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2013-06-16 06:41:36 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 6 +1s)

This already threatened species may be closer to extinction than previously thought.

2013-06-15 10:14:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

In 2013 London Underground is 150 years old. The world's first underground railway is spending its anniversary year celebrating its own history. They're sending a steam train back underground, and there's a Royal visit to prepare for. On the tube, history is everywhere - it's down every tunnel, in every tunnel, in every sign and design, and in the lives of the unsung people who built it and run it today.

Following on from BBC2's The Tube series, this programme tells the story of the underground through the eyes of the people who work for it. Farringdon station supervisor Iain MacPherson reveals why his station - the original terminus - was constructed in the 1860s, and recalls the dark days of Kings Cross in the 1980s. Piccadilly line driver Dylan Glenister explains why every Edwardian station on his line has its own unique tiling pattern and how, in the 1930s, the... more »

2013-06-15 08:27:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

"For the first time we can quantify how oceans responded to slow, natural climate warming as the world emerged from the last ice age," says Prof. Eric Galbraith from McGill University's Department of Earth and Oceanic Sciences, who led the study. "And what is clear is that there is a strong climate sensitivity in the ocean nitrogen cycle."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-ice-age-illuminate-precarious-nature.html#jCp

2013-06-14 10:29:19 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

A dinosaur nest discovery has revealed the most primitive known dinosaur embryos, which are among the oldest ever found.
The eggs belong to Torvosaurus, a T. rex-like predator that stalked the late Jurassic some 150 million years ago. Torvosaurus grew to be around 30 feet (9 meters) long, but the fragmented embryos discovered in Portugal were probably only about 6 inches (15 centimeters) in length.

"This is shedding some light on the early stages of the development of these types of dinosaurs," said Ricardo Araújo, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at Southern Methodist University in Texas. [See Photos of Dinosaur Embryos and Hatchlings]

2013-06-14 10:16:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Leprosy was endemic in Europe until it almost disappeared in the 16th Century, explained another member of the research team, Stewart Cole from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, (EPFL).

"It's been proposed that [bubonic plague ("Black Death")] killed off a large part of the European population, including those suffering from leprosy.

"One of the interesting things about this paper is that the medieval and current strains are the same, whereas leprosy disappeared fairly rapidly from Europe.

"It's clear that leprosy has created a strong selective pressure on the immune system. The European Caucasian populations have acquired resistance to leprosy, they have certain characteristic mutations in genes that make them less susceptible," Prof Cole told BBC News.

2013-06-14 10:12:27 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

A dangerous virus once only found in dogs is spreading to #tigers, leaving some disoriented and too weak to hunt. #wildlife

2013-06-14 10:01:23 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Thomas Heatherwick has released images of a proposal for a garden to span the River Thames on a new pedestrian bridge (+ slideshow).
The design was developed by Heatherwick Studio after Transport for London awarded it a tender to develop ideas for improving pedestrian links across the river.

2013-06-14 09:28:36 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 1 +1s)

2013-06-13 10:36:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

From InfomaticFilms.com and sponsored by NaturalNews.com, this new animated cartoon covers all the basics on why GMOs are dangerous.

2013-06-13 10:29:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

In early May the excavation of a riverbank in the heart of Roman London drew to a close. Waterlogged layers here contained timber buildings and almost 10,000 small finds.

2013-06-13 10:04:14 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

2013-06-12 10:45:53 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

There are different Thameses aren’t there? The Thames of Oxford and Henley through Windsor and all the way to Richmond conjures up summer days, pretty girls in frocks, tipsy young men laughing too loudly, stripy blazers and straw boaters.

The Thames of Chelsea, Battersea, Westminster and the City is greyer, more business-like, lined with towers and amusements in equal measure; its world-famous bridges and citiscapes, instantly recognisable even by millions who will never visit us.

These are the Thameses we all know. Then, familiar only to those who live in direct proximity – beyond Royal Greenwich and industrial Woolwich and Silvertown – is Thames the Obscure: the estuary.

When London was the busiest port in the world, this part of the river was alive with shipping. Today it is populated mainly by gulls and ghosts.

But it is celebrated in ahighl... more »

2013-06-10 17:33:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Economist Andrew McAfee suggests that, yes, probably, droids will take our jobs -- or at least the kinds of jobs we know now. In this far-seeing talk, he thinks through what future jobs might look like, and how to educate coming generations to hold them.
Andrew McAfee studies how information technology affects businesses and society

2013-06-10 10:03:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Our planet used to be made up of one huge land mass. And it will be again (in a few million years), with Australia heading for Asia and North Africa on a collision course with Europe

2013-06-04 17:21:02 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

To stave off death by a few extra years, a vegetarian diet appears to be superior to a non-vegetarian one, according to results of a study of more than 73,000 people published today (June 3) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The study, the largest of its kind, compared the longevity of meat eaters to that of four types of vegetarians: vegans, who eat no animal products; lacto-ovo–vegetarians, who consume dairy products and eggs; pesco-vegetarians, who eat fish but rarely meat; and semi-vegetarians, who eat meat no more than once weekly.

