Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, jlms qkw, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, health, energy, and the environment.
Between now and the end of the primary season, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having primary or special elections for federal or state office this year plus stories from all research universities in major cities having municipal elections as listed in the Green Papers or the 2014 Daily Kos Elections Calendar. Tonight's edition features the research and outreach stories from Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
This week's featured stories come from Savannah Now and LiveScience. Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for both of them.
Shark-bitten turtle rescued on Ossabaw
By Mary Landers
This loggerhead's story is one of bad luck turned good.
First the bad: She was bitten by a shark. That's clear from the telltale semi-lunar chunk missing from her shell behind her right front leg, said naturalist John "Crawfish" Crawford.
A shark bite is a bit unusual for a big girl like Phoenix, an adult sea turtle who weighs in at 190 pounds. Sharks aren't known to be discriminating diners, but Georgia's adult loggerheads are too large and spend too much time feeding on the ocean floor to be much of a target for these predators, said Mark Dodd, a Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist and the state's sea turtle coordinator.
Shark Attack … In a Lake?!
By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer
August 14, 2014 03:20pm ET
The idea of a shark attacking someone in the ocean is scary enough, but this week, a 7-year-old boy was bitten by one of these fearsome fish in a lake.
The boy was swimming in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, when something bumped into him in the water and chomped down on his foot, USA Today reported. The bite's appearance suggests it was probably a bull shark measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, experts say. The boy is expected to recover from the incident.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Spotlight on green news & views: Saving the salmon, climate summit action, dying oceans
by Meteor Blades
This week in science: that's our story and we're sticking to it
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
LiveScience: Vampire Plant Vants to Suck Your (Herb Garden) | Video
Credit: Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
In this time-lapse video, the parasitic plant dodder attacks tomatoes, sucking water, nutrients and even genetic material from its host.
Also see the related story under Biodiversity.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
NASA: Carbon Observatory’s First Data on This Week @NASA
A month after its launch, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide – has reached its final operating orbit and returned its first science data. “First light” test data were collected on August 6 as OCO-2 flew over central New Guinea, confirming the health of the spacecraft’s science instrument’s. Also, ATV-5 Delivers Cargo, Cygnus Departs Station, Super Celestial Show, Black Hole Blurs X-ray Light, Million Pound Move and more!
Science at NASA: ScienceCasts: Beautiful Conjunction
Wake up early in mid-August to see Venus and Jupiter shining side-by-side.
Science at NASA: ScienceCasts: Colliding Atmospheres - Mars vs Comet Siding Spring
Comet Siding Spring is about to fly historically close to Mars. The encounter could spark Martian auroras, a meteor shower, and other unpredictable effects. Whatever happens, NASA's fleet of Mars satellites will have a ringside seat.
JPL: LDSD: Supersonic Test Flight (HD)
Ian Clark, principal investigator of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, takes us through a play-by-play of NASA’s recent 'flying saucer' Test in Hawaii, using high-definition video shot from cameras on board the test vehicle.
JPL: The Rosetta Mission Asks: What is a Comet?
The Rosetta Mission Asks: What is a Comet? Scientists attempt to answer these questions and more as the Rosetta Mission’s Orbiter arrives and escorts comet 67/p Churyumov Gerasimenko into our inner solar system.
JPL: Curiosity Rover Report (Aug. 5, 2014): A Softer Trek to Mount Sharp
On the second anniversary of landing, NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars is preparing to navigate through a series of sandy valleys on its way to Mount Sharp. The base of Mount Sharp sits 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the rover's current position.
Discovery News: Why Astronauts Have A Hard Time Sleeping In Space
Sleeping in space can be very difficult, and many astronauts turn to sleeping aids to fall asleep. Are these astronauts abusing these drugs? Join Trace as he explains why it’s hard to sleep in space.
Astronomy/Space
Space.com: NASA Probe May Have Caught Dust from Interstellar Space, a First
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
August 14, 2014 02:01pm ET
Seven tiny grains of rock captured by NASA's comet-chasing Stardust probe in 2004 may be visitors from the vast reaches of interstellar space, researchers say.
These interstellar dust motes from Stardust are fluffier and more diverse than expected, findings that could one day shed light on the origins of the solar system, scientists added.
Interstellar dust motes are bits of rock that permeate the enormous spaces between the stars. Supernovas and ancient stars produce interstellar dust, which contains elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that are necessary for life.
Space.com: Rosetta Spacecraft Takes Temperature of Comet 67P
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
August 14, 2014 05:30pm ET
As the European-built Rosetta spacecraft neared its close encounter with a comet last week, it turned up a cosmic surprise: the comet is warmer than scientists were expecting.
The Rosetta probe took the temperature of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as well as high-resolution photos of the comet ahead of its Aug. 6 arrival at the icy celestial wanderer. From a distance of 145 miles (234 kilometers) away — less than the distance between New York City and Baltimore — Rosetta revealed a pockmarked nucleus that appears to have some higher sections than others. The comet itself has been compared to a rubber ducky due to its shape.
