Science & Technology -- Signs of the Times News

Science & Technology

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 626 627 Next »

The Vanished Army: Solving an Ancient Egyptian Mystery

Ishaan Tharoor
Time
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:45 EST

In 525 B.C., the Persian Emperor Cambyses dispatched 50,000 of his soldiers to lay waste to an oasis temple in the Sahara because its oracle had spoken ill of his plans for world domination.
The punitive expedition proved to be one of antiquity's most dramatic episodes of imperial overreach. One morning, while the army was having breakfast, writes the ancient historian Herodotus in The Histories, it was set upon by "a violent southern wind, bringing with it piles of sand, which buried them." The Greek continues, "Thus it was that they utterly disappeared."

For centuries, this little anecdote - like many others in Herodotus's famous text - seemed to be a myth. The Histories is lined with rumors and fantastical hearsay of ants that dig for gold, rings that make their bearers invisible and winged serpents that patrol remote mountain passes.

But recent excavations in western Egypt by a team of Italian archaeologists may have unearthed traces of this long-lost army, entombed in the desert for some 2,500 years.

Dean Nelson
The Telegraph
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:20 EST

The Indus Valley's Bronze Age civilisation may have developed the world's first sophisticated system of wage labour, financial exchange and measurement, a Canadian mathematician has discovered.

According to a new study of clay pots and ceramic tablets discovered almost 70 years ago in Harappa, now in Pakistan, the people of the Indus Valley had a detailed system of commodity value, weights and measures.

Dr Bryan Wells, a researcher based at India's Institute of Mathematical Sciences, told The Daily Telegraph he had begun work on his thesis ten years ago when he first saw photographs of the clay pots with markings which appeared to be in proportion to their relative size.

Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:05 EST

© Tresanchez et al. / SINC
This image shows the detection of a false two-euro coin (this is a Thai currency) and detail of the optical sensor with a valid currency.

The sensor of some optical mice can be used to easily and cheaply detect counterfeit euros, according to a study published by researchers of the University of Lleida (UdL) in the scientific journal Sensors. Almost 80% of counterfeit coins discovered in Europe in 2008 were two-euro coins.

The sensor, incorporated in optical computer mice, is usually used to guide cursor movement, but can also be used as a counterfeit coin detector. This has been demonstrated by a prototype developed by computer engineers from the UdL, whose details can be consulted openly and for free in the scientific journal Sensors.

James Riordon
American Physical Society
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:54 EST

© Alan Stonebraker
This is an illustration of directed percolation in 1+1 dimensions: Activity percolates through open bonds (red lines), activating nearest neighbors and giving rise to a cluster of activity.

A team of physicists has, for the first time, seen convincing experimental evidence for directed percolation, a phenomenon that turns up in computer models of the ways diseases spread through a population or how water soaks through loose soil. Their observation strengthens the case for directed percolation's relevance to real systems, and lends new vigor to long-standing theories about how it works. Their experiment is reported in Physical Review E and highlighted with a Viewpoint in the November 16 issue of Physics (http://physics.aps.org).

Randall Stross
New York Times
Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:00 EST

"Some of the best-loved technology on the planet" is how Apple describes its products when recruiting new employees. It's a fair description.

But the love that consumers send Apple's way could flag if the company puts into place new advertising technology it has developed. In an application filed last year and made public last month by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple is seeking a patent for technology that displays advertising on almost anything that has a screen of some kind: computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices and other consumer electronics.

Filing a patent application, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that the company plans to use the technology. But the application shows, at the least, that Apple has invested in research to develop what it calls an "enforcement routine" that makes people watch ads they may not want to watch.

Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn't simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad - it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.

Marcus Chown
New Scientist
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:07 EST

Something big is out there beyond the visible edge of our universe. That's the conclusion of the largest analysis to date of over 1000 galaxy clusters streaming in one direction at blistering speeds. Some researchers say this so-called "dark flow" is a sign that other universes nestle next door.

Last year, Sasha Kashlinsky of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues identified an unusual pattern in the motion of around 800 galaxy clusters. They studied the clusters' motion in the "afterglow" of the big bang, as measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The photons of this afterglow collide with electrons in galaxy clusters as they travel across space to the Earth, and this subtly changes the afterglow's temperature.

The team combined the WMAP data with X-ray observations and found the clusters were streaming at up to 1000 kilometres per second towards one particular part of the cosmos (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol 686, p L49).

