Astronomers have found a weird double-star system -- a super-fast spinning pulsar whose gravity has deformed its companion star into a giant red teardrop - the first time this phenomenon has been observed, reports UniSci

Human brain size no different than apes Galaxy spirals backwards Mutated flies let loose in Africa Do cats cause schizophrenia? X-Ray vision - without the rays

Ancient skulls bearing a single eyeball socket have been found in limestone caves in the hinterlands of Bohol, Bukidnon and Agusan, reports said.

"The existence of the skulls, which resemble those of the cyclops, a race of giants in Greek mythology with a single eye in the middle of the forehead, has triggered speculations that one-eyed ancient settlers once roamed the country’s southern islands.

Tribal folklore maintain there were two races of giants in ancient times — the kapre who were associated with evil, and the one-eyed giants whom early settlers regarded as their heroes."

Not a cyclops, says zooarcheologist [ archived ]

By "using an ancient design and 56 tons of Berkshire granite, Judith Young has created a teaching tool for a new millennium with her massive modern stone circle. It sits outside the football stadium at the University of Massachusetts."

130 feet in diameter, "Her standing stones are precisely aligned to Amherst's latitude to allow university students, schoolchildren and just ordinary folks to explore the mysteries of the universe"

Yahoo story and web page with pics

"Archeologists working on repairs to Silbury Hill, a mysterious neolithic monument in southwest England, have discovered traces of a spiral path leading to its summit.

The finding indicates a possible ceremonial use for the 92 feet high mound, believed to have been constructed over 4,500 years ago...", reports Yahoo/Reuters.

An excellent diagram is at the Telegragh site (backup at FarShores)

The Milky Way's black hole (in the galactic centre) is unusually quiet - is a supernova from 10,000 years ago the reason? Cosmiverse and NASA report:

"Ten thousand years ago a supernova exploded very close to Sagittarius A*. The fast-expanding gases swept away much of the local interstellar gas and dust, preventing material from falling into the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, thereby starving it. Less material falling into the black hole meant fewer X-rays being emitted"

But then again, could it more like a dormant volcano. In 2001:

"Sagittarius A* suddenly brightened. Within minutes it was 45 times its normal intensity. Then it faded back to its pre-flare level about three hours later".

There are "growing concerns about soft errors, which are caused by alpha particles and cosmic rays that bombard the earth. Energy from these particles can cause memory bits to change status, resulting in operational error of devices...SRAM soft error rates are now actually getting worse by about an order of magnitude every generation"

"But cosmic rays are almost impossible to stop - They'll go through 5 feet of concrete without any trouble...As they pass through they can separate junction current flow for 5 ps [and cause a bit to flip]."

"A memory misfire in a PC or cell phone, applications responsible for about half of last year's SRAM sales, often goes unnoticed by a user. However, such a glitch in networking equipment, which accounted for about 24% of the 2001 SRAM market, can send information packets, such as money transfers, to the wrong address."

"IBM has discovered that SRAM tested at 10,000 feet above sea level will record SERs that are 14 times the rate tested at sea level, due to higher exposure to cosmic rays. Although alpha particles can be controlled with improved packaging, such as a plastic coating over the die, cosmic rays can never be completely blocked out...It's more or less a fact of life"

Articles on new ways to reduce the problem are at EETimes, Silicon Strategies, and EBN. Full study at IBM

"Two million years ago, just as the Earth's primitive apemen were evolving into big-brained humans, a pair of supernovae explosions occurred near Earth.

Our planet was buffeted with blasts of radiation - with devastating effects. 'These supernovae would have blown away our protective ozone layer,' said Dr Narciso Benítez, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

...for several hundred years the planet would have been battered by intense radiation. All sorts of mutational damage to animals' DNA would have occurred. New species could have emerged as a result. It is possible Homo sapiens may have been one of these."

The theory will be published in Physical Review Letters next week. [Alt. link] More on those supernovae here.

Scientists have produced the most detailed atlas of Mars ever compiled, and it is freely available on the internet. It is based on the accurate images sent back from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), which has been in orbit around Mars since 1997, the BBC reports.

