Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, and ScottyUrb, guest editor annetteboardman, 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, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from New York Magazine, with video from The Weather Channel and a related story from Yahoo! News India.
Punxsutawney Phil and Staten Island Chuck Agree Spring's Coming Early This Year
By Andre Tartar
As is annual tradition on February 2 at Gobbler's Knob, in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil, king of all the weather prognosticating groundhogs, emerged from his burrow at 7:28 this morning and failed to spot his shadow. At least that's what Bill Deeley, president of the vaguely sinister-sounding Inner Circle (and apparently fluent in Groundhogese), says happened. This is great news and means spring flowers and chirping birds are just around the corner. Alternatively, had little Phil seen his shadow, we'd have to slog through another six weeks of gloomy winter.
So, what do the real meteorologists at the Weather Channel think about all this? Surprisingly,
they agree.
Was Punxsutawney Phil right, and spring will come early? Storm Specialist Dr. Greg Postel takes a look at The Weather Channel forecast for the rest of winter.
Other animals seem to be able to predict the weather, as this story contributed by annetteboardman relates.
Old wives tale was right! Snails can tell us about the weather
By ANI
Thu 31 Jan, 2013
Washington, January 31 (ANI): Old wives' tales that snails can tell us about the weather is somewhat true.
While the story goes that if a snail climbs a plant or post, rain is coming, a research led by the University of York has revealed that snails can provide a wealth of information about the prevailing weather conditions thousands of years ago.
The researchers, including scientists from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), analysed the chemistry of snail shells dating back 9,000 to 2,500 years recovered from Mediterranean caves, looking at humidity at different times in the past.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
VICTORY! Europe Marks the End of Cosmetic Tests on Animals
by ladyrhiannon824
Backyard Science - Open Bucket
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The River Nidd at Knaresborough
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This week in science: Heart shaped box
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Slideshows/Videos
BBC: Digital dig: The scanning technology revolutionising archaeology
30 January 2013 Last updated at 20:46 ET Help
Archaeologists may not need to get their hands so dirty any more, thanks to the kind of digital technology being pioneered at Southampton University.
Its 'µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography' possesses the largest, high energy scanner of its kind in Europe: a 'micro-CT' machine manufactured by Nikon.
The Press (New Zealand) via Stuff: Recovering the 'city below the one we've lost'
CHARLIE GATES
Archaeologists are running out of space to store thousands of items unearthed in earthquake-hit central Christchurch.
One archaeological firm has already filled a 12-metre-long shipping container with tens of thousands of artefacts.
The same company recently found hundreds of artefacts under the Isaac Theatre Royal. That haul includes bottles and ceramic shards, along with earthenware crucibles used by gold prospectors to separate metals.
KOMO-TV: Century-old Native American artifact dropped off at Goodwill
By Molly Shen
Published: Jan 30, 2013 at 4:01 PM PST Last Updated: Jan 31, 2013 at 7:11 AM PST
SEATTLE -- Someone recently donated an old vest to Goodwill, and while that could happen everyday, this one was unusual.
By old, we mean a century old. It's a beaded Native American vest that's so valuable, Goodwill couldn't bear to sell it.
Instead, the non-profit decided to make its own donation. Now, curators from the Burke Museum are analyzing the vest.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
NASA Television on YouTube: Day of Remembrance on This Week @NASA
NASA honors the 17 astronauts and other NASA family members who've given their lives for exploration and discovery.
Also, Orion's Photo-op; TDRS-K Social: RapidScat; Small Sats, Big Numbers; Electrolysis Power; Skylab Saluted: Stardust memories; and more!
NASA Television on YouTube: NASA Day of Remembrance
NASA Television on YouTube: ScienceCasts: A Naked-Eye Comet in March 2013
A comet falling in from the distant reaches of the solar system could become a naked-eye object in early March. This is Comet Pan-STARRS's first visit to the inner solar system, so surprises are possible as its virgin ices are exposed to intense solar heating.
NASA Television on YouTube: ScienceCast: Record-Setting Asteroid Flyby
On Feb. 15th an asteroid about half the size of a football field will fly past Earth closer than many man-made satellites. Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, astronomers have never seen an object so big come so close to our planet.
Space.com: Best Space Photos of the Week - Feb. 2, 2013
SPACE.com Staff
Date: 02 February 2013 Time: 09:23 AM ET
Astronomy/Space
Science News: Scale weighs black holes better than before
Ground-based microwave telescopes determine masses of supermassive objects
By Andrew Grant
Web edition: January 30, 2013
A new technique more accurately measures the masses of supermassive black holes, providing astronomers with fresh data to explore the interactions between these monsters and their host galaxies.
Space.com: Alien Moons May Be Easier to Photograph Than Planets
by Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 02 February 2013 Time: 09:08 AM ET
Scientists looking for habitable worlds to photograph could have better luck searching for moons than for alien planets, scientists say. A moon heated by the pull of its parent planet could be visible even when the planet is hidden from view.
Powered by gravitational tugging from a planet, these exomoons would remain bright throughout their lifetimes, not just in their youth. This means stars of various ages could be hosting planets with photogenic moons.
"Unlike traditional direct imaging, there's no star that would be a bad candidate," researcher Mary Anne Peters told SPACE.com.
