Rare monster insect found at Wrexham home

A mate is being sought for a monster insect – believed to be the only one of its kind in the UK – which was discovered by a Wrexham family in their home.

The Morimus Asper beetle, which is native to Mediterranean countries, was found in a logpile which had been imported from the south of France in May.

Mother-of-two Heather Jones, of Ruabon, made it her mission to find out what species had been discovered after the six-legged bug was handed over to her family who had been studying rare beasts during the school holidays.

The insect, also known as the Capricorn bug, was then handed over by Heather to a sanctuary in Ruthin, and from there to BugWorld Experience, the UK’s only insectarium, based at Liverpool’s Albert Dock.

Experts there immediately identified the newcomer as the Morimus Asper, recognised as a threatened species.

It is so called because it has large antennae, and belongs to a family of bark-eating ‘long horned’ beetles. Now a mate is being sought in a bid to increase the bug’s population.

“This type of beetle is not usually found in the UK,” said Jenny Dobson of the BugWorld Experience.

“There have been a couple of instances of it turning up in foreign matter over the last century but it is extremely rare and does not live very long, so it’s safe to say this is the only beetle of its kind here in the UK.

“If we do not find it a mate, we will care for it as long as it lives here at the BugWorld Experience."

by: Matt Sims
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Fighter Jet Missing 5 Decades Found Off California Coast

Searchers in California say they have found and identified the wreck of a fighter jet that disappeared into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles International Airport nearly 54 years ago.

The searchers were looking for another missing plane when they came upon the wreckage of a Lockheed T-33A jet trainer, said Pat Macha, an aircraft archeologist who has identified about 3,700 crash sites and visited more than 800.

"It's a funky thing," Macha said Tuesday. "You're looking for one aircraft, and you find another."

The T-33 disappeared shortly after taking off on an early-morning training navigation flight October 15, 1955, an Air Force Aircraft Accident Report says. Two crewmen were aboard. The plane had been presumed lost at sea all these years.

The discovery started this year near Austin, Texas, where computer expert Gary Fabian found "what looked like a few little pixels" on a high-definition U.S. Geological Survey image of the Santa Monica Bay ocean floor.

Fabian is the founder of a group of unpaid sleuths who discovered a missing World War I German U-boat off the California coast in 2003. The group, known as UB88.org, has continued to search for other wrecks.

Before moving to Texas, Fabian became interested in military aircraft wrecks and found Macha about five years ago in Huntington Beach, California.

Macha told him about his search for the wreckage of a P-51D Mustang fighter flown by World War II Women's Air Force Service pilot Gertrude V. "Tommy" Tompkins Silver. The plane was presumed lost at sea in 1944.

Of the 38 WASP pilots who lost their lives in World War II, Macha said, Silver's is the only wreckage that has not been found. Macha has been searching for the wreckage for 11 years.

Silver's 100-year-old sister lives in Florida, Macha said, and he would like to find the wreckage so she can know what happened.

From Texas, Fabian sent the map info to Ray Arntz, owner and operator of a southern California dive company and a fellow member of UB88.org.

Arntz and some his employees set out to search three wrecks using side-scan sonar. Two turned out to be boats. They weren't sure about the third.

"I just grabbed a tank and went down to look at it," Arntz said.

He saw a fairly compact debris field with a lot of aluminum, which indicated that it was an airplane. Then he saw landing gear.

" 'It's an airplane,' I said to myself. 'How do we go from here?' "

A manufacturer's number on a feed mechanism for a 50-caliber machine gun started him and the others toward piecing together what they had found. The engine appeared to be a jet, so he knew it wasn't the Mustang, which had a propeller motor.

By that point, Arntz said, "We know it's not what we're looking for."

The manufacturer's number indicated that it was a T-33 Shooting Star. Researching government documents, the searchers found that a T-33 had disappeared in the area.

"It just matched what we had," Arntz said. "The T-33 was it."

That was about a month ago. The searchers kept quiet about their find until family members could be notified. Macha said he spoke with a relative of one of the two crew members a few days ago.

The Air Force accident report identifies the pilots as Lt. Richard Martin Theiler and Lt. Paul Dale Smith. Theiler had 1,244 hours of flying experience, and Smith had 430.

Another volunteer group called Missing Aircraft Search Team also helped find the wreckage.

The searchers had another reason for initially keeping silent about their find.

"We're trying to quietly do this stuff and move on so the sites don't get ravaged," Arntz said.

The group also found a B-36 Peacemaker bomber near San Diego last year. The plane disappeared in 1952.

For the three searchers, finding wrecks is an unpaid passion.

"We do this fairly consistently," said Arntz, 61. "As amateurs, this is our form of recreation."

Said Fabian with a laugh, "It's an absolutely money-losing proposition."

Fabian, 46, is an ex-sports fisherman who says he has an "obsession" with the water and an "interest in the maritime history of Southern California."

Macha, 64, says he got interested in aircraft wrecks in the 1960s when he found a crash site while working in a Boy Scout camp in the San Bernardino Mountains.

There are 2,500 crash sites in California, he said, where all or parts of an airplane still remain. Some of them are chronicled on his Web site, aircraftwrecks.com.

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Fine line between genius and madness, scientists find

There is a fine line between genius and madness because they share the same genes, scientists have found.

Psychologists have discovered that creative people have a gene in common which is also linked to psychosis and depression.

They believe that the findings could explain why "geniuses" like Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath displayed such destructive behaviour.

The gene, which is called neuregulin 1, plays a role in brain development but a variant of it is also associated with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Researchers from Semmelweis University in Hungary recruited a group of volunteers who considered themselves to be very creative and accomplished.

To measure creativity, the volunteers were asked to respond to a series of unusual questions. For example: "Just suppose clouds had strings attached to them which hang down to earth. What would happen?"

They were scored based on the originality and flexibility of their answers.

The volunteers also completed a questionnaire regarding their lifetime creative achievements before the researchers took blood samples.

The report concluded: "The results show a clear link between neuregulin 1 and creativity.

"Volunteers with the specific variant of this gene were more likely to have higher scores on the creativity assessment and also greater lifetime creative achievements than volunteers with a different form of the gene."

The head researcher Dr Szabolcs Kéri said that this is the first study to show that a genetic variant associated with psychosis may have some beneficial functions.

He said: "Molecular factors that are loosely associated with severe mental disorders but are present in many healthy people may have an advantage enabling us to think more creatively."

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

By Richard Alleyne
Source

Dutch researchers find mutation linked to greater virulence in swine flu virus

Dutch scientists have reported they have found what was thought to be a key mutation in some swine flu viruses from the Netherlands, a change many virologists feared would give the viruses the ability to cause more severe disease.

But so far the evidence seems to suggest this mutation does not make the new H1N1 virus more virulent, the researchers said Tuesday.

The change, at position 627 on the PB2 gene of the virus, is known to increase the ability of flu viruses to replicate; prolonged viral replication can lead to more serious illness. The mutation has been found in all known human flu viruses, including the three that caused the pandemics of the last century.

"Everybody predicted that this mutation is going to have a big impact on virus replication of the new H1N1," said Dr. Ron Fouchier, one of the authors of the report and a molecular virologist at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.

"If you would have asked me three months ago, I would have bet my car on it. But nobody placed that bet because everybody was sure that it would increase (virulence)."

If they had, it seems they might have been able to claim the keys to Fouchier's SUV.

