Brainstem abnormalities found in ‘SIDS’ infants

Brainstem abnormalities found in ‘SIDS’ infants

Investigators at Boston Children’s Hospital report that infants dying suddenly and unexpectedly, in both safe and unsafe sleep environments, have underlying brainstem abnormalities and are not all normal prior to death. The researchers also point […]

Cause of genetic disorder found in ‘dark matter’ of DNA

Cause of genetic disorder found in ‘dark matter’ of DNA

For the first time, scientists have used new technology which analyses the whole genome to find the cause of a genetic disease in what was previously referred to as “junk DNA”. Pancreatic agenesis results in […]

A Cop's Worst Nightmare

The hazards of Moon dust

Despite all the attention lavished on Moon dust, we still don't know what effect the stuff has on human lungs ... which is kind of a big deal, considering the fact that the dust has busted through every vacuum seal its ever faced. And eaten through layers of moon boots. Basically, you can imagine Moon dust as those tiny shards that get left on the floor when you break a glass and inevitably end up embedded in your foot four days later. At The New Yorker, Kate Green writes about efforts to better understand the effects of Moon dust on various materials and how engineers are trying to find new ways to control it before humans return to the lunar surface.

A Century-old Subterranean Garden

Forestiere Underground Gardens features sunken gardens and underground rooms from ten to 22 feet below the land's surface. And it was all the work of one man, with just a pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow! Baldasare Forestiere immigrated to America in 1901 and bought 80 acres near Fresno, California. The land turned out not to be great for farming, so he started digging -and kept digging for 40 years to create his personal Shangri-la.

Forestiere built nearly 100 rooms, passageways and courtyards with circular holes above to allow a variety of plants and fruit-bearing trees to take root in large planters and protrude through the openings at ground level. Over a period of 40 years, he excavated oasis spans over 10 acres (all in his spare time).

When Forestiere died in 1946, the gardens, which included his own underground living quarters, passed to his descendants, and are open for tours today. See plenty more pictures of the gardens and underground home at Messy Nessy Chic.

Daily Comic Relief

Studying chimpanzee fauna isotopes to learn about prehistoric food sources

New research led by UNM Assistant Professor of Anthropology Sherry V. Nelson examines carbon and oxygen stable isotopes in the tooth enamel from a chimpanzee community to understand the environment of fossil apes and early humans. Nelson's research, “Chimpanzee fauna isotopes provide new interpretations of fossil ape and hominin ecologies,” was recently released and is available here.

Kibale Chimp in a canopy [Credit: Ronan Donovan]

UNM Anthropology Professor Martin Muller and Harvard Human Evolutionary Biology Professor Richard Wrangham co-direct the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term field study of the behavior, ecology, and physiology of wild chimpanzees in Uganda.  When animals die in the forest, their skeletons are preserved for researchers like Nelson.

Nelson wants to eventually look at the diet of hominids to explore what they ate and how they were able to thrive and spread.  At UNM Nelson teaches Human Origins, Evolution and Human Emergence, Paleoanthropology, Human Behavioral Evolution, Primate Evolution, and a lab course in paleoecology.

Elephants Never Forget

The Touching Legacy of Tamil Nadu Conservationist Mark Davidar

The elephants of India's Cheetal Walk are surprisingly calm around humans, and it's all down to the lasting legacy of conservationist Mark Davidar. More

A new scorpion species from ancient Lycia

Scientists discover and describe a new species of scorpion, Euscorpius lycius, coming from the area of ancient Lycia, nowadays the regions of the Mugla and Antalya Provinces in Southwestern Turkey. With the new discovery, the scorpions from this genus found in the country go up to a total of five known species. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

This image shows a female Euscorpius lycius
[Credit: Ersen Ayd?n Yagmur]

Euscorpius is a genus of scorpions, commonly called small wood-scorpions. As their name suggest these scorpions don't impress with a large size, the biggest representative being around 5 cm long. The group is widespread in North Africa and across Europe. Euscorpius scorpions are relatively harmless, with poison that has effects similar to a mosquito bite.

This image shows a living male Euscorpius lycius in its natural environment
[Credit: Ersen Ayd?n Yagmur]

The new species is named after the historical region of Ancient Lycia, which is referenced in Egyptian and Ancient Greek myths. Like the mystical history of the region the new species is rather secretive and can be found mainly in pine at night hidden away in pine forests, crawling on rocks or sitting on stone garden walls. All localities where the species was found were humid and cool, with calcareous stones covered with moss.

