Science & TechnologyS


Magnify

Two Ton Stromatolite Fossil Discovered In Virginia, U.S.


Science Daily
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:53 UTC


Image
©Virginia Museum of Natural History
VMNH representatives at the stromatolite unveiling include Executive Director Tim Gette, Curator of Earth Sciences Dr. Jim Beard, and Assistant Curator of Paleontology Dr. Alton Dooley.

Virginia Museum of Natural History scientists have confirmed that an approximately 500 million-year-old stromatolite was recently discovered at the Boxley Blue Ridge Quarry near Roanoke, Virginia. This specimen is the first-ever intact stromatolite head found in Virginia, and is one of the largest complete "heads" in the world, at over 5 feet in diameter and weighing over 2 tons.
Read More...
Pharoah

Syrian dig reveals bizarre sacrificial ceremony of ancient acrobat


ANI
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:05 UTC
Washington: An archaeological dig in northeastern Syria has pointed to a bizarre sacrificial ceremony, with the revelation of the remains of man, who may have been an acrobat at around 2300 B.C., along with remains of several rare horse-like animals.

According to a report by Discovery News, gory evidence of the entertainer's death, along with the remains of several rare horse-like animals, which appear to have been sacrificed as well, was found in the remains of a building at a site called Tell Brak, which was once the ancient city of Nagar.
Read More...
Network

Internet DNS flaw that could let hackers take over the Web gets "fixed"

Glenn Chapman
AFP
Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:55 UTC
SAN FRANCISCO - Computer industry heavyweights are hustling to fix a flaw in the foundation of the Internet that would let hackers control traffic on the World Wide Web.

Major software and hardware makers worked in secret for months to create a software "patch" released on Tuesday to repair the problem, which is in the way computers are routed to web page addresses.

"It's a very fundamental issue with how the entire addressing scheme of the Internet works," Securosis analyst Rich Mogul said in a media conference call.

Comment: This patch will help prevent exactly the kind of attack that targeted SOTT.net several weeks ago.

Read More...
Info

Flashback Harnessing the power of light to pattern surfaces on the nanoscale

Steven Schultz
Princeton University, Engineering School
Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:45 UTC
Princeton engineers have invented an affordable technique that uses lasers and plastic beads to create the ultrasmall features that are needed for new generations of microchips.

The method, which creates lines and dots that are 1,000 times narrower than a human hair, may enable the creation of biological computers as well as micromachines with applications in medicine, optical communications, computing and sensor technologies.
Read More...
Bulb

Researchers reveal types of genes necessary for brain development


Public Library of Science
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:54 UTC
Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brandeis University have successfully completed a full-genome RNAi screen in neurons, showing what types of genes are necessary for brain development. Details of the screen and its novel methodology are published July 4th in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

Recent advances in genomics, such as the sequencing of entire genomes and the discovery of RNA-interference as a means of testing the effects of gene loss, have opened up the possibility to systematically analyze the function of all known and predicted genes in an organism. Until now, this type of functional genomics approach has not been applied to the study of very complex cells, such as the brain's neurons, on a full-genome scale.
Read More...
Bulb

Earth consuming delayed: High-energy experiments into secrets of matter may start in fall


RIA Novosti
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:45 UTC
Proton collisions at the world's most powerful particle accelerator that some theorists say could create matter-consuming black holes should not be expected until the fall, a Russian physicist said Tuesday.

"We are not planning to begin proton collisions this summer," said Mikhail Kirsanov, a senior researcher at the Russian Institute for Nuclear Research, which is part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project to investigate high energy particles and the beginning of the universe.

Some media sources have reported that the LHC may start "smashing atoms" as early as this week, and previous reports speculated that such collisions could create a black hole that would consume the Earth.

"We still have to cool down the accelerator and conduct some test-runs of proton beams around the accelerator ring," Kirsanov said. "No one can predict a certain date [for the start of the collisions]."
Read More...
Hourglass

Uncovering an ancient city

Nick Smith
The Explorer
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:51 UTC
Archaeologists unearth houses, artifacts along Silverbell Project

Hohokam Cortaro-Silverbell Marana
©Unknown
Randy Metcalf/The Explorer, Stephanie Ratcliffe, with Desert Archaeology, scoops dirt from of an ancient Hohokam pit house at the southeast corner of Ina and Silverbell roads. A team of archaeologists was brought in to excavate the area near the Silverbell roadway project.
Read More...
Network

Transforming history into science : Arise 'cliodynamics'

Peter Turchin
Nature
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:37 UTC
If we are to learn how to develop a healthy society, we must transform history into an analytical, predictive science, argues Peter Turchin. He has identified intriguing patterns across vastly different times and places.

Image
©D Parkins
Read More...
Sherlock

Ancient Hair Reveals Origins of 4000 Year Old Greenlanders


Discovermagazine.com
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:34 UTC
A clump of hair that lay frozen in the Greenland tundra for 4,000 years has yielded DNA from the earliest Arctic residents, and offers clues to their origins.

Researchers have long wondered who those rugged settlers were, and where they came from. Were they part of a massive migration that swept through all of North America, or were they a separate tribe that eventually gave rise to Greenland's present-day Eskimos?

Eskimo_hair
©Unknown
Read More...
Sherlock

Digging up the past at Scottish stone circle

John Ross
Scotsman.com
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:26 UTC
Work will start next week to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites.

The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands.

Ring of Brodgar
©Unknown
Ring of Brodgar in Orkney
Read More...