Science Special News

[Rasputin]

Meet the "brain man"

Twenty-four years ago, 60 Minutes introduced viewers to George Finn, whose talent was immortalized in the movie "Rainman." George has a condition known as savant syndrome, a mysterious disorder of the brain where someone has a spectacular skill, even genius, in a mind that is otherwise extremely limited. Morley Safer met another savant, Daniel Tammet, who is called "Brain Man" in Britain. But unlike most savants, he has no obvious mental disability, and most important to scientists, he can describe his own thought process. He may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone, a key to understanding the brain. Back in 1983, George Finn, blessed or obsessed with calendar calculation, could give you the day if you gave him the date. "What day of the week was August 13th, 1911?" Safer quizzed Finn. "A Sunday," Finn replied. "What day of the week was May 20th, 1921?" Safer asked. "Friday," Finn answered. George Finn is a savant. In more politically incorrect times he would have been called an "idiot savant" – a mentally handicapped or autistic person whose brain somehow possesses an island of brilliance. Asked if he knew how he does it, Finn told Safer, "I don't know, but it's just that, that's fantastic I can do that." If this all seems familiar, there’s a reason: five years after the 60 Minutes broadcast, Dustin Hoffman immortalized savants like George in the movie "Rainman.”"

Which brings us to that other savant we mentioned: Daniel Tammet. He is an Englishman, who is a 27-year-old math and memory wizard. "I was born November 8th, 1931," Safer remarks. "Uh-huh. That's a prime number. 1931. And you were born on a Sunday. And this year, your birthday will be on a Wednesday. And you'll be 75," Tammet tells Safer. It is estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today, and yet none are like Daniel. He is articulate, self-sufficient, blessed with all of the spectacular ability of a savant, but with very little of the disability. Take his math skill, for example. Asked to multiply 31 by 31 by 31 by 31, Tammet quickly – and accurately – responded with "923,521." And it’s not just calculating. His gift of memory is stunning. Briefly show him a long numerical sequence and he’ll recite it right back to you. And he can do it backwards, to boot.

[Rasputin]

Terror at wakefield's haunted bridge

Spooked Amanda West froze with terror after hearing ghostly gallopings over the River Calder while out for an evening stroll with her dog. Bess the Bedlington Terrier went into a barking frenzy as the mysterious sound of horses hooves could be heard as the pair crossed the river at Denby Dale Road.Amanda said: It was a very frightening feeling as the sounds just came out of nowhere and there was no sign ofhorses.Then, all of a sudden, I heard a massive splash. I leaned over the railings and looked down at the water but it was completely calm. It was then when I heard the braying of the horses coming from under the bridge. It lasted for about 30 seconds before everything went silent I was terrified. Amanda decided to keep quiet and told only a few friends about the incident, which took place in August, thinking people would poke fun at her story.But when her friend told her about a discovery she had made in a history book, she thought there could be something more to the eerie episode.Amanda, who lives in Leeds, said: My friend Maureen rang me and said she had read a book about Thornes Park.

It said that a suspension bridge crossing the Calder at Denby Dale Road had collapsed as a barley wagon was being pulled across it back in 1836 and three horses had drowned. The story comes from an illustrated book on Thornes Park by Wakefield wildlife artist and naturalist Richard Bell.It mentions the problems experienced by the trustees of the Wakefield and Denby Dale Turnpike Road during the 19th century.An Act of Parliament was made in 1825 to build a chain of new roads to link Wakefield and Barnsley with Manchester. The trustees experienced difficulties in raising the money needed however, leading the first clerk of the project to be dismissed in 1839.

[Rasputin]

'Terror birds' never met humans

Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Early humans could never have come into contact with the giant carnivorous "terror bird" Titanis walleri, research suggests. It had been thought the fearsome beasts became extinct as little as 10,000 years ago - a time when humans shared their North American habitat. But a US team has now revised this date to about two million years earlier. The study, published in Geology, also sheds light on the flightless birds' migration to North America. T. walleri is thought to be the largest species of the terror bird family. It would have stood 2m (7ft) tall and weighed 150kg (330lb). The flightless species, which inhabited South and North America, had an enormous beak and lived up to its terror tag by being a top predator of its time. The researchers looked at fossils of the birds that had been uncovered in Florida and Texas. By analysing the distribution of a group of chemicals, known as rare earth elements, within the bones, the team was able determine the age of the North American remains. "Previously, scientists believed that Titanis became extinct about 10,000 years ago," explained Professor Bruce MacFadden, a palaeontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History and lead author of the Geology paper.

