Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from Wired.
Science Funding Survives Stimulus Cuts
By Brandon Keim
Despite Congressional attempts to make science funding a casualty in their shrinking of the economic stimulus plan, the bill signed Tuesday by President Barack Obama contains more than $20 billion for science.
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The stimulus plan, originally budgeted at more than $1 trillion, was Obama's first chance to make good on this promise. However, legislators in both the House and Senate included science-related funding among their proposed trimmings.
The final plan will cost $787 billion. Fortunately for science — and for an economy whose recovery may be tied to developments in clean energy, along with people whose health may be saved by medical advances — Congressional attempts to scrap science were unsuccessful.
More science, space, and environment news after the jump.
Slideshows/Videos
Wired: 10 Fantastic Marine Biology Videos
By Aaron Rowe
Killer whales, cuddly otters, and jogging shrimp are great reasons to be excited about marine biology. But they are far more than a source of inspiration or entertainment. Each fascinating creature should remind us that a precious realm exists just beneath the surface of the sea, and it is our responsibility to protect it from overfishing and pollution.
Here are some of our favorite clips from that remarkable world
Wired: Video: Leaping Lizard's Tail-Free Mid-Air Wipeout
By Brandon Keim
The aerodynamic impact of tail loss on lizard leaps might not rank with curing disease and feeding the world on a list of scientific priorities, but it sure makes for great video.
L.A. Times: Major fossil cache in L.A.
The largest known deposit of fossils from the last ice age has been found in Los Angeles. Andrea Thomer, an excavator for George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, stands next to the prehistoric bones of an American lion, a coyote and a young horse. These and other species yet to be identified were unearthed from beneath a former May Co. parking lot on the Miracle Mile.
Reuters: Mammoth skeleton found in LA
Feb. 19 - The nearly complete skeleton of a massive mammoth who died during the last ice age has been dug out of a construction site in Los Angeles.
Reuters: From the Scene: Eco-polar station
Feb 17 - Reuters contributor Wendell Roelf reports from East Antarctica where Belgium has opened a zero-emission research station, using wind and solar power.
Reuters: Robot plays 'rock, paper, scissors'
A British robot proves his wits and manual dexterity in the game 'rock, paper, scissors' at London's Science Museum but could one day help sufferers of stroke or Parkinson's disease.
Reuters: Spaceship-like car to hit U.S. roads
Feb 18 - A three-wheeled, all-electric vehicle is set to go into mass production later this year despite a snub from the U.S. government.
Reuters: Solar power plant goes hybrid
Feb 18 - An Israeli company wants to prove it doesn't need constant sunshine for a solar power plant to make non-stop electricity to power off-grid communities.
Reuters: WW1 wreckage found in Mediterranean
Feb. 19 - A WW1 French battleship sunk by a German submarine in 1917 was discovered on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea.
Astronomy/Space
Wired: Rare Comet Close-Up Coming to a Sky Near You
By Michael Wall
Lulin, discovered in July 2007, is now visible to the naked eye in dark, rural skies. But the view will get better: On the night of Feb. 23, Lulin will pass within 38 million miles of Earth, appearing about 2 degrees south-southwest of Saturn in the night sky. Stargazers with binoculars should get a good look. By mid-March, Lulin will have zoomed off into deep space and out of sight.
Wired: Oh, Hubble, Can This Really Be the End?
By Alexis Madrigal
The spectacular collision between two satellites on Feb. 10 could make the shuttle mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope too risky to attempt.
Before the collision, space junk problems had already upped the Hubble mission's risk of a "catastrophic impact" beyond NASA's usual limits, Nature's Geoff Brumfiel reported today, and now the problem will be worse.
Mark Matney, an orbital debris specialist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas told the publication that even before the collision, the risk of an impact was 1 in 185, which was "uncomfortably close to unacceptable levels" and the satellite collision "is only going to add on to that."
Reuters: NASA spacecraft to seek out Earth-like planets
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. spacecraft toting the biggest camera ever sent into space will be launched next month to scour our region of the Milky Way galaxy for warm, rocky planets like Earth that may host life, NASA said on Thursday.
The Kepler spacecraft is scheduled to spend 3-1/2 years looking at more than 100,000 stars similar to our sun, seeking evidence of planets similar in size and composition to Earth.
Kepler is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a Delta II rocket on March 5, the U.S. space agency said. Colorado-based Ball Aerospace and Technologies, a subsidiary of Ball Corp, built it.
Reuters: NASA delays shuttle flight a fourth time
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA delayed its first space shuttle launch of the year for a fourth time on Friday after failing to resolve concerns about a potential problem with fuel pressurization valves.
Shuttle Discovery had been scheduled to lift off on February 27 for a 14-day flight to outfit the International Space Station with a final set of solar wing panels. The flight, already delayed three times for safety reviews, was not immediately rescheduled.
The issue that has delayed the mission involves three small valves in the shuttle's rear engine compartment that are needed to keep the external fuel tank properly pressurized during the 8-1/2-minute climb into orbit.
Evolution/Paleontology
British Columbia Local News: Mammoth tusk found on beach
By Vivian Moreau - Victoria News
A 30-centimetre piece of mammoth tusk was found at Island View beach in Central Saanich this morning.
Found in slide debris, the discovery was made by Grant Keddie, the Royal B.C. museum's curator of archeology.
