Overfishing Goes Back Centuries, Log Books Reveal

One of the earliest depictions of trawling. Mosaic from the 5th century, Bizerte, Tunisia. Credit: Yacoub, M., Splendors of Tunisian Mosaics, Tunis, 1995, Fig. 115.

From Live Science:

Overfishing led to shrinking sizes of freshwater fish caught by Europeans all the way back in medieval times. And the real revolution in deep-sea fishing came not with modern day trawlers, but back in the 1600s when pairs of boats began dragging a net between them.

Those are just a few of the facts unearthed by marine historians who want to find out when ocean life populations and natural sizes began to shrink.

The evidence shows that much of the decline took place even before the modern fishing industry really got going.

Read more ....

The Moment A Hummingbird Meets A Sticky End Thanks To A Hungry Praying Mantis

Struggle for survival: This hummingbird met a sticky end when feeding

From The Daily Mail:

This startling picture captures the moment a praying mantis snared a hummingbird.

The predatory insect is seen dangling from a plant with its right spiny foreleg impaling the helpless bird. Although not much bigger than its prey, the mantis was able to gorge itself before releasing the lifeless body of its victim.

Richard Walkup, from West Chester in Pennsylvania, US, told how his quick-thinking son had captured the scene.

He said: 'The other day while I was working in the yard my son urgently called to me, 'Dad, a praying mantis caught a hummingbird!'

'I came running to see for myself. By the time I arrived it was too late for the poor hummer and my scientifically minded son had already begun taking pictures and studying the scene. '

Read more ....

Space Rock Yields Carbon Bounty

From The BBC:

Formic acid, a molecule implicated in the origins of life, has been found at record levels on a meteorite that fell into a Canadian lake in 2000.

Cold temperatures on Tagish Lake prevented the volatile chemical from dissipating quickly.

An analysis showed four times more formic acid in the fragments than has been recorded on previous meteorites.

The researchers told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that the formic acid was extraterrestrial.

Formic acid is one of a group of compounds dubbed "organics", because they are rich in carbon.

"We are lucky that the meteorite was untouched by humans hands, avoiding contamination by organic compounds that we have on our fingers," said Dr Christopher Herd, the curator of the University of Alberta's meteorite collection.

Read more ....

Tech-word Origins: Stranger Than Science

From Christian Science Monitor:

A lexicographer describes where science fiction struck first.

Scientists are uniquely qualified to describe the universe in numbers and equations, but sometimes it takes an imaginative novelist to distill discoveries into words.

For his book “Brave New Words,” freelance lexicographer Jeff Prucher uncovered a slew of words that many people assume came from science, but actually originated in the pulpy pages of early science fiction. Here are four of his favorites.

Read more ....

Why We Stare, Even When We Don’t Want To

From Weird Science/Wired:

The stares of strangers endured by Connie Culp, recent face transplant recipient, might have little to do with cruelty or lack of empathy. These responses are likely a result of neurologic, biologic and evolutionary factors.

Prior to her operation, the center of Culp’s face was blank skin traversed by a single raw scar where she once had a nose, upper lip and cheeks. The disfigurement made her the target of something perhaps even less fixable: millions of years of evolutionary uncouth. When she went out in public, people gaped at her. After her operation, her face still looks unusual and the stares continue.

Read more ....

Rising Sea Levels: Survival Tips From 5000 BC

As sea levels rise, we need to find ways to adapt. Ancient civilisations could give us some tips (Image: Paul Kay / SplashdownDirect / Rex)

From The New Scientist:

WITH rising seas lapping at coastal cities and threatening to engulf entire islands in the not-too-distant future, it's easy to assume our only option will be to abandon them and head for the hills. There may be another way, however. Archaeological sites in the Caribbean, dating back to 5000 BC, show that some ancient civilisations had it just as bad as anything we are expecting. Yet not only did they survive a changing coastline and more storm surges and hurricanes: they stayed put and successfully adapted to the changing world. Now archaeologists are working out how they managed it and finding ways that we might learn from their example.

Read more ....

New Memory Material May Hold Data For One Billion Years

Scientists are reporting an advance toward a memory device capable of storing data for more than one billion years. (Credit: The American Chemical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — Packing more digital images, music, and other data onto silicon chips in USB drives and smart phones is like squeezing more strawberries into the same size supermarket carton. The denser you pack, the quicker it spoils. The 10 to 100 gigabits of data per square inch on today's memory cards has an estimated life expectancy of only 10 to 30 years. And the electronics industry needs much greater data densities for tomorrow's iPods, smart phones, and other devices.

Scientists are reporting an advance toward remedying this situation with a new computer memory device that can store thousands of times more data than conventional silicon chips with an estimated lifetime of more than one billion years. Their discovery is scheduled for publication in the June 10 issue of the American Chemical Society's Nano Letters, a monthly journal.

Read more ....

Is It Safe To Exercise In Your 70s?

From Live Science:

This Week's Question: I've been told I should exercise more, but I'm afraid that at my age (73) I might damage something. Am I safer as a couch potato?

