Science & TechnologyS


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Frozen hair gives up first mammoth genome

Tufts of frozen woolly mammoth hair have yielded a rough draft of its genome. It's the most successful attempt to sequence the DNA of an extinct ancient animal to date, and although we won't see resurrected mammoths grazing the tundra anytime soon, it could give us a peek into the reasons for their extinction.

Sequencing extinct organisms is tricky since DNA strands quickly degrade after death into short fragments that are difficult to piece back together. In porous tissue like bone, these fragments can also become flooded by DNA from bacteria and fungi growing on the decomposing body, making it hard to pick out the genetic material of interest.
Mammoth hair
© Peter Brooker/Rex FeaturesMammoth hair protects DNA from the ravages of nature.

To solve this, Stephan Schuster from Pennsylvania State University and colleagues sequenced DNA from the hair of two frozen woolly mammoths, which died in Siberia roughly 20,000 and 60,000 years ago respectively.

Magic Wand

Sound Method to Levitate Droplets

When a researcher noticed that bass notes from his MP3 player were making drops of liquid bounce, it began the development of a new technique to levitate droplets, thus keeping them from contamination by surfaces.

In theory, scientists could learn a lot about our health by testing tiny amounts of bodily fluids - a drop of blood, a tear, a bead of sweat. But something this small is easily contaminated by other liquids or surfaces. So what are scientists doing? They're making liquids bounce, dance, and float lightly through the air. Researchers from Belgium's University of Liege published their findings November 18th in the New Journal of Physics.

Monkey Wrench

Mysterious rock carvings get a repair job in Australia

restoring mysterious carvings
© James BrickwoodLost heritage: staff at work on the restoration.
Some of Sydney Harbour's finest Aboriginal rock art is getting a forensic facelift.

The sandstone carvings, in bushland near Grotto Point at Clontarf, are unusual because they are thought to date from the years immediately before or during white settlement.

After more than a century as a local attraction, the carved images of a kangaroo, a sun fish and flying boomerangs were infested with lichen and partly covered with bracken and dirt.

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'New' Penguin Species In New Zealand Found Using Ancient DNA From Fossils

Australian and New Zealand researchers have used ancient DNA from penguin fossils to make a startling discovery that may change the way we view species extinctions.

A team from the University of Adelaide, the University of Otago, and Canterbury Museum in New Zealand has identified a previously unknown penguin species while conducting research on New Zealand's endangered yellow-eyed penguin, one the world's rarest penguin species and the subject of an extensive conservation effort.
Yellow-eyed Penguin
© Canterbury MuseumMounted specimen of Yellow-eyed Penguin.

The Waitaha penguin became extinct after Polynesian settlement but before 1500 AD, creating an opportunity for the yellow-eyed penguin to subsequently colonise the New Zealand mainland from its base in the sub-Antarctic islands.

"Our findings demonstrate that yellow-eyed penguins on mainland New Zealand are not a declining remnant of a previous abundant population, but came from the sub-Antarctic relatively recently and replaced the extinct Waitaha Penguin," said team member Dr Jeremy Austin, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.

"Previous analysis of fossil records and anecdotal evidence suggested that the yellow-eyed penguin was more abundant and widespread in the past, but it now appears they have only been around for 500 years," he said.

Telescope

New Planet Discovered Orbiting Dangerously Close To Giant Star

A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much older than our own Sun. The planet has a mass that is nearly six times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

The team includes Alexander Wolszczan, the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system, who is an Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the director of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State; and Andrzej Niedzielski, who leads his collaborators in Poland. The team suspects that a second planet may be orbiting HD 102272, as well.
Hobby-Eberly Telescope
© Thomas SebringThe Hobby-Eberly Telescope, one of the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world, photographed at dusk.

The findings, which will be published in a future issue of The Astrophysical Journal, shed light on the ways in which aging stars can influence nearby planets.

Sherlock

Bolivian farmer leads to dinosaur discovery

Bolivian farmer Primo Rivera had long wondered about the dents in a rocky hill near his home. Paleontologists solved the mystery this month: they are fossilized dinosaur footprints -- the oldest in Bolivia.

"I used to come to look at the prints when I was a kid ... but I didn't know what had made them," said Rivera, 35, who lives in the southern province of Chuquisaca.

The fossilized footsteps that intrigued Rivera for two decades are thought to be about 140 million years old, much older than other dinosaur prints found in the Andean country.

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'Orphan' Genes Play An Important Role In Evolution

Closely related animal species share most of their genes and look almost identical. However, minor morphological differences allow us to tell them apart. What is the genetic basis for these differences? Often, the explanation is provided by minor changes in spatial and temporal activity of transcription factors - "regulator" genes which are conserved throughout the animal kingdom.
Jellyfish
© iStockphoto/Klaas Lingbeek- van KranenJellyfish. Every group of animals possesses a small proportion of genes which are extremely variable among closely related species or even unique.

However, every group of animals also possesses a small proportion of genes which are, in contrary, extremely variable among closely related species or even unique. For example, a gene may be present in one species or animal group, but not in any other. Such genes are referred to as "novel," "orphan" or "taxonomically restricted". Their function and origin are often obscure. What are these genes needed for?

Telescope

Early warning of dangerous asteroids and comets

Pan-STARRS 1 prototype
© MIT Lincoln LaboratoryPan-STARRS 1 prototype, part of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, Haleakala mountain, Maui
Detectors developed at Lincoln Laboratory deployed in powerful telescope

Silicon chips developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory are at the heart of a new survey telescope that will soon provide a more than fivefold improvement in scientists' ability to detect asteroids and comets that could someday pose a threat to the planet.

The prototype telescope installed on Haleakala mountain, Maui, will begin operation this December. It will feature the world's largest and most advanced digital camera, using the Lincoln Laboratory silicon chips. This telescope is the first of four that will be housed together in one dome. The system, called Pan-STARRS (for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System), is being developed at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.

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Gamma-Ray Evidence Suggests Ancient Mars Had Massive Oceans

An international team of scientists who analyzed data from the Gamma Ray Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey reports new evidence for the controversial idea that oceans once covered about a third of ancient Mars.

"We compared Gamma Ray Spectrometer data on potassium, thorium and iron above and below a shoreline believed to mark an ancient ocean that covered a third of Mars' surface, and an inner shoreline believed to mark a younger, smaller ocean," said University of Arizona planetary geologist James M. Dohm, who led the international investigation.
Mars Odyssey's Gamma-Ray
© University of ArizonaThis 3D map superimposes gamma-ray data from Mars Odyssey's Gamma-Ray Spectrometer onto topographic data from the laser altimeter onboard the Mars Global Surveyor. The red arrow indicates the shield volcanoes of Elysium rise in northern Mars, seen obliquely to the southeast. Blue-to-violet colors at the Elysium rise and highlands stretching to the foreground of the map mark areas poor in potassium. Red-to-yellow colors mark potassium-rich sedimentary deposits in lowlands below the Mars Pathfinder landing site (PF) and Viking 1 landing site (V1).

"Our investigation posed the question, Might we see a greater concentration of these elements within the ancient shorelines because water and rock containing the elements moved from the highlands to the lowlands, where they eventually ponded as large water bodies?" Dohm said.

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Billions Of Particles Of Anti-matter Created In Laboratory

Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma "jet."

This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts.
anti-matter experiment at the Jupiter laser facility
© DOE/Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryPhysicist Hui Chen sets up targets for the anti-matter experiment at the Jupiter laser facility.

Anti-matter research also could reveal why more matter than anti-matter survived the Big Bang at the start of the universe.