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. In keeping with the theme of the past four months, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday is featuring science and other news from the major public research universities in the midwestern states where Republican governors and legislatures are threatening the collective bargaining rights of public employees.
This week's featured story comes from Science News.
Good-bye Shuttle
Looking back at the space plane’s scientific legacy
By Alexandra Witze
June 18th, 2011; Vol.179 #13 (p. 20)
Three decades and 135 flights after its first launch, the space shuttle is ending its reign. After the final orbiter, Atlantis, touches down — on a trip scheduled to begin no earlier than July 8 — NASA will officially close the books on the shuttle program. For the near term, the agency will buy seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station. For the long term, private businesses are trying to develop ways to fly crews into low-Earth orbit, as NASA focuses on designing a new heavy-lift rocket to take astronauts deeper into space.
Science was never the driving goal for the shuttle, which NASA conceived of as a cheap and routine way to get astronauts and supplies to space. Yet along the way researchers took advantage of the shuttle’s journeys, by having astronauts launch and regularly upgrade the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, for example. Some 2,300 experiments have flown aboard shuttles, most focusing on how materials and organisms behave differently in very-low-gravity environments.
Though the shuttle program is ending, research in space continues. The 16 countries that operate the space station plan to keep it going as an orbiting laboratory through at least 2020.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Watch this space!
Green diary rescue: Delay in toxin regulation will kill
by Meteor Blades
California Takes On the Valley of Death
by diverdonreed
The Daily Bucket - Invisible Landscapes
by enhydra lutris
This week in science
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
The crew of STS-134 returned to the Kennedy Space Center aboard space shuttle Endeavour to complete their mission to the International Space Station. Plus, Expedition 27 team lands; papal phone call; Honor Flag to fly on Atlantis; STEM stars; and Southern U. grads. Also, open house; Kennedy Center celebration; and NASA notes two anniversaries.
The final rollout of the Space Shuttle Program has brought Atlantis from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center for the liftoff of STS-135.
More than seven years after it landed on the surface of the Red Planet, the long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has officially had its last conversation with its friends back on Earth.
Space researchers consider the most likely location for discovering potential primitive life forms on Mars to be in caves.
College students from across the country and around the globe impressed judges and spectators during the 2nd annual Lunabotics Mining Competition held May 23-28th at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
World War II aircraft paid a Memorial Day visit to the Ames Research Center.
Solar System collisions, impacts and craters!
Astronomy/Space
University of Michigan: 'Dead' galaxies aren't so dead after all, U-M researchers find
May 31, 2011
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—University of Michigan astronomers examined old galaxies and were surprised to discover that they are still making new stars. The results provide insights into how galaxies evolve with time.
U-M research fellow Alyson Ford and astronomy professor Joel Bregman presented their findings May 31 at a meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society in London, Ontario.
Using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope, they saw individual young stars and star clusters in four galaxies that are about 40 million light years away. One light year is about 5.9 trillion miles.
"Scientists thought these were dead galaxies that had finished making stars a long time ago," Ford said. "But we've shown that they are still alive and are forming stars at a fairly low level."
Indiana University: STAR TRAK
June 2, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- As darkness falls during June, Saturn will materialize high in the southwest, setting well after midnight. The yellow planet will be about the same brightness as the nearby blue-white star Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. Saturn's rings will be tilted 7 degrees to our line of sight this month, as close to edgewise as they will get this year.
...
On the night of June 15-16, observers across most of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia will see a total lunar eclipse as the moon passes through the middle of Earth's shadow. People watching in Africa and southern Asia will see the entire eclipse, while those in Australia, much of Europe and eastern South America will see at least part of it. Totality will begin at 19:22 Universal Time and ...
The Bootid meteor shower will peak on the night of June 27-28, when Earth will pass through part of the debris trail of the comet that caused the meteor shower. Meteors will appear to be coming from a point in the constellation Bootes (pronounced bo-OH-teez) the Herdsman, which is visible in the northern sky nearly all night and contains the bright orange star Arcturus. The curved handle of the Big Dipper will serve as a conspicuous marker.
Evolution/Paleontology
Indiana University: IU biologists find that non-independent mutations present new path to evolutionary success
June 2, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Mutations of DNA that lead to one base being replaced by another don't have to happen as single, independent events in humans and other eukaryotes, a group of Indiana University Bloomington biologists has learned after surveying several creatures' genomes.
And, the scientists argue, if "point mutations" can happen in twos, threes -- even nines -- large evolutionary jumps are possible, especially when problems caused by a single point mutation are immediately compensated for by a second or third. The work appears in the latest issue of Current Biology.
"A similar phenomenon had been observed in bacteria," said Matthew Hahn, the project's principal investigator. "And the idea that this might be happening in eukaryotes has been around for a while. We are the first ones to use exhaustive genomic studies to show it's actually happening, and happening in a big way."
