Darwin’s ocean theory vindicated after 150 years by jellyfish

Creatures large and small may play an important role in the stirring of ocean waters, according to a study released today that confirms a theory advanced by Charles Darwin.

So-called ocean mixing entails the transfer of cold and warm waters between the equator and poles, as well as between the icy, nutrient-rich depths and the Sun-soaked top layer. It plays a crucial part in marine biodiversity and, scientists now suspect, in maintaining Earth's climate.

In the mid-19th century, Darwin -- best known as the father of evolutionary theory -- proposed that fish and other sea swimmers might somehow contribute significantly to currents as they moved forward. But this was dismissed by modern scientists as a fishy story.

In 1960s, experiments compared the wake turbulence created by sea creatures with overall ocean turbulence. They showed that the whirls kicked up by microscopic plankton or even fish quickly dissipated in dense, viscous water.

On this evidence, sea creatures seemed to contribute nothing to ocean mixing. The clear conclusion was that the only drivers of note were shifting winds and tides, tied to the gravitational tug-of-war within our Solar System.

But the new study, published in the British science journal Nature, goes a long way toward rehabilitating Darwin and his fellow Victorians, and uses the quiet pulse of the jellyfish to prove the case.

Bureau Report

Settlements in Kostroma and Egyptian Pyramids Appeared at the Same Time

Archeologists have unearthed a historical sensation: the first settlements in Kostroma were contemporary with Egyptian pyramids.

Settlements of early people that lived here six thousand years ago have been found on the area of the St. Hypatius Monastery in Kostroma. It is the oldest settlement discovered in the region.

St. Hypatius Monastery is first mentioned in the chronicles in 1432. However, a monastery legend says that it was founded much earlier, in the early 14th century by the Tatar murza Chet, christened Zachary.

The present diggings had a definite aim – to examine the base of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, which had been destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the 1930s. Now it is going to be restored. But during the excavations it turned out that the church had been raised on the foundation of an older church, namely the Life-Giving Trinity Church.

One meter deeper archeologists discovered a sensational find dated back to the 4th millennium B.C. The found crockery pieces are probably remains of the dishes where the early people had kept their food.

Another important find under the base of the Most Holy Mother of God is the family sepulchre of the Kostroma boyars Godunovs. All the 32 white gravestones of the 16-17th cc are in a bad condition.

Source

Nymph Sanctuary Found by Bulgaria Archaeologists

A team of archaeologists has found a sanctuary in central Bulgaria where the nymph cult used to be celebrated in ancient times.

The sanctuary was found by archaeologists in the vicinity of the Nicopolis ad Istrum ancient site, located near the town of Veliko Tarnovo in central Bulgaria.

The experts discovered an alley, leading to a spring and covered with limestone tiles decorated in a standout relief.

The find is the first of its kind in the region, according to Pavlina Vladkova, leader of the archaeological team.

"Until now, the only testament of the nymph cult in Nicopolis ad Istrum used to be images on coins made in the second century under the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, as well as ancient inscriptions," she said.

Vladkova expects that her team will find the remains of a cult building where the nymph worshipers stayed.

Nymph worshiping, according to the archaeologists, can be traced back to Ancient Greece, where the mythical female creatures were usually part of the retinue of a god, such as Zeus, Hera and Aphrodite.

Although planned archaeological excavations are currently taking place at the nearby Nicopolis ad Istrum ancient site, the sanctuary was discovered by chance.

Workers came upon the archaeological remains while installing a water pipe to the village of Resen, which called for the emergency excavations to begin, Thaindian News explained.

Source

Extinct bird species fossils are found at Kalaeloa refuge

Workers restoring wildlife habitat areas on land that was part of the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station have uncovered a number of fossilized bird bones, including those of several extinct species, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The unexpected discovery will allow scientists to learn more about the ancient creatures that once were found throughout the Pearl Harbor Wildlife Refuge-Kalaeloa Unit, officials said.

The fossilized bird bones were found while scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were restoring several small tidal pools, known as anchialine pools. Over the past century, the pools had been filled in with rubble, rocks and debris by agricultural, military, residential and commercial activities. The discovery of the fossils provides a more complete picture of the natural bird diversity of a coastal dryland forest on O'ahu.

"These fossils of extinct birds give us a glimpse of an earlier time on O'ahu when the lowlands teemed with native birds, insects, and plants," said Helen James, research zoologist and curator of birds for the Smithsonian Institution.

"To me, it is excellent news that important fossil sites can still be discovered on an island that has experienced so much economic development," James said in a news release about the fossil find. "Lamentably the birds cannot be brought back to life, but by studying their bones we at least gain an appreciation of O'ahu's rich natural heritage."

The fossilized bones discovered so far are those of an extinct hawk, long-legged owl, Hawaiian sea eagle, petrel, two species of crow, Hawaiian finches, Hawaiian honeyeaters, and the moa nalo (a turkey-sized, flightless gooselike duck that was the largest of the native Hawaiian birds). Further work is needed to confirm the identification of each species.

The ages of the fossilized bones are unknown at this time and require further testing using radiocarbon analysis. Avian bones found at similar sites on the 'Ewa Plain date back from 1,000 to 8,000 years ago, the scientists said.

"The discovery of these ancient bird bones, including several species now extinct and maybe even new species not known before, is a great reminder of the truly unique history and wonderful diversity of Hawai'i's birds and the need to protect what is still left," David Ellis, refuge manager for the O'ahu National Wildlife Refuge Complex, said in the news release.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with the Smithsonian Institution and Bishop Museum to properly clean, store, and preserve the bones. The Smithsonian is also providing technical assistance to Bishop Museum and the Fish and Wildlife Service to properly identify and catalog the recently discovered fossils. Interest is high among all involved to continue with a more in-depth paleontological study of the area but further work is dependent on the availability of funding.

The Kalaeloa Unit was added to the National Wild- life Refuge System in 2001 to protect native plants, including two endangered species: the 'akoko and the 'Ewa hina hina. Kalaeloa is an area of ancient raised limestone coral reef and has the last remaining coastal dryland plant communities that were once widespread throughout the 'Ewa Plain.

In January 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began restoring 12 anchialine pools on the Kalaeloa Unit. While removing the debris, Fish and Wildlife Service personnel began to encounter the fossilized bones — some never before seen.

Source

Scientists find evidence of hydrocarbons in Earth’s upper mantle

In a new research, scientists have found for the first time that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesised under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle of the Earth.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden.

Methane (CH4) is the main constituent of natural gas, while ethane (C2H6) is used as a petrochemical feedstock.

Both of these hydrocarbons, and others associated with fuel, are called saturated hydrocarbons because they have simple, single bonds and are saturated with hydrogen.

Using a diamond anvil cell and a laser heat source, the scientists first subjected methane to pressures exceeding 20 thousand times the atmospheric pressure at sea level and temperatures ranging from 1,300 Fahrenheit to over 2,240 Fahrenheit.

