Science Special News

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.