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 Huffington Post.
Autumnal Equinox Kicks Off The Beginning Of Fall
Goodbye, sweet summer. The autumnal equinox kicks off the beginning of fall, and the end of a season cherished by most students.
In fact, you can expect the change to occur at 5:04am EDT on Friday, September 23, reports NBC-2 weather blog.
Here's to wishing all of you a belated happy Equinox!
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump, including Scientists stunned, sceptical on faster-than-light particles in Physics, NASA satellite plunges into Pacific off California in Astronomy and Space, and Humans colonised Asia in two waves in Anthropology and Archeology.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Watch this space!
The Daily Bucket - river of crows
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Getting to Know Your Solar System (6): Earth (Vol. 3)
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Homeopathy and your food safety
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This week in science
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Our Family Atheist and the Religious ToE
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Amazing Virus Kills Breast Cancer Cells. All of Them.
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Slideshows/Videos
Discovery News on YouTube: Mad at Facebook and/or Netflix? It's okay. You're not alone.
NASA/JPL via Kowtch737 on YouTube: NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity, or saltiness, of Earth's ocean surface.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers are set to launch to the station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in December.
NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, visited Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.
NASA Administrator and former astronaut and test pilot Charles Bolden spoke at the New Horizons in Aviation Forum in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Finding innovative ways to teach students about engineering led a Virginia teacher to NASA Langley Research Center's Rapid Prototyping Lab where an idea to give students a more hands-on experience with simple and compound machines became a reality.
NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston marked 50 years of expanding the frontier of human exploration.
Hundreds of Hampton Roads-area Boy Scouts turned out for a special event kicking off a new robotics merit badge.
Finally, from aboard the International Space Station, these unique images of natural phenomena were captured by the new Super Sensitive High Definition Television Camera.
Astronomy/Space
Las Cruces Sun-News: Remembering the Lunar Legacy project
By Pat Hynes For the Sun-News
Posted: 09/19/2011 10:38:26 PM MDT
In 1999, two graduate students, Ralph Gibson, and John Versluis, submitted a proposal under our Graduate Student Research Program at New Mexico Space Grant. They wanted to determine if it was possible to have the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base designated a World Heritage site. This project became a tale of passion, perseverance and respect for the heritage of man's first footprints on the Moon.
The project started with a question during Dr. Beth O'Leary's graduate seminar on Cultural Resource Management (CRM), in the Anthropology Department at NMSU. "Does U.S. federal preservation law apply on the Moon?" Dr. O'Leary said she didn't know but they would find out together. The students were concerned about the future not only of the landing site, but also of the artifacts left on the Moon. Think about it, mankind's first footprints off earth, were left by Americans on the Moon.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Astrobio.net via physorg.com: Living in the galactic danger zone
By Gemma Lavender
September 23, 2011
We know for certain that life exists in the Milky Way galaxy: that life is us. Scientists are continually looking to understand more about how life on our planet came to be and the conditions that must be met for its survival, and whether those conditions can be replicated elsewhere in the Universe. It turns out that looking at our entire Galaxy, rather than focusing just on life-giving properties of our planet or indeed the habitability of regions of our own Solar System, is a good place to start.
How far our planet orbits from the Sun, along with other factors such as atmospheric composition, a carbon cycle and the existence of water, has told astronomers much about the conditions that are required for life to not only originate, but to survive on rocky worlds. This distance from a star is referred to, quite simply, as the ‘Habitable Zone’ or sometimes the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ because conditions here are neither too hot or too cold for water to be liquid on the planet’s surface -- conditions just right for life as we know it to thrive.
Copernican theory tells us that our world is a typical rocky planet in a typical planetary system. This concept has spurred some astronomers to start thinking bigger, way beyond the simplicity of any one planetary system and instead towards much grander scales. Astronomers are exploring whether there is a Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ) in our Galaxy – a region of the Milky Way that is conducive to forming planetary systems with habitable worlds. The Galactic Habitable Zone implies that if there are conditions just right for a planet around a star, then the same must go for a galaxy.
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: NASA satellite plunges into Pacific off California
by Kerry Sheridan
September 24, 2011
A bus-sized US satellite that hurtled unpredictably toward Earth crossed over Africa and the northern Atlantic before likely plunging into the Pacific Ocean off California, NASA said on Saturday.
The six-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell from the sky between 11:23 pm Friday and 1:09 am Saturday (0323-0509 GMT Saturday), the space agency said, but there were no sightings or reliable accounts of damage.
"We have got no reports of anyone seeing anything that we believe are credible," NASA chief orbital scientist Nick Johnson said, noting that the "vast majority" of its flight track had been over water.
The best and latest estimate, made by Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at two hours before entry, put the re-entry time at 0416 GMT, he said.