Three people either known or suspected of having been infected with the mutated H1N1 viruses suffered only mild disease. And ferrets infected with a laboratory synthesized H1N1 virus with this change also did not suffer more severe disease. Ferrets are the standard animal model for human flu.

"Given the information that we have at present, we have no indication for increased virulence," said Dr. Marion Koopmans, chief of virology in the infectious diseases laboratory of the National Institute of Public Health, The Netherlands.

"This is a mutation that is in the textbooks as something to look out for, but whether it really confers something to these (H1N1) viruses remains to be seen."

Koopmans, Fouchier and a number of colleagues disclosed the surprising findings through ProMed, a website and mailing list that serves as an early warning system for infectious diseases developments. It is closely scrutinized by scientists and public health officials in the infectious diseases sphere.

The Dutch scientists reported finding two viruses with this change that appear to have been transmitted between mid-July and mid-August in the West Frisian Islands in the north of The Netherlands. The area is a popular destination for Dutch and German campers.

One of the mutated viruses was recovered from a male who had been there and who started developing symptoms on Aug. 9. The second was found in a girl who hadn't been to the area, but whose sister had been camping there at the time. The sister was also sick, but there was no specimen from her to test. Koopmans said the working assumption is that the sister who went camping was also infected with this virus.

The first virus was only discovered in mid-September, when it made its way to Koopmans' lab. An investigation at that point showed the male and the sister had been part of a group of 24 who shared two tents on the island. Most of the members of the camping party reported having been ill.

Koopmans said officials have looked at specimens from the area and from the regions from whence the campers came, but haven't found more viruses with this change.

"There's no evidence yet that this virus has spread any further in Holland," Fouchier said. "Of course we're currently still looking for it. Every virus we get our hands on we check (position) 627. But we haven't found any more."

Labs have been looking for this mutation from the moment the new H1N1 virus was fully analyzed and it was seen it didn't have the same amino acid at position 627 as other human viruses have.

Some scientists even suggested the virus might not be fully adapted to spread among humans because it didn't have this change, but instead had an amino acid at position 627 that is normally seen in avian flu viruses. The pandemic virus, which is a never-before-seen hybrid of swine, avian and human genes, has an avian PB2 gene.

Dr. Richard Webby, head of the World Health Organization's influenza collaborating centre at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., said there is good evidence this mutation is associated with adaptation of avian influenza viruses to humans, but the proof that it is linked to severity of disease is less clear.

Viruses with this change show increased virulence in mice and sometimes in ferrets, but not always, he said, suggesting the ferret data probably are more reliable. "I think this is one instance where mice are probably lying a little bit," Webby said.

In some flu viruses this change is known to allow the virus to replicate at cooler temperatures, meaning they can infect the upper airways, rather than the warmer deep lung area preferred by avian flu viruses.

That might actually be a good thing with this H1N1, Webby said, noting autopsies have shown that in severe cases the pandemic virus wreaks havoc deep in the lungs.

Dr. Nancy Cox, who heads the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, warns people should not take too much comfort from the fact this change doesn't seem to make the virus more virulent at this point.

"We just know that influenza can change in unpredictable ways through mutation and reassortment," she said, referring to the process by which flu viruses swap genes with each other.

"The unexpected can arise, and arise very quickly. So we shouldn't write this off. It is causing hospitalization. It is causing fatalities. And in every single case that you hear about, it's a tragedy."

By Helen Branswell
Source

Emperor Nero's rotating dining room 'discovered'

A brick structure brick structure incorporating a pillar was discovered during
maintenance works at Rome's Forum Romanum Photo: EPA

Archeologists in Rome believe they have found the remains of a legendary rotating dining room which the Emperor Nero built to entertain his guests.

Remains of the fabled dining hall have been discovered on the city's Palatine Hill, where emperors traditionally built their most lavish palaces.

The hall is said to have had a revolving wooden floor which allowed guests to survey a ceiling painted with stars and equipped with panels from which flower petals and perfume would shower onto the tables below.

The remains of the room were found by archeologists excavating the Domus Aurea, or Golden House, which was built for Nero during his reign from 54 to 68AD.

The leader of the four month dig, Françoise Villedieu, said her team discovered part of a circular room which was supported by a pillar with a diameter of more than 13 feet.

The Roman historian Suetonius described the unique revolving room in his Lives of the Caesars, written about 60 years after Nero's death.

"The chief banqueting room was circular and revolved perpetually, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies," he wrote.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the recently departed head of the British School at Rome, an archeological institute, said: "People have been trying to find the rotating dining room for a long time. We don't have much idea about it except for what Suetonius tells us. It could have had a revolving floor, or possibly a revolving ceiling. "If they really have discovered it, that would be exciting."

Rome's commissioner for archaeology, Roberto Cecchi, said funds would be made available to help archeologists carry out further investigation and try to verify whether they have indeed found Nero's dining room.

Nero established during his lifetime a reputation for cruelty and megalomania before committing suicide in AD 68.

Among the monuments he erected was a giant gilded statue of himself, known as the Colossus, which gave its name to the Colosseum amphitheatre.

By Nick Squires
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Time capsule discovered in old home

A message shared between a mother and son is discovered and returned to its rightful owner 69 years after it was written.

John O'Connell, 84, had no trouble opening the bottle but reading the message brought him to tears. So he asked his wife Marie.

"Left bottle here December 28th 1940. Look us up," Marie read.

The handwritten note was authored by his mother, Katherine, who at the time was 51 years old. John was 16.

"It wasn't my idea, It was her idea so I said ok let's try it," John said.

The letter simply identifies the two -- name, age, height and weight. It was sealed in an olive jar and concealed behind a wall in their home on Lakeshore Boulevard.

"I had good times there. It was nice. We had a small store up the street we'd go up there and buy candy," John said.

The house now belongs to handyman Vince Samuelle, who found the bottle while remodeling the kitchen.

"I really wasn't expecting to find anything in the walls," Samuelle said.

It's not his first bottle. Vince found a 100-year-old bottle of Scotch while remodeling another house.

"I guess it was put up there for good luck," Samuelle said.

The Scotch remains in his basement but the spirit in the O'Connell bottle could not be kept hidden. Vince and his girlfriend tracked down John through the phone book.

"I got a little bit of history on the house. I got to meet him. We walked through the back yard found a lot of things out that I didn't know about the property," Samuelle said.

Marie also enjoyed the trip down memory lane. There is more to understand ,even after 25 years of marriage.

"It was kinda like nostalgic. I was looking around and dreaming of when these three or four brothers were playing in the yard," Marie said.

Once behind the wall, John never gave that bottle another thought.

Nearly 70 years later though, that bottle gave him back childhood memories he forgot.

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500-carat diamond found at South African mine

The diamond weighs just over 100 grams
and could be worth more than $20m

One of the largest, high quality diamonds discovered to date has been found at a mine in South Africa, mining group Petra Diamonds has revealed.

The 507 carat stone, which could be worth in excess of $20m (£12.5m), was found with three other large diamonds.

They were discovered at the famous Cullinan mine, where the largest diamond in history was found more than 100 years ago.

The new find is being analysed by experts to determine its true value.

A 480 carat diamond found at the end of last year fetched $18m.

"The Cullinan mine has again given the world a spectacularly beautiful and important diamond," said Petra's chief executive Johan Dippenaar.

"Initial indications are that it is of exceptional colour and clarity, which suggest extraordinary potential for its polished yield."

