Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest 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, health, energy, and the environment.
Between now and the general election, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having elections for federal or state office this year plus stories from all research universities in major cities having municipal elections. That written, tonight's edition features the science, space, health, environment, and energy stories from universities in the states of Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia (list from The Green Papers), and the cities of Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, and New York.
This week's featured story comes from International Business Times.
2013 Ig Nobel Prize Winners: Honoring The Best Of The Weird And Wacky World Of Science Research
By Charles Poladian
on September 14 2013 4:49 PM
The Ig Nobel prize is given out each year to honor the stranger side of scientific research. The winning research projects of the 2013 Ig Nobel prizes, across 10 categories, include the effects of opera on mice that underwent a heart transplant, the effect of being drunk on a person’s sense of attractiveness and the dung beetle’s ability to use the stars to navigate.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Green diary rescue: Hummingbird diarists warn and inspire
by Meteor Blades
Action needed now to avert the Helium Crisis
by dlcox1958
Wow, Nature's Living Machine
by thinkingblue
Courageous Climate Scientist Beats the Hoaxers Again
by LeftOfYou
This week in science: Rain falls in Colorado and ignorance pours in Texas
by DarkSyde
That's Not How You Science!
by kirrix
Slideshows/Videos
Peru discovers whale fossils in desert dating back 40 million years
14/09 12:05 CET
A team of palaeontologists have unearthed a trove of ancient whale fossils, believed to be more than 40 million years old, in Peru’s Ocucaje desert.
The discovery provides new evidence of the evolutionary link between sea mammals and their land-dwelling ancestors.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Rutgers Today on YouTube: Friday the 13th Superstitions
Feeling superstitious today? From avoiding black cats to stepping on a crack, superstitions exist everywhere - especially on Friday the 13th. Watch our video to hear what Rutgers students have to say about superstitions and find out why one student won't whistle indoors.
Also see the stories under Science is Cool.
University of Colorado, Boulder, on YouTube: Undergraduate researchers at CU-Boulder net rare bumblebee
Undergraduate researchers working on a CU-Boulder bumblebee survey discover the return of the western bumblebee to the area. The western bumblebee has been in steep decline across most of its range, which stretches across the western United States and Canada.
University of Colorado, Boulder, on YouTube: DANDE
A satellite designed and built by CU-Boulder undergraduate students is slated to launch into Earth orbit over the weekend. Known as the Drag and Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, the spacecraft will collect data 200 to 300 miles above the Earth to help scientists better understand drag forces on satellites, including the effects of solar activity that increase atmospheric density, casing satellite orbits to degrade more quickly. Watch as project co-leaders discuss the satellite, its mission and the hands-on experience of building a satellite for NASA.
Also see the story under Space/Astronomy.
NASA Television on YouTube: Voyager in Interstellar Space! On This Week at NASA
During a press briefing at NASA headquarters, scientists announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has officially left our solar bubble and has reached interstellar space. The Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) seeks to extend NASA's exploration of the solar system beyond the outer planets -- to the outer limits of the Sun's sphere of influence, and possibly beyond. Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Also, Off the Earth, For the Earth, Comings and Goings, Flight Of Cygnus, Rockets 2 Racecars, InSight Landing Sites and more!
Astronomy/Space
University of Colorado, Boulder: CU-Boulder student-built satellite slated for launch by NASA Sept. 15
September 11, 2013 •
Natural Sciences, Engineering, Aerospace
A small beach ball-sized satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits is now slated for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sept. 15.
The satellite, known as the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, is designed to investigate how a layer of Earth’s atmosphere known as the thermosphere varies in density at altitudes from about 200 to 300 miles above Earth. There are thousands of satellites orbiting Earth at those altitudes, most of which eventually degrade, lose altitude and burn up in the atmosphere.
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DANDE is carrying an accelerometer, a wind and temperature spectrometer, an onboard computer, an orientation control system and radio equipment to send back data to Earth in real time. DANDE, whose primary investigator is COSGC Director Chris Koehler, will launch aboard a commercial Falcon-9 Space-X rocket that also will carry satellites from the Canadian Space Agency, Cornell University and Utah State University.
Climate/Environment
New York University: Antarctic Reseach Details Ice Melt Below Massive Glacier
September 12, 2013
An expedition of international scientists to the far reaches of Antarctica’s remote Pine Island Glacier has yielded exact measurements of an undersea process glaciologists have long called the “biggest source of uncertainty in global sea level projections.”
