Darwin's tree of life represents the path and estimates the time evolution took to get to the current diversity of life. Now, new findings suggest that this tree, an icon of evolution, may need to be redrawn. In research to be published in the April 13 advance online issue of Nature, researchers at Rockefeller University and the University of Tokyo have joined forces to reveal that insects have adopted a strategy to detect odors that is radically different from those of other organisms -- an unexpected and controversial finding that may dissolve a dominant ideology in the field.
Since 1991, researchers assumed that all vertebrates and invertebrates smell odors by using a complicated biological apparatus much like a Rube Goldberg device. For instance, someone pushing a doorbell would set off a series of elaborate, somewhat wacky, steps that culminate in the rather simple task of opening the door.
Science & Technology
What is called "creationism" is the belief that in six days the Judeo-Christian god created the universe and all the earthly species including humans in finished form much as they exist today. For centuries this view prevailed throughout the western world. Even after evolutionary science had emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the scenario sketched in Genesis remained the only one acceptable for most of Christendom. Not until the early twentieth century did Darwinian science enjoy a fully receptive hearing in the scientific and academic communities of the United States.
But today, rather than riding triumphant, evolutionary science seems to be barely hanging on in the arena of public opinion. A 2007 Gallup poll reported that only 49 percent of the US public accepted evolution and 48 percent did not. Another survey found 42 percent of Americans held strict creationist views. And various school districts throughout the country have experienced furious dust-ups over the teaching of evolution.
But today, rather than riding triumphant, evolutionary science seems to be barely hanging on in the arena of public opinion. A 2007 Gallup poll reported that only 49 percent of the US public accepted evolution and 48 percent did not. Another survey found 42 percent of Americans held strict creationist views. And various school districts throughout the country have experienced furious dust-ups over the teaching of evolution.
The hottest mechanical suit yet seen.
US, April 11, 2008 - Popular Science has put together a rather sweet article tying the ongoing marketing blitz for Iron Man to a look at where real world exoskeleton technology stands. The focal point of the story is Ratheon's XOS exoskeleton, a suit the company is apparently accurate in describing as the most advanced yet assembled. A product of Darpa funding much like the BigDog quadraped robot, the XOS is the brainchild of Steve Jacobsen, a robotics engineer relatively new to designing products for the military, and fortunately so. His abilities to engineer and integrate discrete, yet vitally important solutions ranging from hydraulic valves, to complex algorithms and operating software in-house are apparently the key to the XOS' lead over other exoskeleton concepts.
US, April 11, 2008 - Popular Science has put together a rather sweet article tying the ongoing marketing blitz for Iron Man to a look at where real world exoskeleton technology stands. The focal point of the story is Ratheon's XOS exoskeleton, a suit the company is apparently accurate in describing as the most advanced yet assembled. A product of Darpa funding much like the BigDog quadraped robot, the XOS is the brainchild of Steve Jacobsen, a robotics engineer relatively new to designing products for the military, and fortunately so. His abilities to engineer and integrate discrete, yet vitally important solutions ranging from hydraulic valves, to complex algorithms and operating software in-house are apparently the key to the XOS' lead over other exoskeleton concepts.
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| ©Popular Science |
Russian scientists say they've managed to develop the most detailed picture ever of the insides of prehistoric animals. They made the discovery after studying a baby mammoth found immaculately preserved in the Yamalo-Nenets region in the Urals last year.
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| ©Unknown |
PITTSBURGH - We already knew that iRobot CEO Colin Angle was running the only successful business in the home robotics game, so it was fitting that he closed his keynote at the RoboBusiness Conference here today by asking if there's really a robot industry in the first place: "Are we sure we're not just an adjunct to another industry?"
After all, Disney stopped buying its animatronic actors years ago, and started building them. What's to stop retail chains from adding a robotics division, or an upright vacuum-maker from hiring its own team of roboticists? This is not, we can assume, what audience wanted to hear. This conference, whose founder and biggest sponsor is iRobot, is a place for deals to be made, and an industry to be cultivated. But as the public continues to devour news of Asimo's latest sprint or stumble, and schools across the country vie for scholarships in national robotics competitions, the industry itself is barely out of the incubator.
In a world without human-produced pollution, biological productivity controls cloud formation and may be the lever that caused supergreenhouse episodes during the Cetaceous and Eocene, according to Penn State paleoclimatologists.
