Headless Egypt king statue could give clues to Cleopatra”s tomb

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 20 (ANI): A massive, headless statue of a Greek king has been found in the ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple, indicating that the structure could be the final resting place of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, experts say.

Archaeologists have been excavating around the temple of Taposiris Magna in hopes of finding the couple”s graves.

The black granite headless statue – about 6 feet tall bears the name of King Ptolemy IV near the figure”s base.

Ptolemy IV was one of several Greek royals who ruled Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, from 332 to 30 B.C. An inscription written in Greek and hieroglyphics reads Ptolemy IV—who ruled from 221 to 205 B.C.—commissioned the temple.

“If you are arguing for it to be a burial place for Cleopatra, then the later it is built, the more chance we have to have connections with her—the greater the possibility it was still active during her lifetime,” National Geographic News quoted Salima Ikram of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, who is not associated with the Taposiris digs.

Cleopatra VII was the last queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty, ruling as co-regent with her son, Ptolemy XV. The newfound statue—along with two statues of the Egyptian goddess Isis and the ruins of the temple”s main gate—are the latest pieces of evidence that link Taposiris Magna to the Ptolemaic rulers, and perhaps to the ill-fated lovers.

Inside the temple, the team found a place for a sacred pool, rooms likely used for mummification, and chapels dedicated to the gods Osiris and Isis. The powerful pair was husband and wife in Egyptian mythology—a fact that could have inspired the couple to choose the temple as their burial site.

“Cleopatra could [represent] Isis and Marc Antony could be Osiris,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), who is supervising the digs.

It is probable that this was a burial site for them because the legendary couple would have wanted to be sure Roman conquerors couldn”t find and desecrate their graves.

Excavation leader Martinez added that the sheer size of Taposiris Magna would have made any tombs there hard to find.

“This temple complex is five square kilometers,” or roughly two square miles, Martinez said. “We have been searching with new technology—how would the Romans have found them?” (ANI)

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Oldest known Central American pyramid tomb holds royal burials, jewels

May 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 19 (ANI): Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known Mesoamerican pyramid tomb, around 2,700 years old, in Chiapa de Corzo, Mexico.

The discovery may help settle a debate as to when and how the mysterious Zoque civilization arose, according to excavation leader Bruce Bachand, an archaeologist at Brigham Young University.

“We are trying to distill from the archaeology how the Zoque emerged out of an Olmec ancestral base, and it seems like it happened right around the time this tomb appeared,” National Geographic News quoted Bachand as saying.

The pyramid-top tomb had been coated head-to-toe in sacred red pigment. At the center of the tomb, Bachand”s team found a male in a pearl-beaded loincloth. To his side lay a companion, likely a female.

On their waists were jade beads shaped like howler monkeys, crocodiles, and gourds. Seashells inlaid with obsidian formed tiny masks for their mouths, which in turn held jade and pyrite ornaments.

Arrayed around the royal corpses were offerings to the gods: ceramic pots, ritual axes perhaps associated with fertility, iron-pyrite mirrors, and a red-painted stucco mask.

“These people were at the top of society, there is no doubt about it,” said Bachand.

Researchers believe that prior to the construction of this tomb, Chiapa de Corzo was a large village along a major trade route, likely operated by the Olmec from their capital city, La Venta, on the Gulf Coast.

As Chiapa de Corzo gained wealth and power it began to assert its own identity, Bachand said. The newly discovered tomb, which includes Olmec and Zoque traits, suggests this transition was well underway by 700 B.C

The pyramid, with its long, terraced platform, presages the classic Maya “E group” layout, named after the Group E at the Uaxactún site in Guatemala. Aligned with the sunrise on solstices and equinoxes, E groups appear to have astrological significance.

“So this isn”t just any old pyramid,” Bachand said. “It appears to be one of the earliest E groups in all of Mesoamerica. That”s why we are investigating it.

“And now that we”ve discovered this early tomb—well heck, no one has discovered a tomb this early in any pyramid, never mind an E group pyramid,” he added.

Bachand and his team seem to have found evidence that Chiapa de Corzo was an emerging capital as the Olmec civilization was on its way out – a bluish green jade ceremonial axe, perhaps of Olmec origin, at the base of the pyramid.

In 2008 the team had found a pit full of similar axes—including one with an Olmec design on it—in the plaza next to the pyramid as well as a nearby pit where the axes were manufactured.

