Posts by AltonParrish:
Asteroid Armageddon: “Unimaginably catastrophic” Earth can always dodge 500,000 near objects
November 17th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
The Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) Extinction, 65 million years ago, was probably triggered by the impact of a 12-kilometer-diameter asteroid in what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The planet-wide effects of Chicxulub eliminated about 70% of all living species, including the dinosaurs.
Tons of cosmic material fall on the Earth every day, but nearly all disintegrates and burns during passage through the atmosphere. However, when objects larger than approximately 45 meters in diameter strike, the atmosphere cannot fully screen us. Even NEOs which do not make it all the way to the ground can cause destruction through the production of a damaging fireball and shock wave. The most famous example occurred in 1908, when 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian forest were destroyed by a multi-megaton impact called the Tunguska Event.
The Fraunhofer scientists use what is known as a target chamber to bombard stone blocks used to approximate asteroids with a high-velocity mini projectile. The aim is to analyze with as much precision as possible how the material reacts. High-speed cameras document the experiment by taking up to 30,000pictures per second. As in the crash testing of vehicles, the Fraunhofer researchers are interested in quantifying the force of the collision. Data are adjusted to account for actual scale and are imported continuously into computer simulations.
In the long term, NEOShield project leader Professor Harris would like to see the defense techniques that are the subject of this research tested in international space missions: »This kind of test mission is bound to throw up a few surprises, and will teach us a great deal.«
Incidentally, Harris reckons that averting an oncoming asteroid from its collision course by means of a huge explosion – just like in a Hollywood film – could in fact be an option in an emergency. Time would have to bepressing though, or the object concerned at least a kilometer in diameter.
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| Credit: NASA |
If a threatening NEO passes close by the Earth in the decades prior to a potential impact, it will have to pass through a keyhole during that close encounter in order to subsequently impact Earth. If this scenario is seen to be developing sufficiently in advance of the potential impact, a shepherding mission can be launched to guide the NEO around the keyhole thereby avoiding potential impact. If, however, there is no close encounter with Earth between the discovery of a potential impact and the date of impact, then the NEO is on a direct impact path and a full deflection campaign (e.g., primary deflection plus shepherding) must be mounted to avoid the impact.
Primary deflection and shepherding requirements cannot be met with any single existing deflection technique. Available instantaneous force (IF) concepts (kinetic impact and nuclear explosion) can provide considerable total impulse, thereby meeting the primary deflection needs, but will result in a large uncertainty in the velocity change imparted to the NEO (up to 500% uncertainty).
Continuous force (CF) deflection methods, such as a gravity tractor, can provide only limited total impulse, but that impulse can be provided with high precision resulting in a well-determined (even a pre-determined) final NEO orbit, thereby being ideal for shepherding operations.
It is therefore the application of an instantaneous deflection followed potentially by a continuous force deflection which is necessary to assure a successful deflection, i.e. a primary deflection followed by a shepherding operation. These two deflection concepts, however, require two quite different mission designs, the deflection requiring an intercept trajectory, and shepherding requiring a full rendezvous with the NEO.
However, the requirement for two distinct missions in a deflection campaign is not limited to obtaining the magnitude and precision of the NEO deflection per se. There is also a requirement for a precise NEO orbit determination both before and after the deflection maneuvers. Furthermore, there is a high value in being able to observe and confirm the primary deflection by the shepherding spacecraft from a stand-off/observing location
Potential drug target to nip cancer in the bud, could eradicate cancers and prevent relapses
November 14th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
Scientists at A*STAR have discovered an enzyme, Wip1 phosphatase, as a potential target to weed out the progression of cancer. Although studies in the past have revealed that this enzyme plays a critical role in regulating the budding of tumours, scientists have for the first time unearthed a mechanism for its mode of action.
The team discovered that Wip1 phosphatase is a key factor that causes point mutations to sprout in human cancers. These types of mutations stem from errors that are made during DNA replication in the body, causing one base-pair in the DNA sequence to be altered.
These mutations can cause cancers to take root, or to become resilient to treatment. By using drugs to inhibit the action of Wip1 phosphatase, cancer growth can be stunted and tumours can be cured without developing resistance. This is a ground-breaking finding that sheds light on how mutations in cancer can potentially be wiped out with drugs, allowing cancers to be treated and eliminated effectively, preventing relapses of tumour growth.
Dr Dmitry Bulavin said, “Our work on Wip1 phosphatase for over a decade has now revealed several key features of this molecule. Our current findings strongly support the use of an anti-Wip1 drug for cancer treatment in order to reduce a high frequency of mutations in the genome, which is one of the main drivers of tumour relapses.”
Prof Hong Wan Jin, Executive Director of IMCB, said, “Dmitry has been the pioneering driver in the mechanistic study of Wip1 phosphatase, and this discovery is monumental in providing novel understanding on the role of Wip1 in cancer at the genomic and systems levels. I am confident that his team at IMCB can further their work in cancer research to offer new approaches for potential drugs
The research findings described in this media release can be found in the 14 October online issue of Cancer Cell, under the title, “Wip1 controls global heterochromatin silencing via ATM/BRCA1-dependent DNA methylation” by Doria Filipponi1, Julius Muller1, Alexander Emelyanov1 and Dmitry V. Bulavin1,#
Fantastic Cave Paintings Found By Following Wild Peccaries
November 10th, 2013Posted by Alton Parrish.
While tracking white-lipped peccaries and gathering environmental data in forests that link Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado biomes, a team of researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and a local partner NGO, Instituto Quinta do Sol, discovered ancient cave drawings made by hunter-gatherer societies thousands of years ago.
Credit: Liana Joseph/WCS
Credit: Alexine Keuroghlian/WCS
The discovery was made on Brazil’s Cerrado plateau in 2009, when Keuroghlian and her team were conducting surveys of white-lipped peccaries, herd-forming pig-like animals that travel long distances and are environmental indicators of healthy forests. The peccaries are vulnerable to human activities, such as deforestation and hunting, and are disappearing from large swaths of their former range from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. While following signals from radio-collared white-lipped peccaries and the foraging trails of peccary herds, the team encountered a series of prominent sandstone formations with caves containing drawings of animals and geometric figures.
This is a drawing of an assortment of animals. A team of researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and a local partner NGO, Instituto Quinta do Sol, discovered ancient cave drawings made by hunter-gatherer societies thousands of years ago while conducting a survey for white-lipped peccaries in Brazil.
Credit: Alexine Keuroghlian/WCS
“These discoveries of cave drawings emphasize the importance of protecting the Cerrado and Pantanal ecosystems, both for their cultural and natural heritage,” said Dr. Julie Kunen, Director of WCS’s Latin America and the Caribbean Program and an expert on Mayan archeology. “We hope to partner with local landowners to protect these cave sites, as well as the forests that surround them, so that the cultural heritage and wildlife depicted in the drawings are preserved for future generations.
NASA: Super-Typhoon Haiyan Maintains Strength Crossing Philippines
November 10th, 2013By NASA.
Super-Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the eastern Philippines as the strongest tropical cyclone of the year, and today, Nov. 8, is exiting the country and moving into the South China Sea. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured visible and infrared data of Hiayan after it made landfall near Leyete, identifying the extent of its power.
Image Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team
NASA’s TRMM satellite data on Nov. 8 at 00:19 UTC showed Haiyan had a well-defined eye surrounded by a symmetric area of moderate rain (green ring with a blue center) with several rainbands wrapping in from the south (green arcs) while crossing the island of Leyte in the central Philippines.
Image Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce
As Super-Typhoon Haiyan moved over the central Philippines on Nov. 8 at 05:10 UTC/12:10 a.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a visible image. The image showed that Haiyan maintained its structure as it moved over the east central Philippines. As the center moved through the eastern Visayas, large, thick bands of thunderstorms spiraled into the center from the northeast. Hiayan’s clouds extended over the entire country from the Cagayan Valley in the north to the Soccsksargen region in the south.The AIRS instrument that also flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured infrared imagery of Super-Typhoon Haiyan exiting the western Philippines. The coldest cloud top temperaetures and most powerful thunderstorms with heavy rainfall potential covered the Visayas, Bicol, National Capital, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Northern Mindanao, and Mimaropa regions.
