Imagine...as you wake later than usual rolling over towards the window, you notice that it's a gorgeous day outside. Warm, yellow sunlight shines in through glass illuminating floating "dust angles." On the other side of the glass, past the oak tree with yellowing leaves, you see a brilliant blue sky. For the first time it occurs to you that a blue sky is a contradiction: the sky at night is devoid of color, so why during the day does the world seem to be shrouded in a blanket of blue? Years previously as a child full of questions you asked your parents, but the answer they offered seemed somehow inadequate at the time...less than magical. And so the question remains...as it does the most of us.
The answer is this: The sky isn't actually colored at all (not blue or yellow or red or green). Rather, it's your mind that's colored. |  |
Kung fu nuns teach cosmic energy to CERN scientists
A dozen kung fu nuns from an Asian Buddhist order displayed their martial arts prowess to bemused scientists at CERN this week as their spiritual leader explained how their energy was like that of the cosmos.
The nuns, all from the Himalayan region, struck poses of hand-chops, high-kicks and punches on Thursday while touring the research centre where physicists at the frontiers of science are probing the origins of the universe.
The nuns, all from the Himalayan region, struck poses of hand-chops, high-kicks and punches on Thursday while touring the research centre where physicists at the frontiers of science are probing the origins of the universe.
Great apes have midlife crises too, study finds
At middle age, a great ape will neither cheat on a spouse nor buy a red sports car on impulse. But researchers have found that chimpanzees and orangutans experience midlife crises just as surely as do humans.
That finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could upend firmly held beliefs about the roots of human happiness and the forces that influence its odd trajectory across the life span. If our animal relatives share our propensity for sadness, withdrawal and frustration at life's midpoint, perhaps the midlife crisis is actually driven by biological factors — not the wearing responsibilities of jobs and family and the dawning recognition of our mortality. |  |
Dead and dying: our great mammal crisis
IN LATE August 2009, a tiny, solitary bat fluttered about in the rainforest near Australia's infamous Christmas Island detention camp. We don't know precisely what happened to it. Perhaps it landed on a leaf at dawn after a night feeding on moths and mosquitoes and was torn to pieces by fire ants; perhaps it succumbed to a mounting toxic burden placed on its tiny body by insecticide spraying. Or maybe it was simply worn out with age and ceaseless activity, and died quietly in its tree-hollow. But there is one important thing we do know: it was the last Christmas Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi). With its passing, an entire species winked out of existence.
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World Bank warns of ‘4-degree’ threshold of global temperature increase
The World Bank is urging stepped-up efforts to meet world carbon-reduction goals after looking at what it says would be the catastrophic consequences if average world temperatures rise more than 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.
In what World Bank President Jim Yong Kim acknowledged was a “doomsday scenario,” a new study by the organization cited the 4-degree increase as a threshold that would be likely to trigger widespread crop failures and malnutrition and dislocate large numbers of people from land inundated by rising seas. |  |
Nikola Tesla the Eugenicist: Eliminating Undesirables by 2100
Interest in the life of legendary inventor Nikola Tesla has seen a tremendous resurgence in the past two decades. And with good reason. The man was a genius who was able to take so many of the ideas swirling around in the 19th century ether and turn them into fantastic new inventions — both real and imagined. Tesla’s wondrous imagination made him quite the futurist and here at the Paleofuture blog we’ve looked at some of his remarkably prescient predictions over the past few years.
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Einstein's Brain Reveals Clues to Genius
Einstein's brain had extraordinary folding patterns in several regions, which may help explain his genius, newly uncovered photographs suggest.
The photographs, published Nov. 16 in the journal Brain, reveal that the brilliant physicist had extra folding in his brain's gray matter, the site of conscious thinking. In particular, the frontal lobes, regions tied to abstract thought and planning, had unusually elaborate folding, analysis suggests. |  |
Leonardo fossil sketch may depict early nests
Around 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci briefly focused his attention on fossils — and inadvertently triggered a mystery that remains unsolved.
