Science & Technology
ANIMon, 27 Aug 2007 19:03 UTC
British and Iranian archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a 200 kilometre long wall, the second longest wall in Asia after the Great Wall of China, in northern Iran.
Experts believe the Gorgan Great Wall in northern Iran's Golestan Province was built at about the same time as the 'Great Wall' and was used as a defence system against the invasions of the Ephthalites, a nomadic people who once lived in Central Asia.
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| A view of Gorgan's Defensive Wall.
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The Center for small objects in the Solar system in Harvard, USA, acknowledged the three new asteroids found last week by Bulgarian astronomers in the Capricorn constellation.
This announced the University center on space research and technologies at the Physics faculty of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", cited by Darik radio.
The objects are temporarily labeled as 2007 PN28, 2007 PQ2 и 2007 QD2 and are situated in the main asteroid zone. They circle between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter with periods respectively 4.7, 3.6 and 5.4 years.
When white dwarf stars explode, they leave behind a rapidly expanding cloud of 'stardust' known as a Type Ia supernova. These exploding events, which shine billions of times brighter than our sun, are all presumed to be extremely similar, and thus have been used extensively as cosmological reference beacons to trace distance and the evolution of the Universe.
Astronomers have now - for the first time ever - provided a unique set of observations obtained with the ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile and the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii, enabling them to find traces of the material that had surrounded a white dwarf star before it exploded. Their data set is unique in that no Type Ia supernova event has ever been observed at this level of detail over a several-month period following the explosion.
Is heading straight for a goal the quickest way there" If the name of the game is evolution, suggests new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the pace might speed up if the goals themselves change continuously.
Nadav Kashtan, Elad Noor and Prof. Uri Alon of the Institute's Molecular Cell Biology and Physics of Complex Systems Departments create computer simulations that mimic natural evolution, allowing them to investigate processes that, in nature, take place over millions of years. In these simulations, a population of digital genomes evolves over time towards a given goal: to maximize fitness under certain conditions. Like living organisms, genomes that are better adapted to their environment may survive to the next generation or reproduce more prolifically. But such computer simulations, though sophisticated, don't yet have all the answers. Achieving even simple goals may take thousands of generations, raising the question of whether the three-or-so billion years since life first appeared on the planet is long enough to evolve the diversity and complexity that exist today.
Takanori Isshiki
ReutersMon, 27 Aug 2007 23:31 UTC
A researcher investigating underwater rock formations off the coast of Japan believes they are the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis -- an ancient civilization swallowed up by the ocean.
Marine geologist Masaaki Kimura says he has identified the ruins of a city off the coast of Yonaguni Island on the southwestern tip of Japan.
Some of the elements necessary to support life on Earth are widely known - oxygen, carbon and water, to name a few. Just as important in the existence of life as any other component is the presence of adenine, an essential organic molecule. Without it, the basic building blocks of life would not come together.
Scientists have been trying to find the origin of Earth's adenine and where else it might exist in the solar system. University of Missouri-Columbia researcher Rainer Glaser may have the answer.
Michael Hopkin
ScienceMon, 27 Aug 2007 10:54 UTC
A French-led team of geneticists has cemented the country's reputation as the world's wine capital - by compiling the complete genetic code of a Pinot Noir grape. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have discovered that the species has a large repertoire of genes that produce compounds known to give complex flavours to fruit.
Among the almost half-billion DNA 'letters' pieced together by the researchers are a host of genes that encode terpenes and tannins - which any wine buff will tell you are essential for a fine vintage.
In October 1963, two cartographers with the Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center saw a strange glow on the moon. Using the 24-inch refractor telescope at Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, James Greenacre and Edward Barr saw a deep, ruby-red glow coming from the crater Aristarchus. The sighting might have been glowing gas from volcanic activity, and a second sighting in November of that year was verified by Dr. John Hall, Director of the observatory at the time.
Throughout history, there have been many more. There have been rumbles from other areas on the moon as well. For example, when Dr. Yosio Nakamura of the University of Texas, Austin, and his colleagues reviewed seismology data from the Apollo missions, they discovered there was a magnitude 5.7 moonquake near the lunar south pole, a possible site for a future lunar base.
Peter Jenniskens, Ph.D., Meteor Astronomer, Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute
Space.comThu, 23 Aug 2007 04:13 UTC
The meteors that are about to rain down in the early morning of September 1 date from around 4 A.D., the latest calculations show.
Charles Trueheart
BloombergSun, 26 Aug 2007 12:51 UTC
For two millennia, brilliant minds have been trying to find a logical system of measuring the world that everyone can agree upon. The stubborn persistence of yards, gallons and pounds in a world that mostly works in meters, liters and grams suggests how deep the disagreement has been.
While this doesn't bother British architect Robert Tavernor, it does fascinate him. In ''Smoot's Ear,'' he offers a brief history of humanity's effort to measure the world by scientific principle, even as science itself has changed our knowledge.
