Brazil Supreme Court approves work on Amazon dam
Brazil's Supreme Court has approved the resumption of work on the huge Belo Monte dam in the Amazon, which was halted earlier this month after protests from indigenous groups.
The preliminary ruling on Monday overturns an earlier ruling that ordered construction of the dam across the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, to be stopped until indigenous peoples can testify before Congress. However, the decision by Supreme Court President Carlos Ayres Britto could be revised when the court examines the case further, its website said. |  |
The tree of knowledge
TREES are a gift to students of the past. An entire discipline, known as dendrochronology, is devoted to using tree rings to date ancient wooden objects and buildings. Linguistic archaeologists, it seems, share these arboreal inclinations, though the trees they examine are of an altogether different species.
In 2003 a team led by Quentin Atkinson, of the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, employed a computer to generate a genealogical tree of Indo-European languages. Their model put the birth of the family, which includes languages as seemingly diverse as Icelandic and Iranian, between 9,800 and 7,800 years ago. This was consistent with the idea that it stemmed from Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, whence it spread with the expansion of farming. |  |
California’s Earthquake Swarm: What’s Going On?
A "swarm" of earthquakes that touched off Sunday morning in southern California was still rolling along Monday afternoon, registering more than 300 small to moderate quakes that could be felt from Arizona to San Diego. The swarm is unusual but not as rare as you might think.
During an earthquake swarm, an affected area experiences a rapid-fire series of temblors that are all similarly proportioned, so that no one shock emerges as the obvious source of the rest. According to Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, diffuse clusters like these are far less common than earthquakes that arrive as one big shake followed by a series of smaller aftershocks. |  |
NASA to Broadcast 1st Song from Mars Tuesday
A song called "Reach for the Stars" will make its debut, appropriately, from space.
NASA plans to broadcast the tune, written by rapper and songwriter will.i.am, from its Curiosity rover, newly landed on the surface of Mars. Though Curiosity has no speakers, it will transmit the song via radio waves back to Earth to be received at 1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT) Tuesday, Aug. 28 during an educational event at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. |  |
The Man in the Moon
MOST technological advances are actually just improvements. One thing builds on the next: from shoddy to serviceable, from helpful to amazing. First you had a carriage, then a car, and then an airplane; now you have a jet. You improve on what is there. Technological advances are like that.
Except for the one that involved landing on the Moon. When a human went and stood on the Moon and looked back at the Earth, that was a different kind of breakthrough. Nothing tangible changed when Neil Armstrong’s foot dug into the lunar dust and his eyes turned back at us. We didn’t get faster wheels or smaller machines or more effective medicine. But we changed, fundamentally. What had been unknown, was known. What had been unseen was seen. And our human horizon popped out 200,000 miles. Forever, we would see the Earth differently, because we had seen it from someplace truly foreign. |  |
200-Year-Old 'Monster Larva' Mystery Solved
For nearly two centuries, scientists have pulled so-called "monster larva" from the guts of fish and wondered what these thick-bodied creatures looked like as grown-ups. Now one biologist believes he has finally matched the larva with its adult counterpart.
"It's very exciting to have solved a nearly 200-year-old conundrum," Keith Crandall, a biology professor at George Washington University, said in a statement. Drawing from genetic evidence, Crandall reported in the journal Ecology and Evolution this month that the larva, Cerataspis monstrosa, is actually a baby version of the deep-water aristeid shrimp known as Plesiopenaeus armatus. |  |
New Genitalia-Headed Fish Is Evolutionary Mystery
How's this for a head turner? A tiny new species of fish from Vietnam sports its genitalia on its noggin.
Phallostethus cuulong is only the 22nd known species of its family, Phallostethidae, all of which bear their copulatory organs just behind their mouths.
As with all Phallostethus—"penis chest" in Greek—species, the male uses its bony "priapium" to clasp a female while he inserts sperm into her urogenital opening, also located on the head, said Lynne Parenti, curator of fishes at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Parenti remembers seeing another species of priapiumfish mate at a lab in Singapore. Attached at the head and together forming a v, the fish "looked like a little pair of scissors, darting around the tank together," she said.
Phallostethus cuulong is only the 22nd known species of its family, Phallostethidae, all of which bear their copulatory organs just behind their mouths.
As with all Phallostethus—"penis chest" in Greek—species, the male uses its bony "priapium" to clasp a female while he inserts sperm into her urogenital opening, also located on the head, said Lynne Parenti, curator of fishes at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Parenti remembers seeing another species of priapiumfish mate at a lab in Singapore. Attached at the head and together forming a v, the fish "looked like a little pair of scissors, darting around the tank together," she said.
Teen pot use linked to decline in IQ
Teens who smoke marijuana see their IQs drop as adults, and deficits persist even after quitting, according to a new study.
"The findings are consistent with speculation that cannabis use in adolescence, when the brain is undergoing critical development, may have neurotoxic effects," study researcher Madeline Meier of Duke University said in a statement. The study followed 1,037 New Zealand children for 25 years. Subjects took IQ tests at age 13, before any of them had smoked marijuana, and again at age 38. Throughout the study, participants also answered several surveys about their drug use. Interestingly, people who picked up the habit as adults had no IQ drop, suggesting that marijuana may not be as harmful to the mature brain. |  |
Regulation will reduce teen cannabis use - NORML
Current drug policy is resulting in widespread teenage cannabis use while a regulated market would make cannabis use adults-only in licensed premises.
Despite strict cannabis laws, New Zealand has the highest rate of teen cannabis use in the world. Meanwhile, the Netherlands have the most relaxed cannabis laws for adults in the world but has the lowest rate of teen cannabis use.
