Hidden rift valley discovered beneath West Antarctica reveals new insight into ice loss
Scientists have discovered a one mile deep rift valley hidden beneath the ice in West Antarctica, which they believe is contributing to ice loss from this part of the continent.
Experts from the University of Aberdeen and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) made the discovery below Ferrigno Ice Stream, a region visited only once previously, over fifty years ago, in 1961, and one that is remote even by Antarctic standards. Their findings, reported in Nature this week reveal that the ice-filled ancient rift basin is connected to the warming ocean which impacts upon contemporary ice flow and loss. |  |
Aesop's Fable unlocks how we think
Cambridge scientists have used an age-old fable to help illustrate how we think differently to other animals.
Lucy Cheke, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge's Department of Experimental Psychology expanded Aesop's fable into three tasks of varying complexity and compared the performance of Eurasian Jays with local school children. The task that set the children apart from the Jays involved a mechanism which was counter-intuitive as it was hidden under an opaque surface. Neither the birds nor the children were able to learn how the mechanism worked, but the children were able to learn how to get the reward, whereas the birds were not. |  |
Beowulf and Iliad 'more plausible than Shakespeare'
The findings support historians' belief that ancient myths including Beowulf, The Iliad and the traditional Irish poem Táin Bó Cuailnge may be based, at least in part, on real communities and people.
Researchers from Coventry University analysed the texts of the three ancient stories and compared the complex web of characters' relationships with the type of "social networks" that occur in real life. For each character the physicists calculated their popularity, based on how many relationships they had with other characters and whether they were friends or enemies. Then, they examined the overall dynamic between the cast as a whole. |  |
Rejoice! Today's a Day Out of Time!
If you are feeling a little strange Tuesday, a bit out of sorts, there could be a good reason for it. Wednesday is officially a "Day Out of Time" – for those who follow the 13-moon calendar, at least. The calendar breaks the 365-day annual cycle of the Earth going round the sun into 13 months of 28 days. If you do the maths, that comes to 364, which leaves one day spare, a day belonging to no week or month, between the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Wednesday!.
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Female Space Robot Learns to Move Like a Human
A space robot with a female form could someday join NASA's humanoid robot in helping human astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Germany's AILA robot has a female figure, a head molded into the shape of a modern female hairstyle, and large, dark eyes — a different look compared with the broad-shouldered torso and space helmet head of NASA's Robonaut 2. But both robots could have the right stuff to show how humans and robots can work together more efficiently in future space exploration. "We must build systems that approach the capabilities of the people," said Dr. Frank Kirchner, director of the Robotics Innovation Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and the Robotics Group at the University of Bremen. |  |
Mangroves: A Filter for Heavy Metals
A mangrove is a forest consisting of various species of mangrove trees growing with their bases submerged in water, at the interface between land and sea. They cover more than three quarters of tropical coastlines, that is to say almost 200,000km². In New Caledonia, they accounts for almost 80% of the island's western coastline. They act as a buffer zone between the lagoon and the mountain mining areas, rich in metallic elements (iron, manganese, nickel, chrome and cobalt, nearly all toxic pollutants).
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Submarine Volcanoes Help Rebuild Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef's amazing diversity of life gets a helping hand from distant underwater volcanic eruptions, a new study has found.
Submarine volcanoes can spit out trillions of pieces of floating rock upon which corals and other organisms hitch a ride to the world's largest reef, where they can thrive and multiply, according to research published this month in the journal PLoS One. |  |
Iron-fertilised algae plunges to seabed, along with absorbed carbon
Oceanographers have published a study revealing that fertilising algae with iron causes it to undergo a growth spurt before dying and plunging to the seabed, taking the carbon it has absorbed with it.
Phytoplankton rapidly absorbs heat-trapping carbon, so researchers involved in the project are suggesting their findings -- published in the journal Nature -- could have potential uses in controlling climate change. They warn, however, that far more studies need to be carried out before such a conclusion can be drawn. |  |
UK must stall export of surveillance tech to brutal regimes, or face legal action
A privacy charity says it is prepared to take legal action against the UK government if it fails to explain why it has not restricted the export of British surveillance technologies to repressive regimes, including Iran, Egypt and Syria.
Privacy International, which first put the question directly to David Cameron in November 2011, has sent a letter to business secretary Vince Cable and is demanding an answer to its queries within the next two weeks. If the government fails to take action under the 2002 Export Control Act -- which states that the secretary of state may prevent the export of technology if the transfer could be used in "breaches of human rights" or "internal repression in any country" -- the charity is prepared to file for a judicial review on 6 August and even request an injunction to stall technology companies' exports and to prevent them maintaining those technologies already exported to questionable authorities. |  |
The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realise
In the early spring this year, US farmers were on their way to planting some 96m acres in corn, the most in 75 years. A warm early spring got the crop off to a great start. Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record.
