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Workers digging at a downtown San Diego construction site have uncovered the prehistoric remains of an 8-foot-long mammoth.
A backhoe operator working at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law site unearthed a 20-foot-long tusk Wednesday.
School spokesman Chris Saunders says experts called in from the San Diego Natural History Museum uncovered the animal's skull and other bones.
A backhoe operator working at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law site unearthed a 20-foot-long tusk Wednesday.
School spokesman Chris Saunders says experts called in from the San Diego Natural History Museum uncovered the animal's skull and other bones.
© Susan KidwellBivalves predominate in this sample of marine organisms. Marine bivalves have been originating new species faster since the extinction of the dinosaurs than before.
"The evolutionary legacy of the end-Cretaceous extinction is very much with us. In fact, it can be seen in virtually every marine community, every lagoon, every continental shelf in the world," said University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski. It is, he said, "sort of an echo of the big bang for evolutionary biology."
This conclusion followed a detailed global analysis of marine bivalves, one of the few groups plentiful enough in the fossil record to allow such a study, which was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Andrew Krug of the University of Chicago, Jablonski and James Valentine of the University of California, Berkeley, examined the geologic ages of every major lineage of living bivalves the world over, from oysters and scallops to quahogs and cockles. Their report appears in the Feb. 6 issue of the journal Science.
The regions of our DNA that wire some people to "see" sounds have been discovered. So far, only the general regions within chromosomes have been identified, rather than specific genes, but the work could eventually lead to a genetic test to diagnose the condition before it interferes with a child's education.
It has long been known that synaesthesia - which can take many other forms, but generally involves a cross-wiring between the senses - seems to run in families, although it also appears to be affected by environmental factors.
To investigate the nature of the genetic component of the condition, Julian Asher, now at Imperial College London, and colleagues from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford took genetic samples from 196 individuals of 43 families. Of these, 121 individuals exhibited the synaesthetic trait of seeing a colour in response to a sound.
It has long been known that synaesthesia - which can take many other forms, but generally involves a cross-wiring between the senses - seems to run in families, although it also appears to be affected by environmental factors.
To investigate the nature of the genetic component of the condition, Julian Asher, now at Imperial College London, and colleagues from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford took genetic samples from 196 individuals of 43 families. Of these, 121 individuals exhibited the synaesthetic trait of seeing a colour in response to a sound.
© Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero & Paul Camilleri
On Feb. 4th, a team of Italian astronomers witnessed "an intriguing phenomenon in Comet Lulin's tail." Team leader Ernesto Guido explains: "We photographed the comet using a remotely-controlled telescope in New Mexico, and our images clearly showed a disconnection event. While we were looking, part of the comet's plasma tail was torn away."
© ImageBrokerPolar lights, seen over the White Sea, White Karelia, Russia.
Now a flotilla of NASA satellites is finally providing answers. They could help us understand not only one of nature's greatest spectacles, but also help predict more serious space weather, which can endanger satellites and astronauts, and even scramble electrical systems on Earth.
Dust is everywhere in space, but the pervasive stuff is one thing astronomers know little about. Cosmic dust is also elusive, as it lasts only about 10,000 years, a brief period in the life of a star. "We not only do not know what the stuff is, but we do not know where it is made or how it gets into space," said Donald York, a professor at the University of Chicago. But now York and a group of collaborators have observed a double-star system, HD 44179, that may be creating a fountain of dust. The discovery has wide-ranging implications, because dust is critical to scientific theories about how stars form.
The double star system sits within what astronomers call the Red Rectangle, a nebula full of gas and dust located approximately 2,300 light years from Earth.
One of the double stars is a post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) star, a type of star astronomers regard as a likely source of dust. These stars, unlike the sun, have already burned all the hydrogen in their cores and have collapsed, burning a new fuel, helium.
© NASAHST image of the Red Rectangle.
One of the double stars is a post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) star, a type of star astronomers regard as a likely source of dust. These stars, unlike the sun, have already burned all the hydrogen in their cores and have collapsed, burning a new fuel, helium.
© NASA/ESAA spiral galaxy NGC 4921 along with a spectacular backdrop of more distant galaxies. It was created from a total of 80 separate pictures through yellow and near-infrared filters.
The galaxies in rich clusters undergo many interactions and mergers that tend to gradually turn gas-rich spirals into elliptical systems without much active star formation. As a result there are far more ellipticals and fewer spirals in the Coma Cluster than are found in quieter corners of the Universe.
NGC 4921 is one of the rare spirals in Coma, and a rather unusual one - it is an example of an "anaemic spiral" where the normal vigorous star formation that creates a spiral galaxy's familiar bright arms is much less intense. As a result there is just a delicate swirl of dust in a ring around the galaxy, accompanied by some bright young blue stars that are clearly separated out by Hubble's sharp vision. Much of the pale spiral structure in the outer parts of the galaxy is unusually smooth and gives the whole galaxy the ghostly look of a vast translucent jellyfish.
© NRAOFalse-color image of the galaxy J1148+5251, based on observations from the Very Large Array in New Mexico.
The researchers studied one of the most distant known galaxies, a so-called quasar with the designation J1148+5251. Light from this galaxy takes 12.8 billion years to reach Earth; in turn, astronomical observations show the galaxy as it appeared 12.8 billion years ago, providing a glimpse of the very early stages of galactic evolution, less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
With the IRAM Interferometer, a German-French-Spanish radio telescope, the researchers were able to obtain images of a very special kind: they recorded the infrared radiation emitted by J1148+5251 at a specific frequency associated with ionized carbon atoms, which is a reliable indicator of ongoing star formation.
Pharmaceutical products could be employed to boost the performance of one army's soldiers while undermining the minds of those on the other, according to a National Research Council report drafted for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
The report, "Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies," addresses the question of how emerging neuroscience technologies and an increased understanding of the mind's functioning will affect police and the military.
"It's way too early to know which - if any - of these technologies is going to be practical," study co-author Jonathan Moreno said. "But it's important for us to get ahead of the curve."
The use of drugs to enhance or undermine battlefield performance features prominently in the report. While the narcolepsy drug modafinil and the attention deficit disorder drug Ritalin are already thought to be widely used by U.S. soldiers trying to stave off combat fatigue, the report says that more powerful and precisely targeted alertness drugs developed in the coming years will be even more effective. Drugs could also be used to enhance physical performance, such as by increasing physical strength or decreasing the perception of pain.
The report, "Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies," addresses the question of how emerging neuroscience technologies and an increased understanding of the mind's functioning will affect police and the military.
"It's way too early to know which - if any - of these technologies is going to be practical," study co-author Jonathan Moreno said. "But it's important for us to get ahead of the curve."
The use of drugs to enhance or undermine battlefield performance features prominently in the report. While the narcolepsy drug modafinil and the attention deficit disorder drug Ritalin are already thought to be widely used by U.S. soldiers trying to stave off combat fatigue, the report says that more powerful and precisely targeted alertness drugs developed in the coming years will be even more effective. Drugs could also be used to enhance physical performance, such as by increasing physical strength or decreasing the perception of pain.