By Nov. 8 at 0900 UTC/4 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. Philippines local time, Haiyan’s maximum sustained winds dropped to 145 knots/167 mph/268.5 kph, still making it a powerful Category 5 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. It was moving through Western Visayas and was 214 nautical miles south-southeast of Manila. It is moving quickly to the west at 22 knots/25.3 mph/40.74 kph, which will reduce flooding potential.
The AIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this infrared, false-colored image of Super-Typhoon Haiyan exiting the western Philippines on Nov. 8 at 04:59 UTC. Purple indicates coldest, most powerful thunderstorms with heavy rainfall potential.
Image Credit: NASA JPL/Ed Olsen
Many warnings are still in effect today, Nov. 8, as Hiayan continues to exit the western Philippines.
Public storm warning signals have been raised in large areas of the country. In Luzon, Signal #1 was in effect for: Metro Manila, Bataan, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna, Quezon, Camarines provinces, Albay, Sorsogon. Signal #2 is in effect for: Lubang Island, Batangas, Marinduque, rest of Palawan, Burias Island, Masbate and Ticao Island; Signal #3 in effect for the rest of Mindoro provinces, Romblon, rest of northern Palawan including Puerto Princesa City; and Signal #4 is in effect for: extreme northern Palawan, Calamian Group of Islands, southern Occidental and Oriental Mindoro.
In Visayas, Signal #1 remained in effect for: Samar provinces, Leyte provinces, Camotes island, Bohol and Siquijor; while Signal #2 is up for: Negros provinces, Cebu, Biliran Island; and there is no Signal #3, but there is a Signal #4 for Aklan, Capiz, Antique, Iloilo and Guimaras.
In Mindanao, a Signal #1 remained in effect for the Camiguin, Surigao del Norte, Dinagat; and a Signal #2 is up for: Siargao. According to PAGASA, the Philippine authority on meteorology, flashfloods and mudslides are possible in areas under signal #2, 3 and 4. In addition, storm surges of up to 21 feet/~7 meters are possible under a Signal #2.
CNN reported on Nov. 9 that Hiayan left power outages, flooded streets, downed trees, damaged buildings and many canceled flights.
The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii said it was the strongest tropical cyclone in the world this year.
Hiayan is forecast to move through the South China Sea and make a final landfall as a strong typhoon in central Vietnam in a couple of days.
Holograms Set For Greatness With New Simple Approach
November 8th, 2013Posted by Alton Parrish.
A scanning mirror (right) redirects green laser light onto a tiled holographic plate (top) to produce high-quality three-dimensional images.
Credit: A*STAR Data Storage Institute
The researchers patterned the plates, made of a liquid-crystal material on a silicon substrate, with a computer-generated hologram. Conventionally, holograms are recorded by scattering a laser beam off a real object. “Holograms can also be mathematically calculated,” explains Lum. “This avoids problems, such as vibrations, associated with the conventional recording method that may reduce the quality of the final reconstructed image.”
Each plate, also called a spatial light modulator (SLM), consisted of an array of 1,280 by 1,024 pixels — 1.3 million in total. Simply stacking the plates to increase the total number of pixels, however, created ‘optical gaps’ between them. As a workaround, the researchers tiled 24 SLMs into an 8 by 3 array on two perpendicular mounting plates separated by an optical beam splitter. They then utilized a scanning mirror to direct the laser light from the combined SLM array to several predetermined positions, just as if they had all been stacked seamlessly together (see image).
The team demonstrated that by shining green laser light onto this composite holographic plate, they could create three-dimensional objects that replayed at a rate of 60 frames per second in a 10 by 3-inch (25 by 7.5-centimeter) display window.
This relatively simple approach for increasing the pixel count of holograms should help researchers develop three-dimensional holographic displays that are much more realistic than those commercially available at present. “Our next step is to improve this ‘tiling’ approach to further scale up the number of pixels of the hologram, which will lead to a larger holographic image,” says Lum.
Contacts and sources:
U.S. Media Consumption To Rise To 15.5 Hours A Day – Per Person – By 2015
November 8th, 2013
By University of San Diego.
So when do we have time to sleep or work if we spend every waking minute being exposed to myriad media? The answer is that media delivered is not a measure of attention or comprehension of that media.
While such a high rate of multiple-stream media traffic sounds overwhelming, the idea of us suffering sensory overload is not as dire as some may think, says Short, who is also lead scientist for SDSC’sCenter for Large-Scale Data Systems Research (CLDS) as well as a CTM Visiting Researcher.
“While machines can always overload us, it’s more a question of, how can we design these systems to produce meaningful value? That’s the critical challenge as we speed further into the age of digitally-based information,” according to Short.
The record level of U.S. media consumption focuses on media consumed in and out of the home, excluding workplace media, between 2008 and 2015. It defines “media” according to 30 categories (e.g. television, social media, computer gaming). Information reported in the study was canvassed from several hundred data sources, including media measurement firms such as Nielsen, Arbitron, ComScore, investor and analyst firms, government sources, and foundation and research publications. Some highlights of the How Much Media? (HMM) report:
Mobile messaging hours, which in 2012 accounted for approximately 9 percent of voice call hours, will double to more than 18 percent of voice hours, a year-over-year growth rate of more than 27 percent.
The HMM report also includes data on Americans’ media consumption dating back to the 1960s. During those decades, the supply of digital media measured in bytes has grown at compounded rates ranging between 6 and 30 percent each year. Growth in consumptive time, however, has been increasing at compounded rates ranging between 3 to 5 percent each year. The upshot: supply is driven by rapidly advancing device capacities and faster networks. Growth in consumptive time, however, is destined to continue its slow but steady increase. Constrained by human physical limits, including the length of a day, growth in consumptive time will never exceed a few percent per year.
The “How Much Media?” research program was sponsored by an industry consortium including Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Seagate Technology and Verizon Wireless. Lucy Hood, president and chief operations officer of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and Josette Bonte, CTM chief strategy officer and director of research, contributed industry guidance and program support.
Vikings Bought Silk From Persia, May Have Reached China
November 6th, 2013By University of Oslo.
The Norwegian Vikings maintained trade connections with Persia and the Byzantine Empire. A network of traders from a variety of places and cultures brought the silk to the Nordic countries. Her details are presented in the book “Silk for the Vikings”, to be published by Oxbow publishers this winter, but in this article you can glimpse some of her key findings.
In the Oseberg ship, which was excavated nearly a hundred years ago, more than one hundred small silk fragments were found. This is the oldest find of Viking Age silk in Norway.
At the time when the Oseberg silk was discovered, nobody conceived that it could have been imported from Persia. It was generally believed that most of it had been looted from churches and monasteries in England and Ireland.
Lots of Viking silk
Since the Oseberg excavation, silk from the Viking Age has been found in several locations in the Nordic countries. The last finding was made two years ago at Ness in Hamarøy municipality, Nordland county. Other Norwegian findings of silk from the Viking Age include Gokstad in Vestfold county, Sandanger in the Sunnmøre district and Nedre Haugen in Østfold county.
The highest number of burial sites containing silk from the Viking Age have been found at Birka in the Uppland region, a few miles west of Stockholm.
– Even though Birka has the highest number of burial sites containing silk, there are no other places where so much and such varied silk has been found in a single burial site as in Oseberg, says Marianne Vedeler to the research magazine Apollon.
In Oseberg alone, silk from fifteen different textiles, as well as embroideries and tablet-woven silk and wool bands were discovered. Many of the silk pieces had been cut into thin strips and used for articles of clothing. The textiles had been imported, while the tablet-woven bands most likely were made locally from imported silk thread.
Marianne Vedeler has collected information on silk and its trade in the Nordic countries. She has also studied manuscripts on silk production and trade along the Russian rivers as well as in Byzantium and Persia.