"If the re-entry point was at 0416 GMT, then all that debris wound up in the Pacific Ocean."
JPL/NASA via physorg.com: NASA to demonstrate communications via laser beam
By Lori Keesey
September 23, 2011
It currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, but NASA would like to dramatically reduce that time to just minutes. A new optical communications system that NASA plans to demonstrate in 2016 will lead the way and even allow the streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the Moon.
This dramatically enhanced transmission speed will be demonstrated by the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), one of three projects selected by NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) for a trial run. To be developed by a team led by engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., LCRD is expected to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite developed by Space Systems/Loral, of Palo Alto, Calif.
"We want to take NASA's communications capabilities to the next level," said LCRD Principal Investigator Dave Israel, who is leading a multi-organizational team that includes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. and Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. Although NASA has developed higher data-rate radio frequency systems, data-compression, and other techniques to boost the amount of data that its current systems can handle, the Agency's capabilities will not keep pace with the projected data needs of advanced instruments and future human exploration, Israel added.
"Just as the home Internet user hit the wall with dial-up, NASA is approaching the limit of what its existing communications network can handle," he said.
Evolution/Paleontology
The Washington Times: Dinosaur fossil, found in Laurel, made plain by rain
By Meredith Somers
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Years of scraping away stones and sifting through loose dirt taught Dave Hacker some valuable lessons on fossil finding. So when the recent storms dumped nearly 10 inches of rain on the area, the Silver Spring resident grabbed his trowel and headed to the Dinosaur Park in Laurel to see what he could find.
What he found was the largest dinosaur fossil to come out of the park in five years — likely a bone from an enormous plant-eating dinosaur and proof that after 300 years of digging, the metropolitan region’s soil has plenty of buried history left to discover.
Public Library of Science (PLoS) via physorg.com: New raptor dinosaur takes a licking keeps on ticking
Raptor dinosaurs like the iconic Velociraptor from the movie franchise Jurassic Park are renowned for their "fear-factor." Their terrifying image has been popularized in part because members of this group possess a greatly enlarged talon on their foot—analogous to a butcher's hook. Yet the function of the highly recurved claw on the foot of raptor dinosaurs has largely remained a mystery to paleontologists. This week a collaboration of scientists unveil a new species of raptor dinosaur discovered in southern Utah that sheds new light on this and several other long-standing questions in paleontology, including how dinosaurs evolved on the "lost continent" of Laramidia (western North America) during the Late Cretaceous—a period known as the zenith of dinosaur diversity. Their findings will be published in the journal PLoS ONE.
The new dinosaur—dubbed Talos sampsoni—is a member of a rare group of feathered, bird-like theropod dinosaurs whose evolution in North America has been a longstanding source of scientific debate, largely for lack of decent fossil material. Indeed, Talos represents the first definitive troodontid theropod to be named from the Late Cretaceous of North America in over 75 years. "Finding a decent specimen of this type of dinosaur in North America is like a lighting strike… it's a random event of thrilling proportions," said Lindsay Zanno, lead author of the study naming the new dinosaur. Zanno is an assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and a research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.
Yale University via physorg.com: Primitive birds shared dinosaurs' fate
September 19, 2011
A new study puts an end to the longstanding debate about how archaic birds went extinct, suggesting they were virtually wiped out by the same meteorite impact that put an end to dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
For decades, scientists have debated whether birds from the Cretaceous period — which are very different from today's modern bird species —died out slowly or were killed suddenly by the Chicxulub meteorite. The uncertainty was due in part to the fact that very few fossil birds from the end of this era have been discovered.
Now a team of paleontologists led by Yale researcher Nicholas Longrich has provided clear evidence that many primitive bird species survived right up until the time of the meteorite impact. They identified and dated a large collection of bird fossils representing a range of different species, many of which were alive within 300,000 years of the impact.
"This proves that these species went extinct very abruptly, in terms of geological time scales," said Longrich. The study appears the week of Sept. 19 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these articles.
University of California, Berkeley, via physorg.com: Bees outpace orchids in evolution
By Sarah Yang
September 23, 2011
Orchid bees aren’t so dependent on orchids after all, according to a new study that challenges the prevailing view of how plants and their insect pollinators evolve together.
A long-standing belief among biologists holds that species in highly specialized relationships engage in a continual back-and-forth play of co-evolution.
“What we found was that this reciprocal specialization did not exist for orchid bees and orchids,” said study lead author Santiago Ramirez, post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Neil Tsutsui, associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. “The bees evolved much earlier and independently, while the orchids appear to have been catching up.”
Biodiversity
University of British Columbia (Canada) via phyorg.com: What's so unique about the tropics? 'Less than we thought'
September 23, 2011
The temperate forests of Canada or Northern Europe may have much more in common with the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia or South America than commonly believed, according to a research group led by a University of British Columbia ecologist.
