From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Thu Jan 1 11:52:34 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 16:52:34 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for January 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for January 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Stone Age Art Found - Archaeologists in Russia have uncovered an "extraordinary" set of Stone Age artworks buried in buried in a series of pits at Zaraysk, an site 100 miles southeast of Moscow. The objects were carefully placed in the pits, surround by colored sand and covered with mammoth bones as a part of what scientists speculate was a hunting ritual. The object found includes the likenesses of three overlapping mammoths carved onto mammoth rib and statuettes two female figures. The objects are estimated to be 21,000-22,000-year-old. According to a quote from the published article in the December issue of the magazine Antiquities, the site easily rivals others in the area "in terms of the splendor and variety of its art." *Dinosaurs Were Empty-Headed - A new study suggests that although a Tyrannosaurus rex's head may have weighed more than 1,100 pounds much of it was filled with empty air. In fact it turns out that most dinos possessed more air cavities in their heads than scientists had previously thought. Much of this space was in the form of the same type of sinuses cavities that people have and can lead to sinus headaches and infections. "Dinosaurs likely suffered from nasty sinus infections," according to one of the authors, Lawrence Witmer. The study, published in The Anatomical Record, concluded that the heads of predatory dinosaur had large olfactory areas with an airway that extended from the nostrils to the throat, in addition to the many sinus cavities. The air spaces helped make the skull bones but still very strong. Plant-eating dinosaurs also had hollow spaces in their heads, but they were organized more as twisting passages that may have added as part of a radiator to cool the animal as it breathed. Scientists reached their conclusions by using a CT scanner to image the skulls of two planet eating and two predatory dinosaurs. *Molten Plume Leads to Massive Extinction - About 250 million years ago a massive extinction - called the Permian-Triassic - came to Earth killing about 90 percent of life on our planet. Yukio Suzuki, of the University of Tokyo, has a new theory about what caused this catastrophe. According to Suzuki it all started 15 million years earlier when a plume of super-hot material from the Earth's outer core began rising through the mantle. This disrupted the planet's magnetic field exposing the surface to a lot of cosmic radiation. The radiation broke nitrogen in the atmosphere into ions that caused clouds to cover the planet. This in turn led to a cooling of the planet and a dropping of the sea levels as ice built up on the continents. Five million years later the plumes reached the surface erupting as a series of supervolcanoes and ten million years later an even larger supervolcano was set off and the clouds from its eruption blanketed the earth leading to even further cooling of the climate and massive extinction at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Suzuki believes that one giant plume caused all these events and the extinction, though other scientists have not been persuaded that all these items are connected. *New da Vinci Sketches? - Scientists at the Louvre Museum in Paris and restoration and research experts from the Museums of France have found sketches on the back of a Leonardo da Vinci painting may have been drawn by the master artist himself. Art experts while studying the painting "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne" found several barely visible drawings on the back of it: a horse's head, a partial skull, and a sketch of the infant Jesus with a lamb. To get a better image of the drawing scientists photographed them with an infrared reflectographic camera. Experts say the style of the sketches resembles that of da Vinci, but more through examinations will need to be done before they can confirm the drawing are his.mc2 Proved Correct *Thousand of New Species Found in Mekong Delta - According to a report from the World Wildlife Fund the Mekong Delta region in South Asia is a "biological treasure trove" where more than a thousand new species have been found in a decade. Some of the new discoveries include a hot pink cyanide-producing "dragon millipede,"a spider with a foot-long legspan, and the Laotian rock rat which has been thought extinct for centuries. The rock rat was first seen a scientist visiting an outdoor restaurant who startled to see the creature among the nearby wildlife. The World Wildlife fund is extremely concerned about the Mekong Delta region as it is under pressure from development of the timber and mining industries. The river already has 150 dams along its length with another 150 planned. These may disrupt the eco system killing off species scientists don't even know exist in this unique and biologically sensitive area. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Science Quote of the Month - "The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them." ~William Lawrence Bragg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *The Case of the Humanzee - In his 2006 book NEXT the late author Michael Crichton tells the story of a scientist who crosses his own genes with a chimpanzee to create a human/ape hybrid: A Humanzee. Is such a thing possible? Has it already been done? > (http://www.unmuseum.org/humanzee.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Tension on the Surface - I often see drops of water hanging but not falling. Gravity is pulling on them, so what's holding them up? - John The effect you are referring to is known as surface tension. Surface tension is responsible for many of the strange things we see liquids do, but are so familiar we don't usually even think about them. Surface tension is caused by forces in nature that pull the tiny particles that make up substances (molecules) together. A general name for these is intermolecular forces and they are only effective at a very short range. So short that the molecules have to be practically touching for them to take effect. Intermolecular forces tend to pull molecules of the same substance together more strongly than molecules of substances of different types. This is what causes water to form into beads on a waxed surface. The wax does not attract the water molecules as much as other water molecules do, so they pull themselves together into a sphere shape which allows the most volume of water with the smallest surface area letting the water molecules to get as close to each other as they can. Because gravity is also acting on the water sphere, however, it tends to flatten out a bit forming into a bead. What does this have to do with hanging water? Let's take the example of a droplet hanging from a leaking facet. The water forms into half sphere to get as close as possible to each other. Even though the metal of the facet doesn't attract the water molecules as much as other water molecules do, there is still enough attraction to counteract gravity and keep the half sphere from falling or turning into a full sphere. As more water from the leak flows into the droplet, however, it gets bigger and heavier until it weighs so much that the surface tension of the droplet to the facet isn't enough to keep it attached. The droplet becomes elongated with less and less of the water touching the metal. As less and less of the water touches the metal the surface tension drops even more until the droplet falls free. One in the air the droplet, now free from the attraction to the facet, can form into a perfect sphere to minimize the distance between the water molecules. Rain drops, contrary to popular belief, are spheres. They only appear to be shaped with an elongated tail because that's the way our eyes see them as they zoom by us on the way to the ground. Surface tension also explains why water droplets on wax paper pull together when brought close to each other. Again the water molecules are trying to get as close to each other as they can by minimizing the outside area and maximize the volume. Surface tension also explains how a bug like the water strider can walk on the surface of a pond. The bug so light his weight is not enough to push the water molecules apart so his foot can sink in. Have a question? Click here to send it to the curator (http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Ancient Astronauts - On January 5, 1973, the NBC television network aired a TV special called, Chariots of the Gods? based on the book of the same title by Swiss author Erich Von Daniken. Von Daniken book and its sequels suggested that earth had been visited by aliens in ancient times and were often mistaken for gods. Public interest in the idea of "ancient astronauts" was strong through much of the 70's, but faded in the 1980's. Von Daniken, now age 73, has written 26 books which have been translated into more than 20 languages, and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. In 2003 he opened a theme park based on his ideas called Mystery Park located in Interlaken, Switzerland. Unfortunately it closed for lack of attendance in November of 2006. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Jupiter and Mecury Together Again - Early January will be an excellent time to see the smallest and largest planets in the solar system appearing next to each other in the night sky. Jupiter (the largest - 5th from the sun) and Mercury (smallest - next to the sun) will be visable right after sunset in the southwest sky very close to the horizon. Venus (5th in size, 2nd from the sun) will also be visible in the same direction, higher off the horizon. In brightness they range from Venus at the top of the scale to Mercury as the least brightest. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Military Plane Design Based on UFO? - UFO researcher William Louis (Bill) McDonald claims that his late friend, John Andrews, Lockheed engineer and Chief model kit designer for the Testor Corporation, had told him that many of the design elements used in secret military aircraft were learned from examining the UFO that had supposedly crashed near Roswell, NM, in 1947. Andrews in turn supposedly learned this from Ben Rich who ran the famous Lockheed "Skunk Works" project from 1975 to 1991. According to McDonald the inward canted vertical stabilizers of the F-19, the HAVE BLUE, and the SR-71 matched the 30 degree inward cant of the recovered Roswell spacecraft. McDonald decided not to release this information until Andrews had died. Rich died in 1995. With both parties dead it will be hard to confirm any part of this story. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *Nova: Arctic Passage - Ice Survivor - Explorer Roald Amundsen finally cracks the Northwest Passage. On PBS. January 13 at 8 pm. *Where's My Robot? - The documentary is based on the belief in the 1980's that by the next century personal robots would be available and be an accepted part of society. Wallace investigates why it did not become a reality and whether it will in the future. On the Science Channel. Jan 11, 9:00 pm; Jan 12, 12:00 am; Jan 13, 4:00 am; ET/PT *Robosapiens - Robots may soon be a part of every household. There will be robots with emotions, robots that speak, play sports, fight crime and help astronauts in space. Find out just how smart a machine can be made, and who will be in control. On the Science Channel. Jan 11, 8:00 pm; Jan 11, 11:00 pm; Jan 13, 3:00 am; ET/PT *Exploring Einstein: Life of a Genius - Albert Einstein's physics theories led to the creation of the nuclear bomb, space travel, and an understanding of our universe. In the later part of his life Einstein tried to disprove his theories as they clashed with his personal beliefs. On the Science Channel. Jan 15, 8:00 pm; Jan 15, 11:00 pm; Jan 16, 3:00 pm; Jan 17, 3:00 am; ET/PT *Earth's Black Hole - Explore the wonders and mysteries of the Black Holes in our universe. Is it possible that areas on earth might, in fact, show black hole like tendencies? We take a hard scientific look at an area known as the Bermuda Triangle to see if there are indeed any similarities between the supposed forces in the triangle and the destructive force of a black hole. From a research boat trip through the triangle to interviews with scientists at the US Geological Survey, Harvard University, and the UK's Cardiff University, we go far beyond the event horizon to explore the dangers in this area and what relation they might indeed have with its counterpoint in space. On The History Channel. Tuesday, January 06 08:00 PM; Wednesday, January 07 12:00 AM; Sunday, January 11 10:00 AM; ET/PT. -----------------------------------------------------------------------*LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Sun Feb 1 11:35:07 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 16:35:07 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for February 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for February 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month --------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the News: *Little Diamonds Point to Comet Explosion - Tiny diamonds are evidence that 13,000 years ago a comet exploded above North America with devastating results for human and animal populations according to a study conducted by a group of eight archaeologists and geologists from the universities of Oregon and California, Northern Arizona University, Oklahoma University and DePaul University. The "nano" diamonds were found at six North American locations in layers of sediment dating back to 12,900 years ago and were probably created in the intense heat and pressure when the comet exploded. The disaster probably sparked fires that generated choking smoke, leading "to the extinction of a large range of animals, including mammoths, across North America," the scientists said. The impact also probably melted much of a glacier that once covered the Great Lakes region, sending a massive flood down the Mississippi River. The debris in the atmosphere reduced sunlight leading to 1,300-year-long cold spell that stretched all around the entire world. *Yellowstone Earthquakes Make Some Nervous - Little earthquakes that have been occurring under the lake at Yellowstone National park have raised some concerns about the possible volcanic activity beneath. Starting on December 26th swarms of mini-quakes have been monitored by the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory and felt by staff and guests. Yellowstone sits on a "super volcano" that last erupted 642,000 years ago devastating much of North American under a blanket of ash. Though scientists think such an enormous reoccurrence in the near future is unlikely, other seismic activity is possible including an steam explosions. Scientists say that although the swarm of earthquakes is unusual, it does not mean a dangerous event is about to occur. Currently the alert code for the Yellowstone is green, but scientists are keeping a careful watch on developments in the area. (For more information on the Yellowstone Supervolcano, http://www.unmuseum.org/supervol.htm). *Mars Rovers Celebrate Anniversary - Last month the Mars rovers celebrated five years of exploring the surface of another planet. The robots, anticipated to only to last about for 90 days, have far exceeded their original expectations having returned 250,000 images and trekked over 13 miles. One of the key concerns engineers had about keeping the rovers going was that their solar panels needed to be dust free to provide power to the robot's systems. Fortunately the Martian winds have kept the panels relatively clean. Currently rover Spirit is being sent to two new sites: a mound and a house-sized pit called Goddard. Opportunity is being directed to look at a 14 mile wide impact crater named Endeavour. *Mammoths Done In by Multiple Causes - Mammoths went extinct, not because of climate change, or over hunting by humans, or an asteroid impact, argues a Russian scientist, but because off a combination of all three events. Sergey Zimov, of the Russian Academy of Science, and a team of researchers have re-created the environment around the time of the Mammoth extinction 12,000 years-ago in a 62-square-mile paddock in Siberia they call "Pleistocene Park." The padlock contains a variety of animals that used to live alongside mammoths, including reindeer, musk oxen, and moose. The researchers observed that the animals kill mosses and scrub brush allowing a nutritious grassy landscape to grow from what would otherwise be tundra. The scientists think that as long as mammoths and other creatures existed in large numbers, they were able to maintain the grasslands, even as the weather got colder. Some other factor must have added to the situation to put the animals over the edge. Most likely hunting or the asteroid impact and probably both. *Tablet Names King Tut's Father - A newly found tablet proves that the famous King Tutankhamun was fathered by Pharoah Akhenaten. "We can now say that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten," announced Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. For years historians had wondered if the reigning king was Tut's biological father or if he was the son of the minor king Smenkhkare. Hawass came across the missing part of a broken limestone tablet in a storeroom in a village on the west bank of the Nile some 150 miles south of Cairo a few months ago. When the tablet was reassembled, it became "an accurate piece of evidence that proves Tut lived in el Amarna with Akhenaten," Hawass said. The text also identifies Tutankhamun as the 'king's son of his body, Tutankhaten,' and his wife as the 'king's daughter of his body, Ankhesenaten,'" Hawass continued. The stone therefore also confirms what many researchers suspected: Tut was married his half sister. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Science Quote of the Month - "Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science." - Ralph Waldo Emerson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *The Missing Time Machine - An eccentric priest claimed he had a machine that could see into the past. Was his story folly or fancy? > http://www.unmuseum.org/chronovisor.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *FDR Assassinated?- I've read a couple of short articles about the idea that FDR was actually assassinated. Is there any evidence or proof to this? Who thought of this theory? - Thanks, Frank On April 12th, 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died at the "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia. According to the history books he had a massive cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain). What seems to have made some people suspicious of this explanation was that the President was buried with a closed casket. According to some stories not even close family members were allowed to view his body. This eventually led to two rumors. A) That he was assassinated and the body was disfigured (shot in the face with a .45 pistol) or B) that he didn't actually die, but was spirited off somewhere by people unhappy with his policies. The assassination rumor appears to have gained some popularity in the 50's when a group called the Christian Nationalist Crusade(CNC) put out a pamphlet entitled "The Roosevelt Death: A Super Mystery." In the anonymous handout (written by "Mr. X") the group suggested that FDR had been murdered (or maybe driven to suicide) by an international secret organization for whom he worked. The organization supposedly found that his accelerating illness was making him more of a liability than an asset. The CNC pamphlet alleged that this secret organization was controlled by the Jews and/or Communists. These CNC claims aren't much of a surprise, however, as the group was known to have antisemitic, racist, and anti-communist views. No real hard evidence for this story has been ever found. Another rumor was that FDR was poisoned, not shot. This story, however, would seem to undermine the one fact that might support the assassination theory: The closed casket. A closed casket would not be needed if the cause of death was poison. There seems no real reason to question Roosevelt's death given the poor state of his health. He had been struck down by polio when he was young and lived as an invalid for many years. He was also an extremely heavy smoker with emphysema, very high blood-pressure, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and angina. You can add to this more than a dozen years of stress from running the country during the Great Depression and World War II and you begin to wonder how he lived as long as he did. In fact, a prominent pathologist, Dr. Emanuel Libman, after seeing Roosevelt's image in newsreels in 1943 prophetically said, "It doesn't matter whether Roosevelt is re-elected or not, he'll die of a cerebral hemorrhage within 6 months." Libman wasn't the only one who questioned FDR's longevity. When Roosevelt ran for elections for a fourth time in 1944 many of the members of his party did not expect to see him live to the end of his term. They were so concerned that they insisted that Vice-President Henry A. Wallace (who was thought to be soft on communism) be dropped from the ticket. He was replaced by Harry Truman. Still conspiracy theories linger on. There were certainly people who might have wanted to do him harm and he had already survived an attempt on his life in 1933 while he was President-Elect. Here are some places you can check these theories out: Bill Hanson's book entitled "Closely Guarded Secrets" supports the poisoning hypothesis. You can also read an excerpt from "The Roosevelt Death: A Super Mystery" which can be found on http://www.archive.org/ Have a question? Click here http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm to send it to the curator. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New To Read: *KRONOS - Based on the legend of the Great New England Sea Serpent, Kronos is Jeremy Robinson's new deep sea thriller. Steve Alten, NY Times bestselling author of MEG, MEG - Hell's Aquarium and The Loch has described the book as "Moby Dick meets James Bond thriller with an amazing twist!" A thriller for sea monster lovers everywhere. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *An Early Champ Sighting - On February 24th, 1880, the Newport Express and Standard newspaper reported that a group of Vermont men had observed a creature in Lake Champlain "covered with scales which glistened like precious metals in the sun." Believers point to this as one of the earliest reports of "Champ" the legendary animal that lives in the depths of the lake. Over the years many people have thought that they have sighted Camp in the waters that straddles the Vermont- New York border, but so far nobody has provided uncontestable proof. Read more about "Champ" http://www.unmuseum.org/champ.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Comet Lulin - The February night sky will feature a newly discovered comet. Recently discovered Comet Lulin will be at its peak of brightness on the morning of 24th. While you probably will need a pair of binoculars to spot it, but may be visible to the naked eye in dark areas. To the observed the twin tailed comet look for the planet Jupiter in the southwest sky during the early morning hours of the 24th. The comet will be located just below it. Because of the twin tails pointing in opposite directions it may appear look more like a galaxy than a comet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Methane May Mean Life on Mars - NASA scientists have announced that they have identified several plumes of methane gas emerging from the planet Mars. The fact that methane breaks down in the Martian atmosphere rather quickly means there must be some continuing process, either biological or geological, behind its creation. "Right now, we do not have enough information to tell whether biology or geology -- or both -- is producing the methane on Mars," Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center explained. "But it does tell us the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It is as if Mars is challenging us, saying, 'Hey, find out what this means.' " As the main source of geological methane on Earth is volcanoes, and all volcanoes on Mars are extinct, they see a strong possibility that it is coming from microbes living beneath the surface of the planet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *Nova: The Spy Factory - NOVA investigates the high-tech eavesdropping carried out by the National Security Agency and the effectiveness of surveillance in an age of terrorism. On PBS. February 3 at 8 pm. *Egypt's New Tomb Revealed - A new tomb was found in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, with 28 jars and seven coffins. Discover what is sealed inside the jars and what connection the mummies in the coffins may have to King Tut's tomb. On the Science Channel. Feb 02, 8:00 pm; Feb 02, 11:00 pm; Feb 03, 3:00 pm; ET/PT *Prophets Of Science Fiction - Examine the strange lives of the visionaries of science fiction. The secrets of their uncanny ability to foretell the future are revealed. On the Science Channel. Feb 15, 8:00 pm; Feb 15, 11:00 pm; ET/PT *The Riddle of Pompeii - Explore life and society in Ancient Rome through recent archaeological excavations and cutting edge science. Discover what really happened during the eruption in AD 79 that destroyed the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On the Science Channel. Feb 16, 8:00 pm; Feb 16, 11:00 pm; ET/PT *Siberian Apocalypse - At 7:15AM on June 30, 1908, a giant fireball, as bright the Sun, explodes in the Siberian sky with a force a thousand times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. It decimates 1,000 square miles of forest--over half the size of Rhode Island, and was the biggest cosmic disaster in the history of civilization. What caused the apocalyptic fire in the sky? Over a hundred theories surround what is called the Tunguska event, varying from asteroids and comets to black holes and alien spaceships. Most scientists agree the Tunguska event will happen again, and next time, the human toll could be unimaginable. Now, NASA and other organizations race against time to stop the next planet killer before it ignites Armageddon. On The History Channel. Tuesday, February 10 08:00 PM; Wednesday, February 11 12:00 AM; ET/PT. -----------------------------------------------------------------------*LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Sat Feb 28 19:58:18 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:58:18 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for March 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for March 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Triceratops Butt Heads - Scientists believe that the dinosaur triceratops used the three horns on its head in the same way big horn sheep do today in head-to-head encounters. Andrew Farke, of the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, Calif., and a team of researchers looked at 400 skull bones from 50 different Triceratops skeletons and compared them to bones from the Centrosaurus. The triceratops showed 10 times as many gashes and healed injuries in their bony frills compared to their single horned relatives. It is unclear why the animals were fighting. In modern species where there is a competition for mates the male horns are much bigger than females, but this seems not the case for triceratops. Researchers speculate that the creature might have been fiercely territorial. Although much of the damage to the skulls were done by other triceratops, scientists still think that the horns were also used in defense against such predatory dinosaurs as T-Rex. *"Living Fossil" is a Father - Henry, the tuatara (a lizard-like creature from New Zealand) is now a dad at age 110. Tuataras, an endangered species, are the only living descendants of an order related to dinosaurs that lived some 200 million years ago. For this reason scientists at Southland Museum in New Zealand were very anxious to have Henry mate with Mildred, an 80 year-old female. This seemed unlike as Henry was a nasty, irritable fellow who didn't seem to get along with other tuataras. About six years ago, however, veterinarians noticed a lump in Henry's nether regions was a cancerous tumor. It was removed and Henry's attitude improved. In July Mildred gave birth to 11 eggs, the last of which just successfully hatched last month. "Eleven out of eleven," said curator Lindsay Hazley. "Bloody brilliant. We had a champagne breakfast to celebrate." It is hopefully that Henry, who may live to 200, will soon show an interest in one of the other three females with whom he now lives. *Monster Snake Bigger than Hollywood Fantasies - Scientists in Colombia have found the remains of prehistoric snake believed to be largest ever to have lived on the Earth. Titanoboa cerrejonensis would have weighed 2,500 pounds, (1140 kilograms) and measured over 42 feet in length (13 meters) when it was alive around 59 million-years ago. Geologist David Polly, who assisted with the size estimate, said "At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips. The size is pretty amazing." Because the snake would have been cold-blooded and relied on the temperature of the environment it lived in for warmth, scientists estimate the earth had to be around 10 degrees warmer than it is today, an average of 91 degrees Fahrenheit, to support such an enormous body. According to Jonathan Bloch, who co-led the expedition, "Truly enormous snakes really spark people's imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood. The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie 'Anaconda' was not as big as the one we found." *Baby Chimps' IQ Higher than Humans - Orphaned baby chimps given attentive, nurturing care from human surrogate mothers did better than human babies at IQ tests. In a study published in the latest issue of Developmental Psychobiology researchers used two groups of baby chimps and gave them either standard care (food and health care) while the other got the same plus social and emotional nurturing from the human caretakers. At the age of nine months both groups were given IQ tests similar to that used for human children. The group with the extra care score better than those with standard care and better than the average for human babies at the same age. Scientists will continue to monitor the group of apes, but say it may be hard to judge at what age the average human intelligence finally exceeds that of the apes because of the different way each species interacts with their environment. *New Da Vinci Portrait Found - A portrait showing Leonardo da Vinci in middle age has been discovered in the private collection of an aristocratic family from Acerenza. Experts believe it may be a self-portrait based on an inscription written in the typical Leonardo's reverse handwriting which reads 'Pinxit mea.' The picture shows a man different than his usual depictions having long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Researchers think that the painting was a gift to a powerful Florentine family, the Segnis, that lived in Acerenza around the 16th century. The only other known work da Vinci did of himself was "Self Portrait in Red Chalk" which portrays the artist as an old bearded man with a slightly aquiline nose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men." - Jean Rostand -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Big Snakes - What's the largest snake in the world? Well, it was once Titanoboa cerrejonensis, a 45 foot long, 3 foot wide, monster. > (http://www.unmuseum.org/bigsnake.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Have Laser Gun, Will Travel - Hey, you know laser guns? Could they even exist? - J. Smith Laser guns have long been a popular device used in Science Fiction literature. Probably the first story to describe something that appears to be laser cannon was H.G. Well's heat-ray from the 1898 book War of the Worlds. When actual lasers first became available in the early 1960's weapons seemed like a natural application. Several Sci-fi TV shows from the period including Lost in Space and the pilot for Star Trek, featured characters using laser pistols. The problem that real weapons designers soon found themselves confronted with was the how much energy was needed to power such a weapon. A laser capable of projecting enough energy to due significant damage could not be powered with battery small enough to be carried by a man. The same was true for more powerful laser cannons that might be mounted on a truck or a tank. The power source was too heavy to really make the weapon easily mobile, especially if you consider a laser's effectiveness when compared to more conventional and cheaper rockets, bullets or bombs. Even so lasers have become a major part of the military's inventory. Usually they are used to guide missiles or bombs to their targets. The target is "painted" with a laser beam by an observer and the bomb or missile then flies to the laser light reflected off the target. The military hasn't given up on using laser for more than just guiding weapons, however. Currently there is joint development program by the U.S. and Israel on a device known as the Tactical High-Energy Laser or THEL. THEL is designed to knock out airborne weapons from a fixed location or mobile platform (like a truck or tank). Critics argue that counter measures, such as equipping the target with a mirror-like surface to reflect the laser, will make the system ineffective. The U.S. Air Force is also experimenting with a plane based chemical laser system that would vaporize a ground target. This might be more advantageous in some situation than using a missile or bomb as it avoids damage to the places immediately adjacent to the target. Lasers may actually turn out to be more useful in the end as non-lethal weapons. The U.S. military has been working on a low powered laser gun that could be carried by a man that would temporary blind his opponents. Have a question? Click here (http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm) to send it to the curator. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Early Airship Report - The earliest known report of an "airship" appears in the March 29, 1880 issue of the Santa Fe Weekly New Mexican. The article reports that on the evening of the 26th several people at Galisteo Junction saw a large balloon carrying passengers headed for New York City. Though this newspaper story was likely a hoax, it anticipated hundreds of stories that would appear in newspapers across the United States in a few decades as people reported seeing an airship as a part of the great flap of 1896 -1897. Though often connected with later UFO and alien stories, these reports actually involved dirigibles with human pilots and crew. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Check out Saturn - This month might be a good time to observe Saturn. The ringed planet is currently in opposition - that means it's directly on the opposite side of Earth from Sun - and will be visible in the constellation Leo all night long. It is also the brightest it will appear this year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Study Predicts Earth-Like Civilizations - A study published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology researchers using computer model created a virtual galaxy with billions of stars and planets and concluded our Milky Way may hosted between 361 38,000 intelligent civilizations. Duncan Forgan, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study, said "I half-expected these events to disallow the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish." Forgan admits the results are an educated guess, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth that could effect their calculations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *Hudson Plane Crash - Inside story of Flight 1589. How does a plane lose both engines over a city, and crash lands without a single death? New footage and exclusive interviews with crew, survivors, and rescuers tell the amazing story of survival. On Discovery Channel. Mar 04, 10:00 pm; Mar 05, 2:00 am; Mar 08, 11:00 am. *Mysterious Hanging Coffins of China - China's leading explorers have been trying to save the last vestiges of a society that buried their dead in coffins hanging off the side of limestone cliffs. Pollution, encroaching urbanization and graverobbers threaten to destroy these artifacts. On the Science Channel. Mar 09, 10:00 pm; Mar 10, 1:00 am; Mar 10, 5:00 pm; Mar 11, 5:00 am; ET/PT *What Time Is It? - There is an aspect of our daily lives that is so familiar, it gives a rhythm to the world around us. Prof Brian Cox once again pushes scientific knowledge to the limits of our imagination to ask "What time is it?" On the Science Channel. Mar 01, 9:00 pm; Mar 02, 12:00 am; Mar 03, 4:00 am; ET/PT *Quest for the Goblin Shark - A team of scientists search Tokyo Submarine Canyon,1,000 meters deep and 40 kilometers long, for the Goblin Shark. An illusive ancient creature that has never been caught on camera. This fearsome species has been in the ocean for a hundred milllion years! On the Science Channel. Mar 08, 9:00 pm; Mar 09, 12:00 am; Mar 10, 4:00 am; ET/PT *Seven Signs of the Apocalypse - The Seven Signs are clear: We will be struck by deadly plagues, famines and earthquakes... The sky will turn dark and oceans will turn to blood... And the antichrist will emerge to fight the final battle between good and evil. Could this all be true? Experts decode this powerful prophecy and come to a startling conclusion: there is now scientific evidence that many of these catastrophes could, in fact, be occurring. On The History Channel. Sunday, March 01 10:00 PM; Monday, March 02 02:00 AM; ET/PT. *Ancient Aliens - What if life on Earth began in outer space? Millions of people accept the theory that intelligent life forms visited Earth thousands of years ago and were worshiped as gods by primitive man. Are monuments like Stonehenge and Easter Island the last remains of an ancient alien visitation? On The History Channel. Sunday, March 08 08:00 PM; Monday, March 09 12:00 AM; Saturday, March 14 08:00 PM; Sunday, March 15 12:00 AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Wed Apr 1 08:32:36 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 12:32:36 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for April 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for April 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *NASA Telescope Look's for ET Homes - NASA Telescope Look's for ET Homes - NASA has launched its Kepler spacecraft in a bid to find "Earth-like" planets orbiting stars in our end of the Milky Way galaxy. The telescope will orbit the sun will monitoring some 100,000 stars for the tiny changes in brightness that signal a planet passing in front of it. Scientists will then use information gathered to calculate the size and orbit of the planet and deduce if it could support life. Scientists have discovered 330 "exoplanets" using this method with ground based telescopes. All of these found are though not to be able to support life as they are much bigger that Earth and closer to their stars. The Kepler spacecraft will observe many more stars and be able to look for smaller changes in brightness which will help identify smaller, more Earth-like planets. Scientists hope that by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission - they will have a good idea on whether life in the universe could be widespread. *Dinosaurs on the Way Back to Life - Scientists, led by Jack Horner, a professor of paleontology at Montana State University and curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, are working on a scheme straight out of Jurassic Park: to create a living dinosaur. Unlike the movie, where they used DNA from mosquitoes that had bitten dinos and got trapped in amber, Horner thinks he can use the DNA from living birds, like chickens. "Birds are dinosaurs, so technically we're making a dinosaur out of a dinosaur," said Horner. Horner and other scientists think that dinosaur characteristics are buried in chicken DNA. By changing the levels of regulatory proteins that control the expression of these genes they can restore to the animal dino characteristics like teeth, a tail, scales and claws. The result would not be so much a dinosaur of any particular species, but a kind of dino-chicken. Horner describes the process in his new book How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever due out in May. *Oldest Evidence of Upright Walking - Oldest Researchers revealed the evidence of a modern stride in humans dating back to over a million years. The footprints, estimated to be 1.52 million years old, were discovered at Ileret, Kenya, according to a report in the journal Science. The prints show a large toe parallel to the other toes, indicating a modern upright stride likely to have been made by the early hominids Homo ergaster or Homo erectus. Scientists are aware of older footprints, dating from around 3.6 million years ago attributed to Australopithecus afarensis. Those prints show an upright posture and a shallow arch with an ape-like, divergent big toe. *Dead Sea Scroll Authors - The Essenes - Did Not Exist - Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, argues that the long-thought authors of the dead sea scrolls, a group called the Essenes, ever existed. Elior claims that they were the invention of the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus who wanted to impress the Romans that "the Jews weren't all losers and traitors?" according to Elior. "He was probably inspired by the Spartans. For the Romans, the Spartans were the highest ideal of human behavior, and Josephus wanted to portray Jews who were like the Spartans in their ideals and high virtue." As evidence of her claim she notes that nowhere in the scrolls do the authors refer to themselves as the Essenes nor are them mentioned in other texts of the period. She believes the scrolls were authored by renegade sons of Zadok, a priestly caste banished from the Temple of Jerusalem in 2nd century B.C. Other scholars disagree arguing that the term Essenes is actually foreign in origin and in the document they call themselves by term such as 'men of holiness.' *Smallest North American Dino Found - Hesperonychus elizabethae, a 4.4-pound (2-kilogram) creature with razor-like claws that lived 75 million years ago has been identified as the smallest dinosaur known to have lived in North America. Nick Longrich, a paleontology research associate in the University of Calgary's Department of Biological Sciences found the dinosaur not by digging in the field, but by digging in the University of Alberta's collection of unstudied bones. The fossils were found in 1982 and were thought at the time to be a juvenile of a known species. Longrich noticed that the hip bones were fused, which only happens after an animal reaches adulthood. Longrich and Philip Currie, a collaborator, determined that Hesperonychus, whose name means "western claw," stood about 1.6 feet (50 centimeters) high. The dinosaur ran on two legs and had dagger-like teeth and an enlarged sickle-shaped claw on its second toe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.." - Albert Einstein -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Curators Notes: Magic & Teaching- Can a book about the history of magic tell us something about education? (http://www.unmuseum.org/notescurator/magicteaching.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read : *Zebop Finds a Friend - Join the author of "The Bunny Stories" from our own Children's Reading Room (http://www.unmuseum.org/crr/index.htm) for this first book in the new series: "The Martian Who Looked Like a Dog." Would you travel 36 Million miles to find a friend? Zebop the last Martian did. But will anybody on Earth want to be the friend to a fuzzy alien? Ages 6 - 8. At Amazon.com or on sale at our own Museum of UnNatural Mystery Press page (http://www.unmuseum.org/press/index.htm). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *The Death of Bruce Lee - Was Bruce Lee Assassinated? - Ashiva The demise of movie star/martial arts expert /cultural icon Bruce Lee in 1973, at 32 years of age, has inspired more conspiracy theories than almost any other death in modern times. The list possible culprits include: Kung Fu traditionalists - They resented Lee's open portrayal of their sect's secret arts on the screen. Rival Hong Kong filmmakers - They wanted to eliminate the competition. Japanese Ninjas - Who were angry about how the Japanese were portrayed in Lee's films. The Triad (Chinese "Mafia") - They had him killed because he did not bow to their extortion claims on his motion picture salary. American Mafia - Lee refused their offer to be made an American movie star choosing instead to return to Hong Kong. An unnamed prostitute - Lee had taken a powerful aphrodisiac which had caused him to become very violent. The prostitute, fearing for her life, hit him over the head with a glass ashtray. Vengeful spirit - The Lee family was cursed and this accounted for his death and the death of his son, Brandon Lee (Brandon Lee was killed in an accident involving a gun on a set in 1993 while filming the movie "Crow"). Of course, not all of these can be true and it is likely that not any of them are true. However, there are some strange circumstances surrounding his death that have allowed these rumors to flourish: The first indication that not all was well with Lee occurred on when the actor collapsed at Golden Harvest studios in Hong Kong on May 10th of 1973. He was rushed to the hospital were doctors determined he had cerebral edema - swelling of the brain. He was successfully treated at the hospital and released. Over two months later on July 20 he was again in Hong Kong visiting the apartment of actress Betty Ting to go over a script when he felt ill. Ting gave him a tablet of Equagesic (a combination aspirin and muscle relaxant) and he lay down for a nap. Later on Ting and producer Raymond Chow were unable to wake him and called a doctor. The doctor examined him but was unable to help him and he died. The body was sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The autopsy showed that Lee had died from a cerebral edema similar to the one he had experienced back in May. The official report called it "death by misadventure." The only foreign substance found in Lee's body was the Equagesic and trace amounts of cannabis in his stomach. It seems likely that Lee's brain had swollen because of a rare allergic reaction to some substance. However, there was no evidence that Lee had taken Equagesic before the May incident and the amount of cannabis is his system seemed far too small for that to be the cause. Most doctors who reviewed the case, however, feel that he most have died of a hypersensitivity to the Equagesic, or the cannabis, or some combination of the two. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that someone murdered Lee by giving him some substance that caused the swelling. They contend that the poison either did not show up on the toxicology tests used or officials were bribed to suppress the evidence. No real proof of any murder conspiracy has ever surfaced and the death remains a sad end to a promising life. Lee, at age 32, was incredibly popular at the time of his death and many of his fans refused to believe Lee - who many considered the fittest man on the planet at the time - was dead. Others blame his death on over training, though there is also no evidence of this either. Have a question? Click here to send it to the curator (http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Death of Dr. J. Allen Hynek - April marks the anniversary of the death of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a scientist and early UFO investigator. Hynek, an astronomer, got involved with UFO's in the 1940's when he was included as a part of the team of Air Force investigators looking into flying saucers. At first Hynek was unimpressed with the cases they investigated. In 1966 his observation that a much publicized UFO sighting in Michigan might have been caused by "swamp gas" was widely ridiculed. Later on though, Hynek reversed his stand saying that at least some sub-set of UFO reports were worthy of scientific investigation. He later helped found the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). Dr. Hynek died of a brain tumor in 1986. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *See If You Can Catch Mercury - If you have haven't ever seen the first planet from the sun, this month could be your chance. Mercury will be visible just after sunset in the west-northwest sky this month. Mercury's greatest elongation - which means its farthest separation from the Sun when viewed from Earth - occurs on April 25. It should be easiest to see that night. The moon should be visible between Mercury and the horizon that evening too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *British Release "Dog Walker" UFO Report - The British National Archives released records of 1,200 UFO sightings last month including one were a woman walking her dog claims she met an extra-terrestrial. According to the report in 1989 the woman was approached by a man with a "Scandinavian-type accent" dressed in a flying suit-style suit near Norwich, eastern England. The witness, who was "completely terrified" during the 10-minute encounter, ran home from where she saw a large glowing object rise vertically from behind some nearby trees and disappear. A note on in file of the incident describes it as "one of our more unusual UFO reports." In another report in the files witnesses claimed to have seen the large diamond-shaped object hanging in the air for about 10 minutes before it shot away vertically at high speed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *The DaVinci Shroud - The Turin Shroud is the world?s most famous religious relic, believers think it once wrapped the crucified body of Jesus Christ, but is the shroud a fake? Could it be the work of Leonardo Da Vinci - the greatest artist of all time?. On Discovery Channel. Apr 06, 9:00 pm; Apr 07, 12:00 am. ET/PT. *Treasure Quest: The Curse of the Black Swan - Part of the Treasure Quest series: Odyssey recovers an estimated half billion dollars worth of silver and gold coins. Spain believes it's from a 19th-century Spanish frigate and demands it back. Part legal battle, part high seas drama -- who will gain final possession of the treasure? On Discovery Channel. Apr 02, 10:00 pm; Apr 03, 1:00 am; Apr 04, 2:00 pm; ET/PT *America's Lost H-Bomb - A deadly threat lurks just a few miles off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. A thermo-nuclear weapon is ejected and lost during a war game between U.S. bombers and fighters. Can U.S. military experts retrieve the weapon before someone else tries to? On the Science Channel. Apr 02, 8:00 pm; Apr 02, 11:00 pm; Apr 03, 3:00 pm; Apr 04, 3:00 am; ET/PT *Last Mysteries of the Titanic - Academy Award winner James Cameron leads a film team of underwater explorers on a series of historic dives to document the innermost spaces of the world's most famous shipwreck. The team will use four mini-robots and a seafloor-to-satellite data system. On the Science Channel. Apr 05, 8:00 pm; Apr 05, 11:00 pm; Apr 07, 3:00 am; ET/PT *Death of Loch Ness Monster- The search for the Loch Ness Monster has captivated the world for decades, but now a startling realization about "Nessie" might shatter this age-old myth. Could the Loch Ness Monster be dead, and do its remains lie hidden at the bottom of the lake? Robert Rines, a world renowned inventor, believes he may have seen the remains of this mythical beast and is on a mission to find evidence to prove it. Rines, who believes he saw the creature surface in the lake in 1972, caught sonar images of the monster's remains. He believes Nessie's death may explain the decrease of sightings in recent years. Our search team looks for evidence and deploys the latest technology including remote operating vehicles (ROVs) and sonar and underwater cameras as it goes on the ultimate search for Nessie's remains.. On The History Channel. Wednesday, April 08 09:00 PM; Thursday, April 09 01:00 AM; ET/PT. *Ancient Aliens - What if life on Earth began in outer space? Millions of people accept the theory that intelligent life forms visited Earth thousands of years ago and were worshiped as gods by primitive man. Are monuments like Stonehenge and Easter Island the last remains of an ancient alien visitation? From unexplainable super structures, to knowledge of the solar system, mathematics, and even the ability to make electricity, this special explores evidence of super-human influences on ancient man and embarks on an around-the-world search for answers. It's an investigation into a theory some believe cannot be true, but many agree cannot be ignored. On The History Channel. Sunday, April 12 08:00 PM; Monday, April 13 12:00 AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Fri May 1 19:54:08 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 23:54:08 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for May 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for May 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Drying Salt Lakes May have Caused Extinction - Many theories have been put forth for the end-Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago when nearly 90 percent of life on Earth died. Ludwig Weissflog of the UFZ-Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany and a team of researchers have come up with a new one: evaporating great Salt Lakes. The scientists measured gases coming from the Kara-Bogaz-Gol salt flats and found huge amounts of halogenated hydrocarbons like chloroform and trichloroethylene that are known to be poisonous and can damage