Science & TechnologyS


Sherlock

Archaeologists Unearth 7,000-Year-Old Swastika in North-Western Bulgaria


Balkan Travellers
Thu, 20 May 2010 12:00 UTC
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© Nartsis Torbov
A pottery fragment with the image of a swastika, dating to 7,000 years ago, and an ancient female adornment with a phallus are among the artefacts shown for the first time as part of the on-going exhibition "Gods, Symbols and Ancient Signs" in the museum in Vratsa in north-western Bulgaria.

The swastika-decorated clay pottery fragment was found by archaeologists during excavations of a ritual pit around the village of Altimir near the town of Vratsa. The find dates back to the beginning of the Stone-Copper Age and shows that this symbol traverses the centuries and cannot be linked solely to Hitler's party, archaeologists explained.

The swastika as a symbol dates to the Neolithic period in Ancient India, according to previous archaeological finds. It can also be seen on Roman and Medieval artefacts. Although it was commonly used all over much of the world without stigma and still occurs widely in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, the swastika has become stigmatized in the Western world, because of its iconic usage in Nazi Germany.
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Magnify

Pagan Altar Unearthed at Building Site in Israel


The Associated Press
Thu, 20 May 2010 18:00 UTC
Jerusalem - Israeli archaeologists say workers have uncovered an ancient pagan altar while clearing ground for construction of a hotly disputed hospital emergency room.

They say the discovery proves an ancient cemetery at the site that has been at the center of protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews does not contain the graves of Jews.

Protesters claim an emergency room extension at Barzilai Hospital in the city of Ashkelon is being built on an ancient Jewish cemetery.

They demonstrated there when officials began removing graves this week, and rioting erupted in ultra-Orthodox areas of Jerusalem.
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Heart

New Computer Program Predicts Heart Attacks


technewsdaily.com
Thu, 20 May 2010 19:54 UTC
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© EPFLBlood flows through the left coronary artery in this supercomputer simulation.
A supercomputing lab in Switzerland has developed a flowing 3-D model of the cardiovascular system that should allow for predictions of certain heart diseases before they become dangerous.

The computer program accurately models the complex system of blood flow in the hearts of individual people at a precision of ten millionths of a meter. Based on a detailed heart scan, the simulation juggles over a billion different variables in order to represent a fluid containing ten million red blood cells.
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MIB

How to Secure Privacy on Facebook

Leslie Meredith
technewsdaily.com
Thu, 20 May 2010 19:48 UTC
Facebook this week hinted at new simple option for Facebook privacy settings―high, medium and low―where users could opt to share everything, nothing or an arbitrary set of data with one click. This would supplement the current privacy options that have sparked criticism for being too complex.

Facebook's Public Policy Director, Tim Sparapani talked with Kojo Nnamdi on his WAMU radio program Tuesday and stated that there will be "simplistic bands of privacy that users can choose from in the next couple weeks."
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Info

Magnesium: Super Material of the Future

Jeremy Hsu
technewsdaily.com
Thu, 20 May 2010 19:39 UTC
Cars could use more magnesium alloys to save on both weight and fuel, but only if engineers can figure out how to make one of the most widely available metallic elements on Earth capable of withstanding industrial manufacturing processes.

Magnesium burns at high temperatures with a brilliant white light, which has made it popular for use in fireworks and school science lab experiments. Now an urgent need for more lightweight, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly materials could turn magnesium into a revolutionary material for everything from cars and mobile electronics, according to an article published in the May 21 issue of the journal Science.
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Info

Reconsidering Genghis Khan

Charlie McCollum
Mercury News
Thu, 20 May 2010 19:07 UTC
GenghisKhan_1
© Batsaikhan MThis statue of Genghis Khan is a reproduction of a huge statue that sits in front of a government building in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It is one of many images of Genghis Khan that appear throughout the city.
In history written from a Western perspective, Genghis Khan - the ruler of the 13th-century Mongolian empire - occupies a place of infamy, perceived as a brutal, ruthless and primitive warlord who brought death and destruction to the civilized world.