– When seeing it all in its totality, it’s more logical to assume that most of the silk was purchased in the East, rather than being looted from the British Isles.
Waterways
Vedeler believes that in the Viking Age, silk was imported from two main areas. One was Byzantium, meaning in and around Constantinople, or Miklagard, which was the Vikings’ name for present-day Istanbul. The other large core area was Persia.
The silk may have been brought northwards along different routes.
One possibility is from the South through Central Europe and onwards to Norway, but I believe that most of the silk came by way of the Russian rivers Dnepr and Volga.
The Dnepr was the main route to Constantinople, while the Volga leads to the Caspian Sea. The river trade routes were extremely dangerous and difficult. One of the sources describes the laborious journey along the Dnepr to Constantinople:
“A band of traders joined up in Kiev. Along the river they were attacked by dangerous tribesmen. They needed to pass through rapids and cataracts. Then, slaves had to carry their boat.”
Persian patterns
On the basis of the silk that has been found, there are indications that more silk came to Norway from Persia than from Constantinople.
Large amounts of the Oseberg silk have patterns from the Persian Empire. This silk is woven using a technique called samitum, a sophisticated Oriental weaving method. Many of the silk motifs can be linked to religious motifs from Central Asia.
Another pattern depicts a shahrokh, a bird that has a very specific meaning in Persian mythology; it represents a royal blessing. In the Persian myth, the shahrokh bird is the messenger that brings the blessing to a selected prince. In a dream, the bird visits the prince holding a tiara, a tall head adornment, in its beak. The prince then wakes up and knows that he is the chosen one. The image of the imperial bird was popular not only in silk weaving, but also in other art forms in Persia. The motif gained widespread popularity in Persian art.
It’s an amusing paradox that silk textiles with such religious and mythological images were highly prized and used in heathen burial sites in the Nordic countries as well as in European churches.
Exclusive
In the Orient, silk was essential for symbolizing power and strength. There was an entire hierarchy of different silk qualities and patterns reserved for civil servants and royalty.
Even though silk was a prominent status symbol for the Vikings, they failed to get their hands on the best silk.
Most likely, the bulk of the silk imported to Scandinavia was of medium or below-medium quality.
In Byzantium, major restrictions were imposed on the sale of silk to foreign lands. The punishment for illegal sale of silk was draconian. The Persian lands also imposed strict restrictions on the sale and production of silk.
In Byzantium, it was illegal to buy more silk than what could be bought for the price of a horse. A foreign trader was allowed to buy silk for ten numismata, while the price of a horse was twelve numismata.
However, several trade agreements that have been preserved show that traders from the North nevertheless had special trade privileges in Byzantium.
Some of the silk found in Norway may be gifts or spoils of war, but archaeological as well as written sources indicate that silk was traded in the Nordic countries.
So the Vikings were more honest than has been assumed?
We may safely assume that the Vikings engaged in trade, plunder, exchange of gifts and diplomatic relations in equal measure.
A possible example of loot found in the Oseberg ship is a piece of silk with an image of a cross.
This was long before the introduction of Christianity. The silk piece may have been sewn locally, but it is also highly likely that it was purloined from an Irish church.
Possibly China
At Gokstad, thin strips of hammered gold wrapped around silk threads were among the findings.
These threads are highly exclusive. We do not know their origin, but we suspect that they may have come from even further east, in the direction of China, says Vedeler, who will now travel to China to find out more.
As yet, Vedeler must draw conclusions regarding the origin of the silk by investigating weaving technologies and patterns. With time, she wishes to make use of a new method which is being developed at the University of Copenhagen and which will be able to reveal the geographic origin of artefacts.
3500+ Alien Worlds Found And The Sounds Of Interstellar Music Played
November 6th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
Included in these findings is the discovery of 833 new candidate planets, which will be announced today by the Kepler team. Ten of these candidates are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s habitable zone, which is defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for liquid water.
At this conference two years ago, the Kepler team announced its first confirmed habitable zone planet, Kepler-22b. Since then, four more habitable zone candidates have been confirmed, including two in a single system.
New Kepler data analysis and research also show that most stars in our galaxy have at least one planet. This suggests that the majority of stars in the night sky may be home to planetary systems, perhaps some like our solar system.
“The impact of the Kepler mission results on exoplanet research and stellar astrophysics is illustrated by the attendance of nearly 400 scientists from 30 different countries at the Kepler Science Conference,” said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator at Ames. “We gather to celebrate and expand our collective success at the opening of a new era of astronomy.”
An independent statistical analysis of nearly all four years of Kepler data suggests that one in five stars like the sun is home to a planet up to twice the size of Earth, orbiting in a temperate environment. A research team led by Erik Petigura, doctoral candidate at University of California, Berkeley, used publicly accessible data from Kepler to derive this result.
Credit: NASA
“Stars are the building blocks of the galaxy, driving its evolution and providing safe harbors for planets. To study the stars, one truly explores the galaxy and our place within it,” said William Chaplin, professor for astrophysics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. “Kepler has revolutionized asteroseismology by giving us observations of unprecedented quality, duration and continuity for thousands of stars. These are data we could only have dreamt of a few years ago.”
Kepler’s mission is to determine what percentage of stars like the sun harbor small planets the approximate size and temperature of Earth. For four years, the space telescope simultaneously and continuously monitors the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, recording a measurement every 30 minutes. More than a year of the collected data remains to be fully reviewed and analyzed.
Ames is responsible for the Kepler mission concept, ground system development, mission operations, and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA’s 10th Discovery Mission and was funded by the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.
In other NASA news, as Voyager 1 recedes from the solar system, researchers are listening for “interstellar music” (a.k.a. plasma waves) to learn more about conditions outside the heliosphere.
Contacts and sources:
Michele Johnson
Ames Research Center,
Surprise! Most People Can See In Total Darkness
November 4th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
If the answer is a shadowy shape moving past, you are probably not imagining things. With the help of computerized eye trackers, a new cognitive science study finds that at least 50 percent of people can see the movement of their own hand even in the absence of all light.
“Seeing in total darkness? According to the current understanding of natural vision, that just doesn’t happen,” says Duje Tadin, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester who led the investigation. “But this research shows that our own movements transmit sensory signals that also can create real visual perceptions in the brain, even in the complete absence of optical input.”
Through five separate experiments involving 129 individuals, the authors found that this eerie ability to see our hand in the dark suggests that our brain combines information from different senses to create our perceptions. The ability also “underscores that what we normally perceive of as sight is really as much a function of our brains as our eyes,” says first author Kevin Dieter, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at Vanderbilt University.
The study seems to confirm anecdotal reports that spelunkers in lightless caves often are able to see their hands. In other words, the “spelunker illusion,” as one blogger dubbed it, is likely not an illusion after all.
For most people, this ability to see self-motion in darkness probably is learned, the authors conclude. “We get such reliable exposure to the sight of our own hand moving that our brains learn to predict the expected moving image even without actual visual input,” says Dieter.
Tadin, Dieter, and their team from the University of Rochester and Vanderbilt University reported their findings online October 30 in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Although seeing one’s hand move in the dark may seem simple, the experimental challenge in this study was to measure objectively a perception that is, at its core, subjective. That hurdle at first stumped Tadin and his postdoctoral advisor at Vanderbilt Randolph Blake after they initially stumbled upon the puzzling observation in 2005. “While the phenomenon looked real to us, how could we determine if other people were really seeing their own moving hand rather than just telling us what they thought we wanted to hear?” asks Blake, the Centennial Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt and a co-author on the paper.
Years later, Dieter, at the time a doctoral student working in Tadin’s Rochester lab, helped devise several experiments to probe the sight-without-light mystery. For starters, the researchers set up false expectations. In one scenario, they led subjects to expect to see “motion under low lighting conditions” with blindfolds that appeared to have tiny holes in them. In a second set up, the same participants had similar blindfolds without the “holes” and were led to believe they would see nothing. In both set ups, the blindfolds were, in fact, equally effective at blocking out all light. A third experiment consisted of the experimenter waving his hand in front of the blindfolded subject. Ultimately, participants were fitted with a computerized eye tracker in total darkness to confirm whether self-reported perceptions of movement lined up with objective measures.