the Earth's ozone layer. The theory is that very dry conditions 230 million years ago caused many salt lakes to dry out and release these chemicals into the air. This, it turn, killed most of the plants on the earth. Without plants, most of the animals died too. Co-author Kastern Kotte of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry admits that the theory is still circumstantial, but the group plans to continue testing and have built a more substantial case "within a year or two." *"Drowned" Spiders Comes Back to Life - Scientists have discovered that certain types salt marsh-dwelling spiders can survive being "drowned" for up to 40 hours and still revive. Julien Petillon, a scientist at the University of Rennes in France, wanted to see how long the salt marsh-dwelling wolf spider could survive underwater, so he submerged some in his laboratory. All stopped moving after 24 hours. After he dried them out, however, he was amazed to see some come back to life. While many spiders survive flooding by climbing up nearby vegetation, the wolf spider is the first known to go into a coma to survive high-water. *Researchers Search for Cleopatra and Antony Tombs - Scientists in Egypt started work this month looking for the tombs of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The location of the lovers' remains have been unknown since they committed suicide after their army was defeated in the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.. The famous queen of Egypt and the Roman general might be buried in a deep shaft in a temple near the Mediterranean Sea, according to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Teams from Egypt and the Dominican Republic have been excavating the temple for the last three years and have found a number of deep shafts inside the temple, three of which might have been used for burials. Archaeologists have already found the alabaster head of a Cleopatra statue, 22 coins bearing Cleopatra's image, and a mask believed to belong to Mark Antony at the site. *Long-necked Stegosaur Found - Scientists were surprised to discover the remains of a Stegosaur with one of the longest necks ever recorded for a dinosaur. Stegosaurs have always been thought of as squat animals with short legs, a short neck and a row of plates and spines running down the back, but Miragaia longicollum, meaning "long-necked wonderful goddess of the Earth," had more neck vertebrae than almost any other dinosaur. The creature was found in Portugal and lived between 144 and 159 million years ago. "Contrary to other stegosaur dinosaurs, Miragaia longicollum had a long neck with 17 vertebrae, which is as much as long-necked sauropod dinosaurs," said Mateus, a paleontologist at the Universidade Nova da Lisboa in Portugal. *Knights Templars Guarded Shroud - Scholars think that they have pieced together where the Shroud of Turin was during a period between 1204 A.D. and 1351 when it mysteriously disappeared from the history books. The shroud, which believers think covered the body of Christ, was apparently in the possession of the Knights Templar during those years. The Templars were a powerful, wealthy and secretive medieval order formed to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, though later the group was accused of heresy and disbanded. The evidence for the connection of the Knights Templars with the shroud comes from Barbara Frale, a scholar at the Vatican Secret Archives. According to Frale, newly found archival documents reveal "missing clues" to the fate of the Shroud during those years. "The new evidence comes from the account of a Templar initiation rite in 1287 of a young Frenchman, Arnaut Sabbatier. He testified that he was taken to a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access. There, he was shown a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man, and was told to kiss the feet of the image three times," Frale said. The description of the linen cloth seems to match that of the shroud. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it." - Niels Henrik David Bohr -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Project Blue Book: The U.S. Air Force Verses the Flying Saucers - After investigating over 12,600 incidents the military's 22 year-long effort to crack the mystery of UFOs ended with anger, suspicion and claims of a cover up. > (http://www.unmuseum.org/bluebook.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read : *Cardboard Submarine - When Mike, Melissa and Hector ordered a submarine from an ad on the back for a comic book, they got less, and more than the expected. Robots, flying saucers, space aliens, sunken treasure and pirate looters were in the package too! Fiction Ages 8 - 13. At Amazon.com or on sale at our own Museum of UnNatural Mystery Press page (http://www.unmuseum.org/press/index.htm). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Geostationary Satellites - Is it true that for a satellite to hold the same position over the earth it can only be over the equator? - John The type of satellite you are talking about is called a geostationary satellite and the idea for it was first proposed by Herman Potonik, a Slovenen rocket engineer, in 1928. Most people connect the idea, however, with famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke (http://www.unmuseum.org/notescurator/b3clarke.htm). Clarke wrote an article about the idea for Wireless World in 1945. The speed with which a satellite in orbit circles the Earth is dependent upon how high above the Earth's surface it is. Objects in low Earth orbit circle the globe much faster than those in higher orbits. For example, the space shuttle orbits the earth at a height of between 115 and 380 miles and will circle the Earth about 16 times in a 24 hour period. If an object is placed in orbit at a much higher level, say 22,300 miles, it will circle the globe only once in a 24 hour period. This makes it the object a geosynchronous satellite orbiting at the same rate the planet turns. However, unless the satellite is also in an orbit over the Earth's equator, it will appear to move back and forth in the sky along a north to south line during the course of the day. To be a geostationary satellite the object needs to be in a circular orbit directly over the equator at the height of 22,300 miles (This is sometimes refered to as the "Clarke orbit"). Only then will it appear to be fixed in a single location in the sky. There are many uses for geostationary satellites including communications (for example, the dish television broadcast satillite I get my TV on) and weather observation. Since they do not move in the sky, geostationary satellites allow receivers on the ground to use a simple fixed antennal to point to them and pickup broadcasts. Because the satellites are over Earth's equator, however, any northern hemisphere location wishing to point an antenna at them must have a clear view of the southern sky. The opposite is true in the southern hemisphere. Have a question? Click (http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm) to send it to the curator. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Wildman in China - On May 14, 1976, 6 Chinese bureaucrats driving home spotted a strange "tailless creature with reddish fur" on a rural highway near Chunshuya. The creature tried to escape up an embankment alongside the road, but fell and was nearly hit by the bureaucrats' jeep. The passengers got out and surrounded the creature, but after a few moments decided that they should let the creature move off. It successfully climbed up the embankment and escaped. The group described the animal as being covered in thick, wavy brown and purple hair with a flat belly and pronounced buttocks. Some claim the creature was a "Chinese Wildman" - the equivalent of America's Bigfoot. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Find Planet Neptune - This is a project only for readers with a small telescope or good binoculars. From mid-May, Neptune will be just one degree from Jupiter, making it a much easier to find. The best night to try may be May 15th when the two will be in less than a degree apart in the sky. First find Jupiter (it will be the brightest object up there) in the southern sky. Just to the left is the star Mu Capricorni and then Neptune will be the bluish dot to the left and a little above. Each day Jupiter heads a bit closer to Neptune, passing Mu Capricorni on May 20. By the 27th, Jupiter will be directly below Neptune. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Astronaut Believes in UFO - Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell addressing the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference (a meeting of UFO activists and researchers) said, "?we really have evidence. No, we're not alone." Mitchell went on to explain how he had grown up in the Roswell, NM, area and had heard stories about the UFO crash that had allegedly occurred there in 1948. People there, after being warned to keep quiet by the government, he said,"?didn't want to go to the grave with their story. They wanted to tell somebody reliable. And being a local boy and having been to the moon, they considered me reliable enough to whisper in my ear their particular story." Mitchell also said that an Admiral at the Pentagon had once confirmed to him that the stories of a UFO crash at Roswell were real. Now, contends Mitchell, that same Admiral denies the story. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Cracking the Maya Code - The story behind the centuries-long decipherment of ancient Maya hieroglyphs On PBS. Tuesday, May 5 at 8 pm ET/PT. *Yellowstone: Battle for Life - Follow a year in the life of three charismatic wild characters, whose dramatic lives and fortunes are interwoven in Yellowstone, one of the world's last and most spectacular wildernesses. On Discovery Channel. May 03, 9:00 pm; May 04, 12:00 am; ET/PT *Quest for the Goblin Shark - A team of scientists search Tokyo Submarine Canyon,1,000 meters deep and 40 kilometers long, for the Goblin Shark. An illusive ancient creature that has never been caught on camera. This fearsome species has been in the ocean for a hundred milllion years! On the Science Channel. May 10, 5:00 pm; ET/PT *The Ends of the Universe: Hubble's Final Chapter - Hubble has revolutionized our science of the cosmos.It has become a global superstar and a household name. But after years without maintenance the telescope is desperate for help.Now, a massive final mission is underway to repair it for the very last time On the Science Channel. May 11, 8:00 pm; May 11, 11:00 pm; May 12, 4:00 pm; May 13, 3:00 am; ET/PT *The Real Superhumans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic- This groundbreaking, feature-length documentary reveals the amazing stories of real people with extraordinary super powers.. On The Science Channel. May 09, 8:00 pm; May 09, 11:00 pm; May 11, 3:00 am; ET/PT. *Ancient Aliens - What if life on Earth began in outer space? Millions of people accept the theory that intelligent life forms visited Earth thousands of years ago and were worshiped as gods by primitive man. Are monuments like Stonehenge and Easter Island the last remains of an ancient alien visitation? From unexplainable super structures, to knowledge of the solar system, mathematics, and even the ability to make electricity, this special explores evidence of super-human influences on ancient man and embarks on an around-the-world search for answers. It's an investigation into a theory some believe cannot be true, but many agree cannot be ignored. On The History Channel. Saturday, May 09 08:00 PM; Sunday, May 10 12:00 AM AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Mon Jun 1 19:06:01 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 23:06:01 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for June 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for June 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Venom or Toxic Bacteria? - For years scientists thought that the Komodo Dragon did not poison its victims, but that its fearsome bite infected the animal with septic bacteria that slowly weakened and killed it. A recent study by led by Dr. Bryan Fry from the University of Melbourne, however, showed that the Dragon does have venomous glands in its mouth. The venom keeps the victim's blood from clotting at the wound leading to a drop in blood pressure. The loss of blood and the lower the blood pressure weaken the animal and cause it to eventually stop moving so the giant lizard can safely approach and finish it. Fry believes that this specialized bite and venom shortens the contact the dragon has with its victim allowing it to take much larger prey than might otherwise be expected. *Cat-sized Primate Significant Fossil - According to an international team of scientists a 47-million-year-old primate fossil the size ancient "small cat" may be a highly significant clue in the evolution of man. The fossil, dubbed "Ida," lived about the time primates split into two groups: the line that would produce humans and monkeys, and the line which would become primates like lemurs. "This is the most complete primate fossil before human burial," stated Dr. Jorn Hurum, of the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, who led the study of the bones. "And it's not a few million years old; it's 47 million years old." The fossil was found in 1983 in the Messel Pit, near Frankfurt, Germany, but, because it had been broken into two sections, its importance was not immediately recognized. According to Hurum he nicknamed the fossil after his young daughter, Ida . The fossil was officially named Darwinius masillae, in honor of the anniversary of evolutionary scientists Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. *Island "Hobbits" New Species - Scientists have been bitterly arguing over whether tiny human remains found on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 --Homo floresiensis -- is a new species or just regular old homosapians who suffered from some disease that made them small. A recent study in the British journal Nature supports the idea that the small hominids were actually a new species. The researchers by analyzing the hobbit's foot showed that it has both human and chimp-like components. This suggest to the authors "that the ancestor of H. floresiensis was not Homo erectus but instead some other, more primitive, hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented." *Meteorite Hit Created Dangerous Gas - Recent experiments by the Yasuhito Sekine of the University of Tokyo and a team of researchers has shown that the giant asteroid slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago not only vaporized rock and ocean water and left a smoldering crater in the Earth almost 75 miles wide, but likely generated huge amounts of carbon monoxide. The sudden spike in the gas may have been enough to cause a large rise in global temperatures, and trigger the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs. The researchers simulated the impact by firing small pieces of metal into samples of calcite, commonly found in the shallow seas of the Cretaceous period. The tests vaporized the samples, producing about twice as much carbon monoxide (CO) as carbon dioxide (CO2). *DNA Could Tell if Lincoln was Already Dying - The board of a small Philadelphia museum denied a request from a historical researcher that might have proved Abraham Lincoln was dying of cancer when he was assassinated. The Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library decided not to loan Dr. John Sotos a scrap of a pillow that was soaked with the dying 16th President's blood. Sotos thinks that DNA from the strip could determine if Lincoln suffered from a rare genetic disease called multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B. If the President did have the disease it could explain his long limbs, bumps on his lips and problems with constipation. It would also certainly mean that Lincoln was dying of thyroid cancer. Board members opposed the doctor's request, fearing that removing even a few strands of thread for DNA testing would damage the relic. Sotos thinks that the information gained, however, would give insight into the President's thinking. "He probably knew something was horribly wrong. If Lincoln was dying, certainly he recognized it because he was a smart and observant man ... but he would not have told a soul." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it." ~Albert Einstein -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Relaunch: Science Today- Our page of breaking science news stories gets an update with more news categories and articles! Check it out: > (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/scitoday.