Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, health, energy, and the environment.
Between now and the end of the primary season, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having primary or special elections for federal or state office this year plus stories from all research universities in major cities having municipal elections as listed in the 2013 Daily Kos Elections Calendar. Tonight's edition features the research and outreach stories from the City of San Diego and the states of Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
This week's featured story comes from the White House YouTube channel.
The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes.
President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
WATCH THIS SPACE!
Green diary rescue: Snow doesn't mean no global warming, exploding trains, tainted water
by Meteor Blades
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
by Arianna Editrix
Climate Scientists Lawyering Up
by LeftOfYou
The Mobile Quarantine Facility: Protecting the Earth From Moon Bugs
by Lenny Flank
This week in science: Summa Tellure
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
Archaeology: History's 10 Greatest Wrecks...
By JAMES P. DELGADO
The first scientific archaeological excavation of a shipwreck took place just over 50 years ago. Since then, thousands of wrecks have been discovered, each with an important story to tell. Choosing 10 from among them to represent the endeavor of nautical archaeology is a difficult—and subjective—task. But each offers a profile of an age and a window into the lives of its people, as well as evidence of just how clever and innovative our ancestors were as they took to the seas. Through these stories, we also see why archaeologists continue to devote themselves, despite danger and difficulty, to the examination and excavation of wrecks, wherever they might be discovered. From the rudimentary dive equipment of the earliest excavations to the sophisticated remote-sensing and remotely operated technology of today, archaeologists have shown that no site is beyond the reach of our inquiry into the past.
Orlando Sentinel: 2,000-year-old skeleton unearthed in Davie
By Ken Kaye, Staff writer
7:21 p.m. EST, January 9, 2014
She rested in peace for about 2,000 years until utility crews came shortly before Christmas to install a new waterline on Pine Island Road in Davie.
That's when the fully intact skeleton of what is believed to be a Tequesta Indian woman was found — perhaps the best-preserved remains of an ancient human uncovered in the past 40 years, authorities said Thursday.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Weather Underground: Weekly Weather Roundup: Hercules and Ion.
12/30-1/5: Winter Storms Hercules and Ion chill the States, while Christina moves across the pond. Tropical Cyclone Bejisa moves in the Indian Ocean, and California has its driest year on record.
KPBS: The Connection Between Dry Weather In San Diego And The Polar Vortex
Extreme weather is freezing the midwest and leaving San Diego high and dry.
Also see the story under Climate and Environment.
KPBS: New Study Provides Motivation To Get Healthy And Fit In 2014
Losing weight, toning up and getting healthy frequently top New Year's resolution lists. A recent study seems to give us some extra reasons to shed pounds a 2014 goal.
Also read
the associated story on the KPBS website.
TEDxTalks: New perspectives - what's wrong with TED talks? Benjamin Bratton at TEDxSanDiego 2013 - Re:Think
Benjamin Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual Arts at UCSD and Director of The Center for Design and Geopoltics at CALIT2, asks: Why don't the bright futures promised in TED talks come true? Professor Bratton attacks the intellectual viability of TED, calling it placebo politics, middlebrow megachurch infotainment, and the equivalent of right-wing media channels. Does TED falsely present problems as simply puzzles to be solved by rearranging the pieces?
Also see the KPBS article under Science Writing and Reporting.
NASA Television: ISS Extended to 2024 on This Week @NASA
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and White House Science Advisor John Holdren, announced that the Obama administration is extending usage of the International Space Station to at least the year 2024. In his blog, Bolden noted that NASA is hopeful and optimistic that our ISS partners will join this extension effort and enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted on the unique orbiting laboratory. Also, International Space Exploration Forum, Cygnus' resupply flight, Super Bowl of Astronomy, 10 years roving Mars, TDRS-L Update and more!
Astronomy/Space
Vanderbilt University via PhysOrg: Surprising new class of 'hypervelocity stars' discovered escaping the galaxy
Jan 09, 2014
An international team of astronomers has discovered a surprising new class of "hypervelocity stars" – solitary stars moving fast enough to escape the gravitational grasp of the Milky Way galaxy.
The discovery of this new set of "hypervelocity" stars was described at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week in Washington, D.C., and is published in the Jan. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
PhysOrg: New discovery could be a Thorne-Zytkow object
Jan 08, 2014 by Bob Yirka
(Phys.org) —Speaking at this year's American Astronomical Society meeting, Hubble Fellow, Emily Levesque reported that she and her colleagues at the University of Colorado have discovered a star that just might qualify as a Thorne-Zytkow object. The object has not been named as yet, however, as the team has not yet published its results.
A Thorne-Zytkow object, Kip Throne and Anna Zytkow theorized back in 1975, could come to exist when a dying red giant star swallows an orbiting neutron star. The result would be, the researchers suggested, a star with another smaller star embedded in its core and which would overall resemble other known types of stars but would emit a different and unique chemical signature. Since that time, many space scientists have scoured the heavens looking for such an object—many candidates have been found, but thus far none have been confirmed. In this latest effort, the found object appears to closely resemble what Thorne and Zytkow predicted.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Lawrence Livermore Berkeley Laboratory via PhysOrg: Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey measures the universe to one-percent accuracy
Jan 08, 2014
Today the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Collaboration announced that BOSS has measured the scale of the universe to an accuracy of one percent. This and future measures at this precision are the key to determining the nature of dark energy.
