A quantum-mechanical twang has been detected in a bar of silicon – previously such movement had been measured only in particles

British Archaeology #122 (Jan/Feb) has a good feature on the origins of Roman London, presenting and collating evidence from excavations in the 90s and 00s for a military camp immediately post-dating the AD 43 invasion of Britain. The editors have slapped a silly headline on the thing though, playing up a short passage about human heads deposited in the Walbrook stream as if this were the main issue dealt with in the piece.

The unsigned last page discusses the important work of Raimund Karl (in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice Oct 2011; read it on-line), who has compared the results of the English/Welsh and the Austrian legal attitude to metal detecting and other situations where members of the public make archaeological finds. In the former case, the Portable Antiquities Scheme encourages the public to report their finds voluntarily. It was instituted in 1997, and reporting immediately exploded in volume. Year after year the PAS is seeing an exponential increase in the number of reported finds, and it's not just metalwork either: fieldwalking flint enthusiasts are also participating very actively. Meanwhile, Austria has put a tight lid on things: if you find anything you're legally obliged to report it within two days, only archaeology graduates can dig, and only archaeology graduates with a licence can metal-detect. The result? Reporting of the finds that are always made went down and stayed down.

"The conclusion must be that when it comes to the practice of public archaeology, openness, co-operation and education trump suppression. The law-breaking, abusive minority of English and Welsh detectorists, however should be exposed and stopped. They poison the atmosphere for everyone."

I'd like to add that law-abiding amateur archaeologists (with or without metal detectors) are not a problem that the discipline (grudgingly) must deal with. They represent an enormous resource in free labour, political clout and local knowledge that should be celebrated and made good use of. Archaeology and heritage management has incomparably better chances of reaching their goals with the public as participants than as spectators.

Archaeology Magazine #65:1 (Jan/Feb)

has a great piece on underwater archaeology at the site of the naval Battle of the Egadi Islands off western Sicily in 241 BC. The Roman's beat the Carthaginians here, but there are no shipwrecks to be seen on the sea floor: shipworm has eaten the wood and recent trawling has bulldozed what was left. Still, there is one find category that survives: large cast bronze objects, such as ship rams and helmets. And Florida-based non-profit RPM Nautical Foundation is locating and lifting these things with the aid of remotely operated subs. They have six of the huge rams now! And every one of them pinpoints a spot where either a ship went down or a ram was dropped after a collision. Few naval battles of the 1st millennium AD are mapped to such precision.

On thing that takes me aback however is the ads. Advertisers are usually pretty savvy about who the target audience of a given media outlet is. You won't see ads for home mortgages or cars on the Disney Channel. And the ads in Archaeology Magazine show clearly who reads the mag: people who might want to buy collectible coins, cruises in the Mediterranean, "The world's simplest computer ... designed for seniors", running shoes that "defy aging", simple-to-use stripped down cell phones, hearing aids, cultured pearl necklaces and staircase lifts. I wonder if the publishers expect the next generation of senior citizens to start subscribing when they retire, or if the mag will fold when the current readership kicks the bucket. It reminds me of when Skeptical Inquirer used to run an ad in every issue inviting readers to provide for CSICOP in their wills (are they still doing that?). Doesn't give a very forward-looking impression.

In issue #263 (Feb) of Current Archaeology, one of my favourite pop-arch mags, is a piece on a great new find from the famous Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire: a silted-up river channel with six well-preserved Bronze Age canoes, a fish-weir and some sacrificed weaponry. The canoes were left in that river from about 1300 to 700 BC, which opens for several possibilities: it's continuity either of everyday boat management, or of boat sacrifice, or (less likely) of where the natural waterflow liked to deposit stuff that floated downstream.

Likewise fascinating is a feature on Irish souterrains, secret underground stone-walled passages dug as refuges at ordinary farmsteads in the Viking Period. An early type allowed people to escape into the open air, but later they decided that it was better to simply crawl into the passage with your kids and a spear and stay there until the Vikings left, as if the passage was just a corridor-shaped cellar. The passages zig-zag and so it was impossible for people on the surface to find the end chambers where people were hiding at short notice. Similar passages occur in Pre-Roman Denmark a thousand years previously.

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The Alchemist learns how to manipulate tiny polystyrene beads with a set of micro-tweezers this week and spots the smoking gun in forensics using capillary-scale ion chromatography and suppressed conductivity. In the world of chemophobia has asked why parabens are still the focus of research into underarm hygiene and breast cancer despite the lack of evidence linking the two in any way. There is also an elemental discovery this week concerning that lowliest of metals, zinc, which may have activity in reducing the symptoms of the common cold. A venture that sounds truly alchemical sees research into burning ice heating up. Finally, a prize teacher.

From my fortnightly column The Alchemist.

Alchemist Chemistry News is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

The Wall Street Journal has published one of the most offensive, untruthful, twisted reviews of what scientists think of climate change; the WSJ Lies about the facts and twists the story to accommodate the needs of head-in-the-sand industrialists and 1%ers; The most compelling part of their argument, according to them, is that the editorial has been signed by 16 scientists.

