Phenomenica

Washington, July 11: It’s not just humans, birds can also build fireproof homes, say Japanese researchers at Kyushu University in Fukuoka.

To woo females, male great bowerbirds of northern Australia build bowers that are not only attractive, but also fire resistant.

These bowers have two walls of twigs partially flanking a six-foot-long passageway that the birds cover with conspicuous bits of bones, stones, shells, and fruits.

In 2006, a part of savanna outside the city of Darwin was caught in fire.

Lead researcher Osamu K Mikami says that of the nine bowers there, only three were destroyed. The remaining six stayed intact.

According to the proportion of burned to unburned savanna, the researchers say that all nine should have been destroyed, but six of them survived.

They said that bowerbirds remove flammable leaves and litter from around their bowers, or cover them with decorations. That behaviour may have evolved because it creates a firebreak.

The findings have been published in the Journal of Ethology.

ANI

Washington, July 10: Astrophysicists, using extremely detailed computer simulations, have determined that the earliest stars in the universe formed not only as individuals, but sometimes also as twins.

The robust simulations of the early universe were created by astrophysicists Matthew Turk and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Brian O’Shea of Michigan State University.

“We used to think that these stars formed by themselves, but now we see from our computer simulations that sometimes they have siblings,” said Turk.

“These stars provide the seeds of next generation star formation, so by understanding them we can better understand how other stars and galaxies formed,” he added.

To make this discovery, the researchers created an extremely detailed computer simulation of early star formation.

Into this virtual universe, they sprinkled primordial gas and dark matter as it existed soon after the Big Bang, data they obtained from observations of the cosmic microwave background.

This mostly uniform radiation - a faint glow of radio waves spread across the entire sky - contains subtle variations that reflect the beginning of all structure in the universe.

The simulations focused on the first Population III stars: massive, hot stars thought to have formed a mere several hundred million years after the Big Bang.

As the researchers watched their simulated universe evolve, waves of gas and dark matter swirled through the hot, dense universe.

As the universe cooled, gravity began to draw the matter together into clumps. In areas rich with matter, stars began to form.

In one out of the researchers’ five simulations, a single cloud of dust and dark matter formed into “twin” stars: one with a mass equivalent to about 10 suns, and one with a mass equivalent to about 6.3 suns.

Both of them were still growing at the end of the calculation and will likely grow to many times that mass.

“We ran five of these calculations starting from the beginning of the universe, and to our surprise one of them was special,” said Abel.

“This opens a whole new realm of research possibilities. These stars could evolve into two black holes, which could have created gravitational waves we could detect with an instrument like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory,” he added.

“This will help us fine-tune our models for how structure in the universe formed and evolved. Understanding the very early stars helps us understand what we see today,” Turk said.

ANI

Washington, July 10: Astronomers at the Chandra X-ray Observatory have spotted a galaxy collision in action, with one galaxy passing through the core of other galaxies at almost 2 million miles per hour.

The image obtained is of Stephan’s Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth.

Four of the galaxies in the group are visible in the optical image from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

A labeled version identifies these galaxies (NGC 7317, NGC 7318a, NGC 7318b and NGC 7319) as well as a prominent foreground galaxy (NGC 7320) that is not a member of the group.

The galaxy NGC 7318b is passing through the core of galaxies at almost 2 million miles per hour, and is thought to be causing the ridge of X-ray emission by generating a shock wave that heats the gas.

Additional heating by supernova explosions and stellar winds has also probably taken place in Stephan’s Quintet.

A larger halo of X-ray emission, detected by ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton could be evidence of shock heating by previous collisions between galaxies in this group.

Some of the X-ray emissions are likely caused by binary systems containing massive stars that are losing material to neutron stars or black holes.

Stephan’s Quintet provides a rare opportunity to observe a galaxy group in the process of evolving from an X-ray faint system dominated by spiral galaxies to a more developed system dominated by elliptical galaxies and bright X-ray emission.

According to scientists, being able to witness the dramatic effect of collisions in causing this evolution is important for increasing the understanding of the origins of the hot, X-ray bright halos of gas in groups of galaxies.