These conditions mimic those found 40 to 95 miles deep inside the Earth. The methane reacted and formed ethane, propane, butane, molecular hydrogen, and graphite.

The scientists then subjected ethane to the same conditions and it produced methane. The transformations suggest heavier hydrocarbons could exist deep down.

The reversibility implies that the synthesis of saturated hydrocarbons is thermodynamically controlled and does not require organic matter.

The scientists ruled out the possibility that catalysts used as part of the experimental apparatus were at work, but they acknowledge that catalysts could be involved in the deep Earth with its mix of compounds.

“We were intrigued by previous experiments and theoretical predictions,” said Carnegie’s Alexander Goncharov, a co-author.

“Experiments reported some years ago subjected methane to high pressures and temperatures and found that heavier hydrocarbons formed from methane under very similar pressure and temperature conditions,” he said.

“However, the molecules could not be identified and a distribution was likely. We overcame this problem with our improved laser-heating technique where we could cook larger volumes more uniformly. And we found that methane can be produced from ethane,” he added.

According to Professor Kutcherov, a coauthor, “The notion that hydrocarbons generated in the mantle migrate into the Earth’s crust and contribute to oil-and-gas reservoirs was promoted in Russia and Ukraine many years ago.”

“The synthesis and stability of the compounds studied here as well as heavier hydrocarbons over the full range of conditions within the Earth’s mantle now need to be explored,” he said.

ANI

Trees in New Zealand evolved camouflage defense

In a new research, scientists have discovered that trees in New Zealand have evolved a camouflage defense mechanism to protect themselves from extinct giant birds, providing the first evidence of this strategy in plant life.

“Plants are attacked by a bewildering array of herbivores and in response they have evolved a variety of defences to deter predators such as thorns and noxious chemicals,” said lead researcher Dr Kevin Burns from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Dr Burns’ team studied the leaves of the Araliaceae tree (P crassifolius), which is a heteroblastic species native to New Zealand.

This species goes through several strange colour transitions during the process from germination to maturity and the reason for these changes is now thought to be a defence strategy from an extinct predator, the moa.

Before the arrival of humans, New Zealand had no native land mammals, but was home to moa, giant flightless birds, closely related to the modern ostrich and the top herbivore predator in the food chain.

However, moa were hunted to extinction 750 years ago.

The Araliaceae tree has several defences which the team suggests are linked to the historic presence of moa.

Seedlings produce small narrow leaves, which appear mottled to the human eye. Saplings meanwhile produce larger, more elongated leaves with thorn-like dentitions.

The mottled colours of seedling leaves are similar to the appearance of leaf litter, which would have made them difficult for a moa to distinguish.

The unusual colouring may also reduce the probability of leaf outlines and help camouflage leaves against the sunlight-draped forest floor.

Moa also lacked teeth and swallowed leaves by placing them in their bills and snapping their head forward.

But, the long rigid leaves produced by P crassifolius would have been difficult for a moa to swallow.

To prove that these defences were linked to the presence of moa, the team compared Araliaceae leaves to samples from a similar species of tree, P chathamicus, from the Chatham Islands, which are 800 kilometres east of New Zealand.

Unlike New Zealand, the islands lacked large browsers such as Moa and so the plant life did not evolve a defence against them.

“The Chatham island species displays less morphological changes between adults and juveniles,” said Burns. “If these colouring changes developed in response to the presence of moa in New Zealand, they are reduced when they have evolved in the absence of moa,” he added.

ANI

Scientists find ways to make electronic data self destruct

Worried that the college binge drinking photos posted on the internet will reappear to haunt during a job interview? Cheer up. Researchers have found a method that makes electronic data self destruct itself.

University of Washington researchers has developed a way to make electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers.

The prototype system called 'Vanish' places a time limit on text uploaded to any Web service through a Web browser. After a set time text written will self-destruct.

Even the sender could not be able to retrieve them.

"If you care about privacy, the Internet today is a very scary place," said Tadayoshi Kohno, a UW assistant professor of computer science. "If people understood the implications of where and how their e-mail is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often."

Computers have made it virtually impossible to leave the past behind with people inadvertently uploading data they find embarrassing later, he said.

The paper about the project will be presented at the Usenix Security Symposium August 10-14 in Montreal.

Bureau Report

8,000 Year Old Shoes Discovered

Ancient, 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave show that fashion in footwear is nothing new and, in fact, is much older than anyone thought. Scientists said that high-tech dating procedures indicate that the shoes are at least 2,000 years older than previously believed.

The shoes were found 40 years ago in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri, but, due to the mixing of deposits around the shoes at the dig site, researchers were unable to assign an age to them.

Michael O’Brien of the University of Missouri and colleagues at Louisiana State University used an accelerator mass spectrometer to carbon-date the shoes. It dated the oldest shoes at up to 8,300 years old, the researchers reported in a study published in the journal Science.

“I was surprised,” O’Brien said. “I would have guessed 3,000 but not 8,000. I thought it was so outrageous that I took a second sample.”

Most of the shoes were made with fibrous plants that could be woven into a tough fabric used for the top, bottom and sides of the footwear. O’Brien said the most common material was from a yucca-like plant called rattlesnake master. The leaves were dried and shaped into cording that was woven like modern-day espadrilles.

Both sandal and slip-on styles were found There were also comfort innovations. The moccasins were cushioned with grass that functioned “like a Dr. Scholl’s foot pad,” said O’Brien.

“There’s nothing new under the sun,” he said. “Some of these shoes you would swear were made in a Mexican market.”

The shoes were also very durable, he said. Of 35 samples recovered, 20 were complete or nearly complete. Even though the shoes spanned thousands of years, O’Brien said the basic craftsmanship was about the same.

“They did not invent something flimsy that then got better over time,” said O’Brien. “The earliest shoe is every bit as well-made and as complex as those from later on.”

‘They wore the heck out of these things’

O’Brien said the variety of styles and differences in details suggests that there may have been concessions to style or fashion. “There was no ornamentation or color that we know about, but my guess is that these shoes were very stylish for the time,” he said. “We know that people then were wearing jewelry,” and that it was likely that such artistic interest carried over into the footgear.

Only the moccasins were made of leather, and O’Brien said it is likely that the cave dwellers did not use leather for shoes much earlier than that. The style and construction of the Missouri shoes are similar to specimens unearthed from a nearby site in the Ozark Mountains but are different from shoes found in caves in Kentucky. They are also very different from shoes constructed by the Anasazi people who inhabited Southwest deserts.

Footwear got hard use among the prehistoric Americans. They had to walk most places since there were no horses. They had to hunt or gather all of their food and to haul water back to the cave — all jobs that took much walking. “Many of the shoes wore down exactly the way that our shoes do — the ball of the foot and the heel,” said O’Brien. “In some instances there were repairs where they wove fiber back into them. Other shoes were just tossed, but they wore the heck out of these things.”

