Cache of Ice Age fossils found in Los Angeles

Scientists are studying a huge cache of Ice Age fossil deposits recovered near the famous La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of the nation's second-largest city. Scientists are studying a huge cache of Ice Age fossil deposits recovered near the famous La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of the nation's second-largest city.

Among the finds is a near-intact mammoth skeleton, a skull of an American lion and bones of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, bison, horses, ground sloths and other mammals.

Researchers discovered 16 fossil deposits under an old parking lot next to the tar pits in 2006 and began sifting through them last summer. The mammoth remains, including 10-foot-long tusks, were in an ancient riverbed near the fossil cache.

Officials of the Page Museum at the tar pits plan to formally announce their findings on Wednesday. The discoveries could double the museum's Ice Age collection.

Such a rich find usually takes years to excavate. But with a deadline looming to build an underground parking garage for the next-door art museum, researchers boxed up the deposits and lifted them out of the ground using a massive crane.

"It's like a paleontological Christmas," research team member Andie Thomer wrote in a blog post in July.

The research dubbed "Project 23" — because it took 23 boxes to house the deposits — uncovered fossilized mammals as well as smaller critters including turtles, snails and insects. Separately, scientists found a well-preserved Columbian mammoth that they nicknamed Zed.

An examination reveals Zed, which is 80 percent complete, had arthritic joints and several broken and re-healed ribs — an indication that he suffered a major injury during his life.

"It's looking more and more as if Zed lived a pretty rough life," Thomer blogged in December.

Some scientists not connected with the discovery said this is the first significant fossil find since the original excavations at the tar pits more than a century ago.

"Usually these things are either lost in the mixing or not recovered in the processing of the oily sand and soil they occur in," paleontologist Jere H. Lipps of the University of California, Berkeley wrote.

La Brea Tar Pits ranks among the world's famous fossil sites. Between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago, mammoths, mastodons,saber-tooth cats and other Ice Age beasts became trapped by sticky asphalt that oozing upward through cracks and fissures in the ground. The newly recovered fossils were also in asphalt.

Since 1906, more than a million bones have been unearthed from the sticky ponds.

Diamond no longer nature's hardest material

Also found at New Scientist ...

Diamond no longer nature's hardest material

Diamond will always be a girl's best friend, but it may soon lose favor with industrial drillers.

The gemstone lost its title of the "world's hardest material" to man-made nanomaterials some time ago. Now a rare natural substance looks likely to leave them all far behind – at 58% harder than diamond.

Zicheng Pan at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and colleagues simulated how atoms in two substances believed to have promise as very hard materials would respond to the stress of a finely tipped probe pushing down on them.

Extreme conditions

The first, wurtzite boron nitride has a similar structure to diamond, but is made up of different atoms.

The second, the mineral lonsdaleite, or hexagonal diamond is made from carbon atoms just like diamond, but they are arranged in a different shape.

Only small amounts of wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite exist naturally or have been made in the lab so until now no one had realized their superior strength. The simulation showed that wurtzide boron nitride would withstand 18% more stress than diamond, and lonsdaleite 58% more. If the results are confirmed with physical experiments, both materials would be far harder than any substance ever measured.

Doing those tests won't be easy, though. Because both are rare in nature, a way is needed to make enough of either of them to test the prediction.

Rare mineral lonsdaleite is sometimes formed when meteorites containing graphite hit Earth, while wurtzite boron nitride is formed during volcanic eruptions that produce very high temperatures and pressures.

Flexible friend

If confirmed, however, wurtzite boron nitride may turn out most useful of the two, because it is stable in oxygen at higher temperatures than diamond. This makes it ideal to place on the tips of cutting and drilling tools operating at high temperatures, or as corrosion resistant films c on the surface of a space vehicle, for example.

Paradoxically, wurtzite boron nitride's hardness appears to come from the flexibility of the bonds between the atoms that make it up. When the material is stressed some bonds re-orientate themselves by about 90º to relieve the tension.

Although diamond undergoes a similar process, something about the structure of wurtzite boron nitride makes it nearly 80% stronger after the process takes place, says study co-author Changfeng Chen at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, an ability diamond does not have.

Single crystals

Natalia Dubrovinskaia from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, has carried out similar research.