Stephan’s Quintet shows an additional sign of complex interactions in the past, notably the long tails visible in the optical image.

These features were probably caused by one or more passages through the galaxy group by NGC 7317.

ANI

Washington, July 10: An underwater exploration is seeking to find evidence of early Americans in an area 100-to-200 miles off Florida’s west coast, now about 300 feet under water.

Last summer’s pivotal underwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist Dr. James Adovasio yielded evidence of inundated terrestrial sites that may well have supported human occupation more than 12,000 years ago, and paved the way for another expedition this July.

As part of their 2008 findings, the researchers located and mapped buried stream and river channels and identified in-filled sinkholes that could potentially help document the late Pleistocene landscape and contain artifacts and associated animal remains from early human occupations.

According to Adovasio, continued exploration will be geared toward assessing a human presence on the now submerged beaches and intersecting river channels.

“There’s no doubt that early North American occupations are underwater, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said. “We have found the haystack; now we’ve got to find the needles,” he added.

During July 23 - August 7, Adovasio will lead a team of scientists representing leading institutions from government and higher education to St. Petersburg, Florida, where they’ll resume their search for evidence of early Americans in an area 100-to-200 miles off Florida’s west coast, now about 300 feet under water.

The decision to take their expedition underwater in the first place stems from the premise that early Americans probably hugged the American coastline, congregating around freshwater rivers, before heading inland, according to Adovasio.

At that time, much of the world’s water was confined to glaciers, causing ocean levels to be lower and exposing more of the continental shelf.

As the earth warmed and water levels rose, evidence of past settlements became submerged.

Dredging and storms have turned up artifacts on the Gulf Coast as well as the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, but Adovasio said this is the first time a group of scientists has staked out a submerged piece of real estate suspected of containing preserved Ice Age beaches and systematically gone in search of early human occupations.

From the University of South Florida’s research boat, the team will use remotely operated vehicles and remote sensing tools to explore the submerged sites.

In shallower depths, divers will inspect sites to collect artifacts and animal fossils and recover sediments for geological analysis and possible radiocarbon testing.

“Proof of past human habitation here would reinforce the disintegration of the once prevalent hypothesis about who the first Americans were, how they got here and when they arrived,” said Adovasio.

ANI

Beijing, July 09: China could launch its first woman into space as early as 2012, state media reported.

Yang Liwei, who in 2003 became China's first astronaut and is now in charge of new recruits for the space programme, said the search for the first woman in space was under way.

"I believe Chinese women will soon be seen in space," said Yang.

Sui Guosheng, an officer in charge of recruitment with the Chinese Air Force, said the female "taikonaut," China's word for astronauts, was expected to blast off in 2012.

The potential female astronauts would be recruited from among 16 female fighter pilots who graduated in April, Sui told.

The pilots, who were chosen from 150,000 high school graduates, were the first batch of Chinese women qualified to fly fighter jets.

China became the third nation to put a man in space when Yang piloted the one-man Shenzhou-5 space mission in 2003, part of the country's rising space ambitions.

The Chang'e-1 probe was launched in 2007 and is the first stage of China's lunar programme, which includes landing an unmanned rover on the surface by 2012 and a manned mission by around 2020.

The world's first female astronaut was the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova, who stayed in space for three days in 1963.

Bureau Report

London, July 09: Despite the economic slowdown, the Indian government plans to hike its science budget, with special emphasis on developing semi-cryogenic rocket engines, building a space capsule to carry a two-person crew into space by 2015 and for setting up the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System.

India will spend 289 billion rupees on research and development this year, 19 percent more than last year, according to the budget for 2009–2010 announced on July 6.

The largest allocations are for atomic energy (71.7 billion rupees), the space programme (49.6 billion rupees) and defence research (47.6 billion rupees), while eight ‘national missions’ or programmes to combat climate change — announced by the government last year — are to be launched.

