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The Face Of The Earth

Thomas Fritz
Space Daily / SPX
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:01 UTC
Image
© DLR
Mount Teide, Tenerife. 3D view of a TanDEM-X digital elevation model combined with radar intensity data.
For a month now, we have been acquiring altitude models with the TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X satellite pair. Already, over 1000 products have come out of our operational processing chain. Alongside many test images, some of the data also give an insight into how humankind has shaped the surface of the Earth - and how the highs and lows around them have determined the course of their lives.

Many of the interferometric images created over the last few weeks have used test data acquired over flat areas to enable us to test the stability and precision of our imaging and processing chains with minimal altitude changes. Some of the images, on the other hand, have been of exceptionally complicated terrain, in order to test the transformation of interferograms into altitude data.

The satellites are still not flying in close formation with synchronous data acquisition, so the ultimate altitude precision cannot yet been achieved. Also, the final steps for calibrating the processing chain have not yet been performed. Nevertheless, the images are already of impressive quality and are showing us details that were not previously visible from space.
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Info

Japan's 1st Touchable 3D TV Screen


FFOG Net
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:11 UTC
Touchable 3D TV
© FFOG Net
Japanese researchers have developed the world's first 3D TV system where you can touch and feel the images that pop out from the screen. The technology allows users to manipulate the 3D images, giving them the sensation of moving, squashing or stretching them.

Six motion-detector cameras are used to monitor the viewer's fingers and tiny clips attached to their index digits vibrate when they 'touch' an image. The multiple cameras are angled so that there are no blind spots. The breakthrough i3Space device was developed by scientists at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology or what is so called AIST, in Japan.

A spokesman said that this system recognises the user's behaviour and offers tactile feedback and the illusion of using the tactile sense of force. It is the first time where you can feel images in the air. That sounds so amazing to happen. In a demonstration given on Wednesday, a 3D image of the Earth was squished like a soft rubber ball and then stretched wide across the screen.
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Satellite

Mars's Mysterious Elongated Crater


Science Daily
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons. This well-defined depression extends approximately 380 km by 140 km in a NNE–SSW direction. It has a rim that rises up to 1800 m above the surrounding plains, while the floor of the depression lies 400–600 m below the surroundings. The term ‘patera’ is used for deep, complex or irregularly shaped volcanic craters such as the Hadriaca Patera and Tyrrhena Patera at the north-eastern margin of the Hellas impact basin. However, despite its name and the fact that it is positioned near volcanoes, the actual origin of Orcus Patera remains unclear.
Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars's equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery.

Often overlooked, this well-defined depression extends approximately 380 km by 140 km in a NNE-SSW direction. It has a rim that rises up to 1800 m above the surrounding plains, while the floor of the depression lies 400-600 m below the surroundings.

The term patera is used for deep, complex or irregularly shaped volcanic craters such as the Hadriaca Patera and Tyrrhena Patera at the north-eastern margin of the Hellas impact basin. However, despite its name and the fact that it is positioned near volcanoes, the actual origin of Orcus Patera remains unclear.
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Evil Rays

U.S. Physicists Eye Australia for New Site of Gravitational-Wave Detector

Adrian Cho
Science
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:00 UTC
Gravitational Wave Detector
© ANU
Sensitive interferometer forms part of a gravity wave detector inside an isolation tank
They want to take parts from their massive twin gravitational-wave detectors and use them to build a third detector near Perth in western Australia. Adding a detector down under would greatly enhance the ability of the Laser Interferometer gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) to pinpoint sources of gravitational waves, should such waves ever be spotted. The cost to Australia would be $170 million, the price tag for building and maintaining the new site. In return, Australian physicists would gain full participation in the half-billion-dollar experiment.

"It's absolutely a win-win situation," says David Blair, a physicist at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Crawley. But the Australian government must decide in the next year. "We're asking a lot of Australia," says Stanley Whitcomb, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and LIGO's chief scientist. "I don't think there's anybody who thinks there's better than a 50-50 chance of this happening."
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Info

400-Year-Old Letter Reveals "Lost" Native Peruvian Language


Truth Dive
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:00 UTC
Washington - A 400 year-old letter found in the ruins of an ancient Spanish colonial church in 2008 has revealed a previously unknown Peruvian native language.

The letter was found during excavations of the Magdalena de Cao Viejo church at the El Brujo Archaeological Complex in northern Peru.

It showed that an early 17th-century Spanish author had translated Spanish and Arabic numbers to an unknown language on the flip side of the letter.

"Even though [the letter] doesn't tell us a whole lot, it does tell us about a language that is very different from anything we've ever known-and it suggests that there may be a lot more out there," National Geographic News quoted Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, as saying.