A page of Leonardo's Paris Manuscript I is covered in sketches of marine fossils; among them is a honeycomb-like array of hexagons that palaeontologists think might constitute the first recorded observation of an enigmatic trace fossil called Paleodictyon1. The fossil is thought ny many paleontologists to be an imprint of burrows made by an animal living in loose sediment on the sea floor. Examples of Paleodictyon have been found that date back to the Cambrian period, 542 million to 488 million years ago, and similar structures are still being made on the sea floor today. |  |
BaBar experiment confirms time asymmetry
Time marches relentlessly forward for you and me; watch a movie in reverse, and you'll quickly see something is amiss. But from the point of view of a single, isolated particle, the passage of time looks the same in either direction. For instance, a movie of two particles scattering off of each other would look just as sensible in reverse – a concept known as time reversal symmetry.
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Gamers prove equal to surgeons in operating robotic surgery tools
A maternal nag familiar to the ears of many young gamers usually follows the lines of "you're wasting your life in front of a console." Browbeaten controller wielders rejoice—a new study from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) has proven the superior hand-eye coordination skills honed from hours of joystick-based gaming are the same talents required to master the world's most advanced robotic surgery tools.
The study sought to identify the developmental effect video games have on training future surgeons. "A new era has started," explained Sami Kilic, lead author of the study and associate professor and director of minimally invasive gynecology at UTMB. |  |
Listen: The Music of a Human Brain
Researchers have turned human mental activity into music, and it sounds uncannily like free-form jazz piano.
The new brain-to-sound method translates a brain’s electrical fluctuations to pitch and blood flows to intensity. With more sophisticated scores and trained ears, a mind might be heard as a cognitive symphony. “We hope the on-going progresses of the brain signals-based music will properly unravel part of the truth in the brain,” wrote neuroscientists led by Jing Lu and Dezhong Yao of China’s University of Electronic Science and Technology in a study Nov. 14 in the online journal PLoS One. |  |
Revolutionary transplant operation could benefit paralysed patients
Dogs that had lost the use of their back legs as a result of spinal injuries were able to walk again after a revolutionary transplant operation that might also benefit paralysed patients, scientists said.
The pet dogs had all suffered serious accidental damage to their spinal cords which had left them paralysed and unable to walk normally with their hind limbs.
Following the transplant of specialised cells from the dogs’ noses to the damaged nerves most of the pets recovered their lost mobility and some were able to walk and even run on all four legs, according to a study published today.
The pet dogs had all suffered serious accidental damage to their spinal cords which had left them paralysed and unable to walk normally with their hind limbs.
Following the transplant of specialised cells from the dogs’ noses to the damaged nerves most of the pets recovered their lost mobility and some were able to walk and even run on all four legs, according to a study published today.
Stroke victim 'talks' again with help of speaking glove
Bill Broad, 73, from Sheffield, suffered a stroke in 2010 leaving him unable to speak, forcing him to spell out words on an alphabet chart when trying to communicate with his daughter Keeley Bellamy.
But now the former miner and athletics coach is first to be testing a new technology that can translate hand gestures into speech. Sensors fitted into a leather glove he wears on his left hand can detect his hand movements, converting them into a synthesised voice. It has allowed him to tell his family when he is hungry or thirsty, to ask the time and to say “thank you”. |  |
The £180 thought controlled helicopter that could help you stay calm
If you've ever struggled to control a remote control helicopter and sent it crashing into a wall, help could be hand.
A US firm is raising money for a remote control helicopter maneuvered not by a joystick, but by the mind. The Puzzlebox Orbit uses a headset to monitor brainwave readings. For the past two years Puzzlebox has been producing brain-controlled helicopters for classrooms and television, and has now turned to online site Kickstarter to begin selling its $299 product. |  |
Government Surveillance On Citizens Rising
As the inferno of the David Petraeus scandal continues to burn, the latest Google Transparency Report shows government surveillance is starting to heat up.
"This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise," Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst, explains on Google's blog. Between January and June of this year governments from around the world filed 20,939 requests with Google to access data on 34,614 accounts. According to company data, during that same time frame last year, governments made 15,744 requests on 25,342 accounts. |  |
Tasmanian Devils to Get Their Own Island
A group of Tasmanian devils will be transferred to a small Australian island to start what is hoped will be a self-sustaining population, free from the facial tumor that has devastated their species.
