Science Special News

[Rasputin]

Did rats cause death of Easter Island ?

It was the first and most extreme ecological disaster. Easter Island, in the south Pacific, once lush with subtropical broadleaf forest, was left barren and vast seabird colonies were destroyed after the arrival of man. But now there is new evidence that human beings may not have been responsible for the destruction after all. Although Easter Island has long been held to be the most important example of a traditional society destroying itself, it appears that the real culprits were rats - up to three million of them.This contradicts the belief that the native population's obsession with carving, constructing, and transporting its famous statues around the island led it to deplete its own natural resources, going into what has been called "a downward spiral of cultural regression"."A theme of self-inflicted, pre-European contact ecocide is common in published accounts," says the anthropologist Dr Terry Hunt, who led the research at the University of Hawaii. "Easter Island has become a paragon for prehistoric human-induced ecological catastrophe and cultural collapse. Scholars offer this story as a parable of today's global environmental problems."He has examined new data from the Hawaiian and other Pacific islands that shows that by early historic times the deforestation of Easter Island was already complete, or nearly so. A dense forest of palm trees and more than 20 other types of trees and shrubs had mostly disappeared.

As many as six land birds and several seabirds had also become extinct.The island had a relatively simple ecosystem with vegetation once dominated by millions of palms. The original ecosystem of the island, with a limited range of plants, and few if any predators, would, says the report, have been particularly vulnerable to alien invasions.Almost all of the palm seed shells discovered on the island were found to have been gnawed by rats. Thousands of rat bones have been found, and crucially, much of the damage to forestry appears to have been done before evidence of fires on the island. Evidence from other Pacific islands also confirms how devastating rats can be.

[Rasputin]

Stephen Hawking plans to see space

Prof Stephen Hawking is planning a space flight. The world's best-known scientist, who is 65 today, told The Daily Telegraph: "This year I'm planning a zero-gravity flight and to go into space in 2009."A zero gravity flight is what astronauts call the "vomit comet", in which an aeroplane flies in such a way that people inside are temporarily weightless.Prof Hawking's next step towards the cosmos then depends on the Virgin Galactic space tourism plans of Sir Richard Branson, whose SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers into orbit from 2008. The craft will be launched at 50,000ft from a mothership and soar into space at around 360,000ft, reaching a speed of 2,500mph — more than three times the speed of sound.At present, a flight costs about £100,000 but Sir Richard will sponsor Prof Hawking's mission.The scientist plans a quiet celebration of his birthday today with his family and said he had no intention of retiring for the foreseeable future.

"The retiring age in Cambridge is 67 but I shall continue working," he said.He is the author of A Brief History of Time — which has sold 10 million copies — and is now busy writing two books."My children's book, George's Secret Key To The Universe, will be published this October and my book The Grand Design on the philosophy of science should be out next year," he said.The occasion of Prof Hawking's 65th birthday has led Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, to pay a fulsome tribute.

[Rasputin]

Sasquatch seeker

One Manitoban's lifelong fascination with the mystery of Bigfoot has landed her a role in an upcoming documentary. Fisher Branch-area resident Michelle Baril has collected stories about sasquatch sightings as a hobby through most of her life. "Some people like to golf and I like to listen to sasquatch stories," said Baril from her home, located about 125 km north of Winnipeg. "It has always intrigued me." Baril, 38, said the History Channel and White Wolf Entertainment aim to stage re-enactments of the sightings to create a documentary on unknown animal species. Somewhat of an expert on the large, hairy creatures, Baril has been asked to lead producers to locations noted in some of the two dozen Interlake area sasquatch stories she's heard over the past 25 years.

Filming dates aren't yet set but Baril will host a community meeting to drum up new stories at the Fisher Branch Ukrainian Hall on Tuesday at 7 p.m. She believes the Fisher Branch area's thick bush and wildlife management status is key to frequent sightings. "I'm speculating it's because there is no hunting and it would be more of a safe haven for them," said Baril.

[Rasputin]

Britain plans first Moon mission

Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: The UK could soon have its first mission to the Moon - an orbiting spacecraft that would fire instruments into the lunar surface. The "penetrators" would yield new information about the rocky interior. The venture is being considered by Britain's astronomy funding agency, PParc, and may pass to the government as a full proposal. The concept has been prepared by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, one of the country's leading space companies. Its founder and chief executive, Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, has written a report which says the costs of space exploration have fallen sufficiently for the UK to think about launching such a probe by 2010. Sir Martin proposes two options for Britain's first foray to the Moon. The first, named Moonlight, would despatch four suitcase-sized darts on to the lunar surface from orbit. The darts would be sent into craters across a wide area. They would hit the ground at a high velocity and penetrate to a depth of 2m (6ft). The darts could carry a small suite of instruments, such as seismometers to listen for "Moonquakes". Analysing these tremors would give scientists new insight into the make-up of the lunar interior.

