Sir Bernard Lovell Dies at 98
Sir Bernard Lovell, a pioneer in radar and radio telescopes from the days when the technology helped save Britain in World War II until the beginning of the space age, died Monday at his home in Swettenham Village, England. He was 98.
His son, Bryan, confirmed the death. Mr. Lovell, who became widely known through his books, lectures and BBC television appearances, was especially renowned for creating the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, the only antenna that could track rockets in space in the early years of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. |  |
Pakistan's archaeological smugglers
CHARSADDA: When a Pakistani family dispute over land degenerated into cold-blooded murder, Zaman Khan was quickly in over his head.
As cousins killed cousins, he borrowed more than $18,500 to buy guns, ammunition and guards. But soon debtors were demanding repayment, leaving him so depressed he contemplated suicide. Then a friend came up with an idea. He took Khan to a site in northwest Pakistan which dates back to the ancient Gandhara civilisation where they dug up 18 pieces of statue, selling them to market traders for two million rupees ($20,700). |  |
BU Archaeologists Discover Oldest Maya Calendars
Night had fallen over the dense jungle surrounding the ancient city of Xultún, Guatemala, and Franco Rossi and Aviva Cormier were kneeling in a deep tunnel, brushing dirt from an ancient ceramic vessel within what could be a tomb that had been found beneath the floor of a Maya ruin.
Rossi (GRS’13) used a fine brush to gently remove dirt from the tombstone’s surface so they could eventually lift it, while Cormier (GRS’13) carried the dirt out of the narrow trench. That was when Rossi noticed it—a small fragment of a human skull beneath his brush. “It was truly amazing,” he says. “Not only to uncover the ancient remains within this tomb, but to actually find what you had hoped would be there all along.” |  |
Many human 'prototypes' coexisted in Africa
Fossils from Northern Kenya show that a new species of human lived two million years ago, researchers say.
The discoveries suggests that at least three distinct species of humans co-existed in Africa. The research adds to a growing body of evidence that runs counter to the popular perception that there was a linear evolution from monkey to ape to modern human. The research has been published in the journal Nature. |  |
Sticks, stones and bones reveal emergence of a hunter-gatherer culture
People living in a South African cave 44,000 years ago crafted the same kinds of blades, beads and tools as hunter-gatherers of the region today. The artifacts push the history of modern human behavior in southern Africa back more than 20,000 years, archaeologists report online July 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forging a link between the cultures of ancient and present-day humans.
“We’re not just looking at people who were modern. We’re looking at people who were modern in a way that we know,” says study coauthor Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bourdeaux in Talence, France. |  |
Mexican archaeologists discover 'unprecedented' Aztec burial
Mexican archaeologists say they have found an unprecedented human burial in which the skeleton of a young woman is surrounded by piles of 1,789 human bones in Mexico City's Templo Mayor.
Researchers found the burial about five metres (15ft) below the surface, next to the remains of what may have been a sacred tree at one edge of the plaza, the most sacred site of the Aztec capital. The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was the first of its kind, noting the Aztecs were not known to use mass sacrifice or the reburial of bones for the interment of a member of the ruling class. |  |
The Taming of the Turkey
Their bones were buried deep within the Jaguar Paw Temple in the ancient Maya city of El Mirador, Guatemala. Perhaps ritually sacrificed, possibly eaten, seven turkeys met their untimely ends more than 2000 years ago and more than 400 miles from their native range in Central Mexico. Now, in addition to providing clues about ancient Maya culture and trade, their skeletons may help resolve another mystery: When were the turkeys we eat today first domesticated?
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Bread-Loaf Size Satellites to Probe Atmosphere, Deep Space
Formerly the domain of student projects, CubeSats—low-cost satellites no bigger than a loaves of bread—are coming into their own, performing high-level scientific research.
Developed at California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University beginning in 1999, the satellites typically use off-the-shelf components and are built to uniform sizes, the smallest being a four-inch (ten-centimeter) cube. The cubes can be linked to fit more instruments into a single satellite.
Stacked in bulk in a special container, CubeSats hitchhike as secondary cargo on launch vehicles—adding to their considerable economic advantage over conventional satellites, which can run $50 to $100 million at the low end.
Developed at California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University beginning in 1999, the satellites typically use off-the-shelf components and are built to uniform sizes, the smallest being a four-inch (ten-centimeter) cube. The cubes can be linked to fit more instruments into a single satellite.
Stacked in bulk in a special container, CubeSats hitchhike as secondary cargo on launch vehicles—adding to their considerable economic advantage over conventional satellites, which can run $50 to $100 million at the low end.
Early Meat-Eating Human Ancestors Thrived While Vegetarian Hominin Died Out
There has been fierce debate recently over whether the original “caveman” diet was one of heaps of bloody meat or fields of greens. New findings suggest that some of our early ancestors were actually quite omnivorous. But subsequently, our line and an ill-fated group of hominins developed very different dietary strategies. One chose meat while the other moved toward more plants.
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Greenland enters melt mode
Greenland’s ice is on the hot seat again.
A heat wave, possibly the biggest in a century, washed over the frozen island in mid-July. Around 97 percent of the surface ice melted temporarily. Slush even appeared at Greenland’s highest, coldest spot. |  |
Neolithic tools provide clues for managing climate change
Coping with climate change presents a number of challenges, but we may be able to get some hints from our ancestors.