All the current scientific evidence shows that geezers should exercise, even though many older people think it could harm them. Study after study demonstrates that seniors hurt their health a lot more by being sedentary.

If you're inactive, you deteriorate. Physical activity can help restore your capacity. Most older adults, regardless of age or condition, will benefit from increasing physical activity to a moderate level.

Read more ....

Russia's Dark Horse Plan to Get to Mars

Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars has many unknowns. For instance, what formed the grooves that run across its surface? Image: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

From Discover:

The Fobos-Grunt mission might pave the way for humanity's first permanent space base—on Phobos, Mars' bizarre moon.

Mars has been nothing but bad luck for the Russians. They have launched 20 probes to the planet since 1960, and all either failed or suffered from severe technical problems. But soon—as early as this October—Russia will attempt to reverse its fortunes with one of the most ambitious unmanned space missions ever.

Instead of aiming straight for Mars, the Russians are going after Phobos, the larger of its two little satellites and one of the oddest objects around. Their probe, called Fobos-Grunt (“Phobos soil” in Russian), will not only land on Phobos but also scoop up some samples of the surface and send them to Earth. Understanding Phobos could tell us a lot about the early history of the solar system. “It may give us clues to the formation of Earth’s moon and the moons of the other planets, and the role played by asteroid impacts in shaping the terrestrial [rocky] planets,” says Alexander Zakharov of the Moscow-based Space Research Institute and chief scientist for Fobos-Grunt. Even more important, this mission could lay the groundwork for an innovative strategy for exploring—and even colonizing—Mars itself.

Read more ....

U.S. Natural Gas Boom: The Race To Tap Shale's Potential

(Photograph by Harald Sund/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

Natural gas prices are at a six-year low, but that's not slowing one unconventional—and historically costly—method for extracting gas for energy. Shale gas reserves are contributing to the 11 percent rise in natural gas production the United States has seen in the past two years. But the deposits have been known about for decades—why are these resources drawing attention now?

Read more ....

Forget Plasma And LCDs: How The 3mm-thick, Eco-Friendly OLED Is The TV Of The Future

The Sony XEL-1 is currently the only OLED TV on the market and priced at £3,500.
The screen is just 3mm thick

From The Daily Mail:

Once they were a must-have for every living room. But LCD and plasma TVs could be about to go the way of the cathode ray tube.

A new generation of super-slim screens will revolutionise home entertainment, according to the makers.

The OLED sets boast the thinnest TV screen created. At its narrowest point it is the width of a pound coin. And technological advances make the image far sharper than on LCD and plasma screens.

Read more ....

A Serious Search For Extraterrestrial Life

A planet probably the size of Jupiter orbits at a distance about four times that between Neptune and the sun. Many such exoplanets - all atmosphere, no solid surface - have been found since '95, when the first was confirmed.

From Philadelphia Inquirer:

Things have changed since the original Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock set off to seek out new life and new civilizations. Back in the 1960s, while the Enterprise crew was exploring a galaxy full of exotic life-forms, real astronomers were stuck in a solar system with eight desolate-looking neighbors and no signs of any planets beyond.

Now, finally, astronomers are starting to zero in on Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars. Some of the more recent finds even look potentially habitable.

Read more ....

Energy Availability Is Almost Infinite

Image from Dvice.

From Watts Up With That?

A favorite excuse to push the AGW agenda is that “energy is limited, so we have to preserve it for future generations.” But nothing could be further from the truth. As that clever fellow Albert Einstein figured out ( E = Mc² ) – energy is available right here on earth in vast supplies beyond our comprehension. In fact, a primary concern of mankind over the last 65 years has been to figure out how to keep mankind from releasing some of this energy too quickly, in a catastrophic fashion.

Einstein’s equation tells us that one kilogram of matter can be converted into 90,000,000,000,000,000 (ninety million billion) joules of energy. That is roughly equivalent to saying that one liter of water contains as much potential energy as 10 million gallons of gasoline. Those who saw the movie “Angels and Demons” are familiar with the concept of combining matter and anti-matter to achieve a highly efficient matter to energy conversion. Mankind probably won’t have access to that sort of technology for some time into the future, but we already have hundreds of fission reactors generating a significant percentage of the world’s energy.

Read more ....

Scientists Identify A Key Protein That May Explain The Anti-Aging And Anti-Cancer Benefits of Dietary Restriction

From The Next Big Future:

High nutrients activate HIF-1 through the TOR-S6K pathway, which leads to increased ER stress and shortened lifespan. Other regulators such as PHA-4, SKN-1, AAK-2, DAF-16 and HSF-1 may function in parallel to HIF-1 to modulate DR-induced longevity phenotypes.

A protein that plays a key role in tumor formation, oxygen metabolism and inflammation is involved in a pathway that extends lifespan by dietary restriction.

