Rare ancient well exposed, complete with mysterious remains
A well dating from 8,500 years ago, with the bones of two prehistoric people inside, was uncovered during recent excavations in the Jezreel Valley, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Thursday.
Archaeologists working on the Neolithic-period site found the skeletal remains of a young woman estimated to be about 19 years of age along with those of an older man at the bottom of the eight-meter deep well. Researchers do not know how the two came to their resting place at the bottom of the pit. |  |
Tomb of Ancient Egyptian Princess Discovered in Unusual Spot
The tomb of an ancient Egyptian princess has been discovered south of Cairo hidden in bedrock and surrounded by a court of tombs belonging to four high officials.
Dating to 2500 B.C., the structure was built in the second half of the Fifth Dynasty, though archaeologists are puzzled as to why this princess was buried in Abusir South among tombs of non-royal officials. Most members of the Fifth Dynasty's royal family were buried 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) to the north, in the central part of Abusir or farther south in Saqqara. |  |
Humans began using lethal technology 71,000 years ago to fight Neanderthals
The date when stone-age humans first invented the lethal technology of spears and arrows has been set back many thousands of years with the discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago.
Archaeologists believe the “bladelets” were used as the sharp tips for arrows or spears and were made by a relatively sophisticated technique involving the heat treatment of stone before shaping the final cutting edges. |  |
First Polynesians Arrived in Tonga 2,800 Years Ago
The first Polynesian settlers sailed to Tonga between 2,830 and 2,846 years ago, according to new research.
The findings, published Nov. 7 in the journal PLoS One, relied on ultraprecise dating of coral tools found at Tonga's first settlement. "The technique provides us with unbelievable precision in dating quite ancient materials," said David Burley, a co-author of the study and an archaeologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. "This stuff is almost 3,000 years old, and the date range is within 16 years.". |  |
New Human Moon Missions May Be Announced Soon By NASA, Expert Says
NASA is serious about sending astronauts back to the moon's neighborhood and will likely unveil its ambitious plans soon now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, experts say.
The space agency has apparently been thinking about setting up a manned outpost beyond the moon's far side, both to establish a human presence in deep space and to build momentum toward a planned visit to an asteroid in 2025. |  |
MONSTER ASTEROID 'PINGED' AS IT BUZZES EARTH
As the U.S. consumed itself in campaigns and ballots, scientists using NASA's 70-meter wide Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., released images of something that should put all of our Earthly politics into perspective.
Over three days, Goldstone "pinged" a 1.6-kilometer (1-mile) wide asteroid that approached our planet from Oct. 28 to Oct. 30. The huge space rock, called 2007 PA8, was 9 million kilometers (5.6 million miles) from Earth on Oct. 30. It made closest approach on Nov 5. (Monday), coming within 17 times the Earth-moon distance (4 million miles or 6.5 million kilometers). |  |
UFOs sightings skyrocket across Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal
The Army troops deployed along the China border from Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh in northeast have reported more than 100 sightings of "Unidentified Flying Objects" (UFOs) in the last three months.
Agencies including the Army, DRDO, NTRO and the ITBP have not yet been able to identify these luminous flying objects. |  |
Belly button bacteria under the microscope
Researchers have discovered which bacteria species are most commonly found in our bellybuttons, but have still not discovered what governs which species will be found on which people. These are the first published findings of the Belly Button Biodiversity project led by NC State's Dr. Rob Dunn.
The researchers swabbed the belly buttons of 66 study participants, and then processed the samples using high-throughput genetic sequencing to identify each of the phylotypes present in a sample and how prevalent each phylotype was.
The researchers swabbed the belly buttons of 66 study participants, and then processed the samples using high-throughput genetic sequencing to identify each of the phylotypes present in a sample and how prevalent each phylotype was.
Long-abandoned bacterial fermentation process converts sugar directly to diesel
A long-abandoned fermentation process once used to turn starch into explosives can be used to produce renewable diesel fuel to replace the fossil fuels now used in transportation, University of California, Berkeley, scientists have discovered.
Campus chemists and chemical engineers teamed up to produce diesel fuel from the products of a bacterial fermentation discovered nearly 100 years ago by the first president of Israel, chemist Chaim Weizmann. The retooled process produces a mix of products that contain more energy per gallon than ethanol that is used today in transportation fuels and could be commercialized within 5-10 years. |  |
Microfossils Reveal Secrets of Ancient Ocean Changes
No matter how many times you've been in the ocean, you've probably never noticed foraminifera. But "forams," as scientists call these microscopic organisms for short, are everywhere — from the water surface to the seafloor, all around the world. They've been here since before the time of the dinosaurs, and now they're revealing vital information about the history of the world we live in.
Here's how: As forams grow, their tiny shells record the chemical and physical conditions of the ocean, which are tightly linked to those of the atmosphere. When they die, they collect on the seafloor, where settling sediment and other dead organisms eventually bury them. Some forams are preserved as microfossils. Over hundreds of millions of years, these microfossils have stacked up on the seafloor to form an incredible natural archive of ocean and climate data. |  |
Caribbean sardine collapse linked to climate change
The collapse of sardine fisheries in the southern Caribbean during the past decade may have been driven by global climate change, according to a study.
Researchers from the US and Venezuela linked ecological measurements in the southern Caribbean with global climate change indicators. These indices were revealed to correlate to changes in regional wind and seawater circulation patterns, which may have dire socioeconomic consequences for Caribbean countries – such as the collapse of valuable sardine fisheries. |  |
Hog Farm Stink Raises Neighbors' Blood Pressure
The stench of a large hog farm may seem nauseating, but a study now suggests that hot farm emissions—which include dust, irritants, allergens, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and hundreds of volatile organic compounds—could have a measurable impact on human health. Neighbors of such farms experience a rise in blood pressure when the farm odor is strong, researchers found.
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Why vampires? Book looks at science behind monsters
The suave and sensitive Edward Cullen of "Twilight" may be the norm for vampires these days, but fictional monsters such as Dracula originally sprang from the fear of inexplicable diseases and the mysteries of death in the natural world.
So argues science journalist Matt Kaplan in "Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters," an examination of monsters around the world and throughout history - the science behind their origins, and why they matter to us even now.
So argues science journalist Matt Kaplan in "Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters," an examination of monsters around the world and throughout history - the science behind their origins, and why they matter to us even now.
Ancient teeth show how big cats lived with bear dogs
New research has uncovered how saber-toothed cats and bear dogs managed to cohabitate peacefully more than nine million years ago.
A team of paleontologists from the University of Michigan and the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Spain took tooth enamel samples from two species of sabre-toothed cats and one species of bear dog that had been unearthed at sites near Madrid. |  |
Crocs have super-sensitive jaws
Thick-skinned crocodilians are actually more sensitive to touch than humans, according to scientists.
US researchers investigated the dome-shaped dots along the jaws of alligators and crocodiles. They discovered the bumps were made of specialised cells and were more sensitive than human fingertips. The neuroscientists suggest the sensitive spots play a major part in the aquatic reptiles' impressive reaction times when hunting. |  |
2-Ton 'Alien' Horned Dinosaur Discovered
Paleontologists in Canada have discovered fossils of a new 2-ton, 20-foot-long horned dinosaur that roamed the Earth about 80 million years ago. And its headgear would've put on quite a show for the ladies.
The dinosaur, a distant cousin of Triceratops called Xenoceratops foremostensis, is one of the oldest specimens known to date of the ceratopsid group. The beast's name, Xenoceratops, translates to "alien horned-face," referring to its strange pattern of horns on its head and above its brow, and the rarity of such horned dinosaurs in this part of the fossil record. |  |
How Earth's Outer Layers Wander Back and Forth
The entire outermost part of Earth is able to wander over the rest of the planet, and now researchers say in a new study detailed in the Nov. 8 issue of the journal Nature that they can explain how it can mysteriously return back the way it was.
The planet's solid exterior — its crust and most of its mantle layer — at times drifts over its core. To envision this, imagine that a peach's flesh somehow became detached from the fruit's pit and was free to move about over it. |  |
Entanglement Makes Quantum Batteries Almost Perfect, Say Theorists
In recent years, physicists have amused themselves by calculating the properties of quantum machines, such as engines and refrigerators.
The essential question is how well these devices work when they exploit the rules of quantum mechanics rather than classical mechanics. The answers have given physicists important new insights into the link between quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. The dream is that they may one day build such devices or exploit those already used by nature. |  |
Revealed: Earth-like planet that could have a life-supporting climate
A “super-Earth” that could have a life-supporting climate has been discovered in a multi-world solar system 42 light years from the Sun.
The planet, which is several times more massive than the Earth, lies just the right distance from its star to allow the existence of liquid surface water. It orbits well within the star's "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone - the region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold to sustain life. |  |
Scientists Make Light Travel Infinitely Fast
A team of scientists is claiming to have achieved the seemingly impossible: it’s managed to create a nanoscale device which allows light to travel infinitely fast. But how the hell did they do it, and what does it mean?
In empty space, light travels at 300,000,000 metres per second — the maximum speed possible, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, in some materials — say, water or glass — it travels slower. The difference in speeds can be expressed as a ratio, which scientists refer to as the “index of refraction”: basically, a measure of how much light slows down or speeds up when it passes from material to another. |  |
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