A woman’s 8 1/2

Foot size, he said, appears to be much like that of modern humans. There is no way to tell if wearers of the ancient shoes were male or female, but the average length was about 10 1/2 inches — about an 8 1/2 in modern American women’s sizes.

“That suggests that these people fell within the size range of people today,” he said. The cave, which is in a bluff not far from the Missouri River, was a spectacular home by the standards of the time.

“It was really perfect,” said O’Brien. “A great place to live.” O’Brien said that people lived there for hundreds of generations, leaving layer after layer of debris: bone and stone tools, animal bones, char from campfires and even some human remains. Late in the occupancy, there were shards of pottery. “The cave is so dry and has been for the last 10,000 years that all this stuff is preserved,” he said.

O’Brien said the finding was not a huge scientific breakthrough, but interesting nevertheless. “To be honest,” he said, “I think people think this is pretty cool stuff.”

Source

Remnants from Korea’s ancient Goguryeo Kingdom found in east Russia

Remnants that are believed to be from Korea’s ancient Goguryeo Kingdom (37 BC-668) have been discovered for the first time in the far eastern part of Russia, from the excavation site of Kraskino fortress near the Posiet Bay close to Tumen River.

While records in various old documents show that some parts of Russia’s far eastern region including the Primorsky Territory had been under Goguryeo rule, there has never been an archeological discovery proving it.

According to a report in The Korea Herald, the 20-day excavation was conducted jointly by the Northeast Asian History Foundation and Pukyong National University of Korea with the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The relics include earthenware steamer, fragments of ceramic ware, belts, farming utensils, tiled kiln and others from a total of five sites, two of which looked to have been residential areas and three that could have been market places.

In particular, the discovery of a cooking fireplace and earthenware steamer two meters underground shows a high possibility that the area was inhabited by the people of Balhae (698-926) or Goguryeo, according to the excavators.

Also, this 1.2 kilometer-long fortress uses the same construction technique - stones setting the foundation to be covered with earth - the same method used by the Goguryeo Kingdom or even the earlier times of Balhae.

“This is the first time (for us) to dig this deep and it is incredibly valuable to have found the residential sites as well as these remnants,” said professor Kang In-wook of Pukyong National University, who led the excavation.

Further excavations could yield an even “better outcome,” he added.

ANI

Archaeologists Discover Significant Gold Artefacts from Hellenistic Period

Archeologists in Ohrid unearthed exceptionally valuable finds dating to the fifth century BC.

On the road between the Upper Gate and the St. Bogorodica Perivlepta Church were discoevered 17 tombs from the Hellenistic Period, Pasko Kuzman, head of the Macedonian Department for Cultural Heritage told the Dnevnik daily newspaper.

In one of the tombs was buried a 15-year-old girl, which most likely belonged to the nobility.

“There is something here which, from a scientific point of view, is more important even than the golden mask [discovered in Ohrid earlier], since the personality buried in this tomb had a golden object in the shape of eye glasses, a rhomboid-shaped golden plate on the mouth and a golden plate with a sun with 16 rays in the area of the heart,” Kuzman stated.

“The two objects that were placed on the eyes and the mouth mean the dead person was masked. This kind of combination of masking was unique on the Balkans. Until now, separate golden plates were discovered, especially in the Aegean, but this kind of combination was unknown until now,” the archaeologist explained.

The other valuable artefacts discovered on Saturday include a 40-centimetre-long golden belt, amphorae-shaped golden pendants for a necklace, bronze and silver gloves and golden object with a conical shape which are quite rare for this part of the world.

Also found were objects from amber, a material which – as Kuzman explained, was not found in these lands but was transported from the Baltic area when there was a strong trade connection between North ad South.

“We should be proud of this priceless treasure being discovered [in Macedonia] and thankful to all the archaeologists who have invested all their energy and knowledge,” Macedonian Minister of Culture Elizabeta Kanchevska-Milevska told the publication.

The state and the Ministry will continue working with the same speed and intensity towards the protection of cultural heritage and the exploration of a large number of sites, Kanchevska-Milevska added.

Ohrid is the leader in Macedonia in terms of the golden ornaments discovered in the area, numbering 450 objects so far, Kuzman stated. This, according to him, has to do with the city’s location, near the ancient Via Egnatia road which connected Rome to Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul).

Excavations at the site, according to the publication, will continue in the fall and an exhibition of all the golden artefacts discovered so far will be organised by the end of the year.

Source

Archaeologists In China Find New Terracotta Warriors

Archaeologists in China’s northern Xi’an city have excavated another 100 terracotta warriors, including a much-prized army officer, near the tomb of the nation’s first emperor, state media said.

A new excavation at the famed site began over a month ago in a bid to unravel the mysteries surrounding the ancient terracotta army near Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province.

“Our most exciting discovery so far is the army officer,” chief archaeologist Xu Weihong said.

So far, the majority of discovered figures are archers, infantrymen and charioteers that the Qin Emperor, who had the site built, hoped would follow him into the afterlife.

Less than 10 armoured generals have been unearthed with the army, part of a burial site for Qin Shi Huang, who presided over the unification of China in 221 BC and is seen as the first emperor of the nation.

Xu said the army officer was found lying on its stomach behind four chariots, and was largely intact compared with other newly-discovered warriors.

“The original colours have faded after more than 2000 years of decay, but a corner of the officer’s robe suggested it was in colours other than the grey-ish clay,” he said.

The latest excavation is the third in the site’s largest pit — one of three open to the public — since 1974 when the army of terracotta warriors and horses was discovered by a peasant digging a well.

Up to 5000 more life-size figures are believed to still be buried in the pit and awaiting excavation.

The Terracotta Army is one of the greatest archaeological finds of modern times, and was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

ANI

Site of a Five Dynasties palace discovered in China

Archaeologists have recently discovered the site of a Five Dynasties palace in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province.

As the seat of the Western Han Nanyue Kingdom and the Five Dynasties South Han Kingdom, the site has been the center of Guangzhou for some 2000 years.

Cultural relics of 12 dynasties, covering the Qin Dynasty to the People’s Republic of China, are being discovered there.

According to Li Zaoxin, director of the Archaeological Research Department of the Nanyue Kingdom Palace preparatory office, “We are now in the backyard of the second South Han Palace. All of the floor tiles here are decorated with images of butterflies. This is an important discovery in art history, since we thought the butterfly decoration was often used in the Ming and Qing dynasties.”

The South Han is one of the Five Dynasties of south China, during which kings built grand palaces in the capital of Guangzhou.

The newly discovered site might be one of the palaces where kings handled their daily affairs, according to Li.

“We are standing in the South Han dynasty section now. We can also see sites of other dynasties, for this was the center of Guangzhou during the Qin Dynasty, and capital of the Nanyue and South Han Kingdom,” Li added.

Archaeologists will further excavate the ancient treasure, and plan to preserve it as a museum.

ANI

Ecologist brings century-old eggs to life to study

An ecologist from the Cornell University has brought back to life century-old eggs of zooplankton to better understand evolution.