Space.com: 'Habitable Zone' for Alien Planets, and Possibly Life, Redefined
by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor
Date: 29 January 2013 Time: 11:23 AM ET
One of the most important characteristics of an alien planet is whether or not it falls into what's called the habitable zone — a Goldilocks-like range of not-too-close, not-too-far distances from the parent star that might allow the planet to host life.
Now scientists have redefined the boundaries of the habitable zone for alien planets, potentially kicking out some exoplanaets that were thought to fall within it, and maybe allowing a few that had been excluded to squeeze in.
"This will have a significant impact on the number of exoplanets that are within habitable zone," said research team leader Ravi Kumar Kopparapu of Penn State University.
Space.com: NASA's Curiosity Rover Poised to Drill Into Mars
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 30 January 2013 Time: 08:00 AM ET
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is sizing up a target rock and flexing its robotic arm ahead of its first-ever drilling activity on the Red Planet, which should take place in the coming days.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover pressed down on the rock in four different places with its arm-mounted drill Monday (Jan. 27). These "pre-load" tests should allow mission engineers to see if the amount of force applied matches predictions, researchers said.
The six-wheeled robot won't be ready to start boring into the rock until it completes several additional hardware tests and other checks, which should keep the rover busy through at least the end of this week, they added.
Space.com: Asteroid to Give Earth Record-Setting Close Shave on Feb. 15
by SPACE.com Staff
Date: 01 February 2013 Time: 05:30 PM ET
An asteroid half the size of a football field will give Earth the ultimate close shave this month, passing closer than many satellites when it whizzes by, but it won't hit the planet, NASA scientists say.
The asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly by Earth on Feb. 15 and zip within 17,200 miles (27, 680 kilometers) of the planet during the cosmic close encounter. The asteroid will approach much closer to Earth than the moon, and well inside the paths of navigation and communications satellites.
"This is a record-setting close approach," Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's asteroid-tracking program, said in a statement. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."
Space.com: Special Report: Columbia Shuttle Disaster 10 Years Later
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor
Date: 01 February 2013 Time: 07:34 AM ET
Ten years ago, on Feb. 1, 2003, one of the worst space accidents of all time took the lives of seven astronauts when the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed. The shuttle disaster marked NASA's third fatal spaceflight tragedy and the second shuttle accident in the space plan program's history.
Killed in the shuttle disaster were Columbia shuttle commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool and mission specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon. The STS-107 mission astronauts were on their way back to Earth after a 16-day science mission in orbit when Columbia broke apart on re-entry. Heat shield damage on the shuttle's left wing, sustained during the mission's launch on Jan. 16, 2003, was ultimately found to be the cause.
The Columbia shuttle disaster directly led to NASA's retirement of the space shuttle fleet and transition to a new space exploration plan that includes the use of private spacecraft and a focus on deep-space exploration.
Space.com: Iran's Space Monkey Launch Prompts Missile Technology Concerns
by Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 29 January 2013 Time: 02:12 PM ET
The reports that Iran launched a monkey into space Monday has sparked concern among U.S. officials and missile watchdog groups who cite that the same technology could be used to extend the reach of Iran's military weapons.
According to Iranian news reports, the country's space agency launched a monkey into space and returned it to Earth in a mission using the Iranian-built Kavoshgar 5 rocket. The launch, while unconfirmed by Western monitoring groups, has raised eyebrows because the rockets developed for such missions could also be used to fire weapons across continents.
"We don't have any way to confirm this one way or the other with regard to the primate," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during a press briefing in Washington Monday (Jan. 28), though she added that she "saw the pictures of the poor little monkey preparing to go to space."
Climate/Environment
Science News: Warmer is not always wetter
Compared to global warming caused by solar radiation, global warming caused by greenhouse gases results in less rainfall, simulations suggest
By Erin Wayman
Web edition: January 30, 2013
Not all warming is the same. For the same increase in temperature, global warming caused by greenhouse gases results in less rainfall than does warming caused by the sun’s radiation, climate simulations suggest.
Because wet places should get more rain as the climate heats up, the new results may explain the mystery of why a warm period 1,000 years ago was wetter than the warm late 20th century. Jian Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing and colleagues describe these results in the Jan. 31 Nature.
“If what they show holds up, it’s good news in that it helps reconcile an apparent contradiction,” says oceanographer Gabriel Vecchi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J. But it would also limit how scientists can use some past episodes of climate change as analogs for the future, he says.
Biodiversity
Science News: Life found deep below Antarctic ice
U.S. team drills through half-mile-thick sheet of ice to turn up cells
By Janet Raloff
Web edition: February 1, 2013
Cells containing DNA have emerged as the first evidence of life in a subglacial lake in West Antarctica. On January 28, a U.S. research team retrieved water from Lake Whillans, which sits 800 meters below the ice surface. The water hosted a surprising bounty of living cells.
The scientists collected three 10-liter water samples from the lake. Preliminary tests conducted in mobile labs show that the cells are actively using oxygen. It may take months for biologists to identify the microbes present.
The microbes have been sealed off below the ice for at least 100,000 years.
Science News: Cats kill more than one billion birds each year
New estimate suggests hunting felines take bigger bite than expected out of wildlife
By Susan Milius
Web edition: January 29, 2013
Domestic cats kill many more wild birds in the United States than scientists thought, according to a new analysis. Cats may rank as the biggest immediate danger that living around people brings to wildlife, researchers say.
