Brazil Embarks on Cloning of Wild Animals
Brazilian scientists are attempting to clone animals in danger of extinction, like the jaguar and maned wolf, although the potential impact on the conservation of these threatened species is still not clear.
The cloning initiative is being undertaken by the Brasilia Zoological Garden in partnership with the Brazilian government’s agricultural research agency, EMBRAPA, and is now in its second phase. The research is aimed at adapting cloning techniques to wild animal species as a means of contributing to conservation. The first phase involved the collection of samples of genetic material, or germplasm, in the form of blood, sperm, somatic cells and umbilical cord cells. |  |
Is every single elephant a village-wrecking booze hound?
"Marauding pack of booze-addled elephants wreak havoc on Indian village." It's a story, or at least a headline, that's surprisingly common.
A few representative samples from the news reports on the latest incident: "Herd of Elephants Go on Drunken Rampage After Mammoth Booze Up," and, of course, "Trunk and Disorderly!" . |  |
Men Alcoholics Can Hear the Words But Not the Emotions
Male alcoholics appear to have a great deal of difficulty recognizing emotions in verbal language, a small European study suggests. The researchers also found that the men have a weakened ability to show empathy.
Because empathy plays a key role in interpersonal relationships, an empathy deficit might explain part of the wider relationship problems commonly seen in alcoholics, said study author Simona Amenta, a psychology researcher at the University of Milano-Bicocca. |  |
Nuclear Plant Powered by Spent Fuel
An old nuclear technology is getting another look, and it could clean, emission-free electricity, while at the same solving the problem of nuclear waste. It's called a molten salt reactor, and it's an idea that dates to the late 1950s. A start-up called Transatomic Power, based in Cambridge, Mass., is working on a newer version that uses nuclear waste as fuel. Transatomic's founders are Russ Wilcox, formerly the CEO of E-Ink, and Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, two MIT students.
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Fault under Japan nuclear plant 'may be active'
Japan's only working nuclear power plant sits on what may be a seismic fault in the earth's crust, a geologist has warned, saying it is "very silly" to allow it to continue operating.
Mitsuhisa Watanabe says the earth's plates could move under the Oi nuclear plant in western Japan, causing a catastrophe to rival last year's atomic disaster at Fukushima—although some of his colleagues on a nuclear advisory panel disagree. |  |
Intelligent Earth: researchers explain how post-tilt planet finds its way back
“For me, that’s the quirky, dynamic issue and the challenge of this. In fact, all of the classic papers in this field argue that when the pole moves, it loses all memory of its previous location. We’re saying that this is not the case. There is something in the system that tells it, ‘Here’s where you come back.’”
In explaining these remarkable episodes of polar wander, Mitrovica and Creveling also point to changes in the flow of the Earth’s mantle that occur during periods when tectonic plates come together to form supercontinents. The massive landmasses act like thermal blankets, and “it is at these times when the Earth will be provoked into a large true polar wander event,” Mitrovica said. “When a supercontinent exists, material rises up in the rocky mantle below the supercontinent, stretching the Earth out like a football and giving it a tendency to spin like a football.” |  |
Exploring space: Why’s it so important?
Carol Beckles isn't buying into all the space exploration hype. She’s a single, middle-class mother of three living in a modest, cozy three-bedroom home in Atlanta’s suburbs. She foots the college bill of her oldest daughter Tiffany, who – like her mom – wishes she got more government help to pay for tuition.
“It’s definitely hard. From the time that I was a senior (in high school) I had to start figuring out how I was going to pay for this,” said Tiffany who sits close beside her mom.
“It’s definitely hard. From the time that I was a senior (in high school) I had to start figuring out how I was going to pay for this,” said Tiffany who sits close beside her mom.
Denver UFOs Mystify Local Media And Aviation Expert Steve Cowell (VIDEO)
Something is buzzing around the sky in Denver. It has been captured by at least two videographers and has at least one aviation expert baffled.
According to a FOX TV affiliate, KDVR, a Denver man, wishing to remain anonymous, gave the television station home video that, he claimed, showed unidentified flying objects quickly zig-zagging and maneuvering in the sky over a populated section of the mile-high city. The man told the station that the UFOs have been appearing several times a week, generally between noon and 1 p.m., and launching and landing somewhere in the Denver metro area. |  |
On India-China border, reports of UFOs skyrocket
NEW DELHI — Adding to the litany of issues besetting neighboring nuclear rivals China and India, ranging from border disputes to the Dalai Lama to trade deficits, is a new one: UFOs.
"Over 100 UFOs seen along China border," said a headline in Tuesday's Times of India. Indian troops guarding the often-tense 2,100-mile border between the two Asian giants say the objects seen in recent months are yellow spheres that appear to lift off from the Chinese side, slowly traversing the sky for three to five hours before disappearing. Indian military officials have reportedly ruled out Chinese drones — 99 of which reportedly were documented during the first 10 months of 2012 — or low-orbit satellites. |  |
Hunting for the Real 'Planet X'
The announcement of the discovery of exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb on Oct. 16 is a testimony to how far planetary detection techniques have come over the last few decades.
