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Fifteen thousand years ago, a vast lake sprawled through the valleys of what is now western Montana. Known as Lake Missoula, it was created when a lobe of ice moving south from Canada blocked the Clark Fork river, which drains much of the region. Then, one day, the ice dam broke. Water roared down the canyons at 100 kilometres an hour - 2000 cubic kilometres of it spilling onto the plains of eastern Washington in a few days. There it leapt river channels and scoured new paths across the intervening ridges. When the water receded, it left behind a mystery that geologist J Harlen Bretz was determined to uncover. In doing so, he challenged the foundations of an entire science.
When white masquerades as yellow and green might actually be blue, a call goes out to Henry DePhillips.
DePhillips, a Trinity College chemistry professor, is among a cadre of specialists using cutting-edge science to solve the color mysteries of paintings and other cultural treasures often several centuries old.
DePhillips, a Trinity College chemistry professor, is among a cadre of specialists using cutting-edge science to solve the color mysteries of paintings and other cultural treasures often several centuries old.
Cosmic rays produced at the edge of our galaxy have devastated life on Earth every 62 million years, researchers say.
The finding suggests that biodiversity has been strongly influenced by the motion of the solar system through the Milky Way and of the galaxy's movement through intergalactic space.
Mikhail Medvedev and Adrian Melott, both of the University of Kansas, presented their new theory at a meeting of the American Physical Society earlier this month.
The theory offers the first explanation for a mysterious pattern previously noted in the fossil record.
"There are 62-million-year ups and downs in the number of marine animals over the last 550 million years," Melott said.
The finding suggests that biodiversity has been strongly influenced by the motion of the solar system through the Milky Way and of the galaxy's movement through intergalactic space.
Mikhail Medvedev and Adrian Melott, both of the University of Kansas, presented their new theory at a meeting of the American Physical Society earlier this month.
Comment: Note that it is just a theory...
The theory offers the first explanation for a mysterious pattern previously noted in the fossil record.
Comment: It is neither the first explanation nor the best fit...
"There are 62-million-year ups and downs in the number of marine animals over the last 550 million years," Melott said.
The origin of the human brain has been traced back to primitive central nervous systems in worms and bugs, researchers now say.
Humans and other vertebrates evolved from an ancient common ancestor that also gave rise to insects and worms, scientists have long known. But they're of course quite different today.
Vertebrates have a spinal cord running along their backs, but insects and annelid worms such as earthworms, which have simple organs that barely resemble a brain, have clusters of nerves organized in a chain along their bellies. So biologists have long assumed these systems - key to ultimately putting a brain to use - arose independently, only after the split.
Humans and other vertebrates evolved from an ancient common ancestor that also gave rise to insects and worms, scientists have long known. But they're of course quite different today.
Vertebrates have a spinal cord running along their backs, but insects and annelid worms such as earthworms, which have simple organs that barely resemble a brain, have clusters of nerves organized in a chain along their bellies. So biologists have long assumed these systems - key to ultimately putting a brain to use - arose independently, only after the split.
You may well ask the question, where did the animals and plants of modern day Ireland and Britain come from? Published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, scientists at Queen's University Belfast have uncovered evidence that stoats survived in Ireland at the coldest point of the last Ice Age, 23,500 years ago.
The research has revealed that despite few animals or plants surviving the millennia of freezing cold and ice, the Irish stoats had real staying power. The Irish lineage of these small carnivores that eat mice, rabbits and birds is unique according to the research.
The scientists reached their conclusions by studying the wiry mammal's DNA collected from museum collections and gamekeepers.
Explaining the research findings, Dr Robbie McDonald, Manager of Quercus at Queen's, explained: "These tenacious carnivores probably survived the extreme cold at the peak of the last Ice Age by living under the snow and eating lemmings, just as they do in Greenland today.
The research has revealed that despite few animals or plants surviving the millennia of freezing cold and ice, the Irish stoats had real staying power. The Irish lineage of these small carnivores that eat mice, rabbits and birds is unique according to the research.
The scientists reached their conclusions by studying the wiry mammal's DNA collected from museum collections and gamekeepers.
Explaining the research findings, Dr Robbie McDonald, Manager of Quercus at Queen's, explained: "These tenacious carnivores probably survived the extreme cold at the peak of the last Ice Age by living under the snow and eating lemmings, just as they do in Greenland today.
Popular social-networking site MySpace will fail in a few years time, says self-confessed geek Jimmy Wales.
, founder of the free web encyclopaedia Wikipedia, is currently in South Africa for a digital freedom tour.
MySpace, owned by News Corp and with reportedly more than 100 million registered users, "hurts my eyes", Wales says.
"There's way too much advertising and they're not really respecting their own community."
Wikipedia is another matter, he says. "We're not similar at all - you get involved in a community."
Wales, who confesses to spending lots of time on the web - "I pretty much roll out of bed and log on" - says when he started Wikipedia he knew it was a big idea, but he never imagined it would be in the Top 10 websites.
, founder of the free web encyclopaedia Wikipedia, is currently in South Africa for a digital freedom tour.
MySpace, owned by News Corp and with reportedly more than 100 million registered users, "hurts my eyes", Wales says.