The assertion, published today in the journal Science, is focused on the concept of “beta-diversity” – a measure of the change in species composition between two sites, such as neighboring patches of forest. High beta-diversity means that two given sites have few species in common.
Typically, beta-diversity increases as you move from the poles towards the equator, often leading ecologists to conclude that there is something inherently different about the ecology of the tropics that leads to greater turnover of tropical species from place to place.
But a group led by Nathan J.B. Kraft, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC’s Biodiversity Research Center, challenged this interpretation, using an extensive dataset of tree inventories from around the world and archived at the University of Arizona. Using computer modeling, the researchers demonstrated that current patterns of beta-diversity in the tropics and the temperate zone are much more similar than ecologists once thought.
National Science Foundation via physorg.com: Over the hump: Ecologists use power of network science to challenge long-held theory
September 22, 2011
For decades, ecologists have toiled to nail down principles explaining why some habitats have many more plant and animal species than others.
Much of this debate is focused on the idea that the number of species is determined by the productivity of the habitat.Shouldn't a patch of prairie contain a different number of species than an arid steppe or an alpine tundra?
Maybe not, says an international team of scientists that pooled its resources to re-evaluate the relationship between species numbers and habitat productivity.
The innovative, standardized global sampling of 48 sites on five continents yielded an unprecedented data set.
"Our study shows no clear relationship between productivity and the number of plant species in small study plots," says Utah State University plant ecologist Peter Adler.
Biotechnology/Health
Georgia Tech via medicalxpress.com: Scientists turn back the clock on adult stem cells aging
September 20, 2011
Researchers have shown they can reverse the aging process for human adult stem cells, which are responsible for helping old or damaged tissues regenerate. The findings could lead to medical treatments that may repair a host of ailments that occur because of tissue damage as people age. A research group led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted the study in cell culture, which appears in the September 1, 2011 edition of the journal Cell Cycle.
The regenerative power of tissues and organs declines as we age. The modern day stem cell hypothesis of aging suggests that living organisms are as old as are its tissue specific or adult stem cells. Therefore, an understanding of the molecules and processes that enable human adult stem cells to initiate self-renewal and to divide, proliferate and then differentiate in order to rejuvenate damaged tissue might be the key to regenerative medicine and an eventual cure for many age-related diseases. A research group led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted the study that pinpoints what is going wrong with the biological clock underlying the limited division of human adult stem cells as they age.
"We demonstrated that we were able to reverse the process of aging for human adult stem cells by intervening with the activity of non-protein coding RNAs originated from genomic regions once dismissed as non-functional 'genomic junk'," said Victoria Lunyak, associate professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
Cornell University via medicalxpress.com: 'Promiscuous parasites' hijack host immune cells
September 20, 2011
Toxoplasma gondii parasites can invade your bloodstream, break into your brain and prompt behavioral changes from recklessness to neuroticism. These highly contagious protozoa infect more than half the world's population, and most people's immune systems never purge the intruders.
Cornell researchers recently discovered how T. gondii evades our defenses by hacking immune cells, making it the first known parasite to control its host's immune system. Immunologists from the College of Veterinary Medicine published the study Sept. 8 in PLoS Pathogens, describing a forced partnership between parasite and host that challenges common conceptions of how pathogens interact with the body.
"Toxoplasma is an especially promiscuous parasite," said Eric Denkers, professor of immunology. "It infects nearly all warm-blooded species, most nucleated cell types and much of the human population. Although it lives in vital brain and muscle tissues, it usually causes no obvious reaction. Infection can seriously harm people with weak immune systems, yet most hosts experience no overt symptoms because Toxoplasma has found a way to coerce cooperation."
University of Rochester via medicalxpress.com: New research could extend life of arthritic joints
September 21, 2011
A medication already approved to build bone mass in patients with osteoporosis also builds cartilage around joints and could potentially be repurposed to treat millions of people suffering from arthritis, according to orthopaedic research at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The study authors hope their laboratory findings, published in the current issue of Science Translational Medicine, will set the stage for the first human clinical trials to test human parathyroid hormone (brand name: Forteo) in this growing patient population.
National Institutes of Health via medicalxpress.com: Earliest known evidence of 1918 influenza pandemic found
September 19, 2011
Examination of lung tissue and other autopsy material from 68 American soldiers who died of respiratory infections in 1918 has revealed that the influenza virus that eventually killed 50 million people worldwide was circulating in the United States at least four months before the 1918 influenza reached pandemic levels that fall.