This would have coincided with the mass extinction of other mega-fauna that occurred in North America at the end of the Pleistocene; a period of biodiversity loss which has been blamed in part on humans and their novel spear technologies at the time. But analysis of fossil bones found in the Sante Fe River, Florida, which are thought to represent the last known T. walleri, suggests the terror bird had disappeared long before this. "The last occurrence of Titanis, as far as we know it, dates to about two million years ago. It didn't persist into the last ice age," Professor MacFadden told the BBC News website.

[Rasputin]

Global warming 'unstoppable'

The world's leading climate scientists said global warming has begun, is "very likely" caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The scientists — using their strongest language yet on the issue — said now that world has begun to warm, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level "would continue for centuries" no matter how much humans control their pollution. The report also linked the warming to the recent increase in stronger hurricanes."The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone," said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments.The phrase "very likely" translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man's burning of fossil fuels. That was the strongest conclusion to date, making it nearly impossible to say natural forces are to blame.What that means in simple language is "we have this nailed," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system.The 20-page report, which was due to be officially released later in the day, represents the most authoritative science on global warming.

The new language marked an escalation from the panel's last report in 2001, which said warming was "likely" caused by human activity. There had been speculation that the participants might try to say it is "virtually certain" man causes global warming, which translates to 99 percent certainty.The panel predicted temperature rises of 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. That was a wider range than in the 2001 report.However, the panel also said its best estimate was for temperature rises of 3.2-7.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2001, all the panel gave was a range of 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.On sea levels, the report projects rises of 7-23 inches by the end of the century. An additional 3.9-7.8 inches are possible if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.But there is some cold comfort. Some, but not all, of the projected temperature and sea level rises are slightly lower than projected in a previous report in 2001. That is mostly due to use of more likely scenarios and would still result in dramatic effects across the globe, scientists said.Many scientists had warned that this estimate was too cautious and said sea level rise could be closer to 3-5 feet because of ice sheet melt.

[Rasputin]

Wanted: Home-builders for the moon

Imagine a world where microwave-beaming rovers cook dust into concrete landing pads ... where your living quarters are dropped onto the land from above, then inflated like an inner tube ... where the grit is so abrasive that even the robots have to wear protective coveralls. It may sound like science fiction, but these are actually some of the ideas being floated as part of NASA's plan to build a permanent moon base starting in 2010. To follow through on those sky-high ideas, the space agency is turning to some down-to-earth experts, ranging from polar researchers to miners and earth-movers."We will be looking outside the agency quite a bit as well as inside the agency," said Larry Toups, habitation systems lead for NASA's Constellation Program Office.

"We have a lot of folks here who are very innovative and understand the space environment quite a bit, but you do have a lot of expertise outside NASA as well, and we intend to involve those folks."Those folks include the twin giants of America's space industry, The Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin. But some less conventional players are involved as well.

[Rasputin]

Jesus fancy dress kit 'is a crime'

The Vatican acted yesterday to condemn the sale of Jesus Christ fancy dress kits, which can be bought within walking distance of St Peter's Basilica. The "Jesus Party Wig", available across Italy to wear at the street festivities that precede Lent, costs €12 (£ and comes complete with a flowing beard and a plastic crown of thorns.Senior Vatican figures called it "blasphemous" and "shameful". One added that a similar Mohammed outfit would cause widespread outrage. "The vilifying of religion is a crime and this should be investigated by the police," said Bishop Velasio De Paolis, Secretary of the Apostolic Signature, the Vatican's Supreme Court."It's come to the point where the Catholic faith has no defence and it is something to be laughed at, to be made a joke of. The Christian doctrine is exploited but everyone is very careful to be respectful of Islam."A Milan firm, Widmann, distributes the outfits, which are made in China.