Petra said the stone is one of the 20 biggest, high quality diamonds to have been found.

A 168 carat stone was also discovered, alongside one of 58 carats and another of 53 carats.

The largest diamond to be discovered, named the Cullinan, was 3,106 carats. It was cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels.

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The remains of an ancient HIV-like virus have been discovered in the genome of the two-toed sloth

The retroviruses which gave rise to HIV have been battling it out with mammal immune systems since mammals first evolved around 100 million years ago – about 85 million years earlier than previously thought, scientists now believe.

The remains of an ancient HIV-like virus have been discovered in the genome of the two-toed sloth [Choloepus hoffmanni] by a team led by Oxford University scientists who publish a report of their research in this week’s Science.

'Finding the fossilised remains of such a virus in this sloth is an amazing stroke of luck,’ said Dr Aris Katzourakis from Oxford’s Department of Zoology and the Institute for Emergent Infections, James Martin 21st Century School. ‘Because this sloth is so geographically and genetically isolated its genome gives us a window into the ancient past of mammals, their immune systems, and the types of viruses they had to contend with.’

The researchers found evidence of ‘foamy viruses’, a particular kind of retrovirus that resembles the complex lentiviruses, such as HIV and simian retroviruses (SIVs) – as opposed to simple retroviruses that are found throughout the genomic fossil record.

‘In previous work we had found evidence for similar viruses in the genomes of rabbits and lemurs but this new research suggests that the ancestors of complex retroviruses, such as HIV, may have been with us from the very beginnings of mammal evolution,’ said Dr Aris Katzourakis.

Understanding the historical conflict between complex viruses and mammal immune systems could lead to new approaches to combating existing retroviruses, such as HIV. It can also help scientists to decide which viruses that cross species are likely to cause dangerous pandemics – such as swine flu (H1N1) – and which, like bird flu (H5N1) and foamy viruses, cross this species barrier but then never cause pandemics in new mammal populations.

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Early McCartney musings discovered in Liverpool

A discovery in a Liverpool library has revealed that Paul McCartney's talent for writing was winning him prizes when he was just 10 — though for an essay about the queen, rather than a hit song.

A British researcher said he found an essay written — in very tidy, curling script — by the future Beatle for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Kevin Roach said Sunday that he found the work in records at Liverpool's Central Library. Roach said the writing is "advanced — you would say it was written by someone who was older than 10 years old, more like 14 or 15."

"It's unique in its own right. It shows his handwriting at that age and shows how Paul was thinking at the time," said Roach, who is working on a book about the McCartney family history.

According to excerpts published in the Sunday Times, McCartney — who gave his age as 10 years 10 months — contrasted violence which occurred on the coronation day of William the Conqueror with the day celebrating "our lovely young queen."

"No rioting nor killing will take place because present day royalty rules with affection rather than force," the essay says.

McCartney won the under-11 age category of the essay competition, and was given a prize — a gift certificate for books — by Liverpool's Lord Mayor.

"I can just recall Paul being nervous and getting this book token from the mayor," his brother Mike told the Sunday Times.

With bandmate John Lennon, McCartney was responsible for writing most of the Beatles' memorable songs. The queen knighted him in 1997, making him Sir Paul.

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850 Mostly Blind, Pale Creatures Discovered Underground

A new species of blind fish, named Cape Range Blind Fish (Milyeringa veritas) is one of 850 new species underground in the Australian Outback. Credit: Australian Center for Evolutionary Biology & Biodiversity,
University of Adelaide.

Down under in Australia, down underground, scientists have found 850 previously unknown species living in subterranean water, caves and micro-caverns.

These insects, crustaceans, spiders and worms are likely only about one-fifth of the number of undiscovered species the researchers think exist underground amid the harsh conditions of the Australian outback. Two species of blind fish and two of blind eels were also uncovered.

"What we've found is that you don't have to go searching in the depths of the ocean to discover new species of invertebrate animals — you just have to look in your own backyard," said researcher Andy Austin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. [Scientists say only a fraction of the species of plants and animals on the planet have been discovered.]

Only half of the species discovered have so far been named, the scientists announced today. Generically, the animals found in underground water are known as "stygofauna" and those from caves and micro-caverns are known as "troglofauna."

When it came to the water-dwelling stygofauna, small crustaceans dominated at about three-quarters percent of all species, then insects, all beetles, at roughly one-sixth, with other kinds of creatures making up the rest. For the cave-dwelling troglofauna, arachnids dominated at about one-half of all species, with insects at about one-quarter and crustaceans and others finishing the list.

"Virtually all are blind and completely lack eyes, and lack pigment, so they are pale or white in color," Austin told LiveScience. Often the species are quite delicate, he added, "and the insects in caves often have long legs and antennae — most sense vibration and use chemical senses, as they cannot see in the pitch black."

The scientists found these species during a comprehensive four-year survey of underground water and caves across arid and semi-arid Australia.

Austin and his colleagues suggest these species hid underground long ago due to past climate change.

"Central and southern Australia was a much wetter place 15 million years ago when there was a flourishing diversity of invertebrate fauna living on the surface," Austin explained. "But the continent became drier, a process that last until about 1 to 2 million years ago, resulting in our current arid environment. Species took refuge in isolated favorable habitats, such as in underground waters and micro-caverns, where they survived and evolved in isolation from each other."

So far the surveys have examined only 10 percent of the areas that likely have stygo- and troglofauna, Austin said. They now want to drastically expand their geographical coverage, as well as perform more genetic work to dissect when these creatures diverged from their brethren and see how this matches up with climate change and other geological events.

Although this new discovery is exciting scientifically, it also poses a number of challenges for the conservation of these species, as many of them are located in very remote areas of Australia, where there is significant ranching and mining that could potentially impact their survival.

"This said, it has been environmental monitoring by and support from mining companies that has helped with these discoveries," Austin noted.

The scientists detailed its findings at a scientific conference on evolution and biodiversity in Darwin, Australia, which celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin and finished Sept. 28.

Source

Coins with Joseph's name found in Egypt

Archeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the biblical Joseph, Cairo's Al Ahram newspaper recently reported. Excerpts provided by MEMRI show that the coins were discovered among a multitude of unsorted artifacts stored at the Museum of Egypt.

According to the report, the significance of the find is that archeologists have found scientific evidence countering the claim held by some historians that coins were not used for trade in ancient Egypt, and that this was done through barter instead.

The period in which Joseph was regarded to have lived in Egypt matches the minting of the coins in the cache, researchers said.

"A thorough examination revealed that the coins bore the year in which they were minted and their value, or effigies of the pharaohs [who ruled] at the time of their minting. Some of the coins are from the time when Joseph lived in Egypt, and bear his name and portrait," said the report.

The discovery of the cache prompted research team head Dr. Sa'id Muhammad Thabet to seek Koranic verses that speak of coins used in ancient Egypt.

"Studies by Dr. Thabet's team have revealed that what most archeologists took for a kind of charm, and others took for an ornament or adornment, is actually a coin. Several [facts led them to this conclusion]: first, [the fact that] many such coins have been found at various [archeological sites], and also [the fact that] they are round or oval in shape, and have two faces: one with an inscription, called the inscribed face, and one with an image, called the engraved face - just like the coins we use today," the report added.

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NASA found 99% pure water ice on Mars

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed sub-surface water ice that may be 99 percent pure, halfway between the North Pole and the equator on the Red Planet.