The discovery of another axe deep inside the tomb, Bachand added, “is definitely associated with an axe offering of Olmec inspiration.” (ANI)

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Solar Sail spacecraft can travel ten times faster than conventional rockets

May 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 18 (ANI): Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was set to launch its solar sail hybrid spacecraft which can not only negate the need for on board fuel, but also travel 5 to 10 times faster than conventional spacecrafts in space.

However, the launch was delayed due to bad weather at the site.

The spacecraft, dubbed Ikaros – for Interplanetary Kite-Craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun, has a hybrid solar sail—propelled partly by solar pressure, partly by traditional solar power.

Once in space, the cylindrical, 677-pound (307-kilogram) craft will separate from the rocket and spin itself to unfurl its roughly 46-foot-wide (14-meter-wide) solar sail.

Synonymous to a yacht on sea, when the sun’s rays bounce onto a mirror like aluminized solar sail, each photon strikes and transmits its momentum to the spacecraft, which begins to gather speed in the almost frictionless environment of space – reaching up to ten times the speed of regular rockets.

“Ikaros is considered a hybrid, because the sail”s membrane—itself just 0.0075 millimeters thick—sports thin-film solar cells for generating electricity, which will power Ikaros”s high-efficiency ion-propulsion engines,” National Geographic News quoted Yuichi Tsuda, deputy project manager for Ikaros, as saying.

“As soon as the sail has deployed, the craft will be able to start solar sailing,” Tsuda said. “Over the six-month scheduled duration of the mission, we believe it will reach a velocity of a hundred meters [328 feet] per second.”

Flying along the same path as the Akatsuki spacecraft, Ikaros will aim for Venus, but researchers are hoping it can fly beyond too.

The craft will send back data on the basic state of the core spacecraft, how much power it is generating versus how much it”s using, and the status of the sail.

Six cameras aboard the craft will help the team monitor how the sail deploys and how it fares during its trip.

Although increasing distance from Earth will make communication increasingly difficult, Tsuda”s team hopes to be able to operate the vehicle and collect data for at least a year.

After that, lessons learned from Ikaros will be applied to its planned successor, a craft equipped with a 164-foot-wide (50-meter-wide) solar-power sail that will be launched toward Jupiter around 2020.

JAXA has been working closely with the California-based Planetary Society, which aims to get its own solar sail—LightSail-1, which will carry a lighter craft, according to Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society.

This craft, however, will be capable of higher accelerations and an important step toward utilization of solar power to harness energy.

Friedman said the technology is crucial for the next generation of space travel.

“It is the only known technology which may someday enable interstellar flight,” he said.

The challenges of this power are that the added weight of people and supplies may cause difficulty in attaining the required acceleration to take off.

But Tsuda believes that Ikaros will open up new frontiers in robotic space exploration.

“On the 2020 mission, we hope to be able to go to the Jupiter system and the concentrated belt of asteroids that exist nearby that are known as the Trojan asteroid region,” Tsuda said. (ANI)

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Our bodies make their own morphine

April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 27 (ANI): Human bodies may possess the biochemical machinery to produce a small but steady amount of natural morphine, according to a new study.

In the study, it was shown that mice produce the “incredible painkiller”, and that humans and other mammals possess the same chemical road map for making it, said study co-author Meinhart Zenk, who studies plant-based pharmaceuticals at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

To come up with finding, boffins injected mice with an extra dose of a natural brain chemical called tetrahydropapaveroline (THP), which humans and mice are known to produce, reports The National Geographic News.

And then, by using a tool called a mass spectrometer to analyze the mouse urine, the team was able to tell that THP underwent chemical changes in the body that created morphine.

The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)

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Iceland volcano ash plume sparks health fears

April 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 19 (ANI): The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a health warning to Europeans due to the eruption of Iceland”s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which has created an enormous ash plume.

WHO has warned people to stay indoors or use masks when the ash begins to fall.

Ash is made up of tiny pieces of glassy sand and dust produced when explosive eruptions demolish solid rock or spray lava into the sky, where it solidifies before falling.

Experts say that ionhaling these particulates can cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.

Finer particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause breathing problems, particularly among those with respiratory issues like asthma or emphysema.

However, other scientists believe that ash fall will be too limited and scattered to have much impact outside of Iceland.

