Science & Technology

Rich 'May Evolve into Separate Species'

Amy Willis
The Telegraph
Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:42 UTC

The super-rich may evolve into a separate species entirely in the future due to enhancements in biotechnology and robotic engineering, American futurologist Paul Saffo has said.

Mr Saffo, from San Francisco, says in the future people will be able to grow their own replacement organs, take specially tailored drugs, and use genetic research tools to alert them from any possible hereditary health dangers.

He adds that tomorrow's world will be a fusion of biology and technology, where robots do the chores, cars drive themselves and artificial limbs are better than real ones.

Mr Saffo's comments reflect claims by American scientist Ray Kurzweil who only a few months ago said immortality was only 20 years away due to the speed of advancements in nanotechnology.

Titanic Expedition Possible in 2010

Steve Szkotak
The Associated Press
Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:26 UTC

The company that has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic is planning a possible expedition to the world's most famous shipwreck in 2010.

The first expedition to the North Atlantic wreck site since 2004 is revealed in a filing by RMS Titanic Inc. in U.S. District Court, where four days of hearings are scheduled to begin Monday on the company's claim for a salvage award.

Lawyers for RMS Titanic Inc. confirmed the expedition plans but declined to discuss them in detail.

"That is something that is being looked at right now but it's not in any way a done deal," attorney Robert W. McFarland said in an interview. He said the company would have more to say at this week's hearing.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who considers the wreck an "international treasure," will preside over the hearings. They are intended to determine a salvage award and establish legal guarantees that thousands of Titanic artifacts remain intact as a collection and forever accessible to the public. Some pieces have ended up in London auction houses.

Evolutionary Past May Determine How We Choose Leaders

ScienceDaily
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC

Why did Barack Obama win the US election and did the fact he is over six feet tall influence the voters? In a synthesis of research, published in Current Biology this month, the authors of the paper 'The Origins and Evolution of Leadership' argue that due to 'a hangover from our evolutionary past' factors like age, sex, height and weight play a major part in the determining our choice of leaders.

Author Professor Mark van Vugt, an Associate Member of the Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford, said: 'Traits like height, age, gender, masculinity/femininity, and weight all appear to matter when we vote for our leaders. These are likely hangovers from our evolutionary past -- ancestral leadership prototypes that are context-dependent. When we face particular threats, like war, these elicit particular prototypes, such as the need for a masculine leader. Therefore, leaders who match these ancestral prototypes have a better chance of being elected.'

The article says that although human societies continue to rely heavily on political, economic, military, professional and religious leaders to function effectively, there is a consistently high rate of leadership failure. Nearly three quarters of business failures in corporate America are due to managerial incompetence, the study points out. It asks whether new approaches might be useful in understanding when and why human leadership succeeds and fails -- including Nature's own lessons on what works best in different contexts.

A Growing Sunspot

Space Weather
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:22 UTC

The sun is showing signs of life. Sunspot 1029 emerged this weekend, and it is crackling with B- and C-class solar flares. This movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) chronicles the sunspot's rapid development from Oct. 23rd through 25th.

The sunspot's magnetic polarity identifies it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24. If its growth continues apace, sunspot 1029 could soon become the biggest sunspot of 2009. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.

Modern Man had Sex with Neanderthals

Amy Willis
Telegraph
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:00 UTC

Modern man and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to leading geneticist Professor Svante Paabo

Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the claim at a conference in the Cold Springs Laboratory in New York.

But Prof Paabo said he was unclear if the couplings had led to children, of if they were capable of producing offspring.

"What I'm really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?" he said in an article in The Sunday Times.

"I'm sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite vigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence."

Astronomers Discover Another Saturn Ring

Martin Weil
Washington Post
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC

The ring is about four times the size of a full moon

Three astronomers from the Washington region, following in the footsteps of no less illustrious a predecessor than Galileo, have discovered a new ring around the planet Saturn.

Of all the features of the solar system, few exert a greater hold on the imagination than Saturn's rings. The image of the remote planet, surrounded by rings, has often stood as a symbol of astronomy and other sciences.