In addition to testing typical subjects, the team also recruited people who experience a blending of their senses in daily life. Known as synesthetes, these individuals may, for example, see colors when they hear music or even taste sounds. This study focused on grapheme-color synesthetes, individuals who always see numbers or letters in specific colors.
Credit: Rochester University
The researchers enlisted individuals from Rochester, Nashville, Fenton, Michigan, and Seoul, South Korea, but, in a lucky coincidence, one synesthete could not have been closer. At the time, Lindsay Bronnenkant was working as a lab technician for co-author David Knill, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester.
“As a child, I just assumed that everybody associated colors with letters,” says the 2010 Rochester graduate who majored in brain and cognitive sciences. For Bronnenkant, “A is always yellow, but Y is an oranger yellow.” B is navy, C burnt orange, and so on. She thought of these associations as normal, “like when you smell apple pie and you think of grandma.” She doesn’t remember a time when she did not see numbers and letters in color, but she does wonder if the particular colors she associates with numbers derived from the billiard balls her family had growing up. When she donned the blindfold and waved her hand in the experiment, “what I saw was a blur. It was very dim, but it was almost like I was looking at a light source.”
Bronnenkant was not atypical in that respect. Across all types of participants, about half detected the motion of their own hand and they did so consistently, despite the expectations created with the faux holes. And very few subjects saw motion when the experimenter waved his hand, underscoring the importance of self-motion in this visual experience. As measured by the eye tracker, subjects who reported seeing motion were also able to smoothly track the motion of their hand in darkness more accurately than those who reported no visual sensation—46 percent versus 20 percent of the time.
Reports of the strength of visual images varied widely among participants, but synesthetes were strikingly better at not just seeing movement, but also experiencing clear visual form. As an extreme example in the eye tracking experiment, one synesthete exhibited near perfect smooth eye movement—95 percent accuracy—as she followed her hand in darkness. In other words, she could track her hand in total darkness as well as if the lights were on.
“You can’t just imagine a target and get smooth eye movement,” explains Knill. “If there is no moving target, your eye movements will be noticeably jerky.”
The link with synesthesia suggests that our human ability to see self-motion is based on neural connections between the senses, says Knill. “We know that sensory cross talk underlies synesthesia. But seeing color with numbers is probably just the tip of the iceberg; synesthesia may involve many areas of atypical brain processing.”
Does that mean that most humans are preprogrammed to see themselves in the dark? Not likely, says Tadin. “Innate or experience? I’m pretty sure it’s experience,” he concludes. “Our brains are remarkably good at finding such reliable patterns. The brain is there to pick up patterns—visual, auditory, thinking, movement. And this is one association that is so highly repeatable that it is logical our brains picked up on it and exploited it.”
Whether hardwired or learned, Bronnenkant finds the cross talk between her senses a potent reminder of the underlying interconnectivity of nature. “It’s almost a spiritual thing,” she says. “Sometimes, yeah, I think to myself, ‘I just got this sense from a billiard ball,’ but other times I think that being able to cross modalities actually reflects how unified the world is. We think of math and chemistry and art as different fields, but really they are facets of the same world; they are just ways of looking at the world through
What if Kennedy Survived Dallas? Would He Have Been Impeached?
November 4th, 2013By Bryce Zabel.
Credit: Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?
Writers Guild award-winning TV writer/producer Zabel boldly re-imagines a shocking post-1963 political scenario that is painfully disruptive to the nation, culminating in a Constitutional crisis and even calls for the president’s impeachment. Without resorting to sci-fi gimmicks, Zabel instead explores what we now know about the underbelly of JFK’s presidency to portray him returning to a very different Washington, D.C. where the stakes are high and the rules have changed. After all, someone had just tried to execute Kennedy in broad daylight on a public street in front of a national television audience. President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, essentially become the first conspiracy theorists, determined to strike back at their enemies.
The provocative and compelling narrative covers the period from Kennedy’s near-miss in Dallas through the subsequent political earthquake of 1964-1966. We witness the president interact with his family and close circle of famous friends and colleagues, with the colorful politicians and government leaders of that era, and with such Sixties icons as the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, boxer Cassius Clay and astronaut Neil Armstrong.
Credit: Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?
“I have always had a deep love for classic “What If?” stories but the best ones are often the alternate events that probably came within a milli-second of actually happening. That is precisely what Bryce Zabel has done here, painstakingly designing JFK’s life post-1963. I have some experience with shattered timelines and altered realities but this one kept me guessing every page.” says Damon Lindelof, writer/producer, Lost, World War Z, Star Trek
Here is an except from the book
INTRODUCTION
It’s now been half a century since the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. To admit you lived through their shock and fury is to be of a certain age. Those of us who were children then, at the end of America’s great Baby Boom, have forged countless different paths, but we share in common a question that, over the years, has haunted almost all of us:
What if Kennedy lived?
Almost since the assassination, writers have speculated about the great things President Kennedy would have done for the country and the world had his life been spared in Dallas. It’s commonly assumed he would have rolled back our Vietnam involvement, enacted landmark civil rights policy, made peace with the Soviets and even finished the attack on organized crime.
That upbeat scenario is probably wishful thinking. Kennedy had a definite to-do list for a second term, yes, but the forces in opposition to his presidency in 1963 were organized and powerful. Let’s shade the question just a bit differently:
What if Kennedy survived Dallas?
Investigations would have been launched to determine if what just happened was an attempted professional hit, a failed political assassination, or the work of a crazed, lone gunman. In any case, the world would have been turned upside down during this period, raising an avalanche of questions and blowback on multiple fronts, particularly since the President would have been alive and asking these questions himself, along with some of the world’s most powerful allies, including a brother in charge of the U.S. Justice Department.
If there were conspirators, they and their target would have regarded each other like scorpions in a bottle. In a cascade of post-ambush cause and effect, these traitors who had plotted to achieve a coup d’état by public murder would have found President Kennedy now physically impossible to get at, protected by enhanced security. In this telling, the system comes unhinged, and the conspirators go after Kennedy by other means after their bullets fail.
There is no doubt that John Kennedy’s presidency was a high point in our nation’s history. What we did not know when we were living through it, however, was that President Kennedy’s reckless behavior behind the scenes kept him always one headline away from disaster. Surviving a well-planned assassination attempt could not have made JFK’s personal weaknesses any easier to disguise. He also had enemies with the means to lay bare the most intimate secrets of his private life. Had they done so, the President’s dark side clearly had the potential to destroy any second term the voters might have granted him.
Here’s a world where fifty years earlier, history’s tree grew another branch. Where journalism and the counter-culture ignited a political explosion over Watergate in the 1970s and led to Nixon’s impeachment in our world, Kennedy’s battle with the treasonous forces of conspiracy in the 1960s in the alternative scenario probably would have triggered an implosion in JFK’s reputation. Rather than the steady drip of scandal we’ve experienced over the past five decades, the events surrounding a failed JFK assassination might have gotten seriously out-of-hand, and fast.
The plain reality is that Jack Kennedy had a lot of things he was hiding and there were numerous powerful men who wanted him dead. If those conspirators had taken their shots and missed, President Kennedy would have come back at them not only with a vengeance, but also with a carefully constructed strategy. The very existence of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and his family loyalty guarantees that. I’ve come to see this entire story, despite its many working parts and vastly different points-of-view, as the story of two brothers. Had the shots fired in Dallas, Texas missed their target on November 22, 1963, they still would have set the 1960s ablaze, turning John and Robert Kennedy into the original conspiracy theorists. Their story from this alternate world needed to be told and I’ve enjoyed telling it.
Credit: Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?