“Locally, close to the eruption, it can cause health problems. But I seriously doubt that it will have a significant effect beyond that area,” National Geographic News quoted Thordarson, of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, as saying. (ANI)

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Iceland volcano ash plume sparks health fears

April 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 19 (ANI): The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a health warning to Europeans due to the eruption of Iceland”s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which has created an enormous ash plume.

WHO has warned people to stay indoors or use masks when the ash begins to fall.

Ash is made up of tiny pieces of glassy sand and dust produced when explosive eruptions demolish solid rock or spray lava into the sky, where it solidifies before falling.

Experts say that ionhaling these particulates can cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.

Finer particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause breathing problems, particularly among those with respiratory issues like asthma or emphysema.

However, other scientists believe that ash fall will be too limited and scattered to have much impact outside of Iceland.

“Locally, close to the eruption, it can cause health problems. But I seriously doubt that it will have a significant effect beyond that area,” National Geographic News quoted Thordarson, of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, as saying. (ANI)

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Gorillas may become extinct in ten years in central Africa

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 25 (ANI): A new UN report has said that gorillas may become extinct across much of central Africa in ten years or so.

According to National Geographic News, the report says that among the threats to the gorillas are surges in human populations, the ape-meat trade, and logging and mining as well as the spread of the Ebola virus and other diseases

Stretching from the Atlantic Coast to the East African countries of Burundi and Rwanda, the Congo Basin covers much of central Africa and has traditionally been a rain forest refuge for gorillas and other apes.

But “with the rate of poaching and habitat loss, gorillas in the region may disappear from most of their present range in less than 10 to 15 years from now,” according to the report, co-authored by the international law enforcement agency Interpol.

Adding to the gorillas’ plight is the shedding of taboos against eating gorilla meat, according to the report.

Increasingly, mining and logging camps are hiring professional poachers to provide “bush meat”—wild animal flesh—for their workers and for refugees who have fled nearby conflict.

Though gorillas still make up a tiny percentage of the bush-meat trade, losses can be devastating, because gorilla numbers are already so low and their communities are so tightly knit, experts said.

“If you kill a gorilla, you can compare it to killing a family member in a human family,” said Christian Nellemann, the new report’s editor in chief. “In this case, you also disrupt their movement patterns and feeding sites,” he added.

Also disruptive are pathogenic threats, as many of them worsening as humans stream into formerly virgin forests, according to the report.

In addition to naturally occurring pathogens such as the Ebola virus, which “may be contributing substantially to great ape declines in central Africa”, human and livestock-based gastrointestinal pathogens such as E. coli can weaken ape immune systems and reproductive success, the report said.

“The most threatened Congo Basin gorilla species is the eastern lowland gorilla, which lives mostly in eastern Congo”s North and South Kivu regions,” said Nellemann, a UN Environment Programme official.

The discovery of a previously unknown group of 750 eastern lowland gorillas buoyed hopes in 2009, but overall numbers are still down from about 17,000 in the mid-1990s to 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas today. (ANI)

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“Goddess” glacier melting in Kashmir

March 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 25 (ANI): Latest data from a 2009 New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) expedition shows that in the past four decades, the Kolahoi glacier in Kashmir, which is popularly known as “goddess of light”, has lost between 15 to 18 percent of its total volume.

The Kolahoi glacier in the western Himalaya is known as Gwash Brani—“goddess of light”—to the millions of people in India and Pakistan who depend on its yearly run-off for survival.

Surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the world’s tallest mountain range, the Kashmir region, disputed over by India and Pakistan, is home to thousands of glaciers.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the latest data from a 2009 TERI expedition shows that in the past four decades, Kolahoi has lost between 15 to 18 percent of its total volume.

The research also shows that the glacier is retreating by almost ten feet (three meters) a year.

Last year, TERI established the first program to measure Kashmir’s glaciers, selecting Kolahoi, in the Liddar Valley, as a focus area.

A local called Ganai was hired by TERI to help with the expeditions to Kolahoi, making him the first in his village to study climate change.

Though Ganai does not have enough scientific experience to trek to the accumulation zone, he and six other members of the team play a vital role collecting data on the lower portions of the glacier know as the ablation zone, or the area where the ice melts.

Ganai and colleagues first drill a series of holes into the ice of the ablation zone and then take pre-measured sticks and place them in the holes.