The research, which appears in the latest issue of Science magazine, was conducted by scientists at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, Calif., the University of Alaska, Pennsylvania State University, NASA, and the British Antarctic Survey.
The article details the landmark results of the Pine Island Glacier expedition, giving scientists an extensive look beneath the ice at one of the most remote research sites on the planet – a site whose fate could affect the lives of millions.
“Intensive melting under the Pine Island ice shelf, as observed in our study, could potentially lead to the speed up and ultimate break-up of the ice shelf,” says David Holland of NYU’s Courant Institute and one of the paper’s co-authors. “That’s important, as this ice shelf is currently holding back inland ice, and without that restraining force, the Pine Island catchment basin could further contribute to global sea-level rise.”
Biodiversity
Columbia University: First Estimate of Total Viruses in Mammals
Identifying viruses could help mitigate disease outbreaks; total cost less than a single pandemic
September 3, 2013
Scientists estimate that there is a minimum of 320,000 viruses in mammals awaiting discovery. Collecting evidence of these viruses, or even a majority of them, they say, could provide information critical to early detection and mitigation of disease outbreaks in humans. This undertaking would cost approximately $6.3 billion, or $1.4 billion if limited to 85% of total viral diversity—a fraction of the economic impact of a major pandemic like SARS.
Close to 70% of emerging viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS, West Nile, Ebola, SARS, and influenza, are zoonoses—infections of animals that cross into humans. Yet until now, there has been no good estimate of the actual number of viruses that exist in any wildlife species.
“Historically, our whole approach to discovery has been altogether too random,” says lead author Simon Anthony, D.Phil, a scientist at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “What we currently know about viruses is very much biased towards those that have already spilled over into humans or animals and emerged as diseases. But the pool of all viruses in wildlife, including many potential threats to humans, is actually much deeper. A more systematic, multidisciplinary, and One Health framework is needed if we are to understand what drives and controls viral diversity and following that, what causes viruses to emerge as disease-causing pathogens.”
Biotechnology/Health
Cincinnati Children's Medical Center via Science Daily: Antioxidant Treatment May Help NF1-Linked Behavioral Issues
Sep. 12, 2013
New research in mouse models suggests that treatment with antioxidants may help reduce behavioral issues linked to the genetic nervous system disorder Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) and an associated condition called Costello syndrome.
Scientists from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their findings Sept. 12 in Cell Reports. The authors show that defects in the NF1/Ras molecular pathway, which cause the disorders, trigger production of harmful oxidative nitric oxide molecules in the oligodendrocyte glial brain cells of mice.
Part of the central nervous system, glial cells produce a substance called myelin, which provides a sheath along nerves that acts as a form of electrical insulation. Increased production of nitric oxide in the tested mice disrupted the tight structure of proteins and related components that make up the myelin sheath. It also damaged vasculature surrounding astrocyte cells and endothelial tissue. Altogether, these changes altered the permeability of the blood brain barrier.
Columbia University: Test Could Identify Which Prostate Cancers Require Treatment
3-gene biomarker gauges tumor’s aggressiveness
September 11, 2013
NEW YORK—The level of expression of three genes associated with aging can be used to predict whether seemingly low-risk prostate cancer will remain slow-growing, according to researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center. Use of this three-gene biomarker, in conjunction with existing cancer-staging tests, could help physicians better determine which men with early prostate cancer can be safely followed with “active surveillance” and spared the risks of prostate removal or other invasive treatment. The findings were published today in the online edition of Science Translational Medicine.
“Most of the 200,000 prostate cancers diagnosed each year in the U.S. are slow growing and will remain so, but the three-gene biomarker could take much of the guesswork out of the diagnostic process and ensure that patients are neither overtreated nor undertreated,” said study leader Cory Abate-Shen, PhD, Michael and Stella Chernow Professor of Urological Oncology at CUMC.
“The problem with existing tests is that we cannot identify the small percentage of slow-growing tumors that will eventually become aggressive and spread beyond the prostate,” said coauthor Mitchell C. Benson, MD, PhD, George F. Cahill Professor of Urology and chair of urology at CUMC.