America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis. Previous estimates of bird kills have varied, he says, but “500 million is a number that has been thrown around a lot.”
For wild mammals, the annual toll lies between 6.9 billion and 20.7 billion, Marra and his colleagues report along with the bird numbers January 29 in Nature Communications. The majority of these doomed mammals and birds fall into the jaws of cats that live outdoors full-time with or without food supplements from people.
Biotechnology/Health
Scientific American: RNA Fragments May Yield Rapid, Accurate Cancer Diagnosis
A new method to noninvasively diagnose cancer and monitor its progression could eliminate the need for painful and sometimes life-threatening biopsies
By William Ferguson
January 30, 2013
Fragments of RNA that cells eject in fatty droplets may point the way to a new era of cancer diagnosis, potentially eliminating the need for invasive tests in certain cases.
Cancer tumor cells shed microvesicles containing proteins and RNA fragments, called exosomes, into cerebral spinal fluid, blood, and urine. Within these exosomes is genetic information that can be analyzed to determine the cancer’s molecular composition and state of progression. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital discovered that exosomes preserve the genetic information of their parent cells in 2008, however exosomes have not seen widespread clinical testing as a means of cancer diagnosis until now.
“We have never really been able to detect the genetic components of a tumor by blood or spinal fluid,” says Harvard University neurologist Fred Hochberg. “This is really a new strategy.” He says exosome diagnostic tests could potentially detect and monitor the progression of a wide variety of cancers. He is one of the lead researchers in a multicenter clinical study using new exosomal diagnostic tests developed by New York City-based Exosome Diagnostics to identify a genetic mutation found exclusively in glioma, the most common form of brain cancer.
Scientific American: The Sieve Hypothesis: Clever Study Suggests an Alternate Explanation for the Function of the Human Stomach
By Rob Dunn
January 29, 2013
You have a stomach. I have a stomach. It is one of our few universals. Humans, mate, sing, talk, and raise their children in many different ways, but we’ve all got stomachs. The question is why.
Stomachs help to digest food; they get the process rolling, boiling and grinding by coating our food in slime, enzymes and acid. This is the textbook explanation and no one is saying it is wrong, but in one of my treasured meanders through the library, I recently stumbled upon a paper suggesting this explanation is incomplete, perhaps woefully so. Just as important to our survival may be the stomach’s role in separating, sieving one might say, bacteria that are good for our guts from those that are bad. The study I found was led by Dr. Orla-Jensen, a retired professor from the Royal Danish Technical College. Orla-Jensen tested this new idea about the stomach by comparing the gut bacteria of young people, healthy older people and older people suffering from dementia. What Orla-Jensen found is potentially a major piece in the puzzle of the ecology of our bodies.
Science News: Some service members sleep too little
Of active-duty military personnel seeking help for sleep complaints, two-thirds get six or less hours per night
By Nathan Seppa
Web edition: January 31, 2013
Some members of the armed forces are strikingly short on sleep, according to a review of medical records of U.S. military personnel.
The study, which appears online January 31 in Sleep, uses data from active-duty military people who sought out, or were referred to, a clinic because they had a sleep complaint. Even though the study is not a random sample, some scientists believe the low levels of sleep found in the records raise serious questions about the health of the armed forces. Sleep problems in the study sample were often associated with conditions such as chronic pain, anxiety, brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Scientists know that sleep deprivation can affect mood, concentration, reaction time and cognitive function. But little information is available specifically about sleep loss in the military.
Psychology/Behavior
LiveScience: Identity of Famous 19th-Century Brain Discovered
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
The identity of a mysterious patient who helped scientists pinpoint the brain region responsible for language has been discovered, researchers report.
The new finding, detailed in the January issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, identifies the famous patient as Monsieur Louis Leborgne, a French craftsman who battled epilepsy his entire life.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science News: Specialized nerve fibers send touchy-feely messages to brain
Neurons found in mice that may underlie pleasurable feeling from massage
By Laura Sanders
Web edition: January 30, 2013
Some nerve fibers seem to love a good rubdown. These tendrils, which spread across skin like upside-down tree roots, detect smooth, steady stroking and send a feel-good message to the brain, researchers report in the Jan. 31 Nature.
Although the researchers found these neurons in mice, similar cells in people may trigger massage bliss. The results are the latest to emphasize the strong and often underappreciated connection between emotions and the sensation of touch, says study coauthor David Anderson, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Caltech. “It may seem frivolous to be studying massage neurons in mice, but it raises a profound issue — why do certain stimuli feel a certain way?” he says.
It’s no surprise that many people find a caress pleasant. Earlier studies in people suggested that a particular breed of nerve fibers detects a caress and carries that signal to the brain. But scientists hadn’t been able to directly link this type of neuron to good feelings, either in people or in animals. “The beauty of this paper is that it goes one step further and adds behavioral elements,” says cognitive neuroscientist Francis McGlone of Liverpool John Moores University in England.
Science News: Some chores linked to less sex
Husbands who do more household work make love less, new study suggests
By Nathan Seppa
Web edition: January 30, 2013
Maybe it’s the apron. Couples in the United States in which the men do more chores around the house have less sex than those in which the husbands don’t do the dishes and laundry as much, a new study finds. The findings appear in the February American Sociological Review.
