Science & TechnologyS

Magnify

Scientists Decipher How Brain Handles Silence

Robert Preidt
BusinessWeek
Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:00 UTC
It uses a distinct mechanism to spot moments when sound ends

Scientists know a lot about how the ear and brain interprets sound; now they know it uses different mechanisms in times of silence.

U.S. researchers say they've spotted mechanisms used by the brain to switch off sound processing at key moments.

"Being able to perceive when sound stops is very important for speech processing. One of the really hard problems in speech is finding the boundaries between the different parts of words. It is really not well understood how the brain does that," psychology professor Michael Wehr, a member of the university's Institute of Neuroscience, said in a news release.
Read More...
Telescope

Orion in a New Light


ESO
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:18 UTC
Image
VISTA - the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy - is the latest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory (eso0949). It is the largest survey telescope in the world and is dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths. The large (4.1-metre) mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors make VISTA a unique instrument. This dramatic new image of the Orion Nebula illustrates VISTA's remarkable powers.

The Orion Nebula [1] is a vast stellar nursery lying about 1350 light-years from Earth. Although the nebula is spectacular when seen through an ordinary telescope, what can be seen using visible light is only a small part of a cloud of gas in which stars are forming. Most of the action is deeply embedded in dust clouds and to see what is really happening astronomers need to use telescopes with detectors sensitive to the longer wavelength radiation that can penetrate the dust. VISTA has imaged the Orion Nebula at wavelengths about twice as long as can be detected by the human eye.
Read More...
Magnify

Ancient DNA points to additional New World migration

Bruce Bower
ScienceNews
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:10 UTC
Image
© Nuka GodfredsenA nearly complete genome sequence extracted from hair of a 4,000-year-old Greenland man contained mutations that offered clues to what he looked like. These genetic hints informed this artist's reconstruction of the man's face.
A 4,000-year-old Greenland man just entered the scientific debate over the origins of prehistoric populations in the Americas.

A nearly complete sequence of nuclear DNA extracted from strands of the long-dead man's hair - the first such sequence obtained from an ancient person - highlights a previously unknown and relatively recent migration of northeastern Asians into the New World about 5,500 years ago, scientists say.

An analysis of differences, or mutations, at single base pairs on the ancient Greenlander's nuclear genome indicates that his father's ancestors came from northeastern Siberia, report geneticist Morten Rasmussen of the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen and his colleagues in the Feb. 11 Nature.
Read More...
Info

Facebook and AIM Announce Partnership

Dan Hope
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:04 UTC
In what can't possibly be a coincidence, Facebook and AOL have announced a partnership the day after Google announced its new social media platform Buzz. The partnership will integrate Facebook and AOL's instant messaging service, AIM.

AIM users will be able to click a "Facebook Connect" button after downloading the appropriate software, which is still technically in beta testing. Then, users will be able to access their Facebook friends on their AIM buddy list.
Read More...
Sun

Scholar examines reports of solar eclipses in the Middle Ages


Medieval News
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:15 UTC
Hundreds of solar eclipses were recorded by medieval chroniclers, offering historians of astronomy with some vital information about how people in the Middle Ages reacted to this phenomenon.

The latest research into this subject has just been published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy. In his article, "Investigation of Medieval European Records of Solar Eclipses," F. Richard Stephenson states he wants to provide "an intriguing insight into the effects of solar eclipses over a wide range of magnitudes on largely untrained and unsuspecting observers."
Read More...
Info

Archaeologists study signs of ancient civilization in Amazon basin.


M & C Science and Nature
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:06 UTC
Sao Paulo - Brazilian archaeologist Denise Schaan still does not believe in the legendary land El Dorado, although she and her team keep finding signs of an ancient and advanced civilization in the western Amazon basin. The signs point to a people that lived there more than a millennium ago in systematically built settlements with a sophisticated road network.

With the aid of satellite imagery and photographs taken from airplanes, the archaeologists have so far identified more than 260 geoglyphs, or large geometric figures carved in the ground. The figures have been laid bare by increasing deforestation of the long-impenetrable jungle.
Read More...
Info

700-km-long Great Wall found in NW China

Ma Lie
China Daily
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:02 UTC
XI'AN - More than 700 km of ancient Great Wall has been discovered in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, as a result of the third national survey on cultural relics started in April, 2007 and will end in December, 2011.

"We found 15 sections with a total length of 26 km of ancient wall and three beacons built in Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 24) in our county recently during the nationwide survey," said Liang Shilin, deputy director of the culture bureau and director of the Museum in Jinta county,Gansu province.
Read More...
Sherlock

A Tree Carving in California: Ancient Astronomers?

Matt Kettman
Time
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:52 UTC
Image
© Rick BuryThe counterclockwise rotation of stars around Polaris as viewed from Painted Rock in Carrizo Plain, Calif. The glyph on the "scorpion tree" appears to portray Ursa Major in relation to Polaris.
Though local lore held that the so-called "scorpion tree" had been the work of cowboys, paleontologist Rex Saint Onge immediately knew that the tree was carved by Indians when he stumbled upon it in the fall of 2006. Located in a shady grove atop the Santa Lucia Mountains in San Luis Obispo County, the centuries-old gnarled oak had the image of a six-legged, lizard-like being meticulously scrawled into its trunk, the nearly three-foot-tall beast topped with a rectangular crown and two large spheres. "I was really the first one to come across it who understood that it was a Chumash motif," says Saint Onge, referring to the native people who painted similar designs on rock formations from San Luis Obispo south through Santa Barbara and into Malibu.
Read More...
Sun

World's Smallest Solar-Powered Sensor Runs Almost Forever


TechNewsDaily
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:43 UTC
Image
© Daeyeon KimA low-power, sensor system developed at the University of Michigan 1,000 times smaller than comparable commercial counterparts. It could enable new biomedical implants.
A tiny solar-powered sensor, smaller than Abe Lincoln's head on a penny, can supply almost perpetual energy, its creators say.

The device contains solar cells, a battery and a processor, all in a package that measures 2.5 by 3.5 by 1 millimeters.

It could enable new biomedical implants as well as new devices to monitor buildings, bridges and homes. "It could vastly improve the efficiency and cost of current environmental sensor networks designed to detect movement or track air and water quality," the developers said in a statement.
Read More...
Info

Mescal 'worm' test shows DNA leaks into preservatives

John Chenery
International Barcode of Life
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:37 UTC
Just because you don't swallow the worm at the bottom of a bottle of mescal doesn't mean you have avoided the essential worminess of the potent Mexican liquor, according to scientists at the University of Guelph.

Researchers from U of G's Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO) have discovered that mescal itself contains the DNA of the agave butterfly caterpillar - the famously tasty "worm" that many avoid consuming. Their findings will appear in the March issue of BioTechniques, which is available online now.
Read More...