How life evolved on Earth?

London, Nov 29: A new research has found evidence that indicates a lack of comet collisions in our solar system’s history, which may have provided a safe ground for life to evolve on the Earth.

Though the rate of comet collisions in other solar systems can’t directly be measured, signs of the dust that such smashes kick up can be detected, because the dust gets warmed by the star and so gives off infrared radiation.

That radiation shows up as extra infrared in the spectrum of light coming from the star. Because such dust should dissipate quickly, it is thought to provide a good snapshot of the recent collision rate.

According to a report in New Scientist, Jane Greaves of the University of St Andrews, UK, analysed observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope and found that the vast majority of sun-like stars near us have more dust than our solar system does and therefore have had more collisions in their vicinity.

Our solar system may be one of the few that have been safe for life, suggests the research.

The vast majority of sun-like stars near us have had more collisions in their vicinity than our solar system has.

About 25 per cent of the stars have a very strong dust signature. The rest of them have too little dust for it to be readily apparent when each spectrum is studied in isolation.

Adding the measurements from these stars together, however, is like looking through a stack of slightly dusty windowpanes, making the total amount of dust easier to see. Greaves’s analysis revealed that 90 per cent of solar systems are dustier and so more collision-ridden than our own.

According to Mark Wyatt of the University of Cambridge, the rate of comet impacts is probably lower in our neck of the woods.

But, as the temperature of the dust found by Greaves indicates it tends to sit far from the parent stars, the impacts might not have affected life on habitable planets, which would sit closer to their star, Wyatt added.

ANI

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Dozens of Centuries-Old Artifacts Found During Connecticut Road Construction

A road widening project has become an archaeological expedition in Southington, where dozens of artifacts from the late 1700s and early 1800s have been discovered.

The items were found along Mt. Vernon Road during a study required by the state before road construction can begin.

Many artifacts were found near Wayne and Jayne Amico's home, which was built around 1770 and is listed as the Rev. John Wightman House on the National Register of Historic Places.

The artifacts include pieces of pearlwear pottery that date from as early as 1780, an 18th century kaolin pipe stem fragment and blue-decorated pottery from around 1820.

Other areas along the road yielded blue-green window glass that may date to the 19th century and a machine-cut, machine-headed nail from the early 1800s.

The archaeology study is the first of its kind in town, according to Department of Public Works Director Anthony Tranquillo.

Tranquillo said the archaeological investigation was ordered by the State Historic Preservation Office. State law requires that historically significant archaeological sites be identified before construction disturbs an area.

Town Manager John Weichsel said Friday that town officials have not yet decided what to do with the artifacts. He said he planned to contact the local historical society next week.

Archaeological & Historical Services in Storrs, which describes itself on its Web site as a cultural resource management organization, conducted the survey in late October.

Ross Harper, the firm's senior historic archaeologist, said pearlwear is a specific type of pottery made in England between 1780 and 1830.

"It was very popular in the U.S.," he said. "It was relatively inexpensive and was used to make anything from platters to cups to pitchers."

The kaolin pipe stem is made from white clay that was used in the 17th, 18th and even into the 19th century. Harper said the pipes were made in England or Holland. He said pipe bowls got larger as the price of tobacco dropped, because people could afford to pack the pipe with more tobacco.

The study found five archaeological sites along the road that contained historic and modern material. One prehistoric artifact was found, a piece of thin quartz similar to an arrowhead.

Jayne Amico said she and her husband have found many artifacts on their property, and they are hoping to get the items found near their home during the archaeological study.

ANI

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Water vapour discovered on Saturn's moon

Huge plumes of water vapour and ice particles are bursting out from Saturn's moon Enceladus at supersonic speeds in a way that strongly suggests they come from liquid water down below the icy surface, scientists have said.

The research, published in the journal Nature, offers new evidence that the moon may harbor an underground ocean of water, meaning conditions might exist that could support life, even if only microbial organisms.

'We think liquid water is necessary for life and there is more evidence that there is liquid water there,' said lead researcher Candice Hansen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

'You also need energy, you need nutrients, you need organics. It looks like the pieces are there. Whether or not there's actually life, of course, we can't say.'

Scientists are aware of only three places where liquid water exists near the surface of a planet or other body - Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa and now Enceladus.

In July Nasa’s Phoenix Mars Lander confirmed the presence of ice on Mars.

The previous month the spacecraft uncovered a bright white layer just two inches below the surface, which disappeared four days after it was exposed to sunlight, leading scientists to believe it was ice.

After examining a soil sample from a trench approximately two inches deep, the claim was confirmed.

In a Nasa statement, William Boynton of the University of Arizona said: “We have water.

“We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”

Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona, said: “Mars is giving us some surprises.

“We’re excited because surprises are where discoveries come from.”

Scientists will now begin asking whether the frozen water could have been liquid at some point in the planet’s history, which would have created an environment in which life could have evolved.

