Scientists have discovered the oldest solar observatory in the Americas and, in the process, may have solved a centuries-old puzzle about the purpose of an ancient stone fort on a remote hilltop in Peru.
The researchers have shown that an enigmatic wall of 13 stone towers within the Chankillo complex, a 2,300-year-old ruin nearly 250 miles north of Lima, worked as a solar calendar to monitor the winter and summer solstices.
They believe that the solar observatory proves the existence of a sophisticated Sun cult in the region more than 1,000 years before the Inca civilisation built its famous Sun temple in the Peruvian mountain city of Cusco, prior to the Spanish conquest.
Science & Technology
The German space agency is reportedly preparing for a mission to the moon.
The head of the German Space Programme (DLR), Walter Doellinger, told the Financial Times Deutschland that it would be ready by 2013 to send an unmanned space shuttle to orbit the earth's only natural satellite.
"We want to show that Germany has the know-how," he said, after the DLR presented its plans for the mission to the German parliament.
The head of the German Space Programme (DLR), Walter Doellinger, told the Financial Times Deutschland that it would be ready by 2013 to send an unmanned space shuttle to orbit the earth's only natural satellite.
"We want to show that Germany has the know-how," he said, after the DLR presented its plans for the mission to the German parliament.
U.S. psychiatric geneticists say they have confirmed an association between genetics and intelligence.
Washington University School of Medicine researchers in St. Louis gathered the most extensive evidence to date showing a gene that activates signaling pathways in the brain influences one kind of intelligence.
Washington University School of Medicine researchers in St. Louis gathered the most extensive evidence to date showing a gene that activates signaling pathways in the brain influences one kind of intelligence.
Vista's user interface suffers from more "friction" than its predecessor XP, a French analyst said Monday, and is actually a step back for Microsoft Corp. in its pursuit of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X.
In a reprise of research published last year, French analyst Andreas Pfeiffer oversaw testing of what he calls "User Interface Friction," the fluidity and/or reactivity of an operating system to commands. He likens UIF to the reaction -- fast or not -- when stepping on a car's accelerator.
In a reprise of research published last year, French analyst Andreas Pfeiffer oversaw testing of what he calls "User Interface Friction," the fluidity and/or reactivity of an operating system to commands. He likens UIF to the reaction -- fast or not -- when stepping on a car's accelerator.
No, seriously. When I have the time, I'm "upgrading" from Windows Vista to Windows XP. My keyboard is completely ambiguous.
In my column in November 2006 (see Physics Legends), I discussed stories from the history of science that we repeat even when we suspect that they are wrong. I then asked for your favourites and for ideas why such legends persist. Dozens of readers replied, mentioning legends involving oversimplifications or falsifications of science, of history or of the world. Some of you even protested that stories that I had claimed were true are in fact false, and vice versa.
The apple, the sink and the pendulum
Robert Matthews - a science writer and visiting reader in science at Aston University in the UK - found me too credulous regarding Newton's apple. Yes, he granted, historians have traced the tale back to Newton himself, but that does not make it true. Why, he asked sensibly, was Newton - a notoriously secretive and paranoid person - suddenly so chatty about how he got an idea, unless to cement priority over his rival Hooke?
The apple, the sink and the pendulum
Robert Matthews - a science writer and visiting reader in science at Aston University in the UK - found me too credulous regarding Newton's apple. Yes, he granted, historians have traced the tale back to Newton himself, but that does not make it true. Why, he asked sensibly, was Newton - a notoriously secretive and paranoid person - suddenly so chatty about how he got an idea, unless to cement priority over his rival Hooke?
Richard Feynman starts his book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter with a remarkable confession. He tells a brief story about the origins of his subject - quantum electrodynamics - and then says that the "physicist's history of physics" that he has just related is probably wrong. "What I am telling you", Feynman says, "is a sort of conventionalized myth-story that the physicists tell to their students and those students tell to their students, and is not necessarily related to the actual historical development, which I do not really know!"
Like Feynman, many teachers and textbooks are unashamed to retell "damn good stories": colourful versions of people and events that are oversimplified and often inaccurate. All of the scholarly fields are afflicted. Ivan Morris, a British-born scholar who taught Japanese studies at Harvard University, once expressed an intention to write a book about myths embraced by his academic colleagues, tentatively entitled The Bull Must Die. Unfortunately, Morris died before he could finish the work and the bull continues to flow unchecked.
Like Feynman, many teachers and textbooks are unashamed to retell "damn good stories": colourful versions of people and events that are oversimplified and often inaccurate. All of the scholarly fields are afflicted. Ivan Morris, a British-born scholar who taught Japanese studies at Harvard University, once expressed an intention to write a book about myths embraced by his academic colleagues, tentatively entitled The Bull Must Die. Unfortunately, Morris died before he could finish the work and the bull continues to flow unchecked.
NASA will delay the first manned flight of the new spacecraft designed to take humans back to the moon because of budget constraints, the agency's boss said Wednesday.
The craft, called the Orion, won't fly until early 2015, four to six months later than planned, NASA administrator Michael Griffin told lawmakers.
"We simply do not have the money available" to fly in 2014 as originally planned, he said.
The delay is the result of a $545 million difference between President Bush's request for the agency this year and the money Congress included in a spending bill Bush signed this month. Lawmakers gave the space agency the same amount of money it received in 2006.
The craft, called the Orion, won't fly until early 2015, four to six months later than planned, NASA administrator Michael Griffin told lawmakers.
"We simply do not have the money available" to fly in 2014 as originally planned, he said.
The delay is the result of a $545 million difference between President Bush's request for the agency this year and the money Congress included in a spending bill Bush signed this month. Lawmakers gave the space agency the same amount of money it received in 2006.
New research suggests that when teenagers and younger children engage in their first sexual intercourse far earlier than their peers that they will exhibit higher levels of delinquency in the subsequent years. Conversely, the same work found that those who first engage in sex much later than their peers have a significantly lower delinquency rate. However, Stacy Armour, the co-author of the study, is careful to point out the fact that they are "not finding that sex itself leads to delinquency, but instead, that beginning sexual relationships long before your friends is cause for concern."
SAN FRANCISCO - About twice a year, an asteroid smashes into Earth's atmosphere with the force of a Hiroshima-size atomic blast. And those are small ones, scientists say; the space rocks vaporize before they can do any harm.
When the big one hits, we won't be as fortunate.
When the big one hits, we won't be as fortunate.
Comment: If you are interested in the consequences of a meteor impact, have a read of The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith. The book, part detective story, part horror novel, presents, as the editorial review on amazon says, "new scientific evidence about a series of prehistoric cosmic events that explains why the last Ice Age ended so abruptly. Their findings validate the ubiquitous legends and myths of floods, fires, and weather extremes passed down by our ancestors and show how these legendary events relate to each other. Their findings also support the idea that we are entering a thousand-year cycle of increasing danger and possibly a new cycle of extinctions."
Believe it.
Comment: It's obvious that early sex is more likely the effect rather than a cause of delinquency. Those who anti-social regarding theft, vandalism and drugs are not likely to be restrained by social or familial values in any respect.