"One-percent accuracy in the scale of the universe is the most precise such measurement ever made," says BOSS's principal investigator, David Schlegel, a member of the Physics Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). "Twenty years ago astronomers were arguing about estimates that differed by up to fifty percent. Five years ago, we'd refined that uncertainty to five percent; a year ago it was two percent. One-percent accuracy will be the standard for a long time to come."
NPR via KPBS: Dying Stars Write Their Own Swan Songs
By Geoff Brumfiel / NPR
Friday, January 10, 2014
Alicia Soderberg studies the death of stars. Often, these final moments come as violent explosions known as supernovae. They're spectacular events, but catching one as it unfolds can be tricky.
"You have to be in the right place at the right time, and often we're not," says the professor in Harvard's astronomy department. "So all you can do is do a stellar autopsy and go back and try to pick up the pieces and try to figure out what happened."
Soderberg's autopsy involves collecting every signal her team can from the explosions: radio waves, light, X-rays. They try to put this information together in a way that makes sense. And often that's hard to do. "The data analysis itself is very detailed," she says.
University of Virginia: U.Va. Study Using ALMA Telescope Reveals Supernova Dust Factory
January 7, 2014
Galaxies can be remarkably dusty places, and supernovas are thought to be a primary source of that dust, especially in the early universe. Direct evidence of a supernova’s dust-making capabilities, however, has been slim and cannot account for the copious amount of dust detected in young, distant galaxies.
Striking new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile – known as ALMA – capture, for the first time, the remains of a recent supernova brimming with freshly formed dust. If enough of this dust makes the perilous transition into interstellar space, it could explain how many galaxies acquired their dusty, dusky appearance.
“We have found a remarkably large dust mass concentrated in the central part of the ejecta from a relatively young and nearby supernova,” said Remy Indebetouw, a University of Virginia astronomer working with Charlottesville’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory. “This is the first time we’ve been able to really image where the dust has formed, which is important in understanding the evolution of galaxies.”
Climate/Environment
BBC: Storms unearth hidden treasures and dangers
By Nick Tarver BBC News
Unexploded bombs, rare dinosaur fossils and an unknown boat wreck have been unearthed on England's beaches during the recent stormy weather. But what else could appear on our shores?
Pounding waves and high tides have led to the coastline being eroded and changed beyond recognition.
In the past month, World War Two bombs were washed-up on an Essex beach, a near-complete ichthyosaur skeleton was unearthed in Dorset and in Cornwall a boat wreck was discovered.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Capital Public Radio via KPBS: Gov. Jerry Brown Addresses California Drought
By Amy Quinton, Capital Public Radio
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Gov. Jerry Brown said he’ll take whatever steps he can to help California’s farmers deal with the water shortage.
Brown has yet to issue a drought proclamation. However, he said a paper from the governor’s office won’t affect the rain.
Capital Public Radio via KPBS: California Water Resource Director Expects Governor To Declare Drought by Amy Quinton, Capital Public Radio
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
The director of the California Department of Water Resources said that he believes Gov. Jerry Brown likely will declare a drought. Mark Cowin made the comments to the state Board of Food and Agriculture on Tuesday.
...
Cowin also added that a proclamation would likely come on Feb. 1, which is the date of the next snow survey. A drought proclamation would make it easier to relax water quality standards and streamline water transfers.
Capital Public Radio via KPBS: California Budget Increases Spending On Groundwater
By Amy Quinton, Capital Public Radio
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Eighty-percent of Californians rely, at least in part, on groundwater. Some environmentalists have said groudwater management has not been a top priority for the state. However, they’re pleased that Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget recognizes the need to manage it better.
As water levels in California’s rivers and reservoirs drop, farmers increasingly rely on groundwater, causing land to sink in the San Joaquin Valley. The state’s reliance on groundwater is likely to grow in the coming years.
...
Brown’s budget would fund more staff and spend almost $8 million on managing and monitoring groundwater use.
KPBS: Carlsbad Desalination Plant Construction On Track To Meet 2016 Goal
By City News Service
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
The $1 billion water desalination plant being built in Carlsbad is 25 percent complete after one year of construction, and is on time and within budget, area water officials said Wednesday.
When complete in 2016, the plant will be the largest of its kind in the western hemisphere, converting enough ocean water into drinking water for 112,000 households annually, according to Poseidon Water, the project developer.
The plant is one of several steps the San Diego County Water Authority is taking to reducing reliance on imported water. The SDCWA is also enlarging the San Vicente Reservoir.
KPBS: The Connection Between Dry Weather In San Diego And The Polar Vortex
By Megan Burke, Maureen Cavanaugh, Peggy Pico
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Extreme winter weather has been dominating the national headlines for days, but it seems that here in San Diego we've been living in a land that winter weather forgot.
So is there any connection between the below-freezing temperatures in the east and midwest and our mild and very dry weather? When can we expect our winter rains to start? And what, if anything, does all this have to do with climate change?
University of Massachusetts: Updating Air Pollution Measurement Methods with UMass Amherst Air Quality, Health Effects Research
January 6, 2014
AMHERST, Mass. – Launching a natural research experiment in Kathmandu, Nepal, this month using advanced monitoring methods to assess health risk from air pollution, environmental health scientist Rick Peltier at the University of Massachusetts Amherst hopes to demonstrate for the first time in a real-world setting that air pollution can and should be regulated based on toxicology variables rather than simply on the volume of particles in the air.
