On a dim February evening, seven people crowded around a row of television monitors in a shack on the rear deck of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer. The research icebreaker was idling 30 kilometres off the coast of Antarctica with a cable as thick as an adult's wrist dangling over the stern. At the end of that cable, on the continental shelf 1,400 metres down, a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) skimmed across the sea floor, surveying a barren, grey mudscape. The eerie picture of desolation, piped back to the television monitors, was the precursor to an unwelcome discovery.
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Strange Phobias: It's the end of the world! (Video)
With the ancient Mayan calendar nearing its end, doomsday phobia is up. About 10 percent of Americans have sort of phobia, from the common fears of spiders and heights to a few more exotic anxieties.
Video by Yahoo! News.
Video by Yahoo! News.
10 Commandments digitised by University of Cambridge
A 2,000-year-old copy of the 10 Commandments and other key religious manuscripts have been digitised and put online by the University of Cambridge.
The fragile Nash Papyrus, as it is known, is one of the oldest manuscripts containing text from the Hebrew Bible. Other uploaded pieces include the 10th Century Book of Deer, believed to be the oldest surviving Scottish script. The university said it had now uploaded a total of 25,000 new images online for people to view around the world. |  |
Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds
A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.
The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.
The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.
Phew! Universe's Constant Has Stayed Constant
By peering at alcohol molecules in a distant galaxy, astronomers have determined that a fundamental constant of nature has hardly changed at all over the age of the universe.
The constant — the ratio of the mass of a proton to the mass of an electron — has changed by only one hundred thousandth of a percent or less over the past 7 billion years, the observations show. The scientists determined this by pointing the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope at a distant galaxy that lies 7 billion light-years away, meaning its light has taken that long to reach Earth. Thus, astronomers are seeing the galaxy as it existed 7 billion years ago. The telescope looked for special light features that reflect the absorption of methanol, a simple form of alcohol that contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. |  |
It's a trap! Petition to build Death Star will spark White House response
The 25,000-plus signers of a "We the People" petition calling on the federal government to start building a Death Star by 2016 must be feeling as peppy as the Rebel Alliance, now that they've put their plea over the threshold that will trigger a response from the White House.
Campaigns on 4chan, Reddit and Twitter helped put it over the top with a day to spare. This means someone at the White House will have to take a good look at the Death Star issue and draw up a response (unless officials decide it would be improper to speak out on something that's more appropriately addressed by, say, the Defense Department, NASA or Lord Vader). |  |
LCD contact lens puts an image right over your eye
The dream of a bionic eye is closer than ever: Researchers at Ghent University have created an LCD display the same shape and thickness of a contact lens. There's still a long way to go, but this is a major breakthrough.
Many research institutions are working on electronics that can be worn on the surface of the eye. While there is the possibility of having a private display overlaid on your vision, there are other applications as well. An electronic contact lens could monitor the eye for problems like cataracts, and a safety lens could block out unwanted radiation, acting as automatic sunglasses. |  |
Spy Agency Predicts Megahumans By 2030
In the year 2030, Asia will surpass North America and Europe and become the global economic powerhouse it once was during the Middle Ages. Deaths from communicable disease will drop by 40 percent. The majority of the world's population won't be poor and among them will walk bionic superhumans with neuro-pharmaceutical drugs coursing through their veins.
These are just a very small fraction of the predictions made by the soothsayers over at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a US coalition of 17 government intelligence agencies. The NIC's prophecies were recently detailed in Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, a 140-page report that identifies "megatrends" expected to emerge over the next 18 years and radically alter the world as we know it today. The report is the fifth installment of NIC's Global Trends series, which seeks to provide a proactive framework for thinking about the future. |  |
Kenshiro Robot Gets New Muscles and Bones
We’ve seen bio-inspired hummingbird robots, turtle robots, squirrel robots and more… enough to start an extremely profitable robot zoo. But very few researchers have been able to mimic the human body down to muscles and bones.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo are taking bio-inspired robots to new heights with Kenshiro, their new human-like musculoskeletal robot revealed at the Humanoids conference this month. They have added more muscles and more motors to their Kojiro robot from 2010, making Kenshiro’s underlying structure the closest to a human's form so far. See the new body in the picture (right). |  |
Why You Should Probably Stop Eating Wheat
Wheat and grain-based foods are all around us. We love our bagels, pasta, bread and breakfast cereals. For many, the thought of eliminating these staples from our diets seems wholly unreasonable, if not ludicrous. But a growing number of people are switching to wheat-free diets -- and for very good reason. As science is increasingly showing, eating wheat increases the potential for a surprising number of health problems. Here's why you should probably stop eating wheat.
Without a doubt, wheat plays a major role in our diets. It supplies about 20 percent of the total food calories worldwide, and is a national staple in most countries. |  |
Boys and Girls May Get Different Breast Milk
Mother's milk may be the first food, but it is not created equal. In humans and other mammals, researchers have found that milk composition changes depending on the infant's gender and on whether conditions are good or bad. Understanding those differences can give scientists insights into human evolution.
Researchers at Michigan State University and other institutions found that among 72 mothers in rural Kenya, women with sons generally gave richer milk (2.8 percent fat compared with 0.6 percent for daughters). |  |
Never-before-seen Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale surfaces
Experts in Denmark unearthed “The Tallow Candle,” what they believe is the first fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, found at the bottom of a box near the Danish writer’s home city of Odense.
Local historian Esben Brage was searching the private archives of a Danish family in the National Archive for Funen in Odense when he came across a small, yellowing piece of paper at the bottom of a box. Experts scrutinized the six-page, 700-word handwritten copy of the fairy tale and determined it was written by Andersen, reports the Associated Press.
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Historic Camp Site Discovered on Antarctica
Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Englishman Robert Falcon Scott were the explorers who led teams of their countrymen on grueling journeys across the frigid continent in an effort to be the first to go where no man had gone before. Amundsen won the race, reaching the pole on Dec. 14, 1911. Scott also made it there, on Jan. 17, 1912, but perished with the remainder of his crew on the arduous trek back to the edge of the continent.
Scott and his team camped on the slopes of Mount Erebus, the southernmost volcano, during their journey. The spot was known as "the highest camp," according to a National Science Foundation release. |  |
Turkey turns to human rights law to reclaim British Museum sculptures
Human rights legislation that has overturned the convictions of terrorists and rapists could now rob the British Museum of sculptures created for one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
A Turkish challenge in the European court of human rights will be a test case for the repatriation of art from one nation to another, a potential disaster for the world's museums. |  |
Oops! Brain-Removal Tool Left in Mummy's Skull
A brain-removal tool used by ancient Egyptian embalmers has been discovered lodged in the skull of a female mummy that dates back around 2,400 years.
Removal of the brain was an Egyptian mummification procedure that became popular around 3,500 years ago and remained in use in later periods. Identifying the ancient tools embalmers used for brain removal is difficult, and researchers note this is only the second time that such a tool has been reported within a mummy's skull. |  |
Ancient woman statue revealed in Metropolis
A 2,500-year-old statue of a woman from the late Hellenistic period has been unearthed during the excavations at the Metropolis ancient city in Zmir’s Torbal district.
According to a written statement made by the Sabanc Foundation, new artifacts are being unearthed during the excavation of the ancient city, which has been ongoing for 22 years as part of a collaboration between the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Trakya University, the Metropolis Association, the Torbal Municipality and sponsored by the Sabanc Foundation. |  |
Mysterious Package Addressed to Indiana Jones Arrives at UChicago
Grab hold of your thinking fedoras, everyone -- it's mystery solving time.
The University of Chicago received a bizarre package on Tuesday (pictured above) addressed to a "Henry Walton Jones, Jr." At first, nobody thought twice about it. Whatever, they figured, we get the wrong mail all the time. But then it clicked. This wasn't just any "Jones" the sender was hoping to reach. This was the whip-snapping, Nazi-fighting, Holy Grail-hunting legend of a professor himself: the Indiana Jones. |  |
Permian mass extinction triggered by humble microbe
AROUND 251 million years ago, over 90 per cent of the species on Earth suddenly went extinct. Their killer may not have been a devastating meteorite or a catastrophic volcanic eruption, but a humble microbe.
The prevailing theory is that the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period was triggered by volcanic eruptions over a vast area of what is now Siberia. This led, among other things, to a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
The prevailing theory is that the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period was triggered by volcanic eruptions over a vast area of what is now Siberia. This led, among other things, to a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. Government to Protect Native Holy Lands
Less than 90 years after the last skirmishes of the Apache Wars, branches of the U.S. government signed an agreement to protect what's left of Native American's sacred sites for the next five years.
The agreement, called a memorandum of understanding, was signed by cabinet secretaries from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior and the chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. |  |
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