Temperatures of the comet taken in mid-July by the Rosetta's visible, infrared and thermal imaging spectrometer — nicknamed VIRTIS for short — show that the average surface temperature is minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 degrees Celsius).
Space.com: Potentially Dangerous Asteroid Is Actually a Pile of Rubble
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
August 13, 2014 01:01pm ET
An asteroid on NASA's list of potential impact threats to the Earth is actually a pile of loosely connected rubble held together by forces weaker than the weight of a penny, scientists say.
The discovery could be vital if humanity ever has to destroy a giant space rock before it hits Earth, researchers added.
Astronomers investigated near-Earth asteroid 1950 DA, which is about four-fifths of a mile wide (1.3 kilometers). This asteroid currently has one of the greatest chances of colliding with Earth of any known asteroid, with about a 1 in 4,000 chance of impacting the Earth in the year 2880.
Climate/Environment
NBC News: Collapse of Civilizations Seen Through Key Beer Ingredient: Study
By John Roach
Beer, scientists have long argued, helped give rise to civilization in an arc of land that sweeps from modern-day Egypt to the border between Iraq and Iran. Today, chemical analysis of barley grains, one of beer's key ingredients, is bolstering research into climate change’s role in the collapse of ancient societies.
"There has been a longtime debate about the relationship between climate and its changes and the development and in some cases demise of cultures," Frank Hole, an emeritus professor of anthropology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and a study co-author, explained to NBC News. "The research that we did is attempting to pinpoint this more directly."
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Minnesota: Strategically focusing agricultural expansion could save 6 billion metric tons of carbon
Selectively clearing lands with high production potential offers opportunity to save $1 trillion in climate change mitigation costs over “business as usual” growth
August 11, 2014
Meeting the growing demand for food and other agricultural products is one of the most daunting challenges we face today. At the same time, clearing forests and grasslands for farming releases carbon into the atmosphere, fueling climate change, a similarly alarming and expensive problem.
A study published today by University of Minnesota researchers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that limiting agricultural expansion to several key global regions could meet the predicted need to double food production by 2050 while preserving nearly 6 billion metric tons more carbon than would be safeguarded with unguided expansion. Preserving this much carbon is worth approximately $1 trillion in terms of climate change mitigation.
“To meet the large projected increases in food demand, it is likely that a significant amount of natural land will be converted to agricultural production,” said lead author Justin Andrew Johnson, an economist with the Natural Capital Project at the University’s Institute on the Environment. “Converting natural lands, such as forests and grasslands, incurs large costs through losses of carbon storage and other ecosystem services.”
University of Wisconsin: New analysis links tree height to climate
by David Tenenbaum
Aug. 14, 2014
What limits the height of trees? Is it the fraction of their photosynthetic energy they devote to productive new leaves? Or is it their ability to hoist water hundreds of feet into the air, supplying the green, solar-powered sugar factories in those leaves?
Both factors — resource allocation and hydraulic limitation — might play a role, and a scientific debate has arisen as to which factor (or what combination) actually sets maximum tree height, and how their relative importance varies in different parts of the world.
In research to be published in the journal Ecology — and currently posted online as a preprint — Thomas Givnish, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attempts to resolve this debate by studying how tree height, resource allocation and physiology vary with climate in Victoria state, located in southeastern Australia. There, Eucalyptus species exhibit almost the entire global range in height among flowering trees, from 4 feet to more than 300 feet.
University of Wisconsin: Climate conundrum: Conflicting indicators on what preceded human-driven warming
by Kelly April Tyrrell
Aug. 11, 2014
When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently requested a figure for its annual report, to show global temperature trends over the last 10,000 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Zhengyu Liu knew that was going to be a problem.
“We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions,” says Liu, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the Center for Climatic Research. “Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming.”
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today, Liu and colleagues from Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, the University of Hawaii, the University of Reading, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Albany describe a consistent global warming trend over the course of the Holocene, our current geological epoch, counter to a study published last year that described a period of global cooling before human influence.
The scientists call this problem the Holocene temperature conundrum.
Space.com: NASA Satellite Takes First Look at Earth's Carbon Dioxide
By Mike Wall, Senior Writer
August 13, 2014 05:42pm ET
NASA's newest satellite has arrived in its final orbit and begun tracking levels of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), which blasted off July 2, arrived in its final orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the Earth on Aug. 3. The satellite then collected its first test data three days later while flying over Papua New Guinea, agency officials said.
"The initial data from OCO-2 appear exactly as expected — the spectral lines are well resolved, sharp and deep," OCO-2's chief architect and calibration lead, Randy Pollock, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement Monday (Aug. 11). "We still have a lot of work to do to go from having a working instrument to having a well-calibrated and scientifically useful instrument, but this was an important milestone on this journey."
