Science & TechnologyS


Book 2

Computerized 'Rosetta Stone' reconstructs ancient languages

Chris Balma
University of British Columbia
Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:47 UTC
University of British Columbia and Berkeley researchers have used a sophisticated new computer system to quickly reconstruct protolanguages - the rudimentary ancient tongues from which modern languages evolved.

The results, which are 85 per cent accurate when compared to the painstaking manual reconstructions performed by linguists, will be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're hopeful our tool will revolutionize historical linguistics much the same way that statistical analysis and computer power revolutionized the study of evolutionary biology," says UBC Assistant Prof. of Statistics Alexandre Bouchard-Côté, lead author of the study.
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Galaxy

Intelligent civilizations rarer than one in a million


EarthSky Org
Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:56 UTC
Gas Planet
© NASA/JPL-CaltechArtist’s concept of gas giant planet in Beehive star cluster. All around, the stars of the Beehive cluster shine brightly in the dark.
NASA's Kepler mission has identified 2,740 planets orbiting other stars, but do any of them harbor intelligent life?

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have now used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to look for intelligent radio signals from planets around 86 of these stars. While discovering no telltale signs of life, the researchers calculate that fewer than one in a million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy have planetary civilizations advanced enough to transmit beacons we could detect.

"We didn't find ET, but we were able to use this statistical sample to, for the first time, put rather explicit limits on the presence of intelligent civilizations transmitting in the radio band where we searched," said Andrew Siemion, who recently received his Ph.D. in astronomy from UC Berkeley.
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Sun

Collapsed magnetic filament hurls coronal mass ejection (CME) towards Earth


The Extinction Protocol
Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:52 UTC
On Saturday, February 9th, around 0640 UT, a magnetic filament in the sun's northern hemisphere erupted, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the UV flash from the underlying C2-class solar flare: The CME, which was captured in flight by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, billowed away from the sun at 800 km/s. The bulk of the cloud looks like it will sail north of Earth. Nevertheless, a glancing blow is possible as shown in this 3D model of the CME prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Flight Center. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Feb. 12th when the CME passes by. - Space Weather
Image
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Eye 2

U.S. government drone war against US citizens: Spy drone used in 'hunt' for ex-soldier accused of killing three

Mike Parker
The Daily Express
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 06:32 UTC
Christopher Dorner
© Daily ExpressDomestic drones are being used to hunt down Christopher Dorner
Police plan to use spy drones in the hunt for a Rambo-style ex-soldier and policeman who has murdered three people and vowed to kill again.

They believe burly, heavily-armed Christopher Dorner is holed-up in the wilderness of California's snow-capped San Bernardino mountains 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

The burnt-out shell of his pick-up truck was discovered in the nearby resort of Big Bear, where residents and tourists have been warned to stay indoors as the search continues.

Yesterday, as a task force of 125 officers, some riding Snowcats in the rugged terrain, continued their search, it was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.

A senior police source said: "The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: "We are using all the tools at our disposal."

Comment: The claim that this incident represents the first time surveillance drones would be used against a U.S. citizen domestically is inaccurate. In 2011, police used a Predator surveillance drone against a family in North Dakota who were accused of stealing six cows.

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Blackbox

Forensic pathology: Tracing the origin of the Usutu Virus


University of Veterinary Medicine
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:57 UTC
Image
© Unknown
It is generally a mystery how new diseases arise and how the pathogens that cause them first enter countries. However, clues may come from examination of specimens from similar outbreaks. This approach has recently been taken by scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna to trace the origin of the virus that caused a sudden decrease in the number of blackbirds in Vienna in 2001. The results are published in the current issue of the journal "Emerging Infectious Diseases".

The effects were dramatic: throughout Vienna it was impossible not to notice that the blackbirds were disappearing. Their melodious song no longer rang around the courtyards of the inner city nor woke tired partygoers in the outlying districts. The birds were simply no longer there. Thankfully, they gradually reappeared and a few years later their population had returned to its original levels. But the sudden crash in numbers was alarming and scientists rushed to find the cause.

It soon became apparent that the birds had died as a result of a new kind of viral infection. The culprit turned out to be the Usutu virus, which had previously been identified only in Africa and had only seldom been associated with mortality in animals or birds. It was widely assumed that the virus had crossed from Africa to central Europe with the help of migratory birds - the Barn swallow was generally fingered as the most likely transmitter - and that such sudden outbreaks would appear more frequently as the result of climate change. But these conclusions have been called into question by the latest findings from a team at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna).
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Sherlock

Twins' DNA confounds French police investigating rape case


Raw Story
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:26 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
French police investigating a series of rapes in the southern city of Marseille are confounded after tracing DNA evidence to a set of twins but not knowing which one may be to blame.

