Science & TechnologyS


Pharoah

Archaeologists Find Tunnel Below the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Teotihuacan


ArtDaily
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:20 UTC
tunnel found in front of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent.
© CNMH INAHContextual image of the tunnel found in front of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent.
Mexico City - After eight months of excavation, archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have located, 12 meters below , the entrance to the tunnel leading to a series of galleries beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, in the Archaeologcial Area of Teotihuacan, where the remains of rulers of the ancient city could have been deposited.

In a tour made by to site today with the media, archaeologist Sergio Chavez Gomez, director of the Tlalocan Project went below the ground and announced the advances in the systematic exploration undertaken by the INAH of the underground conduit, which was closed for about 1,800 years by the inhabitants of Teotihuacan themselves and where no one has gone in since then.

INAH specialists hope to enter the tunnel in a couple of months and will be the first to enter after hundreds of years since it was closed. This excavation, which represents the most profound that has been done in the pre-Hispanic site, is part of the commemorations for the first 100 years of uninterrupted archaeological explorations (made in 1910) also called the City of Gods.
Read More...
Info

Brain Signal Persists Even in Dreamless Sleep

Michael C. Purdy
Newswise Science News
Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:03 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken one of the first direct looks at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations": a brain signal that never switches off and may support many cognitive functions.

The results, appearing online this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are an important step forward for efforts to outline what neuroscientists call the functional architecture of the brain. Better understanding of this architecture will aid efforts to treat brain injury and mental disorders.

Although the brain's different specialized regions can be considered as a collection of physical structures, functional architecture instead focuses on metaphorical structures formed by brain processes and interactions among different brain regions. The "foundation" highlighted in the new study is a low-frequency signal created by neuronal activity throughout the brain. This signal doesn't switch off even in dreamless sleep, possibly to help maintain basic structure and facilitate offline housekeeping activities.
Read More...
Meteor

Early Perseid Fireball


Space Weather
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:14 UTC
This week, Earth is entering a stream of dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, the parent of the annual Perseid meteor shower. We're only in the outskirts of the stream now. The shower won't peak until August 12th and 13th when we're much deeper inside. Nevertheless, sky watchers are already seeing some early Perseids. This one, recorded by a NASA meteor camera in Alabama on August 3rd, was a doozy:
Image
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Western Ontario

View movie HERE.

"On Monday night, a Perseid meteoroid, about 1 inch in diameter and traveling at 134,000 mph, entered the atmosphere 70 miles above Paint Rock, Alabama," reports Bill Cooke of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "Moving at such a tremendous speed, the meteor cut a path some 65 miles long above that state, finally burning up 56 miles above Macay Lake. It was 6 times brighter than the planet Venus--a good start to the Perseid meteor shower!"
Read More...
Eye 1

Human hive-mind game whups computer boffinry ass Alert

Lewis Page
The Register
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:39 UTC
Science glory for 57,000 protein-origami Tetris players

Most Reg readers are familiar with the idea of ordinary laypersons contributing computer time to academic research, in distributed computing projects such as SETI@Home. But it turns out that in some kinds of science, human brainpower - not that of trained boffins, but everyday people - can be a much more valuable resource, and can be contributed simply by playing online games.

Read More...
Saturn

Discovery of Saturn's auroral heartbeat

Dr. Jonathan Nichols
University of Leicester
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:09 UTC
Image
© Jonathan Nichols, NASA, ESA, University of LeicesterSaturn's ultraviolet auroras are visible over each pole in this image obtained in 2009 using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Space researchers illuminate 'one of the most perplexing puzzles in planetary science'.

An international team of scientists led by Dr Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester has discovered that Saturn's aurora, an ethereal ultraviolet glow which illuminates Saturn's upper atmosphere near the poles, pulses roughly once per Saturnian day.

The length of a Saturnian day has been under much discussion since it was discovered that the traditional 'clock' used to measure the rotation period of Saturn, a gas giant planet with no solid surface for reference, apparently does not keep good time.
Read More...
Star

Seeing a Stellar Explosion in 3D


European Southern Observatory
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:59 UTC
Image
© ESAThe material around SN 1987A (artist’s impression)
Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have for the first time obtained a three-dimensional view of the distribution of the innermost material expelled by a recently exploded star. The original blast was not only powerful, according to the new results. It was also more concentrated in one particular direction. This is a strong indication that the supernova must have been very turbulent, supporting the most recent computer models.

