Science talk returns to brighten your day one more time. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today's tidbits include the largest known crocodile once roamed Africa and could swallow a human, early Spring brings more bat girls, using nanoclays to build better asphalt, a new coelocanth find changes the history of the ancient fish's evolution, the Iceman mummy holds traces of the oldest blood known to science, and the densest waters of Antarctica are reducing due to climate change.
Pull up that comfy chair and grab a spot in the sun. There is always plenty of room for everyone. Another session of Dr. Possum's science education, entertainment, and potluck discussion is set to begin.
Featured Stories
Researchers have found evidence of a large, horned crocodile which once lived in the Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania, Africa.
Crocodylus anthropophagus would have been about as large as its living cousin, the Nile crocodile, which can reach lengths of almost 20 feet and weigh up to a ton. The early humans walking along the lake and stream margins that used to exist at Olduvai Gorge were smaller than people of today and would have been in grave danger if they got too close to the water, according to (researcher) Brochu.
Recent research finds
bats produce more female offspring than male in years when Spring is early.
The earlier in the spring the births occur, the more likely the females are to survive and then reproduce a year later, as one-year olds, compared to later-born pups...
...The length of the growing season has an impact on the ratio of female to male offspring and the time available for female pups to reach sexual maturity, the study found. This suggests that not only does sex-ratio vary seasonally and among years, but it also likely varies geographically due to differences in season length.
Centuries ago the Babylonians used naturally occurring asphalt to build roadways. Today's researchers are looking into the use of
clay as part of the asphalt composition to build better roaddways.
Heat, cold and stress in the form of traffic take their toll on asphalt pavement, made from a mix of asphalt and aggregates like gravel. That leads to cracks, potholes and a process called rutting. Ruts are most likely to form on busy roads, sections with slow traffic, and areas with stop signs and stoplights, where the rubber hits the road hard thousands of times a day.
(snip)
(Researcher) You’s team tested two types of nanoclays, adding 2–4 percent by weight to the asphalt. That’s a smidgeon--less than half of a percent of the total weight of the asphalt pavement itself. But it made a big difference.
The
coelocanth, an ancient fish species, has been in the news recently when surviving species were found. The fish returns to the news with the announcement of fossil remains of a new species.
Lead U of A (University of Alberta) researcher Andrew Wendruff identified coelacanth fossils that he says are so dramatically different from previous finds, they shatter the theory that coelacanth evolution was stagnant in that their body shape and lifestyle changed little since the origin of the group.
Wendruff says his one-metre-long, fork-tailed coelacanth was one of an “offshoot” lineage that lived 240 million years ago. It falls between the earliest coelacanth fossils dating back 410 million years and the latest fossils dated about 75 million years ago, near the end of the age of dinosaurs.
“Our coelacanth had a forked tail, indicating it was a fast-moving, aggressive predator, which is very different from the shape and movement of all other coelacanths in the fossil record,” said Wendruff.
The researchers say all other ancient coelacanth fossils, and even the modern living coelacanths, have very different bodies.
Otzi, the Iceman mummy, is still undergoing extensive analysis for DNA and now
traces of blood have been found.
His DNA has been decoded; samples from his stomach and intestines have allowed us to reconstruct his very last meal. The circumstances of his violent death appear to have been explained. However, what had, at least thus far, eluded the scientists, was identifying any traces of blood in Ötzi, the 5,000 year old glacier mummy. Examination of his aorta had yielded no results. Yet recently, a team of scientists from Italy and Germany, using nanotechnology, succeeded in locating red blood cells in Ötzi’s wounds, thereby discovering the oldest traces of blood to have been found anywhere in the world.
The myriad effects of climate change continue to be studied and reported as now there is news the
densest waters of Antarctica are reducing.
Research suggests that up to 60 percent of "Antarctic Bottom Water", the dense water formed around the edges of Antarctica that seeps into the deep sea and spreads out through the world's oceans, has disappeared since 1970.
(snip)
Scientists are not sure what is causing the phenomenon but Rintoul said the leading hypothesis is that as more of the ice on Antarctica melts around the edges of that continent, it adds fresh water to the ocean.
Knucklehead's Photo of the Week
Six Line Wrasse
©Knucklehead, all rights reserved. (Click on the image to see more in the same series.)
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Brain scans give evidence of how your dog thinks
The microbial complications of fracking
Prehistoric creature with extreme neck discovered
Report warns of rapid decline in US Earth observation capabilities
Sifting through dust near Orion's belt
Old star, new trick
Different recipes for success in the world of plants
Redefining time
Global change puts plankton under threat
Ancient network of rivers and lakes found in Arabian desert
Hubble to use Moon as mirror to view Venus transit
Plant diversity is key to maintaining productive vegetation
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
Eureka Science News
LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
Science Centric
Science Daily
Scientific American
Space Daily
Blogs:
A Few Things Ill Considered Techie and Science News
Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
ScienceBlogs
Space Review
Techonology Review
Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
Science Insider
Scientific Blogging.
Space.com
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
At Daily Kos:
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. OND tech Thursday by rfall.
Pique the Geek by Translator Sunday evenings about 9 Eastern time
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
A More Ancient World by matching mole
Astro Kos
SciTech at Dkos.
Sunday Science Videos by palantir
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery or the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive
The Egg Nebula, within the realm of a dying star, NASA, public domain