Science & TechnologyS


Hourglass

US, Arizona: Scientists sift clues to mysterious migration

George Johnson
Oregonian
Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:05 UTC
Perched on a lonesome bluff above the San Pedro River in Arizona, the ancient stone ruin that archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site seems out of place.

Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising.

About 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their unique style.
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Propaganda

Da Vinci Was Of Arab Descent Study Finds


UK Guardian
Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:25 UTC
The seemingly far-fetched theory that Leonardo da Vinci was of Arab descent has been given new backing in a study, published this week, that suggests his mother was a slave.
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HAL9000

Swedish researchers find hole in 'flawless' encryption technology


Agence France-Presse
Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:45 UTC
Stockholm -- Quantum cryptography, a new technology until now considered 100 percent secure against attacks on sensitive data traffic, has a flaw after all, Swedish researchers said Friday.
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Magic Wand

Scientists hark back 30,000 years to give Neanderthal Man a voice

Mark Henderson
The Times
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:25 UTC


Neaderthal man
©Unknown

The voice of Neanderthal Man has been synthesised 30,000 years after the human relatives became extinct.

Scientists in the US have used a reconstruction of the larynx of Homo neanderthalis and computer models to mimic the way that the species probably spoke. Only one sound - the "e" - has been generated so far, which seems strangulated and nasal in comparison with its human equivalent.
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Telescope

Exploring Titan

Heather Mack
X-Press
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:08 UTC
Although it's a frigid near-300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero on Titan, to the science world, Saturn's largest moon is hot right now.

So hot, in fact, that SF State Geology Professor Leonard Sklar, SF State graduate students and colleagues from Wheaton College in Massachusetts are embarking on a three-year, NASA-funded project to better understand it.

Comment: Perhaps NASA are trying to get their hands on the oil?

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Butterfly

New hazard estimates could downplay earthquake dangers


Science Daily
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:54 UTC
The dangers posed by a major earthquake in the New Madrid and Charleston, South Carolina zones in the Midwestern and Southern parts of the United States may be noticeably lower than current estimates if seismologists adjust one of the major assumptions that go into calculating seismic hazard, according to a study presented at the Seismological Society of America.
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Laptop

Anti Virus Programs May Work Too Well


eCanadaNow.com
Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:30 UTC
There are some new arrows in the security quiver against malicious software and viruses, but one problem remains: Some of the legitimate programs that should be allowed to run are being blocked by the new security software.

But even with the possible downside of blocking programs that are genuine members of the industry are saying that the new technology and software in the fight against viruses and malicious software is worth the cost of a small amount of real software being unable to run.
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Bomb

The new shape of music: Music has its own geometry, researchers find


Physorg
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:41 UTC
The figure shows how geometrical music theory represents four-note chord-types -- the collections of notes form a tetrahedron, with the colors indicating the spacing between the individual notes in a sequence. In the blue spheres, the notes are clustered, in the warmer colors, they are farther apart. The red ball at the top of the pyramid is the diminished seventh chord, a popular 19th-century chord. Near it are all the most familiar chords of Western music. Credit: Dmitri Tymoczko, Princeton University
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Rocket

New Ion Engine Enters Space Race


Slashdot
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:16 UTC
Bibek Paudel brings us a BBC report on the development and testing of an new ion engine by a security firm named Qinetiq. The engine will be used in an ESA spacecraft tasked with mapping the Earth's gravitational field from orbit. Only a handful of ion drives have been used for space missions before, some of which we have discussed. Quoting:
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Telescope

Drifting Star Discovered: Implications For Star And Planet Formation Theory


Science Daily
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:09 UTC
By studying in great detail the 'ringing' of a planet-harbouring star, a team of astronomers using ESO's 3.6-m telescope have shown that it must have drifted away from the metal-rich Hyades cluster. This discovery has implications for theories of star and planet formation, and for the dynamics of our Milky Way.

The yellow-orange star Iota Horologii, located 56 light-years away towards the southern Horologium ("The Clock") constellation, belongs to the so-called "Hyades stream", a large number of stars that move in the same direction.

Previously, astronomers using an ESO telescope had shown that the star harbours a planet, more than 2 times as large as Jupiter and orbiting in 320 days (ESO 12/99).

Image
©Digital Sky Survey/VirGO
Using HARPS on ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, astronomers were able to study in great detail the star Iota Horologii, known to harbour a giant planet, and make a very precise portrait of it: its temperature is 6150 K, its mass is 1.25 times that of the Sun, and its age is 625 million years. Moreover, the star is found to be more metal-rich than the Sun by about 50%. This means the star must have drifted from the the Hyades cluster where it formed.
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