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 NBC News.
Curiosity rover sees life-friendly conditions in ancient Mars rock
By Alan Boyle
Powder drilled out of a rock on Mars contains the best evidence yet that the Red Planet could have supported living microbes billions of years ago, the team behind NASA's Curiosity rover said Tuesday.
"I think this is probably the only definitively habitable environment that we have described and recorded," said David Blake, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center who is the principal investigator for Curiosity's CheMin lab.
The findings are in line with what the scientists hoped to find when they sent the 1-ton, six-wheeled laboratory to Mars' Gale Crater. "It wasn't serendipity that got us here. It was the result of planning," Caltech's John Grotzinger, the $2.5 billion mission's project scientist, told reporters at NASA Headquarters in Washington on Tuesday.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Space Rocks move Congress, Climate Change impacts not so much
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Video/tar sands-Totally, Global Climate Crime!
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Green Diary Rescue: A weekly series of what's happening on the eco-front
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This week in science: night of the comet
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Slideshows/Videos
Link TV: 3/11, Two Years Later: How is Japan Coping Today? (LinkAsia: 3/8/13)
March 11th marks two years since Japan's devastating triple disaster of a massive earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that left 20,000 people dead or missing. LinkAsia's Toshi Maeda reports from Tokyo on how people in Japan are coping today with the aftermath.
LiveScience: Japan's Tohoku Earthquake Rattled The Atmosphere | Video
The animation shows how the massive earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 caused ripples in the atmosphere. As sound waves from the earthquake travelled upwards, they caused changes in air density that were detected by the GOCE gravity satellite.
PBS News Hour: Renewable Energy Could be the Answer for Japanese Town
Special correspondent Emily Taguchi has the story of Fukushima, Japan, a town aching for a comeback after an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. Once the home of the Fukushima Reactor, the town is looking towards renewable energy and other renewable sources to build a better future.
TED Talks on YouTube: Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?
Throughout humankind's history, we've driven species after species extinct: the passenger pigeon, the Eastern mountain lion, the dodo .... But now, says Stewart Brand, we have the technology (and the biology) to bring back species that humanity wiped out. So -- should we? Which ones? He asks a big question whose answer is closer than you may think.
Also see the related article under Biodiversity.
Discovery News: St. Patrick's Day: Beer Goggles Explained
Does alcohol help make your date appear more attractive? It certainly seems to help for some! Laci takes a look at the phenomenon of "beer goggles" and whether there's any truth to it all.
Discovery News: Where the Catholic Church Stands on Science
The Catholic Church has a conflicted history with the scientific world. But with the election of Pope Francis I, can we expect that to change? Laci Green shows us how far the Church has come, and how far they have left to go.
Discovery News: Happy Pi Day! Pi and Pie are AMAZING
March 14th is Pi Day, a worldwide tribute to the mathematical constant. To celebrate this geeky holiday, Anthony heads down to San Francisco's Mission Pie bakery to eat pie and talk pi with Destructoid host and mathematician, Tara Long. What's the significance of this irrational number? Why is there so much mystery around it? Watch and learn!
Scientific American: Sequestered Science: How Research Got Tied Up with Federal Dollars [Timeline]
By Daisy Yuhas
March 12, 2013
More than 10 U.S. departments and agencies that receive federal funding for scientific research will suffer from budget cuts enacted by the federal government on March 1, aka "the sequester"
NASA Television: Mars Once Habitable on This Week @NASA
Analysis of the first ever sample of rock powder collected by the Mars Curiosity rover has proven that the Red Planet location it's exploring once had everything needed to support microbial life including a lakebed filled with not salty or acidic but fresh water. Also, innovative space technology; students help space exploration; women aspiring, inspiring; IceBridge preps; SLS @ TennTech; career day; and more!
NBC News: How a rover's Martian mountain would look on Earth
By Alan Boyle
If you could pull up a 3-mile-high mountain from Mars and plop it down in California's Mojave Desert, it'd probably look much like this latest color panorama from the Curiosity rover's science team. This little piece from the panorama doesn't do justice to the whole picture: You really should see the whole thing at high resolution to get a sense of just how much Mount Sharp, a.k.a. Aeolis Mons, looms over the scene where NASA's six-wheeled robotic lab has been working.
The most jarring thing about the picture is the blue sky. No, the Martian sky doesn't really look like that. The Red Planet's atmosphere is filled with iron-rich dust that turns everything into shades of butterscotch, burnt orange and brick. To see Mount Sharp as you or your smartphone camera might see it if you were actually there, check out this true-color version of the panorama.
NASA Television: ScienceCasts: Sunset Comet
Comet Pan-STARRS has survived its encounter with the sun and is now emerging from twilight in the sunset skies of the northern hemisphere. A NASA spacecraft monitoring the comet has beamed back pictures of a wild and ragged tail.
NBC News: Moon pairs up with Comet PanSTARRS for big show
By Alan Boyle
Two elusive superstars came out on Tuesday evening to greet their adoring fans — in L.A. and Vegas, as well as in California's Mojave Desert and the mountaintops of Arizona and California. As a matter of fact, observers around the world could catch a glimpse of Comet PanSTARRS and the barely lit crescent moon, as long as the skies were clear.
