After shooting it with lasers and X-rays, NASA’s Curiosity rover has determined that a rock nicknamed “Jake Matijevic” is of a variety that no other rover has ever spotted on Mars.
The rock, a highly fractionated alkalic rock type, is relatively well known to geologists because it is common in rift zones on Earth and island chains such as the Hawaiian Islands. “This is a rock type which had not been seen before” by previous Mars rovers including Spirit and Opportunity, said Roger Weins, principle investigator for Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument, during a NASA press conference Oct. 11. It forms under relatively high pressure and often in the presence of water. While Curiosity is mostly focused on sedimentary rocks that could indicate the presence of past conditions for life, Matijevic is an igneous rock that likely formed about 5 miles under the Martian surface. |  |
Dentistry, ancient mummy found with teeth stuffed with linen for tooth-ache
Scientists performing CT scans on the head of an Egyptian mummy say they have found one of the worst cases of dental problems ever seen - an a unique treatment to try and treat it.
Researchers CT scanning a 2,100 year old mummy were stunned to find evidence of a sinus infection caused by a mouthful of cavities and other tooth problems. The also came across a unique find - a cavity filled with linen. Using a piece of linen, which may have first been dipped in a medicine such as fig juice or cedar oil, a form of 'packing' in the biggest and most painful cavity, located on the left side of his jaw between the first and second molars, was inserted. |  |
Spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed discovered
Archaeologists believe they have found the first physical evidence of the spot where Julius Caesar died, according to a new Spanish National Research Council report.
Caesar, the head of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of rival Roman senators on March 15, 44 B.C., the Ides of March. The assassination is well-covered in classical texts, but until now, researchers had no archaeological evidence of the place where it happened. |  |
Einstein's math may also describe faster-than-light velocities
Although Einstein's theories suggest nothing can move faster than the speed of light, two scientists have extended his equations to show what would happen if faster-than-light travel were possible.
Despite an apparent prohibition on such travel by Einstein’s theory of special relativity, the scientists said the theory actually lends itself easily to a description of velocities that exceed the speed of light. "We started thinking about it, and we think this is a very natural extension of Einstein's equations," said applied mathematician James Hill, who co-authored the new paper with his University of Adelaide, Australia, colleague Barry Cox. The paper was published Oct. 3 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences. |  |
Giant Mysterious Eyeball Found on Florida Beach
Perhaps reminiscent of the infamous Montauk monster, a giant eyeball has washed up on a Florida beach (as if Florida needed anything else weird). The Internets are buzzing with questions: whose eye is it? What is it?
To us, it looks an awful lot like the giant squid eyeball we recently saw on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian. To find out, we inquired with some of our intrepid National Geographic grantees. But first, where did the eye come from? According to news reports, the mysterious eye washed up on Florida’s Pompano Beach, where it was found by a beachcomber. Instead of whisking it away, as was the case in Montauk, the fine citizen handed it over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Wednesday. |  |
Do we live in the Matrix? Researchers say they have found a way to find out
If the Matrix left you with the niggling fear that we might indeed be living in a computer generated universe staged by a malevolent artificial intelligence using the human race as an energy farm, help is at hand.
A team of physicists have come up with a test which they say could prove whether or not the universe as we know it is a virtual reality simulation - a kind of theoretical red pill, as it were. Silas Beane of the University of Bonn, Germany, and his colleagues contend that a simulation of the universe, no matter how complex, would still have constraints which would reveal it. |  |
Dragon capsule reaches space station, chocolate ripple ice cream intact
The International Space Station welcomed its first commercial resupply mission Wednesday with the arrival of Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon capsule.
Dragon is laden with scientific gear, replacement parts for the space station, and a welcome shipment of chocolate ripple ice cream stashed in an otherwise empty lab freezer the capsule carried up. The capsule, which launched Sunday night atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, reached the orbiting outpost about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Using the station's robotic arm, Akihiki Hoshide, a station flight engineer, snagged Dragon at 7:56 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. A little over an hour later, Dragon was safely docked with the station. |  |
Testing Mars and Moon soil for sheltering astronauts from radiation
Humans venturing beyond Earth orbit deeper into space face increased exposure to cosmic radiation, so ESA has teamed with Germany's GSI particle accelerator to test potential shielding for astronauts, including Moon and Mars soil.
ESA's two-year project is assessing the most promising materials for shielding future astronauts going to the Moon, the asteroids or Mars. |  |
The mysterious case of the missing noble gas
The evidence is in every breath of air, but answers are harder to come by. Xenon, the second heaviest of the chemically inert noble gases, has gone missing. Our atmosphere contains far less xenon, relative to the lighter noble gases, than meteorites similiar to the rocky material that formed the Earth.
