Science & TechnologyS


Dig

99-million-year-old bird trapped in amber is the most complete bird fossil yet (PHOTOS)

John Pickrell
National Geographic
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 09:30 UTC
amber bird myanmar
The amber containing the dinosaur-era bird had been polished partway through the body, allowing researchers to peer inside the skull and chest cavity and chemically map its exposed soft tissues.

The squashed remains of a small bird that lived 99 million years ago have been found encased in a cloudy slab of amber from Myanmar (Burma). While previous birds found in Burmese amber have been more visually spectacular, none of them have contained as much of the skeleton as this juvenile, which features the back of the skull, most of the spine, the hips, and parts of one wing and leg.

Comment: More Myanmar amber discoveries:

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Ladybug

100 million year old arachnid trapped in amber is a missing link in spider evolution (PHOTOS)

Genelle Weule
ABC News
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 20:22 UTC
Ancient arachnid trapped in amber a missing link in spider evolution
© Diying HuangThe new arachnid is only about 5mm long, and most of that is its tail.
A tiny arachnid discovered in 100-million-year-old amber looks just like a spider, except for one thing: its whip-like tail.

The amazing fossil fills a critical gap in the arachnid family tree between today's spiders and spider-like arachnids that lived before the dinosaurs, say two international teams of scientists.

They have described four male fossil arachnids exquisitely preserved in amber sourced from northern Myanmar in separate papers in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Comment: How fascinating that the spider is considered so young and yet was found next to what are considered to be much older creatures. Also See:

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Beaker

100k times narrower than paper: Indian scientists say they created 'world's thinnest nanosheets'


RT
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:53 UTC
Paper
© Monty Rakusen / Getty Images
Indian scientists say they've managed to create the world's thinnest material, measuring 100,000 times narrower than a sheet of paper. It could be used for next-generation batteries and coatings which absorb ultraviolet rays.

The new material measures just one nanometer in thickness. To put its size into perspective, a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide, while the approximate diameter of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers.

It was created by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, using Magnesium diboride, a compound of boron, The Hindu BusinessLine reported.

"We prepared boron-rich nanosheets by an extremely simple method, which merely involves dissolving a boride compound in water and letting it recrystallize for just the right duration of time," Dr. Kabeer Jasuja of the university's Department of Chemical Engineering told India Science Wire.
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Info

Neanderthals used fire to fashion tools

Andrew Masterson
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 20:22 UTC
Neanderthal sticks
© PNASOne of the Neanderthal sticks found at Poggetti Vecchi.
Neanderthals living in the Tuscany region of Italy used fire in addition to stone to make tools, archaeologists have revealed.

In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Biancamaria Aranguren from the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo in Florence, Italy, describes artefacts discovered during the construction of some thermal pools at a location known as Poggetti Vecchi.

The paper recounts the discovery of fragmented wooden and stone tools, together with the fossilised bones of the straight-tusked elephant (Paleoloxodon antiquus). The finds were located in the lowermost of seven archaeological soil layers, and radiometrically dated to about 171,000 years old.

The wooden tools were all made from a species of tree called boxwood (Buxus sempervirens), recognised as a heavy and dense wood. Formed into blunt points at one end with bulbous handles at the other, the metre-long implements were possibly made as digging implements, although the researchers don't rule out a secondary use as weapons.
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Info

Planets discovered in another galaxy for the first time


University of Oklahoma
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 05:30 UTC
Planets in Distant Galaxy
© University of OklahomaRX J1131-1231 Galaxy.
Norman - A University of Oklahoma astrophysics team has discovered for the first time a population of planets beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Using microlensing-an astronomical phenomenon and the only known method capable of discovering planets at truly great distances from the Earth among other detection techniques-OU researchers were able to detect objects in extragalactic galaxies that range from the mass of the Moon to the mass of Jupiter.

Xinyu Dai, professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, OU College of Arts and Sciences, with OU postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Guerras, made the discovery with data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a telescope in space that is controlled by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

"We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy," said Dai. "These small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in this study using the microlensing technique. We analyzed the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass."
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Meteor

12,800 years ago: Global firestorms spread after Earth was struck by a disintegrating comet

Matt Williams
Universe Today
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
comet impact
© NASA / Don DavisAccording to a new study, a comet impact triggered massive wildfires and a temporary cooling 12,800 years ago.
According to modern theories of geological evolution, the last major ice age (known as the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation) began about 2.58 million years ago during the late Pliocene Epoch. Since then, the world has experienced several glacial and interglacial periods, and has been in an inter-glacial period (where the ice sheets have been retreating) ever since the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago.