"This is important because any attempt to give an insight into the mechanism that improves a material's property, especially hardness, is technologically extremely significant," she told New Scientist.

The more that is understood about what influences the hardness of materials, the more it will become possible to design hard materials to order, she explains.

However, she points out that in order to prove the theory, single crystals of each material would be needed. So far there are no known ways to isolate or grow such crystals of either material.

Sweet Jane

Velvet Underground
(A rare version with an extra verse in the outro)

First liquid water may have been spotted on Mars

NASA's Phoenix lander may have captured the first images of liquid water on Mars - droplets that apparently splashed onto the spacecraft's leg during landing, according to some members of the Phoenix team.

The controversial observation could be explained by the mission's previous discovery of perchlorate salts in the soil, since the salts can keep water liquid at sub-zero temperatures. Researchers say this antifreeze effect makes it possible for liquid water to be widespread just below the surface of Mars, but point out that even if it is there, it may be too salty to support life as we know it.

Read the rest at New Scientist.

Feeding a child

Salma Hayek breastfeeds a child and the morally retarded pass out in fits of apolexy

I posted this a few days ago on our sister blog and opined that some need to really 'get a life' to put it simply.

I post this here and opine:
SOME REALLY NEED AND I MEAN REALLY NEED TO 'GET A LIFE'.

This isn't 'news other than the fact that a woman did what a woman is able to do.
This isn't an 'issue' of any sort.

What is 'news' is that there are still good people on this planet, like Salma Hayek doing the same thing day in and day out.
What is the 'issue' here is the willfully retarded troglodytes feigning morality and the U.S. corporate media feeding the insanity.

*****

Way to go Salma and every other woman who feeds a hungry child!

Where's bin Laden hiding?

Science may have the answer ...

Fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis released today.

A research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California-Los Angeles used geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.

Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border.

Read the rest here.

More fire for Australia

Victoria is likely to come under the influence of another el Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bush fires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says. -

Melbourne Age: Drought and fire here to stay with el Nino's return.

Hooked on Facts

Today's six facts are:

A person will burn seven(7) percent more calories if they walk on hard dirt compared to pavement.

Apple seeds are poisonous!

In Spain, it is common to pour chocolate milk on cereal for breakfast.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

Babies are born without kneecaps.

Contrary to popular belief ... lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards.

Bonus fact: 97% of all paper money in the U.S. has traces of cocaine on it.

Healing the 'Dead Zones'

Healing low-oxygen aquatic "dead zones" in the Chesapeake Bay and hundreds of other spots worldwide will be trickier than previously imagined because the low oxygen levels that make it impossible for most organisms to survive also kill bacteria crucial to removing nitrogen from the water.

Scientists warn of persistent 'dead zones' in Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere.

Mouse of La Mancha

Pinky and The Brain

Unemployed Chinese workers go back to the villages

USA Today reports on the 26 million newly jobless Chinese people leaving the industrial cities of the Pearl River Delta and returning home to rural villages in the provinces, and of the strain this is putting on Chinese society.

For Lei Sanjun, 25, who spent seven years making sneakers in the coastal factory city of Dongguan in Guangdong province, government help will take too long to transform Bamboo Pole. "My hometown is backward. Just look at the poor roads and few factories here," he says.

The average income for Chinese farmers is about $690 a year — less than a third of what is paid in urban areas. The shortage of well-paying jobs explains why as many as half of the laborers in Bamboo Pole, population 50,000, decided to seek factory jobs — and why their return is so problematic now.

"It'll be a troubling year," predicts Victor Shih, a Northwestern University professor who researches China's economy.

Many of the jobless migrant workers will stay in cities to try their luck, possibly at smaller salaries.

For those who go home and stay, Shih says, rural life will come as a shock. "These young people were farmers, but they have lived in big cities, and their expectations are now a lot higher."

Chen Xiwen, a top rural planner for the Chinese government, says new arrivals will face entrenched rural problems such as pollution and land expropriation. He encourages government officials not to use force to break up protests.

Return of jobless strains China

Anti-terror laws are creating "police-state"

When the head spook speaks one should listen ...

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has made a blistering public condemnation of the British government's "exploitation" of the threat of terrorism to create a "police state" where the terrorist objective of taking away Britons' liberty is achieved by government, and where crackdowns serve to inspire new terrorists.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Dame Stella said: "Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people's privacy."