It also offers a luxury version, at €24, which adds a long white tunic and a plastic staff. Father Vittorino Grossi, secretary of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, said: "This is regurgitated paganism and is a shameful insult and blasphemous to millions of believers. It's worse than the Roman graffiti of 1,800 years ago that showed Christ with a donkey's head."No one at Widmann would comment yesterday. But one stockist, who would not give his name, said: "I don't see what the problem is. To me it's just a novelty wig and beard."

[Rasputin]

Europe's first stegosaurus discovered

A Stegosaurus fossil has been discovered in Europe, marking the first time the famous plated dinosaur has been found outside of North America. The find supports a widely accepted idea that the two continents were once connected by a series of temporary land bridges which surfaced when sea levels dipped, allowing dinosaurs to cross.“Both coasts were very close and the basins between them could emerge occasionally,” said study leader Fernando Escaso of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.During the first half of dinosaurs’ 185-million-year reign on Earth, all of the world’s continents were clumped together into one giant landmass called Pangaea. At the end of the Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago, the supercontinent began slowly splintering: North America, Europe and Africa began to drift apart, and in the widening rift between them, the Atlantic Ocean was born.At times during this million-years long transformation, sea levels rose and fell, and land bridges occasionally emerged between the newly sundered landmasses. During times of connectedness, dinosaurs like Stegosaurus would have been able to cross.

Well-known to any dinosaur enthusiast, Stegosaurus was a bizarre-looking herbivorous creature that had a back adorned by a double row of vertical plates and a tail studded with spikes. It was once thought these strange accessories were for protection or used to radiate heat from the dinosaur’s body. But now most scientists think the body armor was probably just extreme example of the elaborate and colorful displays animals use to recognize each other as the same species.The scientists unearthed the new Stegosaurus fossils—which included a tooth and parts of the animal’s spinal column and leg bones—near the city of Batalha, in central Portugal. Preliminary analyses show the fossils to be indistinguishable from a species previously found only in North America, called Stegosaurus ungulatus. While the similarity bolsters the land-bridge case, it provides no information on the distribution and duration of those bridges.

[Rasputin]

Hunt for ancient medicine secrets

British scientists are helping uncover the secrets of medicines used by the ancient Egyptians 5,000 years ago. A University of Manchester team is travelling to Sinai, Egypt, to shed more light on how the Egyptians formed their ideas on medicines. They will compare modern plant species in the region with those used by tribes, such as the Bedouin, and plant remains found in ancient tombs. The project is being carried out by the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology. Researcher Dr Ryan Metcalf told BBC News: "Ancient Egyptians' medicine was remarkably advanced for its time. A lot of things they used we still use today. "They certainly had some quite advanced herbal medicines and probably knew about cannabis as well for pain relief." Dr Metcalf said the Egyptians used natural remedies, such as chewing willow bark - which contains properties similar to aspirin - and honey on open wounds to kill bacteria. The focus of the project will be trying to find out where they got their ideas from. "We know that the ancient Egyptians had extensive trade routes and it is entirely possible that both medicinal plants and the knowledge to use them effectively were traded between regions and countries," Dr Metcalf said.

"By comparing the prescriptions in the medical papyri to the medicinal plant use of the indigenous Bedouin people we hope to determine the origins of Pharaonic medicine." Papyri, the forerunner of modern paper, is sheets of laminated material made from thin strips of the Cyprus Papyrus plant. Researchers will work with the Egyptian Medicinal Plant Conservation Project in St Katherine's, Sinai, which is working to preserve the biodiversity of the region through co-operation with local Bedouin. They will be able to supply the Manchester team with seeds and information that covers the Sinai peninsula.