Experts believe that if life ever existed on Mars, it could still survive today in isolated pockets beneath the soil.

ANI

Photo: Reuters

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'Heavy water' could help us live longer

Drinking "heavy water" enriched with a rare form of hydrogen could prolong our lives by up to ten years, it has been claimed.

Mikhail Shchepinov, a former Oxford University scientist, says that the modified drink protects against dangerous chemicals known as free radicals that are known to contribute to conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

He also claims that foods such as steak and eggs could be enriched with the special hydrogen isotope, known as deuterium, raising the possibility of people being able to "eat themselves healthy".

His research has shown that worms live 10 per cent longer and fruitflies up to 30 per cent longer when fed on heavy water, which is slightly sweeter than normal water.

Dr Shchepinov, who runs the biotech firm Retrotope, now wants to test his technology in pet foods, and believes that it could one day be introduced to the food chain to allow humans to enjoy its benefits without taking supplements.

"We don't have to be consuming isotopes as white powder. If you take a pig and feed these things to a pig, all you need to do is consume the pig in a normal fashion," he has said.

But other scientists have warned that Dr Shchepinov's theories are far from proven. Tom Kirkwood, of Newcastle University, told the Daily Mail: "Shchepinov's idea is interesting but . . . the history in the field is cluttered with hypotheses which are only partially supported by the data."

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Fossils Of Oldest Known Turtle Discovered In China

Researchers in China reported finding fossilized remains of the most primitive turtle to date, providing more insight into how reptiles evolved.

The fossils depict an ancient turtle with teeth, a fully formed belly shell and a partially formed back shell.

Researchers say the so-called Odontochelys (half-shelled turtle with teeth) lived some 220 million years ago.

Scientists have lacked enough evidence to prove competing evolutionary theories because turtles have looked pretty much the same as they do now sinve the age of dinosaurs.

Previous digs had uncovered the Proganochely, another class of turtle previously thought to be the oldest. Discovered in Germany, Proganochely was 10 million years younger than the Odontochely.

"What we found (Odontochely) is an intermediate missing link," said lead researcher Li Chun at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

Li Chin worked alongside Xiao-Chun Wu of the canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and Field's Rieppel. Their report is published in the journal Nature.

“This is the first turtle with an incomplete shell," Rieppel said. "The shell is an evolutionary innovation. It's difficult to explain how it evolved without an intermediate example."

From the three Odontochely fossils discovered in China, Li said it was clear the turtle first developed the plastron, or the lower shell that encases the belly, before getting its upper shell, or the carapace.

"The plastron developed first and after it was fully formed, then the carapace developed," he said.

"They had neural plates, which is the part that develops first on the back shell," he said.

Li said the turtle dwelled mostly in the water and was a carnivore.

Some contemporary reptiles such as crocodiles have skin with bony plates and this was also seen in ancient creatures such as dinosaurs. Some researchers theorized that turtle shells started as bony skin plates, called osteoderms, which eventually fused to form a hard shell.

But Odontochelys has no osteoderms and it has a partial shell extending from its backbone, Rieppel said.

"This animal tells people to forget about turtle ancestors covered with osteoderms," he said.

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Waterworks Valley

Waterworks Valley, in the parish of St Lawrence in the Channel Island of Jersey, is named after the great number of reservoirs and pumping stations found along it. Even in the daytime, it is a brooding, haunting place, overcast as it is by a thick layer of trees and foliage. It is damp and dark, and people are often forgiven for seeing or hearing things. Sometimes there is no mistaking the ghostly sights and sounds that occur. Countless people have seen it pass by, and even more have run away after hearing it approach. This, they say, is the ‘Phantom Carriage’.

The stories often follow a similar pattern. Usually the events occur in the evening and begin with the muffled ringing of bells – the unearthly music is said to sound more like wedding bells than anything sombre. Gradually, mixed with ringing, another noise becomes discernible. It is the sound of horses trotting along the valley, accompanied by the spinning, bumping rattles of a carriage.

Emerging from the gloom, witnesses spot the procession which is clothed in eighteenth century costume. They see that the coach’s passenger is a bride in her wedding dress, but as it rolls past witnesses see the face behind the veil. It is the haggard skull of a corpse. One tale of explanation claims that in the early eighteenth century a girl who was due to be married at St Lawrence parish church was disappointed at the altar. It is said she committed suicide that evening, and the apparition is a representation of her timeless sorrow. Another variation of the story is that she committed suicide on the eve of the wedding, but her ghostly figure appeared at the church the next day anyway. It was only as the groom lifted the veil that he noticed the pale lifeless face of a corpse underneath.

Many people believe the phenomenon happens only once a year at a specific time. But there are so many sightings, and such vivid recollections, that perhaps this poor girl’s misery is constant and never-ending.

Matt Lamy

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Panamanian termite can kill nest invaders in one hit

Washington, November 25: The termite Termes panamensis (Snyder) can kill a would-be nest invader just by hitting it once on its head, according to a new study.

