Researchers find evidence of ritual use of ‘black drink’ at Cahokia
People living 700 to 900 years ago in Cahokia, a massive settlement near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, ritually used a caffeinated brew made from the leaves of a holly tree that grew hundreds of miles away, researchers report.
The discovery – made by analyzing plant residues in pottery beakers from Cahokia and its surroundings – is the earliest known use of this “black drink” in North America. It pushes back the date by at least 500 years, and adds to the evidence that a broad cultural and trade network thrived in the Midwest and southeastern U.S. as early as A.D. 1050. The new findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlight the cultural importance of Greater Cahokia, a city with as many as 50,000 residents in its heyday, the largest prehistoric North American settlement north of Mexico. |  |
Could Bacteria-Fighting Viruses Replace Overused Antibiotics?
Inside a third-floor office a few blocks from the hudson river in yonkers, N.Y., a small biotechnology company called ContraFect prepares to test a remarkable new way to kill bacteria in humans. Antibiotics, after many years of use and overuse, have lost their edge against rapidly evolving bacteria, with everything from staph infections to tuberculosis becoming more devastating, deadly and difficult to treat. Whereas traditional antibiotics have mostly been derived from chemicals produced by soil bacteria and fungi, ContraFect has found an alternative in bacteriophages: viruses that infect bacteria and hijack their internal machinery. In nature, phages produce enzymes called lysins, causing the bacteria fall to pieces and new phages to tumble out by the hundreds. ContraFect believes it can harness these lysins to treat bacterial infections in humans.
Seeing through walls: Laser system reconstructs objects hidden from sight
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2012—Inspired by the erratic behavior of photons zooming around and bouncing off objects and walls inside a room, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin, and Rice University combined these bouncing photons with advanced optics to enable them to "see" what's hidden around the corner. This technique, described in a paper published today in the Optical Society's (OSA (http://www.osa.org)) open-access journal Optics Express (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe), may one day prove invaluable in disaster recovery situations, as well as in noninvasive biomedical imaging applications.
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Roswell UFO Crash: There Were 2 Crashes, Not 1, Says Ex-Air Force Official
The 1947 UFO controversy of Roswell, N.M. is like a bad penny: It keeps turning up.
The legend, rehashed by conspiracy theorists in countless documentaries, revolves around allegations that an unusual object fell from the sky -- an object so bizarre that the U.S. Air Force issued a press release that a flying saucer had crashed. That story was quickly recanted, creating what would become one of the greatest urban legends in American history. Until now, most debunkers doubted that there was even one crash. Now, in an exclusive interview, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French told The Huffington Post that there were actually two crashes. |  |
Archives: Church of England told not to take descriptions of Second Coming literally
THERE were explosions of outrage throughout the Church of England yesterday after it emerged that the Bishop of Durham, Dr David Jenkins, had made two perfectly orthodox statements.
Dr Jenkins denied that sinners were tortured for all eternity in hell, and that descriptions of the Second Coming should not be taken literally. As the controversy intensified, he described as 'psychopathic' the imagery of the book of Revelations, in which the wicked are thrown into a lake of fire and 'tormented night and day for ever and ever'. Instead, he argued in a series of media interviews, that those who turn away from God at the end of time will be annihilated, rather than tortured; and the Second Coming would be 'God's general clear up and gather up of everything worthwhile in human history'.
Dr Jenkins denied that sinners were tortured for all eternity in hell, and that descriptions of the Second Coming should not be taken literally. As the controversy intensified, he described as 'psychopathic' the imagery of the book of Revelations, in which the wicked are thrown into a lake of fire and 'tormented night and day for ever and ever'. Instead, he argued in a series of media interviews, that those who turn away from God at the end of time will be annihilated, rather than tortured; and the Second Coming would be 'God's general clear up and gather up of everything worthwhile in human history'.
Rebirth of the wolf sees French Greens at each other's throats
The lightning re-conquest of France by the wolf has provoked a civil war within French Greens, pitting one of the country's most renowned campaigners against environmentalists, some of whom are demanding his ousting from the movement.
Wolves have been seen this summer for the first time since the 1920s in the sheep-rearing area in Lozère in the southern Auvergne, the home of Roquefort cheese.
José Bové , sheep farmer-turned-environmental campaigner, has called publicly for the wolves to be shot, provoking protest from other French Greens, who point out that the grey wolf is a protected by European law. One wildlife protection group has filed a legal complaint against Mr Bové for "inciting the destruction of an endangered species".
Wolves have been seen this summer for the first time since the 1920s in the sheep-rearing area in Lozère in the southern Auvergne, the home of Roquefort cheese.
José Bové , sheep farmer-turned-environmental campaigner, has called publicly for the wolves to be shot, provoking protest from other French Greens, who point out that the grey wolf is a protected by European law. One wildlife protection group has filed a legal complaint against Mr Bové for "inciting the destruction of an endangered species".
