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Noah”s ark discovery ‘a hoax’?

April 29, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 29 (ANI): An American ark-hunter claims that the latest discovery of Noah”s ark in eastern Turkey could be a hoax.

A group of Chinese and Turkish explorers had announced this week that they are ”99.9 percent” sure of their discovery on Mt. Ararat, reports CSMonitor.com.

However, Dr. Randall Price, an evangelical Christian and former member of the Chinese-led team that announced the finding, says the latest purported finding may not withstand closer scrutiny.

“If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that’s fine. My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be,” he says. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: christians, discovery, Dr Randall, Eastern Turkey, Explorers, hoax, Led Team, Mt Ararat, Noah Ark, Noah S Ark, Randall Price, scrutiny

Overweight hedgehogs put on diet

April 9, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

A Scottish animal rescue centre forced 12 hedgehogs to go on a diet because they had grown too fat to roll into a ball to protect themselves, it said Thursday.

The prickly animals had to lose weight before being released back into the wild by the Scottish Wildlife Rescue Centre, which had taken them in over the winter.

“The hedgehogs first came in to our care last December, but they only started to show signs of piling on the pounds in late January,” centre manager Colin Seddon said in a statement announcing their release.

“They have lost a bit of weight as a result of us rationing their daily cat food.

“But we’ve left them with some fat reserves because it looks as though we aren’t out of the cold snap just yet.”

Mr Seddon told the BBC the hedgehogs need some fat for hibernation.

“But when they get too much fat then they’re not able to roll into a little tight ball which makes them very vulnerable to predators like badgers and foxes,” he said.

“The problem was that they had to be kept in for an extended period because of the cold weather and if we keep them indoors they stay relatively warm and they don’t hibernate so all they do is just eat.

“They’re just like people, we all put on weight at different speeds and we all exercise at different amounts and hedgehogs are the same.”

The newly-trim animals were released into the wild at the Explorers Garden in Pitlochry, central Scotland.

Explorers Garden’s manager Julia Corden says she was “really moved” by the hedgehogs.

“I was delighted when Colin got in touch to say they were to be released,” she said.

“They will find plenty of log and leaf piles to nest in, whilst living happily with their garden neighbours – red squirrels, pine martens, and lots of bird life.”

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Pre-hispanic citadel found in Peru

September 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 14 (ANI): A group of explorers has discovered an impressive and beautiful citadel surrounded by abundant vegetation, supposedly built by a pre-Hispanic civilization, at an altitude of 3,000 meters above sea level in the community of Limon, Celendin province, in Peru.

The discovery covers about eight hectares and is located near the Maranon river, Miguel Angel Arellano Briceno, president of the Regional Chamber of Tourism (Caretur), and leader of the expedition, told Peruvian news agency Andina.

“The place is impressive and is divided into two apartment complexes covered with weeds, where you can see pre-Inca stone buildings and Inca constructions deteriorated with time, in addition to sidewalks, chulpas, cave paintings and potteries,” Arellano said.

According to him, the area has vast vegetation, variety of orchids and wildlife.

“The finding is important because it would change the concept we had of Cajamarca, that the last Inca remain was the Cuarto del Rescate (Ransom Chamber),” he said.

The Ransom Room is a small room located in Cajamarca.

It is considered by most Peruvian historians to be the place where the Inca Empire came to an end with the capture and eventual execution of the Inca Emperor Atahualpa. (ANI)

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6th grader names NASA’s Mars rover ‘Curiosity’

May 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 28 (ANI): NASA has selected ‘Curiosity’, the name given by a sixth-grade student from Kansas, US, for its Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011.

Twelve-year-old Clara Ma from the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa submitted the winning entry, “Curiosity.”

As her prize, Ma wins a trip to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where she will be invited to sign her name directly onto the rover as it is being assembled.

A NASA panel selected the name following a nationwide student contest that attracted more than 9,000 proposals via the Internet and mail.

The panel primarily took into account the quality of submitted essays.

Name suggestions from the Mars Science Laboratory project leaders and a non-binding public poll also were considered.

The activity invited ideas from students 5 – 18 years old enrolled in a US school. The contest started in November 2008. Entries were accepted until midnight January 25.

Ma decided to enter the rover-naming contest after she heard about it at her school.

“I was really interested in space, but I thought space was something I could only read about in books and look at during the night from so far away,” Ma said.

“I thought that I would never be able to get close to it, so for me, naming the Mars rover would at least be one step closer,” she added.

“Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone’s mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day,” Ma wrote in her winning essay.

“Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn’t be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder,” she wrote.

“Students from every state suggested names for this rover. That’s testimony to the excitement Mars missions spark in our next generation of explorers,” said Mark Dahl, the mission’s program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Curiosity will be larger and more capable than any craft previously sent to land on the Red Planet. It will check to see whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of life.

The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several chemical building blocks of life. (ANI)

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Today’s kids are not playing enough, warns expert

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, May 25 (ANI): Stressing on the importance of play among children, a leading international development psychologist has said that today’s kids are not playing enough, which could affect their mental development in adulthood.