When Don Lessem - the organizer of "Genghis Khan: The Exhibition," which opens Saturday at the Tech Museum - first traveled to Mongolia in the late 1980s, he had the Western view of Genghis. But then, he says, "I saw all these glowing descriptions of him and all the statues to him and thought, 'Why?' Because I had this impression of him as a bloodthirsty villain. Then the Mongolian people set me straight, and I came away thinking, 'This guy is incredible.' "

In fact, says William Fitzhugh of the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center, Genghis was an extraordinary ruler whose historical legacy needs to be reassessed in the West.
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Meteor

Australian Scientists find Timor Sea Meteorite Crater


Agence France-Presse
Thu, 20 May 2010 17:11 UTC
Meteor Shower
© AFPA Leonid meteor storm in 1999.
Sydney - Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth's climate, the lead researcher said Thursday.

Australian National University archaeologist Andrew Glikson said seismic activity led experts to the Mount Ashmore 1B site, and a study of fragments showed a large meteorite hit just before the Earth's temperatures plunged.

"The identification of microstructural and chemical features in drill fragments taken from the Mount Ashmore drill hole revealed evidence of a significant impact," Glikson said, adding it was at least 50 kilometres (31 miles) wide and about 35 million years old.

A meteorite 100 kilometres wide hit Siberia at the same time, along with an 85 km one in Chesapeake Bay, off the US coast of Virginia, followed by a large field of molten rock fragments over northeast America, he said.
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Info

The One-inch Equation to Explain All Physical Laws

Michio Kaku
Big Think
Sun, 16 May 2010 22:57 UTC
You might have heard me speak about the equation that eluded Einstein for the last 30 years of his life: the one-inch equation that will in a sense summarize everything we know about the physical laws governing the universe we live in. I believe that one day, perhaps the destiny of all intelligent life in the universe may hinge on this equation. Finding it is the goal of a lifetime.

It is The Theory of Everything, the equation that might summarize all physical laws into an equation, perhaps no more than an inch long. Scientists and layman alike have been trying to crack this problem for a generation. We think we're very close, in fact, the leading (and only) candidate for it is String Theory.

The main problem, I think, is that String Theory is not in its final form. In the last decade, we have learned that membranes must also be included into the theory as well as strings, and that these membranes can vibrate in 11 dimensions. This means that the complete mathematics behind the theory is not yet known. This means that it might be premature to demand that string theory fit all the properties necessary for the final theory. However, some results can be tested now.
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Camera

Google debates face recognition technology

Maija Palmer
Financial Times
Wed, 19 May 2010 22:36 UTC
Google executives are wrestling over whether to launch controversial facial recognition technology after a barrage of criticism over its privacy policies.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive, said a series of public disputes over privacy issues had caused the management team to review its procedures and the launch of new technologies. According to Google executives, facial recognition is one of the key topics of internal debate.

Mr Schmidt said: "Facial recognition is a good example . . . anything we did in that area would be highly, highly planned, discussed and reviewed. When you go through these things, you review your management procedures."
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Info

Mystery of Matter is Behind the Great Darkness of Our Universe


The Irish Times
Wed, 19 May 2010 22:29 UTC
One of the biggest mysteries in science is the fundamental nature of the largest component of the fabric of the universe - dark energy. Identified for sure only in 1998, dark energy constitutes 74 per cent of the total mass-energy of the universe and is responsible for the current accelerating expansion of the universe, writes William Reville.

There is very good evidence that the universe began about 13.7 billion years ago in a huge explosion (Big Bang) at a point. The universe has been expanding outwards like a balloon from this point of origin ever since. It was long thought that this expansion is gradually slowing down under the braking influence of gravity. However in the 1990s, to the great surprise of astronomers, it was discovered that, far from slowing down, the expansion of the universe is currently accelerating, propelled by a mysterious dark energy that acts like negative gravity.

The evidence for accelerating expansion came from studying distant Type 1a supernovae. A supernova is the death of a star in a catastrophic explosion when, for a short time, it becomes millions of times brighter than our sun. A type 1A supernova is produced in a binary star system - two stars, one a white dwarf and the other an ordinary star, revolving around a common centre of gravity. A star like the sun becomes a white dwarf after it exhausts its nuclear fuel and expels most of its outer material, leaving a very hot, extremely dense and gravitationally strong core.
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