Science News Digest 21st December 2009
In the science news this week, a dark day for physics funding, the possible discovery of dark matter, a new device to help the deaf, are wild grass cereals the new addition to the caveman diet? and finally- octopuses join the elite list of animals that use tools.
Mind over Matter.
Well we’ve been hoping that this discovery was on the cards now that the LHC is back online, but the news that scientists may have found the presence of dark matter has actually come from Fermilab in the USA.
The team are keen to stress that they have not ruled out that the two events recorded this week could be ‘ordinary’ particles and the scientific community has had a mixed reaction to the news, with some organisations such as the AAAS taking the news with a pinch of salt.
The two events were ‘consistent with dark matter’, but Pier Oddone, the director of Fermilab said that they could also be ‘backgrounds’.
In 2010 the detector is being upgraded to lower the backgrounds, meaning that it will be able to tell researchers for sure if it has found dark matter according to Oddone.
Dark matter is believed to be the ‘gravitation scaffolding’ that allowed normal particles to construct galaxies.
Find out more at the BBC.
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Physics funding fright.
"The downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future."
These were the words of Gordon Brown in February, but 10 months later the physics community has been left stunned by a swathe of funding cuts.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have announced cuts in the fields of astronomy, nuclear and particle physics in a bid to save £115m. The knock on effect of this will be a 25% cut in fellowships and student grants for PhD projects and the withdrawal of the UK from the European X-ray laser project (XFEL), the Photon Science Institute and the New Light Source (NLS).
Furthermore, British scientists will withdraw from the Alice experiment to crash heavy ions together at the LHC and their involvement in space missions such as the Cassini probe, the Venus Express orbiter and the SOHO mission to study the sun will also be phased out according to the Guardian.
"The council of STFC has approved an affordable, robust and sustainable programme. This has involved tough choices affecting the entire programme including a managed withdrawal from some areas," said Professor Michael Sterling, the STFC chairman.
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Cereal Conundrum.
Wake up, get washed and dressed, have a bowl of cereal. This is the morning routine of contemporary humans all over the world, but it has come as a shock to some that eating cereals could have actually been part of the human diet for more than 100,000 years.
A new study from the University of Calgary in Canada has found the remnants of a wild African grass called Sorghum amongst the remains of tools and cooking equipment on a cave floor that was in use by our ancestors for tens of thousands of years.
It was previously thought that we only started eating mass quantities of cereals at the advent of farming some 10,000 years ago, then the discovery in 2004 of a grinding stone with barley and wheat residue on it in Israel pushed this estimation back to 23,000 years ago.
However, another explanation of the most recent finding of wild grasses in the sediment layers of a cave floor excavated in Mozambique could be that they were used for bedding. This theory has sparked a debate among archaeologists around the world, who are yet to reach an agreement on the most likely reason for the presence of the Sorghum.
Read more in ScienceNOW.
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Hear Hear.
Simple but effective- Beethoven was rumoured to have attached a rod to his piano and then clenched it between his teeth to conduct the vibrations from the instrument to his inner ear. Today a similar idea is being submitted for FDA approval in the states in 2010.
Sonitus Medical in California have come up with a new creation to help combat single sided deafness. In a similar idea to that of Beethoven’s, they have created a device that picks up sound from a tiny microphone in the ear and transforms them into vibrations that are transported to another device that wraps around the teeth. The vibrations then pass through the jawbone and into the cochlea of the working ear thus providing stereo sound.
This medical advancement could give hope to over nine million sufferers of single sided deafness in the USA alone.
Read the full article in New Scientist.
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And Finally.....
Shocktopus!
The most primitive species yet to use tools has been discovered off the coast of Bali- and it gave the researchers quite a shock!
Humans discarding empty coconut shells into the ocean would be very surprised by its next incarnation…. as octopus armour.
The team from the Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the veined octopuses stacking up the shells, spreading themselves over the top of the upturned husk and ‘stilt walking’ along the ocean floor by stretching out their tentacles.
Julian Finn, a member of the study team from the Museum Victoria said. “It was an extremely comical sight — I have never laughed so hard underwater.”
‘Stilt walking’ with the shells clearly demonstrated tool use, which is common among birds and primates, but extremely rare in invertebrates. The researchers suggested that the octopuses are likely to have learned this skill from using clams, but found the coconut shells to be lighter and easier to manage.
