Science & TechnologyS


Hourglass

Neanderthal treasure trove 'at bottom of sea'

David Keys
The Independent
Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:31 UTC
Some of the world's best preserved prehistoric landscapes survive in pristine condition at the bottom of the North Sea, archaeologists claimed yesterday.

Academic interest in what are being described as drowned Stone Age hunting grounds is likely to increase dramatically after the discovery of 28 Neanderthal flint axes on the sea bed off the East Anglian coast.
Read More...
Sherlock

The mystery of mammoth tusks with iron fillings

Ned Rozell
Alaska Report
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:10 UTC
A giant meteor may have exploded over Alaska thousands of years ago, shooting out metal fragments like buckshot, some of which embedded in the tusks of woolly mammoths and the horns of bison. Simultaneously, a large chunk of the meteor hit Alaska south of Allakaket, sending up a dust cloud that blacked out the sun over the entire state and surrounding areas, killing most of the life in the area.

Such is the scenario envisioned by Rick Firestone, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Firestone and his colleagues have found mammoth tusks and a bison skull with nickel-rich iron particles in them on one side, suggesting the metal fragments all came from the same direction.

Image
©Richard Firestone
Embedded iron particles surrounded by carbonized rings in the outer layer of a mammoth tusk from Alaska. Inset photo shows how an object ripped through the tusk.
Read More...
Stop

S.Korea switches ISS mission astronauts over alleged violations


RIA Novosti
Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:20 UTC
South Korea's first astronaut will be a female engineer, following a last-minute swap over allegations that the main candidate broke rules in the Russian training center, Yonhap agency said on Monday.

The agency said the decision to send Yi So-yeon, 28, to the International Space Center instead of Ko San was made following requests from the Russian side.

"The main reason for the change is based on two consecutive violations of training protocol by Ko," the news agency quoted Lee Sang-mok, the head of the space technology bureau with the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, as saying.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Tsunami that devastated the ancient world could return


Agence France Presse
Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:28 UTC
"The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep sea bed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD.
Read More...
No Entry

The final insult; Jonathan Jones on why we don't care about Stonehenge

Jonathan Jones
Guardian
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:36 UTC
It is our greatest monument, on a par with the pyramids. But soon it will be plagued by Tesco juggernauts. Why don't we care about Stonehenge? Jonathan Jones finds out.

Read More...
Clock

Researchers See History Of Life In The Structure Of Transfer RNA


Medical News Today
Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:18 UTC
Transfer RNA is an ancient molecule, central to every task a cell performs and thus essential to all life. A new study from the University of Illinois indicates that it is also a great historian, preserving some of the earliest and most profound events of the evolutionary past in its structure.

The study, co-written by Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, a professor of crop sciences, and postdoctoral researcher Feng-Jie Sun, appears March 7 in PLoS Computational Biology. Caetano-Anollés is an affiliate of the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology.
Read More...
Telescope

Strange, Dark Halos Discovered on Mercury


Red Orbit
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:32 UTC


Messenger Mercury orbiter
©Unknown

The surprises continue. Scientists studying the harvest of photos from the MESSENGER spacecraft's Jan. 14th flyby of Mercury have found several craters with strange dark halos and one crater with a spectacularly shiny bottom.

"The halos are really exceptional," says MESSENGER science team member Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "We've never seen anything like them on Mercury before and their formation is a mystery."
Read More...
Pharoah

Discovery of a monumental tomb related to 1st transition period


Egypt State Information Service
Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:30 UTC
Group of tombs were discovered in Ahnasia city the ancient capital of Egypt in Bani Sweif during the digging works of the Spanish delegation of the National Museum in Madrid.

General Manager of Antiques in Bani Sweif said that the tomb related to the 1st transition period, adding that the tomb identifies the period where Ahnasia city was the capital of Egypt. He noted that Ahnasia city was established during the 9th and 10th dynasties.
Read More...
Display

Consumers left to sweep up after Blu-ray, HD DVD war

Monica Haynes
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:23 UTC
You've been had. You've been hoodwinked. You didn't land on the next-generation DVD format; it landed on you. And boy, did it leave a mark!

That could pretty much sum up the feeling of many early technology adopters seduced by the sirens of the HD DVD player only to learn they were on the losing end of a war they probably didn't know they were a part of.
Read More...
Evil Rays

New discovery at Jupiter could help protect Earth-orbit satellites


British Antarctic Survey
Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:56 UTC
Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter's magnetic field in the same way as they do on Earth.

Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter's magnetic field in the same way as they do on Earth, according to new research published in Nature Physics this week. The discovery overturns a theory that has held sway for more than a generation and has important implications for protecting Earth-orbiting satellites.

Using data collected at Jupiter by the Galileo spacecraft, Dr Richard Horne of British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Iowa found that a special type of very low frequency radio wave is strong enough to accelerate electrons up to very high energies inside Jupiter's magnetic field.
Read More...