Study finds that ancestor spent most of its time in rivers and swamps
|
| ©Luci Betti-Nash / Stony Brook University
|
| A recent study found that an ancient elephant ancestor called moeritherium spent most of its time in rivers and swamps.
|
Elephants, those large and lumbering landlubbers, used to live partially in the water, according to new research.
A recent study found that an ancient elephant ancestor called moeritherium spent most of its time in rivers and swamps.
When it comes to designing something, it's hard to find a better source of inspiration than Mother Nature. Using that principle, a diverse, interdisciplinary group of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory is mimicking bacteria to synthesize magnetic nanoparticles that could be used for drug targeting and delivery, in magnetic inks and high-density memory devices, or as magnetic seals in motors.
Aurora Flight Sciences announced today that it has been awarded a contract to develop a radical new aircraft that can stay aloft for up to five years. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made the award under a program known as "Vulture."
Contrary to stereotype, most Internet sex offenders are not adults who target young children by posing as another youth, luring children to meetings, and then abducting or forcibly raping them, according to researchers who have studied the nature of Internet-initiated sex crimes.
Rather, most online sex offenders are adults who target teens and seduce victims into sexual relationships. They take time to develop the trust and confidence of victims, so that the youth see these relationships as romances or sexual adventures. The youth most vulnerable to online sex offenders have histories of sexual or physical abuse, family problems, and tendencies to take risks both on- and offline, the researchers say
Comment: According to popular knowledge, psychopaths are violent, sadistic monsters. They are "sociopaths" who are obviously dysfunctional. Similarly, as this article shows, the stereotype of the internet sex predator is equally dramatic, and just as false. Who benefits from such inaccurate representations but the predators themselves? An understanding of subclinical psychopaths - snakes in suits - would provide much-needed protection against REAL predators who present a near-perfect mask of normality.
Jana Engelbrecht
IOLWed, 09 Apr 2008 17:01 UTC
Beneath the surface of the dry, red sand covering a farm just outside Kimberley, the remains of an untold story have been uncovered, revealing the establishment of a black Boer War concentration camp, dating back more than 100 years.
About 1 200 refugees were moved from locations in Jacobsdal, Boshof and Petrusburg to a farm 30km outside Kimberley in the then Orange Free State, after the British forces had occupied the towns.
Local archaeologists had been searching in vain for the location of the camp for several years, when a Kimberley farmer stumbled on a leg of a potjie pot and some broken glass on his farm, miles away from anywhere, in late 2001.
Nanotechnology is being used for everything from national security to keeping stains off khakis.
Danville's Luna Innovations has now announced the discovery of a nanomedicine that could help grow new hair follicles. Scientists at Luna nanoWorks made the discovery while working on an antioxidant, which could lead to treating a wide range of diseases.
Hamburg, Germany - Hitchcock was right: Birds do cooperate to solve tasks which no individual bird could master alone, according to a team of German scientists. Until now, such group problem-solving efforts have been thought to be restricted to humans and other primates, such as chimpanzees. But the team of scientists headed by Dr. Amanda Seed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, discovered the same group techniques used among pairs of rooks.
The hunter-versus-hunted phenomenon exemplified by a pack of lionesses chasing down a lonely gazelle has been recreated in a Petri dish with lowly bacteria.Working with colleagues at Caltech, Stanford and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Duke University bioengineer has developed a living system using genetically altered bacteria that he believes can provide new insights into how the population levels of prey influence the levels of predators, and vice-versa.
|
| ©Hao Song, Duke
|
| Using fluorescent microscopy, researchers document the predator-prey interaction. The predator cells, shown in green, have caused a prey cell, shown in red, to commit suicide. The elongation and separation of the prey cell is proof of its demise.
|
A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal. They did this by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm.
At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity akin to Benjamin Franklin's silk kite string. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves.
An ancient burial cave was discovered in the Philippine island of Mindanao, south of Manila, and officials have sealed the site to prevent looting of artifacts, many of them jars made from clay. It was not immediately known whether there are other treasures in the cave which was accidentally discovered by quarry diggers in Maitum town in Sarangani province. The latest discovery in the village of Pinol was near another ancient burial site discovered in 1991 where burial jars, shaped in different human forms, had been recovered inside Ayub cave.
Comment: According to popular knowledge, psychopaths are violent, sadistic monsters. They are "sociopaths" who are obviously dysfunctional. Similarly, as this article shows, the stereotype of the internet sex predator is equally dramatic, and just as false. Who benefits from such inaccurate representations but the predators themselves? An understanding of subclinical psychopaths - snakes in suits - would provide much-needed protection against REAL predators who present a near-perfect mask of normality.