Science Special News

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Protein links T. rex to chickens

Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Protein extracted from 68 million-year-old T. rex bones has shed new light on the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. Researchers compared organic molecules preserved in the T. rex fossils with those of living animals, and found they were similar to chicken protein. The discovery of protein in dinosaur bones is a surprise - organic material was not thought to survive this long. A US team of researchers have published the finding in Science journal. The team says their technique could help reveal evolutionary relationships between other living and extinct organisms. The finding is consistent with the idea that birds can trace a direct evolutionary line to dinosaurs. The proteins are original organic material from the dinosaur's soft tissue, and not contamination, the scientists argue. According to theories of fossilisation, original organic material is not thought to survive as long as this; finding them in a fossil this old is a genuine surprise. They are by far the oldest such molecules extracted from fossils. "It has always been assumed that preservation of [dinosaur bones] does not extend to the cellular and molecular level," said co-author Mary Schweitzer, from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, US.

"The pathways of cellular decay are well known for modern organisms. And extrapolations predict that all organics are going to be gone completely in 100,000 years, maximum." Brooks Hanson, an editor at Science journal said: "The goal of obtaining sequences either from proteins or DNA for extinct [organisms] has been a long-standing goal to test evolutionary links and processes, or even functional information."

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First Nessie photo of the season

An English holidaymaker thinks he may have taken the first picture of the season of the elusive Loch Ness Monster. Sidney Wilson was in the city with his wife Janet when they decided on a cruise down the loch to take in the sights.And it was as they approached Urquhart Castle that he ended up taking this intriguing photograph.Sidney, who comes from Nottingham, said: "I was just taking pictures of everything as we sailed down the loch."As we approached the castle, two power boats appeared and circled us at speed, leaving a large wash in their wake."Thinking that it would make a good photograph, I fired off two quick shots and on the second, there appeared to be something in the water."After enlarging the image, Sidney could swear he could see a head and fin in the boat's wash."After showing the image to staff at the National Hotel in Dingwall, they advised us to contact the Highland News," he added.

The sighting took place on Tuesday, March 27.The earliest claimed reference to Nessie is taken from the history of St Columba in which it is said he saved the life of a Pict who was being attacked by the monster.

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Witch doctors called in to school haunt

A school in Madhya Pradesh has called witch doctors to overcome ghosts that allegedly haunt girl students but mysteriously spare the boys. Officials at the Government Higher Secondary School in Duma village in Seoni district are also performing weird rituals throughout the day in a desperate bid to restore sanity.Naturally, studies have taken a backseat at the school.Villagers believe ghosts come to possess the girls once they reach the school, which has been built on an old cremation ground.Surprisingly, only the girl students act oddly, not the boys.Uma Shastri, an elderly priest in the village, said: "The school was constructed a few years ago over a piece of land used for cremation. The girls are being possessed by the spirits of the people cremated here."One such student is Sarita Singh, a 13-year-old who was perfectly normal when she reached the school dressed in uniform and black shoes. She wore her hair in two neat plaits.But on reaching the school compound, she dumped her bag, untied her ribbons, messed up her hair and started swaying her head in circles.

Then she started moving her body fitfully.Soon she was joined by four more girls of her age. While dancing, the girls kept on moaning. And they danced till they got exhausted, say villagers.Saduma Gupta, another villager, says: "It all started a week ago. One girl suddenly starts dancing and others join. Now it has become a routine affair. But only the girls behave abnormally."On Shastri's advice, the villagers have called in witch doctors to get rid of the so-called ghosts.The Seoni district administration has not reacted yet.

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MoD's grim vision of the future

Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive". The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.

An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.

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New high-res 'Face on Mars' released

NASA has released the new ultra high resolution pictures of the "face on Mars." For just a little bit of background, In 1979, scientists studying pictures of the Martian surface noticed that on the Cydonian plain, there stood out, what seemed to plainly be, a giant face staring out into space. Over the years, scientist Richard Hoagland has studied a series of NASA images. Richard and other investigators have postulated that this face is in fact, ancient architecture fallen into ruin. This structure is one square mile in size, and part of a larger complex which appears to be an ancient Martian city, all fallen into ruins.These latest images reveal details as small as a few inches, and according to Hoagland, appear to confirm the alien architecture hypothesis. Richard Hoagland and his team have doggedly pursued this story, and publicly pushed to have a reluctant NASA provide more high resolution pictures of the Cydonian structures. Much science fiction (such as the popular television series X-Files) and much public ridicule have accompanied this debate. These latest pictures appear to detail walls, windows, and girders. "The debate is over," boasts Richard, "I no longer need to prove that these are ruins, my critics need to prove that they are not."

NASA has methodically explored Mars for decades, but officially, any suggestion that there may once have been life on Mars, let alone intelligent civilization, has been brushed aside in favor of answering more basic questions such as - does water exist in liquid form on the Martian surface? Long before NASA officially admitted it, Hoagland surmised the existence of such liquid water. In another episode, photographic close-ups of the Martain surface snapped by the Martian Rovers, appear to contain tiny fossil-like structures, yet NASA has refused to comment on these images.

