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Unusual fossil may rule out ancient flood

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:35 UTC
tuatara
© Flickr/Philip C/Creative Commons
A fossilised ancestor of the tuatara suggests that part of land mass that is now New Zealand survived ancient sea-level rise.

It is said that in the mists of time, the islands of New Zealand were lost, Atlantis-like, beneath the ocean. But a newly discovered fossil reptile suggests this theory does not hold water.

Marc Jones of University College London, UK, and colleagues found the portions of fossilised reptile jaw on New Zealand's South Island.

The wear patterns of the teeth suggest its owner had two parallel rows of upper teeth, and a single row of lower teeth that slotted in between. The only reptile known to have this type of jaw is the endangered tuatara and its ancestors.
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Info

Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life

Graham Lawton
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:00 UTC
Darwin tree of life drawing
© Mario Tama / Getty
This "Tree of Life" sketch is seen in Darwin's "B" notebook, at a press preview of the new "Darwin" exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History November 15, 2005 in New York City.

In July 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree.

As far as we know, this was the first time Darwin toyed with the concept of a "tree of life" to explain the evolutionary relationships between different species. It was to prove a fruitful idea: by the time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, Darwin's spindly tree had grown into a mighty oak. The book contains numerous references to the tree and its only diagram is of a branching structure showing how one species can evolve into many.
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Telescope

Dark matter filaments stoked star birth in early galaxies

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:50 UTC
early massive galaxies show bursts of star formation
© Dekel et al
Some of the universe's early massive galaxies show bursts of star formation but no evidence of collisions. Cold gas piped in along filaments of dark matter could be responsible for the starbursts.

Tendrils of dark matter channelled gas deep into the hearts of some of the universe's earliest galaxies, a new computer simulation suggests. The result could explain how some massive galaxies created vast numbers of stars without gobbling up their neighbours.

Dramatic bursts of star formation are thought to occur when galaxies merge and their gas collides and heats up. Evidence of these smash-ups is fairly easy to spot, since they leave behind mangled pairs of galaxies that eventually merge, their gas settling into a bright, compact centre.

But several years ago, astronomers began finding disc-like galaxies with crowded stellar nurseries that seemed to bear no hallmarks of a past collision. These galaxies, which thrived when the universe was just 3 billion years old, were at least as massive as the Milky Way, but created stars at some 50 times our galaxy's rate.
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Cell Phone

Stalking by Texting is on the Rise

Sitafa Harden
OpEdNews.com
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:27 UTC
The results of a new survey by the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that an unprecedented number of Americans have reported being stalked in recent years with stalking by texting on the rise.

Cindy Dyer, director of the federal Office on Violence Against Women told the Associated Press,
The prevalence of these electronic devices gives a stalker another tool in his tool kit, makes it easier to stalk and increases victims' fear. It doesn't increase the number of stalking offenders, but it sure makes their job easier
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Telescope

Amazing observatories of the ancient world

Hazel Muir
New Scientist
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:46 UTC
oval arrangement of shoebox-sized stones in Wyoming
© Milne/Photographers Choice/Getty
A 25-metre-wide oval arrangement of shoebox-sized stones in Wyoming, US, may be a 2000-year-old Native American monument.

What ancient cultures lacked in their understanding of stars and planets, they made up for in their sense of connection with the starry skies. A thousand years ago, on every inhabited continent, people recognised astronomical patterns that are fundamental to the passage of time and natural cycles of renewal - the summer solstice, for instance - far more acutely than most societies do today.

You can sense that connection vividly by visiting some awesome ancient astronomical sites around the world.
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Telescope

How do you weigh the Milky Way?


New Scientist
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:41 UTC
Milky Way
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Milky Way was recently upgraded to heavyweight status, with a mass some 3 trillion times the mass of the Sun.

Earlier this month, astronomers announced a new measurement of the Milky Way's mass - saying it is 50% heftier than thought and about as heavy as our nearest large neighbour, Andromeda.

The new result is a major revision and a full three times larger than another team's recent estimate. It also raises a question: why don't astronomers know how much our home galaxy weighs?

Astronomers have attempted to measure the mass of the Milky Way since the 1920s. But the measurement turns out to be exceedingly tricky, not least because some 90% of the galaxy's mass is thought to be made of dark matter - a mysterious, invisible substance that only reveals its presence by its gravitational tugs on stars and gas clouds.
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Einstein

Marko Casalan, 8, is officially world's youngest IT whizz

Bojan Pancevski
Times Online
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:47 UTC
Marko
© Bojan Pancevski
Marko is deemed the Mozart of Computers by the Macedonian press after passing Microsoft's exams for IT professionals
While the other elementary school pupils skim through their comics in the break between classes, Marko Calasan takes out his copy of Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows Server Network for a light read.

At the age of 8, Marko has become the world's youngest certified computer system administrator and was deemed the Mozart of Computers by the press after passing exams for IT professionals with the computer giant Microsoft.

In theory, he could now get a job maintaining complex office computer networks, even though he has not yet completed the third grade in his native town Skopje, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

"The Microsoft officials gave me computer games and DVDs with cartoons when I passed the exams because I am a child. That was nice, but I'm not really interested in those things," young Marko told The Times.
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Evil Rays

Satellite Antenna Enables Discovery Of Buried Glaciers On Mars


Mars Daily
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:43 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The Italian Space Agency's SHAllow RADar (SHARAD) instrument.

Antenna technology designed and built by Northrop Grumman made it possible for a radar sounder instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to detect huge glaciers on the Red Planet covered by a layer of dust and rocks.

The antenna was developed by Astro Aerospace, a business unit of Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector, for the Italian Space Agency's SHAllow RADar (SHARAD) instrument. SHARAD probes below the Martian surface using radar waves in the 15-25 MHz frequency band for high-depth resolution.

Scientists analyze the reflection of radar waves to characterize the Martian surface and subsurface layers of rocks, dust and ice. A radar capable of seeing deeply requires a very large antenna such as SHARAD's, which is 10 meters (32.8 feet) in length but weighs less than three kilograms (6.6 lbs).
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Saturn

Smallest Exoplanet Has 1.4 Earth Masses

Tudor Vieru
Softpedia
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:46 UTC
Exoplanet
© Wikimedia Commons
The smallest exoplanet now known has 1.4 Earth masses.
Not all of them are large gas giants.

Astronomers have managed to discover the first exoplanet that features a mass roughly similar to that of our own planet. The new celestial body, dubbed MOA-2007-BLG-192-L b, was originally believed to weigh 3.3 Earth masses, but new research conducted on the star it orbits proves the old theory wrong. According to the new estimates, the planet is the most similar to Earth in terms of weight and size, except maybe for Venus. Scientists don't yet know if it can sustain life, and there are some theories as to how its surface may look. They all depend on what type of star it's orbiting.

Original calculations showed that a brown dwarf was at the center of the solar system, a very small star that could not sustain nuclear fusion, as regular stars, including our Sun, did. However, by analyzing the system with a new technique called microlensing, astronomers have managed to determine that the body is in fact a red dwarf, which automatically implies that the planet orbiting it is a lot smaller than first thought. The new figures reduce its mass from 3.3 to 1.4 that of the Earth.
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Meteor

Natural disasters doomed early Peruvian civilization 3,600 years ago


Associated Press
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:50 UTC
Nature turned against one of America's early civilizations 3,600 years ago, when researchers say earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru. "This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement.

Moseley and colleagues were studying civilization of the Supe Valley along the Peruvian coast, which was established up to 5,800 years ago.

Comment: Earthquakes, floods and winds - yet no mention of the most obvious explanation for all these phenomena: a cometary impact.

See Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls.

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