Science Special News

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Back to school for ghost lessons

Apparitions, banshees and incubuses. Don't know the difference? Now anyone can learn the types of ghosts during the Ghosts and Hauntings 101 class sponsored by the Hanover Borough Leisure Council. "It's not intended to scare you," said class instructor Becky Baugher of Littlestown. "It's meant to open your eyes to see what is on the other side." From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Sept. 12 to Oct. 3 at the Hanover public library, Baugher will be teaching people about the "Ghost Energy Theory," different ways to experience a ghost and the different types of ghosts. "I think it is interesting because a lot of people wonder what happens to you after death," Baugher said. "A ghost is validity that life goes on after death." In addition to learning the basics about ghosts, Baugher plans to tell some local ghost stories and relay her own paranormal experiences. "I've actually had some ghosts touch me," Baugher said.

"I know it sounds kind of freaky, but it is kind of cool, too." Although not as steeped in ghost stories as Gettysburg, Baugher said Hanover has some of its own stories to tell. "There is some (stories) around here such as with the Hanover Shoe Farm Bridge and the Conewago Chapel," she said. "Anywhere you have dirt on the earth you have something tied to it, some kind of energy." To culminate the learning experience, Baugher will take her class on a ghost walk in Gettysburg. Baugher said she has been on all the ghost tours in Gettysburg and is even studying to become a storyteller. Baugher said she has also taken numerous paranormal classes taught by Judith Pellegrino, a Gettysburg hypnotherapist and psychic.

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Developing invisibility

After years of work, David Schurig and David R. Smith at Duke University will finish their research and have absolutely nothing to show for it: They're making a cloak of invisibility.Really. So unusual is this undertaking for a serious academic electrical engineering team that Smith has created an elaborate Web site discussing the dream of invisibility as viewed in science fiction--Harry Potter and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft are mentioned--and relating such ideas to scientific fact.In theory, Smith said, it's possible to make light follow curved lines that s***t an object rather than illuminate it. Light "circulates around the void--like water flowing past a rock in a stream," Smith explained.This would create a void in space--a place that is invisible.It's an interesting theory cooked up by Smith and Sir John Pendry at the Imperial College in London. Even more interesting will be to see if the theory will produce invisibility.Equations describing the properties of electromagnetic fields were derived in the 19th Century by James Clerk Maxwell, and they can be used to envision how substances would deflect light, said Schurig.

Natural materials would not do the trick, but Duke researchers are designing artificial substances, called metamaterials, that are engineered to be invisible. They use technology for making circuit boards and computer chips to create metamaterials."We're building stuff in the microwave range, using fairly standard lithography," said Schurig.The metamaterials under construction should render an object invisible to radar, although people could still see it, said Schurig. The Duke team's goal is to have a working example sometime next year. It would demonstrate that invisibility cloaks can work.The project has evoked interest from military people who like the idea of cloaking spy satellites so they are invisible to radar, among other things. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is financing the research.

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New mass extinction crater found

What appears to be a 480km-wide (300 miles) crater has been detected under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The scientists behind the discovery say it could have been made by a massive meteorite strike 250 million years ago. The feature at Wilkes Land was found by Nasa satellites that are mapping subtle differences in the Earth's gravity. "This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs," said Prof Ralph von Frese, from Ohio State University, in the US. If the crater really was formed at the time von Frese and colleagues believe, it will raise interest as a possible cause of the "great dying" - the biggest of all the Earth's mass extinctions when 95% of all marine life and 70% of all land species disappeared. Some scientists have long suspected that the extinction at the boundary of the Permian and Triassic (PT) Periods could have occurred quite abruptly - the result of environmental changes brought on by the impact of a giant space rock. It is a similar argument to the one put forward to explain the demise of the dinosaurs at the much later date of 65 million years ago.

A geological structure, known as the Bedout High, in the seabed off what is now Australia, has also been suggested as the possible crater remains from the PT impactor. But the impact explanation for the great dying is an argument that has struggled to find favour. The prevailing theory is that several factors - including supervolcanism and extensive climate warming - combined over thousands of years to strangle the planet's biodiversity.