In the interview, published in the Daily Telegraph, she continued: "It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state..."

"Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification."

Government accused of exploiting terrorism fear

Water company to pay its over-billing fines with a surcharge on water bills

Now here's the ticket - pay your over-billing fines by over-billing!

A court ordered the Seattle municipal water company to pay compensation to its customers for "fire hydrant" surcharges added to their bills (fire hydrants are a municipal responsibility and shouldn't be charged to general water customers). In order to pay the fines, the company is adding a "we have to pay you compensation" surcharge to its bills.

As a result of the latest court decision, anyone who was a Seattle Public Utilities water customer between March 2002 and December 2004 is due a refund under a court order issued in October. But current water customers will be the ones paying the bill.

Eligible water customers will get their full rebate in May or June. The surcharge and tax will be spread over 21 months.

City to OK water-bill surcharge

There used to be hot springs on the surface of Mars

Evidence of Ancient Hot Springs on Mars Detailed in Astrobiology Journal

Data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) suggest the discovery of ancient springs in the Vernal Crater, sites where life forms may have evolved on Mars, according to a report in Astrobiology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Several key papers in the issue are available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ast

Hot springs have great astrobiological significance, as the closest relatives of many of the most ancient organisms on Earth can thrive in and around hydrothermal springs. If life forms have ever been present on Mars, hot spring deposits would be ideal locations to search for physical or chemical evidence of these organisms and could be target areas for future exploratory missions.

In the research paper entitled, “A Case for Ancient Springs in Arabia Terra, Mars,” Carlton C. Allen and Dorothy Z. Oehler, from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, propose that new image data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on MRO depict structures in Vernal Crater that appear to have arisen as part of a major area of ancient spring activity. The data suggest that the southern part of Vernal Crater has experienced episodes of water flow from underground to the surface and may be a site where martian life could have developed.

“Hot spring deposits are key target areas for future Mars missions,” says Sherry L. Cady, PhD, Editor of Astrobiology and Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at Portland State University. “Such deposits on Earth preserve evidence of the fossilized remains of the microbial communities that inhabited the hot springs over a wide range of spatial scales. The potential to find key evidence indicative of life––biofabrics, microbial remains, chemical fossils in minerals––is high when sedimentary deposits form from hydrothermal fluids. Hot spring fluids are typically laden with dissolved mineral ions that, when they precipitate out and create the hydrothermal deposit, enhance fossilization of all types of biosignatures."

Astrobiology is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly in print and online increasing to 10 issues per year in 2009. The Journal provides a forum for scientists seeking to advance our understanding of life’s origins, evolution, distribution, and destiny in the universe. A complete table of contents and a full text for this issue may be viewed online at www.liebertpub.com/ast

Astrobiology is the leading peer-reviewed journal in its field. To promote this developing field, the Journal has teamed up with The Astrobiology Web to highlight one outstanding paper per issue of Astrobiology. This paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ast and to visitors of The Astrobiology Web at www.astrobiology.com

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com) is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at www.liebertpub.com

*****

Interesting, isn't it?!

Australian Flames

Internet hate messages calling for a suspected arsonist's "torture and death" renewed fears for his safety on Tuesday as the number killed by Australia's worst ever wildfires hit 200.

As thousands of firefighters battled six remaining blazes in Victoria state, a Singapore-owned power company also said it would fight compensation claims over one of the fires.

Lawyer Julian McMahon expressed concern for accused arsonist Brendan Sokaluk, 39, saying hate messages were posted on social networking sites after he was named in court on Monday.

McMahon told Victoria's Supreme Court that at least one relative of Sokaluk, who is in protective custody to guard him from vigilante attacks, had been threatened.

"Not only is there the understandable community anger which suddenly has a focus point, there's also vicious hatred appearing in another kind of medium," McMahon said, arguing for a ban on his photograph to remain in place.

Facebook groups were showing my client's photo and calling for his torture and death."

"The safety of my client is of concern. There have been threats made to one family member at least that I'm aware of," McMahon added.

Sokaluk is accused of starting one fire that killed 11 people and razed 151 homes around Churchill, east of Melbourne, on February 7. He faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted.

Meanwhile power utility SP AusNet said Tuesday it would "vigorously defend" a claim against it for compensation over one of the fires.

