Science & TechnologyS


Eye 2

Spain: Barcelona's Giant Winged Cryptid (1990)

Winged Cryptid illustration
© Unknown
Date: November 4, 2010

The twentieth anniversary of an unusual and highly original case within Spanish cryptozoology took place a few months ago. In June 1990, a giant bird decided to frighten - with its imposing presence and unpleasant crowing - a sizable number of Barcelona's residents.

What was extraordinary, aside from the apparition in itself, was the way it became known through a series of letters to the editor of a renowned Spanish newspaper. We must bear in mind that this phenomenon goes beyond the purely cryptozoological to go into the field of anthropology or social psychology.

On the morning of June 10, 1990, readers of Barcelona's La Vanguardia had the chance to read a brief missive sent to the paper's editor by Pere Carbó, a resident of the city. The anonymous citizen said: "I cannot help but to make known my surprise at this unusual event: on the evening 28 May, some residents of the Les Corts district were awakened by the unbearable crowing of a bird. It wasn't just any bird. Our astonishment was immense when we stepped out to the balcony to see the black silhouette of a bird of tremendous size. It perhaps measured between 3 and 5 meters, and I am not exaggerating. Numerous residents saw it and numerous comments were made the next day. We assume that others must have seen it other neighborhoods. What was it? And what's stranger still, why hasn't it been mentioned in the press?"

Sun

Farside Activity

The far side of the sun is alive with activity. On Nov. 26th, NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observed two farside coronal mass ejections (CMEs) billowing into space. This one came from old sunspot 1126, located just over the sun's southwestern horizon:

Image
© SOHO
Click HERE to play a 3 MB gif animation.

Hours later, a second CME followed, but not from the same blast site. The second CME came from an active region near the sun's anti-Earth point, almost directly opposite our planet on the solar farside. If Earth were on the other side of the sun, we would be be expecting bright auroras from the impact of these clouds. Instead, the alert is for "all quiet." Nothing major is heading our way.

The farside active regions that produced these eruptions will turn to face Earth in 7 to 14 days. Will they remain active that long? Stay tuned for updates.

Beaker

Scientists Attach Barcodes to Mouse Embryos - Humans Are Next

mouse embryo
© Autonomous University of Barcelona
Researchers at the Autonomous University of Barcelona have come up with an ingenious solution for keeping track of embryos and egg cells during in vitro fertilisation procedures: microscopic bar codes.

These mouse eggs were tagged by injecting microscopic silicon bar codes into their perivitelline space, the gap between the cell membrane and an outer membrane called the zona pellucida, which binds sperm cells during fertilisation.

The bar codes, which carry unique binary identification numbers, are biologically inert: they do not affect the rate of embryo development and are shed before the embryos implant into the wall of the uterus. The technique aims to simplify individual embryo identification, streamlining in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer procedures.

The Government of Catalonia's Department of Health has granted permission for the technique to be developed using human eggs and embryos from fertility clinics in Spain.

The research, published in the journal Human Reproduction, may go some way to avoiding mix ups at fertility clinics.

Telescope

Magnetism common to all cosmic jets?

Radio jets emitted by the young star
© Carrasco-Gonzalez et al., Curran et al., Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF, NASA.Radio jets emitted by the young star are shown in yellow on a background infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The yellow bars show the orientation of the magnetic field in the jet as measured by the VLA. Green bars show magnetic-field orientation in the dusty envelope surrounding the young star. Two other young stars are seen at sides of the jet.

Astronomers have found the first evidence of a magnetic field in a jet of material ejected by a young star, offering insight into jet formation and the role of magnetic fields in star birth.

Jets of particles are already known to be associated with black holes, neutron stars that are feeding off companion stars, and young stars that are still growing. Until now, magnetic fields had been detected in the jets associated with black holes and neutron stars, but the association with jets in young stars had not been confirmed.

Sun

MIT's Dan Nocera Creates Energy From Water & Sunlight

MIT Professor Dan Nocera made this discovery 6 months ago and wants to share it with the world, although MIT owns the patent. He has published his breakthrough and made it "open-source." His students are already inventing machines applying this science and he says, "This is the way science works!"


Sherlock

Sweden: Mystery Shipwreck Found in Central Stockholm

Image
© Jens Linstrom/Maritime Museum
The vessel was built with an almost completely unknown technology, delighting archaeologists. The planks of the ship are not nailed down, but sewn together with rope.

The discovery was made by labourers close to the royal palace and in front of Stockholm's Grand Hotel during renovation works to a quay.

"The discovery of the wreck is extremely interesting given the place where it was made. There was a naval shipyard on this spot until the start of the 17th century," Maritime Museum director Hans-Lennarth Ohlsson said in a statement.