The division of labor in the typical U.S. household became more egalitarian between 1965 and 1995 says study coauthor Sabino Kornrich, a sociologist at the Juan March Institute in Madrid. As women entered the workforce in droves and had smaller families, men took on more chores.
But the new study, a snapshot of more than 3,500 heterosexual married couples in the United States in the early 1990s, finds that wives were still doing four-fifths of the household chores traditionally associated with women: doing dishes, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning and shopping. The husbands did a bare majority of traditionally male jobs, which comprised yard work, auto maintenance, driving and paying bills, Kornrich says.
Archeology/Anthropology
The Art Newspaper: Ice Age Lion Man is world’s earliest figurative sculpture
Work carved from mammoth ivory has been redated and 1,000 new fragments discovered—but it won’t make it to British Museum show
By Martin Bailey. Web only
Published online: 31 January 2013
The star exhibit initially promised for the British Museum’s “Ice Age Art” show will not be coming—but for a good reason. New pieces of Ulm’s Lion Man sculpture have been discovered and it has been found to be much older than originally thought, at around 40,000 years. This makes it the world’s earliest figurative sculpture. At the London exhibition, which opens on 7 February, a replica from the Ulm Museum will instead go on display.
The story of the discovery of the Lion Man goes back to August 1939, when fragments of mammoth ivory were excavated at the back of the Stadel Cave in the Swabian Alps, south-west Germany. This was a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War. When it was eventually reassembled in 1970, it was regarded as a standing bear or big cat, but with human characteristics.
Al-Ahram: More discoveries at Djehuty's tomb in Luxor
A wooden 17th Dynasty sarcophagus of a child and collection of 18th Dynasty Ushabti figurines of a priest found inside Djehuty's tomb in Luxor's west bank
Nevine El-Aref , Wednesday 30 Jan 2013
Although the Egyptian sarcophagus does not have any engravings, decoration, or mummy inside, early studies carried out in situ by Jose Galàn, head of the archaeological mission, revealed that it belongs to a yet unidentified child who died during the 17th Dynasty.
A collection of wooden pots and pans was also unearthed beside the sarcophagus in the Draa Abul Naga area in Luxor's west bank, along with a collection of Ushabti figurines (statuettes) carved in wood and wrapped in linen.
United Press International: Ancient Chinese arrowhead found in Japan
Published: Jan. 24, 2013 at 5:47 PM
OSAKA, Japan, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Archaeologists say an ancient Chinese arrowhead unearthed in Okayama City in Western Japan is the first of its kind discovered in the country.
The bronze arrowhead has been dated to the Warring States period of ancient Chinese history, 475 B.C. to 221 B.C., China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.
LiveScience: Mass Human Sacrifice? Pile of Ancient Skulls Found
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 25 January 2013 Time: 03:24 PM ET
Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.
The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.
Columbus Dispatch:
The Poverty Point earthworks could be confused for an Ohio Hopewell site, except for two facts: It is located in Louisiana, and it’s more than 1,000 years older than any Hopewell mound.
One of the biggest puzzles in North American archaeology is how the relatively small bands of hunter-gatherers living at that time could have built monumental architecture on this scale without food surpluses provided by farming or the centralized leadership of a king or chief.
One theory is that many small groups of hunter-gatherers came together on a seasonal basis year after year for generations to slowly construct this complex of parallel embankments and mounds.
However, the results of new excavations into the largest of Poverty Point’s mounds refute this theory.
Indian Express: 1,300-year-old tomb cluster discovered in China
A 1,300-year-old unidentified cluster of 102 tombs, 40 per cent of which were made for infants, have been unearthed in China's restive westernmost province.
The tombs, found on the Pamirs Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, contain wooden caskets with desiccated corpses, as well as stoneware, pottery and copper ware believed to have been buried as sacrificial items, said Ai Tao from the Xinjiang Archaeological Institute.
BBC: Escrick sapphire ring's mystery history sparks meeting
A sapphire ring found in North Yorkshire has sparked a meeting of experts to determine exactly when it was made.
The ring has baffled archaeologists because it is unlike any other according to the Yorkshire Museum.
The intricate ring, presumably made by a highly skilled craftsman, is on show at the Museum in York.
Natalie McCaul, from the museum, said the meeting may "shed new light on the ring" and "reveal some of its secrets"
.
The Scotsman: Workmen find Georgian artefacts at old hospital
By David O’Leary
Published on Thursday 31 January 2013 12:00
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a slice of Georgian history on the former site of the Royal Infirmary hospital.
Pottery, bits of bottle, coins and buttons from the 18th century were found by workers at what is now Edinburgh University’s High School Yards.
A dig took place after contractors drafted in to lay utilities uncovered a series of outer walls from the old royal’s Surgical Hospital, which was built on the site in 1738. Among the highlights was a sixpenny piece dating from 1816 and the reign of George IV.
A new carbon innovation research centre will be built once the city council’s archaeology department has fully investigated the grounds.
Smithsonian Magazine: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II
In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga
By Mike Dash
January 29, 2013
Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth's wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia's arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.