“We knew there was ice below the surface at high latitudes of Mars, but we find that it extends far closer to the equator than you would think, based on Mars’ climate today,” said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, a member of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, which runs the high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

“The other surprising discovery is that ice exposed at the bottom of these meteorite impact craters is so pure,” Byrne said.

“The thinking before was that ice accumulates below the surface between soil grains, so there would be a 50-50 mix of dirt and ice. We were able to figure out, given how long it took that ice to fade from view, that the mixture is about one percent dirt and 99 percent ice,” he added.

Scientists used several instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, in quick succession in detecting and confirming highly pure, bright ice exposed in new craters, ranging from 1.5 feet to 8 feet deep, at five different Martian sites.

In August 2008, the orbiter’s Context camera team examined their images for any dark spots or other changes that weren’t visible in earlier images of the same area. Meteorites usually leave dark marks when they crash into dust-covered Mars terrain.

The HiRISE team, which bases its operations at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, followed up in September 2008 by taking high-resolution images of the dark spots.

“We saw something very unusual when we followed up on the first of these impact craters, and that was this bright blue material poking up from the bottom of the crater. It looked a lot like water ice. And sure enough, when we started monitoring this material, it faded away like you’d expect water ice to fade, because water ice is unstable on Mars’ surface and turns directly into water vapour in the atmosphere,” Byrne said.

A few days later that September, the orbiter’s “CRISM” team used their Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and got the spectral signature of water ice exposed in one of the impact craters, further clinching the discovery.

How far water ice extends toward the equator depends largely on how much water has been available in the Martian atmosphere in the recent past.

“The ice is a relic of a more humid climate not very long ago, perhaps just several thousand years ago,” Byrne said.

ANI
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3,300 year old site found in southern Sri Lanka

In a landmark discovery, an archaeological site believed to be over 3,330 years old, has been found in southern Sri Lanka`s Embilipitiya region by a group of local archaeologists.

The discovery, perhaps the first over three century old site ever found in Sri Lanka, has been uncovered by Professor Raj Somadeva and his team while excavating an area belonging to the Sri Jayabodharama temple in Udaranchamadama.

Grinding stones, painted pots, granite tools and other items were among the findings of the excavations, which are to be completed within next two weeks, the Daily Mirror reported.

The team expects to obtain more information about the village from further excavations.

The ruins of a cemetery had been found there earlier in the Pahalaranchamadama school premises and the archaeologists` team believed that traces of the village that used the cemetery could be discovered from this excavation. The ancient graveyard with advanced techniques that was excavated in 2007 is estimated to date back to 1359 BC.

`The discovery of this site is a landmark in our history. This is perhaps the first time in Sri Lanka that we have found artifacts that are more than 3,330 years old,` the newspaper quoted Somadeva as saying. Excavations are underway on the directions of Somadeva, who is at the Post Graduate Institute of Archaeology.

Besides Somadeva, the team comprises of Senior Lecturer Dhananjaya Gamlath of the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology and final year students of the Universities of Kelaniya and Peradeniya. In September last year, a pot containing paddy grains believed to be from the 3rd century BC was discovered in southern Sri Lanka.

It was discovered from the archaeological site of Akurugodawaththa in Tissamaharamaya area. The paddy pot was found at the soil layer that was 4.5 metres below the surface, according to the report.

Foundations, walls, broad brick floors, pillar holes, hearths, pieces of earthen pots, and large earthenware were also found at this historical site. Ruins of a residential complex of noblemen were unearthed recently near the layer of this site, the report said.

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Leopard gecko and fanged frog among new species discovered in Mekong

A Cat Ba leopard gecko - one of some 163 species discovered in the
Greater Mekong river region. Photograph: Thomas Ziegler/WWF/EPA

The world is reassuringly stranger than we thought: another fanged frog has hopped into view, along with a leopard striped gecko, a tube nosed bat and a bird called the Nonggang babbler, all recently discovered in the Mekong delta in south-east Asia.

The announcement comes weeks after the revelation by a BBC team of their fanged frog, a different newly identified species, along with rats as big as cats, grunting fish and a teddy bear-like tree-climbing silky cuscus, all found on an expedition to a volcanic crater in Papua New Guinea.

The new bird-eating fanged frog, which lies in wait along the riverbank for prey including birds and large insects, is among a wealth of new species announced today by WWF International.

In 2008, scientists discovered 100 plants, 28 fish, 14 amphibians, two mammals and the new bird species in the region – on top of over 1,000 new species identified there in the previous decade.

Scientists believe the frog, found in eastern Thailand, and named Limnonectes megastomias, uses fangs as intimidating as any snake's in combat with other males, as well as to catch prey.

The leopard gecko, Goniurosaurus catbaensis, turned up on Cat Ba island in northern Vietnam. It has large beautiful cat-like eyes, and leopard stripes along the length of its body.

The scientist who found it, Lee Grismer from La Sierra University in California, said he was so engrossed in trying to capture it, it took his son to point out that his hand was resting on a rock inches away from the head of a pit viper.

"We caught the snake and the gecko, and they both proved to be new species," he said.

The bat was found in south-eastern Vietnam, and the Nonggang babbler bird in the rainforest on the border between China and Vietnam.

"After millennia in hiding, these species are now finally in the spotlight, and there are clearly more waiting to be discovered," said Stuart Chapman, director of the WWF Greater Mekong programme.

He warned, however, that climate change, including floods and drought, threatened the survival of many of these species, just as the world learned of their existence.

"Some species will be able to adapt to climate change, many will not, potentially resulting in massive extinctions. Rare, endangered and endemic species like those newly discovered are especially vulnerable because climate change will further shrink their already restricted habitats."

By Maev Kennedy
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French find prehistoric animal worship site

French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated
to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai,
two research centres said Thursday. (AFP/MAFUAE/Vincent Charpentier)

French archaeologists have discovered the oldest known place of worship dedicated to the dugong, or sea cow, on an island just north of Dubai, two research centres said Thursday.

The sanctuary believed to date back to 3,500 to 3,200 years BC was discovered on Akab island in the United Arab Emirates, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Dubai.

The French archaeological mission in the Emirates and the Umm al-Quwain museum there said in the specialist magazine Antiquity that the sanctuary on the deserted island provided key details "on the rituals of prehistoric coastal societies in the Gulf."

Akab was a tuna fisherman's village more than 6,500 years ago with circular buildings and a pile of dugong bones detected in the 1990s.

The scientifically named "Dugong dugon" still exists in the Gulf, with adults growing up to four metres (12 feet) long and weighing up to 400 kilogrammes (880 pounds).

The sanctuary was first thought to be an abattoir but on analysis was found to be a carefully constructed platform on two levels containing the remains of around 40 dugongs as well as tools, stones and ornaments.

The archeologists said the Akab monument was used for rituals celebrating the giant mammal and "has no parallel in neolithic times in other parts of the world."

Similar structures have been found off the Australian coast but are only several hundred years old.

AFP

Rare Space Object Discovered by High Schooler

Major breakthroughs in astronomy aren't only reserved for professional scientists, as proven by a high school student who recently helped discover a new astronomical object.

In March 2009, West Virginia student Lucas Bolyard came across the signature of the object while working on a project that trains students to help analyze astronomical data. He passed the interesting signal on to supervising astronomers, who determined it was probably a rare object known as a rotating radio transient.