A study of tools from an archaeological site outside Jerusalem provides new information about land use patterns at the times of extreme climate change that may have helped the population adapt to their changing environment. The full results are published Aug. 8 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
A study of tools from an archaeological site outside Jerusalem provides new information about land use patterns at the times of extreme climate change that may have helped the population adapt to their changing environment. The full results are published Aug. 8 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
Death and Dying in Neolithic Near East
The stereotypical view of how Neolithic men and women lived is misleading according to Dr. Karina Croucher, who has studied the buried remains of people living between 7,500 and 10,000 years ago across the Middle East.
One of the conclusions she reaches in her new book Death and Dying in Neolithic Near East is that it was normal in early Neolithic society for men and women to show compassion towards each other, and gender was not so clearly defined as it is today.
Croucher argues that it is a male bias in archaeology that has distorted our understanding of how ancient peoples lived within a sedentary society.
One of the conclusions she reaches in her new book Death and Dying in Neolithic Near East is that it was normal in early Neolithic society for men and women to show compassion towards each other, and gender was not so clearly defined as it is today.
Croucher argues that it is a male bias in archaeology that has distorted our understanding of how ancient peoples lived within a sedentary society.
Hyenas That Think Outside the Box Solve Problems Faster
Innovative problem solving requires trying many different solutions. That's true for humans, and now Michigan State University researchers show that it's true for hyenas, too.
The study, published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, presented steel puzzle boxes with raw meat inside to wild spotted hyenas in Kenya. To get the meat, the hyenas had to slide open a bolt latch. Even though most of the animals had many opportunities to open the box, only nine out of 62 hyenas succeeded. The successful hyenas tried more solutions, including biting, flipping or pushing the box, than the ones that failed, said MSU zoology graduate student Sarah Benson-Amram. |  |
African Grey Parrots Have the Reasoning Skills of 3-year-olds
When we think about the smartest animals, chimpanzees are usually the first to come to mind. Experiments show that they can memorize sequences of numbers, learn the meaning of words and associate particular voices with specific faces. Crucially, previous studies have found that chimps and other apes are the only non-human animals capable of making abstract logical inferences based on cues from their environment.
A new experiment, though, might make us recognize that an entirely different species belongs in this exclusive group: the African grey parrot. |  |
Monkey brains sensitive to others' flubs
When one monkey sees another monkey messing up, the event ignites a small cluster of nerve cells in the brain that are sensitively tuned to others’ failures. The results help explain why the members of another primate species are such exquisite connoisseurs of blame.
“We humans are very sensitive to others’ mistakes,” says Masaki Isoda of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. He and his colleagues describe the macaques’ blunder detectors online August 5 in Nature Neuroscience.
“We humans are very sensitive to others’ mistakes,” says Masaki Isoda of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. He and his colleagues describe the macaques’ blunder detectors online August 5 in Nature Neuroscience.
C-Sections May Not Provide the Brain Benefits of Vaginal Birth
Being born by Ceasarian section may have a lasting effect on the brain, at least in mice, according to a new study.
In the study, mice born by a vaginal birth produced a brain protein called UCP2, which is important for the development of the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for short- and long-term memory. However, in mice born by C-section, production of UCP2 was impaired, and these mice had less of this protein in their brains compared to vaginally-born mice, said study researcher Tamas Horvath, chair of the department of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine. |  |
How Strange Twinned Rainbows Form
Double rainbows had their fifteen minutes of fame on the Internet. Now get ready for their even more mysterious cousins: twinned rainbows. New research has suggested an explanation for these exotic shows of color.
Rainbows are known to form when sunlight interacts with tiny water drops in the atmosphere. As sunlight gets both reflected and refracted within the drops, it gets separated into its basic color components. Still, all the secrets of the more complex behavior of rainbows have long remained a puzzle. |  |
Curiosity says good morning from Mars (and has busy days ahead)
Last night Curiosity's MAHLI camera sent back its first color image, looking north through its dust cover at the rim of Gale Crater.
Curiosity woke up at about 5:45pm Pacific Time Monday (morning for the rover), on very flat terrain, with no obstacles visible. Even though the vehicle hasn't been fully checked out yet, images and video are now beginning to rain back down to Earth (though NASA's live video streams were still being hammered). If you're wondering what it's all about, here's a quick rundown on Curiosity, its many cameras, its instrumentation, and JPL's initial activity list. The mission Curiosity's primary mission is to determine whether Mars has, or has ever had, an environment capable of supporting life. NASA's search for life on the other planets of the solar system has largely shifted from looking for direct evidence to looking for habitability first—is the environment conducive to life and are any of the raw materials present? By studying the rocks and soil of the area around the landing site, the spacecraft can provide some answers to those questions. |  |
As Curiosity touches down on Mars, video is taken down from YouTube
The NASA Curiosity team had to overcome many obstacles to land their robot safely on the surface of the Red Planet. But one obstacle they were probably not expecting to encounter was an accusation of copyright infringement.
The American space agency has been posting videos related to the Curiosity mission on its official YouTube page. But the Motherboard blog noticed that one of the videos had disappeared. In its place was the message "This video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.". |  |
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