Nabi Saleh, Summer 2012
By Miko Peled
Israeli soldiers, good only for fighting unarmed civilians, can’t handle a serious fighting force.
This past summer I drove once again from Jerusalem to Nabi Saleh, a small village in the West Bank known for its ongoing resistance [...]
Surprise: Two Black Holes in One Globular Star Cluster
By Annelies Rhemrev
An unexpected discovery by an international team of astronomers is forcing scientists to rethink their understanding of the environment in globular star clusters, tight-knit collections containing hundreds of thousands of [...]
Nearby Planetary System Hosts Comet Crystals, like Our Solar System Does
By Annelies Rhemrev
Pristine material that matches comets in our own Solar System has been found in a dust belt around the young star Beta Pictoris by ESA’s Herschel space observatory.
Close-up of olivine crystals seen inside a meteorite found [...]
Amazonian Tribal Warfare Sheds Light On Modern Violence, Says MU Anthropologist
By Alton Parrish.
In the tribal societies of the Amazon forest, violent conflict accounted for 30 percent of all deaths before contact with Europeans, according to a recent study by University of Missouri anthropologist Robert Walker. Understanding [...]
Second Mona Lisa Revealed, Called Isleworth Mona Lisa, Painted First
A consortium unveiled last week what it claims to be Leonardo’s original painting of the Mona Lisa, sparking controversy in the art world
Mona Lisa (left) and the ‘Isleworth Mona Lisa’ (right)
The Mona Lisa Foundation will present [...]
The Universe: Most Accurate And Precise Measurement Of The Expansion Of Space
A team of astronomers, led by Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories, have used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make the most accurate and precise measurement yet of the Hubble constant, a fundamental quantity that measures [...]
Galaxy Altering Quasars Ignite As Galaxies Collide
NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have caught sight of luminous quasars igniting after galaxies collide. Quasars are bright, energetic regions around giant, active black holes in galactic centers.
Credit: NASAThe new observations [...]
Holy Snake Lord: Tomb Of Maya Queen K’abel Discovered In Guatemala
By Alton Parrish
WUSTL archaeologist part of a team to discover tomb containing rare combination of Maya archaeological, historical records
The carved alabaster vessel (shown from two sides) found in the burial chamber caused the archaeologists [...]
The Science Behind those Eye-Popping Northern Lights
By Annelies Rhemrev
Northern night skies have recently been alive with light. Those shimmering curtains get their start about 93 million miles away, on the Sun.
An image of an aurora borealis, and moonrise in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska [...]
Searching for Water on Asteroid
By Annelies Rhemrev
When the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission is launched towards asteroid 1999 JU 3 in 2014 to collect surface samples, MASCOT – the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout – an asteroid lander developed by the German Aerospace Center [...]
Prehistoric Builders Reveal Trade Secrets
A fossil which has lain in a museum drawer for over a century has been recognized by a University of Leicester geologist as a unique clue to the long-lost skills of some of the most sophisticated animal architects that have ever lived on [...]
Superman-Strength Bacteria Produce Gold
At a time when the value of gold has reached an all-time high, Michigan State University researchers have discovered a bacterium’s ability to withstand incredible amounts of toxicity is key to creating 24-karat gold.
Gold flecks produced [...]
Egyptian Artificial Toes Are Likely The World’s Oldest Prosthetic Body Parts
The results of scientific tests using replicas of two ancient Egyptian artificial toes, including one that was found on the foot of a mummy, suggest that they’re likely to be the world’s first prosthetic body parts.
University of [...]
Newly Found Comet Could be Brightest Ever Seen
by Annelies Rhemrev
Astronomers are monitoring a newly discovered comet, which is expected to put on a spectacular sky show next year, becoming visible with the unaided eye.
A newly discovered comet called C/2012S1 is expected to be visible [...]
Cosmic Hurricane: Most Powerful Winds In The Universe Found: Giant Mystery Solved
If this were a movie the title might be: Gone, With The Quasar Wind. The most powerful winds in the universe have been found and a gigantic “what done it” mystery has been solved.
The case of the missing quasar gas clouds has been [...]
Geoengineering The Sky Could Turn Earth Into “Lifeless, Ice-Encrusted Rock” Warns Scientist
By Alton Parrish.
Prof. Jost Heintzenberg, Leibniz Institute Leipzig, is warning other scientists they don’t know enough to begin tinkering with Earth’s atmosphere with geoengineering experiments to influence climate change. If [...]
“Mexico nabs ex-Zetas leader, El Taliban”
By Sylvia Longmire.
Here is an excerpt from Dudley Althaus’ article in The Houston Chronicle:
“Mexican marines have captured a renegade leader of the Zetas known as El Taliban in the latest blow by the U.S.-backed commando campaign [...]
Arizona’s Corporate-Run Agency Gives Taxpayer Subsidies to Other Corporations but Little Information to the Public
By Dru Stevenson.
New from the website In the Public Interest: Arizona’s Corporate-Run Agency Gives Taxpayer Subsidies to Other Corporations but Little Information to the Public.Arizona replaced its Dept of Commerce last year with a public-private [...]
Snow And Ice on Oven-Hot Venus?!
By Annelies Rhemrev
Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet’s atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow.
This image of the Venus southern hemisphere illustrates the [...]
Russia: The Vanguard of Authoritarian Democracy
By Masha Egupova.
At the end of 2010 both the Washington Post and the Economist created a new buzz word for describing the political situation in Hungary: “Putinization”. So how can Russia escape from its own “Putinization?”
Russia [...]