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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #257
Saturday, June 20, 2009 |
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| Chip to m'lou |
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Haida Gwaii: Fossil Collecting at the Edge of the World
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· 06/14/2009 2:30:36 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 10 replies · 307+ views ·
Scientific Blogging | June 7th 2009 | Heidi Henderson |
The Queen Charlotte Islands form part of Wrangellia, an exotic tectonostratiphic terrane, that includes parts of western British Columbia, Vancouver Island and Alaska. I'll be bringing my rock hammer and kayak to the mist-shrouded archipelago of Haida Gwaii next month to collect ammonites from the Middle Albian, Haida Formation. Over the years, my field work has yielded exquisitely preserved species marine specimens from the Middle Albian, including Desmoceras, Brewerikceras and Douvelliceras. This trip will be a return to some familiar sites, both because of the fossils found there and their sheer beauty, and forays to new outcrops seldom visited.
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| Diet and Cuisine |
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Human Presence May Be Increasing The Lifespan Of Earth
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· 06/15/2009 5:49:20 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 11 replies · 287+ views ·
Scientific Blogging | June 14th 2009 | News Staff
Doom and gloom types always want to lament that the presence of people is killing the Earth. Not so, say California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists. At least on a cosmic scale, the presence of life may increase longevity for planets. In traditional thinking, a billion years from now the ever-increasing radiation from the sun will have heated Earth into inhabitability, causing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that serves as food for plant to disappear. The oceans will evaporate and all living things will disappear. Maybe not quite so soon, say researchers from Caltech, who have come up with...
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| Biology and Cryptobiology |
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Giant Sperm Is Ancient Evolutionary Tool, Study Finds
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· 06/19/2009 2:56:39 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 14 replies · 657+ views ·
nationalgeographic | June 18, 2009 | Kate Ravilious
Size does matter, at least for the seed shrimp. The tiny creatures' giant sperm are an evolutionary strategy that stretches back at least a hundred million years, scientists discovered in a new study. The giant sperm can be up to ten times the animals' body lengths. By comparison an average sperm from a man is around 0.002 inch (0.05 millimeter) long, less than a thirty-thousandth of his height. To find out whether giant sperm is an ancient adaptation, researchers x-rayed the innards of five well-preserved seed shrimp, or ostracods, from hundred-million-year-old sediment from Brazil. Although the giant sperm had rotted...
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| Paleontology |
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How an Airplane-Sized Bird Replaced Its Feathers
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· 06/19/2009 4:31:56 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 18 replies · 389+ views ·
usnews. | June 16, 2009 | Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience
Bird size is limited by the time it takes to replace feathers. An extinct bird the size of a Cessna airplane and weighing as much as an average human was one of the largest birds to have ever flown the friendly skies. Scientists have wondered how the bird, called Argentavis magnificens, could balloon to such heft (more than 150 pounds, or 70 kg) and still replace its feathers during a molt. Now, new research reveals the bird, which lived 6 million years ago in the Miocene epoch, likely molted all of its feathers at once during a long fast.
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| Empty Nest |
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The 'Birds Come First' hypothesis of dinosaur evolution
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· 06/15/2009 6:27:50 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 222+ views ·
Tetrapod Zoology | June 8, 2009 | Darren Naish
Here, we look at a rather different proposal: the decidedly non-standard, non-mainstream Birds Come First (or BCF) hypothesis proposed by George Olshevsky. Rightly or wrongly, BCF has never been discussed in the technical literature (I have at least alluded to it in historiographical articles (Naish 2000a, b)), and all of George's articles on it have been in the 'grey' or popular literature (Olshevsky 1991, 1994, 2001a, b). Thanks, predominantly, to his activity on the dinosaur mailing list (a popular discussion list for dinosaur aficionados and researchers), George's BCF hypothesis was once well known and much discussed, and perhaps considered seriously...
