Mound Of Ash Reveals Shrine To Zeus

The Greek god Zeus was honored by the ancients at an open-air sanctuary atop Mount Lykaion, new research shows. iStockPhoto

From Discovery News:

An altar dedicated to the king of the gods was used for ritual ceremonies by the ancient Greeks.

Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus atop Greece's Mount Lykaion have revealed that ritual activities occurred there for roughly 1,500 years, from the height of classic Greek civilization around 3,400 years ago until just before Roman conquest in 146.

"We may have the first documented mountaintop shrine from the ancient Greek world," says project director David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

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Higher Temperatures Can Worsen Climate Change, Methane Measurements From Space Reveal

Researchers made use of the methane concentrations determined by SRON on the basis of measurements from the Dutch-German space instrument SCIAMACHY (on board ESA's environmental satellite Envisat). (Credit: Image courtesy of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 16, 2010) — Higher temperatures on the earth's surface at higher latitudes cause an increase in the emission of methane, a greenhouse gas that plays an important role in global warming. Therefore, higher temperatures are not just a consequence of climate change but can also worsen cause of it, conclude climate researchers in an article published in Science.

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Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds

From Live Science:

Just about everybody – even workaholics – should look forward to the weekend, when most people get a mood boost, a new study suggests.

Participants in the study often reported better moods, greater vitality, and fewer aches and pains from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon as compared with the rest of the week.

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Scientists Scramble to Analyze Haiti’s Seismic Risk

(Click to Enlarge)

From Wired Science:

Since the ground shook Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12 and sent the densely populated city into chaos, scientists have been harnessing every possible tool to quickly assemble a detailed picture of a region in which scientific research had already been difficult to conduct.

The question we are trying to address right now is if there could be other faults nearby or perhaps other portions of the fault to the east or west that could go,” says Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who has used GPS stations to monitor the area since 2003.

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‘No Such Thing As Safe Cocaine Use’

From Times Online:

Researchers warned that there is no 'safe' amount of cocaine to use, after a study found that up to 3 per cent of all sudden deaths are linked to the drug.

Taking even small amounts of cocaine at weekends can increase the risk of suddenly dying from heart problems.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal, analysed a series of post-mortem reports in south-west Spain, where toxicology tests are routinely carried out after any violent or unexpected deaths.

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Haiti Earthquake, Deforestation Heighten Landslide Risk

The border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic highlights the relative deforestation of Haiti. Photograph courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

From The National Geographic:

The combination of widespread deforestation and the recent earthquake in Haiti could lead to more landslides in the already hard-hit country, scientists say (Haiti map).

(Read "Haiti Earthquake 'Strange,' Strongest in 200 Years.")

Many of Haiti's people, the poorest in the Americas, routinely cut down trees for fuel—either to burn "raw" or turn into charcoal.

As a result, the destruction of Haiti's natural forests is almost total, making the Caribbean country one of the most deforested in the world.

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Robotic Arm On Space Station Will Try Refueling A Satellite

Robotic Refueling Service Care to top off your spacecraft? NASA

From Popular Science:

NASA's bold repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope has inspired engineers to tackle another challenge -- using the robotic arm on the International Space Station to refuel a satellite. Aviation Week reports that the Canadian "Dextre" arm could use a special tool to cut into a spacecraft that was never designed to be refueled, pierce the insulation, and access the fuel plumbing.

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The Dangers Of A High-Information Diet

Are we in danger of knowing too much? (Caozhizheng/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

NO ONE ever tells you how dangerous this stuff can be: they just go on pumping it out, hour after hour, day after day. You're consuming it right now, without a clue about the possible consequences. The worst thing is, evolution has predisposed your brain to crave it as much as your body craves fat and sugar. And these days - as with fat and sugar - you can get it everywhere.

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Voodoo Wasps That Could Save The World

There are more than 600,000 species of parasitic voodoo wasps and they already play a critical role as a natural regulator of insect populations. Peter Koomen and Mathijs Zwier (University of Groningen)

From The Independent:

Genetic breakthrough could enable scientists to unleash armies of insects on deadly crop pests.

They are so small that most people have never even seen them, yet "voodoo wasps" are about to be recruited big time in the war on agricultural pests as part of the wider effort to boost food production in the 21st century.

The wasps are only 1 or 2 millimetres long fully-grown but they have an ability to paralyse and destroy other insects, including many of the most destructive crop pests, by delivering a zombie-inducing venom in their sting.

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Ladies Are Lugging Less: How Tiny Gadgets And Smart Phones Are Making Women's Handbags 57% Lighter

Photo: Big to small: Cheryl Cole (left) carries a huge Louis Vuitton handbag through LA airport early last year.

From The Daily Mail:

The average weight of a woman's handbag has plummeted as multi-purpose gadgets take the place of Filofaxes, brick-like phones and hefty laptops.

The rise of smartphones such as the iPhone and miniature MP3 players has taken a huge weight off the shoulders of the nation's ladies.