Biodiversity
LiveScience: Vampire Plant Sucks Victim's Genes While Feeding
By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer
Like an herbivorous Count Dracula, a snakelike vine coils around its leafy victim, punctures its stem and proceeds to suck out its life juices.
The parasitic plant Cuscuta pentagona, commonly known as strangleweed or dodder, preys on many common crop plants. Not only does the parasite siphon water and nutrients from its host, but it also exchanges genetic messages with its victim, according to a study detailed today (Aug. 15) in the journal Science.
LiveScience: Even in Deepwater Canyons, America's Corals At Risk (Op-Ed)
Ali Chase, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
At the beach this summer, gazing out over the waves from the shoreline, it's hard to imagine the underwater world that lies just below the blue expanse: Partly because it’s so other-worldy, and partly because we just don't know very much about it. Scientific exploration into the ocean's depths reveals new discoveries every day, and researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are at the forefront on this work.
LiveScience via Yahoo!News: Lionfish's Terminator-Style Killing Alarms Scientists
By by Megan Gannon
Lionfish, an invasive Pacific Ocean species, have been wiping out native fish populations in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean for the past couple of decades. Now, research reveals the "terminator"-style approach to hunting that has likely made them so successful: When other predatory fish quit stalking their prey to look for easier targets, lionfish just keep on killing.
"Lionfish seem to be the ultimate invader," study researcher Kurt Ingeman, a doctoral student at Oregon State University, said in a statement. "Almost every new thing we learn about them is some characteristic that makes them a more formidable predator. And it's now clear they will hunt successfully even when only a few fish are present. This behavior is unusual and alarming."
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Wyoming: UW Professor Studies Communication Patterns of Hyenas in BBC Documentary
August 15, 2014 — Sarah Benson-Amram is a fan of the Disney classic “The Lion King.” However, she takes issue with the animated film’s portrayal of hyenas as skulking scavengers that are none too bright.
The University of Wyoming assistant professor of zoology says the spotted hyena, native to Kenya, is quite intelligent, has a highly developed communication system and the special ability to count animal calls to assess the number of its friends and enemies.
“Hyenas are often maligned, but they are actually smart and self-reliant. More than 80 percent of what they eat, they hunt themselves,” she says.
Biotechnology/Health
University of Connecticut: UConn Biologist on West Africa’s Ebola Outbreak
By: Combined Reports
August 13, 2014
The first Ebola case in West Africa may have appeared in a 2-year-old boy in Guinea in December 2013. It then spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. By March this year, health care workers were aware that a regional outbreak was underway. But it was an American’s death in July that woke the world to the epidemic.
Patrick Sawyer was a U.S. citizen working for the Liberian government who traveled by air to Nigeria while experiencing symptoms of Ebola. He collapsed in the Lagos airport and died in hospital five days later. The fact that he arrived in the capital city by air alarmed many about the possibility of global consequences.
This outbreak is larger than any previous and, as of this moment, it is still expanding. This disease is surrounded by mystery and frightening images, both real and fictional. Professor Kenneth Noll in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology offers a true picture of Ebola and the potential consequences of the West African outbreak.
University of Connecticut: Older Cities May Be Good for Your Health
By: Colin Poitras
August 12, 2014
Older cities with compact neighborhoods that encourage walking and biking are generally healthier places to live than many newer cities with wide, multi-lane streets designed for cars, a new study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and University of Colorado-Denver shows.
The researchers looked at street network patterns in 24 medium-sized California cities with populations between 30,000 and 100,000. They then looked for correlations between street patterns and network density and health outcomes such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and asthma.
The health data was gleaned from about 50,000 adults who completed the California Health Interview Survey over multiple years.
What they found was that the more intersections a city had, the better people living there generally felt. An increased intersection density was significantly linked to reduction in obesity at the neighborhood level and in obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease at the city level.
University of Wisconsin: Scientists Find Potential New Target for Prostate Cancer Treatment
August 13, 2014
A recent study conducted at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine has identified a molecular mechanism that enables prostate cancer cells to produce hormones that promote aggressive tumor growth, a finding that could lead to better treatments for the disease.
One current treatment uses medications or, more rarely, surgical castration to block male steroid hormones that promote prostate cancer cell growth. But the therapy becomes ineffective over time as the cancer cells begin to make their own hormones to fuel the growth. Eventually the disease develops into a deadly form called castration-resistant prostate cancer.
“It’s unclear what mechanisms make this happen,” says Joan Jorgensen, associate professor in the Department of Comparative Biosciences and member of the Class of 1993. “But we do know that a particular protein, SF1 [Steroidogenic Factor 1], regulates the synthesis of steroid hormones in normal steroid-producing tissues.”
Psychology/Behavior
University of Connecticut: Coping with Back-to-School Anxiety
By: Carolyn Pennington
August 11, 2014
As the summer begins to wind down and you start shopping for back-to-school supplies, don’t forget to equip your child with some good advice for making a smooth return to the classroom. Anxious feelings are common and expected during times of transition or change, and this can be especially true for children and teens going back to school or for first-timers starting kindergarten.