Palm trees and forests? A new future for the Antarctic
Palm trees could grow in the Antarctic if climate change continues unabated, new research has shown – just as they did 55 million years ago.
A study has found that similar trees grew in the region during the early Eocene epoch, when the area had a near-tropical climate with frost-free winters, even in the polar darkness. Global levels of the principal greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, were nearly three times as high then as today.
It has long been known that the start of the Eocene was a "thermal maximum", one of the hottest periods in Earth's history, and that Antarctica as a continent would have been ice-free and much warmer than at present.
A study has found that similar trees grew in the region during the early Eocene epoch, when the area had a near-tropical climate with frost-free winters, even in the polar darkness. Global levels of the principal greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, were nearly three times as high then as today.
It has long been known that the start of the Eocene was a "thermal maximum", one of the hottest periods in Earth's history, and that Antarctica as a continent would have been ice-free and much warmer than at present.
Five civilisations that climate change may have doomed
Have great civilisations fallen because of changes in their climates? This has long been suggested. Recent studies have shown that many historical collapses, or periods of war and unrest, indeed coincided with big climatic changes – though how big a role climate has played remains controversial
Mycenae Little remains of the city of Mycenae now, but it was the centre of the first great Greek civilisation, which thrived between 1600 and 1100 BC. After this time, many cities were abandoned, trade ceased and their writing system disappeared. Other nearby civilisations, including the Hittites and the New Kingdom of Egypt, also declined around the same time, a phenomenon known as the Late Bronze Age collapse. |  |
Volcanic cryptotephra gives clues to Neanderthal demise
Invisible to the human eye, cryptotephra is a fine volcanic glass that is blasted out of erupting volcanoes along with ash. It leaves behind a hidden layer, in the earth, which has now been detected, giving clues about why the Neanderthals died out.
About 40,000 years ago, a layer of cryptotephra particles carpeted a huge area of Central and Eastern Europe after a massive volcanic eruption in Italy called the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI). This eruption, and the resulting environmental and climatic disruption, has been suggested as a factor in the extinction of the Neanderthals. |  |
Red Rain in India May Have Alien Origin
A rare shower of red rain fell for about 15 minutes in the city of Kannur, Kerala, early on June 28. Local residents were perturbed, but this is not the first time the state has experienced colored rain.
This strange phenomenon was first recorded in Kerala a few hours after a meteor airburst in July 2001, when a space rock exploded in the atmosphere. More than 120 such rain showers were reported that year, including yellow, green, and black ones. Astrobiologist Godfrey Louis, pro vice-chancellor at nearby Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), has studied samples of the rainwater and discovered strange properties, including autofluorescence—light that is naturally emitted by cell structures like mitochondria. |  |
Extreme Plasma Theories Put to the Test
The first controlled studies of extremely hot, dense matter have overthrown the widely accepted 50-year-old model used to explain how ions influence each other's behavior in a dense plasma. The results should benefit a wide range of fields, from research aimed at tapping nuclear fusion as an energy source to understanding the inner workings of stars.
The study also demonstrates the unique capabilities of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. While researchers have created extremely hot and dense plasmas before, LCLS allows them to measure the detailed properties of these states and test a fundamental class of plasma physics for the first time ever. |  |
Chinese team builds first quantum router
With all the talk of quantum computers, little notice has been made of work on what is known as a quantum Internet, which is where data is sent across a web of computers via devices that work at the quantum, rather than atomic level, thereby increasing the speed of the whole system. The holdup at this point is in creating devices capable of routing such information. Now it appears that a team of physicists working from Tsinghau University in China have proven that it’s possible to do so. They have, as they describe in the paper they’ve uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, built a working quantum router capable of routing one cubit.
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What can the Mars rover tell us about climate change on Earth?
Scientists have made great strides in predicting what will happen to Earth's climate, but there is a fundamental problem: we only have one climate to test our hypotheses in. We can't irreversibly hack Earth's climate (by pumping it full of toxic gases, for example) to test whether our assumptions are right or wrong—that, obviously, would be disastrous for Earth's inhabitants. That means climate models are loaded with historical and empirical data to make them function.
If only we could take the model to another planet to really test the underpinning physics. |  |
Curiosity’s Latest Mars Image Shows Imposing Mt. Sharp
The newest robotic resident of Mars, Curiosity, has sent a spectacular image of its main scientific target, Mt. Sharp, a three-mile-high mountain in the center of Gale crater.
Taken with the probe’s front Hazard-Avoidance cameras (Hazcams), the high-resolution image also shows the rover’s shadow in the foreground and dark bands of dunes. After a flawless descent sequence, Curiosity landed a little less than four miles from the mountain. Within the next few days, the rover will start to move, sampling rocks and soil on its way to Mt. Sharp and slowly traveling up its side over the next two years. No one is quite sure how the mountain formed, though it appears to be the result of sediment layers laid down over time that then partially eroded away. |  |
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