Biodiversity
Purdue University: Climate change allows invasive weed to outcompete local species
May 31, 2011
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Yellow starthistle already causes millions of dollars in damage to pastures in western states each year, and as climate changes, land managers can expect the problem with that weed and others to escalate.
When exposed to increased carbon dioxide, precipitation, nitrogen and temperature – all expected results of climate change – yellow starthistle in some cases grew to six times its normal size while the other grassland species remained relatively unchanged, according to a Purdue University study published in the early online edition of the journal Ecological Applications. The plants were compared with those grown under ambient conditions.
"The rest of the grassland didn't respond much to changes in conditions except nitrogen," said Jeff Dukes, a Purdue associate professor of forestry and natural resources and the study's lead author. "We're likely to see these carbon dioxide concentrations in the second half of this century. Our results suggest that yellow starthistle will be a very happy camper in the coming decades."
The study is one of the first comparing the growth of invasive species versus their local competitors under future climate scenarios. Dukes believes the results indicate problems land managers and crop growers could see in the coming decades, and not just with yellow starthistle.
University of Michigan: Mass extinction victim survives! Snail long thought extinct, isn't
June 1, 2011
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Think "mass extinction" and you probably envision dinosaurs dropping dead in the long-ago past or exotic tropical creatures being wiped out when their rainforest habitats are decimated. But a major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed.
Now, a population of one of those species—a freshwater limpet last seen more than 60 years ago and presumed extinct—has been found in a tributary of the heavily dammed Coosa River in Alabama's Mobile River Basin. Researchers from the University of Michigan, the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center and the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission reported the rediscovery May 31 in the online, open-access journal PLoS One.
The story of Rhodacmea filosa's disappearance and reappearance is both a conservation success story and a cautionary tale for other parts of the world where rivers are being dammed, said Diarmaid Ó Foighil, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a curator at the U-M Museum of Zoology. It's also an example of how museum specimens collected generations ago can inform scientists of today.
I was a grad student in the Mollusk Division at U of M when Dr. O Foighil was hired. I'm glad to see that he's making such valuable contributions.
Michigan State University: Managing forests requires a bird’s-eye view
June 3, 2011
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Managers of northern Michigan forests may not see the birds for the trees — or at least are in danger of losing sight of songbird neighborhoods when looking out for timber harvests.
In a novel look at managing both the future’s timber harvest while being mindful of the impact on key songbirds in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Michigan State University researchers use a new forest simulation model for the first time to look at what timber-friendly hardwood regeneration can mean to bird habitat. And it’s a long-range look, given that the time lag between forest management decisions and impact are generations.
The results are reported online in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
“Foresters are farmers — but instead of sowing and harvesting in six months, they need to think 50 years in the future,” said James Millington, the paper’s lead author and former post-doctoral researcher at MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. “If you are worried about the state of the forest in 100 years time, you need to think about it now and you’ll need good models like we’re developing.”
University of Wisconsin: Livestock risks from Wisconsin wolves localized, predictable
June 1, 2011
It's an issue that crops up wherever humans and big predators — wolves, bears, lions — coexist.
"It's just hard to live alongside large carnivores. They damage crops, they kill livestock and pets, they threaten people's safety," says University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Adrian Treves. And the sheer presence of a wolf nearby has typically been enough to make farmers fear for their animals, he adds. "Wherever there were carnivores, people thought there was risk."
But Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs notwithstanding, not all wolves are big and bad. Even as Wisconsin's wolf population grows, intensifying the potential for conflicts with people, Treves' research is revealing that one of the most visible types of conflict — attacks on livestock — is highly localized and may be predictable.
Biotechnology/Health
University of Michigan: Understanding tuberculosis drug resistance: super-drug inactivator revealed
June 1, 2011
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Researchers at the University of Michigan's Life Sciences Institute and College of Pharmacy have uncovered how tuberculosis builds drug resistance.
The discovery could provide scientists with a new direction to try to combat drug-resistant tuberculosis and to head off the continued spread of this deadly infectious disease.
Wayne State University: Wayne State University to study the role of vitamin D in African-Americans with high blood pressure
June 2, 2011
DETROIT - A Wayne State University School of Medicine physician researcher has received a $1.9 million National Institutes of Health grant to study the role of vitamin D in halting and reducing subclinical cardiac damage in African-Americans suffering from high blood pressure.
...
High blood pressure affects the black population to a greater degree than other demographics. Blacks also have more difficulty absorbing sufficient amounts of vitamin D through exposure to sunlight because of skin pigmentation. Previous studies, Levy said, suggest a relationship between the degree of skin pigmentation and thickening of the muscle tissue in the wall of the heart's main pumping chamber - a condition known as left ventricular hypertrophy. Common in those with high blood pressure, left ventricular hypertrophy is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, especially heart failure. Importantly, the cardiovascular risks associated with left ventricular hypertrophy start increasing early in the process, often before the appearance of overt symptoms.
Ohio State University: SINGLE MOMS ENTERING MIDLIFE MAY LEAD TO PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS
June 2, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Unwed mothers face poorer health at midlife than do women who have children after marriage, according to a new nationwide study.
