Science & TechnologyS


Bizarro Earth

Robotic Insect Takes Off for the First Time

Rachel Ross
Technology Review
Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:15 UTC
A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.

©Robert Wood
This tiny robot weighs just 60 milligrams and has a wingspan of three centimeters. It's the first robot to achieve liftoff that's modeled on a fly and built on such a small scale.
Read More...
Chess

Checkers 'solved' after years of number crunching

Justin Mullins
New Scientist
Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:51 UTC
The ancient game of checkers (or draughts) has been pronounced dead. The game was killed by the publication of a mathematical proof showing that draughts always results in a draw when neither player makes a mistake. For computer-game aficionados, the game is now "solved".

Draughts is merely the latest in a steady stream of games to have been solved using computers, following games such as Connect Four, which was solved more than 10 years ago.

The computer proof took Jonathan Schaeffer, a computer-games expert at the University of Alberta in Canada, 18 years to complete and is one of the longest running computations in history.
Read More...
Ark

Archaeologists Dig Up Roman Bath Complex

MARTA FALCONI
Associated Press
Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:27 UTC


©AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Archaeologists work in Rome, on the ruins of a 2nd-century bath complex believed to be part of a vast, luxurious residence of a billionaire who gathered his fellow Romans to party and relax.

ROME - Archaeologists said Thursday they have partly dug up a second-century bath complex believed to be part of the vast, luxurious residence of a wealthy Roman.
Read More...
Star

Scientists Unveil The Mystery Behind Saturn's "Walnut Moon"


AHN
Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:20 UTC
A new study conducted on Saturn has solved the mystery of the "Walnut Moon" associated with the planet. Scientists at the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California now say that a burst of radioactivity warmed and softened Saturn's moon Iapetus soon after it formed, allowing it to be molded into its walnut-like shape, rather than the expected sphere.

Iapetus, Saturn's icy moon, is now 20 miles wider at the equator than the poles. An Iapetus day is nearly 80 Earth days long. The moon also has a broad bulge around its equator capped by a narrow ridge, giving it the appearance of a walnut.

Since long time, scientists were working to find out how it acquired its distinctive walnut shape since the ridge was discovered in 2004 in images from the Cassini spacecraft.
Read More...
Snowman

Ice volcanoes in outer space? 'Cryovolcanoes' may spew snow over Pluto's neighbour.

Katharine Sanderson
Nature
Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:46 UTC
Pluto's neighbouring object, Charon, could be spewing out liquid water from ultra-cold volcanoes, covering Charon's chilly surface with freshly-formed ice crystals.

This dramatic conclusion was made by Jason Cook at Arizona State University, Tempe, who looked at Charon's near-infrared spectrum using telescopes at the Gemini Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Cook found traces of both crystalline water ice and ammonia, he reports in Astrophysical Journal1.

Cook says that icy crystals can only exist on Charon if they are regularly deposited there. Crystalline ice cannot exist for long on the surface because it is bombarded with ultra-violet radiation from the Sun and charged particles, and these smooth out the crystals, he says. This is where the volcanoes come in.
Read More...
Bulb

Elementary Particles Are Conscious

Jay Alfred
EzineArticles.com
Thu, 19 Jul 2007 06:37 UTC
"In some strange way an electron or a photon [or any other elementary particle] seems to 'know' about changes in the environment and appears to respond accordingly," says physicist Danah Zohar.
Read More...
Better Earth

Megaflood 'made Island Britain'

Jonathan Amos
BBC
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:10 UTC
Britain became separated from mainland Europe after a catastrophic flood some time before 200,000 years ago, a sonar study of the English Channel confirms.
Read More...
Coffee

Milestone for unique bionic hand


BBC News
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:14 UTC
A highly functional bionic hand which was invented by a Scottish NHS worker has gone on the market.

The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles.

©BBC
The hand is controlled by the user's mind and muscles.

It was invented by David Gow and was designed and built by Touch Bionics, which is based in Livingston.
Read More...
Magnify

All pharaohs to be DNA tested

Michelle Nichols
ABC News in Science
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:23 UTC
All of Egypt's royal mummies will get identity checks after scientists found one was wrongly identified as a pharaoh, Egypt's chief archaeologist says.

Dr Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, says he will use computed tomography, or CT scanning, and DNA to test more than 40 royal mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

In June, the mummy long thought to have been King Tuthmosis I was found to be a young man who died from an arrow wound, Hawass says. History shows Tuthmosis I died in his 60s.

"I am now questioning all the mummies," he says. "We have to check them all again.

"The new technology now will reconfirm or identify anything for us."
Read More...
Key

3,000 year old rare Mycenaean grave unearthed in southern Greece


Reuters
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 06:52 UTC
ATHENS - Roadworks in southern Greece have unearthed a rare Mycenaean grave thought to be well over 3,000 years old and containing important burial offerings including a gold chalice, the culture ministry said on Monday.
Read More...