A crater on the moon that is a prime target for human exploration may be tantalizingly rich in ice, though researchers warn it could just as well hold none at all.
The scientists investigated Shackleton Crater, which sits almost directly on the moon's south pole. The crater, named after the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, is more than 12 miles wide (19 kilometers) and 2 miles deep (3 km) — about as deep as Earth's oceans. |  |
Why Do So Many Cultures Have a Version of Bigfoot?
More than a quarter of Americans believe in Bigfoot, a recent poll found. They claim this legendary bipedal ape, a "long lost relative" of humans, evades detection in remote woodland areas. Although it may seem strange to think a 7-foot-tall land mammal could go unnoticed for so long, the notion is actually widespread.
Along with that sizeable minority of Americans, an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll found that 21 percent of Canadians also believe in an undiscovered hairy humanoid, which they prefer to call Sasquatch. In Russia, belief in a similar creature, called the Yeti, is so common that local branches of the Russian government have funded Yeti expeditions, and the country has even considered founding an entire institute devoted to the study of Yetis. |  |
Amazon under threat again as Brazil's boom takes high toll
AS WORLD leaders in Rio de Janeiro this week tried to map a sustainable future for the planet, their host Brazil provided a ready-made example of the dilemma they face.
In recent years the country has made huge strides in tackling deforestation in the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest, 60 per cent of which lies within its borders. Latest figures show the rate at which the jungle is being cleared in Brazil is at its lowest since records began in 1988. But at the same time as Brazil celebrates its successes in the rainforest, it is scrambling to secure future energy sources for an expanding economy, and is increasingly looking to the Amazon to do so. |  |
'Aquanauts' Complete Mock Asteroid Mission on Ocean Floor
Four "aquanauts" returned to dry land today (June 22), after spending 12 days living on the ocean floor off the Florida coast as part of a NASA-led mock mission to an asteroid.
The undersea explorers wrapped up the 16th expedition of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations Program, or NEEMO 16 this morning, emerging from the water at 9:11 a.m. EDT (1311 GMT), NASA officials confirmed. |  |
Dino Dealer Says He's Not a 'Smuggler,' Calls Fossil 'Political Trophy'
A Florida fossil dealer who prepared the skeleton of a tyrannosaur and attempted to sell it at auction, questions assertions that the fossils were taken illegally from Mongolia, and says the dispute over its ownership has brought financial ruin on his family.
"Imagine watching your house burn down with everything you have in it and knowing you have no insurance," Eric Prokopi, a commercial fossil dealer based in Gainesville, Fla., writes in a lengthy statement issued to reporters today (June 22). The lost sale of the dinosaur has been devastating, he writes. |  |
Birds Poop On Red Cars Most, Study Says
If you drive a car, you'll be blue when you read this: red cars attract more bird droppings than any other color.
The game-changing evidence comes from a new study from Great Britain, which recorded the number of "emissions" made on cars by the birds in five British cities. More than 1100 cars were analyzed over a two-day period and at the end, 18 percent of the pooped-on cars were red and 14 percent were blue, followed by black (11 percent), white (7 percent), grey or silver (3 percent) and green cars, which only got one percent of the bird bombs, according to Independent Online. |  |
The Blue Planet? Martian crater is blue, not red
Detail of an Old Master oil painting, a close-up of a copper-rich mineral, or the vivid colours of a paua shell? The image is in fact the surface of an alien world: an enhanced-colour image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera.
Each colour represents a different type of rock, the mix of minerals churned up by a meteor striking the surface close to the Nili Fossae region. Known as ejecta, these rocks surround an impact crater and give scientists a chance to examine the planet's ancient bedrock. |  |
Mars Snow Falls Like Dry Ice Fog
In the dead of Martian winter, the snowflakes that blanket the planet's poles are no bigger than red blood cells, according to a new study of the icy particles.
The results suggest that, rather than resembling a blizzard, Mars snow would probably look like fog as it fell.
Previous data from NASA's Phoenix mission revealed snow falling near the red planet's north pole as the seasons turned from summer to fall. At the time the air was relatively warm, so those ice crystals were most likely made from water, scientists say.
The results suggest that, rather than resembling a blizzard, Mars snow would probably look like fog as it fell.
Previous data from NASA's Phoenix mission revealed snow falling near the red planet's north pole as the seasons turned from summer to fall. At the time the air was relatively warm, so those ice crystals were most likely made from water, scientists say.
DNA research provides a glimpse of Britians oldest inhabitants
Recent ongoing research suggests that the Welsh are genetically distinct from the rest of mainland Britain. Professor Peter Donnelly, of Oxford University, showed that many individuals in Wales carry DNA which could be traced back to the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago.
The project surveyed over 2,000 people in rural areas across Britain who could trace their origins back at least three generations in the same location.
The project surveyed over 2,000 people in rural areas across Britain who could trace their origins back at least three generations in the same location.
New Videogame Lets Amateur Researchers Mess with RNA
Jessica Fournier has a job that makes poor use of her talents. She spends her days stocking sneakers at a warehouse outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. A decade ago she was an astrophysics student at Michigan State University, where she coauthored a paper on RR Lyrae, a low-mass star that pulsates light. But having failed to secure long-term employment in her arcane field, today she pays her bills by cataloging shoe sizes.
She may have given up astrophysics, but Fournier still has a deep love of science. As soon as she gets home from work each night, she boots up her Asus laptop and begins what she calls “my second job”: designing molecules of ribonucleic acid—RNA—that have the power to build proteins or regulate genes. It is a job that she happens to perform better than almost anyone else on earth. |  |
Top Predators Key to Extinctions as Planet Warms
Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science.
"Currently, most models predicting the effects of climate change treat species separately and focus only on climatic and environmental drivers," said Phoebe Zarnetske, the study's primary author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "But we know that species don't exist in a vacuum. They interact with each other in ways that deeply affect their viability. |  |
Canine Coworkers: Wired’s Best Friends
SAN FRANCISCO -- On any given day, there will be at least a couple dogs, and sometimes a dozen or more, in the Wired office. This is a great perk for dog owners and dogophilic colleagues alike, for sure. But it turns out that allowing best friends to come to work also benefits our employers.
Study after study has shown that pets can increase happiness, health, longevity and other good stuff, as well as decrease depression, loneliness and stress in our lives. And recent research has shown that these benefits follow Fido wherever he goes. Bringing dogs to the office can reduce employees' stress, increase morale and job satisfaction and even boost productivity.
Study after study has shown that pets can increase happiness, health, longevity and other good stuff, as well as decrease depression, loneliness and stress in our lives. And recent research has shown that these benefits follow Fido wherever he goes. Bringing dogs to the office can reduce employees' stress, increase morale and job satisfaction and even boost productivity.
Study Suggests Climate Change Led to Collapse of Harappan Civilization
According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the new research also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.
The Harappan (or Indus) civilization was the largest — but least known — of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like their contemporaries, the Harappans, named for one of their largest cities, lived next to rivers owing their livelihoods to the fertility of annually watered lands. “We reconstructed the dynamic landscape of the plain where the Indus civilization developed 5200 years ago, built its cities, and slowly disintegrated between 3900 and 3000 years ago,” said Liviu Giosan, a geologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and lead author of the research. “Until now, speculations abounded about the links between this mysterious ancient culture and its life-giving mighty rivers. |  |
The Bioarchaeology of Care: A Case Study From Neolithic Vietnam
A recent article in the International Journal of Palaeopathology, ‘Survival against the odds: modelling the social implications of care provision to seriously disabled individuals’ by Tilley & Oxenham (2011), proposed a new methodology called the ‘bioarchaeology of care’ to investigate the nature of support required to sustain life for disabled individuals in the archaeological record.
The focus of the investigation is the individual called Man Bac burial 9 (M9), from a Neolithic cemetery site (1700-2000BC) located in Ninh Binh province of northern Vietnam, 100 km north of Hanoi. Excavations between 1999 & 2007 uncovered 95 individuals from the site occupying a mouth of an estuary of the Red River Delta.
The focus of the investigation is the individual called Man Bac burial 9 (M9), from a Neolithic cemetery site (1700-2000BC) located in Ninh Binh province of northern Vietnam, 100 km north of Hanoi. Excavations between 1999 & 2007 uncovered 95 individuals from the site occupying a mouth of an estuary of the Red River Delta.
The Olympics – ancient and modern
The Olympic Games of AD165 ended in a horribly spectacular fashion. Just a couple of miles from the main stadium, watched by a large crowd, an old man called Peregrinus Proteus – an ex-Christian convert, turned loud-mouthed pagan philosopher and religious guru – jumped on to a blazing pyre to his death. He had been threatening to do this ever since the previous Olympics, four years earlier. The self-immolation was modelled on the mythical death of Heracles (one of the legendary founders of the Games) and was meant as a gesture of protest at the corrupt wealth of the human world, as well as a lesson to the guru's followers in how to endure suffering.
|  |
Call for Ray Bradbury to be honoured with internet error message
A new status code to reflect internet censorship could be named after Ray Bradbury's most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury's fiction looks set to enter the structure of the internet, after a software developer has proposed a new HTTP status code inspired by Fahrenheit 451. Tim Bray, a fan of Bradbury's writing, is recommending to the Internet Engineering Task Force, which governs such choices, that when access to a website is denied for legal reasons the user is given the status code 451. |  |
The poison beneath: How toxic waste from injection wells could be endangering the U.S. water supply
Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground.
No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia. There are growing signs they were mistaken. Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant portion of the nation's drinking water. |  |
Solar-powered plane completes Moroccan desert flight
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse landed in Ouarzazate at 26 minutes after midnight (2326 GMT) after having taken off from Rabat at dawn on Thursday.
"Once again, the flight was magnificent," Borschberg said shortly before landing. Earlier, during the flight, pilot Andre Borschberg told AFP by satellite telephone from his cockpit said he was optimistic about the chances of success. |  |
Mosquito-inspired microneedle 'will herald the beginning of painless injections', researchers say
A painless hypodermic needle the size of a mosquito's bloodsucking mouthparts is under development by medical technologists.
Japanese microengineers have created a minute needle just a milimetre long and with a diameter of 0.1mm that uses the same mechanism as the insect's unique jaws to pierce human skin. With seven moving parts, female mosquito mouthparts, known as the proboscis, are highly specialised and touch the nerves of the skin at fewer points than the smooth surface on man-made needles. |  |