The study, using tissues preserved since 1918, was led by Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found proteins and genetic material from the 1918 influenza virus in specimens from 37 of the soldiers, including four who died between May and August 1918, months before the pandemic peaked. These four cases are the earliest 1918 pandemic influenza cases they know to be documented anywhere in the world, the scientists say.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology via medicalxpress.com: Feed your genes
September 19, 2011
What should we eat? Answers abound in the international media, from Time Magazine to the New York Times Magazine to best-selling authors, all of which rely on their interpretation of recent medical literature to come up with recommendations for the healthiest diet.
But what if you could answer this question at a molecular level – what if you could find out how our genes respond to the foods we eat, and what this does to the cellular processes that make us healthy – or not? That's precisely what biologists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have done.
The answer researchers have come up with may surprise you: the best diet, from a gene's standpoint, is one-third protein, one-third fat and one-third carbohydrates. That's what the research shows is the best recipe to limit your risk of most lifestyle-related diseases.
Climate/Environment
Discover Magazine: Rats, Not Recklessness, May Have Done Easter Islanders In
What’s the News: Easter Island is often held up as an example of what can happen when human profligacy and population outpace ecology: Wanton deforestation led to soil erosion and famine, the story goes, and the islanders’ society declined into chaos and cannibalism. But through their research on Easter Island, paleoecologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo have unearthed evidence that contradicts this version of events. The Polynesian settlers of Easter Island prospered through careful use of the scant available resources, they argue in their new book The Statues That Walked; the island’s forests were done in not by greedy humans, but by hungry rats.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
JPL/NASA via physorg.com: Aquarius yields NASA's first global map of ocean salinity
By Steve Cole and Alan Buis
September 23, 2011
NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated discoveries.
Aquarius, which is aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satelite de Aplicaciones Científicas) observatory, is making NASA's first space observations of ocean surface salinity variations - a key component of Earth's climate. Salinity changes are linked to the cycling of freshwater around the planet and influence ocean circulation.
"Aquarius' salinity data are showing much higher quality than we expected to see this early in the mission," said Aquarius principal investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research in Seattle. "Aquarius soon will allow scientists to explore the connections between global rainfall, ocean currents and climate variations."
PhysOrg: Most accurate measurements of big-city pollution
by Lin Edwards
September 23, 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- One of NASA's satellites has provided the most detailed map yet of the pollution generated by some of the world’s biggest cities, and given an indication of the volume of emissions of the nitrogen oxides from direct measurements rather than relying on computer models and a range of assumptions.
The scientists, from Germany and the Netherlands, led by Steffen Beirle of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, combined the data from NASA’s Aura satellite with data on known wind patterns. The satellite is equipped with four measuring instruments, including an Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which measures a range of atmospheric particles such as dust, smoke, and chemicals such as the nitrogen oxides. It also measures cloud cover and pressure, which enables tropospheric ozone to be calculated. The OMI was built by the Agency for Aerospace Programs in the Netherlands and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
...
The study, published in the journal Science, found that the emissions of nitrogen oxides from Riyadh (the capital of Saudi Arabia) were three times greater than previous estimates, while those of megacities such as Tokyo, Madrid, and Moscow were more similar to previous estimates. Some megacities, such as Hong Kong and New York, yielded less useful data because they are so close to other large metropolitan areas producing pollution, which makes the situation more complex.
University of Leeds (UK) via physorg.com: Our ability to model past climates does not guarantee future success
September 23, 2011
New research from the University shows that past trends in climate must be very carefully understood before using them to model the future.
Climate scientists found that models are generally good at seeing past trends - but that there are important differences that must be recognised when predicting future climate patterns.
Researchers looked at these climate models to examine their trends in the Arctic and the Tropics, and found that eight of the 11 models studied did a reasonable job of reproducing these trends. However, most models could not reproduce the 1920-1940 warming particularly in the tropics, and additionally the researchers found that the models often got similar trends for different reasons.
Queensland University of Technology (Australia) via physorg.com: Dust makes light work of vehicle emissions
September 23, 2011
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have identified a silver lining in the cloud of red dust that enveloped much of eastern Australia two years ago.
Research fellow Dr Rohan Jayaratne from QUT's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) said that data, from what is believed to be the first air quality test undertaken during an Australian dust storm, showed that large dust particles swept up the smaller, potentially fatal ultrafine particles caused by everyday vehicle emissions.
Air quality tests taken during the September 2009 dust storm showed that Brisbane's most harmful ultrafine particle pollution from vehicle emissions, which contain 250 well-known carcinogens, almost disappeared as the eerie orange haze settled over the city.
Geology
Stanford University via physorg.com: First life may have arisen above serpentine rock, researchers say
By Max McClure
September 23, 2011
About 3.8 billion years ago, Earth was teeming with unicellular life. A little more than 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth was a ball of vaporous rock. And somewhere in between, the first organisms spontaneously arose. Pinpointing exactly when and how that shift happened has proven a difficult bit of interdisciplinary detective work.
