Mysterious mummy lays in Geology Hall

Although now at home in the Rutgers Geology Hall, the female mummy that resides on the Old Queens campus building spent many years in a far more undignified place: one of the closets of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.That's right, mummy.Few students here are aware of the opportunity to catch a rare glimpse into the burial ceremony of a foreign and strange culture.

Of course, other than its resting place, there is very little known about the mysterious mummy."We know it came from Northern Egypt, but that's about it," said William Selden, the collections manager of the Geology Hall.Other than that and the fact it dates to about 320 or 330 B.C., Rutgers experts are unaware of exactly where the mummy originated from, or to what family the woman belonged.

Read the full story at The Daily Targum...

http://www.dailytargum.com
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Supercomputer doubles own record

The Blue Gene/L supercomputer has broken its own record to achieve more than double the number of calculations it can do a second. It reached 280.6 teraflops - that is 280.6 trillion calculations a second.

The IBM machine, at the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, officially became the most powerful computer on the planet in June.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4386404.stm

Major dust storm on Mars

(SPACE.com) -- A major dust storm has just broken out on Mars and the event will be visible this weekend with good-sized backyard telescopes.

The timing is incredible. Amateur skywatchers around the world are planning to gaze at Mars Saturday night because it will be closer to Earth than anytime until the year 2018.

Major dust storm on Mars
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/10/28/mars.storm/index.html

Italian laboratory clones 14 pigs

The Italian researchers who produced the first horse clone have announced the birth of 14 cloned piglets. The animals were born several weeks ago at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in Cremona. Research leader Prof Cesare Galli said the pigs would help in understanding animal to human organ transplants.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4386510.stm

Pyramid found in Sarajevo?

Bosnia's leading Muslim daily Dnevni Avaz writes excitedly about "a sensational discovery" of "the first European pyramid" in the central town of Visoko, just north of Sarajevo.

Excavations at a hill site above the town have been going on for several months and initial analyses "have confirmed the original claim that this is Europe's first pyramid and a monumental building, similar in dimensions to the Egyptian pyramids."

"The pyramid is 100 metres high and there is evidence that it contains rooms and a monumental causeway ... The plateau is built of stone blocks, which indicates the presence at the time of a highly developed civilisation," the daily explains.

"Archaeological excavations near the surface have uncovered a part of a wall and fragments of steps," it reveals.

"Visocica hill could not have been shaped like this by nature," geologist Nada Nukic tells the daily. "This is already far too more than we have anticipated, but we expect a lot more from further analysis," she concludes.

Read the story at BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4377290.stm

Mars is ready for another close-up.

For the second time in nearly 60,000 years, the Red Planet will swing unusually close to Earth this weekend. Mars' latest rendezvous will not match its record-breaking approach to Earth in 2003, when it hovered from 35 million miles away. But more skygazers this time around can glimpse the fourth rock from the sun because it will glow above the horizon.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/10/27/mars.close.up.ap/index.html

New Digs Decoding Mexico's "Pyramids of Fire"

Using picks, shovels, and high-tech forensic sleuthing, scientists are beginning to cobble together the grisly ancient history and fiery demise of Teotihuacán, the first major metropolis of the Americas.

The size of Shakespeare's London, Teotihuacán was built by an unknown people almost 2,000 years ago. The site sits about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of present-day Mexico City. Temples, palaces, and some of the largest pyramids on Earth line its ancient main street.

Read the full story at Nation Geographic News...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/index.html

Y chromosomes reveal founding father

About 1.5 million men in northern China and Mongolia may be descended from a single man, according to a study based on Y chromosome genetics1. Historical records suggest that this man may be Giocangga, who lived in the mid-1500s and whose grandson founded the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912. The analysis is similar to a controversial study in 2003, which suggested that approximately 16 million men alive today are descended from the Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan2.

Read the full story at news @ Nature.com

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051024/full/051024-1.html

Venus spacecraft 'in good shape'

The investigative tests on Europe's delayed Venus mission spacecraft are looking promising, say officials. Wednesday's planned launch was postponed when contamination was found inside the Russian-made rocket. Inspections show the spacecraft is in good condition and should be cleaned up within days, the European Space Agency (Esa) said.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4374692.stm

Gaza's ancient history uncovered

All through the heat of summer archaeologists dug and sifted through the dunes on the edge of Gaza City. Gradually walls, homes, and the outlines of alleyways emerged from the sand. These were the bones of the ancient Greek city of Antidon. And they were testimony to the extraordinary richness of Gaza's past.

Not only the Greeks passed this way. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the Persians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Turks, the British and many others left their mark on Gaza.
It has been described as one of the world's oldest living cities.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4365440.stm

Teams fail to recreate Archimedes' fabled death ray

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — It wasn't exactly the ancient siege of Syracuse, but rather a curious quest for scientific validation. According to sparse historical writings, the Greek mathematician Archimedes torched a fleet of invading Roman ships by reflecting the sun's powerful rays with a mirrored device made of glass or bronze.

More than 2,000 years later, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona set out to recreate Archimedes' fabled death ray Saturday in an experiment sponsored by the Discovery Channel program MythBusters.

Read the full story at USA Today...
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-10-22-deathray_x.htm

Europe's Venus mission delayed

The launch of Europe's first mission to Venus, due to have taken place next Wednesday, has been postponed.
The European Space Agency (Esa) has not yet announced a new date for the launch, only that it will be delayed by "several days".

The probe is to blast off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4365704.stm

Hubble turns eye to moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a rare look at the moon to gauge the amount of oxygen-bearing minerals in the lunar soil that could be mined by astronauts and used in a new moon mission.
NASA said Wednesday that the telescope's ultraviolet observations of two Apollo landing sites and an unexplored but geologically intriguing area will help scientists pick the best spots for robot and human exploration.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/10/20/hubble.moon.ap/index.html

Chad celebrates new fossil centre

Chad is celebrating the opening of its first palaeontology department - only the fourth in Africa - following a discovery which shook up the understanding of human origins.
Until a few years ago, most people thought that the human line emerged in East Africa's Rift Valley. Scientists like Dr Louis Leakey helped make the region famous, and called the area the "cradle of mankind".

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4357986.stm