It's clearly a unique tongue, and likely one of two known only by the mention of their names in contemporary texts: Quingnam and Pescadora-"language of the fishers."
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Sherlock

Canada: 3,000-year-old tools unearthed in Labrador


CBC News
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:58 UTC
Image
© CBC News
A worker at the archeological dig in Sheshatshui, Labrador, holds the tip of a broken arrowhead that was found at the site.
Workers at a housing project in Sheshatshiu, central Labrador, have uncovered 3,000-year-old artifacts, including tools and weapons.

What started as a housing development has evolved into an archaeological dig.

"It's a very important time period. It's the time period that's the least studied in Newfoundland and Labrador archeology, so its going to hopefully fill in a lot of gaps and help to answer a lot of questions," said archeologist Scott Neilson, one of the project's leaders.

Some of the people working on the project grew up around the area where artifacts are now being found. They said it's rewarding work.

"I love it. I really do. There is always a chance of something pretty amazing to be found, so it keeps you interested," said Judy Ashini. She's studying archeology at Memorial University of Newfoundland and grew up near the dig.
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Sherlock

2000-Year-Old Relics Show How Ancient Chinese Lived, Died


People's Daily
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:08 UTC
Image
© Hebei Youth Daily
The excavation of 93 ancient tombs at the No. 2 Ruins in Zhangduo Village under Xingtai's jurisdiction in China's Hebei Province finished a few days ago, and the relics have been checked and accepted by the provincial cultural relics bureau. These precious cultural relics show modern people the lives of ancient people over 2,000 years ago.

An archaeological team discovered 104 ancient tombs at the No. 2 Ruins in Zhangduo Village under Xingtai's jurisdiction in 2009, and the purpose of this archaeological activity was to ensure the smooth progress of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project.

In early 2010, the archaeological team conducted a second investigation into the No. 2 Ruins, which has been renamed "Cemetery in Southern Zhangduo," at the request of the Hebei Cultural Relics Bureau and unearthed 93 ancient tombs.

Li Jun, team leader in charge of the archaeological excavation, introduced the cultural relics excavated from the 93 tombs to the reporter.
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Sherlock

Mayan Water Reservoir in Mexican Rainforest: Archaeologists Find Huge Artificial Lake With Ceramic-Lined Floor


ScienceDaily
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© Proyecto Arqueológico Uxul
Uncovering the water reservoir's floor.
Archaeologists from the University of Bonn have found a water reservoir the size of a soccer field, whose floor is lined with ceramic shards, in the Mexican rainforest. It seems that in combination with the limestone on top, the shards were supposed to seal the artificial lake. The system was built about 1,500 years ago. It is the first example of this design found for the Maya. It is not yet known whether the reservoir's entire floor is tiled.

Since 2009, researchers from Bonn and Mexico have been systematically uncovering and mapping the old walls of Uxul, a Mayan city. "In the process, we also came across two, about 100 m square water reservoirs," explained Iken Paap, who directs the project with Professor Dr. Nikolai Grube and the Mexican archaeologist Antonio Benavides Castillo.

Such monster pools, which are also known from other Mayan cities, are called "aguadas." Similar to present-day water towers, they served to store drinking water. But the people of Uxul seem to have thought of a particularly smart way to seal their aguada. "We conducted a trial dig in the center of one of the water reservoirs," explains Nicolaus Seefeld, a young scholar. "We found that the bottom, which is at a depth of two meters, was covered with ceramic shards -- probably from plates -- practically without any gaps. But we don't know yet whether it's like this throughout the entire aguada."
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Meteor

Double Meteorite Strike "Caused Dinosaur Extinction"

Howard Falcon-Lang
BBC News
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:00 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests.
The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests.

Previously, scientists had identified a huge impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the event that spelled doom for the dinosaurs.

Now evidence for a second impact in the Ukraine has been uncovered.

This raises the possibility that the Earth may have been bombarded by a whole shower of meteorites.

The new findings are published in the journal Geology by a team lead by Professor David Jolley of Aberdeen University.

When first proposed in 1980, the idea that a meteorite impact had killed the dinosaurs proved hugely controversial. Later, the discovery of the Chicxulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico, US, was hailed as "the smoking gun" that confirmed the theory.
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Sherlock

Romans Wore Socks with Sandals, New British Dig Suggests

Richard Alleyne
The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00 UTC
Image
© Corbis
A fresco painting of the Roman general Furius Camillus by Francesco Salviati in the Sala dell'Udienza, or Audience Hall, of the Palazzo Vecchio
Britons may be famous for their lack of fashion sense and Italians for their style. But it appears we may have inherited one of our biggest sartorial crimes from the Romans.

New evidence from an archaeological dig has found that legionnaires wore socks with sandals.

Rust on a nail from a Roman sandal found in newly discovered ruins in North Yorkshire appears to contain fibres which could suggest that a sock-type garment was being worn.

Now scientists are examining the remains in the laboratory to see if it is true.

The fashion faux pas was found in a 2000-year-old "industrial estate" excavated as part of a £318 million Highways Agency scheme to upgrade the A1 between Dishforth and Leeming in North Yorkshire.
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