After each melting season, the team will measure the length of the pole exposed, take notes, and repeat the procedure.

This tells them how much the volume of the glacier has changed between melting seasons.

According to TERI glaciologist Shresth Tayal, the research done on Kolahoi will have a global impact.

“We do not have much reliable data on western Himalayan glaciers,” he said.

“If you want to know what the global impact of climate change is going to be and make accurate projections, you can not exclude the Himalaya from the Rockies and the Alps,” he added.

To measure the flow of meltwater through the Liddar Valley, TERI established a monitoring station in the West Liddar River, the main tributary of the Jhelum River, which is one of the largest rivers in Kashmir.

“Each day the station is collecting data on a looming disaster,” Tayal said. (ANI)

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Males of some species develop bigger testes for competitive edge

March 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 24 (ANI): In species where competition for females is fierce, males have evolved bigger testes to beat their rivals, a new study has confirmed.

The study showed that testicle size matters in highly competitive animal societies, where females mate with many males or in which females live in groups ruled by an alpha male that must constantly defend his harem.

However, the females do not really seek out more endowed males. Instead, the rivalry occurs after mating, as sperm battle inside the female.

As expected, males with larger testes produce more sperm.

Males are generally known to have developed tricks for edging out their challengers, such as displaying brighter plumage—often seen in birds—or wooing females with gifts.

Testes size is part of this competition, according to study leader Carl Soulsbury, a biologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K.

Soulsbury said that evidence has also been found that within species, the biggest, most attractive, and healthiest males have the heftiest testes, which indicates that the two might have a link.

Previous studies had looked at testes size and mating behaviour, which could be unreliable, said Soulsbury.

Thus, he examined previously published data on several wild mammal species that used genetic testing to prove that litters of offspring had been sired by many males, or, in group-living species, that offspring had been sired by a single dominant male.

Then he used data on testes mass—as well as other factors, such as length of mating season—to develop a statistical model.

The model revealed that “where there”s a high competition between males, evolution has selected for larger testes,” said Soulsbury.

“It confirms what scientists have expected, but is the first to prove it using genetic data across a range of mammals,” National Geographic News quoted him as saying.

Men do not compete in the same way for women, meaning that their testes stay relatively small.

The study has been published in the journal PLoS ONE. (ANI)

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Scientists discover first amphibious insects in Hawaii

March 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 24 (ANI): Scientists have discovered the first truly amphibious insects in Hawaii”s fast-moving freshwater streams, which are equally at home on land or underwater.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the amphibious caterpillars belong to the moth genus Hyposmocoma, a group that includes more than 400 species.

The 14 newfound species are never seen far from water.

But unlike purely aquatic caterpillars, these species can behave the same in water or on land for indefinite periods of time.

“When you put these guys in water, they run around and eat. You take them out, and they”re perfectly fine too,” said study co-author Daniel Rubinoff of the University of Hawaii.

“No other insect that we”re aware of can do that. Actually, no other animal that I”m aware of can do that,” he added.

Like other Hyposmocoma species, the amphibious caterpillars spend their lives inside cocoon-like cases made of hardened silk, occassionally poking out their heads to feed or navigate.

Rubinoff and colleagues initially thought the cases functioned like scuba tanks, storing air for the caterpillars.

But “when we dissected the cases underwater, there were no air bubbles,” Rubinoff said.

It”s still unclear how the caterpillars breathe underwater.

“It may be a specialized organ that we haven”t found, or it may be that their skin is thinner than terrestrial (caterpillars), which permits them to breathe directly through their skin,” Rubinoff said.

The thin-skin theory could explain why the caterpillars are found only in fast-flowing streams, where the water is well oxygenated.

“If you put them in an aquarium, you need to put a bubbler in,” Rubinoff said. “Take the bubbler out, and you”re going to end up with stinking, rotting caterpillars in the water,” he added.

When it”s time to turn into moths, the caterpillars seal themselves inside their silken homes while floating at or near the surface of the water.

When the moths emerge, it”s only a short trip to the surface and then to the sky.

“The moths, to our knowledge, are not swimmers,” Rubinoff said.

Despite their flexibility in living conditions, the amphibious caterpillars are already endangered because of human activities, the researchers note.

For instance, many streams in Hawaii are being rerouted down cement causeways to irrigate sugarcane fields or for other uses, according to Rubinoff.

