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8000-Year-Old Skeleton Found in Bulgaria


The Sofia Echo
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:29 UTC
Image
© Stringer
Bulgarian archaeologists, led by lecturer Boris Borissov from the university of Veliko Turnovo, unearthed a skeleton estimated at 8000 years old, Bulgarian media reported on October 25 2010.

The remains were found while land was being cleared for the construction of the Maritsa motorway, en route to Turkey, near the village of Kroum, municipality of Dimitrovgrad. Experts say that the skeleton, was from the Neolithic age, dates back to 6000 BCE, and belonged to a young boy, aged 10-15.

Anthropologist Tsvetan Minkov and experts from the Dimitrovgrad museum were also called to the site. The skeleton is most likely going to end up in the museum, but its safe extraction from the grave will present a significant task. Although the teeth are reportedly in "superb condition" the rest of the skeleton is in extremely brittle state and it "almost dissolves upon touch".
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Info

Lungs Can Taste! Weird Discovery Points to New Asthma Treatments


Discovery Magazine
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:04 UTC
Lungs Can Taste
© iStockphoto
Lungs.

Your lungs know a bitter sensation when they taste one.

Yes, taste. In a Nature Medicine study, Stephen B. Liggett and company found receptors on the smooth muscle in the lungs that respond to bitterness, similar to the bitter taste buds on the tongue. And, Liggett found, the receptors' reaction to bitterness is to relax the muscles, and therefore to expand airways. That was totally unexpected, he says, and opens intriguing possibilities for pulmonary treatment - for example, asthmatic symptoms could be treated by exposing these receptors to bitter compounds.
Like tastebuds on the tongue, the receptors react to bitterness, but unlike tastebuds they do not send any signals to the brain. The researchers thought the taste receptors might have evolved as a protection against toxic plants [Boston Globe]
The researchers first thought that bitter compounds might trigger a constriction of the airways, to prevent toxins from further infiltrating the lungs. The fact that Liggett saw the opposite, airways opening up, suggests that this feature evolved to help us fight off infections like bronchitis or pneumonia, where it would be beneficial to relax the airway so a person could cough up noxious fluids from the lungs.
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Telescope

Scientists find evidence for widespread water ice on the moon

Michaela Shopland and Stuart Wolpert
UCLA Newsroom
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:15 UTC
Image
© Based on a figure in the journal Science. UCLA/JPL/GSFC/NASA
LRO Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment surface temperature map of the south polar region of the moon. Data were acquired during September and October 2009, when south polar temperatures were close to their annual maximum values. The map shows the locations of several intensely cold impact craters that are potential cold traps for water ice, as well as a range of other icy compounds commonly observed in comets. The approximate maximum temperatures at which these compounds would be frozen in place for more than a billion years is shown next to the scale on the right.
Scientists from NASA's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment team have detected the widespread presence of water ice in large areas of the moon's south pole.

Their findings appear Oct. 22 in two papers published in the journal Science. The research was funded by NASA.

Diviner, an infrared spectrometer aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), has made the first infrared measurements of temperatures in the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's poles.
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Telescope

Japanese and U.S. Space Telescopes Reveal Previously Unknown Brilliant X-Ray Explosion in Our Milky Way Galaxy


PennState Science
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 07:02 UTC
Image
© JAXA/RIKEN/MAXI team.
Images of areas of 10 degrees in radius around the nova MAXI J1409-619. A celestial body that was not observed on Oct. 12 shone bright on the 17th.
Astronomers in Japan, using an X-ray detector on the International Space Station, and at Penn State University, using NASA's Swift space observatory, are announcing the discovery of an object newly emitting X-rays, which previously had been hidden inside our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Centaurus.
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Bizarro Earth

Giant asteroid impact found in Aussie outback


Australian Geographic
Mon, 25 Oct 2010 01:04 UTC
Aussie Impact Crater
© NASA Earth Observatory
Another major Australian asteroid impact site at Gosses Bluff in the Northern Territory.
Australian researchers have found evidence of a major asteroid impact that occurred near the Queensland-South Australia border more than 300 million years ago.

