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Mayan Murals Give Rare View of Everyday Life

Andrea Thompson
Live Science
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:18 EST

© Carrasco Vargas et al./PNAS
One corner of the painted Maya pyramid structure at Calakmul, Mexico. One layer of the mural must still be excavated.

Recently excavated Mayan murals are giving archaeologists a rare look into the lives of ordinary ancient Maya.

The murals were uncovered during the excavation of a pyramid mound structure at the ancient Maya site of Calakmul, Mexico (near the border with Guatemala) and are described in the Nov. 9 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The find "was a total shock," said Simon Martin of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, who studied the paintings and hieroglyphs depicted in the murals.

The Maya have been studied for more than a century, but "this is the first time that we've seen anything like this," Martin said.

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:03 EST

© Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni
Hundreds of bleached bones and skulls found in the desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert may be the remains of the long lost Cambyses' army, according to Italian researchers.

The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

ScienceDaily
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00 EST

Inflammatory response of brain cells -- as indicated by a molecular imaging technique -- could tell researchers more about why certain neurologic disorders, such as migraine headaches and psychosis in schizophrenic patients, occur and provide insight into how to best treat them, according to two studies published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

By using positron emission tomography (PET) -- a noninvasive molecular imaging technique -- researchers were to able to identify neuroinflammation, which is marked by activated microglia cells (brain cells that are responsive to injury or infection of brain tissue) in patients with schizophrenia and in animal models with migraines.

Although neuroinflammation has been shown to play a major role in many neurodegenerative disorders--such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease--only limited data exists about the role of neuroinflammation in schizophrenia and migraines. The two studies in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine are the first to identify neuroinflammation in specific regions of the brain -- a development which could be used to effectively evaluate the treatment response to anti-inflammatory drugs and become transformative for diagnosis and care.

The Associated Press
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:09 EST

North Carolina officials say they have identified a Civil War shipwreck that burned at sea more than 145 years ago.

The state Underwater Archaeology Branch said Monday that a silver-plated spoon inscribed with the name of a crew member from the CSS Appomattox confirmed the ship's identity.

A four-member diving team discovered the shipwreck in August 2007 in the Pasquotank (PAS'-kwah-tank) River. They had been searching for the Appomattox for more than 10 years.

The Appomattox was part of a set of armed steamers that defended northeastern North Carolina waters.

PhysOrg
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:00 EST

Imaging is the use of machines to enhance humans' ability to perceive things, often by producing visible phenomena that cannot be seen with the naked eye. But, can imaging technology distort reality and even change what humans perceive to be real?

A team of scholars led by two philosophers at Rochester Institute of Technology is exploring how the use of imaging technologies is changing our perception of reality and evaluating the overall impact this may have on what counts as legitimate knowledge and meaningful experience. The research will ultimately lead to a greater understanding of how imaging, and technology in general, is changing how we relate to each other and our surroundings.

"Now more than ever, sight and perception are shaped by the technology we use, from X-rays and MRIs of the body to the Facebook photos of friends we only know online," notes Timothy Engström, professor of philosophy at RIT and one of the leaders of the project. "In an imaging-saturated environment, sight is not about how the eye records the real, but about how imaging machines interpret and make the real available for certain kinds of use."

Tom Chivers
Telegraph UK
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:23 EST

Your mobile phone may soon be able to diagnose respiratory illnesses in seconds when you cough into it.

Software being developed by American and Australian scientists will hopefully allow patients simply to cough into their phone, and it will tell them whether they have cold, flu, pneumonia or other respiratory diseases.

Whether a cough is dry or wet, or "productive" or "non-productive" (referring to the presence of mucus on the lungs), can give a doctor information about what is causing that cough, for example whether it is caused by a bacterial or a viral infection.

Health workers can distinguish the different kinds of cough by sound. Now, it is claimed, the new software will do the same, and will save patients a trip to the surgery - or tell them when they are at risk of serious illness.

Music Improves Brain Function

Phillip F. Schewe
Inside Science News Service
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:50 EST

For most people music is an enjoyable, although momentary, form of entertainment. But for those who seriously practiced a musical instrument when they were young, perhaps when they played in a school orchestra or even a rock band, the musical experience can be something more. Recent research shows that a strong correlation exists between musical training for children and certain other mental abilities.

The research was discussed at a session at a recent gathering of acoustics experts in Austin, Texas.

Laurel Trainor, director of the Institute for Music and the Mind at McMaster University in West Hamilton, Ontario, and colleagues compared preschool children who had taken music lessons with those who did not. Those with some training showed larger brain responses on a number of sound recognition tests given to the children. Her research indicated that musical training appears to modify the brain's auditory cortex.

Can larger claims be made for the influence on the brain of musical training? Does training change thinking or cognition in general?

Trainor again says yes. Even a year or two of music training leads to enhanced levels of memory and attention when measured by the same type of tests that monitor electrical and magnetic impulses in the brai

Frigid Antarctica Loaded with Viruses

Rachael Rettner
LiveScience
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:31 EST

© Science/AAAS
Researchers collected water samples from Antarctica's Limnopolar Lake to figure out the diversity of viruses.

Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse community of viruses, including some that were previously unidentified, a new study finds.

At first glance, Antarctica's freshwater lakes don't seem very hospitable to life. They remain frozen for a good nine months out of the year, and they contain very few nutrients. Some of these lakes have little animal life and are dominated by microorganisms, including algae, bacteria, protozoans and viruses.

With few animal and microbial predators around, viruses likely play an important role in controlling the abundance of other microorganisms, the researcher say. However, these viruses have been historically hard to study since many cannot be grown in a laboratory. But thanks to new genome sequencing technology, scientists can identify viruses without needing to grow them.

"We are just starting to uncover the world of viruses, and this is changing the way we think about viruses and the role they play in microbial ecosystems," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish Research Council.

Softpedia
Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:20 EST

© Flicker/mightyohm
Robots endowed with the ActSimple alogorithm outperform any other robot at utilizing their memories efficient

The human memory patterns are being emulated

Scientists have developed a new method that allows robots to remember relevant pieces of information from the sea of data they collect from the environment, by emulating the way human memory works. Each individual is able to recall the most important things about a certain period or event, but all the useless details are processed subconsciously, and then discarded. Roboticians and computer experts want to be able to replicate the exact same mechanism in the machines, which could thus become more able to answer various situations and challenges that they may face, Technology Review reports.

A team of experts from the Vanderbilt University was behind the new "forgetfulness" algorithm, which replicates humans' ability of weeding out irrelevant pieces of information about the past. "Forgetting is a critical capability when operating in dynamic environments," VU PhD student Sanford Freedman said. He presented the new software this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the IASTED Robotics and Applications conference. A paper detailing how the algorithm, called ActSimple, works was also published at the meeting.

ScienceDaily
Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:00 EST

A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution.

An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City examined patterns of connectivity to show that the precuneus, long thought to be a single structure, is actually divided into four distinct functional regions. These areas were identified using "resting state" functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) -- a recently emerging approach that allows scientist to map a multitude of brain networks using only 6 minutes of data acquired while an individual lies in the scanner at rest. The results of these brief imaging sessions were comparable to definitive findings in monkeys examined microscopically.

Located in the posterior portion of the brain's medial wall, the precuneus has traditionally received little attention in the neuroimaging and neuropsychological literatures. However, recent functional neuroimaging studies have started to implicate the precuneus in a variety of high level cognitive functions, including episodic memory, self-related processing, and aspects of consciousness.

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