When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world—not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. Siberia is the source of most of Russia's oil and mineral resources, and, over the years, even its most distant parts have been overflown by oil prospectors and surveyors on their way to backwoods camps where the work of extracting wealth is carried on.
Thus it was in the remote south of the forest in the summer of 1978. A helicopter sent to find a safe spot to land a party of geologists was skimming the treeline a hundred or so miles from the Mongolian border when it dropped into the thickly wooded valley of an unnamed tributary of the Abakan, a seething ribbon of water rushing through dangerous terrain. The valley walls were narrow, with sides that were close to vertical in places, and the skinny pine and birch trees swaying in the rotors' downdraft were so thickly clustered that there was no chance of finding a spot to set the aircraft down. But, peering intently through his windscreen in search of a landing place, the pilot saw something that should not have been there. It was a clearing, 6,000 feet up a mountainside, wedged between the pine and larch and scored with what looked like long, dark furrows. The baffled helicopter crew made several passes before reluctantly concluding that this was evidence of human habitation—a garden that, from the size and shape of the clearing, must have been there for a long time.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
LiveScience: Ancient Tapeworm Eggs Found in Fossilized Shark Poop
Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 30 January 2013 Time: 05:19 PM ET
Ancient tapeworm eggs found in 270-million-year-old shark poop suggests these parasites may have plagued animals for much longer than previously known, researchers say.
Tapeworms cling to the inner walls of the intestines of vertebrates — creatures with backbones such as fish, pigs, cows and humans. When these parasites reach adulthood, they unleash their eggs on the world via the feces of their hosts.
Investigating the early history of such parasites of vertebrates is tricky because fossils of these parasites dating back to the age of dinosaurs or before are rare. One way researchers might unearth such fossils is by analyzing coprolites, or fossilized dung.
Science News: Pigeons' prominent plumage traces to one gene
Mutation appears to have arisen once and then spread through breeding
By Tina Hesman Saey
Web edition: January 31, 2013
A change in a single gene ruffles the feathers of all pigeons with collars and crests, a new study shows.
Many breeds of rock pigeons have these crests, even though they come from different branches of the pigeon family tree. So it was a surprise that all the birds owe their fancy plumage to the same mutation in a gene called EphB2, Michael Shapiro of the University of Utah and colleagues report online January 31 in Science. The researchers found that the mutation arose once and spread to many different types of pigeons through breeding programs. They don’t yet know whether the mutation arose in a wild ancestor of domesticated pigeons or if it sprang up only after domestication.
As different species evolve, some traits show up again and again. Scientists debate whether each occurrence comes from the same genetic mechanism, as in the pigeons, or from different mutations with the same result, says James Hanken, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.
Geology
Science News: News in Brief: Indonesian mud eruption will soon die out, scientists predict
Volcano has been spewing muck since 2006
By Erin Wayman
Web edition: February 1, 2013
The end may be near for an erupting mud volcano that has wreaked havoc in Indonesia. In a few years, the volcano will spew just 10 percent as much mud as it does today, scientists predict.
The mud volcano known as Lusi began erupting in May 2006 after a drilling accident at a nearby gas exploration well. Since then, the eruption has buried an area about twice the size of New York’s Central Park and displaced more than 60,000 people. Based on the amount of muck burped up during the eruption’s first three years, scientists had estimated Lusi’s fury would last 23 to 50 years.
Energy
Scientific American: What Will Steven Chu’s Energy Legacy Be?
By David Biello
February 1, 2013
Steven Chu will step down as Secretary of Energy at the end of this month, though he “may stay beyond that time so that I can leave the Department in the hands of the new Secretary,” he wrote in a farewell letter to Department of Energy (DoE) staff, issued February 1. Regardless, when Chu leaves he will have earned the title of longest serving energy secretary in U.S. history.
Chu also leaves as one of the nation’s most ambitious energy secretaries, having presided over the disbursement of $36 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, more widely known simply as “the stimulus.” Chu used that money to back with grants or loan guarantees a wide range of alternative energy technologies in a bid to wean the U.S. from its more than $400 billion-a-year imported oil habit, ranging from electric cars to photovoltaics, as well as the first new nuclear power plant constructed in the country for more than 30 years. “I believe we should be judged not by the money we direct to a particular state or district, company, university or national lab, but by the character of our decisions,” Chu wrote.
“Steve helped my administration move America towards real energy independence,” President Obama said in a statement. “Over the past four years, we have doubled the use of renewable energy, reduced our dependence on foreign oil, and put our country on a path to win the global race for clean energy jobs.”
Physics
Science News: An atom sheds light on neutron stars
Measurements of heavy form of zinc allow astronomers to model the crust of dead stars
By Andrew Grant
Web edition: January 31, 2013
The precise measurement of an exotic atom in the laboratory has refined scientists’ understanding of neutron stars, which are among the universe’s most extreme objects. The study, published January 22 in Physical Review Letters, could help scientists determine whether the crusts of neutron stars serve as the source of dozens of heavy elements such as zinc, silver and gold.
“One of the universe’s overriding mysteries is where heavy elements originate,” says James Lattimer, an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University in New York who was not involved in the study. “These mass measurements allow us to tune our equations so we can work toward settling the debate.”