Researchers found that women who had their first child outside of marriage described their health as poorer at age 40 than did other moms.
This is the first U.S. study to document long-term negative health consequences for unwed mothers, and it has major implications for our society, said Kristi Williams, lead author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
About 40 percent of all births in the United States now occur to unmarried women, compared to fewer than 10 percent in 1960, Williams said. That suggests there will soon be a population boom in the United States of single mothers suffering middle-aged health problems.
Climate/Environment
University of Wisconsin: Patz to lead campuswide global-health effort
June 2, 2011
How did pesticide spraying for malaria in Borneo lead to a Typhus fever epidemic? Why did drilling wells for cleaner water lead to widespread arsenic-related skin cancer in Bangladesh?
In spite of successes like dramatic drops in child mortality and the eradication of smallpox, the global health landscape is rife with complex problems that require solutions that take into account a full spectrum of inter-linkages.
"Too many of our global health interventions are narrowly focused, and as we try to solve one problem, we inadvertently can create two or three more," says Jonathan Patz, the new director of a campuswide global health effort at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created by the merger of the university's Center for Global Health and the Global Health Initiative.
The best way forward is through engagement among a diversity of perspectives, including consideration of the political, economic, cultural, socio-demographic, environmental and ethical factors at play, according to Patz.
University of Wisconsin: Human impacts of rising oceans will extend well beyond coasts
May 31, 2011
Identifying the human impact of rising sea levels is far more complex than just looking at coastal cities on a map.
Rather, estimates that are based on current, static population data can greatly misrepresent the true extent — and the pronounced variability — of the human toll of climate change, say University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
"Not all places and not all people in those places will be impacted equally," says Katherine Curtis, an assistant professor of community and environmental sociology at UW-Madison.
In a new online report, which will publish in an upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed journal Population and Environment, Curtis and her colleague Annemarie Schneider examine the impacts of rising oceans as one element of how a changing climate will affect humans. "We're linking economic and social vulnerability with environmental vulnerability to better understand which areas and their populations are most vulnerable," Curtis says.
Indiana University: IU researchers studying urban forests in Bloomington backyards
June 2, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind.--After April's violent storms, hundreds of trees in Bloomington and Monroe County were damaged or lost entirely, significantly changing the face of the area's urban forest landscape. While there's no question that Mother Nature has effected dramatic change, urban residents can have a far greater impact over time, notes IU geographer Tom Evans.
Evans, Burney Fischer of IU's School of Environmental and Public Affairs and colleagues at IU Bloomington's Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC) are leading a study of how interactions between people, their social and governmental institutions and the environment influence the sustainability of urban ecosystems. The study includes a survey of urban land management in Bloomington.
"More than half the world's population now lives in urban areas, and that figure is projected to increase in the future," says Evans, director of CIPEC and an associate professor in IU Bloomington's Department of Geography. "Most urban trees are on private land, so we have a limited understanding of how landowners make decisions with respect to their trees, especially how institutions in urban areas influence owners' land management choices."
Geology
Discovery News: Under the Ice, Antarctic Land Comes Into Focus
Analysis by John D. Cox
Fri Jun 3, 2011 03:16 PM ET
Employing new ice-penetrating radar over a key area of Earth's largest body of ice, scientists are able to see a vast expanse of mountainous terrain and fjords that were carved by flowing glaciers when sea levels were some 200 feet higher than today.
The shape of this landscape beneath a broad region of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet known as the Aurora Subglacial Basin is critically valuable to researchers trying to figure out how quickly -- and when -- the ice burying this land will respond to rising air and sea temperatures in a warming world.
The first map of this previously uncharted region has been developed by an international research team led by geophysicist Duncan A. Young of the University of Texas at Austin and published this week in the journal Nature. Collaborators included British and Australian scientists.
Psychology/Behavior
University of Michigan: People who have had head injuries report more violent behavior
June 1, 2011
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Young people who have sustained a head injury during their lifetime are more likely to engage in violent behavior, according to an eight-year study from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Further, the research found that young people who suffered a recent head injury (within a year of being questioned for the study) were even more likely to report violent behavior.
The report, which appears in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, is one of the few studies to examine long-term effects of head injuries in a general population of young adults. Most other similar studies were conducted in prison populations.
University of Wisconsin: Children of divorce fall behind peers in math, social skills
June 2, 2011
Divorce is a drag on the academic and emotional development of young children, but only once the breakup is under way, according to a study of elementary school students and their families.
"Children of divorce experience setbacks in math test scores and show problems with interpersonal skills and internalizing behavior during the divorce period," says Hyun Sik Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "They are more prone to feelings of anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness."
Kim's work, published in the June issue of American Sociological Review, makes use of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study describing more than 3,500 U.S. elementary school students who entered kindergarten in 1998. The study, which also made subjects of parents while checking in periodically on the children, gave Kim the opportunity to track the families through divorce — as well as through periods before and after the divorce.