The scientists who signed to WSJ editorial are:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Emphasis added to underscore the fact that this is a group of older and often retired weathermen, engineers, or otherwise not-climate-scientists. Speaking of lists of scientists, here's another one:

P. H. GLEICK
R. M. ADAMS
R. M. AMASINO
E. ANDERS
D. J. ANDERSON
W. W. ANDERSON
L. E. ANSELIN
M. K. ARROYO
B. ASFAW
F. J. AYALA
A. BAX
A. J. BEBBINGTON
G. BELL
M. V. L. BENNETT
J. L. BENNETZEN
M. R. BERENBAUM
O. B. BERLIN
P. J. BJORKMAN
E. BLACKBURN
J. E. BLAMONT
M. R. BOTCHAN
J. S. BOYER
E. A. BOYLE
D. BRANTON
S. P. BRIGGS
W. R. BRIGGS
W. J. BRILL
R. J. BRITTEN
W. S. BROECKER
J. H. BROWN
P. O. BROWN
A. T. BRUNGER
J. CAIRNS JR.
D. E. CANFIELD
S. R. CARPENTER
J. C. CARRINGTON
A. R. CASHMORE
J. C. CASTILLA
A. CAZENAVE
F. S. CHAPIN III
A. J. CIECHANOVER
D. E. CLAPHAM
W. C. CLARK
R. N. CLAYTON
M. D. COE
E. M. CONWELL
E. B. COWLING
R. M COWLING
C. S. COX
R. B. CROTEAU
D. M. CROTHERS
P. J. CRUTZEN
G. C. DAILY
G. B. DALRYMPLE
J. L. DANGL
S. A. DARST
D. R. DAVIES
M. B. DAVIS
P. V. DE CAMILLI
C. DEAN
R. S. DEFRIES
J. DEISENHOFER
D. P. DELMER
E. F. DELONG
D. J. DEROSIER
T. O.
DIENER
R. DIRZO
J. E. DIXON
M. J. DONOGHUE
R. F. DOOLITTLE
T. DUNNE
P. R. EHRLICH
S. N. EISENSTADT
T. EISNER
K. A. EMANUEL
S. W.
ENGLANDER
W. G. ERNST
P. G. FALKOWSKI
G. FEHER
J. A. FEREJOHN
A. FERSHT
E. H. FISCHER
R. FISCHER
K. V. FLANNERY
J. FRANK
P. A. FREY
I. FRIDOVICH
C. FRIEDEN
D. J. FUTUYMA
W. R. GARDNER
C. J. R. GARRETT
W. GILBERT
R. B. GOLDBERG
W. H. GOODENOUGH
C. S. GOODMAN
M. GOODMAN
P. GREENGARD
S. HAKE
G. HAMMEL
S. HANSON
S. C. HARRISON
S. R. HART
D. L. HARTL
R. HASELKORN
K. HAWKES
J. M. HAYES
B. HILLE
T. HÖKFELT
J. S. HOUSE
M. HOUT
D. M. HUNTEN
I. A. IZQUIERDO
A. T. JAGENDORF
D. H. JANZEN
R. JEANLOZ
C. S. JENCKS
W. A. JURY
H. R. KABACK
T. KAILATH
P. KAY
S. A. KAY
D. KENNEDY
A. KERR
R. C. KESSLER
G. S. KHUSH
S. W. KIEFFER
P. V. KIRCH
K. KIRK
M. G. KIVELSON
J. P. KLINMAN
A. KLUG
L. KNOPOFF
H. KORNBERG
J. E. KUTZBACH
J. C. LAGARIAS
K. LAMBECK
A. LANDY
C. H. LANGMUIR
B. A. LARKINS
X. T. LE PICHON
R. E. LENSKI
E. B. LEOPOLD
S. A. LEVIN
M. LEVITT
G. E. LIKENS
J. LIPPINCOTT-SCHWARTZ
L. LORAND
C. O. LOVEJOY
M. LYNCH
A. L. MABOGUNJE
T. F. MALONE
S. MANABE
J. MARCUS
D. S. MASSEY
J. C. MCWILLIAMS
E. MEDINA
H. J. MELOSH