A former CNN correspondent, Bryce received the Writers Guild of America (WGA) award in 2008 for writing his third four-hour Hallmark mini-series, “Pandemic,” and has written and produced films and mini-series that include “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” “Blackbeard” and “The Poseidon Adventure.” He wrote SyFy’s first original film, “Official Denial” that is now being developed for a feature re-boot. His end-of-World War II true story, “The Last Battle,” is in development with Stellar Productions.
Secrets of Voynich Manuscript That No One Can Read Revealed
October 30th, 2013By UA and YU.
Face in Root
The Monsters That Killed The Giant Oar Fish Found
October 30th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
On October 13, 2013 The crew of sailing school vessel Tole Mour and Catalina Island Marine Institute instructors hold an 18-foot-long oarfish that was found in the waters of Toyon Bay on Santa Catalina Island, Calif.
Credit: Catalina Island Marine Institute
“Our findings say that these are actually majorly parasitized fish,” said Armand Kuris, professor of zoology in the UCSB Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, of the late night dissection last Thursday.
Part of the team that dissected an 18-foot oarfish l to r: Armand Kuris, professor of zoology, and graduate student researchers Sara Weinstein and John McLaughlin. Weinstein holds a 15 cm larval tapeworm found in the fish’s intestine.
Credit: Sonia Fernandez
The oarfish carcass was found on October 13 by a Catalina Island snorkeler. Because the oarfish lives in such deep, dark and mysterious waters, and doesn’t take bait, said Kuris, the creature is a rare find, especially for parasitologists.
The small white threadlike organism is a nematode, or roundworm, found in the sample of oarfish tissue dissected by the researchers.
Credit: Sonia Fernandez
“Oarfish wash ashore, one every few years,” said Kuris, adding that finding such a fish that hasn’t rotted or been eaten by other organisms, and is found in a place where scientists can get a hold of the carcass is “the result of many uncommon events.” There are only two papers on oarfish parasites, he said.
Also known as the “king of herrings,” and “ribbonfish,” the oarfish (Regalecus glesne) is thought to be the world’s largest bony fish, reaching over 30 feet long, giving rise to its sea serpent reputation. However, because it lives in deep waters (from 650-1000 feet), relatively little is known about the creature.
UCSB Scientists Find Parasites in Giant Oarfish from UC Santa Barbara on Vimeo.
With the help of UCSB research biologist and ichthyologist Milton Love, the group was able to obtain a small sample of tissues –– gills, intestine, stomach, spleen and gallbladder –– for dissection. The results of their examination not only revealed more parasites than previously documented, but also clues into the ecology and habitat of the deep-water fish.
“In this little piece of intestine that we had, we found quite a few of these rather large larval tapeworms. One of them was about 15 cm (6 inches) long,” said Kuris. They found a couple dozen specimens of two species in the small segment, along with two juvenile roundworms. And, unexpectedly, grad student Sara Weinstein found the hooked proboscis of an adult spiny-headed worm embedded in the intestine as well.
The life cycle stage in which these parasites were found is important, explained Kuris, because such parasites live out their life cycles in different hosts. The larval tapeworms, which hadn’t yet developed their telltale segments, for instance, will stay in their larval stage indefinitely until the oarfish gets eaten by a shark, whereupon they resume their maturation inside the shark. The spiny-headed worm, on the other hand, was an adult, indicating that the oarfish ate the organism –– probably krill or some deep-water crustacean –– that hosted its juvenile form.
Credit: Catalina Island Marine Institute
“These (findings) tell you about what the natural enemies of the oarfish are,” said Kuris. The species it feeds on also indicate where the elusive oarfish is likely to live or hunt for food.
The next step for the researchers is to send parasite specimens away for further identification, and possibly even molecular analysis of the DNA. Despite the fact that they had only a small portion of the total fish, the researchers were able to come away with a huge amount of information.
“This thing had all sorts of stuff in it, even when we had almost no actual tissue to work with,” Kuris said.
The dissection was also performed by researcher Ryan Hechinger, grad students John McLaughlin and Alejandra Jaramillo, and undergraduates Maggie Espinoza, Gabriella Dunn and technician Jake Ashford.
The Scars Of Slavery
October 28th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
Three hundred years of slavery, from the 16th to 19th Centuries, have left their scars. After abolition, there was exclusion, which drove descendants of slaves to migrate to the major centres of employment around the Caribbean rim. Now they represent a second diaspora and experience persisting inequality and stigmatization. Unlike Brazil and Colombia, symbols of multiculturalism, the “Black question” in Mexico and Central America has not attracted the strong interest of politicians and researchers.
From the 16th to the end of the 19th Centuries, slave ships plied the Atlantic Ocean to serve the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas. This slave trade deported millions of Africans across the Atlantic. The progressive abolition of slavery during the 19th Century emancipated men and freed consciences. However, 300 years of the slave trade left scars still visible today. These traumatic events firmly shaped the historical construction and contemporary evolution of societies rife with inequality and exclusion, as in Latin America.
Example set by Brazil and Colombia
Since the 1980s, two countries have been attracting all the attention of researchers in multiculturalism inLatin America: Brazil and Colombia(3). These states are like laboratories of multiculturalism, experiencing wide-ranging social and political changes in the course of the 20th Century. More recently, taking inspiration from these models, other Latin-American countries like Ecuador began setting up measures to further integration and facilitate access to resources and services (like land, education and jobs). Others, such as Bolivia, have introduced even more radical changes.
Central America: situation more complex
In contrast, the situation in the isthmus of Mexico and Central America are characteristically different. Debate has long been dominated by issues concerning autochthonous Indian populations. But even a few years ago the communities of African descent still had no real political presence. Moreover, these countries do not come into researchers’ classical schemes for investigation and analysis –ranging from negation of the Afro descendants via their neglect to their recognition. Although linked by a common regional history, they present a complex heterogeneous picture borne of strong national specificities.
A second diaspora
Up to now, this great diversity of situations and the relative immobilism of politicians meant that the so-called “black question” had not stimulated a great effort from international research. The research team is now applying its attention to a community called the “second diaspora”, no longer linked only to the slave trade and colonization, but more recent, stemming from a second wave of economic migration. After abolition, although the descendants of slaves were now emancipated, most often they had no access to either land or employment.
Diverse degrees of recognition and status
The first to arrive, the descendants from slaves or free Black people associated with colonization, called theNegros coloniales, are now part of local societies, with varying identities and levels of economic integration depending on the particular national history. However, for economic migrants of the turn of the 19-20thCenturies, also known as Afro-Antilleans, specific questions of citizenship still arise. Finally, the Garifuna, a transnational community(4) descending from Indigenous people and Black communities, are a special case. Their status is ambiguous, and they consider themselves as the only Blacks of the American continent who have never known slavery. In fact, they are a proportion of the descendants of escapees from shipwreck of slave vessels. That diaspora is now rallying around a patrimonialization of its culture and history.
Colonial Blacks, Afro-Antilleans, Garifuna and other communities: the AFRODESC and EURESCL projects have highlighted these multiple diasporas in Mexico and Central America, borne of European colonial rivalries and American capitalism of the 19th Century. But for these communities, although slavery is becoming one reference among others, it remains one of the fundamental bases of identity and continues to cause them harm through the racism and exclusion they experience.
Peter, a man who was enslaved in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863, whose scars were the result of violent abuse from a plantation overseer.
Science Validating Traditional Chinese Medicine
October 28th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University are making efforts to forge ahead with the scientific studies of traditional Chinese medicine and put the result to good use. They have recently published the new book Authentication of Valuable Chinese Materia Medica
Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) are making efforts to forge ahead with the scientific studies of traditional Chinese medicine and put the result to good use. They have recently published the new book Authentication of Valuable Chinese Materia Medica and at the same time exploring the mechanism for Chinese medicine compound prescriptions in preventing elderly or chronic diseases. PolyU will also host an international conference on related topics next month.
With the generous support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust and the former Hong Kong Jockey Club Institute of Chinese Medicine, in 2008, PolyU’s Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology kicked off a research project on the “Authentication of Valuable Chinese Materia Medica” through the State Key Laboratory Incubation Base in its Shenzhen-based research institute which specializes in pharmaceutical sciences and molecular pharmacology of traditional Chinese medicine.