Like most superstars, Comet PanSTARRS doesn't always live up to its advance billing. For months, skywatchers have been looking forward to PanSTARRS as one of the top sights in the night sky. The long-period comet is now thought to be at its brightest, due to the fact that it has just come out of its close approach to the sun. But finding it has proved more difficult than expected, because it's so easily lost in the glare of sunset.
NBC News: Volunteer crews chase their dreams in a desert Mars
By Alan Boyle
NASA says it could be another 20 years before humans touch down on Mars, but in a sense, the Mars Society has been exploring the red planet for more than a decade — in Utah.
The nonprofit society's Mars Desert Research Station, near Hanksville, Utah, has been home to 126 crews since the Mars-style habitat was erected in 2002. The idea behind the experimental station is to test the tools and techniques that could come into play during eventual human expeditions to the real Red Planet. Each expedition crew consists of roughly a half-dozen volunteers who spend about two weeks in the Utah desert, conducting real research on a make-believe Mars.
Astronomy/Space
NBC News: Astronomers produce most detailed analysis of alien planet's atmosphere
By Alan Boyle
Astronomers say they've confirmed the presence of water vapor and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a giant planet beyond our solar system, thanks to the most detailed spectroscopic scan ever made.
The observations, detailed Thursday on the journal Science's website, uses a method that could someday be used to sample the air of an alien Earth from light-years away, the researchers said.
"The big surprise was actually that we could do it," one of the study's co-authors, Travis Barman of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, told reporters. "We can actually see the individual lines of these molecules. ... I personally felt like we would not be able to do what we have done."
NBC News: What's next for Mars Curiosity rover
By Alan Boyle
Even as the scientists behind NASA's Curiosity rover mission announced that they found evidence of life-friendly chemistry inside a Martian rock, the $2.5 billion mission's engineers continued their efforts to get the rover back into full operation after a serious computer glitch.
The rover's scientific work in a spot known as Yellowknife Bay has been put on hold while the mission operations team rebuilds the memory for one of Curiosity's two redundant computers, known as the A-side. The A-side computer experienced a memory failure on Feb. 28, forcing controllers to switch over to the B-side backup brain. Since then, the team has been putting the A-side through a series of tests to make sure it's OK.
"We have been able to store new data in many of the memory locations previously affected and believe more runs will demonstrate more memory is available," Jim Erickson, the mission's deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Monday in a status report. A couple of software patches are due to be uploaded and tested this week, and then the team will reassess when to resume full mission operations, including the analysis of additional rock samples.
Climate/Environment
LiveScience: February 2013 Was World's 9th Warmest on Record
by LiveScience Staff
Date: 14 March 2013
Last month was among the top 10 warmest Februaries for the planet since record keeping began in 1880, U.S. weather officials announced today (March 14).
February 2013 tied with 2003 as the 9th warmest February of the past 133 years, according to scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). They calculated last month's globally-averaged temperature at 54.93 degrees Fahrenheit (12.67 degrees Celsius), or 1.03 degrees F (0.57 degrees C), above the 20th century average of 53.9 degrees F (12.1 degrees C).
This means February 2013 was the 336th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average February, in terms of temperature, was in 1985.
LiveScience: China's Top 6 Environmental Concerns
Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor
Date: 15 March 2013
China's environmental crises seem to arise on a scale as sweeping and epic as the vast nation itself:
Thousands of dead, bloated pigs floating down the river that supplies Shanghai with its drinking water. Air pollution in Beijing so impenetrable the U.S. Embassy's air quality measuring station can only call it "beyond index." Industrial towns where rates of cancer are so high they're known as "cancer villages."
Compounding these problems is the Chinese government's stony silence about anything that might imperil the country's economic development — including environmental regulation.
But China's increasingly restive population of 1.3 billion people is now starting to demand government action to combat the deadly plagues of pollution and disease that are stalking the 21st century's economic powerhouse.
Biodiversity
LiveScienceReviving the Woolly Mammoth: Will De-Extinction Become Reality?
Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 15 March 2013
Biologists briefly brought the extinct Pyrenean ibex back to life in 2003 by creating a clone from a frozen tissue sample harvested before the goat's entire population vanished in 2000. The clone survived just seven minutes after birth, but it gave scientists hope that "de-extinction," once a pipedream, could become a reality.
Ten years later, a group of researchers and conservationists gathered in Washington, D.C., today (March 15) for a forum called TEDxDeExtinction, hosted by the National Geographic Society, to talk about how to revive extinct animals, from the Tasmanian tiger and the saber-toothed tiger to the woolly mammoth and the North American passenger pigeon.
Though scientists don't expect a real-life "Jurassic Park" will ever be on the horizon, a species that died a few tens of thousands of years ago could be resurrected as long as it has enough intact ancient DNA.
Also read
Should we revive extinct species? Watch experts debate de-extinction by Alan Boyle at NBC News and
The Narcissism of De-Extinction by Hannah Walters at Scientific American.
