Shooting a diamond bullet at anything might be the most Bowie badass thing ever conceived of, but if, as Chinese scientists are now theorizing it can also create nuclear power then we have a new favorite source of alternative energy.
Russian legends tell of a breed of homonids who were excellent herders, tough as (the yet to be invented) nails and most importantly made a sport of fighting Griffins for caches of gold.
It now appears that we have biological proof of these legendary wild men.
Siberia’s Denisova cave held the pinky bone of an unknown early human species, a genetics team reported in March. The Naturejournal study, led by Johannes Krause of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, offered no answer for what happened to this “archaic” human species, more than one million years old and living near their human and Neanderthal cousins as recently as 30,000 years ago.
But at least one scholar has an intriguing answer: “The discovery of material evidence of a distinct hominin (human) lineage in Central Asia as recently as 30,000 years ago does not come as a surprise to those who have looked at the historical and anecdotal evidence of ‘wild people’ inhabiting the region,” wrote folklorist Michael Heaney of the United Kingdom’s Bodleian Library Oxford, in a letter to The Times of London.
So it’s just a matter of finding some Griffin bones. But now that we have a pinky bone of a wild man, we just have to look for the foot he buried in the winged lion’s butt.
Sick of using all sorts of different shapes of things only for the purpose they were initially designed for? Step right up to the bold new future named programmable matter!
To make them self-folding, computer scientist Daniela Rus at MIT and her colleagues embedded strips just 100 microns thick – as wide as a human hair – made of a “shape-memory” nickel-titanium alloy that changes shape when heated or cooled. They also included flexible, stretchable copper-laminated plastic mesh ribbons on the sheets that served as wires.
When electricity running through the coppery ribbons was applied to heat the shape memory alloy strips to 70 degrees C (158 degrees F) or more, they went from flat to bent, causing the entire sheet to fold with them. In the end, the 32-tile sheets the researchers devised could fold into origami boats and airplanes.
This means a whole toolbox could be replaced by one single anamorphic shape shifting tool. Like Mystique, but with a phillips AND flat heads.
[Yahoo]
Our primate brains seem to equate seriousness with touching heavier or harder objects. For example, a resume on thick stock will be taken more serious than something printed off on fax paper.
Think I’m kidding? Would someone with a business card made of stainless steel, weighing 8 lbs. be joking?
New, real-time brain scan accurately predicted 2/3rds of study respondents would make a decision even if they told the administrator they would do the opposite. Could revolutionize advertising, education and determining if bartender at Chilis is flirting with you because she likes you or if she’s just looking for a bigger tip.
[Reuters]
Add communal to the list of adjectives used to describe roaches. New studies show that the disgusting insects will choose to eat together even if other options present themselves.
Cockroaches prefer dining as a group it seems. New research shows the pesky critters cluster and remain feeding on one lump of food even if another morsel exists nearby.
The result demonstrates that cockroaches possess a collective decision-making process previously thought to exist only in highly social species, such as ants and bees, according to the study scientists.
Family dinner, yet another trait that roaches share with the cast of Jersey Shore.
Sure, it’s a weather phenomenon and not mystical mischief makers of lore. Still, pretty cool.
Scientists want to drill deep into Antarctic ice to find life forms that haven’t been exposed to the environment in millions of years. Kurt Russell is not amused.
We now know when sharks are most likely to tear us apart.
Shark attacks are most likely to occur on Sunday in less than 6 feet of water during a new moon, a new study finds. And there’s good reason: That’s when a lot of surfers are in the water. Not coincidentally, surfers wearing black-and-white suits are most likely to be attacked.
Saturdays come in second place, and Fridays make a pretty good showing too, “reflective of people skipping work and taking three-day weekends,” explained George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida.
The scribbling you hear is the frantic rerouting of my cousin’s Sunday moonlight water wedding under a new moon.
[Yahoo]
If you had “strange but undeniable resulting pattern caused by a million years of whipping from Martian wind” in the What With The Bizarre Shape Of The Mars Ice Cap pool, please collect your winnings.
