>T. rex for sale: Dinosaur fossil on block in Vegas

>

Museums and high-rolling natural history buffs will get a crack at buying a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex next month at a Las Vegas Strip auction.

Experts say the 170 bones discovered about 17 years ago in South Dakota represent more than half the skeleton of a 40-foot-long, 7.5 ton dinosaur that lived 66 million years ago.

Auctioneer Bonhams & Butterfields is hoping that bids for the T. rex dubbed “Samson” will top $6 million when it is sold Oct. 3 at the Venetian hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

A similar T. rex fossil sold in 1997 for $8.3 million and is now housed at the Field Museum in Chicago. That dinosaur, named “Sue,” is 42 feet long and has more than 200 fossilized bones.

Tom Lindgren, a natural history specialist for Bonhams & Butterfields, said “Samson” is the third most complete T. rex skeleton ever discovered, and one of only 42 specimens discovered in the last 100 years with more than 10 percent of the bones.
“This represents the pinnacle of paleontology,” Lindgren told The Associated Press on Friday.
“Most of the major museums in the world have casts of T. rexes,” as opposed to the real thing, he said. “Bidding on this T. rex is not going to be a gamble, it’s going to be the opportunity of a lifetime to whoever gets it.”
The female dinosaur’s lower jaw was found by the son of a rancher in 1987 and the rest of its bones were excavated in 1992, Lindgren said. It was sold twice to private owners, and is now owned by an American whom Lindgren wouldn’t name.

Lindgren said most of the dinosaur’s bones have been stored in a warehouse and have never been on exhibit privately or publicly. He would not say how much its current owner invested in it, but said it is more than the $6 million to $8 million he estimates it will sell for.

Lindgren said the estimate is conservative, in part because it is already mounted on a custom steel frame designed for museum display and scientific study.

“Sue” was sold unmounted in 1997, he said. The Field Museum put it on display in 2000. Lindgren said factors that could drive down the price include the economy. He also said the owner who wants to sell the dinosaur as soon as possible, leaving potential bidders scrambling to quickly come up with the money.

Lindgren said private bidders are welcome, but he and its owners want to see “Samson” end up at a museum or scientific institution, studied further and put on public display.

via T. rex for sale: Dinosaur fossil on block in Vegas – Yahoo! News.

>US harshly rebukes Israel on settlement plans

>

Alarmed by Israeli plans to build new housing units in settlements and dimming prospects for American peace efforts, the Obama administration on Friday put out a rare and harsh public rebuke of its main Mideast ally.

The White House said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement plans were “inconsistent” with commitments the Jewish state has made previously and harmful to U.S. attempts to lay the groundwork for a resumption in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

“United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. “We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate.”

Netanyahu’s aides, speaking on condition of anonymity Friday because the plans have not been formally announced, said any Israeli settlement freeze would not halt building the new units and or block completion of some 2,500 others currently under construction. They also said the freeze would not include east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

The unusually blunt White House criticism reflected the administration’s growing frustration with Netanyahu, whose decision would approve hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before considering even a temporary freeze in construction, as President Barack Obama has requested.

The White House typically refrains from commenting on such moves until they are formally announced. But in this case, U.S. officials said they acted because Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell had already been briefed on the Israeli plans earlier in the week.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Mitchell and the Israelis had been having “a very open dialogue” in “very intense discussions.” He would not elaborate.

But one U.S. official familiar with Mitchell’s Wednesday meeting in New York with Netanyahu envoy Yitzhak Molcho and Israeli Defense Ministry chief of staff Michael Herzog said the Israelis “told Mitchell they were going to do it and he told them they could expect a sharp response.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic exchange, said the meeting had “not gone well.”

via The Associated Press: US harshly rebukes Israel on settlement plans.

>Fingerprint on Mars: High resolution image

>

This striking range of dunes and craters appears to form a giant cosmic fingerprint on the surface of the Red Planet.