Neutron stars are not actually stars at all. After a massive star explodes in a supernova, the remnant is a hot, dense ball about 20 kilometers across. It is made up of protons, electrons and lots of neutrons. That sphere packs in a mass larger than that of the sun, with a surface that one study estimates is 10 billion times as strong as steel. Under these extreme conditions, nuclei of atoms that are normally unstable can subsist in the neutron star’s outer layers.
Chemistry
Nature: Diamond defects shrink MRI to the nanoscale
Technique could be sensitive enough to detect structure of a single protein.
Katharine Sanderson
31 January 2013
Diamond-based quantum devices can now make nuclear magnetic resonance measurements on the molecular scale. Work by two independent groups will make it easier to find out the structure of single biological molecules such as proteins without destroying or freezing them.
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and its close cousin magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) give information about a sample’s structure by detecting the weak magnetic forces in certain atomic nuclei, such as hydrogen. They work by detecting how molecules collectively resonate — like guitar strings that vibrate together — with electromagnetic waves of specific wavelengths. The techniques provide information about the structure of samples without damaging them — which is particularly important if the sample is a human body.
But to some researchers, whole bodies are less interesting than the molecules that they are made up of. “I want to push NMR and MRI to the molecular level,” says Friedemann Reinhard, a physicist at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. His team is one of two that have used NMR to detect hydrogen atoms in samples measuring just a few nanometres across1. The second team2 was led by Daniel Rugar, manager of nanoscale studies at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. Both studies are published in this week's Science.
Scientific American: Study Bolsters Quantum Vibration Scent Theory
Do good odors stem from good vibrations?
By Mark Anderson
January 30, 2013
How does the sense of smell work? Today two competing camps of scientists are at war over this very question. And the more controversial theory has just received important new experimental confirmation.
At issue is whether our noses use delicate quantum mechanisms for sensing the vibrations of odor molecules (aka odorants). Does the nose, in other words, read off the chemical makeup of a mystery odorant—say, a waft of perfume or the aroma of wilted lettuce—by “ringing” it like a bell? Chemistry and forensics labs do this all the time with spectrometers—machines that bounce infrared light off mystery materials to reveal the telltale vibrations that the light provokes. Olfaction might, according to the vibration theory of smell, do the same using tiny currents of electrons instead of infrared photons (see previous coverage of the vibration theory here).
The predominant theory of smell today says: No way. The millions of different odorants in the world are a little more like puzzle pieces, it suggests. And our noses contain scores of different kinds of receptors that each prefer to bind with specific types of pieces. So a receptor that is set to bind to a molecule called limonene sends a signal to our brains when it finds that compound, and that's one of the cues behind the smell of citrus. Likewise that same receptor wouldn't bind to hydrogen sulfide—which smells of rotten eggs.
Science Crime Scenes
Time Magazine: A Feud Between Biblical Archaeologists Goes to Court
By Nina Burleigh
Jan. 29, 2013
In the Old City of Jerusalem, no one ever went broke underestimating the proof required to help the faithful suspend disbelief — or in a modern twist, allow the skeptical to bolster their heterodoxy. A million-dollar lawsuit in Israel has become the latest vehicle in the unending quest to redefine faith as the substance of things seen.
Simcha Jacobovici, a Canadian documentary maker specializing in biblical archaeology, is suing a retired scientist and former archaeological museum curator named Joe Zias, who has accused him of publicizing scientifically dubious theories. Many of Jacobovici’s documentaries have focused on artifacts that purport to reveal new interpretations of early Christianity, including the notion that the remains of Jesus and his family were buried in a tomb underneath modern-day Jerusalem. Jacobovici claims that Zias’ criticisms are libelous and have cost him television contracts and money.
Lompoc Record: Ancient Calif. rock carvings recovered after theft
A series of rock carvings that date back more than 3,500 years that were sheared off and taken from a sacred American Indian site in California's Sierra Nevada have been recovered three months after the theft was discovered.
Authorities said no one has been arrested and they wouldn't provide details about the discovery Thursday, saying only that it was made this month after they received an anonymous tip in a letter. The tipster will be eligible for a $9,000 reward if the information leads to the arrest and conviction of the culprits.
Time Magazine: Mali: Timbuktu Locals Saved Some of City’s Ancient Manuscripts from Islamists
By Vivienne Walt
Jan. 28, 2013
The preservationists of Timbuktu’s centuries-old artifacts have been holding their breath for weeks, waiting for the moment when the French military would seize back Mali’s ancient northern capital from the Islamic militants who have occupied it for 10 months. At stake were the city’s most precious treasures: tens of thousands of centuries-old, priceless calligraphed manuscripts, whose fate under the jihadists’ rule was deeply uncertain.
On Monday, that moment finally came — and by nightfall, the state of Timbuktu’s treasures was as confused as it had been before.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science News: Published clinical trials shown to be misleading
Comparison of internal and public reports about Pfizer’s drug Neurontin reveals many discrepancies
By Rachel Ehrenberg
Web edition: January 29, 2013
Editor's note: This story was updated on January 31 with comment from Pfizer.
A rare peek into drug company documents reveals troubling differences between publicly available information and materials the company holds close to its chest. In comparing public and private descriptions of drug trials conducted by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, researchers discovered discrepancies including changes in the number of study participants and inconsistent definitions of protocols and analyses.