D. J. MELTZER
C. D. MICHENER
E. L. MILES
H. A. MOONEY
P. B. MOORE
F. M. M. MOREL
E. S. MOSLEY-THOMPSON
B. MOSS
W. H. MUNK
N. MYERS
G. B. NAIR
J. NATHANS
E. W. NESTER
R. A. NICOLL
R. P. NOVICK
J. F. O'CONNELL
P. E. OLSEN
N. D. OPDYKE
G. F. OSTER
E. OSTROM
N. R. PACE
R. T. PAINE
R. D. PALMITER
J. PEDLOSKY
G. A. PETSKO
G. H. PETTENGILL
S. G. PHILANDER
D. R. PIPERNO
T. D. POLLARD
P. B. PRICE JR.
P. A. REICHARD
B. F. RESKIN
R. E. RICKLEFS
R. L. RIVEST
J. D. ROBERTS
A. K. ROMNEY
M. G. ROSSMANN
D. W. RUSSELL
W. J. RUTTER
J. A. SABLOFF
R. Z. SAGDEEV
M. D. SAHLINS
A. SALMOND
J. R. SANES
R. SCHEKMAN
J. SCHELLNHUBER
D. W. SCHINDLER
J. SCHMITT
S. H. SCHNEIDER
V. L. SCHRAMM
R. R. SEDEROFF
C. J. SHATZ
F. SHERMAN
R. L. SIDMAN
K. SIEH
E. L. SIMONS
B. H. SINGER
M. F. SINGER
B. SKYRMS
N. H. SLEEP
B. D. SMITH
S. H. SNYDER
R. R. SOKAL
C. S. SPENCER
T. A. STEITZ
K. B. STRIER
T. C. SÜDHOF
S. S. TAYLOR
J. TERBORGH
D. H. THOMAS
L. G. THOMPSON
R. T. T JIAN
M. G. TURNER
S. UYEDA
J. W. VALENTINE
J. S. VALENTINE
J. L. VAN ETTEN
K. E. VAN HOLDE
M. VAUGHAN
S. VERBA
P. H. VON HIPPEL
D. B. WAKE
A. WALKER
J. E. WALKER
E. B. WATSON
P. J. WATSON
D. WEIGEL
S. R. WESSLER
M. J. WEST-EBERHARD
T. D. WHITE
W. J. WILSON
R. V. WOLFENDEN
J. A. WOOD
G. M. WOODWELL
H. E. WRIGHT JR.
C. WU
C. WUNSCH
M. L. ZOBACK

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Scientists studied fruit flies in a magnetic field to determine how the tiny insects use the polarization pattern of natural skylight to keep their bearings during flight. Scientists attached fruit flies to a metal pin with a light-cured glue and then placed the pin in a magentic field. The suspended fruit flies were tracked using digital cameras. The researchers found that flies turned when the angle of naturally polarized light was rotated.

During the hour before and the hour after sunset, the headings of flies relative to the position of the arena were recorded for 12 minutes. The arena was rotated 90 degrees every three minutes, and when natural light was not altered by optical filters some of the flies compensated for the rotations and maintained a consistent heading.

When the arena was covered with a circularly polarizing filter, eliminating natural linear polarization light patterns, the flies did not shift their heading significantly in response to arena rotations.

Here is a video of the fruit fly executing a "body saccade" or a quick turn in the experiment:



The research was published here in Cell Press's Current Biology journal.

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Don't fear, ants haven't started constructing micromachines: this cog-wielding insect has been sealed in golden armour after death

All today's stories on newscientist.com, including: arsenic life does not exist after all and repeated drought in east Africa may prompt aid rethink

Democrat and Republican voters' views on touchstone issues are not as strongly polarised as they assume – but mistrustful activists may often swing elections

Australia's native species die when they eat poisonous cane toads – but not the blue-tongue lizards of eastern Australia

What does creativity in science look like? The most creative scientists may be those that collaborate with others from different disciplines, concludes a panel

Taking in plastic sand, marmalade skies and methane rivers, a tour of Titan's sand dunes would be as trippy as a late Beatles song

Animators will soon be able to construct startlingly realistic sylvan beauty in movies and video games with a new system for generating 3D virtual trees

Rainfall patterns over east Africa have changed in a way that makes severe droughts more likely – aid agencies need to rethink the way they operate

An itch is just an itch. Or is it? New research from Gil Yosipovitch, M.D., Ph.D., professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and a world-renowned itch expert, shows that how good...

Good news for the 13 per cent of the population with depressive personality traits: their negative outlook does not have to be permanent. This has been shown by psychologist Rachel Maddux in new...

Nintendo's next console will have a near-field communications (NFC) chip, opening up the possibility of new kinds of games and new ways to pay for them.

The best way to get teens interested in science is to wash its dirty laundry in public, says Michael Brooks

Watch knitted stripes reveal a portrait of the famous physicist when viewed from an angle

Insights from brain science are finally coming into the classroom with a method based on seeing patterns, finds Peter Aldhous (full text available to subscribers)

I'm sure I have written here before about Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny worm -- about the size of this letter i (without the dot) -- that has become one of the most thoroughly studied animals in biology. Its habits are humble. It is nonpathogenic, noninfectious. It breeds prodigiously. It is transparent. It can be frozen and thawed alive. And heaven knows what else makes it the darling of the wormologists..

More than anything else, it is about a simple an organism as you can find with a nervous system. C. elegans (of the dominant hermaphrodite variety; there are also a few males to enliven the mix) has just 959 cells, which have been individually mapped, exactly the same from worm to worm. Think of that! Less than a thousand cells and it eats, defecates, wiggles from place to place, lays eggs, and otherwise lives a rather full and robust life. Contrast that with the tens of trillions of cells in the human body.