A team of Stanford geologists hasn't quite solved the problem, but they've come closer. By examining the geology and environment of the early Earth, the researchers demonstrate the plausibility of one theory: that life originated above serpentinite rock on the ocean bottom. Because the necessary conditions only existed for a few million years, the findings provide a potential timestamp for the appearance of the Earth's first organism.
The paper, authored by geophysics professor Norm Sleep, geological and environmental sciences professor Dennis Bird, and former graduate student Emily Pope, appears in this week's Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Psychology/Behavior
Time Magazine: Study: 1 in 25 Business Leaders May Be Psychopaths
By Maia Szalavitz
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
One in 25 bosses may be psychopaths — a rate that's four times greater than in the general population — according to research by psychologist and executive coach Paul Babiak.
...
Psychopaths, who are characterized by being completely amoral and concerned only with their own power and selfish pleasures, may be overrepresented in the business environment because it plays to their strengths. Where greed is considered good and profitmaking is the most important value, psychopaths can thrive.
University of California, Berkeley via medicalxpress.com: Brain imaging reveals the movies in our mind
September 22, 2011
Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one's own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people's dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.
As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.
Inception, anyone?
University of Nottingham (UK) via medicalxpress.com: Scientists can now 'see' how different parts of our brain communicate
September 21, 2011
A new technique which lets scientists 'see' our brain waves at work could revolutionise our understanding of the human body’s most complex organ and help transform the lives of people suffering from schizophrenia and ADHD.
Although, scientifically, the brain is the most studied organ in our body we still know relatively little about it. But that could all change as a result of this research led by Dr. Matt Brookes in the Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre at The University of Nottingham and published today, September 19 2011, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Using a relatively new neuroimaging technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) — which measures electrical signals from the brain — and a combination of new mathematical techniques they have found a non-invasive way to harness the rich, dynamic nature of brain signals — not just to identify the existence of brain networks, but also to probe the subtle electrical processes associated with brain activity.
Agence France Presse via medicalxpress.com: Genes linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder
September 18, 2011
Broad sweeps of the human genome have exposed genetic mutations that boost the risk of the devastating yet baffling diseases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to two studies published Sunday.
The independent studies, each conducted by a consortium of about 200 scientists, also found significant genetic overlap between the debilitating mental disorders.
Archeology/Anthropology
University of Liverpool (UK) via Science Daily: Climatic Fluctuations Drove Key Events in Human Evolution
ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2011) — Research at the University of Liverpool has found that periods of rapid fluctuation in temperature coincided with the emergence of the first distant relatives of human beings and the appearance and spread of stone tools.
Dr Matt Grove from the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology reconstructed likely responses of human ancestors to the climate of the past five million years using genetic modelling techniques. When results were mapped against the timeline of human evolution, Dr Grove found that key events coincided with periods of high variability in recorded temperatures.
New Scientist (UK): Humans colonised Asia in two waves
by Michael Marshall
19:00 22 September 2011
If at first you don't succeed, have at least one more go. Early humans did, colonising Asia in two waves. The two migrations have left their mark in the genes of native people in south-east Asia, Polynesia and Australia.
Anthropologists have long debated whether there was more than one migration from Africa into Asia. Two studies published today aim to resolve the question.
A team of geneticists led by Eske Willerslev of the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen has sequenced the genome of an Aboriginal Australian man, using a 100-year-old lock of hair.
Discover Magazine: Out of Africa onward to Wallacea
There are two interesting and related papers out today which I want to review really quickly, in particular in relation to the results (as opposed to the guts of the methods). Taken together they do change our perception of how the world was settled by anatomically modern humans, and if the findings are found to be valid via replication (I think this is likely, in at least some parts) I was clearly wrong and misled others in assertions I made earlier on this weblog (more on that later). The first paper is somewhat easier to parse because it is in some ways a follow up on the paper from 2010 which documented admixture into Near Oceanian (Melanesian + Australian Aboriginal) populations from a distant hominin lineage, the Denisovans.
The Star (Malaysia): Lenggong Valley in the limelight
By SYLVIA LOOI
sylvia@thestar.com.my
PERAK’S bid to have the 50,000-year-old archaeological site of Lenggong Valley listed as an Unesco World Heritage Site looks promising with the recent visit by the organisation’s valuer.
State senior executive councillor Datuk Hamidah Osman said the state government was confident of getting the site in Upper Perak into the organisation’s list of cultural and natural heritage.
United Press International: Stone Age skulls on stakes found in Sweden
Published: Sept. 19, 2011 at 12:15 PM
MOTALA, Sweden, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Swedish archaeologists say their discovery of Stone Age skulls mounted on wooden stakes is the first finding of its kind in the world.