The finding, which appears in the May 22, 2009 edition of the on-line journal PLoS Genetics, provides a new understanding of how dietary restriction contributes to longevity and cancer prevention and gives scientists new targets for developing and testing drugs that could extend the healthy years of life.

Read more ....

Surprising Twist To Photosynthesis: Scientists Swap Key Metal Necessary For Turning Sunlight Into Chemical Energy

The reactions that convert light to chemical energy happen in a millionth of a millionth of a second, which makes experimental observation extremely challenging. A premier ultrafast laser spectroscopic detection system established at the Biodesign Institute, with the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, acts like a high-speed motion picture camera. It splits the light spectrum into infinitesimally discrete slivers, allowing the group to capture vast numbers of ultrafast frames from the components of these exceedingly rapid reactions. These frames are then mathematically assembled, allowing the group to make a figurative "movie" of the energy transfer events of photosynthesis. (Credit: Arizona State University Biodesign Institute)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2009) — Photosynthesis is a remarkable biological process that supports life on earth. Plants and photosynthetic microbes do so by harvesting light to produce their food, and in the process, also provide vital oxygen for animals and people.

Now, a large, international collaboration between Arizona State University, the University of California San Diego and the University of British Columbia, has come up with a surprising twist to photosynthesis by swapping a key metal necessary for turning sunlight into chemical energy.

Read more ....

The Whole World Is Optimistic, Survey Finds

From Live Science:

Despite current economic woes, a new study based on global survey data finds optimism to be universal. Sunny outlooks are most prevalent in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand.

The United States ranks No. 10.

Nearly 90 percent of people around the globe expect the next five years to be as good or better than life today, the study found. And 95 percent expect their life in five years to be as good or better than it was five years ago.

The study, from the University of Kansas and Gallup, suggests humans are optimistic by nature, the researchers conclude.

Read more ....

Fundamental Mechanism For Cell Organization Discovered

Image: An embryo treated with RNA interference to delay the onset of cell polarization. At the beginning of the process, P granules (green) have already nearly completely dissolved throughout the embryo. However, when the embryo ultimately polarizes, the polarity protein PAR-2 (red) appears on the posterior cortex, and P granules reform by condensation in the vicinity of this posterior region. Credit: Clifford Brangwynne (Credit: Image courtesy of Marine Biological Laboratory)

From Science Digest:

ScienceDaily (May 22, 2009) — Scientists have discovered that cells use a very simple phase transition -- similar to water vapor condensing into dew -- to assemble and localize subcellular structures that are involved in formation of the embryo.

The discovery, which was made during the 2008 Physiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), is reported in the May 21 early online edition of Science by Clifford P. Brangwynne and Anthony A. Hyman of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, and their colleagues, including Frank Jülicher of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, also in Dresden.

Read more ....

Huge Mars Region Shaped by Water, Rover Mission Finds

A false-color image shows Cape St. Vincent, a feature of Mars's massive Victoria Crater. After a dangerous descent into the crater, the Mars rover Opportunity has shown that the red planet once had a network of underground water spread across an area the size of Oklahoma, scientists announced in May 2009. Photograph courtesy Steven W. Squyres

From National Geographic:

Shifting sand dunes on ancient Mars once concealed a network of underground water spread across an area the size of Oklahoma, according to new findings from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity.

In 2004 Opportunity had spotted minerals and blueberry-shaped rocks indicative of ancient groundwater in the Martian crater Endurance.

The robotic explorer has now found similar signs of past water in Victoria, a crater some 3.5 miles (6 kilometers) away.

Opportunity also spotted unique rock layers in the sides of Victoria Crater, which are likely the petrified remnants of ancient sand dunes.

Read more ....

Opposites Really Do Attract In Human Search For A Mate According To New Study

Photo: Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum are living proof that opposites really do attract

From The Daily Mail:

It's an age old theory but when it comes to choosing a mate, opposites really do attract, according to a Brazilian study that found people are subconsciously more likely to choose a partner whose genetic make-up is different to their own.

The study found evidence to suggest that married couples are more likely to have genetic differences in a DNA region that governs the immune system than couples who were randomly matched.

Maria da Graca Bicalho and her colleagues at the University of Parana in Brazil reported that this was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction because genetic variability is an advantage for offspring.

Bicalho said: 'Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities, our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate.'

Read more ....

Rumor Round-Up: Everything We’ve Heard About the Next iPhone

From Gadget Lab/Wired News:

This month, the Apple rumor volcano erupted with purported details of the next-generation iPhone. Various blogs claim receiving tips from informed sources about features in the highly anticipated handset, such as a magnetometer (digital compass), a video camera and a speedier processor.

Here, we round up every rumor that’s appeared about Apple’s next iPhone, which many are betting will be announced June 8 at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. We’re also accompanying each rumor with a percentage rating for its probability to be true, as well as our analysis.

When WWDC arrives, we’ll present a report card showing which publications were correct and which were wrong. And of course, we’ll grade ourselves on our predictions, too.

With that said, here’s everything we’ve heard about the next iPhone:

Read more ....