More. C. elegan's genome programs not 959 cells, but 1090. Of these, 131 are slated in advance to die, rather like the cells that die between the webbed digits of a human embryo to give us our useful fingers. Apoptosis, it's called. Programmed cell death. The 2002 Nobel Prize in physiology went to Sydney Brenner, Robert Horvitz and John Sulston for their work on programmed cell death in C. elegans. Tens of billions of cells in our own bodies die each day by apoptosis. We are dying all the time, in bits and pieces. Death is always with us, holding hands with life, hitchhiking in our genome. Whispering in our ear: "I'm here." Nibble, nibble. Waiting, waiting, for the full feast, the final meal.

Controversial claims that bacteria can exchange phosphorus in their DNA with arsenic have failed to be replicated

In Design in Nature by Adrian Bejan and J. Peder Zane a new theory of nature is mooted, but is the idea stretched beyond its reach?

This National Geographic video shows a cone snail hunting by using its . harpoonlike tooth that can be propelled from an extendable proboscis. The harpoon is loaded with a complex mix of toxins. A cone snail can be seen blasting a fish with its harpoon out in the open. Another cone snail buries itself in the sand and then attacks a fish with its toxic harpoon from below. It then swallows the fish whole. Take a look:



National Geographic says the Geographic Cone Snail (Conus geographus) is the most venomous of the 500 known cone snail species.

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Someday there will be humans living permanently on the moon. The big question is how much longer we will have to wait. A lot of the waiting depends on how much funding NASA can get for its big projects. Funding for NASA is not something that comes up much in either Republican or Democratic political circles these days. Well, that just changed. Perhaps bored of taking potshots at Mitt Romney for being wealthy, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich decided to throw space into the conversation. NPR reports that Gingrich promised a permanent base on the moon. He made the promise during a campaign stop on Florida's Space Coast. NPR says Gingrich promised a permanent base on the moon by the end of his second term. Apparently, Gingrich expects not only to win, but to also get reelected.



With the Florida primary coming up, Gingrich is most likely just trying to garner votes with the lure of an exciting project: after all, he would have to be elected twice to the presidency before he delivers on this promise. Gingrich is extremely polarizing figure. Children's author Maurice Sendak recently said Gingrich is an "idiot of great renown." Sendak says there is "something so hopelessly gross and vile about him."

Even though Gingrich may be a vile politican, the idea for a moonbase is still a great one and it is not a far fetched idea. NASA unveiled plans to establish a lunar base, including eventual settlement, in 2006. NASA also has a game on its site called Moonbase Alpha.

Space.com describes the plans for space from President Obama, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in an article here. They all fall far short of the ambitious plans for space exploration that really need to implemented if we want to see most of the solar system colonized within the next twenty or thirty years.

Photo: NASA

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The Adanson's house jumper is the first animal found using out-of-focus vision to judge the distance to its victims

A spider-silk cape that took a million spiders to make is a stunning example of nature's beauty, but silk has more to offer than a flashy outfit

All today's stories on newscientist.com, including: a DIY smear test, sky shimmers after solar storm and dating in the multiverse

Bacteria that resist nearly all antibiotics have been found in seawater off Antarctic research stations, probably arriving there through human sewage

A do-it-yourself smear test could enable millions of women in poorer countries to head off cervical cancer

The marvellous stuff that spiders and silkworms make has a big future in technologies from artificial corneas to brain implants, as Jessica Griggs finds out (full text available to subscribers)

On Christmas Day 2006, I posted a blog about how snowflakes are not all different and some of the science underlying the formation of snowflakes. The American Chemical Society had a nice infographic at the time showing the principles of snowflake formation (PDF here). There’s no snow around here, but this is Britain, the weather could change at any moment and although we don’t quite have the four seasons in one day they get in New Zealand, give it a day or two and a warm spell can become a cold snap almost overnight.

Snowflakes have at their heart a minute grain of dust that was once floating in a cloud, this speck of dust is the nucleation centre around which water vapour from the atmosphere can condense and if it is cold enough crystallise as ice. As with any crystallisation process it follows a symmetry intrinsic to the atoms or molecules from which the crystal is formed. In the case of water, the underlying symmetry is hexagonal symmetry. There’s more on this in the snow crystal primer.

Caltech’s Kenneth Libbrecht’s is the snowflake guru, here’s a video montage of his snow crystal gallery set to the tune of A Guy Called Gerald by Humanity (Borngraber & Struver Remix):

One question that puzzled me as a child is how each of the six arms “knows” to grow in the same way? Well, they’re growing under almost identical conditions so that might be expected, except, of course, that pretty drawings and diagrams aside, the six arms of snow crystals don’t actually grow symmetrically at all. At first glance they might look nice and symmetrical but under the microscope a single snow crystal will be seen to be far less than perfect in its symmetry. Symmetrical snow crystals are very rare except on Christmas cards. Speaking of which I abandoned my Christmas rant about octagonal and pentagonal snowflakes which are common in those pretty pictures but are physically impossible in the real world of snow because of symmetry constraints.