The United States is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the world's feedgrain. At home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the US grain harvest. Internationally, the US corn crop exceeds China's rice and wheat harvests combined. Among the big three grains – corn, wheat, and rice – corn is now the leader, with production well above that of wheat and nearly double that of rice. |  |
Archaeologists uncover Palaeolithic ceramic art
Ceramics found on the coast of the Adriatic attest to a hitherto unknown artistic culture which flourished during the last Ice Age, thousands of years before pottery was commonly used.
Evidence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who “invented” ceramics during the last Ice Age – thousands of years before pottery became commonplace – has been found in modern-day Croatia. The finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals, and come from a site called Vela Spila on the Adriatic coast. Archaeologists believe that they were the products of an artistic culture which sprang up in the region about 17,500 years ago. Their ceramic art flourished for about 2,500 years, but then disappeared. |  |
Where Is Amelia Earhart? Three Theories but No Smoking Gun
Just in time for Amelia Earhart's 115th birthday—feted online with a Google doodle Tuesday—comes news from the latest expedition investigating the fate of the aviator, who disappeared during a round-the-world flight in 1937.
The news isn't especially promising—Earhart's plane remains missing. But the so-called Niku VII expedition pursued only one of three main Earhart-disappearance theories, leaving fertile ground for future searches. |  |
Where the soybeans meet the road -- on your car tires
Those car tires you kick someday may be made from soybeans.
Goodyear is working on tires made at least partially of soybean oil instead of petroleum-based oil. In addition to reducing Goodyear's petroleum consumption for tires, soy-oil tires have longer tread life and may reduce Goodyear factories' energy use, the company said.
Goodyear is working on tires made at least partially of soybean oil instead of petroleum-based oil. In addition to reducing Goodyear's petroleum consumption for tires, soy-oil tires have longer tread life and may reduce Goodyear factories' energy use, the company said.
17-year-old girl builds artificial ‘brain’ to detect breast cancer
An artificial “brain” built by a 17-year-old whiz kid from Florida is able to accurately assess tissue samples for signs of breast cancer, providing more confidence to a minimally invasive procedure.
The cloud-based neural network took top prize in this year’s Google Science Fair.
“I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer,” Brittany Wenger, the Lakewood Ranch resident, told me today.
The cloud-based neural network took top prize in this year’s Google Science Fair.
“I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer,” Brittany Wenger, the Lakewood Ranch resident, told me today.
Recent UFO Sightings in Canada and Australia Mean Need for Further Studies - Researchers
A study of unidentified flying objects in Canada shows a record high number of sightings in 2011, prompting researchers to suggest further studies into the subject.
Ufology Research, which has recorded UFO sightings in Canada since 1989, said there were 986 sighting reports in 2011. This figure is close to the 1,004 sightings recorded in 2008. Ontario has the most number of sightings, with 406. The study notes only 11 per cent of the sightings could not be explained. The rest were determined to be regular lights in the sky.. |  |
How your windows could be the future of electricity: Scientists create transparent solar panels
One of the occasional complaints around solar panels is that they are 'an eyesore'.
Well this may be about to change, after researchers developed a new transparent solar cell which means windows in homes and other buildings can have the ability to generate electricity while still allowing people to see outside. The University of California, Los Angeles team describes a new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC) that produces energy by absorbing mainly infrared light, making the cells nearly 70 per cent transparent to the human eye. They made the device from a photo-active plastic that converts infrared light into an electrical current. |  |
Solar-powered plane comes home after 4,000-mile odyssey
A unique airplane has just completed a 4,000-mile journey, making the first solar-powered intercontinental round-trip air journey.
Traveling between Europe and Africa, the Solar Impulse experimental solar airplane landed in Payerne, Switzerland at 8:30 p.m. local time (2:30 p.m. ET) on Tuesday. The odyssey began two months ago, on May 24. This wasn't a test to see how fast the plane could make the trip, but to assess its endurance and reliability. The project was also aimed at raising public awareness about energy issues. |  |
Ancient Life-Size Lion Statues Baffle Scientists
Two sculptures of life-size lions, each weighing about 5 tons in antiquity, have been discovered in what is now Turkey, with archaeologists perplexed over what the granite cats were used for.
One idea is that the statues, created between 1400 and 1200 B.C., were meant to be part of a monument for a sacred water spring, the researchers said. The lifelike lions were created by the Hittites who controlled a vast empire in the region at a time when the Asiatic lion roamed the foothills of Turkey. |  |
Feds act to stop sale of magnetic Buckyballs
July 25, 2012 (WASHINGTON) -- Buckyballs are high-powered desktop magnetic toys for adults, but some young children are swallowing the tiny magnets and getting hurt. Teens also have accidentally ingested the magnetic balls after trying to mimic tongue piercings, leading the government to take steps to stop the sale of the product.
In an unusual move, the Consumer Product Safety Commission filed an administrative complaint Wednesday against New York-based Maxfield and Oberton, the manufacturer of Buckyballs. The desktop toys have small but very powerful magnets that are strong enough to mold into different shapes. The safety commission says the company refused to recall the product. On another front, the agency said it was able to persuade about 10 retailers, including Amazon.com, to stop selling Buckyballs. |  |