During a trance-like session of psychography, experienced mediums in Brazil allow themselves to become receptive to spirits or dead souls. Then they write automatically, channeling the voices of those they believe to be speaking to them.
As these mediums communicate with the dead, found a new study, parts of their brains involved in language and purposeful activity shut down, alongside other patterns of increased and decreased activity. The findings add to our limited understanding of how the spiritual brain works, though for now, science cannot speak to the existence of the spirit world. |  |
'Mysterious Animal' Attacks Borneo Villagers
According to a news story in The Borneo Post, an unknown animal recently attacked two men working on a farm.
The farmer said that the animal made a strange sound and rushed toward him, at one point standing on its hind legs. The reign of terror—or at least consternation—ended when the farmer, holding a sickle, promptly sliced the creature up. The animal was described as about two feet long, with a long, pig-like snout and long, sharp claws. It also gave off a horrible odor that got much worse after death. A rare or unknown animal, as the news reports suggest?. |  |
Prehistoric home unearthed in Scotland
The ancient dwelling was uncovered during an archaeological excavation in a field on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
A large oval pit nearly seven metres in length and studded with postholes is all that remains of the dwelling that has been dated to the Mesolithic period, around 10,252 years ago. A survey of the site was being conducted in preparation for the building of the Forth Replacement Crossing in a field in Echline, South Queensferry, just north of Edinburgh. |  |
Stone age nomads settled down in Merseyside, flints and timber suggest
It will come as no surprise to proud Merseysiders, but a recent discovery of worked flints and charred timber suggests that when stone age people reached Lunt Meadows, a beautiful site at Sefton, they liked it so much that instead of continuing as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they settled down and built permanent dwellings.
Archaeologists are still working on the site, discovered this summer during work for the Environment Agency, but preliminary carbon-dating results suggest that they are almost 8,000 years old, from the Mesolithic period, and come from at least three structures, suggesting family groups living together in a settlement which may have lasted for centuries. |  |
Rare Fossil Points to Toxic Oceans in Devonian Period
A study, published in the journal Geology, shows that hydrogen sulphide dependant organisms – known as Chlorobi – and sulphate-reducing bacteria had preserved the shell and the muscles of the crab-like creature.
“The research presents organic geochemistry as a new tool for paleontologists, enabling them to identify invertebrate fossils and reconstruct their environments from a molecular point of view,” explained lead author Ines Melendez, a PhD student at the Curtin University. |  |
Ocean still suffering from Fukushima fallout
Radioactivity is persisting in the ocean waters close to Japan's ruined nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi.
New data presented at a conference held on 12–13 November at the University of Tokyo show that levels of radioactivity in the sea around the plant remain stable, rather than falling as expected. Researchers believe that run-off from rivers, as well as continued leaks from the plant, may be partially to blame. But contaminated sediment and marine organisms also seem to be involved. |  |
Contraceptives & antidepressants can reduce fish reaction times & repro rates
Scientists have known for years that human medications, from anti-inflammatories to the hormones in birth-control pills, are ending up in waterways and affecting fish and other aquatic organisms. But researchers are only beginning to compile the many effects that those drugs seem to be having. And it isn't good news for the fish.
One such drug, fluoxetine, is the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac. Like some other pharmaceuticals, fluoxetine is excreted in the urine of people taking it, and reaches lakes and waterways through sewage-treatment plants that are unequipped to remove it. |  |
Ticked Off About a Growing Allergy to Meat
Tick bites have long been synonymous with bad news, responsible for transmitting diseases such as Lyme disease, Ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but this must be a carnivore or BBQ lover's worst nightmare. A growing body of research suggests that bites from a particular tick are causing an unusual allergic reaction to meat. At an allergy meeting last week, for example, a diagnostics lab presented evidence that the highest prevalence of the allergy is in the southeastern United States, where the tick primarily thrives. Yet American BBQ lovers and carnivores elsewhere may not rest easy; the allergy mysteriously afflicts people living in parts of the United States, even Hawaii, where the tick does not live.
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Europe's First Farmers Came, Then Went
The first farmers who swept into Europe 6000 to 7000 years ago may have grown too big for their britches—or animal skins—too fast. A new study of archaeological sites across Western Europe highlights a strikingly consistent pattern in Neolithic farmers' communities: Their populations grew too big, too quickly, and crashed right after they peaked.
"We can see a dramatic history of booms and busts," archaeologist Stephen Shennan of University College London (UCL) reported yesterday in a talk at the 111th meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, California.
"We can see a dramatic history of booms and busts," archaeologist Stephen Shennan of University College London (UCL) reported yesterday in a talk at the 111th meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, California.
First algae-derived fuel hits the pumps
Using algae to produce biofuel is something being pursued by a number of major companies, but no one has made algal fuel or additives available for consumers — until now.
Alternative gas station chain Propel is working with algal fuel creator Solazyme on a month-long experiment, selling algal-additive "Soladiesel" alongside Propel's normal diesel. The special stuff is 20 percent algae oil, while the "original flavor" will have the usual additives. |  |
Temple scarred by conflict is unearthed near Jerusalem
At a biblical border city outside of Jerusalem, archaeologists have uncovered a temple from the 11th century B.C. that they say bears evidence of conflict among the ancient Israelites, Canaanites and Philistines.