Prof Alan Smith, of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, which has contributed to the concept study, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The idea is that by about 2010 we will launch four scientific high-impact probes. "They will land on the moon at about 400mph. They will make various scientific measurements sampling various parts of the moon."

[Rasputin]

Eavesdropping on the universe

Astronomers have proposed an improved method of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life using instruments like one now under construction in Australia. The Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA), a facility for radio astronomy, theoretically could detect Earth-like civilizations around any of the 1,000 nearest stars. "Soon, we may be eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations," says theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "This is the first time in history that humans will be capable of finding a civilization like ours among the stars." Loeb will present his findings on Wednesday, January 10, in a press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Wash. Previous SETI programs would not have detected an Earth-like civilization. The searches often looked for beacon-like signals deliberately beamed across space. Such beacons may not exist. Also, most radio SETI projects examined frequencies higher than 1 Gigahertz in order to avoid interference from both Earth-based and natural cosmic sources.

Instead of looking for deliberate broadcasts, Loeb and his co-author Matias Zaldarriaga (CfA) suggest looking for accidental leakage from an alien civilization. They point out that the new MWA-LFD, which is designed to study frequencies of 80-300 Megahertz, will pick up the same frequencies used by Earth technologies. On Earth, military radars are the most powerful broadcast sources, followed by television and FM radio. If similar broadcast sources exist on other planets, facilities like MWA-LFD might detect them.

[Rasputin]

Climate key to Sphinx's riddle

Global warming is one of the greatest threats to present day civilisation but work by a team of Scots scientists suggests the ancient Egyptians may have been earlier victims of climate change. The pharaohs ruled their empire for hundreds of years, spreading culture, architecture and the arts before it collapsed into economic ruin. Why that happened is one of the great mysteries of history. Now a team of scientists from Scotland and Wales believe the answer lies beneath the waters of Lake Tana, high in the Ethiopian Highlands, and the source of the all-important Blue Nile. Samples taken over the past two years from sediments beneath Tana, which supplies the water which makes the lower Nile valley so fertile, reveal the lake may have almost dried up during the critical period around 4,200 years ago due to climate change. According to the team's theory, the flow of water on which the farm-based ancient Egyptian economy thrived would have slowed to a trickle, causing a devastating famine that lasted for 200 years. That would have been enough to destroy the Old Kingdom and its people, leaving only the pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza as their legacy to history.

The research is being carried out by a geological team from St Andrews University and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Dr Mike Marshall, from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth, said that when the project began in 2003, the drought was only a theory, but the pieces of the jigsaw are now being unearthed. "We have found evidence of drought events at several levels in the lake's sediments. That correlates with 4,200 years ago. Lake Tana at that time could have been at a very low level.

[Rasputin]

Inventors win 'flying saucer' funding

A group of dedicated space enthusiasts have won thousands of pounds from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) to fund market research into their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) – better known as flying saucers. Geoff Hatton and his team at GFS Projects Limited – which stands for Geoff's Flying Saucer – have spent the last seven years working on prototypes for realistic flying saucers.The uniqueness of the hub-cap machines – which can take off vertically, fly, hover and land, secured a £43,000 research and development SMART grant from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTi) and equity funding from a group of investors a year ago.And now the project has won a £15,000 grant from EEDA to commission market research to identify and prioritise the market sectors where the craft will be most valuable.Business Link originally helped introduce GFS to an aeronautical expert in the University of Cambridge and helped Geoff apply for the DTi grant for research and development to get the business up and running.To date, all the prototypes have been battery-powered, ranging from 10ins to three feet in diameter but GFS believes larger versions could have proper internal combustion engines.

The company is constantly dreaming up new ways of marketing the saucers which they believe could be adapted as toys, to aid mountain rescues, land mine detection and even as state-of-the-art scarecrows.The competition for EEDA's Proof of Concept fund was intense. It attracted 177 applicants and 50 companies were awarded financial support. GFS was delighted to be one of the winners.Geoff said: "Ever since I was in the hovercraft industry, I've wanted to develop a craft that could go up into the air as well as move across the ground. At last we've done it.

[Rasputin]

Should Machu Picchu be a world wonder ?

Peru's government, seeking to boost tourism in the Andean country, is urging residents and visitors to vote for the ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu as one of the world's new seven wonders. Maria Seminario, general manager of the tourism promotion agency PromPeru, said on Monday Machu Picchu was in the top seven out of 21 finalists before the July 7 announcement of the winners in Lisbon by the New7Wonders Foundation. "Now we need to consolidate that. Being No. 1 would be ideal," Seminario told Reuters. "We think now is the right time for the big push." Posters on city streets call on Peruvians to vote for the well-preserved site on a mountain ridge. Built in the 1460s and abandoned for three centuries after the Spanish conquest, Machu Picchu, or "Old Peak" in the Quechua language, was rediscovered by U.S. archaeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911. Machu Picchu visitors get leaflets on how to cast a vote, either via the Internet or by phone. Starting next week, an ad will air on public television channels and some airlines operating in Peru, Seminario said.

