'Big baby' galaxy detected in early universe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Astronomers using two of NASA's most powerful telescopes said on Tuesday they have detected a "big baby" galaxy, vastly heavy for its young age and its location in the early universe.

The discovery was surprising, since astronomers have long theorized that galaxies form when stars gradually cluster together, with small galaxies preceding bigger galaxies.

But the stars in this cosmic infant -- less than 1 billion years old -- have eight times the mass of those in the 13-billion-year-old Milky Way, which contains Earth.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/27/space.galaxy.reut/index.html

Live giant squid caught on camera

A live, adult giant squid has been caught on camera in the wild for the very first time.
Japanese researchers took pictures of the elusive creature hunting 900m down, enveloping its prey by coiling its tentacles into a ball. The images show giant squid, known as Architeuthis, are more vigorous hunters than has been supposed. The images, captured in the Pacific Ocean, appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4288772.stm

Satellites to monitor panda sex

Scientists in China plan to use satellites to track pandas to learn more about their sexual behaviour. A Chinese-US project will use Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to monitor panda movements in a reserve in remote Shaanxi province. It is part of an attempt to understand the panda's poor breeding record.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4285694.stm

'Milky seas' detected from space

Mariners over the centuries have reported surreal, nocturnal displays of glowing sea surfaces stretching outwards to the horizon. Little is known about these "milky seas" other than that they are probably caused by luminous bacteria. But the first satellite detection of this strange phenomenon in the Indian Ocean may now aid future research.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3760124.stm

Cleopatra Found Depicted in Drag

A relief image carved approximately 2,050 years ago on an ancient Egyptian stone slab shows Cleopatra dressed as a man, according to a recent analysis of the artifact.

The object is only one of three known to exist that represent Cleopatra as a male. The other two artifacts also are stelae that date to around the same time, 51 B.C., at the beginning of Cleopatra's reign.

Researchers theorize that the recently discovered 13.4 x 9.8-inch stela probably first was excavated in Tell Moqdam, an Egyptian city that the ancient Greeks called Leonton Polis, meaning "City of the Lions."

Read the full story at The Discovery Channel...
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050919/cleodrag.html

Mission Control emptied

NASA's legendary base for astronaut training and Mission Control was empty Thursday as a dangerous Hurricane Rita aimed for the Texas Gulf Coast and posed a flooding risk to Johnson Space Center.

Read the full story at CNN News...

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/

Flint remains show Stone Age life

A Stone Age settlement uncovered in the North Downs is being hailed as an important archaeological find. The site at Bletchingly, Surrey, is undisturbed and could show where people gathered in Mesolithic dwellings. Archaeologist Becky Lambert said: "We are plotting the exact location of the flint, so we might even be able to see patterns of where people were sitting."
Flint is often found during ploughing - this undisturbed site may reveal hearths and where food was made.

Read the ful story at BBC News...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/southern_counties/4264902.stm

NASA braces for Rita in Houston

MELBOURNE, Florida (Reuters) -- NASA prepared on Wednesday to evacuate its Johnson Space Center in Houston and turn over control of the international space station to its Russian partners as Hurricane Rita barreled across the Gulf of Mexico with ferocious winds.

Space agency officials were meeting to discuss storm preparations, NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said. But many of the space center's 15,000 government and contractor workers were already taking advantage of NASA's liberal leave policy to heed calls from Texas state officials to evacuate the area, he said.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/21/rita.nasa.reut/index.html

Mars 'more active than suspected'

New images of Mars suggest the Red Planet's surface is more active than previously thought, the US space agency (Nasa) reports. Photographs from Nasa's orbiting spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor show recently formed craters and gullies. The agency's scientists also say that deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near the planet's south pole have shrunk for three summers in a row.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4266474.stm

Asteroids Caused The Early Inner Solar System Cataclysm

University of Arizona and Japanese scientists are convinced that evidence at last settles decades-long arguments about what objects bombarded the early inner solar system in a cataclysm 3.9 billion years ago.