These strange neutron stars (extremely dense stars made up almost entirely of the subatomic particles neutrons) emit sporadic bursts of radio waves. There are only about 30 rotating radio transients known.

At the time of the discovery, Bolyard, a sophomore at South Harrison High School in Clarksburg, W. Va., had already waded through more than 2,000 data plots and found nothing. He was sorting through images from the giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank as part of the Pulsar Search Collaboratory, a joint project of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and West Virginia University, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

"I was home on a weekend and had nothing to do, so I decided to look at some more plots from the GBT," he said. "I saw a plot with a pulse, but there was a lot of radio interference, too. The pulse almost got dismissed as interference."

He reported the pulse as an anomaly worth further investigation, and it went on a list of candidates for West Virginia University astronomers Maura McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer to reexamine.

When the astronomers took follow-up observations, they found nothing in the spot where the pulse came from. This proved that it was not a normal pulsar, which is a type of neutron that rotates, emitting a continuous lighthouse beam of light.

In July 2009, the scientists confirmed that the original pulse signal was real, and not interference, by reprocessing the raw data. This indicated that the strange object was probably a rare rotating radio transient.

At the time, Bolyard was at the observatory with fellow students. They had been observing on the GBT all night and were exhausted. But when Lorimer showed Bolyard the new plot of his pulse showing that it was a real signal, Bolyard didn't feel tired anymore.

"That news made me full of energy," he said.

Rotating radio transients are thought to be similar to regular pulsars, but they emit intermittently, one burst a time, instead of continuously. This characteristic makes them hard to find - the first one was discovered in 2006.

"These objects are very interesting, both by themselves and for what they tell us about neutron stars and supernovae," McLaughlin said. "We don't know what makes them different from pulsars - why they turn on and off. If we answer that question, it's likely to tell us something new about the environments of pulsars and how their radio waves are generated."

By Clara Moskowitz
Source

Ancient Israeli Religious Bath Discovered

Israeli crews excavate a ritual bath within the Western Wall tunnels that was believed to have been used by Jewish pilgrims visiting the Biblical Temple 2,000 years ago on Sept. 23 in Jerusalem's Old City.
Photo: Gali Tibbon, AFP / Getty Images

Israeli archaeologists say they have uncovered a ritual bath in Jerusalem that was likely used by Jewish pilgrims coming to the temple two millenia ago.

The bath is located next to the Temple Mount, the compound in Jerusalem's Old City where two Biblical Temples stood. The second was destroyed by Roman legions in 70 A.D.

The Israel Antiquities Authority says the stone bath was likely used for ritual purification by pilgrims who came to the Temple three times a year.

Similar ritual baths are still used by Jews for purification.

The site that once housed the temples is now Islam's third-holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The ritual bath was found under homes in what is now the Old City's Muslim Quarter.

AFP

New archaeological sites discovered on Exmoor

More than 2,200 previously unknown archaeological sites have been discovered on Exmoor.

And significant new information has been added to a further 800 sites, thanks to painstaking research over the last two years.

Two archaeologists from Exmoor National Park Authority looked through more than 12,000 aerial photographs as part of the Exmoor National Mapping Programme.

The time consuming exercise was designed to help build up a more detailed picture of Exmoor's past by identifying and interpreting archaeological sites.

From prehistoric settlements to enigmatic structures from the Second World War, the project has revealed the great diversity of Exmoor's historic landscape.

The work, which has been funded by English Heritage as part of its National Mapping Programme, has created a highly detailed map of Exmoor's archaeology.

During the survey the archaeologists examined piles of aerial photographs, dating from 1946 to 2009, the vast majority of them from English Heritage's National Monuments Record.

Archaeologist Cain Hegarty who worked alongside fellow archaeologist Kathy Toms on the project, said: "It's been a painstaking survey that has produced excellent results.

"We've been surprised not only by how well some earthwork sites have survived but also by their number and extent, and this even includes sites from the early prehistoric period."

Most of the newly-discovered sites date from recent periods in Exmoor's history.

However, much older remains were also found, such as the traces of Bronze Age settlements, some 3,500 years old.

Most of the photos were looked at under a stereoscope which provided a 3D effect, enabling them to see subtle earthworks.

Mr Hegarty added: "It might be possible for people to see lumps and bumps in a field but it would be difficult to differentiate from natural features without a trained eye."

With such a huge number of photos to get through he could be forgiven for thinking he was never going to get to the end of them.

But, despite the intensive nature of the work, the stuff they discovered made it all worthwhile.

Mr Hegarty said: "(Although) obviously office based for two and a half years, we are still archaeologists and like finding things.

"This is possibly the best way of finding new sites and new monuments without actually going into the field so we still have the thrill of discovery but without the mud and rain. And it was a lot warmer."

One of the most interesting finds was a possible neolithic or Bronze Age enclosure on Little Hangman Hill, Combe Martin.

Although impossible to be completely accurate as to its age, it is similar when compared with other sites thought to be around that date on Dartmoor and Bodmin.

Mr Hegarty said: "There is an ongoing English Heritage field survey which hopes to identify the extent and any internal features of the site on Little Hangman."

There are other hilltop enclosures on Exmoor but what makes this unique is its extreme location, on the top of a steep hill, overlooking the sea.

The investigation has also enabled them to add information to Second World War sites such as a local firing range where they have been able to define its boundary.

Also discovered was a stretch of previously unknown road, that could have been built by the Romans, and a possible Roman signal station and small camp.

Mr Hegarty added: "We are hoping to get money from English Heritage to write a book based on the findings of the survey work."

Rob Wilson-North, historic environment manager, described the project as "a fundamental step forward in helping us to understand Exmoor's past."

He added: "It also shows how well preserved Exmoor's archaeology is, and how much more there is to learn about it."

The project was completed in July 2009.

Source

Aussie scientists find HIV reservoir in the brain

Aussie scientists have discovered that the brain also acts as a key “reservoir” for HIV, a finding that may be a serious threat to the search for a way to eradicate the virus from the body.

While scientists are using antiretroviral drugs to get rid of HIV altogether, they are finding it difficult to perfect techniques to kill off infected cells in the known reservoirs for HIV in the body.

Melbourne-based Dr. Melissa Churchill said that HIV was known to hide out in the thymus and lymph tissues, the gut, spleen, testes, bone marrow, they have recently found that it also resides in astrocyte cells in the brain.

“The astrocytes are basically the support cells – they mop up toxins released from other cells and maintain a really nice environment for the neurons to function,” News.com.au quoted Churchill as saying of the vital role played by these cells for cognition.

“Previously, people weren’t sure if we have to actually consider it as a genuine viral reservoir, but it is,” she added.

Churchill and an international team of researchers used latest in high-powered microscopes to examine brain tissue from HIV-positive people to gauge the presence of the virus in these astrocyte cells.

She said that it was believed that the virus had about a “one per cent” presence, but the research showed it was up to 19 per cent and “very significant”.

In her opinion, the discovery poses several new challenges for scientists now progressing the work of finding ways to eradicate HIV from the body.

“One of the issues of the brain as a reservoir is that it’s quite inaccessible to the immune system and to anti-retrovirals,” said Churchill.

It could also lead to brain damage.

“The cells that make up the other reservoirs, they can be regenerated – they are blood cells, things like that – but if you kill astrocytes, especially at this level, they don’t regenerate. You lose the function that they normally carry out … so you end up with a poorer (brain functioning) environment,” she said.