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Peru bans flights over Inca ruins

The Peruvian government has reversed a decision to allow flights over the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu after an outcry from environmental groups. Peru's Transport and Communications ministry has declared the area around the site a no-fly zone. Environmentalists said a number of rare animals and plants would have been severely affected by the low-flying helicopter tours. Machu Picchu, a world heritage site, is Peru's biggest tourist attraction. Little more than a week after a licence was granted for helicopter tours over South America's most famous ruin, it was taken away again. The Transport and Communications Ministry was forced to reverse its decision after complaints from environmentalists and archaeologists. After a short meeting with Peru's departments of Culture and Natural Resources, the ministry declared a flight restriction in the whole area surrounding Machu Picchu. Several leading environmentalists said the flights would have caused irreparable damage to the ruins and rare wildlife, such as spectacled bears and vicunas, would have been scared away.

Such flights had been allowed during the 1990s but were banned shortly afterwards. Peru's Institute of Natural Resources said those flights led to the disappearance of a rare species of orchid and the Andean Condor from the area. Machu Picchu is one of the best-preserved pre-Columbian ruins on the continent. But experts say the Unesco World Heritage Site is being slowly damaged by the hordes of tourists which visit it every year.

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Silicon-based life forms a reality ?

In the classic Star Trek episode The Devil in the Dark, first broadcast in 1967, miners on Janus VI encounter an entity that destroys mining machinery deep in the planet. It turns out that the problem is an animal - the Horta is a creature whose metabolism is based on silicon - living rock. Just more of the usual sf nonsense? Dr. Tom Gold, emeritus professor of astronomy at Cornell University, believes that organisms based on silicon may live far below the surface of the Earth. Dr. Gold, a member of the Royal Society, is known as an iconoclastic scientist. He previously predicted that vast amounts of more conventional bacteria live miles down within the Earth's crust. Mainstream scientists were skeptical, but many now agree with him. All known organisms, from bacteria to human beings, are based on carbon; it is an important component of DNA, the basis of life as we know it.

Silicon has properties that are similar to carbon; it is in the same group in the Periodic Table. However, silicon atoms are much larger and have difficulty forming double or triple covalent bonds, which are important for biochemical systems.

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"Ogopogo" skull found in Mexico ?

A Penticton man thinks pictures he took of a giant skull in a small-town museum in Mexico may solve a small part of the mystery surrounding Ogopogo. Warren Linklater retired in 1970 and toured North America with his wife Lorna in a motorhome they called the Happy Bus. During a trip around the Gulf of Mexico in 1970, the couple was planning to cross a river near Veracruz when they discovered the ferry they hoped to take had sunk in the middle of the river. This forced the couple to divert to the small town of Tecohitla, about 240 kilometres north of Veracruz. The tiny fishing village had a museum, which contained one very interesting item. "It had a head of a thing that they didn't know what it was," said Linklater. People at the museum told Linklater that the two-metre high skull had been cut off a 12-metre long body with a chain saw. The body was allowed to drift out to sea. Linklater said he believes the skull, with eye sockets about half a metre in diameter and a big snout, may have been from an animal that is somehow related to the creature known locally as the Ogopogo.

Ellen Pedersen, chair of biology department at Okanagan College, said the more likely explanation is that the skull is that of a whale, possibly a humpback whale. Pedersen, who has a master's degree in marine biology from Dalhousie University pointed to the condyle - a large bony bump on the back of the skull - as typical of mammalian skulls. The long snout is also similar to that found in whales. The lack of any obvious nostril along the front of the skull argue against it being reptilian, she said. While the 12-metre length reported for the body would be on the large side for a whale, it isn't unheard of.

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Decoded: the genius of Leonardo da Vinci

They are the thinking of a genius, the 500-year-old notes and drawings that reveal the extraordinary creative imagination of Leonardo da Vinci. But these are not preparatory works for his famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper.They are the notebooks that demonstrate the great Renaissance master's other life as an inventor, engineer and scientist centuries ahead of his time.A new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, is to show more than 60 precious leaves of da Vinci drawings, including works from the British Library, the Royal Collection and the V&A itself. Visitors to the show will be able to puzzle over sheets so fragile they rarely see the light of day.Martin Kemp, a professor of the history of art at Oxford University who has curated the exhibition, admitted many were "difficult" in comparison with da Vinci's better known works. But if the artist's explorations in geometry, anatomy and engineering prove daunting, highlights have been brought to life with animations commissioned from Cosgrove Hall, the company better known for creating Dangermouse.

Professor Kemp hopes the combination will explain elements of his work that are often overlooked. "Most people have some sense that he was a universal man, but I think these should give reality to the idea," he said. "I'm confident that people will go away and think, 'Wow, there's even more to this person than I thought.'"

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Probe to study mighty explosions

Scientists have been giving details of a new mission to explore the Sun. Solar-B is a Japanese spacecraft which will have three telescopes to study solar flares, the huge bursts of energy which erupt from the Sun's surface. Flares can hurl particles and radiation at the Earth, disrupting communications and posing a hazard to astronauts. The probe, which should launch in two weeks' time, has US and UK support, with Britain providing an instrument to investigate extreme ultraviolet light. Whilst scientists understand the flaring process very well, they cannot predict when one of these enormous explosions will occur. The Solar-B mission will try to gain new insights into the flares' so called "trigger phase". "Solar flares are fast and furious - they can cause communication black-outs at Earth within 30 minutes of a flare erupting on the Sun's surface," explained Professor Louise Harra, the UK Solar-B project scientist based at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

"It's imperative that we understand what triggers these events with the ultimate aim of being able to predict them with greater accuracy." And she told the BBC: "There is a big push to go back to the Moon and on to Mars, especially in the US. Even back in the Apollo days, they were very reliant on predictions that were as accurate as possible, because a huge flare would cause serious trouble for the astronaut, if not death." Professor Harra was giving details of the mission to the British Association's Science Festival.

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UFO sighting puzzles residents

In a scene reminiscent of the X Files, a couple have been left scratching their heads after a UFO sighting in their garden. Helen Hanreck, 49, was looking for her cats in the garden when she noticed a bright light in the sky.Miss Hanreck, of Longwalk, Istead Rise, claims she saw more than six red lights moving silently across the night sky.She claims the lights were moving slowly in an inverted V shape with a long tail.The insurance manager called to her partner, Nick Claydon, to have a look at the spectacle on September 8 at 9.45pm.Miss Hanreck says she hoped he would give her a rational explanation to the unexplained lights.She said: "I thought it was flying too close to other aircraft and I did think It's a terrorist attack heading for London'."But then I realised it was going the other way and heading south east. I called to Nick as I thought he would know what the lights were as he has a pilot's licence."But when he came into the garden we were both lost for words. We watched the lights for 10 to 15 minutes and it was like watching Chinese lanterns being dragged silently through the sky."She added: "I am not a believer in spaceships and aliens but I called the police to report it."They told me a taxi driver had already phoned in about it, so I was relieved it was not just us."Mr Claydon, who also saw the UFOs, insists he and his partner are not "nutters".

The 49-year-old said: "We are not flying saucer nutters. We are just normal people, although we did go to Roswell in America to see where a spaceship was supposed to crash."I have always wanted to see something like this as other people go on about it."When we saw it I raced for my camera but I had it on the wrong setting so nothing came out."Miss Hanreck says there may be a perfectly logical explanation although she can't think of one.She added: "I would be interested to hear whether anyone else saw anything."We are so mystified by the whole thing. It's definitely a story we will be able to tell at dinner parties."

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Seeking the round table at Windsor Castle

Evidence of a building linked to the myth of King Arthur and the knights of the round table has been found at Windsor Castle. The circular structure was built by Edward III in the 14th century to house the round table intended to seat the original 300 Knights of the Garter. Archaeological proof of the building was uncovered by members of Channel 4's Time Team in the castle's quadrangle.Although the stones have been removed, rubble in-fill where they were originally located remained in place. The show's presenter, Tony Robinson, said the discovery could help settle years of debate among historians over the existence of the building. "The round table building is one of our most significant ever archaeological finds. It is something that helped to establish Arthurian legends of the knights of the round table.

