Brazil Expands Mines to Drive Future, but Cost Is a Treasured Link to Its Past
CARAJÁS NATIONAL FOREST, Brazil — Archaeologists must climb tiers of orchid-encrusted rain forest, where jaguars roam and anacondas slither, to arrive at one of the Amazon’s most stunning sights: a series of caves and rock shelters guarding the secrets of human beings who lived here more than 8,000 years ago.
Almost anywhere else, these caves would be preserved as an invaluable source of knowledge into prehistoric human history. But not in this remote corner of the Amazon, where Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, is pushing forward with the expansion of one of the world’s largest iron-ore mining complexes, a project that will destroy dozens of the caves treasured by scholars. |  |
Yakama Nation: Gas pipeline damages historic site
The Yakama Nation has asked the federal government to halt the planned replacement of a natural gas pipeline over southwest Washington's White Salmon River.
The tribe claims the pipeline will hurt a known archaeological site that is of cultural significance to the Yakama people. Tribal chairman Harry Smiskin says the tribe was never consulted about replacement plans and asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to immediately halt construction plans.
The tribe claims the pipeline will hurt a known archaeological site that is of cultural significance to the Yakama people. Tribal chairman Harry Smiskin says the tribe was never consulted about replacement plans and asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to immediately halt construction plans.
Major climate change report leaks online
The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked to the web by a climate skeptic named Alec Rawls.
Rawls, who is based in the United States and was chosen as one of the report's 800 expert reviewers, admitted leaking the document and justified his actions by pointing to a sentence that he says "undercuts the main premise and the main conclusion of the full report, revealing the fundamental dishonesty of the whole." The sentence in question deals with the effect of cosmic rays on the climate, and skeptics have interpreted it as meaning that cosmic rays have a greater warming effect than the actions of humans. |  |
Tipping Point: Research Shows That Emission Reductions Must Occur by 2020
For years, most of us have envisioned climate change as a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution. But as the years pass—and with the calendar soon to flip over to 2013—without any substantial attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, this impression needs to change in a hurry.
According to a new paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, there’s a startlingly small number we need to keep in mind when dealing with climate change: 8. That’s as in 8 more years until 2020, a crucial deadline for reducing global carbon emissions if we intend to limit warming to 2°C, according to a team of researchers from a trio of research institutions—the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and ETH Zurich in Switzerland, along with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado—who authored the paper. |  |
Doomsday 2012: Watch the 'End of the World' Live Online
Anyone worried that the world will come to an end Friday (Dec. 21) can scan the heavens online this week for any signs of death from above.
The online Slooh Space Camera will broadcast a series of live cosmic views all week, beginning today (Dec. 17). The free webcasts will help the public keep watch for any monster solar storms, impending asteroid strikes or other potential agents of the so-called "Mayan apocalypse" that doomsayers claim is set for Friday. |  |
Mayan apocalypse mania grips Russia
The apocalypse is surely near when Ramzan Kadyrov emerges as the voice of reason.
The ruthless leader of Chechnya is among dozens of Russians officials, priests, doctors and psychiatrists aiming to calm an anxious populace frantically preparing for the end of the world later this week. "People are buying candles saying the end of the world is coming," Kadyrov said in comments published on his official website last week. "Does no one realise that once the end of the world comes, candles won't help them?" |  |
Chinese authorities arrest dozens for spreading Mayan apocalypse rumours
It's the end of the world – unless you're in the Chinese Communist party. Over the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have detained over 93 people across seven provinces for spreading rumours that the end is nigh, laying bare the party's obsession with social stability and maintaining its tight grip on power.
Many people in China believe in the so-called "Mayan apocalypse" – slated to take place on 21 December, the last day on the Mayan long count calendar – because it was the central premise of the disaster film 2012, a box office sensation in China when it was released three years ago. |  |
Revisiting Britain's Biggest Hoax: Who Faked The Bones Of The Piltdown Man?
On December 18, 1912, Charles Dawson told The Geological Society of London that a workman had uncovered the remains of one of the earliest humans in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England. The skull fragments and lower jaw bone of the "Piltdown Man" showed that it had a brain two-thirds the size of a modern human's and a jaw remarkably similar to that of a young chimpanzee.
The Piltdown Man became a starring figure in the human evolutionary tree over the next 40 years. (Popular Science even published a feature in 1931 about the "man-ape.") |  |
A New Leash on Infections: Dog that Sniffs Out a Deadly Superbug
Beagles are known as good hunters. So why not send them in search of deadly bacteria?
That’s what Dutch doctors are hoping to do by training the dogs’ famously sensitive sense of smell to sniff out deadly pathogens that plague hospitals and put patients at risk. Doctors spent two months training a two-year-old beagle named Cliff to learn to lie down or sit whenever he smelled the presence of Clostridium difficile, stubborn bacteria that cause severe, hard-to-treat diarrhea and sometimes life-threatening colitis. |  |
Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked?
An encrypted World War II message found in a fire place strapped to the remains of a dead carrier pigeon may have been cracked by a Canadian enthusiast.
Gord Young, from Peterborough, in Ontario, says it took him 17 minutes to decypher the message after realising a code book he inherited was the key. Mr Young says the 1944 note uses a simple World War I code to detail German troop positions in Normandy. GCHQ says it would be interested to see his findings. |  |
Hackers Steal Data from Pentagon, NASA, Federal Reserve
Members of the Anonymous-affiliated Team GhostShell hacking collective have published what they claim is stolen information for 1.6 million accounts linked to government agencies, including the Pentagon, NASA and the Federal Reserve.
The hackers appear to have breached the database with a malicious SQL code injection, ZDNet reported, stealing passwords and corresponding email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses and notes from defense tests. |  |
Nasa to test space-sleep colour-changing lights
Nasa is to test colour-changing lights on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of efforts to help astronauts on board sleep.
The US space agency will initially swap a fluorescent panel with a solid-state lighting module (SSLM) containing LEDs which produces a blue, whitish or red-coloured light depending on the time. It says the move may help combat insomnia which can make depression, sickness and mistakes more likely. |  |
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