From The Telegraph:
The Biblical plagues that devastated Ancient Egypt in the Old Testament were the result of global warming and a volcanic eruption, scientists have claimed.
Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.
But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.
Read more ....
Monday, March 29, 2010
Scientists Discover Moral Compass In The Brain Which Can Be Controlled By Magnets
Image: The moral compass, technically named the right temporo-parietal junction, lies just behind the right ear in the brainFrom The Daily Mail:
Scientists have discovered a real-life 'moral compass' in the brain that controls how we judge other people's behaviour.
The region, which lies just behind the right ear, becomes more active when we think about other people's misdemeanours or good works.
In an extraordinary experiment, researchers were able to use powerful magnets to disrupt this area of the brain and make people temporarily less moral.
Read more ....
1 In 10 Chinese Adults Is Diabetic, Study Finds
From StlToday.com/AP:After working overtime to catch up to life in the West, China now faces a whole new problem: the world's biggest diabetes epidemic.
One in 10 Chinese adults already have the disease and another 16 percent are on the verge of developing it, according to a new study. The finding nearly equals the U.S. rate of 11 percent and surpasses other Western nations, including Germany and Canada.
Read more ....
Prolonged Climatic Stress Main Reason for Mass Extinction 65 Million Years Ago, Paleontologist Says
According to new research from a German paleontologist, long-term climate fluctuations -- not a giant meteorite impact -- were likely the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. (Credit: iStockphoto/Adrian Chesterman)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Mar. 27, 2010) — Long-term climate fluctuations were probably the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. This conclusion was reached by PD Dr. Michael Prauss, paleontologist at Freie Universitaet Berlin, based on his latest research results.
Read more ....
Mysterious Whale Die-Off Is Largest On Record
From Live Science:
Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.
Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.
Read more ....
Overeating Junk Food Similar To Drug Addiction
Over indulging your sweet tooth could decrease the reward response in your brain.Credit: Wikimedia
From Cosmos:
PARIS: Whether their addictions are a drug such as cocaine or junk food such as cupcakes, all junkies are overstimulating the same receptor in the brain, scientists said.
The research, based on lab animals, bolsters long-standing suspicions that addiction to pleasure stems from overstimulus of a key reward mechanism in the brain, its authors say.
Read more ....
Nuclear Disarmament Hinges On Missile Defence Dispute
Image from vrroom.naa.gov.au.From New Scientist:
After almost a year of negotiation, the US and Russia have finally settled on a plan to further reduce their vast nuclear arsenals. If the new agreement is approved, the number of deployed warheads by will be cut by 30 per cent over previous targets. But an ongoing dispute over a European missile defence shield has the potential to scupper the plans.
The US and Russia hold some 95 per cent of the world's nuclear arms, including an estimated 4700 deployed nuclear warheads. The new agreement – a follow-up to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) – would cut the number to 1550 warheads per country over the course of seven years.
Read more ....
Pyramid Of Mystery Pharaoh Possibly Located
A photograph taken from the area immediately south of the Unas pyramid,visible in the foreground. Giulio Magli
From Discovery News:
The long-lost tomb of the 4,300-year-old Egyptian pharaoh Userkare may have been located.
The missing pyramid of an obscure pharaoh that ruled Egypt some 4,300 years ago could lie at the intersection of a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara, according to new astronomical and topographical research.
Connecting the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the 6th Dynasty between 2,322 B.C. and 2,151 B.C., these lines would have governed the sacred space of the Saqqara area, in accordance with a number of criteria such as dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignment.
Read more ....
Rumor: 'iAd' Mobile Ad Platform Is Apple's Next Big Thing
(Credit: Gizmodo)From CNET:
MediaPost reports that Apple's next next big thing, after iPads invade the world next weekend, will be iAd, a mobile advertising platform to be debuted April 7. Coffee dates and patent suits aside, this could be the true Apple-Google battleground.
Of course, if you've been reading the tea leaves, Apple's move into mobile advertising is anything but surprising. In January, they bought mobile advertising company Quattro for a reported $275 million, after Google snatched AdMob out from under them months before.
Read more ....
Door to Afterlife From Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found
From ABC News:
Archaeologists unearth door to the afterlife from ancient Egyptian minister's tomb.
Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday.
These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts.
Read more ....
Gulf Stream 'Is Not Slowing Down'
From The BBC:
The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.
Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.
A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.
Read more ....
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Autonomous Submarinebot Heads Down on Deepest-Ever Undersea Search For Undiscovered Life
From The Popular Science:
While some scientists resort to undersea drilling to find undiscovered forms of life, a new group of researchers has decided that piloting a robotic submarine into a submerged volcano was the way to go. By exploring the deepest, hottest, undersea volcano ever probed, the researchers hope to find clues to both the beginnings of life on Earth, and the possible forms of life on other planets.