"Machu Picchu is wonderful and incomparable, not only for its unique architecture. The natural beauty is astounding," Seminario said. "We hope the vote will strengthen this tourism icon of Peru and more people will be willing to visit it." The list of wannabe wonders has already been narrowed from 77 in what organisers of the poll say is "the biggest global vote ever to have taken place."

[Rasputin]

'Dracula Castle' put up for sale

The descendants of the Habsburg monarchy have confirmed they want to sell a Transylvanian castle mythically linked to the fictional Count Dracula. The family were turfed out of Romania's 14th-Century Bran Castle by the communists after World War II. It was returned to them in 2006 after a long legal battle. But now Dominic Habsburg, a New York architect and son of the late Romanian Princess Ileana, says he is willing to sell it back for $78m (£40m). The local council has said it is willing to buy the castle, one of the country's top tourist attractions. It wants to prevent the castle being turned into a hotel or theme park, and is in the process of investigating a bank loan. However, Romania's culture minister said the local authorities would be "stupid" to pay such a hefty price.

Mr Habsburg insisted the family was "trying to find the best way to preserve the castle in the interest of the family and the people of Bran". He said while the family welcomed the restitution of their asset, it had come with a "financial sacrifice" - the huge cost of upkeep. "We would like Castle Bran to remain a symbol of everything that is honourable and good in Romania," he told the Associated Press.

[Rasputin]

Is pessimism bad for your health ?

Now, it seems, pessimists may really have something to worry about: their health. A study by researchers in the Netherlands has found that people who are temperamentally pessimistic are more likely to die of heart disease and other causes than those who are by nature optimistic.The study, led by Dr. Erik J. Giltay of the Psychiatric Center GGZ Delfland and published in The Archives of General Psychiatry, followed 941 Dutch subjects, ages 65 to 85, from 1991 to 2001. Subjects were ranked in quartiles as pessimistic or optimistic on the basis of their reactions to statements like, “I still have positive expectations concerning my future” and, “I often feel that life is full of promises.”Dr. Giltay and his colleagues found that subjects with the highest level of optimism were 45 percent less likely than those with the highest level of pessimism to die of all causes during the study. For those in the quartile with the highest optimism score, the death rate was 30.4 percent; those in the most pessimistic quartile had a death rate of 56.5 percent. There were 397 deaths in the study, and prevention of cardiovascular mortality accounted for nearly half of the protective effects of optimism.This is the kind of study that worries me.

Not personally, though — I’m as optimistic as they come. No, I’m worried about my pessimistic friends and patients who will get hold of this article. After all, if the findings are valid, how much can anyone really do about a gloomy disposition? Up to this point there has been solid evidence that certain pathological mental states, like depression, are linked with a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular death, but the relationship between normal personality traits like optimism and health have not been as thoroughly studied.

[Rasputin]

Reading your mind via blood flow

A Hitachi, Ltd. research institute has developed a basic technology that can read what people think by measuring subtle changes in blood flow in their brains, allowing seriously ill and handicapped people to remotely operate electric appliances, researchers said. Researchers at the Advanced Research Laboratory of the electric giant hope that the new technology will be applied to not only electric appliances such as TV sets but also wheelchairs and other devices for physically handicapped people."We'd like to produce a prototype of a remote controller within a couple of years. We hope to use the results of our research on brain science to develop information technology that is friendly to people," researcher Hideaki Koizumi said.

The core of the technology is a so-called optical topography system that irradiates near-infrared rays that are not harmful to human bodies in a person's head, measures how blood flows in their brains -- particularly its prefrontal areas -- change depending on what they think and shows it on images.The pictures are converted into electronic signals and sent to remote controllers of electric appliances.

[Rasputin]

Deep space propulsion research continues

Graduate students and faculty researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville are investigating propulsion concepts that could eventually revolutionize deep space travel. The Plasmoid Thruster Experiment (PTX) is a stepping stone to a highly efficient propulsion concept which could ultimately change how we travel in space, according to Dr. Jason Cassibry, a researcher in UAH’s Propulsion Research Center. “Larger, more powerful versions can produce fusion for both power and space propulsion, allowing human travel to the outer planets,” he said. Few groups around the country are working on this emerging technology, according to Cassibry. UAH is among that small number of research institutions. The experimental branch of the Propulsion Research Center’s pulsed plasma research group is focused on gathering experimental data from PTX, which was originally built at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. MSFC donated the equipment to UAH last year. The purpose of the PTX is to investigate the fundamental plasma and acceleration properties of a small-scale, pulsed plasma thruster. PTX works by ringing a single turn conical theta pinch coil at about 500 kHz, ionizing and accelerating a small quantity of gas.