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| Dinosaurs |
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Fossil Solves Mystery of Dinosaur Finger Evolution
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· 06/17/2009 2:31:39 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 51 replies · 454+ views ·
LiveScience.com on Yahoo | 6/17/09 | Jeanna Bryner
Bird wings clearly share ancestry with dinosaur "hands" or forelimbs. A school kid can see it in the bones. But paleontologists have long struggled to explain the so-called digit dilemma. Here's the problem: The most primitive dinosaurs in the famous theropod group (that later included Tyrannosaurus rex) had five "fingers." Later theropods had three, just like the birds that evolved from them. But which digits? The theropod and bird digits failed to match up if you number the digits from 1 to 5 starting with the thumb. Theropods looked like they had digits 1, 2 and 3, while birds have...
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New Dinosaur: Fossil Fingers Solve Bird Wing Mystery? [Dinosaur gives Creationists the finger]
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· 06/17/2009 3:50:48 PM PDT · Posted by xcamel · 54 replies · 598+ views ·
NatGeo | Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | John Roach
"The fossil hand of a long-necked, ostrich-like dinosaur recently found in China may help solve the mystery of how bird wings evolved from dinosaur limbs, according to a new study. The ancient digits belonged to a 159-million-year-old theropod dinosaur dubbed Limusaurus inextricabilis. Theropods are two-legged dinos thought to have given rise to modern birds. Although it was a distant relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, the newfound dinosaur was a small herbivore, said study co-author James Clark, a biologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The animal was about 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) long and had relatively short, clawless...
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New Dinosaur Species Found in India
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· 08/13/2003 9:02:05 PM PDT · Posted by nwrep · 3,125 replies · 14,846+ views ·
AP | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM
U.S. and Indian scientists said Wednesday they have discovered a new carnivorous dinosaur species in India after finding bones in the western part of the country. AP Photo Missed Tech Tuesday? Check out the powerful new PDA crop, plus the best buys for any budget The new dinosaur species was named Rajasaurus narmadensis, or "Regal reptile from the Narmada," after the Narmada River region where the bones were found. The dinosaurs...
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| Gimme the Grip |
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Purpose of Fingerprints Is Questioned
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· 06/18/2009 3:39:31 PM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 11 replies · 718+ views ·
livescience | 17 June 2009
The bumpy ridges on the tips of our fingers are an evolutionary mystery. Scientists have long reasoned that fingerprints help humans grip objects by creating friction, since a few primates and tree-climbing koalas also have fingerprints. But a new study found that if fingerprints help people grip things, it's not because they create more friction.
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| Mammoths |
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Lost World Shropshire? Mammoths In England Found To Be Most Recent Yet
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· 06/18/2009 4:06:52 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 36 replies · 451+ views ·
Scientific Blogging | June 17th 2009 | News Staff
"Mammoths are conventionally believed to have become extinct in North Western Europe about 21,000 years ago during the main ice advance, known as the 'Last Glacial Maximum'" said Lister. "Our new radiocarbon dating of the Condover mammoths changes that, by showing that mammoths returned to Britain and survived until around 14,000 years ago."
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| Climate |
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Microbe Wakes Up After 120,000 Years in Ice
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· 06/16/2009 3:11:21 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 35 replies · 659+ views ·
foxnews | Monday, June 15, 2009 | Jeanna Bryner
After more than 120,000 years trapped beneath a block of ice in Greenland, a tiny microbe has awoken. The long-lasting bacteria may hold clues to what life forms might exist on other planets. The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles (3 km) beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce. "We don't know what state they were in," said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. "They could've been dormant, or they could've been slowly metabolizing, but we don't know for sure."
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Microbe Wakes Up After 120,000 Years in Ice....
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· 06/15/2009 3:37:30 PM PDT · Posted by TaraP · 22 replies · 667+ views ·
Fox News | June 15th, 2009
After more than 120,000 years trapped beneath a block of ice in Greenland, a tiny microbe has awoken. The long-lasting bacteria may hold clues to what life forms might exist on other planets. The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles (3 km) beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce. "We don't know what state they were in," said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. "They could've been dormant, or they could've been slowly metabolizing, but we don't know for sure." Dormant would mean...