Nelson Hairston Jr., chair of Cornell's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, achieved the seemingly impossible concept of resurrection.

This field is known loosely as "resurrection ecology," in which researchers study the eggs of such creatures as zooplankton - tiny, free-floating water animals - that get buried in lake sediments and can remain viable for decades or even centuries.

By hatching these eggs, Hairston and others can compare time-suspended hatchlings with their more contemporary counterparts to better understand how a species may have evolved in the meantime.

The researchers take sediment cores from lake floors to extract the eggs. The deeper the egg lies in the core, the older it is.

They then place the eggs in optimal hatching conditions, such as those found in spring in a temperate lake, and let nature take its course.

"We can resurrect them and discover what life was like in the past," said Hairston.

Hairston first became interested in the possibilities of studying dormant eggs in the late 1970s, when he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of Rhode Island.

There, he noticed that the little red crustaceans - known as copepods - in the pristine lake behind his Rhode Island home, disappeared in the summer, only to return as larvae in the fall.

The observation prompted him to study why they disappear, research that revealed the copepods stay active under the ice in the winter, but they die out as their eggs lie dormant on the lake floor through the summer when the lake's fish are most active.

When the fish become less active in the fall, larvae hatch from the eggs, and the copepods continue their life cycle.

This time suspension, where zooplankton pause their life cycles to avoid heavy predation or harsh seasonal and environmental conditions, also increases a species'' local gene pool, with up to a century's worth of genetic material stored in a lake bed, according to Hairston.

When insects, nesting fish and boat anchors stir the mud, they can release old eggs that hatch and offer a wider variety of genetic material to the contemporary population.

ANI

Archaeologists find evidence of Britain’s earliest Iron Age town

Archaeologists from Berkshire, UK, have discovered evidence of an Iron Age town underneath the remains of a Roman settlement in north Hampshire, which they say could be Britain’s earliest Iron Age towns with a planned layout.

The discovery was made by the University of Reading’s Archaeology Department, which has been excavating at the Silchester Roman site, Calleva Atrebatum, since 1997.

A street-grid was found to have been in place before the Romans came in AD 43. Archaeologists have also discovered evidence of widespread burning at the site.

They believe this, along with other finds, suggests that the site could have been destroyed at the hands of queen Boudicca, who in AD 60/61 led a major uprising against the occupying Roman forces.

“After 12 summers of excavation, we have reached down to the 1st Century AD and are beginning to see the first signs of what we believe to be the Iron Age and earliest Roman town,” said Professor Michael Fulford, director of the Silchester Town Life Project.

“The discovery of the underlying Iron Age settlement is extremely exciting. While there are traces of settlement beneath Roman Verulamium (today’s St Albans) and Canterbury and close to the site of Roman Colchester, none of these resembles the evidence that we have here at Calleva of a planned town,” he said.

“The completely new street grid implemented later by the Romans could have been a thumbs down on the British arrangement,” he added.

According to Professor Fulford, “We now have evidence that the town was burnt down sometime after AD 50 and before AD 80.”

“The possibility that this was at the hands of Boudicca when leading the largest British uprising during the Roman occupation is hugely significant. It was not thought the revolt passed this way,” he said.

ANI

25 million-year-old whale bone discovered on Surf Coast, Australia

Most people are happy to find a few nice shells or a bit of cuttlefish when they go fossicking along the beach.

But not Drysdale man Yestin Griffiths and his family, who on the weekend stumbled upon a 25 million-year-old whale fossil.

Mr Griffiths said he found the fossil near a recent landslip on a Surf Coast beach.

He sent pictures of the fossil to the Melbourne Museum, whose experts believe it is "a vertebra of an unidentified species of whale from the Late Oligocene Age" and is approximately 25 million years old.

It is from the same area where in the 1990s a surfer found a fossilised skull of a whale that was later named as janjucetus hunderi.

Janjucetus was estimated to have been about 3.5m long or about the size of the modern bottlenose dolphin.

That skull is now in the museum but Mr Griffiths is not sure if the museum is interested in his find.

At the moment he does not know if he has found a piece of janjucetus or some other whale type.

"The museum says it can't tell me any more until their expert Erich Fitzgerald returns from overseas," Mr Griffiths said.

It was Dr Fitzgerald who described the janjucetus whale.

Mr Griffiths and his family were very excited to discover the fossil, which is about the size of a tennis ball. He said he would be happy for the museum to have the specimen but they have not expressed an interest in it as yet.

While the janjucetus whale was about the size of a dolphin, it's there the similarities end.

Janjucetus had large eyes and large sharp teeth and is thought to have been a meat eater that would feast on large fish and sharks.

Source

Sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica

A new study has concluded that significant sea ice formation occurred in the Arctic earlier than previously thought, which suggests that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica.

“The results are also especially exciting because they suggest that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica, which goes against scientific expectation,” said scientific team member Dr Richard Pearce of the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).

The international collaborative research team, led by Dr Catherine Stickley and Professor Nalan Koc of the University of Tromso and Norwegian Polar Insitute, analyzed oceanic sediment cores collected from the Lomonosov ridge in the central Arctic by Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 302 (“ACEX”).

Previous analyses of cores drilled in this region revealed ice-rafted debris dating back to the middle Eocene epoch, prompting suggestions that ice appeared in the Arctic about 46 million years ago.

But, records of ice-rafted debris do not differentiate sea ice from glacial (continental) ice, which is important because sea ice influences climate by directly affecting ocean–atmosphere exchanges, whereas land-based ice affects sea level and consequently ocean acidity.

Instead of focusing solely on ice-rafted debris, Stickley and her colleagues also garner information about ancient climate by analyzing fossilized remains of tiny single-celled plants called diatoms in the sediment cores.

Coincident with ice-rafted debris in the cores, the researchers found high abundances of delicately silicified diatoms belong to the genus Synedropsis.

“Weakly silicified diatoms are preserved only under exceptional circumstances, so to find fossilized Synedropsis species so well preserved and in such abundance is truly remarkable,” said team member Richard Pearce of NOCS.

Synedropsis species probably over-wintered within the sea ice and then bloomed there in the spring when there was enough sunlight.

They would have been released into stratified surface waters as the ice melted, rapidly sinking to the sea bottom as aggregates, leaving other diatom species to dominate summer production. And, indeed, these seasonal changes can be discerned in the sediment cores.

The researchers conclude from their analysis, which cover a two-million year period, that episodic sea ice formation in marginal shelf areas of the Arctic started around 47.5 million years ago, about a million years earlier than previous estimates based on ice-raft debris evidence only.

This appears to have been followed half a million years later by the onset of seasonal sea-ice formation in offshore areas of the central Arctic, and about 24 million years before major ice-sheet expansion in the region.

ANI

Newly Discovered Element 112 Named "Copernicum"

When we talked with element 112's discoverer, Sigurd Hofmann, on the significance of making a permanent mark on the periodic table, he told us he wanted a moniker that recognized a famous scientist while avoiding the flag-waving nationalism normally associated with the process. Today, Hofmann and his team made their decision public.