UConn Today asked internationally recognized child psychologist Golda Ginsburg for tips on how to handle those anxious feelings. Ginsburg, who recently joined UConn Health from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been developing and evaluating interventions for anxious youth for more than 20 years.
Archeology/Anthropology
Archaeology: Destination: The Americas
By NIKHIL SWAMINATHAN
Sunday, August 10, 2014
On a Tuesday morning in fall 2013, Mike Collins loaded up his RV and started the 11-hour drive from his home in Austin, Texas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Collins was en route to the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference, where he and other researchers would lay out their evidence, gathered from sites throughout North, Central, and South America, as part of the ongoing effort to piece together a picture of how and when humans settled these lands millennia ago. It was the biggest gathering of its kind since 1999.
Culture 24 (UK): Archaeologists compare Neolithic Kent site to Stonehenge, find Bronze Age funerary monument
By Ben Miller
12 August 2014
Archaeologists suspect a “sacred way” could have led to a henge 6,000 years ago at Iwade Meadows, to the west of the Kent industrial town of Sittingbourne.
Positioned on a north-west slope, the 30-metre diameter structure is one of several prehistoric monuments on a north-west slope above the Ridham fleet stream running through the centre of the site.
Smithsonian Magazine: The First Ancient Egyptian Mummies Might Have Appeared 1,500 Years Earlier Than Egyptologists Thought
Egyptians were embalming their dead as far back as 4,100 B.C.
By Rachel Nuwer
smithsonian.com
August 14, 2014
Eleven years ago, researchers from Macquarie University in Australia made a radical suggestion: mummification in ancient Egypt, they said, seemed to have started 1,500 years earlier than we thought. They noticed that ancient bodies recovered in the 1920s and 30s from Mostagedda, in central Egypt, contained what looked like traces of tree resin, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Resin-based concoctions are preserving agents, and they were used in a few instances of mummification in the Old Kingdom, around 2,200 B.C. But these bodies dated back to 4,100 B.C., the Sydney Morning Herald points out.
Culture 24 (UK): Archaeologists shocked to find 5,000-year-old battlefield in prehistoric Cardiff
By Ben Miller
Archaeologists hoping to discover Roman and Iron Age finds at a Welsh hillfort were shocked to unearth pottery and arrowheads predating their predicted finds by 4,000 years at the home of a powerful Iron Age community, including flint tools and weapons from 3,600 BC.
Caerau, an Iron Age residency on the outskirts of Cardiff, would have been a battleground more than 5,000 years ago according to the arrowheads, awls, scrapers and polished stone axe fragments found during the surprising excavation.
LiveScience: Origins of Hierarchy: How Egyptian Pharaohs Rose to Power
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science
The rulers of ancient Egypt lived in glorious opulence, decorating themselves with gold and perfumes and taking their treasures with them to the grave.
But how could such a hierarchical, despotic system arise from egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies? The reasons were part technological and part geographical: In a world where agriculture was on the rise and the desert was all-encompassing, the cost of getting out from under the thumb of the pharaoh would have been too high.
Ekathirmerini (Greece): Samaras expects 'exceptionally important find' at Ancient Amphipolis
Archaeologists digging at Ancient Amphipolis in Central Macedonia, northern Greece, are poised to make an “exceptionally important find,” according to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who visited the site on Tuesday.
LiveScience: 'Evil Eye' Box and Other Ancient Treasures Found in Nile River Cemetery
By Owen Jarus, Live Science
A 2,000-year-old cemetery with several underground tombs has been discovered near the Nile River in Sudan.
Archaeologists excavated several of the underground tombs, finding artifacts such as a silver ring, engraved with an image of a god, and a faience box, decorated with large eyes, which a researcher believes protected against the evil eye.
The Guardian (US and UK): Silchester Roman town closes: 'nothing left except gravel and natural geology'
Public invited in to abandoned town for last time to discover this year's best archaeological finds as excavation comes to an end
Maev Kennedy
Professor Mike Fulford at Silchester. Fulford said: 'The site is being closed even if I have to take my little spade and spend the winter backfilling it myself.'
...
Much as it must have been 1,400 years ago, the last inhabitants of Silchester, the most enigmatic Roman town in Britain, are packing their bags and preparing to leave for ever. This time, however, those departing are archeologists, and they go with the mystery of why a major town was abandoned in the sixth century still unsolved.
"Omnibus rebus bonis finis est," one student archaeologist has written in felt tip on the plywood wall of the ramshackle shower block: all good things come to an end.
Polish Press Agency: Polish archaeologists discovered Roman baths in Georgia
11.08.2014
In Gonio, south of Batumi, a team of researchers has discovered baths built and used by the Roman army about 2000 years ago. "We were surprised by both the age of the structure, as well as its buid quality" - told PAP Dr. Rados?aw Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski, head of the excavation.
