Science & TechnologyS


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Aztec leader's tomb believed found

MARK STEVENSON
AP
Sat, 04 Aug 2007 04:14 UTC
Mexican archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar have detected underground chambers they believe contain the remains of Emperor Ahuizotl, who ruled the Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World. It would be the first tomb of an Aztec ruler ever found.

The find could provide an extraordinary window into Aztec civilization at its apogee. Ahuizotl (ah-WEE-zoh-tuhl), an empire-builder who extended the Aztecs' reach as far as Guatemala, was the last emperor to complete his rule before the Spanish Conquest.
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Stone Age site surfaces in UK after 8000 years


University of Southampton
Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:51 UTC
Excavations of an underwater Stone Age archaeological settlement dating back 8000 years are taking place at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton this week (30 July - 3 August 2007).

Maritime archaeologists from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) have been working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. Divers working at depths of 11 metres have raised sections of the seabed, which have been brought to the NOCS laboratories for excavation.
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Telescope

Newfound planet has Earth-like orbit

Ker Than
Space.com
Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:52 UTC
The new planet, spotted using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, circles its bloated parent star every 360 days and is located about 300 light-years away, in the constellation Perseus.

The red giant star is twice as massive and about 10 times larger than the sun. Its planet is about the size of Jupiter or larger and was discovered using the so-called wobble technique, in which astronomers look for slight wiggles in a star's motion created by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets.


©NASA, ESA and A. Feild (STScI)
The different masses of stars. The lightest-weight stars are red dwarfs. The heaviest-weight stars are blue-white super giants. The red giant star at the bottom of the illustration is much larger than the other stars in the illustration.
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Info

Hackers unlimited: Car satellite navigation systems can be steered the wrong way

Glenn Chapman
AFP
Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:59 UTC
Satellite navigation systems in cars can be hijacked remotely with relative ease, allowing hackers to feed drivers bogus directions, two experts told a major security conference here.

Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco from the website Inverse Path demonstrated Thursday how antennas and a patchwork of commonly available electronics can be employed to replace the legitimate traffic information radioed to the systems with false instructions.

The hacker tool works on in-car Radio Data System "SatNav" devices standard in Europe, which are becoming increasingly common in North America and are due to debut this year in Australia, Barisani told security professionals meeting in Las Vegas for the Black Hat digital self-defense conference.
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Aztec pyramid ruins found in Mexico City


Reuters
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:31 UTC
Archeologists have discovered what they think are ruins of an Aztec pyramid razed by vengeful Spanish conquerors in what is now one of Mexico City's most crime-ridden districts.

Construction workers unearthed ancient walls in the busy Iztapalapa neighborhood in June, and government archeologists said on Wednesday they believe they may be part of the main pyramid of the Aztec city, destroyed by conquistador Hernan Cortes in the 16th century.
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Telescope

NASA Forced to Steer Clear of Junk in Cluttered Space

William J. Broad
NY Times
Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:14 UTC
Traffic in space is getting so congested that flight controllers in the past few weeks have had to nudge three spacecraft out of harm's way, in one case to prevent the craft from colliding with its own trash.

On July 23, controllers in Houston raised the orbit of the International Space Station by roughly five miles to avoid hitting a half-ton tank of ammonia that a spacewalking astronaut had tossed out earlier in the day while doing some housecleaning on the $100 billion outpost.
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Rocket

Astronauts on asteroids? NASA toys with idea

Leonard David
MSNBC
Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:01 UTC
Advocates believe in scientific payoff; critics say mission is too dangerous

©Digitalspace / DigitalSpace
NASA is considering sending astronauts on an asteroid mission, as illustrated here.
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Cow Skull

Archaeologists excavate ancient tannery

MARTA FALCONI
AP
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:54 UTC
Archaeologists excavating an ancient tannery believed to be the largest ever found in Rome said Tuesday they might need to move the entire work site, which is being threatened by railroad construction. The 1,255-square-yard complex includes a tannery dating to the second or third century, as well as burial sites and part of a Roman road.
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Discovery Provides Key Evidence Of Life's Beginnings On Sea Floor


SPX
Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:02 UTC
Researchers from Saint Louis University (SLU) and Peking University in China are revealing for the first time the findings of a discovery that could change the way we think about the development of life on Earth. Two years ago, Timothy Kusky, Ph.D., the Paul C. Reinert Professor of Natural Sciences at SLU, and Jianghai Li, a professor of geological science at Peking University, dug up hundreds of fossilized black smoker chimneys in northern China.

©Unknown
The SLU/Peking chimneys are 1.43 billion years old, the oldest such discovery on record, with previous findings dating back about 500 million years.

Since then, the researchers have been analyzing the samples in several laboratories. The discovery is important, the researchers say, because it lends support to the theory that life on the planet developed on the sea floor.
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Magic Wand

Methane found to fuel rare glass sponge reefs

Catherine Brahic
NewScientist.com
Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:57 UTC
Reef-building glass sponges were once thought to have been extinct for 100 million years. But a new live cluster of the organisms has been discovered off the west coast of the US - only the second known to exist.

©University of Victoria
Glass sponges are up to 50 centimetres high, and can build reefs up to 450 cm tall.

Furthermore, unlike the other known glass sponge reefs in Canada, the US reefs appear to be fuelled by methane.
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