The 40 percent hike in the space budget from last year’s 35 billion rupees is largely to go towards developing semi-cryogenic rocket engines, building a space capsule to carry a two-person crew into space by 2015 and for setting up the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System along the lines of the US GPS (Global Positioning System), space department spokesman S. Satish told.

Heads of government scientific departments say that although none of their projects has been shot down because of the economic slowdown, the increase in their budgets is less this year than in previous years.

“Allocations for us had been increasing by 30% each year, but this year it is only 20 percent,” said Thirumalachari Ramasami, secretary of the Department of Science and Technology.

The departments of health research, biotechnology and industrial research have received only 4–12 percent increases, but “none of us feels that our projects will suffer,” Ramasami told.

Funding for Earth sciences has, however, increased by 50 percent to 12.1 billion rupees, with a provision of 5.48 billion rupees for oceanographic research, including the setting up of a third Indian station in Antarctica and purchase of research vessels.

The budget for higher education increased by nearly 41 billion rupees to 154 billion rupees, including 4.5 billion rupees for new institutes of technology.

In a move to draw students to science, the budget provides for interest-free loans for those pursuing approved courses of study in technical and professional schools.

Another 5.4 billion rupees has been set aside for a National Knowledge Network of gigabit bandwidth to connect educational institutions across the country.

ANI

A study has said that advanced nuclear science can shed new light into the well-being and nutrition of ancient mummies.

Paleoradiology uses nuclear technologies such as X-rays, computed tomography (CT), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to study artefacts, skeletons, mummies and fossils.

Many museums worldwide use the nuclear technologies to discover otherwise hidden details that piece together historic puzzles.

X-ray technology has been around since 1896, and CT since 1979. Advances since then make the technologies increasingly exact, and quick.

Newer prototypes of computed tomography can give additional insights, including both about the well-being and nutrition of ancient mummies.

The technology has grown so rapidly that there now is a data overload, experts report.

In September 2008, an advanced CT technology called iCT (“i” for intelligent) was used in a Chicago, US, hospital to study a wealthy Egyptian priestess named Meresamun.

She was the first mummy scanned with iCT.

Through 3D images, paleoradiologists virtually are able to unravel the mummy. The approach is non-intrusive, leaving the mummy intact, untouched, and unharmed.

The measurements of Meresamun were so precise the scan was able to extract 30 billion measurements.

The raw data collected was 1000 times greater than that available in the 1990s. The resulting profile of the priestess provided details about her looks, health, eating habits and lifestyle.

The full data will take more than a year to analyze.

ANI

New York, July 08: Not only mathematics, monkeys have a memory for grammar too, say researchers.

A new study by Harvard University has revealed that primates could intuitively recognise some rules of grammar -- in fact, they possess skills needed to use language, which are linked to basic memory functions.

One grammatical structure that is found across many languages is affixation -- the addition of syllables, either at the beginning or end of a word to modify its meaning. For instance, in English, the suffix "–ed" is added to verbs to make the past tense.

And, as this structure is found in so many languages, the researchers thought it may well be linked to basic memory functions that are independent of language.

To test this, they studied 14 cotton-top tamarins, which, like all other non-human primates, do not use language to communicate -- they first played a sequence of nonsensical "words" to the monkeys that all had the same prefix.

The following morning, the animals were played a different set of entirely new words. This second set had completely different stems -- brain, breast, and wasp instead of bi, ka, and na -- but were preceded by the same prefix.

Mixed in to the new batch of words were a few that violated the familiar prefix pattern by having a suffix instead of a prefix ("brainshoy" instead of "shoybrain").

The researchers hypothesised that, if the monkeys were able to recognise the prefix pattern they had heard the day before, they would be more likely to look at the loudspeakers when they heard a word that violated the grammatical pattern.

The team found the same result if they familiarised the monkeys with words that had suffixes, then mixed in a few prefixes.

"The fact that the tamarins appeared to understand the prefix and suffix patterns without being trained with food rewards, does not prove that they have language and grammar. But it does suggest that their memory is able to recognise certain linguistic patterns," Endress said.

The findings are published in the 'Biology Letters' journal.

Bureau Report