[Jawlist] Weekly Science Report 7-17-09

Sat Jul 18 10:36:06 PDT 2009

Good Afternoon Everyone,

Below is this week's edition.  Enjoy!

Steve Detwiler

Weekly Science Report
July 17, 2009

“Courage is the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
Winston Churchill

News Articles

Paleontology, Evolution and Prehistoric Studies

The Last Supper Of The Hominids Establishes The Times They Lived At The Sites
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714103526.htm

Bringing Our Ancestors Back to Life
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/origins/2009/07/artists-and-scientists-team-up.html

200,000-year-old flint tools found in Syrian desert
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1489195.php/200000-year-old_flint_tools_found_in_Syrian_desert_

Lightning May Have Created Special Food for Earth’s Early Microbes
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/14/lightning-may-have-created-special-food-for-earths-early-microbes/

Giant Clawed Dinosaur Unearthed in Utah Desert
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/14/sickle-claw-dinosaur.html

Darwin's mystery explained
http://www.physorg.com/news166805247.html

Why Are Human Brains So Big?
http://www.livescience.com/animals/090713-human-brain-big.html

Could Sardinia be the lost island of Atlantis?
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=91019

Neanderthals Were Few and Poised for Extinction
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090716-neanderthal-population.html

Cave record of Britain's pioneers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8151524.stm

Dinosaur fish had sex 380 million years ago
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-Health-Science-Science-Dinosaur-fish-had-sex-380-million-years-ago/articleshow/4784299.cms

Secrets of a Life-Giving Amino Acid Revealed
http://www.physorg.com/news166972917.html

World's oldest tattoos were made of soot
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17469

Ancient and General History

High-tech imaging reveals hidden past in ancient texts
http://www.physorg.com/news166200717.html

Gristhorpe Man slowly gives up his secrets
http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Gristhorpe-Man-slowly-gives-up.5441651.jp?articlepage=1

Tales From the Appalachian Trail
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Tales-From-the-Appalachian-Trail.html

'Unholy Grail' Nazi chalice revealed in fraud case
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/unholy-grail-nazi-chalice-revealed-in-fraud-case-1744667.html

WWII pilot missing since '44 buried
http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/mobile_county/WWII_Pilot_Missing_Since_44_Buried

New findings on snake cult challenge Iron Age theories
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090716/NATIONAL/707159822/-1/NEWS

Fewer World War I bodies burried at Fromelles
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25793778-31477,00.html

Thighbones Were Scepters for Ancient Zapotec Men?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090715-zapotec-thighbones-femurs.html

Obama on slavery: 'Capacity for cruelty still exists'
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/17/obama.slavery/index.html

Archaeology

Rare Indian artifacts found on Lisbon property
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x488834511/Rare-Indian-artifacts-found-on-Lisbon-property

Specially trained dogs to be used in Port Angeles archaeological survey
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20090712/news/307129989

Ancient caves battle neglect
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/City/Mumbai/Ancient-caves-battle-neglect/articleshow/4770451.cms

Cave similar to Bhimbetka found in MP
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=NLetter&id=62dece90-7461-49df-a25f-a64b3359da52&Headline=Cave+similar+to+Bhimbetka+found+in+MP

Previously Unknown Inca Road Discovered in Peru
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=31999

Jewelry of the Parion Princess unearthed
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/12047968.asp?scr=1

Iran's largest Paleolithic site found in Semnan
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=100414&sectionid=351020105

Bulgaria Archaeologists Uncover Bronze Age Sanctuary
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=105757

Haul of Roman coins restored
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-07-14_114383620.html

Stone-age rings unearthed at prehistoric Purbalingga sites
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/07/13/stoneage-rings-unearthed-prehistoric-purbalingga-sites.html

Isotope analysis dates ancient Mexican
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=478

Prehistoric dwelling unearthed at Isle of Man Airport
http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Prehistoric-dwelling-unearthed-at-Isle.5452740.jp

Archaeology Excavations Start at Bulgaria's Roman City Nikopolis ad Istrum
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=105680

Archaeologists search for tomb of Suleiman I in Hungary
http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=6737

Untouched Tomb of Aztec King on Verge of Discovery?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090713-aztec-king-tomb.html

Turkey: Ancient treasures uncovered in western region 
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/CultureAndMedia/?id=3.0.3538600291

EXPERTS DISCOVER SIX KILOMETERS OF CAVES IN EASTER ISLAND
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/santiagotimes/index.php/2009070616624/news/cultural-news/experts-discover-six-kilometers-of-caves-in-easter-island.html

Ancient brick relic unearthed in Mekong Delta
http://www.thanhniennews.com/entertaiments/?catid=6&newsid=50695

Blanding man accused of threatening to beat up informant in artifacts case
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_12826425

Historical sites near U.S. border at risk for looting
http://www.canada.com/Historical+sites+near+border+risk+looting/1788679/story.html

History of Indian archaeology
http://www.hindu.com/br/2009/07/14/stories/2009071451311400.htm

How much can this great monument take?
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_2_16/07/2009_108965

Mexico Conducts Inventory of Marine Archaeology Sites
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=339313&CategoryId=14091