This image shows the natural habitat of the new species near the Faralya Village, Turkey
[Credit: Ersen Ayd?n Yagmur]

The new scorpion is a relatively small representative, reaching a size ranging between two and two and a half centimeters. The color of the adult representatives is pale, between brown and reddish, with pedipalps, or claws, usually darker than the rest of the body.

"A total of 26 specimens belonging to the new species were collected from Antalya and Mugla Province, in the south-west of Turkey." explains Dr. Yagmur, the lead author of the study. "Further studies are in progress to understand the quantity and distribution of the different species and populations of the genus Euscorpius in Turkey and their relationship with the Greek populations."

Autopsy of a sea monster

You've seen the oarfish — the 18-foot-long, serpent-like beastie that washed up on a California beach. Now, tag along with the scientists from the Southwest Fisheries Science Center as they dissect that monster ... a "once in a lifetime fish".

Snakes Control Blood Flow to Boost Vision

Snakes Control Blood Flow to Boost Vision

Snakes have infamously poor eyesight, but for at least one species there is a way to improve their vision in a pinch.

X-ray of a hammerhead shark

Last week, scientists described a new species of hammerhead shark, the Carolina hammerhead. Though slightly smaller than the scalloped hammerhead species it was previously thought to be a part of, the Carolina hammerhead was ID'd as something different with the help of DNA samples, not visual descriptions. This, courtesy shark blogger David Shiffman, is the Carolina hammerhead's head, in beautiful x-ray vision.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

And don't you forget it ...!

Carolina Naturally is read in 194 countries around the world daily.
 

Young readers ... !

Today is - National Young Readers Day

 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Ottawa, Mississauga, Sioux Lookout, Longueuil, Joliette, Thunder Bay, Saint John's, Toronto and Kenora, Canada

Buenos Aires, Argentina

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Bogota, Colombia

Lima, Peru

Jber, Wimberley, Leeds, Tigard and Wahiawa, United States

Santiago, Chile

Tipitapa, Nicaragua

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Europe

Terlizzi, Milan, Padova, Ivrea and Pistoia, Italy

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Boulogne-Billancourt, Meudon, Salon-De-Provence, Rouen and Cerny, France

London and Sheffield, England

Madrid, Spain

Kista, Sweden

Kiev, Ukraine

Den Haag, Netherlands

Widdern, Dortmund, Rothe Erde, Nuremberg and Sulzbach, Germany

Chelyabinsk, Ryazin, Moscow and Vladivostok, Russia

Swords and Dublin, Ireland

Zurich, Switzerland

Sao Domingos De Rana, Portugal

Belgrade, Serbia

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Kaunas, Lithuania

Riga, Latvia

Iasi, Romania

Brussels, Belgium

Bratislava, Slovakia

Warsaw, Poland

Asia

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Shanghai and Guangzhou, China

Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Shiloong, Bangalore, Bikaner, Hyderabad, Pondicherry and Coimbatore,  India

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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Seoul, Korea

As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

Shah Alam and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Kuwait, Kuwait

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Africa

Tunis, Tunisia

Ikeja, Nigeria

Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa

Accra, Ghana

Pacific

Homebush, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, Australia

Quezon City and Quiapo, Philippines

Today in History

295 - Origin of Era of Ascension
764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days.
954 - Lotharius becomes king of France
1439 - Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
1847 - Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anesthetic.
1892 - Pudge Heffelfinger receives $500, becomes 1st pro football player
1910 - 1st Movie stunt: man jumps into Hudson river from a burning balloon
1922 - The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is founded on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1923 - In Germany, Adolf Hitler is arrested for attempt to seize power Nov 8
1927 - 1st underwater tunnel, Holland Tunnel connecting NY to NJ opens
1927 - Notre Dame's Fighting Irish changes blue jerseys for green
1927 - Trotsky expelled from Soviet CP; Stalin becomes undisputed dictator
1933 - 1st Sunday football game in Philadelphia (previously illegal)
1933 - 1st game at NFL Pitts Pirate's Forbes Field, lose to Bkln Dodgers 32-0
1933 - 1st known photo of Loch Ness monster (or whatever) is taken
1933 - Nazis receive 92% of vote in Germany
1936 - 1st TV Gardening show
1936 - Nobel for literature awarded to Eugene O'Neill
1936 - Oakland Bay Bridge opens
1936 - St Louis Browns sold to Donald L Barnes & William O DeWitt
1946 - Walt Disney's "Song Of South" released
1953 - US district Judge Grim, rules NFL can black out TV home games

Non Sequitur

Did you know ...