Ancient main belt asteroids identical in size to present-day asteroids in the Mars-Jupiter belt -- not comets -- hammered the inner rocky planets in a unique catastrophe that lasted for a blink of geologic time, anywhere from 20 million to 150 million years, they report in the Sept. 16 issue of Science.

However, the objects that have been battering our inner solar system after the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment ended are a distinctly different population, UA Professor Emeritus Robert Strom and colleagues report in the article, "The Origin of Planetary Impactors in the Inner Solar System."


Read the full story at Science Daily...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050917091640.htm

A Number Of Works Of Art Unearthed In Parion Ancient City

CANAKKALE - Archaeologists unearthed a number of works of art including crowns of a prince or a king in the ancient city of Parion (also known as Parium), near Kemer village in Biga town of northwestern Turkish city of Canakkale.

Ataturk University Department of Archaeology Chairman Prof. Dr. Cevat Basaran, who leads the archaeological excavations in the ancient city, said on Monday that they unearthed four sarcophaguses (a stone coffin bearing sculpture and inscriptions) in the city.

''We opened two of those sarcophaguses. We found two crowns of a prince or a king who was believed to have lived some 2 thousand years ago, two golden coins bearing figure of the sun god and several other pieces of jewelry. Also, we unearthed 150 pieces of works of art during the excavations. All these findings reveal the importance of Parion in ancient times,'' he said.

Read the full story at Turkish Press...
http://www.turkishpress.com/travel/view.asp?id=63399

Einstein the genius and lover revealed

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Albert Einstein was the outstanding genius of the 20th century, but he was also an ordinary man who had many affairs during his two marriages. This other side of the German-born scientist who gave the world its most famous equation, E =mc2, and who was declared the man of the century by Time Magazine, is explained in a new exhibition to mark Einstein Year.

Revered by leading scientists and the ordinary public alike for his intellectual powers and sharp wit, and loved by children across the world for his gently avuncular air and unruly mop of white hair, Einstein was also a keen ladies' man.

Read the full story at CNN News...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/15/einstein.revealed.reut/index.html

Black hole scientist Bondi dies

A scientist who helped formulate a controversial view of the universe has died in Cambridge aged 85.
Sir Hermann Bondi was an astrophysicist who helped formulate the steady-state theory of the universe - which said it has always existed. When this theory was supplanted by the Big Bang in the 1950s, Sir Hermann did pioneering work on black holes.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4255806.stm

Stolen Rembrandt work recovered

A self-portrait by Rembrandt has been recovered by Danish police, nearly five years after it was stolen in a daring raid on Sweden's National Museum. It was retrieved on Thursday during an operation at a Copenhagen hotel that resulted in the arrest of four people.

"We heard that someone was trying to sell the painting and we decided to go for it," said a police spokesman.

Read the full story at BBC news...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4252568.stm

NASA to unveil moon plan

(SPACE.com) -- NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.
The space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday, Washington sources tell SPACE.com.
Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/15/nasa.moon/index.html

Study charts origins of fear memory

TORONTO, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A team of researchers led by the University of Toronto has charted how and where a painful event becomes permanently etched in the brain.

The researchers said their discovery has treatment implications for pain-related emotional disorders such as post-traumatic stress. U-of-T Physiology Professor Min Zhuo and colleagues, Professor Bong-Kiun Kaang of Seoul National University and Professor Bao-Ming Li of China's Fudan University, identified where emotional fear memory begin.

Read the full story at Science daily...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050915-22323500-bc-canada-fearmemory.xml

Amphibian killing fungus 'in UK'

A fungus that is deadly to many species of amphibians has been found in wild animals in the UK for the first time. Chytrid fungus is a major contributor to the decline of amphibian populations around the world and may have already made one species extinct. Its presence was detected in a colony of American bullfrogs that had set up home in a lake in South-East England.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4249136.stm

Inventor fuels car with dead cats

BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel -- dead cats. Christian Koch, 55, from the eastern county of Saxony, told Bild newspaper that his organic diesel fuel -- a homemade blend of garbage, run-over cats and other ingredients -- is a proven alternative to normal consumer diesel.