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| If You Knew Sushi Like We Know Sushi |
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Evolution can occur in less than 10 years
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· 06/11/2009 11:19:01 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 69 replies · 1,155+ views ·
UC Riverside/ Amercian Naturalist via Eureka Alerts | Iqbal Pittalwala
Guppies are small fresh-water fish that biologists have studied for long. UC Riverside-led study shows wild Trinidadian guppies adapted in less than 30 generations to a new environment RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- How fast can evolution take place? In just a few years, according to a new study on guppies led by UC Riverside's Swanne Gordon, a graduate student in biology. Gordon and her colleagues studied guppies -- small fresh-water fish biologists have studied for long -- from the Yarra River, Trinidad. They introduced the guppies into the nearby Damier River, in a section above a barrier waterfall that excluded all...
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy |
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Oceans charge up new theory of magnetism
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· 06/16/2009 9:29:47 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 31 replies · 372+ views ·
Times Online | 14 June 2009 | Jonathan Leake
A radical new idea may revolutionise our understanding of one of the most vital forces on Earth Earth's magnetic field, long thought to be generated by molten metals swirling around its core, may instead be produced by ocean currents, according to controversial new research published this week. It suggests that the movements of such volumes of salt water around the world have been seriously underestimated by scientists as a source of magnetism. If proven, the research would revolutionise geophysics, the study of the Earth's physical properties and behaviour, in which the idea that magnetism originates in a molten core is...
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| Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy |
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Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"
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· 06/16/2009 6:06:31 AM PDT · Posted by JoeProBono · 20 replies · 886+ views ·
nationalgeographic | June 15, 2009 | James Owen
Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise. A thousand years older than nearby Stonehenge, the site includes the remains of wooden temples and two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture," according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead, leader of the Damerham Archaeology Project. For such a site to have lain hidden for so long is "completely amazing," said Wickstead, of Kingston University in London. Archaeologist Joshua Pollard, who was not involved in the find, agreed. The discovery is "remarkable," he said,...
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| British Isles |
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Yorkshire treasure stash unearthed after 1,000 years
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· 06/17/2009 12:40:19 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 23 replies · 997+ views ·
Yorkshire Evening Post | 17 June 2009 | Stuart Robinson
MORE than a thousand years ago a Saxon thief, desperate to hide his plunder, stashed a hoard of stolen gold in what is today a nondescript West Yorkshire field. What became of the thief is lost to the ages and his precious loot lay safely buried in that same field for the next millennium. There it remained until a treasure hunter, out with his trusty metal detector last year, experienced the moment he will never forget when he unearthed the amazing find on the farmland near Leeds. Archaeological experts say they believe the three gold rings, half a gold ingot...
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| Wales |
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Humans worked the Welsh hills 10,000 years ago
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· 06/17/2009 4:26:34 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 21 replies · 292+ views ·
News Wales | Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | unattributed
Hunters and farmers were using the Clwydian Hills in North Wales 10,000 years ago, new research has revealed. Analysis of a sample of earth extracted from the Clwydian Range has pieced together the timeline of human activity on the hills dating back almost 10,000 years. The sample was taken from Moel Llys y Coed near Cilcain, to provide a picture for the change in the landscape over the years to become the heather moorland seen today... Techniques used included analysis of the pollen present in the sample and radio carbon dating. Evidence of burning in the Mesolithic period (8000-4000BC) implies...
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| Ireland |
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Prehistoric gold source traced to Mourne mountains [ Ireland ]
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· 06/17/2009 4:22:38 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 23 replies · 392+ views ·
Irish Times | Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | Sean Mac Connell
Ireland has a very high level of prehistoric gold objects especially from the early Bronze Age (2400-1800BC) when large quantities of it was used by skilled craftsmen. They turned out beautiful objects such as the gold collars or lunula similar to the one which turned up recently following a robbery in Co Roscommon. This led to speculation for centuries about the source of so much easily available gold and a belief there had to be lots of gold available locally to the craftsmen. Now archaeologists and geologists believe they have found that source, following a 14-year study which used not...
