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When atoms in a crystal are struck by laser light, their electrons, excited by the light, typically begin moving back and forth together in a regular pattern, resembling nanoscale soldiers marching in a lockstep formation. But according to a new theory developed by Johns Hopkins researchers, under the right conditions these atoms will rebel against uniformity. Their electrons will begin moving apart and then joining together again repeatedly like lively swing partners on a dance floor.
The remnants of an Ice Age rhinoceros have been discovered by a five-year-old girl at a Gloucestershire, England water park.
Emelia Fawbert found the fossilized remains at the Cotswold Water Park during a fossil hunt with her father.
Emelia and her father James, 33, unearthed the atlas vertebra of the rhinoceros that frequented that area of the UK 50,000 years earlier.
Emelia Fawbert found the fossilized remains at the Cotswold Water Park during a fossil hunt with her father.
Emelia and her father James, 33, unearthed the atlas vertebra of the rhinoceros that frequented that area of the UK 50,000 years earlier.
© Unknown
In 1953 a physician named Louis Sokoloff laid a 20-year-old college student onto a gurney, attached electrodes to his scalp and inserted a syringe into his jugular vein.
For 60 minutes the volunteer lay there and solved arithmetic problems. All the while, Sokoloff monitored his brainwaves and checked the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in his blood.
Sokoloff, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was trying to find out how much energy the brain consumes during vigorous thought. He expected his volunteer's brain to guzzle more oxygen as it crunched the problems, but what he saw surprised him: his subject's brain consumed no more oxygen while doing arithmetic than it did while he was resting with his eyes closed.
People have long envisaged the brain as being like a computer on standby, lying dormant until called upon to do a task, such as solving a Sudoku, reading a newspaper, or looking for a face in a crowd. Sokoloff's experiment provided the first glimpse of a different truth: that the brain enjoys a rich private life. This amazing organ, which accounts for only 2 per cent of our body mass but devours 20 per cent of the calories we eat, fritters away much of that energy doing, as far as we can tell, absolutely nothing.
For 60 minutes the volunteer lay there and solved arithmetic problems. All the while, Sokoloff monitored his brainwaves and checked the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in his blood.
Sokoloff, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was trying to find out how much energy the brain consumes during vigorous thought. He expected his volunteer's brain to guzzle more oxygen as it crunched the problems, but what he saw surprised him: his subject's brain consumed no more oxygen while doing arithmetic than it did while he was resting with his eyes closed.
People have long envisaged the brain as being like a computer on standby, lying dormant until called upon to do a task, such as solving a Sudoku, reading a newspaper, or looking for a face in a crowd. Sokoloff's experiment provided the first glimpse of a different truth: that the brain enjoys a rich private life. This amazing organ, which accounts for only 2 per cent of our body mass but devours 20 per cent of the calories we eat, fritters away much of that energy doing, as far as we can tell, absolutely nothing.
A Stone Age massacre has provided evidence of the earliest known nuclear family. The evidence also suggests that, just like today, some early humans lived in blended families.
Archaeologists have long suspected that people lived in nuclear families at least as far back as the Stone Age. The idea even has a foothold in popular culture - remember Fred, Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone?
But the evidence for Stone Age nuclear families has been flimsy, mainly based on extrapolations from how we live now, and speculations about relationships between adults and children found buried together.
"We have been inferring the past from the present, but it wasn't necessarily true. Now, we have tested the hypothesis and found that at least one Stone Age nuclear family existed," says Wolfgang Haak who led a team at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.
Archaeologists have long suspected that people lived in nuclear families at least as far back as the Stone Age. The idea even has a foothold in popular culture - remember Fred, Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone?
© National Academy of Sciences/PNASA Late Stone Age family grave, showing the careful arrangement of bodies. The photo is overlain by a pedigree reconstructed from the genetic results with squares denoting male.
But the evidence for Stone Age nuclear families has been flimsy, mainly based on extrapolations from how we live now, and speculations about relationships between adults and children found buried together.
"We have been inferring the past from the present, but it wasn't necessarily true. Now, we have tested the hypothesis and found that at least one Stone Age nuclear family existed," says Wolfgang Haak who led a team at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.
Scientists are tracking the violent convulsions in the giant cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system 4.5 billion years ago via a few tiny particles from comet Wild 2.
These convulsions flung primordial material billions of miles from the hot, inner regions of the gas cloud that later collapsed to form the sun, out into the cold, nether regions of the solar system, where they became incorporated into an icy comet.
