Science & TechnologyS


Sherlock

British Holidaymaker Discovers Lost Underwater 'City'

Lawrence Marzouk
The Telegraph
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:30 UTC
Montenegrin
© Le QuesneThe Montenegrin coast is dotted with ancient ruins yet to be documented.
A British holidaymaker has uncovered what is believed to be a lost, ancient temple while snorkelling in the Mediterranean.

Michael Le Quesne, 16, was swimming off a popular beach in Montenegro with his parents and his ten-year-old sister Teodora when he spotted an odd looking 'stone' at a depth of around two metres.

It turned out to be a large, submerged building which may have been the centrepiece of an important Greek or Roman trading post, swallowed up by the sea during a massive earthquake.

A British team of experts led by Dr Lucy Blue, presenter of BBC Two show Oceans, is to investigate the significant find in this largely unexplored corner of south east Europe.

Dr Blue said that if the discovery is confirmed to be an underwater temple it would "put Montenegro on the map".
Read More...
Sun

Solar Winds Triggered by Magnetic Fields


PhysOrg
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00 UTC
Solar winds
© HinodeSolar winds
Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite.

Scientists have long speculated on the source of solar winds. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), on board the Japanese-UK-US Hinode satellite, is now generating unprecedented observations enabling scientists to provide a new perspective on the 50-year old question of how solar wind is driven. The collaborative study, published in this month's issue of Astrophysical Journal, suggests that a process called slipping reconnection may drive these winds.

Deb Baker, lead author from UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, says: "Solar wind is an outflow of million-degree gas and magnetic field that engulfs the Earth and other planets. It fills the entire solar system and links with the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets. Changes in the Sun's million-mile-per-hour wind can induce disturbances within near-Earth space and our upper atmosphere and yet we still don't know what drives these outflows."
Read More...
Sherlock

Snail Fossils Suggest Semiarid Eastern Canary Islands Were Wetter 50,000 Years Ago


ScienceDaily
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00 UTC
Fossil
© Southern Methodist UniversityFossil land snail shells from the Eastern Canary Islands.
Fossil land snail shells found in ancient soils on the subtropical eastern Canary Islands show that the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa has become progressively drier over the past 50,000 years.

Isotopic measurements performed on fossil land snail shells resulted in oxygen isotope ratios that suggest the relative humidity on the islands was higher 50,000 years ago, then experienced a long-term decrease to the time of maximum global cooling and glaciation about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, according to new research by Yurena Yanes, a post-doctoral researcher, and Crayton J. Yapp, a geochemistry professor, both in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

With subsequent post-glacial climatic fluctuations, relative humidity seems to have oscillated somewhat, but finally decreased even further to modern values.

Consequently the eastern Canary Islands experienced an overall increase in dryness during the last 50,000 years, eventually yielding the current semiarid conditions. Today the low-altitude eastern islands are characterized by low annual rainfall and a landscape of short grasses and shrubs, Yanes says.
Read More...
Snowman

Beijing Gets First Snow After Meteorologists Seed Clouds

Saibal Dasgupta
Times of India
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:49 UTC
Image
© Agence France-PresseBeijing's first snow of season 'artificially induced'
Beijingers woke up Sunday morning to a city turned white with snow that came far ahead of the winter. It was only in the later part of the day that one learnt that 186 doses of silver iodide went into persuading the clouds to release snow flakes.

The metrological department said it had started seeding the clouds from 8pm in Saturday to beat down lingering drought in and around Beijing. The department claimed success in producing 16 million tones of snow for the city.

"We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought," said Zhang Qiang, who is in charge of the Beijing metrological office, said in a statement.
Read More...
Blackbox

Timeline: The secret history of swine flu

Debora MacKenzie and Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:54 UTC
Image
© Associated Press16 August 1957: a nurse at Montefiore Hospital gets the first Asian flu vaccine shot in New York
Six months ago, swine flu emerged as a massive threat to global health. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but our timeline explains how the origins of the H1N1 pandemic go back more than a century

1889

Prior to 1889, the main flu virus circulating in humans has been from the H1 family. But this year, a new strain of H2 flu emerges in Russia and spreads around the world, killing about 1 million people. Afterwards, H2 replaces H1 in humans. Such replacements seem to be a regular feature of flu pandemics.