New York University: Chemists Find New Way to Put the Brakes on Cancer
September 9, 2013
While great strides have been achieved in cancer treatment, scientists are looking for the new targets and next generation of therapeutics to stop this second leading cause of death nationwide. A new platform for drug discovery has been developed through a collaborative effort linking chemists at NYU and pharmacologists at USC.
In a study appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research groups of Paramjit Arora, a professor in NYU’s Department of Chemistry, and Bogdan Olenyuk from the USC School of Pharmacy have developed a synthetic molecule, “protein domain mimetic,” which targets the interaction between two proteins, called transcription factor-coactivator complex at the point where intracellular signaling cascade converges resulting in an up-regulation of genes that promote tumor progression.
This approach presents a new frontier in cancer research and is different from the typical search for small molecules that target cellular kinases.
American Chemical Society via Science Daily: Toward Understanding the Health Effects of Waterpipe or 'Hookah' Smoking
Sep. 9, 2013
With water pipes or hookahs gaining popularity in the United States and other countries, scientists today described a step toward establishing the health risks of what has been termed "the first new tobacco trend of the 21st century."
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In a study that they said provides no support for the popular notion that hookahs are safer than cigarettes, they reported that hookah tobacco and smoke contain lower levels of four toxic metals than cigarette tobacco and smoke. It was part of the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
"Any form of smoking is dangerous, and our studies on toxic metals in hookah smoke are taking the first steps toward the necessary animal and human studies that will establish a clearer picture of the relative dangers of hookah and cigarette smoking," said Joseph Caruso, Ph.D., who led the study. "It is very difficult to compare hookah smoking with cigarette smoking because they are done so differently."
Psychology/Behavior
New York University: Courant's Le Cun Recognized for Technological Breakthroughs in "Deep Learning"
September 13, 2013
Yann LeCun, a professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, has been named the recipient of the IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award, which is given by the Computational Intelligence Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
The award, which recognizes contributions to the field at least 15-year prior to the award, will be given to LeCun during the institute’s 2014 World Congress on Computational Intelligence in Beijing in July.
LeCun is a pioneer in the field of machine learning, artificial neural networks, and pattern recognition. In the 1980s, LeCun proposed one of the e0000000000000000000arly versions of the back-propagation algorithm, the most popular method for training artificial neural networks. In the late 1980s and early 1990s at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he developed the convolutional network model--a pattern- recognition model whose architecture mimics, in part, the visual cortex of animals and humans. AT&T eventually deployed a check-reading system--based on this breakthrough--that by the late 1990s was reading about 20 percent of all the checks written in the U.S.
Wayne State University: Film event spotlights alarming rise in financial abuse of older adults
September 13, 2013
DETROIT - One out of every 20 older adults in the U.S. will be a victim of financial exploitation this year, and the rates are rising. Savings accounts are looted. Credit cards and identities are stolen. Homes are lost.
The costs are high. When a stranger commits the fraud, victims lose about $79,000. When the exploiter is a relative or caregiver, the average loss is a staggering $186,000. These are life-changing events - savings, retirement accounts, cars and homes disappear. Yet the victims' guilt, fear and embarrassment often keep them from reporting the crime and prosecuting the criminal. Prevention is the best defense against this exploding problem. But first we must pinpoint who is most at risk.
Dr. Peter Lichtenberg, director of the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University, has created the Lichtenberg Financial Decision-Making Rating Scale to do just that. Initial studies confirm the scale as a reliable tool in determining older adults' vulnerability to fraud and ability to manage their money. The assessment asks a series of questions to uncover whether a person may be under undue influence, be psychologically susceptible to outside influence, or unable to make sound, rational financial decisions. "We aren't trying to usurp a person's independence," Dr. Lichtenberg said. "We want to balance autonomy with protection and determine how best to educate and support older adults most at risk of being exploited." The scale can be administered by financial professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists.
Archeology/Anthropology
Oxford University (UK) via Science Daily: Dating of Beads Sets New Timeline for Early Humans
Sep. 13, 2013
An international team of researchers led by Oxford University have new dating evidence indicating when the earliest fully modern humans arrived in the Near East, the region known as the Middle East today. They have obtained the radiocarbon dates of marine shell beads found at Ksar Akil, a key archaeological site in Lebanon, which allowed them to calculate that the oldest human fossil from the same sequence of archaeological layers is 42,400-41,700 years old. This is significant because the age of the earliest fossils, directly and indirectly dated, of modern humans found in Europe is roughly similar. This latest discovery throws up intriguing new possibilities about the routes taken by the earliest modern humans out of Africa, says the study published online by the journal PLOS ONE.
