Prisoner's Dilemma

Wired reports a new approach to the classic math/logic/philosophy problem known as the Prisoner's Dilemma which was successful enough to win a competition that's long been dominated by another approach.

The legacy of the X-Prize

The BBC has an interesting article about how the Ansari X-Prize - recently given out for the development of a privately owned, reusable spacecraft - concept could be used to spur activity in other areas where scientific or technological breakthroughs are sought.

Anything helps, I suppose, but incenting researchers to find, say, a cure for cancer with prize money doesn't seem like it would add significantly to the enormous amount of time and money that's already spent pursuing that goal.

Mutant super-strength

Found at Gravity Lens - the existence of a mutant with super-strength in Germany, and the genetic/biological basis for his "superpower", which the article claims could provide a lot of insight into fighting muscle-wasting diseases like muscular dystrophy.

Although Desiree says she'd like to see a photo of the child, he's well on his way to starting his superhero career by keeping his identity a secret. Plus, as any reader of the various X-Men comics knows, there are many intolerant people who fear and hate mutants, so it's probably best for him to try to blend in and remain anonymous. [end of bad superhero jokes]

Atlantis - in Spain?

The BBC is running a report of the findings of Dr. Rainer Kuehne, a German archaeologist who has claimed to use satellite images to identify the location of the lost city of Atlantis - squarely in Spain's Donana national park.

Other researchers are skeptical, saying that "one could interpret [the findings] in various ways" and that "several leaps of faith" are required to come to the conclusion that Dr. Kuehne has found Atlantis. If permission is granted by the Spanish government to conduct an excavation in the national park, then more definitive evidence can be gathered.

Finding the Library

A Polish-Egyptian archaeology team claim to have found the Library of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately, it does appear as though it was mostly destroyed before being lost to the sands (as predicted).

Anthropology vs. Sociology

This is why anthropologists don't like sociologists...

From No Doughnuts on Sunday:
A 1998 study by Purdue University sociologist Kenneth Ferraro concluded that church members were more likely to be overweight than other people.

Ferraro analyzed public records and surveys involving more than 3,600 people. Broken down by religious groups, Southern Baptists were heaviest, while Jews, Muslims and Buddhists were less likely to be overweight.

Soooo.....being a Southern Baptist, and therefore a church goer, means you'll be heavier than people in other religions? Ok. So, we're not going to bother factoring in the fact that Jews, Muslims and Buddhists go to temples on a regular basis? Oh, and we're not going to consider the difference in the biological makeup of a southern American caucasian vs. asians or middle easterners? Or how southern American caucasians eat vs. asians or middle easterners?
Yes, I'm making generalizations that people who are Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim are mostly culturally different than your average Southern Baptist...but that's certainly getting us closer to the truth than "you go to a Southern Baptist church, you'll be fatter than someone who doesn't."

Ack! They call this a science?!

Wet Mars

One of the most compelling reasons to continue space exploration - Mars once had enough water to support life.

Devolution in Georgia

So, the entire state of Georgia is considering banning the word "evolution" from schools. They won't stop the teaching of "biological changes over time", but just want to get rid of the word....a word they are referring to as a "buzz word."

Honey (that would be Superintendent Kathy Cox), get out your dictionary. The word "evolution" is older than "buzz word". It's not a "trendy or stylish" word..it's a word and a concept that has been used by educators and professionals for a hell of a long time.

The fact that you and your backwater-hick-close minded-ultra religious-fuckhead-conservative-asshole friends and supporters think that taking away the term will take away the concept, just shows that you have no right to have any say in the education of young people. You're just teaching them to be as ignorant as you are.

Searching for ancient shipwrecks

Some interesting anthropology news for Desiree - the Canadian Institute of Archaeology and the Greek Archaeological Service are looking for the remains of a 20,000-man Persian fleet that sunk on its way to Greece in 492 BC.

Permanent lunar base and manned mission to Mars

There's not much to say about President Bush's soon-to-be-announced plan to build a permanent space station on the moon and send astronauts to Mars within 10 years, except that it's about time.

India: to the moon by 2008

India's President announced their intention to put an unmanned probe on the moon in 2007 or 2008.

The "Chandrayaan Mission" to the moon is part of India's overall plan to be a fully modernized nation by 2020, which includes objectives such as doubling their agricultural yield and developing an AIDS vaccine.

No food? No problem.