About the repugican cabal's war on the poor

That food stamp cuts are a bipartisan scandal

About ALEC's attack on labor

That scientists deciphered doggie tail-wags

Did you make $27,519.00 last year?

Half of the workers in the United States made less than $27,519 last year.

Half of the workers in the United States made less than $27,519 last year. That median wage is the lowest it's been since 1998. The story is different for earners at the top, notes Al Jazeera America: "Since 2000, corporate pretax profits, adjusted for inflation, have more than doubled, reaching record levels."

Well, I'll Be Damned ...

Economists Shocked to Find Economic Regulation Works

In 2009, the US government passed bipartisan legislation designed to make the credit card industry fairer, and hold down credit card fees. Economists are flabbergasted to find that it did those things.

Floyd Norris reports that when economists decided to study the effects of the law, they expected that they would be negligible, due to cunning credit card companies finding loopholes and such. Nope:

But his expectation was wrong. The study came to a conclusion that surprised Mr. Mahoney and his colleagues: The regulation worked. It cut down the costs of credit cards, particularly for borrowers with poor credit... [The economists estimate] that the law is saving American consumers $20.8 billion a year.

Getting Richer On Your Dime

50 billionaires received $11.3 million in farm welfare, could get more in new farm bill

House repugicans Have Flip-Flopped on the ACA and Now Want to Fix Obamacare

 

Facing all time record low popularity, House repugicans have completely shifted their position and announced that they want to fix the issues with Obamacare.
According to The Hill:

The repugicans have shifted their strategy on ObamaCare.
Weeks ago, many repugicans said ObamaCare — including Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) — was too broken to fix. But now, the repugican cabal is drafting legislation that aims to do just that.
The repugican wants to rebuild its political capital and public credibility by solving ObamaCare’s implementation problems. This pivot comes after repugicans took major hits in polls following the government shutdown.

House repugicans want to fix the ACA because the law is getting more popular, while they are getting less popular. Before anyone gets too excited and thinks that a wave of sanity has ripped through John Boehner’s House repugicans, Boehner’s gang still wants to get rid of the ACA, but they are so desperate to keep their seats next year that they want to make it look like they actually care about people.
They aren’t doing anything that would make the law better. Instead, they are going to pass a bill that would allow people to keep the health insurance that they already have. Their plan won’t work, because some of the insurers that have cancelled junk policies have left the marketplace. Are House repugicans, these so called champions of small government, going to use their power as the government to make the insurance companies come back into the business and restore policies?
Some House repugicans have realized that fixing the problems that have cropped up with the law is much more popular than their efforts to repeal or defund it. It is still uncertain how many repugicans will vote for the fixes. The House repugicans are so completely dysfunctional that they might not be to pass anything other than a repeal, defund, or delay without heavy Democratic support.
Obamacare is more popular than the repugican cabal, which is why House repugicans are hoping that a law that they have sworn to destroy will save their seats in 2014.

The Truth Be Told

How the NSA and GCHQ Spied on OPEC

America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ are both spying on the OPEC oil cartel, documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal. The security of the global energy supply is one of the most important issues for the intelligence agencies. More

Muzzling Canadian scientists

Comparing US and Canadian routine scientific secrecy

Canada's Conservative government has become notorious for muzzling government scientists, requiring them to speak through political minders (often callow twentysomethings with no science background who received government jobs in exchange for their work on election campaigns). Government scientists are not allowed to speak to the press alone no matter how trivial the subject, and the default position when reporters seek interviews is to turn them down. (Much of Canada's state-funded science pertains to the climate and the environment; Canada's Tories were elected with strong backing from the dirty tar sands and other polluting industries) A group of University of British Columbia students decided to measure just how extraordinarily secretive science has become in Stephen Harper's Canada. Dave Ng writes:

What if there was a non-political research project that involved a collaboration between NASA scientists and Environment Canada scientists? How easy would it be for a journalist to talk to the scientists involved? It turns out it would take only 15 minutes for something to be arranged with NASA. With Environment Canada, however, it would take the activities of 11 media relations people, sending over 50 pages of internal emails, before a list of irrelevant information was finally sent back - all of this long after the deadline had passed. This is what happened to journalist Tom Spears in April 2012. With this, this Terry Podcast episode asks a simple question: If it was this difficult to get interviews for a positive science story, what would happen if a journalist needed to actually ask some tough questions? Please take a listen as this episode of the Terry Podcast examines the relationship between media and Canadian Government scientists, and questions whether the Harper government has politicized science.