"I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture," Koch said. "I have gone 170,000 km (106,000 miles) without a problem."

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/14/germany.catfuel.reut/index.html

Hubble spies homeless black hole

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A supermassive black hole appears to be homeless in the cosmos without a galaxy to nestle in, Hubble Space Telescope scientists reported on Wednesday.
Most monster black holes lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, slurping up matter from the galactic center with a pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

But a team of European astronomers reported in the journal Nature that a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/14/homeless.black.hole.reut/index.html

Scottish 'Indiana Jones' finds ancient burial path

A VETERAN archaeologist, hailed as Scotland's "Indiana Jones", has discovered one of Egypt's most elusive ancient sites 3,000 years after it was buried in the desert sand. Ian Mathieson, 78, director of Saqqara Geophysical Survey Project, has located part of a seven-mile ceremonial burial route to the Step Pyramid of Djoser, near Cairo.

Treasure hunters have long tried to pinpoint the Serapeum Way, and in 1798 Napoleon sent 1,000 men. According to legend, the Greek philosopher Strabo found a partially buried golden sphinx while travelling in 24BC.

Read the full story at The Scotsman...
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1929852005m

Group: Hippos face extinction in Congo

GLAND, Switzerland (AP) -- Only 887 hippos are left in Congo, once home to the world's largest population of the water-loving mammal, and face extinction in the African country, an international environmental group warned Monday. Hippos are being killed by government soldiers, local militia and poachers, the World Wildlife Fund said. The meat is sold as food while teeth end up as part of the illegal ivory trade.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/13/hippo.extinction.ap/index.html

Asteroid probe on close approach

The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft has approached within 20km (12 miles) of the asteroid it has been travelling to for more than two years. The probe will collect a sample from the surface of asteroid Itokawa and return it to Earth for analysis. Mission scientists hope this will shed light on how these mysterious Solar System bodies formed and evolved.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4242076.stm

Retreating glaciers, melting permafrost threaten Arctic lifestyle

ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) -- The gargantuan chunks of ice breaking off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thundering into an Arctic fjord make a spectacular sight. But to Greenlanders it is also deeply worrisome.
The frequency and size of the icefalls are a powerful reminder that the frozen sheet covering the world's largest island is thinning -- a glaring sign of global warming, scientists say.

"In the past we could walk on the ice in the fjord between the icebergs for a six-month period during the winter, drill holes and fish," said Joern Kristensen, a fisherman and one of the indigenous Inuit who are most of Greenland's population of 56,000.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/

Most distant cosmic blast sighted

Astronomers have witnessed the most distant cosmic explosion on record: a gamma-ray burst that has come from the edge of the visible Universe. Gamma-ray bursts are intense flares of high-energy radiation that appear without warning from across the cosmos. They can release as much energy in a few minutes as our Sun will emit in its expected 10-billion-year lifetime.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4237800.stm

Temple near Nile has been source of controversy

Near the Nile River lies a temple complex called Karnak in what was once ancient Thebes and is now modern Luxor. The great Temple of Amun or Amen-Ra was a principal focus of Egyptian religious activity for millennia but what makes Karnak of particular interest is the controversy over its use.The British astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer visited the site around 1890 and was struck by an immense corridor that ran the length of the complex. Lockyer believed that it was aligned westward across the Nile River to the midsummer sunset around 4000 B.C. It was quickly pointed out, however, that hills across the Nile from the temple blocked out any view of the setting sun, throwing the theory into doubt. Another astronomer did some quick calculations and found that the corridor only matched up with the sunset in 11,700 B.C. Even the Egyptians were not building temples that far back in time.

Read more at Bangor Daily News...
http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=119407

'Help needed' to save great apes

Ministers from 23 countries in Africa and south-east Asia have appealed for international help to save the world's great apes from extinction. Urgent action was needed to protect the great apes and provide sustainable ways of living for local communities, the UN-backed meeting in Kinshasa agreed.