OurAmazingPlanet via LiveScience: Intraterrestrials: Life Thrives in Ocean Floor
Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer
Date: 14 March 2013
An entire ecosystem living without light or oxygen flourishes beneath the ocean floor, a new study confirms.
Scientists call it the dark biosphere, and it's potentially one of the biggest ecosystems on the planet. Buried oceanic crust covers 60 percent of Earth's surface. For the first time, researchers have pulled up pieces of the crust and examined the life within. In its rocks, microbial communities thrive, eating altered minerals for food, the study found.
"They're gaining energy from chemical reactions from water with rock," said Mark Lever, a microbiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and lead author of the study, published in the March 15 issue of the journal Science.
LiveScience: Bat-Eating Spiders Are Everywhere, Study Finds
Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 15 March 2013
There's only one place in the world to escape bat-catching spiders: Antarctica. These arachnids ensnare and pounce on bats everywhere else in the world, researchers say.
Bats rank among the most successful groups of mammals, with the more than 1,200 species of bats comprising about one-fifth of all mammal species. Other than owls, hawks and snakes, bats have few natural enemies.
Still, invertebrates — creatures without backbones — have been known to dine on bats. For instance, giant centipedes in a cave in Venezuela were seen killing and eating bats, and the arachnids known as whip spiders were spotted feeding on dead bats in caves of the Caribbean. Cockroaches have been observed feeding on bat pups that have fallen to the floor of caves.
OurAmazingPlanet via LiveScience: Sumatran Tiger Cub Born at Sacramento Zoo
Andrea Thompson, OurAmazingPlanet Managing Editor
Date: 14 March 2013
What weighs 3 pounds, has its eyes closed and is striped?
A newborn male Sumatran tiger cub, born at the Sacramento Zoo on March 3, stands to be a boon for the critically endangered species.
The as-yet-unnamed cub was born to mom Bahagia at 2:55 a.m. and weighed 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms), a good size for a Sumatran tiger cub, which are usually only 2 pounds at birth. Both mother and baby tiger are in good health, the zoo noted in a release.
OurAmazingPlanet via LiveScience: Hidden Tracks: Whale Songs Found in Seismic Recordings
Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer
Date: 14 March 2013
A rich, but untapped trove of whale calls hides in decades of recordings collected by geologists surveying the ocean floor.
The recordings come from seismic studies that shoot powerful air guns underwater to jiggle the Earth and learn more about its makeup. Sensors listen to acoustic waves in the water before, during and after the shots, capturing the reflections from the ground. But they can also pick up songs from any passing marine life that chats on the same frequency — fin whales and blue whales, in this case.
Extracting those squeals, squeaks and moans from the recordings could greatly improve scientist's understanding of the air gun's effects on whales. The noise could potentially confuse or even harm marine life, according to researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Mass. The calls may reveal how whale behavior changes in response to the sudden, sharp bursts in many different settings.
Biotechnology/Health
MyHealthNewsDaily via LiveScience: It's Hard to Undo Cancer Screening Recommendations, Study Shows
Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer
Date: 15 March 2013
The growing controversy surrounding prostate cancerscreening in recent years doesn’t appear to have changed men's attitudes toward the test — many still get screened regardless, a new study suggests.
Between 2001 and 2011, the percentage of men ages 50 to 64 who were screened for prostate cancer with the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test remained stable, the study found. Screening rates among men ages 40 to 49 increased until 2008, after which they flattened out, but didn't decrease.
Meanwhile, there has been increasing concern over the test's benefit. In 2009, two large studies found that PSA screening leads to a high rate of prostate cancer overdiagnosis — that is, it often finds cancers that would not have gone on to cause problems or death in a man's lifetime. These studies were widely covered by the media at the time, and eventually led to changes in PSA screening recommendations.
MyHealthNewsDaily via LiveScience: What Organs Can You Live Without?
Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer
Date: 14 March 2013
Newly elected Pope Francis had part of a lung removed as a teenager, according to the Vatican, but it shouldn't be a significant health issue for him now, experts say.
The pontiff, 76, had part his lung removed to treat an infection he had about 40 decades ago, according to NBC News. At that time, it was more common to treat infections, such as tuberculosis, this way because antibiotics were not widely used.
People can survive even if an entire lung is removed. When one lung is removed, the remaining lung inflates to take up some of the extra space. Living with one lung doesn't usually affect everyday tasks or life expectancy, though a person with one lung wouldn't be able to exercise as strenuously as a healthy person with two lungs, said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
"40 decades ago" probably should be 60 years ago to be consistent with it happening while the new Pope was a teenager.
Psychology/Behavior
NBC News: Gay? Conservative? High IQ? Your Facebook 'likes' can reveal traits
By Alan Boyle
When you click a "like" button on Facebook, you could be telling the world whether you're gay or straight, liberal or conservative, intelligent or not so much — even if you don't intend to. That's what researchers found when they ran tens of thousands of Facebook profiles and questionnaires through a computer algorithm to find the obvious as well as not-so-obvious connections.
The results were published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and you can sample the method for yourself at a website called YouAreWhatYouLike.com.