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Using Magnets for Traveling Through Space - I'm wondering if it's possible to use the principles of magnetism for travel (besides Maglev). For example, could a ship with a highly focused electromagnet aim and pull itself to a planet's magnetic field, or to the heavy metal core of an asteroid? Could this same idea be used to create a flying car, by pushing or pulling off more than one point at the same time? Thanks - Maxwell While magnets and magnetic forces are very important in present and future transportation designs, the type of arrangement you suggest - focusing a magnetic field toward a distant object to pull yourself toward it seems an unlikely mechanism to be used. The problem is that magnetic fields lose their strength very quickly over long distances. So if you attempted to build a ship using this principal to pull yourself toward to a distant object you would need an impractically large magnetic field requiring a tremendous amount of energy. You would also have the problem that your engine would be attracting every piece of ferrite material (those attracted to a magnet) within miles -the wrenches in you tool kit, you belt buckle, other ships near you etc... You vessel would soon be covered with loose ferrite objects. A train using Maglev does not have this same difficulty. The train uses magnetism to float just above its rails (often less than an inch) so that distance is not a problem. By changing the poles on the magnets involved the train can be not only pushed upward by the magnetic field but also down the track to give the vehicle forward speed. A magnetic flying car might be workable, but only if it was levitating above a special magnetic road. Like the Maglev train it would be limited to "flying" just a few inches above the ground. Of course many engines used in transportation now use magnets to operate. Almost every electric motor uses magnetic fields to generate movement and some advanced space probes use magnetic fields to shoot particles out the of the back of the probe at high speeds to push the device forward. The only example of a magnetic transportation system that I could find that was similar to your design was a satellite engine being developed in conjunction with NASA. While details of the design are limited, the engine would interact with Earth magnetic field to allow satellites to maneuver while in orbit. Last year a model of the engine exploded during testing, but the inventors of the engine think they have worked out the bugs and are hopeful that they will be able to try a test in space in the next few years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Unidentified Submarine Objects - On June 18, 1845 the crew of the brig Victoria were cruising the eastern Mediterranean Sea when they observed three bright, luminous objects come out of the sea and fly into the sky. One observer said the objects were five times the size of the moon, with "sail-like or streamer-like" appendages. The objects were seen from both land and sea for between 10 and 20 minutes. No explanation for these reports is known. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Planet Parade - If you haven't checked the night sky to look for planets recently, this might be a good month, but you will have to get up early. Jupiter is the brightest object in the morning sky as it moves through the constellation Aquarius. Mars is also visible in the morning in Aries. It will be in conjunction with Venus and the Moon on June 20th. Both Mercury and Venus will be visible just before the sun comes up with Mercury easier to see later in the month. Saturn is the only planet that will be visible the whole night, Look for it in the constellation Leo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *E.T. Search Going for a Decade - Last month marks 10 years for University of California at Berkeley's SETI at home. SETI, of course, stands for the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Anyone who wants to participate can download software to their home computers. During idle times the computer will then process signals that have been received from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and looks for any signs of intelligent communication in the data. So far, no extraterrestrial signals have been found, but currently there are 140,000 participants in the project looking for a sign that we are not alone. Chief scientist Dan Werthimer says he realizes that this is like "looking for needle in a haystack" but explains, "we're in this for the long haul?. As long as we have some way to increase the sensitivity of our radio detectors or the frequency range, or the part of the sky we're looking at, we'll still be doing something worthwhile." People interested in joining the project can go to http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Bone Diggers - Deep inside an Australian cave, paleontologists discover the fossils of extinct giant animals. On PBS. Tuesday, June 16 at 8 pm ET/PT. *Angels vs. Demons: Fact or Fiction? - A hard-hitting yet witty look at the cutting-edge science and historical reality behind the best-selling novel Angels and Demons. It's a battle of fact vs. fiction in a world of antimatter, theology, conspiracies, symbolism and cults. On Discovery Channel. Jun 05, 8:00 pm; Jun 05, 11:00 pm; ET/PT *Horror Movies - Effects that Scare - Nar makes a movie camera out of a block of magnesium at Panavision, investigates the science behind crime-scene blood spatter on Showtime's Dexter, meets Lola the leading digital plastic surgeon in Hollywood and an indie filmmaker demonstrates DIY effects! (Part of the Science of the Movies Series) On the Science Channel. Jun 09, 9:00 pm; Jun 10, 12:00 am; Jun 10, 4:00 pm; Jun 11, 4:00 am; ET/PT *Dinosaurs: Return to Life? - Dinosaurs: Return to Life follows scientists who are using the latest technology and amazing advances in genetic research to revive the possibility of creating a living breathing dinosaur, but in a different way than we ever imagined. On the Science Channel. Jun 08, 8:00 pm; Jun 08, 11:00 pm; Jun 09, 3:00 pm; Jun 10, 3:00 am; ET/PT. *What Really Killed the Dinosaurs- Until recently, most scientists thought they knew what killed off the dinosaurs - a giant meteorite crashing into Earth. But a small and vociferous group of scientists believes there is increasing evidence that the 'impact' theory could be wrong. On The Science Channel. Jun 08, 9:00 pm Jun 09, 12:00 am Jun 09, 4:00 pm Jun 10, 4:00 am; ET/PT. *Seven Signs of the Apocalypse - The Seven Signs are clear: We will be struck by deadly plagues, famines and earthquakes... The sky will turn dark and oceans will turn to blood... And the antichrist will emerge to fight the final battle between good and evil. Could this all be true? Experts decode this powerful prophecy and come to a startling conclusion: there is now scientific evidence that many of these catastrophes could, in fact, be occurring. A star falling from the sky could be one of thousands of rogue asteroids that may be approaching earth. The plague foretold in the Bible could be a deadly strain of avian virus that researchers fear could kill millions. Oceans turning blood red could be triggered by microorganisms that release dangerous neurotoxins that have the same effect as nerve gas. To reveal the ultimate truth behind the prophecy, this investigation will turn to the past to reveal why the prophecy was written, and why it keeps such a powerful hold on our imagination today. On The History Channel. Tuesday, June 09 08:00 PM; Wednesday, June 10 12:00 AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Tue Jun 30 22:56:51 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 02:56:51 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for July 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for July 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Sharks Operate Like Serial Killers - According to a recent scientific study, great white sharks act a lot like human serial killers. The study's authors used geographic profiling to track the creatures' movements. "As predators, they must get close enough to check out prey and figure out their movements, but they also must be far enough way so that they themselves won't be easily tracked," stated co-author Neil Hammerschlag. "They must use known traveling routes," he added. "For human killers, these would be things like subways, buses and freeways. For great whites, these would include channels, reef edges and other topographical features." The study, published in the Journal of Zoology found that experienced great whites liked to launch their attacks from very specific locations. This information may help determine ways of keeping the sharks and humans apart so they avoid unfortunate encounters. *Find Makes Dino-Bird Connection More Likely - A discovery in China could strengthen the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs. A team led by Xing Xu, a Chinese paleontologist, found the remains of a creature they named Limusaurus inextricabilis. This animal is a member of the branch of the theropod dinosaur family called ceratosaurs. Scientists that do not believe birds came from dinosaurs point out that theropod dinosaurs have three fingered hands that correspond to the first, second and third digits on human hands, but modern birds have wings that correspond to the second, third and fourth digits. Therefore, they argue, one could not have evolved from the other. Limusaurus inextricabilis however, had a shrinking first digit while the second, third and fourth were more developed. This would suggest that during evolution to birds for some reason the important of digits shifted and this explains how the theropod dinosaur line and modern birds could be connected. *Topless Mona Lisa-like Painting Exposed - A recently rediscovered painting suggests that Leonardo da Vinci did not take his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, quite as seriously as art lovers do today. This newly revealed painting, now on exhibit at the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, shows a topless woman resembling the woman in the famous portrait sitting in front of a background very much like that in Leonardo's best known work. "The frontal look, the position of the hands, the spatial conception of the landscape, with columns at the sides, show a clear link with the Mona Lisa's iconographic theme," said Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the museum. Documents indicate that naked portrait once belonged to Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839) and records from 1845 note that he purchased "the portrait of the Mona Lisa, mistress of Francis I, by Leonardo da Vinci," from the Rospigliosis, a rich Roman family. The records are not enough to authenticate the painting as being done by Leonardo himself and it is likely that the painting was actually done by one of his students. This leads art historians to think that, however, there may have been a similar painting done by da Vinci himself that has been lost. If so, it suggests that Leonardo was not above having some fun with his most famous work. *Warp Drive Might Create a Black Hole - A recent paper by a group of Italian physicists suggests that if anyone built a "warp" drive, as shown in the popular Star Trek TV shows and movies, it might result in sucking the Earth into a black hole. In the 1990's Mexican physicist Michael Alcubierre suggested it might possible for a spaceship to travel faster than the speed of light by creating a bubble of energy behind the ship and a lack of energy in front of it sort of like a giant cosmic wave the space ship could surf. The Italian researchers suggest that if you did this by using dark energy their calculations show that a huge amount of energy would be need to create the bubble and more and more to keep it from collapsing. Eventually the energy would run out, the bubble would rupture and either a black hole would be created or a titanic explosion set off. In either case the ship would be destroyed along with anything in the immediate area, like planets. While other scientists agree that the Italians' calculations are right for classical physics, they suggest that string theory may allow away around this problem. *New Flying Car to be on Market - A Boston-area company hopes to start flight tests soon of its two-seater airplane that also act as a car. The company, Terrafugia, founded in 2006 by a group of MIT students, has orders for more than 40 of these hybrids and plans to begin deliveries in 2010. The machine drives like a traditional car to the runway where wings unfold so it can take-off. After landing the wings fold back up so the vehicle and it can be driven on regular roads. The vehicle, to be named "Transition," will retail for $194,000. Terrafugia isn't the first group with this idea. A company called Aerocar designed one of the first flying cars in 1949, but it never went into production. The company expects to be successful with the "Transition" because of advances in materials and propulsion technologies and an easing of government regulations on private aircraft and pilot licensing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Science Quote of the Month - "Great scientific discoveries have been made by men seeking to verify quite erroneous theories about the nature of things." - Aldous Huxley -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Rogue Shark! The Jersey Shore Attacks of 1916 - Four are dead and a fifth maimed in the America's worst shark attack incident. > (http://www.unmuseum.org/rogue_shark_1.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Air on the moon - Is it possible to channel a pipe from Earth to Moon and pump in some of earth's atmosphere so as to support free life? - Cheta A. Construction of a pipeline from the Earth to the Moon would be a difficult and probably impossible construction problem. Though scientists think it might be feasible to build an elevator that would lift people and materials in earth orbit, the space station that the elevator would be connected to would rotate in sync with our planet so it would always be directly overhead. The moon orbits the earth once a month, however, while our planet spins every 24 hours, so a pipeline from earth to moon would quickly get twisted and tangled. There would be little point in building one, anyway, in an attempt to pressurize the moon and give it a breathable atmosphere. The moon already has an atmosphere, (mostly created by out gassing from the underground chemical reactions) but the atmosphere is so thin it almost does not exist. The gravity of the moon, only one-sixth that of Earth is too weak to hold any significant amount of gas on the surface. Most of it drifts into space to be swept away by the solar wind. Of course we still might have an interest in putting stations and maybe even cities on the moon. (These would probably be airtight and partly or completely underground. By putting a couple of meters of rock above the habitations you can protect life from the stray radiation that often bombards the lunar surface) If we do build underground cities we will need air for the inhabitants to breath. Rather than pipe it up, or even bring it up in large cargo spaceships, it would much more efficient to create it from materials already on the surface. There is plenty of oxygen and nitrogen (to major components of air) locked up in lunar rocks and soil. Getting these out of the rocks will require energy, but there is plenty of that on the moon. It gets lots of sunlight (no cloudy days) that can be turned into electrical power. For that reason NASA is thinking of locating the first lunar stations near the poles so they can get an almost continuous exposure to energy from the sun. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *It's Raining Worms! - Occasionally strange, unexplained items fall from the sky. On July 25, 1872, a small cloud appeared on the horizon, according to a report in Nature magazine. Fifteen minutes later it was raining worms. "...black worms the size of an ordinary fly." The article goes on to say that soon the streets "...were strewn with these curious animals" to the horror of the local inhabitants. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Solar Eclipse - This month features a total solar eclipse on July 22nd. To see it, however,you need to be in either in parts of India, China or out in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. For readers living near these locations, or rich enough to get there, they will find it a spectacular site with the sun disappearing behind the moon for just over six and one-half minutes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Conspiracy Theorist sees Aliens in NASA Mars Photos - A self-styled Mars researcher and conspiracy theorist, Andrew Basiago, has been accusing NASA of hiding evidence of Martian life in photos taken from the Spirit rover. Basiago, whose full time job is as a lawyer, has even asks the National Geographic Society to publish his "evidence" of human and animal life forms he's located. Basiago's critics contend that the aliens he sees are nothing more than strangely shaped rocks and shadows. So far the NGS has not agreed to do a story, but who knows? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Secrets of the Samurai Sword - Examine the thousand-year-old art and science behind the making of a Japanese warrior's key weapon. On PBS. Tuesday, July 7 at 8 pm ET/PT. *Humanzee - Humans and chimpanzees share an estimated 98% of genetic material. Oliver is a unique chimpanzee. He walks upright on two legs, he has a pronounced nose and 47 chromosomes midway between a human and a chimpanzee. Could he really be a chimp-human hybrid? On the Science Channel. Jun 29, 9:00 pm; Jun 30, 12:00 am; Jun 30, 4:00 pm; Jul 01, 4:00 am; ET/PT. *Unearthing Ancient Secrets: The Spinx Unmasked - Dr Vassil Dobrev sets out to discover the truth about the Sphinx. Does it really represent the pharaoh Khafre? Using scientific techniques, Vassil finds a different explanation. That the Sphinx was created by a by a pharaoh that history forgot: Djedefre. On The Science Channel. Jul 06, 11:00 pm; Jul 07, 3:00 pm; Jul 08, 3:00 am; ET/PT. *The Mystery of the Giant Sloth's Cave - A team of world renowned palaeontologists uncover a prehistoric sloth cave which could hold the answers to the extinction of the giant sloth over 10 thousand years ago. On The Science Channel. Jul 11, 8:00 pm; Jul 11, 11:00 pm; ET/PT. *Secrets of the Founding Fathers - Investigates the history and symbology so prominent in the creation of the United States, and traces the intricate connections of the Founders with Freemasonry, other secret organizations and between each other. How did the trademarks of the highly secretive Masons become integrated into the Great Seal, and on the dollar bill containing the All-Seeing Eye? Did the grid design of the nation's capital--commissioned by George Washington and completed by Pierre L'Enfant--contain occult symbols embraced by the Illuminati in 1776? Did Benjamin Franklin and George Washington deliberately enlist 33 Freemason generals from France to grow the fraternal brotherhood among Masonic nations? Explore the secret (and secretly dark) sides of the men responsible for laying the foundation of the United States. On The History Channel. Friday, July 03 08:00 PM; Saturday, July 04 12:00 AM; ET/PT. *Ancient Aliens - What if life on Earth began in outer space? Millions of people accept the theory that intelligent life forms visited Earth thousands of years ago and were worshiped as gods by primitive man. Are monuments like Stonehenge and Easter Island the last remains of an ancient alien visitation? From unexplainable super structures, to knowledge of the solar system, mathematics, and even the ability to make electricity, this special explores evidence of super-human influences on ancient man and embarks on an around-the-world search for answers. It's an investigation into a theory some believe cannot be true, but many agree cannot be ignored. On The History Channel. Friday, Tuesday, July 07 08:00 PM; Wednesday, July 08 12:00 AM ; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Fri Jul 31 20:37:57 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:37:57 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for August 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for August 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Small Sheep - Global warming could be responsible for the sheep on the island of Hirta in the St. Kilda archipelago of Scotland getting smaller. According to an article in the journal Science, the population of Soay sheep on the island, which have been studied intensely since 1985, have been getting smaller for the past 25 years. One theory is that the shorter winters mean that lambs do not have to grow as fast as they once did as because they do not need to put on as much as weight in the first months of life to survive the cold season. "Sheep are getting smaller. Well, at least the wild Soay sheep living on a remote Scottish island are. But according to classic evolutionary theory, they should have been getting bigger, because larger sheep tend to be more likely to survive and reproduce than smaller ones, and offspring tend to resemble their parents," said study author Tim Coulson of Imperial College London. The study is helping scientists understand that environment can be as important as evolution when it comes to changes in animal populations. *Cat Developed Special Purr to get Human Attention - A new study has found that cats have developed a special manipulative purr to get what they want from people. The purr, which involves sounds a bit like a baby crying, appears to be used during times when cats want attention from human beings. "In the case of my cat, if he sees you stirring from sleep at all in the early morning he will immediately switch into giving this solicitation purring and position himself next to your head so you get the full impact," observed lead author Karen McComb of the Behavioral Ecology at the University of Sussex. The scientists explored the acoustic structure of recorded cat purrs and determined that one contains an embedded, high-pitched cry. This they dubbed "solicitation purring." The meow can sound remarkably like a crying child, which is extremely difficult for humans to ignore. *Scientists Hunt Giant Worm - Scientists are searching for the giant Palouse earthworm this summer. The worm, which has been reported to grow three-feet long, supposedly secretes a lily-like smell when handled, spits at predators, and lives in burrows 15 feet deep, maybe on the edge of extinction. The only confirmed example of the species is a six-inch preserved specimen found in 2005 and now in the hands of Jodi Johnson-Maynard University of Idaho. The worm is thought to have lived in the agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle. Johnson-Maynard and her team of worm hunters are checking the area hoping to dig up a worm or make one come to the surface by using chemicals or electric shock devices. *Long Nailed Dinosaur - Nine-inch nails isn't just the name of a rock band, but the characteristic of a dinosaur recently unearthed in Utah. Nothronychus graffami, stood 13 feet tall and had claws that looked a lot like scythes. According to an article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society the fossil just found is the most complete remains ever excavated of a therizinosaur ("reaper lizard"). In addition to the long nails the animal also sported a keratinous beak at the front of the mouth and stood 13 feet tall. Despite the formidable-looking claws Nothronychus graffami probably didn't hunt other large animals, but instead dug into termite mounds, mucked on the bottom of a lake or raked leaves into its mouth from a mangrove forest like a ground sloth. *Hubble Back in Service for a Day - NASA interrupted testing of the recently repaired Hubble Space Telescope to check out a mysterious new mark that has just appeared on the planet Jupiter. The mark was probably created when a small comet or asteroid crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated. Although the orbiting observatory's new camera is still being calibrated, NASA decided the Jupiter event was too important not to put Hubble back into operation for a day. "Because we believe this magnitude of impact is rare, we are very fortunate to see it with Hubble," said Amy Simon-Miller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Details seen in the Hubble view shows a lumpiness to the debris plume caused by turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere." The object created a mark was about same diameter as Earth, but the object itself was probably only 50 to 100 miles across. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind". - Albert Einstein -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Part Two: The Hunt for the Killer Shark - In twelve days in the summer of 1916 shark attacks along the New Jersey shore had left four dead and one maimed with the rogue shark still on the loose. > (http://www.unmuseum.org/rogue_shark_2.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Glowing Arthropods - Why do scorpions fluoresce under a UV light? - Warren This is a subject that scientists don't know a great deal about, but let's start with some basic facts. Some materials when hit by a light with a wave-length shorter than humans can see will absorb that light energy and then radiate back light within the visible spectrum so when a person looks at the object, it seems to glow. This process is called fluorescence. There is a substance in the epicuticle (sometimes called the hyaline layer) of the scorpion's exoskeleton that fluoresces when exposed to ultra-violet light. Nobody knows exactly what this stuff is but some scientists speculate it is a complex of mucosaccharides (a simple form of sugar) and proteins. Also ?-Carboline, a trytophan derivative, is known to play an important part. Nobody really knows how the fluorescence gets there either. Baby scorpions aren't born with it and scorpions that have just molted don't have it. This has leads some people to suggest that it is either secreted by the scorpion over time, a side effect of the animal's exoskeleton as it is tanned by the sun or the result of chemical reactions as the new exoskeleton hardens. The fact that some scorpions that live their entire lives in dark caves and still fluoresce, however, leads some people to think that it unlikely to be the tanning process. Finally we also don't know what advantage this gives the scorpion. Some have speculated that this property somehow helps the scorpion with their ultra-violet light sensitivity, but studies have shown that different levels of UV light seem to have little effect on the animal's behavior. We do know that scorpions have had this characteristic for a very long time. This kind of fluorescence has even been seen in some of the fossils of ancient scorpions. We also know it is not unique to scorpions as some sow bugs, millipedes, centipedes, solfugids and a few beetles also will glow in ultra-violet light. We also know that with each molting the effect grows stronger so that older scorpions glow brighter than young ones. The amount a scorpion glows is also connected the particular species. Some glow brightly, others hardly at all. Whatever it is, this characteristic has been a boon to scientists and scorpion enthusiasts. A small camping lamp can have its fluorescent bulb replaced with one that produces ultra-violet (or "black") light that will cause scorpions to glow a soft blue or green at a distance of one or two feet. This is a great aid in finding the small animals. Scientists can then easily use tongs to collect specimens and many new species have been found this way. A flashlight that produces UV light can also be useful when camping in scorpion habitats to check your sleeping back to make sure you are not crawling in with one of the tiny critters. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Purple Blobs - On the evening of August 10, 1979, a bright light was observed landing next to Sybil Christian's house near Frisco, Texas. The next day she discovered three strange purple blobs sitting on the ground. While one evaporated in the sunlight, the other two were shipped off for analysis. Despite their apparent extra-terrestrial origins, the blobs were found to be just industrial waste. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *The Perseid Meteor Shower - This will be summer's best show. It will be visible from July 25 to August 18, but the shower peaks around August 12. Look for the shooting stars to appear to be coming from the constellation Perseus. A good shower can yield 80 meteors an hour and is the debris left behind from the passage of comet Swift-Tuttle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Blue in M&Ms Could Save Spine - If you have a severe spinal injury could popping a few blue M&M's keep you from being paralyzed? Well, not quite, but scientists think that blue food dye found in M&Ms (Brilliant Blue G or BBG) may be able to reduce the damage caused by spine injuries. When the spine is injured Adenosine triphosphate, (ATP) rushes into the area. Unfortunately this has the effect of killing off healthy cells, making the initial injury worse. Scientists have found that a substance in BBG can block the effect of the extra ATP. In experiments they tried injecting rats with BBG immediately after a spinal cord injury. These rats eventually regained their ability to walk again, though with a limp. The control group rats, not given BBG, never recovered their ability to walk. Researchers hope that in a couple years they may be able to give people with recent spinal cord injuries a shot to help preserve their mobility. If so, victims might have to contend with a side effect observed in the rats: They all turned bright blue for a few days. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Monster of the Milky Way - Does a supermassive black hole lurk at the center of our galaxy? On PBS. Tuesday, August 25 at 8 pm ET/PT. *Menacing Waters - In the strange coastal waters off remote northern Australia live the earth's most deadly marine creatures. Box jellyfish, blue ring octopi, sea snakes and cone snails are the subject of four scientists' groundbreaking research. On The Science Channel. Aug 08, 9:00 pm; Aug 09, 12:00 am; ET/PT. *Battle for the Beginning - The Science Channel explores the history of our relationship with particle physics and the big bang theory. On The Science Channel. Aug 02, 8:00 pm; Aug 02, 11:00 pm; Aug 04, 3:00 am; Aug 08, 11:00 am; ET/PT. *Is it True? The Skunk Ape & One Wing Landings - Chuck searches the Everglades for the elusive truth behind a series of Internet images of Florida's mysterious Skunk Ape. Then, he takes to the skies to confirm that the online footage of an airplane landing with only one wing is humanly possible. On The Discovery Channel. Aug 10, 10:00 pm; Aug 11, 1:00 am; ET/PT. *That's Impossible Episode: Death Rays & Energy Weapons - Everyone is familiar with the amazing force field and energy weapons from sci-fi movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, but are we just a few years away from having that technology at our fingertips? We'll investigate new, top-secret military weaponry and recent inventions like a new airplane mounted laser cannons from Northrop Grumman that can shoot down enemy planes and shoot nuclear missiles out of the sky. On The History Channel. Tuesday, August 04 10:00 PM; Wednesday, August 05 02:00 AM; Sunday, August 09 08:00 AM; ET/PT. *Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler - Was it an act of treason or patriotism? Bold in concept and challenging in execution, learn the real story behind the Valkyrie plot--a plan by a group of German officers to assassinate Adolph Hitler and take control of the government. The events leading up to July 20, 1944 are brought to life through interviews with survivors, relatives, firsthand witnesses and historians. Newsreel footage, archival photographs and re-creations are also included. Discover what the Valkyrie Legacy means to Germans and Germany, and what it says about the sometimes complex nature of heroism, and the legacy of the Resistance overall. On The History Channel. Saturday, August 01 10:00 PM; Sunday, August 02 02:00 AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Tue Sep 1 00:36:31 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 04:36:31 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for September 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for September 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Space Elevator Getting Closer? - Microsoft headquarters in Redmond hosted a conference on space elevator technology last month. The space elevator (http://www.unmuseum.org/spaceelevator.htm) is a proposal to make access to orbit cheaper, safer and easier by running a cable from an Earth station to a counterweight in orbit 33,000 miles above the surface. A cab would climb the cable to carring people and goods into orbit. One of the technologies required to make the system work is a strong, light cable. In fact, one more than 30 times stronger than aramid fiber, currently the world's strongest. As part of the conference NASA offered a $2 million prize if anyone can come up with something that just five times stronger than the aramid fiber. A team from Japan entered a first-ever carbon nano-tube ribbon in the contest, but it failed to pass the test. Still space elevator enthusiasts are optimistic. "It's very, very difficult - but there's a big difference between difficult and impossible," observed Michael Laien, president of Bremerton-based Liftport, and an attendee of the conference. "So I think we are getting closer every day." *Cave System Found Under Egyptian Pyramids - British explorer Andrew Collins claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs. According to Collins he has discovered a vast cave system under the pyramid field at Giza in Egypt. "There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," said Collins. He thinks the caves, which are tens of thousands of years old, may have both inspired the ancient Egyptian's belief in an underworld. Collins, said he located the entrance to this mysterious underworld after reading the memoirs of a 19th century diplomat and explorer, Henry Salt" In his memoirs, British consul general Henry Salt recounts how he investigated an underground system of 'catacombs' at Giza in 1817 in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia," Collins noted. *Egyptian Tombs Could be Gone in 150 Years - The tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings will disappear within a century and a half if they continue remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, has said. "The tombs (in the Valley of the Kings and nearby Valley of the Queens) which are open to visitors are facing severe damage to both colors and the engravings," Hawass said. "The levels of humidity and fungus are increasing because of the breath of visitors and this means that the tombs could disappear between 150 and 500 years." Hawass said the government has decided "to close some tombs definitively to tourists and replace them by identical replicas, including those of Tutenkhamun (http://www.unmuseum.org/mummy.htm), Nefertiti and Seti I." Other tombs are being fitted with new ventilation systems, or are having the number of visitors allowed through strictly limited. *Giant Pandas in Trouble - Experts at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are concerned that the giant panda could be extinct in just two to three generations if rapid economic development continues in their habitat. The area the animals are living in is being split up into ever smaller pieces, preventing the animals from moving freely as they seek mates. This in turn could endanger their gene pool. "If the panda cannot mate with those from other habitats, it may face extinction within two to three generations," said Fan Zhiyong, Beijing-based species director for WWF. "We have to act now." Experts are concerned that lack of range may lead to inbreeding that may reduce the panda's resistance to diseases and lower their ability to reproduce. There are about 1,590 pandas living in the wild in China. *Pterosaurs Unlike Anything Else - A study, based on a well-preserved pterosaur with soft tissues, shows that the creatures were very much different than almost any animal alive today. According to the paper, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, pterosaurs were warm-blooded insect eaters that lived in trees and had sophisticated flying skills. Among other things these flying reptiles had a complex membrane located between the animal's body and each of its fingers. The membrane was composed of up to three layers with distinct structural fibers. The fibers were oriented in different directions, forming a reticular pattern. "We conclude that this pterosaur might have been able to adjust the wing membrane during flight in order to enhance flight capability," noted one of the study authors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house." - Henri Poincar?, 1905 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *Notes From the Curator's Office: An Art Project for a Favorite Novel - A do-it-yourself way to commemorate your favorite book or movie and add a conversation piece to your home. >(http://www.unmuseum.org/notescurator/league_art.