Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon.
Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem.
"Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's a history of errors which is simply nonsense," she said.
Science & Technology
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JBS Haldane entering a deep-sea diving chamber on 1 January 1941 - repeated bouts of decompression would leave him prone to seizures, partly deaf, and able to blow smoke through one of his ears.
JBS Haldane entering a deep-sea diving chamber on 1 January 1941 - repeated bouts of decompression would leave him prone to seizures, partly deaf, and able to blow smoke through one of his ears.
Olivier Ameisen, a French cardiologist, found his own cure for alcoholism through a bout of pharmacological self-experimentation - a story related in his book, The End of My Addiction. While editing our review of Ameisen's book, I started thinking about other scientists who've become their own test subjects - and my colleagues were quick to chime in.
Many of the stories we turned up proved hard to verify, and others too scurrilous to publish - but here are eight extraordinary (and occasionally disgusting) stories of medical self-experimentation.
Experimenting on yourself very rarely leads to scientific glory - it's much more likely to result in swift admission to the casualty ward, or even to the morgue. So New Scientist doesn't recommend you try these experiments on yourself, or anyone else for that matter.
While some researchers are attempting to create brand new life in the lab, others are searching for alien life on Mars and, eventually, elsewhere in the solar system. This burgeoning field of astrobiology has a less well-known offshoot right here on Earth: the search for a "shadow biosphere"- a second, independent form of life unrelated to sort we know (Astrobiology, vol 5, p 154).
After all, many astrobiologists now think that given the right conditions any sufficiently complex molecular soup has a good chance of generating life if it simmers long enough. If that's so, it seems plausible that life may have arisen on Earth not once, but several times. New origins of life are unlikely today, because existing life would gobble up any aggregations of prebiotic molecules before they could edge over the threshold. However, opportunities for the origin of life may well have existed for long periods on the early Earth. Some of these origins may have been dead ends, out-competed by other life forms - but others could still be living among us, unnoticed.
After all, many astrobiologists now think that given the right conditions any sufficiently complex molecular soup has a good chance of generating life if it simmers long enough. If that's so, it seems plausible that life may have arisen on Earth not once, but several times. New origins of life are unlikely today, because existing life would gobble up any aggregations of prebiotic molecules before they could edge over the threshold. However, opportunities for the origin of life may well have existed for long periods on the early Earth. Some of these origins may have been dead ends, out-competed by other life forms - but others could still be living among us, unnoticed.
© AP
Japan's teacher robot Saya expresses the emotion "surprise"
Japan's teacher robot Saya expresses the emotion "surprise"
Tokyo University has come up with every child's worst nightmare: a teacher that really could have eyes in the back of its head
You can see the government's point of view. Why waste a year training someone to be a teacher when everyone knows it only takes half that? I mean, what's to learn? Any halfwit can stand in front of a class of 13-year-olds and teach them basic maths. You just hand the kids a calculator and tell them to get on with it. And if that doesn't work, you start shouting at them. Easy.
So easy, in fact, that you're probably starting to wonder if maybe six months isn't a ridiculously indulgent waste of time. How about you get fired from RBS on a Friday afternoon and start teaching the following Monday?
In fact, who needs a real teacher when now you can just as easily get a robot to do the job?
A professor at Tokyo University has just built a life-like robot teacher, tenderly named Saya, who comes pre-programmed with six different emotions - five more than the average government minister - and can easily deal with the demands of taking the register and keeping the kids under control. "Children even start crying when they are scolded," Saya's creator, Hiroshi Kobayashi, said proudly.
The moon has been hiding the scars of its violent, asteroid-filled past. Most surveys of lunar impact craters have used photos, but Herbert Frey of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, wanted to know if there were any old craters buried beneath younger ones. So he studied elevation mapping data from the Clementine mission in the 1990s. He also used simulations to identify impact signatures, such as a roughly circular crater with a thin crust and a thicker rim. This approach uncovered 150 craters more than 300 kilometres wide instead of 45.
Frey is now trying to work out the age of the newly found craters. If they are the same age as the others, this would support the idea that asteroids bombarded the inner solar system for a particularly intense period about 4 billion years ago. Some researchers think that life may have existed before this bombardment, but if so, its survival now seems less likely, says Andrew Valley of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "The probability that early primitive life, if it existed, could find refuge, even in sediments beneath the ocean would be reduced," he says.
Frey is now trying to work out the age of the newly found craters. If they are the same age as the others, this would support the idea that asteroids bombarded the inner solar system for a particularly intense period about 4 billion years ago. Some researchers think that life may have existed before this bombardment, but if so, its survival now seems less likely, says Andrew Valley of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "The probability that early primitive life, if it existed, could find refuge, even in sediments beneath the ocean would be reduced," he says.
© Reuters/Eduardo González SCSPR/Handout
Archeologist Richard Hansen explains the detail on one of two newly discovered Mayan panels in the northern Guatemalan Peten jungle March 7, 2009.
Archeologist Richard Hansen explains the detail on one of two newly discovered Mayan panels in the northern Guatemalan Peten jungle March 7, 2009.
The newly discovered panels, both 26 feet long and stacked on top of each other, were created around 300 BC and show scenes from the core Mayan mythology, the Popol Vuh.
It took investigators three months to uncover the carvings while excavating El Mirador, the biggest ancient Mayan city in the world, the site's head researcher, Richard Hansen, said on Wednesday.
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| ©Guy Billout |
"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial » brain. "Dave, my mind is going," HAL says, forlornly. "I can feel it. I can feel it."
Chicago - U.S. engineers have found a way to make lithium batteries that are smaller, lighter, longer lasting and capable of recharging in seconds.
The researchers believe the quick-charging batteries could open up new applications, including better batteries for electric cars.
And because they use older materials in a new way, the batteries could be available for sale in two to three years, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The researchers believe the quick-charging batteries could open up new applications, including better batteries for electric cars.
And because they use older materials in a new way, the batteries could be available for sale in two to three years, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
A tiny piece of space junk smaller than a fingertip forced three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station on Thursday when the debris came too close for comfort.
The astronauts, Russian Yury Lonchakov and Americans Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus, spent about nine minutes in the Soyuz escape ship before the space litter passed by.
NASA called the threat to the $100 billion space station "minimal" and said the astronauts were moved into the Soyuz capsule as a precaution.
The astronauts, Russian Yury Lonchakov and Americans Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus, spent about nine minutes in the Soyuz escape ship before the space litter passed by.
NASA called the threat to the $100 billion space station "minimal" and said the astronauts were moved into the Soyuz capsule as a precaution.
© Los Angeles Times
Sounds like the old "Saturday Night Live" gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. U.S. regulators have approved it. And it's starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job.
The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water, not as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, Calif., some hotel workers are calling it "el liquido milagroso," the miracle liquid.
Comment: Getting robots to make children cry is a good thing?