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Corrib may have had 'major' settlement (Ireland)
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· 06/13/2009 10:36:12 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 9 replies · 192+ views ·
Irish Times | June 5, 2009 | LORNA SIGGINS
A COnnemara archaeologist says that the recent discovery of two stone axes in Galway city and county points to a "major" hunter-gatherer presence on the Corrib catchment up to 9,000 years ago. The axes were found in Ballybane and in the garden of a private house in Clifden, Co Galway, and are the latest in a number of significant finds recorded by archaeologist Michael Gibbons in the last couple of months.
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| Underwater Archaeology |
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Sea gives up Neanderthal fossil [ dredged up from the North Sea ]
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· 06/15/2009 8:19:35 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 35 replies · 611+ views ·
BBC | Monday, June 15, 2009 | Paul Rincon
Scientists in Leiden, in the Netherlands, have unveiled the specimen -- a fragment from the front of a skull belonging to a young adult male. Analysis of chemical "isotopes" in the 30,000-60,000-year-old fossil suggest a carnivorous diet, matching results from other Neanderthal specimens... The Neanderthal frontal bone is the first known "archaic" human specimen to have been recovered from the sea bed anywhere in the world. It was found among animal remains and stone artefacts dredged up 15km off the coast of the Netherlands in 2001. The fragment was spotted by Luc Anthonis, a private fossil collector from Belgium, in...
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| Prehistory and Origins |
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Skeleton challenge to Africa theory
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· 04/03/2007 9:25:22 PM PDT · Posted by fishhound · 15 replies · 1,009+ views ·
Sydney Morning Herald | April 4 2007 | na
A 40,000-year-old skeleton found in China has raised questions about the "out of Africa" hypothesis on how early modern humans populated the planet. The fossil bones are the oldest from an adult "modern" human to be found in eastern Asia. They contain features that call into question the widely held view that all humans alive today are descended from a small group of sub-Saharan Africans who made their way out of the continent about 60,000 years ago. Gradually they colonised other parts of the planet, replacing older human species such as the Neanderthals, which became extinct. The older humans had...
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles |
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Oldest Evidence Of Leprosy Found In India
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· 06/14/2009 8:35:22 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 406+ views ·
Science News | Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!
A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing evidence of leprosy. This skeleton represents both the earliest archaeological evidence for human infection with Mycobacterium leprae in the world and the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India. The study, published in the journal PLoS One, demonstrates that leprosy was present in human populations in India by the end of the mature phase of the Indus Civilization (2000...
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Leprosy originated in Africa or Near East - study (ARMADILLOS HELP STUDY)
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· 05/15/2005 11:40:14 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 7 replies · 1,222+ views ·
Reuters | Thu May 12, 2005 | Maggie Fox
Leprosy, a disease widely believed to have been spread out of India, in fact appears to have originated in Africa or the Near East, scientists said on Thursday. "The disease seems to have originated in Eastern Africa or the Near East and spread with successive human migrations," researchers reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science. This is not what historians had believed. "Leprosy is believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and to have been introduced into Europe by Greek soldiers returning from the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great. From Greece, the disease is...
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Catholic, Crusader, Leper and King: The Life of Baldwin IV and the Triumph of the Cross
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· 07/21/2006 10:35:18 PM PDT · Posted by Coleus · 14 replies · 2,799+ views ·
TFP | July, 2006 | Michael Whitcraft
Modern society obsessively avoids suffering, risk and danger. It secures everything with seatbelts and safety rails, air conditions the summer heat, prints warnings on coffee cups and advises that that safety glasses should be used while working with hammers. Certainly such precautions have prevented misfortune. However, since heroism and excellence are born from confronting rather than avoiding suffering and peril, the mania for safeguards has also diminished the notion of these qualities. This is unfortunate since only those intrepid souls who confront danger,...
