Natural world – Page 2

Dinosaur Fossil found with soft tissue such as skin and muscles

Dinosaurs were large size animals that dominated terrestrial ecosystems for over 160 million years, first appearing approximately 230 million years ago. Non-avian dinosaurs suddenly became extinct approximately 65 million years ago. Now a high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today. With this new discovery it may be possible to create jurassicpark :)

This is a neat find. I can say a rare find, but I think it is not enough for any actual biotechnology to build jurassicpark.

Fight Global Warming With Methane-Eating Bacteria

Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.

The geographic distribution of surface warming during the 21st century calculated by the HadCM3 climate model if a business as usual scenario is assumed for economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. In this figure, the globally averaged warming corresponds to 3.0 Â°C (5.4 Â°F).

Now, NEW Zealand scientists hope a newly discovered bacterium that eats methane could ultimately help counter a key global warming gas.

The bacterium was discovered living about 30cm below the ground in the hot, acidic environment at Hells Gate in Rotorua, a geothermal area.

How does it feel to die?

It is true that death and life is not controlled by humans. Someone always take care of this issue. However, death is a mystery, only truly solved in your final moments, but Anna Gosline offers some macabre insights. This is brilliant read:

If there is one thing we can be certain of in life, it’s that eventually we will die â€“ that is, we will no longer be alive. Sadly we are not completely certain what “being dead” means: defining death is much more complicated than it appears, and it’s getting harder to define all the time.
As recently as a century ago, it was priests not doctors who declared a person dead. When in doubt, they looked for signs of putrefaction. As medicine advanced, however, it became apparent that death was not an event, but a process.
Even so, for practical purposes an arbitrary line had to be drawn. First it was taken as the heart stopping. Then came the notion of brain death and in the 1960â€™s this seemed like the way forward. For a while it was even considered foolproof: once activity ceases in the brain and brainstem you can never regain consciousness, and without intervention the body will quickly shut down.
But foolproof it is not and the fact that several hundred neurologists and philosophers are gathering next May for the fifth International Symposium on the Definition of Death shows this only too well.

=> Read full report here

Huge Hole Found in the Universe

The Universe is defined as the summation of all particles and energy that exist and the space-time in which all events occur. Very little is known about the size of the universe. It may be trillions of light years across, or even infinite in size.

Now we found the hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it’s also strangely empty of the mysterious “dark matter” that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

Does time fly having fun?

This is an interesting article about turning back the clock and time we witnessed.:

Healthy eating, exercise, security – these are just some of the means to living a longer life, we are often told. But what about our perceptions of time itself? A new book argues that by “slowing down” time we can extend our lives further.

Iâ€™m not about everything mentioned in this article but more you enjoy life everyday chances are very high that you might extend your life by 5-10 years.

8 million year old trees found – we can get more pre-historic climate information

Hungarian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered a group of fossilized swamp cypress trees preserved from 8 million years ago which could provide clues about the climate of pre-historic times.

Human evolved from Africa

According to the RSOH, anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 to 100,000 years ago, with members of one branch leaving Africa about 80,000 years ago. These emigrants spread to the rest of the world; it means all modern humans originated in sub-Saharan Africa:

New research published in the journal Nature (19 July) has proved the single origin of humans theory by combining studies of global genetic variations in humans with skull measurements across the world. The research, at the University of Cambridge and funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), represents a final blow for supporters of a multiple origins of humans theory.
Competing theories on the origins of anatomically modern humans claim that either humans originated from a single point in Africa and migrated across the world, or different populations independently evolved from homo erectus to home sapiens in different areas.

However there is a debate going on over human origins. Some experts can’t agree on new findings:

John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says the paper is â€œmistaken.â€ A major flaw is that the current research is largely based on skull variability.

Nevertheless this is interesting news for all of us, as it through out some light on where we came from.

10,000 year old baby mammoth found near the Yuribei River in Russia

Mammoth remains have been found in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. They are believed to have originally evolved in North Africa about 4.8 million years ago.

Recently, scientist discovery a 10,000 year old baby mammoth encased in a layer of permafrost near the Yuribei River in Russia. Scientists are hoping that the animal’s D.N.A. can be used to resurrect extinct members of the elephant family through the process of cloning.

A female baby mammoth carcass found in May has been named Lyuba after the wife of Yuri Khudi, the reindeer breeder and hunter who discovered the creature preserved in Russian permafrost. Lyuba will be housed in the Zoological Museum in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg.

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough

Colossal Squid: The Largest In The World

The majority of squid are no more than 60 centimeter long, although the giant squid may reach 13 meter in length. Squid are a large, diverse group of marine cephalopods. Like all cephalopods, squid are distinguished by having a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms and two tentacles arranged in pairs.