ALSO: Mars flooded recently - a 600 cubic kilometre flood happened just 10 million years ago, following a volcanic eruption which melted underground ice. Reports at Astronomy.com and Ananova

Afterglow of short gamma-ray bursts detected Mini ozone holes over Europe Sun is beginning to settle down 780,000 year old nutcrackers Sleep more than 8 hours - die younger

NOTE: Story is from Oct 2001 "Black holes may be worse monsters than we thought. Not only do they inexorably devour matter around them, but they may also be able to steadily belch out energy. This is the of conclusion a European-led team of astronomers whose work with ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has produced surprising new results."

"It corresponds to a theory proposed over 25 years ago by two Cambridge University astronomers. Roger Blandford and Roman Znajek had suggested that rotational energy could escape from a black hole when it is in a strong magnetic field which exerts a braking effect. This theory fits the physical laws of thermodynamics which state that energy released should be absorbed by the surrounding gas."

Also at NASA

As widely reported last month, what appears to be an ancient city is buried 130 feet down off the northwestern coast of India in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). Wood found at the Cambay site was dated at 7,500 years old - but a newly carbon-dated piece of wood gives an age of 9,500 years, pre-dating all other civilizations.

Graham Hancock will surely be wetting himself with excitement - with this news coinciding with his new TV show on this very topic. See Earthfiles (Linda Moulton Howe) and Arabia.com for more info

Any climate change info needs to be viewed from a wide angle, needs to be compared to the data of a millenium, not just a century. I'm not disputing man-made global warming, but it appears that if we were ever to make such a mess of things, now is a relatively cool time to do so.

"Until now, regulations designed to protect people from microwave radiation - from mobile phones, microwave ovens and radar systems - have been based purely on avoiding heating from the microwave radiation."

"The safety of mobile phones is under fresh scrutiny following the discovery that their emissions have an unexpected effect on living creatures. The finding throws out the strongest challenge yet to the widely held belief that heating from mobile phone signals is their only potential threat to brain cells."

This is rather serious considering how wireless devices are about to proliferate - and non-heating based research could take many years to show up any dangers to humans. I wouldn't be surprised if this could also affect DNA/evolution.

More info: good article at NetworkMagazine.com, US Gov regulations and research links at Electric-Words.com

Lightning Strike Map - worldwide, from NASA Airplanes more dangerous than asteroids - Space.com Fluoride could leak nuke containers - and we drink it! Underworld - new Graham Hancock book

Off topic: Two of the three Virginia law students who overpowered a gunman in a fatal school shooting were armed and used their weapons to disarm the shooter. Yet of the 280 stories written about the shooting, a mere four mentioned the fact that the heroic students were armed and used their guns to halt the rampage. Read more...

As it moves further away from our solar system, pioneer 10 is slowing down. A mysterious force is reducing its speed by 6 mph per century. Not much, but baffling when you consider that effects like gravity and solar radiation decrease rapidly with distance. Other possibilities have also been ruled out.

Also at the Guardian.

Problem solved - In brief, the anomalous acceleration may arise from radiation of waste heat by the on-board spacecraft RTG power generator.

"First, the kinds of mutations weren't related to the loss of Hsp90, and they weren't totally random – instead, they were related to the 'genetic background' of the stock from which the parents of the mutant flies came. This suggests that the lack of Hsp90 was releasing a Pandora's Box of mutations acquired by particular fly lineages, but which remained hidden until such time as the control exercised by Hsp90 was relaxed.

Second, mutant flies could be bred to maintain the mutations in the population, and the mutations would persist even in progeny in which Hsp90 was, once again, functional. In other words, once the mutations were out of Pandora's Box, they could not always be coaxed back in again. An episode in which Hsp90 was removed from the picture resulted in the irrevocable change of the body form of the fly."

More articles on this research is at the BBC and the Indian Academy of Sciences. Plus, if you have access to offline research papers, there's a huge bibliography

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have uncovered the first genetic evidence that explains how large-scale alterations to body plans were accomplished during the early evolution of animals.

This can be achieved by relatively simple mutations in a class of regulatory genes, known as Hox, that act as master switches by turning on and off other genes during embryonic development.

People exposed to radioactive fallout from weapons tests in the former Soviet Union passed on genetic mutations to their children and grandchildren, says study

Of course the research only focuses on negative mutations and is flawed due to radiation still existing in the area, but I am like a magnet to any evidence that this can occur.

John F. Nash (A Beautiful Mind) - has a home page In Scotland, doctors cut corners over hygiene 100,000 Americans die each year of adverse drug reactions Alcohol may cut the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by nearly half