When this happens, the amphibious caterpillars disappear.

“It”s tragic, because these caterpillars are doing some pretty spectacular things that don”t occur anywhere else in the world,” Rubinoff said.

“They need some kind of conservation attention but have received none,” he added. (ANI)

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How men produce 1,500 sperms in a second

March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 19 (ANI): A man produces 1,500 sperm in a single second and researchers have now found how males manage to accomplish this seminal feat.

For a long time, it is believed that stem cells in the testicles—also called germline stem cells—become sperm only through a simple, two-step process.

However, the researchers found that germline stem cells apparently can become sperm in several different ways, according to new experiments with mice.

“What we”re saying is there isn”t a strict linear progression from a stem cell to a [sperm] cell. Sometimes the stem cells go through several cell divisions to get there, sometimes they don”t,” National Geographic News quoted study co-author Robert Braun, associate director at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, as saying.

The scientists also found that a cell on the way to become a sperm cell can revert back to being a germline stem cell—previously thought impossible.

For the new study, scientists genetically engineered mice so that their germline stem cells appeared fluorescent, allowing the team to watch the cells” development.

The researchers also “labelled” specific cells within the mouse germline stem cells a certain colour and observed what happened to them over a period of several days.

The research also revealed that sperm develop from a smaller subset of specialized germline stem cells in the testes than previously thought.

Braun noted that since sperm are short-lived, they must constantly be replenished—which explains the 1,500-per-second production rate.

“In addition, fertiization is surprisingly inefficient. There has to be a large initial payload [for those] few cells to make it to the final destination”—the woman”s egg, he said.

However, men need to have a very delicate germ cell balance to be able to continuously pumping out a stream of sperm cells from puberty to old age.

For instance, if germline stem cells stay stem cells for a long time and don”t change into sperm cells, a man may be at risk of getting testicular cancer.

But if germline stem cells too often develop into sperm, a man may become infertile.

The study appears in the journal Science. (ANI)

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Scientists find meat-eating amphibian that appeared 70 mln yrs before first dinos

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 16 (ANI): Scientists have found the fossil of a 300-million-year-old meat-eating amphibian near a major airport in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which appeared about 70 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared.

Scientists named the amphibian as ‘Fedexia strieglei’ as a gesture of thanks to the FedEx shipping company, which owns the land where the fossils were found, study co-author Dave Berman of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, told National Geographic News.

The 2-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) creature is also named for University of Pittsburgh geology student Adam Streigel, who mistook fossils of Fedexia’s teeth for ancient fern leaves when he picked them up on a 2004 field trip.

A later excavation found two vertebrae and a well-preserved skull that clearly shows Fedexia’s taste for meat.

The animal had two large canine-like teeth at the front of its mouth as well as tusks anchored to the roof of its mouth, which helped the amphibian dismember prey.

“It’s obvious when he bit down on something, he could really hold on to it. It would provide a crushing blow to the animal,” Berman said.

Fedexia likely hunted smaller amphibians and 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) giant cockroaches that scuttled through the steamy coal swamps of the late Pennsylvanian period, 318 to 299 million years ago.

Fedexia represents an extinct group of amphibians called Trematopidae that lived about 70 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared.

Unlike almost all other Pennsylvanian Period amphibians, which did not often venture out of the water, this rare, diverse group lived mostly on land, returning to the water perhaps only to mate or lay eggs.

The trematopids also provide evidence of the earliest vertebrate life in North America adapted to a mostly terrestrial existence.

Their success may have been a result of a long-term, global trend toward drier, warmer conditions that reached its climax near the end of the Pennsylvanian Period.

The fossils show that Fedexia had adapted to become one of the first successful vertebrate landlubbers, according to Berman.

For instance, Fedexia had tough, pebbly skin like that of modern-day newts.

“This would have prevented the Pittsburgh amphibian from drying out and from sustaining injuries such as cuts and scratches, allowing the animal to live for longer periods on land,” Berman said. (ANI)

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Milky Way’s fastest stars circle each other at 500 kms a second

March 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 13 (ANI): Astronomers have confirmed that two extremely dense stars in an intimate dance are spinning around each other in just 5.4 minutes at about 500 kilometers a second, making them the fastest known stellar partners in the galaxy.

The whirling duo, known as HM Cancri, also has the tightest orbit of any known “binary” star system.