Tasmania's Environment Minister Brian Wightman said 14 of the marsupials, carefully selected from captive breeding programs across Australia, would be released Thursday on Maria Island, a nature sanctuary off the state's east coast. |  |
Australia Creates World's Largest Marine Reserves
Australia Friday created the world's largest network of marine reserves, protecting a huge swathe of ocean environment despite claims it will devastate the fishing industry.
The announcement, after years of planning and consultation, will significantly expand the protection of creatures such as the blue whale, green turtle, critically endangered populations of gray nurse sharks, and dugongs. |  |
Hawaii's solar power flare-up: Too much of a good thing?
WAILUKU, Hawaii — On an island whose stock in trade is sun, and lots of it, Lawrence and Cindy Lee figured they'd be foolish not to join their neighbors and put a few solar panels on the roof.
The Lees called one of the solar contractors racing around Hawaii these days, and put in their order. Eleven months later, in October — after endless consultations, emails and a $3,000 study required by Maui Electric Co. — they were still waiting for a permit. |  |
Solar storm as desert plan to power Europe falters
An ambitious plan to provide 15% of Europe's power needs from solar plants in North Africa has run into trouble.
The Desertec initiative hoped to deliver electricity from a network of renewable energy sources to Europe via cables under the sea. But in recent weeks, two big industrial backers have pulled out. And the Spanish government has baulked at signing an agreement to build solar power plants in Morocco. Desertec was set up in 2009 with a projected budget of 400bn euros to tap the enormous potential of solar and other renewables in North Africa. |  |
NASA: Astronauts could survive Mars radiation
Radiation levels at the Martian surface appear to be roughly similar to those experienced by astronauts in low-Earth orbit, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has found.
The rover's initial radiation measurements — the first ever taken on the surface of another planet — may buoy the hopes of human explorers who may one day put boots on Mars, for they add more support to the notion that astronauts can indeed function on the Red Planet for limited stretches of time. "Absolutely, astronauts can live in this environment," Don Hassler, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., told reporters during a news conference today (Nov. 15). |  |
Astronomer Tycho Brahe 'not poisoned', says expert
The 16th-Century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe is unlikely to have been poisoned, according to a researcher studying his remains. The body was exhumed in 2010 in a bid to confirm the cause of his death.
Brahe was thought to have died of a bladder infection, but a previous exhumation found traces of mercury in hair from his beard. However, the most recent tests have found the levels of mercury were not high enough to have killed him. Some have speculated that he was killed on the orders of the Danish king, or by fellow astronomer Johannes Kepler, who also later gained fame. |  |
Mary Rose Warship Yields Its Treasure, Shedding Light on Life in Henry VIII's England
A unique project about Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545, is providing information about life in medieval times, thanks to 21st century technology.
For the past 18 months the Mary Rose Trust has been working with sports scientists from the College of Engineering at Swansea University to discover more about the lives of the medieval archers on board the ship. When the ship was raised from the Solent in 1982, many thousands of medieval artefacts along with 92 fairly complete skeletons of the crew of the Mary Rose were recovered. |  |
Statues of 5th dynasty top officials discovered in Abusir
During routine excavations in Abusir South, 30km north of Giza plateau, Czech excavators from the Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Charles University in Prague, unearthed a collection of fifth dynasty ancient Egyptian statues.
Miroslav Barta, the head of the Czech mission told Ahram Online that the statues were found in a hidden tunnel located inside a rock-hewn tomb of Iti, the crew inspector. His tomb is located between two rock-hewn tombs of two fifth dynasty high officials: the overseer of the crew scribe, Nefer, and the chief of justice of the Shepespuptah great house. Although the exploration of the tunnel suggests that it was subjected to looting in antiquity, nine wooden and painted limestone statues were found inside. |  |
The Louvre: A Passion for Egypt
It should come as no surprise that, two hundred and twenty years after its inauguration, the Louvre boasts unparalleled collections of artifacts and masterpieces, with Egypt having more than its fair share of representation.
From ancient Egyptian and Hellenistic art, all the way to Coptic and Islamic art, the quality and scope of the Egyptian collections are everything you would expect from a legendary museum in a country that paved the way for the Egyptomania that swept across Europe following Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign in 1798 and the publishing of the Description de l'Egypte a few years later. |  |
Petroglyph thefts near Bishop stun federal authorities, Paiutes
BISHOP, Calif. — Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away.
Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot.
Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot.
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