Science & TechnologyS


Info

Citizens in 34 countries show implicit bias linking males more than females with science

Implicit stereotypes - thoughts that people may be unwilling to express or may not even know that they have - may have a powerful effect on gender equity in science and mathematics engagement and performance, according to a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The international study involving more than half a million participants in 34 countries revealed that 70 percent harbor implicit stereotypes associating science with males more than with females. Moreover, in countries whose citizens stereotyped most strongly, boys achieved at a higher level in eighth-grade science and math.

Implicit stereotypes may contribute to continuing underachievement and under-participation among girls and women in science compared to their male peers.

Saturn

ASU instrument takes better look at Mars minerals

Image
© Arizona State UniversityPastel colors swirl across Mars, revealing differences in the composition and nature of the surface in this recently taken false-color infrared THEMIS image. Showing an area 31.9 kilometers (19.8 miles) by 88.3 kilometers (54.9 miles) in the southern highlands of Mars, the image is a result of the earlier orbit time for Mars Odyssey and THEMIS. In the image, dark areas mark exposures of relatively cold ground with abundant bare rock, while warmer basaltic sand covers the light blue-green regions. Reddish areas likely have a higher silica content, due either to a different volcanic composition or to weathering.
A slow drift in the orbit of NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft that mission controllers started nine months ago is now giving an ASU instrument on the spacecraft a better and more sensitive view of minerals on the surface of Mars. The instrument is the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), an infrared and visual camera operated by ASU's Mars Space Flight Facility.

The maneuver to change Odyssey's orbit began Sept. 30, 2008, and ended June 9, 2009, with a five-and-a-half-minute thruster firing. The rocket burn fixed the spacecraft's track so that THEMIS looks down on the planet at an earlier time of day, 3:45 in the afternoon instead of 5 p.m.

Info

Dino-not-so-soaring

The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published today in the Zoological Society of London's Journal of Zoology.

Scientists have discovered that the original statistical model used to calculate dinosaur mass is flawed, suggesting dinosaurs have been oversized.

Widely cited estimates for the mass of Apatosaurus louisae, one of the largest of the dinosaurs, may be double that of its actual mass (38 tonnes vs. 18 tonnes).

Chalkboard

Here's how to solve Oak Island mystery

Just hand over $15m - first payment, $500,000.

Western Shore - For only $15 million, you could uncover the mystery of Oak Island.
The good news is you'd only have to spend about half a million to begin with because that's about what it would cost to find out if the project's worth pursuing.

Three civil engineering students from McGill University in Montreal were given the assignment to find a way to safely recover any treasure that could be buried at the bottom of the money pit on Oak Island.

Their project received honourable mention from the dean of civil engineering.

The students' professor is Les MacPhie, senior geotechnical engineer at SNC-Lavalin.

Comment: Laura Knight-Jadczyk, in her must-read and well-researched book Through a Glass Darkly: Hidden Masters, Secret Agendas and a Tradition Unveiled sheds some light on Oak Island's mysteries, in a long journey through the continents and the centuries, in search for Truth.


Magnify

DNA Template Could Explain Evolutionary Shifts

Rearrangements of all sizes in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even triplicating genes or just shuffling or deleting part of the code within them, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a recent report in the journal Nature Genetics. The report further elucidated the effect of the fork stalling and template switching mechanism involved in some forms of copy number variation.

"I think this is going to make people think very hard about copy number variation with respect to genome evolution, gene evolution and exon shuffling," said Dr. James R. Lupski, vice chair of molecular and human genetics at BCM and senior author of the report.

The mechanism not only represents a newly discovered method by which the genome generates copy number variation among genes, but it also demonstrates that copy number variation can occur at a different time in the life of a cell. DNA replication takes place as the cell is dividing and becoming two - a process known as mitosis.

Red Flag

Ancient Holy Land Quarry Uncovered

Jerusalem - Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.

The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.

The cave's main hall, about three meters tall, is supported by some 20 stone pillars and has a variety of symbols etched into the walls, including crosses dating back to about AD 350 and Roman legionary emblems.

Hourglass

Bethlehem man unearths artifacts likely from 2,000 BC

Cave
© Ma'an Images
An ancient cave with human remains, three jars and clay bowls estimated to be 4,000 years old was uncovered near the Nativity Church in Bethlehem on Saturday.

A resident was digging the foundation for an extension on his home when he discovered the cave and alerted Antiquities Police. His home, 300 meters east of the ancient Nativity Church, is located in one of the longest-settled districts of Bethlehem and the site of the cave is believed to be the oldest site uncovered in modern history.

Rocket

The Moon? We're going nowhere, says NASA official

While this week saw NASA successfully launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite missions to the Moon - designed as an exploratory prelude to a human return to our satellite - a senior NASA official claimed on Wednesday that existing plans to venture beyond low-Earth orbit were doomed without extra cash or new technologies.

Speaking at a Washington DC public meeting of the human spaceflight review committee, space shuttle programme manager John Shannon described the Constellation programme, comprising the Ares I and V and the Orion capsule, as a "viable architecture" but one which had "not been funded to the level that we would need to see it through".

He said: "The congressional budget numbers that have been provided to NASA basically took away the lunar programme."

Better Earth

Flashback 2012 may bring the "perfect storm" - solar flares, systems collapse

solar flare
SOHO/ESA/NASA - Solar flares

Long scorned as "mysticism" and "parascience," concern about the year 2012 has now surfaced in a mainstream NASA report on the potential impacts on human society of solar flares anticipated to peak in 2012. The Obama administration and other national governments are not aggressively focused on contingency preparations for the 2012 solar flare impacts, or on introducing available anti-gravitic, new energy sources that would transform centralized high-power electrical grid systems into de-centralized, anti-gravitic and quantum process energy sources. These new energy sources are less vulnerable to destructive solar storms, have no negative environmental impact, and could unleash unprecedented economic and social transformation.

Electrical grids & anticipated solar flares of 2012

Mainstream scientific concern about 2012 has grown since a recent National Research Council report funded by NASA and issued by the National Academy of Sciences, entitled "Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Economic and Societal Impact" which details the potential devastation of 2012 solar storms on the current planetary energy grid and because of the inter-linkages of a cybernetic society, on our entire human civilization.

Sherlock

Maya Intensively Cultivated Manioc 1,400 Years Ago

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system -- a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago.

Evidence shows the manioc field -- at least one-third the size of a football field -- was harvested just days before the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano near San Salvador in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets, who is directing excavations at the ancient village of Ceren. The cultivated field of manioc was discovered adjacent to Ceren, which was buried under 17 feet of ash and is considered the best preserved ancient farming village in all of Latin America.

The ancient planting beds of the carbohydrate-rich tuber are the first and only evidence of an intensive manioc cultivation system at any New World archaeology site, said Sheets. While two isolated portions of the manioc field were discovered in 2007 following radar work and limited excavation, 18 large test pits dug in spring 2009 -- each measuring about 10 feet by 10 feet -- allowed the archaeologists to estimate the size of the field and assess the related agricultural activity that went on there.