Both stars are white dwarfs—the dense, white-hot remnants left behind when sunlike stars die.

The stellar corpses are separated by no more than three times the width of Earth.

In such tight quarters, hot gases flow between the two stars, releasing huge amounts of energy.

“This is the most extreme example of one of these double white dwarf systems we have so far,” study co-author Danny Steeghs of the University of Warwick in the UK, told National Geographic News.

Study leader Gijs Roelofs, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was part of the team that first detected periodic x-ray emissions from HM Cancri in 1999.

Initial observations had suggested a 5.4-minute orbit, but the researchers weren’t sure if the pulses of light were coming from two circling stars or one superfast spinner.

To confirm the stars’ dizzying tango, Roelofs and colleagues turned to the world’s second largest optical telescope, at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, where they measured “wobbles” in the system’s brightness.

“The amplitude of the wobble gives you an idea of the orbit period and the masses” of the stars, co-author Steeghs said.

What’s more, light emissions from the stars were found to be moving in opposite directions, as such emissions would for two orbiting bodies, cinching the case for a binary system.

HM Cancri’s record-breaking orbit couldn”t get much quicker, Steeghs added, since the stars would merge if they got any closer, triggering a massive explosion known as a type Ia supernova.

“Overall, three minutes would be the fastest a binary white dwarf system could get,” he said. (ANI)

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Seven cat species captured on camera in Indian rain forest

March 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 13 (ANI): A photographer have captured on camera seven cat species in Jeypore-Dehing lowland rain forest in the northeast Indian state of Assam.

According to a report in National Geographic News, wildlife biologist Kashmira Kakati took the pictures during a two-year survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The research found seven cat species in a 354-square-mile (570-square-kilometer) range, which is the highest diversity of cat species yet photographed in a single area.

Partly funded by WCS, Kashmira Kakati had been studying the gibbons of Jeypore-Dehing and became curious about the predator tracks she kept finding on the ground.

“I said, I need to find out what’s there,” Kakati told National Geographic News. “Nobody had any clue. People who had been in the forest 30 years didn’t know,” she said.

With 30 digital camera traps, Kakati captured not only the cats, but a number of other rare forest animals between 2007 and 2009.

The camera-trap pictures include a night shot of a rare clouded leopard, so named for the nimbus-like pattern of its coat.

“In Jeypore-Dehing, the cat is so seldom seen that local villagers don’t even have a name for it,” Kakati said.

Seen in another Jeypore-Dehing camera-trap picture, the leopard cat is a diminutive and distant relative of the better-known spotted predator from which it takes its name.

Leopard cats are considered to have generally stable populations, except for a few subspecies that are close to extinction.

The Jeypore-Dehing rain forest also houses the Asiatic golden cat, which is listed as near threatened—but on the verge of becoming vulnerable—by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In addition to the seven cat species, Kakati’s camera traps recorded 12 other carnivore species in the Jeypore-Dehing range, including a dhole, or Asiatic wild dog; the Malayan sun bear; and several species of the catlike mammal – the civet.

The researchers hope the discovery of so many rare cat species in Jeypore-Dehing, including the threatened marbled cat, will encourage the Indian government to protect a wider portion of the Eastern Himalaya region from development and poaching. (ANI)

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Lava carved ancient Martian riverbed

March 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 10 (ANI): A new American research has revealed that an ancient “riverbed” in Mars was not made by the flow of water but was carved by molten lava.

The 270-km long Martian channel near the Ascraeus Mons volcano does not seem to have been made by water.

“We started seeing that, instead of this [liquid] cutting into an existing surface, it was building a surface—it built a ridge up to 40 meters [130 feet] high” millions of years ago, explained study co-author Jacob Bleacher of NASA”s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The channel is also roofed over in some areas and lined with vents, characterises usually linked to lava tubes.

Bleacher said: “You don”t see this on Earth in [river] settings.

“But you see it all the time in volcanic settings. So that”s kind of our smoking gun.”

However, Bleacher, who presented his work last week at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, said this does not mean water never existed on the red planet.

But it does mean scientists may have to reconsider when and where they believe water might have existed on Mars.

According to Laszlo Kestay, a planetary geologist on the NASA team that produced the new images of the channel, the findings are also exciting because they shed new light on Mars” volcanic history.