With telling the difference between the twins' DNA extremely difficult and expensive, police have in the meantime charged both men, 24-year-olds identified only as Elwin and Yohan, and are holding them without bail.

"It's a rather rare case for the alleged perpetrators to be identical twins," chief investigator Emmanuel Kiehl said.
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Bizarro Earth

Solomon Islands earthquakes: Foreshocks, mainshocks and aftershocks

Jennifer Young
Decoded Science
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:24 UTC
Solomon Islands Quake_1
© USGSForshocks, mainshock and aftershocks in teh Solomon Islands, February 2013.
More earthquakes in the Santa Cruz Islands, in the Solomon Islands area - and they're still pretty large. Are these foreshocks, aftershocks, or what?

It's a restless Earth we live on. Certainly it must seem like that for residents of the Solomon Islands. This week they've experienced what must feel like a lifetime of earthquakes. Over a dozen quakes exceeding magnitude 5 (≥M5.0) between the first and the fifth of February could be deemed significant activity; but these were followed by a tremor of M8.0. Statistically speaking, you might expect only one or two of this magnitude in a year.

And it goes on. Earthquake after earthquake followed, and continues to follow. At the time of writing at least 80 aftershocks of ≥M5.0 have been recorded. So what are all these earthquakes and what, if anything, do they tell us?
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Fireball 3

Great Meteor Procession of February 9, 1913

Elizabeth Howell
EarthSky Org
Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:13 UTC
Great Meteor Procession
© University of Toronto
February 9, 1913. One hundred years ago today, a strange meteor sighting occurred over Canada, the U.S. Northeast, Bermuda and some ships at sea, including one off Brazil. What happened that night is sometimes called the Great Meteor Procession of 1913, and it sparked decades of debate concerning what actually happened.

Why the word procession? The meteors in the annual showers that so many enjoy are different in several ways.

Meteors in annual showers appear to radiate in all directions from a single point in the sky, called the radiant point. In contrast, the June 9. 1913 meteors appeared to cross the sky in formation, on nearly identical paths. Their pace across the sky was described as stately and measured.

Also, as they plunge into Earth's atmosphere and vaporize due to friction with the air, meteors in annual showers last only seconds. The 1913 meteors appeared to travel almost horizontally, nearly parallel to the Earth's surface, and thus they remained visible to a single observer for about a minute, and the entire procession took several minutes to pass by.

Plus, rumblings and other strange sounds were reported, suggesting the 1913 meteors could have been relatively close to Earth when they disintegrated.
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Target

'Inevitable that solar superstorm will hit Earth in near future': UK space weather experts

Steve Connor
The Independent, UK
Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:13 UTC
Image
Solar maximum 2013: eerily quiet
A solar "superstorm" could knock out Earth's communications satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report has found.

It is inevitable that an extreme solar storm - caused by the Sun ejecting billions of tonnes of highly-energetic matter travelling at a million miles an hour - will hit the Earth at some time in the near future, but it is impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes before it actually happens, a team of engineers has warned.

Solar superstorms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200 years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859.

Although none has occurred in the space age, we are far more vulnerable now than a century ago because of the ubiquity of modern electronics, they said.

Comment: They cannot be very good 'experts' in 'space weather' if they are not even paying attention ot the significant increase in fireballs, meteors and cometary fragments reaching the atmosphere and impacting the ground.

So what gives here?

Why warn people about something inevitable, imminent and dangerous... if you're just going to lie to them about what the real source of danger is?

Annoying 'satellite disturbance' is one thing... Western civilization being completely wiped off its foundations is quite another.

This solar maximum (2013) was hyped as being a potential record-breaker. It has been a record-breaker, but at the opposite end of the scale: the sun has in fact been eerily quiet!

This means that all the increased electrical phenomena must be the result of overlooked factors in the cosmic environment... an altogether different form of 'inevitable' and 'imminent' space weather...

Something wicked this way comes

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Eye 1

What evil lurks in the brain? German neurologist says he's found a 'dark patch'


Fox News
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:04 UTC
Dark brain

After studying the brains of violent killers, rapists and robbers, German neurologist Gerhard Roth claims to have found a "dark patch" in the center of the brain -- he calls it the evil spot, a genetic source of violent behavior.

Roth, a professor at the University of Bremen, told Germany news site Bild.de that he had shown short films to criminals and measured their brain activity. A small section at the front of their brains showed no reaction to violent scenes; it remained "dark" when shown dark scenes.

"Whenever there were brutal and squalid scenes, the subjects showed no emotions. In the areas of the brain where we create compassion and sorrow, nothing happened," Roth said.

BioEdge, a blog dedicated to bioethics news, translated Roth's German into English: "This is definitely the region of the brain where evil is formed and where it lurks."
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