Recent technological advances in air quality measurement methods now make it possible and practical to monitor air pollution in a much more sophisticated way than before, Peltier says. Researchers now use X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to measure air pollution metal content, ion chromatography to identify other chemicals and other tactics to assess organic and elemental carbon levels.
Peltier says, “We’re interested in how air pollution directly affects health. The current regulatory method doesn’t take into account the relative toxicity of components, that is the specific chemical makeup of the air we breathe. There has been a void in the science in this field. But with this experiment, for the first time we’ll have biological measurements coupled with high-quality air pollution measurements in a cohort of traffic police exposed to extreme levels of pollution.”
Biodiversity
Georgia Tech: Chemical Warfare on Coral Reefs: Suppressing a Competitor Enhances Susceptibility to a Predator
Competition may have a high cost for at least one species of tropical seaweed.
Posted January 8, 2014 | Atlanta, GA
The chemically noxious seaweed Galaxaura filamentosa was placed in contact with a living coral (Porites cylindrica) for eight days to assess whether competition with coral increased its production of toxic anti-coral compounds. (Photo: Douglas Rasher)
Researchers examining the chemical warfare taking place on Fijian coral reefs have found that one species of seaweed increases its production of noxious anti-coral compounds when placed into contact with reef-building corals. But as it competes chemically with the corals, the seaweed grows more slowly and becomes more attractive to herbivorous fish, which boost their consumption of the skirmishing seaweed by 80 percent.
This appears to be the first demonstration that seaweeds can boost their chemical defenses in response to competition with corals. However, determining whether such responses are common or rare awaits additional studies with a broader range of seaweeds and corals.
The research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, was published January 8, 2014, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Biotechnology/Health
Fox News: The REAL caveman diet: Research shows ancient man mainly ate tiger nuts
FoxNews.com
Published January 10, 2014
So much for Fred Flintstone’s brontosaurus ribs.
The popular caveman diet claims people will feel more powerful and healthier if they only eat items popular during the Paleolithic, pointing to nuts, berries and red meat. But a new study from Oxford University says meat wasn’t making it for our ancient ancestors: 2.4 million years ago, man survived mainly on “tiger nuts” -- edible grass bulbs still eaten in parts of the world today.
Past Horizons: Hunter-gatherer diet caused tooth decay
Article created on Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Research led by Natural History Museum scientists suggests a diet rich in starchy foods may have caused high rates of tooth decay in ancient hunter-gatherers.
The results published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) also suggest tooth decay was more prevalent in earlier societies than previously estimated. The results also suggest that the hunter-gatherer society studied may have developed a more sedentary lifestyle than previously thought, relying on nut harvesting.
Dental disease was thought to have originated with the introduction of farming and changes in food processing around 10,000 years ago. A greater reliance on cultivated plant foods, rich in fermentable carbohydrates, resulted in rotting teeth.
Nature (UK): Ancient cholera mysteriously disappeared
Strains that plagued Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century were distinct from those prevalent today.
Ewen Callaway
A deadly cholera outbreak gripped Philadelphia and other metropolises along the Eastern seaboard in early 1849, the second in 20 years. About 1,000 of the city's residents died as result of infection with the water-borne pathogen that year, a figure that might have been considerably higher were it not for a programme to wash the city's filthy streets with clean reservoir water. Now DNA isolated from the preserved 165-year-old intestine of a victim has yielded a complete genome sequence of the bacterium responsible — the first from a nineteeth-century strain of Vibrio cholerae.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
UCSD: Biomaterials Get Stem Cells to Commit to a Bony Future
By Becky Ham
January 06, 2014
With the help of biomimetic matrices, a research team led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego has discovered exactly how calcium phosphate can coax stem cells to become bone-building cells. This work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Jan. 6, 2014.
UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering professor Shyni Varghese and colleagues have traced a surprising pathway from these biomaterials to bone formation. Their findings will help them refine the design of biomaterials that encourage stem cells to give rise to new bone. The researchers say their study may also point out new targets for treating bone defects and bone metabolic disorders such as major fractures and osteoporosis.
The materials are built to mimic the body’s own cellular niches, in which undifferentiated or “blank-slate” stem cells from bone marrow transform into specific bone-forming cells. “We knew for years that calcium phosphate-based materials promote osteogenic differentiation of stem cells, but none of us knew why,” Varghese said.
“As engineers, we want to build something that is reproducible and consistent,” she explained, “so we need to know how building factors contribute to this end.”
SDSU: Health and Wealth Connected?
By studying Google search data, researchers discovered Americans had more health concerns during the recession.
By Michael Price
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
We ring in the New Year with hopes of being healthy, wealthy, and wise. A new study from epidemiological researchers and long-time colleagues John W. Ayers of San Diego State University and Benjamin Althouse of the Santa Fe Institute and their colleagues suggests that health and wealth may be more strongly connected than previously thought.
The group examined Americans’ Google search patterns and discovered that during the recent Great Recession, people searched considerably more frequently for information about health ailments. The kinds of problems indicated by the queries weren’t life threatening, but they could keep someone in the bed a few days, like ulcers, headaches, and back pain.
In total, the team found there were more than 200 million excess queries of this kind during the Great Recession than expected.