Columbus Dispatch: Archaeology | Clovis spearpoints likely were all-purpose tools
By Bradley T. Lepper
Clovis spearpoints, named for Clovis, N.M., where they were found among the bones of mammoths, represent the epitome of North American Stone Age weaponry.
They tend to be large, finely crafted and made from high-quality flint. Although they were long thought to be specialized mammoth-killing weapons, new research suggests they were more like general purpose Boy Scout knives.
BBC: Bone dates 'earliest northerner', say archaeologists in Liverpool
Archaeologists have dated bones found in the 1990s as the earliest known human remains from northern Britain.
Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Nottingham analysed a leg bone found in Cumbria and found it to be more than 10,000 years old.
The bone and other fragments were excavated from Kents Bank Cavern on the edge of Morecambe Bay and are stored at The Dock Museum in Barrow.
Sofia Globe (Bulgaria): Archaeology: 7000-year-old defensive wall emerges near Bulgaria’s Shoumen
Written by The Sofia Globe staff on September 9, 2013 in Bulgaria
The dry spell blanketing Bulgaria for the past two months has resulted in an unexpected archaeological discovery, with the remains of a 7000-year-old defensive wall emerging from the waters of the Ticha accumulation lake near the town of Shoumen in northeastern Bulgaria.
The wall is more than five meters tall, made of rocks that are being held together by clay. The wall has an arrowslit and appears to be better built than other fortifications dating back to the same period in this part of Europe, historian Stefan Chohadjiev from Veliko Turnovo University told Bulgarian National Television.
Culture 24 (UK): Stonehenge ditch discoveries prove archaeology link to River Avon true
By Culture24 Reporter
11 September 2013
A pair of ditches discovered during work to cover up the main road running through Stonehenge have proven that the famous monuments were once connected to the River Avon by a formal processional approach.
Found near the Heel Stone lying about 24 metres from the entrance to Stonehenge, the ditches represent either side of The Avenue, a long, linear feature to the north-east of the site which has been severed for centuries by the A344.
“The part of the Avenue that was cut through by the road has obviously been destroyed forever, but we were hopeful that archaeology below the road would survive,” said Heather Sebire, an archaeologist for English Heritage, who are currently helping decommission the road as part of a plan to make the landmark more tranquil for visitors.
Culture 24 (UK): Hadrian's Wall UNESCO World Heritage Site in half million pound refurbishment
by Sarah Jackson
10 September 2013
Nearly 2,000 years of erosion, not to mention pillaging by locals, have turned the site from formidable fortification into a broken series of forts and a low three foot wall.
Recent visitors to the Wall might, therefore, have been surprised to see archaeologists taking the wall apart.
Red Orbit: Excavation Of Ancient Battlefield Turns Up Roman Soldier’s Chain Mail
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
September 11, 2013
During an excavation of a Roman-Germanic battlefield at the Harzhorn in Lower Saxony, a team of archaeologists from Freie Universität Berlin made an amazing discovery.
In the Northeim district north of Göttingen near Kalefeld, the research team led by Prof. Dr. Michael Meyer discovered the chain mail of a Roman soldier from the Third Century AD. This discovery represents the first time such a well preserved piece of body armor was excavated on a Roman-Germanic battlefield.
LiveScience: Faces of Ancient Mexico Revealed in Skulls
By Megan Gannon, News Editor
September 12, 2013 08:30am ET
Editor's note: This article was updated on Thursday (Sept. 12) at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Long before the arrival of European colonists, the indigenous people of Mexico showed wide variation in their facial appearance, a diversity that perhaps has not been fully appreciated, a new study of skulls suggests. Researchers hope their findings might help forensic investigators acurately identify people who are killed attempting to cross the U.S. border.
"There has long been a school of thought that there was little physical variation prior to European contact," study researcher Ann Ross, a forensic anthropologist at North Carolina State University, said in a statement. "But we've found that there were clear differences between indigenous peoples before Europeans or Africans arrived in what is now Mexico."
BBC: China finds ancient tomb of 'female prime minister'
The ancient tomb of a female politician in China, described as the country's "female prime minister", has been discovered, Chinese media say.