2013-06-04 10:00:38 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Some cultures used to say the Earth was the center of the Universe. But in a series of “great demotions,” as astronomer Carl Sagan put it in his book Pale Blue Dot, we found out that we are quite far from the center of anything.
The Sun holds the prominent center position in the center of the Solar System, but our star is just average-sized, located in a pedestrian starry suburb — a smaller galactic arm, far from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
But perhaps our suburb isn’t as quiet or lowly as we thought. A new model examining the Milky Way’s structure says our “Local Arm” of stars is more prominent than we believed.
“We’ve found there is not a lot of difference between our Local Arm and the other prominent arms of the Milky Way, which is in contrast what astronomers thought before,” said researcher Alberto Sanna, of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy,speaking today at th... more »

2013-06-04 09:48:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

This is just a gorgeous shot of our home planet from the International Space Station, shared by astronaut Karen Nyberg via Twitter.

While many pictures of Earth from space show a bright view of our planet, this view of the world plunging into darkness provides a unique, not-often-seen view. If a picture can be this beautiful, imagine what must look like in person.

Nyberg is sharing her experiences via Twitter and also — I believe she is the first astronaut sharing on Pinterest.

2013-06-04 05:23:07 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

3,000-year-old fleet discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough

A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough.

The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. One is covered inside and out with decorative carving described by conservator Ian Panter as looking "as if they'd been playing noughts and crosses all over it". Another has handles carved from the oak tree trunk for lifting it out of the water. One still floated after 3,000 years and one has traces of fires lit on the wide flat deck on which the catch was evidently cooked.

Several had ancient repairs, including clay patches and an extra section... more »

2013-06-03 06:24:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

In Alaska, scores of volcanoes and strange lava flows have escaped scrutiny for decades, shrouded by lush forests and hidden under bobbing coastlines.
In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.

2013-06-03 06:21:16 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Pangea with modern day country borders.


Unverified, unsourced. This was posted by Richard Minerich (@rickasaurus on Twitter).

For the original, at full definition, see http://i.imgur.com/GBTIrH3.jpg

2013-06-02 16:12:16 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

The £35m museum, which opened on Friday, has been constructed around the warship. The starboard half of the Mary Rose – lifted from the sea in the most complex operation of its kind in front of 60 million television viewers in 1982 – sits in a dry dock just metres from where she was built in 1510-11 and only a few miles from where she sank, in full view of the distraught king, on 19 July 1545.
Lying on her side on the seabed, her uppermost (port) side was washed away, but her starboard side sank deep into the seabed. Quickly covered with silt, the timbers and contents were sealed from the eroding effects of waves and oxygen. She had become what David Starkey calls "the English Pompeii".

2013-06-02 16:08:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

More than 30 years after it was raised from the seabed - and almost 500 years since it sank - the secrets of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, are being revealed to the public - along with the faces of its crew.
Just yards from where it was first constructed from 600 oak trees near Portsmouth's naval docks in 1510, the wreck of the Tudor warship now stands on view in its new £35m home.
Where once stood a proud, cutting-edge ship built for war, now lies a reconstructed array of wooden decks and pillars, withered by their hundreds of years at the bottom of the Solent.
Standing nearby are some of the men who shared a grave with the ship for hundreds of years, their faces now reconstructed and displayed for the first time.
Viewed through windows on three separate floors, the preserved wreck stands opposite some of its 19,000 artefacts recovered from the depths....

2013-05-29 17:00:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

According to the scientists, the tissues of the animal are almost in perfect condition. The finding is so unique that it can produce an international sensation. The global scientific community can only envy the Russian paleontologists for their opportunity to explore such a priceless ice gem as Yakutia.

"It was established that the individual died when she was 50-60 years of age. Interestingly, fragments of mammoth muscle tissue have a natural red color of fresh meat. The lower part of the body was resting in nearly pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of the tundra," the head of the expedition, the chairman of the Mammoth Museum of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, Semyon Grigoriev said.

The researchers collected samples of the animal's blood in test tubes with a special preservative agent. The blood is dark; it was found in ice cavities... more »

2013-05-27 17:23:43 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Three planets will perform a rare celestial dance in the sunset sky tonight (May 26), a cosmic show that stars Jupiter, Venus and Mercury.
Weather permitting, the three planets will shine together in a triangle formation low in the western sky in a planetary meet-up known as a conjunction. But there is more to the night sky sight than meets the eye.
"Triple conjunctions of planets are fairly rare," astronomer Tony Phillips explained in a NASA observing guide. "The last time it happened was in May 2011 and it won't happen again until October 2015."