Many researchers argued the dark flow would not turn up in later observations, but now the team claim to have confirmed its existence. Their latest analysis reveals 1400 clusters are part of the flow, and that it continues to around 3 billion light years from Earth, a sizeable fraction of the distance to the edge of the observable universe. This is twice as far as seen in the previous study.

Brian Merchant
TreeHugger
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:45 EST

A stunning 87 countries around the world are still littered with undetonated landmines, and their impact is devastating. Tens of thousands of people are killed or injured by mines every year, and they pose a grave threat to ecosystems and wildlife. But an unexpected solution may be on the way--scientists have developed a special kind of bacteria that actually begins to glow in the presence of landmines.

It seems like something straight out of a science fiction film, but this new bacteria is very real. According to the BBC, the "scientists produced the bacteria using a new technique called BioBricking, which manipulates packages of DNA." The bacteria is then mixed into a colorless solution, "which forms green patches when sprayed onto ground where mines are buried." The bacterial stew can also be dropped via airplane in extremely sensitive areas.

Oregon State University
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:34 EST

An accidental discovery in a laboratory at Oregon State University has apparently solved a quest that over thousands of years has absorbed the energies of ancient Egyptians, the Han dynasty in China, Mayan cultures and more - the creation of a near-perfect blue pigment.

Through much of recorded human history, people around the world have sought inorganic compounds that could be used to paint things blue, often with limited success. Most had environmental or durability issues. Cobalt blue, developed in France in the early 1800s, can be carcinogenic. Prussian blue can release cyanide. Other blue pigments are not stable when exposed to heat or acidic conditions.

Kim Irwin
University of California - Los Angeles
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:27 EST

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, found in everything from cosmetics to sunscreen to paint to vitamins, caused systemic genetic damage in mice, according to a comprehensive study conducted by researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The TiO2 nanoparticles induced single- and double-strand DNA breaks and also caused chromosomal damage as well as inflammation, all of which increase the risk for cancer. The UCLA study is the first to show that the nanoparticles had such an effect, said Robert Schiestl, a professor of pathology, radiation oncology and environmental health sciences, a Jonsson Cancer Center scientist and the study's senior author.

Freezing: A Phenomenon That "Jumps"

ScienceDaily
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:00 EST

© LSFC 2009
Structure of ice crystals in the presence (left) or in the absence (right) of jumps in the interface. The arrows indicate future defects in the structure.

The freezing of suspensions of particles is not always a uniform phenomenon; in certain conditions it leads to a modification of the redistribution of particles and the growth of crystals. These results have been obtained by researchers at the Laboratoire de Synthèse et Fonctionnalisation des Céramiques (CNRS/Saint Gobain) and the Laboratoire Matériaux, Ingénierie et Sciences (CNRS/INSA Lyon) by observing, through X-ray imaging at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), the movement of particles while they are being frozen.

Their work could make it easier not just to develop porous materials with specific properties but also to understand better the mechanisms of soils freezing in winter, which can have a considerable impact on plants, roads and thoroughfares. These results were published online in the journal Nature Materials on 8 November 2009.

What is the connection between sea ice formation at the poles, frozen soils in winter, cryopreservation of cells, ice-cream and composite material synthesis? All of these situations involve the propagation of a solidification interface and its encounter with particles, microorganisms or bubbles in suspension in a liquid. Although the phenomenon can be described in just a few words, its mechanism and control remain however extremely complex and still far from being fully understood.

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 626 627 Next »

185,472 people have viewed this page since Fri, 26 Jan 2007

Donate once - or every month! Click here to learn how you can help!

Emails sent to Signs of the Times, Ark, Laura, or Cassiopaea become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be republished without notice.

Some icons appearing on this site were taken from KDE-look.org, Afterglow, Mayosoft, Everaldo, IconDrawer, VisualPharm, IconFactory, Klukeart, Icons-land, TpdkDesign.net, and IconShock.com.

Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world!
Send your article suggestions to: email

Original content © 2009 by SOTT.net/Signs of the Times.
See: Fair Use Policy (http://www.sott.net/signs/signs-fair-use.htm)

NEW! Available now!

Featured Book:

NEW! Available Now!

Over 1 BILLION Served!

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Donate once - or every month!
Click here to learn how you can help!

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson

"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein

One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott