Qasr Al Agouz temple in Luxor to open next week
On Luxor’s west bank, in front of Habu Temple stands the small Ptolemaic chapel temple of Qasr Al Agouz -- now awaiting visitors. After seven years of being off Luxor’s tourist map for restoration, Qasr Al Agouz Temple is to be officially inaugurated next week.
Although it encapsulates a very important period in Egyptian history, the temple is virtually unknown to visitors. It dates back to the reign of King Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II and is composed of three oblong rooms, including an offering room and a sanctuary. The temple is dedicated to the god Ibis-Thoth... |  |
Cyborg anthropologist: We can all be superhuman
Cyborg anthropology is the study of the interaction between humans and technology, and how technology affects culture. Mobile technology allows one to stand almost anywhere in the world, whisper something, and be heard elsewhere. These devices that live in our pockets need to be fed every night require our frequent attention. In only a few years these devices have become stitched into the fabric of our everyday lives. Phones offer us respite from the boredom of waiting in lines, but they also inhibit us when they run out of batteries.
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The Black Marble: The entirety of human civilization, as seen from outer space
The Black Marble 2012 was captured by Suomi, a NASA/NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather satellite that was launched last year to give us a better view of the Earth’s atmosphere. Suomi has a polar orbit at an altitude of 824km (512mi) — resulting in around 14 orbits of the Earth every day, with Suomi passing over any given point on Earth at 1:30am and 1:30pm every day.
Suomi has a bunch of imaging instruments, but in this case the Black Marble was captured using the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). VIIRS is sensitive to 22 different bands of radiation, allowing it to capture as much information as possible about the atmospheric conditions here on Earth. |  |
Cavemen Were Much Better At Illustrating Animals Than Artists Today
The iconic caveman in popular culture is Fred Flintstone: slow-witted and unskilled. In general, we think of the cave art produced by prehistoric people as crude and imprecise too—a mere glimmer of the artistic mastery that would blossom millenia later, during the Renaissance and beyond.
If this is your impression of prehistoric humans, a new study published today in PLOS ONE by researchers from Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary, might surprise you. In analyzing dozens of examples of cave art from places such as Lascaux, the group, led by Gabor Horvath, determined that prehistoric artists were actually better at accurately depicting the way four-legged animals walk than artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. |  |
How Did the Oracle at Delphi Really Prophesize?
The Oracle at Delphi is referenced throughout Greek myths and history. Supposedly she was rendered psychic by Apollo. Realistically, she was off her skull on gas that seeped out of the fissures of the temple in which she lived. Here is the scientific explanation for what caused this woman to utter her confused prophecies.
Even during the Oracle at Delphi's time, it was widely known that the Oracle's visions had a practical cause. Gas seeped out of the cracks in the cave where she sat, causing her to talk nonsense. |  |
Fit for a King: Largest Egyptian Sarcophagus Identified
The largest ancient Egyptian sarcophagus has been identified in a tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, say archaeologists who are re-assembling the giant box that was reduced to fragments more than 3,000 years ago.
Made of red granite, the royal sarcophagus was built for Merneptah, an Egyptian pharaoh who lived more than 3,200 years ago. A warrior king, he defeated the Libyans and a group called the "Sea Peoples" in a great battle. |  |
Jewish philanthropist lost in the sands of time thanks to the Nazis
She is regarded as the ancient world’s equivalent to the Mona Lisa and this weekend the 3,400–year old bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti will be the centrepiece of a grand exhibition in Berlin’s Neues Museum, celebrating her discovery by German archaeologists exactly a century ago.
The delicately featured and priceless bust of the wife of the ancient Egyptian Sun King Akhenaten has been one of the highlights of Berlin’s museum collection since it was first put on display in the city in 1923. |  |
Landslide-Driven Megatsunamis Threaten Hawaii
SAN FRANCISCO — It's almost unimaginable: a tsunami more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) high bearing down on the island of Hawaii.
But scientists have new evidence of these monster waves, called megatsunamis, doing just that. The findings were presented here yesterday (Dec. 5) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Unlike tsunamis from earthquakes, the Hawaiian tsunamis strike when the island chain's massive volcanoes collapse in humongous landslides. This happens about every 100,000 years, and is linked to climate change, said Gary McMurtry, a professor at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. |  |
Past Dead Sea Dry-Up Points to Ominous Future
SAN FRANCISCO — The Dead Sea, the saltiest sea in the world, almost completely dried up roughly 100,000 years ago, which may be ominous news for the future of the water in the region, new research suggests.
The findings, presented here Wednesday (Dec. 5) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, are the result of analyzing sediments drilled from the Dead Sea that captured about 200,000 years of the salty body's history. |  |
Solving the Mystery of River Formation
Look outside after a heavy rain and you may find a miniature Grand Canyon in your backyard, complete with a complex network of tributaries. The precise conditions that cause rivers of all sizes to form branches have long been a mystery; now, a new study pinpoints two opposing physical forces that work together to produce the intricate patterns. The discovery could help scientists better understand rivers at all scales and even on other worlds; for example, the icebound methane rivers on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.