Poaching and damage to forest habitats have led gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo and orangutan numbers to fall sharply. Experts warn wild populations of great apes could disappear in a generation.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4232174.stm

Titan moon occupies 'sweet spot'

Earth and Saturn's moon Titan show striking similarities because both occupy "sweet spots" in our Solar System, researchers have said. Many processes that occur on Earth also take place on this moon, say scientists participating in the US-European Cassini-Huygens mission. Wind, rain and volcanism and tectonic activity all seem to play a role in shaping Titan's surface.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4229110.stm

Fossils show flying reptiles 'much bigger'

DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuters) -- The giant reptiles that flew above the earth until about 65 million years ago could have grown to twice the size originally thought with wingspans of at least 18 meters, a paleontologist has said. That would be almost the same width as the 64 foot fully extended wingspan of an F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft and roughly five times bigger than an albatross, which ranks among the birds with the largest wingspans in the modern world.

Read the full story at CNN...

Ancient humans 'altered' climate

Humans were influencing the climate long before the Industrial Revolution, new research suggests. Levels of methane rose steadily in the atmosphere in the first millennium, according to an analysis of gases trapped in ice beneath Antarctica. Much of the greenhouse gas came from huge fires lit by humans as they cleared land for settlements and farming, researchers report in Science.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4219818.stm

Solar flare affects communications

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large solar flare was reported Wednesday and forecasters warned of potential electrical and communications disruptions. The flare was reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado. Significant solar eruptions are possible in the coming days and there could be disruptions in spacecraft operations, electric power systems, high frequency communications and low-frequency navigation systems, the agency said.

Read the full story at CNN News...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/08/solar.flare.ap/index.html

Archeologists write history at Sidon excavation site

SIDON: A rare cuneiform tablet has been discovered on an excavation site in Sidon, exciting archeologists and serving as the first piece of evidence of writing in Sidon's history. Unearthed on a site managed by the British Museum, this is only the second tablet ever found in Lebanon and it is especially important as a historical clue, proving that writing was in everyday use in the third millennium in Sidon.

Read the full story at The Daily Star...
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=18269

Clever artificial hand developed

Scientists have developed an ultra-light limb that they claim can mimic the movement in a real hand better than any currently available. At present, prosthetic hands either do not move at all or have a simple single-motor grip. But the University of Southampton team has designed a prototype that uses six sets of motors and gears so each of the five fingers can move independently.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4225896.stm

Ice belt 'encircled Mars equator'

Europe's Mars Express probe may have found evidence for a band of ice that once spanned the Martian equator. A frozen sea and patterns of glacial activity on the planet may be a relic of this ancient belt of ice, says a top scientist. The ice may have formed just before five million years ago due to a change in the tilt of Mars.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4226236.stm

Odd Behavior And Creativity May Go Hand-in-hand

Often viewed as a hindrance, having a quirky or socially awkward approach to lifemay be the key to becoming a great artist, composer or inventor.

New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.
The work by Vanderbilt psychologists Brad Folley and Sohee Park was published online last week by the journal Schizophrenia Research.

Read the full story at Science Daily...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907101907.htm

Armstrong: Mars trip will be easier

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Neil Armstrong said Tuesday that a human expedition to Mars won't happen for at least 20 years, but might be easier than the trip that made him the first person to step onto the moon in 1969. Armstrong said scientists must develop better onboard spacecraft technology and stronger shields to block space radiation before people can travel to Mars.

"It will certainly be 20 years or more before that happens," the former astronaut said at a global leadership forum in Malaysia.

Read the full story at CNN...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/09/06/armstrong.mars.ap/index.html

Discovery of Iran’s Most Ancient School

Tehran, 6 September 2005 (CHN) -- The architectural similarities of the discovered school in the historical city of Toos with those of both the Kharazmshahid and Mongol periods have made the determination of the exact time of the building difficult. However, archaeologists believe that the school may be the oldest of Iran.The new archaeological season to determine the exact time the school has been built will be started very soon in Toos city. If the school is proved to be built in Kharazmshahid era, it could be concluded that it is of the oldest school architecture in Iran. For now Emamieh school in Isfahan which dates back to 750 Hejira is known as the most ancient school of Iran. Several schools have been discovered in archaeological excavations but none of them enjoys intact architectural structures.