Survivors have reportedly launched a lawsuit claiming a downed power line sparked a blaze that killed more than 100 people and destroyed about 1,000 homes in the Kinglake area of Victoria earlier this month.

The claim against SP Ausnet, part of the Singapore Power Group, is expected to run to hundreds of millions of dollars, media reports said.

The company said only that it had been notified a writ was filed in the Victoria Supreme Court on Monday alleging that "faulty and/or defective power lines" caused loss and damage.

"SP AusNet believes the claim is both premature and inappropriate," the company said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange.

"However, SP AusNet will vigorously defend the claim," it said. "If the claim is pursued, SP AusNet advises that it has liability insurance which provides cover for bushfire liability."

A commission of inquiry into the fires has been charged with providing an interim report by August 17.

Eleven more bodies were discovered in the charred remains of homes as firefighters continued to pick through the wreckage, taking the toll to 200.

A Red Cross disaster relief fund has topped 100 million Australian dollars (65 million US dollars), with US pop singer Pink donating 250,000 dollars, joining other musicians such asLeonard Cohen who have also contributed.

*****

While I am all for letting the man get what he gave upon conviction calls for his torture and his death are over the line. Note, I said, upon conviction ... he may be innocent - doubtful, but he may be. It should also be noted that Australia does not have the death penalty in the first place.

The rage and outrage people are expressing should be spent working on the relief of the suffering of the victims of the fires and not making what amounts to catcalls calling for the torture and death of one man who is accused of setting one fire among many fires.

And, as a final note, if the time and energy being spent to vent the outrage was spent seeking those responsible for the rest of the fires (be they natural or arson) it would be time and energy well spent in lieu of the waste it is now.

Xanax'd Chimp

A 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee that badly mauled a woman in Connecticut had been given the the anti-anxiety drug Xanax because it had been agitated.

The chimp, which once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola, was shot dead by police after the violent rampage.

Sandra Herold, who owned the 15-year-old chimp named Travis, wrestled with the animal and stabbed it after it inexplicably attacked her friend Charla Nash.

Nash had gone to Herold's home Monday to help her coax the chimp back into the house. Nash is hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities say there was no known provocation.

Stamford, Connecticut police Capt. Richard Conklin says Herold gave Travis the Xanax in some tea. Conklin also suggested the animal may have attacked Nash because she was wearing her hair differently and wasn't recognized.

Fifty year study to alter the future of medicine

A medical study based at the North Carolina Research Campus needs a few good people to volunteer – 50,000 people to be exact.

The MURDOCK Study started enrolling people Monday for the research project that scientists say will rewrite medical treatment patients receive.

The Rev. Andy Langford, the pastor of Central United Methodist Church in Concord, is one of the participants in the study. His pride as a Duke alumnus is one of the reason's he chose to volunteer.

“This is a gift that people in our community can give not only to ourselves, but also to our children and our grandchildren,” Langford said. "We have no clue what they are going to discover."

MURDOCK stands for Measurement to Understand the Reclassification of Disease Of Cabarrus and Kannapolis. In October 2007, billionaire and Research Campus Developer David Murdock donated $35 million to launch the extensive study. Research will be done at the Core Lab of the North Carolina Research Campus.

Dr. Ashley Dunham, one of the many leaders conducting the study, said doctors will use the lab's technology "to look at response to disease at a molecular level." That means using science to personalize health care to the individual, instead of a one-pill-fits-all type of medicine.

”Hopefully with care that's more individualized, your response will be better, you'll get better faster and you'll stay healthy,” said Dr. Dunham.

The Cabarrus Health Alliance is one of the places around the county that is helping enroll participants in the MURDOCK study. This is a major undertaking because the goal is to have 50,000 people enrolled in the multi-million dollar health research initiative.

“We hope to have 50,000 people enrolled in four years. And we'll follow them over time. So it will be a longitudinal health study. And we'll collect that sample of blood when they join and that will be used for future research that comes out of the Core Lab and other things that Duke is doing,” said Dr. Dunham.

The health study will examine all major chronic diseases and illnesses.

It will take at least 50 years, so volunteers like Langford may never know the full impact of their participation.

"I'm not sure we'll ever actually see the results of that, but if we can contribute to somebody else, actually helping them, that might make a significant difference,” said Langford.