When rain hits a tilted surface, like the side of a mountain or a hill, it tends to flow toward existing depressions. The flow of water erodes the rock or soil, widening and deepening the depressions. Called incision, the process is competitive and even somewhat cannibalistic. As individual rills grow from incision, they capture smaller neighbors, forming tributaries. One would expect incision to spread indefinitely if unchecked, but a process called soil creep smoothes over the land, filling up the cracks with a slow, yet steady, drift of soil. |  |
Killed-Off Corals Hold Clues to Earthquake Prediction
Some of the biggest coral die-offs in recorded history happened in 2004 and 2005, after massive earthquakes in Sumatra, off the coast of Indonesia.
Now, researchers report similar evidence of ancient massive coral kills on Simeulue Island, caused by ancient earthquakes. An analysis of the fossil coral beds provides clues to the history of megaearthquakes in the region, and could help predict future quakes, researchers said Monday (Dec. 3) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. |  |
Did Bacteria Fuel World's Worst Extinction?
SAN FRANCISCO — Nickel-eating bacteria may have worsened the world's worst mass die-off by producing huge amounts of methane, a new study suggests.
The study is the latest attempt to explain how most of the world's ocean species died off in just a few hundred thousand years at the end of the Permian era, about 250 million years ago. The researchers presented their findings Tuesday (Dec. 4) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. |  |
Research yields understanding of Darwin's 'abominable mystery'
Research by Indiana University paleobotanist David L. Dilcher and colleagues in Europe sheds new light on what Charles Darwin famously called "an abominable mystery": the apparently sudden appearance and rapid spread of flowering plants in the fossil record.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers present a scenario in which flowering plants, or angiosperms, evolved and colonized various types of aquatic environments over about 45 million years in the early to middle Cretaceous Period.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers present a scenario in which flowering plants, or angiosperms, evolved and colonized various types of aquatic environments over about 45 million years in the early to middle Cretaceous Period.
Gene-altered mosquitoes could be used vs. dengue
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — Mosquito control officials in the Florida Keys are waiting for the federal government to sign off on an experiment that would release hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the risk of dengue fever in the tourist town of Key West.
If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the first such experiment in the U.S. Some Key West residents worry, though, that not enough research has been done to determine the risks that releasing genetically modified mosquitoes might pose to the Keys' fragile ecosystem. |  |
Electrically spun fabric offers dual defense against pregnancy, HIV
The only way to protect against HIV and unintended pregnancy today is the condom. It’s an effective technology, but not appropriate or popular in all situations.
A University of Washington team has developed a versatile platform to simultaneously offer contraception and prevent HIV. Electrically spun cloth with nanometer-sized fibers can dissolve to release drugs, providing a platform for cheap, discrete and reversible protection. |  |
Scientists warn of sperm count crisis
The reproductive health of the average male is in sharp decline, the world's largest study of the quality and concentration of sperm has found.
Between 1989 and 2005, average sperm counts fell by a third in the study of 26,000 men, increasing their risk of infertility. The amount of healthy sperm was also reduced, by a similar proportion. The findings confirm research over the past 20 years that has shown sperm counts declining in many countries across the world. Reasons ranging from tight underwear to toxins in the environment have been advanced to explain the fall, but still no definitive cause has been found. |  |
Google cash buys drones to watch endangered species
Drones could soon be helping protect rhinos, tigers and elephants in Africa and Asia, thanks to cash from Google.
Controlled via a tablet computer, the small autonomous aircraft will photograph poachers and track animals via smart radio tags. The World Wildlife Fund added the $5m (£3.1m) grant would also fund software that could map where poachers strike. And it was developing a mobile DNA sampling kit to match body parts with animals. |  |
Survey of Critically Endangered Pygmy Sloths Finds Just 79 Animals Remain
In May 2011, after months of preparation, Jakob Shockey and two fellow biology students from Evergreen State College in Washington State found themselves on a tiny Panamanian island staring at one of the rarest mammals in the world: the pygmy three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus). “I felt humbled to finally stand knee-deep in the mud of a mangrove thicket on Isla Escudo de Veraguas and watch this sloth move so comfortably through its world, entirely unconcerned by my presence or anticipation,” he says.
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Being sociable will help you live longer, gorilla study suggests
BEING extrovert may help you live longer, a new study of gorilla behaviour by Scottish scientists published today suggests.
An international study led by Edinburgh University studied nearly 300 gorillas at zoos and sanctuaries in America over 18 years, assessing four personality traits - dominance, extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness. They found that only extroversion was linked to longevity, with more sociable gorillas living an average of 30 per cent longer than those which didn’t interact with group-mates. |  |
Dogs Help Acheive Goals: DNews Nugget
Fido Helps You Focus: It turns out pets aren't just good for snuggling.
Research in the Journal of Research in Personality found that having animals in the home helps people reduce stress and even reach their goals better.
Research in the Journal of Research in Personality found that having animals in the home helps people reduce stress and even reach their goals better.
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