KPBS: La Jolla Biotech’s Blood Test Could Help Doctors Diagnose Depression
By Kenny Goldberg
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Nearly 1 in 10 Americans suffers from depression. The disease affects more than 350 million people worldwide. It’s one of the leading causes of disability. Yet, because of stigma, many people don’t acknowledge they’re depressed and don’t seek treatment.
San Diego-based Ridge Diagnostics has come up with a blood test that could make it easier to diagnose and ultimately treat depression.
It’s called MDDScore.
University of Georgia: New aspirin-based prodrug may prevent damage caused by chemotherapy
January 9, 2014
Athens, Ga. - Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed a new prodrug that promises to reduce many of the negative side effects caused by cisplatin, a commonly prescribed chemotherapy treatment.
Cisplatin may be used to treat a variety of cancers, but it is most commonly prescribed for cancer of the bladder, ovaries, cervix, testicles and lung. It is an effective drug, but it often causes severe and irreversible damage to a patient's kidneys, hearing and sense of balance.
UGA researchers combined cisplatin with aspirin in a new single prodrug formulation they call Platin-A, which prevents these negative side effects by reducing inflammation. They reported their findings recently in Angewandte Chemie, a journal published by the German Chemical Society.
University of Iowa: Study: Two-sizes-too-small 'Grinch' effect hampers heart transplant success
22 years of data suggest need for new heart-size matching strategy to improve outcomes
By: Molly Rossiter | 2014.01.09 | 10:59 AM
Current protocols for matching donor hearts to recipients foster sex mismatching and heart size disparities, according to a first-of-its kind analysis by physicians at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Iowa. Matching instead by donor heart size may provide better outcomes for recipients, who already face a scarcity of resources as they await a transplant.
The analysis of 22 years of adult heart transplant data in the U.S., published this week in "JACC: Heart Failure" by the American College of Cardiology, critically re-appraises the current practice of matching donors and recipients by body weight rather than heart size. While two people may weigh the same, their hearts could have vastly different sizes—often requiring a smaller donor heart to strain to do the necessary work. The researchers dubbed this the “Grinch” effect, referring to the Dr. Seuss character whose heart was “two sizes too small.”
The contrast is especially amplified when a match based on body weight doesn’t factor in sex differences.
University of Iowa: Bringing the doctor to the patient
Studies show visiting clinics can help alleviate some rural doctor shortages
By: Tom Snee | 2014.01.07 | 10:13 AM
A new study by the University of Iowa finds that regularly scheduled visiting clinics staffed by physicians from larger cities effectively increase access to urological care for underserved rural Iowans.
The study follows up on similar findings by one of its co-authors last year about rural oncology care, and suggests policy makers should look more closely at the use of visiting clinics to increase health care access in rural areas with declining but aging populations.
The study finds that the number of rural Iowans with regularly scheduled access to urologic care increases dramatically when urologists arrange monthly visits to local hospitals or clinics. While Iowa has 69 practicing urologists, none of them are based in one of the state’s 21 rural counties so that only about 57 percent of the population is within a 30-minute drive of a urologist’s primary office.
University of Virginia: Using Tablets, Telemedicine to Speed Stroke Treatment
January 6, 2014
A University of Virginia Health System team is working with local rescue squads to diagnose stroke patients before they reach the hospital, enabling more patients to receive lifesaving treatment and have a full recovery.
Working through UVA Innovation’s USEED fundraising program, U.Va. clinicians are raising $10,000 to equip two additional local ambulances with the iTREAT mobile telemedicine kit. The goal is to connect paramedics through a secure video link with U.Va.’s specially trained stroke neurologists and emergency medicine physicians, who can diagnose stroke patients while they’re in the ambulance and enable treatment to begin as soon as patients arrive at the hospital.
“The longest delay in treating folks is not once they get to the hospital, but before they get to the hospital,” said stroke neurologist Dr. Andrew Southerland said.
Virginia Tech: Scientists aid in fighting deadly, drug-resistant tuberculosis around the world
BLACKSBURG, Va., Jan. 6, 2014 – Researchers at Virginia Tech's Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have recently returned from a trip halfway across the globe in the race to confront drug-resistant tuberculosis.
As part of a week-long course in comparative genomics organized by researchers from the Broad Institute, senior bioscientist and computational biologist Rebecca Wattam trained participants in Africa to use the Pathosystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC).
PATRIC is a Web-based portal that provides bacterial infectious disease researchers with analysis tools and comparative data.
Psychology/Behavior
The Daily Telegraph (UK): Economic downturns fuel sad books, claims study
Authors tend to write books containing sad words around 10 years after an economic downturn, according to a new 'literary misery index'
By Telegraph reporter
10:01PM GMT 08 Jan 2014
Authors tend to write more miserable books about 10 years after an economic downturn, a study has claimed.
Researchers compared the number of times certain words appeared in more than five million books to certain periods in American and British history. They found that the frequency of words expressing sadness reflected the economic conditions in the 10 years before a book was written.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Archeology/Anthropology
Western Digs: 11,000-Year-Old Seafaring Indian Sites Discovered on California Island
Blake de Pastino Jan 06,2014
Just offshore from the chock-a-block development of Southern California, archaeologists have discovered some of the oldest sites of human occupation on the Pacific Coast.
On Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel Islands just 65 kilometers from Santa Barbara, nearly 20 sites have been found that reveal signs of prehistoric human activity, from massive middens of abalone shells to distinctive stone points and tool-making debris.
At least nine of the sites have what archaeologists say is “definitive evidence” of ancient Paleoindian occupation, about half of them having been dated to 11,000 to 12,000 years ago — making their inhabitants some of the earliest known settlers of North America’s West Coast.
Xinhua (China) via NZWeek (New Zealand): Chinese archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old fortifications
Xinhua Published By Daisey Stodola
Updated 10/01/2014
XI’AN, Nov. 28 — Archaeologists said fortifications of the largest neolithic Chinese city ever discovered were excavated on Wednesday and Thursday in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.
The ruins of two square beacon towers, once part of the city wall of the 4,000-year-old Shimao Ruins in Shenmu County, have been uncovered, according to Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey): Bath tunnels of king’s daughters discovered under Turkey’s second largest castle
Two secret tunnels have been discovered under Turkey’s second largest castle, in the northern province of Tokat’s Niksar district. The tunnels date back to the Roman period, and it has been claimed that one of the tunnels was used by a Roman king’s daughters in order to go to the bath in the Çanakçi stream area.
Culture 24 (UK): Aberdeen archaeologists rescue 700-year-old Yup'ik "melting village" in Quinhagak, Alaska
By Ben Miller | 10 January 2014
When the residents of Quinhagak, a city in Alaska of less than 700 people, called in archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen in 2009, they might not have anticipated their investigation yielding instant results.
The Scottish and indigenous archaeological teams wanted to carry out a rescue dig on a coastline rapidly being lost to global warming. They found a 700-year-old village site within hours of their first incision, as well as hundreds of immaculate artefacts preserved by permafrost.The Scottish and indigenous archaeological teams wanted to carry out a rescue dig on a coastline rapidly being lost to global warming. They found a 700-year-old village site within hours of their first incision, as well as hundreds of immaculate artefacts preserved by permafrost.
The Scottish and indigenous archaeological teams wanted to carry out a rescue dig on a coastline rapidly being lost to global warming. They found a 700-year-old village site within hours of their first incision, as well as hundreds of immaculate artefacts preserved by permafrost.
SUNY Binghampton via PhysOrg: Dig seeks traces of battlefield
Jan 07, 2014 by Merrill Douglas
Experts from the Public Archaeology Facility recently took their shovels to a cornfield about 45 miles west of Binghamton, searching for evidence that could earn that site—the scene of a small but significant Revolutionary War battle—a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
Four days of digging beneath the corn stubble yielded project director Michael Jacobson and his Binghamton University colleagues just a few modest items, including a charcoal smudge and the possible remains of a wooden post. But if test results show that those artifacts date from the late 18th century, that could be enough to convince National Register staff that the location of the Battle of Chemung should be preserved for further study.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Paleontology/Evolution
University of Oregon via PhysOrg: Paleontologist and librarian team up to create 3-D printout of rare fossil
Jan 07, 2014
University of Oregon paleontologist Edward Davis and librarian Dean Walton are creating a three-dimensional printout of a rare saber-toothed salmon fossil using a special printer housed at the Science Library.
Using a CT scan of the fossil as a digital model, the printer is generating a 3-D replica by melting layers of plastic and stacking them atop one another until the object is formed. After 70 hours of printing, the first piece of the printout—part of the lower jaw—was completed on Dec. 20. Three additional pieces will print in the coming weeks.
PhysOrg: Pigments reveal extinct reptiles' dark side
Jan 08, 2014 by Mariette Le Roux
What did Tyrannosaurus rex really look like? Depending on which artist's impression you look at, the carnivorous king of the Cretaceous was a dull grey, an earthy brown, maybe a dark green... perhaps it was ochre, or even the colour of a bright lime.
New insights into prehistoric fossils, published on Wednesday, may one day help determine what the great dinosaurs looked like in real life.
Scientists said they had uncovered the first-ever traces of pigment in reptile fossils—a dark hue found in three extinct deep-sea beasts distantly related to today's leatherback turtle.
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology via PhysOrg: New fossils shed light on the origins of lions, and tigers, and bears
Jan 06, 2014
New fossils from Belgium have shed light on the origin of some of the most well-known, and well-loved, modern mammals. Cats and dogs, as well as other carnivorous mammals (like bears, seals, and weasels), taxonomically called 'carnivoraformes', trace their ancestry to primitive carnivorous mammals dating back to 55 million years ago (the beginning of the time period called the Eocene). A study, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, discusses the origins of this group and describes new specimens of one of the earliest of these primitive taxa.
The species, dubbed Dormaalocyon latouri, had previously been found at the Belgian locality of Dormaal (thus the name of the genus). New specimens found by lead author Floréal Solé and his colleagues, allow for a better characterization of the animal, and its placement in the evolutionary history of carnivores. "Its description allows better understanding of the origination, variability and ecology of the earliest carnivoraforms", says Solé.
Pennsylvania State University via PhysOrg: Iconic Australasian trees found as fossils in South America
Jan 09, 2014
Today in Australia they call it Kauri, in Asia they call it Dammar, and in South America it does not exist at all unless planted there; but 52 million years ago the giant coniferous evergreen tree known to botanists as Agathis thrived in the Patagonian region of Argentina, according to an international team of paleobotanists, who have found numerous fossilized remains there.