People born before 1889, who have been exposed to H1 flu, have some immunity to it. This affords them some protection in the deadly H1N1 epidemic of 1918. Those born after 1889 do not have any immunity to H1.

1918

The "Spanish flu" epidemic of 1918 kills at least 50 million people worldwide. It is caused by an H1N1 virus which evolves directly from a bird flu into a human flu.

After a mild wave of infections in the summer, the epidemic goes global: one-third of the population eventually get sick. Although most cases are mild, many sufferers develop a rapidly fatal infection deep in their lungs. People born before 1889 are less susceptible, thanks to their previous exposure to H1N1.

Most deaths are caused by bacterial lung infections that move in after the virus. Modern antibiotics might mean that a re-run of the 1918 pandemic would be less dangerous.

After 1919, the descendants of the H1N1 virus continue to circulate and cause seasonal flu outbreaks in humans - and pigs.

Comment: One might enjoy reading:

Swine Flu Smoking Gun? CDC was Combining Flu Viruses in 2004

Swine Flu Scare: Stock Market Bonanza for "Politically Connected" BioTech Companies

Is Swine Flu A Biological Weapon?

Read More...
Telescope

Voices of long-dead stars haunt the galaxy

David Shiga
New Scientist
Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:14 UTC
Image
© NASA/NRAO/AUI/NSFSome neutron stars only appear as radio blips
Mysterious radio blips that come from apparently empty regions of space may be the voices of long-dead stars.

Thirteen unexplained radio blips have turned up in radio telescope observations since the 1980s. They emerged in spots where there are no stars or galaxies to be seen, last anywhere from hours to days, and do not seem to repeat. The blips could be traces of a vast population of stellar corpses - neutron stars that roam the universe largely unseen, suggests a team led by Eran Ofek of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Most of the galaxy's estimated billion neutron stars are invisible. Some of the newly formed ones have been detected because their rapid rotation sends radio pulses our way multiple times per second. These are thought to fade with age.
Read More...
Sherlock

Archeologists Discover Ancient Fortress near Moscow


Russia-InfoCentre
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC
Fortress
© cinform.ru
Archeologists have found defensive installations of an Old Russian fortress that stood at the confluence of Dubna River and Volga more than 800 years back.

In the course of archeological excavations they cleared a plot of a defensive moat, which had been constructed in the early 12th century and soon destroyed by a massive fire.

Experts assume that the initial version of the fortress on the border with Novgorod land was erected by Yuri Dolgoruki - the Prince of Rostov and Suzdal - around 1134.

Cultural strata of the ancient town are up to two and a half meters thick. During archeological diggings of 2009 over a thousand Old Russian artifacts have been procured.
Read More...
Info

Harvesting energy from nature's motions

Richard Merritt
Duke University
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:41 UTC
By taking advantage of the vagaries of the natural world, Duke University engineers have developed a novel approach that they believe can more efficiently harvest electricity from the motions of everyday life.

Energy harvesting is the process of converting one form of energy, such as motion, into another form of energy, in this case electricity. Strategies range from the development of massive wind farms to produce large amounts of electricity to using the vibrations of walking to power small electronic devices.
Read More...
Info

'Technology' plays large role in wealth inheritance

Bobbie Mixon
National Science Foundation
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:38 UTC
A new study reveals the important role inherited wealth plays in sustaining economic inequality in small scale societies. A team of 26 anthropologists, statisticians, and economists based at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico amassed an unprecedented data set allowing 43 estimates of a family's wealth inheritance and found that financial inequality among populations largely depends on the "technologies" that produce a people's livelihood.

According to the report, released in the October 30 edition of the journal Science, technologies differ across societies. Technologies are defined here to include everything one needs to make a living--from material things such as farms, herds and other real property, to knowledge, skills and other valuable resources.
Read More...
Chalkboard

Superstitious Beliefs Cemented Before Birth

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:16 UTC
The propensity to believe in paranormal phenomena and superstitions appears to arise in the womb, suggests new research.

The findings, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, further indicate that a reduced ability for analytical thinking may correspond with increased intuitive thinking, which has been associated with a belief in extrasensory perception (ESP), ghosts, telepathy and other paranormal phenomena.

Author Martin Voracek claims his new study's determinations "suggest (there are) biologically based, prenatally programmed influences on paranormal and superstitious beliefs."
Read More...