"Our motivation was the inability of climate models to reproduce the climate of the supergreenhouse episodes of the Cetaceous and Eocene adequately," said Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences. "People have tried increasing carbon dioxide in the models to explain the warming, but there are limits to the amounts that can be added because the existing proxies for carbon dioxide do not show such large amounts."
In general, the proxies indicate that the Cretaceious and Eocene atmosphere never exceeded four times the current carbon dioxide level, which is not enough for the models to create supergreenhouse conditions. Some researchers have tried increasing the amount of methane, another greenhouse gas, but there are no proxies for methane. Another approach is to assume that ocean currents changed, but while researchers can insert new current information into the models, they cannot get the models to create these ocean current scenarios.
"Our motivation was the inability of climate models to reproduce the climate of the supergreenhouse episodes of the Cetaceous and Eocene adequately," said Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences. "People have tried increasing carbon dioxide in the models to explain the warming, but there are limits to the amounts that can be added because the existing proxies for carbon dioxide do not show such large amounts."
In general, the proxies indicate that the Cretaceious and Eocene atmosphere never exceeded four times the current carbon dioxide level, which is not enough for the models to create supergreenhouse conditions. Some researchers have tried increasing the amount of methane, another greenhouse gas, but there are no proxies for methane. Another approach is to assume that ocean currents changed, but while researchers can insert new current information into the models, they cannot get the models to create these ocean current scenarios.
Tiny shifts that make our days milliseconds longer may be due to forces under our feet, a new study has found.
It has long been known that natural phenomena on Earth's surface, such as tides and winds, affect its rotation speed.
Now scientists are investigating how events in a mineral layer at the core-mantle boundary, 1,615 miles (2,600 kilometers) deep, similarly affect the planet's spin.
"The length of a day ... is changing due to the interaction between the mantle and the core in the very deep Earth," said study co-author Kei Hirose, a geoscientist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan.
It has long been known that natural phenomena on Earth's surface, such as tides and winds, affect its rotation speed.
Now scientists are investigating how events in a mineral layer at the core-mantle boundary, 1,615 miles (2,600 kilometers) deep, similarly affect the planet's spin.
"The length of a day ... is changing due to the interaction between the mantle and the core in the very deep Earth," said study co-author Kei Hirose, a geoscientist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan.
Washington: Rutgers University researchers have found in a study of infant brains that babies who struggle to process tiny auditory differences like "ba" and "da" sounds seem to be using different brain areas, and perhaps different analysis strategies to accomplish the task, as compared to children who do not have such difficulties.
Uncovering a rare, two-billion-year-old window into the Earth's mantle, a University of Houston professor and his team have found our planet's geological history is more complex than previously thought.
Jonathan Snow, Assistant Professor of Geosciences at UH, led a team of researchers in a North Pole expedition, resulting in a discovery that could shed new light on the mantle, the vast layer that lies beneath the planet's outer crust. These findings are described in a paper titled "Ancient, highly heterogeneous mantle beneath Gakkel Ridge, Arctic Ocean," appearing recently in Nature.
Jonathan Snow, Assistant Professor of Geosciences at UH, led a team of researchers in a North Pole expedition, resulting in a discovery that could shed new light on the mantle, the vast layer that lies beneath the planet's outer crust. These findings are described in a paper titled "Ancient, highly heterogeneous mantle beneath Gakkel Ridge, Arctic Ocean," appearing recently in Nature.
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| ©Heinz Feldmann, Max-Planck Insitut fuer Chemie, Mainz, Germany |
| The mantle rock was collected during an expedition to the North Pole aboard a 400-foot-long icebreaker, a research vessel designed to break through the ice. |
New geological evidence indicates the Grand Canyon may be so old that dinosaurs once lumbered along its rim, according to a study by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the California Institute of Technology.
The team used a technique known as radiometric dating to show the Grand Canyon may have formed more than 55 million years ago, pushing back its assumed origins by 40 million to 50 million years. The researchers gathered evidence from rocks in the canyon and on surrounding plateaus that were deposited near sea level several hundred million years ago before the region uplifted and eroded to form the canyon.
The team used a technique known as radiometric dating to show the Grand Canyon may have formed more than 55 million years ago, pushing back its assumed origins by 40 million to 50 million years. The researchers gathered evidence from rocks in the canyon and on surrounding plateaus that were deposited near sea level several hundred million years ago before the region uplifted and eroded to form the canyon.
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| ©Rebecca Flowers, CU-Boulder |
| The Grand Canyon may be as old as the dinosaurs, according to a new study by the University of Colorado and the California Institute of Technology |
Comment: Yet another gadget for the military.