2013-05-27 10:29:49 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Where do boats go when they die? Sometimes they end up in vast ship graveyards, sometimes craggy, foggy places where ships have met their doom, and sometimes spots where ships are deliberately left to rust. There's a quiet beauty to many of these graveyards and their resting inhabitants.

2013-05-27 10:31:05 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

This is a long article, but very worth reading!
....
Fast forward to September 2012, when the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) published a study that caused an international storm (Séralini, et al. 2012).
The study, led by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, France, suggested a Monsanto genetically modified (GM) maize, and the Roundup herbicide it is grown with, pose serious health risks.
The two-year feeding study found that rats fed both suffered severe organ damage and increased rates of tumors and premature death. Both the herbicide (Roundup) and the GM maize are Monsanto products. Corinne Lepage, France’s former environment minister, called the study “a bomb”.
Subsequently, an orchestrated campaign was launched to discredit the study in the media and persuade the journal to retract it. Many of those who wrote letters to FCT (whichis publi... more »

2013-05-26 17:22:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Here are five reasons why protestors believe Monsanto is a company that is dangerous and is only interested in profit over food safety.....

2013-05-26 17:19:38 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

In fact, the EU has enough clout to finally convince the US government to clean up America's food supply, long given over to factory farming and the economic demands of agribusiness. If America wants to export more beef, chicken and crops to the European Union, it will have to make better products. The EU won't stand for the ones we're peddling now.

The EU looks down on American food safety and production practices, and with good reason. American meat production is heavily reliant on chemicals, from hormones to chlorine-bleach baths, and European officials and consumers largely reject these treatments and standards.

2013-05-26 09:44:27 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

The unpleasant impermeable fogs had been a feature of London for centuries and it wasn’t just Dickens who wrote about, as he would call it, the London Particular. Descriptions of the London fogs can be found in the Sherlock Holmes’s stories and in Louis Stephenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The mythical quality of the London fog was reflected in practically any Hollywood film set in London even many years after the era of the London ‘pea-soupers’ had past. Indeed the great smog of 1952 was the beginning of the end of the eye-stinging London Particulars.

2013-05-24 08:25:01 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

2013-05-23 10:31:48 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

... But this facial paralysis also inhibits the ability of the Botoxed to mimic the facial expressions of others, which is critical in the formation of empathy.
Facial micro-mimicry is the major way we understand others' emotions. If you are wincing in pain I immediately do a micro-wince, which sends a message to my brain about what you are experiencing. By experiencing it myself I understand what you are going through.
This suggests that not only do I find my Botoxed friends hard to read, but they are also hindered in their capacity to read me. An unfortunate feedback cycle. The possible implications of this are frightening.
There has been a study into the effects of Botox on the ability to empathise, but nothing that specifically addresses the impacts on friendship, or the mother-infant bond.
The absence of discussion around the effect of Botox on mothering is troubling considering... more »

2013-05-22 17:33:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Slovenian pilot and photographer Matevz Lenarcic is on a mission to fly over the North Pole in an ultralight plane and measure black carbon levels.

2013-05-22 16:46:16 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

A UN report released earlier this week calls for a global moratorium on lethal autonomous robotics, weapons systems that can select and kill targets without a human being directly issuing a command.

The report is due to be delivered in a month’s time by its author UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Professor Christof Heyns, and debated by governments at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29.

2013-05-22 16:42:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The spike in the number of women and girls imprisoned for 'moral crimes' occurs as the international community is running out the door in Afghanistan as part of a planned drawdown of foreign military forces by the end of 2014.
There are already ominous signs that women's rights in Afghanistan face a darker future.

2013-05-22 08:54:59 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Our planet is lucky enough to have a large moon orbiting not too far away, which makes for very pretty moonlit nights. But for spectacular skies it might almost be worth trading in our moon for a ring like Saturn's.

In fact, the earth did once have a ring—as part of the formation of our moon, ironically enough. When the planet Thea crashed into the earth, a titanic amount of material was blown into space.
 This went into orbit around the earth, forming a ring until it all eventually coalesced into our present-day satellite. This only happened because the material was orbiting outside of earth's Roche limit....

2013-05-21 10:51:24 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Artificial intelligence expert Mark Bishop says a ban on weapons that can deploy and destroy without human intervention is vital

What is the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots?
It is a confederation of non-governmental organisations and pressure groups lobbying for a ban on producing and deploying fully autonomous weapon systems – where the ability of a human to both choose the precise target and intervene in the final decision to attack is removed.

How close are we to this?
Examples already exist. Some, such as the Phalanx gun system, used on the majority of US Navy ships to detect and automatically engage incoming threats, have been around for some time. Another is the Israeli Harpy "fire-and-forget" unmanned aerial vehicle, which will seek out and destroy radar installations.

What's driving the technology's development?more »

2013-05-21 10:06:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

"Who invented clothes?" It's one of those brilliant questions that children ask, before they learn that the big things we wonder about rarely have simple answers. It's the kind of thing that archaeologists like me get put on the spot about when chatting to kids, and we love to have a crack at answering.

Saturday's "Ask a grown up" section featured just that question, from eight-year old Harriet, with an answer by Hadley Freeman, fashion expert and fantastic writer. Hadley's response was, as usual, entertainingly breezy, with some refreshing encouragement to Harriet to experiment in developing her own style; but, like a fine chiffon, it was a little flimsy in substance.

I'm proud to be involved with ScienceGrrl, which aims to show girls that science is for everyone by providing diverse role models, and TrowelBlazers, a new project that is all... more »

2013-05-19 17:29:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

The Mountain from TSO Photography

"This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide.
Spain´s highest mountain @(3718m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.
The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide. I have to say this was one of the most exhausting trips I have done. There was a lot of hiking at high altitudes and probably less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week. Having been here 10-11 times before I had a long list of must-see locations I wanted to capture for this movie, but I am still not 100% used to carrying around so much gear required for time-lapse movies.

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the9... more »

2013-05-18 10:59:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The prospect of a deep sea "gold rush" opening a controversial new frontier for mining on the ocean floor has moved a step closer.
The United Nations has published its first plan for managing the extraction of so-called "nodules" - small mineral-rich rocks - from the seabed.
A technical study was carried out by the UN's International Seabed Authority - the body overseeing deep sea mining.
It says companies could apply for licences from as soon as 2016.

The idea of exploiting the gold, copper, manganese, cobalt and other metals of the ocean floor has been considered for decades but only recently became feasible with high commodity prices and new technology.

Conservation experts have long warned that mining the seabed will be highly destructive and could have disastrous long-term consequences for marine life.
The ISA study itself recognizes... more »

2013-05-18 10:30:24 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Glaciers in Everest region have shrunk 13 percent since the 1960s.

#globalwarming  

2013-05-18 10:11:55 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 3 +1s)

Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/bfi-archive-footage-1920s-london-goes-viral

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/585816/

#London  

2013-05-18 10:31:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

A new study, led by a Binghamton University anthropologist and published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed new light on the earliest existence of humans. The study analyzed the tiny ear bones, the malleus, incus and stapes, from two species of early human ancestor in South Africa. The ear ossicles are the smallest bones in the human body and are among the rarest of human fossils recovered.

#archaeology  

2013-05-18 09:16:43 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

New research has revealed that the evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought.

2013-05-17 21:39:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

For those interested in the philosophy behind the Vermeer school of photography style, an interesting and thoughtful article published today in French written by journalist Fanny Arlandis which I liaised with for Slate!

2013-05-17 22:06:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Perhaps these shows say more about the viewers than about wildlife?

"What does it mean for conservation if high-rating shows on leading channels are portraying wildlife in a negative, seemingly misleading way to millions of viewers worldwide? And why are so few people saying anything about it?"

2013-05-17 10:37:28 (0 comments, 5 reshares, 6 +1s)

NASA researchers who monitor the Moon for meteoroid impacts have detected the brightest explosion in the history of their program.

2013-05-17 10:21:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

2013-05-17 10:21:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Strategic thinking at it's best :-)

2013-05-17 09:59:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Scientists have discovered water that has been trapped in rock for more than a billion years. The water might contain microbes that evolved independently from the surface world, and it's a finding that gives new hope to the search for life on other planets.

"The fluids that we see now are actually preservations of ancient oceans," Holland says.
About 2.7 billion years ago, the landscape of small-town Timmins looked a bit different. Beneath prehistoric seas, tectonic plates were spreading, and magma was welling up to form new rock. As the rock matured under heat and pressure, water was trapped inside tiny cracks.
The rock drifted around the globe for eons, helping form continents and mountain ranges, and all the while it kept its cargo of water sealed up tight inside.

2013-05-15 17:24:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Look out for an amazing 360 degree advertising makeover at Oxford Circus London Underground for the new Baz Luhrmann version of The Great Gatsby.  The entrance to the escalators there have been transformed into a 1920's ballroom.
In something that looks like the palatial subway system at Moscow,  digitally printed floor graphics and huge graphic wall panels give commuters the impression they're being transplanted into the roaring twenties.