Science & TechnologyS


Life Preserver

Ancient Underwater Relic Found in Israel



Relic of ancient mariners talisman
©Israel Antiquities Authority
Relic of ancient mariner's talisman

An Israeli lifeguard stubbed his foot during an underwater morning swim in an offshore archaeological site this week on what turned out to a surprising rare find.

People

Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3000 years

The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great grandparents - give or take a generation or two.

Magnify

Study finds genetic link to violence, delinquency

Three genes may play a strong role in determining why some young men raised in rough neighborhoods or deprived families become violent criminals, while others do not, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

Bulb

Bluffing could be common in prediction markets, study shows

A new mathematical model by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests that bluffing in prediction markets is a profitable strategy more often than previously thought.

The analysis calls into question the incentives such markets create for revealing information and making accurate predictions. The researchers also pose a tactic to discourage bluffing.

A prediction market is a financial speculation market in which participants bet on the outcome of an event. In most cases, participants use fake money. But at some markets, including the Iowa Electronic Markets, it's legal to bet a small amount of real money. Sports betting Web sites, which are legal in other countries, could be considered prediction markets. Some companies are even using prediction markets as a project management tool to allow employees to predict when a project will be completed.

Bulb

Scientist identify brain 'core' that could reveal secrets of thought

After centuries searching for the seat of consciousness, scientists have identified a good place to look.

A "core" region of the brain has been identified by an international team which has produced the first complete high-resolution map of the human cerebral cortex, the wrinkly surface of the brain where awareness, thought and other features of high level thinking reside.

The team traced the connections between millions of brain cells and identified a highly connected single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.

Image
©Indiana University
The core of the brain is encircled

Bulb

Scientists discover key patterns in the packaging of genes

An effort to detect patterns of chemical changes in histones and their impact on gene expression.

Although every cell of our bodies contains the same genetic instructions, specific genes typically act only in specific cells at particular times. Other genes are "silenced" in a variety of ways. One mode of gene silencing depends upon the way DNA, the genetic material, is packed in the nucleus of cells.

When packed very tightly around complexes of proteins called histones, the DNA double helix is rendered physically inaccessible to molecules that mediate gene expression. Now, a research team that includes Michael Q. Zhang, Ph.D., a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), has published a comprehensive analysis of modification patterns in histones.

Evil Rays

Seismic Waves From Mine Collapses Can Now Be Distinguished From Other Seismic Activities

Researchers have devised a technology that can distinguish mine collapses from other seismic activity. Using the large seismic disturbance associated with the Crandall Canyon mine collapse last August, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and colleagues from the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at UC Berkeley applied a method developed to detect underground nuclear weapons tests to quickly examine the seismic recordings of the event and determine whether that source was most likely from a collapse.

They also found an additional string of secondary surface seismic waves that occurred when the mine collapsed, which are like no other mine collapse events in recent history. The new research appears in the July 11 edition of the journal Science.

The tragic collapse of a Utah coal mine on Aug. 6 resulted in the deaths of six miners. Ten days later, another collapse killed three rescue workers.

Clock

Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions about First Americans

Ancient stone artifacts reveal the day-to-day lives of Clovis people while offering tantalizing clues of an even earlier culture

gault excavations
©The Gault School
Excavations at the Gault site in central Texas

Hourglass

Sex curse found at ancient Cyprus site

An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archaeologists at Cyprus's old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island's south coast near Limassol.

Telescope

Binary asteroid gliding past Earth

Asteroid 2008 BT18 is gliding past Earth this weekend and astronomers have just discovered that it is a binary system. "The sizes of the two components are 600 m for the primary and >200 m for the secondary," says Lance Benner of JPL. "The primary looks spheroidal, but we don't yet know about the shape of the secondary." Benner and others using a giant radar in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, obtained this "delay-doppler" image of the pair on July 7th:

Asteroid 2008 BT18
©Arecibo