Marc Seid and Jeremy Niven, post-doctoral fellows at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Rudolf Scheffrahn from the University of Florida, say that the Panamanian termite possesses the fastest mandible strike ever recorded.

The researchers conducted the study at the Smithsonian''s new neurobiology laboratory in Panama, which was established by a donation from the Frank Levinson Family Foundation for the purpose of understanding the evolution of brain miniaturization by using the country’s abundant insect biodiversity.

"Ultimately, we''re interested in the evolution of termite soldiers'' brains and how they employ different types of defensive weaponry," said Seid.

The team captured footage of the soldier termite''s jaws, as they struck an invader at almost 70 meters per second, on a high-speed video camera in the laboratory at 40,000 frames per second.

"Many insects move much faster than a human eye can see so we knew that we needed high speed cameras to capture their behaviour, but we weren''t expecting anything this fast. If you don''t know about the behaviour, you can''t hope to understand the brain," Seid said.

As to what makes the termites so fast, the researchers said that insects have difficulty generating forces that inflict damage as they become small.

"To create a large impact force with a light object you need to reach very high velocities before impact," Niven said.

Given that a termite soldier faces down its foe inside a narrow tunnel, and has little room to parry and little time to waste, the deathblow proves to be incredibly efficient.

According to the researchers, the force for the blow is stored by deforming the jaws, which are held pressed against one another until the strike is triggered.

They have revealed that the same strategy of storing up energy from the muscles to produce fast movements is employed by locusts, trap-jaw ants and froghoppers.

"The termites need to store energy to generate enough destructive force. They appear to store the energy in their mandibles but we still don''t know how they do this—that''s the next question," says Niven.

A research article on the study has been published in the journal Current Biology.

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Indian telescope observes mysterious absence of hydrogen in galaxies

Washington, Nov 25: A team of Australian astronomers has been left puzzled with the mysterious absence of hydrogen from distant galaxies in the far distant reaches of the Universe, which they observed using an Indian telescope.

The astronomers are baffled because hydrogen gas is the most common constituent of normal matter in the Universe, and is the raw material for stars, planets and possible life.

If anything, hydrogen was expected to be more abundant so early in the life of the Universe because it had not yet been consumed by the formation of all the stars and galaxies we know today.

Dr Steve Curran and colleagues at the University of New South Wales made their observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India, which comprises thirty 45-metre-diameter dishes and is one of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes.

By looking at galaxies in which the light has taken over 11.5 billion years to reach us, they found an apparent lack of hydrogen when the Universe was only two billion years old, long before our own Sun and all other stars in the present Universe had formed.

Stars form when extremely cold clouds of hydrogen collapse under their own gravity until they become dense enough to ignite nuclear fusion.

Over billions of years, this leads the formation of the heavier elements that make up planets, people and other matter.

Each galaxy should contain gas masses equivalent to several billion stars, as in the Milky Way.

“Since hydrogen gas is consumed by star formation, we may expect more hydrogen gas in the distant, and therefore earlier, Universe as all of the stars we see today have yet to form,” said Dr Curran.

His group analysed the data from optical telescopes and found that, although apparently dim due to their immense distances, the distant galaxies actually emit vast amounts of energy.

This energy is generally believed to result from the friction of the material spiralling at close to the speed of light into the black hole lurking within the heart of each galaxy.

These “quasars” are found all over the sky but occur predominantly in the early Universe.

“At such distances, only the most optically bright objects are known,” Dr Curran said. “The intense radiation from the matter accreting into the black hole in these quasars is extreme and we believe that this radiation is ripping the electrons from the atoms, destroying the hydrogen gas,” he added.

This would leave the gas as a soup of free subatomic particles known as a “plasma”, which cannot be detected.

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Scientists calculate power of dolphins

New York, Nov 24: Dolphins have a kick that would make Olympic gold-medalist Michael Phelps jealous--96 kilograms worth.

How dolphins are able to swim so fast first preoccupied researchers back in 1936, when zoologist James Gray calculated the drag dolphins must overcome to swim faster than 32 kilometers an hour. Gray said dolphins lacked the muscles to swim so fast, and yet they did. This became known as Gray's Paradox.

Gray theorized that their speed possibly had something to do with their skin. Over the decades, scientists found flaws in Gray's work, and most biologists have rejected his theory.

Now a team of US scientists has used sophisticated underwater video to measure the power of a dolphin's tail. They calculate 96 kilograms of thrust more than triple what a top Olympian like Phelps can produce and enough to swim with the zip that confounded Gray seven decades ago.

"There is no paradox. The dolphins always had the muscles to do this," said Frank Fish, professor of biology at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. "Gray was wrong."

Fish worked with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute engineering professor Tim Wei, who uses digital video and millions of tiny bubbles to study the complex movement of water roiled by swimmers.

Computers track the bubbles' movement, making the invisible flow of water visible. He has used the technique to help US Olympic swimmers get the most from their stroke, and now on dolphins, too.