Huge, megalithic burial site excavated
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/17/stories/2009071751690300.htm

Archeologists Search for Iron Workshop in North Iceland
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16568&ew_0_a_id=336834

Voyage to Crete
http://www.archaeology.org/galleries/crete/

Primate archaeology, proposal of a new research field
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/uadb-pap071609.php

Egyptology

Ancient Fortress City Unearthed in Egypt
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/14/egypt-fortress-city.html

King Tut explorer’s photos, treasures revealed
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31946548/ns/technology_and_science-science/

General Science

Cars 'may soon be started by lasers'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-Health-Science-Science-Cars-may-soon-be-started-by-lasers/articleshow/4769008.cms

Australia seeks new army robots
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8149043.stm

Researchers design vehicle to help blind drive
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-Health-Science-Science-Researchers-design-vehicle-to-help-blind-drive/articleshow/4786337.cms

Physics, Earth and Space Sciences

Space companies eye HI as potential new frontier
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090712/ap_on_sc/us_space_tourism

Scientist scans galaxy seeking other Earths
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/12/BANK18E1OC.DTL&type=science

New Images Suggest Hellish Venus Was Once More Like Earth
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/14/new-images-suggest-hellish-venus-was-once-more-like-earth/

Private Space Co. SpaceX Launches Its First Commercial Satellite
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/14/private-space-co-spacex-launches-its-first-commercial-satellite/

Behind the Scenes & Under the Hood: Virtuality’s Antimatter Spacecraft Engine
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2009/07/13/behind-the-scenes-under-the-hood-virtualitys-antimatter-spacecraft-engine/

Mars flight simulation experiment ends
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31905765/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Physicists Propose Scheme for Teleporting Light Beams
http://www.physorg.com/news166779852.html

UN's "outer space people" tackle asteroids, climate
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090714/sc_afp/unspaceweaponsdisasterrelief_20090714075643

Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-06/40-years-later-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-apollo-ii-moon-landing

Bored With PCs, Bill Gates Sets His Sights On Controlling the Weather
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/bill-gates-files-patent-hurricane-killer-plan

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Leaving Earth Once Is Not Enough
http://www.space.com/news/090714-apollo11-40th-degrasse-tyson.html

New element named 'copernicium'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8153596.stm

Europe's new space truck takes shape 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8141256.stm

Researcher: Orbits Went Kablooey When Solar System Was a Teenager
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/16/researcher-orbits-went-kablooey-when-solar-system-was-a-teenager/

Solar cycle linked to global climate
http://www.physorg.com/news166966122.html

The secret jungles of ancient France
http://www.physorg.com/news166977549.html

Research indicates ocean current shutdown may be gradual
http://www.physorg.com/news166973872.html

An Eagle of Cosmic Proportions
http://www.physorg.com/news166960881.html

Quantum goes massive
http://www.physorg.com/news166941860.html

Gravity wells could provide 'parking lots' for spaceships
http://www.physorg.com/news166903758.html

Researcher Investigates the Basis of Einstein's First Approximation in the Theory of Relativity
http://www.physorg.com/news166874604.html

Moon potential goldmine of natural resources
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090716/sc_afp/usspacemoonanniversarysciencegeology_20090716114211

Space invaders: Asteroid belt has rocks from afar
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_sc/us_sci_asteroid_belt

Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America’s Night Skies
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/nightclouds/

Artificial Brain Aids Cosmic Exploration
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/15/artifical-brain-space.html

Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End
Plan to 'De-Orbit' in 2016 Is Criticized
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 13, 2009 

A number of times in recent weeks a bright, unblinking light has appeared in the night sky of the nation's capital: a spaceship. Longer than a football field, weighing 654,000 pounds, the spaceship moved swiftly across the heavens and vanished. 
Fortunately, it was one of ours. 

The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, it often passes over North America and is visible from the ground when night has fallen but the station, up high, is still bathed in sunlight. 

After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year. 
And then? 

"In the first quarter of 2016, we'll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft," says NASA's space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini. 

That's a polite way of saying that NASA will make the space station fall back into the atmosphere, where it will turn into a fireball and then crash into the Pacific Ocean. It'll be a controlled reentry, to ensure that it doesn't take out a major city. But it'll be destroyed as surely as a Lego palace obliterated by the sweeping arm of a suddenly bored kid. 

This, at least, is NASA's plan, pending a change in policy. There's no long-term funding on the books for international space station operations beyond 2015. 

Suffredini raised some eyebrows when, at a public hearing last month, he declared flatly that the plan is to de-orbit the station in 2016. He addressed his comments to a panel chaired by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine that is charged by the Obama administration with reviewing the entire human spaceflight program. Everything is on the table -- missions, goals, rocket design. And right there in the mix is this big, fancy space laboratory circling the Earth from 220 miles up. 

The cost of the station is both a liability and, paradoxically, a virtue. A figure commonly associated with the ISS is that it will ultimately cost the United States and its international partners about $100 billion. That may add to the political pressure to keep the space laboratory intact and in orbit rather than seeing it plunging back to Earth so soon after completion. 