Keddie guessed the tusk to be at least 17,000 years old, when the elephant-like creatures last roamed southern B.C.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above article.
Wired: The Hunt for E.T. Comes Home — to Earth
By Alexis Madrigal
CHICAGO — They might not be green or spit out cute catchphrases, but there could be forms of "alien" life right here on Earth.
If life arose not just once, but multiple times on Earth, life as we don't know it could be here on our own planet, perhaps using different chemical processes than we've ever seen before. And because scientists have only studied a tiny slice of the world's microbes in depth, the microscopic remnants of a second (or third or fourth) biogenesis could be hiding right beneath our noses.
"If life did happen many times, there could be something like a shadow biosphere that either was, or is, all around us," Arizona State Univeristy astrobiologist Paul Davies said here Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences meeting. "It's entirely possible that some fraction of microbial life could turn out to be alien or 'weird' life as we prefer to call it."
Wired: Reptiles Needed More Than Feathers to Fly
By Brandon Keim
Flashy feathers get all the attention in the evolution of dinosaur flight, but a more complex internal adaptation provided the aerodynamics necessary for lizards to go airborne.
Fossil analysis suggests that pterosaurs had sacs of air in their bodies, starting in their lungs and spreading beyond, even hollowing out their bones. They were, in short, not nearly as heavy as their size suggested.
"We offer a reconstruction of the breathing system in pterosaurs, one that proposes the existence of a mechanism with the same essential structure to that of modern birds — except 70 million years earlier," study co-author Leon Claessens, a biologist at College of the Holy Cross, said in a press release.
The irony in the article is that the creatures being studied didn't need any feathers to fly.
Wired: These Toes Were Made for Running
By Brandon Keim
If you've ever wondered why humans don't have long, prehensile toes that would turn our feet into extra hands, here's an answer: stubby toes may be custom-made for running.
Biomechanical analysis shows that long toes require more energy and generate more shock than short toes, making them one of many adaptations that may have helped our savannah-dwelling ancestors chase their prey.
"Longer toes require muscles to do more work, and exert stronger forces to maintain stability, compared to shorter toes," said University of Calgary anthropologist Campbell Rolian. "So long as we were engaged in substantial amounts of running, natural selection would favor individuals with shorter toes."
The idea that long-distance running was a major force in hominid evolution is one that is developing a longer and better-supported pedigree. This study just reinforces that already existing idea.
L.A. Times: Major cache of fossils unearthed in L.A.
By Thomas H. Maugh II
Workers excavating an underground garage on the site of an old May Co. parking structure in Los Angeles' Hancock Park got more than just a couple hundred new parking spaces. They found the largest known cache of fossils from the last ice age, an assemblage that has flabbergasted paleontologists.
Researchers from the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea tar pits have barely begun extracting the fossils from the sandy, tarry matrix of soil, but they expect the find to double the size of the museum's collection from the period, already the largest in the world.
Among their finds, to be formally announced today, is the nearly intact skeleton of a Columbian mammoth -- named Zed by researchers -- a prize discovery because only bits and pieces of mammoths had previously been found in the tar pits.
Ah, Rancho La Brea, the site of what I consider to have been my best scientific research! It warms my heart to see that the locale is still yielding great fossils. It also warms my heart that many of my favorite people are still there; John Harris, Christopher Shaw, and Shelley Cox were all working there 20 years ago when I was a Student-In-Residence.
Hat/Tip to Edson Smith, who has been featured in OND: Science Saturday before, for sending in the above article.
Biodiversity
Reuters: Most wars hit world's rich wildlife areas
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most wars in the last half-century occurred in places that shelter some of the most biologically diverse and environmentally threatened wildlife on Earth, a new study reported on Friday.
These include the Vietnam war, when the use of the defoliant Agent Orange destroyed forest cover, and timber harvesting that funded wars in Liberia, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the study in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.
Eighty-one percent of major armed conflicts from 1950 to 2000 happened in 34 regions known as biodiversity hot spots, which contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, the study said.
Reuters: Creatures in both Arctic, Antarctic puzzle experts
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - At least 235 types of cold-loving creatures thrive in both Arctic and Antarctic seas, puzzling scientists about how they got to both ends of the earth, a study showed on Sunday.
Until now, the warm tropics have been seen as a barrier keeping polar bears in the Arctic separate from penguins in the Antarctic. Only a few creatures have been known from both polar regions, such as long-migrating grey whales or Arctic terns.
"At least 235 species live in both polar seas despite an 11,000-km (6,835 miles) distance in between," according to the Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international project to map the world's oceans with results due in October 2010.
Alister Doyle has more to say in his blog entry Antarctic ice fish redefines "cold-blooded".
As for the biogeographic pattern that is "puzzling scientists," I'm not that puzzled. I expect most of those creatures will be found in the very deep ocean where the water is as cold as it is at the surface near the poles. That's a pattern very common among foraminifera. Scientists just need to look.
Reuters: Rare U.S. jaguar caught, released in Arizona
By Tim Gaynor
PHOENIX (Reuters) - An extremely rare jaguar has been captured and fitted with a satellite tracking collar by researchers in Arizona, who hope to shed light on the habits of one of the United States' most elusive predators.
Arizona Game and Fish Department officials caught the male cat Wednesday in a rugged area southwest of Tucson during a study to better understand bear and mountain lion habitat.
