Science & TechnologyS


Cloud Lightning

Ball lightning plot thickens

Anna Salleh
ABC News
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:00 UTC
What appears to be the first eyewitness report of static electricity triggering ball lightning boosts one theory of what causes this mysterious phenomenon.

The report, based on an incident involving a US Air Force crew several decades ago, seems to support the 'electrical discharge' theory of ball lightning.

The report is just now being made public, says Emeritus Professor Robert Crompton of the Australian National University.
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Magnify

Professor solves a meteor mystery

Chaz Firestone
The Brown Daily Herald
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:36 UTC
Last September, something strange landed near the rural Peruvian village of Carancas. Two months later, so did Peter Schultz.

One was an extraterrestrial fireball that struck the Earth at 10,000 miles per hour, formed a bubbling crater nearly 50 feet wide and afflicted local villagers and livestock with a mysterious illness. The other is the Brown geologist who may have figured out why.

Peter Schultz
©Brown Daily Herald
Professor of Geological Sciences Peter Schultz
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Hourglass

Are animals stuck in time?

Jeff Renaud
University of Western Ontario
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:41 UTC
Dog owners, who have noticed that their four-legged friend seem equally delighted to see them after five minutes away as five hours, may wonder if animals can tell when time passes. Newly published research from The University of Western Ontario may bring us closer to answering that very question.
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Cloud Lightning

Study suggests humans drove mammoths extinct

Kimberly Johnson
National Geographic News
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:48 UTC
Ancient climate change cornered the woolly mammoth into a shrinking habitat, but humans delivered the final blow by hunting the species into extinction, a new study suggests.

Climate change and hunting have long been blamed for forcing the mammoth into decline at the end of the Pleistocene era about 10,000 years ago. The last mammoth died out 4,000 years ago, experts estimate.

Comment: It is interesting that the same "humans are responsible" angle is being promoted regarding the mammoths, as is being actively pushed regarding modern climate change. See the SOTT special: Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow for more on this subject, which does not necessarily support these views.

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Bizarro Earth

New evidence of earliest North Americans

Randolph E. Schmid
Associated Press
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:44 UTC
New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known.
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Star

The Mother of All Meteor Storms

P. Jenniskens, Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute
Space.com
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:04 UTC
Each generation seems to get a chance, or two, to see a mind-boggling display of shooting stars one night. The most spectacular displays in my memory are the 1999 and 2001 Leonid storms. Before my time, observers swore by the 1966 Leonids, and could not stop talking about the spectacular 1933 and 1946 Draconid storms. Those were not quite as intense as the Leonids, but the Draconids moved so slowly that several were seen gliding across the sky at the same time.

In the 19th century, the most spectacular storms were the 1872 and 1885 Andromedids, which were almost as strong as the Draconids and also very slow moving. At the time, Chinese astronomers wrote: "shooting stars fell like rain." From the counts of meteors in the west, we now estimate that rates peaked around two per second.
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Magnify

DNA sheds light on Minoans


ekathimerini
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:35 UTC
Crete's fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans' forefathers had come from Africa.
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Hourglass

Bones find may be Roman


Oxford Mail
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:00 UTC
Archaeologists working in Oxford city centre have unearthed bones that could be more than 2,000 years old.

A team of archaeologists has been excavating a site between St Giles and Blackhall Road since mid January - and last week the diggers struck bone, uncovering what could be a mass grave.
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Cow Skull

Oldest necklace in Americas found

Helen Briggs
BBC News
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:17 UTC


Ancient necklace
©Unknown
A reconstruction of the gold and turquoise beads as a necklace

A necklace found near Lake Titicaca in southern Peru is the oldest known gold object made in the Americas, archaeologists say.

Radiocarbon dating puts its origin at about 4,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers occupied the area. The researchers say it appears to have been fashioned from gold nuggets.
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Star

Supernova alert: "Supernova Factories" discovered

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:10 UTC


Supernova
Unknown

Two "supernova factories," rare clusters of Red Supergiant (RSG) stars, have recently been discovered. Together they contain 40 RSGs, which is nearly 20% of all the known RSGs in the Milky Way, and all 40 are on the brink of going supernova. "RSGs represent the final brief stage in a massive star's lifecycle before it goes supernova," said Dr. Ben Davies of the Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology. "They are very rare objects, so to find this many in the same place is remarkable."
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