Science & TechnologyS


Family

Study: Women Lead Men in Bacteria, Hands Down


The Associated Press
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:24 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.

''One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual,'' said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.

''The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women,'' added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
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Health

Tiny Fungi May Have Sex While Infecting Humans


Science Daily
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:23 UTC
A fungus called microsporidia that causes chronic diarrhea in AIDS patients, organ transplant recipients and travelers has been identified as a member of the family of fungi that have been discovered to reproduce sexually. A team at Duke University Medical Center has proven that microsporidia are true fungi and that this species most likely undergoes a form of sexual reproduction during infection of humans and other host animals.
microsporidian spore
© CDC/NCID/DPD Parasite Image LibraryScanning electron micrograph of a microsporidian spore with an extruded polar tubule inserted into a eukaryotic cell. The spore injects the infective sporoplasms through its polar tubule.

The findings could help develop effective treatments against these common global pathogens and may help explain their most virulent attacks.

"Microsporidian infections are hard to treat because until now we haven't known a lot about this common pathogen," says Soo Chan Lee, Ph.D., lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. "Up to 50 percent of AIDS patients have microsporidial infections and develop chronic diarrhea. These infections are also detected in patients with traveler's diarrhea, and also in children, organ transplant recipients and the elderly."
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Document

Earliest Known Hebrew Text In Proto-Canaanite Script Discovered


Science Daily
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:11 UTC
The earliest known Hebrew text written in a Proto-Canaanite script has been discovered by Hebrew University archaeologists in an ancient city in the area where legend has it that David slew Goliath - the earliest Judean city found to date. The 3,000 year old finding is thought to be the most significant archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls - predating them by 1,000 years.
ostracon with the oldest known Hebrew inscription
© Gabi LaronThe ostracon with the oldest known Hebrew inscription.

The ostracon (pottery shard inscribed with writing in ink) comprises five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 x 15 cm. and was found at excavations of a 10th century B.C.E. fortress - the oldest known Judaic city. The ostracon was found lying on the floor inside a building near the city gate of the site, known as the Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa.
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Telescope

New Spaceship Force Field Makes Mars Trip Possible


Science Daily
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:50 UTC
According to the international space agencies, "Space Weather" is the single greatest obstacle to deep space travel. Radiation from the sun and cosmic rays pose a deadly threat to astronauts in space. New research shows how knowledge gained from the pursuit of nuclear fusion research may reduce the threat to acceptable levels, making man's first mission to Mars a much greater possibility.

The solar energetic particles, although just part of the 'cosmic rays' spectrum, are of greatest concern because they are the most likely to cause deadly radiation damage to the astronauts.

Large numbers of these energetic particles occur intermittently as "storms" with little warning and are already known to pose the greatest threat to man. Nature helps protect the Earth by having a giant "magnetic bubble" around the planet called the magnetosphere.
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Magnify

Female Shaman's Grave Rich with Artifacts

Jeanna Bryner
Live Science
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:53 UTC
Image
© N. HilgeThe shaman was buried in so-called Structure A, while other bodies were buried within the three burial pits within the cave in Israel. (Inset shows the region excavated by the archaeologists.
A 12,000-year-old burial site in Israel contains offerings that include 50 tortoise shells and a human foot, and appears to be one of the earliest known graves of a female shaman.

The remains were discovered in a small cave called Hilazon Tachtit, which functioned as a burial site for at least 28 individuals. The grave woman, likely a shaman, was separated from the other bodies by a circular wall of stones.
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Display

Harnessing The Power Of The Brain


CBS News
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:13 UTC
Once in a while, we run across a science story that is hard to believe until you see it. That's how we felt about this story when we first saw human beings operating computers, writing e-mails, and driving wheelchairs with nothing but their thoughts.
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Einstein

Has new physics been found at the ageing Tevatron?

Anil Ananthaswamy
New Scientist
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:32 UTC
While engineers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) race to fix its teething problems and start looking for new particles, its ageing predecessor is refusing go silently into the night.

Last week, physicists announced that the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, has produced particles that they are unable to explain. Could it be a sign of new physics?

The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) monitors the particles that spew from collisions between protons and anti-protons, which are accelerated and smashed head-on by the Tevatron. The collision occurs inside the 1.5-centimetre-wide "beam pipe" that confines the protons and anti-protons, and the particles created are tracked by surrounding layers of electronics.
Collider Detector at Fermilab
© FermilabThe Collider Detector at Fermilab has found hints of new physics.

In this instance, the CDF was looking at bottom quarks and bottom anti-quarks that decay into, among other things, at least two charged particles called muons.
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Info

Astronauts could mix DIY concrete for cheap moon base

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:47 UTC
Moon base
© NASAAn artist’s impression of a future moon base built with transported materials. Concrete from lunar dust could avoid this expense.
A lunar base could be built from waterless concrete composed entirely of moon dust, according to US researchers.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will next year scout out a good landing site ahead of the 2020 mission that will put US astronauts back on the moon.

A four-strong team will spend seven days on the lunar surface, but NASA hopes to eventually have long-term moon bases.

However, building permanent structures on the moon would be astronomically expensive, says Houssam Toutanji, a civil engineer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, US.
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Info

New Classification Of African Middle Stone Age


Science Daily
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:46 UTC
The Cologne archaeologist Dr. Ralf Vogelsang from the Africa Research Centre of the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology and a team of international researchers have succeeded in dating layers in South Africa that provide information about stone tool innovation on the Middle Stone Age.

This archaeological epoch began at the same time as the earliest appearances of humans (homo sapiens sapiens), about 200,000 years ago, in Africa and differs from the European Middle Stone Age chronologically. It is categorized as an era of change and marked by the development of regional stone tool traditions, the appearance of many innovations and the emergence of significant new behaviour such as the production of art and jewellery.

It seems to be apparent that this surge in innovation is linked to the appearance of this new human form of anatomically more modern humans, who spread from Africa to Europe and superseded the Neanderthals. However, the chronological classification of the stone tool industry has always been very difficult.
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Telescope

'Ghost Of Mirach' Materializes In Space Telescope Image


Science Daily
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:33 UTC
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has lifted the veil off a ghost known to haunt the local universe, providing new insight into the formation and evolution of galaxies.

The eerie creature, called NGC 404, is a type of galaxy known as "lenticular." Lenticular galaxies are disk-shaped, with little ongoing star formation and no spiral arms. NGC 404 is the nearest example of a lenticular galaxy, and therefore of great interest. But it lies hidden in the glare from a red giant star called Mirach. For this reason, NGC 404 became known to astronomers as the "Ghost of Mirach."

When the Galaxy Evolution Explorer spied the galaxy in ultraviolet light, a spooky ring materialized.
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/DSSThe "Ghost of Mirach" galaxy is shown in visible light on the left, and in ultraviolet on the right.
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