Unlike the Sun, which will die rather quietly, massive stars arriving at the end of their brief life explode as supernovae, hurling out a vast quantity of material. In this class, Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) in the rather nearby Large Magellanic Cloud occupies a very special place. Seen in 1987, it was the first naked-eye supernova to be observed for 383 years (eso8704), and because of its relative closeness, it has made it possible for astronomers to study the explosion of a massive star and its aftermath in more detail than ever before. It is thus no surprise that few events in modern astronomy have been met with such an enthusiastic response by scientists.
Read More...
Sherlock

St. John the Baptist's Bones "Found in Bulgarian Monastery"

Nick Squires
The Telegraph
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:04 UTC
Image
© The TelegraphThe urn, right, is thought to contain the bones of St. John the Baptist, left
The remains of St John the Baptist have been found in an ancient reliquary in a 5th century monastery on Sveti Ivan Island in Bulgaria, archaeologists have claimed.

The remains - small fragments of a skull, bones from a jaw and an arm, and a tooth - were discovered embedded in an altar in the ruins of the ancient monastery, on the island in the Black Sea.

A Greek inscription on the stone casque contains a reference to June 24 - the date on which John the Baptist is believed to have been born.

"We found the relics of St John the Baptist - exactly what the archaeologists had expected," said Bozhidar Dimitrov, Bulgaria's minister without portfolio and a former director of the country's National History Museum, who was present when the stone urn was opened.

"It has been confirmed that these are parts of his skeleton."
Read More...
Sherlock

Long-Lost Piano "Played by Mozart" Found in Germany


The Telegraph
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:00 UTC
Image
© The TelegraphWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)
An early piano believed to have been played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has surfaced in Germany and could be worth millions of pounds.

Public broadcaster SWR said the instrument was built in 1775 and acquired in the 1980s by piano manufacturer Martin Becker in the southern German city of Baden-Baden from an antiques dealer in Strasbourg, eastern France.

When Mr Becker decided to auction off the fortepiano, a music historian noticed the offer and "had a hunch that it could be the same long-lost instrument that Mozart played whenever he was in Strasbourg," SWR said.

"I had the idea to offer it on (online auction site) eBay and maybe get between 30,000 and 40,000 euros for it," Mr Becker told the radio station.

A historic oil painting in Vienna shows the composer Joseph Haydn, a Mozart contemporary, playing what may be the same instrument.
Read More...
Sun

Northern Lights Move South

Mike Krumboltz
The Buzz Log
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:05 UTC
Image
© Robert Snache
Usually, the Northern Lights can only be seen by folks who live far to the north. But this week, the Aurora Borealis is making an appearance in lower Canada, some of the United States, Norway and other countries around the globe.

The reason has to do with solar storms. On Sunday, an eruption on the sun's surface blasted plasma toward the Earth. That plasma is helping to give millions of people a peek at something they'd never seen.

Fortunately for us, these lucky ducks are taking pictures and posting them on Flickr. You can check out several of our absolute favorites here. Enjoy!
Read More...
Sun

Solar Storm Update: Best Times for Viewing Aurorae

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:15 UTC
Image
© SOHOTaken Sunday, August 1 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics released the latest information on the July 31/August 1 activity on the Sun that is just now reaching Earth. They predict we'll have multiple opportunities for a display of the Northern Lights over the next two days. The latest word from the solar scientists is that the Sun erupted not just once, but four times. All four coronal mass ejections are headed toward Earth.

Space weather forecasts are even more challenging than regular weather forecasts, said Dr. Leon Golub, and a coronal mass ejection is like a hurricane: it's large and fuzzy, and doesn't always move at the same speed. Currently, the estimated arrival times are:
  • Wednesday, Aug. 4 - 3:00 a.m. EDT (0700 GMT on Aug. 5; aurorae not visible in daylight)
  • Wednesday, Aug. 4 - 1:00 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT, again the daylight issue)
  • Wednesday, Aug. 4 - 8:00 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT on Aug. 5)
  • Thursday, Aug. 5 - 2:00 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT)
Any one of these events may or may not generate an aurora. It depends on details like magnetic field orientation. If the magnetic field in the oncoming solar plasma is directed opposite Earth's magnetic field, the result could be spectacular aurorae. If the fields line up, the coronal mass ejection could slide past our planet with nary a ripple.

The Center for Astrophysics suggested these two resources:

Map of current auroral activity

Chart of proton flux (watch for the numbers to go up as each wave arrives)
Read More...