Jaguars roam over a vast area ranging from northern Argentina in the south to the rugged borderland wildernesses of Arizona and New Mexico, where they were thought to have vanished until two confirmed sightings in 1996.
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse covered this story in last night's OND. However, it's still a fun bit of biodiversity news.
Biotechnology/Health
N.Y. Times: Why Not Bring a Neanderthal to Life?
By John Tierney
Now that the Neanderthal genome has been reconstructed, my colleague Nicholas Wade reports, a leading genome researcher at Harvard says that a Neanderthal could be brought to life with present technology for about $30 million.
So why not do it? Why not give Harvard's George Church the money he says could be used to resurrect a Neanderthal from DNA?
I'm bracing for a long list of objections from the world's self-appointed keepers of bioethics, who must see this new Neanderthal issue as a research bonanza. Think of the conferences to plan, the books to publish, the donors to alarm! I can imagine an anti-Neanderthal alliance between the religious right and the religious left, like James Dobson and Jeremy Rifkin — what I like to call the holier-than-thou coalition opposed to new biological technologies.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above article.
Wired: New Clues for Anti-Aging Therapy
By Michael Wall
New insights into how cells cope with stress could help combat neurological diseases and reduce the ravages of aging.
Scientists have known for years that moderate stressors, such as a calorie-restricted diet, increase lifespan in a variety of organisms. Now new research is illuminating how this works at the molecular level. A particular protein is key in regulating at least one aspect of the stress response and may be a good model for anti-aging drugs.
"What we have here is an essential protective pathway that now looks like a very effective therapeutic target," said biologist Richard Morimoto of Northwestern University.
Wired: Scientists Exploit Bacterial Laziness to Beat Disease
By Brandon Keim
Infectious diseases may have an unexpected weakness: their own propensity for laziness.
Researchers genetically engineered "cheating" versions of a common, inflammation-causing microbe. When injected into already-infected mice, the bugs benefited from the chemical labors of other microbes without working themselves.
Able to devote their energies to reproduction, the lazy bugs divided faster than their brethren, and infections turned rapidly less virulent.
Think of the above as evolution in action.
Wired: Stem Cell Tumor a Cautionary Reminder
By Brandon Keim
Stem cells have great promise, but it won't be realized without a lot of clinical trials and errors, and likely some tragic side effects and missteps.
That cautionary counterpoint to biotechno-optimism is driven home by the report of a 13-year-old boy who developed brain and spinal tumors four years after being treated with an experimental stem cell therapy for ataxia telangiectasi, a rare and disabling genetic disease.
With President Barack Obama expected to lift President Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and the first FDA-approved embryonic stem cell trial about to begin, optimism now abounds for regenerative medicine. A recent issue of Time magazine captured the zeitgeist with a cover proclaiming, "How the Coming Revolution in Stem Cells Could Save Your Life."
Wired: High-Resolution Imaging Unlocks Viral Secrets
By Brandon Keim
Scientists have assembled the highest-resolution image yet of the protein sheath that surrounds viral DNA, accurate right down to the last of its five million atoms.
Called a capsid, the sheath protects viral DNA from cellular defense mechanisms. If scientists can crack it, they might have a clear shot at the virus — and now they know what it looks like.
Wired: Long-Lived Rat May Hold Clues to Combatting Aging
By Brandon Keim
The extraordinarily durable proteins in the world's longest-lived rodent may contain a vital piece of the puzzle of aging.
Like short-lived mice, the cells of naked mole rats are suffused with free-floating, cell-damaging oxygen free radicals. Unlike the mice — and every other species that appears compromised by oxidative deterioration, including humans — they've found a way to live with it.
"When we compare the lab mouse with the naked mole rat, we find a striking difference in their systems," said study co-author Asish Chaudhuri, a University of Texas Health Science Center biochemist. "Their proteins are still working. Even when damaged, the functions are maintained."
Wired: Semiconductor Tech Diagnoses Eye Disease Over the Internet
By Alexis Madrigal
An imaging analysis technique developed to find defects in semiconductors is being used to diagnose the eye problems associated with diabetes over the internet.
Pictures of diabetic patients' retinas, the inner surface of the eye, are uploaded to a server that compares them to a database of thousands of other images of healthy and diseased eyes. Algorithms can assign a disease level to the new eye image by looking at the same factors, mainly damage to blood vessels, that an eye doctor would.
Right now, ophthalmologist Edward Chaum of the University of Tennessee double checks the system's work, but he expects the algorithms to be diagnosing patients on its own within three months.
Reuters: Scientists find genes to protect wheat from rust
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have pinpointed two genes that protect wheat against devastating fungal diseases found worldwide, potentially paving the way to hardier wheat strains, international researchers reported on Thursday.
New research published in the journal Science showed how the genes provide resistance to leaf rust, stripe rust and powdery mildew, diseases responsible for millions of hectares of lost wheat yield each year.
"Improving control of fungal rust diseases in cereals through breeding varieties with durable rust resistance is critical for world food security," Simon Krattinger of the Institute of Plant Biology in Zurich and colleagues, wrote in one of the studies.
Reuters: Alzheimer's may hijack chemical mechanism
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists proposed a new theory on Wednesday of how Alzheimer's disease kills brain cells they said opens new avenues of research into treatments for the fatal, brain-wasting disease.