In addition, it was believed that these infected and underperforming cells are also the cause of HIV-associated dementia, which commonly occurs in the later phases of HIV infection.

Source

Spiny waterfleas found in Lake Mille Lacs

Another invasive species has been found in Lake Mille Lacs, one of Minnesota's most popular walleye fisheries.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources discovered spiny waterfleas in Mille Lacs last week. It's the first discovery of the species outside of Lake Superior and certain U.S.-Canadian border waters, such as Lake of the Woods, Rainy Lake and Namakan Lake.

The DNR says the impacts of spiny waterfleas on lake ecosystems are largely unknown, but there's concern they could affect the food chain.

In response, the DNR plans to update the signs and continue watercraft inspections and enforcement efforts around the lake, which were increased earlier this year due to the discovery of zebra mussels.

Source

‘Nazca Lines’ discovered in Kazakhstan

Media outlets as well as the official government website in Kazakhstan are reporting the surprise discovery of local geoglyphs or ‘Nazca Lines’. Geoglyphs are drawings created on the ground by arranging stones or removing the top layers of earth. These designs typically cover large areas. The most famous geoglyphs are those found in the Nazca desert in Peru. These show hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks, llamas, and lizards.

The Kazakhstan Geoglyphs (photo above, thanks to photojournalist N. Dorogov) appear to depict a humanoid figure wedged between two unusual structures. The drawings are located in the remote Karatau Mountains in South Kazakhstan.

Geoglyphs are of interest to UFO researchers, some of whom believe they might be messages or markers created by ancient people for the benefit of visiting extraterrestrials. It is alleged by these UFO scholars that in times of distress these were a way of asking ‘Star Gods’ to return and Assist these early societies, however this hypothesis has not been proven.

It is expected that some scholars of extraterrestrial matters will claim that the being shown in the drawing might well depict an alien that once visited the area and interacted with the locals.

Kazhakstan is an area of intense UFO sightings and activity. Recently the Kazakhstan Government toyed with the idea of creating a UFO landing field and an alien embassy.

Source
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Anglo-Saxon gold hoard discovered

A 55-year-old metal detectorist has unearthed the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found.

The staggering discovery, on private farmland in Staffordshire, will redefine perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England, experts predict.

The Staffordshire Hoard has been declared to be treasure by South Staffordshire Coroner Andrew Haigh

Terry Herbert, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, came across the hoard as he searched a field near his home with his trusty 14-year-old detector.

Experts said the collection of more than 1,500 pieces - which will be officially classified by a coroner as treasure - is unparalleled in size and may have belonged to Saxon royalty. The hoard, believed to date back to the seventh century, contains around 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, far bigger than previous finds - including the Sutton Hoo burial site.

It may take more than a year to value the collection and, given its scale, the financial worth of the hoard cannot be estimated.

Leslie Webster, former keeper at the British Museum's Department of Prehistory and Europe, said: "This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries. (It is) absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells."

Many of the items in the hoard are warfare paraphernalia, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates, often inlaid with precious stones. The exact location of the discovery has not been disclosed but it is understood to be near the Lichfield border in South Staffordshire.

Mr Herbert, who has been metal detecting for 18 years, came across the buried hoard in July after asking a farmer friend if he could search on his land. He said: "I have this phrase that I say sometimes; 'spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear', but on that day I changed coins to gold. I don't know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it.

"Maybe it was meant to be, maybe the gold had my name on it all along, I don't know. My mates at the (metal detecting) club always say if there is a gold coin in a field I will be the one to find it. I dread to think what they'll say when they hear about this." He added: "This is what metal detectorists dream of, finding stuff like this. But the vast amount there is is just unbelievable."

Source
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Water Found on the Moon

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.

"If the water molecules are as mobile as we think they are — even a fraction of them — they provide a mechanism for getting water to those permanently shadowed craters," said planetary geologist Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island, who led one of the three studies in Science on the lunar find, in a statement. "This opens a whole new avenue [of lunar research], but we have to understand the physics of it to utilize it."

Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

Apollo turns up dry

When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago, they brought back several samples of lunar rocks.

The moon rocks were analyzed for signs of water bound to minerals present in the rocks; while trace amounts of water were detected, these were assumed to be contamination from Earth, because the containers the rocks came back in had leaked.

"The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between water from the moon and water from Earth," said Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who is a member of one of the NASA-built instrument teams for India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite and has studied the moon since the Apollo missions.

While scientists continued to suspect that water ice deposits could be found in the coldest spots of south pole craters that never saw sunlight, the consensus became that the rest of the moon was bone dry.

But new observations of the lunar surface made with Chandrayaan-1, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and NASA's Deep Impact probe, are calling that consensus into question, with multiple detections of the spectral signal of either water or the hydroxyl group (an oxygen and hydrogen chemically bonded).

Three spacecraft

Chandrayaan-1, India's first-ever moon probe, was aimed at mapping the lunar surface and determining its mineral composition (the orbiter's mission ended 14 months prematurely in August after an abrupt malfunction). While the probe was still active, its NASA-built Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) detected wavelengths of light reflected off the surface that indicated the chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen — the telltale sign of either water or hydroxyl.

Because M3 can only penetrate the top few millimeters of lunar regolith, the newly observed water seems to be at or near the lunar surface. M3's observations also showed that the water signal got stronger toward the polar regions. Pieters is the lead investigator for the M3 instrument on Chandrayaan-1.

Cassini, which passed by the moon in 1999 on its way to Saturn, provides confirmation of this signal with its own slightly stronger detection of the water/hydroxyl signal. The water would have to be absorbed or trapped in the glass and minerals at the lunar surface, wrote Roger Clark of the U.S. Geological Survey in the study detailing Cassini's findings.

The Cassini data shows a global distribution of the water signal, though it also appears stronger near the poles (and low in the lunar maria).

Finally, the Deep Impact spacecraft, as part of its extended EPOXI mission and at the request of the M3 team, made infrared detections of water and hydroxyl as part of a calibration exercise during several close approaches of the Earth-Moon system en route to its planned flyby of comet 103P/Hartley 2 in November 2010.

Deep Impact detected the signal at all latitudes above 10 degrees N, though once again, the poles showed the strongest signals. With its multiple passes, Deep Impact was able to observe the same regions at different times of the lunar day. At noon, when the sun's rays were strongest, the water feature was lowest, while in the morning, the feature was stronger.

"The Deep Impact observations of the Moon not only unequivocally confirm the presence of [water/hydroxyl] on the lunar surface, but also reveal that the entire lunar surface is hydrated during at least some portion of the lunar day," the authors wrote in their study.

The findings of all three spacecraft "provide unambiguous evidence for the presence of hydroxyl or water," said Paul Lacey of the University of Hawaii in an opinion essay accompanying the three studies. Lacey was not involved in any of the missions.

The new data "prompt a critical reexamination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not," Lacey wrote.

Where the water comes from

Combined, the findings show that not only is the moon hydrated, the process that makes it so is a dynamic one that is driven by the daily changes in solar radiation hitting any given spot on the surface.

The sun might also have something to do with how the water got there.

There are potentially two types of water on the moon: that brought from outside sources, such as water-bearing comets striking the surface, or that that originates on the moon.

This second, endogenic, source is thought to possibly come from the interaction of the solar wind with moon rocks and soils.