The skulls were unearthed from a lake bed in central Sweden near the town of Motala, The Local reported Monday.
University of Liverpool (UK) via phyorg.com: Excavation of islands around Britain to establish origins of Neolithic period
September 21, 2011
Archaeologists at the University of Liverpool are investigating three island groups around Britain to further understanding of why, in approximately 4,000 BC, humans altered their lifestyle from hunting and gathering to farming the land.
Some scholars believe that this change occurred due to colonists from the continent moving into Britain, bringing farming and pottery-making skills with them, but others argue that the indigenous population of Britain adopted this new lifestyle gradually on their own terms.
University of Southampton (UK) via phyorg.com: Archaeologists uncover evidence of large ancient shipyard near Rome
September 22, 2011
University of Southampton and British School at Rome (BSR) archaeologists, leading an international excavation of Portus – the ancient port of Rome, believe they have discovered a large Roman shipyard.
The team, working with the Italian Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, has uncovered the remains of a massive building close to the distinctive hexagonal basin or 'harbour', at the centre of the port complex.
University of Southampton Professor and Portus Project Director, Simon Keay comments, "At first we thought this large rectangular building was used as a warehouse, but our latest excavation has uncovered evidence that there may have been another, earlier use, connected to the building and maintenance of ships.
"Few Roman Imperial shipyards have been discovered and, if our identification is correct, this would be the largest of its kind in Italy or the Mediterranean."
BBC: CSI Sittingbourne archaeology project closes
An archaeology project which probed scores of Anglo Saxon graves in Kent is closing because it has run out of cash.
CSI: Sittingbourne had been running since 2008 when a 1,400 year-old graveyard was uncovered on The Meads development site in the town.
Volunteers have spent the last two years analysing hundreds of items, including 69 Anglo-Saxon graves.
The project is now unable to find the £1,000 a week it needs to stay open and conserve the finds.
The Independent (UK): Samurai warriors examined by Japanese and British scientists
By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Gruesome evidence of medieval Japanese Samurai warriors being decapitated, so that their heads could be taken as trophies by their enemies, is being examined by Japanese and British scientists.
In a bid to fully understand the nature of warfare in medieval Japan, Dr. Michael Wysocki, a specialist in forensic anthropology at the University of Central Lancashire, and Japanese scientists from Santa Marianna University, School of Medicine, near Tokyo, have been examining battle and decapitation trauma suffered by Samurai warriors in a 14th century Japanese civil war.
Viet Nam News via Yahoo! News: Tiny 300-year-old tomb found
By The News Desk in Ha Noi/Viet Nam News | ANN
Thu, Sep 22, 2011
Nam Dinh, Northern Vietnam (Viet Nam News/ANN) - An ancient tomb in the northern province of Nam Dinh is the smallest composite tomb discovered in Viet Nam so far, Nguyen Lan Cuong, deputy general secretary of the Viet Nam Archaeology Association, told Viet Nam News.
The outer coffin was 107cm in length, 36cm in width and 40cm in height, while the inner coffin was 94.5cm in length, 27.3cm in width and 33.4cm in height. The compound was said to consist of lime, molasses, sand and charcoal with a piece of cloth used to enclose the contents.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: Scientists stunned, sceptical on faster-than-light particles
by Marlowe Hood
September 23, 2011
Physicists around the world expressed astonishment and scepticism in equal measure Friday after European scientists reported particles apparently travelling faster than light.
Tiny specks called neutrinos were clocked at 300,006 kilometres per second -- slightly faster than the speed of light -- along a 730-kilometre (453-mile) trajectory between the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and a laboratory in Italy.
If verified, the results would dismantle a key plank of Einstein's theory of relativity and deeply unsettle our understanding of the physical world.
"That is a very, very big 'if'," said Alfons Weber, a professor of particle physics at Oxford University, and an expert on neutrinos.
Until this finding is well-supported, I'm chalking this one up to measurement error.
Chemistry
University of Washington via physorg.com: Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things
September 20, 2011
Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.
Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. The study is published online this week in the interdisciplinary journal Nature Communications.
Devices that connect with the human body's processes are being explored for biological sensing or for prosthetics, but they typically communicate using electrons, which are negatively charged particles, rather than protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms, or ions, which are atoms with positive or negative charge.
"So there's always this issue, a challenge, at the interface – how does an electronic signal translate into an ionic signal, or vice versa?" said lead author Marco Rolandi, a UW assistant professor of materials science and engineering. "We found a biomaterial that is very good at conducting protons, and allows the potential to interface with living systems."