"The main message of the paper is that whether they like it or not, people do communicate their individual traits in their online behavior," said lead author Michal Kosinski, operations director at the University of Cambridge's Psychometrics Center.
Archeology/Anthropology
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (China) via PhysOrg: Re-examination indicating large blade technology in China appears earlier than previously thought
March 11, 2013
The blade technology is no longer accepted as a marker of modern humans, while the presence of different varieties of systematic blade production in transitional and Initial Upper Paleolithic industries remains a topic of considerable scientific interest. Dr. GAO Xing, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team re-examine the evidence for the age of the blade technology at the Shuidonggou site by comparing the lithic assemblages from the new excavations at Locality 2 with those from Locality 1, and found that the age of large blade technology appears to be around 34,000-38,000 years ago in this region, not around 24,000-29,000 years ago as thought before, suggesting a relatively rapid technology dispersal from the west and/or north. Researchers reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Human Evolution 64 (2).
National Geographic News: Ancient Egyptian Cemetery Holds Proof of Hard Labor
Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten's capital was no paradise for many adults and children.
Traci Watson
for National Geographic News
Published March 13, 2013
Carvings on the walls of the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna depict a world of plenty. Oxen are fattened in a cattle yard. Storehouses bulge with grain and fish. Musicians serenade the pharaoh as he feasts on meat at a banquet.
But new research hints that life in Amarna was a combination of grinding toil and want—at least for the ordinary people who would have hauled the city's water, unloaded the boats on the Nile, and built Amarna's grand stone temples, which were erected in a rush on the orders of a ruler named Akhenaten, sometimes called the "Heretic Pharaoh."
Business Standard (India): One of world's oldest sun dials discovered in Egypt
Researchers have unearthed one of the world's oldest Egyptian sun dials - possibly dating back to 13th century BC - used by the people to tell time with the position of the Sun.
The discovery was made during archaeological excavations in the Kings' Valley in Upper Egypt by a team of researchers from the University of Basel.
The team led by Professor Susanne Bickel made the significant discovery while clearing the entrance to one of the tombs.
During this year's excavations the researchers found a flattened piece of limestone (so-called Ostracon) on which a semicircle in black colour had been drawn. The semicircle is divided into twelve sections of about 15 degrees each.
A dent in the middle of the approximately 16 centimetre long horizontal baseline served to insert a wooden or metal bolt that would cast a shadow to show the hours of the day. Small dots in the middle of each section were used for even more detailed time measuring.
Marianas Variety (Micronesia): Archaeologist says migration to Marianas longest ocean-crossing in human history
By Alexie Villegas Zotomayor
Published on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 00:00
THE establishment of human settlements in the Marianas 3,500 years ago required long-distance migration and may perhaps have involved the longest ocean-crossing in human history.
Dr. Michael T. Carson and Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung from Australian National University in Canberra continue to make progress with their archaeological study north of the House of Taga on Tinian as they examine what may be the earliest human habitation in the region.
The Times of India: 2500-year-old city discovered in Chhattisgarh
By Rashmi Drolia, TNN
RAIPUR: After initial survey, archaeologists claim to have found remains of a 2,500-year-old city, buried at Tarighat in Durg district of Chhattisgarh where excavation work is to begin shortly.
Talking to TOI, J R Bhagat, deputy director, archaeology department, said, "The ancient city located 30km away from the capital was found buried in 2008 in Patan tehsil of Durg district. Its remains indicate that it was a well-planned settlement dating back to 2nd and 3rd century BC."
BBC: Stonehenge builders travelled from far, say researchers
The latest findings about Stonehenge come after a decade of research
Thousands of people came from across Britain to help build Stonehenge, experts investigating the origins of the monument have said.
They said people travelled from as far afield as the Scottish Highlands.
Researchers from University College London said their findings overturned what was thought about the origins of the monument.
Until now it had been thought that Stonehenge was built as an astronomical calendar or observatory.
BBC: Cirencester Roman cockerel 'best find' in 40 years
Conservation work on the figurine has taken four months to complete
A restored Roman cockerel figurine is the best result from a Cirencester dig in decades, archaeologists have said.
The enamelled object, which dates back as far as AD100, was unearthed during a dig in 2011 at a Roman burial site in the town.
It has now returned from conservation work and finders Cotswold Archaeology said it "looks absolutely fantastic".
BBC: Roman artefact discovered in Sudeley Castle cupboard
Experts say the sculpture reveals more about the worship of local gods
A Roman sculpture of a Cotswold god has been found in a castle cupboard after being missing for over 100 years.
The artefact, dated 150-350AD, was first found during an archaeological dig on the estate of Sudeley Castle in 1875.
But when historians found records of the discovery in the 1960s, there was no trace of the sculpture.
The Roman altar God has now been found in a basement cupboard during a clear out at the Gloucestershire castle.
