Science & TechnologyS


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"Modern" Humans Get an Ancient, Nonhuman Twist

Bruce Bower
Science News
Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:12 UTC
Two new reports suggest that hominids other than Homo sapiens made complex stone tools and fancy necklaces

Behaviors and intellectual capacities that scientists have commonly attributed to the rise of Homo sapiens around 200,000 years ago actually appeared in other Homo species as well, according to a pair of new investigations.

Excavations in Kenya have yielded nearly 100 complete and partial stone blades, along with stones from which blades were struck, dating to 500,000 years ago, say Cara Johnson and Sally McBrearty, both of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. That's roughly 150,000 years before the earliest previous evidence of blade making. Production of these thin, sharp-edged implements flourished around 30,000 years ago among modern humans.
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Saturn

Strange Mars Photo Includes Tantalizing 'Tree' Illusion

Ker Than
SPACE.com
Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:18 UTC
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© NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaThis new image of Mars taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an optical illusion. What appears to be trees rising from the Martian surface are actually dark streaks of collapsed material running down sand dunes due to carbon dioxide frost evaporation.
Naturally erupting dust clouds on Mars are creating structures that look surprisingly like trees near the planet's north pole. But don't be fooled - it's just an optical illusion, NASA scientists say.

The Martian "trees" are actually dark basaltic sand pushed to the surface of sand dunes by sun-heated solid carbon dioxide ice, or dry ice, sublimating directly into vapor, explained Candy Hansen, a member of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) team at the University of Arizona.

The sand dunes form a nearly complete ring around Mars' north pole and are covered by a thin layer of reddish Martian dust and patches of dry ice. To date, there is no firm evidence of any type of Martian biology, past or present, plant or otherwise.
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Arrow Down

US: Money for Biomedical Research Cut in Recent Years


HealthDay News
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:58 UTC
From 2005 to 2008, the level of funding for biomedical research in the United States appears to have decreased by 2 percent, a new study shows.

The same review also found that the rate of increase in funding has slowed since 2005.

An analysis of data showed that funding of biomedical research by federal, state and local government, and private and industry sources increased from $75.5 billion in 2003 to $101.1 billion in 2007, an inflation-adjusted increase of 14 percent.
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Telescope

Thousands view solar eclipse event


Irish Independent
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:28 UTC
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© Getty Images The rare annular solar eclipse was visible across much of Africa and Asia. During the 7 minutes 15 seconds annularity, the moon passes directly in front of the sun, leaving a spectacular ring of fire. The whole eclipse took 4 hours, 11:05 a.m. until 03.05 p.m.

Thousands of people in Africa and Asia have viewed an eclipse as the moon crossed the sun's path blocking everything but a narrow, blazing rim of light.

The path of the eclipse began in Africa - passing through Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia before crossing the Indian Ocean, where it reached its peak, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration website.

The path then continued into Asia where the eclipse could be seen in the Maldives, southern India, parts of Sri Lanka, Burma and China.

Clouds obscured the partial solar eclipse in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, disappointing residents who were up early to catch a glimpse.
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Magnet

Stars Spin Huge Magnetic Loop


SPACE.com
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:03 UTC
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Astronomers have detected a giant magnetic loop sweeping out from a pair of binary stars in the Milky Way.

"This is the first time we've seen a feature like this in the magnetic field of any star other than the sun," said William Peterson of the University of Iowa.

The stellar pair, called Algol, includes a star about three times more massive than the sun along with a less-massive companion. The two lie about 93 light-years away from Earth. They have been known since ancient times as "The Demon Star" because they appear as one object that blinks on and off - a phenomenon caused when one star passes in front of the other.

Within the binary, the smaller star orbits the larger at a distance of 5.8 million miles, only about 6 percent of the distance between Earth and the sun.
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Question

Mystery Behind Solar System's Giant Ribbon Solved?

Ian O'Neill
NASA
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:39 UTC
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© NASA/IBEX/Heerikhuisen et al.A comparison between the observation of the IBEX "ribbon" (left) and a Heerikhuisen et al. simulation of what the ribbon should look like considering an interstellar magnetic field (right).