Research is conducted inside the ancient fort Apsaros built by the Romans in the 2nd half of the 1st century AD. Near the fortress ran once the only convenient road from Colchis (Western Georgia) to the Roman provinces in Asia Minor.
Asahi Shimbun (Japan): 6th-century tumulus built like step pyramid first of its kind in Japan
By KAZUTO TSUKAMOTO/ Staff Writer
ASUKA, Nara Prefecture--Researchers determined that an ancient burial mound here is shaped like a step pyramid, the first such discovery in Japan.
The Miyakozuka Tomb is believed to date from the latter half of the sixth century. The square-shaped tumulus is built of stones in stepped levels like stairs.
The Daily Mail (UK): The Queen's own pirates: Ship which 'plundered thousands in treasure for Renaissance England' found under the Thames after 400 years
• Officially the Cherabin led an honest existence trading with Turkey in 1500s
• But it led sinister double life - stealing more than £2,000 as state pirates
• Tax on treasure filled coffers of England's courts and rich private 'sponsors'
• It allowed England to wage war on Spain without formally declaring it
• Story came to light after 400-year-old wreck was raised near London in 2003
• Experts in London and Denmark spent a decade analysing the remains
• Now they reveal evidence their wreck and Cherabin were one and the same
By Dan Bloom
Historians believe they have raised England's only surviving 'state pirate ship' from the bottom of the Thames estuary after 400 years.
Most of the time the Cherabin led an honest existence, trading between England and Turkey for the Levant Company before it sank fully-laden in a storm in 1603.
But behind this peaceful image lay a sinister double life - plundering other nations' traders in 'terrorist' raids which were signed and sealed by the High Court of Admiralty.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Lover's Walk: Rare Darwin stairway from the city's lost 19th century discovered by men building fence
By James Purtill
Updated Fri at 1:51pmFri 15 Aug 2014, 1:51pm
A rare 19th-century stairway once known as the "Lover's Walk" has been unearthed in Darwin, firing archaeologists with hope of learning more about the town's past.
Workers digging holes for a new fence along the border of Government House discovered the edge of the remains of the stairs, which once led from the Esplanade to the ocean.
Post and Courier:
Scientists to begin exposing the "real" Hunley
Brian Hicks
If the H.L. Hunley has any secrets left, they are about to be exposed.
Tuesday, scientists at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center will begin scraping away the sand and shell that has covered and encased the Civil War submarine's hull for more than a century.
Beneath that crust, which conservators call concretion, archaeologists will finally get to see the real Hunley. For the first time, modern scientists will be able to examine the sub's actual skin.
LiveScience: History 2.0: Civil War Journals & Historic Letters Go Digital
Laura Geggel, Staff
Armchair historians with a knack for reading scratchy handwriting can now help the Smithsonian Institution with a giant effort to preserve thousands of historical letters and journals online.
The newly launched Transcription Center invites the public to read and digitally transcribe documents ranging from Civil War journals to notes on bumblebee specimens to letters from famous artists, such as Mary Cassatt and Grandma Moses.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Paleontology/Evolution
I F***ing Love Science (Australia): Petrified Tree Shows Scars From Prehistoric Wildfires
by Lisa Winter
August 13, 2014
After a tree has survived a fire, scars left in the bark. If the tree survives, these scars can eventually be covered up as time goes on. However, the rings of a tree always reveal the truth about getting burned earlier in life. While these fire scars can be readily identified in trees that lived and were felled recently, they had not been observed in prehistoric trees until Bruce Byers noticed the scars on a piece of petrified wood owned by his father. The full description will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, and Byers presented his research in Sacramento at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting.
Past Horizons: Million year hominid dispersal event in Iberia
Article created on Wednesday, August 13, 2014
It was a world full of diverse large mammals that lived on what is now the Iberian peninsula up to 1 million years ago. This detailed reconstruction of the environment has been carried out by researchers from the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution at the site of the ravine Boella, Canonja (Tarragona).
Archaeological remains dating to between 1 million to 780,000 years were also found on an excavation that has provided evidence of the first known human occupation in the Iberian Peninsula.
New Scientist (UK): Human exodus may have reached China 100,000 years ago
by Catherine Brahic
08 August 2014
OUR direct ancestors may have found their way out of Africa much earlier than we think. As new fossil remains emerge from China and south-east Asia, the traditional story of how we left Africa is being challenged.
The accepted view is that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago and stayed there until 60,000 years ago, when they struck out through the Middle East and spread around the world. Any older hominin bones found outside Africa are deemed dead ends. So although the more primitive Homo erectus made it all the way to Indonesia, and probably gave rise to the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, all of these lines eventually died out. Our own species evolved solely in Africa.
LiveScience: Fisherman Pulls Up Beastly Evidence of Early Americans
By Tia Ghose, Staff Writer
A 22,000-year-old mastodon skull and tool dredged from the seafloor in the Chesapeake Bay hints of early settlers in North America.
