Data gathered by NASA’s Cassini probe as it repeatedly swept past Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, offers the best evidence yet that the smog-swaddled satellite has a substantial ocean of water sloshing beneath a thick icy crust.
During Titan’s 16-day orbit around Saturn, the distance between the moon and its planet ranges from slightly less than 1.19 million kilometres to almost 1.26 million km — a disparity that generates tides that flex the moon’s surface, says Luciano Iess, a planetary scientist at the Sapienza University of Rome. Estimates of the size of those tides and their effects can provide clues about the moon’s internal structure, he explains. |  |
June 30 2012
Mars Has "Oceans" of Water Inside?
Mars could have entire oceans' worth of water locked in rocks deep underground, scientists say.
The finding suggests that ancient volcanic eruptions may have been major sources of water on early Mars—and could have created habitable environments. According to a new study, Martian meteorites contain a surprising amount of hydrated minerals, which have water incorporated in their crystalline structures. In fact, the study authors estimate that the Martian mantle currently contains between 70 and 300 parts per million of water—enough to cover the planet in liquid 660 to 3,300 feet (200 to 1,000 meters) deep. |  |
June 30 2012
Significant sea-level rise in a 2-degree warming world
The study is the first to give a comprehensive projection for this long perspective, based on observed sea-level rise over the past millennium, as well as on scenarios for future greenhouse-gas emissions.
"Sea-level rise is a hard to quantify, yet critical risk of climate change," says Michiel Schaeffer of Climate Analytics and Wageningen University, lead author of the study. "Due to the long time it takes for the world's ice and water masses to react to global warming, our emissions today determine sea levels for centuries to come."
"Sea-level rise is a hard to quantify, yet critical risk of climate change," says Michiel Schaeffer of Climate Analytics and Wageningen University, lead author of the study. "Due to the long time it takes for the world's ice and water masses to react to global warming, our emissions today determine sea levels for centuries to come."
June 30 2012
Rome Icon Actually Younger Than the City
The icon of Rome's foundation, a life-size bronze statue of a she-wolf with two human infants suckling her, is about 1,700 years younger than its city, Rome's officials admitted on Saturday.
The official announcement, made at the Capitoline Museums, where the 30 inch-high bronze is the centerpiece of a dedicated room, quashes the belief that the sculpture was adopted by the earliest Romans as a symbol for their city. "The new dating ranges between 1021 e il 1153," said Lucio Calcagnile, who carried radiocarbon tests at the University of Salento's Center for Dating e Diagnostics. |  |
June 30 2012
Complex Thinking Behind the Bow and Arrow
University of Tübingen and South African researchers have revealed sophisticated design and technology developed by early humans.
The bow and arrow have long been regarded as a possible indicator of culture in prehistoric times. Bows and arrows appear to have been in use for some 64,000 years, given evidence from South Africa. Until recently, their significance in human cognitive ability was unclear. Now two researchers have been able to decode the conceptual foundations of the bow and arrow. The results of the study, by Miriam Haidle of the Heidelberg Academy's ROCEEH project (sponsored by the Senckenberg Research Institute) and the University of Tübingen and Marlize Lombard of the University of Johannesburg, appear in the latest edition of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. |  |
June 30 2012
The origin of artists: why humans should take credit for inventing art
Why do Neanderthals so fascinate Homo sapiens? And why are we so keen to exaggerate their virtues?
It is political correctness gone prehistoric. At every opportunity, people rush to attribute "human" virtues to this extinct human-like species. The latest generosity is to credit them with the first true art. A recent redating of cave art in Spain has revealed the oldest paintings in Europe. A red dot in the cave El Castillo has now been dated at 40,800 years ago – considerably older than the cave art of Chauvet in France and contemporary with the arrival of the very first "modern humans", Homo sapiens, in Europe. |  |
June 30 2012
Oldest obsidian bracelet reveals amazing craftsmen's skills in the eighth millennium BC
Researchers from the Institut Français d'Etudes Anatoliennes in Istanbul and the Laboratoire de Tribologie et de Dynamiques des Systèmes have analyzed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey. Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet's surface and its micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BC. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today's polishing techniques.
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June 30 2012
Unraveling the mysteries of exotic superconductors
In traditional electrical lines, a significant amount of energy is lost while the energy travels from its source to homes and businesses due to resistance. Superconductors, materials that when cooled have zero electric resistance, have the promise of someday increasing the efficiency of power distribution, but more must still be learned about superconductors before they can be widely used for that purpose.
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June 30 2012
Biological switch paves way for improved biofuel production
Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered a mechanism that controls the way that organisms breathe or photosynthesise, potentially paving the way for improved biofuel production.
Writing in the journal PNAS, Dr Lu-ning Lu and Professor Conrad Mullineaux from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences report that by exposing cells to different light conditions, they have changed the way in which electrons are transported. |  |
June 30 2012
Eating garbage: Bacteria for bioremediation
A 150-foot-high garbage dump in Colombia, South America, may have new life as a public park. Researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated that bacteria found in the dump can be used to neutralize the contaminants in the soil.
