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Scientists 'Suspicious' Of FBI

David Kestenbaum
National Public Radio
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:05 UTC
Top scientists are "suspicious" of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and reluctant to discuss their work with agents, according to a new survey by the FBI and two professional scientific associations.

The survey results showed that only 35 percent of scientists would share research results with the FBI. By comparison, 87 percent of the scientists said they would discuss their work with the public.

"They would rather talk with a total stranger from the general public than an FBI agent about their research," says Michael Stebbins, the director of biology policy at the Federation of American Scientists. Stebbins helped plan the survey. "That is just shocking to me," he says. "To see that so many of them didn't trust the FBI on a fundamental level really showed that there is an uphill battle that the FBI has to face."

The FBI conducted the survey - the first of its kind - as part of a larger effort to understand what it needs to do to gain the trust and cooperation of the scientific community. Federal investigators say they need the technical expertise of the country's top scientists to tackle urgent issues from cybercrime to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
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Top 10 objects that have flown in space

Paul Marks
New Scientist
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:37 UTC
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© Mike Levers/All Rights Reserved Beagle 2The Beagle 2 mission to Mars carried a colourful dot painting by Britart exponent Damien Hirst to calibrate the craft's cameras and spectrometer.
They might have the right stuff, but astronauts are only human. And superstition, sentimentality and the need to commemorate key events affect them just like anybody else. But unlike the rest of us, these folks have the ability to make cosmic gestures with the stuff of everyday life.

What kind of stuff? Some is fairly ordinary before it leaves the grip of Earth's gravity - think stamps and coins - and some is already extraordinary. Some wreckage from the world's worst terrorist incident is now sitting on Mars, for example. And when two bicycle mechanics lofted the world's first manned, powered aeroplane off a windy beach in 1903 they could not have conceived that one day parts of their flying machine would soar through the void, land safely on the Moon - and then fly 385,000 kilometres back to Earth. (You might even say the astronauts who did that had the Wright stuff. Sorry.)
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Evil Rays

US investigation into gravity weapons 'nonsense'

David Robson
New Scientist
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:24 UTC
circling pairs of superdense neutron stars
© Mark Galick/SPLEven the gravity waves produced by circling pairs of superdense neutron stars can only be detected indirectly.
If you think the idea of gravitational waves propelling interplanetary spacecraft sounds like science fiction, you're in good company - any astrophysicist will rubbish the idea out of hand.

However, that didn't stop the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from commissioning a report to investigate whether the elusive waves could pose a threat to US security.

The JASON Defense Advisory Group were also asked to judge whether high-frequency gravitational waves could image the centre of the Earth, or be used for telecommunications.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by the movement of an extremely large mass, such as a very dense star.

Yet even those from huge stellar events have been too weak to trip the most sensitive detectors. The best evidence is indirect, coming from observations of how superdense, binary neutron stars lose energy.
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Meteor

10,000 meteorites touched down in Canadian north last month: scientist


CTV.ca
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:17 UTC
The sheer number of meteorite fragments that touched down on Nov. 20 in Saskatchewan -- first lighting up the sky in a dramatic light show witnessed by people across the prairies -- may have set a new Canadian record.
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Better Earth

Earth's Original Ancestor


Science Daily
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:22 UTC
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© P. Rona; OAR/National Undersea Research Program (NURP); NOAABlack smoker at a mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal vent. Researchers generally believe that LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) was a heat-loving or hyperthermophilic organism, similar to those found today that live deep under the ocean in hot vents along continental ridges. New evidence, however, suggests that LUCA was actually sensitive to warmer temperatures and lived in a climate below 50 degrees.
An evolutionary geneticist from the Université de Montréal, together with researchers from the French cities of Lyon and Montpellier, have published a ground-breaking study that characterizes the common ancestor of all life on earth, LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor).

Their findings, presented in a recent issue of Nature, show that the 3.8-billion-year-old organism was not the creature usually imagined.

The study changes ideas of early life on Earth. "It is generally believed that LUCA was a heat-loving or hyperthermophilic organism. A bit like one of those weird organisms living in the hot vents along the continental ridges deep in the oceans today (above 90 degrees Celsius)," says Nicolas Lartillot, the study's co-author and a bio-informatics professor at the Université de Montréal. "However, our data suggests that LUCA was actually sensitive to warmer temperatures and lived in a climate below 50 degrees."
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Earliest Evidence Of Our Cave-dwelling Human Ancestors


Science Daily
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:13 UTC
early stone tools from Wonderwerk Cave
© M. ChazanOne of the early stone tools from Wonderwerk Cave.
A research team led by Professor Michael Chazan, director of the University of Toronto's Archaeology Centre, has discovered the earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

Stone tools found at the bottom level of the cave - believed to be 2 million years old - show that human ancestors were in the cave earlier than ever thought before. Geological evidence indicates that these tools were left in the cave and not washed into the site from the outside world.