The Terry Project on CiTR #27: Silencing the Scientists

The Secret World Of Sleep

4 Weird Things About Catching Zs

What happens after we head to bed each night? Do we simply snooze, or do we enter into a dimly lit place of wonders, terrors and peculiar science?

What's The Difference Between A Hurricane, A Typhoon And A Cyclone?

Nothing more than location. Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are all rotating storms spawned in the tropics. As a group, they can be referred to as tropical cyclones. Because of the Coriolis effect, these storms rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Beyond that, what you call a particular tropical cyclone has everything to do with where it happens to form.

Random Photos

Innocent man died after swallowing 'health drink' that contained £34,000 of crystal meth

Drug dealers have claimed the life of an innocent man who swallowed a massive dose of crystal meth, thinking it was a health drink. Romano Dias, 55, of Impington in Cambridgeshire had been given a bottle of what appeared to be a fruit-based drink as a treat by his daughter Katee, who had found it in a package delivered to her home, an inquest was told. He was taken ill immediately after drinking half a glass of the liquid and died shortly afterwards.

Analysis by police showed that the bottle did not contain the drink on the label but £34,000 of pure methamphetamine, otherwise known as crystal meth. Detective Inspector Ian Simmons told the inquest in Huntingdon. “The £34,000 is a significant amount. I would say it is highly likely it was destined for a dealer.” DI Simmons said Mr Dias and his family had not been connected with the drug in any way, adding: “This was a completely unaccountable and unforseen chain of events.” He said it was his professional opinion that the bottle had been part of a plan to bring Class A drugs into the UK.

The package had been delivered up to three years ago and the wrappings had been destroyed, limiting the police investigation. Coroner William Morris said: “This is a dreadful case.” He said he had been considering a verdict of unlawful killing, but there had been no evidence that whoever put the drug in the bottle intended any harm to Mr Dias or anyone else. Mr Morris concluded that Mr Dias’ death had been accidental. The inquest heard that the package had been left outside Katee Dias’ home in London. It showed the correct address but the wrong name.

She took the parcel in, thinking someone would collect it and kept it for six months before opening the package and finding the bottle. Much later she passed it on to her father. Mr Dias’ partner Debra Dulson said in a statement that he opened the bottle and found a cork under the cap. She said Mr Dias took a mouthful of the drink, said it tasted “awful” and started complaining that his throat was burning. He then said: “I am in trouble here. I am dying, I am dead.” Pathologist Dr John Grant said the level of methamphetamine was well above the lethal dose and that the drug had a number of effects, including causing abnormal rhythms in the heart which could then stop.

Coca-Cola to remove 'Burn On' billboards from outside Doha mall where 19 people died in fire

Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has been forced to remove ads in Qatar for its energy drink ‘Burn’ and issue an apology after a backlash against “insensitive” billboards promoting the product were placed around the car park of the Villagio mall, the site of a major fire last year which killed 19 people.

The billboards, which contained the words “burn on” and a picture of the energy drink can with a flame logo, were condemned by many, including Martin Weekes, the father of two-year-old triplets, who were among the 13 children that died. "It's almost beyond belief, it's disgusting really," he said. "I just don't understand how people could be either so insensitive or tasteless over something like that."

“We no longer live in Doha as the memories are too painful however I was contacted by a friend with a photo of an ad campaign for your energy drink Burn being promoted outside the mall where the fire occurred. Please remove this as it is totally insensitive,” Weekes said in a message posted on Coca-Cola’s Facebook page. Coca-Cola have now apologized for the billboard adverts and has now ordered them to be removed. “We can confirm that we are removing the campaign branding around the Villaggio Mall and apologize for any concern that was created by its placement.

“This panel in the neighboring area of the mall was part of a network of outdoor [billboards] and was not meant to be in this location specifically where the tragedy happened,” Regional group director for Coco-Cola, Dana Bolden, said. “We will ensure we have a more thorough review process in place going forward. We like to thank those who contacted us to make us aware of this issue and will always work with our consumers to ensure we live up to their expectations,” he added.

