WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? On a misty mountaintop on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, scientists for the first time in more than eight decades have observed a living pygmy tarsier, one of the planet's smallest and rarest primates.
Tarsiers are unusual primates -- the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and people. The handful of tarsier species live on various Asian islands.
As their name indicates, pygmy tarsiers are small -- weighing about 2 ounces (50 grammes). They have large eyes and large ears, and they have been described as looking a bit like one of the creatures in the 1984 Hollywood movie "Gremlins."
They are nocturnal insectivores and are unusual among primates in that they have claws rather than finger nails.
They had not been seen alive by scientists since 1921. In 2000, Indonesian scientists who were trapping rats in the Sulawesi highlands accidentally trapped and killed a pygmy tarsier.
A grave with the remains of a mother and father huddled together with two sons has been dated to 4,600 years ago and marks the oldest genetic evidence for a nuclear family, researchers say.
The individuals were carefully arranged in their graves to denote they were part of a biological family, the researchers say. Wounds on the remains suggest the parents and kids were defending themselves against a violent raid, involving stone axes and arrows, at the time of their deaths.
The family grave is one of four burials discovered in 2005 near Eulau, Germany. All together, the burials hold 13 individuals, including adults ages 30 years and older, and children ranging from newborn to 10 years old at death.
It seems that hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach, attacks proteins in bacteria, causing them to clump up much like an egg that has been boiled, a team at the University of Michigan reported in the journal Cell on Thursday.
The discovery, which may better explain how humans fight off infections, came quite by accident.
When they exposed the bacteria to bleach, the heat shock protein became active in an attempt to protect other proteins in the bacteria from losing their chemical structure, forming clumps that would eventually die off.
"Many of the proteins that hypochlorite attacks are essential for bacterial growth, so inactivating those proteins likely kills the bacteria," Marianne Ilbert, a postdoctoral fellow in Jakob's lab, said in a statement.
The researchers said the human immune system produces hypochlorous acid in response to infection but the substance does not kill only the bacterial invaders. It kills human cells too, which may explain how tissue is destroyed in chronic inflammation.
A new carmaker has a plan for cheap, environmentally friendly cars to be built all over the country
Its projected cost is $20,000USD. It can run on gasoline, diesel, ethanol, or vegetable oil. It can be plugged in overnight to compress air which powers the motors.
It told him to turn right, and he did. There were also many signs all over.
On Monday night a man's car got stuck on the Metro-North tracks in Bedford Hills in Westchester County because he said his GPS told him to make a right turn.
But police in Westchester said Jose Silva's over dependence on GPS led to his car getting leveled by a train after being stuck on the track. Silva and his passengers escaped injury before the train came.
"If he was paying attention to the road it might not have happened," said Assistant Dep. Chief Steve Conner of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police.
"You don't turn onto train tracks. Even if there are little voices in your head telling you to do so. If the GPS told you to drive off a cliff, would you drive off a cliff?" Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.
People have known about the "honey mushroom" for some time, but were not aware of how large and invasive this species of fungus could be. The fungus was investigated more closely by researchers when they realized that it was responsible for killing large groves of evergreen trees. When foresters cut into an infected tree they would find spreading white filaments, mycelia, which draw water and carbohydrates from the tree to feed the fungus. Researchers collected samples of the fungus from a widespread area and analyzed the DNA. A large sample of the specimens they collected turned out to be from a single organism.
Until August of 2000 it was thought that the largest living organism was a fungus of the same species (Armillaria ostoyae) that covered 1,500 acres (600 hectares) found living in the state of Washington. But then mycology experts surmised that if an Armillaria that large could be found in Washington, then perhaps one just as large could be responsible for the trees dying in the Malheur National Forest in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. Researchers were astonished at the sheer magnitude of the find. This most recent find was estimated to cover over 2,200 acres (890 hectares) and be at least 2,400 years old, possibly older.
William Yuan, a seventh-grader from Portland, OR, developed a three-dimensional solar cell that absorbs UV as well as visible light. The combination of the two might greatly improve cell efficiency. William's project earned him a $25,000 scholarship and a trip to the Library of Congress to accept the award, which is usually given out for research at the graduate level.
A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.
Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe.
Finding just published by Columbia University researchers in the journal Science, could lead to ultralight, paper-thin aircraft parts, super-tough bulletproof vests and even a 23,000-mile elevator to space long dreamed of by scientists.
Pencil lead - commonly known as graphite - is made up of one-atom-thick graphene sheets squeezed together. To learn about graphene's strength, postdoctoral researcher Chenggu Lee had to figure out how to peel graphene sheets from graphite.
It's possible that someone has been reading your e-mails, listening to your phone calls, and tracking your Internet use. No, it's not a foreign spy. It's not even your ex.it's your employer. And she doesn't even need to tell you she's doing it.
Employers can legally monitor their workers however they want. They can log and review all computer activity as long as they own the machines. The most popular method of keeping tabs on employees is to track Internet use: A whopping 66 percent of companies monitor employee Internet activity, according to a survey released in February by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. What are they looking for? Frequent visits to sexually explicit sites, game sites, and social-networking sites like Facebook on company time. Almost a third of those who said they monitor their employees have fired someone for inappropriate Web surfing.
This site, gutenberg.org, has tens of thousands of free books. They're free because they're out of copyright. So, you can download books from a hundred years ago in pdf, html, or plain text format.
A 5,200 year old piece of pottery from Iran has been discovered to embody the oldest known animation in the world -- a wild goat eating vegetation:
The wild goat motif can be seen on Iranian pottery dating back to the 4th millennium BCE, as well as jewellery pieces especially among Cassite tribes of ancient Luristan. However, the oldest wild goat representation in Iran was discovered in Negaran Valley in Sardast region, 37 kilometers from Nahok village near Saravan back in 1999. The engraved painting of wild goat is part of an important collection of lithoglyphs dating back to 8000 BCE.
LIMA, Peru - A team of German and Peruvian archaeologists say they have discovered the oldest known monument in Peru: a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza near Peru's north-central coast.
I thought it was a joke, but according to this document from the government of California, it's true.
It will communicate wirelessly via radio. Well, it also runs on electricity. So, pull the plug or remove it's batteries.