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Vital Vitamins - What is a "vitamin", and how can sunlight make vitamin D? - John A vitamin is an organic compound needed by a human or animal in tiny amounts in order to stay healthy. Usually a compound is only called a vitamin when the animal is unable to make it by itself, but must get it by eating it. This means that some compounds are vitamins for some animals but not really for others. For example, vitamin D is not really a vitamin in the human diet because we create it ourselves when sunlight hits our skin. It is a vitamin for most fish, however, who must get it by eating algae (Or by eating other fish who have eaten algae). The algae in turn create when they float in shallow waters under the sun. For many years scientists suspected that certain foods contained tiny amounts of some substances needed for health, but they didn't know what those substances were. For example, in 1749, the Scottish surgeon James Lind discovered that citrus foods helped prevent scurvy, a particularly deadly disease often suffered by sailors who did not get fresh fruit in their diet. As it turns out the sailors were not getting vitamin C - otherwise known as ascorbic acid - which is found in the fruits. Though Lind didn't exactly know what the missing ingredient was, he recommended eating lemons and limes to avoid scurvy, an idea which was adopted by the British Royal Navy and led to their nickname "Limies". In 1881, Russian doctor Nikolai Lunin did an experiment where he gave one group of mice milk and the other group an artificial mixture of all the separate parts of milk known at that time: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts. The mice that got the regular milk were fine, but those which got just the parts got sick and died. This told Lunin that there was something in the milk that science was unaware of that was needed for the mice to stay healthy. The first scientist to extract one of these micronutrients was Japanese researcher Umetaro Suzuki in 1910. He named his discovery aberic acid. It would later become known as vitamin B1. A couple more facts about vitamins: -The world "vitamin" is a blend of the words "vital" and "amine" where amine is a specific sort of organic compound. However, as other vitamins were found, not all turned out to be amines, but the name stuck. -Often an animals will have to eat the vitamins they need every day because their bodies will not store the vitamins for any length of time. Vitamin D is produced photo-chemically when ultra-violet light interacts with the substance 7-dehydrocholesterol. In the case of humans the creation of the Vitamin D takes place in the epidermis, the top layer of our skin, when light from the sun penetrates it and hits the 7-dehydrocholesterol our bodies put there. How much and how quickly you make your Vitamin D depends on how much sun light you get and the color of your skin. People with darker skin produce it more slowly than people with lighter skin. For mammals with fur, who can't get sunlight to their skin at all, the Vitamin D is synthesized in oily secretions that are deposited onto the fur. As those oils sit on the fur and are exposed to the sun, the vitamin D is created. The animal then must lick the oils off and swallow them to get the Vitamin D into their systems. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Book Review - Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe is Just Right for Life by Paul Davies - Penguin Press. This book has been out for a while, but just read it and highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in quantum physics and cosmology. Paul Davies, the award winning physicist, looks at why our universe seems "fine-tuned" to create life. The best part of the book isn't really Davies' conclusions on the subject, but the careful and very readable way he gives the reader a layman's overview on the current state of physics knowledge/research. He explains subjects like quantum physics and sub-atomic particles and covers many competing ideas about the nature of reality. Are we living in one of zillions of nearly identical universes or in a universe simulation running on some cosmic computer? Davies looks at all these possibilities, and eventually lays out his own thinking for the reader. You may or may not agree with his conclusions, but masterful way of enumerating all the possibilities should not be missed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Fall of Ice - On September 2, 1958, in Madison Township, New Jersey, a seventy pound block of ice fell through roof of Dominick Bacigalupo's house, through the ceiling of the kitchen, onto the floor where it broke up in three pieces. There were no storms in the area at the time and the meteorology department of a nearby University said atmospheric conditions could have not created the block. Aviation officials claimed the planes in the area could not have been responsible for the fall, either. The cause to this day remains unknown. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Bye, Bye Rings - Say goodbye to Saturn's rings. Those of you with small telescopes may have been noticing that Saturn's rings have been shrinking as they turn more and more edge on toward Earth. On September 4th they will disappear completely. Unfortunately because Saturn's close position to the sun, you won't be able to see a ring-less Saturn. As the mouth progresses though, Saturn will become more visible. The rings will return slowly, though we will be seeing their northern face rather than their southern face. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Florida Muck Monster - People in West Palm Beach, Florida, are trying to figure out what species a mysterious creature that had been seen lurking under the surface of the Lake Worth Lagoon is. The creature, dubbed the "The elusive muck monster" by workers of LagoonKeepers, leaves a wake, but doesn't break the the surface of the water. According to a report by WPTV news Thomas Reinert, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Marine Biologist, examined video taken by LagoonKeepers and said: "This appears to be one animal moving in this direction?nothing's breaking the surface. Typically dolphins break the surface, sea turtles, manatee, a large school of fish, if it were a shark at that level you would see a fin." Greg Reynolds of LagoonKeepers joked "Maybe Nessie's vacationing in South Florida!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Is There Life on Mars? - The decades-long search for life on the Red Planet heats up with the discovery of frozen water. On PBS. Tuesday, September 1 at 8 pm ET/PT. *NOVA: Mystery of the Megavolcano - Researchers unearth clues to the greatest volcanic eruption of the last 100,000 years. On PBS. Tuesday, September 8 at 8 pm ET/PT. *Supermassive Black Holes - Scientists have discovered something even more powerful than black holes - supermassive black holes. Far from being agents of destruction, these giant black holes are now believed to be the seeds from which all galaxies grow On The Science Channel. Sep 01, 9:00 pm; Sep 02, 12:00 am; Sep 02, 4:00 pm; Sep 03, 4:00 am; ET/PT. *Starship Orion: The Future of Space Travel - NASA has taken the lead in designing Orion, the new space exploration vehicle. Orion will take humans back to the moon, go on to Mars and beyond. On The Science Channel. Sep 08, 9:00 pm; Sep 09, 12:00 am; Sep 09, 4:00 pm; Sep 10, 4:00 am; ET/PT. *Search for Second Earth - Two teams of planet hunters are leading the hunt for another Earth. 209 exoplanets so far found outside of our solarsystem have be explored, but none have turned out to be capable of supporting life. That's all about to change. On The Science Channel. Sep 04, 4:00 pm; Sep 08, 10:00 pm; Sep 09, 1:00 am; Sep 09, 5:00 pm; Sep 10, 5:00 am; ET/PT. *That's Impossible Episode: Death Rays & Energy Weapons - Everyone is familiar with the amazing force field and energy weapons from sci-fi movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, but are we just a few years away from having that technology at our fingertips? We'll investigate new, top-secret military weaponry and recent inventions like a new airplane mounted laser cannons from Northrop Grumman that can shoot down enemy planes and shoot nuclear missiles out of the sky. On The History Channel. Tuesday, September 01 08:00 PM; Wednesday, September 02 12:00 AM; ET/PT. *The Universe : The Day the Moon Was Gone - Without the moon, Earth would be a very different and desolate place today--four hours of sunlight with pitch-black nights, steady 100-mph winds spawning giant hurricanes that last for months, and virtually no complex life forms, much less humans. Safe to say, we probably owe our very existence to the moon. But what if it suddenly disappeared? Solar gravity redirects ocean water that floods coastal spots around the globe. Sea currents shift, resulting in freakish weather patterns. Eventually, earth's axis begins fluctuating wildly and climate change grows more extreme. The poles are tropical jungles and parts of the equator become frigid wastelands. Human evolution starts churning in unpredictable ways or ends completely. Without the moon, the Earth is a very different place. On The History Channel. Tuesday September 08 08:00 PM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Thu Oct 1 00:51:11 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 04:51:11 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for October 2009 Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for October 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Massive Wall Discovered in Jerusalem - Archaeologists in Jerusalem have dug up a 3,700-year-old stone wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the area. The wall is 26 feet (8meters) high and composed of boulders weighing 4 or 5 tons each. "To build straight walls up 8 meters ... I don't know how to do it today without mechanical equipment," said the site's director, Ronny Reich. "I don't think that any engineer today without electrical power [could] do it." The exposed section of the wall is 79 feet (24 meters) long, but continues an undetermined length underground. The wall was apparently built by the Canaanites, an ancient pagan people who the Bible says inhabited Jerusalem and other parts of the Middle East, before the Hebrews took over the region. The wall was part of fortifications designed to protect a spring. According to archaeologists its discovery marks the first time "that such massive construction that predates the Herodian period has been discovered in Jerusalem." The discovery gives hope to scientists that other unfound structures might be found in the area. *Rat as Big as Cat - Measuring 32 inches from nose to tail and weighing over 3 pounds, a newly discovered rat from the Southern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea is among the largest of these type of animals in the world. "This is one of the world's largest rats. It's a true rat, the same kind you find in the city sewers," stated Kristofer Helgen, from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The find was made inside the crater of the extinct volcano, Mount Bosavi . "The animals inside this crater were unafraid of humans, pretty much because they hadn't seen them very much," observed a researcher. Most local inhabitants, says the scientist, hunt outside the crater. "They don't really go into the crater to hunt because it's such a trek up and back down from it." The team from the BBC also found, according to another scientist, "sixteen new frog species, one new bat species and at least three new fish, and this giant bloody rat -- the size of a cat. Amazing!" *Rat Eating Plant Found - Scientists have discovered a new carnivorous planet which is large enough to eat a rat. Nepenthes attenboroughii, named in honor of the world-renowned natural history presenter Sir David Attenborough, has a pitcher that is almost a foot in diameter making it the second largest known meat-eating plant. According to botanist Stewart McPherson, "around the mouth of the pitcher are secretions of nectar which attracts insects and small animals. The rim has lots of waxy downward-pointing ridges which help prey fall directly into the pitcher. The pitchers are half full of a liquid consisting of acids and enzymes which help break down its prey." This helps the plant thrive in areas with poor soil which are scare in necessary nutrients. The plant was among a number that McPherson and his partners, Alastair Robinson and Volker Heinrich, have discovered during recent expeditions to Southeast Asia. *Super Subs will Open Ocean Floor to Amateur Explorers - Submarine designer Graham Hawkes company, Hawkes Ocean Technologies, is working on new designs of submarines that would let amateur explorers check out the sea bottom 37,000 ft below the surface. These new submarines differ from the ones used by entities like the U.S. Navy in that they are light enough to launch from a yacht. One of Hawkes' customers was the late billionaire Steve Fossett. He bought an experimental prototype, "Deep Flight Challenger," which could dive to 37,000 ft.. Unfortunately, when the craft was only four weeks away from delivery Fossett died in a plane crash. Unlike conventional subs which must get heavier than water to submerge, Hawkes' new designs have to "fly" down into the depths like an "airplane in reverse." This is a safety feature as the sub will simply float back up to the surface should the power fail. The subs have life support good for 24 hours and a range of 10-20 miles. *Tiny T-Rex. Startles Scientists - Paleontologists discovered a fossil they believe was a miniature version of Tyrannosaurus Rex. The animal, nicknamed Raptorex, stood about 9 feet tall, weighed about 143 pounds and lived China some 125 million years ago. Scientists are surprised to see the same features that are found in the full sized T-rex, in such a small animal. The jumbo version of Tyrannosaurus rex, which would not appear in the fossil record for another about 60 million years, weighed over 5 tons. The discovery shows that "these features did not evolve as a consequence of large body size but rather evolved as an efficient set of predatory weapons in an animal that was 1/100th the size of Tyrannosaurus rex and that lived 60 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex" said Stephen Brusatte, one of the authors of the article about the creature in last month's Science. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination." - Bertrand Russell -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *The Science of Ghosts - They are called phantasms, specters or spirits. Most people just call them ghosts and are either fascinated by them, or are terrified of them, or sometimes both. (http://www.unmuseum.org/ghosts.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Please how old is the Earth? Biblically it is accurately about 6042 to 7000 years and scientifically it counts on millions. Should we believe in God's wisdom or mere knowledge of man? - Cheta A There has been a dispute going on in some circles between some biblical fundamentalists, who argue that science is wrong about the age of the planet because the Bible says that the Earth is only 10,000 years old; and some scientists who claim that the Bible must be inaccurate because clearly the Earth is millions of years old. There are, however, a number of people who hold the views that these differences are not irreconcilable. Though I am not a theologian, I will endeavor to give you the highlights of some of these ideas. Age/Day View - One of the major reasons that science doesn't seem to match up with the Bible is the creation story in Genesis that seems make the universe and the earth appear in only 6 literal days. This view says that the days mentioned in Genesis are not 24 hour days, but "ages." These "ages" might have lasted millions of years or even billions of years and may have also overlapped. Though some critics argue that a "day" in this context in the Bible must only be 24-hours long, others argue that this alternate interpretation is not really inconsistent with some Biblical understandings of the word "day." At least one author, Israeli physicist and Genesis scholar Gerald L. Schroeder, argues that depending how you define "time" these days could be both 24 hours and millions or billions of years long. For more information on this idea check out his book The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. Mature Creation - Another view is that the Earth and Universe were created in seven days 10,000 years ago, but they have been given a whole consistent history of billions of years. This idea isn't really inconsistent with other parts of the Bible. For example, Adam is created as an adult man without the usual 20 years or so need to grow from baby to mature human under the usual laws of nature. Perhaps the earth and universe were also created in a relatively short amount of time without the 15 billion years that might normally be needed for such a process. If you accept this view then for theological reasons the world is 10,000 years old, but for purposes of science the world is some 4.5 billion years. Some argue that this seems somewhat disingenuous of God to create a false history. However, it isn't any more dishonest then creating Atom, calling him a man, though he never went through the normal human creation process. Indeed in our own poor attempts to create worlds and universes inside computers (i.e. video games like "The Sims") we always apply this method and it never seems dishonest to us within that context. This isn't meant to be a complete discussion on the subject - just a starting point. Debates over this subject have already filled thousands of web pages, so I recommend you take a look at what has already been written about these ideas across the internet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book Review - North Amereican Primates by Shane Durgee- Red Weaver Press. *New author Shane Durgee takes the reader into the fictional adventure of Clay Sturgeon as he encounters a mysterious beast while camping in the Adirondack Mountains. It is it bigfoot or something else? Clay dives into the world of cryptozoology meeting a host of unusual characters. In the end, though, Clay finds that to prove the creatures exists, and keep its kind from going into extinction, he may have to kill it. Does the end justify the means? A great read for people looking for some sasquatch fiction! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *The Stork Study - No, this was not a study about birds with long legs. The Stork Study was analysis of UFO reports handled by the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue book in the 1950's. The results were surprising: Based on the statistics there was no possibility that "unknown" (unexplained sighting) was the same as "known" (explained) sighting. That is, "unknowns" were not just simply the same as "knowns" for which there was not enough data. In fact, some "unknowns" had some of the greatest amounts of data available for them. Click here (http://www.unmuseum.org/bluebook.htm) for more information on Project Blue Book. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Orionid Meteors - This October brings the Orionid meteor shower. The shower will peak at about 25 meteors per hour before dawn on October 21, but for those who would rather view them after sunset, try the day before, October 20. The constellation Orion, from which meteors appear to come isn't visible until the late evening. The Orionid meteors are the debris left left in the wake of comet Halley. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Teenagers Kill Alien-like Animal - Four teenagers claim they encountered a strange, hairless creature near a cave in in the city of Cerro Azul, Panama . In fear, when the creature approached, they beat it to death with stones and a stick. Pictures of the animal show a bloated animal which vaguely resembles an alien from Steven Spielberg's movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Zoologists are trying to determine if the animal is an unknown species, or just a misshapen, hairless sloth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Lizard Kings - Meet the monitors, the largest, fiercest, and craftiest lizards on Earth. On PBS. Tuesday, October 20 at 8 pm ET/PT. *MythBusters: NASA Moon Landing - On this encore episode of MythBusters, the team tackles the tallest tale of all in Moon Landing Hoax Hour. Did NASA pull off the greatest cover-up in human history? On The Discovery Channel. Oct 11, 6:00 pm; Oct 11, 11:00 pm; ET/PT. *Atlas: Egypt Reveal - Egypt Revealed is a journey from the land of the Pharaohs into the living soul of modern Egypt; from the Sahara, to the Nile, to the Islamic heart of a nation where the roots of Christianity run deep, to the streets of Cairo - Africa's largest city On The Discovery Channel. Oct 01, 10:00 pm; Oct 02, 1:00 am; ET/PT. *America's Lost H-Bomb - A deadly threat lurks just a few miles off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. A thermo-nuclear weapon is ejected and lost during a war game between U.S. bombers and fighters. Can U.S. military experts retrieve the weapon before someone else tries to? On The Science Channel. Oct 07, 8:00 pm; Oct 07, 11:00 pm; Oct 08, 3:00 pm; Oct 09, 3:00 am; ET/PT. *Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real - Imagine dragons as real life creatures! Stunning computer-generated imagery, along with true biological science help to bring the story of one of humankind's oldest legends to life in a way that's never been done before! You will Believe. On The Science Channel. Oct 04, 9:00 pm Oct 05, 12:00 am; Oct 06, 4:00 am; ET/PT. *The Big Bang Machine - As experiments go, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern is one of the biggest. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles long, and the most expensive at a cost of six billion dollars. Presenter Brian Cox tackles the question: what exactly is it going to tell us? On The Science Channel. Oct 13, 9:00 pm; ET/PT. *Ancient Aliens- What if life on Earth began in outer space? Millions of people accept the theory that intelligent life forms visited Earth thousands of years ago and were worshiped as gods by primitive man. Are monuments like Stonehenge and Easter Island the last remains of an ancient alien visitation? From unexplainable super structures, to knowledge of the solar system, mathematics, and even the ability to make electricity, this special explores evidence of super-human influences on ancient man and embarks on an around-the-world search for answers. It's an investigation into a theory some believe cannot be true, but many agree cannot be ignored. On The History Channel. Tuesday, Monday, October 05 08:00 PM; Tuesday, October 06 12:00 AM; ET/PT. *Clash of the Gods: Monsters of Middle Earth - The story behind the world's most renowned modern myth. Enter creator J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical world of hobbits, orcs and wizards, and uncover the real life influences that shaped his epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings. On The History Channel. Monday, October 05 10:00 PM; Tuesday, October 06 02:00 AM ; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org Sat Oct 31 19:17:04 2009 From: unmuseum_newsletter at unmuseum.org (A Monthly Update on the World of Science) Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:17:04 +0000 Subject: [Unmuseum_newsletter] test file Message-ID: The UnMuseum Newsletter for November 2009 Science Over the Edge A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the News: *Group Tries to Debunk Shroud of Turin - An Italian group claims it has been able to reproduce the famed Shroud of Turin - supposedly the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb - using methods and materials available in the 14 century. The shroud shows the image of a crucified man. This has led some to believe it Christ's "picture" was recorded on the cloth by a miracle during his resurrection. Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, said that his team used linen woven with the same technique as the shroud and then aged it by heating and washing. The cloth was then laid over a volunteer, who wore a mask to reproduce the face, and rubbed with red ochre, a well-known pigment at the time. According to Garlaschelli the process took a week. If the experiment can be reproduced by others it may go a long way toward proving the cloth is a medieval fraud. *New 4.4 Million-Year-Old Human Remains Found - Researchers have unveiled to the public a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton of a hominid female that appears to be man's earliest known ancestor. Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi," lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Aramis, Ethiopia. This makes this specimen more than a million years older than the Lucy, the partial ape-human skeleton found in Africa in 1974. "What Ardipithecus tells us is that we as humans have been evolving to what we are today for at least 6 million years," C. Owen Lovejoy, an evolutionary biologist at Kent State University and project anatomist. Researchers hypothesize that humans took a different evolutionary trajectory from those of chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. Ardi challenges earlier beliefs that humans evolved from chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives. *Researchers Find Dinosaur Stampede - Scientists from Brigham Young University have found a site in near Moab, Utah, where thousands of dinosaur bones lay crushed as the result of an ancient stampede. "Although enough bones were recovered to assemble several complete dinosaurs, the vast majority of bones are broken to bits and pieces, just pulverized," said BYU professor Brooks Britt, lead author on the study. Scientists have identified 67 individual dinosaurs representing 8 species so far out of the estimated 4,200 bones at the site. The location of this dense cluster of bones - near the shore of an ancient lake bed - suggests a drought was the cause of the incident with huge 30-ton sauropod dinosaurs walking over dead and dying smaller animals and crushing their bones while trying to get to the water to drink. "Some of these bones were almost 5 feet long, and they are green, and you really have to work hard to shatter bone that's still green," Britt said. "That means the big boys were stepping on those things. Those would have been audible, big snaps." *Ida Not Our Relative - Last May some scientists hailed a fossil referred to as Ida as "our earliest ancestor." Now another group of researchers claims that not only is Ida not a human ancestor, but that it does not even belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead it belongs in another major grouping, which includes lemurs. Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues compared 360 specific anatomical features of 117 living and extinct primate species to draw up a family tree. There work suggests that Ida, an example of the species Darwinius, is as about as far removed from monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be. Their report is in this month's issue of the journal Nature. *New Leonardo Work Found - A painting bought at an auction 2 years ago for $19,000 may now be worth over $150 million if it turns out that a new assessment that it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci is right. The painting, "Profile of the Bella Principessa," was thought to be the work of a 19th-century German until a fingerprint of an index or middle finger was found on the painting that matched a fingerprint from Leonardo's "St. Jerome" in the Vatican. "Leonardo used his hands liberally and frequently as part of his painting technique. His fingerprints are found on many of his works," explains Peter Paul Biro the Montreal-based forensic art expert who found the print. "I was able to make use of multispectral images to make a little smudge a very readable fingerprint." If experts are correct, it will be the first major work by Leonardo to be identified in 100 years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Science Quote of the Month - "Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?" - Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's New at the Museum: *2012: The End of the World? - Books, internet sites and now even a major motion picture suggest that bad things are going to happen on December 21, 2012. Is any of this craziness based on scientific fact? (http://www.unmuseum.org/apop2012.htm) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator: *Moon's Strange Orbit - Does the moon revolve the Earth directly above equator? If yes, does it mean that people in upper northern hemisphere will be see it on the horizon? - Anonymous Our moon, unlike most moons in our solar system, does not follow a path directly above its planet's equator. Instead, our moon follows an orbital path very much closer to Earth's ecliptic plane. Earth's ecliptic is the path Earth follows as it orbits the Sun. The earth's equator is tilted off its ecliptic by a little more than 23 degrees. This angle is what gives us the seasons as the northern hemisphere is more tilted toward the sun during the summer and away from the sun in the winter (The opposite is true for the southern hemisphere where the seasons there are reversed). This tilt also explains why the moon traces a different path across the sky depending on the season. Like the sun, during the winter it is closer to the horizon. In fact, further north than the Arctic Circle the moon will not be visible for 14 days at a time as it passes out of sight behind the tilt of our planet for half of its orbit. Or course when it does re-emerge it rises and stays up for fourteen days (The same is true at the Antarctic Circle). The fact that the moon orbits close to the Earth's ecliptic plane has been used as evidence against the theory that the moon was created at the same time the Earth. In this theory, most of the spinning material in the region of Earth was pulled together by gravity to form our planet, but some of pulled together to form the moon. If that was the case, however, we would expect out moon to be orbiting along the equator. The current leading theory as to the creation of the moon is that a body the size of Mars hit Earth throwing massive amounts of material into orbit. Over the course of the next century this material was drawn together by gravity to form our moon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: *Batman Sighting - On a fall afternoon in 1956 a man living in the vicinity of Falls City, Nebraska, reported a humanoid flying figure with a "very frightening, almost demonic" face and bat-like wings. The creature was flew about 15 feet above the ground and was reportedly between eight and nine feet tall. The winged humanoid flew over the man, and then disappeared among the trees. No explanation is known for this sighting and the man said he suffered terrifying nightmares about this incident for the next twenty years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: *Leonids Shower - November brings the Leonids Meteor Shower. A meteor shower occurs when the Earth encounters debris left a comet. In this case it is the comet Tempel-Tuttle which is responsible for the show. The shower is expected to peak on the Predawn hours of November 17th. The shooting stars will appear to come from the constellation Leo which will rise until after midnight. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observed: *Earhart Died on Nikumaroro - The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) says that it is likely that famous female aviator died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific. The island, named Nikumaroro, was some 300 miles southeast of Earhart's target destination, Howland Island. A number of artifacts recovered by TIGHAR suggest that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on the island's smooth, flat coral reef. Also in 1940 British Colonial Service officer Gerald Gallagher recovered a partial skeleton of a castaway on Nikumaroro. The description of the remains seems consistent with Earhart, though the bones have since been misplaced. Although conventional wisdom is that Earhart's place crashed at sea, TIGHAR is convinced that the evidence points to a forced landing on Nikumaroro. Earhart's life is the subject of a new movie starring Hilary Swank. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Tube: Please check local listing for area outside of North America. *NOVA: Becoming Human - A three part series by Nova on PBS. Tuesday, October 20 at 8 pm - First Steps:November 3 at 8 pm; Birth of Humanity: .November 10 at 8 pm; Last Human Standing: November 17 at 8 pm; ET/PT. *Science of the Movies Zombies! - Nar meets Garrett Brown, Oscar-winning inventor of the Steadicam and Skycam; Nar gets a zombie makeover from Quantum Creation FX and explores the science of the undead; Obscura Digital unveils the future of entertainment with effects from Minority Report. On The Science Channel. Nov 12, 8:00 pm; Nov 12, 11:00 pm ET/PT. *Mystery of the Persian Mummy - Encased in a gilded wooden coffin inside a stone sarcophagus, a Persian Princess mummy over 2,600 years old was found. Follow the discoveries that turned this archaeological treasure into a murder hunt. On The Science Channel. Nov 09, 8:00 pm; Nov 09, 11:00 pm; Nov 10, 3:00 pm; Nov 11, 3:00 am; ET/PT. *Can We Make a Star on Earth - Three minutes after the Big Bang, something remarkable happened. A phenomenon emerged that would go on to forge all matter in the universe; a kind of nuclear reaction that millions of years later would light the up first stars...Nuclear Fusio On The Science Channel. Nov 03, 10:00 pm; Nov 04, 1:00 am; Nov 04, 5:00 pm; Nov 05, 5:00 am; ET/PT. *The Universe : Science Fiction. Science Fact - Warp speed, transporters, wormholes and lasers--they are all staples of science fiction books, movies, and TV shows. But the fantastic world of tomorrow is quickly becoming the futuristic world of today. While you may not be "beaming" to your next appointment any time soon, researchers are preparing for the first tests of a present-day "transporter." And while scientists have long mocked Hollywood's visions of warp speed and faster-than-light travel as prohibited by Einstein's laws, a new generation of physicists continues to rewrite the fundamental rules of the universe. Is there a way around the cosmic speed limit? Maybe... as long as you're prepared to survive a journey through the ultra-high energies of one of the most violent places in the cosmos--the heart of a twisting, swirling vortex that leads either to strange, new worlds... or certain death. On The History Channel. Tuesday November 03 09:00 PM; ET/PT. *Jesse James' Hidden Treasure - By the time Jesse James was killed in 1882, he'd stolen over a million and a half dollars according to some estimates--gold, coins and cash that could be worth over $50 million today. History often paints James as a clever outlaw who stole money to finance a lavish criminal lifestyle, a man whose sixteen year long crime spree came to a dramatic halt in 1882 when a fellow gang member betrayed him and shot him dead in the back of the head. But now, a treasure hunt may reveal a totally new story. Was Jesse really stealing for himself, or was he actually secreting away large sums of wealth, in order to finance one of the most clandestine secret societies in American history? Follow a team of treasure hunters searching for where he stashed his riches... and a new truth about Jesse James. Their discoveries may not only re-write the history of why Jesse stole, it could also raise new questions about his death. On The History Channel. Monday, November 09 08:00 PM; Tuesday, November 10 12:00 AM; ET/PT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm) Copyright Lee Krystek, 2009. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: