A team of researchers from Arizona State University, Purdue University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences has discovered evidence that honeybees have adopted a phylogenetically old molecular cascade - TOR (target of rapamycin), linked to nutrient and energy sensing - and put it to use in caste development.
The findings, published in the June 6 edition of PLoS ONE, the online, open-access journal from the Public Library of Science, show that TOR is directly linked in the nutrient-induced development of female honeybees into either queens, the caste of large dominant egg-layers, or into workers, the caste of small helpers.
"Our study provides three independent lines of evidence - gene expression, pharmacology and RNA interference (RNAi) - that converge on one conclusion: selection can have acted on the TOR pathway to enable two distinct phenotypes to evolve in the bee," says Gro Amdam, an assistant professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences.
Science & Technology
Researchers of the Group of Recent Prehistory Studies (GEPRAN) of the Universidad de Granada, from the department of Prehistory and Archaeology, have taken an important step to determine how life was in the Iberian Peninsula in the Bronze Age.
Since 1974, archaeologists from Granada, directed by professors Trinidad Nájera Colino and Fernando Molina González, have been working on the site of the Motilla del Azuer, in the municipal area of Daimiel (province of Ciudad Real), in search of the necessary information to reconstruct the day by day in this thrilling and unknown historical period.
The sites, known as "motillas", represent one of the most peculiar types of prehistoric settlements in the Iberian Peninsula. They occupied the region of La Mancha in the Bronze Age between 2200 and 1500 BC, and they are artificial mounds, 4 to 10 m high, a result of the destruction of a stone fortification of central plan with several concentric walled lines. Its distribution in the plain of La Mancha, with equidistanes of 4 to 5 kilometres, affects river meadows and low areas where the existence of pools was quite frequent until recent dates.
Since 1974, archaeologists from Granada, directed by professors Trinidad Nájera Colino and Fernando Molina González, have been working on the site of the Motilla del Azuer, in the municipal area of Daimiel (province of Ciudad Real), in search of the necessary information to reconstruct the day by day in this thrilling and unknown historical period.
The sites, known as "motillas", represent one of the most peculiar types of prehistoric settlements in the Iberian Peninsula. They occupied the region of La Mancha in the Bronze Age between 2200 and 1500 BC, and they are artificial mounds, 4 to 10 m high, a result of the destruction of a stone fortification of central plan with several concentric walled lines. Its distribution in the plain of La Mancha, with equidistanes of 4 to 5 kilometres, affects river meadows and low areas where the existence of pools was quite frequent until recent dates.
© Jeremy Traum
We like to think we're smarter than that now. We know space is sprinkled from now to forever with galaxies rushing away from one another under the impetus of the Big Bang.
Bask in your knowledge while you can. Our successors, whoever and wherever they are, may have no way of finding out about the Big Bang and the expanding universe, according to one of the more depressing scientific papers I have ever read.
A drought that has bared parts of the bed of Florida's largest lake has exposed human bone fragments, pottery and even boats - and archaeologists are trying to evaluate the artifacts before water levels rise again.
Archaeologists said there have been no large-scale digs in Lake Okeechobee; most of the finds have been easily spotted along the surface, some by passers-by who called in what they found.
Palm Beach County Archaeologist Chris Davenport said scores of bone fragments ranging from only a few inches to 8 inches long have been spotted in Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest freshwater lake in the continental U.S., behind Lake Michigan. The lake is at its lowest level since record keeping began in 1932, at about 8.96 feet deep on Monday. That's about 4 to 5 feet below normal, exposing many areas for the first time in years.
Archaeologists said there have been no large-scale digs in Lake Okeechobee; most of the finds have been easily spotted along the surface, some by passers-by who called in what they found.
Palm Beach County Archaeologist Chris Davenport said scores of bone fragments ranging from only a few inches to 8 inches long have been spotted in Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest freshwater lake in the continental U.S., behind Lake Michigan. The lake is at its lowest level since record keeping began in 1932, at about 8.96 feet deep on Monday. That's about 4 to 5 feet below normal, exposing many areas for the first time in years.
A rare Old Testament manuscript some 1,300 years old is finally on display for the first time, after making its way from a secret room in a Cairo synagogue to the hands of an American collector.
The manuscript, containing the "Song of the Sea" section of the Old Testament's Book of Exodus and dating to around the 7th century A.D., comes from what scholars call the "silent era" - a span of 600 years between the third and eighth centuries from which almost no Hebrew manuscripts survive.
It is now on public display for the first time, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
"It comes from a period of almost darkness in terms of Hebrew manuscripts," said Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. Scholars have long noted the lack of original biblical manuscripts written between the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the latest of which come from the third century, to texts written in the ninth and 10th centuries, Pfann said.
The manuscript, containing the "Song of the Sea" section of the Old Testament's Book of Exodus and dating to around the 7th century A.D., comes from what scholars call the "silent era" - a span of 600 years between the third and eighth centuries from which almost no Hebrew manuscripts survive.
It is now on public display for the first time, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
"It comes from a period of almost darkness in terms of Hebrew manuscripts," said Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. Scholars have long noted the lack of original biblical manuscripts written between the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the latest of which come from the third century, to texts written in the ninth and 10th centuries, Pfann said.
A collection of tiny perforated shell beads dates back 75,000 years and appears to be the oldest human ornament ever found.
Archaeologists claim to have discovered the world's oldest beads, dating back around 75,000 years.
Archaeologists claim to have discovered the world's oldest beads, dating back around 75,000 years.
Astrophysicists have found a star-like object with a surface temperature just one tenth that of the Sun.
The cold object is known as a brown dwarf: a "failed" star that never achieved the mass required to begin nuclear fusion reactions in its core.
This one - called J0034-00 - is thought to have a surface temperature of just 600-700 Kelvin (up to 430C/800F).
It is the coldest solitary brown dwarf ever seen, according to the British team that discovered it.
The cold object is known as a brown dwarf: a "failed" star that never achieved the mass required to begin nuclear fusion reactions in its core.
This one - called J0034-00 - is thought to have a surface temperature of just 600-700 Kelvin (up to 430C/800F).
It is the coldest solitary brown dwarf ever seen, according to the British team that discovered it.
At the present international space symposium in Visby, Sweden, one of the topics is the Swedish satellite Odin, which is now on its seventh year of operations. Quite recently, scientists have discovered that Odin's measurements can be used also to study the presence of clouds and aerosols in the stratosphere. Clouds and aerosols may have a cooling effect on our planet, as against the warming effect of carbon dioxide.
Today, scientists do not have sufficient knowledge about the possible cooling effect of clouds. Measurements made in space could determine how much of the sunlight is reflected back into space by clouds. Odin has measured, and is still measuring, the amount of clouds, both visible and invisible to the human eye, and Odin data have indicated significant divergence from existing forecast models. This kind of information could help us improve our knowledge about the processes of global warming. We need more knowledge about our climate, and we need it soon, in order to improve exisiting models in this field.
Today, scientists do not have sufficient knowledge about the possible cooling effect of clouds. Measurements made in space could determine how much of the sunlight is reflected back into space by clouds. Odin has measured, and is still measuring, the amount of clouds, both visible and invisible to the human eye, and Odin data have indicated significant divergence from existing forecast models. This kind of information could help us improve our knowledge about the processes of global warming. We need more knowledge about our climate, and we need it soon, in order to improve exisiting models in this field.
Archaeologists from Oxford have discovered what are thought to be the oldest examples of human decorations in the world.
The international team of archaeologists, led by Oxford University's Institute of Archaeology, have found shell beads believed to be 82,000 years old from a limestone cave in Morocco.
The international team of archaeologists, led by Oxford University's Institute of Archaeology, have found shell beads believed to be 82,000 years old from a limestone cave in Morocco.
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| ©Unk |
| At work in the limestone caves in Morocco |
Analysis of chicken bones found in Chile shows Polynesians reached the continent no later than 1407.
After decades of contention, New Zealand researchers have provided the first direct evidence that Polynesians sailed across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean to reach South America long before the arrival of the Spanish around AD 1500.
Their proof? Chicken bones.
After decades of contention, New Zealand researchers have provided the first direct evidence that Polynesians sailed across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean to reach South America long before the arrival of the Spanish around AD 1500.
Their proof? Chicken bones.
Comment: "Ignorance is us, or is it bliss?"
Ignorance is not us but it is certainly bliss for popular writers, such as the author of this article. The author - in an effort to create a sensation - seems to have forgotten about other theories and ideas of which he is certainly aware (search google using his name). The reader will discover that he is aware of the theories of multidimensional universes, parallel universes, colliding universes, etc. But it so convenient to forget all that when a writer wishes to take a particular, one of thousands, idea published by physicists, and make it into the NEWS.
We are certain that, in a few months time, Dennis Overbye (whom the SOTT editors know from previous email exchanges on a different subject) will forget about this article and will jump with equal enthusiasm on another bandwagon, making "news" out of something totally contradictory to what he wrote above. We really do not know whether it is a personal habit of his, or if it is a method without which it is impossible to get paid by the mainstream media?