Scientists believe the undulating ground reveals global climate changes that took place on Mars over the past few million years.

The area is in the Coprates region, a large trough that forms part of the Valles Marineris – a system of canyons stretching thousands of miles along Mars’ equator.

The whitish areas could be evaporites – mineral sediments left behind when salt water evaporates. Such deposits would be of great interest as they indicate potential habitats for past martian life.

via Fingerprint on Mars: High resolution images show the Red Planet as it’s never been seen before | Mail Online.

I wouldn’t want to meet the owner of that finger one a dark secluded road at 2 AM.

>Which genes make us human? + What is Uniquely Human?

>

… The best guess is that the human genetic code takes in somewhere around 24,000 genes – bits of chemical code that provide the instructions for building the proteins used in our bodies. Many of these genes are shared with other species. In fact, geneticists have found that humans and their closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, chimpanzees, hold about 96 percent of their DNA in common.

Most of the differences arise from old genes that have been copied and tweaked over time to create a larger store of genes – feeding a merry-go-round of mutations that keep the evolutionary process spinning. Biologists have long surmised that such mutations add up over time to produce different species.

In addition to our genes, there are other long stretches of DNA in the genome that don’t figure in the production of proteins. Those stretches are known as “non-coding DNA” or “junk DNA,” and every species has some. It’s only been in the last few years that scientists realized that junk DNA may not be junk at all but instead can play an essential role in our genetic workings.

Three years ago, scientists discovered that bits of non-coding DNA in fruit flies actually turned into protein-coding genes. In this week’s issue of the journal Genome Research, David Knowles and Aoife McLysaght of Trinity College Dublin say they found at least three human genes that appear to have gone through a similar conversion process.

Knowles and McLysaght found the genes by running a computerized comparison of the human and chimp genomes and checking the sections that didn’t have anywhere near a close match. They identified 644 protein-producing genes in humans that didn’t produce a corresponding hit in the chimp genome. Then they took a closer look at those sections.

In 425 cases, there were gaps in the chimp genome sequence big enough to account for the missing human gene. In 150 other cases, the researchers found a match that was missed the first time around. They looked at other species as well – eventually winnowing down their list of “uniquely human” genes to just three, known as CLLU1, C22orf45 and DNAH10OS.

That wasn’t the end of the exercise. “We needed to demonstrate that the DNA in human is really active in the gene,” McLysaght said in a news release. She and Knowles verified that the genes really did play a role in producing proteins for humans, and that the protein-producing capacity was disabled for other primates. …

via Which genes make us human? – Cosmic Log – msnbc.com.

What do you suppose genes found only in humans would be responsible for?

Music as we know it? Language complexity? The physical and psychological features that enable us to speak? Extreme creativity and innovation (intelligence)? Extreme tool making, structure building and clothes creation?  A thirst for knowledge and self improvement? The ability to destroy the planet? The ability to care about saving the planet?

>Spacecraft Could Save Earth from Asteroids

>

British space engineers working for a space company in Stevenage in England, have designed a “gravity tractor” spacecraft to deflect any asteroids threatening to collide with Earth. The announcement comes only weeks after an asteroid collision scar around the size of Earth was detected on Jupiter.

A collision with an asteroid is a rare event, but scientists believe it is inevitable that sooner or later an asteroid will come close enough to be a real threat. In fact in 2004 an asteroid called Apophis caused alarm when scientists predicted there was a 1:37 chance of it hitting Earth in 2029, which is the greatest threat in recorded history. They later revised their figures but it could still be on course to collide in 2036. The US space agency, NASA estimates there are at least 1000 “potentially hazardous asteroids.”

NASA is so concerned about the threat it has set up a monitoring program to track every space object that could be an asteroid on a collision course. They are so far tracking over 6,000 asteroids whose orbits bring them close to Earth, but there are an estimated 100,000 asteroids large enough to wipe out a city.

