Science & TechnologyS


Attention

Extraterrestrial impact wiped out life during Ice Age


Malaysia Sun
Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:30 UTC
Extraterrestrial impact possibly wiped out all life forms on Earth during the Ice Age, a new study by a team of international researchers, including two Northern Arizona University geologists, has revealed.

What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes.
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Bizarro Earth

Cosmic blast may have killed off megafauna

Colin Nickerson
Boston Globe
Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:20 UTC
Wooly mammoths, giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, and dozens of other species of megafauna may have become extinct when a disintegrating comet or asteroid exploded over North America with the force of millions of hydrogen bombs, according to research by an international team of scientists.

Comment: For more on this catastrophe, see the article Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!

The recent crater in Peru may well be the first of many impacts we'll be seeing over the next few years. We may be on our way to going the way of the wooly mammoth.

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Question

In the dark: science still mystified by stuff of universe


AFP
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 14:07 UTC
Most of the universe -- 96 percent, to be exact -- is made of dark matter and energy whose composition we simply do not fathom, a Nobel laureate told physicists gathered this week to explore the intersection of the infinitely small and the infinitely large.

"We think we understand the universe, but we only understand four percent of everything," said James Watson Cronin, who won the 1980 Nobel for physics by proving that certain subatomic reactions escape the laws of fundamental symmetry.

According the most recent models, he said, 73 percent of cosmic energy seems to consist of "dark energy" and 23 percent of dark matter, the pervasive but unidentified stuff that holds the universe together and accelerates its expansion.
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Magnify

Searchers find remnants of 2,400-year-old shipwreck off Albania

Llazar Semini
Associated Press
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:49 UTC
Encrusted with tiny shells and smelling strongly of the sea, a 2,400-year-old Greek jar lies in a saltwater bath in Durres Museum, on Albania's Adriatic coast.

Part of a sunken shipment of up to 60 ceramic vessels, the 26-inch storage jar, or amphora, was the top find from what organizers say is the first archeological survey of this small Balkan nation's seabed, conducted by US and Albanian scientists.
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X

More than 200 child porn web-sites shut down in Russian Internet


RIA Novosti
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:33 UTC
A total of 247 child pornography web-sites in Runet, the Russian Internet domain, have been shut down in the first six months of the year, a spokesman for Russia's Interior Ministry said.

Speaking in Vienna at an Organization for Security and Cooperation conference on combating the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, the spokesman said that the number of crimes linked to child pornography totaled 46 in the same period of time, a 50% decrease, year-on-year.
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Arrow Down

Dangerous complacency: Dealing with threatening space rocks


ESA
Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:30 UTC
Every now and then a space rock hits the world's media - sometimes almost literally. Threatening asteroids that zoom past the Earth, fireballs in the sky seen by hundreds of people and mysterious craters which may have been caused by impacting meteorites; all make ESA's studies on the Don Quijote mission look increasingly timely.

The uncertainty surrounding whether a meteorite impacted in South America recently highlights the need to know more about these pieces of natural space debris and their trajectories. ESA has always been interested in such endeavours and conducted a number of studies into how it might best help.
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Nuke

Space Industry Wants Nuke Power, but Public Fear Persists

Robert Lemos
Wired
Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:26 UTC
LONG BEACH, California -- The public will have to overcome its squeamishness about nuclear power, if current plans for space missions and manned outposts are ever to become reality, industry experts told attendees at the Space 2007 conference this week.

The public's fear of fallout and the government's worries about losing nuclear material have led to onerous requirements in using radioactive sources of power for space probes and to funding cuts for nuclear propulsion research, executives said. Future missions and the creation of outposts on the moon and other planets will require the technology, they added.

©NASA / William K. Hartmann
Proponents argue that nuclear propulsion could allow space probes, such as the Dawn mission to the asteroid belt, to reach their destinations faster and do more once they get there.
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Telescope

NASA spacecraft finds possible Mars caves


Reuters
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:23 UTC
An orbiting spacecraft has found evidence of what look like seven caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano, the space agency NASA said on Friday.

The Mars Odyssey spacecraft has sent back images of very dark, nearly circular features that appear to be openings to underground spaces.

©NASA/Reuters
Seven very dark holes on the north slope of a Martian volcano are seen in this undated handout photo.
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Magnify

Pedophiles Have Deficits In Brain Activation, Study Suggests


Science Daily
Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:18 UTC
Pedophilia, the sexual attraction of adults to children, is a significant public health concern and it does not respond well to treatment. Additionally, the brain mechanisms underlying pedophilia are not well understood.

A new study being published in the September 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry is the first of its kind to use functional brain imaging to describe neural circuits contributing to pedophilia.
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Attention

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

Julian Ryall
National Geographic
Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:28 UTC
Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis - an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago.

That's the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years.
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