Bureau Report

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Theory about Milky Way’s formation challenged

Washington, Nov 22: A new research has challenged the existing theory about the formation of galaxies like out own Milky Way.

The research, part of a multi-institutional project involving the University of Pittsburgh has challenged the longstanding theory that the bright extensions and rings surrounding galaxies are the remnants of smaller star clusters that struck a larger, primary galaxy, and then fragmented.

The research team was modeling disk galaxies for an unrelated astrological survey when they inadvertently discovered that stars in the main disk scattered when satellite galaxies, smaller galaxies surrounding larger ones, passed through.

The team’s computer simulations of galaxy formation suggests that disk galaxies most likely began as flat, centralized star clusters.

Smaller galaxies collided with and tore through these disks billions of years ago, casting disk stars outward into the wild extensions present now; the bright center is the original formation.

In addition, vast bodies of dark matter, which is a low-density, high-gravity invisible mass thought to occupy nearly one-quarter of the Universe, swept through these disks and further pulled stars from the main disk.

The researchers’ scenario largely applies to the formation of the rings and long flares of stars that surround such galaxies as the Milky Way, according to Andrew Zentner, a professor of physics and astronomy in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences.

But, the model also presents a possible solution to how star spirals, the arcs of stars that radiate from the center of some disk galaxies, maintain their shape.

Spirals form as a result of any disturbance to the star disk, Zentner said.

However, the prolonged disturbance of a galaxy and dark matter expanse passing through a disk explains why the spirals seem to never recede.

“Our model suggests that a violent collision throws stars everywhere and continues moving through the disk, disturbing its structure,” Zentner said.

“It also has been known for some time that for star spirals to develop and maintain their well-known form, there must be a prolonged disturbance. We show that large masses moving through a galaxy could provide that disturbance,” he added.

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Over 200 narwhal whales trapped in Canadian ice

Ottawa (Canada), Nov 22: At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice that is setting in around them and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials have said.

Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) from Pond Inlet, on November 15, and checked on them periodically.

The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans.

But department spokesman Keith Pelley told AFP: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorisation to cull them."

The hunters have been on the ice slaughtering the whales since Thursday and are likely to accomplish their task over the coming days, he said.

Narwhal are found mostly in the Arctic circle, and are renowned for their extraordinarily long tusk, which is actually a twisted incisor tooth that projects from the left side of its upper jaw and can be up to three meters long.

"A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water," Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organization, told public broadcaster CBC.

"About a week later, they're stuck." Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Pelley explained.

Bureau Report

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Concentrated stem cells injected into patient's heart

Washington, Nov 21: For the first time, surgeons at the Methodist Hospital in Houston have injected highly-concentrated stem cells directly into a patient''s heart, providing an intense, direct hit on damaged heart tissue.

The promising new technique can turn out to be more effective in regenerating healthy heart tissue than current methods that use a catheter to put standard stem cells through the bloodstream into the heart.

The patient, who was a 58-year-old veteran and businessman, is resting comfortably and may be discharged this weekend.

"Some patients have such severe heart failure that their only current option is a heart transplant. We hope that stem cells will stimulate angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, restore mechanical function in diseased heart tissue, and return patients to a much better quality of life without a transplant," said Dr. Brian Bruckner, cardiac surgeon at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston.

The new process requires the patient''s strongest and most robust stem and progenitor cells, derived from the patient''s own bone marrow, to be amplified up to 1,000 times before they''re injected back into the patient''s heart.

In the procedure, Dr. Bruckner made a small incision in the left side of the patient''s chest and administered approximately 25 injections of concentrated stem cells into the patient''s heart. All patients in the trial will be followed for 12 months after the injections.

A large number of people are suffering from chronic heart failure, and some of these individuals have dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a chronic heart disease in which the patient''s heart can not pump effectively enough to deliver blood and oxygen to the vital organs in the body.

Patients with DCM typically experience severe limitations to physical activity and shortness of breath.

"Without a new approach to treatment of these patients, they will continue to decline and less than 40 percent will survive five years. We hope this trial will provide a completely new and viable treatment for them," said Bruckner, principal investigator for the trial.

The IMPACT-DCM trial is a randomized, controlled, prospective, open-label, Phase II study that will seek to enroll 20 patients with ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and 20 patients with non-ischemic DCM at five clinical sites in the U.S.

Participants must have a left ventricular ejection fraction of less than or equal to 30 percent (60-75 percent is typical for a healthy person) and meet certain other eligibility criteria.

All patients in each group will receive standard medical care and 75 percent of the patients will be treated with cardiac repair cells (CRC), a mixture of stem cells and progenitor cells derived from the patient''s own blood marrow, through direct injection into the heart muscle during a minimally-invasive procedure in the operating room.

While the primary objective of this study is to assess the safety of CRCs in patients with DCM, efficacy measures including left ventricular ejection fraction and other cardiac function parameters as well as heart failure stage will be monitored. Patients will be followed for 12 months post treatment.