The rocks and regolith that make up the lunar surface are about 45 percent oxygen (combined with other elements as mostly silicate minerals). The solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles emitted by the sun — are mostly protons, or positively charged hydrogen atoms.

If the charged hydrogens, which are traveling at one-third the speed of light, hit the lunar surface with enough force, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil materials, Taylor, the M3 team member suspects. Where free oxygen and hydrogen exist, there is a high chance that trace amounts of water will form.

The various study researchers also suggest that the daily dehydration and rehydration of the trace water across the surface could lead to the migration of hydroxyl and hydrogen towards the poles where it can accumulate in the cold traps of the permanently shadowed regions.

By Andrea Thompson
Source
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Heart attack swine flu link discovered

UK scientists have called on the Government to offer the swine flu vaccine to patients with heart conditions after research established a link between heart attacks and the the H1N1 virus.

The scientists, who had their research published the Lancet Infectious Diseases, analysed 39 previous studies of such patients and found that up to half of all unexpected flu deaths were caused by heart disease or heart attacks.

They added that, while swine flu was no more dangerous than regular influenza, it was important for patients to be vaccinated because a larger number of flu viruses would be in circulation in the next year.

Andrew Hayward, one of the study’s authors, said: ‘We know the influenza vaccine is effective in preventing influenza and therefore, in theory, ought to be effective in preventing the complications of influenza.’

He added that the research had shown heart patients who received a flu shot had fewer heart attacks than those who did not.

Source

Giant squid discovered in Gulf of Mexico

A giant squid collected by NOAA on July 30, 2009 off the Louisiana coast
in the Gulf of Mexico is seen in a handout photo. REUTERS/NOAA/Handout

U.S. scientists in the Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly netted a 19.5-foot (5.9-meter) giant squid off the coast of Louisiana, the Interior Department said on Monday, showing how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Not since 1954, when a giant squid was found floating dead off the Mississippi Delta, has the rare species been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

The squid, weighing in at 103 pounds (46.7 kg), was caught July 30 in a trawl net more than 1,500 feet underwater as it was pulled by a research vessel.

The giant squid, which did not survive the rapid change in water depth when brought to the surface, was preserved and sent to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History for further study.

Scientists aboard -- from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service -- were participating in a pilot study on the diets of sperm whales.

"As the trawl net rose out of the water, I could see that we had something big in there ... really big," Anthony Martinez, a marine mammal scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the chief scientist on the research cruise, said in a statement.

Remnants of giant squid have been found in the stomachs of its predators in the waters of the Gulf, Caribbean and Florida Keys so scientists were aware of their presence in the Gulf.

The squid discovered by the researchers is significant because the species are difficult to catch, leaving much to be learned about them.

Michael Vecchione, director of NOAA's Fisheries Service's National Systematics Laboratory, the squid was an important addition to the worldwide study of squids.

"This find illustrates how little we know about what is swimming around in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico," he said.

Giant squid, which can be 40 feet long, are usually found in deep-water fisheries, such as off Spain and New Zealand.

"This is the first time one has actually been captured during scientific research in the Gulf of Mexico," he said.

The joint NOAA-MMS pilot study responsible for the find is part of a two-year, $550,000 study to determine the abundance and diversity of the type of fish and squid that sperm whales seek as prey.

Reuters

New Species Of Ghostshark Discovered

This is an Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma),
a new species from California and Baja California. Credit: MBARI

New species are not just discovered in exotic locales—even places as urban as California still yield discoveries of new plants and animals. Academy scientists recently named a new species of chimaera, an ancient and bizarre group of fishes distantly related to sharks, from the coast of Southern California and Baja California, Mexico.

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), was described in the September issue of the international journal Zootaxa by a research team including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long. Additional co-authors included Kelsey James, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This is the first new species of cartilaginous fish to be described from California waters since 1947.

Chimaeras, also called ratfish, rabbitfish, and ghostsharks, are perhaps the oldest and most enigmatic groups of fishes alive today. Their closest living relatives are sharks, but their evolutionary lineage branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago, and they have remained an isolated group ever since. Like sharks, chimaeras have skeletons composed of cartilage and the males have claspers for internal fertilization of females.

Unlike sharks, male chimaeras also have retractable sexual appendages on the forehead and in front of the pelvic fins and a single pair of gills. Most species also have a mildly venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin. Chimaeras were once a very diverse and abundant group, as illustrated by their global presence in the fossil record. They survived through the age of dinosaurs mostly unchanged, but today these fishes are relatively scarce and are usually confined to deep ocean waters, where they have largely avoided the reach of explorers and remained poorly known to science.

This new species belongs to the genus Hydrolagus, Latin for 'water rabbit' because of its grinding tooth plates reminiscent of a rabbit's incisor teeth. This new species was originally collected as early as the mid 1960s, but went unnamed until this year because its taxonomic relationships were unclear. A large blackish-purple form, Hydrolagus melanophasma (melanophasma is Latin for 'black ghost'), is found in deep water from the coast of Southern California, along the western coast of Baja California, and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). This species is known from a total of nine preserved museum specimens, and from video footage taken of it alive by a deep-water submersible in the Sea of Cortez.

Renewed exploration of the world's deep oceans and more extensive taxonomic analysis of chimaera specimens in museum collections have led to a boom in the number of new chimaera species discovered worldwide in the last decade, including two species from the Galápagos Islands named by Didier, Ebert, and Long in 2006 that were originally collected by Academy scientist John McCosker. With further advances in research and discovery, perhaps more will be known about these living fossils and their diversity in the world's oceans.

Source
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Archaeologists find suspected Trojan war-era couple

An undated handout picture shows the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C. in the ancient city of Troy in northwestern Turkey. Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Project Troy/Handout

Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday.

Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age.

The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than previously thought, changing scholars' perceptions about the city of the "Iliad."

"If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a mote. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying," Pernicka told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Ancient Troy, located in the northwest of modern-day Turkey at the mouth of the Dardanelles not far south of Istanbul, was unearthed in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann, the German entrepreneur and pioneering archaeologist who discovered the steep and windy city described by Homer.

Pernicka said pottery found near the bodies, which had their lower parts missing, was confirmed to be from 1,200 BC, but added the couple could have been buried 400 years later in a burial site in what archaeologists call Troy VI or Troy VII, different layers of ruins at Troy.

Tens of thousands of visitors flock every year to the ruins of Troy, where a huge replica of the famous wooden horse stands along with an array of excavated ruins.

Reuters

Wartime shells discovered at Apex Park

Shocked workers discovered two wartime shells at a children's park in Highbridge on Thursday.

The rusted Second World War artillery was discovered by workmen digging up the ground in the play area at Apex Park.

The find turned out to be a false alarm as both shells were spent, but the company carrying out the work, Parsons Landscapes, took swift precautionary action.

Company director Derek Parsons told the Weekly News: “The shells were crushed and rusty but we have to report it under strict regulations.

“It turned out to be a low level risk but when I heard two shells had been found at a kid's park I was obviously concerned for the welfare of people on site.”

Various other remnants and scrap metal was found alongside the shells, believed to be from a bonfire many years ago, but it all turned out to be harmless.

Mr Parsons said work to revamp the children's play area was progressing well but has been hampered by vandals.

He said: “On two occasions we have found the toilets on site have been tipped on their side which costs us £50 to get cleaned each time.

“We have also had two of our diggers stolen from other sites in Somerset which in total has cost us about £28,000.”

