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University of Alabama researchers find rare fossil

Elasmosaur
© University of AlabamaDr. Takehito “Ike” Ikejiri continues to search for pieces of the elasmosaur Monday, July 15, in rural Greene County.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama - University of Alabama researchers have discovered the fossilized remains of a large marine reptile that once ruled the open seas 80 million years ago.

The initial discovery, made June 20 by middle-school student Noah Traylor during a UA-hosted expedition, was later identified as part of a large neck vertebra of an elasmosaur, which is a subgroup of the late Cretaceous plesiosaurs.

Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs are easily recognized by their large body size - some species reach up to 45 feet in length.

"Think Loch Ness monster," said Dr. Dana Ehret, UA Museum paleontologist. "They have very large flippers for swimming and extremely long necks, consisting of up to about 70 neck vertebrae."

Plesiosaurs became extinct by the end of Cretaceous, or about 65.5 million years ago, and they are generally rare in the fossil record for Alabama. This is only the second elasmosaurid specimen containing more than one or two bones found in the state, Ehret said. The first, which consists of 22 vertebrae, was found in the late 1960s and is now part of UA Collections.

This discovery appears to be on par with the first one. To date, about 15 large vertebrae, a few paddle bones and many bone fragments have been collected, but an extensive excavation is still in progress, so Ehret is uncertain how complete this skeleton is.

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Jumbo viruses hint at 'Fourth Domain' of life

Pandoraviruses
© Chantal Abergel/Jean-Michel ClaverieElectron microscopy image of a Pandoravirus particle (edited using Adobe Photoshop artistic filters).
ISNS -- The discovery of two new jumbo-sized viruses is blurring the lines between viral and cellular life and could point to the existence of a new type of life, scientists suggest.

The two large viruses, detailed in this week's issue of the journal Science, have been dubbed "Pandoraviruses" because of the surprises they may hold for biologists, in reference to the mythical Greek figure who opened a box and released evil into the world.

The discovery of Pandoraviruses is an indication that our knowledge of Earth's microbial biodiversity is still incomplete, explained study coauthor Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist at the French National Research Agency at Aix-Marseille University.

"Huge discoveries remain to be made at the most fundamental level that may change our present conception about the origin of life and its evolution," Claverie said.

Eugene Koonin, a computational evolutionary biologist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Md., who was not involved in the study, called the Pandoraviruses a "wonderful discovery," but not a complete surprise.

"In a certain sense, it's something that we saw coming, and it's wonderful that it has come," Koonin said.

Telescope

The Milky Way and Mt. Fuji as a 'Galactic Volcano'

It is a Japanese tradition to climb Mt. Fuji at night to be able to watch sunrise from the peak of the volcano in the morning. And so at night, climbers use flashlights to make their way to the summit. This inspired photographer Yuga Kurita to create a truly stunning image that makes the iconic Mt. Fuji appear like a galactic volcano.

"When I arrived at Fujiyoshida in Yamanashi Prefecture, I saw people climbing up Mt. Fuji with flash lights and I thought they looked like lava streams," Kurita explained on G+. "Then I came up with this composition, since nowadays, the Milky Way appears vertically in the sky so probably I could liken Mt. Fuji to an imaginary galactic volcano, that is, people climbing up with torches are lava streams and the Milky Way is the volcano smoke.

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© Yuga Kurita

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A gas cloud is sweeping past the Milky Way's central black hole

Gas Cloud
© ESO/MPE/Marc SchartmannArtist’s concept of gas cloud moving toward central Milky Way black hole.
In 2011, astronomers in Germany announced the discovery of a cloud of gas - with several times the mass of the Earth - accelerating fast towards the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way. They originally said that the cloud would pass closest to the black hole in mid-2013, but a new analysis suggests the date of closest passage as early 2014. The passage of the gas cloud near the black hole is already underway, and numerous observing programs have been set up to monitor the region around the Milky Way's center during 2013.

In April 2013, data acquired at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) showed that part of the gas cloud has already passed closest to the black hole. As expected, the cloud is undergoing what astronomers sometimes call spaghettification - or the noodle effect. That is, it's being stretched or elongated as it passes the hole, due to the hole's powerful gravity.

The front part of the gas cloud is now already moving 500 km/s faster than its tail, astronomers say, confirming earlier predictions that the gas cloud is doomed. It's not expected to survive its encounter with the black hole.

Eye 1

NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program

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The top-secret PRISM program allows the U.S. intelligence community to gain access from nine Internet companies to a wide range of digital information, including e-mails and stored data, on foreign targets operating outside the United States. The program is court-approved but does not require individual warrants. Instead, it operates under a broader authorization from federal judges who oversee the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some documents describing the program were first released by The Washington Post on June 6. The newly released documents below give additional details about how the program operates, including the levels of review and supervisory control at the NSA and FBI. The documents also show how the program interacts with the Internet companies.

