Wednesday, 24 December 2014
Monday, 22 December 2014
Scientists challenge ‘Abominable Snowman DNA’ results
By Steven McKenzie
A theory that the mythical yeti is a rare polar bear-brown bear hybrid animal has been challenged.
Last year, Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes revealed the results of DNA tests on hairs said to be from the Abominable Snowman.
The tests matched the samples with the DNA of an ancient polar bear.
But two other scientists have said re-analysis of the same data shows the hairs belong to the Himalayan bear, a sub-species of the brown bear.
The results of the new research by Ceiridwen Edwards and Ross Barnett have been published in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Among Dr Edwards’ previous work was an attempt to carry out DNA analysis of a sample taken from bones of a polar bear washed into caves in north west Scotland 18,000 years ago.
According to legend, the yeti is a large and elusive ape-like beast.
For many years experts have been seeking a scientific explanation for the Abominable Snowman.
Prof Sykes, along with other genetics experts, conducted DNA tests on hairs from two unidentified animals, one from Ladakh – in northern India on the west of the Himalayas – and the other from Bhutan, 800 miles (1,285km) further east.
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Judge dismisses lawsuit over Kansas science standards
The Associated Press
A federal judge Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit alleging that science standards for Kansas public schools promote atheism and violate the religious freedoms of students and parents.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled that a nonprofit group, parents and taxpayers challenging the standards did not claim specific enough injuries from adoption of the guidelines to allow the case to go forward.
The State Board of Education last year adopted standards developed by Kansas, 25 other states and the National Research Council. The guidelines treat both evolution and climate change as key scientific concepts to be taught from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The guidelines replaced evolution-friendly standards that had been in place since 2007, and most board members believed they will improve science education by shifting the emphasis in classes to hands-on projects and experiments. The board sought the lawsuit’s dismissal.
Kenya: Al Shabaab Promoting Atheism – Wabukala
By Brian Otieno
The Anglican Church of Kenya yesterday said the terrorist attacks in the country are part of a global war against organised religion.
ACK Archbishop Eliud Wabukala said the attacks are carried out by people who want to promote atheism.
“They want to remove religion from the society,” he said.
Wabukala spoke during the opening of the provincial Kenya Anglican Men’s Association conference at Shanzu Teachers Training College, Mombasa.
He said the first target is Christianity, but it will soon spread to other faiths including Islam.
“Islam will eventually be affected as it would be portrayed as a religion that supports terror,” the archbishop said.
Wabukala said religious leaders from all faiths need to come together and condemn the acts.
Monday, 8 December 2014
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
By NASA
Observations by NASA’s Curiosity Rover indicate Mars’ Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.
This interpretation of Curiosity’s finds in Gale Crater suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations on the Red Planet.
“If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “A more radical explanation is that Mars’ ancient, thicker atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally, but so far we don’t know how the atmosphere did that.”
Why this layered mountain sits in a crater has been a challenging question for researchers. Mount Sharp stands about 3 miles (5 kilometers) tall, its lower flanks exposing hundreds of rock layers. The rock layers – alternating between lake, river and wind deposits — bear witness to the repeated filling and evaporation of a Martian lake much larger and longer-lasting than any previously examined close-up.
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind
By Rory Cellan-Jones
Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
He told the BBC:”The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI.
But others are less gloomy about AI’s prospects.
The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak.
Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.
Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.
Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Star Trek-like invisible shield found thousands of miles above Earth
Image courtesy Andy Kale, University of Alberta
By Space Daily
A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered an invisible shield some 7,200 miles above Earth that blocks so-called “killer electrons,” which whip around the planet at near-light speed and have been known to threaten astronauts, fry satellites and degrade space systems during intense solar storms.
The barrier to the particle motion was discovered in the Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped rings above Earth that are filled with high-energy electrons and protons, said Distinguished Professor Daniel Baker, director of CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).
Held in place by Earth’s magnetic field, the Van Allen radiation belts periodically swell and shrink in response to incoming energy disturbances from the sun.
As the first significant discovery of the space age, the Van Allen radiation belts were detected in 1958 by Professor James Van Allen and his team at the University of Iowa and were found to be comprised of an inner and outer belt extending up to 25,000 miles above Earth’s surface.
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