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Futurology #126 – the Antikythera mechanism
Monday, 11 January 2010
Ancient computer reveals its sophisticated secrets: X-rays and advanced photography have uncovered the true complexity of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a device so astonishing that its discovery is like finding a functional Buick in medieval Europe.
In 1900, some divers found the wreck of a Roman vessel off the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the other treasures remanded to the Greek government was an unassuming corroded lump.
Some time later, the lump fell apart, revealing a damaged machine of unknown purpose (detail from IO9's pic reproduced here), with some large gears and many smaller cogs, plus a few engraved words in Greek. Early studies suggested it was some type of astronomical time-keeping device – researcher Derek J. de Solla Price laid the groundwork by establishing initial tooth counts and suggesting that the device followed the Metonic cycle, a 235-month pattern commonly used to predict eclipses in the ancient world.
Street views of Pompeii: Google’s Street View service, which lets you zoom into Google Maps and stroll through the city streets in a 3D environment, has added the ancient ruins of Pompeii, writes Mashable.com.
Pompeii — the ruined and partially buried Roman city near Naples, Italy — was destroyed during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, but after it was rediscovered in 1738 and excavated in the late 19th century, it became one of the most important archaeological finds (and tourist attractions) of all time.
Now you can explore it from your home thanks to Google’s Street View.
[Comment: what a great way to waste a couple of hours!
Junk DNA in human genome: When scientists first decoded the human genome ten years ago, they expected a fairly straightforward set of directions for making you or me.
But no. Most of our DNA doesn’t directly code for anything. The name that attached to it was “junk DNA.”
Now some European scientists have abandoned the junk designation entirely, preferring to call for the study of the whole genome under the name 'hologenomics'.
In just the last year it has been shown that “junk DNA” has a vital role to play in evolution, that proteins can “cut and paste” it into a form that actually does code, and now that its byproducts can help diagnose certain types of cancers, reports Smart Planet.
[Comment: waste not, want not.]
We carry 40-million-year-old virus in our DNA: Human DNA carries the artifact of an infection so ancient, it predates humanity itself. The brain-attacking disease, known as bornavirus, infected proto-hominids forty million years ago. It may provide evidence of how our evolutionary ancestors dealt with infection.
Keizo Tomonaga of Osaka University in Japan led a team of scientists in the hunt for signs of bornavirus in the genomes of a range of animals, including humans, other primates, elephants, and marsupials. They discovered several fragments of bornavirus in human DNA, including two genes that were somehow affected by the pathogen.
[Comment: I'd like the 30-million-year-old antivirus then, please.]
[Comment: I'd like the 30-million-year-old antivirus then, please.]
Evolution of life in 60 seconds: Almost a year ago, notes IO9, Seed magazine's Claire L Evans created this cool (embedded) video that offers a timeline of life on Earth. It's explained entirely with text, voice, and a ticking clock. It's an artful blend of typography and science.
[Comment: Watch it, it's nifty.]
White Dwarf could threaten Earth: A white dwarf 3,260 light-years from Earth looks like it could go supernova. That stellar explosion would have dire consequences for our planet, not to mention our possible descendants.
Located in the binary system T Pyxidis, the white dwarf in question was originally thought to be far more distant from our solar system. Although three thousand light-years might sound like a fairly safe distance away from a potential supernova, it really is quite close by astronomical standards. To put it in some perspective, the diameter of the Milky Way, at roughly 100,000 light-years wide, is multiple orders of magnitude greater than this.
The gamma rays released by a Type 1A supernova at that distance would hit Earth with the force of a thousand solar flares. Most destructively, the rays would create huge amounts of nitrous oxide in the Earth's atmosphere, which would in turn eradicate the Ozone Layer.
[Comment: pity our poor descendants 10,003,00 years in the future who will cop that lot].
In an old, old galaxy far away ... The Hubble Telescope's tour of duty is coming to an end, but it's still good for some incredible finds, writes IO9.
New images of a galaxy formed a mere billion years after the Big Bang were taken during August 2009 over four days. Hubble used the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3, which allows it to see near-infrared wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. This allowed the telescope to observe light from the very beginnings of the universe.This is because the expansion of the universe distorts the ultraviolet and visible light from these galaxies over the course of their unimaginably long journey, pushing them into near-infrared wavelengths.
The galaxies are significantly smaller than the Milky Way, and the stars within them appear to be unusually blue.
[Comment: I'd be blue too.]
Egg house is a triumph of space, design: A white blob is actually a tiny living space, complete with bathroom, kitchen, and bed in a shelf – check out the pictures at IO9.Within the egg, the walls are lined with shelves.
A hatch in the ceiling opens to let in natural light, and the entire end of the house opens up to create a kind of porch with a roof.
There are more (and bigger) pictures at DesignBoom. The house was designed by Belgian firm dmvA, and it's officially called the Blob VB3. It's polyester over a wooden frame.
Although there's a shower in the egg, it's hard to spot the toilet or imagine how power and water get in.
[Comment: Not exactly stackable, though.]
[Comment: Not exactly stackable, though.]
Moon shakes San Francisco: A novel explanation for California's earthquakes puts the blame on the sun and the moon. According to researchers at UC Berkeley, their combined gravity is just enough to set the San Andreas Fault in motion.
A few years ago, seismologists detected tremors in the San Andreas Fault at a depth where they didn't expect to find any – about 24 kilometers underground. Now, they believe the explanation lies out in space. When the sun and the moon line up in the direction of the fault's break, their combined gravity drags enough water through subterranean channels that it triggers seismic activity.
[Comment: At least that makes it predictable. And no wonder the dogs howl.]
Neanderthals had a great line in jewelry and painting: Scientists have long debated whether Neandertals were as sophisticated as the early homo sapiens who lived alongside them. New evidence suggests they were our ancestors' mental equals, wearing jewelry and painting with homebrew pigments.
In a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of archaeologists will explain their findings from a 50-thousand-year-old Neandertal campsite.
The researchers found brightly-colored shell ornaments and the remains of several colourful pigments in a cave that would have been a few kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea 50 thousand years ago and is now in southern Spain).
[Comment: jewelry and pigments makes them out mental equals? OK ...]