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How Music 'Moves' Us: Listeners' Brains Second-Guess the Composer

New research predicts that expectations about what is going to happen next in a piece of music should be different for people with different musical experience and sheds light on the brain mechanisms involved. (Credit: iStockphoto/Anna Bryukhanova)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 16, 2010) — Have you ever accidentally pulled your headphone socket out while listening to music? What happens when the music stops? Psychologists believe that our brains continuously predict what is going to happen next in a piece of music. So, when the music stops, your brain may still have expectations about what should happen next.

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Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests

The ancient text shown in this drawing was discovered on a shard of pottery in Israel, and turned out to be the earliest known example of Hebrew writing. Credit: University of Haifa

From Live Science:

Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing — an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign.

The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)

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$5 Million Will Buy You Your Own Jet Fighter

$5M Buys the Ride of Your Life -- Autopia

The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1:1. In other words, it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight the best the United States had to offer, and it can be yours for the cost of a mediocre used business jet.

Last week, we told you about a cool DIY jet. If you like the idea of a jet but not the thought of doing it yourself, John Morgan has you covered. He’s got a pair of beautifully restored Sukhoi SU-27 Flanker jets. They’re first-rate pieces of Soviet-era hardware designed to go head-to-head with the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. They’re for sale, joining a very elite group of former military fighter jets offered for private ownership in the United States.

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My Comment: My dream has always been to fly a P-51 Mustang. But to fly a SU-27 .... sighhhh .... I will need a lot of Google clicks to get that bird.

Why The Y Chromosome Is A Hotbed For Evolution

From Times Online:

The Y chromosome is often seen as the rotten corner of the human genome — a place of evolutionary decline that is slowly decaying and threatening the end of man. Reports of its imminent demise, however, have been exaggerated.

Research has indicated that, far from stagnating, the male chromosome is a hotspot of evolution that is changing more quickly than any other part of humanity’s genetic code.

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Researchers Decry Proposed Rules To Secure Bio Research Labs

In Fort Detrick's new BSL-4 laboratory, a labyrinth of ducts guides air in the lab through banks of powerful filters, each of which removes more than 99 percent of particles larger than 0.0003 mm. Staff say air leaves the building cleaner than it arrives.

From Popular Mechanics:

This week, the White House released a study by the Working Group on Strengthening the Biosecurity of the United States that recommends stricter guidelines for dangerous pathogens and stronger screening standards for lab employees. But the reception of the proposed changes has been frosty among scientists, who worry that the restrictions will hamper their work, without obstructing terrorism.

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Chinese Attack On Google Among the Most Sophisticated Cyberattacks Ever, Experts Say

Google Bai Bai AP

From Popular Science:

No one has claimed responsibility, but a U.S. Internet security firm points at the Chinese government.

A Chinese cyber-assault on Google and more than 30 other U.S. companies was the most sophisticated online attack ever seen outside of the defense industry, according to experts from anti-virus firm McAfee interviewed by Wired. Google announced on Tuesday that it would no longer censor information on its search portal per Chinese government rules, and may stop doing business in China entirely.

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'Most Beautiful' Math Structure Appears In Lab For First Time

The signature of a mathematical structure called E8 has been seen in the real world for the first time (Illustration: Claudio Rocchini under a creative commons 2.5 licence)

From New Scientist:

A complex form of mathematical symmetry linked to string theory has been glimpsed in the real world for the first time, in laboratory experiments on exotic crystals.

Mathematicians discovered a complex 248-dimensional symmetry called E8 in the late 1800s. The dimensions in the structure are not necessarily spatial, like the three dimensions we live in, but they correspond to mathematical degrees of freedom, where each dimension represents a different variable.

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Fire Holds No Fears For Chimps, Says Scientist

Observations of chimpanzees could shed light on when our human ancestors first controlled fire. Andrew Aiken / Rex Features

From The Independent:

But did the early ancestor of Man learn how to control it?

Wild chimpanzees have been observed carrying out a “fire dance” in front of grassland wildfires as part of a suite of unusual behaviours that could indicate an ability of man’s closet living relative to understand and even control fire.

Instead of fleeing the wildfires in panic, the chimps were seen to monitor them carefully, showing no signs of the fear that other animals normally exhibit. Their leader – the alpha male – was even observed performing a ritualistic display while facing the flames.

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Arctic Permafrost Leaking Methane At Record Levels, Figures Show

Permafrost in Siberia. Methane emissions from the Arctic permafrost increased by 31% from 2003-07, figures show. Photograph: Francis Latreille/Corbis

From The Guardian:

Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

Scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point.

Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

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The Golden Oldie Gene: One In Five Has Age-Defying 'Centenarian Gene' That Greatly Increases Odds Of Living To 100

Photo: Centenarian: The late Queen Mother at St Paul's Cathedral after a service in honour of her 100th birthday in 2000

From The Daily Mail:

In the genetic lottery of life expectancy, you might think 100 is a pretty lucky number.

Now it's just got luckier.

Scientists have discovered that a gene already known to treble your odds of living to 100 may also ward off Alzheimer's disease.

One in five of us is dealt this genetic hand that promises to extend our lives without the loss of mental agility.

The gene is the first to be identified that actually cuts the odds of Alzheimer's disease rather than raising them.

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