Read the full article in the Times.
Mind over Matter.
Well we’ve been hoping that this discovery was on the cards now that the LHC is back online, but the news that scientists may have found the presence of dark matter has actually come from Fermilab in the USA.
The team are keen to stress that they have not ruled out that the two events recorded this week could be ‘ordinary’ particles and the scientific community has had a mixed reaction to the news, with some organisations such as the AAAS taking the news with a pinch of salt.
The two events were ‘consistent with dark matter’, but Pier Oddone, the director of Fermilab said that they could also be ‘backgrounds’.
In 2010 the detector is being upgraded to lower the backgrounds, meaning that it will be able to tell researchers for sure if it has found dark matter according to Oddone.
Dark matter is believed to be the ‘gravitation scaffolding’ that allowed normal particles to construct galaxies.
Find out more at the BBC.
-----------------------------------
Physics funding fright.
"The downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future."
These were the words of Gordon Brown in February, but 10 months later the physics community has been left stunned by a swathe of funding cuts.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have announced cuts in the fields of astronomy, nuclear and particle physics in a bid to save £115m. The knock on effect of this will be a 25% cut in fellowships and student grants for PhD projects and the withdrawal of the UK from the European X-ray laser project (XFEL), the Photon Science Institute and the New Light Source (NLS).
Furthermore, British scientists will withdraw from the Alice experiment to crash heavy ions together at the LHC and their involvement in space missions such as the Cassini probe, the Venus Express orbiter and the SOHO mission to study the sun will also be phased out according to the Guardian.
"The council of STFC has approved an affordable, robust and sustainable programme. This has involved tough choices affecting the entire programme including a managed withdrawal from some areas," said Professor Michael Sterling, the STFC chairman.
-----------------------------------
Cereal Conundrum.
Wake up, get washed and dressed, have a bowl of cereal. This is the morning routine of contemporary humans all over the world, but it has come as a shock to some that eating cereals could have actually been part of the human diet for more than 100,000 years.
A new study from the University of Calgary in Canada has found the remnants of a wild African grass called Sorghum amongst the remains of tools and cooking equipment on a cave floor that was in use by our ancestors for tens of thousands of years.
It was previously thought that we only started eating mass quantities of cereals at the advent of farming some 10,000 years ago, then the discovery in 2004 of a grinding stone with barley and wheat residue on it in Israel pushed this estimation back to 23,000 years ago.
However, another explanation of the most recent finding of wild grasses in the sediment layers of a cave floor excavated in Mozambique could be that they were used for bedding. This theory has sparked a debate among archaeologists around the world, who are yet to reach an agreement on the most likely reason for the presence of the Sorghum.
Read more in ScienceNOW.
--------------------------------------
Hear Hear.
Simple but effective- Beethoven was rumoured to have attached a rod to his piano and then clenched it between his teeth to conduct the vibrations from the instrument to his inner ear. Today a similar idea is being submitted for FDA approval in the states in 2010.
Sonitus Medical in California have come up with a new creation to help combat single sided deafness. In a similar idea to that of Beethoven’s, they have created a device that picks up sound from a tiny microphone in the ear and transforms them into vibrations that are transported to another device that wraps around the teeth. The vibrations then pass through the jawbone and into the cochlea of the working ear thus providing stereo sound.
This medical advancement could give hope to over nine million sufferers of single sided deafness in the USA alone.
Read the full article in New Scientist.
----------------------------------
And Finally.....
Shocktopus!
The most primitive species yet to use tools has been discovered off the coast of Bali- and it gave the researchers quite a shock!
Humans discarding empty coconut shells into the ocean would be very surprised by its next incarnation…. as octopus armour.
The team from the Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the veined octopuses stacking up the shells, spreading themselves over the top of the upturned husk and ‘stilt walking’ along the ocean floor by stretching out their tentacles.
Julian Finn, a member of the study team from the Museum Victoria said. “It was an extremely comical sight — I have never laughed so hard underwater.”
‘Stilt walking’ with the shells clearly demonstrated tool use, which is common among birds and primates, but extremely rare in invertebrates. The researchers suggested that the octopuses are likely to have learned this skill from using clams, but found the coconut shells to be lighter and easier to manage.
Read the full article in the Times.
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