Science & TechnologyS


Info

Mystery of Antarctica's 15-Million Year-Old Lake

Casey Kazan
The Daily Galaxy
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:54 UTC


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Researchers have thawed ice estimated to be perhaps a million years old or more from above Lake Vostok, an ancient lake that lies hidden more than two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica using novel genomic techniques to determine how tiny, living "time capsules" survived the ages in total darkness, in freezing cold, and without food and energy from the sun.
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Rocket

Stars align for space station buildup

Irene Klotz
Reuters
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:14 UTC


©REUTERS/NASA
A view of Earth from the International Space Station in an image from NASA TV taken November 20, 2007.

NASA hopes to launch its fourth shuttle mission in six months on Thursday, a pace that will keep the International Space Station on track for completion by 2010.
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Ark

Roman Throne Discovered in Italian Ruins

Ariel David
Associated Press
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:21 UTC
ROME - Remnants of the first known surviving Roman throne have been discovered in the lava and ash that buried the city of Herculaneum in the first century, archaeologists said Tuesday.

©AP Photo/Italian Culture Ministry, HO
Undated photo made available by the Italian Culture Ministry in Rome, showing part of a wooden throne dug out between October and November in the ancient southern Italian city of Herculaneum, near Pompeii, one of the Roman cities buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79. Decorated with ivory bas-reliefs depicting ancient deities, the wooden remains are the first known example of a Roman throne, archaeologists said Tuesday.
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Ark

'Monster' Arctic Reptile Remains Found


Associated Press
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:02 UTC
OSLO, Norway - Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.
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Robot

1939 Is In Again: We Are Now Approaching The Futurama


Wired Magazine
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:08 UTC
In the pilot of the animated comedy Futurama, the protagonist awakens from a millennium of cryogenic slumber to find himself in the year 3000. The first thing he hears is a portentous, booming voice: "Welcome...to the world of tomorrow!" The speaker is soon revealed to be a lab technician with a flair for the melodramatic. The scene riffs on a 70-year-old fair ride, a vision of the future that's been so influential it'll probably seem familiar even if you've never heard of it.

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Comment: Here is a glimpse into the future - from the past perspective.

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Bomb

We may well have to 'geo-engineer' the climate in the New World Order

Thomas Homer-Dixon
Globe and Mail
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:06 UTC
Next week, policy makers, scientists and activists from around the world will gather in Bali, Indonesia, to try to produce a climate-change agreement that will take us beyond the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Accord. This meeting will take place in an atmosphere of sharply heightened unease among leading climate scientists.
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Info

Flashback No evidence for Exodus, archaeologists say

Michael Slackman
The New York Times
Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:24 UTC
NORTH SINAI, Egypt - On the eve of Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the story of Moses leading the Israelites through this wilderness out of slavery, Egypt's chief archaeologist took a bus full of journalists into the North Sinai to showcase his agency's latest discovery.

It didn't look like much - some ancient buried walls of a military fort and a few pieces of volcanic lava. The archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, often promotes mummies and tombs and pharaonic antiquities that command international attention and high ticket prices. But this bleak landscape, broken only by electric pylons, excited him because it provided physical evidence of stories told in hieroglyphics. It was proof of accounts from antiquity.

That prompted a reporter to ask about the Exodus, and if the new evidence was linked in any way to the story of Passover. The archaeological discoveries roughly coincided with the timing of the Israelites' biblical flight from Egypt and the 40 years of wandering the desert in search of the Promised Land.

"Really, it's a myth," Dr. Hawass said of the story of the Exodus, as he stood at the foot of a wall built during what is called the New Kingdom.
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Magnet

As Above So Below: Personality in the stars and in the seasons

Timothy McDonald
ABC News Australia
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:09 UTC
Astrologers have long argued that a person's essential nature is written in the stars.

Now research by an English academic has shown that there is indeed a correlation between when a person is born and their personality.

©NASA
Astrologers say other forces are at work in determining a person's nature.

Comment: While the debate may never be fully resolved by the inhabitants of this level of density, metaphysical aspects of creation do not require anyone's approval in order to exist.

The Universe is quite capable of taking care of itself.

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Clock

Remains of ancient city discovered in east China


Xinhua
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:58 UTC
Chinese archaeologists said Thursday they have discovered the remains of an ancient city in eastern Zhejiang Province, which could better prove the long history of Chinese civilization.

The relic was found near Mojiao Mountain between Liangzhu and Pingyao townships in Yuhang District of the provincial capital Hangzhou, said Bao Xianlun, director of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau.
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Light Saber

New High-tech Tool For Brain Disorders, Gamma Knife, Now In Use


sciencedaily.com
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:21 UTC
The most advanced noninvasive, radiosurgery tool for treating a variety of brain disorders--including tumors--is now being used by specialists at UCSF Medical Center. The new machine expands UCSF's ability to provide state-of-the-art, specialized care to patients.

Called the Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, the machine is the latest generation in gamma knife radiosurgery, a noninvasive technology that delivers a finely focused, high dose of radiation to a specific area of the brain. Its precision allows radiation to reach a particular target without damaging surrounding brain tissue, making it ideal for treating brain tumors. It is also effective for treating epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, trigeminal neuralgia (a nerve condition causing chronic pain) and abnormal blood vessel formations located deep in the brain.

©Image courtesy of University of California - San Francisco
Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion.
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