According to new research, this trend experienced a bit of a hiccup during the late Paleolithic era. It was at this time - roughly 12,800 years ago, according to a new study from the University of Kansas - that a comet struck our planet and triggered massive wildfires. This impact also triggered a short glacial period that temporarily reversed the previous period of warming, which had a drastic affect on wildlife and human development.

The study in question, "Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ~12,800 Years Ago", was so large that it was divided into two parts. Part I. Ice Cores and Glaciers; and Part II. Lake, Marine, and Terrestrial Sediments, were both recently published by The Journal of Geography, part of the the University of Chicago Press' series of scientific publications.
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Family

Local networks run the world

Deborah M Gordon
Aeon
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 18:41 UTC
ant colony
Networks regulate everything from ant colonies and middle schools to epidemics and the internet. Here's how they work

We live enmeshed in networks. The internet, a society, a body, an ant colony, a tumour: they are all networks of interactions, among people, ants or cells - aggregates of nodes or locations linked by some relation. The power of networks is in their local connections. All networks grow, shrink, merge or split, link by link. How they function and change depends on what forms, or disrupts, the connections between nodes. The internet dominates our lives, not because it is huge, but because each of us can make so many local links. Its size is the result, not the cause, of its impact on our communication.

Nowhere is the decisive influence of local interactions easier to see than in ants, which I study. The local is all an ant knows. A colony operates without central control, based on a network of simple interactions among ants. These are local by necessity, because an ant cannot detect anything very far away. Most ant species can't see, and all of them rely on smell, which they do with their antennae. The important interactions are when ants touch antennae, smelling each other, or the ground, smelling chemicals deposited by other ants.
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Jet2

Boeing reveals plans for a hypersonic strike aircraft that aims to 'circle the world in 1-3 hours'


RT
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 18:11 UTC
Boeing hypersonic aircraft
© The Boeing Company / Facebook
Few details have emerged since the aerospace company Boeing revealed plans for a new hypersonic aircraft with surveillance and strike capabilities. It aims to build it in the next 10-20 years but already faces some competition.

Aviation Week reported that the design for the aircraft, thought to be named "Valkyrie II," was first unveiled at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech forum in Orlando, Florida back in January. Although the project is yet to be officially green-lighted, a statement by the company claims the aircraft can fly across the world "in one to three hours"and carry out airstrikes and reconnaissance missions.

"This is one of several concepts and technologies we're studying for a hypersonic aircraft," said Kevin Bowcutt, Senior Technical Fellow of hypersonics at Boeing Research & Technology. "This particular concept is for a military application that would be targeted for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR, and strike capabilities."
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Archaeology

Guatemala: 60,000 Mayan structures discovered buried and preserved in dense jungle


ABC News Austrailia
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 17:31 UTC
ancient irrigation canals
© Canuto & Auld-Thomas/PACUNAMExtensive defensive systems and irrigation canals suggest a highly organised workforce.
Researchers using a high-tech aerial mapping technique have found tens of thousands of previously undetected Mayan houses, buildings, defence works and pyramids in the dense jungle of Guatemala's Peten region, suggesting that millions more people lived there than previously thought.

The discoveries, which included industrial-sized agricultural fields and irrigation canals, were announced this week by an alliance of US, European and Guatemalan archaeologists working with Guatemala's Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.

The study estimates that roughly 10 million people may have lived within the Maya Lowlands, meaning that kind of massive food production might have been needed.

"That is two to three times more (inhabitants) than people were saying there were," said Marcello A Canuto, a professor of Anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Researchers used a mapping technique called LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection And Ranging.

It bounces pulsed laser light off the ground, revealing contours hidden by dense foliage.
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Cell Phone

Apple downgraded over 'dramatically' slowing iPhone X sales


RT
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 00:41 UTC
Wall Street researchers KeyBanc Capital Markets and Bernstein have lowered their ratings for Apple shares due to slowing iPhone sales. This week, the firm reported weaker than expected iPhone sales for December.
iphone
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
"Soft iPhone sell-through suggests a saturated market and the lack of gross margin upside reduces our view of potential profit growth," KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Andy Hargreaves wrote in a note to clients, according to CNBC.

"This reduces our view of potential upside in the stock and prompts the downgrade," he said, adding that the stock's "fair value" is $178 per share.
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