The magnetic field inside the coil creates a plasmoid, a plasma that has a closed magnetic field structure. One of the biggest challenges in any electric propulsion concept is increasing the lifetime of the thruster, which must run continuously for several years for deep space missions. Most electric propulsion concepts use plasma, which is in contact with electrodes or acceleration grids, causing erosion of the components and limiting the lifetime of the thruster. The plasmoid thruster potentially has a much longer lifetime, because the plasma is formed inductively, which means that the plasma is not in contact with the thruster components.

[Rasputin]

Leaving stones unturned on Easter Island

As remnants of a vanished culture and a lure to tourists, the mysterious giant statues that stand as mute sentinels along the rocky coast here are the greatest treasure of this remote place. For local people, though, they also present a problem: what should be done about the hundreds of other stone icons scattered around the island, many of them damaged or still embedded in the ground?Commercial and political interests, as well as some archaeologists, would like nothing better than to restore more — or perhaps eventually all — of the moai, as the statues are known. But many residents of Rapa Nui, the Polynesian name for Easter Island that is favored here, regard that possibility with a mixture of suspicion and dread.“We don’t want to become an archaeological theme park, a Disney World of moai,” Pedro Edmunds Paoa, the mayor of Hanga Roa, the island’s largest settlement, said in an interview.

“If we are going to keep on restoring moai there has to be a good reason to do so.”The repaired and re-erected moai on display to visitors at the most popular half-dozen or so sites around Easter Island amount to fewer than 50. But estimates of the total number unearthed on the island have now climbed to more than 900 and keep growing as excavations continue, with nearly half of that total found at the hillside quarry at Rano Raraku, where the island’s original inhabitants mined and carved the statues out of compressed volcanic ash.

[Rasputin]

Moment of terror for Amazon mummy

Hands over her eyes and her face gripped with terror, the woman's fear of death is all too obvious. The remarkable mummy was found in a hidden burial vault in the Amazon. It is at least 600 years old and has survived thanks to the embalming skills of her tribe, the Chachapoyas or cloud warriors. Eleven further mummies were recovered from the massive cave complex 82ft down. The vault - which was also used for worship - was chanced upon three months ago by a farmer working at the edge of northern Peru's rainforest. He tipped off scientists who uncovered ceramics, textiles and wall paintings. The Chachapoyas were a tall, fairhaired, light-skinned race that some researchers believe may have come from Europe. Little is known about them except that they were one of the more advanced ancient civilisations in the area. Adept at fighting, they commanded a large kingdom from the year 800 to 1500 that stretched across the Andes. It is not known what the Chachapoyas actually called themselves - they are identified by the name given to them by their rivals and eventual conquerors, the Incas.

It comes from the Inca's Quechua language and means 'cloud people', because of the high forests in the clouds that the Chachapoyas inhabited. Virtually all record of the tribe was lost when the Incas were themselves overrun by the Spanish conquistadors who landed in 1512. They have, however, left behind a spectacular citadel, called Kuelap, 10,000ft up in the Andes. It has more than 400 buildings and defensive towers, many of them with decorated walls, cornices and friezes.

[Rasputin]

James Randi revamps $1M psychic prize

If you're an undiscovered psychic, soothsayer, dowser or medium, time may be running out for you to put your supernatural powers to the test and claim a million dollar prize. But you already knew that, didn't you? Ten years after stage magician and avowed skeptic James Randi first offered a seven-figure payday to anyone capable of demonstrating paranormal phenomenon under scientific scrutiny, the 79-year-old clear-eyed curmudgeon is revising the rules of his nonprofit foundation's Million Dollar Challenge to better target high-profile charlatans, and spend less time on unknown psychics, who too often turn out to be delusional instead of deceptive."We can't waste the hundreds of hours that we spend every year on the nutcases out there -- people who say they can fly by flapping their arms," says Randi. "We have three file drawers jam-packed with those collections.... There are over 300 claims that we have handled in detail."A skeptic since his teen years, Randi launched his challenge in 1964, after growing outraged with fake mediums and fortunetellers using simple conjurers' tricks to prey on the public.

A challenge was an efficient alternative to trying to prove a negative: Instead of traveling the world investigating and debunking miracle workers one-by-one, an unclaimed cash prize stands as a fact on the ground -- an immovable obstacle around which anyone purporting supernatural powers must eventually navigate.The challenge started small. Randi initially offered $1,000 of his own money to anyone who could read a mind or bend a spoon under controlled conditions. He later upped the ante to $10,000, but still didn't get a lot of takers. "There wasn't much interest in $10,000, and frankly I couldn't afford more than that," he says.