Archaeological investigations of the Wonderwerk cave - a South African National Heritage site due to its role in discovering the human and environmental history of the area - began in the 1940s and research continues to this day.

Using a combination of dating methods it has been possible to date the bottom level reached by Peter Beaumont in the front part of the cave to 2 million years ago.
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Telescope

Hubble Catches Jupiter's Largest Moon Going To The 'Dark Side'


Science Daily
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:48 UTC
Jupiter and Ganymede
© NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet. This color photo was made from three images taken on April 9, 2007, with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in red, green, and blue filters. The image shows Jupiter and Ganymede in close to natural colors.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet.

Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind its giant host, only to reemerge later.

Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It is even larger than the planet Mercury. But Ganymede looks like a dirty snowball next to Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. Jupiter is so big that only part of its Southern Hemisphere can be seen in this image.
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Magnify

Thera volcano catastrophe dated to 1613 BCE


Archaeo News
Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:44 UTC
Two olive branches buried by a Minoan-era eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (modern-day Santorini, Greece) have enabled precise radiocarbon dating of the catastrophe to 1613 BCE, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 years, according to two researchers who presented conclusions of their previously published research during an event at the Danish Archaeological Institute of Athens.

Speaking at an event entitled 'The Enigma of Dating the Minoan Eruption - Data from Santorini and Egypt', the study's authors, Dr. Walter Friedrich of the Danish University of Aarhus and Dr. Walter Kutschera of the Austrian University of Vienna, said data left by the branch of an olive tree with 72 annular growth rings was used for dating via the radiocarbon method, while a second olive branch - found just nine metres away from the first - was unearthed in July 2007 and has not yet been analysed. The researchers said both olive tree branches were found near a Bronze Age man-made wall, giving the impression that they were part of an olive grove situated near a settlement very close to the edge of Santorini's current world-famous Caldera. The two trees were found standing when unearthed, and apparently had been covered by the Theran pumice immediately after the volcano's eruption.
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Info

New Model Explains Movements Of The Moon


Science Daily
Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:27 UTC
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© NASAInstallation of CCRs on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.
Two researchers from the universities of Valladolid and Alicante are developing a mathematical formula to study the rotation of the moon, taking into account its structure, which comprises a solid external layer and a fluid internal core.

Their work is part of an international study, which has come up with an improved theoretical model about the orbital and rotational dynamics of the Earth and its satellite, and which the scientific community will be able to use to obtain more precise measurements in order to aid future NASA missions to the moon.

Juan J. A. Getino, from the Applied Mathematics Department of the University of Valladolid, and Alberto Escapa, from the Applied Mathematics Department of the Higher Polytechnic School of the University of Alicante, suggest in their work that the Earth and the moon should be considered as "multi-layered" systems. In order to analyse their movements, the researchers have used Hamiltonian mechanics, a kind of classical mechanics used, among other things, to study the movements of heavenly bodies in response to gravitational effects.
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Roses

NY exhibit unveils women's lives in ancient Greece

Verena Dobnik
Associated Press
Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:54 UTC
women of ancient greece
© AP Photo/Onassis Cultural CenterThis undated photo provided by the Onassis Cultural Center shows a 425 - 400 B.C. clay vase depicting a woman carrying a vase and a basket in preparation for an animal sacrifice ritual. A woman's place has never been just in the home - not even in ancient Greece.
A woman's place has never been just in the home - not even in ancient Greece.

The proof is in an exhibit titled "Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens" - a collection of artifacts that correct the cliched idea of Athenian women as passive, homebound nurturers of men and children.

In the display covering Greek life, art and religion, women play important, vibrant roles, as do their goddesses - from lover to priestess to political peacemaker to protagonist of public festivals.

"Today's woman has more in common with the woman of ancient Athens than one imagines," said curator Stella Chryssoulaki. She pointed to a vase showing a group of women who escaped city life, getting together in the countryside for a three-day festival honoring their beloved god Dionysius. They talked and shared lots of wine, leaving their husbands behind.
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