Archaeology (UK): Remarkable ringfenced burials from Roman Colchester
By Carly Hilts
March 8, 2013
A recently-completed cemetery excavation close to Colchester’s Roman circus has revealed that some of Camulodunum’s citizens marked their grave plots with ditches and wooden fences. It had previously been speculated that, during the Roman period, those unable to afford stone monuments might have used wooden markers or mounds of earth to distinguish individual burials. Now a four-month investigation by Colchester Archaeological Trust has unearthed clusters of inhumations dated by grave goods and other finds to the 2nd and 3rd century and surrounded in some cases by lines of small post-holes up to about 20cm in diameter.
LiveScience: 1,200-year-old Egyptian text describes a shape-shifting Jesus
By Owen Jarus
A newly deciphered Egyptian text, dating back almost 1,200 years, tells part of the crucifixion story of Jesus with apocryphal plot twists, some of which have never been seen before.
Written in the Coptic language, the ancient text tells of Pontius Pilate, the judge who authorized Jesus' crucifixion, having dinner with Jesus before his crucifixion and offering to sacrifice his own son in the place of Jesus. It also explains why Judas used a kiss, specifically, to betray Jesus — because Jesus had the ability to change shape, according to the text — and it puts the day of the arrest of Jesus on Tuesday evening rather than Thursday evening, something that contravenes the Easter timeline.
The Local (Germany): Medieval Teutonic knights' remains found in Poland
Published: 12 Dec 08 08:23 CET
Polish archaeologists said this week that they had identified the remains of three leaders of the Teutonic Knights, an armed religious order that ruled swathes of the country centuries ago.
"Anthropological and DNA testing has enabled us to back up the theory that these are the remains of the grand masters. We can be 96 percent certain," Bogumil Wisniewski, head of a team which found the skeletons, told AFP on Thursday.
Wisniewski said his team was convinced the men were Werner von Orseln, who led the knights from 1324-1330, Ludolf Koenig (1342-1345), and Heinrich von Plauen (1410-1413).
The Scotsman (UK): Medieval knight remains found in Edinburgh car park
By SHÂN ROSS
Published on Wednesday 13 March 2013 08:20
THE remains of a medieval knight have been discovered underneath a car park that is being demolished at a city-centre building site.
The skeleton was found in Edinburgh’s Old Town after archaeologists uncovered the corner of an elaborately decorated sandstone slab bearing markings of a member of the nobility – the carvings of the Calvary Cross and an ornate sword.
An excavation of the immediate area uncovered the adult skeleton, which archaeologists said is likely to have once occupied the nearby grave.
The discovery is being hailed as having the potential to be “one of the most significant and exciting archaeological discoveries in the city for years”.
The find comes just a month after a skeleton unearthed in a car park in Leicester was confirmed as being that of the English king Richard III, who was killed in battle in 1485.
BBC: 'Black Death pit' unearthed by Crossrail project
By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Excavations for London's Crossrail project have unearthed bodies believed to date from the time of the Black Death.
A burial ground was known to be in an area outside the City of London, but its exact location remained a mystery.
Thirteen bodies have been found so far in the 5.5m-wide shaft at the edge of Charterhouse Square, alongside pottery dated to the mid-14th Century.
Sci-News: 600 Year Old Chinese Coin Found on Kenyan Island
by Sci-News.com
Mar 14, 2013
An expedition of archaeologists has unearthed a 600-year-old Chinese coin on the island of Manda, off the northern coast of Kenya.
“This finding is significant. We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations,” said Dr Chapurukha Kusimba of the Field Museum, who co-led the expedition with Dr Sloan Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The coin is a small disk of copper and silver with a square hole in the center. It is called ‘Yongle Tongbao,’ and was issued by Emperor Yongle who reigned from AD 1403 to 1425 during the Ming Dynasty. The emperor’s name is written on the coin, making it easy to date.
Press-Herald: Rough seas uncover shipwreck in York
By Gillian Graham ggraham@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Rough seas that washed sand away from the beaches of York last weekend left behind a surprising sight for local residents: the remnants of a shipwreck.
Although the skeleton of the ship, believed to be at least 160 years old, has appeared from time to time on Short Sands Beach, little is known about the boat or how it ended up buried in the sand.
What's left of the wooden hull – catalogued by the state as the Short Sands Beach Wreck – made news in the 1950s after being exposed by a storm. It last appeared after the powerful Patriots Day storm in 2007.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
BBC: Neanderthals' large eyes 'caused their demise'
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
A study of Neanderthal skulls suggests that they became extinct because they had larger eyes than our species.
As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing.
By contrast, the larger frontal brain regions of Homo sapiens led to the fashioning of warmer clothes and the development of larger social networks.
The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
LiveScience: Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found
by LiveScience Staff
Date: 14 March 2013
Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.
Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.
"Eggshells, eggs and nests were found in abundance and they all belong to dinosaurs, sauropods in particular," the study's leader, Albert García Sellés from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute, told Spanish news agency SINC this week.
LiveScience: Early Birds Sported 4 Wings
Tanya Lewis
14 March 2013
More than 100 million years ago, birds living in what is now China sported wings on their legs, a new study of fossils suggests.
Researchers found evidence of large leg feathers in 11 bird specimens from China's Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature. The feathers suggest that early birds had four wings, which may have played a role in the evolution of flight, scientists report in a study published today (March 14) in the journal Science.