ANI

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Hydropower firm penalised for violating environmental laws

Shimla, Nov 21: A hydropower firm in Himachal Pradesh has been penalised for violating environmental laws, the government said Friday.

Om Power Corp, that is executing a 15-MW hydropower project near Palampur town in Kangra district, has been fined Rs.6.4 million after being found violating green norms.

"Om Power Corp has been asked to deposit Rs.64 lakh (Rs.6.4 million) for violating environment norms while executing the project. We will not allow the company to resume work till it takes corrective measures," Forest Minister J.P. Nadda told IANS.

"The company has violated environment laws - from haphazard cutting of hills, damaging trees to unscientific dumping of debris in areas close to water channels," he added.

A forest department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said most hydropower projects are violating environment laws. "But the government is adopting a pick-and-choose policy to take action. It reacts only when there is a protest by local communities," the official said.

The hill state has abundant water resources. Its power generation potential is 20,415 MW, about 25 percent of India's total hydropower potential, out of which only 6,150 MW has been tapped so far.

In 2006, the state government approved a hydropower policy that aims to make Himachal Pradesh the 'hydropower state' of India. Since then, it has sanctioned a slew of hydro projects.

Local entrepreneurs are being encouraged to take up projects of between 2 MW and 5 MW generation capacity. Those above 5 MW are being allotted after open bidding.

The Asian Development Bank last month announced it would provide Himachal Pradesh $800 million as loan for projects that together will add 808 MW.

IANS

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17month-old’s brain repaired with superglue

London, November 21: Doctors in New York have prevented a 17 months British toddler from succumbing to an extremely rare medical condition called aneurysm, by repairing her damaged brain with superglue.

Ella-Grace Honeyman born with vein of Galen malformation, which causes tiny holes in the brain’s main blood vessels. Blood seeped through the openings and flooded her skull cavity, causing a potentially fatal aneurysm.

Her parents brought her to America, where surgeons operating on her used the medical equivalent of superglue to stem the bleeding.

Laura and Ryan Honeyman, from Horsfold, Norfolk, have revealed that it was with the help of local fundraisers that they could pay over 100,000 pounds for the pioneering treatment in America and France.

They admit that their daughter may need to have further surgery, but doctors have told them that the little girl’s chances of living a full and happy life have increased.

During the surgery, a remote- controlled tube containing an organic adhesive was inserted through Ella-Grace’s groin, past her stomach and heart, and finally into the base of her brain.

The surgeon then injected the glue into the holes in an artery and faulty capillaries, which allowed the fluid in the baby’s skull to drain and thereby removed the aneurysm.

Only two British hospitals — one in London and one in Glasgow — are equipped to deal with such cases.

Ella-Grace’s parents have revealed that they were told that the baby’s chances of survival would be greater if they travelled to France or the U.S., as surgeons in the two countries were had more experience.

“When we first learnt about Ella-Grace’s condition, we were devastated,” Times Online quoted Mrs Honeyman, 29, as saying.

“We were told she had a brain aneurysm that would kill her unless treated and we really thought we’d lose our baby girl. The operation was a success and worth every penny. She’s now doing what all kids her age should be doing — bouncing around, playing and having a good time,” she added.

She revealed that Ella-Grace’s first operation in France went well, but the surgeon died two days afterwards, and the family had to head to the U.S. for more treatment.

The baby girl requires some more “top-up” operations to plug the remaining openings, and is due to travel back to New York next spring.

ANI

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11,000 alien species have invaded Europe

Berlin, Nov 21: A unique three year research project has determined that there are more than 11,000 alien species present in Europe, that have biologically invaded the continent.

Known as DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventory for Europe), the research project, with more than 100 European scientists, provides new knowledge on biological invasions in Europe.

Biological invasions by alien species often result in a significant loss in the economic value, biological diversity and function of invaded ecosystems.

Alien species are plants, animals and micro-organisms that have been moved by humans to new environments outside of the range they occupy naturally.

Alien species may have a profound impact on the environment and society as they can act as vectors for new diseases, alter ecosystem processes, change biodiversity, disrupt cultural landscapes, reduce the value of land and water for human activities and cause other socio-economic consequences.

More than 11,000 alien species have been documented by DAISIE, majority of which are not harmful.

About 15 percent of these alien species cause economic damages and 15 percent cause harm to biological diversity, that is the environment, habitats and native plants, animals and micro-organisms, according to the findings of the research.

The project provides an important tool for managing the threat of biological invasion in Europe.

Information in DAISIE can be used for documenting current invasions, predicting new invasions and preventing future invasions.

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Diamond star discovered

Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered.

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Twinkle twinkle

"You would need a jeweller's loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond," says astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team of researchers that discovered it.

The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 546-carat Golden Jubilee which was cut from a stone brought out of the Premier mine in South Africa.