Good bye element 112 and ununbium, its placeholder name. Hello "Copernicium."

By choosing to honor the father of the heliocentric solar system, element 112 discovery team leader Sigurd Hofmann wanted to avoid the divisive names selected for past elements, salute an influential scientist who didn't receive any accolades in his own lifetime, and highlight the link between astronomy and Hofmann's own field of nuclear chemistry.

The idea was to go backwards, to honor someone who was not greatly honored in his lifetime," said Hofmann. "[Copernicus] had to be very careful when he was publishing his works. His book was published the day of his death. He was afraid to make his announcements during his lifetime, so he wasn't honored when he was alive."

Sticking with that theme, the team almost named the element after Galileo, but when Hofmann suggested Copernicus, everyone on the team instantly agreed.

Element 112 is the sixth element discovered by Hofmann's institution, the GSI, and the last four previously discovered elements were named after cities or states in Germany. By naming element 112 after a Polish scientist, Hofmann broke that nationalistic streak.

"After we have named elements after our city and our state, we wanted to make a statement with a name that was known to everyone," said Hofmann. "We didn't want to select someone who was a German. We were looking world wide."

Additionally, Hofmann wanted to highlight the contribution of nuclear chemistry to other fields, astrophysics in particular. Much of the most cutting edge astrophysics research deals with the formation of the universe during and shortly after the Big Bang. In particular, astrophysicists look to explain how the fundamental particles if of matter condensed into the heavy elements that make up the world as we know it. And any model regarding the creation of heavy elements rely on the research performed by scientists like Hofmann.

To that end, Hofmann bucked the trend of naming new elements after nuclear physicists like Niels Bohr, and picked a scientists who spent more time looking up at the heavens than down at the earth.

But to Hofmann himself, this is already ancient history. Notoriously unsentimental about the opportunity to carve a new name in the Stanley Cup of science, Hofmann has already put naming element 112 in the rear view mirror.

Said Hofmann, "we will wait for the IUPAC to rule on the new name, but the aim is now to look for element 120."

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Organic molecules found in 66-million year old fossil

In 1999 teenager and budding palaeontologist Tyler Lyson discovered the fossil of a mummified dinosaur, later dubbed Dakota, on his family’s farm. Dakota is one of only five dinosaur mummies ever discovered and is an important paleontological find.

Dakota was found with its skin envelope, along with other areas, including its tail, arms and legs, largely intact. In this almost complete form, Dakota is essentially a three-dimensional fossil.

In December 2007 Dr Phil Manning, a palaeontologist at the University of Manchester and the leader of the recent excavation at the site of discovery, said “the skin has been mineralised” and it was possible “Dakota could contain other soft-tissue remnants”, according to the National Geographic website. This means that scientists will have more to study than just bone. Dakota’s preservation allows for research into tissue-based substances such as tendons, muscles and organs.

On July 3, 2009, researchers said they had found “preserved organic molecules” in Dakota’s skin, according to www.media-newswire.com. Researchers said they believed Dakota’s soft tissues had failed to decay because they were protected by “fine sediments that formed a mineral cast”, preventing bacteria from eating away at the tissue.

To be in this condition, Dakota’s body would have needed to be mineralised, a feat in itself, and remained largely untouched by predators and unharmed by geological changes. Furthermore, Dakota would have had to be buried very soon after its death to be preserved in such an unusual way.

It is “absolutely amazing to be able to identify organic molecules from soft tissue that belonged to a beast that died over 66-million years ago”, said Manning, “this is the closest you’re going to get to patting the animal”.

Dakota, a plant-eating hadrosaur, is ranked in Manning’s top-10 fossils and is about 66-million years old. Advanced techniques have shown that Dakota was duckbilled and had a double layer of skin, similar to that of modern day birds and reptiles, which are likely to have been related to the ancient creature.

The rare find, with evidence of skin, tissue, internal organs and bones, provides a great insight into the prehistoric world. The scientific community has been amazed and excited at the discovery; Manning said it was “absolutely gobsmacking”.

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New Black Frog Species Discovered

A team of scientists went on a midnight hike. Does this sound like the beginning of a good joke? It’s not, but it is an interesting story. So the scientists and guides were wandering around the Cordillera de Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica near the border with Panama in the dark, doing transects to find various frogs, when they heard a lot of unique frog calls going on. Dink! Tink!

They shone their flashlight inside a bromeliad, a tropical flowering relative of the pineapple that tends to fill up with water after a rain, and inside was a tiny black female frog.

Herpetologist Gerardo Chaves and colleage Adrián García, both who work at the Zoology Museum at the University of Costa Rica, had never seen a frog like that before, and they realized they’d likely discovered a brand new species – a very cool feat for any scientist! They collected the frog and set out to find more individuals. Just two centimeters long, the frog is a member of the tink frog group, most of which have a clear bell-like call. The scientists brought some tissue samples back to geneticists Alejandro Leal and Alejandro Mora at the University of Costa Rica who confirmed these frogs were indeed a previously unknown species.

The scientists named the new species Diasporus ventrimaculatus, which refers to the spotted belly of both male and female of the new species. They published their findings in the scientific journal Zootaxa. On a funny little side note, the journal editors needed convincing that the male and female indeed belonged to the same species because they look so different. The females are all black, while the males are mottled orange, red and grey-black. Chaves found this particularly unusual since the frogs come out at night. Why should male and female have distinct coloration if they find one another by call? Another question for further study.

All of these new tink frogs they found in a valley known as Valle de Silencio, and the biologists believe this frog is endemic there, possibly found nowhere else in the world. The valley lies 12 hours walk from the nearest town, and remains extremely remote and unexplored compared to many other locales in Costa Rica. The frog's habitat is unusual because the valley lies above 8,200 feet elevation, which is high – and cool – for a tink frog, or any frog for that matter. Most tink frogs live below 1,600 feet with the highest elevation otherwise known for a tink frog being 6,600 feet. These frogs are also interesting because they do not have a tadpole stage but develop straight from the egg into a tiny frog.

Tropical Costa Rica has a rich herpetofauna, with around 186 amphibian species. And although scientists have identified over 6,000 amphibians around the world, many are in dire straits, suffering from declines from chitrid fungus, pesticides, habitat loss, and other threats. A full third of amphibian species are threatened, endangered or extinct.

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Rare bird discovered in Arnhem Land

A rare bird has been discovered deep in the heart of Arnhem Land.

Local rangers and Northern Territory scientists made the surprise discovery during a recent survey of the Laynhapuy Homelands.

It's the first time a population of the unusually named Shrike-tits have been found in northeast Arnhem Land.

Northern shrike-tits are small birds which are difficult to see and their populations are thinly-spread, said research scientist Dr Simon Ward from the NT department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport (NRETAS).

"So we have only about 30 records for them, scattered across the Top End," he said.

The first recorded sighting of the tiny bird was made in the NT in 1913 at Borroloola, near the Gulf of Carpentaria.