Indiana University: The "blame game" in work-family conflict
June 2, 2011
INDIANAPOLIS -- When the demands of work and family conflict, is the job blamed, is the family role blamed or is blame placed on both? And what are the consequences?
A new study by Elizabeth M. Poposki, assistant professor of psychology in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, is the first to explore day-to-day experiences in attributing this type of blame. The work examines individual incidents of work-family conflict and tracks how blame for this conflict is attributed.
Only three percent of those surveyed blamed both work and family for conflict between the two. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed blamed work, not family, for conflict. Twenty-two percent blamed only their family role. Five percent blamed external factors other than work or family for the conflict, and only six percent blamed themselves for the conflict. There were no gender differences in how blame was assigned.
Archeology/Anthropology
Science News: Ancestral gals roamed, guys stayed home
Analyses of 2-million-year old hominid teeth reveal sex differences in lifestyle
By Bruce Bower
Web edition : Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
Way back in the day, females came from far away and males didn’t stray — not far, anyway.
That’s the implication, with apologies to Dr. Seuss, of a new study of members of two ancient species in the human evolutionary family. Adult females in both hominid lineages often moved from the places where they were born to distant locations, presumably to find mates among unrelated males, say anthropologist Sandi Copeland of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and her colleagues.
Most males in both hominid species spent their entire lives in a home region that covered no more than about 28 square kilometers, or about half the area of Manhattan, Copeland’s team proposes in the June 2 Nature.
Reuters via The Daily Star (Lebanon): Egypt’s revolution may save neolithic site
June 03, 2011 02:15 AM
By Patrick Werr
Reuters
LAKE QARUN, Egypt: Egypt’s popular uprising may have arrived just in time to save a Neolithic site that holds the country’s oldest evidence of agriculture and could yield vital clues to the rise of Pharaonic civilization.
The site lies in a protected nature reserve along the shore north of Lake Qarun that until recently had remained untouched, even though it lies only 70 kilometers from fast-expanding Cairo.
A month before the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak erupted in January, the Egyptian government carved 2.8 square kilometers of prime land from the reserve and awarded it to property developer Amer Group for a tourist resort.
Since Mubarak was ousted, three government ministers who sat on a committee that approved the sale have been jailed, while they battle corruption charges not related to the Amer deal.
Columbia Missourian: Peruvian statues uncovered by MU professor, students called New World's oldest
Monday, May 30, 2011 | 12:01 a.m. CDT; updated 10:34 p.m. CDT, Tuesday, May 31, 2011
BY Katie Wall
COLUMBIA — In 2005, Robert Benfer made “the find of a lifetime.”
An MU professor emeritus of archaeology, Benfer was on an expedition 30 miles from Lima, Peru, six years ago when his team discovered two mud-plaster statues.
Carbon dating determined that the statues dated to about 2,000 B.C., making them the oldest in the New World, Benfer said. He plans to return to the area in August to map massive animal effigies, which he says are in danger of being destroyed.
Revelations of the 2005 findings appear in the February-March 2011 edition of the Journal of Cosmology. Benfer co-authored the paper "Ancient South American Cosmology: Four Thousand Years of the Myth of the Fox," which explains the discovery's significance.
Discovery News: Roman Ship Carried Live Fish Tank
Remains of the second century ship show signs of an ancient pumping system designed to suck sea water into a tank.
By Rossella Lorenzi
Fri Jun 3, 2011 09:04 AM
The ancient Romans might have traded live fish across the Mediterranean Sea by endowing their ships with an ingenious hydraulic system, a new investigation into a second century A.D. wreck suggests.
Consisting of a pumping system designed to suck the sea water into a fish tank, the apparatus has been reconstructed by a team of Italian researchers who analyzed a unique feature of the wreck: a lead pipe inserted in the hull near the keel.
Recovered in pieces from the Adriatic sea in 1999, the ship was carrying a cargo of processed fish when it sank six miles off the coast of Grado in northeastern Italy.
The small trade vessel, which was 55 feet long and 19 feet wide, was packed with some 600 vases called amphoras. They were filled with sardines, salted mackerel, and garum, a fish sauce much loved by the Romans.
The Daily Journal: Scientists dig for hints of ancient hurricanes
Paleotempestologist leads project on Pine Island site
A sea turtle bone protruded from the wall of an archaeological excavation at the Pineland Site Complex on Pine Island.
That bone, along with other evidence found in the pit, might prove that an intense hurricane pounded the island 1,700 years ago, said University of Florida graduate student Melissa Ayvaz, who is conducting the excavation.
"We have evidence from one portion of the site that most likely a storm happened, but we don't know the extent of it," Ayvaz said. "My work is to characterize the extent of the storm and determine if it was one event or multiple events."
Earth Times: Climate change killed off Viking settlement on Greenland
Posted Tue, 31 May 2011 14:50:00 GMT by Colin Ricketts
Climate change - although it was cooling rather than warming - probably helped end the Viking settlements on Greenland according to the latest evidence discovered by a Brown University team of researchers.