Read the full story at CHN...
http://www.chn.ir/en/news/?id=5560&section=2

Artifact is tiny, but ancient find is big

KANAB - The pink stone point, flecked with a rainbow of colored minerals and discovered last spring just lying on the ground, appears to be older than any artifact ever found on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Archaeologists believe the point, thought to have been crafted between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, represents a significant find and could be representative of the ancient people referred to by the name "Clovis," an appellation given to a group of artifacts discovered in the early 1930s near Clovis, N.M.

Read the full story at the Salt Lake Tribune...
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004192

Martian volcanoes 'may be active'

Fields of volcanic cones discovered at the North Pole of Mars suggest the Red Planet could still be geologically active, scientists have said. The cones, seen in images from Europe's Mars Express probe, have no blemishes from impact craters. This suggests the volcanoes erupted very recently and that the sites could have ongoing volcanism.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4219858.stm

Camera detects fluorescent sea life

After fleeing in the face of Hurricane Katrina, ocean researchers have returned to the Gulf Mexico where they are getting a revealing new look at the deep sea.

"We are exploring the deep sea with new eyes," oceanographer Tamara Frank of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution said Friday. Frank and others aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Research Vessel Seward Johnson are using a camera that operates with dim red light to study life on the sea floor.

Read the full story at CNN News
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/09/05/eye.in.the.sea.ap/index.html

MIT Researchers Find Clue To Start Of Universe

If you want to hear a little bit of the Big Bang, you're going to have to turn down your stereo.
That's what neighbors of MIT's Haystack Observatory found out. They were asked to make a little accommodation for science, and now the results are in: Scientists at Haystack have made the first radio detection of deuterium, an atom that is key to understanding the beginning of the universe. The findings are being reported in an article in the Sept. 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team of scientists and engineers, led by Alan E.E. Rogers, made the detection using a radio telescope array designed and built at the MIT research facility in Westford, Mass. Rogers is currently a senior research scientist and associate director of the Haystack Observatory.

After gathering data for almost one year, a solid detection was obtained on May 30. The detection of deuterium is of interest because the amount of deuterium can be related to the amount of dark matter in the universe, but accurate measurements have been elusive. Because of the way deuterium was created in the Big Bang, an accurate measurement of deuterium would allow scientists to set constraints on models of the Big Bang.

Read full story at Science Daily...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050902065550.htm

Explorer Says Lost Peru City Is Plundered

LIMA, Peru -- An American explorer says an ancient, pre-Incan metropolis discovered by his father in Peru's remote cloud forest on an earlier expedition has been plundered by tomb robbers. Sean Savoy, 32, urged the government to take steps to protect the city, which he estimated housed 20,000 people and had hundreds of circular stone buildings in the 7th century.

"It is time for the government to take note. Something has to be done. These places are in danger of destruction," he said. Savoy, just back from leading a 23-day expedition to the site, described it as a massive metropolitan complex spread along a river valley high in Peru's rain forest on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian Andes.

Read the full story at Newsday...
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-peru-lost-city,0,4261523.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

Martian dunes hide water secret

Scientists have found evidence that large amounts of water-ice hide within massive sand dunes on Mars. One of the dunes, which spans 6.5km and rises 475m above the Martian surface, may be the single largest sand dune in the entire Solar System. The icy dunes could be a valuable resource for any future manned missions to the planet, said Dr Mary Bourke.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4217528.stm

Saturn ring particles 'fluffy'

The particles that make up Saturn's rings are more like "fluffy" snowballs than hard ice cubes, as some scientists had previously described them. And these grains have been found to be spinning more slowly than thought, according to new data from the US-European Cassini space probe.
Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4217038.stm

Glitch forces Mars probe shut-off

A glitch has forced Nasa's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft to shut down its science instruments. The spacecraft has switched into a "safe mode", in which the instruments and some other systems are turned off. Team members are racing to get the probe out of this mode so it can photograph the presumed crash site of a US Mars mission lost in 1999.