The researchers, led by Kay Dickersin, director of the Center for Clinical Trials at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, gained access to internal Pfizer reports after a lawsuit made them available. Dickersin and her colleagues compared the internal documents with 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals about randomized trials of Pfizer’s anti-epilepsy drug gabapentin (brand name Neurontin) that tested its effectiveness for treating other disorders. The results, the researchers say, suggest that the published trials were biased and misleading, even though they read as if standard protocols were followed. That lack of transparency could mean that clinicians prescribe drugs based on incomplete or incorrect information.
"We could see all of the biases right in front of us all at once,” says Dickersin, who was an expert witness in the suit, which was brought by a health insurer against Pfizer. Pfizer lost the case in 2010, and a judge ruled it should pay $142 million in damages for violating federal racketeering laws in promoting Neurontin for treating migraines and bipolar disorder.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Scientific American: President Obama Awards National Medals of Science and Technology at the White House
By Mariette DiChristina
February 2, 2013
“You have improved our lives in ways that are practical and inspirational,” said President Barack Obama. He saluted the top U.S. researchers with the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government, the National Science and Technology Medals. At the White House ceremony on February 1, he honored 12 winners for the National Medals of Science and 11 winners of the National Medals of Technology and Innovation for pioneering work in developments including lithium-ion batteries, LASIK surgery, string theory and biofuels.
The occasion marked the 50th anniversary of the National Medals of Science, which was created by statute in 1959 and is administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation, begun in 1980, honors individuals, teams, and companies for achievement in the innovation, development, commercialization, and management of technology.
Obama noted the importance of such events in inspiring young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM): “We can celebrate and lift up and spotlight scientists like we’re doing today.”
Reuters via Scientific American:Exclusive: Obama leaning toward McCarthy for EPA chief - sources
By Jeff Mason
February 1, 2013
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is leaning toward choosing Gina McCarthy, a top official in charge of air quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, to run the EPA in his second term, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
McCarthy, currently the assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, would take on the top job as the agency leads Obama's push for measures to fight climate change.
McCarthy would replace Lisa Jackson, who said in December she planned to step down as EPA chief.
Reuters via Scientific American: U.S. seeks to list wolverines as threatened, cites global warming
By Laura Zuckerman
February 1, 2013
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The U.S. government proposed adding wolverines, feisty but rare members of the weasel family, to the federal threatened and endangered species list on Friday because global warming is reducing the mountain snows the animals need for survival.
Fewer than 300 wolverines, solitary creatures said to resemble small bears with bushy tails, are believed to exist in the lower 48 United States, where they mostly inhabit the high country of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington state.
The reclusive animals, which eat everything from birds to berries, build their dens, reproduce and store food in areas with snow deeper than five feet in high-elevation environments unoccupied by humans and undisturbed by snowmobilers and skiers.
Scientific American: Decelerating American Physics: Panel Advises Shutdown of Last U.S. Collider
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is first in line for possible budget cutbacks
By John Matson
January 31, 2013
In a narrowly decided vote, an advisory panel to federal nuclear science agencies has recommended closing a particle collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., rather than eliminating other costly facilities. The reason: federal budget woes are hitting all types of government funding from classroom education to highway repair.
At a meeting this week of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, which provides guidance to the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, physicist Robert Tribble of Texas A&M University in College Station unveiled the findings of an effort he led to identify priorities for an increasingly frugal U.S. nuclear science program. From the outset of the Tribble panel’s investigation, it appeared that one of three major projects would face elimination, and on January 28 Tribble announced that Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, or RHIC, had drawn the short straw.
Tribble explained that under flat budgets or even with annual increases for inflation, it would not be possible to operate RHIC while also building the planned Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University and completing upgrades to the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia.
Scientific American: Davos: The Future of Space
By Mariette DiChristina
January 28, 2013
Space: the beneficial frontier. That was the underlying theme of a panel called “The Future of Space,” which I moderated at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland. It was the first such session on space services in the formal part of the program at this meeting of leaders in policy and business—and its focus was decidedly down to Earth.
“We want to educate people about the utility of space,” noted panelist Brian Weeden, technical adviser, Secure World Foundation. The panel discussed applications of orbiting satellites, including weather observations, climate studies, GPS location services, security—and even preserving cultural artifacts.
“Many of the world’s great global challenges can be effectively addressed by space-based satellites,” added panelist Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Lockheed Martin.
Science Education
Scientific American: Born-Again Textbooks
By Megan Scudellari
January 31, 2013
I push my way through the dense crowd, bumping and nudging and apologizing as I move. When I finally emerge from the gaggle of fans, there he is, sitting quietly in a corner chair at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. E.O. Wilson in the flesh. He is wearing a blue button-up shirt, khaki pants and a vest adorned with about 20 pockets, as if he is about to trek out into the savannah.
Wilson, renowned biologist, philosopher, and 83-year-old active conservationist, is clearly tired. He spent the preceding two hours taking questions from high school students and cutting the ribbon at a ceremony for a new digital biology textbook bearing his name. I kneel down at his side and, with only a moment of time to speak, ask him just one question: Why did he, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who retired more than a decade ago, decide to produce a textbook, much less a digital one?