The tomb of Shangguan Wan'er, who lived from 664-710 AD, was recently found in Shaanxi province. Archaeologists confirmed the tomb was hers this week.
She was a famous politician and poet who served empress Wu Zetian, China's first female ruler.
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey): Roman artifacts enough to fill a museum in Siirt
SIIRT - Dogan News Agency
A Roman Empire castle dating from the fourth century A.D. has been discovered in the southeastern province of Siirt’s Çattepe tumulus, which is close to the Botan Valley and will be submerged when the controversial Il?su Dam comes online.
“This is a tumulus from the fourth century A.D., the late Roman period. It is the last castle of the Roman Empire in the east,” said Ege University Professor Haluk Saglamtimur.
University of Bonn (Germany) via Science Daily: Maya Decapitated and Dismembered Their Enemies
Sep. 10, 2013
Researchers of the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn have discovered a mass grave in an artificial cave in the historical Maya city of Uxul (Mexico). Marks on the bones indicate that the individuals buried in the cave were decapitated and dismembered around 1,400 years ago. The scientists assume that the victims were either prisoners of war or nobles from Uxul itself.
BBC: 'Bull ring' was silver Viking ring treasure
A man who found a dirty piece of metal in a field has discovered he is actually the lucky owner of a silver Viking ring.
David Taylor, from County Down, Northern Ireland, discovered a bracelet-shaped object while helping lift stones from a field.
His wife thought it was a bull ring and told him to throw it out.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Evolution/Paleontology
Indiana University via Science Daily: Ancient Ancestor of Tulip Tree Line Identified
Sep. 12, 2013
The modern-day tulip tree, state tree of Indiana as well as Kentucky and Tennessee, can trace its lineage back to the time of the dinosaurs, according to newly published research by an Indiana University paleobotanist and a Russian botanist.
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The tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipfera, has been considered part of the magnolia family. But David Dilcher of Indiana University Bloomington and Mikhail S. Romanov of the N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden in Moscow show that it is closely related to fossil plant specimens from the Lower Cretaceous period.
Their findings suggest the tulip tree line diverged from magnolias more than 100 million years ago and constitutes an independent family, Liriodendraceae, with two living species: one in the Eastern United States and the other in Eastern China. The article, "Fruit structure in Magnoliaceae s.l. and Archaeanthus and their relationships," appears in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Botany.
Geology
Nature (UK): Ancient rivers cut migration routes through Sahara
Simulations suggest waters made 'green corridors' for early humans heading out of Africa.
Davide Castelvecchi
11 September 2013
The Sahara Desert was once criss-crossed by three mighty river systems that flowed northward and could have created the conditions for the first human migrations to Europe and Asia, a study suggests.
During the period between the two most recent ice ages, some 100,000–130,000 years ago, African monsoons reached as much as 1,000 kilometres farther north than they do now and brought torrential rains to the mountains ranges south of the Sahara Desert.
Red Orbit: New Sourcing Technique Detects Obsidian In Seconds
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
September 10, 2013
Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass with a smooth, hard surface. It is far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making the glass a highly desirable raw material for crafting stone tools for almost all of human history. Found in East Africa, the earliest obsidian tools are nearly two million years old, and today, doctors still use obsidian scalpels in specialized medical procedures.
The chemical composition of obsidian changes from volcano to volcano. Each obsidian has a chemical “fingerprint” that allows researchers to match an obsidian artifact to the volcanic origin of its raw material. The testing for these fingerprints often involve dedicated analytical laboratories, even nuclear reactors, and take place months or years after an archaeological site has been excavated.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Columbia University: Summer Heat Wave May Have Triggered Landslide on Lonely Alaskan Glacier
September 10, 2013
A massive landslide in Alaska’s snowy Wrangell-St. Elias mountain range in July may have been caused by a summer heat wave making some slopes more vulnerable to collapse, says the scientist who first discovered the avalanche.
“Most of the big landslides that I’ve worked on in Alaska from 1999 to now have been south-facing, summer-time failures,” Colin Stark, a geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told NASA’s Earth Observatory. “My suspicion is that this landslide was probably caused by sustained daytime warming and progressive melting of rock permafrost.”