The missing-xenon paradox is one of science’s great whodunits. Researchers have hypothesized that the element is lurking in glaciers, minerals or Earth’s core, among other places. |  |
The £10 electronic book that could kill off the Kindle
A German firm is hoping to radically change the electronic book market with an ebook that costs just £10 to buy.
'The txtr beagle is designed to do best what eReaders are intended for: reading digital books,' the firm says on its website. To save costs, the gadget has no connectors, and books are sent to it from a mobile phone app using bluetooth. |  |
Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says
Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's most popular grain.
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.". |  |
Hungry Africa's breadbasket needs to grow
Home-grown wheat could be the solution to a growing hunger problem in sub-Saharan Africa. The region is one of the few in which the number of undernourished people is rising, bucking a global trend. But a new analysis suggests wheat production there falls a long way short of what's possible.
A report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concludes that the number of chronically undernourished people in the world has dropped in the last four years. Africa is the only region where the number has actually risen – by 20 million over the same period. The FAO says that agricultural growth there is essential. |  |
West African fishing communities drive off 'pirate' fishing trawlers
A group of 23 impoverished west African fishing communities has driven off a fleet of illegal, unreported and unregulated "pirate" trawlers by filming and reporting them when they are found in their waters.
In the 18 months since the London-based Environment Justice Foundation (EJF) raised the £50,000 needed to buy and equip a small seven-metre community surveillance boat for villages in the Sherbro river area of Sierra Leone, local fishers have filmed and identified 10 international trawlers working illegally in their protected waters and have made 252 separate reports of illegal fishing. |  |
Governments Failing to Address 'Global Pandemic of Untreated Cancer Pain'
Governments around the world are leaving hundreds of millions of cancer patients to suffer needlessly because of their failure to ensure adequate access to pain-relieving drugs, an unprecedented new international survey reveals.
The new data, released to the public during the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna, paints a shocking picture of unnecessary pain on a global scale, said Prof Nathan Cherny, lead author of the report from Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel, Chair of the ESMO Palliative Care Working Group. |  |
10 Years for Legally Growing Medical Pot? The Feds' Assault on Legal Activity
As President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign gears up for its final push, his Department of Justice (DOJ) is aggressively pursuing medical marijuana cases in direct contravention of earlier pronouncements on the issue. Federal prosecutors are taking advantage of election season politics by gambling that the White House will not stand in their way and appear to look soft on crime at this critical juncture. Their well-times aggression is just another example of gaming the system and ringing-up meaningless prosecutions which serve no purpose other than padding the resumes of federal prosecutors. It is far afield from their mission statement and self-professed duty to protect the public.
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BBC film crew is held at gunpoint after trying to sneaking into Area 51
This is the moment a BBC film crew were held by security teams at the notoriously secretive Area 51 - where conspiracy theorists believe the American government is hiding a flying saucer.
Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell and UFO expert Darren Perks sneaked past the border at the site - and were forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint for three hours while the FBI checked their credentials. It is the same 'documentary' team that caused outrage in Britain last week when they suggested that the 7/7 London bombings were part of a government conspiracy to boost support for the Iraq war. |  |
Skin Hair Skims Heat Off Elephants
Body hair in mammals is typically thought to have evolved to keep us warm in colder prehistoric times, but a new study suggests that it may do the opposite, at least in elephants. Epidermal hair may have evolved to help the animals keep cool in the hot regions they live in, according to new research published Oct 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Conor Myhrvold and colleagues at Princeton University.
Though the idea that low surface densities of hair can help dissipate heat is a popular concept in engineering, the biological and evolutionary significance of sparse skin hair is not well known. The authors studied the effects of skin hair densities in Asian and African elephants on thermoregulation in these animals, and concluded that elephant skin hair significantly enhances their capacity to keep cool under different scenarios like higher daytime temperatures or less windy days.
Though the idea that low surface densities of hair can help dissipate heat is a popular concept in engineering, the biological and evolutionary significance of sparse skin hair is not well known. The authors studied the effects of skin hair densities in Asian and African elephants on thermoregulation in these animals, and concluded that elephant skin hair significantly enhances their capacity to keep cool under different scenarios like higher daytime temperatures or less windy days.
Like songbirds and people, mice can learn new tunes
Scientists have found the first evidence that the ability to learn vocalizations, a capacity so far believed to be restricted to a handful of bird and mammal species like humans and dolphins, is shared by another species: mice. The new research, published Oct. 10 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Erich Jarvis and Gustavo Arriaga at Duke University and colleagues, shows for the first time that mice share certain behavioral and brain mechanisms involved in vocal learning with songbirds and humans and can learn new vocal patterns.
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