The huge cosmic diamond - technically known as BPM 37093 - is actually a crystallised white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon.

For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallised, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently.

The white dwarf is not only radiant but also rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulsations.

"By measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth.

"We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond," says Metcalfe.

Astronomers expect our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallise as well, leaving a giant diamond in the centre of the solar system.

"Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever," says Metcalfe.

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Ancient Roman board game discovered in Yorkshire Dales

The 'board' for an ancient game of strategy, dating back to the Roman Empire, has been discovered in the village of Gayle in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The game is locally called 'Merrills' but is also known elsewhere in the UK as 'Nine Men’s Morris' and 'Mills'.

Etched into the top of the stone wall that runs alongside Gayle Beck is the 'board', which consists of three concentric and connected squares, giving 9 intersections for each square.

The object of the game is to create a run of three of your own pieces in a row and to box your opponent in so that he can no longer move.

Gayle Mill Manager Paul Bisson said: “The Merrills ‘board’ may well have been carved by the first workers at the mill into the stone wall which was built to channel the beck through the middle of the village.

"It was probably a welcome pastime, much enjoyed as a break in their long hours at the spinning machines or carding the cotton or wool. But the game is not as easy as you might think!”

The game is thought to date back as far as the Roman Empire and was certainly very popular in medieval times.

Boards have been found carved into the cloister seats at a number of English cathedrals, and there is a mention of ‘Nine Men’s Morris’ in Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’.

Now restored fully to working order, Gayle Mill opened to visitors last Easter and has been developing a range of special, traditionally crafted products for sale to the public, including a wooden version of the game.

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100 new roman artifacts discovered in Macedonia

Sofia, Nov 18: A team of archaeologists has found over 100 new artifacts, which date back to the early Roman period, at the Gabrevci site in the central part of Macedonia.

According to a report in www.balkantravellers.com , 130 ceramic vessels and deformed bronze objects were discovered during initial excavations, as stated by Trayche Nachev, head of the archaeological team.

The new findings come a month after a ritual funeral coach was discovered at the site, according to media reports.

The area around the village of Konche and the town of Stip is rich in well-researched archaeological sites from different eras.

Several tombs dating to the first century AD and the late Bronze period can be found near Konche, informed the Macedonian Information Agency.

In addition, excavations of the medieval fortress of Isar in Stip yielded findings, including a one-nave church, that illustrated how life in the fortress was organised during different periods of its existence.

ANI

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Extinct penguin species discovered

Scientists from the University of Adelaide are part of a team which has discovered evidence of a penguin species that lived in New Zealand 500 years ago.

It was thought the rare yellow-eyed penguin was the only species to dominate the country, but testing of ancient fossils revealed a different type of penguin was there first.

Senior research associate Jeremy Austin says the yellow-eyed species must have caused the other species to become extinct.

He says the finding could open the doors to more discoveries of extinct species.

"It's a pretty amazing find and it really does sort of highlight you know the importance sometimes of using DNA to identify things that you don't necessarily always see, just looking at the bones themselves," he said.

"It also indicates that certain species can take advantage of another species going extinct, so it does sort of alter the way we think about the way extinction affects ecosystems and animal communities.

"In some cases, some species can actually benefit."

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The world's oldest nuclear family discovered

Evidence that the nuclear family dates back to the Stone Age has been unearthed for the first time by scientists.

An international team of researchers, including experts from the University of Bristol, have discovered a burial site containing a number of closely related adults and children that is more than 4,600 years old - making it the oldest example of a "family" ever found.

The graves contained groups of men, women and children buried facing each other, which was an unusual practice in Neolithic culture.

One of the graves contained a female, a male and two children, which the researchers, using DNA analysis, established were a mother, father and their two sons aged around eight or nine and four or five years old.

They say this is the oldest evidence of a nuclear family in the world.

The skeletons, discovered and excavated at Eulau, in central Germany, were also unusual for the way in which they were buried.

The remains of 13 individuals were found in total and all had been buried simultaneously.

Several pairs of individuals were buried face-to-face with arms and hands interlinked and all the burials contained children ranging from new-borns up to 10 years of age and adults of around 30 years or older. Many showed injuries that indicated they were the victims of a violent raid.

One female had a stone projectile point embedded in one of her vertebra and another had skull fractures.

Several bodies also had defence injuries to the forearms and hands.

The researchers used state-of-the-art genetics and isotope techniques to determine the relationships of the dead.

In an article published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide said: "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe - to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far.

"Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities."

As well as establishing the biological relationships of the people buried, the researchers were also able to shed light on their social organisation using strontium isotope analysis.

Hylke de Jong, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, said: "We measured strontium isotopes in their teeth to give us an indication of where these people spent their childhood.

"Strontium from the food you eat is incorporated into your teeth as they grow. We can relate the proportion of different strontium isotopes back to regions with different geology and identify the area where a person grew up."

This revealed that females spent their childhoods in a different region from the males and children in the group.