"We set out to uncover the walls of the building, and they are just where we hoped. Experts have speculated about the structure for centuries, but they have never been able to find the actual building."

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Humans strange, Neanderthals normal ?

Neanderthals are often thought of as the stray branch in the human family tree, but research now suggests the modern human is likely the odd man out. "What people tend to do is draw a line from our ancestors straight to ourselves, and any group that doesn't seem to fit on that line is divergent, distinct, unusual, strange," researcher Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told LiveScience today. "But in terms of evolution of our family tree, the genus Homo, we're the outliers and the Neanderthals are more toward the core."Humans are not at the inevitable end of a sequence, Trinkaus said. "It just happens that we happen to be alive today and Neanderthals are not."Trinkaus spent decades examining fossil skeletons and over time realized that maybe researchers looked at Neanderthals the wrong way. Over the last two years, he systematically combed through fossils, comparing Neanderthal and modern human skull, jaw, tooth, arm, leg traits with those of the earliest members of the genus Homo in terms of their shape. "I wanted to see to what extent Neanderthals are derived, that is distinct, from the ancestral form. I also wanted to see the extent to which modern humans are derived relative to the ancestral form," Trinkaus said.

Trinkaus focused on skeletal features that seemed most strongly linked to genetics, as opposed to any traits that might get influenced by lifestyle, environment or wear and tear. When compared with our common ancestors, Trinkaus discovered modern humans have roughly twice as many uniquely distinct traits as Neanderthals. In other words, Neanderthals are more like the other members of our family tree than modern humans are."In the broader sweep of human evolution, the more unusual group is not Neanderthals, whom we tend to look at as strange, weird and unusual, but it's us, modern humans," Trinkaus said.

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Thousands flock to Malaysian 'ghost tree'

Thousands of people have been flocking to a small and hitherto unremarkable village in northern Malaysia to see what is being called the "ghost-tree" - a tree on which what appears to be a grotesque human face has appeared. It is a betel nut tree, a type of palm that is as common and everyday a sight in the tropics as an oak tree in rural Britain. But etched on one of the fronds of this particular tree is something that looks like a monstrous face, its teeth bared in a snarl and its eyes lost in shadow.It may sound like the plot of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, but people in rural Malaysia are taking it very seriously. Village elders have warned the thousands coming to see the face just to look and not to make any comments, for fear of arousing the wrath of the ghost.You could be forgiven for suspecting the locals have been indulging a little too much in chewing the betel nuts, the mildly intoxicating fruit of the tree, which are popular in many parts of Asia.

Sceptics have pointed out that the face appears to have changed dramatically since the first pictures of it emerged a few days ago, and become considerably larger, more distinct, and scarier and suggested that enterprising locals may have decided to give the thousands flocking to the site more to look at.Villagers have, after all, been selling photographs of the apparition to visitors for 2 ringgits (30p) apiece. But the credulous insisted the changing shape of the face over the days was just further evidence of its ghostly nature.

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Madonna sparks controversy on the cross

Madonna has played her first ever concert in Russia, singing suspended from a cross in a segment the Orthodox Church said was blasphemous. The singer performed in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, marking the end of the Europe leg of her Confessions tour. About 7,000 police joined tens of thousands of fans in the stadium. The show passed off without incident, but some protestors were detained outside. Madonna, 48, has kept a low profile since arriving in Moscow on Monday. Her gig was delayed to avoid a clash with 11 September anniversary events. The venue was also switched at the last minute because of security fears. Tuesday's concert began with the singer descending from the roof in riding gear singing Future Lovers - a song from her recent Confessions On A Dancefloor album. "Hello Russia! Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming," she shouted to the crowd.

The show was unchanged from earlier European dates, including the controversial segment where Madonna sings Live To Tell while suspended from a mirrored cross. During the song, Madonna wears a crimson blouse and a crown of thorns. The singer says the performance is part of an appeal for Aids charities. The chairman of the Russian public committee for moral revival of the homeland, Aleksandr Shargunov, described the concert as a "satanic orgy".

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