It brings the total of confirmed exoplanets -- or "extra-solar planets" -- to a staggering 825. However, the search for planets in our own solar system has subsided since the pioneering days at the end of the 18th century with the discovery of Uranus and almost one hundred years later with the identification of Neptune. The idea of another planet, dubbed 'Planet X,' inspired astronomers to keep searching for yet another 100 years in a hunt that was full of twists and turns. |  |
Global warming felt by space junk, satellites
Rising carbon dioxide levels at the edge of space are apparently reducing the pull that Earth's atmosphere has on satellites and space junk, researchers say.
The findings suggest that manmade increases in carbon dioxide might be having effects on the Earth that are larger than expected, scientists added. In the layers of atmosphere closest to Earth, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the sun. Rising levels of carbon dioxide due to human activity are leading to global warming of Earth's surface. |  |
Even at Hoover Dam, the ugly truth about our water crisis is being ignored
On an unseasonably hot morning this fall, my 11-year-old son and I set off for Hoover Dam, his first time to tour the American engineering wonder that draws nearly 1 million visitors a year.
In recent years, I'd visited the dam and adjacent reservoir, Lake Mead, as a journalist who reports on water. But I hadn't been there as a tourist since my own childhood. I looked forward to hearing how the dam's minder, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would tell such a big story to such a big audience.
In recent years, I'd visited the dam and adjacent reservoir, Lake Mead, as a journalist who reports on water. But I hadn't been there as a tourist since my own childhood. I looked forward to hearing how the dam's minder, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would tell such a big story to such a big audience.
Poles apart: satellites reveal why Antarctic sea ice grows as Arctic melts
The mystery of the expansion of sea ice around Antarctica, at the same time as global warming is melting swaths of Arctic sea ice, has been solved using data from US military satellites.
Two decades of measurements show that changing wind patterns around Antarctica have caused a small increase in sea ice, the result of cold winds off the continent blowing ice away from the coastline. "Until now these changes in ice drift were only speculated upon using computer models," said Paul Holland at the British Antarctic Survey. "Our study of direct satellite observations shows the complexity of climate change. |  |
Pandas Kiss Bamboo Goodbye With Climate Change
Climate change is likely to decimate bamboo populations in an isolated region of China that serves as home for nearly 20 percent of the world’s wild giant pandas.
As a result, according to new projections, between 80 and 100 percent of livable panda habitat will disappear from the region in China’s Qinling Mountains by the end of the 21st century. The new findings illustrate how environmental impacts can reverberate through the food web. |  |
The True Vikings? Insight into the Motivation Behind Norse Exploration West
Recent excavations carried out by Canadian archaeologist Patricia Sutherland may have further complimented our knowledge of Norse exploration into the New World. The excavations were carried out to establish the extent of Norse presence in the Americas and to further inform our knowledge of interactions between indigenous people and Norse explorers.
National Geographic recently reported on the excavation – clearly the Norse presence in the Americas is a popular and fascinating subject and not just in the archaeological world. What does this new site say about Norse expansion across the North Atlantic? The popular perception is that the ‘Vikings’ were intrepid explorers bent on exploiting resources in foreign lands, though the evidence from Iceland and Greenland speaks more of land hungry settlers than marauding warriors. |  |
Colossal volcanic eruption effects global climate of early humans
The largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the past millions of years took place in Indonesia 74,000 years ago and researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute can now link the colossal eruption with the global climate and the effects on early humans. The results are published in the scientific journal Climate of the Past.
The volcano Toba is located in Indonesia on the island Sumatra, which lies close to the equator. The colossal eruption, which occurred 74,000 years ago, left a crater that is about 50 km wide. Expelled with the eruption was 2,500 cubic kilometers of lava – equivalent to double the volume of Mount Everest. The eruption was 5,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 in the United States. Toba is the largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the last 2 million years. |  |
Iceman was Central Europe native, new research finds
SAN FRANCISCO — Otzi the Iceman, an astonishingly well-preserved Neolithic mummy found in the Italian Alps in 1991, was a native of Central Europe, not a first-generation émigré from Sardinia, new research shows. And genetically, he looked a lot like other Stone Age farmers throughout Europe.
The new findings, reported Thursday here at the American Society of Human Genetics conference, support the theory that farmers, and not just the technology of farming, spread during prehistoric times from the Middle East all the way to Finland. |  |
Ancient Roman Giant Found—Oldest Complete Skeleton With Gigantism
It's no tall tale—the first complete ancient skeleton of a person with gigantism has been discovered near Rome, a new study says.
At 6 feet, 8 inches (202 centimeters) tall, the man would have been a giant in third-century A.D. Rome, where men averaged about 5 and a half feet (167 centimeters) tall. By contrast, today's tallest man measures 8 feet, 3 inches (251 centimeters). |  |
Buried with a stake through a heart: the medieval 'vampire' burial
The discovery of a skeleton found with metal spikes through its shoulders, heart and ankles, dating from 550-700AD and buried in the ancient minster town of Southwell, Notts, is detailed in a new report.
It is believed to be a 'deviant burial', where people considered the 'dangerous dead', such as vampires, were interred to prevent them rising from their graves to plague the living. |  |
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