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: Were Twin Towers felled by chemical blasts? (Update)
by Marlowe Hood
September 21, 2011
A mix of sprinkling system water and melted aluminium from aircraft hulls likely triggered the explosions that felled New York's Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, a materials expert has told a technology conference.
"If my theory is correct, tonnes of aluminium ran down through the towers, where the smelt came into contact with a few hundred litres of water," Christian Simensen, a scientist at SINTEF, an independent technology research institute based in Norway, said in a statement released Wednesday.
"From other disasters and experiments carried out by the aluminium industry, we know that reactions of this sort lead to violent explosions."
The official report blames the collapse on the over-heating and failure of the structural steel beams at the core of the buildings, an explanation Simensen rejects.
Don't be alarmed at the headline. This is not a conspiracy theory.
Energy
University of Cambridge (UK) via physorg.com: The hidden power of moss
September 22, 2011
Scientists at Cambridge University are exhibiting a prototype table that demonstrates how biological fuel cells can harness energy from plants.
Moss is regarded as a menace by gardeners who seek to eradicate it from their lawns. Now researchers all over the world are exploring how moss, algae and plants could be used as a source of renewable energy in the future.
A team of designers and scientists at Cambridge University are exhibiting a novel moss table at the London Design Festival which takes place today and tomorrow. The table will showcase an emerging technology called biophotovoltaics (BPV) which uses the natural process of photosynthesis to generate electrical energy.
CSIRO (Australia) via physorg.com: New energy in search for future wind
September 22, 2011
Scientists are taking the first steps to improve estimates of long-term wind speed changes for the fast-growing wind energy sector, intended to reduce the risks for generators in a changing climate.
Some recent international studies have shown a decrease in wind speeds in several parts of the globe, including across Australia. However, more recent results by CSIRO show that Australia's average wind speed is actually increasing.
Scientists at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research have analysed wind speed observations to understand the causes of variations in near-surface wind and explore long-term wind speed trends over Australia.
"We have a good picture of wind energy availability across Australia from previous CSIRO wind mapping and, with the growth of wind farms, there is an emerging need to understand how climate change can affect the wind resource," says Dr Alberto Troccoli, lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Climate.
Argonne National Laboratory via physorg.com: Powering wind energy with superconductivity
September 21, 2011
Energy prices and environmental concerns are driving the United States to rethink its energy mix and to develop domestic sources of clean, renewable energy.
Our nation possesses abundant resources to create electricity from the wind, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working toward generating 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply from wind power by 2030. To help make this vision a reality, DOE recently awarded six projects to help develop next generation wind turbines and accelerate the deployment of advanced turbines for offshore wind energy in the United States.
Advanced Magnet Lab, located in Palm Bay, Florida, is leading one of these projects to develop the first fully superconducting direct-drive generator for large wind turbines with the goal of significantly reducing the cost of wind energy. DOE's Argonne National Laboratory is one of Advanced Magnet Lab's partners in this project.
University of Nottingham (UK) via physorg.com: Can smart meters make us greener?
September 21, 2011
The UK government wants every home to have one by 2020, but might the new generation of electricity meters help to change people’s attitudes to climate change?
An academic at The University of Nottingham is to argue that providing information about saved carbon emissions through the new smart meters could be more effective in persuading consumers to changing their behaviour than by demonstrating savings on their bills alone.
...
Dr. Spence is due to begin a study examining the impact that smart meters will have on people’s perceptions of climate change. She said: “Providing customers with information on saved carbon emissions on these devices may be useful in helping to make climate change real and empowering people to make a difference.
“While people may be primarily concerned about energy prices, this is likely to encourage only certain changes in behavior. Psychology theory suggests that talking about energy savings in terms of the environment may encourage people to undertake a broader range of sustainable behaviors.”
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
The Guardian (UK): Mathematicians warn of damage to UK economy from maths funding cuts
In a letter to the prime minister, senior mathematicians say work in key maths fields needed in a modern economy will suffer
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Senior mathematicians have written to the prime minister to protest about cuts in funding for their research at the hands of a government funding agency. They claim the agency did not adequately consult the mathematics community before making its decisions.
The academics, including Oxford University mathematician and TV presenter, Marcus du Sautoy, and a former president of the Royal Society, Sir Michael Atiyah, said that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has engaged in "central planning and micro-managing" of research priorities and this could have devastating results for British science.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
SAGE Publications via physorg.com: Fukushima: Reflections six months on
September 20, 2011
When the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on March 11, 2011, the world witnessed the largest nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. In a special Fukushima issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published today by SAGE, experts examine the current and future impact of Fukushima, what might have been done to lessen the scale of the accident, and the steps we need to take both in Japan and worldwide to prevent another nuclear tragedy. This content will be free to access for a limited period.