The team, who publish their research in the new edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), have taken the first historical survey of temperatures where the so-called Vikings of the so-called Western Settlement lived by using measurements from two lakes in Kangerlussuaq which have enabled them to reconstruct 5,600 years of climate change.
The Norse settlers on Greenland disappeared some time in the late 14th or early 15th centuries and there is no written evidence of why the colony vanished and archaeology has so far been unable to come up with all the answers.
Now climate scientists say that the Little Ice Age of the 15th Century which was previously thought to be one of the reasons why the settlement failed was preceded by an earlier cooling.
Ocala.com: Oldest mission found in St. Augustine
Church may be more than 330 years old
By Nathan Crabbe
Staff writer
Published: Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:40 p.m.
University of Florida archaeologists have uncovered the foundation of what they believe is a more than 330-year-old stone church in St. Augustine that is the oldest of its kind in the state.
The discovery would solve a longstanding mystery about the location of the historically significant church. A St. Augustine priest had donated artifacts from the site to UF about 50 year ago, but it wasn't until the recent move of the local Catholic diocese archives that a nun found documentation detailing its location.
BBC: Musket ball at 'secret army' camp in Lochaber
By Steven McKenzie
BBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter
A musket ball has been found in a part of the Highlands with close links to Bonnie Prince Charlie which was later used for training secret agents.
Archaeologists said the find at Lochailort in Lochaber was post medieval and it would be sent to the Royal Armouries in Leeds for analysis.
Prince Charles Edward Stewart fled Scotland from nearby Loch nan Uamh.
Washington Post: George Washington’s Mount Vernon pleasure garden revamped for authenticity
By Adrian Higgins,
Published: May 29
Ellen Epstein has stopped to smell the sweet williams in the Upper Garden at Mount Vernon. The art appraiser from Katonah, N.Y., has been to George Washington’s riverside home several times, but not for at least 10 years, and the place has changed somehow. “I remember this garden wasn’t like this at all,” she said, looking up to take in the walled one-acre landscape.
As she surveys the fruit orchard, boxwood parterres and flower borders, a couple of gardeners plant clumps of golden-flowered calendulas near the grapevine trellises. They are putting the final touches on a fundamental reworking of Washington’s pleasure garden. Begun last August and now virtually complete, the new garden re-creates what experts believe is a far closer representation of the one Washington knew in the late 18th century.
Dorset Echo (UK): Golden Cap: Archaeologists unearth Napoleonic watchtower
12:00pm Monday 30th May 2011
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed a watchtower from the Napoleonic era at the start of a dig into threatened Bronze Age burial mounds on the Jurassic Coast.
The National Trust (NT) team is digging into 4,000 year old earthworks at Golden Cap to record their history before they slip into sea.
So far they have unearthed the 18th Century wathchtower built to provide early warning against a French invasion and watch Channel shipping but will be digging deeper into the mounds.
Erie News-Times: Historian on mission to catalog Erie County burial grounds
By VALERIE MYERS, Erie Times-News
valerie.myers@timesnews.com
Dick Tefft has been exploring Erie County cemeteries for 30 years.
The retired GE Transportation diesel designer began visiting cemeteries to find names and dates for his family history but became sidetracked by the cemeteries themselves.
"Once I got interested in cemeteries, period, I decided to find them all," said Tefft, 67, of North East.
Through research and knocking on doors, Tefft found about 150 family, church and community burial grounds that he describes in his "Guide to Burial Sites and Cemeteries of Erie County, Pa.," published by the Erie Society for Genealogical Research in 2005. The guide includes the dates of the earliest and latest burials and the condition of each cemetery.
Now Tefft and other Erie Society for Genealogical Research volunteers are revisiting those cemeteries to record tombstone inscriptions for a database they will one day post online.
Pensacola News Journal via Erie News-Times: Amateur archaeologists unearth the city's history
By REBECCA ROSS
Pensacola News Journal
Chad Fitzgerald and Frank Phillips aren't your typical treasure seekers.
Instead of dusty tombs or vine-covered temples, they explore their own yard. Armed with buckets and spades, they dig, unearthing bits and pieces of Pensacola's past.
If one man's trash is another man's treasure, these amateur archaeologists are rich beyond measure.
Their story begins, as all good mysteries do, with a clue.
Fitzgerald and Phillips bought their home - in a modest, older neighborhood off Pace Boulevard - in 2005. The house had sat empty for three years; broken glass was strewn across the front yard.
"I thought, `What a shame, so much littering.' " Fitzgerald, 45, recalled. "But when we picked up the fragments, we could tell they were pretty old."
Weston-Redding-Easton Patch: The Leatherman, Reburied
Archaeologists discovered no skeletal remains in the exhumation of Connecticut's legendary Old Leatherman's burial plot.
By Sean Roach and Sarah Studley | Email the authors | June 1, 2011
Wildflowers, a pine casket and four pennies.