"If we've spent a hundred billion dollars, I don't think we want to shut it down in 2015," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told Augustine's committee. 

Suffredini agrees. 

"My opinion is it would be a travesty to de-orbit this thing," he said. "If we get rid of this darned thing in 2015, we're going to cede our leadership in human exploration." 

NASA has a strategy built on President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, of which a return to the moon is the next great leap. The space station's defenders say it can provide essential research on long-duration spaceflight. 

Suffredini argues that any long-term exploration of the universe requires an initial step of learning how to survive in space. The best place to do that is close to the Earth, he said. The space station sticks to low Earth orbit. "It's also teaching us how to work together as a world, as a planet," he said. 

Although there is no official lobbying going on to extend the mission, NASA is conducting a thorough review of the station to see what it would take to certify it as operational through the late 2020s, Suffredini said. Even in the vacuum of space, things break down, get old, wear out. 
Critics have long derided the orbiting laboratory as a boondoggle. Originally called Space Station Freedom during the Reagan years, it became the international space station when the United States lured Russia into a partnership in 1993, agreeing to alter the orbit of the station to make it pass over the Russian-run space complex in Kazakhstan. That agreement helped keep Russian scientists and engineers employed at a time when the United States feared they would become rogue agents in a chaotic world. 

The rap on the space station has always been that it was built primarily to give the space shuttle somewhere to go. Now, with the shuttle being retired at the end of 2010, the station is on the spot. U.S. astronauts will be able to reach the station only by getting rides on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. 

The station has repeatedly been hit with budget cuts and design modifications. Much of its science funding was cut earlier this decade. A centrifuge had been planned as a crucial scientific component of the station, but it didn't survive the budget axe. Until the end of May, the station had a crew of three, barely enough for housekeeping. 

NASA officials say there will be important science performed on the station in the years ahead. The last flight of the space shuttle will install on the station a physics experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which will search for dark matter and antimatter. 

But a prominent critic of human spaceflight, physicist Robert L. Park of the University of Maryland, said putting astronauts on the space station is akin to "flagpole-sitting." He argues that the station fundamentally lacks a mission. 

Gentler criticism comes from David Leckrone, senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, who thinks the station is underutilized. He fears that NASA measures the station's value solely in terms of how it might advance the long-term "Exploration" agenda of returning to the moon, with basic science research as an afterthought. 

"Whether it was a great investment or not to begin with, having made that investment, I think it's imperative for the United States to extract value -- real, honest-to-God scientific value -- out of that investment," Leckrone said. 

Park has a different suggestion: "Give it to China. Let them support the damn thing." 

Environment, Climate Change and Alternative Energy Sources

Utah County cities considering wind energy
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/12/state/n104838D68.DTL&type=science

Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
http://www.physorg.com/news166795736.html

Exxon to make alternative fuel from algae: report
http://www.physorg.com/news166781399.html

Best energy harvesting sources for future AF UAVs
http://www.physorg.com/news166795115.html

Experts hail Sahara-Europe solar plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090714/bs_afp/germanyafricamideastenergyalternativewarmingclimate_20090714162117

New geothermal heat extraction process to deliver clean power generation (w/ Video)
http://www.physorg.com/news166969295.html

General Electric Plans Net-Zero Energy Home by 2015
http://www.physorg.com/news166965770.html

Greenlight given for first eco towns
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090716/wl_uk_afp/britainenvironmenthousing_20090716115229

Spy Satellite Sea Ice Images Finally Made Public
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/seaicedata/

The future of the rainforests is our future too 
http://www.heralddeparis.com/the-future-of-the-rainforests-is-our-future-too/44979

Biological, Genetics and Medical Sciences

Squashing Superbugs--The Race for New Antibiotics
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=squashing-superbugs

Park to be named after eugenics advocate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/14/BAEJ18LNUD.DTL&type=science

British girl's heart heals itself after transplant
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090714/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_heart_transplant

Lizard Swims Through Sand by Retracting Its Legs & Moving Like a Snake
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/07/16/lizard-swims-through-sand-by-retracting-its-legs-moving-like-a-snake/

Can Training in Second Life Teach Doctors to Save Real Lives?
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/15-can-medical-students-learn-to-save-real-lives-in-second-life/

Skin cancer's secret 'revealed'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-Health-Science-Science-Skin-cancers-secret-revealed/articleshow/4783679.cms

Genetic source of muscular dystrophy neutralized
http://www.physorg.com/news166974009.html

Genetic trigger for disease-fighting antibodies discovered
http://www.physorg.com/news166973037.html

1st US 2-hand transplant patient yearns to feel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090717/ap_on_re_us/us_med_double_hand_transplant

Other

Don't panic! It's just an outbreak
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-07-11-outbreak_N.htm

Could moon landings have been faked? Some still think so
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/07/17/moon.landing.hoax/index.html

Additional Informational

9 of Humanity's Greatest Environmental Successes (Photo Gallery)
http://discovermagazine.com/photos/09-of-humanitys-greatest-environmental-successes/

10 Telescopes That Changed Our View of the Universe (Slide Show)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ten-telescopes-galileo

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