Shape of snowflakes is a post from: Sciencebase Science Blog

Newt Gingrich says he will get a moon base built by the end of 2020 if he is elected president – he faces a few tricky hurdles

If fracking operations are managed properly the risk of accidents will be small, says Mike Stephenson

Last week's New York Times Book review highlighted the ten bestselling non-fiction books of 2011. Here, I thought, is a good snapshot of America.

Let's start with #10: Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, the story of the presidential assassination and its aftermath. Sounds like the kind of story I'd like to read, except the primary author puts me off. Unfair? Maybe. But I prefer my history from historians without a political ax to grind.

#9: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Read it and wrote about it here. A smart, honest book by an unbiased historian. Three cheers for Jobs; three cheers for America.

#8: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Don't know why I haven't read any of Gladwell's books; he seems to define a genre all by himself. I suppose I should slip one or two on the bottom of the pile, just to be au courant.

#7: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Seems like I read this book a decade ago, and here it is still on the best-seller list. As an author, of course, I'm madly jealous. Give this to Walls; it's a compelling read.

#6: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard, the girl who was kidnapped at age 11 and held prisoner for 18 years. I'll skip this one, but I'm glad she's getting something to compensate for her lost youth.

#5: In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, the story of the US ambassador to Germany and his daughter during the run-up to World War II. Read this on the recommendation of my spouse, and because I'd read and enjoyed Larson's previous outings. A smart book that fumbles to a close.

#4: Bossypants by Tina Fey. I'd probably like it. If Tina had been McCain's running mate last time around, I might have voted Republican. (Just kidding.)

#3: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Blogged this here. A generous, big-hearted book that recounts the history of cell research during the past half-century, along with the story of Henrietta. Amazing, and heartening, to see it here, #3, two years later.

#2: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, "an Olympic runner's story of survival as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II." I know nothing about this book, but like the others above, it suggests that the American reading public has nothing to be ashamed of.

And then, after 50 weeks on the bestseller list, we come to #1: Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent, "a boy's encounter with Jesus and the angels." I've taken note of this book before. Where's Tina Fey when we need her?

Would your current partner be your true love in another universe? A new play explores the twists and turns a relationship can take across parallel universes

What was supposed to be a superweapon in the battle to find out whether nature's fundamental constants vary has turned out to be a damp squib

Conservation International (CI) has announced the results of a scientific survey in southwest Suriname that documented nearly 1,300 species, including 46 species which may be new to science.

The new creatures include a Cowboy Frog, which has white fringes along its legs and a spur on its "heel." The frog was discovered low on a small branch during a night survey in a swampy area of the Koetari River.



Another creature that is new to science is the Armored Catfish, a catfish which is covered in spines to defend itself from the piranhas that inhabit the same waters.



Another creature discovered during the survey is the Crayola katydid, which has striking coloration. You can find more photographs of some of the newly discovered species here and here. There is also a set of photographs here of creatures already known to science that were found in Suriname.

Photo: © Paul Ouboter (top)/© Kenneth Wang Tong Yo (middle)/Conservation International

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NASA has released a 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard Suomi NPP, NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite. The composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012.

You can see an amazing huge 8000x8000 pixel version of the Blue Marble image here on Flickr. Click on the link "original" on the top right of the page to see the giant image.

Photo: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

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This high-speed photography of a falling cat shows how cats always land on their feet. The falling cat first rotates its head, then twists its spine and aligns its rear quarters. The cat also simultaneously arches its back to reduce the force of impact. The National Geographic video also discusses High-Rise Syndrome. Curious cats can fall from high-rise apartments. Even if they survive the fall and land on their feet, they can still be seriously injured. Cats tend to be more injured from short falls than from falls from higher altitudes, because they don't have enough time to adjust their posture. Take a look:



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A tiny fairyfly wasp was discovered by an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside in upstate New York in August, 2010. The wasp had never been seen in the U.S. before this date. Now the wasp has been found a year later in Irvine, California. Serguei Triapitsyn, the entomologist who found the wasp, says the find suggests the wasp is becoming well established in the U.S.

Gonatocerus ater is just 1 mm long. It arrived in North America from Europe. It lays eggs inside the eggs of leafhoppers. Leafhopper females like to lay their eggs inside plant tissue. Fairyfly wasp females locate the leafhopper eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae eat the leafhopper eggs.

Serguei Triapitsyn, director of the Entomology Research Museum, says, "This wasp was accidentally introduced in North America. It most likely got here in parasitized eggs of the leafhoppers in twigs of Lombardy poplar seedlings coming from Europe, perhaps long ago."

The tiny little wasp poses no known risk, except to leafhoppers.

Triapitsyn says, "It actually helps naturally control leafhopper numbers. In its absence, leafhopper populations could have skyrocketed. This illustrates how plant pests are sometimes accompanied by their natural enemies across very long distances without our knowledge."