The slide let loose some 35 million tons of rock and debris, a collapse that registered on the global seismic network and was detected within hours by Stark and his colleagues Göran Ekström and Clément Hilbert from the Lamont campus in Palisades, N.Y. The July 25 landslide was confirmed by pictures taken by NASA satellites before and after the event.
Energy
University of Cincinnati: Researchers Read the Coffee Grounds and Find a Promising Energy Resource For the Future
What’s usually considered old garbage might be a promising asset for our energy supply, according to University of Cincinnati researchers.
By: Dawn Fuller
Date: 9/9/2013 11:30:00 AM
For many of us, it’s the fuel that wakes us up and gets us started on our day. Now, University of Cincinnati researchers are discovering that an ingredient in our old coffee grounds might someday serve as a cheaper, cleaner fuel for our cars, furnaces and other energy sources.
Yang Liu, a graduate student in environmental engineering in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), presents a summary of early-but-promising discoveries on his team’s research at the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) 246th National Meeting & Exposition this week in Indianapolis.
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The researchers launched the project in 2010, gathering waste coffee grounds in a five-gallon bucket from a Starbucks store on UC’s campus. After collection, they removed the oil from the waste coffee grounds and converted triglycerides (oil) into biodiesel and the byproduct, glycerin. The coffee grounds were then dried and used to purify the biodiesel they derived from the waste coffee grounds.
Physics
Vienna University (Austria) via Science Daily: Quantum Temperature: Scientists Study the Physics That Connects the Classical to the Quantum World
Sep. 9, 2013
How does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a quantum system. Remarkably, the quantum properties are lost, even though the quantum system is completely isolated and not connected to the outside world. The experimental results are being published in this week's issue of Nature Physics.
Chemistry
University of Cincinnati: UC Discoveries Are Among Top Research and Future Technologies Presented at National Science Meeting
Finding future energy sources and tackling health threats to our water supply were among the themes of UC research presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
By: Dawn Fuller
Date: 9/12/2013 2:00:00 PM
University of Cincinnati research out of the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) will be among topics examining health, energy and the environment at the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) 246th National Meeting & Exposition, Sept. 8-12, in Indianapolis.
The annual meeting is themed “Chemistry in Motion.”
The UC research is among 7,200 presentations and discoveries reflecting fields where chemistry plays a central role.
Science Crime Scenes
Art Daily: Lowe Art Museum returns three ancient sculptures carved in basalt stone to Mexico
MEXICO CITY.- Given the measures that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs (SRE), the Attorney General’s office (PGR), the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Institute of Arts and Literature (INBA) have adopted in order to recover protected cultural property that concerns the Mexican Nation, it has been informed that the past 15 of August, the Lowe Museum of Art of the University of Miami has returned to the Mexican state three archaeological pieces of great size:
BBC: The Plantagenet Alliance: Who do they think they are?
By Greig Watson BBC News
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
This quote - often attributed to Gandhi but more likely to have come from a 1914 report to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America - has provided encouragement to many a beleaguered campaigner.
The Plantagenet Alliance, who have crashed Leicester's Richard III party by securing a judicial review of where he should be reinterred, can claim to have fulfilled the first three parts.
Marietta Times via News and Sentinel: Local soldier lost in Italy after WWII accident
By EVAN BEVINS, Marietta Times
September 14, 2013
BARLOW - Although they were notified of his death by the U.S. Army in World War II, Pfc. Xwell Yon Reynolds' family held out hope he was alive because his body was never found.
"For years, there's been talk in the family that they thought he was still alive," said Bob Reynolds, 58, of Barlow, born 10 years after his uncle died with 23 other soldiers when their amphibious vehicle sank on April 30, 1945, in a lake in Italy. "I think that's how some families try and deal with it."
The Independent (UK) via Novinite (Bulgaria): Land of the Tomb Raiders
from The Independent
by Eric Randolph
Real-life vampires, giant rock vaginas, ancient sites to rival those of Greece and Rome – Bulgaria’s archaeologists are putting their country on the map of world history, but first they have to stop the mafia stealing its treasures.
The illegal diggers come at night with shovels and sacks, hunting through the places where they know the professionals have been. They’re looking for the tonnes of ancient artefacts that lie hidden in Bulgaria’s soil.
The Guardian (UK): Nineteen arrested over museum thefts in series of dawn raid across UK
Hundreds of police officers involved in operation in connection with thefts of artefacts worth £15m last year
James Meikle The Guardian
Nineteen people have been arrested around the country in an operation involving 26 police forces in connection with a spate of thefts of artefacts worth millions from museums and auction houses.