The asteroid, which produced a "shock zone" at least 80 km wide, could be the second-largest impact ever found in Australia.

University of Queensland geothermal energy researcher Dr Tonguc Uysal discovered the evidence of the impact during his studies of the Cooper Basin, which is a large geothermal energy resource being developed on the border between Queensland and South Australia.
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Info

Geomagnetic Record To Reveal Sun's Route Through Galaxy


Technology Review, MIT
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 23:53 UTC
Sun's Passage
© Technology Review, MIT
The Sun's passage through interstellar clouds can explain a number of anomalies in the geomagnetic record, say astrophysicists.

When galactic cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they smash into nuclei forming various kinds of exotic by-products. Astrophysicists think that beryllium-10, chlorine-36 and carbon-14 in particular are formed in this way.

So it's reasonable to think that that the abundance of these elements in the paleorecord should give some kind of indication of the flux of galactic cosmic rays at that time. But when geologists look, a puzzle emerges.

Here's why. The Earth's magnetic field acts like a shield to protect against this kind of bombardment. So in the first instance, the abundance of these exotic nuclei should follow the waxing and waning of this field.
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Telescope

Rare Moon Rings


Space Weather
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:14 UTC
It's not uncommon to see one ring around the Moon. But two? On Oct. 23rd, Martin Popek of Nýdek, Czech republic, photographed a rare pair:

Image
© Martin Popek
The outer 22 degree circumscribed halo is caused by moonlight shining through six-sided pencil-shaped ice crystals in the air. This is a familiar sight to backyard sky watchers. Less familiar is the 9 degree inner ring. It is caused by ice crystals with a strange pyramidal shape. The 9 degree ring is the innermost of many possible "odd-radius" halos caused by pyramidal ice crystals. Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley notes that "pyramidal crystals [might not be as] rare as previously thought" and he urges sky watchers to "search carefully for their halos whenever the skies look favourable."
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Satellite

Space Station Flyby


Space Weather
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:11 UTC
For the next week, the International Space Station (ISS) will be performing a series of bright evening flybys over North America and Europe. The station is very easy to see if you know when to look. Check the Simple Satellite Tracker for local flyby times or you can turn your cell phone into a field-tested ISS-tracker.

On Oct 21st, amateur astronomer Béla Vingler of Győrújfalu, Hungary, caught the space station flying directly in front of the Moon:

Image
© Béla Vingler
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Sun

Geomagnetic Storm Warning


Space Weather
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:08 UTC
Image
© SDO/AIA
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on Oct. 25th or 26th.
NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of severe geomagnetic storms around the poles on Oct. 25th. The forecast is prompted by a possible double whammy: both a solar wind stream and a CME could hit Earth's magnetic field on that date. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
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Control Panel

Neurons work like a chain of dominos to control action sequences


Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:55 UTC
MIT neuroscientists identify chain reactions within the brain.

As anyone who as ever picked up a guitar or a tennis racket knows, precise timing is often an essential part of performing complex tasks. Now, by studying the brain circuits that control bird song, MIT researchers have identified a "chain reaction" of brain activity that appears to control the timing of song.

The song of the zebra finch is very stereotypic; each song lasts about 1 second, and consists of multiple syllables whose timing is almost precisely the same from one performance to the next. "It's a great model system for studying how the brain controls actions", says Michale Fee, senior author of the study and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

The brain structures involved in bird song production have been identified, and Fee and colleagues had previously shown that the tempo of the song is controlled by a brain area known as HVC. During the 1-second song, individual neurons in HVC fire just one short burst of activity at a precise time point within the song. Different neurons fire at different times, so the activity of these neurons represents a 'time stamp' that causes the correct instructions to be sent to the vocal organs at each instant within the song.
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