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Bones Raise Leprosy Doubts (Scotland)
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· 11/06/2002 6:58:11 PM PST · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 304+ views ·
BBC | 11-05-2002
Tuesday, 5 November, 2002, 16:28 GMT Bones raise leprosy doubts The bones were found in East Lothian Leprosy may have arrived in Britain 1,500 years earlier than first thought, according to evidence taken from an ancient grave in Scotland. The evidence was taken from bones which were found near Dunbar in East Lothian and which belonged to a child who lived 3,500 years ago. Julie Roberts, a biological anthropologist with Glasgow University's archaeological research division made the diagnosis. This find may be one of the earliest cases of leprosy in the world so far identified. Rod McCullagh, Historic Scotland She...
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran |
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Italian archeologists find commoner's neighborhoods in Persepolis
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· 06/12/2009 10:07:21 PM PDT · Posted by StilettoRaksha · 3 replies · 187+ views ·
Italian Global Nation | June 5, 2009 | IGN
Rome -- A joint Iranian-Italian archeological mission in Iran has made an exceptional discovery: the archeologists have found the first traces of the urban settlement in Persepolis, one of the five capitals of the Achaemenid Empire in ancient Persia, the construction of which began in 520 BC under the Emperor Darius the Great and lasted almost seventy years. In an interview with the "Tehran Times", translated by the magazine "Archeologia Viva" (Giunti Editore), the Italian director of the mission, Pierfrancesco Callieri, professor of Archeology and Iranian Art History at the University of Bologna, affirmed that the new findings at the...
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| History Becomes Bunk? |
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Great Caesar's Ghost! Are Traditional History Courses Vanishing?
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· 06/13/2009 7:32:51 AM PDT · Posted by reaganaut1 · 43 replies · 692+ views ·
New York Times | June 10, 2009 | Patricia Cohen
To the pessimists evidence that the field of diplomatic history is on the decline is everywhere. Job openings on the nation's college campuses are scarce, while bread-and-butter courses like the Origins of War and American Foreign Policy are dropping from history department postings. And now, in what seems an almost gratuitous insult, Diplomatic History, the sole journal devoted to the subject, has proposed changing its title. For many in the field this latest suggestion is emblematic of a broader problem: the shrinking importance not only of diplomatic history but also of traditional specialties like economic, military and constitutional history. The...
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| Flood, Here Comes the Flood |
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Forbidden Arkeology: "The Riddle Of Ararat"
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· 06/13/2009 3:58:37 AM PDT · Posted by Fennie · 50 replies · 2,238+ views ·
Fortean Times | By Robin Simmons
There's a well-known account of ten year old Georgie Hagopian, who saw Noah's Ark while climbing Ararat with his uncle in 1904. The date isn't precise but this was around the time my grandfather was in the region and heard convincing stories of the Ark, preserved in ice and snow, still occasionally visible. My grandfather died in 1980, aged 106. As a boy, I listened to his adventures as a doctor in Eastern Turkey and Russia between 1904 and 1910. He worked in the very shadow of Greater Ararat - the legendary Biblical landing place of Noah's ship. My grandfather...
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| Let's Have Jerusalem |
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Excavation reveals ancient aqueduct in Jerusalem
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· 06/17/2009 4:36:21 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 235+ views ·
The State of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Tuesday, June 16, 2009 | Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesperson
In an archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority recently conducted prior to the construction of the Montefiore Museum, which the Jerusalem Foundation plans to build in Mishkenot Sha'ananim, an aqueduct was uncovered that conveyed water to the Temple Mount and also served as the principal water supply to the Sultan's Pool. The excavation, directed by Gideon Solimany and Dr. Ron Beeri of the Israel Antiquities Authority, focused on a section along the course of the low-level aqueduct, on the western side of Ben Hinnoam Valley above the Derekh Hebron bridge. According to Dr. Ron Beeri, excavation director on behalf of...