Ziggy

Man charged with assault with a deadly weapon following squeegee attack at gas station

Flared tempers at the fuel pumps in Pleasanton, California, on Tuesday leading to a man being struck repeatedly in the head by a man wielding a petrol station squeegee. The attack at the Safeway gas station, began shortly after 6:30pm, and ended with one man arrested for felony assault and the other receiving stitches at the hospital. The victim, a Pleasanton man, says the confrontation began while he was pumping gas after he and the other man exchanged heated words.

The victim says the gas station lines were long and after waiting behind the car of the attacker, who had finished pumping his gas but was not leaving, the victim drove to another pump and made an offensive gesture to the man after the man cursed at him. According to the victim, both then swapped short, barbed comments. "The other guy got into his car and started to drive away, but came back and grabbed a squeegee," the victim said. "He approached me, swinging the squeegee."

The victim said he was temporarily blinded by the soap and water, which prompted him to start toward his attacker, who was about three feet away, which is when the suspect struck the victim several times in the head, gashing open his scalp and eyebrow area. "I tried to hit him and then push him away after the first strike hit my head. I was in such shock it was happening," he said. "The man got into his red Honda Prelude and started to drive away, but I snapped photos of his plate and he stopped." Other customers at the station called police, and at least one Safeway employee witnessed the altercation, according to the victim.

The victim, in his mid-40s, described his head and facial injuries as "gashes" that required stitches at ValleyCare Medical Center, Pleasanton. Dublin Police Lieutenant Herb Walters confirmed an arrest was made at the scene, calling it a "road rage incident," but did not release any further details of the attack or suspect. The suspect, who was booked into the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and released on $30,000 bail, is due for arraignment at the Gale Schenone Hall of Justice, Pleasanton, for 245(a)(1)(F) California Penal Code (Assault With a Deadly Weapon - Felony), according to court records.

Carjacker gave woman pink box cutter that could be used for protection after stealing her vehicle

After stealing a woman’s car at gunpoint early last Wednesday, a pair of Florida carjackers reportedly gave the victim a pink box cutter that could be used for protection on the darkened Orlando street, according to a police report.

Jessica Epper, 19, told officer that she got lost while driving her 2007 Honda Civic, so she stopped the car at around 3:40am to enter her home address into the vehicle’s GPS system. While doing this, a black man and a white woman approached and began speaking with her. According to an Orlando Police Department report, Epper said that the man later pulled out a “large black handgun,” pointed the weapon at her, and directed her to get out of the Honda.

The man’s accomplice, Epper added, then yanked her out of the car by her hair. Before driving off with her car, Epper said, the male suspect “threw a small pink box cutter” towards her and shouted, “Here, take care of yourself. Epper ran from house to house knocking on the doors until one homeowner answered and let her call 911 on a phone,” police noted. The pink box cutter was subsequently given to a crime scene technician for processing.

In a statement, police said that detectives are investigating the incident, noting that “there are some possible inconsistencies in the victim’s statements with evidence being uncovered.” While declining to detail those “possible inconsistencies,” investigators said that, “It is believed that the victim’s car was stolen, however the details of those circumstances are being reviewed.”

Daily Comic Relief

Police called to family's Ikea nightmare

Neighbors of a family in western Sweden called the police after hearing banging and screaming inside a nearby apartment, but were surprised to learn that a baby and a set of Ikea instructions were the cause of the commotion.

The family in Strömstad, near the Norwegian border on Sweden's west coast, was trying to assemble an item from Ikea at around 1am on Friday.

The noise from the assembly was enough to wake their child, who soon took to screaming. The cacophony distressed the neighbors, who promptly called the police and reported that they heard screaming and banging coming from the home.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found the couple assembling a piece of Ikea furniture, and that the crying did indeed come from an infant child.

Woman charged swearing fee by towing company

A woman in Huntsville, Alabama, wants some of her money back after a towing company charged her extra for using foul language.

Awesome Pictures

Alaskan spear points raise new questions about human arrival in North America

The discovery of fluted spear points in northwest Alaska strongly suggests that early humans carrying American technology lived on the central Bering Land Bridge about 12,000 years ago, showing that peopling of the Americas was more complex than previously believed, according to a research team led by a Texas A&M University professor.

12,000-year-old fluted points found among the Serpentine Hot Springs
artifacts [Credit: Texas A&M University]

Ted Goebel, professor of anthropology, along with colleagues Mike Waters, Heather Smith and Kelly Graf, all associated with the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M, and researchers from Baylor University, the University of Georgia, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Desert Research Institute have had their findings published in the online version of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The project was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and National Park Service’s Shared Beringia Heritage Program.

