Science

,What the World Needs is More

Devil Toad
So those wacky scientists have discovered a giant, sharp-toothed, armored prehistoric frog that weight ten pounds.

No word on whether it had hypno-vision.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago - intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

But its size - 10 pounds and 16 inches long - isn't the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature's bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography.

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"This frog, if it has the same habits as its living relatives in South America, was quite voracious," Krause said. "It's even conceivable that it could have taken down some hatchling dinosaurs."

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It seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known scientifically as Ceratophrys. Popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.

Like those modern frogs, Beelzebufo had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, plus teeth. Skull bones were extremely thick, with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.

The name comes from the Greek word for devil, Beelzebub, and Latin for toad, bufo (pronounced boo-foe).

The family link raises a paleontology puzzle: Standard theory for how the continents drifted apart show what is now Madagascar would have been long separated by ocean from South America during Beelzebufo's time. And frogs can't survive long in salt water, Krause noted.

He contends the giant frog provides evidence for competing theories that some bridge still connected the land masses that late in time, perhaps via an Antarctica that was much warmer than today.

A dinosaur eating frog.

I HIDE NOW IN CASE IT COMES BACK

Source: My Way News (Associated Press feed)

Tiny Pterodactyl
From giant (presumably) evil toads, we go to tiny pterodactyls.

Probably also evil.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As pterodactyls go, it was small, toothless and had unexpectedly curved toes -- yet scientists are welcoming their new find as another piece in the puzzle of ancient life.

"We have this really amazing creature, sparrow sized, which lived essentially in the trees, showing us a very new, very interesting side of the evolutionary history of those animals," said Alexander W. A. Kellner of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It is cute though.

Source: CNN.com

Sleep Bot
So some wiseguy researchers are working on a robot to scan, recognize, and reenact your dreams.

FOOLS!

Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns have teamed up on a neat project, which involves a robot logging and re-enacting dreams of a human subject. Brainwave patterns and eye movements during dozing will be monitored, depending on what is logged, the robot will alter its behavior accordingly. Sure, this is not dream enactment proper, but it is as close as we are going to get in the not too distant future.

Oh the humanity.

Source: Gizmodo

New York Times and T-Rex Sex
Seriously. They ran a column, for Valentines week, about the romantic habits of the T-Rex. It gets a little...blue.

Which brings me to my tyrannical fantasy. I want to take a journey 68 million years back in time to see a Tyrannosaurus rex couple mating. What was it like? Did they trumpet and bellow and stamp their feet? Did they thrash their enormous tails? Did he bite her neck in rapture and exude a musky scent? Somehow, I imagine that when two T. rex got it on, the earth shook for miles around.

And if I could only take this journey, I could answer a question that sometimes bothers me. Did T. rex have a penis? Did he even, as lizards do, have two?

Thank you for the insight into your twisted mind. Those of us not yet driven mad by your column will be over here, on the other side of the padded door.

Source: The New York Times

Culinary Mad Science
Some people just have way too much time on their hands.

When some of the world's top chefs put their talent to whipping up some fun, the results can be disconcerting: a salsify or vegetable oyster turns into a cork, watermelon becomes meat and dishes connect to a mobile phone.

At this week's annual Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville, some of the world's most avant-garde chefs had fun with trompe-l'oeil.

Spain's Andoni Luis Aduriz, the chef from "Mugaritz" in Errenteria, dished up thin slices of appetising red meat served with salad dressing and sorrel but left diners gaping when he revealed the meat was water-melon.

Another of his dishes was a bar of soap sitting on a plate in the middle of a cloud of bubbles.

"The world of cosmetics is increasingly stepping into the world of gastronomy," he said. "They put more and more cooking ingredients into shampoos, such as honey, barley, flowers or apples. So I am putting gastronomy into cosmetics."

The bar of soap was made of barley milk, rice and gelatine, but the hardest part was producing bubbles that did not burst, a task that took a year of research with an engineer. They now last and taste of honey.

It goes on from there. Suffice it to say, these people are weird.

Source: Raw Story

Bronze Clock
Ancient Greek device, seemingly a clock for astronomical use, turns out to be just that. It's also as sophisticated as 18th century Western clocks.

A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.

The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.

The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.

Since its discovery, scientists have been trying to reconstruct the device, which is now known to be an astronomical calendar capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon. Experts believe it to be the earliest-known device to use gear wheels and by far the most sophisticated object to be found from the ancient and medieval periods.

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Remarkably, scans showed the device uses a differential gear, which was previously believed to have been invented in the 16th century. The level of miniaturisation and complexity of its parts is comparable to that of 18th century clocks.

Ahh, the ancient Greeks. They could do everything except organize a working national government. Oh well.

Source: The Guardian

Crap Shoot
So a no-fly zone has been declared by the Air Force types over a region of the Pacific, strongly suggesting that this is where, in fact, they plan to try and down the rogue spy satellite.

Of course, there's no need to do so, in fact, and even if they are successful the only real result will be to riddle space with additional shrapnel, and of course, anger the Russkies and Chinese military.

Source: Google Maps

Dried Out
So a long-term climate change study by the folks who won the Nobel Prize with Al Gore shows that the Southwest is going to start to run out of water. Err, pretty soon, actually.

Climate change and a growing demand for water could drain two of the nation's largest manmade reservoirs within 13 years, depriving several Southwestern states of key water sources, scientists warn.



Researchers at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Wednesday that there's a 50 percent chance that lakes Mead and Powell will dry up by 2021, and a 10 percent chance the lakes will run out of usable water by 2013.

"We were surprised that it was so soon," said climate scientist David Pierce, co-author of the institution's study that detailed the findings.

I guess we can soon add Phoenix to the list of cities that will be ghost towns, thanks in no small part to Republican incompetence and corporate greed.

Source: Raw Story

Recycling
Ok, so it's not strictly speaking science. But science is involved, and I have to give IU credit when it does something right, if for no other reason than the novelty.

In 2006, IU put out more than 7,000 tons of garbage. This excess waste is beginning to take a toll on not only Bloomington, but also other cities in Monroe County, said a representative of Residential Programs and Services.

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IU is improving with total amount of waste put out per year. In 2007, the University cut back to 4,103 tons. Though the amount of waste has decreased by more than 3,000 tons, IU still has a long way to go, said Steve Akers, residential programs and services associate director of Environmental Operations.

Woo, 3000 tons less garbage.

Though since recycling is hardly 100% efficient, it's a bit disingenuous to act like shoving stuff in a recycling bin solves the whole problem.

Ahh, there we go. I needed a little cynicism in my IU news. Don't want to go soft.

Source: The Indiana Daily Stupid (Student)