Most scientists believe that birds evolved from other feathered dinosaurs; this belief is supported by discoveries of fossils of feathery birdlike creatures. In 2000, scientists discovered a nonavian dinosaur with feathers on its arms and legs, called Microraptor, which could probably fly. In addition, specimens of Archaeopteryx, a transitional fossil between modern birds and feathered dinosaurs, show faint featherlike structures on their legs, but the signs are poorly preserved.
LiveScience: 5-Million-Year-Old Saber-Toothed Cat Fossil Discovered
Tanya Lewis
15 March 2013
A new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat has been found in Polk County, Fla., scientists say.
The fossil, which is 5 million years old, is related to the well-known carnivorous predator Smilodon fatalis from the La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles. The group of saber-toothed cats called Smilodontini was thought to have originated in the Old World and later migrated to North America, but the new species' age suggests the group evolved in North America, researchers reported March 13 in the journal PLOS ONE.
Although Smilodon appears in the fossil record about 2.5 million years ago, there weren't many intermediate forms to tell scientists where it originated, according to study co-author Richard Hulbert Jr., vertebrate paleontology collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The newly named species is called
Rhizosmilodon fiteae.
LiveScience: Polar Bears' Mysterious Origins Befuddle Scientists
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 14 March 2013
Polar bears and brown bears diverged much longer ago than previously thought, new research suggests.
Past estimates for this divergence came from brown bears living on the Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof (ABC) Islands in Alaska.
But according to a new study, ABC Island bears are actually the result of mating between brown bears and polar bears in the last several thousand years, making the population useless for determining polar bear roots.
Geology
LiveScience: Oregon's Next Huge Earthquake: Not If, but When
Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor
Date: 15 March 2013
The clock is ticking on the next big earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, and experts fear it will be a monster.
Following the deadly magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, Oregon legislators commissioned a study of the impact a similar quake could have on the state, according to the Associated Press.
The report, "Oregon Resilience Plan: Reducing Risk and Improving Recovery for the Next Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami," was presented to legislators yesterday (March 14).
Within its pages is a chilling picture of death and destruction that would cripple the entire Pacific Northwest, from Northern California to British Columbia.
Energy
Scientific American: Will Alternative Energy Growth Tank During New Fossil-Fuel Glut? [Slide Show]
Abundant natural gas may undermine alternative energy sources, whether nuclear or electro-fuels
By David Biello
March 13, 2013
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The artificial leaf promised to revolutionize the world by bringing reliable modern energy to those mired in poverty. But the company founded to commercialize the research—Sun Catalytix—has found that it needs to concentrate its efforts on something likely to make money in the nearer term, namely the kind of flow batteries that might provide large amounts of energy storage on the U.S. electric grid.
The alternative energy landscape is in tumult, judging by the recent fourth annual summit of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA–E. A glut of cheap natural gas threatens to sweep all other energy sources before it. The so-called "shale gale," as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski put it at the recent ARPA-E energy summit, is forcing a rethink of energy strategy. "Before this so-called shale gale came upon us, groupthink had most of us focusing on energy scarcity," Murkowski noted. "The consensus now is that we have abundant energy. We can't fall into the trap of groupthink again."
Funding for alternative energy—whether from the federal stimulus bill or venture capitalists—has dried up. "We're here because it's ARPA–E, and they have some resources," says Saul Griffith of OtherLab, a research and design firm that has received funding from the agency for researching uniquely shaped tanks for natural gas. "We all suffer from a lack of resources. We all have ambitions that want to go faster and bigger." Or as retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones put it as part of a talk about the link between national security and energy security: "A vision without resources is a hallucination."
LiveScience: Future Power Grids Inspired by the Human Brain
Valerie Thompson, Ph.D., AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow and National Science Foundation, Directorate for Engineering
Date: 13 March 2013
The unmatched ability of the human brain to process and make sense of large amounts of complex data has caught the attention of engineers working in the field of control systems.
"The brain is one of the most robust computational platforms that exists," says Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Ph.D., director of the Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Clemson University. "As power-systems control becomes more and more complex, it makes sense to look to the brain as a model for how to deal with all of the complexity and the uncertainty that exists."
Led by Venayagamoorthy, a team of neuroscientists and engineers is using neurons grown in a dish to control simulated power grids. The researchers hope that studying how neural networks integrate and respond to complex information will inspire new methods for managing the country's ever-changing power supply and demand.
In other words, the brainpower behind our future electric power grid might not be what you think.
TechNewsDaily via LiveScience: Technique Keeps Dust Off Solar Cells
Douglas Main, TechNewsDaily Staff Writer
Date: 15 March 2013
SEDE BOQER, Israel — A new technique could help keep dust off of solar cells, a major obstacle that reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic panels.
The technique, developed by Sergey Biryukov, a researcher at the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, uses an electric field to charge dust and small particles before repelling them. At a recent demonstration, Biryukov poured a small amount of a dustlike powder onto an electrified solar cell. The dust was immediately thrown back prevented by the electric field from settling onto the panel.