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| Faith and Philosophy |
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800 Year-Old Cancer Fighting Vitamin been Re-Discovered In Israel
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· 06/17/2009 2:52:05 PM PDT · Posted by Shellybenoit · 15 replies · 864+ views ·
Israel 21C/The Lid | 6/17/09 | The Lid
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, also known as Moses Maimonides or the Rambam was not only one of the greatest Torah scholars of all time, he was a rabbi, physician, and philosopher in during the Middle Ages. Much of his career he was in the personal doctor Saladin, the 12th Century Sultan of Egypt. Along with his great books on Jewish learning, he wrote 10 breakthrough medical books and had many medical cures that had been lost through time. One of them might have been found. A doctor at the University of Haifa has tested a compound based on an inedible...
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| Free Books Online |
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Classic Works in Economics by Ludwig von Mises - Free Downloads of Complete Books in PDF Format
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· 05/15/2009 1:43:24 AM PDT · Posted by GoodDay · 14 replies · 411+ views ·
The Ludwig von Mises Institute and George Reisman's Capitalism.net | 5/15/09 | GoodDay
PDF downloads of complete works by Ludwig von Mises, including "Human Action" and "Socialism." A few of the works are in e-book format and can be read online. Interestingly, there is also an MP3 file of Mises speaking at Princeton University in 1958 (the lecture can also be read online at the same site). The audio is not pristine and Mises has a heavy accent, making the file a bit challenging to listen to. The lecture is entitled "Liberty and Property." Download the MP3 at: http://www.mises.org/libprop.asp
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| Epigraphy and Language |
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Decipherments of the Phaistos Disk: NOT!
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· 06/18/2009 5:16:25 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 375+ views ·
Examiner | Monday, June 8, 2009 | Diana Gainer
My favorite undeciphered script is the one found on the Phaistos disk, the flat circle of clay about six inches across found in the Heraklion Museum on Crete. The disk itself was discovered in 1908 and it has been deciphered every few years ever since. Unfortunately, no two people agree on what it says, as I mentioned before. Since so many other people are interested in this topic, I thought I'd include a few of the decipherments, just to show how different they can be. The first one comes from German... In this version, it's a very involved calendar and...
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| Greece |
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New Acropolis Museum highlights missing marbles (Return Them Now!)
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· 06/19/2009 11:14:41 AM PDT · Posted by eleni121 · 47 replies · 628+ views ·
Associated Press | 6-19-09 | ELENA BECATOROS
ATHENS, Greece -- Greece opens its long-anticipated new Acropolis Museum Saturday, boosting its decades-old campaign for the return of 2,500-year-old sculptures removed from the ancient citadel by a 19th century British diplomat.
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| Panspermia |
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DNA-like Molecule Replicates Without Help
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· 06/13/2009 1:07:46 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 95 replies · 916+ views ·
ScienceNOW Daily News | 11 June 2009 | Robert F. Service
Pre-RNA? Hybrids between proteins and nucleic acids may have helped genetic molecules evolve.Credit: Science/AAAS Researchers pondering the origin of life have long struggled to crack the ultimate chicken-and-egg paradox. How did nucleic acids like DNA and RNA--which encode proteins--first form, when proteins are needed for their synthesis? Now, scientists report that they've cooked up molecular hybrids of proteins and nucleic acids that skirt the dreaded paradox. Although it's unknown whether such molecules existed prior to the emergence of life, they offer insight into a chemical pathway that might have helped life arise. DNA and RNA sport a backbone...
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| Junk in the Trunk |
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'Junk' DNA Has Important Role, Researchers Find
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· 05/21/2009 9:21:28 AM PDT · Posted by Maelstorm · 22 replies · 661+ views ·
http://www.sciencedaily.com | May 21, 2009 | Princeton University
Scientists have called it "junk DNA." They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature force the genome to carry so much excess baggage? Now researchers from Princeton University and Indiana University who have been studying the genome of a pond organism have found that junk DNA may not be so junky after all. They have discovered that DNA sequences from regions of what had been viewed as the "dispensable genome" are actually performing functions that are central for the organism. They have concluded...