A couple of weeks ago, an excavator found something unusual in his bucket. Marine archaeologist Jim Hansson at the Maritime Museum was called to Strömkajen below the Grand Hotel, where he quickly realised the value of the sensational find.

"We were super-excited. It may sound a little strange when one finds little excavated pieces of parts of a ship, but I have never seen anything like it," he said.

Bad Guys

Canada's Transgenic Enviropig is Stuck in a Genetic Modification Poke

Enviropig
© The Globe and MailEnviropig

The small herd of pigs in a research barn in Guelph look like ordinary pigs.

They act like ordinary pigs, and presumably, they would even taste like ordinary pigs if anyone dared to break the law and sample one.

But these are Enviropigs. The transgenic creations of university researchers, they are the world's most controversial environmentally sensitive swine, and they're not legally fit to eat. At least, not yet.

Under development for more than a decade, the University of Guelph's 20 Enviropigs are close behind a Canadian-made supersized salmon in a race to become the first genetically modified animals allowed into the food system.

Starting with the discovery that an E.coli gene could produce a digestive enzyme that regular pigs lack, the Guelph scientists realized they could introduce genetic material from that bacterium into pigs to minimize the environmental impact of the animals' waste, reducing a major pollutant from large-scale production - and allowing pork producers to cut operation costs.

The market may soon need Enviropig. To feed the projected world population of nine billion in 2050, food production will have to increase by 70 per cent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Genetically engineered organisms will have to be part of the equation, according to the globe-spanning community of experts concerned with meeting those looming targets.

"You cannot feed the world at affordable prices without using the modern arsenal of inputs," said Marco Ferroni, head of the Syngenta Foundation, a Swiss-based non-profit established by its namesake seed company to pursue sustainable improvements in farm yields.

Info

Cassini Sniffs Oxygen on Saturnian Moon

Rhea
© JPL/NASAOne cubic metre of Rhea's atmosphere contains approximately 0.00000001% the number of oxygen molecules found on Earth.

Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, has a thin atmosphere of oxygen and carbon dioxide, according to a new study.

The finding provides new insights into the chemical processes that occur in the solar system, including the Earth 3.5 billion years ago.

Oxygen has been detected remotely in the atmospheres of moons such as Europa and Ganymede, but this is the first time it has been found 'in situ' and near the ringed planet.

Earlier this year, the Cassini spacecraft used a spectrometer to 'sniff' the atmosphere as it flew within 97 kilometres of the north pole of Rhea.

Dr Ben Teolis of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas and colleagues report on the findings today in the journal Science.

The researchers believe the oxygen is released by "irradiation from Saturn's magnetospheric plasma" and a large fraction of the oyxgen is still locked inside the moon's ice.

Magnify

Chinese Villagers "Descended from Roman Soldiers"

Image
© Natalie BehringCai Junnian's green eyes give a hint he may be a descendant of Roman mercenaries who allegedly fought the Han Chinese 2,000 years ago
Genetic testing of villagers in a remote part of China has shown that nearly two thirds of their DNA is of Caucasian origin, lending support to the theory that they may be descended from a 'lost legion' of Roman soldiers.

Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 percent Caucasian in origin.

Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.

A local man, Cai Junnian, is nicknamed by his friends and relatives Cai Luoma, or Cai the Roman, and is one of many villagers convinced that he is descended from the lost legion.

Archeologists plan to conduct digs in the region, along the ancient Silk Route, to search for remains of forts or other structures built by the fabled army.

"We hope to prove the legend by digging and discovering more evidence of China's early contacts with the Roman Empire," Yuan Honggeng, the head of a newly-established Italian Studies Centre at Lanzhou University in Gansu province, told the China Daily newspaper.

Magnify

The Real Thanksgiving

Image
© I. Lutler
Quoted from: The Hidden History of Massachusetts:

Much of America's understanding of the early relationship between the Indian and the European is conveyed through the story of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed a holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, this fairy tale of a feast was allowed to exist in the American imagination pretty much untouched until 1970, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. That is when Frank B. James, president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech for a Plymouth banquet that exposed the Pilgrims for having committed, among other crimes, the robbery of the graves of the Wampanoags. He wrote:
"We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people."
But white Massachusetts officials told him he could not deliver such a speech and offered to write him another. Instead, James declined to speak, and on Thanksgiving Day hundreds of Indians from around the country came to protest. It was the first National Day of Mourning, a day to mark the losses Native Americans suffered as the early settlers prospered. This true story of "Thanksgiving" is what whites did not want Mr. James to tell.