The two relics, which were pulled up together, may come from a place that hasn't been dry land since 14,000 years ago. If so, the combination of the finds may suggest that people lived in North America, and possibly butchered the mastodon, thousands of years before people from the Clovis culture, who are widely thought to be the first settlers of North America and the ancestors of all living Native Americans.
Horsetalk (New Zealand): Unearthed Neanderthal site rich in horse bones
By Horsetalk.co.nz
A site in southwestern France found to be rich in the bones of horses and other large herbivores has provided important insights into the hunting and scavenging habits of Neanderthals.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Wisconsin: Fundamental plant chemicals trace back to bacteria
by David Tenenbaum
Aug. 7, 2014
A fundamental chemical pathway that all plants use to create an essential amino acid needed by all animals to make proteins has now been traced to two groups of ancient bacteria. The pathway is also known for making hundreds of chemicals, including a compound that makes wood strong and the pigments that make red wine red.
"We have been trying to unravel the source of the phenylalanine amino acid for some time," says Hiroshi Maeda, an assistant professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Plants use this pathway to make natural products that are vital to plants and also to our food, medicine, fiber and fuel. One of the most important is lignin, found in the plant cell wall, which allows trees to stand tall and transport water."
Other scientists have traced plant metabolic pathways to fungi, "which are pretty close to plants in terms of evolution," Maeda says. "But in this case, the source is bacteria, which are more distant relatives."
Geology
Cyprus Mail: More evidence of Kourion earthquake
By Elias Hazou
THE Department of Antiquities has announced the completion of the 2014 excavation season of the Kourion Urban Space project (KUSP) under the direction of Dr. Thomas W. Davis of the Tandy Institute for Archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
This year’s excavations uncovered the remains of more victims of the massive earthquake that destroyed Kourion in the fourth century AD. According to an official announcement, initial analysis indicates the remains consist of two adults, a juvenile, and an infant.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel): Western Wall Wearing Away? Discovery of Extreme Erosion Process Could Guide New Preservation Techniques
Erosion in fine-grained limestone up to 100 times faster; stones receded by tens of centimeters
Research could guide development of new preservation techniques for weakened structures
11/08/2014
Visitors to the Western Wall in Jerusalem can see that some of its stones are extremely eroded. This is good news for people placing prayer notes in the wall's cracks and crevices, but presents a problem for engineers concerned about the structure’s stability.
...
To calculate the erosion in the different kinds of limestone that make up the Western Wall, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem used a laser scan to create an accurate three-dimensional computer model. The researchers are Dr. Simon Emmanuel, the Harry P. Kaufmann Senior Lecturer in Environmental Water Technology, and PhD student Mrs. Yael Levenson, at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Earth Sciences.
As reported in an article accepted for publication in the journal Geology, they found that stones made up of relatively large crystals were resistant to wear, so that they were almost unchanged in the 2000 years since they were originally put in place. By contrast, limestone with very small crystals (about one thousandth of a millimeter in size) eroded far more quickly.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Energy
LiveScience: Underwater Ocean Turbines: A New Spin on Clean Energy?
By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer
August 05, 2014 09:09am ET
A new technology that harnesses the power of ocean currents could provide a clean and limitless form of renewable energy, some scientists say.
A group of scientists and engineers who describe themselves as "nerds in wetsuits and flippers" has launched a crowdfunding campaign, called Crowd Energy, to do just that. Their idea is to use giant underwater turbines to capture the energy from deep-ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida.
While energy generated from these turbines may not be able to completely replace fossil fuels, as the group claims, the devices could still be an important source of clean energy, experts say.
Physics
Discovery News via Space.com: Could Mystery Signal be First Detection of Dark Matter?
By Ian O'Neill, Discovery News
August 14, 2014 02:23pm ET
Through the analysis of light from distant galactic clusters, astronomers have detected a mysterious signal that they’re having a hard time explaining. Although the signal is weak, could it be the much sought-after direct evidence for dark matter?
Dark matter pervades the entire universe and makes up for the bulk of its mass, but what is it? We know it’s out there and oodles of indirect evidence for its presence, but seeing a direct signal has so far proven elusive.
Chemistry
University of Wisconsin: Water’s reaction with metal oxides opens doors for researchers
by Scott Gordon
Aug. 8, 2014
A multi-institutional team has resolved a long-unanswered question about how two of the world’s most common substances interact.
In a paper published recently in the journal Nature Communications, Manos Mavrikakis, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his collaborators report fundamental discoveries about how water reacts with metal oxides. The paper opens doors for greater understanding and control of chemical reactions in fields ranging from catalysis to geochemistry and atmospheric chemistry.
“These metal oxide materials are everywhere, and water is everywhere,” Mavrikakis says. “It would be nice to see how something so abundant as water interacts with materials that are accelerating chemical reactions.”
