Science & TechnologyS


Target

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

WASHINGTON -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

Alarm Clock

US: Earthquake risk on North Olympic Peninsula detailed by scientists

Port Angeles, Washington - Government scientists are discussing two earthquake faults which could cause serious damage on the North Olympic Peninsula.

New earthquake faults
©KOMO News

The U.S. Geological Survey released new seismic hazard maps this week that focused on quake faults across the nation, including the Lake Creek-Boundary Creek fault that runs from central to eastern Clallam County - from roughly 15 miles west of the Elwha River to just past Siebert Creek.

It is capable of producing a magnitude-6.79 earthquake and has been active over the past several thousand years.

It was studied in detail by scientists in 2006 and is included for the first time in the new seismic hazard maps.

Evil Rays

Study Captures Brain's Activity Processing Speech

Research is First to Describe How Neurons Interpret Different Words

Rad, Lad. You might be able to hear the difference, but to many children and adults, these words sound exactly the same. The problem isn't that they can't hear the sounds. The problem is that they can't tell them apart.


Magnify

Science Is Leading Us to More Answers, but It's Also Misleading Us

Be careful what you wish for. That is the unexpected lesson of the past decade of biomedical research, which has been characterized by an overwhelming abundance of interesting things to study and powerful ways to study them.

A pioneer of this era, MIT geneticist Eric Lander, speaks eloquently of the "global view of biology," meaning that scientists now have extraordinary tools to study not only individual genes, but also multiple genes at the same time. Rather than immediately investing all their resources in a few favorite genes (the traditional approach), modern researchers first can survey thousands of initial candidates, then identify and ultimately direct their attention to the most important players and pivotal networks.

Binoculars

Did the Flores Hobbit Have a Root Canal?

Dental work claim challenges antiquity of hobbit skeleton

And you thought Frodo had it hard. In what is shaping up to be a battle of Tolkienian proportions, the tiny remains from Flores, Indonesia--paleoanthropology's hobbit--have once again come under attack.

Laptop

Google hands over data on suspected pedophiles to Brazil

Google on Wednesday handed over data stored by suspected pedophiles on its Orkut social networking site to Brazilian authorities, ceding to pressure to lift its vow of confidentiality to its users, officials said.

The US Internet giant delivered 3,261 files to a Brazilian senate commission looking into allegations that illegal images of minors were posted in password-protected photo albums on the site.

Telescope

Stephen Hawking urges new era of space conquest

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking called Monday for a new era of space conquest akin to Christopher Columbus' discovery of the new world, in a speech on the 50th anniversary of NASA space agency.

"In a way, the situation is like Europe before 1492. People might well have argued that it was a waste of money to send Columbus on a wild goose chase," the British scientist said at Georgetown Washington University.

Sherlock

Ancient marble staircase found in Rome

Italian archeologists said an ancient staircase made of marble was uncovered during excavations beneath Rome's Piazza Venezia.

Rome Archaeological Superintendent Angelo Bottini said the staircase, inset into pink granite and travertine, was discovered during work on a station for Rome's newest metro line. Bottini told ANSA it is an important find.

Binoculars

Giant Undersea Volcano Found Off Iceland

A giant and unusual underwater volcano lies just offshore of Iceland on the Reykjanes Ridge, volcanologists have announced.

The Reykjanes formation is a section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which bisects the Atlantic Ocean where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart.

Image
©Steve Allen/Getty
The active Krafla volcano (above) in northwestern Iceland boasts a lake inside its 6-mile-wide (10-kilometer-wide) caldera.

A newfound underwater volcano off Iceland's coast has a similarly sized caldera - and it's only a matter of time before the submarine mountain erupts, scientists say.

Sherlock

Ancient game boards and compass discovered in southern Iran

Archaeological studies on some engravings on rocks on Khark Island have identified them as a compass and ancient game boards.

The engravings are between 2000 and 3000 years old, archaeologist Reza Moradi Ghiasabadi, who conducted the recently concluded studies, told the Persian service of CHN on Saturday.

The compass has been etched in rectangular form with rounded angles on a flat rock located on the ground beside an ancient route, Moradi Ghiasabadi explained. A curve has been engraved on the upper half and four lines forming a cross stretch to the four sides of the rectangular shape, he noted.

Image
©Unknown
An ancient game board, Khark Island