According to a new NASA study, the deep grooves in the ice cap, once considered to be proof of a horrific volcanic eruption which left chasms that could easily hold the Grand Canyon, now look the the results of eons of work done by natural forces.
It points to an ancient process, over millions of years, by which the ice and dust accreted while at they same time were sculpted by a powerful, persistent force: the Martian wind.
“Nobody realised that there would be such complex structures in the layers,” Holt said.
“The layers record a history of ice accumulation, erosion and wind transport. From that we can recover a history of climate that’s much more detailed than anybody expected.”
So, there we go.
[AFP]
A new breakthrough in dental technology could revolutionize tooth implants for those who happen to take a puck to the mouth in game 4 of the Western Conference final and sprinkle the ice with seven adult teeth.
Dr. Jeremy Mao, the Edward V. Zegarelli Professor of Dental Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, has unveiled a growth factor-infused, three-dimensional scaffold with the potential to regenerate an anatomically correct tooth in just nine weeks from implantation. By using a procedure developed in the university’s Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory, Dr. Mao can direct the body’s own stem cells toward the scaffold, which is made of natural materials. Once the stem cells have colonized the scaffold, a tooth can grow in the socket and then merge with the surrounding tissue.
It’s the first implant to utilize the body’s own resources in reconstructing a tooth. Paging Mr. Keith.
[Pop Sci]
What’s worse than a brutal killing machine with no remorse? An invisible brutal killing machine with no remorse.
A new study claims that ten percent off all sharks are “luminous,” meaning they produce a light which combined with normal water refraction allows them to appear invisible. Now the inevitable death suffered by loopy drunk hoes in the first five minutes of Jaws can be achieved with heretofore unknowable stealth.
This shark’s shimmer originates from light emitting organs called photophores from underneath its body, “effectively creating a glow from that region,” said Claes, a researcher in the Laboratory of Marine Biology, Earth and Life Institute at the Catholic University of Louvain.
“Since many predators have upward-looking eyes, it is a common method of camouflage in the mesopelagic zone (from 656 to 3,281 feet below the surface), although it is the first time it is demonstrated in sharks,” he added.
Curious to know what folks in regions where these sharks prey thought has happening to hapless halved swimmers who would wash ashore.
“We can’t see any sharks. Maybe the dreaded sea-faring Kevin James has returned!”
A team led Dr. Craig Venter has successfully created a synthetic organism that dictates action to living cells. This opens the doors to altering cells to produce medicines, fuels and absorb greenhouse gases.
“I think they’re going to potentially create a new industrial revolution,” he said.
“If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide.”
Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.
There’s a predictable backlash to Venter’s efforts claiming that he doesn’t know for sure how the synthetic organisms will react in nature or that he just plain “playing God”. I’d give them more attention in this post if they didn’t read so much like hand-wringing nay sayers.
[BBC]
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A team of scientists visited a lush wilderness once dubbed “The Lost World” and guess what they found? No, not a disappointing sequel starring Vince Vaughn for no reason… three species that might be totally new to science!
The array of new species, which include several new mammals, a reptile, an amphibian, no fewer than twelve insects, and the remarkable discovery of a new bird, was found by a collaborative team of international and Indonesian scientists participating in Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), which explored Indonesia’s remote Foja Mountains on the island of New Guinea in late 2008.
RAP surveys, which typically last three to four weeks, bring together teams of field biologists to conduct rapid, first-cut assessments of the biological value of selected areas. The biologists on this expedition endured torrential rain storms and life-threatening flash floods as they tracked species from the low foothills at Kwerba village to the top of the range at 2,200 meters (7,200 feet), reporting notable discoveries that included a bizarre spike-nosed tree frog; an oversized, but notably tame, woolly rat; a gargoyle-like, bent-toed gecko with yellow eyes; an imperial pigeon; and a tiny forest wallaby, the smallest member of the kangaroo family documented in the world.
Above is a picture of the Smallest Wallaby, which sounds like a children’s book. What’s the over/under on when it’s spotted peaking out of Miley Cyrus’ purse on a red carpet?