The researchers focused on an area in Alaska called Serpentine Hot Springs, now part of the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve located on the Seward Peninsula. Park archaeologists in 2005 discovered a fragment of a fluted spear point, long known as a hallmark of North American Paleoindian cultures. Goebel and the team later excavated the site, finding more fluted points.

“This shows for sure that there were humans on the land bridge by the end of the Ice Age, 12,000 years ago, because the spear points were found with charcoal and bone radiocarbon dated to that time,” Goebel explains.

“Several of the spear points were found in our excavation along with charred animal bones, probably caribou which ancient humans butchered and ate there at the site.  So the question becomes, ‘Who were these people , and where did they come from?’”

Goebel says that among the earliest residents of North America were members of the Clovis culture, thought to date to about 13,000 years ago. Clovis people specifically fashioned their stone spear tips with grooved, or fluted, bases. Such human-made projectile points have been known in Alaska since 1947, having been found at as many as 20 different archaeological sites.

“But no one has been able to determine the age of fluted points in Alaska  – were they younger, the same age as, or older than the Clovis residents in temperate North America?” Goebel says.

Scientists have chiefly considered two scenarios about Alaska’s fluted point makers:  either they were a pre-Clovis population that moved southward at the end of the Pleistocene era, or they were post-Clovis migrants who spread from south to north.

“The evidence from Serpentine supports the second theory – that either Paleoindian people or technologies were moving in a reverse migration pattern, from south to north, or more specifically, from the high plains of central Canada in a northerly direction into Alaska,” he points out.

Goebel says the findings show new possibilities about when and from where the early settlers of the Bering land bridge arrived.

“Not all of Beringia’s early residents may have come from Siberia, as we have traditionally thought,” he notes.  “Some may have come from America instead, although millennia after the initial migration across the land bridge from Asia. If the fluted points do not represent a human migration, they at least indicate the surprisingly early spread of an American technology into Arctic Alaska.”

He notes that the fluted points were used by the Serpentine residents as weapon tips for hunting large animals, such as caribou or bison. The bow and arrow would not appear in Alaska for several thousand more years.

“We know these early settlers were very mobile – they traveled great distances,” Goebel adds.

“Humans carried tools made of the volcanic glass called obsidian to the site from nearly 300 miles inland in central Alaska. The artifacts and other debris they left behind suggests very short stays, perhaps just several days and nights.

“Nonetheless, fluted points have yet to be found in neighboring Chukotka (in Russia) suggesting that the fluted-point makers never made it any further west than the Seward Peninsula. By 12,000 years ago, the land bridge was becoming swamped by the rising Bering and Chukchi seas.”

For more about the Center for the Study of the First Americans, go to their website.

Clay may have been birthplace of life

Clay, a seemingly infertile blend of minerals, might have been the birthplace of life on Earth. Or at least of the complex biochemicals that make life possible, Cornell University biological engineers report in the Nov. 7 online issue of the journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature Publishing.

In simulated ancient seawater, clay forms a hydrogel -- a mass of microscopic spaces capable of soaking up liquids like a sponge. Over billions of years, chemicals confined in those spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually all the machinery that makes a living cell work. Clay hydrogels could have confined and protected those chemical processes until the membrane that surrounds living cells developed [Credit: Arkansas Geological Survey]

"We propose that in early geological history clay hydrogel provided a confinement function for biomolecules and biochemical reactions," said Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering and a member of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science.

In simulated ancient seawater, clay forms a hydrogel -- a mass of microscopic spaces capable of soaking up liquids like a sponge. Over billions of years, chemicals confined in those spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually all the machinery that makes a living cell work. Clay hydrogels could have confined and protected those chemical processes until the membrane that surrounds living cells developed.

To further test the idea, the Luo group has demonstrated protein synthesis in a clay hydrogel. The researchers previously used synthetic hydrogels as a "cell-free" medium for protein production. Fill the spongy material with DNA, amino acids, the right enzymes and a few bits of cellular machinery and you can make the proteins for which the DNA encodes, just as you might in a vat of cells.

To make the process useful for producing large quantities of proteins, as in drug manufacturing, you need a lot of hydrogel, so the researchers set out to find a cheaper way to make it. Postdoctoral researcher Dayong Yang noticed that clay formed a hydrogel. Why consider clay? "It's dirt cheap," said Luo. Better yet, it turned out unexpectedly that using clay enhanced protein production.