They believe a chemical mechanism that naturally prunes away unwanted brain cells during early brain development somehow gets hijacked in Alzheimer's disease.
"The key player we're focusing on is a protein called APP," said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, executive vice president of research drug discovery at the U.S. biotechnology company Genentech Inc, whose study appears in the journal Nature.
Reuters: Study raises hopes of Anthrax vaccine pill
by Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - An oral vaccine packed into bacteria found in dairy products like milk and cheese protected mice from the anthrax bacteria, suggesting a pill could replace injections for humans, researchers said on Monday.
"Normally, you can't eat vaccines because the digestive process in the stomach destroys them, so vaccines are administered by needle," Todd Klaenhammer, a researcher at North Carolina State University in the United States who co-led the study, said in a statement.
"Using 'food grade' lactic acid bacteria as a vehicle provides a safe way of getting the vaccine into the small intestine without losing any of the drug's efficacy," he said.
Reuters: Study pinpoints genes tied to high blood pressure
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two genes that help the body get rid of excess sodium may be important causes of high blood pressure, U.S. scientists reported on Sunday.
They found that people with two particular variants of the genes were at higher risk for high blood pressure.
High blood pressure, also called hypertension, can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure and kidney failure, and it tends to run in families. But scientists have struggled to pinpoint genetic traits involved in the condition.
Climate/Environment
Reuters: Past climate may give clue to modern change: expert
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Abrupt shifts in the climate such as the end of Ice Ages could provide an early warning system for modern changes such as prolonged droughts, a leading scientist said on Monday.
The sudden desertification of North Africa 5,500 years ago or a warming at the end of the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago were preceded by signs of a less stable climate, according to Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
That insight, reported last year, is now being applied to try to detect shifts in the modern climate that might herald ever more droughts and other changes in nature.
Reuters: Forests absorb 20 percent of fossil fuel emissions: study
By Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - Tropical trees have grown bigger over the past 40 years and now absorb 20 percent of fossil fuel emissions from the atmosphere, highlighting the need to preserve threatened forests, British researchers said Wednesday.
Using data collected from nearly 250,000 trees in the world's tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
"To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a ton of carbon, should be valued at around 13 billion pounds per year," said Lee White, Gabon's chief climate change scientist, who co-led the study, said in a statement.
Wired: Carbon Burial Research Grows as Huge Experiment Begins
By Alexis Madrigal
CHICAGO — A landmark Energy Department project to bury carbon dioxide produced by humans has begun as workers sunk a huge drill bit into Illinois ground this week, signaling continued support for a climate change mitigation strategy that has fallen out of favor in many circles.
The start of drilling marks the launch a geological sequestration project that will deposit a million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the ground by 2012.
While that's nothing compared to the several billion tons of CO2 that humans emit yearly, it's the geology of the site that makes the development exciting. The CO2 will be piped into a geological formation that underlies parts of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky that could eventually hold more than 100 billion tons of CO<SUB>2</SUB>.
Reuters: In Peru, the hills come tumbling down
By Terry Wade in Lima:
It’s summer in Peru and the mudslides are back, eroding barren hillsides on the western slopes of the Andes. The huaicos, as they are known in Peru, create rivers of mud and carry giant boulders with them that knock down everything in their path, from houses to bridges.
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People have been living in areas prone to huaicos, from the Quechua wayq’u, for thousands of years and towns in the Andes have escape routes showing where to run for higher ground in case they hit.
But there are signs the dangers are getting worse. The U.N. Climate Panel said in a 2007 report about the impacts of global warming that "many cities of Latin America, which are already vulnerable to landslides and mudflows, are very likely to suffer the exacerbation of extreme events".
Geology/Geophysics
Reuters: Chile's Chaiten volcano spews molten rock, ash
By Monica Vargas
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile's Chaiten volcano, which erupted spectacularly last year, spewed a vast cloud of ash as well as gas and molten rock on Thursday in a partial collapse of its cone, prompting a fresh evacuation.
Television footage showed a cloud of ash billowing into the sky over the town of Chaiten, which lies about six miles from the crater.
Authorities evacuated 160 people from the area. Around 7,000 nearby residents were evacuated last year after the volcano, dormant for thousands of years, erupted. The government is planning to relocate the town.
Psychology/Behavior
Wired: Cross Words: Talking About Bad Feelings Helps Control Them
By Alexis Madrigal
CHICAGO — Perhaps all those blog posts you wrote about your breakup really did have a purpose.
Naming feelings takes some of the emotional impact out of them by engaging a brain region that aids self-control, according to new research.
In a clever series of experiments, UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman found that labeling a picture of someone who looked angry as "angry" reduced the negative emotional feelings that most people feel when viewing such a photograph.
"Putting feelings into words activates this region that's capable of producing emotional regulatory outcomes, which could explain why putting feelings into words dampens them down," Lieberman said in a presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting on Saturday.
Reuters: Research shows why some soldiers are cool under fire
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Soldiers who perform best under extreme stress have higher levels of chemicals that dampen the fear response, a finding that could lead to new drugs or training strategies to help others cope better, a U.S. researcher said on Sunday.
"There are certain individuals who just don't get as stressed. Their stress hormones are actually lower," Deane Aikins of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, told reporters at the American American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Aikins and colleagues at Yale study stress hormone levels of soldiers undergoing survival training, which includes mock prisoner of war experiences.