I had a selfish reason to be curious. I am currently writing a traditional paper and ink college biology textbook for a major US publisher. I’ve spent years on the project and along the way have become intimately familiar with the textbook industry, which is still largely cemented in the print era. So why did Wilson, an old-school biologist who tracks ants for a living, decide to make a textbook for the iPad?
Science Writing and Reporting
The Scientist: Monster Hunting 2.0
With the launch of a new peer-reviewed journal, can cryptozoology emerge from the shadows to be taken seriously by the mainstream scientific community?
By Dan Cossins
February 1, 2013
Since the demise of the journal Cryptozoology in 1996, there has been no peer-reviewed English-language periodical for the controversial field, which studies animals known from anecdote, folklore, or fragmentary physical evidence, but not yet authenticated with actual specimens. So when the U.K.–based Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) approached popular cryptozoology writer Karl Shuker about launching a new journal, he was happy to oblige.
“I felt it imperative that a journal of this nature should exist again as a platform for formal scientific cryptozoological research and reviews of past cases that mainstream journals may not be willing to consider,” says Shuker, who has a PhD in zoology and comparative physiology from the University of Birmingham, U.K. Having assembled a panel of reviewers who then pored over the first batch of submissions, the CFZ and Shuker published the first issue of The Journal of Cryptozoology in October 2012. Editor-in-chief Shuker insists that all articles are subjected to the “same level of rigorous peer-review evaluations as [in] any mainstream journal.”
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
Slate: The Mystery of Curry
It turns out we’ve been eating the spiced dish for a lot longer than anyone ever imagined.
By Andrew Lawler
What is curry? Today, the word describes a bewildering number of spicy vegetable and meat stews from places as far-flung as the Indian subcontinent, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean Islands. There is little agreement about what actually constitutes a curry. And, until recently, how and when curry first appeared was a culinary mystery as well.
The term likely derives from kari, the word for sauce in Tamil, a South-Indian language. Perplexed by that region’s wide variety of savory dishes, 17th-century British traders lumped them all under the term curry. A curry, as the Brits defined it, might be a mélange of onion, ginger, turmeric, garlic, pepper, chilies, coriander, cumin, and other spices cooked with shellfish, meat, or vegetables.
Those curries, like the curries we know today, were the byproduct of more than a millennium of trade between the Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia, which provided new ingredients to spice up traditional Indian stews. After the year 1000, Muslims brought their own cooking traditions from the west, including heavy use of meat, while Indian traders carried home new and exotic spices like cloves from Southeast Asia. And when the Portuguese built up their trading centers on the west coast of India in the 16th century, they threw chilies from the New World into the pot. (Your spicy vindaloo may sound like Hindi, but actually the word derives from the Portuguese terms for its original central ingredients: wine and garlic.)
LiveScience: Secret Painting in Rembrandt Masterpiece Coming into View
Megan Gannon, News Editor
Scientists may be one step closer to revealing a hidden portrait behind a 380-year-old Rembrandt painting.
The masterpiece, "Old Man in Military Costume" by Dutch painter Rembrant Harmenszoon van Rijn, resides at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Scientists had noticed the painting bears faint traces of another portrait beneath its surface. Researchers had previously probed the painting with infrared, neutron and conventional X-ray methods, but could not see the behind the top coat, largely because Rembrandt used the same paint (with the same chemical composition) for the underpainting and the final version.
New studies with more sophisticated X-ray techniques that can parse through the painting's layers give art historians hope that they may finally get to see who is depicted in the secret image.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Space.com: Astronauts Will Watch Super Bowl from Space
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor
Date: 02 February 2013 Time: 10:58 AM ET
Six astronauts living in space may not have gravity, fresh food or a shower, but there is one Earth necessity they won't miss Sunday: The Super Bowl.
NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will beam the Super Bowl XLVII showdown between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens live to the International Space Station so its astronaut crew can watch the big game along with every other football fan on Earth.
"Yes they are going to watch it this weekend," NASA spokesman Josh Byerly told SPACE.com in an email. Byerly said Mission Control made a special point on Friday (Feb. 1) of asking the station astronauts if they wanted to catch the game.
"And they said they definitely wanted to see it," Byerly said.
Space.com: How 3D Printers Could Build Futuristic Moon Colony
by Miriam Kramer, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 01 February 2013 Time: 04:20 PM ET
The technology behind 3D printing has allowed users to craft musical instruments and prosthetic limbs, and now European scientists are taking a serious look at printing their own moon base.
The European Space Agency (ESA) study is investigating how practical constructing a manned base on the moon only using 3D printing technology could be, given that it would rely primarily on lunar dirt for building materials.
"Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures," Laurent Pambaguian, who heads the project for ESA, said in a statement. "Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat."
Scientific American: The Real, and Simple, Equation That Killed Wall Street
By Chris Arnade
January 30, 2013
“If it weren’t for those meddling kids!” That was the punch line for every Scooby Doo episode. It also is the overly simple narrative that many in the media have spun about the last financial crisis. Smart meddling kids armed with math hoodwinked us all.
One article, from the March 2009 Wired magazine, even pinpointed an equation and a mathematician. The article “Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street,” accused the Gaussian Copula Function.
It was not the first piece that made this type of argument, but it was the most aggressive. Since then it has been a common theme in the media that mathematics, especially obscure advanced mathematics, is largely responsible for the catastrophe that doomed the world to the last five years of recession and slow growth.