Last year, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) made a discovery so profound that scientists had a hard time describing what they were seeing. A vast ribbon located in the outermost reaches of the solar system had been spotted, a structure that had never been seen before. Now scientists believe the shape might be created by a huge reflection caused by particles bouncing off a galactic magnetic field.

IBEX isn't an ordinary space telescope and this mystery ribbon isn't emitting any light; the ribbon is in fact the source of very energetic neutral particles that are raining down on us after travelling over 100 AU (approximately 9 billion miles).

IBEX is designed to detect fast moving particles called energetic neutral atoms (or ENAs for short) created at the absolute boundary of our solar system known as the "heliopause." This boundary separates the bubble-like heliosphere (which contains the sun, planets and solar wind) and interstellar space (i.e. the space between the stars).
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Sherlock

Are Men More Evolved Than Women?

Seth Borenstein
Discovery News
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:25 UTC
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© NISTJust because the Y chromosome, which determines gender, is evolving at a speedy rate it doesn't necessarily mean men themselves are more evolved.
Men might not be so primitive after all

Women may think of men as primitive, but new research indicates that the Y chromosome -- the thing that makes a man male -- is evolving far faster than the rest of the human genetic code.

A new study comparing the Y chromosomes from humans and chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives, show that they are about 30 percent different. That is far greater than the 2 percent difference between the rest of the human genetic code and that of the chimp's, according to a study appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

These changes occurred in the last 6 million years or so, relatively recently when it comes to evolution.

"The Y chromosome appears to be the most rapidly evolving of the human chromosomes," said study co-author Dr. David Page, director of the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge and a professor of biology at MIT. "It's an almost ongoing churning of gene reconstruction. It's like a house that's constantly being rebuilt."
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Cloud Lightning

Flashback Climate change by Jupiter

Lawrence Solomon
Canada Financial Post
Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:36 UTC
The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth.

So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major encyclopedias of specialized scientific papers in the atmospheric sciences and astrogeology; geomorphology; geochemistry and the earth sciences; geology, sedimentology, paleontology, oceanography and, not least, climatology.
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Info

Protein Needed to Develop Auditory Neurons Identified


Science Daily
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:33 UTC
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© Wellcome ImagesSound receivers: a hair cell of the inner ear
Loss of spiral ganglion neurons or hair cells in the inner ear is the leading cause of congenital and acquired hearing impairment. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health found that Sox2, a protein that regulates stem cell formation, is involved in spiral ganglion neuron development.

"These findings may provide the first step toward regenerating spiral ganglion neurons, the nerve cells that send sound representations to the brain," said Alain Dabdoub, PhD, co-investigator and assistant professor of surgery with the division of otolaryngology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. "This has significant implications for advances in cochlear implant technology and biological treatments for hearing loss."

In the cochlea, auditory neurons transmit sound vibrations conveyed by hair cells. These vibrations are then converted to nerve impulses that communicate with the brain. If the neurons are lost or damaged, hearing loss occurs. Existing therapies for hearing loss are based on either increasing hair cell stimulation with hearing aids or introducing an electronic substitute for the hair cells with cochlear implants. In either case, the presence of functional spiral ganglion neurons is required for a successful outcome.
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Info

Mysterious Jamestown Tablet an American Rosetta Stone?

Paula Neely
National Geographic magazine
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:27 UTC
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© Preservation VirginiaA conservator digitally isolated inscriptions (right) on the 17th-century Jamestown tablet (left).
With the help of enhanced imagery and an expert in Elizabethan script, archaeologists are beginning to unravel the meaning of mysterious text and images etched into a rare 400-year-old slate tablet discovered this past summer at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.

Digitally enhanced images of the slate are helping to isolate inscriptions and illuminate fine details on the slate - the first with extensive inscriptions discovered at any early American colonial site, said William Kelso, director of research and interpretation at the 17th-century Historic Jamestowne site (Jamestown map).
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