Reuters: Study takes step toward erasing bad memories
by Michael Kahn
LONDON (Reuters) - A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday.
The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people's fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study.
"We could show that the fear response went away, which suggests the memory was weakened," Kindt said in a telephone interview.
Archeology/Anthropology
Art Daily: Museum of London Uncovers Rare Medieval Waterwheel
LONDON.- The London Eye has become an iconic part of London's skyline, but an astonishing find by Museum of London archaeologists suggests that medieval Londoners had their own striking riverside wheel downriver at Greenwich. Excavations at Greenwich Wharf have uncovered the foundations of London's earliest found medieval tide-powered mill. The huge structure, measuring ten metres by twelve metres at its base, would have had a wheel diameter of over 5 metres and has been dated to the twelfth century. The mill structure represents an extraordinary example of medieval engineering ingenuity.
Tidal Mills worked by drawing in water from the river as the tide rose and releasing it as it fell, powering the mill. The mill at Greenwich features a substantial fragment of intact waterwheel and an enormous trough to channel the water which was shaped out of a single oak beam. Remarkably well preserved in riverside peat deposits, the mill is an unprecedented and rare find. It appears to have been constructed in two phases from prepared oak beams, on which carpenters' construction marks are still clearly visible.
New Kerala: US firm denied permission to hunt treasure in Spanish galleon
Mexico City, Feb 19 : Mexican authorities have rejected a request by a US-based firm to comb the wreck of a Spanish galleon that sank in 1631 in the Gulf of Mexico.
The National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) said in a communique that the two requests presented by Odyssey Marine Exploration in 2006 and 2008 "do not meet the requirements that regulations establish for archaeological investigation in Mexico".
INAH based its rejection of the request on the fact that the US firm "neither has the intention to do research nor the backing of archaeologists or of an academic institution of recognised prestige, conditions without which it is impossible to authorise this type of initiative".
Ocala.com: Searching for a mission
By Michael Oppermann
An archaeological dig along the Ocklawaha River has uncovered what researchers believe are remains from the 17th-century Spanish mission known as Santa Lucia de Acuera.
The dig, which is being led by a local man studying archaeology at the University of Florida, could yield important clues about the role of Spanish missions in colonizing Florida and missionaries' influence on Native American culture.
"It is very important anthropologically and archaeologically, and it is very exciting to have been searching for so long and to finally locate this site and identify it," said Willet Boyer III, who is pursuing a doctorate from UF and heads the project.
Australian Broadcasting Company: Fromelles WWI site excavation to begin in May
Defence Minister Warren Snowdon today announced that excavation of the remains of World War I soldiers at Fromelles in France will begin in May.
Oxford Archaeology has been awarded the contract to undertake the project.
Mr Snowdon says the excavation is expected to take about six months.
"The Australian and British Governments will share the cost of the Pheasant Wood excavation, which is expected to take up to six months depending on several factors including the weather, soil conditions and the actual number of remains recovered," he said.
Sunday Herald (UK): Route of M74 extension offers insight into our past
Motorway link uncovers a bounty of treasures from recent history.
By Rachelle Money
AN INTACT pharmacy, piles of teeth, and a Yemeni prayer room are just some of the discoveries made by the UK's biggest archaeology project who are busy trying to unearth what lies beneath the controversial M74 motorway link which got the go-ahead last week.
The five mile route which will cost £657 million, 50% more than originally estimated, will run from Fullarton junction near Carmyle to the M8 just west of the Kingston Bridge with work expecting to start in May and be completed by 2011. Glasgow City Council along with M74 project partners, HAPCA, formed by firms Headland Archaeology and Pre-Construct Archaeology, have been working with oral historians to piece together information about how people lived and worked across six different sites.
They have already excavated three sites at the Govan Iron Works, Caledonian Pottery and a buried tenement building on Pollokshaws Road. This week they will move on to three new sites - Kingston Limeworks in Tradeston, Eglinton Foundry and cotton mills and a steamie on Mauchline Street.
Bloomberg: English Antiquities Plundered by 'Nighthawkers,' Group Says
By Caroline Alexander
Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) -- England’s heritage is being plundered by "nighthawkers," thieves who sneak into fields after dark with metal detectors and unearth ancient artifacts, according to a group that advises the government on historic sites.
The Nighthawking Survey, published today by English Heritage, shows that between 1995 and 2008 more than one-third of the 88 historic sites designated as "scheduled monuments" have been pillaged, along with at least 152 undesignated sites.
Many of the objects are worth very little financially and the most disappointing aspect of the crime is the damage it does to the archaeological record of Britain, according to English Heritage, the official organization for archaeology, heritage and conservation in England.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
N.Y. Times: Perseverance Is Paying Off for a Test of Relativity in Space
By GUY GUGLIOTTA
STANFORD, Calif. — For 46 years, Francis Everitt, a Stanford University physicist, has promoted the often perilous fortunes of Gravity Probe B, perhaps the most exotic, "Star Trek"-ish experiment ever undertaken in space. Finally, with emergency financial help from a pair of unusual sources, success is at hand.