[Rasputin]

Death on the high seas

When the QE2 docked at Southampton on January 2, the liner was one passenger short: a 62-year-old German woman was missing. She is just one of a growing list of people who have disappeared from cruise ships in mysterious circumstances. Some of these deaths may be suicides, writes Gwyn Topham, but others appear more sinister. And of course there are no police out on the ocean. In the last days of the Vietnam war, Hue Pham and his wife Hue Tran spent two perilous weeks on a cramped container ship, adrift with no food and little water in the South China Sea. The couple survived this desperate flight from Vietnam, built a new life in America, and then, three decades later, decided to take a Caribbean cruise on a ship called the Carnival Destiny. This was the boat journey that they would not survive.The facts of the couple's disappearance, as the Destiny sailed between Barbados and Aruba on May 12 2005, are few. After a fruitless on-board search, the ship eventually retraced its path, joined by the US coastguard. No trace of their bodies was ever found. For the relatives, the deaths left a terrible, insoluble puzzle.

Their son, Son Michael Pham, maintained that his parents had no reason to take their own lives and were in fact planning a trip back to Vietnam, and were looking forward to meeting relatives again. "Two American citizens with no personal or financial problems, no serious health problems, living the happiest time of their lives, both vanished without a trace or witness," he later told an inquiry. The cruise had been a Mother's Day gift to the couple, and they were on board ship with their daughter and granddaughter. "I immediately flew down to California, went through their home, and tried to find one clue, something unusual. I could not," Son Michael says now.

[Rasputin]

Is there alien life in our Solar System ?

Unexplained Mysteries: There have been many questions recently about the future of SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. After several decades of searching for signs of life elsewhere in the universe they have so far come up empty handed, but the recent explorations of Mars, Titan and other bodies closer to home have revealed the possibility that perhaps there is a chance that at least primitive life may exist closer than we think. Back at the start of January we posted up our poll asking "Will we find life elsewhere in our Solar System ?" The largest percentage of votes, 35%, were in favour of finding life in our Solar System but were not sure where exactly it would be found. 19% of you believed that Mars was the most likely place, 15% thought Jupiter's icy moon Europa may harbour life, and 9% believed that the recently revealed Saturnian moon Titan was the most likely candidate. Finally, 22% did not believe that we will ever find life elsewhere within our Solar system at all.

With further missions planned for the near future to many of these locations it may not be long before we find out. The discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would be one of the single most important discoveries in human history, it would shake up the foundations of our society to learn that we are in fact not alone in the cosmos.

[Rasputin]

Roman descendants found in China?

Residents of a remote Chinese village are hoping that DNA tests will prove one of history's most unlikely legends — that they are descended from Roman legionaries lost in antiquity. Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living in and around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, more than 200 miles from the nearest city.They are seeking an explanation for the unusual number of local people with western characteristics — green eyes, big noses, and even blonde hair — mixed with traditional Chinese features."I really think we are descended from the Romans," said Song Guorong, 48, who with his wavy hair, six-foot frame and strikingly long, hooked nose stands out from his short, round-faced office colleagues."There are the residents with these special features, and then there are also historical records about the existence of these people long ago," he said.

Studies claiming that Liqian has Roman ancestry have greatly excited the impoverished county in which it is situated. The village is now overlooked by a pillared portico, in the hope of attracting tourists. A statue at the entrance of the nearby county town, Yongchang, shows a Roman legionary standing next to a Confucian scholar and a Muslim woman, as a symbol of racial harmony.Even entrepreneurs have caught on: in "Imperial City Entertainment Street" there is a Caesar Karaoke bar.

[Rasputin]

Space station moves to avoid debris

U.S. and Russian officials changed the International Space Station's orbit to keep it clear of debris from a satellite destroyed by China, a report says. "We are diverting the orbit of the ISS to prevent a possible collision with large fragments of space debris, a decision the Russian Mission Control took together with the Johnson Space Center in Houston," a Russian Mission Control spokesman told Novosti Friday.The spokesman said the debris did not threaten the space station, and that an anti-meteorite system protected it from smaller fragments.China set off an international protest when it announced in January it had used a ground-based missile to hit one its aging weather satellites, Novosti reported.The United States filed a diplomatic protest, Novosti said, because the weather satellite used approximately the same orbit as its spy satellites.