Science Crime Scenes
Newser via USA Today: Woman finds 80 skeletons crammed into Ikea bags
Jenn Gidman, Newser
10:36 a.m. EDT August 2, 2014
Centuries-old skeletons should probably be 6 feet under—not overflowing out of blue Ikea bags and shoved under a tarp in a Scandinavian church. But that's exactly what Kicki Karlén says she recently found at the Kläckeberga church in Sweden.
"There were loads of skulls and bones stuffed into Ikea bags—I counted up to 80," she tells the Expressen newspaper via the Local. "I became angry, very angry about how they were just sitting there."
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Science, Space, Health, Environment, and Energy Policy
University of Minnesota: Faculty research fuels record 15 startups at University of Minnesota
August 13, 2014
The University of Minnesota announced today that it launched a record 15 startup companies based on discoveries and inventions by its researchers during the past year. These companies, which top the previous record of 14 companies in fiscal 2013, demonstrate the university’s commitment to bringing revolutionary discoveries to the market in key industries including medical technology and the environment.
The university’s Venture Center, part of the Office for Technology Commercialization, matches intellectual property resulting from university research with experienced CEOs to provide a platform for that research to reach the public. Since forming in 2006, the Venture Center has worked with an extensive network of proven entrepreneurs, investors and venture capitalists to create a total of 67 startup companies.
“Our talented faculty are constantly developing innovative ways for us to live safer, smarter and healthier lives,” said Dr. Brian Herman, the U’s vice president for research. “Bringing these ideas to market advances Minnesota’s economy and its ecosystem of entrepreneurship by creating the basis for new industries and strengthening the state’s competitiveness in existing ones. I am excited to see university research translate into solutions to real-world problems.”
University of Wisconsin: Grants fund UW technology projects on the road to commercialization
by David Tenenbaum
Aug. 15, 2014
An exercise machine that helps stroke victims walk. An advanced technology for assessing the progress of prostate cancer. A faster process for making neural stem cells to investigate new treatments for injury and disease. A cheaper, more beautiful LED light bulb. A game to teach meditation.
These projects, and a dozen more, are beneficiaries of the first round of awards by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Discovery to Product, or D2P, program, which began operating in March. The 17 grants announced this week will support innovations in many fields of research at the university, from food engineering and medicine to stem cell biology and biomedical engineering.
“None have yet reached the company stage. All have proven technology. And all have the potential to advance quickly to the market,” says John Biondi, director of D2P. “Our goal is to achieve commercialization by June 2015, defined as reaching a licensing agreement or creating a startup company that has a high probability of getting funded.”
Science Education
CBS Philadelphia: Penn Museum Walking Tour Will Spotlight Food Down Through The Ages
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A new self-guided tour celebrating food in various cultures is coming to the Penn Museum (the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), in West Philadelphia, from September through December.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
University of Connecticut: UConn Program Interests Youth in Health Careers
By: Chris DeFrancesco
August 13, 2014
For UConn undergraduate Jeremy Figueroa-Ortiz, providing dental care in a largely Hispanic community is more than a career aspiration, it’s a must.
“It would just feel wrong to do anything otherwise,” says Figueroa-Ortiz, a New Britain native who is Hispanic. At the moment, “not many Hispanics can go to their dentist and speak Spanish and identify with him.”
The allied health science major, who’s minoring in both biology and health care management and insurance studies, was among more than 200 students from middle school through college who celebrated the completion of UConn Health’s summer career preparation programs on Aug. 1, at a ceremony with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
University of Hawaii: Internment camp's hidden history uncovered in West Oahu
August 12, 2014
The Honouliuli Internment and POW Camp in Kunia on O?ahu was the largest internment camp in Hawai?i. Opened in 1943 during the height of World War II, Honouliuli held approximately 300 internees from Hawai?i of Japanese, Okinawan, German and Italian ancestry and about 4,000 prisoners of war from Japan, Italy Okinawa, the Philippines and Korea.
Every other summer, University of Hawai?i–West O?ahu students have an opportunity to dig into Honouliuli’s history, literally, thanks to the school’s three credit, three week long, archaeological field techniques course.
The students are taught through hands-on, on-site investigative fieldwork.
University of Hawaii: Green learning gift supports sustainability scholarships, training
August 11, 2014
Johnson Controls recently awarded a $57,895 grant to the University of Hawai?i. Their gift supports student scholarships for the UH and Johnson Controls Fellows Program, HVAC scholarships and equipment for Honolulu CC’s refrigeration and air conditioning technology program.
“Sustainability is an important goal but also an important value for the UH Community Colleges,” said Vice President for Community Colleges John Morton. “Our work with Johnson Controls, Inc. has helped move us forward in reaching this sustainability goal. We thank JCI for their continued support and partnership, and for this generous gift in support of training the future workers in Hawai?is green Industries.