Dr Alistair Pike, Head of Archaeology at the University of Bristol and co-Director of the project, said this is an indication that marrying out of society and that the women were expected to move to where the men were.

"Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities," he said.

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Haunted Whaley House

Few houses in San Diego are as historically important as the Whaley House. In addition to being the Whaley Family home, it housed a granary, the County Court House, San Diego's first commercial theater, various businesses including Thomas Whaley's own general store, a ballroom, a billiard hall, school, and polling place. Significant events, such as the siezure of the court documents and records in 1871, and the suicide of Violet Whaley in 1885 profoundly affected Thomas and Anna Whaley. These events, as well as the hangings which occurred on the property before the house was constructed, have suffused the Whaley House with an air of mystery and added to its reputation as something more than just California State Historic Landmark #65.

According to the Travel Channel's America's Most Haunted, the house is the number one most haunted house in the United States. The alleged hauntings of the Whaley House have been reported on numerous other television programs and been written up in countless publications and books since the house first opened as a museum in 1960. Although we cannot state positively that the Whaley House is really haunted, the voluminous documentation of paranormal occurances at the site makes a compelling case. But, if there are ghosts at the Whaley House, who are they and why are they here?

The earliest documented ghost at the Whaley House is "Yankee Jim." James (aka Santiago) Robinson was convicted of attempted grand larceny in San Diego in 1852, and hanged on a gallows off the back of a wagon on the site where the house now stands. The local newspaper reported that he "kept his feet in the wagon as long as possible, but was finally pulled off. He swung back and forth like a pendulum until he strangled to death." Although Thomas Whaley had been a spectator at the execution, he did not let it disuade him from buying the property a few years later and building a home for his family there. According to the San Diego Union, "soon after the couple and their children moved in, heavy footsteps were heard moving about the house. Whaley described them as sounding as though they were made by the boots of a large man. Finally he came to the conclusion that these unexplained footfalls were made by Yankee Jim Robinson." Another source states that Lillian Whaley, the Whaleys' youngest daughter who lived in the house until 1953, "had been convinced the ghost of "Yankee Jim" haunted the Old House." A visitor to the museum in 1962 mentioned that "the ghost had driven her family from their visit there more than 60 years [earlier], her mother was unnerved by the phantom walking noise and the strange way the windows unlatched and flew up."

Many visitors to the house have reported encountering Thomas Whaley himself. The late June Reading, former curator of the museum, said, "We had a little girl perhaps 5 or 6 years old who waved to a man she said was standing in the parlor. We couldn't see him. But often children's sensitivity is greater than an adult's." However, many adults have reported seeing the apparition of Mr. Whaley, usually on the upper landing. One said he was "clad in frock coat and pantaloons, the face turned away from her, so she could not make it out. Suddenly it faded away."

The specter of Anna Whaley has also been reported, usually in the downstairs rooms or in the garden. In 1964, Mrs. Whaley's floating, drifting spirit appeared to [television personality Regis] Philbin. "All of a sudden I noticed something on the wall," Philbin reported. "There was something filmy white, it looked like an apparition of some kind, I got so excited I couldn't restrain myself! I flipped on the [flash]light and nothing was there but a portrait of Anna Whaley, the long-dead mistress of the house."

Other visitors have described seeing or sensing the presence of a woman in the courtroom. "I see a small figure of a woman," one visitor said, "who has a swarthy complexion. She is wearing a long full skirt, reaching to the floor. The skirt appears to be a calico or gingham, small print. She has a kind of cap on her head, dark hair and eyes and she is wearing gold hoops in her pierced ears. She seems to stay in this room, lives here, I gather." None of the Whaleys fit this description, but the house was rented out to numerous tenants over the years. Perhaps the mysterious woman in the courtroom was one of these.

Another presence reported by visitors and docents is that of a young girl, who is usually found in the dining room. Psychic Sybil Leek encountered this spirit during a visit in the 1960s. "It was a long-haired girl," Sybil said. "She was very quick, you know, in a longish dress. She went to the table in this room and I went to the chair." Urban legend has it that this is the ghost of a playmate of the Whaley children who accidentally broke her neck on a low-hanging clothesline in the backyard, and whose name was either Annabel or Carrie Washburn. There are no historic records of any child dying this way at the Whaley House; nor is there record of any family named Washburn residing in San Diego at the time. It is believed that the legend was started by a one-time employee of the Whaley House, in an effort to add to the house's mystique.

Even animals aren't left out of the singular occurances. A parapsychologist reported he saw a spotted dog, like a fox terrier, that ran down the hall with his ears flapping and into the dining room. The dog, he said, was an apparition. When they lived in the house, the Whaley's owned a terrier named Dolly Varden.

The Whaley House stands silently watching over San Diego Avenue as it has done for a century and a half. Every day visitors come from around the world to tour the historic museum. It contains so much history within its walls, that even the non-believer will enjoy the tour. For believers and sceptics alike, the house draws them back time and again, in search of those elusive ghosts. As Regis Philbin once said, "You know a lot of people pooh-pooh it because they can't see it. But there was something going on in that house."