But then it occurred to the researchers that what they had discovered might answer a long-standing question about how biomolecules evolved. Experiments by the late Carl Sagan of Cornell and others have shown that amino acids and other biomolecules could have been formed in primordial oceans, drawing energy from lightning or volcanic vents. But in the vast ocean, how could these molecules come together often enough to assemble into more complex structures, and what protected them from the harsh environment?

Scientists previously suggested that tiny balloons of fat or polymers might have served as precursors of cell membranes. Clay is a promising possibility because biomolecules tend to attach to its surface, and theorists have shown that cytoplasm -- the interior environment of a cell -- behaves much like a hydrogel. And, Luo said, a clay hydrogel better protects its contents from damaging enzymes (called "nucleases") that might dismantle DNA and other biomolecules.

As further evidence, geological history shows that clay first appeared -- as silicates leached from rocks -- just at the time biomolecules began to form into protocells -- cell-like structures, but incomplete -- and eventually membrane-enclosed cells. The geological events matched nicely with biological events.

How these biological machines evolved remains to be explained, Luo said. For now his research group is working to understand why a clay hydrogel works so well, with an eye to practical applications in cell-free protein production.

Luo collaborated with professor Max Lu of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland in Australia. The work was performed at the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Facilities, supported by the National Science Foundation.

You got to wonder why?

The Tree That Enslaves Ants

The Central American acacia tree and the ant Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus live in a symbiotic relationship. The tree provides sweet nectar for the ants, and the ants protect the tree from weeds and animals. But we now know that the relationship is rather one-sided, as the tree not only causes the ants to become addicted to its nectar, but also damages the ants to make them unable to digest any other food! Martin Heil of Cinvestav Unidad Irapuato in Mexico studied the ants, and found that they are born with the ability to digest a variety of sugars, but then lose their invertase, an enzyme that breaks down sugars.

The disabled ants can then only survive on the partially-digested sugar of acacia nectar.
Heil has now shown that the tree itself is responsible. Writing in the Ecology Letters journal, he reports that acacia nectar contains chitinase enzymes that completely block invertase.

Shortly after the workers emerge from their pupae as adults, they take their first sip of nectar and their invertase becomes irreversibly disabled.

"Ain't nature grand?" says Todd Palmer of the University of Florida, who studies ants and acacias.

"What looks from the outside as another case of digestive specialization appears to be a sneaky manipulation on the part of the acacia to increase ant dependence."

That's kind of like a nefarious baby food company that offers to pay for your rotten teeth to be pulled instead of repaired. Like I've always said, never trust a tree bearing gifts. Read more about this research at NatGeo News.

Origins of cattle farming uncovered in China

An international team of researchers, co-led by scientists at the University of York and Yunnan Normal University, has produced the first multi-disciplinary evidence for management of cattle populations in northern China, around the same time cattle domestication took place in the Near East, over 10,000 years ago.

Locations of cattle domestication centres compared with aurochs distribution
[Credit: Nature Communications: DIO: 10.1038/ncomms3755]

The domestication of cattle is a key achievement in human history. Until now, researchers believed that humans started domesticating cattle around 10,000 years ago in the Near East, which gave rise to humpless (taurine) cattle, while two thousand years later humans began managing humped cattle (zebu) in Southern Asia.

However, the new research, which is published in Nature Communications, reveals morphological and genetic evidence for management of cattle in north-eastern China around 10,000 years ago, around the same time the first domestication of taurine cattle took place in the Near East. This indicates that humans may have started domesticating cows in more regions around the world than was previously believed.

A lower jaw of an ancient cattle specimen was discovered during an excavation in north-east China, and was carbon dated to be 10,660 years old. The jaw displayed a unique pattern of wear on the molars, which, the researchers say, is best explained to be the results of long-term human management of the animal. Ancient DNA from the jaw revealed that the animal did not belong to the same cattle lineages that were domesticated in the Near East and South Asia.

Early-Holocene cattle mandible discovered in north-east China
[Credit: Hucai Zhang]

The combination of the age of the jaw, the unique wear and genetic signature suggests that this find represents the earliest evidence for cattle management in north-east China; a time and place not previously considered as potential domestication center for cattle.

The research was co-led in the Department of Biology at the University of York by Professor Michi Hofreiter and Professor Hucai Zhang of Yunnan Normal University.

Professor Hofreiter said: “The specimen is unique and suggests that, similar to other species such as pigs and dogs, cattle domestication was probably also a complex process rather than a sudden event.”

Johanna Paijmans, the PhD student at York who performed the DNA analysis, said: “This is a really exciting example of the power of multi-disciplinary research; the wear pattern on the lower jaw itself is already really interesting, and together with the carbon dating and ancient DNA we have been able to place it in an even bigger picture of early cattle management.”

As well as researchers from the Departments of Biology and Archaeology at York, the research team also included scientists from Yunnan Normal University, Kunming; Peking University, Beijing; Northwest A & F University, Yangling, and the Museum of Haelongjiang in China, Trinity College, Dublin and the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen.

Animal-loving girl thrilled after waking up to find a fox curled-up on her bed

A fox decided to seek out a midnight snack before snuggling up on Jessica Lambert’s bed. Jessica, 11, woke up to find the animal in her downstairs bedroom at home in West Mersea, Essex. She gave it a stroke and excitedly popped upstairs to tell her parents about their house guest.
Mum Charlotte said: “It had gone through two large cat flaps. We have a cat and dog which use them, and the fox was the size of a Labrador. Luckily, Jessica loves animals so she wasn’t scared, and just stroked it before coming upstairs to tell us.

“I thought she was dreaming, but when we came down it was back in the pantry.” In the end, they managed to shoo the fox out of the house. Charlotte was relieved the animal did not go upstairs where her younger children, aged two and eight, sleep.

She said: “My fear is what would have happened if Jessica screamed. She was actually quite pleased – she was not traumatized at all.” Klare Kennett, spokesman for the RSPCA, said: “It is great the little girl was not traumatized. If she had screamed, the fox would have run away. If people want to deter them they can get electronic collars for their pets so they are the only ones who can use the cat flaps.”

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Today in History

308 - The Congress of Carnuntum: Attempting to keep peace within the Roman Empire, the leaders of the Tetrarchy declare Maxentius and Licinius to be Augusti, while rival contender Constantine I is declared Caesar of Britain and Gaul.
887 - Parliament in Tribur: King Charles III resigns
1158 - Emperor Frederik I Barbarossa declares himself ruler of North Italy
1208 - Otto van Wittelsbach chosen German king
1634 - Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery".
1647 - Massachusetts passes 1st US compulsory school attendance law
1648 - Dutch & French agree to divide St Maarten, Leeward Islands
1675 - Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function.
1714 - A highway in Bronx is laid out, later renamed East 233rd Street
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army enters England
1750 - The F.H.C. Society, also known as the Flat Hat Club, was formed at Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia. It was the first college fraternity.
1790 - Chrysanthemums are introduced to England from China
1811 - Cartagena Colombia declares independence from Spain
1839 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
1851 - Alvan Clark patents telescope
1865 - Thomas Robertsons "Society," premieres in London
1868 - 1st American amateur track & field meet (NYC)
1909 - Construction of US navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, begins
1909 - J M Synge's "Tinker's Wedding," premieres in London
1911 - Many cities in the U.S. Midwest broke their record highs and lows on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through.
1918 - Armistice signed by the Allies and Germany comes into effect, WW I hostilities end at 11.00 am

Non Sequitur

What Were the Final Words JFK Heard Before He Was Assassinated?

The ironies, coincidences, and conspiracy theories — oh, the conspiracy theories — surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy have never been in short supply. But after 50 years of so many factoids and tidbits, there is little that compares to the tragic last words JFK heard before fatal bullets struck him in Dallas.

"Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," Nellie Connally, wife of Texas Gov. John Connally, told JFK as they rode in the motorcade through Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Just seconds later, the shots rang out, and those words from the first lady of Texas would be the last ones the president heard.

"Dallas was a dangerous place. John F. Kennedy was warned, 'Don't go to Dallas,'" Lyndon Johnson had told JFK that Texas housewives had come out of their homes to spit at the vice president candidate during the 1960 campaign, and JFK had been told by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that placard had been tossed at him earlier that year in Dallas.

"Danger seemed to be lurking for him in Dallas,"  "And yet … that day, Nov. 22, Dallas opened their arms to him."

Did you know ...

That student homelessness is at an all-time high

About 6 ways unions build a strong middle class

That 500 kids die from gunshot wounds every year

And why is broadband more expensive in the U.S.?