Sun

Star Tau Boo's baffling magnetic pole flips

Tau Boötis
© Karen Teramura/University of Hawaii Institute for AstronomyArtist’s impression of the magnetic field of Tau Boötis.
Star Tau Boo's baffling magnetic flipsThe star Tau Boo rapidly flips its magnetic field, potentially because of its interaction with a planet six times Jupiter's mass.

For the first time, astronomers have watched the complete magnetic cycle of a star other than the Sun. Tau Boötis, known as Tau Boo, is a yellowish star that is a little brighter than our Sun. It is located 51 light-years away and hosts a giant exoplanet about six times the mass of Jupiter that orbits Tau Boo every 3.3 days.

In 2007, scientists saw that the magnetic field of Tau Boo flipped. Since then, the team has observed four reversals in polarity, confirming that the star has a rapid magnetic cycle of no more than two years - compared to 22 years for the Sun. "The Sun's magnetic field is a bit like a giant bar magnet, with a north pole and south pole," said team member Rim Fares of the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom. "Every 11 years, during solar maximum [the peak of sunspot activity], the Sun's poles swap over. It takes two flips to restore the magnetic field to its original orientation, so the Sun's magnetic cycle lasts 22 years. Tau Boo has the same magnetic behavior as the Sun, but its cycle is very fast compared to the solar one."

This abrupt shift changes the environment surrounding the large exoplanet, and the reasons for Tau Boo's fast cycle are still unclear.

Bulb

Fear factor: Missing brain enzyme leads to abnormal levels of fear in mice, reveals new research

Study has important potential for developmental learning disabilities including features of autism.

A little bit of learned fear is a good thing, keeping us from making risky, stupid decisions or falling over and over again into the same trap. But new research from neuroscientists and molecular biologists at USC shows that a missing brain protein may be the culprit in cases of severe over-worry, where the fear perseveres even when there's nothing of which to be afraid.

In a study appearing the week of July 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers examined mice without the enzymes monoamine oxidase A and B (MAO A/B), which sit next to each other in our genetic code as well as on that of mice. Prior research has found an association between deficiencies of these enzymes in humans and developmental disabilities along the autism spectrum such as clinical perseverance - the inability to change or modulate actions along with social context.

"These mice may serve as an interesting model to develop interventions to these neuropsychiatric disorders," said senior author Jean C. Shih, USC University Professor and Boyd & Elsie Welin Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy and the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "The severity of the changes in the MAO A/B knockout mice compared to MAO A knockout mice supports the idea that the severity of autistic-like features may be correlated to the amounts of monoamine levels, particularly at early developmental stages."

Comet 2

Comet's collision with Jupiter: Still detectible 19 years later

Jupiter Impact_1
© Meridian MagazineLast orbit around Jupiter for Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments. The orbit was also inclined almost vertical, to the main plane of the solar system orbits, known as the ecliptic.
Remnants from the collision of over twenty fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994 still comprise 95% of the detectible water in Jupiter's atmosphere today. This discovery was possible thanks to one of the last observation missions of the infrared Herschel Space Telescope. A few days after the observation, the Herschel spacecraft ran out of its liquid helium coolant and will now have to be shut down.[1]

An article now online from the May 4, 2013 issue of ScienceNews reports on research showing the detection of upper atmosphere water deposits that originated with the comet's collision with the massive planet.[2]

"In July 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plowed into Jupiter, and the comet fragments triggered dark scars of debris in the giant planet's atmosphere that were visible for weeks. The comet also left behind a more permanent deposit: millions of gallons of water. Water from the impact still makes up at least 95 percent of the water in the planet's upper atmosphere, researchers report April 23 in Astronomy & Astrophysics."

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Floating Free: New levitation system uses sound waves

Levitation
© Dimos PoulikakosA new technique uses sound waves to levitate objects and move them in mid-air.
Hold on to your wand, Harry Potter: Science has outdone even your best "Leviosa!" levitation spell.

Researchers report that they have levitated objects with sound waves, and moved those objects around in midair, according to a new study.

Scientists have used sound waves to suspend objects in midair for decades, but the new method, described today (July 15) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, goes a step further by allowing people to manipulate suspended objects without touching them.

This levitation technique could help create ultrapure chemical mixtures, without contamination, which could be useful for making stem cells or other biological materials.

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Tesla founder to soon unveil hyperloop design

Elon Musk
© Photo by Jordan Strauss/Getty Images for TeslaCo-Founder and Head of Product Design at Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks onstage during Tesla Worldwide Debut of Model X on February 9, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.
He's trying to revolutionize the automobile, and now he wants to do the same thing to mass transit.

In an intriguing tweet posted Monday, Musk (@elonmusk) promises that on Aug. 12 he will unveil a new mass transit method which will revolutionize travel. He calls his invention the Hyperloop.
Will publish Hyperloop alpha design by Aug 12. Critical feedback for improvements would be much appreciated.

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2013
Experts speculate it could be a series of pneumatic tubes that move passengers along a river of air.

Musk has long been critical of California's proposed bullet train and predicts his Hyperloop will get passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes. The bullet train would make the trip in three hours.