Maya Archaeologists Unearth New 2012 Monument With 'End Date' of Dec. 21, 2012
Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a 1,300-year-old-year Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called "end date" of the Maya calendar, December 21, 2012. The discovery, one of the most significant hieroglyphic finds in decades, was announced June 28 at the National Palace in Guatemala.
"This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy," says Marcello A. Canuto, director of Tulane's Middle American Research Institute and co-director of the excavations at La Corona. |  |
Mysterious Fairy Circles Are ‘Alive’
Walter Tschinkel may not have solved the mystery of the fairy circles, but he can tell you that they’re alive. Tens of thousands of the formations — bare patches of soil, 2 to 12 meters in diameter — freckle grasslands from southern Angola to northern South Africa, their perimeters often marked by a tall fringe of grass. Locals say they’re the footprints of the gods. Scientists have thrown their hands up in the air. But now Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has discovered something no one else has.
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Timbuktu world heritage site attacked by Islamists
Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes have destroyed the centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the Unesco-listed city of Timbuktu in front of shocked locals, witnesses say.
The attack by the al-Qaida-linked Ansar Dine group came days after Unesco placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger and will recall the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two sixth-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan. |  |
Tiny tracks of first complex animal life discovered
A teensy sluglike animal that wriggled around the sediment in search of food at least 585 million years ago didn't die in vain. The tiny mover left behind tracks that researchers now say represent evidence of the earliest known bilateral animal, or multicellular life with bilateral symmetry.
The finding, detailed in the June 29 issue of the journal Science, pushes back the date for the existence of advanced multicellular animal life by at least 30 million years. The oldest evidence before this discovery came from Russia and dated to 555 million years ago. |  |
July 1 2012
Can Evolution Make the Next Generation of Computer Chips?
In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a prediction about computing that has held true to this day. Moore’s law, as it came to be known, forecasted that the number of transistors we’d be able to cram onto a circuit—and thereby, the effective processing speed of our computers—would double roughly every two years. Remarkably enough, this rule has been accurate for nearly 50 years, but most experts now predict that this growth will slow by the end of the decade.
Someday, though, a radical new approach to creating silicon semiconductors might enable this rate to continue—and could even accelerate it. As detailed in a study published in this month’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara and elsewhere have harnessed the process of evolution to produce enzymes that create novel semiconductor structures. |  |
Oldest sound recording resurrected from Paper (Video- 1:48)
Modern technology may have resurrected the oldest sound recording in the world from an image in a German magazine from 1890. The recording is the muffled voice of the father of the gramophone, Emile Berliner he recites Friedrich Schiller's ballad ''Der Handschuh.'' Ben Gruber reports.
New Mind-Reading Device Lets Paralyzed People Type
Imagine that a debilitating illness, stroke or accident has left you entirely paralyzed. You’re fully conscious but unable to move or even communicate with those around you. People in this condition—known as Locked-in Syndrome—suffer greatly, locked in their own minds, appearing superficially to be in a persistent vegetative state despite a full inner life.
A new device, described in a paper published yesterday in the journal Current Biology, may offer hope to those locked-in: a new use of fMRI technology to read minds. The experimental setup allows individuals to “type” 27 symbols (26 letters and a space) without saying a word or moving a muscle, but rather by simply engaging in different thought patterns. The system could someday provide a practical means of daily communication for those who are unable to move. |  |
Meat-Like Vegetarian Fare: Replicating the Nutrition, Texture and Taste of Meat and Eggs
The "emerging, next-generation plant-based meat (alternatives) promise to deliver the sensory experience of conventional animal proteins for specific culinary applications," said Nicholas J. Genovese, PhD, visiting scholar and consultant at the University of Missour¬i-Columbia. In addition, scientists are growing in-vitro meat cells and muscle that may someday replace chicken, beef and pork.
The average American eats 864 pounds of meat each year, according to visualeconomics.com, a consumption level that cannot be sustained economically or environmentally, said Genovese.
The average American eats 864 pounds of meat each year, according to visualeconomics.com, a consumption level that cannot be sustained economically or environmentally, said Genovese.
Mystery mass deaths of green turtles in Australia
Scientists were at a loss Friday to explain the mysterious deaths of more than 70 green turtles that have washed up on beaches in northeast Australia over the last week.
Queensland state authorities said 62 of the vulnerable species were confirmed dead and another 10 were spotted floating at sea by a helicopter.
Marty McLaughlin, operations manager at Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services, said the turtles were nourished and had no obvious signs of illness.
Queensland state authorities said 62 of the vulnerable species were confirmed dead and another 10 were spotted floating at sea by a helicopter.
Marty McLaughlin, operations manager at Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services, said the turtles were nourished and had no obvious signs of illness.
