Science & TechnologyS


Question

Ancient Beast Had Armor Down Under

Sue Vorenberg
The Santa Fe New Mexican
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:45 UTC
New Mexico scientists discover fossilized remains of Typothorax with protective spikes

Don't call them perverts, but when two New Mexico paleontologists found a spiked opening on a fossilized 210 million-year-old animal - - in a place the sun doesn't generally shine -- they realized they had discovered something exciting.

The creature, called a Typothorax, appears to have had a protective cover over its naughty bits, although the actual purpose of the spikes hasn't quite been determined, they said.

"Is it an ancient chastity belt? Is it a clasper-type adaptation used in sexual activity? We just don't know yet," said Andy Heckert, an assistant geology professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and former geosciences collection manager at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.
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Pharoah

Ancient graves in Greece shed light on early Macedonia


Reuters
Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:34 UTC
Gold jewelry, weapons and pottery are found near Pella, birthplace of the kingdom's legendary leader Alexander the Great.

Pella treasures
© Greek Culture MinistryJewelry found in a woman’s grave at Pella, northern Greece, dates to between 650 and 279 BC. Under Alexander’s conquests, Macedonia stretched as far as India.
Archaeologists have unearthed gold jewelry, weapons and pottery at an ancient burial site near Pella in northern Greece, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, the Culture Ministry said this week.

The excavations at the vast cemetery uncovered 43 graves dating from 650 to 279 BC, shedding new light on the early development of the Macedonian kingdom, which stretched as far as India under Alexander's conquests.
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Bulb

'Hub' of fear memory formation identified in brain cells


Emory University
Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:56 UTC
A protein required for the earliest steps in embryonic development also plays a key role in solidifying fear memories in the brains of adult animals, scientists have revealed. An apparent "hub" for changes in the connections between brain cells, beta-catenin could be a potential target for drugs to enhance or interfere with memory formation.

The results are published online this week and appear in the October issue of Nature Neuroscience.

The protein beta-catenin acts like a Velcro strap, fastening cells' internal skeletons to proteins on their external membranes that connect them with other cells. In species ranging from flies to frogs to mice, it also can transmit early signals that separate an embryo into front and back or top and bottom.
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Bulb

UCLA Mathematicians Discover 13-Million-Digit Prime Number


Associated Press
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:41 UTC
Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13-million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."
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Telescope

NASA Orbiter Reveals Rock Fracture Plumbing On Mars


Science Daily
Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:39 UTC
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.

Mars deformation bands
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of ArizonaDense clusters of crack-like structures called deformation bands form the linear ridges prominent in this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Researchers used images from the spacecraft's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera. Images of layered rock deposits at equatorial Martian sites show the clusters of fractures to be a type called deformation bands, caused by stresses below the surface in granular or porous bedrock.

"Groundwater often flows along fractures such as these, and knowing that these are deformation bands helps us understand how the underground plumbing may have worked within these layered deposits," said Chris Okubo of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Visible effects of water on the color and texture of rock along the fractures provide evidence that groundwater flowed extensively along the fractures.
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Roses

Iberian Peninsula's Earliest Agricultural Systems Were Unsustainable


Science Daily
Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:57 UTC
Archaeological site
© SINC / A. RoviraArchaeological site of Los Castillejos, Granada.
A team of Catalan and Andalusian researchers has proved that the first agricultural systems on the Iberian Peninsula became ever more unsustainable with the passage of time. The study involved the analysis of fossilised grains of wheat and barley from Los Castillejos (Granada), an area of archaeological remains where cereals were cultivated between 4000 and 2500 BCE.

Mónica Aguilera, an engineer from the Vegetable Physiology Unit at the University of Barcelona (UB) and co-author of the study, told SINC that the natural levels of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes were measured in order to estimate the yield and nutritional status of the ancient crops. "The size of the grain and levels of the carbon 13 (13C) isotopes allowed us to estimate yield, while the nutritional status of the crop was analysed by measuring levels of the nitrogen 15 (15N) isotopes," the researcher explained.

Figures revealed by the study show a reduction of around 35% in the yield of wheat crops and 30% in barley between the years 4000 and 2500 BCE (end of the Bronze Age). The average weight of the grains of these cereals also fell by 10 miligrammes (33%) and 12 mg (38%) respectively. The research also revealed a 33% reduction in the nitrogen content of the wheat grains and 56% in barley.
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Pharoah

India: Iron Age burial site in Tamil Nadu being razed

T.S. Subramanian
The Hindu
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:49 UTC
Burial site
© Unknown
Chennai: An Iron Age burial site dotted with cairn circles, menheirs and cist-slabs, near Vellaripatti village near Madurai on the Madurai-Tiruchi highway, is being destroyed. Archaeologists date the megalithic site between 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C.

Real estate developers have uprooted and swept up hundreds of cairn circles (big stones arranged in the form of circles), menheirs (tall granite slabs erected vertically) and cist-slabs (rectangular granite slabs laid on the ground), all of which mark burial spots. Bulldozers have swept clean a big area that had earlier been crowded with cairn circles, menheirs and cist-slabs. Border stones have been planted in the cleaned-up area to indicate house sites. A fencing post has been erected close to a beautifully laid cairn circle, and it is only a matter of time before this cairn circle disappears.
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Monkey Wrench

Simple device which uses electrical field to boost gas efficiency developed by Temple University researcher


Temple University
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:56 UTC
Rongjia Tao
© Joseph V. Labolito/Temple UniversityRongjia Tao
With the high cost of gasoline and diesel fuel impacting costs for automobiles, trucks, buses and the overall economy, a Temple University physics professor has developed a simple device which could dramatically improve fuel efficiency as much as 20 percent.

Comment: A device that reduces gas consumption by 20 percent, sounds good. That is unless, by some strange coincidence, there just happened to be a 20 percent increase in the price of gas if this were ever to hit market.

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Bizarro Earth

Planet's strange orbit points to planetary billiards

Devin Powell
New Scientist
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:38 UTC
Collision of planets
© NASA/JPL-CaltechA collision between planets,like the one illustrated, could have caused the odd orbit of XO-3b
Billions of years ago, something kicked planet XO-3b into a cock-eyed orbit. The culprit may have been another planet, which would mean planets can bounce each other around like cosmic billiard balls.

Guillame Hébrard of the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris and colleagues detected an unusual colour shift as XO-3b passed in front of its star. The pattern suggests that its 3.2-day orbit is tilted by 70 degrees (see diagram). "If confirmed, this might be the first planet of this type," says Hébrard.

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Better Earth

How different from Earth are distant exoplanets?

Deborah Byrd, Joel Block, Lindsay Patterson and Jorge Salazar
Earth & Sky Radio Series
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:50 UTC
Earth
© NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center
Dave Charbonneau: One of the big delights in the last decade has been that we've uncovered a great diversity in the planets orbiting other stars.

Dave Charbonneau is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He's talking about the discovery so far of over 300 exoplanets - planets that lie beyond our solar system.
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