“I think there are some very clearly water-formed features on Mars, but there are other things that are more puzzling. Jake and colleagues make a very compelling case that at least this one is volcanic,” National Geographic News quoted Kestay, as saying.

And chances are bright that other channels in the Ascraeus Mons area will turn out to be lava-made as well, said Kestay, who works with the U.S. Geological Survey”s Astrogeology Science Center.

According to him, the new image data are “revealing not just these channels but a whole suite of smaller volcanic features and showing that volcanism is more widespread spatially than people thought.” (ANI)

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Human pee mixed with ash can turn out to be a natural fertilizer

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 19 (ANI): A new study has proven that human urine mixed with wood ash can be a natural fertilizer.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the study was carried out by Surendra Pradhan, an environmental scientist at University of Kuopio in Finland.

In many ways, the substances are natural complements, explained Pradhan.

Urine is high in nitrogen, while wood ash is rich in nutrients not found in urine, such as calcium and magnesium.

Human urine and wood ash have each separately been used as fertilizer for centuries. But until now, no one had explored applying them together.

For the research, Pradhan and his team fertilized several groups of greenhouse tomato plants: one with human urine and birch ash, another with commercial mineral fertilizer, and another with just urine.

Plants fertilized with urine and ash yielded nearly four times more tomatoes than nonfertilized plants.

This compared favorably with commercial mineral fertilizers, which produced roughly five times as much fruit as nonfertilized plants.

To the team’s surprise, urine alone produced a slightly greater yield than those of urine and ash together.

But the urine-and-ash plants became larger than the other groups, and they bore tomatoes with significantly higher levels of the nutrient magnesium, which is key for bone, muscle, and heart health, among other biochemical functions.

A group of 20 taste testers ranked tomatoes grown by all methods as equally tasty.

The best part of this type of fertilization is that “it is a very simple process,” Pradhan said.

The researchers estimate a single person could supply enough urine to fertilize roughly 6,300 tomato plants a year-yielding some 2.4 tons of tomatoes.

The farmer would just need to give plants ash three days or more after applying urine.

Pradhan and his colleagues are now trying to implement this idea in Nepal. (ANI)

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Pituitary tumour caused world’s tallest man’s gigantism

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 18 (ANI): The Turkish man crowned as the world’s tallest man suffers from a pituitary tumour which has resulted in his gigantic height.

Sultan Kosen stands eight-foot-one-inch tall and was unveiled as the tallest man in the world by the Guinness World Records.osen’s height is a result of a tumour in his pituitary gland, which has led to an over production of growth hormones, reports the National Geographic News.

The condition called pituitary gigantism has also led his feet to grow to almost 15 inches, while his hands are larger than 10 inches.t was only after the tumour was removed last year, that Kosen stopped growing.

The 27-year old is forced to use crutches as his height has weakened his knee joints.

The now-famous Kosen wants to travel around the world and meet a woman who would like to marry him. (ANI)

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Global warming could cool North America within a few decades

September 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 15 (ANI): A new study has determined that global warming could actually chill down North America within a few decades.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the study, led by Tim Daley of Swansea University in the UK, looked into a sudden cooling event that gripped the North American region about 8,300 years ago.

Analysis of ancient moss from Newfoundland, Canada, links an injection of freshwater from a burst glacial lake to a rapid drop in air temperatures by a few degrees Celsius along North America’s East Coast.

This event created a colder year-round climate with a much shorter growing season for about 150 years, from northern Canada to what is now Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The results suggest that North America’s climate is highly sensitive to meltwater flowing into the ocean, according to Daley.

The work also means that history could repeat itself. Currently, Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at a rapid clip, releasing freshwater into the North Atlantic.

Daley and colleagues studied mosses dating back more than 8,700 years that were preserved in a Newfoundland peat bog.

The ratios of two different types of oxygen in the mosses allowed the team to trace changes in atmospheric temperature over time.

When air temperatures are lower, the mosses contain less oxygen-18, a heavier version of the more common type, oxygen-16.

About 8,350 years ago, the amount of oxygen-18 relative to oxygen-16 suddenly dropped.

Previous research had found that, around the same time, a northern ice dam burst, releasing the contents of a vast glacial lake into the Labrador Sea, between Canada and Denmark.

Normally, a warm ocean current called the Gulf Stream runs up the east coast of North America, helping to keep the region balmier than it should be, considering how far north it is.