July 1 2012
The Dam Boom in the Amazon
A confrontation between the insatiable appetite for energy and the enduring need for habitability is under way in Brazil as it moves aggressively to harness the power of its rivers with plans for dozens of hydroelectric dams.
Such projects are engineering and aesthetic marvels that provide hydroelectric power and can also control floods and direct water for irrigation. But they also divert rivers, destroy animal habitat, displace entire communities and drown vast amounts of land beneath reservoirs. |  |
Cambodian villagers protest controversial Laos dam
Cambodian villagers demonstrated on Friday against a controversial Lao hydropower dam that activists say is being built in defiance of an agreement to assess its potentially damaging impact on millions of people first.
About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt to the Thai-led construction of the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam, which has angered Cambodia's government and triggered a rare rebuke by Laos's biggest ally, Vietnam.
About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt to the Thai-led construction of the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam, which has angered Cambodia's government and triggered a rare rebuke by Laos's biggest ally, Vietnam.
Cyborg makes art using seventh sense
Neil Harbisson can only see shades of grey. So his prosthetic eyepiece, which he calls an “eyeborg”, interprets the colours for him and translates them into sound. Harbisson’s art sounds like a kind of inverse synaesthesia. But where synaesthetes experience numbers or letters as colours or even “taste” words, for example, Harbisson’s art is down to a precise transposition of colour into sound frequencies. As a result, he is able to create facial portraits purely out of sound, and he can tell you that the colour of Mozart’s music is mostly yellow. Liz Else caught up with him at the TEDGlobal conference.
First female taikonaut: 'It's good to stand on Earth'
Liu Yang, the first Chinese woman in space, returned to Earth today as the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft landed safely in Inner Mongolia at 10:05 local time (02:05 GMT). The descent was slowed by parachutes, as well as rockets which fired when the capsule was 1 metre above the ground, slowing the capsule to a touchdown speed of 3.5 metres per second. Upon exiting the Shenzhou-9 capsule, Liu said "It feels so good to stand on Earth, and it feels even better to be home".
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How to Tweet to Aliens Tonight
Don't forget to contact aliens this evening.
All Twitter messages composed between 8 p.m. EDT Friday (June 29) and 3 a.m. EDT Saturday (June 30) tagged with the hashtag #ChasingUFOs will be collectively beamed up to space Aug. 15, toward a spot in the sky from which a possible alien signal originated. The cosmic tweet is a belated reply to the Wow! signal, a mysterious radio transmission that was detected at the Big Ear radio observatory in Ohio in 1977 coming from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. At its peak, the 72-second transmission was 30 times more powerful than ambient radiation from deep space, prompting the volunteer astronomer Jerry Ehman to scrawl "Wow!" next to the data on a computer printout, giving the signal its name |  |
Red Crucifix sighting in 774 may have been supernova
A supernova may have actually been the mysterious "Red Crucifix" in the sky that is cited in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 774. New correspondence between a university student and Nature carries interesting observations that astronomers could be looking at a previously unrecognized supernova. Historical texts like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have made reference to astronomical events before and a sighting in 774 told of a red crucifix in the sky in Britain during evening hours. Some say the sighting could have been what was the result of a supernova explosion.
Possible mammoth cemetery found in Serbia
Serbian archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least seven mammoths at a dig at an open pit mine, which could turn out to be a mammoth cemetery, lead archaeologist Miomir Korac told AFP Friday.
"We are at the start of the excavations. We first found the remains of one mammoth and then every 30 metres or so the bones of six more animals at the same depth," said Korac, who leads the team carrying out the dig. The bones, including an almost 2-metre (6.5-foott) tusk, were found in the Kostolac mine some 70 kilometres (45 miles) to the east of Belgrade. |  |
Oldest Neolithic Bow Discovered in Europe
Researchers from UAB and CSIC have discovered the oldest Neolithic bow in Europe at La Draga Neolithic site in Banyoles yields. The complete bow measures 108 cm long and was constructed of yew wood.
Archaeological research carried out at the Neolithic site of La Draga, near the lake of Banyoles, has yielded the discovery of an item which is unique to the western Mediterranean and Europe. The item is a bow dating from the period between 5400-5200 BCE, corresponding to the earliest period of settlement. It is the first bow to be found intact at the site. It can be considered the most ancient bow of the Neolithic period found in Europe. |  |
Ancient human ancestors had unique diet, according to study involving CU Boulder
When it came to eating, an upright, 2-million-year-old African hominid had a diet unlike virtually all other known human ancestors, says a study led by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and involving the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study indicated that Australopithecus sediba — a short, gangly hominid that lived in South Africa — ate harder foods than other early hominids, targeting trees, bushes and fruits. In contrast, virtually all other ancient human ancestors tested from Africa — including Paranthropus boisei, dubbed “Nutcracker Man” because of its massive jaws and teeth — focused more on grasses and sedges, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Paul Sandberg, a co-author on the new study. |  |