Photo: Jason Mottern, UC Riverside Department of Entomology

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IEEE's Automaton blog says you should not make robot babies. See their infographic of many of the robot babies that have been made to date, such as Yotaro. This new creepy robot baby is yet more proof Automaton is right. The robot was built by Chris Clarke for CNFX Workshop. Take a look:



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The Etruscan shrew has inspired scientists to build the Shrewbot. The Etruscan shrew is a nocturnal hunter. The shrew uses its whiskers to find, track and capture its prey, which are often the same size as itself. The efficiency of this tiny creature inspired the scientists to look at ways of replicating the shrew's whiskers to enable robots to find their way around without the use of vision. Take a look:



Professor Tony Prescott (University of Sheffield) says, "When the whiskers touch an object this causes them to vibrate and the vibration pattern is picked up by sensitive cells in the hair follicle at the base of the whisker. These patterns are turned into an electrical signal which is sent to the brain, enabling the mammal to make instant decisions about its environment to help it move around or catch prey. The whiskers have another advantage over some other forms of tactile touch. Whiskers themselves are easily replaceable since the sensory cells are at the base of the whisker, not the top, unlike our fingers for example, which are more easily damaged and hard to replace."

The Shrewbot was developed at Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) in collaboration with the University of Sheffield Active Touch Laboratory as part of the BIOTACT project. Professor Tony Pipe (UWE Bristol) and Professor Tony Prescott (University of Sheffield) are working on the Shrewbot project with a number of partners.

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CNN reports that the U.S. Navy plans to involve its trained dolphins in the Strait of Hormuz if Iran mines it. The trained dolphins are very real. They have been trained to mark or locate sea mines. They are described on this page of the U.S. Navy's website as the MK4 Marine Mammal System.

The MK 4 MMS uses dolphins for detecting and/or marking the location of sea mines that are tethered off the ocean bottom. These deep-water mines are easy targets for the dolphin's highly effective echolocation. The MK 4 MMS offers reliable and effective mine detection, classification, and marking capabilities in areas that are highly cluttered or where rough seabed, high marine growth, and other complex acoustic conditions hamper the performance of Navy hardware systems.

The Navy has also trained dolphins to find mines sitting on the ocean bottom or buried in sediment. The can also help identify safe corridors for the initial landing of troops during a land invasion.

If Iran decides to mine the Strait of Hormuz to slow the transport of oil then the U.S. Navy may put some of its trained dolphins to work to locate the mines so they can be destroyed or deactivated. Iran recently threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz oil route, but Iran makes a lot of threats it never acts on.

CNN says the U.S. Navy has been training the dolphins for years. Fish rewards, particularly sardines, are used to train the dolphins. The dolphins would be airlifted to the Strait of Hormuz if they are needed. Take a look:



Photo: U.S. Navy

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Scientists recently conducted experiments to determine why dung beetles dance on top of the dung balls they make before rolling them away. Dung beetles roll their dung beetles in a straight path away from the pile of dung after they have made them. Researchers say this straight-line orientation helps dung beetles avoid having their dung balls stolen by other dung beetles. Here is a video of a dung beetle dancing and then rolling the dung ball away.



In a research paper published in PLoS One, scientists hypothesize that the dung beetle dance is a "visually mediated mechanism that facilitates straight-line orientation in ball-rolling dung beetles by allowing them to 1) establish a roll bearing and 2) return to this chosen bearing after experiencing a disturbance to the roll path."

The researchers, led by Emily Baird of Lund University in Sweden, conducted several experiments on a farm in North-West Province, South Africa to determine why dung beetles dance on dung balls. The experiments involved letting the beetles roll dung balls into tunnels and then turning the tunnels, introducing obstacles in the tunnels or using semi-circular experimental tunnels to force the beetles off course. The researchers found that beetles would typically stop and dance on their dung balls when presented with course changes or obstacles. This suggests that the dance helps the beetles reorient themselves and stay on course.

Here is a video of a dung beetle stopping to dance after being forced off course by a semi-circular tunnel and a video of a dung beetle stopping to dance after falling from a tricky ramp put in its path by the researchers. Take a look:





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NASA scientists have found that 2011 was the ninth warmest year since 1880. Nine of the ten top warmest years (since 1880) have occurred since 2000. The map above map shows temperature anomalies in 2011. It shows how much warmer or cooler each region was in 2011 compared with an averaged base period from 1951-1980.



The carbon dioxide level is also rising. NASA says the carbon dioxide level was about 285 parts per million in 1880. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to 315 parts per million and today it exceeds 390 parts per million. NASA says the carbon dioxide level is still climbing.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) director James Hansen says, "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Nina influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the ten warmest years on record."

Hansen says record-breaking global average temperatures are expected in the next two to three years. He says, "It's always dangerous to make predictions about El Nino, but it's safe to say we'll see one in the next three years. It won't take a very strong El Nino to push temperatures above 2010."

Images: NASA Earth Observatory, Robert Simmon

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Researchers have found that boa constrictors can sense the heartbeat of their prey. This ability enables boas to relax their grip and conserve energy once their prey's heart stops beating.

Researchers at Dickinson College, lead by Dr. Scott Boback, conducted a study to see if boas can detect heartbeats in the prey they are attempting to squeeze the life out of. The team researchers simulated life in humanely euthanized lab rats, by created an artificial heart and implanting it in the dead rat's chest. The boas reacted to the artificial heartbeat.