Conceived in the late 1950s, financed by $750 million from NASA and launched into orbit in 2004, the Gravity Probe B spacecraft has sought to prove two tenets of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The first, called the geodetic effect, holds that a large celestial body like Earth will warp time the way a rubber sheet stretches when a bowling ball is placed on it. The second, known as frame-dragging, occurs when the rotation of a large body "twists" nearby space and time; turn the resting bowling ball, and the rubber sheet twists.
To measure these phenomena, Dr. Everitt and his Stanford team equipped Gravity Probe B with a special telescope attached to several gyroscopes. They pointed the telescope at a "guide star," IM Pegasi, and then spun up the gyros with their axes also fixed on the guide star. If Einstein was right, the gyros would drift slightly over time to follow the space-time distortion.
Science Daily: New Imaging Technique Reveals Atomic Structure Of Nanocrystals
ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2009) — A new imaging technique developed by researchers at the University of Illinois overcomes the limit of diffraction and can reveal the atomic structure of a single nanocrystal with a resolution of less than one angstrom (less than one hundred-millionth of a centimeter).
Science Daily: Paradigm Shift In MRI Detection Results In Broad Images, Crystal Clear
ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2009) — Unconventional thinking led PhD student David Brunner to make a discovery that could revolutionize MRI. He succeeded in exciting and imaging nuclear magnetic resonance in the human body by propagating electromagnetic waves.
It was a colleague’s MR images that gave David Brunner, a PhD student from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, the idea to use propagating waves for MRI. His colleague had taken images of a hand and captured so-called fold-over artifacts that seemed to originate from outside the detector. Clearly, signals were recorded not only from the target region but also from a considerable distance – although the detector was supposed to be sensitive only to its immediate surroundings. "This is only possible if the signals travel, that is, if they propagate as waves," explains Brunner.
Science Daily: Atomic Nucleus With Halo: Scientists Measure Size Of One-Neutron Halo With Lasers For First Time
ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2009) — Atomic nuclei are normally compact structures defined by a sharp border. About twenty-five years ago, it was discovered at the University of California in Berkeley that there are exceptions to this picture: Certain exotic atomic nuclei contain particles that shear off from the central core and create a cloud, which surrounds the central core like a 'heiligenschein' or halo.
An example of such a halo occurs in beryllium-11, a specific isotope of the metal beryllium. Here, the halo is made up of a single neutron. For the first time ever, scientists at the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in cooperation with colleagues from other institutes have succeeded in precisely measuring this one-neutron halo by means of a laser, and in evaluating the dimensions of the cloud. By studying neutron halos, scientists hope to gain further understanding of the forces within the atomic nucleus that bind atoms together, taking into account the fact that the degree of displacement of halo neutrons from the atomic nuclear core is incompatible with the concepts of classical nuclear physics.
Science Daily: New Plasma Transistor Could Create Sharper Displays
ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2009) — By integrating a solid-state electron emitter and a microcavity plasma device, researchers at the University of Illinois have created a plasma transistor that could be used to make lighter, less expensive and higher resolution flat-panel displays.
"The new device is capable of controlling both the plasma conduction current and the light emission with an emitter voltage of 5 volts or less," said Gary Eden, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, and director of the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering at the U. of I.
At the heart of the plasma transistor is a microcavity plasma, an electronic-photonic device in which an electrically charged gas (a plasma) is contained within a microscopic cavity. Power is supplied by two electrodes at voltages of up to 200 volts.
Science Daily: Engineers Tune A Nanoscale Grating Structure To Trap And Release A Variety Of Light Waves
ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2009) — People debating politics are well-advised to shed more light than heat. Engineers working in optical technologies have the same aspiration.
Light waves transmit data with much greater speed than do electrical signals, says Qiaoqiang Gan, a Ph.D. candidate at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. If they are guided with sufficient precision inside the tiny circuits of an electronic chip, they can bring about applications in spectroscopy, sensing and medical imaging. And they can hasten the advent of faster all-optical telecommunication networks, in which light signals transmit and route data without needing to be converted to electrical signals and back.
To enable light waves to store and transmit data with optimal efficiency, engineers must learn to slow or stop light waves across the various regions of the spectrum.
Chemistry
Reuters: Scientists make advances on "nano" electronics
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two U.S. teams have developed new materials that may pave the way for ever smaller, faster and more powerful electronics as current semiconductor technology begins to reach the limits of miniaturization.
One team has made tiny transistors -- the building block of computer processors -- a fraction of the size of those used on advanced silicon chips.
Another has made a film material capable of storing data from 250 DVDs onto a surface the size of a coin.
Science Daily: New Silver-based Nanoparticle Ink Could Lead To Better Flexible, Printed Electronics
ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2009) — A new ink developed by researchers at the University of Illinois allows them to write their own silver linings.
The ink, composed of silver nanoparticles, can be used in electronic and optoelectronic applications to create flexible, stretchable and spanning microelectrodes that carry signals from one circuit element to another. The printed microelectrodes can withstand repeated bending and stretching with minimal change in their electrical properties.
In a paper to be published Feb. 12, by Science Express, the online version of the journal Science, Jennifer Lewis, the Thurnauer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and director of the university's Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, and her collaborators demonstrate patterned silver microelectrodes by omnidirectional printing of concentrated nanoparticle inks with minimum widths of about 2 microns on semiconductor, plastic and glass substrates.
Science Daily: Could Nanotechnology Make An Average Donut Into Health Food?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2009) — European food companies already use nanotechnology in consumer products, but few volunteer the information to consumers, said Dutch food scientist Frans Kampers.