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double |
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New 'Molecular Clock' Aids Dating Of Human Migration History
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· 06/15/2009 8:38:26 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 380+ views ·
ScienceDaily | June 4, 2009 | University of Leeds, via EurekAlert
Researchers at the University of Leeds have devised a more accurate method of dating ancient human migration -- even when no corroborating archaeological evidence exists. Estimating the chronology of population migrations throughout mankind's early history has always been problematic. The most widely used genetic method works back to find the last common ancestor of any particular set of lineages using samples of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but this method has recently been shown to be unreliable, throwing 20 years of research into doubt... The new method has already yielded some surprising findings. Says archaogeneticist Professor Martin Richards, who supervised Soares: "We...
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| Precolumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis |
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Some scientists affirm early Native presence [ Americas, 33K before present ]
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· 06/16/2009 3:36:56 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 28 replies · 481+ views ·
Indian Country Today | Tuesday, June 16, 2009 | Carol Berry
"Since Europeans came to the Americas, they have often been wrong about the Native inhabitants and Western science has not been immune to this problem," said one Denver scientist May 29. A perhaps-controversial 33,000 years ago, "and probably long before that," people lived here, according to Steven R. Holen, curator of archaeology in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's Department of Anthropology. "Several scientists, me included, are producing evidence of a much older Native American occupation of the continent," he said, adding that, as has happened in the past, "the scientific establishment has underestimated the time depth of the...
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| Derision Quest |
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Meth linked to western Colorado artifact raids
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· 06/19/2009 1:28:21 PM PDT · Posted by GSWarrior · 20 replies · 461+ views ·
Grand Junction Sentinel | June 18 | Gary Harmon
Easy money, sleepless nights lure users, cultural expert says Western Colorado is far from immune to the looting such as that alleged by federal agents after the arrests last week of 24 people in southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. There's a modern twist, however, to the looting that western Colorado and other officials have noted of late: methamphetamine. Law enforcement officials declined to elaborate on incidents in which they have noted the connection between looted sites and meth use, but archaeologists and law enforcement officials said they are aware of the connections. Looting and methamphetamine use have more in common...
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance |
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Those Medieval Monks Could Draw
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· 06/19/2009 9:06:13 AM PDT · Posted by Steelfish · 19 replies · 468+ views ·
NYTimes | June 18, 2009
Those Medieval Monks Could Draw By ROBERTA SMITH June 18, 2009 When you think of medieval art, drawing may not spring instantly to mind. Medieval ivories and enamels? Definitely. Medieval sculpture, metalwork and stained glass? Sure. Of course medieval artists -- many of whom were anonymous monks working as scribes in scriptoria -- drew. All those manuscript illuminations had to start somewhere. But did they actually make drawings that survived and were cherished as drawings, or that filled practical needs that only drawing can? To most of us, European drawing before the Renaissance and its emphasis on individual genius and...
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| The Great War |
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UK war veteran becomes oldest man in the world at 113
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· 06/19/2009 3:23:16 PM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 12 replies · 165+ views ·
Guardian | 19 June 2009 | Maev Kennedy
At the age of 113 Henry Allingham, the oldest surviving veteran of the first world war, has officially been proclaimed the oldest man alive by Guinness World Records, after the death today of Tomoji Tanabe in Japan. His friend Denis Goodwin, a founder of the First World War Veterans Association, who has escorted Allingham to innumerable parades, memorial services and presentations, said: "It's .......[snip] At St Dunstan's home for blind ex-service personnel, near Brighton, where Allingham has lived since he finally gave up his Eastbourne flat at the age of 110, chief executive Robert Leader sent sympathy to the family...
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| Agriculture and Animal Husbandry |
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Plant Communication: Sagebrush Engage in Self-Recognition and Warn of Danger
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· 06/19/2009 1:20:30 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 15 replies · 159+ views ·
UC Davis Department of Entomology | June 19, 2009 | Kathy Keatley Garvey
Richard "Rick" Karban DAVIS -- "To thine own self be true" may take on a new meaning -- not with people or animal behavior but with plant behavior. Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their "clones" or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard Karban of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, in groundbreaking research published in the current edition of Ecology Letters. Karban and fellow scientist Kaori Shiojiri of the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Japan, found that sagebrush responded to cues of self and non-self without physical contact. The sagebrush communicated and cooperated with other...