In the article Deconstructing the zero-risk mindset: The lessons and future responsibilities for a post-Fukushima nuclear Japan, Tatsujiro Suzuki revisits the tragedy at the nuclear power station, and highlights a few of the most pressing – and most challenging – of the government's plans. "Fukushima should not just contain lessons for Japan, but for all 31 countries with nuclear power," says Suzuki, who is vice-chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.
Science Education
Asia Times (Thailand): Indian college launches ghostly studies
By Raja Murthy
I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Specters much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
- Joseph Addison, English politician and writer, in The Spectator, 1711
MUMBAI - A leading college in Mumbai hosted a seminar on ghosts on September 19, the first time in Indian academic history that graduate students were officially treated to studying phenomena of those hair-raising sounds and visions that usually visit past the midnight hour.
India's financial capital paying scholarly attention to ghosts is only newest chapter of ancient spooky folklore from ancient Greece's vrykolakas (vampires), to the Egyptian Book of the Dead and Japanese yurei ghosts.
Spectral species deserve to be in the news, having occupied the fringes of human consciousness for millennia. One study found that more people claim to have seen and photographed ghosts than those claiming to have seen God.
Des Moines Register: Ancient Egyptian mummy to arrive at Science Center
by Michael Morain
12:38 PM, Sep 21, 2011
With a little decoding, the hieroglyphic banner at the Science Center of Iowa gave a pretty big clue about the museum’s next exhibit. It read: “Show…me…the mummy.”
Turns out, the mummy in question is “Annie,” the 2,300-year-old star of “Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science.” The traveling show will open the day after Thanksgiving and remain through the spring, with artifacts and interactive displays that reveal how archaeologists use modern technology to understand ancient civilization, SCI staffers announced Wednesday.
Marshall Democrat-News: Arrow Rock excavation in October will provide MVC students with hands-on experience
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Peter Warnock, assistant professor of anthropology at Missouri Valley College, will lead a team of archaeologists in the excavation of an 1800s latrine in Arrow Rock Oct. 7-8.
The goal of the project is to analyze the latrine's contents for evidence of diet and disease through pollen and parasitic remains, according to a news release from the college.
The students hope to learn what differences in diet and disease there were between various socio-economic groups.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these articles.
Science Writing and Reporting
NPR: Explorers Push The Limits, Despite The Risks
September 20, 2011
As a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Constanza Ceruti studies ancient Andean peoples and their sacred ceremonial sites. The high-altitude archaeologist braves blistering winds and altitude sickness to reach the highest peaks of the Andes, often working in locations that few humans have visited in hundreds of years.
While Ceruti explores above the clouds, environmental anthropologist and 2011 National Geographic Explorer of the Year Kenny Broad dives deep into ocean caves to explore freshwater reserves around the globe. He hopes his work will reveal ways the world can sustain its freshwater reserves.
Bad Archeology on Wordpress: I remember why I’ve never wanted satellite television
17 September 2011 – 9:52 pm
Posted in extraterrestrials
For some reason, there is a channel known as The History Channel. Given its schedule, I can only conclude that the name is ironic in a postmodern sense. It certainly bears only a tangential relationship to something that I would recognise as ‘history’. I’ve been aware for some time that its programming is weighted towards the American Civil War and Nazis, much in the way that the ‘bookshop’ W H Smith has a ‘History’ section that deals largely in World War II and bullshit history. Given that the channel has aired series such as The Bible Code: predicting Armageddon and Nostradamus Effect, I really ought not to be shocked at any of its offerings.
And yet…
And yet, the discovery that it has given air time to a programme called Ancient Aliens (note that it’s not even a question!) is shocking and profoundly depressing. And it’s in its second series! Given that many people in the modern world use the television as their principal window on the world and source of information about that world, for a significant number of them, it has an authority that probably no other institution (even school) does. If it’s been on a television documentary, so popular wisdom has it, then it must be true: a twenty-first century equivalent of “I read it in the paper, so it must be true…”. A quote from an online forum should suffice to illustrate the point: “I don’t think you will be able to easily ‘debunk’ anything you see on the history channel. Everything that you see on their shows comes from legit scientific sources and is supported by many word class researches and experts”. There are times when I despair for the future of our civilisation.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these articles.
Science is Cool
Cracked: 8 Simple Questions You Won't Believe Science Can't Answer
By: Eddie Rodriguez
September 20, 2011
The field of science is capable of some amazing things, mostly because it's filled with all the Albert Einsteins and Doogie Howsers the world has produced over the centuries. But it may shock you that some of the most mundane, everyday concepts are as big a mystery to scientists as they are to the average toddler.
University of Washington via physorg.com: Gamers succeed where scientists fail: Molecular structure of retrovirus enzyme solved
September 18, 2011
Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.
After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players. The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.