He is among the panelists gathered in Chicago for the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting symposium "From Donuts to Drugs: Nano-Biotechnology Evolution or Revolution."
Kampers from Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands will take a look at food science issues in his presentation, "What Nanotechnology Can Do for Your Average Donut."
Energy
Reuters: First carbon-free polar station opens in Antarctica
By Wendell Roelf
PRINCESS ELISABETH BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - The world's first zero-emission polar research station opened in Antarctica on Sunday and was welcomed by scientists as proof that alternative energy is viable even in the coldest regions.
Pioneers of Belgium's Princess Elisabeth station in East Antarctica said if a station could rely on wind and solar power in Antarctica -- mostly a vast, icy emptiness -- it would undercut arguments by skeptics that green power is not reliable.
"If we can build such a station in Antarctica we can do that elsewhere in our society. We have the capacity, the technology, the knowledge to change our world," Alain Hubert, the station's project director, told Reuters at the inauguration ceremony.
Reuters: Spaceage and efficient, Aptera gears up for launch
By Nichola Groom
VISTA, California (Reuters) - Thousands of miles west of Detroit, a California start-up hopes to find a market for a three-wheeled, ultra-efficient, downright odd-looking car among consumers sick of spending their hard-earned cash at the gas pump.
The Aptera is an egg-shaped two-seater often likened to a space-age car from the futuristic 1960s cartoon "The Jetsons." Looking more like an aircraft than a road vehicle, it is a far cry from the hybrid sedans and electric sports cars being produced by conventional automakers.
Riding in the all-electric version of the Aptera feels similar to a regular car, although its roof-attached doors make getting in and out a challenge. Its long shape provides extra legroom and the car runs with a tinny, high-pitched hum.
Nichola Groom writes more about the Aptera in her blog entry: Egg-shaped Aptera is no wallflower, but would you buy one?
Reuters: Calif. electric co. denied on clean power study
By Bernie Woodall
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Southern California Edison will not be able to pass on to its customers up to $30 million in costs to join a study of whether petroleum coke, an oil refinery byproduct, can be turned into a clean, low-carbon fuel for power plants.
But the electric power supplier might be able to be compensated later.
Southern California Edison wants to join a study by a joint venture of BP Plc and Rio Tinto -- global oil and mining giants, respectively -- but California's utility regulator said no on Friday to its proposal to charge higher electricity rates to pay for it.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Wired: The New Deal's Lessons for Now
By Brandon Keim
It's too soon to call the economic crisis a depression, but it's not too early to learn an important lesson from the Great Depression: science is more important than ever.
Of course, giving money to scientists — or, as Sarah Palin famously put it, "research on fruit flies" — can be a tough message to sell when people are losing their jobs, homes and dreams. Done right, however, it benefits everyone — not just by creating jobs, but by shaping a better world.
"The New Deal established a new era in government-science relations," writes Stanford University historian Eric Rauchway in an essay published Wednesday in Nature. "The 1930s brought unparalleled technological progress to the nation."
The above article is worthy of a diary of its own. If I didn't have a pile of work to do this weekend, I'd do it myself. However, it's points will be just as valid a week from now, when I am on break. I might be able to do it justice then, if one of you doesn't beat me to it (hint, hint).
American Association for the Advancement of Science: Final Stimulus Bill Provides $21.5 Billion for Federal R&D
AAAS estimates that the final version of the 2009 economic stimulus appropriations bill contains $21.5 billion in federal research and development (R&D) funding, $18.0 billion for the conduct of R&D and $3.5 billion for R&D facilities and capital equipment (see Table). The final bill contains far more in R&D funding than the $13.2 billion in the House or the $17.8 billion in the Senate versions of the bill. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law on February 17.
Basic competitiveness-related research, biomedical research, energy R&D, and climate change programs would be high priorities in the final economic recovery bill. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE OS), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the three agencies highlighted in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 and President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), would all receive significant boosts to their budgets. The final bill would give NIH $10.4 billion in stimulus funding as proposed by the Senate. The final bill provides $3.5 billion for energy R&D at the Department of Energy (DOE) and would fund climate change-related projects in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Vladislaw, FerrisValyn, and the other space enthusiasts on Daily Kos will appreciate that there is $1 billion for NASA in the stimulus bill.
Bloomberg: Salazar Says Interior Stimulus to Create 100,000 Jobs (Update1)
By Daniel Whitten
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said a department "stimulus czar" and task force will help direct the spending of about $3 billion in economic-recovery funds, which may create 100,000 jobs.
The $787 billion stimulus measure signed into law Feb. 17 includes money to retrofit government buildings on federal lands with energy-efficient lighting and solar panels. The department also will consider using small energy-producing wind turbines where appropriate, Salazar said.
Reuters: DOE to OK stimulus energy projects by early summer
by Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday he hopes the department can begin approving loan guarantees authorized by the stimulus for renewable energy projects by early summer.
"We need to start this work in a matter of months, not years -- while insisting on the highest standard of accountability," Chu told reporters at Platts Energy Podium in Washington D.C.
The stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this week provides $6 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy and electricity transmission projects.
Reuters: Obama to lift ban on stem cell research soon: aide
by Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will soon issue an executive order lifting an eight-year ban embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, a senior adviser said on Sunday.
