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Scholar finds Mayans' buried highway through hell

Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:07 UTC
Legend says the afterlife for ancient Mayas was a terrifying obstacle course in which the dead had to traverse rivers of blood, and chambers full of sharp knives, bats and jaguars.

Now a Mexican archaeologist using long-forgotten testimony from the Spanish Inquisition says a series of caves he has explored may be the place where the Maya actually tried to depict this highway through hell.

The network of underground chambers, roads and temples beneath farmland and jungle on the Yucatan peninsula suggests the Maya fashioned them to mimic the journey to the underworld, or Xibalba, described in ancient mythological texts such as the Popol Vuh.
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Telescope

Sources of Saturn Moon's Supersonic Water Jets Revealed

Richard A. Lovett
National Geographic News
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:03 UTC
Water jets on Saturn moon
© JPL/NASA
Jets of water vapor blasting out of Saturn's moon Enceladus at supersonic speeds are coming from vents each about the size of a professional sports stadium, a new study says.

Scientists first saw a plume of water vapor and dust shooting from the moon's south pole in 2005.

Research later determined that the water geysers are gushing out at about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) an hour from a series of 100-mile-long (161-kilometer-long) fissures dubbed tiger stripes.
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Info

Potentially Universal Mechanism Of Aging Identified


Science Daily
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:54 UTC
Aging dog
© iStockphoto/Monique RodriguezAging dog. Researchers have uncovered what may be a universal cause of aging, one that applies to both single cell organisms such as yeast and multicellular organisms, including mammals.
Researchers have uncovered what may be a universal cause of aging, one that applies to both single cell organisms such as yeast and multicellular organisms, including mammals. This is the first time that such an evolutionarily conserved aging mechanism has been identified between such diverse organisms.

The mechanism probably dates back more than one billion years. The study shows how DNA damage eventually leads to a breakdown in the cell's ability to properly regulate which genes are switched on and off in particular settings.

Like our current financial crisis, the aging process might also be a product excessive deregulation.

Researchers have discovered that DNA damage decreases a cell's ability to regulate which genes are turned on and off in particular settings. This mechanism, which applies both to fungus and to us, might represent a universal culprit for aging.
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Telescope

Hubble Captures Outstanding View Of Mammoth Stars


Science Daily
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:51 UTC
colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244
© NASA, ESA, and J. Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain)The image shows a pair of colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the open cluster Trumpler 16. This cluster is embedded within the Carina Nebula, an immense cauldron of gas and dust that lies approximately 7500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina, the Keel. WR 25 is the brightest, situated near the centre of the image. The neighbouring Tr16-244 is the third brightest, just to the upper left of WR 25. The second brightest, to the left of WR 25, is a low mass star located much closer to the Earth than the Carina Nebula.
The Hubble telescope has captured a spectacular image of a pair of colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the open cluster Trumpler 16. This cluster is embedded within the Carina Nebula, an immense cauldron of gas and dust that lies approximately 7500 light-years from Earth.

The Carina Nebula contains several ultra-hot stars, including these two star systems and the famous blue star Eta Carinae, which has the highest luminosity yet confirmed. As well as producing incredible amounts of heat, these stars are also very bright, emitting most of their radiation in the ultraviolet and appearing blue in colour. They are so powerful that they burn through their hydrogen fuel source faster than other types of stars, leading to a "live fast, die young" lifestyle.
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Info

Organic Sugar Molecule Could Lead Us To Alien Life


Science Daily
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:44 UTC
Scientists have detected an organic sugar molecule that is directly linked to the origin of life, in a region of our galaxy where habitable planets could exist.

The international team of researchers, including a researcher at University College London (UCL), used the IRAM radio telescope in France to detect the molecule in a massive star forming region of space, some 26000 light years from Earth.
sugar molecule glycolaldehyde
© Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSFArtist's rendering of the sugar molecule, glycolaldehyde.

The molecule - glycolaldehyde - has previously only been detected towards the centre of our galaxy where conditions are extreme compared to the rest of the galaxy. This new discovery, in an area far from the galactic centre, also suggests that the production of this key ingredient for life could be common throughout the galaxy. This is good news in our search for alien life, as a wide spread of the molecule improves the chances of it existing along side other molecules vital to life and in regions where Earth-like planets may exist.
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Fish

Jurassic Turtles Could Swim


Science Daily
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:30 UTC
Around 164 million years ago the earliest aquatic turtles lived in lakes and lagoons on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, according to new research.
Researchers cutting the block of stone to extract jurrasic turtle
© UCL Cell and Developmental BiologyResearchers cutting the block of stone to extract the turtle.