The 17 men and two women were held in dawn raids involving hundreds of police around England and Northern Ireland. The operation, which follows a pan-European investigation, also involved officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
The Durango Herald: Time to protect integrity of area around Chaco
Article Last Updated: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 7:52pm
Last week, the Society for American Archaeology, New Mexico Archaeological Council, Chaco Alliance, WildEarth Guardians and San Juan Citizens Alliance petitioned the Bureau of Land Management to designate a Greater Chaco Landscape Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The ACEC would include about 1.1 million acres surrounding the national historic park.
The current park is just the core of an area rich in archaeological treasures. The ACEC would include several Chacoan Great House Communities, as well as the Great North Road, which linked Chaco to the current Aztec Ruins National Monument.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science Education
York Press (UK): History fans get chance to handle Richard III treasures
RICHARD III fans have the chance to handle artefacts such as the famous Middleham Jewel at the Yorkshire Museum.
The museum has organised an after-hours, exclusive event entitled Unique in York: Richard III on September 24, from 5pm-7pm.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
University of Cincinnati: UC Business and Engineering Students Win First Place in National Sustainability Competition
By: Judy Ashton
Date: 9/11/2013 12:00:00 AM
A group of students from UC’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business and the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) took first place to earn the 2013 Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development.
Ronald Gillespie, BSIM ’14; Ethan Jacobs, CEAS ‘13, MBA ’14; and Qingshi Tu, CEAS ’15; presented their Bearcat Clean Energy startup business idea called Effuelent in Miami on Sept. 9 to win $40,000, topping teams from University of California Berkeley and Florida International University to win.
Effuelent, a Waste to Energy company, extracts fat, oil and grease from wastewater to produce a low-cost biodiesel feedstock. Currently those substances are regarded as waste and end up in landfills. Through technology developed by UC CEAS professor Mingming Lu, Effuelent uses a waste grease extraction process produce a low-cost alternative (soy, rapeseed and corn oils) to expensive agricultural based biodiesel feedstock.
Science Writing and Reporting
Wayne State University: Wayne Law Professor Peter Hammer publishes book on international law, economics
September 11, 2013
DETROIT - Wayne State University Law School Professor Peter Hammer has a new book, Change and Continuity at the World Bank: Reforming Paradoxes of Economic Development, published this month.
Hammer's book was published by Edward Elgar Publishing, a British firm that specializes in books on international law and economics.
The book examines what role the training and background of the economists who lead the World Bank (an international organization formed after World War II to help advance developing nations) have made in efforts to reform it.
Science is Cool
University of Cincinnati: Friday the 13th and Other Bad-Luck Beliefs Actually Do Us Some Good
It's here – Friday the 13th. There will be another in December. A UC culture expert provides pointers as to why such superstitions prove so powerful and how they can actually serve a good purpose.
By: M.B. Reilly
Date: 9/9/2013 7:30:00 AM
In Western cultures, Friday was traditionally considered a day of bad luck, dating as far back as the 14th century, if not earlier – likely due to religious associations with the crucifixion.
And the number 13 has long been considered unlucky as well. According to University of Cincinnati popular culture expert Rebecca Borah, associate professor, English and comparative literature in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, 13 was considered unlucky by both pre-Christian and, later, Christian societies.
She stated, “The pre-Christian societies often noted the number 12 as representing completeness due to lunar cycles. So, 13 was a stepchild of a number. Later, a Christian overlay was added since the 13th apostle was Judas Iscariot.”
She added that it was in the early 1900s when we can find evidence where the two superstitions merged, and Friday the 13th emerged as a day of “especially bad karma.”
Rugers University: Do You Suffer from Triskaidekaphobia?
Friday the 13th as a day of ill luck is one of America's most popular superstitions
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
By Carla Cantor
Do you suffer from triskaidekaphobia? If so, then you’re probably not looking forward September 13, which falls on a Friday this year.
Triskaidekaphobia, which means the fear of Friday the 13th, is derived from Greek words tris meaning "3," kai meaning "and," deka meaning "10" – and it's extremely common. With September 13 around the corner, Rutgers Today spoke with Mike Petronko, director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers about Friday the 13th and the psychology of superstition.