"We're going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now," Obama adviser David Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday."
In 2001, Bush limited federal funding for stem cell research only to human embryonic stem cell lines that already existed. It was a gesture to his conservative Christian supporters who regard embryonic stem cell research as destroying potential life, because the cells must be extracted from human embryos.
Chalk that up as another victory in The War on Error!
Reuters: EU experts clash over France, Greece GM maize bans
by Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU biotech experts failed to muster enough consensus on Monday to approve an order for France and Greece to lift their bans on growing genetically modified maize, sending the decision to ministers, the EU executive said.
Both countries have used legal provisions to prohibit cultivation of MON 810 maize developed by U.S. biotech company Monsanto. First approved in 1998, the maize type is the only GM crop that may be commercially grown on EU soil as yet.
Reuters: Don't judge states on wealth and emissions: climate envoy
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Judging small, rich island nations purely on their wealth and emissions is unfair in climate change negotiations, Singapore's climate envoy said on Saturday, as pressure builds on more countries to curb carbon pollution.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.'s main weapon to fight climate change, only 37 industrialized nations are committed to curbs on greenhouse gas pollution between 2008-2012.
But the U.N. list in Kyoto's parent pact that defines rich and developing nations dates from 1992 and wealthy nations such as Argentina, Singapore, South Korea and Malta are still deemed to be developing states under the U.N.'s climate treaties.
Reuters: Environment ministers to tackle mercury pollution
By Daniel Wallis
NAIROBI (Reuters) - More than 140 nations agreed on Friday to negotiate a legally binding global treaty to phase out the use of deadly mercury, a toxic heavy metal that threatens the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
The deal came at a major U.N. meeting of environment ministers in Kenya after President Barack Obama's new administration said on Monday the United States had reversed its stance on the issue and was now in favor of a legal ban.
"This is truly good news and I hope that citizens across the world will embrace this decision," U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) head Achim Steiner told a news conference.
Reuters: Asia needs to change climate policy game: expert
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asia needs to wake up to the threat of global warming and take a leading role in climate change negotiations or risk having rich nations dictate policies to curb carbon emissions, a leading policy expert said on Friday.
Simon Tay, Schwartz Fellow of the U.S.-based Asia Society, said the current U.N. climate negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol had become bogged down because of deep differences between rich and poor nations on how to fight climate change.
"My impression is that it has become a dialogue between the deaf and the dumb," he told a conference on sustainability in Singapore.
Reuters: Carbon offset companies depend on hedge contracts
By Gerard Wynn
LONDON (Reuters) - Companies which cut greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries to sell carbon offsets in rich nations are hoping hedge contracts and staff cuts will protect them against record low carbon prices.
Carbon project developers sell carbon offsets in the developed world, especially Europe and Japan, to companies and countries struggling to meet official carbon caps or to people voluntarily seeking to cut their contribution to climate change.
They had appeared to be sitting on big profits after several years of buying or generating offsets in China, India and Brazil at less than half the sale price in Europe, the biggest demand market.
Reuters: U.N. climate panel chief sees "strong deal" ahead
By Krittivas Mukherjee
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A deal placing a strict emissions regime on rich nations is likely in Copenhagen despite pressures to dilute the climate fight in times of a global financial slowdown, the U.N. climate panel chief said.
R.K. Pachauri said his optimism that rich nations would agree to an emissions cut was rooted in what he was hearing from global leaders and a genuine willingness to do something fast.
But his bullishness is in sharp contrast to a gloomy outlook forecast by some experts who say the financial crisis affects the ability of countries to pay for climate measures or agree to emission cuts when jobs were being lost.
Reuters: China says crisis won't stop its climate action
by Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - The global financial crisis will not affect China's resolve to tackle global warming, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, ahead of a visit to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Climate change is a theme of Clinton's trip to Asia, which has also included stops in Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. China has exceeded the United States as the world's leading emitters of greenhouse gases. "We have all along paid great attention to the problem of climate change, and have, with a responsible attitude, taken a series of helpful policy measures," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a news briefing.
"Although we have been affected by the global economic crisis, the Chinese government's resolve to tackle climate change has not changed, and our actions have not weakened."
Science Reporting/Writing
Reuters: Vaccine book brings out hidden support: author
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the letters and e-mails started to pour in, Dr. Paul Offit braced himself.
The pediatrician and vaccine inventor is a prominent defender of childhood vaccines, tackling those who have argued that immunizations can cause autism.
His book, "Autism's False Prophets," takes on British researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose now-debunked 1998 study in the prestigious Lancet medical journal linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. It also criticizes organized groups that advise parents to avoid vaccinating their children for fear the vaccines may cause autism.
Science is Cool
L.A. Times: UCLA class project: Find Bin Laden
By Thomas H. Maugh II and Karen Kaplan
UCLA geographers think they have a good idea where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been hiding.
Using standard geographical tools routinely employed to locate endangered species and fugitive criminals, the group said there is a high probability that Bin Laden has been hiding in one of three buildings in the northwestern Pakistani city of Parachinar, a longtime hide-out for mujahedin fighters.
"He may be sitting there right now," said UCLA biogeographer Thomas W. Gillespie, who led the study published online Tuesday in the MIT International Review, an interdisciplinary journal of international affairs.
The above research was featured on the Rachel Maddow Show ea