Recent scientific fieldwork led by researchers from UCL and the Natural History Museum on Skye, an island off the north-western coast of Scotland, discovered a block of rock containing fossils that have been recognised as a new species of primitive turtle Eileanchelys waldmani.

Months of work at the Natural History Museum freed these skeletons from the rock, revealing four well-preserved turtles and the remnants of at least two others. These remains, and a beautiful skull found nearby, represent the most complete Middle Jurassic turtle described to date, offering substantial new insights into the early evolution of turtles and how they diversified into the varied forms we see today.

Investigation into the palaeoecology of the area - the relationship between these ancient turtles and their environment - shows that these turtles lived in conditions that were very different to modern-day Skye. The turtles were found alongside fossils of other aquatic species such as sharks and salamanders that would have lived in a landscape made up of low-salinity lagoons and freshwater floodplain lakes and pools.
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Telescope

Strangulation Of Spiral Galaxies: 'Missing Link' Discovered


Science Daily
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:20 UTC
Astronomers in two UK-led international collaborations have separately uncovered a type of galaxy that represents a missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution.

Galaxy Zoo, which uses volunteers from the general public to classify galaxies, and the Space Telescope A901/902 Galaxy Evolution Survey (STAGES) projects have used their vast datasets to disentangle the roles of "nature" and "nurture" in changing galaxies from one variety to another.
three galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo (top) and STAGES surveys
© STAGES image credit: Marco Barden, Christian Wolf, Meghan Gray, the STAGES survey; STAGES image from Hubble Space Telescope, colour from COMBO-17 survey; Galaxy Zoo image credit: Sloan Digital Sky SurveyThese images of three galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo (top) and STAGES surveys (bottom) show examples of how the newly discovered population of red spiral galaxies on the outskirts of crowded regions in the Universe may be a missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution. At left, both surveys find examples of normal spiral galaxies displaying all the hallmarks of youth: blue in colour, they are disk-like in structure. The obvious spiral arms host knotty structures where large numbers of hot young stars are being born. On the right are examples of typical rounded balls of stars known as elliptical galaxies. The reddish colour indicates that their stars are mostly old. With no gas left to use as fuel to form any more, they are old, dead and red In the centre are examples of the new "red spiral" galaxy found in large numbers by both the STAGES and Galaxy Zoo collaborations. While still disk-like and recognizably spiral in shape, their spiral arms are smoother. Furthermore, their colour is as red as the ellipticals. Astronomers from both teams believe these red spirals are objects in transition, where star formation has been shut off by interactions with the environment.

Both studies have identified a population of unusual red spiral galaxies that are setting out on the road to retirement after a lifetime of forming stars. Crucially, nature and nurture appear to play a role in this transformation: both the mass of a galaxy as well as its local environment are important in determining when and how quickly its star formation is shut down. The scientists' work appears together in a forthcoming edition of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Star

Thanksgiving sky: Jupiter, Venus, moon together

Seth Borenstein
Associated Press
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:51 UTC
It's not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky - Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon - will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.

Starting Thanksgiving evening, Jupiter and Venus will begin moving closer so that by Sunday and Monday, they will appear 2 degrees apart, which is about a finger width held out at arm's length, said Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine. Then on Monday night, they will be joined by a crescent moon right next to them, he said.
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Clock

Marine archaeologists find remains of slave ship

Randolph E. Schmid
Associated Press
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:43 UTC
Black Rock Wreck
© NOAAThis undated handout photo provided by NOAA shows the hull remains of the so-called 'Black Rock Wreck' measured and compared to the dimensions of known shipwrecks off East Caicos.
Marine archaeologists have found the remains of a slave ship wrecked off the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1841, an accident that set free the ancestors of many current residents of those islands. Some 192 Africans survived the sinking of the Spanish ship Trouvadore off the British-ruled islands, where the slave trade was banned.

Over the years the ship had been forgotten, said researcher Don Keith, so when the discovery connected the ship to current residents the first response "was a kind of shock, a lack of comprehension," he explained in a briefing organized by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Info

Nanotech clothing fabric 'never gets wet'

Jon Evans
New Scientist
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:50 UTC
Image
© University of Zurich/Wiley VchThe new fabric strongly repels water thanks to nanoscale filaments with a spiky structure.
If you were to soak even your best raincoat underwater for two months it would be wet through at the end of the experience. But a new waterproof material developed by Swiss chemists would be as dry as the day it went in.

Lead researcher Stefan Seeger at the University of Zurich says the fabric, made from polyester fibres coated with millions of tiny silicone filaments, is the most water-repellent clothing-appropriate material ever created.
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