Origin of life needs a rethink, scientists argue
Scientists trying to unravel the mystery of life's origins have been looking at it the wrong way, a new study argues.
Instead of trying to recreate the chemical building blocks that gave rise to life 3.7 billion years ago, scientists should use key differences in the way that living creatures store and process information, suggests new research detailed on Tuesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Instead of trying to recreate the chemical building blocks that gave rise to life 3.7 billion years ago, scientists should use key differences in the way that living creatures store and process information, suggests new research detailed on Tuesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Two 425m-year-old shrimp-like fossils found - with limbs, eyes, gills and guts intact
For tiny shrimp-like creatures that are 425 million years old, they look in pretty good shape.
The two "special" fossils unearthed in Herefordshire include not only the animals' shells but also their soft parts including body, limbs, eyes, gills and guts. Luckily for the scientists who found them, the ostracods were preserved by a fall of volcanic ash at a time when Britain had a subtropical climate. |  |
Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested
A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water.
The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford.
The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford.
Japanese researchers build robot with most humanlike muscle-skeleton structure yet (w/ video)
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have taken another step towards creating a robot with a faithfully recreated human skeleton and muscle structure. Called Kenshiro, the robot has been demonstrated at the recent Humanoids 2012 conference in Osaka, Japan.
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Cutting Underwater Noise Improves Wildlife Health
Research by scientists at the Univ. of Bath is being used to help inform new EU legislation on levels of underwater noise, with the aim of reducing the impact of noise pollution on marine wildlife.
Shipping, seismic surveys for oil exploration and even the installation of offshore wind turbines all produce underwater noise that has been shown to increase stress levels of wildlife. This can affect the long-term health of marine animals, creating a negative impact on the marine food chain and the fishing industry. |  |
Christmas Carp Prefer to Float North-South
Live carp floating in tubs at traditional Czech Christmas markets like to align their bodies north-south, researchers say. The finding suggests the fish use the geomagnetic field to orient themselves and possibly even navigate through freshwater.
For their study, a team of scientists photographed common carp being sold out of containers at 25 holiday markets in Prague and elsewhere in Bohemia in December 2011. In total, they collected 817 pictures and documented more than 14,000 fish. |  |
New experiments challenge fundamental understanding of electromagnetism
A cornerstone of physics may require a rethink if findings at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are confirmed. Recent experiments suggest that the most rigorous predictions based on the fundamental theory of electromagnetism—one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, and harnessed in all electronic devices—may not accurately account for the behavior of atoms in exotic, highly charged states.
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Using the Tesla Effect, Electric Buses Charge as They Go
A new electric bus prototype doesn’t just pick up passengers at its bus stops; it also picks up a charge for its battery.
Unlike its public transportation contemporaries, the electric “Aggie bus” at Utah State University has no overhead wires. Nor does it need to be plugged into a power source. Instead, the battery receives a five-kilowatt wireless boost from a charge plate installed at each bus stop. With consistent routes and frequent stops, the bus is able to charge as it goes rather than requiring a big battery on board to stockpile an entire day’s worth of power. |  |
3D imaging helps understand the role of birds in ancient Egypt
Entering the exhibition “Between Heaven & Earth: Birds In Ancient Egypt” at the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, you will immediately feel transported into the ancient Nile delta marshlands with its lush green flora.
The combination of colours, video footage, bird song and ancient artefacts gives the impression of travel through time and space. At the start of the exhibition, you will find one of their most impressive artefacts, an empty shell of an ostrich egg from 3100 BC. Ostrich eggs have not only been used in ancient Egypt as containers for liquids and raw material for bead carving, but also symbolize the deep integration of avian life into ancient Egypt’s spirituality.
The combination of colours, video footage, bird song and ancient artefacts gives the impression of travel through time and space. At the start of the exhibition, you will find one of their most impressive artefacts, an empty shell of an ostrich egg from 3100 BC. Ostrich eggs have not only been used in ancient Egypt as containers for liquids and raw material for bead carving, but also symbolize the deep integration of avian life into ancient Egypt’s spirituality.
Re-Examining Nefertiti's Likeness and Life
German excavators discovered the famous bust of Nefertiti in Egypt 100 years ago. As an anniversary exhibition kicks off in Berlin, new findings are altering old ideas about Germany's controversial acquisition of the bust and the story of the legendary beauty herself.
In wartime, the course of the world is often accelerated in odd ways. To the sounds of sword thrusts and the thunder of cannons, entire empires have been dispersed, and fates brought together and accumulated. As if in stop motion, heroes have been born and destroyed once again. |  |
Cooking with clay the Mayan way
Excavations of a kitchen area at Escalera al Cielo in the Puuc Maya region of Yucatán, Mexico has uncovered a concentration of fired clay balls (ca. 3–5 cm in diameter), related to other domestic refuse.
The artefacts were found in the kitchen of an elite residential group that was suddenly abandoned around the end of the Terminal Classic period (A.D. 800–950), resulting in assemblages that allowed an opportunity to explore the types and distribution of daily household activities. |  |
Archaeologists Explore Colombia's Lost City
A team of archaeologists are uncovering remains of an ancient city that, until recently, had been unknown to most of the outside world for centiuries. Known today as Ciudad Perdida (or Teyuna), Spanish for "Lost City", it is one of Colombia's most spectacular heritage sites, despite the fact that relatively few of the world's travelers have even known of its existence. Inhabited by the Tayrona people until the end of the 16th century and tucked away within the lush jungles of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta not far from the Colombian coastline, it is made up of hundreds of stone terraces and rings, which archaeologists believe were used as foundations for temples, dwellings and plazas.
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Skeletons in Cave Reveal Mediterranean Secrets
Skeletal remains in an island cave in Favignana, Italy, reveal that modern humans first settled in Sicily around the time of the last ice age and despite living on Mediterranean islands, ate little seafood. The research is published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marcello Mannino and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany.
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Siberian riddles on rock
The Museum of Moscow is presenting stone sculptures, rock paintings and runes from a Siberian land shrouded in mystery: Khakassia.
“Many of [the works] don’t exist anymore, and these copies are the only ones saved,” museum press secretary Anastasia Burova said. “Most of them are already underwater or destroyed by people.”. |  |
Forests near Yellowstone hold traces of human habitation dating back millennia
MEETEETSE, WYO. — The greater Yellowstone area is cherished for its unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife. But it’s hardly a region that most people think of as an archaeological treasure trove. Most people, though, are wrong to think that.
That’s the viewpoint of Larry Todd, an archaeologist who grew up in Meeteetse, near the eastern boundary of Yellowstone National Park and surrounded by the Shoshone National Forest. Todd has worked for more than 30 years studying traces left by ancient peoples in places as diverse as France, Ukraine and Ethiopia, as well as teaching in Colorado and Wyoming. |  |
Can We Stop Modern-Day Mad Scientists?
Russ George, a wealthy American businessman with a history of big, controversial ideas, launched his latest one this October: dumping 200,000 pounds of iron sulfate into the North Pacific. His aim was to spur a huge plankton bloom, which would absorb carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and then sink to the ocean floor. George was attempting to engage in ocean fertilization, the idea that seeding the sea in this way creates those organic blooms that sequester carbon when they sink.
Plenty of scientists have bandied about the idea of ocean fertilization—it's one of the most common proposals for geoengineering, or engineering the earth to protect civilization from climate change. But George didn't write a scientific paper about the implications of fertilizing the Pacific Ocean with iron. He just went out and did it, with the backing of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, a First Nations group in Canada that was hoping an improvement in the ocean would also improve the salmon numbers they depend on. |  |
Cuba sugar cane marabu weeds 'could be turned to fuel'
Drive anywhere in the Cuban countryside and you will spot the marabu lining the road: a dense, woody weed that grows as tall as trees and has invaded vast swathes of agricultural land.
The land-grab began in the 1990s when Cuba was in economic crisis following the collapse of its great benefactor, the Soviet Union. The mighty sugar industry slumped too, and cane fields were overrun by marabu. But to one British firm, the aggressive weed is less a problem than a valuable resource. |  |
Seeing the Amazon in a new light will help to save it
No, this isn't a candy forest. This is the Peruvian Amazon as seen by the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), an instrument-laden aircaft that is mapping tropical ecology in unprecedented detail.
The plane carries the Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System, or AToMS, which uses an imaging spectrometer that engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, helped to build. It detects chemical signals and recognises the signatures of plant species, while a laser-ranging system draws up a 3D model of the landscape below. The CAO can reach every tropical region on the planet and scan 50,000 hectares a day.
The plane carries the Airborne Taxonomic Mapping System, or AToMS, which uses an imaging spectrometer that engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, helped to build. It detects chemical signals and recognises the signatures of plant species, while a laser-ranging system draws up a 3D model of the landscape below. The CAO can reach every tropical region on the planet and scan 50,000 hectares a day.
Increase in one-way flight searches to destinations 'safe' from Mayan doomsday
According to one interpretation of a Mayan prophecy, the world will end on December 21 - but it seems there might be two destinations where you could escape Armageddon.
Flight search website Skyscanner says believers are flocking to two small villages - Bugarach in the south of France and Sirince, Turkey - in a bid to escape impending doom. Searches for flights to the south of France have increased by 41 per cent in the week around December 21 compared to the week before. Sirince, in the Turkish province of Izmir, has similarly seen a hike of 30 per cent in one-way flight searches. The French farming village of Bugarach has been a focal point for doomsday cults as a place where they could escape the end of the world. Similarly, Sirince, near the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, has seen a tourism boom as a result of the predictions. |  |
Evidence Noah's Biblical Flood Happened, Says Robert Ballard
The story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood is one of the most famous from the Bible, and now an acclaimed underwater archaeologist thinks he has found proof that the biblical flood was actually based on real events.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour for ABC News, Robert Ballard, one of the world's best-known underwater archaeologists, talked about his findings. His team is probing the depths of the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey in search of traces of an ancient civilization hidden underwater since the time of Noah. |  |
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