Read the full story at BBC News...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4213706.stm

Groundbreaking Research Sheds Light On Easter Island's Ancient Mystery

A researcher at Rochester Institute of Technology is unraveling a mystery surrounding Easter Island. William Basener, assistant professor of mathematics, has created the first mathematical formula to accurately model the island’s monumental societal collapse.

Between 1200 and 1500 A.D., the small, remote island, 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile, was inhabited by over 10,000 people and had a relatively sophisticated and technologically advanced society. During this time, inhabitants used large boats for fishing and navigation, constructed numerous buildings and built many of the large statues, known as Tiki Gods, for which the island is now best known. However, by the late 18th century, when European explorers first discovered the island, the population had dropped to 2,000 and islanders were living in near primitive conditions, with almost all elements of the previous society completely wiped out

Read the full story at Science Daily...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050901073153.htm

Neanderthals and modern man shared a cave

The first certain proof that Neanderthal man and modern humans coexisted in Europe has emerged from a cave in central France. Radiocarbon dates show that modern people camped in the Châtelperron cave, 25 miles northeast of Vichy, about 40,000 years ago, preceded and then followed by two episodes of Neanderthal occupancy.

The differing occupations are demonstrated by their distinctive stone tools: those of the Neanderthals, known as Mousterian after the Dordogne site where they were first recognised, are made mainly from flint flakes. The Aurignacian toolkit of Homo sapiens sapiens uses parallel-sided blades, prised off the flint core in a more complex manufacturing sequence that allows better use of raw materials.

Read the full story at Times Online...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,61-1758831,00.html

Black holes start with many bangs

The birth of a black hole is marked by not just one massive explosion but by a series of energetic blasts, according to data from the Swift space telescope. Swift has detected many huge bursts of high-energy light associated with black holes just seconds old, surprising astronomers expecting a single flare. The data suggest new black holes may begin devouring nearby material within minutes of their formation.

The findings will be published in the journal Science in September.

Read the full story at BBC News...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180678.stm

Rover's image from Mars hill peak

The US space agency's robotic rover Spirit has sent back a partial panoramic view from the summit of "Husband Hill" at Gusev Crater on Mars. Spirit was still sending down data that makes up the colour 360-degree picture when Nasa held a news conference. The robot reached the hill's summit at the end of August following a 14-month climb, driving in reverse and forward modes to reduce wear on its wheels.

Read the full story at BBC News...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4206348.stm

Egypt discovers ancient tomb

A joint Egyptian-US archaeological team has discovered a 5,000-year-old funerary complex in Upper Egypt, the Egyptian Gazette reported Wednesday. The tomb was found in the Kom al-Ahmer region near Edfu, some 97 km south of the famous ancient city Luxor on the west bank of the Nile, Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, was quoted as saying.

Three mummies were found inside the tomb alongside a small flint statue of a cow's head and a ceramic funeral mask, Hawass added.

Read the full story at People's Daily Online...
http://english1.people.com.cn/200508/31/eng20050831_205608.html

Apes 'extinct in a generation'

Some of the great apes - chimps, gorillas, and orangutans - could be extinct in the wild within a human generation, a new assessment concludes. Human settlement, logging, mining and disease mean that orangutans in parts of Indonesia may lose half of their habitat within five years.

There are now more than 20,000 humans on the planet for every chimpanzee.

Read full story at BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4202734.stm

Changes In Ozone Layer Offer Hope For Improvement, Says Team Of Scientists

Analysis of several different satellite records and surface monitoring instruments indicates that the ozone layer is no longer declining, according to a study by scientists working with the Center for Integrating Statistical and Environmental Science (CISES) at the University of Chicago.

In some parts of the world, the ozone layer has increased a small amount in the past few years, although it still well below normal levels.

The results will be published Aug. 31 in the Journal of Geophysical Research and follow 18 years after an international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, was established to limit the production of chemicals determined to be harmful to the atmosphere.

Read full story at Science Daily...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050831074639.htm