Jerry Sims, a U of I associate professor of crop sciences and USDA-Agricultural Research Service research leader and Andres Gomez, a graduate student from Medellín, Colombia, have been working on a landfill called "El Morro" in the Moravia Hill neighborhood of Medellín, which served as the city dump from 1972 to 1984. |  |
June 30 2012
NASA's Biggest Rocket: Thrust Would Be Useful Now
Some of the more exciting plans for the future of space exploration are currently quite literally out of reach.
The United States doesn't have the rocket power to send men to the moon or to Mars. There are some big rockets in the pipeline that will soon restore that power to the United States, but none can match the power of Nova. Nova was NASA's first heavy launch vehicle that never made it to the launch pad -- let alone off it. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is one big rocket, and currently the only commercial one that will have the ability to send men beyond Earth orbit. And we might see it fly sooner rather than later. |  |
June 30 2012
It's time to get serious about space junk danger, experts say
Time is running out to get serious about fixing the problem of space debris, experts say.
As more countries around the world build up their space capabilities, U.S. lawmakers are keen to address the growing issue of potentially harmful debris in orbit. But while policies have attempted to tackle the problem, no major strides have been made. |  |
June 30 2012
How the UK led mankind's mission to the stars
The American defence department's research wing, Darpa, has awarded $500,000 (£319k) to form the 100 Year Starship initiative and help make interstellar travel a reality.
Former Nasa astronaut Mae Jemison, who flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992, will head the new independent organisation that will strive to turn Star Trek from fiction into something resembling fact. The goal is to bring all sorts of disciplines together, from engineers to philosophers, to design a spacecraft that could set off to carry people to the stars within the next hundred years. |  |
June 30 2012
Extraterrestrial Mining Could Reap Riches & Spur Exploration
GOLDEN, Colo. — Mining the plentiful resources of the moon and near-Earth asteroids could alter the course of human history, adding trillions of dollars to the world economy and spurring our species' spread out into the solar system, a new breed of space enterpreneur says.
A number of private companies — such as the billionaire-backed asteroid-mining firm Planetary Resources — aim to start making all of this happen. But it won't be easy, as hitting extraterrestrial paydirt requires melding the know-how of the space and mining communities. |  |
Scientists set to show how they hacked into Stephen Hawking's brain
After months of tweaking, researchers are finally ready to show off a high-tech headband that can translate Stephen Hawking's brain waves into speech — providing what could eventually become an easier avenue for the paralyzed British physicist and many others to share their deep thoughts.
The system, developed by San Diego-based NeuroVigil and known as iBrain, uses a head-mounted receiver the size of a matchbox to pick up different types of brain waves. iBrain employs a computer algorithm called SPEARS to analyze the brain emanations and encode them for a text-based speech reader. Philip Low, NeuroVigil's founder, chairman and CEO, is to present the latest results from his work with Hawking on July 7 at a Cambridge conference on consciousness. |  |
Polluted legacy: Repairing Britain's damaged landscapes
The Industrial Revolution, which made Britain the powerhouse of the world in the 19th Century, may have been consigned to the history books but it has left a legacy of environmental problems.
Experts warn it continues to pollute drinking water, poison rivers and threaten flooding and in the process it fuels climate change and affects huge swathes of the modern landscape. The mining of lead, tin and other metals is thought to have contaminated nearly 2,000 miles of waterways. Estimated repair costs run into the hundreds of millions. |  |
Cow and woman found in Cambridgeshire Anglo-Saxon dig
Archaeologists excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Cambridgeshire say the discovery of a woman buried with a cow is a "genuinely bizarre" find.
The grave was uncovered in Oakington by students from Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Central Lancashire. At first it was thought the animal skeleton was a horse. Student Jake Nuttall said: "Male warriors might be buried with horses, but a woman and a cow is new to us." |  |
Cavemen Bones Yield Oldest Modern Human DNA
What may be the oldest fragments of the modern human genome found yet have now been revealed — DNA from the 7,000-year-old bones of two cavemen unearthed in Spain, researchers say.
These findings suggest the cavemen there were not the ancestors of the people found in the region today, investigators added. |  |
Earth's oldest impact crater found in Greenland
You'd have to go to the moon or Mars to find a bigger impact crater than the one discovered in Greenland.
An asteroid 30 kilometres across smashed into Greenland three billion years ago, creating a crater that was once 25 kilometres deep and 600 kilometres wide. That dwarfs the oldest known impact crater on Earth, the Vredefort crater in South Africa, both in age and size. The Vredefort is about two billion years old and about 300 kilometres across. The new find is centred to the east of what is now the town of Maniitsoq on Greenland's western coastline. What remains of the original crater is only about 100 kilometres wide. |  |
Tulane team finds Maya message telling what to expect on December 21, 2012
Two Tulane University archaeologists have accomplished what might seem impossible: They found something timely at a 1,500-year-old Maya ruin. It happened in mid-April, when Jocelyne Ponce and Marcello Canuto were examining hieroglyphics that had been carved into limestone staircase risers at a temple deep in the Guatemalan jungle.
At the end of what Canuto described as "a long, elaborate text" about a Maya king, they found what turned out to be a clear reference to Dec. 21, 2012, the date that has made some people quake in fear because they believe that is the date the world will end. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute, is not one of those people. |  |