Despite strict cannabis laws, New Zealand has the highest rate of teen cannabis use in the world. Meanwhile, the Netherlands have the most relaxed cannabis laws for adults in the world but has the lowest rate of teen cannabis use.
Letters, Documents Found In 100-Year-Old Package From Norway (VIDEO)
It was a mystery 100 years in the making.
On Friday, the contents of a mysterious package from Otta, Norway were finally revealed. The package, which dates back to 1912, appeared to hold a collection of historical documents, letters, newspapers and national decorations. The unveiling was part of a celebration that included musical performances and a grand opening on stage. It was live-broadcasted by the Norwegian news outlet, Verdens Gang, which had been the first to report on the package. |  |
Squid Skin Busts a Move: Gotta-See Video
Squid have chromatophores, or color changing cells, on their skin. The cells can adjust their pigmentation to dramatically and rapidly absorb or reflect light.
With this in mind, scientists took a suction electrode and attached it to the fin nerve of a longfin inshore squid. They then took an iPod Nano and played music into the electrode, stimulating the squid's nerve. For obvious reasons, they chose "Insane in the Membrane" by Cypress Hill. The testament should go to the musical taste of the squid. |  |
Go Planet Trekking For Alien Earths
Astronomers Stephen Kane and Dawn Gelino at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech are giving scientists and the public a chance to explore potentially habitable extrasolar planets in a way once described only in the imaginations of science writers.
For example, in the Star Trek universe characters often talked of worlds categorized as "Class M" planets; Earth-like places inhabited by various aliens. Today, exoplanets have become reality and big business for budding astronomers. New detection techniques, better sensitivity, atmospheric measurements and new theoretical modeling have unveiled a host of planet more diverse that imagined in science fiction. |  |
Bones Suggest Neanderthal's Mostly Right-Handed, Had Spoken Language
Right-handed humans vastly outnumber lefties by a ratio of about nine to one, and the same may have been true for Neanderthals. Researchers say right-hand dominance in the extinct species suggests that, like humans, they also had the capacity for language.
A new analysis of the skeleton of a 20-something Neanderthal man confirms that he was a righty like most of his European caveman cousins whose remains have been studied by scientists (16 of 18 specimens). Dubbed "Regourdou," the skeleton was discovered in 1957 in France, not far from the famous network of caves at Lascaux. |  |
France's ancient Alesia dispute rumbles on
Every French schoolchild has learned about Alesia. It was the battle in which Julius Caesar beat the Gauls under Vercingetorix, thus bringing France into the Roman world. Had it gone the other way, the French might have ended up German.
An impressive new museum-cum-activity centre has just opened on the official site of the battle, in northern Burgundy. Visitors come away with a thorough grounding in Gaulish fighting techniques, or in Caesar's strategic genius. What they hear little of is a controversy that questions the museum's very raison d'etre. Understandable perhaps, because after 10 years of planning, and 75m euros (£60m) of investment, who wants to be told that the battle never took place here at all? |  |
The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy
TODD RUTHERFORD was 7 years old when he first understood the nature of supply and demand. He was with a bunch of other boys, one of whom showed off a copy of Playboy to giggles and intense interest. Todd bought the magazine for $5, tore out the racy pictures and resold them to his chums for a buck apiece. He made $20 before his father shut him down a few hours later.
A few years ago, Mr. Rutherford, then in his mid-30s, had another flash of illumination about how scarcity opens the door to opportunity. |  |
Antarctica drillers discover 52 million-year-old rainforest
When drilling under the Antarctic seabed, researchers discovered deposits from a 52 million-year-old rainforest. Scientists are warning Antarctica will soon be ice-free within decades.
The most extreme predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are that the world would see ice receding on Antarctica "by the end of the century".
The most extreme predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are that the world would see ice receding on Antarctica "by the end of the century".
Prehistoric tiny bugs found trapped in amber
WASHINGTON — Scientists have found three well preserved ancient insects frozen in amber — and time — in what is Earth's oldest bug trap.
The discoveries of amber-encased insects in Italy may sound like something out of "Jurassic Park" but these bugs are even older than that. They are about 230 million years old, which puts them in the Triassic time period, and about 100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin, or amber.
Gooey tree resin is like sap but without water and can't be diluted.
The discoveries of amber-encased insects in Italy may sound like something out of "Jurassic Park" but these bugs are even older than that. They are about 230 million years old, which puts them in the Triassic time period, and about 100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin, or amber.
Gooey tree resin is like sap but without water and can't be diluted.
Ancient termite-digging fossil added to mammal family tree
A new look at a fossil mammal with powerful front legs for digging is clearing up questions about the origin of a group of strange and scaly modern-day creatures called pangolins.
First excavated in Mongolia in the 1970s, the fossil sat in storage for decades until researchers for the Russian Academy of Sciences rediscovered and analyzed it, reporting their results today (Aug. 27) in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. |  |
Online University For All Balances Big Goals, Expensive Realities
Naylea Omayra Villanueva Sanchez, 22, lives on the edge of the Amazon rain forest in Tarapoto, northern Peru.
"Where I live, there's only jungle," Villanueva Sanchez says through an interpreter. "A university education is inaccessible." And that's true in more ways than one. Villanueva Sanchez is in a wheelchair, the result of a motorcycle accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She is now enrolled in the University of the People, an online institution that claims it is "the world's first, tuition-free, nonprofit, online university." It's aimed at poor students around the globe who would otherwise not have access to higher education. |  |
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