Dr. Boback says, "I will never forget the first time my students and I witnessed a boa constrictor responding to the beating of a simulated heartbeat in a rat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The snake visibly twisted and struggled as it felt the heartbeat in the rat. At that moment I knew we had just discovered something big. As the students shifted their gaze from the snake to me and back again, I told them I had never seen anything like this before."

Take a look:



Biology professors Scott Boback and Charles Zwemer, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jeffrey Forrester and then-biology majors Allison Hall '10, Amanda Hayes '10 and Katelyn McCann '11 collaborated on the research paper that was published here in the Royal Society's Biology Letters.

Photo: Scott Boback

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An icy comet was captured by SOHO's LASCO C2 camera as it flew too close to the sun and evaporated. The comet was 150 to 300 feet long and is estimated to have the mass of an aircraft carrier. NASA says SOHO has spotted over 2000 sungrazers (comets coming close to the Sun) so far, but this is the first sungrazer death recorded on video.

Dean Pesnell, the project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO), says, "Comets are usually too dim to be seen in the glare of the sun's light. We've been telling people we'd never see one in SDO data."

Take a look:



Photo: SOHO (ESA & NASA)

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The Independent reports that edible microchips that track dosage will be available in British pharmacies by the end of the year. The technology from Proteus Biomedical is called Helius. It consists of digestible sensors that are smaller than a grain of sand. The chips are seen attached to the top of pills in the image on the right. The tiny chips work with a sensor patch worn on the body. The sensor patch can then transmit medical wherever it is needed - such as to the mobile phone of a caregiver or physician, or to a server storing the data.

Nature says the tiny chips, which contain tiny amounts of copper and magnesium, are powered like potato batteries. Andrew Thompson, chief executive of Proteus, says, "If you swallow one of these devices, you are the potato that creates a voltage, and we use that to power the device that creates the signal."

Technology like Helius could potentially help Alzheimer's or stroke patients who have to take a lot of drugs and have memory problems that makes it impossible for them to remember their complex pill regimen. It could also help any patient who wants to track medicine intake in their bodies. However, others may not like the idea of the loss of privacy and/or the idea of ingesting tiny microchips.

Photo: Proteus Biomedical

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The Strange Noise Phenomenon involves reports of weird noises where no aircraft or storms appear to be present. You can hear recordings of the videos from around the world here. Recordings of the eerie noises began in summer of 2011. Explanations for the noises include UFOs, thunder, HAARP, cloaked military aircraft and even the Trumpets of the Apocalypse. Nick Pope, who investigated reports of UFO sightings at the British Government's Ministry of Defence, offers two explanations for the unexplained noise.

Pope says, "One possibility is that we are dealing with some sort of atmospheric phenomenon involving thunder. Sound can behave in very funny ways. That's one option. Another option might be power lines. Under some circumstances we know power lines can make a humming and crackling sound. That may well explain some of these events."

It will probably get more difficult to ascertain what recordings of the strange sounds are genuine or fakes going forward, because the bigger the coverage of a phenomenon gets, the more hoax recordings there are likely to be. This ITN report begans with recordings of the strange noises in Kiev. Take a look:



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More than half of the 19,232 species newly known to science in 2009 (the most recent calendar year of compilation) were insects. 9,738 or 50.6 percent of the newly discovered species in 2009 were insects according to the 2011 State of Observed Species (SOS) report released Jan. 18 by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The word cloud above visually represents the number of species in each category discovered and officially described in 2009.

Of the newly discovered insects many of them (about 36%) were beetles. Over 3,485 new beetle species were discovered in 2009. This is not surprising as beetles are extremely common on Earth. Scientists estimate that 25% off all known life forms on Earth are beetles. British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane is quoted as saying that the Creator, if he exists, has "an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Here are some more highlights of the report:

• Almost 24% of the new vascular plant species discovered in 2009 were in the monocot order Asparagales, which includes orchids, hyacinths, irises, daffodils, amaryllis, allium, aloe and, of course, asparagus.
• Year to year, the largest order of newly discovered insects is the beetles, and, 2009 was no exception. 3,485 new beetle species (Coleoptera) were officially described including rove beetles (568), ground beetles (421), long-horned beetles (369), leaf beetles (356) and scarabs (288).
• Only 41 new living mammal species were officially described in 2009 and of those, 83% were either bats (44%) or rodents (39%). Almost 90% (133) of the new living amphibian species described in 2009 were frogs.
• There was almost five times more fossil bird species (34) newly described in 2009 than living birds (seven).
• Typical of most years, the largest number of new fish species was in the order Perciformes and 29% of those were in the families Gobiidaw (22) and Cichlidae (11). Gobies include some of the tiniest fish on Earth, and the cichlids include some of the most popular aquarium fish, including the angelfish and damselfish.
• Of the 626 newly described living crustacean species, 224 (31.8%) were in the order Decapoda, which includes crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp.
• The Colubridae is the largest family of snakes and in 2009, almost 65% of the newly described living snakes were colubrids. In addition to 31 new snakes, new reptile species (living) included 38 lizards, 29 geckos, 12 iguanas, five chameleons and two turtles.
• More than 13% of the new fungus species (living) described in 2009 were gilled mushrooms in the order Agaricales (178). Of the mushrooms, more than one-fifth (21.3%) were in the family Marasmiaceae, which includes shiitake mushrooms.