There have been few sightings since, with the most recent in the outback town of Katherine, Dr Ward said.

He carried out the latest survey as part of a joint project between NRETAS and the Yirralka Rangers.

"It's an exciting find because these rare birds, listed nationally and in the Northern Territory as vulnerable, have never been recorded in the region before," he said.

"We're getting more records of the species in now but they're still a very enigmatic little creature."

As part of the project, local rangers were being trained in the techniques of animal survey and identification, Dr Ward said

Traditional Owner for the area, Yumutjin Wunungmurra, said he had not seen the birds before but he was glad the rare bird had decided to call his country home.

"It's important that they are protected," he said.

Dr Ward said there had been little survey work carried out in the region since the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land 60 years ago.

"More surveys are needed in the area to determine what habitats the northern shrike-tits are using and how widely spread they are," he said.

"The Yirralka Rangers will be able to continue this work efficiently and effectively in the future."

In addition to the northern shrike-tits, new records of sightings were made for several other species.

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Rare Indian artifcats found on Lisbon property

Some young men were walking along a wooded bike path near the Quinebaug River when they found a black spearhead laying in the soil.

It looked like part of an American Indian weapon. So they asked Richard Rogers, who owns the land, if they could dig for more.

In two weekends, they found 80 spearheads in an area about the size of a small bedroom.

Rogers decided to see for himself. He and his son, now 22, walked through the woods, and brought a bucket of water to clean their discoveries. Near a stump by the river, Rogers picked up an oval stone a little larger than a silver dollar.

Something was carved in it, and he handed it to his son.

"He cleaned it up and said, This is a face, Dad.'"

The stone was a rare pendant. They had stumbled upon an ancient American Indian encampment and part of a burial ground dated more than 3,000 years ago.

The state Office of Archaeology has excavated portions of the property and found hundreds of artifacts, from stone tools to evidence of a pit where cremated bodies were buried. Radiocarbon dating a method used to estimate the age of remains in an archaeological site places the time of two areas containing charcoal at 3,400 and 4,000 years ago.

Representatives of the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequots tribes and the Native American Heritage Advisory Council have visited the site. The Archaeological Conservancy, a private, nonprofit organization that acquires and permanently preserves important archaeological sites across the United States, has looked at it. The conservancy publishes the quarterly magazine American Archaeology.

Andrew Stout, eastern regional director of the group, said the site has research potential and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

"It's a great property in that it is set aside from any major development," he said. Stout researches sites on private property from Maine to North Carolina about 1,000 properties per year.

State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni said the state has found many American Indian campsites, but few this large. The boundaries are unknown.

"We don't have many that are intact," he said. "Many have been disturbed by plowing. Many have had subdivisions been built on them, highways. Here is a parcel that has been untouched, and so the integrity of the place is really intact."

He said the pendant is a rare find.

"There are very few, even in museum collections," he said. "We don't see it often. When I saw this, and all of the stone points they were getting here, I realized there is a lot here that could yield important activity in the past."

The dig location is not being publicized because of potential unauthorized digging.

Rogers lives on 34 acres off the Quinebaug River.

When the water is low, the remains of a stone wall emerge. American Indians built fishing weirs in rivers, or stone walls in the shape of a V, to funnel fish. They would walk along the top of the weir where fish collected, then use spears or nets to catch them.

Rogers, who serves on the Board of Finance in Lisbon, installs and repairs power lines for Northeast Utilities. His grandmother gave him this land, and the property abuts fields. For as long as he can remember, every time his neighbors would plow, they'd find something.

But Rogers said he never thought much of it, until he discovered the stone with the face on it.

"Once we found that, I felt like we had something a little bit more there than just the regular Indian campground," he said.

He called Jeffrey Bendremer, tribal archaeologist for the Mohegans. Rogers said he drove to the house the same afternoon.

The tribal council declined comment.

Rogers also brought the pieces to the University of Connecticut's expo the same weekend. By Tuesday, he said, Bellantoni was on his property.

Bellantoni said it took a while to get a team to the property, but ultimately, he found about a dozen volunteers and students from UConn to work on the dig. The university offered an archaeological field school there in July 2007, organized by the Connecticut Museum of Natural History and Connecticut Archaeology Center.

They studied the land in 5-foot blocks. Archaeologists placed an imaginary checkerboard over the land, then dug in alternate squares, further dividing each square into 30-inch quarters.

"It's a very slow and deliberate process that allows us to record and map every level that (every artifact) comes from," Bellantoni said. "But that is the only way we can interpret the site."

They used a global positioning system to set a position, then drove wooden pins in the ground to mark off where they'd been.

Rogers said they recorded every detail.

"They go in there with trowels and paint brushes and just scrape the surface," Rogers said. "Every time they find something, they record how deep it was, where it was headed, where on the grid it was, which grid it was on. With these grids they can lay out exactly how big this village was and what was where. Everything is documented to a tee."

During the dig, archaeologists found a black stain in the soil. They thought it was a hearth or small fireplace at first, but it grew larger as they dug deeper. They realized they had found a small deposit for cremated remains.

The burial is dated to more than 3,000 years ago, and was used as a ceremonial place by American Indians who cremated their dead.

During that time, along with their dead, American Indians sometimes put animals, nut products and stone tools in crematories. When the ceremony was over and the fire cold, they scooped the ashes out. Then they dug another hole nearby for the ashes and gifts, called a secondary pit.

Archaeologists have found one secondary pit on Rogers' land and believe there are more, along with at least one large crematory.

Ed Sarabia, chairman of the Native American Heritage Advisory Council, visited the site last spring and returned to "smudge" it, a ceremony that includes burning sage to bless the land.

The stone face Rogers found was meant to stay with the burial forever, Sarabia said. But he said Rogers has been careful and respectful of the artifact and discovery.

"Our long-range goal is to do what we can to protect what is there," Sarabia said.

Letters about digging at the property went back and forth between Bellantoni and members of the Mohegan tribe.

In November 2007, the Mohegan Council of Elders sent a letter reminding Bellantoni he'd been asked to "cease excavation activities at the burial site" until the tribe was consulted.

"We appreciate your attempt to gather the potentially affected tribes at the site; however, such a gathering is inappropriate when formal notice has not been provided to the Mohegan tribal leadership," the tribe wrote.

Bellantoni replied in January 2008 that his goal was to preserve the site, and he welcomed the tribe's input. In the same letter, he said the tribe also could make a donation to the Archaeological Conservancy to help purchase the land.

Stout said the conservancy didn't receive a donation, but this rarely happens. The group raises money mostly through state and foundation grants, he said. "The numbers just didn't work out," he said.

The conservancy acquires property through donations, charitable sales or by buying land at the appraised value.

Rogers wanted to sell the land for open space preservation and was hoping the tribes would help purchase the site, but after nearly a year, it did not happen.

Bellantoni removed the burial feature found on the property and has left the rest relatively undisturbed.