"There's way too much advertising and they're not really respecting their own community."
Wikipedia is another matter, he says. "We're not similar at all - you get involved in a community."
Wales, who confesses to spending lots of time on the web - "I pretty much roll out of bed and log on" - says when he started Wikipedia he knew it was a big idea, but he never imagined it would be in the Top 10 websites.
An international team of astronomers have collaborated to create the most detailed image ever produced of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237), a giant stellar nursery. The new image was assembled using data from INT Photometric H-Alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) and covers four square degrees of sky, equivalent in size to about twenty times the size of the full moon.
The Rosette nebula is a vast cloud of dust and gas spanning 100 light years and lying about 4500 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation of Monoceros. Inside the nebula lies a cluster of bright, massive, young stars (NGC 2244), whose strong stellar winds and radiation have cleared a hole in the nebula's centre. Ultraviolet light from these hot stars excites the surrounding nebula, causing it to glow.
Star formation is still active around the nebula, as proven by the presence of a very young infrared star (AFGL 961) still in its final stages of formation. It is thought that the young massive stars in the nebula will one day blow all the gas and dust away. The centre of the Rosette Nebula is about 1.8 degrees below the Galactic Plane, the glow from which can be seen at the top left (northeastern) corner of this image.
The Rosette nebula is a vast cloud of dust and gas spanning 100 light years and lying about 4500 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation of Monoceros. Inside the nebula lies a cluster of bright, massive, young stars (NGC 2244), whose strong stellar winds and radiation have cleared a hole in the nebula's centre. Ultraviolet light from these hot stars excites the surrounding nebula, causing it to glow.
Star formation is still active around the nebula, as proven by the presence of a very young infrared star (AFGL 961) still in its final stages of formation. It is thought that the young massive stars in the nebula will one day blow all the gas and dust away. The centre of the Rosette Nebula is about 1.8 degrees below the Galactic Plane, the glow from which can be seen at the top left (northeastern) corner of this image.
Scientists are creating artificial bones using a modified version of an inkjet printer.
The technology creates perfect replicas of bones that have been damaged and these can then be inserted in the body to help it to heal.
The technology creates perfect replicas of bones that have been damaged and these can then be inserted in the body to help it to heal.
I LOST 2 pounds the week I gave up packaging. Among aisles and aisles of neatly wrapped goods almost everything at my local grocery store was off-limits. Only a selection of fruit and vegetables made the grade. For milk I could buy from a local dairy that refills bottles, and I found bread without a bag at a local bakery. That was it: everything else was forbidden even lettuce, which only came wrapped up. My conscience was clear, but my stomach wouldn't stop rumbling.
New mapping techniques show how much land would be lost and how many people affected by rapid sea level rises that are often triggered by storms and earthquakes.
Comment: In short, "nothing to worry about, go back to sleep". Funny that they come out with this at the present moment.
It is well known that there are other major extinctions and the cycle is not ONLY every 62 million years! There is also a very strong signal for a 26 million year extinction cycle. The different estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years are due mainly to what the individual researcher chooses as the threshold for naming an extinction event as "major" as well as what set of data he selects as the determinant measure of past diversity. As it happens, the 62 million event data stems mainly from marine fossil evidence.
The classical "Big Five" mass extinctions identified by Raup and Sepkoski in 1982 are widely agreed upon as some of the most significant. They are:
The late Ordovician period (about 438 million years ago) - 100 families extinct - more than half of the bryozoan and brachiopod species extinct.
78 million years later:
The late Devonian (about 360 mya) - 30% of animal families extinct.
106 million years later:
At the end of the Permian period (about 245 mya) - Trilobites go extinct. 50% of all animal families, 95% of all marine species, and many trees die out.
37 million years later:
The late Triassic (208 mya) - 35% of all animal families die out. Most early dinosaur families went extinct, and most synapsids died out (except for the mammals).
143 million years later:
At the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary (about 65 mya) - about half of all life forms died out, including the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, many families of fishes, clams, snails, sponges, sea urchins and many others.
As you can see from the above, using the number "62 million years" and building a theory on it is really a bit misleading.
Raup and Sepkoski are mentioned as identifying the "Big Five", but the fact is that Sepkoski, a University of Chicago paleontologist suggested that the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was part of a 26 million year cycle!! However, I would like to mention that if you multiply the 26: 3 X 26 is 78 - which just happens to be the time between the Ordovician and Devonian extinctions; 4 X 26 is 104 which is very close to the 106 million years between the Devonian and Permian extinctions; and 5 X 26 is 130, which (when dealing with these kinds of numbers) is close enough to the gap between the Triassic and K-T extinction to be in the ballpark. So, maybe there is something to this 26 million year thing after all, only each "return" has varying effects based on many other solar system variables. A companion star with a 26 million year orbit might be more stable, since Muller has suggested that a 62 million year orbit is too great to be stable.
As it happens, if we postulate the 26 million year orbit of a Companion Star, we would find that there ought to be a return about 39 million years ago, and then another 13 million years ago, which would put us half-way in the Companion star orbit cycle.
For more details read: Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!