Physics
Scientific American: It’s Official: We’ve Found the Higgs Boson. But Which One?
By Michael Moyer
March 15, 2013
When last we checked in on the hunt for the Higgs, physicists weren’t yet ready to call the deal done. They were only willing to say that they had discovered a new particle—some sort of boson—and that this new boson was “Higgs-like.” Their reticence hinged on the measurement of the new particle’s spin, a fundamental quality that, for bosons, must take an integer value such as 0, 1 or 2. Both in July, when the proto-Higgs was first announced, and in November, when scientists released additional data analysis, they didn’t have enough data to definitively say that the boson had a spin of zero, which a Higgs must have.
That uncertainty has now melted away. This week, physicists gathered in Moriond, Italy announced that additional data from the Large Hadron Collider’s 2012 data run now conclusively show that the new boson has a spin of zero, and is thus a Higgs boson.
The question now becomes: just what kind of Higgs boson is it? And might it have hidden twins?
Chemistry
LiveScience: Researchers to Harness the Power of Molecular Self-Assembly
Ellen Ferrante, National Science Foundation
Date: 15 March 2013
Researchers at the University of Washington have demonstrated how peptides, or short chains of amino acids, assemble by themselves into nano-sized structures on solid surfaces such as graphite and other layered minerals.
These findings are expected to help researchers harness the power of molecular self-assembly — the process by which molecules form a defined, well-organized arrangement without interference from external sources.
Molecular self-assembly " . . . gives a tremendous power to the scientist to make controlled nanostructures — the hallmark of nanotechnology," said Mehmet Sarikaya, professor of materials science and engineering at the university and director of the NSF-funded Genetically Engineered Materials Science & Engineering Center.
Science Crime Scenes
Egypt Independent: Antinoupolis archaeological site being 'destroyed systematically'
Ahmed Zaki Osman
An Egyptian independent archaeologist has warned on Friday that Antinoupolis, one of the country’s largest archaeological sites located in Minya, is being “destroyed systematically” by residents amid a complete failure from the government to protect the site.
Monica Hanna, a researcher with the University of Humboldt in Berlin, told Egypt Independent that she received information from archaeologists who work at the site of the ancient Roman Antinoupolis, also known as Sheikh Abada, saying the site faces grave danger.
Hanna said that some of the damages occurred to the site, saying that the area near the Ramses II temple has been bulldozed and leveled. She added that the northwestern corner of the walled city has been bulldozed and for agricultural use.
The Hindu (India): Archaeology Department is in grip of mafia, my life is in danger: Director
R. Gopal, Director of the State Archaeology Department, dropped a bombshell on Thursday when he said that the “department is in the grip of the mafia”.
Addressing a galaxy of scholars at a function here on Thursday, Mr. Gopal said he had been threatened with murder.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
NBC News: Police investigating hate mail sent to York in battle over King Richard III
By Alan Boyle
The fight over the final disposition of King Richard III's 528-year-old remains has escalated to the point that people are sending hate mail to York's cathedral, the police are being called in to investigate, and a member of Parliament is pleading with the rivals to avoid sparking another "War of the Roses."
On strictly legal grounds, the matter was resolved even before the remains were unearthed in a parking lot near Leicester Cathedral last year. Britain's Justice Ministry granted researchers from the University of Leicester a license to conduct the excavation there and to determine the disposition of any human remains found there.
Last month, the researchers announced that a skeleton found at the site belonged to Richard III, based on DNA tests. The discovery resolved a longstanding mystery over what happened to Richard's remains after his death in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. That battle marked a turning point in the Wars of the Roses, a decades-long contest between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Voice of America: Burma Seeks World Heritage Status for Ancient Royal Capital
Daniel Schearf
March 08, 2013
BAGAN — Burma’s ancient royal capital, Bagan, is home to more than 3,000 temples and shrines - a treasure of archaeology and architectural history. Burma's government wants it recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but some scholars say that would reward shoddy restorations that have damaged the monuments.
As Burma opens up, thousands of tourists are flocking to Bagan, the largest concentration of Buddhist monuments in the world.
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey): Turkish minister criticizes archaeology excavations
ISTANBUL
Some of the archaeologists currently working at excavation sites around Turkey are not taking their job seriously enough, Tourism and Culture Minister Ömer Çelik has said, according to daily Hürriyet.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science Education
Nature via Scientific American: Massive Open Online Courses, aka MOOCs, Transform Higher Education and Science
Science, engineering and technology courses have been in the vanguard of the massive open online course movement. These classes also are providing fodder for scientific research on learning
By M. Mitchell Waldrop and Nature magazine
March 13, 2013
When campus president Wallace Loh walked into Juan Uriagereka's office last August, he got right to the point. “We need courses for this thing — yesterday!”
Uriagereka, associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Maryland in College Park, knew exactly what his boss meant. Campus administrators around the world had been buzzing for months about massive open online courses, or MOOCs: Internet-based teaching programs designed to handle thousands of students simultaneously, in part using the tactics of social-networking websites. To supplement video lectures, much of the learning comes from online comments, questions and discussions. Participants even mark one another's tests.