As time goes on, Stout said archaeological sites are vulnerable to everything, from the natural environment to looting. He said the Rogers family is keeping a careful watch on it.

"Usually these places exist because families like that thought enough to take care of them," he said.

Rogers advertised 24 acres for sale in February. He found no buyer.

"I want to see it preserved," he said. But he said he won't wait for years.

Once the archaeologists are done, Rogers said he'll walk the property, dig it, and auction the artifacts off.

"It's like having a diamond mine in your own backyard," he said. "I've offered it to the Indians and the way I see it, if they're not interested in preserving their heritage, why should I?"

He's spoken to the Old Barn Auction in West Findlay, Ohio, about his findings. The auctioneer, which has operated since 1955, holds more than 40 auctions a year and includes items such as historic Indian artifacts, Civil War military items, toys, trains and antique furniture, according to its Web site.

Bellantoni said archaeologists are a long way from publishing findings about the site, and have not finished lab work yet.

They've stopped digging in the main part of the fishing encampment, and have gone through perhaps an acre on the grid, he said.

"I think what we've found is enough to tell us that, yes, the site was as important as we thought it was," he said.

"Each archaeological site is unique in and of itself, and contributes to a body of data. It provides us with a body of information about what happened here thousands of years ago. And, as a result, every one is important. And every one is like an endangered species."

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'Transgender' Mummy Discovered in Birmingham Museum Collection

Not even a month after 4 brave mummies left the Brooklyn Museum to have themselves scanned, and 'Lady Hor' proved to be a male mummy - "scrotum and penis pretty well preserved", another round of mummy CSI uncovered yet another case of 'transgender' behaviour amongst mummies.

The Birmingham Museum took three mummies to the Stafford Hospital in a bid to understand how these ancient Egyptians, whose bodied were later mummified, died.

(Namenkhetamun 26th Dynasty (664-525 B.C.)
There is a large hole in the mummy’s back. No explanation has been found for this)

One of the mummies, from the Namenkhetamun of the 26th Dynasty (664-525BC), was described as 'the daughter of Amunkhau' on the coffin lid. But the scan has revealed the mummy is male. Researchers also discovered another mystery - an unexplained hole in the mummy's back, about the size of a fist.

Museum staff also wanted to learn more about a 'metallic' object in the neck of a Graeco-Roman mummy, discovered on x-rays in 1995. The head contains three or four fragments of a dense unidentified material lodged in the base of the skull. This was previously thought to be an arrowhead but no entry or exit wounds are visible. The brain has been completely removed via the nose. Instead, the CT-scans have revealed the object is in fact one of three or four fragments - probably metal - lodged in the base of the skull.

Scans of Padimut, priest of the goddess Mut and probably of the 21st Dynasty (1085-935 BC), showed evidence of high quality mummification - including removal of the brain and 'false eyes' plates in front of the real eyeballs. These are possibly made from stone or glass.

Birmingham Museum’s curator of world cultures, Adam Jaffer, said: “This scanning has produced views of the museum’s mummies which have never been seen before. “We have been able to ‘virtually unwrap’ them without causing any damage. “But scanning poses new questions about the life and death of these ancient Egyptians which we will try to find the answers for.”

(Late Graeco-Roman mummy c. 300 A.D.
Currently on display in the Ancient Egypt Gallery
There is very little wear on any of the teeth suggesting that the mummy was below the age of 30.)

Photos: Birmingham Museum
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New Salamander Species Found In Appalachian Foothills

A new species of lungless salamander was discovered recently in a small stream located in the Appalachian mountains of the US.

The new salamander is a distinctive critter that has its own genus. It breathes through its skin, and males and females have different coloration, which is quite unusual for the species.

An unusual amphibian has not been discovered in the US in half a century.

The researchers who found the salamander wrote about it in the Journal of Zoology. They have decided to call it the 'patch-nosed' salamander, due to the yellow patch on the animal's face. The minute creature is barely an inch long.

The amount of the animals discovered in the area is so small that either it is very secretive, or survives in such little, isolated numbers that it is already endangered.

"This animal is really a spectacular find," said biologist Carlos Camp of Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, who led the team, to BBC News. "It is the first genus of amphibian, indeed of any four-footed vertebrate, discovered in the US in nearly 50 years."

The Appalachian Highlands are rampant with salamander diversity, as the species thrives in the moist environments like rivers, underground, the forest floor, cliffs and up in trees.

"The salamander fauna of the US, particularly of the southern Appalachians, has been intensively studied for well over a century, so the discovery of such a distinct form was completely unsuspected," said Carlos.

Two graduate students, Bill Peterman and Joe Milanovich, found the first new salamander, the Urspelerpes brucei. They immediately took the critter to Camp for identification.

"When we realized that it was something novel, we contacted a geneticist, Trip Lamb, of East Carolina University, Greenville and a bone specialist, David Wake of the University of California at Berkeley. John Maerz, a professor at the University of Georgia, completed the research team," stated Carlos.

The team's research discovered just how unique the salamander is.

"The genetic data revealed that this was far more unusual than any of us suspected, which is why we described it in its own genus," said Camp.

This new amphibian is noticeably different from others of its species. It has the littlest body of any salamander currently in the US. They are also the only salamanders whose males have a different color and a pattern, a trait usually distinctive to birds.

Males have long black stripes on their sides and are yellow. Females do not have stripes and are not as bright as the males.

Males have fewer vertebras than females. However, both males and females of the new species are about the same size, which is unusual for a salamander.

The behavior and habits of the salamander are a complete mystery.

So far, Camp's team has located only eight adults, all from a specific stream. Four were found under rocks and four where found in leaf litter.

The last new amphibian in the US was found in 1961 in Alabama, and was also a lungless salamander.

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Galileo discovered Neptune, new theory claims

History books tell us that the planet Neptune was found in the mid-1800s after years of speculation and search.

But in 1613, more than two centuries before Neptune was officially discovered, Galileo Galilei knew he had found it, according to a new theory by University of Melbourne physicist David Jamieson.

Jamieson has been studying Galileo's notebooks and found some interesting, buried notations that suggest the great astronomer – then working with a crude, early telescope he crafted himself – was onto something big.

It has long been known that Galileo observed Neptune, but it was thought that he discounted the object as a star and gave it no further thought. But it turns out Galileo may have known the "star" had moved in relation to other stars, Jamieson reveals. That sort of movement would have caught Galileo's attention, since he knew that it was just the sort of thing planets did.

Controversial discovery

Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun (assuming you don't count the recently demoted Pluto), is hard to spot even today. It is not visible to the naked eye. But this week, by coincidence, Neptune is well positioned near the easy-to-find Jupiter, making Neptune findable with binoculars or a small telescope.

Neptune's history of discovery has been controversial from the beginning.

Uranus had been discovered before Neptune, and observations suggest it was under the gravitational influence of another planet, farther out in the solar system, says Geoff Gaherty, who runs the Foxmead Observatory in Canada and writes skywatching articles for Starry Night Education and SPACE.com.