“This generous gift will help Honolulu CC keep important programs such as refrigeration and air conditioning technology current with industry standards. Students will train on innovative equipment to help move the future of Hawai?i’s workforce to be more responsive with its energy needs,” added Honolulu Community College Chancellor Erika Lacro. “The JCI Fellows Program is offered across the UH System to engage students in all types of sustainable practices. These scholarships will aid students throughout their educational journey through to graduation.”
University of Hawaii: Hawaiian medicinal plant research sparks student interest in STEM professions
August 11, 2014
Kamehameha Schools has awarded Kapi?olani Community College $50,000 to fund Project Olona-. Twelve first-year Native Hawaiian college students will research the active ingredients of Hawaiian medicinal plants and compare the difference in the chemical potency of these plants when grown using different methods including traditional soil and hydroponic systems. The students will also investigate the potential healing properties of traditional medicinal plants.
Keolani Noa, outreach and Native Hawaiian coordinator of the STEM Program said, “We are very excited about this innovative collaboration between Kamehameha Extension Education Services Division and Kapi?olani CC Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program. Project Olona- will help students enhance their knowledge about Hawaiian culture and science and help them link traditional Hawaiian practices to contemporary science. This program is poised to increase interest and preparedness of Native Hawaiians for STEM related professions.”
University of Wisconsin: Workshop at UW Glass Lab sparks imagination of area middle school girls
by Todd Finkelmeyer
August 11, 2014
When asked to share her thoughts about a recent art course hosted on the UW-Madison campus, a big smile came to the face of Lala Rivera.
“There is only one word to say about this,” says Rivera, who will be entering sixth grade at Madison’s Sherman Middle School. “Awesome!”
Girls, Inc., at the UW-Madison Glass LabThe three-day workshop was held at the Art Lofts, where 10 middle schoolers from the Goodman Community Center’s Girls, Inc., group used UW-Madison’s glass working facilities for about three hours each afternoon to get hands-on instruction in making neon art, glass blowing and glass etching.
Science Writing and Reporting
Space.com: 'Make Your Own SpaceShipTwo,' Other Books Part of New Virgin Galactic Deal
By Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com
August 06, 2014 09:05pm ET
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will soon launch onto — and, in at least one example, out of — the pages of seven books thanks to a partnership between the private spaceflight company and DK, a global publisher of illustrated reference books.
Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, announced on Tuesday (Aug. 5) the collaboration with DK as its latest merchandising and marketing deal intended to document and promote its commercial space tourism services.
"Human space flight has a universal capability to inspire and educate," George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's CEO, stated. "Through Virgin Galactic's partnership with DK, we can creatively bring this powerful experience to life and to a global audience with an emphasis on beautiful images and one-of-a-kind storytelling."
Space.com: Marketing the Moon: How Space Collectors Retold the Story of Apollo's Success
By Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com
August 01, 2014 07:36am ET
At an upcoming space artifact auction, among the selection of astronauts' autographs, spacecraft parts and mission patches, is a 45-year-old press kit from the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Its 250 pages browned with age, it isn't the auction's star lot, but it still could bring in hundreds of dollars.
As memorabilia of the lunar landings, the documents and other materials originally created to sell the public on the idea of sending astronauts to the moon are now on sale as prized collectibles.
But as valuable as the press kits, pamphlets, posters and other ephemera might be on the collector's market today, their significance as a shining example of effective brand marketing may be their true worth.
Science is Cool
La Stampa (Italy): In Rome, The Cult Of Caesar Is Alive And Well And Misinformed
Bring your togas and laurel wreaths, just watch out where you snap your ancient selfie
Gianluca Nicoletti, Rome
Even after two thousand years, Julius Caesar still has loyal followers.
On a recent Saturday in our Eternal City, I saw a crowd lined up under the beating sun in the Roman Forum, squatting down and taking selfies in a corner piled high with old bricks. The alcove where their attention was focused was nice enough, but it didn’t seem worthy of such flocks of tourists. In fact, the location has no historical value whatsoever.
Western Digs: 1,300-Year-Old Pottery Found in Colorado Contains Ancient ‘Natural Aspirin’
Fragmented pottery unearthed in a rockshelter in east central Colorado has revealed traces of salicylic acid, a substance derived from willow bark that’s the natural precursor to modern-day aspirin.
Dated to the 7th century, the pottery may be the earliest known physical evidence of the chemical’s use in North America, according to archaeologists.
LiveScience: Still 'Drinkable': 200-Year-Old Booze Found in Shipwreck
By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, Live Science Contributor
A 200-year-old stoneware seltzer bottle that was recently recovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea contains alcohol, according to the results of a preliminary analysis.
Researchers discovered the well-preserved and sealed bottle in June, while exploring the so-called F53.31 shipwreck in Gdan'sk Bay, close to the Polish coast. Preliminary laboratory tests have now shown the bottle contains a 14-percent alcohol distillate, which may be vodka or a type of gin called jenever, most likely diluted with water.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