Workers have been forced to haul their machinery back from Highbridge to the company's base in Stoke St Mary, near Taunton, every night to prevent any further theft.

Mr Parsons added: “It is making it more difficult but we will get the work at Apex Park done on schedule.”

By David Hemming
Source

Scientists discover bizarre new fish off Brazil’s Bahia coast

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown species off Brazil’s Bahia coast, which is more than six feet long, has small teeth, and has no scales covering its gelatinous body.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the fish that has a long tail, was found floating in the sea by researchers from the TAMAR Project, a sea turtle conservation project.

TAMAR project coordinator Guy Marcovaldi captured the first images of the fish, which was dead and lying near the surface of the water.

His special underwater camera is normally used for tracking and filming sea turtles.

“At first, I got really scared when I saw this huge thing in the water. But then, I decided to jump in the water and film it,” said Marcovaldi.

Specialists observing the fish told Brazils TV Globo that the animal weighs about 88 pounds (40 kilos).

It has small teeth and no scales. Due to its large body fat content and gelatinous consistency, researchers do not believe it would be edible.

According to Claudio Sampaio, Oceanographer, Federal University of Bahia, “It is a rare gem to find a species like this, which is completely new, scientifically speaking. There is no human record of this fish.”

The fish will be preserved in formaldehyde and maintained in the zoology department of the Federal University of Bahia, where experts hope to discover more about the fish, including its origins.

There are over 200,000 known species of sea plants and animals in the world, but scientists believe there may be more than a million others that are still unknown.

ANI

New Great Wall ruins discovered in NE China

Chinese archaeologists have discovered a section of ruins of the Great Wall of Qin (221 BC and206 BC) and Han (206 BC and 220) dynasties in northeast China's Jilin Province, which proves the defensive wall stretches eastward further than previously thought.

"The site was found in Tonghua County, Jilin, 10.9 km eastward of what was previously thought to be the eastern end of the Great Wall in Xinbin County in neighboring Liaoning Province," said ZhaoHailong, head of the Great Wall resources research team in Jilin, on Tuesday.

He said the team's research was a part of a national project to measure the length of the Great Wall of the Qin and Han dynasties. The project is jointly sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.

It is generally believed that the Great Wall was built in different historic periods and adds up to about 50,000 km.

The two government departments announced in December 2008 the exact length of the Great Wall built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was 8,851.8 km, after conducting a first phase national survey of the Wall.

The two departments are expected to announce the results of the second phase of the survey by the end of this year. It focuses on the measurement of the total length of the Great Wall built in the Qin and Han dynasties based on the latest discoveries. Archaeologists worldwide have generally agreed this part is about 6,000 km.

Zhao said the archaeological site in Tonghua County was a well-preserved 172-meter section of ruins. It is the first time a section of the Great Wall of the Qin and Han periods has been found in Jilin.

A large quantity of Han Dynasty earthenware was unearthed at the site, which has been called by archaeologists the "Nantaizi Relics".

"The site is probably a fortification of the ancient city of Chibosong, which is 27.9 km away. It is important evidence of the Han Dynasty's administration of the northeast part of the country," said Zhao.

He said there might be more forts in the 10.9-km distance between the new site found in Tonghua and what was previously thought to be its ending in Xinbin.

"However, it is a meagerly-populated area covered by dense forest and it is difficult to conduct archaeological surveys there," he said.

Xinhua

Supervolcano 'Rosetta Stone’ Discovered In Italian Alps

Scientists have found the "Rosetta Stone" of supervolcanoes, those giant pockmarks in the Earth's surface produced by rare and massive explosive eruptions that rank among nature's most violent events. The eruptions produce devastation on a regional scale — and possibly trigger climatic and environmental effects at a global scale.

A fossil supervolcano has been discovered in the Italian Alps' Sesia Valley by a team led by James E. Quick, a geology professor at Southern Methodist University. The discovery will advance scientific understanding of active supervolcanoes, like Yellowstone, which is the second-largest supervolcano in the world and which last erupted 630,000 years ago.

A rare uplift of the Earth's crust in the Sesia Valley reveals for the first time the actual "plumbing" of a supervolcano from the surface to the source of the magma deep within the Earth, according to a new research article reporting the discovery. The uplift reveals to an unprecedented depth of 25 kilometers the tracks and trails of the magma as it moved through the Earth's crust.

Supervolcanoes, historically called calderas, are enormous craters tens of kilometers in diameter. Their eruptions are sparked by the explosive release of gas from molten rock or "magma" as it pushes its way to the Earth's surface.

Calderas erupt hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers of volcanic ash. Explosive events occur every few hundred thousand years. Supervolcanoes have spread lava and ash vast distances and scientists believe they may have set off catastrophic global cooling events at different periods in the Earth's past.

Sesia Valley's caldera erupted during the "Permian" geologic time period, say the discovery scientists. It is more than 13 kilometers in diameter.

"What's new is to see the magmatic plumbing system all the way through the Earth's crust," says Quick, who previously served as program coordinator for the Volcano Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey. "Now we want to start to use this discovery. We want to understand the fundamental processes that influence eruptions: Where are magmas stored prior to these giant eruptions? From what depth do the eruptions emanate?"

Sesia Valley's unprecedented exposure of magmatic plumbing provides a model for interpreting geophysical profiles and magmatic processes beneath active calderas. The exposure also serves as direct confirmation of the cause-and-effect link between molten rock moving through the Earth's crust and explosive volcanism.

"It might lead to a better interpretation of monitoring data and improved prediction of eruptions," says Quick, lead author of the research article reporting the discovery. The article, "Magmatic plumbing of a large Permian caldera exposed to a depth of 25 km.," appears in the July issue of the peer-reviewed journal "Geology."

Calderas, which typically exhibit high levels of seismic and hydrothermal activity, often swell, suggesting movement of fluids beneath the surface.

"We want to better understand the tell-tale signs that a caldera is advancing to eruption so that we can improve warnings and avoid false alerts," Quick says.

To date, scientists have been able to study exposed caldera "plumbing" from the surface of the Earth to a depth of only 5 kilometers. Because of that, scientific understanding has been limited to geophysical data and analysis of erupted volcanic rocks. Quick likens the relevance of Sesia Valley to seeing bones and muscle inside the human body for the first time after previously envisioning human anatomy on the basis of a sonogram only.

"We think of the Sesia Valley find as the 'Rosetta Stone' for supervolcanoes because the depth to which rocks are exposed will help us to link the geologic and geophysical data," Quick says. "This is a very rare spot. The base of the Earth's crust is turned up on edge. It was created when Africa and Europe began colliding about 30 million years ago and the crust of Italy was turned on end."

British researchers introduced the term "supervolcano" in the last 10 years. Scientists have documented fewer than two dozen caldera eruptions in the last 1 million years.

Besides Yellowstone, other monumental explosions have included Lake Toba on Indonesia's Sumatra island 74,000 years ago, which is believed to be the largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the past 25 million years.

Described as a massive climate-changing event, the Lake Toba eruption is thought to have killed an estimated 60% of humans alive at the time.

Another caldera, and one that remains active, Long Valley in California erupted about 760,000 years ago and spread volcanic ash for 600 cubic kilometers. The ash blanketed the southwestern United States, extending from California to as far west as Nebraska.

"There will be another supervolcano explosion," Quick says. "We don't know where. Sesia Valley could help us to predict the next event."

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