The Great Chimp Tech Boom
Chimpanzee innovations may be low tech by human standards, but they get the job done and are gradually improving and spreading, a new study co-authored by famed primatologist Jane Goodall suggests.
The study, published in the latest issue of Current Anthropology, presents the first documented case of successful transmission of a novel cultural behavior -- ant fishing -- between wild chimpanzee communities. "Ant fishing in this case is using twigs, leaf midribs or grass probes to extract carpenter ants from their nests in living trees or dead wood," lead author Robert O'Malley, an assistant professor of anthropology at Kenyon College, told Discovery News. |  |
Why Some People See Sound
Some people may actually see sounds, say researchers who found this odd ability is possible when the parts of the brain devoted to vision are small.
These findings points to a clever strategy the brain might use when vision is unreliable, investigators added. Scientists took a closer look at the sound-induced flash illusion. When a single flash is followed by two bleeps, people sometimes also see two illusory consecutive flashes. |  |
Flowing Water on Mars May Cause Seasonal Streaks: Study
The tantalizing seasonal flows observed on Mars last year may indeed be caused by liquid water, a new study suggests.
The melting and subsequent evaporation of frozen salty water could cause the intriguing dark streaks, researchers said. These lines, which were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, extend down some Martian slopes during warm months and fade when winter comes. “In one day we could form enough liquid to create these flow features on the surface," lead author Vincent Chevrier, of the University of Arkansas, said in a statement. |  |
Alien hunting: how to find DNA on Mars
No one has looked for life on Mars for more than 30 years, ever since NASA's Viking missions sent back inconclusive results. Genomics maverick Craig Venter wants to change that. Cracker of the human genome and builder of synthetic life, Venter announced at the Wired Health Conference in New York last week that he wants to send a DNA sequencer to Mars and beam back the genomes of any alien microbes.
Details of this ambitious plan are slim, and Venter has declined to elaborate. But there is reason to think Mars DNA can be found – if we know how and where to look. |  |
Manned Mars Missions Could Threaten Red Planet Life
Humanity has long dreamed of putting boots on Mars, but those boots have the potential to stomp all over any lifeforms that may exist on the Red Planet.
A seething, swarming mass of 100 trillion microbes will accompany every astronaut who lands on Mars. This diverse "microbiome" has evolved with humans for eons and provides a number of services, from helping people digest their food to keeping pathogenic bacteria at bay. While these microbes are intimately tied to humans, many of them will jump ship if transported to the Martian surface — with unknown consequences for a planet that may or may not host life of its own. |  |
Curiosity may one day return to Earth, says Nasa boss
The director of Nasa's Mars exploration programme has spoken of hopes that one day the rover Curiosity might be brought back to Earth by astronauts.
Doug McCuistion said it was his personal hope that humans would visit the Red Planet in the 2030s or 2040s. He said he could imagine astronauts walking up to Curiosity. McCuistion said the roving laboratory's mission was scheduled to last two years, but it could have enough power for 20 years. |  |
Mars Methane Mystery: Curiosity Rover May Find New Clues
There’s growing buzz about data gleaned by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, specifically over the issue of methane detection on the Red Planet.
On one hand, methane can be geological in origin. But then there’s the prospect that the gas is biotic, or caused by living organisms — meaning it could be the gaseous residue of long-extinct microbes or even the output of Martian organisms alive and well today. |  |
Robots to tend lettuce fields, saving farmers’ backs
Robots built and programmed to perform tedious, back-breaking tasks such as thinning and weeding lettuce fields could make labor shortages on the farm a distant nightmare for industrial agricultural operations of tomorrow.
Such a machine, known as the Lettuce Bot, is under development at Blue River Technologies, a company headed by a pair of Stanford University-trained engineers and backed by marquee Silicon Valley investors including Kholsa Ventures and startup guru Steve Blank, the Economist reports. |  |
Grandmas Made Humans Live Longer
Computer simulations provide new mathematical support for the "grandmother hypothesis" -- a famous theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren.
"Grandmothering was the initial step toward making us who we are," says Kristen Hawkes, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and senior author of the new study published Oct. 24 by the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. |  |
Secret of the intricate pattern of cauliflowers unlocked and described with maths
Scientists have unlocked the secrets behind the intricate pattern on cauliflowers.
In a new study, researchers have discovered a mathematical formula to describe the processes that dictate how cauliflower-like patterns - a type of fractal pattern - form and develop. The term fractal describes a pattern that, when you take a small part of it, looks similar, although perhaps not identical, to its full structure. For example, the leaf of a fern tree resembles the full plant and a river's tributary resembles the shape of the river itself. Nature is full of fractal patterns; they can be seen in clouds, lightning bolts, crystals, snowflakes, mountains, and blood vessels. |  |
Placebo's Effect May Depend on Your Genes
Your response to placebos, or dummy medicine, may depend on your genes, according to a new study.