"These spectacular fossils reveal that Agathis is old and had a huge range that no one knew about—from Australia to South America across Antarctica," said Peter Wilf, professor of geoscience, Penn State.
Simon Fraser University (Canada) via PhysOrg: Big-eyed fossil flies track major ecological revolution
Simon Fraser University's Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes are part of a team of biologists, including Christian Kehlmaier from Germany's Senkenberg Natural History Collections, that has discovered three new, extinct fossil species of big-headed flies.
According to their research, published recently by The Canadian Entomologist, these fossils show their early evolution parallels an ecological revolution, one that formed the character of our modern natural communities.
Entomological Society of America via PhysOrg: After a 49-million-year hiatus, a cockroach reappears in North America
Jan 06, 2014
The cockroach in the genus Ectobius is a major textbook example of an invasive organism, and it is the most common cockroach inhabiting a large region from northernmost Europe to southernmost Africa.
Ectobius has a long fossil history in Europe, occurring in Baltic amber that is about 44 million years old, and its lineage was believed to have been exclusively from the Old World. However, a shocking new discovery has uprooted that view. In fact, it now appears that Ectobius may have originated in the New World.
Four ancient Ectobius species were recently discovered in the 49-million-year-old Green River Formation near Rifle, Colorado in deposits that are about five million years older than the Baltic amber. However, these cockroaches soon became extinct in North America. The cause for the extinction of Ectobius in North America in the dim past is unknown, but it evidently survived in the Old World, and western Europe in particular.
Arizona State University via PhysOrg: 'Ardi' skull reveals links to human lineage
Jan 06, 2014
One of the most hotly debated issues in current human origins research focuses on how the 4.4 million-year-old African species Ardipithecus ramidus is related to the human lineage. "Ardi" was an unusual primate. Though it possessed a tiny brain and a grasping big toe used for clambering in the trees, it had small, humanlike canine teeth and an upper pelvis modified for bipedal walking on the ground.
Scientists disagree about where this mixture of features positions Ardipithecus ramidus on the tree of human and ape relationships. Was Ardi an ape with a few humanlike features retained from an ancestor near in time (6 and 8 million years ago, according to DNA evidence) to the split between the chimpanzee and human lines? Or was it a true relative of the human line that had yet to shed many signs of its remote tree-dwelling ancestry?
New research led by ASU paleoanthropologist William Kimbel confirms Ardi's close evolutionary relationship to humans. Kimbel and his collaborators turned to the underside (or base) of a beautifully preserved partial cranium of Ardi. Their study revealed a pattern of similarity that links Ardi to Australopithecus and modern humans and but not to apes.
The Daily Mail (UK): Light skin in Europeans stems from ONE 10,000-year-old ancestor who lived between India and the Middle East, claims study
- Study focused on DNA differences across globe with the A111T mutation
- Those who had mutation also shared traces of an ancestral genetic code
- This indicates that all instances of mutation originate from same person
- The mutated segment of DNA was itself created from a combination of two other mutations commonly found in East Asians
By Ellie Zolfagharifard
Light skin in Europeans stems from a gene mutation from a single person who lived 10,000 years ago.
This is according to a new U.S. study that claims the colour is due to an ancient ancestor who lived somewhere between the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
Scientists made the discovery after identifying a key gene that contributes to lighter skin colour in Europeans.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Geology
Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich (Germany) via PhysOrg: Volcanic lightning recreated in the lab
Jan 10, 2014
An LMU team has, for the first time, created volcanic lightning in the lab and captured it on film. The new findings may permit rapid characterization of ash clouds released by volcanic eruptions and improve forecasting of their behavior.
When the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010, launching a towering column of ash into the skies, the cloud was observed to be laced with lightning flashes. LMU volcanologists led by Professor Donald Dingwell, Director of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU, have now generated such volcanic lightning in the laboratory, as they report in a recent issue of the journal Geology. "Our experiments demonstrate that there is a relationship between the concentration of fine particles in the ash plume and the number of flashes produced," says departmental researcher Dr. Corrado Cimarelli.
Energy
Harvard University via PhysOrg: Organic mega flow battery promises breakthrough for renewable energy
Jan 08, 2014
A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar far more economical and reliable.
he novel battery technology is reported in a paper published in Nature on January 9. Under the OPEN 2012 program, the Harvard team received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to develop the innovative grid-scale battery and plans to work with ARPA-E to catalyze further technological and market breakthroughs over the next several years.
The paper reports a metal-free flow battery that relies on the electrochemistry of naturally abundant, inexpensive, small organic (carbon-based) molecules called quinones, which are similar to molecules that store energy in plants and animals.
Physics
University College London (UK) via PhysOrg: Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis
Jan 09, 2014
Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis published today in the journal Nature Communications.
The majority of light-gathering macromolecules are composed of chromophores (responsible for the colour of molecules) attached to proteins, which carry out the first step of photosynthesis, capturing sunlight and transferring the associated energy highly efficiently. Previous experiments suggest that energy is transferred in a wave-like manner, exploiting quantum phenomena, but crucially, a non-classical explanation could not be conclusively proved as the phenomena identified could equally be described using classical physics.
