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Airborne laser weapon sails through tests

Sandrine Ceurstemont
New Scientist
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:51 UTC
The Pentagon may soon have a new anti-missile weapon - a high-powered laser fired from the nose of a large jet plane to destroy missiles soon after they leave the ground.

The latest video footage from the project reveals the results from a round of testing that ended in December 2008 (see our story on the tests). A prototype mounted in a plane on the ground fired infrared laser beams at a target in 1 second bursts.


The system has left the ground too, in trials 16 months ago, that proved the weapon could track a simulated missile well enough to reliably deploy the powerful beam if required.
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Crusader

How to spot a hidden religious agenda

Amanda Gefter
New Scientist
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:35 UTC
As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I'd share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science's clothing.

Red flag number one: the term "scientific materialism". "Materialism" is most often used in contrast to something else - something non-material, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not.
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Palette

'Early Da Vinci portrait' found


British Broadcasting Corporation
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:31 UTC
Da Vinci
© BBCThe image resembled older known portraits of Leonardo
A sketch found in one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks could be an early self-portrait, experts believe.

The drawing had been obscured by handwriting for 500 years before being discovered by Italian scientific journalist Piero Angela.

After months of restoration work, the image was aged using criminal investigation techniques and compared with older self-portraits of Leonardo.

The findings will be revealed on Italy's RAI television channel.
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Magnify

UK Scientist Finds 48 New Ancient Species

Richard Roth
CBS News
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:47 UTC
You could say all Steve Sweetman had to do, was follow the tracks along the beach. Hundred and thirty million-year-old tracks, that is.

Dinosaur footprints are common here, reports CBS correspondent Richard Roth, lining the shore on what's been called the Isle of Wight's Jurassic coast. And yes, among the fossils he's found here are remains of what you've seen in movies like Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.

"They were called in the film 'Velociraptor,' but they were actually a bigger representation of that animal. But the raptor I found here on the Isle of Wight was actually bigger than the one in the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park," said Sweetman.
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Magnify

Fragments of Ancient Egyptian Papyrus Found

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:32 UTC
Image
© Museo Egizio, Torino For 100 years, archaeologists have been trying to piece together fragments to this 3,000-year-old document, written on a papyrus stem. The Egyptian document enumerates all the Egyptian kings and when they ruled. Newly found fragments to the document should help in piecing together the puzzle.
Some newly recovered papyrus fragments may finally help solve a century-old puzzle, shedding new light on ancient Egyptian history.

Found stored between two sheets of glass in the basement of the Museo Egizio in Turin, the fragments belong to a 3,000-year-old unique document, known as the Turin Kinglist.

Like many ancient Egyptian documents, the Turin Kinglist is written on the stem of a papyrus plant.

Believed to date from the long reign of Ramesses II, the papyrus contains an ancient list of Egyptian kings.
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Sherlock

Fossil of 10 Million-Year-Old Bird Found in Peru


Reuters
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:28 UTC
Bird
© Reuters/Mariana BazoA palaeontologist shows the cranium of a bird, from the Pelagormithidae family.
Paleontologists working in Peru have found a fossil from a bird that lived 10 million years ago, scientists said on Friday after returning from the dig site on the country's desert coast.

The species of bird had a wing span of 19.7 feet and fed mostly on fish from the Pacific Ocean. It first appeared 50 million years ago and was extinct about 2.5 million years ago because of climate change, paleontologist Mario Urbina of Peru's Natural History Museum said.

Scientists discovered a rare fossil of the bird's head in Ocucaje, in the Ica region of Peru's southern coast, where an arid climate has preserved many fossils.
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Magnify

What Happens When a Language Dies?

Paroma Basu
National Geographic News
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:00 UTC
India is extraordinary for its linguistic and cultural diversity. According to official estimates, the country is home to at least 400 distinct tongues, but many experts believe the actual number is probably around 700.

But, in a scenario replicated around the globe, many of India's languages are at risk of dying out.

The effects could be culturally devastating. Each language is like a key that can unlock local knowledge about medicinal secrets, ecological wisdom, weather and climate patterns, spiritual attitudes, and artistic and mythological histories.

In rural Indian villages, Hindi or English are in vogue with younger generations, and are often required travelling to larger towns for work.

In big cities, colonization, as well as globalization, has also spurred a switch to English and other popular languages.
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Sherlock

Empty Coffins Found in Looted Egypt Tomb


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:00 UTC
Japanese archaeologists have unearthed four ancient wooden sarcophaguses, all of them empty, in an Egyptian tomb that had long ago been looted, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said today.

The coffins, some embossed with images of Pharaonic gods, were in the Dahshur necropolis south of Cairo, Hawass said in a statement.

Coated in black resin and bearing yellow inscriptions, they belonged to a man, Tutpashu, and a woman named Iriseraa, the statement said.

The archeologists also found three wooden canopic jars, which the ancient Egyptians used to store the entrails of their mummified dead, and four ushabti boxes containing wooden figurines.
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Einstein

Galileo's Finger Goes On Display in Italy

Nick Squires
Telegraph
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:53 UTC
A wizened finger belonging to Galileo Galilei, the only remaining part of the 17th century astronomer's body, is to go on display in Italy.

Galileo
© Getty ImagesCirca 1630, Italian astronomer, mathematician and natural philosopher Galileo Galilei, (1564 - 1642), known as Galileo.
The digit will be part of a landmark exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of his first observations of the skies.

The finger - the middle digit from Galileo's right hand - is mounted on a marble base and encased in a crystal jar.

It will be among 250 objects which will go on display in Florence as part of an exhibition entitled Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope, which opens next month in Florence.

The finger was removed when the astronomer's body when it was exhumed from his unconsecrated grave and transferred to a mausoleum in a Florentine church in 1737. It is usually on display at Florence's Museum of the History of Science.
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Meteor

Meteorites Found in West Area to Go Up for Auction


Star Telegram
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:59 UTC
Two pieces from a meteor that blazed across the Texas sky this month are going from the asteroid belt to the auction block.

Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries announced Thursday that it is putting two meteorites up for sale May 17. One is an 8-ounce specimen that could fetch up to $5,000.

The meteorites were discovered in the West area, about 70 miles south of Dallas, by an Arizona meteorite hunter whose trip was partially financed by an anonymous collector in New York, said David Herskowitz, natural history consultant for the auction house.

"Both specimens are extensively covered with fresh fusion crust from burning through the atmosphere," Herskowitz said.
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