Spread across what would have been the floor at the complex at Tel Beth-Shemesh, an ancient village about 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Jerusalem, excavators found shards of painted chalices and goblets — not the type of containers that would have been used for daily household activities. They also found animal bones surrounding a flat stone inside the building and discovered two more flat stones seemingly designed to direct liquids. Lacking the typical traces of domestic use, the excavators believe the building served as a place of worship that was possibly connected to an Israelite cult. |  |
Indus Valley 2,000 years older than thought
New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- The beginning of India's history has been pushed back by more than 2,000 years, making it older than that of Egypt and Babylon. Latest research has put the date of the origin of the Indus Valley Civilisation at 6,000 years before Christ, which contests the current theory that the settlements around the Indus began around 3750 BC.
Ever since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the early 1920s, the civilisation was considered almost as old as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Ever since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the early 1920s, the civilisation was considered almost as old as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Anthropologist finds large differences in gait of early human ancestors
Patricia Ann Kramer, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, has found that the walking gait between two of our early ancestors was likely so different that it's doubtful they would have done so together, despite being two members of the same species living during roughly the same time period. In her paper published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Kramer outlines how she compared the natural walking speeds of modern humans to those of two members of the Australopithecus afarensis species and found that such large differences existed between two members of our early ancestors that walking together would have been troublesome.
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'Odd little creature' skips sex and eats DNA
The tiny, all-female bdelloid rotifers have endured the past 80 million years without sex. New research shows that gobbling up foreign DNA from other simple life-forms might be the asexual animal's secret to survival.
In the study, scientists discovered that up to 10 percent of the active genes in microscopic bdelloids comes from bacteria and other organisms like fungi and algae. The finding adds to "the weirdness of an already odd little creature," said Alan Tunnacliffe, a University of Cambridge professor and lead author of the study. |  |
'Palaeo-porn': we've got it all wrong
Which Palaeolithic images and artefacts have been described as pornography?
The Venus figurines of women, some with exaggerated anatomical features, and ancient rock art, like the image from the Abri Castanet site in France that is supposedly of female genitalia. You take issue with this interpretation. Who is responsible for spreading it, journalists or scientists? People are fascinated by prehistory, and the media want to write stories that attract readers - to use a cliché, sex sells. But when a New York Times headline reads "A Precursor to Playboy: Graphic Images in Rock", and Discover magazine asserts that man's obsession with pornography dates back to "Cro-Magnon days" based on "the famous 26,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf statuette...[with] GG-cup breasts and a hippopotamal butt", I think a line is crossed. To be fair, archaeologists are partially responsible - we need to choose our words carefully. |  |
UK bird population down by 44m since 1966, report finds
The UK bird population has declined by 44 million since 1966, according to a report by conservation groups.
The study is the first of its kind to give an overall view of how birds in the UK have fared over the decades. It found that while certain species had increased in number, populations of some common birds had diminished dramatically. The report, "State of the UK's Birds 2012", was compiled from volunteers' observations of birds since the 1960s. |  |
What Destroyed the Bats of the Caribbean?
About 25,000 years ago, the Earth was a very different planet. It was deep in the midst of a geological period referred to as the "last glacial maximum," meaning the last time when the planet was so cold that glaciers reached down from the North Pole into North America, Europe and Asia.
With so much water frozen solid, the ocean levels were much lower. And that was good news for a huge population of bats who ruled the considerably larger Caribbean islands of that age. While there are still many bats in the Caribbean today, the population 25,000 years ago was a lot richer and more diverse. |  |
Biochemists convert greenhouse gas to fuel
What if you could take greenhouse gas and convert it to fuel for an energy-hungry world?
"That's currently a 'holy grail' of science," says Utah State University biochemist Lance Seefeldt. "Imagine the far-reaching benefits of capturing environmentally damaging byproducts of burning fossil fuels and using them to make alternative fuels.". |  |
Surveying Earth's interior with atomic clocks
Ultraprecise portable atomic clocks are on the verge of a breakthrough. An international team lead by scientists from the University of Zurich shows that it may be possible to use the latest generation of atomic clocks to resolve structures within the Earth.
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Sky-High Vegetables: Vertical Farming Sprouts In Singapore
Singapore is taking local farming to the next level, literally, with the opening of its first commercial vertical farm.
Entrepreneur Jack Ng says he can produce five times as many vegetables as regular farming looking up instead of out. Half a ton of his Sky Greens bok choy and Chinese cabbages, grown inside 120 slender 30-foot towers, are already finding their way into Singapore's grocery stores.
The idea behind vertical farming is simple: Think of skyscrapers with vegetables climbing along the windows. Or a library-sized greenhouse with racks of cascading vegetables instead of books.
Entrepreneur Jack Ng says he can produce five times as many vegetables as regular farming looking up instead of out. Half a ton of his Sky Greens bok choy and Chinese cabbages, grown inside 120 slender 30-foot towers, are already finding their way into Singapore's grocery stores.
The idea behind vertical farming is simple: Think of skyscrapers with vegetables climbing along the windows. Or a library-sized greenhouse with racks of cascading vegetables instead of books.
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