Canada, Australia and Japan also objected.Russian and U.S. space agencies were both tracking fragments from the weather satellite. U.S. officials said they were following 525 large fragments and had recorded between 500 and 600 instances of debris passing within three miles of orbiting satellites.

[Rasputin]

Finding a way to 'see' extra dimensions

Peering backward in time to an instant after the big bang, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe. A new study demonstrates that the shapes of extra dimensions can be "seen" by deciphering their influence on cosmic energy released by the violent birth of the universe 13 billion years ago. The method, published today (Feb. 2) in Physical Review Letters, provides evidence that physicists can use experimental data to discern the nature of these elusive dimensions - the existence of which is a critical but as yet unproven element of string theory, the leading contender for a unified "theory of everything."Scientists developed string theory, which proposes that everything in the universe is made of tiny, vibrating strings of energy, to encompass the physical principles of all objects from immense galaxies to subatomic particles. Though currently the front-runner to explain the framework of the cosmos, the theory remains, to date, untested.The mathematics of string theory suggests that the world we know is not complete.

In addition to our four familiar dimensions - three-dimensional space and time - string theory predicts the existence of six extra spatial dimensions, "hidden" dimensions curled in tiny geometric shapes at every single point in our universe. Don't worry if you can't picture a 10-dimensional world. Our minds are accustomed to only three spatial dimensions and lack a frame of reference for the other six, says UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu, who led the new study. Though scientists use computers to visualize what these six-dimensional geometries could look like (see image), no one really knows for sure what shape they take.

[Rasputin]

Mexico marvels at super-sized baby

As the picture clearly shows, Antonio Vasconcelos - he's the one at the back - is no ordinary new-born baby. Dubbed "Super Tonio", he startled staff at the Jesus Kumate Rodriguez hospital in Cancun, Mexico, not to mention his mother, by arriving via caesarean section on Monday weighing a whopping 6.6kg (14lb 8oz), roughly twice the average weight for a newborn baby. Crowds have gathered at the windows of the hospital's nursery ward to marvel at Antonio, who is already 56cm (22in) long and drinks prodigious amounts of milk."We haven't found any abnormality in the child, there are some signs of high blood sugar, and a slight blood infection, but that is being controlled so that the child can get on with his normal life in a few more days," said Narciso Perez Bravo, the hospital's director. Antonio's parents, 23-year-old Teresa Alejandra Cruz and Luis Vasconcelos, 38, are remarkably unfazed, noting that their daughter had weighed a not-insignificant 5.2kg at birth.

"It's good, because now with this one, we'll have a pair [of big babies]," Mr Vasconcelos said. Despite Antonio's size, he is not the biggest baby born in recent years. In January 2005, a Brazilian baby arrived weighing 7.6kg. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest baby was a boy born to a healthy mother in Italy in September 1955 weighing 10.2kg.

[Rasputin]

Jesus fancy dress kit 'is a crime'

The Vatican acted yesterday to condemn the sale of Jesus Christ fancy dress kits, which can be bought within walking distance of St Peter's Basilica. The "Jesus Party Wig", available across Italy to wear at the street festivities that precede Lent, costs €12 (£ and comes complete with a flowing beard and a plastic crown of thorns.Senior Vatican figures called it "blasphemous" and "shameful". One added that a similar Mohammed outfit would cause widespread outrage. "The vilifying of religion is a crime and this should be investigated by the police," said Bishop Velasio De Paolis, Secretary of the Apostolic Signature, the Vatican's Supreme Court."It's come to the point where the Catholic faith has no defence and it is something to be laughed at, to be made a joke of. The Christian doctrine is exploited but everyone is very careful to be respectful of Islam."A Milan firm, Widmann, distributes the outfits, which are made in China.

It also offers a luxury version, at €24, which adds a long white tunic and a plastic staff. Father Vittorino Grossi, secretary of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, said: "This is regurgitated paganism and is a shameful insult and blasphemous to millions of believers. It's worse than the Roman graffiti of 1,800 years ago that showed Christ with a donkey's head."No one at Widmann would comment yesterday. But one stockist, who would not give his name, said: "I don't see what the problem is. To me it's just a novelty wig and beard."