"If you take a gas of solar composition and let it cool down, the very first minerals to solidify are calcium and aluminum-rich," said Steven Simon, Senior Research Associate in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. And comet Wild 2 does contain these and other minerals formed at high temperatures. "That's an indication of transport from the inner solar system to the outer solar system, where comets are thought to have formed," he said.
These convulsions flung primordial material billions of miles from the hot, inner regions of the gas cloud that later collapsed to form the sun, out into the cold, nether regions of the solar system, where they became incorporated into an icy comet.
© University of ChicagoA transmission electron microscope image (magnified 5,000 times) of a slice of the Inti particle, which NASA’s Stardust spacecraft collected in 2004 and returned to Earth two years later. Preparation of the sample caused some breakage. Scale bar is one micron, or one millionth of a meter.
"If you take a gas of solar composition and let it cool down, the very first minerals to solidify are calcium and aluminum-rich," said Steven Simon, Senior Research Associate in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. And comet Wild 2 does contain these and other minerals formed at high temperatures. "That's an indication of transport from the inner solar system to the outer solar system, where comets are thought to have formed," he said.
India rejoiced Saturday at joining an elite club by planting its flag on the moon as the country's space agency released the first pictures of the cratered surface taken by its maiden lunar mission.
A probe sent late Friday from the orbiting mother spacecraft took pictures and gathered other data India needs for a future moon landing as it plummeted to a crash-landing at the moon's south pole, said Indian Space Research Organization spokesman B.R. Guruprasad.
The box-shaped probe was painted with India's saffron, white and green flag, sparking celebrations in the country that is striving to become a world power.
A probe sent late Friday from the orbiting mother spacecraft took pictures and gathered other data India needs for a future moon landing as it plummeted to a crash-landing at the moon's south pole, said Indian Space Research Organization spokesman B.R. Guruprasad.
The box-shaped probe was painted with India's saffron, white and green flag, sparking celebrations in the country that is striving to become a world power.
© NASA/Ames Research Center
The 68-kilogram (150-pound) HTV is a step toward fulfilling what Ames director S. Pete Worden, a veteran of the Air Force's Clementine minisat mission and fast-paced Responsive Space Program, envisions for quick, cheap missions to the moon, rendezvous with asteroids, Earth observation or any of a dozen other space chores.
Shortly after he took the helm at Ames, Worden launched the Common Spacecraft Bus development program for orbiter or lander missions that would cost less than $50 million and could be done, from design-to-launch, in two years or less.
© JPL/NASA, Backman et al./Astrophysical Journal 2009This artist’s illustration shows Epsilon Eridani, the closest known planetary system to our own. New observations reveal that the system hosts two asteroid belts, in addition to a previously identified outer ring of comets. The system's inner asteroid belt appears as the yellowish ring around the star, while the outer asteroid belt is in the foreground. The outermost comet ring is too far out to be seen in this view, but comets originating from it are shown in the upper right corner.
In the annals of planethood, astronomers consider the star Epsilon Eridani a member of the fabulous four. Along with Fomalhaut, Beta Pictoris and Vega, Epsilon Eridani is one of the first four stars scientists have found that has an icy ring of debris, an indication that the star has begun the process of forming planets.
Epsilon Eridani just got more fabulous: Researchers have discovered that the star, only 10.5 light-years from the sun, sports two inner asteroid belts in addition to the icy ring on the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani system.
Unhappy people glue themselves to the television 30 percent more than happy people.
The finding, announced on Thursday, comes from a survey of nearly 30,000 American adults conducted between 1975 and 2006 as part of the General Social Survey.
While happy people reported watching an average of 19 hours of television per week, unhappy people reported 25 hours a week. The results held even after taking into account education, income, age and marital status.
In addition, happy individuals were more socially active, attended more religious services, voted more and read a newspaper more often than their less-chipper counterparts.
The researchers are not sure, though, whether unhappiness leads to more television-watching or more viewing leads to unhappiness.
The finding, announced on Thursday, comes from a survey of nearly 30,000 American adults conducted between 1975 and 2006 as part of the General Social Survey.
While happy people reported watching an average of 19 hours of television per week, unhappy people reported 25 hours a week. The results held even after taking into account education, income, age and marital status.
In addition, happy individuals were more socially active, attended more religious services, voted more and read a newspaper more often than their less-chipper counterparts.
The researchers are not sure, though, whether unhappiness leads to more television-watching or more viewing leads to unhappiness.
British scientists have come up with the first robot that can mimic a person's expressions simply by watching their face.
