The First Europeans Were Cannibals: Archaeologists

Photo: Skull named Miguelon, estimated to be 400,000 years old and the most complete skull of an Homo heidelbergensis ever found, is seen at the Atapuerca archaeological site, in the Atapuerca mountains in northern Spain. In 2007 a historic discovery of the fossilised remains of the 'first european' human was made at the site. (AFP/File/Philippe Desmazes)

From Yahoo News/AP:

ATAPUERCA, Spain (AFP) – The remains of the "first Europeans" discovered at an archaeological site in northern Spain have revealed that these prehistoric men were cannibals who particularly liked the flesh of children.

"We know that they practiced cannibalism," said Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, one of the co-directors of the Atapuerca project, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A study of the remains revealed that they turned to cannibalism to feed themselves and not as part of a ritual, that they ate their rivals after killing them, mostly children and adolescents.

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Giant Prehistoric Kangaroos Wiped Out By Hungry Ice Age Hunters

Artist's illustration of the extinct Procoptodon goliah which roamed around Australia 45,000 years ago. (Artist Peter Trusler/Australian Postal Corporation)

From Times Online:

It stood tall at 6’5, weighed over 500lbs, had the face of a koala and the body of a sturdy kangaroo. And apparently it was delicious.

Scientists think they have discovered the reason behind the demise of the prehistoric Australian marsupial Procoptodon goliah – better known as the giant, short-snouted kangaroo. They say it was not climate change, as has always been assumed, but hungry Ice Age hunters.

The animal – about three times bigger than a modern-day kangaroo and with slightly different features - was one of many Ice-Age megafauna whose demise has long been debated among experts, but usually put down to the changing environment.

However an international team of scientists, led by Gavin Prideaux from Flinders University in South Australia, has discovered a different theory behind the reason the animal became extinct 45,000 years ago.

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My Comment: I am hungry.

The New Nuclear Revolution -- A Commentary

From The Wall Street Journal:

Safe fission power is our future -- if regulators allow it.

After the Internet, the next big thing will be cheap and clean energy. Coal, oil and gas pollute and are increasingly expensive: We need alternatives. Because nuclear energy (stored among particles inside atoms) is millions of times more dense than chemical energy (stored among atoms in molecules), nuclear reactors belong high on our long list of energy alternatives.

Nuclear energy is released during fission and fusion. During fission, large elements like uranium are split into smaller elements. During fusion, small elements like hydrogen are combined into larger elements. These two processes have occurred naturally since the beginning of time -- 13.7 billion years. The Earth is warmed naturally by its own nuclear fission reactors within and also by the sun, that big nuclear fusion reactor.

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Not Space Junk Yet: Mars Rovers Carry On Despite Age, Ailments

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — In one of the most remarkable engineering feats of our time, the aging Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still taking orders and sending home pictures more than five years after they were supposed to turn into slabs of space junk.

Opportunity is still rolling along, but Spirit is hung up on a rock and may be reaching the end of its travels. The rovers' masters at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., hope they can nurse either or both of them through another harsh Martian winter.

"I'm very attached to them," said John Callas, the rover project manager. "They exhibit human-like qualities. They have trials and tribulations. Like aging humans, they've got arthritic joints, they forget things, their vision is not what it used to be. When something's not right, you get that sinking feeing in your stomach.''

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Girl Who Doesn't Age Baffles Doctors

Photo: Brooke Greenberg is 16 years old, but looks like a 16-month-old. (ABC America)

From Ninemsm:

A 16-year-old girl who is the size of an infant and has the mental capacity of a toddler continues to baffle doctors in the US.

Medical experts believe Brooke Greenberg suffers from some kind of genetic mutation that shapes the way she ages, leaving her with the perpetual appearance of a baby.

The exact cause of the phenomenon has not been pinpointed.

Doctors say Brooke is not growing in a coordinated way, with her body parts out of synchronisation, as if each has a mind of its own.

"Why doesn't she age?" her father, Howard Greenberg, asked on US network ABC.

"Is she the fountain of youth?"

Brooke's mother Melanie Greenberg, 48, said she was so used to people asking how old her daughter is she did not even try to explain.

"My system always has been to turn years into months," Mrs Greenberg said.

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When Wild Animals Attack: An Encounter With A Rabid Skunk

(Photograph by Tom Brakefield/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

Animal encounters on our turf are on the rise—and it's not just big animals like mountain lions, bears and alligators. Here, TheDailyGreen.com's Brian Clark Howard revisits the time a rabid skunk attacked him while he camped in a friend's yard, just 1 hour away from New York City.

I was jerked awake in my sleeping bag by a sharp, pinching pain centered on my nose. My eyes failed me, and I teetered on the edge of consciousness. I felt viscous liquid streaming down my neck. The only tangible thought I could muster was fear that my nose must have become stuck in a zipper. As a strained throat would later attest, I screamed hysterically.