During this study, the research team of PolyU collected thirty samples of the Chinese medicine concerned (comprising samples of different origins, product standards and fakes) from many Chinese medicine distribution outlets. The samples were then made into specimens and analyzed with advanced technology. The research team has collected to date over a thousand samples of precious Chinese medicine and made more than sixty display specimens.
In addition to this new publication, PolyU researchers have published in several journals to strengthen research on the modernization of Chinese medicine. The researchers found out that real cordyceps (冬蟲夏草) can be identified when accurate details of the cross sections of its stroma (子座) are available; quality of saffron (西紅花) can be ascertained by Liquid Chromatography (高效液相色譜法); fakes of donkey-hide glue or Asini Corii Colla or Ejiao (阿膠) can be picked out with near infrared spectroscopy together with chemometrics clustering techniques. These scientific analyses not only fill in the niche of insufficient research on precious Chinese medicine but also provide scientific data for further research in the future.
In the field of Chinese medicine and compound prescription research, PolyU experts focus at present on the mechanism for compound prescription in preventing elderly or chronic diseases as well as the relation between components and efficacies of Chinese medicine which will be analyzed with modern approaches to provide scientific evidence for clinical application.
A research team led by Dr Wong Man-sau has set up the research platform of Chinese medicine in preventing osteoporosis for menopausal women. The platform has evaluated the medical properties of traditional Chinese medicine including single prescription such as Epimedium koreanum (淫羊藿), Ligustrum lucidum (女貞子), Sambucus williamsii (接骨木), Drynaria Fortunei (骨碎補), Erythrinae Variegata (刺桐) and compound prescriptions such as the ErXian Formula (二仙湯) and confirmed their efficacy. Some of the projects attracted the interest of international food corporation and pharmaceutical enterprise from the Chinese mainland to set up further contract research for further their product development.
Regarding the study of Chinese medicine in preventing chronic diseases, the research team led by Dr Chan Shun-wan has dedicated much effort in analyzing edible Chinese medicine or Chinese medicine-based health care products.
Drynaria roosii, commonly known as Gu-Sui-Bu, is a species of basket fern of the family Polypodiaceae. The plant is native to Eastern Asia, including eastern China.It is used in traditional Chinese medicine. This species is also more frequently cited by Asian studies by its synonym, Drynaria fortune
In addition, PolyU’s Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology will be hosting aninternational conference from 4 to 5 November to explore and enhance the understanding of botanicals and natural products with the integration of scientific platforms. Local and overseas experts will share their insights on the latest progress on quality control, product standardization and scientification.
The research institute for Chinese medicine was founded by PolyU in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, in 2001. In 2005, the State Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine and Molecular Pharmacology (Incubation), Shenzhen was established with the approval of the Central Government’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the Shenzhen Municipal Government. Lately the institute has been investigating the correlation of components and efficacies of Chinese medicine, the impacts of Chinese medicine on human body’s metabolites, as well as its mechanisms with interdisciplinary research.
Armenia Vintage 4100 B.C. Wine: Chemical Analysis Confirms Discovery Of Oldest Wine-Making Equipment Ever Found
October 24th, 2013By UCLA.
The facility, which dates back to roughly 4100 B.C. — 1,000 years before the earliest comparable find — was unearthed by a team of archaeologists from Armenia, the United States and Ireland in the same mysterious Armenian cave complex where an ancient leather shoe was found, a discovery that was announced last summer.
Credit: UCLA
“For the first time, we have a complete archaeological picture of wine production dating back 6,100 years,” said Gregory Areshian, co-director of the excavation and assistant director of UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.
An analysis of the discovery, which received support from the National Geographic Society, is presented in an article published online Jan. 11 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science.
“This is, so far, the oldest relatively complete wine production facility, with its press, fermentation vats and storage jars in situ,” said Hans Barnard, the article’s lead author and a UCLA Cotsen Institute archaeologist.
Cave outside Armenian village
The discovery in 2007 of what appeared to be ancient grape seeds inspired the team to begin excavating Areni-1, a cave complex located in a canyon where the Little Caucasus mountains approach the northern end of the Zagros mountain range, near Armenia’s southern border with Iran. The cave is outside a tiny Armenian village still known for its wine-making activities.
Under Areshian and Boris Gasparyan, co-director of the project, the dig continued through September, when the vat was excavated.
Radiocarbon analysis by researchers at UC Irvine and Oxford University has dated the installation and associated artifacts to between 4100 B.C. and 4000 B.C., or the Late Chalcolithic Period, also known as the Copper Age in recognition of the technological advances that paved the way for metal to replace stone tools.
Archaeologists found one shallow basin made of pressed clay measuring about 3 feet by 3-and-a-half feet. Surrounded by a thick rim that would have contained juices, and positioned so as to drain into the deep vat, the basin appears to have served as a wine press. Similarly structured wine-pressing devices were in use as recently as the 19th century throughout the Mediterranean and the Caucasus, Areshian said. No evidence was found of an apparatus to smash the grapes against the wine press, but the absence does not trouble the archaeologists.
“People obviously were stomping the grapes with their feet, just the way it was done all over the Mediterranean and the way it was originally done in California,” Areshian said.
All around and on top of the wine press archaeologists found handfuls of grape seeds, remains of pressed grapes and grape must, and dozens of desiccated vines. After examining the seeds, paleobotanists from three separate institutions determined the species to be Vitis vinifera vinifera, the domesticated variety of grape still used to make wine.
Telltale evidence of grapes
The vat, at just over 2 feet in height, would have held between 14 and 15 gallons of liquid, Areshian estimates. A dark gray layer clung to three potsherds — two of which rested on the press and the third which was still attached to the vat. Analysis of the residue by chemists at UCLA’s Pasarow Mass Spectrometry Laboratory confirmed the presence of the plant pigment malvidin, which is known to appear in only one other fruit native to the area: pomegranates.
“Because no remnants of pomegranates were found in the excavated area, we’re confident that the vessels held something made with grape juice,” Areshian said.
The size of the vessel during an era that predated mechanical refrigeration by many millennia points to the likelihood that the liquid was wine, the researchers stress.
“At that time, there was no way to preserve juice without fermenting it,” Areshian said. “At this volume, any unfermented juice would sour immediately, so the contents almost certainly had to be wine.”
The team also unearthed one cylindrical cup made of some kind of animal horn and one complete drinking bowl of clay, as well as many bowl fragments.
The closest comparable collection of remains was found in the late 1980s by German archaeologists in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Scorpion I, the researchers said. Dating to around 3150 B.C., that find consisted of grape seeds, grape skins, dried pulp and imported ceramic jars covered inside with a yellow residue chemically consistent with wine.
After the Areni-1 discovery, the next earliest example of an actual wine press is two and a half millennia younger: Two plaster basins that appear to have been used to press grapes between 1650 B.C. and 1550 B.C. were excavated in what is now Israel’s West Bank in 1963.
Over the years, archaeologists have claimed to find evidence of wine dating as far back as 6000 B.C.–5500 B.C. And references to the art and craft of wringing an inebriant from grapes appear in all kinds of ancient settings. After Noah’s Ark landed on Mount Ararat, for instance, the Bible says he planted a vineyard, harvested grapes, produced wine and got drunk. Ancient Egyptian murals depict details of wine-making. Whatever form it takes, early evidence of wine production provides a window into a key transition in human development, scientists say.
“Deliberate fermentation of carbohydrates into alcohol has been suggested as a possible factor that prompted the domestication of wild plants and the development of ceramic technology,” said Barnard, who teaches in the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.
Three lines of inquiry point to wine-making
In addition to its age and wealth of wine-making elements, the Areni-1 find is notable for its numerous levels of confirmation. In a field where claims often rest on one or two sets of collaborating evidence, this find is supported by radiocarbon dating, paleobotanical analysis and a new approach to analyzing wine residue based on the presence of malvidin. Most prior claims of ancient wine have rested on the presence of tartaric acid — which is present in grapes but also, at least in some level, in many other fruits and vegetables — or on the presence of tree resins that were added to preserve the wine and improve its taste, as is done today with retsina, a wine flavored with pine resin.