Photo: International Institute for Species Exploration/Arizona State University

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Scientists have discovered that people were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Scientists discovered some of the oldest known corncobs, husks, stalks and tassels (dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago) at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two mound sites on Peru's arid northern coast. An ancient maize cob is pictured above. The researchers say the cobs indicate that the sites' ancient inhabitants ate corn several ways, including popcorn and flour corn.

The research was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Piperno says, "Corn was first domesticated in Mexico nearly 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte. Our results show that only a few thousand years later corn arrived in South America where its evolution into different varieties that are now common in the Andean region began. This evidence further indicates that in many areas corn arrived before pots did and that early experimentation with corn as a food was not dependent on the presence of pottery."

The popcorn on the map below indicates where corn was first domesticated in Mexico, nearly 9,00 years ago.



Photos: Tom D. Dillehay (top)/Pamela Belding. STRI (bottom)

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We have all seen fast food restaurants and apartment buildings spring up literally overnight. China has taken rapid construction to the next level. Singularity Hub reports that a Chinese construction company, named Broad Group, cranked out a 30 story hotel in just 15 days. The construction company claims the structure has been tested to resist an earthquake up to magnitude 9.0. The hotel does use prefabricated materials and a crane appears to end up stuck in the middle of the hotel. The video repeats itself after the 3 minute mark. Take a look:



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Discovery News reports that a creature that was like a cross between a tiger and a Komodo dragon roamed Brazil 250 million years ago. The fearsome predator, Pampaphoneus biccai, is nicknamed the "Pampas Killer." The carnivore is estimated to have been at least 3 meters (about 10 feet) long. It likely weighed more than a lion.

The remains of the Pampas Killer were excavated by Juan Carlos Cisneros - from the Federal University of Piaui (UFPI) - and his team on a farm in the Pampas region of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. The creature's huge skull measures 32 inches long.



Research about the new creature was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A Portuguese story about the Pampas Killer can be found here.

Images: Voltaire Neto (top)/Juan Carlos Cisneros (skull image)

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Geekwire reports that Intel is displaying dan enormous lifeform simulator at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Intel says it is the world's largest lifeform simulator ever built. The simulator is being displayed on the ceiling at Intel's booth at CES via two dozen cameras. A visitor to the booth can place their hand over a scanner and a new lifeform will be rendered based on the unique hand shape. Take a look:



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A seal nursery in the Netherlands is looking after many more baby seals than usual. The nursery was overrun with baby grey seals after the seals were orphaned following severe winter storms. The Daily Telegraph reports that the number of seals had the nursery jumped from 140 in November to about 350 today. Getting some of the baby seals to eat fish appears to require a lot more effort than you might expect. Take a look:



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Science News Blog now has a Google+ page on Google+. Google+ is a new social network from Google. You can follow us on Google+ by clicking on the Google+ button below and adding us to one of your circles.



You can also find Science News Blog on Facebook and Twitter.

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Remember that strikingly inept poll analysis about the Tea Party movement from The New York Times last month? Well, the new Washington Post-ABC News poll addresses the same topic, and the Post's analysis seems to actually be rooted in reality:

The conservative "tea party" movement appeals almost exclusively to supporters of the Republican Party, bolstering the view that the tea party divides the GOP even as it has energized its base.

That conclusion, backed by numbers from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, also suggests that the tea party may have little room for growth. Most Americans -- including large majorities of those who don't already count themselves as supporters -- say they're not interested in learning more about the movement. A sizable share of those not already sympathetic to the tea party also say that the more they hear, the less they like the movement.

Overall, the tea party remains divisive, with 27 percent of those polled saying they're supportive but about as many, 24 percent, opposed. Supporters overwhelmingly identify themselves as Republicans or GOP-leaning independents; opponents are even more heavily Democratic. The new movement is also relatively small, with 8 percent of supporters claiming to be "active participants" -- about 2 percent of the total population.

(Emphasis added by me.)

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Actually, I should say that this is a very dumb analysis of a poll. The New York Times is really promoting its new NYT/CBS poll right now; as I write this, the top headline on the Times' homepage reads "Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated."

When I first saw that headline and read the email news alert that the Times sent out, I did agree that these appeared to be interesting and surprising findings. And, as I read the article, my interest--and then skepticism--continued to grow. According to the article, these "Tea Party supporters" are "wealthier and more well-educated than the general public", and they make up "18 percent of Americans". Hmmm... interesting. Also, they "do not think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president", and are "more likely than the general public to have returned their census forms." Well, that's quite a surprise.

The article goes on and on, but one thing should become clear: these "Tea Party supporters" sound almost indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill establishment fiscal-conservative Republican. How could this be?

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