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A Magnetic Machine Plucks Pathogens From Blood

Nonfatal Attraction: An electromagnet pulls out 80 percent
of an infectious pathogen Medi-mation

From Popsci.com:

A new treatment could save some of the hundreds of thousands of Americans dying sepsis-related deaths every year.

If your uncle says he's getting magnetic therapy, you might feel the urge to tell him to save his money instead for that tinfoil hat to keep the CIA from reading his mind. But if he's being hooked up to Don Ingber's magnet machine, it just might save his life.

Ingber's device magnetizes microbes and draws them out of the blood. It could save some of the 210,000 Americans—mostly newborns and the elderly—who die sepsis-related deaths every year. Sepsis sets in when bacteria or fungi invade the blood, which can cause organ failure before drugs have time to take effect. "Traditionally, you prescribe antibiotics and pray," says Ingber, a vascular biologist at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital. His machine operates more quickly.

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Work Begins On World's Deepest Underground Lab

From Yahoo News/AP:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings — a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.

Scientists, politicians and other officials gathered Monday for a groundbreaking of sorts at a lab 4,850 foot below the surface of an old gold mine that was once the site of Nobel Prize-winning physics research.

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Language May Be Key To Theory Of Mind

From New Scientist:

How blind and deaf people approach a cognitive test regarded as a milestone in human development has provided clues to how we deduce what others are thinking.

Understanding another person's perspective, and realising that it can differ from our own, is known as theory of mind. It underpins empathy, communication and the ability to deceiveMovie Camera – all of which we take for granted. Although our theory of mind is more developed than it is in other animals, we don't acquire it until around age four, and how it develops is a mystery.

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Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"

Etched into crops, the outlines of Bronze Age burial mounds surround a roughly 190-foot (57-meter) circular Stone Age temple site about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge in southern England in an undated aerial photo.Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government's historic-preservation agency, the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth. True crop circles are vast designs created by flattening crops. The features are part of a newfound 500-acre (200-hectare) prehistoric ceremonial site which was unknown until the aerial survey, rchaeologists announced in June 2009. Photograph by Damian Grady/English Heritage

From National Geographic:

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.

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Social Competition May Be Reason For Bigger Brain

Professor David Geary finds that competitive ancestors may be blamed for today's big brain. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Missouri-Columbia)

From Science Digest:

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2009) — For the past 2 million years, the size of the human brain has tripled, growing much faster than other mammals. Examining the reasons for human brain expansion, University of Missouri researchers studied three common hypotheses for brain growth: climate change, ecological demands and social competition. The team found that social competition is the major cause of increased cranial capacity.

To test the three hypotheses, MU researchers collected data from 153 hominid (humans and our ancestors) skulls from the past 2 million years. Examining the locations and global climate changes at the time the fossil was dated, the number of parasites in the region and estimated population density in the areas where the skulls were found, the researchers discovered that population density had the biggest effect on skull size and thus cranial capacity.

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Amazing Volcano Photo Reveals Shock Wave

Sarychev Peak on Matua Island is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan. Astronauts took this photo of an eruption on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption. Credit: NASA/ISS/Earth Observatory

From Live Science:

An amazing new picture from space reveals a volcanic eruption in its earliest stage, with a huge plume of ash and steam billowing skyward and creating a shock wave in the atmosphere.

Sarychev Peak on Matua Island is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, northeast of Japan.

The new photo was taken June 12 from the International Space Station. NASA says volcano researchers are excited about the picture "because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption."

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Amazing Footage Of Lunar Probe's Final Moments Before It Crashes Into Moon

From The Daily Mail:

Footage showing the dramatic descent of a probe minutes before it crashes into the surface of the Moon has been released by the Japanese space agency.

The final moments of the Kaguya lunar probe were caught by its on-board high-definition camera as it hurtled downwards on June 11 and as it fell the images were beamed back to Earth

As it sinks lower and lower the desolate and pockmarked landscape is seen looming ever larger as the spacecraft tumbles toward its final resting place.

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Mind-Enhancing Drugs: Are They A No-Brainer?

Scientists are debating whether stimulants are an acceptable means for people to boost their brain's performance. Alamy

From The Independent:

Advocates say they are an irresistible way of improving students' performance. Critics argue they are a dangerous fad. Jeremy Laurance explores the debate

In the middle of the exam season, the offer of a drug that could improve results might excite students but would be likely to terrify their parents. Now, a distinguished professor of bioethics says it is time to embrace the possibilities of "brain boosters" – chemical cognitive enhancement. The provocative suggestion comes from John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics.

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World's First Controllable Molecular Gear At Nanoscale Created

Researchers in Singapore have invented a molecular gear of the size of 1.2nm whose rotation can be deliberately controlled. (Credit: A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Singapore)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 22, 2009) — Scientists from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), led by Professor Christian Joachim,* have scored a breakthrough in nanotechnology by becoming the first in the world to invent a molecular gear of the size of 1.2nm whose rotation can be deliberately controlled. This achievement marks a radical shift in the scientific progress of molecular machines and is published on 14 June 20009 in Nature Materials.

Said Prof Joachim, “Making a gear the size of a few atoms is one thing, but being able to deliberately control its motions and actions is something else altogether. What we’ve done at IMRE is to create a truly complete working gear that will be the fundamental piece in creating more complex molecular machines that are no bigger than a grain of sand.”

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The Most Lifeless Place in the Ocean Found

Oceanographers David C. Smith, Robert Pockalny and Franciszek Hasiuk prepare to remove a sediment core from the coring device. Credit: Stephanie Forschner

From Live Science:

Scientists have discovered what may be the least inhabited place in the ocean.

The seafloor sediments in the middle of the South Pacific have fewer living cells than anywhere else measured, a new study found.

Oceanographer Steven D’Hondt of the University of Rhode Island and colleagues took a boat out to the middle of the ocean and collected cores, or cylindrical samples of sediment, from the bottom of the sea about 2.5 to 3.7 miles (4 to 6 km) deep.

They found about 1,000 living cells in each cubic centimeter of sediment — a tally that is roughly 1,000 times less than in other seafloor sediments.

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Top 25 Green Energy Leaders

From Scientific American:

Forward-thinking companies, universities and municipalities are finding creative ways to run on renewable power.

It is no longer enough to just conserve energy. More and more corporations, government agencies and entire cities are making large, long-term commitments to ensure that the power they do use comes from renewable sources. To recognize these trendsetters, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publishes a quarterly list of the top American users of green power: organizations that generate their own renewable energy, buy it from suppliers, or purchase offset credits to compensate for their traditional energy use. To put things in perspective, the average U.S. home consumes about 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity a year. That means number 25 on the list buys enough green energy to power more than 14,000 homes.

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Iceland's Geothermal Bailout Feature

The Kuwait of the North: Engineers at the Tyr drilling rig in Krafla’s snow-covered caldera hope to use a supercritical-water source two miles underground to produce 10 times as much geothermal electricity as a normal well Courtesy Sveinbjorn Holmgeirsson/Landsvirkjun Power

From Popsci.com:

October, Iceland's economy tanked. Its bailout? A two-mile geothermal well drilled into a volcano that could generate an endless supply of clean energy. Or, as Icelanders will calmly explain, it could all blow up in their faces

It's spring in Iceland, and three feet of snow covers the ground. The sky is gray and the temperature hovers just below freezing, yet Gudmundur Omar Fridleifsson is wearing only a windbreaker. Icelanders say they can spot the tourists because they wear too many clothes, but Fridleifsson seems particularly impervious. He's out here every few days to check on the Tyr geothermal drilling rig, the largest in Iceland. The rig's engines are barely audible over the cold wind, and the sole sign of activity is the slow dance of a crane as it grabs another 30-foot segment of steel pipe, attaches it to the top of the drill shaft, and slides it into the well.

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How Apple, AT&T Are Closing the Mobile Web

A growing chorus claims that Apple’s questionable approval policy for its iPhone application store raises issues with net neutrality.

From Epicenter/Wired News:

Free Press, a group that advocates the idea of an open internet — that is, one in which consumers have the right to browse the web and run internet applications without restrictions — is the latest of several organizations to call out Apple for its inconsistencies. Free Press alleges that Apple crippled SlingPlayer, a TV-streaming application for iPhone, so that it would only work on a Wi-Fi connection; the initial version worked with a 3G cellular network connection as well as Wi-Fi. The SlingPlayer restriction is inconsistent with Apple’s approval of the Major League Baseball application, which provides live-streaming of sports events on both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, the group said.

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Sunspots Revealed In Striking Detail By Supercomputers

The interface between a sunspot's umbra (dark center) and penumbra (lighter outer region) shows a complex structure with narrow, almost horizontal (lighter to white) filaments embedded in a background having a more vertical (darker to black) magnetic field. (Credit: Copyright UCAR, image courtesy Matthias Rempel, NCAR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2009) — In a breakthrough that will help scientists unlock mysteries of the Sun and its impacts on Earth, an international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has created the first-ever comprehensive computer model of sunspots. The resulting visuals capture both scientific detail and remarkable beauty.

The high-resolution simulations of sunspot pairs open the way for researchers to learn more about the vast mysterious dark patches on the Sun's surface. Sunspots are associated with massive ejections of charged plasma that can cause geomagnetic storms and disrupt communications and navigational systems. They also contribute to variations in overall solar output, which can affect weather on Earth and exert a subtle influence on climate patterns.

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