“Tartaric acid alone can’t act as a reliable indicator for wine,” Areshian said. “It is present in too many other fruits and vegetables, including hawthorn, which still is a popular fruit in the area, but also in a range of other fruits, including tamarind, star fruit and yellow plum.”
“Resins could indicate wine, but because they were used for a large number of other purposes, ranging from incense to glue, they also are unreliable indicators for wine,” Barnard said. “Moreover, we have no idea how wide the preference for retsina-like wine spread.”
The beauty of malvidin, the UCLA team emphasizes, is the limited number of options for its source. The deeply red molecule gives grapes and wine their red color and makes their stains so difficult to remove.
“In a context that includes elements used for wine production, malvidin is highly reliable evidence of wine,” Areshian said.
Areshian and Ron Pinhasi, an archaeologist at Ireland’s University College Cork and a co-director of the excavation project, captured the world’s imagination in June, when they announced the discovery of a single 5,500-year-old leather moccasin at the Areni-1 site. It is believed to be the oldest leather shoe ever found.
The precise identity of the wine-swilling shoe-wearers remains a mystery, although they are believed to be the predecessors of the Kura-Araxes people, an early Transcaucasian group. Nevertheless, archaeologists who have been excavating the 7,500-square-foot-plus site since 2007 think they have an idea of how the wine was used. Because the press and jugs were discovered among dozens of grave sites, the archaeologists believe the wine may have played a ceremonial role.
“This wine wasn’t used to unwind at the end of the day,” Areshian said.
The archaeologists believe wine-making for day-to-day consumption would have occurred outside the cave, although they have yet to find evidence for these activities. Still, they believe it is only a matter of time before someone does.
“The fact that a fully developed wine production facility seems to have been preserved at this site strongly suggests that there are older, less well-developed instances of this technology, although these have so far not been found,” Barnard said.
Other foundations that contributed support to the excavation include the Steinmetz Foundation, the Boochever Family Trust, the Gfoeller Foundation Inc. and the Chitjian Family Foundation.
The scientific-analytical part of the project also received support from the National Center for Research Resources, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” the society works to inspire people to care about the planet. It reaches more than 375 million people worldwide each month through its official journal, National Geographic, and its other magazines; the National Geographic Channel; television documentaries; music; radio; films; books; DVDs; maps; exhibitions; live events; school publishing programs; interactive media; and merchandise. National Geographic has funded more than 9,400 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education program promoting geographic literacy. For more information, visit www.nationalgeographic.com.
UCLA is California’s largest university, with an enrollment of more than 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university’s 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer 328 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Six alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize.
The Oldest Light In The Universe Has Been Detected, Called B-Modes
October 24th, 2013By Alton Parrish.
This twisted pattern of light, called B-modes, has at last been detected. The discovery, which will lead to better maps of matter across our universe, was made using the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope, with help from the Herschel space observatory.
This artist’s impression shows how photons from the early universe are deflected by the gravitational lensing effect of massive cosmic structures as they travel across the universe. Gravitational lensing creates tiny, additional distortions to the mottled pattern of temperature fluctuations in the ancient light, called the cosmic microwave background. A small fraction of this background is polarized; one component of this polarized light, B-modes, have been given an additional signature by gravitational lensing. This imprint has been found for the first time by combining data from the ground-based South Pole Telescope and the Herschel space observatory.
“This latest discovery is a good checkpoint on our way to the measurement of primordial B-modes,” said Duncan Hanson of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, lead author of the new report published Sept. 30 in the online edition of Physical Review Letters.
The elusive primordial B-modes may be imprinted with clues about how our universe was born. Scientists are currently combing through data from the Planck mission in search of them. Both Herschel and Planck are European Space Agency missions, with important NASA contributions.
The oldest light we see around us today, called the cosmic microwave background, harkens back to a time just hundreds of millions of years after the universe was created. Planck recently produced the best-ever full-sky map of this light, revealing new details about of our cosmos’ age, contents and origins (see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-109 ). A fraction of this ancient light is polarized, a process that causes light waves to vibrate in the same plane. The same phenomenon occurs when sunlight reflects off lakes, or particles in our atmosphere. On Earth, special sunglasses can isolate this polarized light, reducing glare.
The B-modes are a twisted pattern of polarized light. In the new study, the scientists were on a hunt for the kind of polarized light spawned by matter in a process called gravitational lensing, where the gravitational pull from knots of matter distorts the path of light.
The signals are extremely faint, so Hanson and colleagues used Herschel’s infrared map of matter to get a better idea of where to look. The researchers then spotted the signals with the South Pole Telescope, making the first-ever detection of B-modes. This is an important step for better mapping how matter, both normal and dark, is distributed throughout our universe. Clumps of matter in the early universe are the seeds of galaxies like our Milky Way.
Astronomers are eager to detect primordial B-modes next. These polarization signals, from billions of years ago, would be much brighter on larger scales, which an all-sky mission like Planck is better able to see.
“These beautiful measurements from the South Pole Telescope and Herschel strengthen our confidence in our current model of the universe,” said Olivier Doré, a member of the U.S. Planck science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “However, this model does not tell us how big the primordial signal itself should be. We are thus really exploring with excitement a new territory here, and a potentially very, very old one.”
School Of Gladiators Discovered At Roman Carnuntum, Austria
October 23rd, 2013
By Ludgwig Boltzmann Institute.
An international team of archaeologists, geophysicists and computer specialists from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI-ArchPro) is using the latest non-invasive technology to reveal archaeological remains hidden beneath the soil in unprecedented detail. The team’s work attracted international attention last year after locating a new wooden henge only 900 m from the great stone circle at Stonehenge, and recent finds using ground penetrating radar includes burial mounds and settlements dating from the Viking Age in Norway and Sweden. Now, the interdisciplinary team has discovered a unique Roman building complex at Roman Carnuntum, 20 km east of Vienna in Austria and this will shed new light on how Roman gladiators lived and died in the provinces alongside the river Danube.
Credit:
The geophysical systems, developed and used by LBI-ArchPro and its partners, provide detailed information on the nature and location of archaeological remains and imagery of features meters below the ground. At Roman Carnuntum, one of the largest preserved archaeological landscapes of its type in Europe, the team used a novel motorized multi-antenna ground penetrating radar to explore interesting features identified onaerial photographs. The suspicious area lay to the west of the amphitheatre, which was built in the first half of the second century AD and excavated from 1923 to 1930. Following survey of this area archaeologists were astounded when the new sensors revealed an extensive building complex interpreted as a school for gladiators (latin – ludus).
The Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum held around 13000 spectators and contemporary inscriptions claimed that it was the fourth largest amphitheatre in the Roman Empire and frequently used for gladiatorial games. Despite the extensive excavations surrounding the amphitheatre the area that contained the school of gladiators attracted little attention and the first hints that there was an important building here came from recent analysis of aerial photographs. These photographs showed the main road leading from the town towards the amphitheatre with buildings hosting shops and inns (taberna) on the eastern side. The western side generally showed no structures at all but some photographs hinted at the existence of a large building. The LBI-ArchPro team decided to investigate these shadowy traces using a high-resolution ground penetrating radar system which could cover the area in a matter of hours. The exceptional building, identified through this rapid survey as the school for gladiators, is almost unique in the Roman Empire for its size and completeness.