The announcement of the discovery not only made known a new feature of the solar system but it also demonstrated that despite years of effort, much about the planets remains unknown.

In the announcement, published online Oct. 7 by Nature, the international weekly journal of science, Anne J. Verbiscer and Michael F. Skrutskie, both of the University of Virginia, and Douglas P. Hamilton of the University of Maryland indicated that they have apparently found the largest of the rings.

UK: 'Atlantis and Mini-Stonehenge' Found in Devon

Sean Williams
Heritage Key
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:41 UTC

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a prehistoric city, buried beneath a reservoir in southern England.

The 'mini-Atlantis' was unearthed after water levels were lowered at the old Tottiford Reservoir, near Moretonhampstead - and comes complete with a Stonehenge-esque ceremonial site.

Archaeologists observing the city are justifiably astonished at its existence.

Jane Marchand, of Dartmoor National Park Authority, describes the find and its Avebury-like credentials: "It's a proper ceremonial site - we've also got ten burial cairns there. It was probably a real community centre. There are a lot of earlier recordings in this area of polished stone axes and so on - and I've always wondered why they were there. This place could have been the focus for all that activity.

Color Differences Within and Between Species have Common Genetic Origin

ScienceDaily
Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:00 UTC

© iStockphoto/Warwick Lister-Kaye
Body hair difference is more pronounced between chimpanzees and humans than within our own species.

Spend a little time people-watching at the beach and you're bound to notice differences in the amount, thickness and color of people's body hair. Then head to the zoo and compare people to chimps, our closest living relatives.

The body hair difference is even more pronounced between the two species than within our own species.

Do the same genes cause both types of variation? Biologists have puzzled over that question for some time, not just with respect to people, chimps and body hair, but for all sorts of traits that differ within and between species. Now, a study by University of Michigan researchers shows that, at least for body color in fruit flies, the two kinds of variation have a common genetic basis. The research, led by evolutionary biologist Patricia Wittkopp, appears in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Science.

Wittkopp's group explored the genetic underpinnings of pigmentation differences within and between a pair of closely related fruit fly species: Drosophila americana, which is dark brown, and Drosophila novamexicana, which is light yellow.

First 'Skylight' of an Intact Lava Tube on the Moon

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:16 UTC

© ISAS/JAXA/Junichi Haruyama et al.
This 65-metre-wide hole in the lunar surface extends at least 80 metres down and could be an opening into a larger lunar cave

A deep hole on the moon that could open into a vast underground tunnel has been found for the first time. The discovery strengthens evidence for subsurface, lava-carved channels that could shield future human colonists from space radiation and other hazards.

The moon seems to possess long, winding tunnels called lava tubes that are similar to structures seen on Earth. They are created when the top of a stream of molten rock solidifies and the lava inside drains away, leaving a hollow tube of rock.

Their existence on the moon is hinted at based on observations of sinuous rilles - long, winding depressions carved into the lunar surface by the flow of lava. Some sections of the rilles have collapsed, suggesting that hollow lava tubes hide beneath at least some of the rilles.

A Long Night Falls Over Saturn's Rings

Bill Steigerwald
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:51 UTC

© NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn's rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems. From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini's wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings and a few of its moons Aug. 12, 2009, beginning about 1.25 days after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun's disk was exactly overhead at the planet's equator.

As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, once approximately every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days.

This happens during Saturn's equinox, when the sun is directly over Saturn's equator. At this time, the rings, which also orbit directly over the planet's equator, appear edge-on to the sun. During equinox, light from the sun hits the ring particles at very low angles, accenting their topography and giving us a three-dimensional view of the rings.

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Science & Technology

Rich 'May Evolve into Separate Species'

Titanic Expedition Possible in 2010

Evolutionary Past May Determine How We Choose Leaders

A Growing Sunspot

Modern Man had Sex with Neanderthals

Astronomers Discover Another Saturn Ring

UK: 'Atlantis and Mini-Stonehenge' Found in Devon

Color Differences Within and Between Species have Common Genetic Origin

First 'Skylight' of an Intact Lava Tube on the Moon

A Long Night Falls Over Saturn's Rings

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