Science & Technology
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| ©Alfred Pasieka
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| DNA
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Pssst! I'm going on a tour of the genome - want to come?
I'm going to walk among the coiled spirals of DNA, and ponder the different histories of the different segments. For one of the most remarkable discoveries of recent decades is that genomes are not static, fixed entities that evolve as one; instead, they are highly dynamic. From one generation to the next, stretches of DNA may appear or disappear, or move from one location to another. From time to time, entire new genes appear and become established, thus expanding the organisms' genetic repertoire.
Two decades of scrutinizing Saturn are finally paying off, as scientists have discovered a wave pattern, or oscillation, in Saturn's atmosphere only visible from Earth every 15 years.
The discovery of the wave pattern is the result of a 22-year campaign observing Saturn from Earth (the longest study of temperature outside Earth ever recorded), and the Cassini spacecraft's observations of temperature changes in the giant planet's atmosphere over time.
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| ©Unknown
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| "You could only make this discovery by observing Saturn over a long period of time," said Orton, lead author of the ground-based study. "It's like putting together 22 years worth of puzzle pieces, collected by a hugely rewarding collaboration of students and scientists from around the world on various telescopes."
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The Cassini infrared results, which appear in the same issue of Nature as the data from the 22-year ground-based observing campaign, indicate that Saturn's wave pattern is similar to a pattern found in Earth's upper atmosphere. The earthly oscillation takes about two years. A similar pattern on Jupiter takes more than four Earth years. The new Saturn findings add a common link to the three planets.
In a meadow of one of Northern California's pristine national forests, 2,000-pound radio telescopes are popping up like mushrooms.
Made of aluminum and resembling something out of the movie "Contact," they point to the heavens and wait in silent attention. Scientists hope they will one day detect radio waves sent from a faraway planet.
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| ©Gary Reyes / Mercury News
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| Forty-two radio dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Hat Creek, Calif. point to the skies collecting scientific data in the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe on April 29, 2008. Each dish is about 20-feet in diameter.
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ESA's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has been used by a team of international astronomers to uncover part of the missing matter in the universe.
10 years ago, scientists predicted that about half of the 'ordinary' or normal matter made of atoms exists in the form of low-density gas, filling vast spaces between galaxies.
All the matter in the universe is distributed in a web-like structure. At dense nodes of the cosmic web are clusters of galaxies, the largest objects in the universe. Astronomers suspected that the low-density gas permeates the filaments of the web.
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| ©CSA
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| The CSA is to launch a suitcase-sized satellite to detect Near Earth Objects.
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A team led by the
Canadian Space Agency is set to launch a microsatellite designed to detect near-Earth asteroids from space.
WASHINGTON - Bits of chewed-up or burned seaweed discarded more than 14,000 years ago confirm that people were in Chile at least that long ago and shed light on what their culture was like, researchers reported on Thursday.
The findings at a site 10,000 miles from the Bering Strait add to an almost overwhelming pile of evidence that people were well distributed across the western Americas long before the so-called Clovis culture 13,000 years ago.
And the seaweed picked up at the Monte Verde site provide a direct link to people living in the area today, some of whom also use some of the seaweed species medicinally.
Real or perceived threats can trigger the well-known "fight or flight response" in humans and other animals. Adrenaline flows, and the stressed individual's heart pumps faster, the muscles work harder, the brain sharpens and non-essential systems shut down. The whole organism responds in concert in order to survive.
At the molecular level, it has been widely assumed that, in single-celled organisms, each cell perceives its environment -- and responds to stress conditions -- individually, each on its own to protect itself. Likewise, it had been thought that cells in multicellular organisms respond the same way, but a new study by scientists at Northwestern University reports otherwise.
The Northwestern researchers demonstrated something very unexpected in their studies of the worm C. elegans: Authority is taken away from individual cells and given to two specialized neurons to sense temperature stress and organize an integrated molecular response for the entire organism.
The study, with results that show a possible parallel with the orchestrated "fight or flight response," will be published in the May 9 issue of the journal Science.
As credits crunch, recession bites, and business struggle to stay primed, researchers in Spain suggest that a more surgical approach to management and business practice is needed if a company is to survive. Writing in the International Journal of Management Practice from Inderscience Publishers, the team explains how businesses could take a cue from nature to them restructure.
Palmira López-Fresno of "STIGA" in Barcelona is working with Fernando Fernández-González of the Hospital Central de Asturias in Oviedo to demonstrate how a process analogous to apoptosis, or programmed cell death, could help companies, and organisations, such as hospitals, removed malfunctioning or ineffective parts of their business and operations and so prevent the spread of commercial decay that could spread throughout an organisation and lead ultimately to its demise.
The Druze people of Israel are a genetic sanctuary of ancient lineages of DNA, researchers reported Wednesday.
Not only does the exclusive religious community offer a snapshot into the history of the Middle East, but their well-preserved diversity may provide opportunities for medical research, the team at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology said.
The researchers looked at mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that is passed down virtually unchanged from mother to daughter. It can provide a kind of snapshot of the ancestry of a person.
NWOThu, 08 May 2008 17:56 UTC
A number of elite tombs from Ancient Egypt are now accessible to all thanks to the launch of the Mastabase. The Mastabase is a CD-ROM containing descriptions and hieroglyphic inscriptions of scenes of daily life from 337 Mastaba tombs. This resource will make research into these elite tombs a lot easier. On 13 May 2008, Dutch Egyptologist René van Walsem will officially present the MastaBase in Leiden.
A Mastaba is an elite tomb from the Memphite area in Ancient Egypt (2600-2150 BC). The tombs contain scenes depicting daily life, often accompanied by inscriptions. Elite tombs are extremely complex works of art. They contain various main themes, which are further divided into sub-themes. Main themes are, for example, scenes depicting offerings, farming, fishing, et cetera. The theme fishing, for instance, can then be broken down into various sub-themes, such as fishing with a dragnet or seine, the transportation of fish and the processing of fish.