Chemistry
SINTEF (Norway) via PhysOrg: Searching for the perfect road salt
Jan 10, 2014
Each winter, Norway spends NOK 1.6 billion keeping its roads fit for use. Researchers have many reasons for wanting to get costs down.
he Norwegian Public Roads Administration maintains 55,000 kilometres of roads in Norway, of which about 9,000 kilometres are salted in winter. "This means that we 'salt Norway' from north to south about three and a half times", says SINTEF researcher Kine Nilssen, who specialises in winter road maintenance.
The use of salt on roads has given both motoring and environmental organisations cause to criticise the authorities. Salt causes cars to rust. It kills roadside vegetation and may contaminate groundwater. Even so, according to Nilssen, salting is essential to keep traffic flowing and maintain safety.
Science Crime Scenes
The Express (UK): Germany's timebomb terror after newly-discovered explosives trigger disaster
AS A construction site worker dies in a blast last week, how thousands of still live explosives that we dropped in wartime even now threaten our former enemy
By: Allan Hall
Published: Thu, January 9, 2014
The race is on to gather in the lethal iron harvest of Germany: a crop of 100,000 to 150,000 unexploded bombs from the Second World War that are growing more unstable by the minute.
Last week a construction worker died in the town of Euskirchen and eight others were injured when the jaws of his mechanical digger detonated a bomb on a building site.
Three men died in Goettingen in 2010 when they moved a bomb and it went off. Two others were crippled for life. In 2006 a construction worker was killed in southern Germany when his bulldozer ran over an RAF dud during autobahn renovations; the bulldozer was catapulted 60ft into the air.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science, Space, Health, Environment, and Energy Policy
Washington Post: Va. museum shuts lab with USS Monitor artifacts, citing lack of federal funds
By Michael E. Ruane
The Virginia museum that holds the famous turret of the sunken Civil War ironclad warship USS Monitor says it is closing the laboratory that houses the artifact because of a lack of federal funding.
The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News has been the congressionally designated repository for Monitor artifacts since 1987. It also houses, among other things, the legendary ship’s two giant guns, propeller and steam engine.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
KPBS: California Doctors Praise Governor’s Move, But Say Medi-Cal Pay Still Too Low
By Kenny Goldberg
Thursday, January 9, 2014
California Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget eliminates a planned 10 percent Medi-Cal payment cut that was to be retroactive to 2011. But it still preserves a 10 percent cut to Medi-Cal rates going forward.
Approximately 8.5 million Californians have Medi-Cal coverage, including more than 350,000 people in San Diego County. And thanks to Obamacare, 1.4 million additional people are now eligible for it.
It’s not too tough for Medi-Cal patients to find a primary care doctor who’s willing to treat them, but it’s difficult to find a specialist.
KPBS: New Healthcare Ratings Available To California Consumers
By Kenny Goldberg
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
It’s hard to find a solo practitioner these days. Most doctors are part of a medical group.
The new ratings grade each group in four specific areas of patient care: how well groups communicate with patients, whether people can get appointments in a timely manner, coordination of care and helpfulness of office staff.
Consumer Reports medical director John Santa said the ratings don't measure patient outcomes.
KPBS: California Gets Failing Grade In Children’s Health Report Card
By Kenny Goldberg
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
The report card measures how well California children are faring in three major areas: education, health and the welfare of foster youth. There are 27 categories in all, ranging from K-12 funding to obesity.
The health grades are especially bad. For example, health care access got a C-minus, while mental health got a D.
Capital Public Radio via KPBS: California Health Care Spending Could Be Shifting
By Pauline Bartolone, Capital Public Radio
Friday, January 10, 2014
A small spending item in Gov. Jerry Brown’s California budget proposal would pay for education about children’s dental care. This might be a sign of a shift in state spending on health care.
KPBS: Gov. Brown Visits San Diego To Propose Billions In New Spending
By Susan Murphy
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Gov. Jerry Brown will visit San Diego on Thursday to discuss his 2014-15 budget proposal, which includes an increase in spending on schools, health care and welfare for low-income Californians.
Brown's proposal, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, also includes a $1.6 billion rainy day fund to prepare for any future economic downfalls and $10 billion more than anticipated for schools and community colleges.
University of Virginia: Miller Center Report: States Can Transform Health Care System
January 8, 2014
The nation’s governors and other state leaders can transform the current health care system into one that is more coordinated, patient-centered, of higher quality and less costly, according to a new report. The report by the State Health Care Cost Containment Commission, organized by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, aims to jump start health care cost containment in 2014 as 46 state legislative sessions get under way.
Science Education
UCSD: Treating the Inner Animal in All of Us
New veterinary and comparative medicine center advances health care, human and otherwise
By Scott LaFee
January 8, 2014
Discoveries about how diseases arise or are transmitted in animals can be useful in understanding the same sorts of afflictions in humans. Similarly, new therapies or techniques used in people may be effective in caring for animals as well.
The newly established Center for Veterinary Sciences and Comparative Medicine (CVSCM) at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine embodies this ideal – a highly integrated and innovative consortium of universities, institutions, scientists, physicians and veterinarians seeking to improve the condition of all animals, human and otherwise.
“By understanding the biology of disease, either in people or in animals, all benefit,” said Peter Ernst, DVM, PhD, professor of pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine and founding CVSCM director. “We want to use the lessons learned and advances made in human healthcare to improve the lives of animals and vice versa.”