The gladiatorial school at Carnuntum was set within a massive compound enclosing an area of 2800 m² and set at the eastern end of a 11000 m² land parcel surrounded by a wall. The school buildings were arranged around a central inner court where ground penetrating radar revealed a circular training arena, 19 m in diameter, enclosed by a wooden stand for spectators. The foundations of a 100 m² heated training hall, an extended bath complex, the 300 m² administration and living complex of the owner of the school can be seen in the detailed images produced by radar. In contrast, the gladiators appear to have been given cells that were as little as 5 m² in size. The image of this unique building is so clear that water pipes, sewers and the remains of the floor heating system can be seen clearly, along with the access roads to the amphitheatre, entrances and the foundations of mausolea. The archaeologists believe that they have also located the gladiators’ cemetery, immediately behind a building associated with large grave monuments, stone sarcophagi and other, simpler, graves.
In scale the new detected ludus is comparable to the ludus magnus, the great School of Gladiators behind the coliseum (amphitheatrum flavium) in Rome. The sensational image of the newly discovered School of Gladiators, provided by this new technology, is so complete that it has allowed the LBI-ArchPro team to digitally recreate this unique find without digging. The result can be explored by the software Wikitude World Browser, an augmented reality application which visualizes the school of gladiators on your ipad, android, blackberry or symbian device right on site.
Missing Link: No Known Hominin Is Ancestor Of Neanderthals And Modern Humans
October 22nd, 2013By Alton Parrish.
The researchers, using quantitative methods focused on the shape of dental fossils, find that none of the usual suspects fits the expected profile of an ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. They also present evidence that the lines that led to Neanderthals and modern humans diverged nearly 1 million years ago, much earlier than studies based on molecular evidence have suggested.
Credit: Aida Gómez-Robles/PNAS
“Our results call attention to the strong discrepancies between molecular and paleontological estimates of the divergence time between Neanderthals and modern humans,” said Aida Gómez-Robles, lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral scientist at the Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology of The George Washington University. “These discrepancies cannot be simply ignored, but they have to be somehow reconciled.”
P. David Polly, professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the IU Bloomington College of Artsand Sciences, is a co-author of the study. Other co-authors are Spanish researchers José María Bermúdez de Castro, Juan-Luis Arsuaga and Eudald Carbonell, co-directors of the excavations at Atapuerca sites. The study resulted from a collaboration that developed when Gómez-Robles spent a semester at IU studying with Polly while she was a graduate student at the National Research Centre for Human Evolution and at the University of Granada, both in Spain. It also makes use of statistical methods developed by IU Bloomington biologist Emilia Martins.
The article, “No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans,” relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins — humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.
The researchers use techniques of morphometric analysis and phylogenetic statistics to reconstruct the dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such asHomo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match.
“None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor,” Gómez-Robles said.
The study also finds that the potential human ancestors discovered in Europe are morphologically closer to Neanderthals than to modern humans. This suggests the line leading to Neanderthals arose around 1 million years ago and the divergence of humans took place much earlier than previously thought. Other studies have placed the divergence around 350,000 years ago.
The researchers argue that quantitative and statistical methods provide a better way to settle debates about human origins than the descriptive analyses that have been used in the past. “Our primary aim,” they write, “is to put questions about human evolution into a testable, quantitative framework and to offer an objective means to sort out apparently unsolvable debates about hominin phylogeny.” They also suggest applying their methodology to study other body parts represented in the hominin fossil record.
What comes next? Answers to the ancestry question could come from studying hominin fossils from Africa, the researchers say. But the African fossil record from the era of interest is sparse.
“The study tells us that there are still new hominin finds waiting to be made,” Polly said. “Fossil finds from about 1 million years ago in Africa deserve close scrutiny as the possible ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.”
Proof Of King Solomon’s Mines
October 21st, 2013
By Tel Aviv University.
An excavation led by Tel Aviv University archaeologists dates mines in the south of Israel to the days of King Solomon.
New findings from an archaeological excavation led this winter by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures prove that copper mines in Israel thought to have been built by the ancient Egyptians in the 13th century BCE actually originated three centuries later, during the reign of the legendary King Solomon.
Credit: Tel Aviv University
Based on the radiocarbon dating of material unearthed at a new site in Timna Valley in Israel’s Aravah Desert, the findings overturn the archaeological consensus of the last several decades. Scholarly work and materials found in the area suggest the mines were operated by the Edomites, a semi-nomadic tribal confederation that according to the Bible warred constantly with Israel.
“The mines are definitely from the period of King Solomon,” says Dr. Ben-Yosef. “They may help us understand the local society, which would have been invisible to us otherwise.”
Slaves to history
Now a national park, Timna Valley was an ancient copper production district with thousands of mines and dozens of smelting sites. In February 2013, Dr. Ben-Yosef and a team of researchers and students excavated a previously untouched site in the valley, known as the Slaves’ Hill. The area is a massive smelting camp containing the remains of hundreds of furnaces and layers of copper slag, the waste created during the smelting process.
Judgement of Solomon
Nineteenth-century engraving by Gustave Doré
In addition to the furnaces, the researchers unearthed an impressive collection of clothing, fabrics and ropes made using advanced weaving technology; foods, like dates, grapes, and pistachios; ceramics; and various types of metallurgical installations. The world-renowned Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford in England dated 11 of the items to the 10th century BCE, when according to the Bible King Solomon ruled the Kingdom of Israel.
The archaeological record shows the mines in Timna Valley were built and operated by a local society, likely the early Edomites, who are known to have occupied the land and formed a kingdom that rivaled Judah. The unearthed materials and the lack of architectural remains at the Slaves’ Hill support the idea that the locals were a semi-nomadic people who lived in tents.
The findings from the Slaves’ Hill confirm those of a 2009 dig Ben-Yosef helped to conduct at “Site 30,” another of the largest ancient smelting camps in Timna Valley. Then a graduate student of Prof. Thomas E. Levy at the University of California, San Diego, he helped demonstrate that the copper mines in the valley dated from the 11th to 9th centuries BCE — the era of Kings David and Solomon — and were probably Edomite in origin. The findings were reported in the journal The American Schools of Oriental Research in 2012, but the publication did little to shake the notion that the mines were Egyptian, based primarily on the discovery of an Egyptian Temple in the center of the valley in 1969.
Power without stone
The Slaves’ Hill dig also demonstrates that the society in Timna Valley was surprisingly complex. The smelting technology was relatively advanced and the layout of the camp reflects a high level of social organization. Impressive cooperation would have been required for thousands of people to operate the mines in the middle of the desert.
The United Monarchy breaks up, with Jeroboam ruling over the northern Kingdom of Israel (blue on the map) and Rehoboam ruling the Kingdom of Judah to the south. During Solomon’s long reign of 40 years, the Israelite monarchy, according to the Bible, gained its highest splendor and wealth
“In Timna Valley, we unearthed a society with undoubtedly significant development, organization, and power,” says Ben-Yosef. “And yet because the people were living in tents, they would have been transparent to us as archaeologists if they had been engaged in an industry other than mining and smelting, which is very visible archaeologically.”
Although the society likely possessed a degree of political and military power, archaeologists would probably never have found evidence of its existence if it were not for the mining operation. Ben-Yosef says this calls into question archaeology’s traditional assumption that advanced societies usually leave behind architectural ruins. He also says that the findings at the Slaves’ Hill undermine criticisms of the Bible’s historicity based on a lack of archaeological evidence. It’s entirely possible that David and Solomon existed and even that they exerted some control over the mines in the Timna Valley at times, he says.
Dr. Ben-Yosef is leading another dig at the Slaves’ Hill in the winter and is looking for volunteers.
One In 63,000 Chance Asteroid Could Hit Earth In 2032
October 21st, 2013
By Alton Parrish.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
With only a week of observations for an orbital period that spans almost four years, its future orbital path is still quite uncertain, but this asteroid could be back in Earth’s neighborhood in 2032. However, NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office states the probability this asteroid could then impact Earth is only one in 63,000. The object should be easily observable in the coming months and once additional observations are provided to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., the initial orbit calculations will be improved and the most likely result will be a dramatic reduction, or complete elimination, of any risk of Earth impact.
“To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “This is a relatively new discovery. With more observations, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce, or rule out entirely, any impact probability for the foreseeable future.”
NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called “Spaceguard,” discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and identifies their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.
JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.