, Inc., has taken a major step toward this goal by demonstrating that a computer can analyze raw experimental data from a biological system and derive the basic mathematical equations that describe the way the system operates. According to the researchers, it is one of the most complex scientific modeling problems that a computer has solved completely from scratch.
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The biological system that the researchers used to test ABE is glycolysis, the primary process that produces energy in a living cell. Specifically, they focused on the manner in which yeast cells control fluctuations in the chemical compounds produced by the process.
The researchers chose this specific system, called glycolytic oscillations, to perform a virtual test of the software because it is one of the most extensively studied biological control systems.
Tel Aviv University via physorg.com: 'Ghostwriting' the Torah? New algorithm distinguishes contributors to the Old Testament with high accuracy
October 11, 2011
In both Jewish and Christian traditions, Moses is considered the author of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Scholars have furnished evidence that multiple writers had a hand in composing the text of the Torah. Other books of the Hebrew Bible and of the New Testament are also thought to be composites. However, delineating these multiple sources has been a laborious task.
Now researchers have developed an algorithm that could help to unravel the different sources that contributed to individual books of the Bible. Prof. Nachum Dershowitz of Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Science, who worked in collaboration with his son, Bible scholar Idan Dershowitz of Hebrew University, and Prof. Moshe Koppel and Ph.D. student Navot Akiva of Bar-Ilan University, says that their computer algorithm recognizes linguistic cues, such as word preference, to divide texts into probable author groupings.
By focusing exclusively on writing style instead of subject or genre, Prof. Dershowitz and his colleagues sidestepped several methodological hurdles that hamper conventional Bible scholarship. These issues include a potential lack of objectivity in content-based analysis and complications caused by the multiple genres and literary forms found in the Bible — including poetry, narrative, law, and parable. Their research was presented at the 49th Annual Conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics in Portland.
