Gizmorama
October 20, 2010
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Silly Shaped Bands are Traded & Collected all over the world.
http://pd.gophercentral.com/u/1095/c/186/a/474
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Good Morning,
A truly magnificent article explores a study on one part-
icular dietary element of Stone Age culture. Read all the
details on how pre-historic bread was made in the last
article.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Antarctic search for cosmic rays is on
MADISON, Wis. - A "telescope" deep under Antarctica's ice
has found the first signals scientists say may explain mys-
terious particles that shower the Earth from outer space.
Researchers, hoping to explain what produces cosmic rays and
elusive particles called neutrinos that constantly bombard
our planet, buried sensors a mile below the Antarctica's ice
cap to detect fleeting flashes of light caused when these
high energy particles and rays collide with atoms in the ice,
The Daily Telegraph reported Monday. The collisions are so
rare only a few will be recorded each year, but the scien-
tists say they have already detected collisions since the
first sensors were buried in 2006, the British newspaper
said. The pattern of light recorded by the sensors allows
scientists to plot the trajectory of the particles and rays
to determine where in the galaxy they originated. Although
the last of its sensors won't be installed until December,
researchers have already begun analyzing data from the $271
million IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The data shows a con-
centration of cosmic rays coming from an area close to the
constellation of Vela in the skies of the Southern Hemis-
phere, known to be an area of space emitting large amounts
of radiation throughout the galaxy. Scientists say when the
observatory is finished they will be able to accurately
identify the source of the stream of high energy cosmic rays
and neutrinos. Eventually the researchers on the project,
being led by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will bury
more than 5,000 optical sensors deep in the ice, covering an
area of about 1 cubic kilometer, about 0.2 cubic miles.
New techniqe aiding planet searches
TUCSON - Astronomers in Chile say they've obtained images of
a planet in a much closer orbit around its parent star than
any other extrasolar planet previously found. The discover
was made possible by technology developed at the University
of Arizona that blocks out certain parts of a star's light,
allowing planets to be spotted from signals previously
drowned out by the star's glare, ScienceDaily.com reported
Sunday. Installed on the European Southern Observatory's Very
Large Telescope in Chile is a small piece of glass with a
highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an
Apodizing Phase Plate, the device blocks out the starlight
in a very defined way, its developers say. "This technique
opens new doors in planet discovery," said Phil Hinz, direc-
tor of the UA's Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics at
Steward Observatory. "Until now, we only were able to look
at the outer planets in a solar system. ? Now we can see
planets on orbits much closer to their parent star. "The
technique we developed allows us to search for lower-mass
gas giants about the size of Jupiter, which are more repre-
sentative of what is out there,. "For the first time, we can
search around bright, nearby stars such as Alpha Centauri,
to see if they have gas giants."
U.N. convention on biodiversity convenes
NAGOYA, Japan - The loss of global biodiversity is threaten-
ing human societies as well as the natural world, a United
Nations convention in Japan has been told. The warning came
at the start of a two-week meeting in Nagoya of the U.N.'s
Convention on Biological Diversity, the BBC reported Monday.
"[Buddhist scholar] Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki said 'the prob-
lem of nature is the problem of human life'. Today, unfortu-
nately, human life is a problem for nature," Ahmed Djoghlaf,
executive secretary of the convention, told delegates in his
opening speech. An assessment by the United Nations earlier
this year showed that living standards in some parts of the
world were being affected by the loss and degradation of
forests, coral reefs, rivers and other elements of the nat-
ural world. "All life on Earth exists thanks to the benefits
from biodiversity in the forms of fertile soil, clear water
and clean air," Japanese Environment Minister Ryo Matsumoto
told the attendees. "We are now close to a 'tipping point'
-- that is, we are about to reach a threshold beyond which
biodiversity loss will become irreversible, and may cross
that threshold in the next 10 years if we do not make pro-
active efforts for conserving biodiversity," he said. Dele-
gates in Nagoya will be considering comprehensive agreement
to tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity loss as well
as setting new targets for conservation, the BBC reported.
Study: Bread was in Stone Age diets
FLORENCE, Italy - The idea that our ancient hunter-gatherer
ancestors lived on low-carb meat diets is wrong, Italian
researchers say -- they liked their daily bread, too. Resear-
chers at the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early His-
tory in Florence analyzed the wear marks and traces of plants
on 30,000-year-old grindstones found in Italy, Russia and the
Czech Republic, NewScientist.com reported. Their examination
showed they had been used as mortars and pestles to grind
plants like cat's tail and fern roots, both of which contain
large amounts of high-energy starch and carbohydrates. The
study suggests Stone Age humans across Europe knew how to
make flour, a complex process of drying, grinding and finally
cooking harvested roots to make them digestible. The develop-
ment of flour may have helped hunter-gatherers survive
changes in the climate, from chilly winters to parched sum-
mers, researcher Anna Revedin says. The reason most scien-
tists believed Paleolithic humans lived solely on wild meat,
Revedin says, is that overzealous archaeologists washed pre-
vious plant evidence away as they cleaned the ancient tools
found at dig sites. "This is the first time anybody has tried
to find vegetable material on them," she says.
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