Norm MacDonald, president of the Ossining Historical Society, along with a team of researchers and Dan DeLuca, author of The Old Leather Man, said each of these elements had special meaning at today's reburial ceremony for the Leatherman.
According to DeLuca, who has researched the Leatherman for more than two decades, children would leave pennies on fence posts for the man donning clothing made of leather scraps who quietly walked a 365-mile stretch of land through Westchester and Fairfield counties in the 1800s.
NOAA: NOAA commemorates the 100th birthday of RMS Titanic
May 31, 2011
The world’s best known shipwreck turns 100 today. Maritime historians generally consider the date of a ship’s launch to be its “official birth date” and the Belfast, Northern Ireland, shipyard of Harland & Wolff launched RMS Titanic on May 31, 1911. Once afloat, RMS Titanic was then completed by shipyard workers before setting out on its tragic maiden voyage nearly a year later.
The 100th birthday of Titanic is a landmark event in that the wreck is now considered an archaeological resource site as defined under the United States Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
After it struck an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, the Titanic became the catalyst for the development of international law on safety of navigation, including the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, as well as for the establishment of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and prevention of marine pollution by ships.
The Irish Times: Gardaí investigate looting of U-boat site
ÉIBHIR MULQUEEN
GARDAÍ IN Cork have begun an investigation into the illegal removal of artefacts, including sailors’ attire, from a first World War submarine and war grave recently discovered by divers in 27 metres of water off Roches Point.
The 49-metre, 400-ton German vessel UC-42, which sank in 1917 during a mine-laying operation, also appears to have been damaged by salvagers attempting to remove one of its propellers.
The Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s antiquities unit was alerted by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht’s underwater archaeology unit. Also involved are the Customs maritime unit, the National Museum of Ireland and, now, locally-based gardaí.
Reuters via Toronto Sun (Canada): Britain a treasure seeker's paradise
Stefano Ambrogi, Reuters
First posted: Monday, May 30, 2011 12:00:00 EDT AM
Britain is bursting with ancient buried treasure and the masses have been bitten by the bug for digging it up -- ironically with the full approval of the government and leading museums.
Latest figures released by the British Museum showed a "massive" jump in the number of antiquities and spectacular objects classed as treasure being found by ordinary citizens with a passion for history.
In 2010, over 90,000 archaeological objects were reported to museums across the country -- a 36% rise on 2009 -- through what is known as the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS).
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
University of Michigan: Lasers used to form 3-D crystals made of nanoparticles
May 31, 2011
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—University of Michigan physicists used the electric fields generated by intersecting laser beams to trap and manipulate thousands of microscopic plastic spheres, thereby creating 3-D arrays of optically induced crystals.
The technique could someday be used to analyze the structure of materials of biological interest, including bacteria, viruses and proteins, said U-M physicist Georg Raithel.
Raithel is co-author of a research paper on the topic published online May 31 in the journal Physical Review E. The other author is U-M research fellow Betty Slama-Eliau.
Chemistry
Science News: News in Brief: Molecules/Matter & Energy
May 29, 2011
The electron is still round, plus waterfall-jumping objects, a blood-clotter spotter and more in this week’s news.
Energy
Reuters: Exclusive: Dow Chemical delays launch of solar shingle
By Ernest Scheyder
NEW YORK | Fri Jun 3, 2011 1:40pm EDT
Dow Chemical Co has delayed the launch of its Powerhouse solar shingle until the fourth quarter.
The new timing means the largest U.S. chemical maker will miss the 2011 summer construction season and have to wait until 2012 to see if the solar shingle, which is installed on roofs like ordinary shingles and can generate electricity from sunlight, will be popular with roofers.
Dow said last fall it expected the solar shingle to be available in some U.S. markets by the middle of 2011.
"Previously announced launch timing for the Powerhouse solar shingles represented early estimates which have continually been refined to reveal that fourth quarter is the best time for our market introduction," Dow told Reuters on Friday.
Reuters: Ford plans its smallest engine ever
By Deepa Seetharaman
DEARBORN, Michigan | Thu Jun 2, 2011 4:03pm EDT
Ford Motor Co is developing its smallest engine ever as part of its push to wring out greater fuel savings as gasoline prices rise and federal standards on fuel economy grow stricter.
The No. 2 U.S. automaker will introduce a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine within the next two years. The engine will have the same performance as the widely used four-cylinder engine, but would save more fuel and lower emissions, Ford said.
"We just keep trying to find fuel economy improvements," Derrick Kuzak, Ford's head of product development, said on Thursday. "The only way you keep doing that is by finding new technologies and attention to detail."
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Reuters: EPA seen delaying rules on greenhouse gases
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON | Fri Jun 3, 2011 12:45pm EDT
Facing opposition from Republicans and many in the energy industry, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely delay proposing rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, expected in July, by at least a month, sources said.
"We would not be surprised if it does not come out at the end of July, if it slips by a month or so," a source at an environmental think tank, who works with states and federal agencies on strategies to tackle climate change, and wished to remain anonymous, said Thursday.