People with a gene variant that codes for higher levels of the brain chemical dopamine respond better to placebos than those with the low-dopamine version.
The findings, reported online Oct. 23 in the journal PLoS One, could help researchers design medical studies that distinguish the placebo response from the underlying effect of a medicine — the real aim of drug trials.
People with a gene variant that codes for higher levels of the brain chemical dopamine respond better to placebos than those with the low-dopamine version.
The findings, reported online Oct. 23 in the journal PLoS One, could help researchers design medical studies that distinguish the placebo response from the underlying effect of a medicine — the real aim of drug trials.
Who were the most dangerous scientists in history?
The recent Italian court ruling that respected seismologists are guilty of manslaughter and should serve six years in prison for failing to predict the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake has sent shockwaves through the scientific community.
Please forgive the questionable choice of metaphor in the last sentence there. The decision has been widely decried by the scientific community as poorly thought out bordering on ridiculous, largely due to the quite reasonable argument that earthquakes cannot be predicted with any useful degree of accuracy, despite all the modern technology and understanding at our disposal. Therefore, it is ridiculous for scientists to be jailed for not doing something that it's impossible to do. The ability to predict an earthquake accurately would be truly groundbreaking. |  |
U.S. to study cancer risks near 6 nuclear plants
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced plans Tuesday to launch a pilot epidemiological study of cancer risks near six nuclear power plants, including San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in north San Diego County.
The commission is acting out of growing concern that using uranium to produce electricity may be dangerous even without accidents at nuclear plants. In addition, recent epidemiological studies in Germany and France suggest that the children living near nuclear reactors are twice as likely to develop leukemia. |
Major Solar Flare Erupts From the Sun
The sun unleased a powerful solar flare late Monday (Oct. 22), releasing waves of radiation into space that have already caused a short radio blackout on Earth.
The flare erupted from the sunspot AR 11598 (short for Active Region 11598), and reached peak brightness at 11:22 p.m. EDT (0322 GMT this morning, Oct. 23), according to scientists working on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a space telescope that constantly monitors the sun with high-definition cameras. It ranked as an X1.8 solar flare, one of the strongest types of solar flares, according to the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) run by NOAA and the National Weather Service. |  |
6.5 earthquake shakes Costa Rica's Pacific coast
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — A powerful earthquake struck Costa Rica's Pacific coast on Tuesday, swaying buildings and sending people running into the streets in the nation's capital of San Jose.
The 6.5-magnitude quake was centered in the Guanacaste region of the Central American country, only 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the popular tourist town of Nicoya, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It had a depth of 24.5 miles (39.5 kilometers), according to a preliminary report.
The 6.5-magnitude quake was centered in the Guanacaste region of the Central American country, only 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the popular tourist town of Nicoya, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It had a depth of 24.5 miles (39.5 kilometers), according to a preliminary report.
Mythic mosaics conceal subliminal messages
New research carried out by professor Luz Neira from the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) shows that depictions of Greek gods and heroes were symbols of the values of all that Rome stood for.
Previously it had been shown that memory and conscious self-interested re-use of myths was important, but this new research examines the possibility that there is a subliminal message regarding the Roman elites’ fundamental concept of civilisation versus barbarism.
Previously it had been shown that memory and conscious self-interested re-use of myths was important, but this new research examines the possibility that there is a subliminal message regarding the Roman elites’ fundamental concept of civilisation versus barbarism.
China building first vessel for underwater archaeology
BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- China plans to build its first vessel capable of retrieving archaeological findings from the sea by the end of 2013, a major step to strengthening the underwater search abilities of Chinese archaeologists who currently rely on rented shipping boats.
The 4.8-metre wide and 56-metre long boat, to be powered by an integrated full electric propulsion system, will "basically" meet China's underwater archaeological needs, according to a statement released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) on Wednesday.
The 4.8-metre wide and 56-metre long boat, to be powered by an integrated full electric propulsion system, will "basically" meet China's underwater archaeological needs, according to a statement released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) on Wednesday.
A Swedish Stonehenge? Stone Age Tomb May Predate English Site
A 5,500-year-old tomb possibly belonging to a Stone Age chieftain has been unearthed at a megalithic monument in the shape of a ship called the Ale's Stenar (Ale's Stones). The tomb, in Sweden, was likely robbed of stones to build the Viking-era ship monument.
"We found traces — mostly imprints — of large boulders," said lead archaeologist Bengst Söderberg of the Swedish National Heritage Board. "So my conviction is that some of the stones at least, they are standing on the ship setting.". |  |
Easter Island’s gargantuan stone statues walked. That is the controversial claim from archaeologists who have demonstrated the feat with a 4.4-tonne model of one of the baffling busts. They describe their work in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Nearly 1,000 statues litter Easter Island's 163 square kilometres, with the largest weighing 74 tonnes and standing 10 metres tall. Much about the megaliths is mystery, but few of the enigmas are more perplexing than how the statues were shuttled kilometres from the rock quarries where they were carved. |  |
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