http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/science-chat/ en-us Tue, 7 Oct 2008 03:20:44 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099270/posts The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks -- two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter -- date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period. The Ediacaran preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved. Scientists once thought that it was primarily microbes and simple multicellular animals that existed prior to the Cambrian, but that notion is changing, explained Loren Babcock, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. Science Daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099270/posts#comment Tue, 7 Oct 2008 03:20:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099053/posts Planets circle the stars that dot the heavens. Before 1995, we couldn’t have said that with any certainty. Now we know of more than 300 planets orbiting distant stars, and we have a fleet of telescopes looking for them. The ultimate goal is to find another Earth orbiting a star like the Sun, but the quest on the way to that Holy Grail has yielded some strange benchmarks. CoRoT-exo3b, a dense planet orbiting another star COROT-exo-3b compared to Jupiter Meet the planet COROT-exo-3b. It orbits a star slightly larger, hotter, and brighter than the Sun. The star is not an... Bad Astronomy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099053/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 23:12:13 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099016/posts The transit method — observing a distant planet as it moves in front of its star as seen from Earth — is a prime tool for exoplanet detection. But transits are hardly limited to planets around their primaries. The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) is demonstration of that, an attempt to find tiny Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) in the range between 0.5 and 28 kilometers. As you would imagine, at a distance like this such objects cannot be seen directly, but an occultation — the dimming of a star when one of the KBOs passes in front of it —... Centauri Dreams http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2099016/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 22:22:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098959/posts <p>Marco is that leetle swirl of clouds in the southernmost Bay of Campeche. Compare Marco to Tropical Storm Norbert in the EastPac. Strange.</p> Weather Underground http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098959/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 20:58:55 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098811/posts A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that, according to an expert epigrapher, could be engraved with the world's first known reference to Christ... The full engraving on the bowl reads, "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS," which has been interpreted by French epigrapher and professor emeritus Andre Bernand as meaning either, "by Christ the magician" or "the magician by Christ." ...He and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins... Discovery News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098811/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 18:02:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098495/posts I became involved with the analytical aspect of the Shroud when Ray Rogers asked me for help in conducting certain Shroud image formation studies. He needed an alpha-particle source to complete investigation of possible image formation processes and some radiochemical calculations on the depth of penetration of an emitted alpha-particle into flax fibers. I provided him with both and he asked further for X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) measurements on a special sample he termed a “spliced thread” or R1 sample. The XPS measurements were made and he was quite excited at the results because they indicated the two ends of... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098495/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 08:39:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098490/posts Abstract The Sudarium of Oviedo has been studied intensively with a petrographic (polarizing) microscope. It is composed of pure flax fibers, and they show the same characteristics as the Shroud of Turin. The technology used to prepare the linen cloth appears to be identical to that described for Roman times by Pliny the Elder (Natural History XIX, 3, 16-18). Flax fibers are mostly crystalline cellulose, and the crystals have a fibrillar structure. The fibers are birefringent between crossed polarizers; however, the birefringence changes depending on the past history of the material. Perfect, new flax fibers show extinction (the segments between... Shroud.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098490/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 08:06:40 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098486/posts INTRODUCTION: In 1978, a team of scientific researchers (STURP: Shroud of Turin Research Project) was allowed for the first time to carry out a scientific comprehensive study of the Turin Shroud. Visual examination, macro and microphotographies, X-Ray radiographies; IR, visible and UV reflectance spectroscopy and photographs and UV-Vis fluorescence studies were conducted in situ. 32 surface samples (5 cm2 each) were obtained from specific locations using inert, non-reactive pure hydrocarbon sticky tapes for later examination. The results of the studies were published in different peer-reviewed scientific journals in the following years. In 1981, STURP officially concluded that: «No pigments, paints,... Shroud.