Dr Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, of Temple University in Philadelphia, has warned that the trouble with the adults of tomorrow is that the children of today are not playing enough.

“It’s as serious for our culture and society as is global warming,” the Courier Mail quoted Hirsh-Pasek as saying.

She added: “And in 30 years we’re going to find out that we haven’t created explorers any more as children. We haven’t created children who know how to flexibly think because we’ve taken away their playtime . . . and supplemented it with more rigid instructional time.”

She also said that there were two types of valuable play-the first is free play in which children let their imagination define the rules.

The second is play-based learning which is “a very content-rich exploration based environment for young children that to them looks for all the world like it’s playful, and to adults can have the purpose of exposing them to different kinds of arts, social studies, psychology.”

Kathy will present a paper on the importance of play at a Brisbane conference organised by childhood education group C and K. (ANI)

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NASA robots may be destroying signs of life on Mars

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 25 (ANI): NASA’s robot explorers may have been destroying the signs of life on Mars, say researchers.

When the twin Viking landers, sent on the planet in 1976, failed to detect even minute quantities of organic compounds, scientists were puzzled because even if Mars has never had life, comets and asteroids that have struck the planet should have scattered at least some organic molecules – though not produced by life – over its surface.

Many scientists have suggested that organics were cleansed from the surface by naturally occurring, highly reactive chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide.

Even last year, NASA’s Phoenix lander, also failed to detect organics on Mars, but it did stumble on something in the Martian soil that could have been hiding the organics-a class of chemicals called perchlorates.

Perchlorates, are relatively harmless at low temperatures, but when heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius they release a lot of oxygen, which tends to cause any nearby combustible material to burn.

Both the Phoenix and Viking landers searched for organic molecules by heating soil samples to similarly high temperatures to evaporate them and analyse them in gas form.

Douglas Ming of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues tried heating organics and perchlorates like this on Earth, he found that the resulting combustion left no trace of organics behind.

Chris McKay of Ames said that iron oxides have also been suspected of interfering with the detection of organics, but perchlorates are probably far more effective.

He added that even if organics make up a few parts per thousand of the soil, Viking or Phoenix could have missed them, thus it is too soon to conclude that these materials are not there.

“We haven’t looked the right way,” he said.

Organic chemicals are not the only substance that mars robots may have missed on the Red Planet, they could have even missed out on carbonate salts littering the surface.

The researchers presented their results at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. (ANI)

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Scientist seeks origin of creativity

March 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 9 (ANI): In a unique study, a British scientist is trying to pinpoint the origins of creativity by examining the lives of more than 100 eminent 20th-century scientists, historians and explorers.

According to a report in the Independent, the study, one of the biggest of its kind, is currently led by Professor Alan Macfarlane of Cambridge University.

It began in 1983 and will be carried on after he retires.

“I’m interested in the actual creative moment,” said Professor Macfarlane. “Did they get a moment of inspiration while on a walk, or listening to music?” he pondered.

Macfarlane believes a keen sense of curiosity lies at the heart of creativity, and suggests that it is often found in “people who live on the margins or the border between different cultures”.

The research will be published later this year. (ANI)

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Explorers begin trek to discover melt rate of Arctic sea-ice

March 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 2 (ANI): A British exploration team has begun a grueling trek to the North Pole to discover how quickly the Arctic sea-ice is melting.

According to a report by BBC News, for the trek, renowned Arctic explorer Pen Hadow and two companions were dropped onto the Antarctic ice by plane 800km (500 miles) off the northern coast of Canada on February 28.

During their 1,000km journey, the team plans to take measurements of the thickness of the ice. It will be the most detailed survey of its kind this season, and should be completed in late May.

Satellites have shown how the area of Arctic sea-ice has been shrinking in recent years, but this expedition should give scientists a better idea of how thin the ice is becoming.

The sea-ice is widely believed to be melting at an increased rate because of warmer air temperatures above the ice and because of warmer waters below it.

The major scientific institutions and agencies that study the Arctic attribute the changes to global warming.

If, as scientists tell us, the ice is thinning quickly, then it should set alarm bells ringing around the world.

Only a few years ago, researchers predicted that by the end of this century, the Arctic could be free of ice in summer. Some now say that could come far sooner.

Hadow, and the other members of the British Catlin Arctic Survey group, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley will attempt to gather important new data about the state of the ice in winter and early spring – when the ice reaches its greatest extent.

It is intended to give scientists the very latest “ground truth”, to better constrain their models and their interpretation of the observations coming from satellites.

Arctic ice modeller Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, a science adviser to the survey, hopes the data will enable him to refine his forecast of when the first ice-free summer might arrive.

Currently, he has it down for 2013, but with an uncertainty range between 2010 and 2016.

According to Hadow, this expedition, which could last up to 100 days, would be about science and discovery.

The team will be trekking for up to 12 hours a day for 100 days.

“We’re making the surface journey because that’s the only way we have of gathering these direct observations of how thick the snow and the ice is. That’s what the scientists really need to know,” said Hadow. (ANI)

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