But, the entire glacial lake drained within less than a year, injecting a huge pulse of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean.

According to Daley and colleagues, the lake water diluted the salty ocean current and slowed the Gulf Stream, which in turn led to rapid cooling in North America.

“As a result, Canadian summer temperatures would have been similar to those currently experienced in autumn or spring,” said team member Neil Loader, also of Swansea University.

As for whether today’s melt in Greenland could trigger another round of cooling, Hans Renssen, a climate researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam, said that he doesn’t believe the change would be as dramatic as last time. (ANI)

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Sea levels rose as much as 2 feet this summer along the US East Coast

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 12 (ANI): Reports indicate that sea levels rose as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) higher than predicted this summer along the US East Coast, surprising scientists who forecast such periodic fluctuations.

According to National Geographic News, though the immediate cause of the unexpected rise has now been solved, the underlying reason remains a mystery.

Usually, predicting seasonal tides and sea levels is a pretty cut-and-dried process, governed by the known movements and gravitational influences of astronomical bodies like the moon, according to Rich Edwing, deputy director for the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But, NOAA’s phones began ringing this summer when East Coast residents reported higher than predicted water levels, much like those associated with short-term weather events like tropical storms.

These high seas persisted for weeks, throughout June and July.

The startling rise caused only minor coastal flooding, but puzzled scientists.

Now, a new report has identified the two major factors behind the high sea levels-a weakened Gulf Stream and steady winds from the northeastern Atlantic.

The Gulf Stream is a northward-flowing superhighway of ocean water off the US East Coast.

Running at full steam, the powerful current pulls water into its “orbit” and away from the East Coast.

But this summer, for reasons unknown, “the Gulf Stream slowed down,” Edwing said, sending water toward the coasts-and sea levels shooting upward.

Adding to the sustained surge, autumn winds from the northeastern Atlantic arrived a few months early, pushing even more water coastward.

The higher waters caused inconveniences for some anglers and boaters and rearranged a bit of shoreline.

“A couple of sand beaches we’d normally fish from were eaten up. And the volume of water was higher than it normally would be,” said Paulie Apostolides, owner of Paulie’s Tackle in Montauk on New York State’s Long Island.

Even before the new report, released by NOAA on September 2, Apostolides said that many local fishers had already attributed the sea level rise to the “ferocious” winds from the northeast. (ANI)

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Killer whales have to raise their voices to be heard over ship noise

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 11 (ANI): A new research has determined that killer whales have to raise their voices to be heard over ship noise, and the effort may be wearing the whales out as they try to find food amid dwindling numbers of salmon.

According to a report in National Geographic News, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) carried out the research.

The research indicates that the killer whales of Puget Sound, a complex of inland marine waterways in the northwestern part of Washington, US, make more calls and clicks while foraging than while traveling, suggesting that such mealtime conservations are key to coordinating hunts.

“(The killer whales’) call exchange is incredibly important, and vessel noises have the potential to mask these calls,” said research leader Marla Holt of Seattle’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Holt and colleagues’ previous research had shown that some killer whales make louder calls to be heard over vessel rumblings-just as people raise their voices to talk over the din of a cocktail party.

Now, the researchers think the cacophony could be causing the region’s killer whales to use up more energy during hunts, even as their preferred prey, chinook salmon, are on the decline.

In Puget Sound, a small group of killer whales known as the Southern Residents has been found to be particularly well-suited to eating salmon-even down to the whales’ tooth size.

These animals don’t eat seals or other mammals, as do the transient killer whales that migrate through the sound.

In the mid- to late 1990s, the Southern Resident population mysteriously shrank by nearly 20 percent, from 97 to 88 animals. Today, there are 85 individuals.

In 2005, the federal government listed the population as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act.

No one knows for sure, but the cause was likely a combination of fewer salmon, exposure to toxic contaminants, and vessel noise, according to Lynne Barre of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Regional Office.

Holt’s work adds to existing data that have already prompted NOAA to propose a new killer whale protection law that would make all boats keep at least 600 feet (200 yards) away from the animals around Washington State.

The existing law allows boats to approach as close as 300 feet (100 yards), and some research has shown this influences the whales’ behavior.

“A lot of people would argue, Why focus on these vessel regulations?” Holt said. “But it’s one thing we can do immediately,” he added. (ANI)

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