*****

If you're a Cabarrus County resident, find out more about how to get involved with the MURDOCK study here.

Two teens - Army barracks - One dead

A 16-year-old girl was found dead and another teenage girl was discovered unconscious in a barracks on this Army base south of Tacoma, the Army said Monday.

In a statement issued about 36 hours after base emergency personnel responded to a 911 call early Sunday morning, Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Piek said a Madigan Army Medical Center doctor declared one girl dead at the scene. The second teen was taken to Madigan for emergency medical care and was reported in stable condition Monday.

There were no outward signs of physical trauma on either girl, Piek said. He said Army doctors at Madigan were performing an autopsy on the dead girl, but results might not be available for at least a week.

The Army is investigating what the girls were doing in the barracks and whether drugs or alcohol were involved, he said. The presence of the two civilian girls "in the barracks at 3:30 a.m. is likely a violation of any of the units' barracks visitation policies," he said. (Like, Duh!)

Civilians entering and leaving the base are supposed to be carefully tracked.

A civilian entering the base has to show ID, Army spokesman John Norgren told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, adding, "You have to have a reason to be on the installation and you have to be sponsored" by a member of the military on base.

"It's quite a comprehensive system," Norgren said.

Piek said the Army would not be releasing the names of the girls because they were minors and civilians. The Fort Lewis Criminal Investigation Division was investigating both the circumstances and cause of death.

A Fort Lewis soldier who was "allegedly acquainted with the two girls" has been questioned, but no arrests have been made, Piek said.

The Army didn't release information about the incident until Monday because it took place during a holiday weekend and officials needed to notify the teens' families, the spokesman said.

Liars and Fools

Today's Liars and Fools are:

Krauthammer, forgetting his long record of complaining about non-existent liberal bias,
complains about non-existent liberal bias

Cunningham, Corsi still flog the dead horse of Obama birth rumors

Williams' appearances on Faux News appear to violate NPR's code of ethics

Cuntler, Brick help spread lies about health provisions in stimulus bill

Washington Post only quotes repugicans in its article about bipartisanship

Thief returns stolen car

From the "The truth is often stranger than fiction" Department:

When Wendy Boatwright's car was stolen out of her driveway, the Brentwood resident figured her 1997 Ford Mustang was gone for good. But in a classic case of truth being stranger than fiction, Boatwright's car was inded recovered - but not by local authorities. The rag top was returned by the thief.

"How funny is that?" asked Boatwright, who says she has no idea who the thief is. "Somebody steals my car and then decides it's not good enough and returns is? That's a first for me."

And a first for the Brentwood Police Department as well, When an officer arrived at Boatwright's home to take her report, she admits to being flummoxed. "The officer looked at me and said 'I hope this isn't a joke,'" said Boatwright. "And I thought, 'What is he talking about?' It turns out my car was parked on the backside of my house on a side street. The thief had taken it and then decided he didn't want it, I guess, and brought it back."

Proving that even thieves can be thoughtful, the robber, who had snuck into Boatwright's house the night before and snatched her keg ring, removed the car key and left it on a rock in her driveway along with her emergency roadside kit, presumably after he brought the car back.

But the mystery doesn't end there.

While the officer was taking Boatwright's statement, her neighbor came over and said her car had been stolen, too. The officer intially thought it was just a coincidence that two cars had been stolen on the same street, but when the Toyota Camry was later recovered a few miles away. the suspect was found standing by the white Camry with Boatwright's house keys in his pocket.

Morning Malaise

The Animaniacs

Russian Fortress of Brick Icicles

The reason for it to have such a strange look is because it was used later by Russian army to test the influence of Russian alternative to napalm inside of the brick houses.

Due to very high temperature of napalm the bricks started melting just like ice melts in the spring forming the icicles, but those icicles are of red brick.

See more photos of this fortress at EnglishRussia.

Research Suggests That Green Tea Cuts Stomach Fat

Want to lose the gut? Drop the lattes and start sipping green tea. The Washington Post reports that while several studies have suggested that green tea boosts exercise-induced weight loss, new research published in the February issue of the Journal...

Read full article

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have hailed from:

Dusseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland
Franklin, North Carolina, United States
Franklin, Tennessee, United States
Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

The only way to truly comprehend your abilities is to use them.

Ain't that the truth!