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| American Revolution |
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Stamp Act of 1765: A Pivot Point In Our History. (Vanity:History Question)
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· 06/15/2009 6:39:32 PM PDT · Posted by devane617 · 22 replies · 353+ views me | 06/15/2009 | me
Recently, with the Tea Parties taking center stage, I revisited my very old and dusty history books to take a look at that period of our history. Stepping back in time a few years to 1765 we have the incident that I feel was one of our major pivot points in history: The Stamp Act of 1765.From what I can find, the taxes that were to be levied via the required tax stamps were inconsequential if you consider the downside to not going along with England. The stamps were required on documents, so probably did not affect the common man....
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| The Framers |
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the 18th Amendment
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· 06/14/2009 7:14:06 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 14 replies · 277+ views ·
Constitution of the United States, via FindLaw et al | ratification certified on January 29, 1919 | The Framers et al
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from...
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| Early America |
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Indiana soldier to auction rare piece of history
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· 06/15/2009 6:38:39 AM PDT · Posted by bgill · 5 replies · 403+ views ·
AP | Mon Jun 15, 2009 | RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press
Indiana National Guard Capt. Nathan Harlan was a high school junior when he paid $7 for a 1788 first edition of volume one of "The Federalist" -- a two-volume book of essays calling for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
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| Second Fiddle in the History Books |
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Site Seen as Possible Home of Pocahontas
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· 05/07/2003 5:41:16 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 24 replies · 751+ views ·
NY Times | May 7, 2003 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In American folk history, the Indian princess Pocahontas befriended English settlers and saved Captain John Smith from certain death at the hands of his Algonquin captors. It happened near the Jamestown colony in Virginia, within a year of its founding in 1607. Or it may be only a story. But Pocahontas really was a princess, daughter of the powerful Powhatan, whose chiefdom encompassed much of coastal Virginia. She got along so well with the English that she eventually married one of them, John Rolfe, and was received at the court of James I. Now Virginia archaeologists think they have found...
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany |
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Editor quits after journal accepts bogus science article
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· 06/19/2009 10:31:05 AM PDT · Posted by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus · 23 replies · 838+ views ·
The Guardian | 18 June 2009 | Jessica Shepherd
The editor-in-chief of an academic journal has resigned after his publication accepted a hoax article. The Open Information Science Journal failed to spot that the incomprehensible computer-generated paper was a fake. This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology -- which forms the acronym Crap. The journal, which claims to subject every paper to the scrutiny of other academics, so-called "peer review", accepted the paper. Philip Davis, a graduate student at Cornell University in New York, who was behind the hoax, said he wanted to test the editorial...
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| Antiques and Collectibles |
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Ewww! Seattle gum wall a top germy attraction
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· 06/14/2009 5:40:52 AM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 39 replies · 614+ views ·
KomoNews.com | Jun 13, 2009 | KOMO Staff
SEATTLE -- A Seattle landmark has landed on a dubious list as one of the world's top five germiest attractions. The 'gum wall' outside the Market Theater at Pike Place Market comes in at number two on the list released by TripAdvisor. Starting in the 1990s, people would stick their gum on the wall as they waited for tickets. The wall was scraped clean twice, but people couldn't seem to stop sticking their gum up and down the wall, and now it's a tourist attraction. Ireland's Blarney Stone, which is kissed by up to 400,000 visitors each year, topped the...
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| Unuseology |
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Birds Didn't Evolve from Dinosaurs (Evos forced to invent an even older common ancestor!)
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· 06/09/2009 5:33:16 PM PDT · Posted by GodGunsGuts · 352 replies · 3,191+ views ·
CEH | June 9, 2009
"The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely-held beliefs about animal evolution." That statement is not being made by creationists, but by science reporters describing work at Oregon State University that cast new doubt on the idea that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs. The main idea: their leg bones and lungs are too different. Science Daily's report has a diagram of the skeleton showing...
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| end of digest #257 20090620 |
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