This was widely posted last week, but I still find it fascinating if it's true - the BBC reports that a fakir who claims not to eat or drink was put to the test and underwent observation in an Indian hospital for 10 days without food or water. He succeeded.

Ahh..the resurrection of a nearly dead language...

...so cool! The linguist in me just loves to come across stories like this.

Silbo Gomero is a whistling language from one of the Canary Islands. It was used to communicate over long distances...and sounds quite ingenious.

It is now required for all children on the island to study Silbo Gomero until age 14, ensuring that even if the language isn't necessarily practiced, it will not be forgotten.

Octopus Erection

I don't know whether to be disgusted or intrigued. Must have been a slow news day because the Trib decided to report on the discovery of erectile tissue in octopus's tentacles.

Ew.

John Woo flick or reality?

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for helping people who have been disfigured. Still, there's something about grafting a dead person's face on to a living patient that strikes me as somewhat disturbing.

Mars and Chile

In an interesting bit of investigative work, an international research team was able to recreate the results of a Martian soil test using Chilean sand from the Atacama desert.

The upshot is that the initial test performed by the Viking spacecraft in 1976 may have led to a "false negative" when ruling out the presence of organic material on Mars - but until we go back and run more tests, we can't know for sure.

Cloned food

On Friday (that's right, Halloween), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had a trick of its own up its sleeve - it issued a draft assessment regarding the safety of consuming "food products derived from animal clones and their offspring".

While this is just a draft and does not legalize the sale of food from cloned animals in the U.S., it does state that food from cloned animals is "likely to be as safe to eat as food from their non-clone counterparts". This telegraphs the FDA's intention to commercialize cloned food unless new information comes up or there's significant public outcry.

Promisingly, the announcement about the report does go on to say:

"Although the document being released today does not specifically address ethical issues, that fact does not mean FDA is overlooking those issues. The draft risk assessment is intended only to address the safety of food from animal clones and the risks to animal clones, and the assessment is only one part of an orderly and public process to address the many facets of the cloning issue."

While I am not against cloning per se, I would like to see issues regarding cloning debated thoroughly and thoughtfully, so I will be following this story as it develops over the coming months and years.

Wild science

A trio of articles from the BBC leaves me wondering which of the following is more outrageous - a purple frog that (until recently) no one knew existed, the possibility that Robin Hood's remains were discovered and displaced by a lead pipe 250 years ago, or the idea that a company called Archaeoptics can exist - they used lasers to detect nearly eroded carvings in Stonehenge.

Ok, I admit it...

...although the science is interesting, I'm mostly posting this link because I like the headline: 'Alien' stars invade Milky Way.

But what does it have for dessert?

The BBC News has an article about a star that was seen to flare last year (which puts the actual event at about 20,000 years ago) three times without any explanation - now it's thought that the occurances were the result of the star consuming planets. [You can add your own Galactus joke here.]

Lowenmench

Anthopologists in Germany have discovered a 30,000-year-old carving (thought to be the oldest statue in existence) of a half-man, half-lion figure. This makes it doubly interesting because it would be the oldest example of non-literal art as well.

Ancient German prehistoric site unearthed

German archaeologists have uncovered a site, presumably used for astronomical observation, that may predate Stonehenge. It has been tenatively dated as being from 5000 - 4800 B.C.

The academic interest in comics

The Charlotte Observer is running an article about a couple of recent donations to North Carolina universities - 26,000 comic books were donated to UNC's library, and 50,000 comic books were donated to Duke's library, underscoring the interest in cultural anthropology and english departments alike.

Mars snuggles up to Earth

Later this month, Mars is going to be closer to Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. Check out the night sky (if you can) around August 27th!

Rise of the machines

The BBC has an article about an MIT robot that can walk on water, Johns Hopkins is testing out a doctor robot that visits patients and China wants to put a robot on the moon by 2030.

Let's also not forget the various military applications that are being explored for robots.

Lots of interesting work in this area... especially the android stuff. With respect to the military applications, I often joke that video games are training kids for the next generation of warfare, but that's looking less and less like a joke and more like a prediction.

Astronomical paradigm shift

5,600 light years away, there is a 12.5 billion year-old planet. This shatters science's previous notions of how and when planets form and lends even more credence to the idea that there are far more planets (in far more unexpected places) than we had originally believed.

Nefertiti unearthed?

Archeologists claim that they have uncovered Nefertiti herself in a tomb in Egypt, though some are skeptical.