Read more ....
Friday, March 26, 2010
Pollution From Asia Circles Globe At Stratospheric Heights
Factories line the shores of the lower Yangtze River in China. Heavy pollution tied to China's rapid industrial growth has produced poor visibility and health effects. (Credit: Copyright UCAR, Photo by William Bradford)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Mar. 26, 2010) — The economic growth across much of Asia comes with a troubling side effect: pollutants from the region are being wafted up to the stratosphere during monsoon season. The new finding, in a study led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provides additional evidence of the global nature of air pollution and its effects far above Earth's surface.
Read more ....
Exorbitant Fees Offered to Human Egg Donors, Study Finds
Sperm is implanted into an egg in the process of artificial insemination. Credit: Dreamstime.From Live Science:
Fertility companies are paying egg donors high fees that often exceed guidelines, especially for donors from top colleges and with certain appearances and ethnicities, a new study finds.
The upshot: Parents with infertility problems are willing to pay up to $50,000 for a human egg they hope will produce a smart, attractive child.
Read more ....
How Much Big Tech Companies Have In The Bank
From Royal Pingdom:
Have you ever wondered how much money Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Yahoo, Amazon and other tech giants have in the bank? What kind of assets do they have, how much spending money do they have? The vague answer is, “a lot.” But if you want to find out exactly how much, read on.
To answer these questions, we picked out 15 well-known tech companies and looked at two things:
* Total assets: The value of all assets of a company, including equipment, properties, offices, cash, etc. In short: “everything they own.”
* War chest: The part of a company’s assets that consists of either cash and equivalents, or short term investments that can be quickly converted to cash. In short: “spending money.”
Read more ....
Orbital Upkeep: International Space Station Home Improvement
From The Popular Mechanics:
During a recent NASA and Russian Flight Readiness Review (FRR), engineers described some problems afflicting the International Space Station that may, at first, seem familiar to homeowners on Earth.
Read more ....
A New Picture Of The X-47B
X-47B Northrop Grumman Boot Process Complete, Awaiting Command -- Popular Science
Northrop Grumman has released a new photo of their carrier-based attack drone, the X-47B. It's due to make its first flight later this year as part of the Navy's J-UCAS program seeking a multi-purpose sea-based drone.
Read more ....
Hubble Confirms Cosmic Acceleration With Weak Lensing
This image shows a smoothed reconstruction of the total (mostly dark) matter distribution in the COSMOS field, created from data taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. It was inferred from the weak gravitational lensing distortions that are imprinted onto the shapes of background galaxies. The color coding indicates the distance of the foreground mass concentrations as gathered from the weak lensing effect. Structures shown in white, cyan and green are typically closer to us than those indicated in orange and red. To improve the resolution of the map, data from galaxies both with and without redshift information were used. The new study presents the most comprehensive analysis of data from the COSMOS survey. The researchers have, for the first time ever, used Hubble and the natural "weak lenses" in space to characterise the accelerated expansion of the universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Simon (University of Bonn) and T. Schrabback (Leiden Observatory)From Reuters:
A group of astronomers [1], led by Tim Schrabback of the Leiden Observatory, conducted an intensive study of over 446 000 galaxies within the COSMOS field, the result of the largest survey ever conducted with Hubble. In making the COSMOS survey, Hubble photographed 575 slightly overlapping views of the same part of the Universe using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) onboard Hubble. It took nearly 1000 hours of observations.
Read more ....
Dawn Of The Anthropocene Epoch? Earth Has Entered New Age of Geological Time, Experts Say
Scientists contend that recent human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, have changed the planet to such an extent that we are entering what they call the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch. (Credit: iStockphoto)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2010) — Geologists from the University of Leicester are among four scientists- including a Nobel prize-winner -- who suggest that Earth has entered a new age of geological time.
The Age of Aquarius? Not quite -- It's the Anthropocene Epoch, say the scientists writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth's history.
Read more ....
Saturday: Lights Off Worldwide for Earth Hour
The Golden Gate Bridge after lights out, during Earth Hour 2008 in San Fransisco, Calif. Credit: © John Storey / WWF-USFrom Live Science:
Cities in 92 countries around the world prepare to shut off their lights for one hour tomorrow in observance of Earth Hour, an annual event geared at showing support for taking action on climate change issues.
During Earth Hour, people around the world are asked to turn off their lights for an hour at 8:30 p.m. local time on March 27. This year the event has topped its participation figure from last year, which was 88 countries.
Read more ....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)