The EPA said late last year it would propose rules on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants -- known as performance standards -- in July. It plans to set rules on oil refineries in December.
Indiana University: 'Act of war' treatment of cyber-attacks fails to answer harder questions: IU experts
June 2, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Recent news reports that Pentagon policy will view certain cyber-attacks as acts of war to which the U.S. may respond with conventional military force is unsurprising but avoids hard policy and legal questions, according to Indiana University cybersecurity experts.
"The United States has long taken the position that in exercising its right to use force in self-defense its hands are not tied by the means and methods chosen by its adversaries," said David P. Fidler, James Louis Calamaras Professor of Law at the Maurer School of Law and fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR). He pointed out that the United States reserved the right during the Cold War to respond to Soviet conventional attacks in Europe with nuclear weapons, and it has used conventional military forces against states responsible for sponsoring or harboring terrorists who attacked U.S. nationals and territory.
"That the U.S. government claims the right to use traditional military power in response to a large-scale cyber-attack that causes serious damage, destruction, or death in the United States is to be expected," Fidler continued. "However, this position does not address problems cyberweapons create, including the threshold a cyber-attack must cross to trigger the right to use force in self-defense and the difficulties in attributing responsibility for the attack."
Indiana University: Judge awards CACR $300,000 in Google Buzz settlement
June 3, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A U.S. district judge this week awarded Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research $300,000 as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement over Google Buzz, the company's social media service.
The lawsuit was filed after users of Gmail -- Google's popular e-mail service -- believed their privacy had been violated after the launch of Google Buzz in February 2010. The suit alleged that Google Buzz exposed Gmail contacts publicly, prompting multiple complaints about privacy settings and personal information being shared unwillingly.
As part of the settlement agreement, Google agreed to pay out $8.5 million to Internet privacy advocacy groups or organizations. CACR was one of 12 outlets selected to receive a share of those funds out of the 77 entities that applied for consideration.
Science Education
The Springfield News-Leader via Washington Examiner: Students dig up SW Missouri town's racial past
By: LINDA LEICHT 06/03/11 11:39 AM
The Springfield News-Leader
Shards of ceramic and old toys are developing a picture of life in this rural community more than 100 years ago — and some of the images are fascinating.
An archaeological dig by Missouri State students around an old homestead on the Berry property in Ash Grove is under way this summer and will likely continue next year.
Results of the dig will be compared to digs on the nearby Nathan Boone Homestead, completed last year. Nathan Boone was the son of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone.
"This will help us understand local history and racial dynamics both before and after the war," said Liz Sobel, a professor of archaeology at MSU and leader of the dig. "We can compare the trajectories of former masters and former slaves."
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Michigan State University: After 65 years, MSU scholars retire to ultimate tribute
June 3, 2011
EAST LANSING, Mich. — During a combined 65 years at Michigan State University, Neal Schmitt and Dan Ilgen have mentored dozens of future corporate executives, state officials, college professors and military officers.
They’ve played a key role in guiding MSU’s industrial and organizational psychology doctoral program to a No. 1 ranking in U.S. News and World Report for 13 years in a row.
And their research and training projects have helped improve the hiring practices and work environments of organizations as large and diverse as the FBI, Chicago Public Schools and the Navy.
This summer, the two scholars will retire to the ultimate tribute as more than 40 colleagues and former students gather in East Lansing for an academic celebration called a festschrift. In addition to honoring Schmitt and Ilgen, the June 10-11 symposium will explore issues related to industrial and organizational psychology, which is the study of people’s behavior at work with the ultimate goal of improving both the worker and the workplace.
Michigan State University: College of Osteopathic Medicine teams with new Detroit high school
June 1, 2011
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine is partnering with Detroit Public Schools as the district unveils details for a new high school to open in the fall.
The Dr. Benjamin Carson School of Science and Medicine will focus on a college-prep curriculum that offers unique experiences for students interested in science and medicine, according to the district. Gary Willyerd, associate dean for the College of Osteopathic Medicine's campus in Detroit, has been appointed to serve on the new high school's board of trustees.
"We want to establish partnerships in the community that benefit the people in Greater Detroit," Willyerd said. "We will be working with students at the new high school, and our medical students will serve as mentors. We hope to prepare those students interested in medicine for eventual entry in medical school."
The new high school is in the former Crockett Career and Technical Center building in the heart of the Detroit Medical Center. The College of Osteopathic Medicine's Detroit campus is at a renovated Detroit Medical Center building off St. Antoine Street in the downtown area.
Wayne State University: Wayne State University College of Nursing Receives Accreditation for Doctor of Nursing Program
June 2, 2011
The Wayne State University College of Nursing has received accreditation for its new Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). The DNP program was established in 2008 for registered nurses seeking advanced education for leadership in clinical positions, health policy development, evaluation and application of patient care research, and systemic efforts in health promotion and risk reduction.