MOOCs had exploded into the academic consciousness in summer 2011, when a free artificial-intelligence course offered by Stanford University in California attracted 160,000 students from around the world — 23,000 of whom finished it. Now, Coursera in Mountain View, California — one of the three researcher-led start-up companies actively developing MOOCs — was inviting the University of Maryland to submit up to five courses for broadcast on its software platform. Loh wanted in. “He was very clear,” says Uriagereka. “We needed to be a part of this.”
LiveScience: 'Sex Week' Lures College Students to Educate Themselves
Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor
Date: 14 March 2013
At Brown University's Sex Week 2013, no topic is taboo.
Following an introductory seminar on "Fornication 101," which covered basic topics such as putting condoms on with your mouth and G-spot stimulation, and yesterday's (March 13) presentation on "Queering the Toybox," featuring eco-friendly gay sex toys and products that remember user preferences through integrated microchips, there's really nowhere left to go, right?
Wrong. Tonight's workshop will address "The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure," where men will explore "how much fun prostate stimulation can be," according to the official event schedule.
Science Writing and Reporting
Inside Science Minds via LiveScience: Celebrating Einstein Through 100 Years Of General Relativity
By: Joey Key and Nicolas Yunes, Inside Science Minds Guest Columnists
Date: 13 March 2013
Albert Einstein is probably the most well-known scientific genius. His creative ability allowed him to dream of new physics and create scientific revolutions, including his masterpiece, the theory of general relativity. While people around the globe instantly recognize Einstein's image, many in the public still have not had an occasion to learn some of the astonishing details and amazing implications of his most monumental discovery.
Today, a window of opportunity is beginning to open for those of us in the physics community who wish to communicate Einstein's vision to the public. Two years from now, in 2015, we will mark the 100th anniversary of the year Einstein discovered general relativity. The Celebrating Einstein event, launched in anticipation of the centennial, tells the story of Einstein to the world and shares the excitement of Einstein's theory. To organize the project, we're working with artists, musicians, composers, scientists, dancers, filmmakers, historians, architects and educators on a series of interconnected events designed to engage the general public. Celebrating Einstein begins in 2013 with a series of free public events in Bozeman, Mont., but everyone in the world—including you—can join the celebration.
Science is Cool
N.Y. Times: How Beer Gave Us Civilization
By JEFFREY P. KAHN
Published: March 15, 2013
HUMAN beings are social animals. But just as important, we are socially constrained as well.
We can probably thank the latter trait for keeping our fledgling species alive at the dawn of man. Five core social instincts, I have argued, gave structure and strength to our primeval herds. They kept us safely codependent with our fellow clan members, assigned us a rank in the pecking order, made sure we all did our chores, discouraged us from offending others, and removed us from this social coil when we became a drag on shared resources.
Thus could our ancient forebears cooperate, prosper, multiply — and pass along their DNA to later generations.
But then, these same lifesaving social instincts didn’t readily lend themselves to exploration, artistic expression, romance, inventiveness and experimentation — the other human drives that make for a vibrant civilization.
To free up those, we needed something that would suppress the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive. We needed something that, on occasion, would let us break free from our biological herd imperative — or at least let us suppress our angst when we did.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Scientific American: Barreling Ahead: Whiskey-Makers Break Cherished Traditions to Create New Flavors
Armed with modern analytic tools, distillers are studying the wood in the barrels and experimenting with the aging process. Is nothing sacred?
By Fred Minnick
March 14, 2013
Master distiller Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace Distillery draws a bourbon whiskey sample out of the barrel and pours it into a brandy snifter glass. Wheatley raises it into the light; the bourbon illuminates with rich colors of caramel, gold, straw yellow and light brown. He tastes the seven-year-old drink known as W. L. Weller and says, "That's really coming along."
As Wheatley moves onto the next barrel, the glass sits in the light, the bourbon shining brightly and illustrating the chemical change wrought by the barrel. After being poured into the barrel, the colorless spirit sat there or "aged" for seven years. The liquid mingled with the wood, giving the bourbon it's color, taste and smell.
A new generation of distillers have begun to break time-honored tradition and tinker with the barrels, relying on science and experimentation to bring new flavors into the spirits. For the bourbon whiskey business, the barrel is everything.
LiveScience: How Cute Animal Videos Could Help Science
Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 15 March 2013
The Internet is a friendly place for cute and weird animal behaviors caught on camera, from foxes jumping on trampolines to dogs playing with deer. But beyond entertaining the masses, these amateur viral videos sometimes document behaviors that are rarely seen, and they could help scientists understand how species interact with each other, some researchers say.
"They're not substitutes for good, hardcore research, but they're very valuable for people who aren't going to see certain things," Marc Bekoff, a former professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told LiveScience this week. "From a pedagogical point of view, I wish I had had more access to YouTube videos. I would have probably used them in my classes."
Take the famous "snowboarding" crow that was caught repeatedly sliding down an icy roof using a plastic lid. A Russian video of the playful behavior was uploaded to YouTube in January 2012. In its first six months online, it had been viewed more than 670,000 times.