A collision could be catastrophic, depending on how large the asteroid is and where it hits. A direct hit to a city by even a relatively small asteroid the size of a football field, for example, could completely destroy the city and kill millions of people. Many more could be killed by tsunamis triggered by the impact, and by dust and burning material thrown up into the atmosphere after the collision.

The engineers, led by Dr Ralph Cordey, head of exploration and business at EADS Astrium, a British space company, have designed what they call a “gravity tractor”, a ten-tonne spacecraft around 100 feet long that could provide a practical way of averting a collision with Earth.

The device would be launched as soon as an asteroid was found to be on course to crash into the planet, and would fly alongside it at a distance of about 160 feet away. The craft could divert an asteroid up to 430 yards in diameter, and an impact with an asteroid this size would release around 100,000 times the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The gravity tractor is designed to draw the asteroid towards itself by exerting a small gravitational force on it. The spacecraft would then steer the asteroid away into an orbit away from Earth.

via Spacecraft Could Save Earth from Asteroids.

T-shirt: “I drive a drive gravity tractor.”

>European hand axes nearly one million years old

>

The limestone axe is the oldest ever found in Europe. …

Gary Scott and Luis Gibert of the Berkeley Geochronology Centre in Berkeley, California applied a technique called magnetostratigraphy to determine that the hatchets were in fact crafted between 760,000 and 900,000 years ago. Magnetostratigraphy is based on the periodic reversal of Earth’s magnetic field.

Tiny compasses

Acting like tiny compasses, fine-grained magnetic minerals in the tools contain a record of the polarity at the time they were used. Once buried in sediment, the polarity is preserved.

“The age (of the axes) must be Early Pleistocene, the most recent period dominated by reverse polarity, 1.78 to 0.78 million years ago,” the researchers concluded. They published their findings in the British journal Nature.

via European hand axes nearly one million years old | COSMOS magazine.

>Solar Systems Warped by Interstellar Wind

>

Close encounters with interstellar gas could have given the dust-filled disks of solar systems — where planets are thought to form — the odd shapes that some of them have taken on, a new study suggests.

Stars across the galaxy have disks of dusty debris generated by the collisions of small comet- and asteroid-like bodies orbiting each star.

Astronomers have noticed that many of these debris disks are a bit wonky-looking, with lobes of dust sticking out in odd directions. One team noticed just such an oddly-shaped disk while using the Hubble Space Telescope to investigate the composition of the dust around the star HD 32297, which lies 340 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Orion.

John Debes of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., noticed that the interior portion of this star’s dusty disk — a region comparable to the size of our own solar system — was warped in a way that was similar to other distant star systems.

Astronomers have previously attributed these warped shapes to the presence of undiscovered planets or past encounters with another star. But Debes and his colleagues used a model to show that the odd shapes aren’t likely due to one of these exotic factors, but instead are likely caused by the interstellar environment that the star and its attendant disk are moving through.

“It’s important to consider the ecology of these debris disks before running to such conclusions, and this model explains a lot of the weirdly shaped disks we see,” Debes said.

via Solar Systems Warped by Interstellar Wind | LiveScience.

>Everyone is a mutant, experts say

>A new study shows that each of us has throughout our DNA up to 200 new (mostly harmless) mutations.

Detailed in the journal Current Biology, an international team of scientist’s advanced method of DNA sequencing produced an estimate of the background rate of genetic mutation of human DNA

“The amount of data we generated was unimaginable just a few years ago,” said study lead author, Yali Xue from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England. “But finding the tiny number of mutations was more difficult than finding an ant’s egg in the emperor’s rice store.” … The researchers compared a stretch of 10 million base pairs in the DNA of two Chinese men from the same village, whom records suggested were separated by 13 generations. They found only four new mutations. From this they were able to extrapolate up to the whole genome and estimate how many of these mutations came from each generation. What they found suggests that each of has around 100 to 200 new mutations, which are tiny errors in the language of our DNA, that our parents did not have. The results are remarkably similar to an estimate made in the 1930s by British geneticist JBS Haldane, who used data on male haemophiliacs to estimate that each of us has 150 new mutations. …

“These four mutations gave us the exact mutation rate – one in 30 million nucleotides each generation – that we had expected,” said co-author Chris Tyler-Smith, also from The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. … the findings may lead to new treatments for genetic diseases and offer new insight into the process of evolution.

via Everyone is a mutant, experts say | COSMOS magazine.