The description of the corpse as having a shaved head, double-pierced ears, and other trappings of royalty makes it sound as though it is a pretty significant find even if it can't be proven to be Nefertiti.

Video games are good for you

Visual skills are improved through video gaming - no, really?

Outer space for the rest of us

The BBC has a really interesting article about a privately developed and tested re-usable spacecraft that's almost ready to declare victory in the X Prize contest, which was intended to spur interest in the privatization of space travel.

Now, if only we can get a private spacecraft capable of breaking the laws of Einsteinian physics (i.e. travelling over warp 1) - then it'd take less than 8 years to reach this newly discovered nearby star.

"Laser" beams

Any predictions on how long it will take before this scientific technique is weaponized?

Cool...more Bronze Age bodies unearthed at Stonehenge

Very very cool stuff. If Dan and I make it to England this year, I hope we get to see some of the excavation.

Local anthropology

I didn't realize Illinois had such things as "state archeologists", but nonethless it's cool to see that we recently had a pretty interesting archeological find.

This makes me angry

Not a lot I can say about this other than the above. I'm embarrassed that this guy is an anthropologist. As for the professor making the Nazi reference...how convenient of you to justify your remarks and criticisms by saying the only good German was the German who said no.

You clueless, radically liberal pieces of crap.

Getting the US space program back on the horse

This article presents Wired's take on how to recover from the recent space shuttle disaster - get a real mission to Mars going, and pronto. I'm not feeling very expressive this morning, so I'll leave it at a simple "I agree".

Endless

NASA cosmologists will be announcing their findings, based on studies of background radiation, about their current understanding of the basic nature of the universe.

In summary - it will exist forever and accelerate the rate at which it expands forever. The universe, it seems, is endless (both from a space and time perspective).

That, my friends, is awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Stonehenge demystified?

Anthropologists - could this be the truth about Stonehenge?

Chicago science

Argonne National Lab and the Field Museum (both right here in Chicago) have identified that some insects "breathe" by expanding and contracting their tracheal tubes rapidly, like most mammals do with their lungs.

While this is kind of neat and could have implications for medical and evolutionary science, the tool used to verify this (called a synchotron) is a particle accelerator that excites electrons up to nearly the speed of light, generating x-rays a billion times more powerful than the conventional, check-out-your-bones-at-the-hospital varieties. It's also a kilometer in diameter.

Giant super-powered tools are cool, and not just in a Beavis and Butthead way.

Questing for the Grail

No, this isn't a gaming post. It's not even a literature or film post, although it does seem like some great fodder for a story. This, my friends, is an archaeology post.

The headquarters of the Knights Templar is Rosslyn Chapel outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. The Freemasons say that it is a masterwork, a "book created in stone"; they and others believe that the structure itself represents a puzzle or code that will unlock some of the ancient secrets that the chapel was built to protect - a collection which reputedly includes the Ark of the Covenant, in which the original stone tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were inscribed were carried down from Mount Sinai by Moses, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and subsequently caught his blood at his crucifixion - better known as the Holy Grail - and, remarkably, the mummified head of Christ himself.

Since no one has been able to unlock Rosslyn's potential mysteries, the Knights Templar are turning to modern technology - specifically, ultrasound and thermal imagery - to see if science can help them reclaim some of the artifacts of their faith.

And you thought that the most compelling thing about anthropology was Harrison Ford!

Want to live longer? Don't cheat on your wife!

Those crazy Germans did a study to show that men who cheat on their wives have a greater risk of heart attacks.

So be good boys! :)

Rainmaker technology research funded

Let me guess - I'm the only one who was reminded of the G.I. Joe cartoon miniseries about the "weather dominator" when I read about Edinburgh University's £100,000+ grant to develop a device that can create rain.

Commercial fusion in 35 years

The hydrogen in 50 cups of water, when used to fuel a fusion reaction, could provide as much energy as 4,000 pounds of coal with a minor amount of radioactive byproducts and virtually no other pollution. As Europe and Japan eye similar projects, the US Department of Energy has issued a preliminary report outlining a vision for a working fusion reactor within 35 years.

This is one of those rare projects that's worth paying taxes for.

"Principia Mathematica" stolen

The BBC is reporting that a 1st edition of Sir Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" (the book in which he describes his theory of gravity, among other physics principles for which he's famous) was stolen from a Russian library.

Information may want to be free, as the saying goes, but apparently the black market has other ideas.