Captured: the moment photosynthesis changed the world
BILLIONS of years ago, a tiny cyanobacterium cracked open a water molecule - and let loose a poison that wrought death and destruction on an epic scale. The microbe had just perfected photosynthesis, a process that freed the oxygen trapped inside water and killed early Earth's anaerobic inhabitants.
Now, for the first time, geologists have found evidence of the crucial evolutionary stage just before cyanobacteria split water. The find offers a unique snapshot of the moment that made the modern world. With the advent of photosynthesis came an atmosphere dominated by oxygen and, ultimately, the diversity of life forms that we know today. |  |
Golden Spike space venture wants to fly you to the moon ... for $1.4 billion
A group of space veterans and big-name backers today took the wraps off the Golden Spike Company, a commercial space venture that aims to send paying passengers to the moon and back at an estimated price of $1.4 billion or more for two.
The venture would rely on private funding, and it's not clear when the first lunar flight would be launched — but the idea reportedly has clearance from NASA, which abandoned its own back-to-the-moon plan three and a half years ago. |  |
Moon Surprisingly Battered, New Lunar Gravity Map Reveals
SAN FRANCISCO — The moon and other rocky bodies in the inner solar system were pounded by long-ago impacts far more violently than previously thought, two NASA spacecraft have found.
NASA's twin Grail probes have created an ultra-precise gravity map of the moon, revealing that its crust is almost completely pulverized. The surprising find suggests that Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars endured a similar beating billions of years ago, researchers said. |  |
Will a Secret Private Manned Mission to the Moon Be Announced This Week?
Internet rumors have been swirling for several weeks of a secret venture backed by private entrepreneurs that would return people to the moon’s surface. It seems that the veil will finally be lifted this week, during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 6.
“The Golden Spike Company invites you to attend a game-changing announcement about the future of commercial human space travel to the Moon,” reads the announcement for the media briefing. ”Executives from the company will describe the team, the mission architecture, and the business model.”.
“The Golden Spike Company invites you to attend a game-changing announcement about the future of commercial human space travel to the Moon,” reads the announcement for the media briefing. ”Executives from the company will describe the team, the mission architecture, and the business model.”.
NASA plans follow-up trek to Mars
NASA plans to follow-up its Mars rover Curiosity mission with a duplicate rover that could collect and store samples for return to Earth, the agency's lead scientist said on Tuesday.
The new rover will use spare parts and engineering models developed for Curiosity, which is four months into a planned $2.5 billion, two-year mission on Mars to look for habitats that could have supported microbial life. |  |
Verizon's Creepy Idea to Spy on TV Viewers
A couple snuggling in front of the TV could end up getting bombarded by commercials for romantic vacations, flowers or even condoms and birth control pills. That creepy invasion-of-privacy scenario comes from a Verizon patent idea that envisions spying on TV viewers for the sake of serving up related ads.
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Can Murder Be Tracked Like An Infectious Disease?
If I asked you to think of a murderer, what's the image that springs to mind?
If you're like most people, you'll probably think of an evil psychopath, or someone bent on revenge. Perhaps you'll see a criminal mastermind, who eliminates rivals on his way to riches. Or a strung-out drug addict, who kills because she needs money to get high.
All of these images have something in common: As a rule, we tend to associate murder with the behavior of individuals who behave in aberrational ways.
If you're like most people, you'll probably think of an evil psychopath, or someone bent on revenge. Perhaps you'll see a criminal mastermind, who eliminates rivals on his way to riches. Or a strung-out drug addict, who kills because she needs money to get high.
All of these images have something in common: As a rule, we tend to associate murder with the behavior of individuals who behave in aberrational ways.
Fukushima safety scientists paid by nuclear operators
Influential Japanese scientists who help set national radiation exposure limits have for years had trips paid for by the country's nuclear plant operators to attend overseas meetings of the world's top academic group on radiation safety.
The potential conflict of interest is revealed in one sentence buried in a 600-page parliamentary investigation into last year's Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant disaster and pointed out to The Associated Press by a medical doctor on the 10-person investigation panel. |  |
Scientists say Lake Tahoe area overdue for another earthquake
SAN FRANCISCO — A tsunami-producing fault in Lake Tahoe is overdue for another earthquake, scientists said here Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
The West Tahoe Fault is capable of producing a magnitude-7.3 earthquake and tsunamis up to 30 feet (10 meters) high in the clear blue lake, where million-dollar homes line the shore, researchers said. |  |
Smartphones to be pocket seismometers
The smartphones in our pockets are about to get even smarter.