>New microprocessor runs on thin air

>

There’s no shortage of ways to perform calculations without a standard electronic computer. But the latest in a long lineMovie Camera of weird computers runs calculations on nothing more than air.

The complicated nest of channels and valves (see image) made by Minsoung Rhee and Mark Burns at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, processes binary signals by sucking air out of tubes to represent a 0, or letting it back in to represent a 1.

A chain of such 1s and 0s flows through the processor’s channels, with pneumatic valves controlling the flow of the signals between channels.

Valve computer

Each pneumatic valve is operated by changing the air pressure in a small chamber below the air channel, separated from the circuit by a flexible impermeable membrane. When the lower chamber is filled with air the membrane pushes upwards and closes the valve, preventing the binary signal flowing across one of the processor’s junctions.

Sucking out the air from the chamber reopens the valve by forcing the membrane downwards, letting the signal move across the junction.

The two researchers used the valve-controlled channels to produce a variety of logic gates, flip-flops and shift registers, which they linked together to create a working 8-bit microprocessor. That means that the longest discrete pieces of data it can handle are eight binary digits long, like the processors used in 1980s consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It’s even possible to watch the pneumatic components in action, because the valve membranes reflect light strongly whenever they are forced downwards…

But the air processor is far from just being a computational curiosity, say Rhee and Burns: it has the potential to improve the “lab-on-a-chip” devices tipped to automate complex chemistry tasks and improve disease testing, DNA profiling and other lab jobs.

… These pocket-scale microfluidic devices are yet to be much practical use, say the Michigan team, perhaps because they typically require a large number of bulky and expensive off-chip components to control their operation.

Although the device still requires an off-chip vacuum source to operate, the volume of the microprocessor is so small that the required vacuum can be generated by a hand pump.

via New microprocessor runs on thin air – tech – 03 September 2009 – New Scientist.

>Scientists create chill-out music for monkeys

>

The only human music that calmed the monkeys was Metallica. Photograph: Andy Fossum/Rex Features

Monkey melodies inspired by the animals’ calls had a calming effect, hinting at how human music may have evolved

Music inspired by the soothing calls of contented monkeys relaxes the animals when it is played back to them, researchers have discovered.

Researchers composed “monkey melodies” to investigate whether non-human primates are capable of responding to music with the same emotions as people.

They found that while monkeys were left cold by human music, they reacted emotionally to tunes that incorporated features commonly heard in monkey calls, such as rising and falling tones.

Tamarin monkeys lounged around and ate more when they heard music inspired by the calming sounds the animals make when they are safe, the study found.Music based on more fearful monkey calls made the animals agitated and anxious when it was played in their enclosure. …

In the study, 14 cotton-top tamarins were played 30-second blasts of music while the researchers noted any changes in their behaviour. The animals were played Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and a soft piano piece from The Fragile by rock band Nine Inch Nails, followed by Metallica‘s Of Wolf and Man and an excerpt from The Grudge by rock band Tool.

They then heard the specially composed monkey music.

The only human music that elicited any response was the heavy metal band Metallica, whose music had the unexpected effect of calming the monkeys.

via Scientists create chill-out music for monkeys | Science | guardian.co.uk.

Here is a link to the music researcher screated that soothes a monkey.  “This sample was inspired by the calm sounds the animals make when they are safe.” Comparing the two, the background vocals on “Shape Shift” and “Earth’s gift” rise in a similar way to a safe contented monkey.