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Was Jesus Taught by the Druids of Glastonbury? New Film Claims It Is Possible He Came to England

Fiona MacRae
Daily Mail
Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:28 UTC
Image
© Alamy
Historic: But did Jesus build a chapel beneath Glastonbury Abbey, as a new film suggests?
As a book of record, the New Testament doesn't do too well on the early life of Jesus Christ.

The large holes may explain why so many outlandish theories have been able to build up about what the Son of God got up to as a boy.

But among those myths most perpetuated is that he visited Britain - an idea immortalized in the opening lines of William Blake's "Jerusalem."

Now a film has sought to add flesh to the fable by claiming it's perfectly plausible the Messiah made an educational trip to Glastonbury.

And Did Those Feet explores the idea that Jesus accompanied his supposed uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea, on a business trip to the tin mines of the South-West.

Whilst there, it is claimed he took the opportunity to further his maths by studying under druids.

Unsurprisingly, the documentary stops short of concluding the visit did take place, noting 'Jesus's shoe has not turned up'. However, the makers insist that while the visit is unproven, it is possible.
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Bug

Evidence of Life on Mars Lurks Beneath Surface of Meteorite, Nasa Experts Claim

Hannah Devlin
Times Online
Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:00 UTC
Image
© (NASA/PA)
Mars, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope
Nasa scientists have produced the most compelling evidence yet that bacterial life exists on Mars.

It showed that microscopic worm-like structures found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago are almost certainly fossilised bacteria. The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting that they were already present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of subsequent contamination by Earthly bacteria.

"This is very strong evidence of life on Mars," said David Mackay, a senior scientist at the Nasa Johnson Space Centre , who was part of the team of scientists that originally investigated the meteorite when it was discovered in 1984.

In a 1996 study of the sample, Dr Mackay and others argued that the microfossils were evidence of life, but sceptics dismissed the claims, saying that similar-shaped structures might not be biological. The new analyses, the product of high resolution electron microscopy, make a strong case for the Allan Hills 84001 Meteorite having carried Martian life to Earth.

The microscopes were focused on tiny magnetite crystals present in the surface layers of the meteorite, which have the form of simple bacteria. Some argued that these could be the result of a carbonate breaking down in the heat of the impact.
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Info

Rainbow trapped for the first time

Jeff Hecht
New Scientist
Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:34 UTC
Image
© Vera Smolyaninova/Towson University, Baltimore, Maryland
The rainbow trap is a gilded 4.5-millimetre-wide lens perched atop a gold-coated glass slide
Oh, to catch a rainbow. Well, it's been done for the first time ever - and with just a simple lens and a plate of glass at that. The technique could be used to store information using light, a boon for optical computing and telecommunications.

All-optical computing devices promise to be faster and more efficient than current technology, but they suffer from the drawback that signals have to be converted back and forth from optical to electrical. The ability to "slow" light to a crawl or even trap it helps, as information in the light can then be manipulated directly.

In 2007, Ortwin Hess of the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK, and colleagues proposed a technique to trap light inside a tapering waveguide, which is a structure that guides light waves down its length. The waveguide in question would use metamaterials - exotic materials that can bend light sharply.
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Telescope

Energetic gamma rays spotted from 'microquasar'

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:02 UTC
Image
© Walter Feimer/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Material stolen from a young star (blue) forms a disc (red) around a black hole or neutron star in this illustration of the system Cygnus X-3. Strong flares occasionally erupt from this disc
After decades of searching, astronomers have confirmed that a gluttonous stellar remnant that glows brightly in X-rays can create high-energy gamma rays as well. The tiny powerhouse could serve as a nearby laboratory to study how particles are accelerated in the universe's biggest black holes.

Cygnus X-3, a pair of objects that sit some 30,000 light years from Earth, has long been a puzzle. The system is thought to contain the dense remnant of a star - either a black hole or a neutron star - that is feeding on a disc of material stolen from a companion star.

The pair orbit each other once every 4.8 hours, shining in X-rays and occasionally sending jets of material, or flares, outwards at close to the speed of light. Because of these flares, Cygnus X-3 has been dubbed a "microquasar", since it resembles quasars, the flaring supermassive black holes at the centres of some galaxies.