"Predictions of the position of this new planet were made by [British mathematician] John Couch Adams in 1843 and [French mathematician] Urbain Le Verrier in 1845-1846, but both mathematicians had great difficulty in persuading any astronomer to actually look for the planet," Gaherty explains. "Finally on September 23, 1846, a German astronomer, Johann Gottfried Galle, used Le Verrier's chart to actually locate and observe Neptune. This led to a major controversy as to which country should be credited with the discovery; ultimately the honor was shared."

The notebook

Galileo was observing the four large moons of Jupiter now named for him â€" in the years 1612 and 1613. Over several nights, he also recorded in his notebook the position of a nearby star that is not in any modern catalogues, Jamieson explains.

"It has been known for several decades that this unknown star was actually the planet Neptune," Jamieson said. "Computer simulations show the precision of his observations revealing that Neptune would have looked just like a faint star almost exactly where Galileo observed it."
But unlike stars, planets orbit the sun. So planets move through our sky different than the relatively fixed background of stars.

On the night of Jan. 28, 1613, Galileo wrote in his notebook that the star we now know is the planet Neptune appeared to have moved relative to an actual nearby star, Jamieson said. He added: There is also a mysterious unlabeled black dot in his earlier observations of Jan. 6, 1613, which is in the right position to be Neptune.

"I believe this dot could reveal he went back in his notes to record where he saw Neptune earlier when it was even closer to Jupiter but had not previously attracted his attention because of its unremarkable star-like appearance," Jamieson said.

If the mysterious black dot on Jan. 6 was actually recorded on Jan. 28, Professor Jamieson proposes this would prove that Galileo believed he may have discovered a new planet.

More evidence?

It might be possible to date the entry by doing a chemical analysis of trace elements on the page, he hopes, and he aims to do that later this year.

"Galileo may indeed have formed the hypothesis that he had seen a new planet which had moved right across the field of view during his observations of Jupiter over the month of January 1613," Jamieson said.

Or, perhaps there are other clues waiting to be found.

"Galileo was in the habit of sending a scrambled sentence, an anagram, to his colleagues to establish his priority for the sensational discoveries he made with his new telescope," Jamieson notes. "He did this when he discovered the phases of Venus and the rings of Saturn. So perhaps somewhere he wrote an as-yet un-decoded anagram that reveals he knew he discovered a new planet."

He presented his new theory in a series of lectures this month as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.

Source

Ancient shipwreck found off Dominican north coast

Marine Exploration, Inc. and joint venture partner Hispaniola Ventures, LLC recently located a previously undiscovered shipwreck on the North West Reef of the Silver Bank, Dominican Republic.

The artifacts recovered during the proofing excavations have proved to date the ship between 1725 and 1745. Burt Webber, the Company’s treasure hunter was interviewed about the find.

“An exciting video of Marine Exploration divers working the wreck area uncovering the ship’s anchors and priceless items appeared on FOX TV News and CBS TV News in Palm Beach along with Webber’s interview,” Business Wire said.

Mark Goldberg, CEO Marine Exploration notes, “We have additional coverage pending through a major worldwide TV news service, another South Florida TV station, and widely circulated newspapers in the New York market. Finding sunken treasure is a fantasy many dream about. We are doing it and at the same time sharing the excitement with others.”

Marine Exploration, Inc. and joint venture partner Hispaniola Ventures, LLC headed by Webber expect to continue the surveys and anticipate locating and recovering historic shipwrecks with valuable artifacts and treasure.

“Working under exclusive contract with the Dominican Republic, the Company has plans in place to pursue multiple notable shipwrecks in Dominican Republic territorial and jurisdictional waters,” the report says.

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Massive supernova occurred 11 billion years ago

Astronomers on Wednesday said they had found the farthest supernova ever detected, a giant star that ripped apart around 11 billion years ago.

A new technique enabled the cosmologists to make the find, which should help advance knowledge into these rare phenomena and their role in generating other stars.

A supernova occurs when a massive star runs out of fuel, collapses in upon itself under the force of its own gravity to become a tiny, ultra-dense object called a neutron star.

The star then explodes, sending out a shock wave that reverberates around the galaxy.

The blast distributes elements that are heavier than oxygen, such as iron, calcium and silicon, and enriches the molecular clouds that over the aeons cluster together and form new star systems.

The ancient supernova was found after astronomers compared several years of images taken from a portion of the sky, enabling them to look for objects that changed in brightness over time.

The universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old, so the supernova marks the death of one of earliest stars in creation.

The previous supernova record was an event that happened around six billion years ago.

Bureau Report

Danger moths discovered in Hounslow

Dangerous moths, which can cause breathing difficulties in humans, have been discovered in Hounslow.

The Forestry Commission has confirmed that nests of oak processionary moth have been found in Chiswick, Brentford and Isleworth.

As well as damaging trees, the moths' caterpillars pose a risk to human and animal health, with the creature's tiny hairs containing a toxin that can cause itching, skin lesions and, less commonly, sore throats, breathing difficulties or eye problems.

A council spokeswoman said: "A treatment and removal programme is under way and actions are being taken to reduce the threat of new cases next year.

"The council would like to thank those residents who called in to report possible cases for their support, as this has allowed the Forestry Commission to take action quickly and ensure the hazard is removed."

Reactions to the caterpillars' hairs can happen if people or animals touch the caterpillars or nests, or if the hairs are blown by the wind..

Normally found in southern and central Europe, the moths are thought to have reached Hounslow by the importation and planting in of trees infested with eggs.

A spokesman from the Forestry Commission told how mild winters have been instrumental in the moth's ability to survive and breed in London.

Indications Kew Gardens show that the moth will attack many species of oak, feeding on its leaves, which can result in severe foliage loss.

"There are no known records of it killing trees in this country, although there is evidence from elsewhere that repeated attacks can reduce a tree's vigour and can occasionally prove fatal," said the spokesman.

There is a single generation of the moth per year with caterpillars occurring from April to June.

Living in webs or nests spun among shoots or on the trunks and branches of trees, the caterpillars have the habit of following one another in a long procession, hence the name.

Larvae pupate in the webs at the end of June or beginning of July and emerge as adult moths one to two weeks later.

To control the moth, the Forestry Commission sprays the caterpillars with an insecticide soon after they hatch.

"We strongly advise against householders treating the nests in their own gardens because of the health dangers posed by the toxic caterpillar hairs in the nests," said the spokesman.

"Also, the job must be done at just the right stage in the moth's life cycle."

The pest was first found in the west London area in the summer of 2006 and action was taken to destroy the nests. However, in the spring of 2007, the commission discovered newly-hatched larvae, which confirmed the moth can over winter in the UK.

The commission set up an outbreak management team in June 2007, with the moth being contained within the Hounslow, Ealing, Richmond and Brent areas.

"We know that eradication will take some time to achieve," said the spokesman. "But our surveys have shown that the population remains at relatively low levels.

"Similar active measures are again in place for 2009."

Source