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098486/posts#comment Mon, 6 Oct 2008 07:41:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098236/posts A Mycenaean warrior who died in western Greece over 3,000 years ago was the proud owner of a rare gold-wired sword imported from the Italian peninsula, a senior archaeologist said on Thursday. "This is a very rare discovery, particularly because of the gold wire wrapped around the hilt," archaeologist Maria Gatsi told AFP. "To my knowledge, no such sword has ever been found in Greece," said Gatsi, head of the regional archaeological department of Aetoloakarnania prefecture. Tests in Austria have confirmed that the bronze used in the 12th century BCE, 94-centimetre (37-inch) sword came from the Italian peninsula, she said.... Howrah News Service http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098236/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:49:14 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098197/posts Photos by Kevin Fitzsimons, Ohio State University. COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks -- two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter -- date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period. The Ediacaran preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved. Scientists once thought that it was primarily microbes and simple multicellular animals that existed prior to the Cambrian, but that notion is changing, explained Loren... Ohio State University http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098197/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:02:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098069/posts PALMDALE - NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory captured a unique light show recently, as scientists used the aerial platform to study the disintegration of a spacecraft as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere from orbit. The European Space Agency's "Jules Verne" automated transfer vehicle, the first of a planned series of autonomous spacecraft designed to resupply and re-boost the international space station, returned early Sept. 29 at the conclusion of its six-month maiden mission. The European agency teamed up with NASA to take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by the planned re-entry to study how objects disintegrate and burn up when encountering... Valley Press on http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2098069/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 18:08:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097885/posts We really dig Peugeot's new HYmotion3 Compressor Concept. It's got three wheels -- two up front and one in back, our preferred arrangement -- and a hybrid drivetrain. The two front wheels are independently powered by individual wheel-mounted hub motors and have no connection to the supercharged four-stroke 125cc engine that powers the rear wheel. AutoblogGreen http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097885/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 11:40:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097776/posts There is nothing in the theory of evolution that supports aggressivity, cut-throat competition and “man’s inhumanity to man”. On the contrary, evolution teaches egbe bere ugo bere (let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch too); that is why all sorts of organisms, irrespective of when they evolved and their physical strength, are still around today. Only those that do not understand the subtlety, complexity and amazing varieties of adaptive and survival mechanisms in living things, justify their inhuman actions by appealing to the pseudo-scientific cliché, “survival of the fittest.” Our analysis of the competing claims of creationism and... Vanguard http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097776/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 03:30:14 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097690/posts The two new species of bacteria found growing on the walls of the Roman tombs may help protect our cultural heritage monuments, according to research... The Catacombs of Saint Callistus are part of a massive graveyard that covers 15 hectares [37 acres], equivalent to more than 20 football pitches. The underground tombs were built at the end of the 2nd Century AD and were named after Pope Saint Callistus I. More than 30 popes and martyrs are buried in the catacombs. "Bacteria can grow on the walls of these underground tombs and often cause damage," said Professor Dr Clara Urzì... ScienceDaily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097690/posts#comment Sun, 5 Oct 2008 00:35:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097568/posts Report: Cannabis Less Harmful Than Alcohol, Tobacco Friday, October 3, 2008 9:19 AM Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, according to a report by a research charity Thursday, which called for a "serious rethink" of drug policy. The Beckley Foundation, a charity which numbers senior experts and other academics among its advisors, said banning cannabis has no impact on supply and turns users into criminals. "Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco," says the report by the Foundation's Global... newsmax.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097568/posts#comment Sat, 4 Oct 2008 20:29:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097540/posts Jeff Kantor, on building and managing a 150 Petabyte databaseInterview It makes for one heck of a project mission statement. Explore the nature of dark matter, chart the Solar System in exhaustive detail, discover and analyze rare objects such as neutron stars and black hole binaries, and map out the structure of the Galaxy. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is, in the words of Jeff Kantor, LSST data management project manager, "a proposed ground-based 6.7 meter effective diameter (8.4 meter primary mirror), 10 square-degree-field telescope that will provide digital imaging of faint astronomical objects across the entire sky, night... Register http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097540/posts#comment Sat, 4 Oct 2008 19:32:15 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097444/posts Another crop circle has appeared in the English countryside — and this one's clearly been made by someone, or something, that understands math. foxnews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097444/posts#comment Sat, 4 Oct 2008 16:41:56 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097127/posts the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS), spent two years periodically photographing portions of the sky to look for small chunks of rock and ice orbiting beyond Neptune, in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. The survey targeted Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) with sizes between 2 miles (3 km) and 17 miles (28 km). Since such objects are too small to see directly, the survey watched for stars to dim as KBOs passed in front of and occulted them. After accumulating more than 200 hours of data watching for stellar flickers lasting a second or less, TAOS did... PyssOrg http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097127/posts#comment Sat, 4 Oct 2008 01:21:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097085/posts Earlier this year, the popular blog Little Green Footballs (LGF) made an outrageous attempt to link Discovery Institute to the Muslim creationist Harun Yahya (a.k.a. Adnan Oktar). Their post claimed, “Discovery Institute is in league with Islamist creationists, a fact that is indisputably true,” specifically referring to Yahya / Oktar. Discovery Institute's president Bruce Chapman dignified their charges with a forceful refutation, but LGF’s reply to Mr. Chapman was basically a string of ad hominem attacks that relied on a tenuous chain of distorted and incomplete facts. If there was any doubt left that Discovery Institute and Islamic creationists are... Discovery News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097085/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 23:51:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097071/posts The same day Sarah Palin told Katie Couric that "science should be taught in science class," a group of scientists were making that very point to the Texas Board of Education. Is Sarah Palin a closet evolutionist? Hardly, but it's difficult to peg her as the sort of strict Creationist many academics and people of faith accuse of trying to undermine the teaching of evolution. Like many people of faith, Palin seems to believe that science and religion are not necessarily incompatible and that a good education should make room for both. Newsweek http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097071/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 23:35:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097065/posts Dozens of admirers surrounded the eighth-grade science teacher in the middle of the town square. It was April, and the first of several rallies that John Freshwater and his supporters would hold to drive his point home: He would not remove his Bible from the desk of his public-school classroom. Mount Vernon school administrators had ordered him to do that, among other things. "This is nothing short of another blatant attack on free-speech rights," he said. That's how Freshwater and his supporters frame the issue: A veteran teacher is fighting for his right to keep his Bible on his desk.... Columbus Dispatch http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2097065/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 23:30:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096929/posts < "In addition to meeting or exceeding demanding transportation and industrial application requirements for both watt-hours of energy storage and watts of power delivery per kilogram, BOOSTCAP products will perform reliably for more than one million discharge-recharge cycles," Liedtke said. "Our heavy transportation modules are specifically designed to meet end-user requirements for durability and maintenance-free operation." > AutoblogGreen http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096929/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 20:22:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096897/posts LONDON — Two ancient Egyptian skulls unearthed in a yard in England have been returned to their native country. And the mystery of how they got from the hot sands of Egypt to the rainy north of England has been solved, investigators said Tuesday. The first skull was discovered by homeowner Matthew McClelland as he did some gardening at his home in the northern city of Manchester a year ago. He called authorities, and they discovered a second skull. An analysis by an Oxford University expert confirmed the skulls were a little more than 2,000 years old. foxnews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096897/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 19:57:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096875/posts After 11 years of (robotically) scanning the skies almost every single night... I am done, as of last night... The sky-scanning has evolved greatly over the past 11 years. The very first version, started in July 1998, consisted of real people at the telescope taking real photographic plates (!) of the sky... When the photographic plates were finished we sent them to David Monet at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff who digitized the photographic plates using an outrageously precise mega-scanner he had painstakingly develop just for these purposes. Soon after the initial survey ended, the telescope got a giant... Mike Brown's Planets weblog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096875/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 19:20:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096856/posts Reconstructing the climate of the past is an important tool for scientists to better understand and predict future climate changes that are the result of the present-day global warming. Although there is still little known about the Earth's tropical and subtropical regions, these regions are thought to play an important role in both the evolution of prehistoric man and global climate changes. New North African climate reconstructions reveal three 'green Sahara' episodes during which the present-day Sahara Desert was almost completely covered with extensive grasslands, lakes and ponds over the course of the last 120.000 years. The findings of Dr.... Science News, ScienceDaily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2096856/posts#comment Fri, 3 Oct 2008 18:55:57 GMT