University of Iowa: UI archaeologists create new online curriculum
By: Elizabeth Reetz | 2014.01.07 | 07:00 AM
Archaeologists from the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist partnered with a diverse team of Iowa and national educators and scholars to develop an archaeology curriculum, Investigating a Midwestern Wickiup, available free online through Project Archaeology beginning Jan. 31.
The upper elementary-level curriculum focuses on the wickiup, a type of shelter used by the Meskwaki and other Native American people living throughout the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes region at the time of European contact. The project highlights Iowa’s early environments, natural resources, and the interrelationship with human residents and their ways of life.
It incorporates unique insights from Iowa and Wisconsin archaeologists, formal and informal educators, and members of the Meskwaki community. It is part of the nationwide online curriculum series, Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter, which allows students to learn the fundamentals of archaeological inquiry and conduct their own investigation of an archaeological site through maps, artifact drawings, oral histories, and historic photographs.
Science Writing and Reporting
M.I.T. via PhysOrg: The surprising story of Mongolian shamanism
Dec 17, 2013 by Peter Dizikes
Indeed, as MIT anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger chronicles in a new book, the revival of shamanism has shaped Mongolia in surprising ways in the last two decades. From storefronts in Ulan Bator, the nation's capital, to homes in rural Mongolia, shamanism has become a growth industry.
In the book—"Tragic Spirits," published this month by the University of Chicago Press—Buyandelger both documents this surprising phenomenon and analyzes its meaning. The return of shamanism, she asserts, represents more than the straightforward return of a once-banned religion to Mongolia. And it is more than just a convenient method for people to earn a little income by working as shamans.
Rather, she says, shamanism became more popular precisely because, in a poor country recovering from Soviet domination—where Mongolia's occupiers had wiped away its records and the physical traces of its past—shamanic practices have offered some Mongolians a way to reinvent their own history. Shamans offer clients the supposed opportunity to meet with the spirits of their distant ancestors and hear "fragmented stories about their lives in the past," as Buyandelger observes.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
KPBS: UC San Diego Professor Slams TED Talks — During His TED Talk
By David Wagner
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
TED Talks are exclusive, expensive and reach an insane number of viewers online.
They've also provoked a ton of backlash. The conference of "ideas worth spreading" has been called "elitist," "cultish" and "a place where ideas, regardless of their quality, go to seek celebrity." One San Diego academic recently took the anti-TED gospel to those least likely to want to hear it: TED devotees.
"My TED Talk is not about my work, my new book, the usual spiel," UC San Diego visual arts professor Benjamin Bratton said, introducing his self-described "rant."
"It's about TED: what it is and why it doesn't work."
Science is Cool
Al Ahram (Egypt): More mysteries of Tutankhamun
The mystery of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun continues to fascinate Egyptologists as a new controversy reveals, writes Nevine El-Aref
This week the ancient Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun is in the limelight once again, with the image of his golden mask decorated with precious stones featuring in many international magazines and newspapers.
However, the current interest in the boy king is not because of his treasured funerary collection, his lineage, or the causes behind his early death, but instead because of the way in which he was mummified.
PhysOrg: Donated Chinese bamboo strips turn out to be ancient multiplication table
Jan 09, 2014 by Bob Yirka
(Phys.org) —Researchers at Tsinghua University in China are reporting that a subset of bamboo strips donated to the university five years ago has been found to make up an ancient Chinese multiplication table. Dated back to 2,300 years ago (circa 305 B.C.), the table represents the oldest-known such device that computes in base 10—ancient Babylonian tables dating back 4000 years were base 60.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
UCSD: Football Fans Team Up for Organ Match
Random stadium seat assignment leads to lifesaving transplant surgery
By Jackie Carr
January 08, 2014
In October 2013, Louis Munoz donated one of his kidneys to William Lynch. The organ match would not have occurred without a bit of serendipity and a big love of football. Munoz and Lynch had been childhood friends, but hadn’t seen each other in years – then they found themselves randomly seated next to each other at a Chargers game.
“Louis and I knew each other as kids and then lost touch. Years later, by surprise, we ended up sitting right next to each other at Chargers games,” said William, a middle school teacher. “When I started missing games, Louis asked me why and I explained that due to kidney complications, I’d been unwell. His wife half-jokingly suggested that he give me a kidney.”
Louis immediately volunteered to be tested as a possible donor. William initially declined his friend’s offer, believing another donor would come through. But when that didn’t happen, Louis followed through and proved to be a match.
University of Washington via PhysOrg: Scientists to observe seismic energy from Seahawks' '12th man' quakes
Jan 10, 2014 by Bill Steele
University of Washington seismologists this week installed two strong-motion seismometers at CenturyLink Field in Seattle to augment an existing station in recording shaking from "earthquakes" expected on Saturday during the NFC divisional game between the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints.
The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network is preparing a special website at www.pnsn.org/seahawks for the game to display seismograms from all three seismic stations in near-real time, and seismologists will also be available to explain interesting signals. Seismologists also will highlight interesting signals in tweets (@PNSN1) and on Facebook (thePNSN).
Seahawks fans, collectively known as "the 12th man," have a well-known reputation for generating noise and shaking in the stadium during games. Perhaps the best-known example occurred on Jan. 8, 2011, during a 67-yard touchdown run by the Seahawks Marshawn Lynch that helped Seattle defeat New Orleans in an NFC Wild Card game.