Scientists want these ubiquitous gadgets to be put to work helping them detect and investigate earthquakes. The devices contain accelerometers and a team at the Berkeley Seismic Laboratory says the mechanisms are capable of monitoring tremors. An app is being developed that will record the shaking during major events and then report the data back to a central server over the cell network. |  |
New '4-D' Transistor Is Preview of Future Computers
A new type of transistor shaped like a Christmas tree has arrived just in time for the holidays, but the prototype won't be nestled under the tree along with the other gifts.
"It's a preview of things to come in the semiconductor industry," said Peide "Peter" Ye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.
Researchers from Purdue and Harvard universities created the transistor, which is made from a material that could replace silicon within a decade.
"It's a preview of things to come in the semiconductor industry," said Peide "Peter" Ye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.
Researchers from Purdue and Harvard universities created the transistor, which is made from a material that could replace silicon within a decade.
Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip
A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco to Australia.
The record-breaking 9,000 nautical mile (16,668km) trip took the PacX Wave Glider just over a year to achieve. Liquid Robotics, the US company behind the project, collected data about the Pacific Ocean's temperature, salinity and ecosystem from the drone. |  |
Palace of first Chinese emperor unearthed
Chinese archaeologists say they have unearthed the palace of China's first feudal emperor, best known for the terracotta warrior army guarding his tomb.
The newspaper China Daily reports that archaeologists have excavated the palace complex of Qin Shihuang in Xi'an, China, site of the life-size terracotta soldiers. The palace consists of 10 courtyard buildings and one main building, the paper reported. The complex runs about 2,264 feet long and 820 feet wide. The total area is about a quarter of the size of Beijing's Forbidden City, built in the 1400s. |  |
Re-creating a 3300 year old ceramic lion smashed by the Assyrians
As part of a repair job 3,300 years in the making, Harvard’s Semitic Museum is seeking to undo some of the destruction wrought when Assyrians smashed the ancient city of Nuzi in modern-day Iraq, looting the temple and destroying artefacts.
In a high-tech project that would have been impossible even four years ago, technicians are attempting to re-create a 2-foot-long ceramic lion that likely flanked an image of the goddess Ishtar in a temple in long-ago Nuzi, which is the modern archaeological site of Yorghan Tepe. |  |
30,000 year old engraved stone found in China intrigues archaeologists
Cognition and symbolic thought are often viewed as important features of modern human behaviour. Engraved objects are seen as hallmarks of this cognition and symbolism and even as evidence for language, indeed they are usually considered as one of the most important features of modern behaviour.
During analysis in 2012 of the stone tools that had been unearthed at the Shuidonggou site in 1980, an interesting engraved stone artefact was discovered among the assemblage. Dr Fei Peng, postdoctoral research fellow at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the paper in the Chinese Science Bulletin that reported the discovery was amazed at what they found. |  |
Researchers find evidence of early man in caves near Naples
Researchers are poring over thousands of tiny artifacts - including a child's milk tooth - found in a southern Italian cave that appears to have been shared by both Neanderthals and early man.
The caves of Roccia San Sebastiano, which overlook the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Naples, are being combed for traces of those who once lived there. On the slopes of the medieval fortress of Montis Dragonis, near Mondragone in Caserta province, researchers say they've uncovered layers of history, rich in early historical finds. |  |
European Romani Exodus Began 1,500 Years Ago, DNA Evidence Shows
Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, and religion, Europe's widespread Romani population shares a common, if complex, past. It all began in northwestern India about 1,500 years ago, according to a study reported on December 6th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that offers the first genome-wide perspective on Romani origins and demographic history.
The Romani represent the largest minority group in Europe, consisting of approximately 11 million people. That means the size of the Romani population rivals that of several European countries, including Greece, Portugal, and Belgium. |  |
Astronomers Discover Youngest Solar System Yet
An international group of astronomers using the Submillimeter Array and the Combined Array for Millimeter-Wave Astronomy has found evidence of what might be youngest still-forming solar system yet detected.
The protostar, labeled L1527 IRS, resides in a stellar nursery called Taurus Cloud in the constellation Taurus about 450 light-years from Earth. It is about 300,000 years old, compared to the 4.6-billion-year age of the Sun. “It may be even younger, depending on how fast it accumulated mass in the past,” said Dr John Tobin of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature... |  |
Apollo astronaut urges new agency dedicated to deep space
SAN FRANCISCO — The United States should create a new agency dedicated to manned exploration of the moon, Mars and other destinations in deep space, a former Apollo astronaut says.
Human exploration of such far-flung locales is a challenging proposition, so it would benefit from the type of laserlike attention that NASA gave its Apollo moon program back in the 1960s and early '70s, said Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the lunar surface on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. "You need to have an agency that is focused on that, and almost nothing else," |  |
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