Interest in Cygnus X-3 has grown since the flares were first discovered by radio telescopes in 1972. In the following decades, astronomers have found hints that gamma rays - the universe's highest-energy photons - could be coming from Cygnus X-3 with energies as high as trillions or even quadrillions of electronvolts (eV).
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Info

When camouflage is a plant's best protection

Richard Hund
American Journal of Botany
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:36 UTC
Image
© Matthew R. Klooster.
As a myco-heterotroph, M. odorata obtains carbon resources from associated mycorrhizal fungi and has a highly reduced vegetative morphology consisting of an underground root mass that produces one to many diminutive reproductive stems (3.5–6 cm in height).
It is well known that some animal species use camouflage to hide from predators. Individuals that are able to blend in to their surroundings and avoid being eaten are able to survive longer, reproduce, and thus increase their fitness (pass along their genes to the next generation) compared to those who stand out more. This may seem like a good strategy, and fairly common in the animal kingdom, but who ever heard of a plant doing the same thing?
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Info

1,500-year-old girl is reconstructed

Kim Hyung-eun
JoongAng daily
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:29 UTC
Image
© Cho Mun-gyu
From left: Computer graphics show the process of recreating an image of the ancient girl based on her remains. Right: The fully recreated silicon model of the girl.
She was probably 16 years old and had a wide, flat Asian face, a long neck and a slim figure. The girl died 1,500 years ago. But now she's reborn - well, partially, at least.

At the National Palace Museum of Korea yesterday officials from the Gaya National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage in Korea unveiled the restored model of the girl from the Gaya confederacy era (42-562)
      Read More...
Magnify

Koreans make plastics without fossil fuel chemicals


CNN
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:51 UTC
plastics
© CNN
Bioengineered plastics would be more environmentally-friendly than those from fossil fuel-based chemicals
A team of South Korean scientists have produced the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel-based chemicals.

It is believed that the technique may now allow for the production of environmentally-friendly plastic that is biodegradable and low in toxicity.

The research focused on Polylactic Acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer which holds the key to producing plastics through natural and renewable resources. Polymers are molecules found in everyday life in the form of plastics and rubbers.
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Info

While scientists fight over BPA studies, Congress could just act

Tom Laskawy
Grist
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:09 UTC
Joining Tom Philpott on the anti-BPA bandwagon, the New York Times columnist Nick Kristof had an op-ed Sunday detailing the mounting evidence against the hormone disrupting chemical. One comment in particular summed up the debate nicely:
"When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you want to be wrong," said Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network. "Are we going to quibble over individual rodent studies, or are we going to act?"
One of the problems we face when it comes to regulating toxic substances is that the EPA and the FDA aren't generally able to apply a strong "precautionary principle" the way regulators do in Europe. In essence, a strong precautionary principle would allow our government to act even when, as stated in a European Commission document, "scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain." In those cases, advocates for a particular substance would need to demonstrate unequivocally the substance's safety. Instead, we require almost total scientific consensus regarding a substance's danger before the EPA or the FDA will act.
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Arrow Down

Wikipedia Shows Signs of Stalling as Number of Volunteers Falls Sharply

Murad Ahmed
Times Online
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:25 UTC
It was one of the internet's most ambitious, radical and ultimately successful ideas.

Eight years ago Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia that allows anyone to write and edit articles, declared that it would provide access to "the sum of all human knowledge". It soon became one of world's most popular websites.

The site assumed that facts and information could be provided by all. Anyone was allowed to log on, write and change articles. Any subject - from Barack Obama's election to characters in the Star Wars films - was considered worthy of inclusion. The pages have been updated and improved upon thousands of times and they are used more than 300 million times a month by everyone from primary school pupils to speechwriters - even if they should know better.

Surprisingly to sceptics, who have long warned that inaccuracies abound on the website and that they can come to be regarded as fact, the project seems to have proven the wisdom of crowds. A recent study suggested that its pieces were just as accurate as those in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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Telescope

Mars Ocean Points to Earth Similarities


Press TV
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:03 UTC
Image
© NASA
A NASA computer graphic showing concealed glaciers in Mars.
The latest studies have shown Mars once had an enormous ocean in its northern hemisphere that caused a humid and rainy climate like earth.

Scientists from Northern Illinois University (NIU) and the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston used an advanced computer program to draw a map of the Red Planet.

"All the evidence gathered by analyzing the valley network on the new map points to a particular climate scenario on early Mars," NIU Geography Professor Wei Luo, said.

The scientists' newly designed map shows the Martian valley networks are more than twice as extensive as had previously been thought.

"It would have included rainfall and the existence of an ocean covering most of the northern hemisphere, or about one-third of the planet's surface," Luo said.
      Read More...
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