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Aztecs took sacrifice victims from afar

Ancient Mexicans brought human sacrifice victims from hundreds of miles (km) away over centuries to sanctify a pyramid in the oldest city in North America, an archeologist said on Wednesday. DNA tests on the skeletons of more than 50 victims discovered in 2004 in the Pyramid of the Moon at the Teotihuacan ruins revealed they were from far away Mayan, Pacific or Atlantic coastal cultures. The bodies, many of which were decapitated, dated from between 50 AD and 500 AD and were killed at different times to dedicate new stages of construction of the pyramid just north of Mexico City.The victims were likely either captured in war or obtained through some kind of diplomacy, said archeologist Ruben Cabrera, who led the excavation at the pyramid, the smaller of two main pyramids are Teotihuacan, which housed some 200,000 inhabitants at its height of power around 500 AD."Teotihuacan may have had a tradition of capturing prisoners for sacrifice," said Cabrera.Ancient Mexican civilizations like the Aztecs sacrificed humans by cutting their hearts out but researchers are not sure how the victims at Teotihuacan were killed.Little is known about the race that inhabited Teotihuacan or what language they spoke.

The site, Mexico's oldest major archeological site, was revered by later Mesoamerican civilizations, including the Aztecs, who gave it its current name, meaning "The place where gods are made" in their Nahuatl language.Teotihuacan icons found in far away Mayan ruins in Guatemala and Honduras show the city's broad reach.Littered among the victims' bodies at the pyramid are remains of animals that had symbolic importance including pumas, coyotes, eagles and snakes as well as a large number of precious objects like obsidian knives.

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The wave that destroyed Atlantis

Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: The legend of Atlantis, the country that disappeared under the sea, may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami. Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers, while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts. But around 1500BC the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic end may finally have been solved. A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of Crete was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture disappeared. "The geo-archaeological deposits contain a number of distinct tsunami signatures," says Dutch-born geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. "Minoan building material, pottery and cups along with food residue such as isolated animal bones were mixed up with rounded beach pebbles and sea shells and microscopic marine fauna.

"The latter can only have been scooped up from the sea-bed by one mechanism - a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together in a destructive swoop," says Professor Bruins. The deposits are up to seven metres above sea level, well above the normal reach of storm waves. "An event of ferocious force hit the coast of Crete and this wasn't just a Mediterranean storm," says Professor Bruins.

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Chinese make first artificial snowfall

China claimed yesterday to have caused a snowfall for the first time as part of its increasingly ambitious attempts to control the weather. Officials in the meteorological bureau in Tibet said they had used "rain-seeding" techniques to trigger a snowfall over the city of Nagqu last week. Yu Zhongshui said "This proves it's possible for humans to change the weather on the world's highest plateau." The bureau said it had produced just under half an inch of snow at a height of 15,000ft. Mr Yu said the experiment was conducted in the hope it would lead to alleviating drought on the northern Tibetan plateau, whose grasslands are turning brown as global warming melts and drains its permafrost.The government also hopes that the project will benefit the great river systems of China. The Yellow, Yangtse, Salween, Mekong and Brahmaputra rivers all rise in Tibet, and the effects of damming and over-extraction for agriculture are beginning to threaten water supplies to major cities.

China is the world's largest practitioner of rain-seeding, a controversial procedure that involves releasing silver iodide as a catalyst into clouds either by aircraft or by firing cannon shells into them. It employs 37,000 people on the programme, which it uses to trigger rainfall principally to maximise water supply in the drought-prone north of the country, although in Beijing it is often said to be part of attempts to ensure a blue sky for major events.

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Could black holes be wormholes ?

The objects scientists think are black holes could instead be wormholes leading to other universes, a new study says. If so, it would help resolve a quantum conundrum known as the black hole information paradox, but critics say it would also raise new problems, such as how the wormholes would form in the first place.A black hole is an object with such a powerful gravitational field that nothing, not even light, can escape it if it strays within a boundary known as the event horizon. Einstein's theory of general relativity says black holes should form whenever matter is squeezed into a small enough space. Though black holes are not seen directly, astronomers have identified many objects that appear to be black holes based on observations of how matter swirls around them. But physicists Thibault Damour of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette, France, and Sergey Solodukhin of International University Bremen in Germany now say that these objects could be structures called wormholes instead. Wormholes are warps in the fabric of space-time that connect one place to another. If you imagine the universe as a two-dimensional sheet, you can picture a wormhole as a "throat" connecting our sheet to another one. In this scenario, the other sheet could be a universe of its own, with its own stars, galaxies and planets.

Damour and Solodukhin studied what such a wormhole might look like, and were surprised to discover that it would mimic a black hole so well that it would be virtually impossible to tell the difference.Matter would swirl around a wormhole in the same way as for a black hole, since both objects distort the space around them in the same way. One might hope to distinguish the two by something called Hawking radiation, an emission of particles and light which should only come from black holes and would have a characteristic energy spectrum. But this radiation is so weak that it would be completely swamped by other sources, such as the background glow of microwaves left over from the big bang, making it unobservable in practice.

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