University of Wisconsin: Unique cooperative class gets national view of popular conservation technique
May 31, 2011
Using a national approach to studying a complex question of environmental policy, Adena Rissman, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, guided a graduate seminar that examined the use of conservation easements in Wisconsin.
Under an easement, landowners can sell or donate certain rights — frequently the right to build — to obtain enduring protection for their land. But it's difficult to find out how well easements work, says Rissman. Each easement is a contract that may have different terms, and the nonprofits and agencies that own easements may lack the time or expertise to monitor the results.
And thus Rissman — who has studied private land conservation for almost a decade — joined colleagues at institutions in California, Colorado, Indiana, New York and South Carolina to build seminar examining the situation in each state.
Science Writing and Reporting
Philadelphia Inquirer: Racism still contaminating science
May 30, 2011
By Faye Flam, Inquirer Staff Writer
When a Psychology Today magazine blog appeared under the headline "Why Are African American Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?", some dismissed it as an isolated incident of racism and misogyny creeping into science. But history shows that racism has poisoned certain areas of science intermittently for several hundred years.
Here in Philadelphia in the early 1800s, one of the world's leading anthropologists, Samuel Morton, was measuring human skulls and using his results to justify the continued enslavement of Africans. "Physical anthropology played a very large role in ways by which race and the institution of slavery was seen - and was either supported or argued against," said Princeton anthropologist Alan Mann.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Michigan State University: There’s more to shopping than just buying stuff
June 2, 2011
EAST LANSING, Mich. — For women, shopping is more than just buying stuff. For some it can be therapeutic, for others a time to socialize, or for some a challenge to find the right product at the right price.
Michigan State University’s Patricia Huddleston is co-author of a new book, “Consumer Behavior: Women and Shopping,” which looks at the reasons why women go shopping, as well as provides a history of how shopping has evolved over the years.
“Most of the women we talked to said it wasn’t necessarily about buying things,” said Huddleston, a professor of retailing. “It was what they liked about it, what it meant to them, and fond memories they had.”
Science is Cool
University of Wisconsin: ‘Virus hunter’ to speak at UW-Madison event
June 3, 2011
Nathan Wolfe, an epidemiologist leading an effort to catch the next pandemic disease before it hits, will give the public a window into the big thinkers speaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Big Learning Event.
"The Virus Hunter" of National Geographic documentaries and one of TIME's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World, Wolfe will deliver a lecture on his work from 8:30-9:45 a.m. Wednesday, June 8, in the H.F. DeLuca Forum at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Wolfe's talk is free and open to the public.
Indiana University: IU, Microsoft work uncovering online payment flaws earns 'best paper' at top security symposium
June 1, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A research paper by Indiana University security scientists and researchers at Microsoft that drew national attention when it reported that Web stores using online third-party-payment systems like PayPal often contain logic flaws that allow malicious users to shop for free received a best paper award last week at the premier venue on computer security and electronic privacy.
"How to Shop for Free Online -- Security Analysis of Cashier-as-a-Service Based Web Stores," by IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing (SOIC) doctoral student Rui Wang, SOIC associate professor XiaoFeng Wang and Microsoft Research's Shuo Chen and Shaz Qadeer, was awarded "Best Practical Paper" at the 32nd annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Symposium on Security and Privacy.
In their 16-page paper the researchers studied the security implications introduced through the complexity of trilateral interactions among the Web client, online stores and third-party cashiers such as PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout.
Ohio State University: VIEWERS LOOK TO TV CHARACTERS TO ADVISE HOW TO TALK ABOUT SEXUAL HEALTH
June 1, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio – “What would Samantha and Miranda do?”
That’s what viewers of the past HBO series Sex and the City may ask themselves when faced with the prospect of uncomfortable discussions about sexual health with partners, friends and doctors.
Researchers found that college students were more than twice as likely to talk about sexual health issues with their partners after watching a Sex and the City episode featuring the characters Samantha and Miranda having similar conversations, compared to students who saw different episodes.
“One of the powerful things about entertainment programming is that it can get people talking about important issues that they might not otherwise talk about,” said Emily Moyer-Gusé, assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University and lead author of the study.
Science News: Information flow can reveal dirty deeds
Analysis of Enron e-mails reveals structure of corrupt networks
By Rachel Ehrenberg
Web edition : Friday, June 3rd, 2011
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Political thrillers that portray a “web of corruption” get it all wrong, at least according to an analysis of e-mails between Enron employees. The flow of the famously corrupt corporation’s electronic missives suggests that dirty dealings tend to transpire through a sparse, wheel-and-spoke network rather than a highly connected web.
Employees who were engaged in both legitimate and shady projects at the company conveyed information much differently when their dealings were illicit, organizational theorist Brandy Aven of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh reported June 1 at an MIT workshop on social networks. The distinction is visible in the network of e-mails among employees, which takes the shape of a wheel with a central hub and isolated spokes when content is corrupt, rather than a highly connected net of exchanges.