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NASA astronauts to drink recycled urine in space

London, November 15: NASA is launching a machine aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, which will recycle astronauts' urine for consumption as water.

"We did blind taste tests of the water. Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water," the Telegraph quoted NASA's Bob Bagdigian, the system's lead engineer, as saying.

"I've got some in my fridge. It tastes fine to me," he added.

The launch of the 250million-dollar wastewater recycling machine is part of NASA's 124th shuttle mission, which was launched on Friday evening from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The shuttle is expected to arrive at the space station on Sunday.

Besides the water recycler, Endeavour carries two small bedrooms, the station's first refrigerator, new exercise gear, and a second lavatory.

"With six people you really do need to have a two-bathroom house. It's a lot more convenient and a lot more efficient," said Endeavour astronaut Sandra Magnus.

NASA said that it wanted to ensure that the water-recycling machine worked well before adding three more astronauts to the station’s crew.

NASA researchers said that they expected to process about six gallons, or 23 litres, of water per day with the new device.

They revealed that their objective was to recover about 92 per cent of the water from the crew's urine and moisture in the air.

As to the process of recycling the waster water, the researchers said that they used an extensive series of purification techniques like distillation – which is somewhat tricky in microgravity – filtration, oxidation, and ionisation.

Bagdigian said that the final step, that is, the addition of iodine helped prevent microbial growth.

He said that the device could process a full day's worth of wastewater in less than 24 hours.

"Today's drinking water was yesterday's waste," he said.

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Sea level has risen 3.3 mm a year since 1993

Washington, Nov 14: Monitoring changes to water levels in the sea, in rivers and lakes, in ice sheets and even under the ground, with the help of observations from satellites, has revealed that since the start of 1993, sea level has been rising by 3.3 mm a year, almost double the rate of the previous 50 years.

Sea level rise in one of the major consequences of global warming, but it is much more difficult to model and predict than temperature.

Since the 1990s, a number of altimeter satellites have been measuring the height of the ocean surface and this has dramatically improved our understanding of sea level rise.

Currently, three altimeter satellites cover the entire globe every 10 to 35 days, and can measure the height of the sea surface to a precision of 1 to 2 cm.

These measurements show that since the start of 1993, sea level has been rising by 3.3 mm a year, almost double the rate of the previous 50 years.

“For several years now, the rate of rise has not changed significantly,” said Anny Cazenave, from the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiale (LEGOS) in Toulouse.

Cazenave’s team, and other groups, calculate that for 1993-2003, about half of the sea level rise was due to the oceans expanding as they became warmer, and the other half was due to shrinking land ice.

Since 2003, ocean warming has had a temporary break but sea level has continued to rise.

Now, about 80 percent of the annual sea level rise can be attributed to accelerated land ice loss from glaciers, Greenland and Antarctica.

This has been revealed by a brand new satellite technique, called space gravimetry.

The method has shown that the Greenland ice sheet is losing about 150 gigatonnes of ice each year, two thirds of which is large chunks of ice flowing rapidly into the sea.

Using GRACE, Cazenave and others have also looked at changes in water storage in river basins. In the period from 2002-2006, they found that some basins, including the Congo and the Mississippi, have been losing water, but river systems in the boreal regions are gaining water.

Meanwhile, scientists at the European Space Agency, collaborating with DeMontfort University in the UK, have begun to use data from the satellites that measure sea level, to assess lake and river levels on land.

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Rare dinosaur nest discovered

A rare fossil nest made by a meat-eating dinosaur has been identified by scientists.

The nest, complete with eggs, is thought to have been abandoned by its owner 77 million years ago.

Originally experts thought the nest, found in Montana, US, in the 1990s, belonged to a plant-eating hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. But a new examination suggests it was actually the work of a small theropod, a carnivorous two-legged dinosaur.

"Based on characteristics of the eggs and nest, we know that the nest belonged to either a caenagnathid or a small raptor, both meat-eating dinosaurs closely related to birds," said researcher Dr Darla Zelenitsky, from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. "Either way, it is the first nest known for these small dinosaurs."

The fossil nest is a mound of sand about half a metre across and weighing as much as a small person.

Eggs were laid two at a time on the sloping sides of the mound, forming a ring around its flat top. The nesting dinosaur would have sat here to brood its clutch.

Co-investigator Francois Therrien, curator of dinosaur palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, said: "Based on the features of the nest, we know that the mother dug in freshly deposited sand, possibly the shore of a river, to build a mound against which she laid her eggs and on which she sat to brood the eggs.

"Some characteristics of the nest are shared with birds, and our analysis can tell us how far back in time these features, such as brooding, nest building, and eggs with a pointed end, evolved - partial answers to the old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg."

The research is reported in the journal Palaeontology.

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