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Bone-spotting club
about half a kilometre wide. It resembles an arena, and some think that is exactly what it was. Now the mystery has deepened: remote sensing surveys have revealed that around 4500 years ago giant stones were arranged along the ground where the bank now is. Around 30 stones up to 4.5 metres long are buried there, and the surveys suggest there were at least 90 originally. It appears the stones were deliberately toppled and buried when the bank was built around Durrington Walls, for reasons that are unclear. There are no plans as yet to excavate the stones.
ALWAYS dreamed of being a fossil hunter? Now’s your chance – and you don’t have to leave home. A citizen science project called FossilFinder is asking volunteers to look through high-resolution photos of the Turkana basin in Kenya taken from drones and kites, with the hope that they will spot newly exposed fossils before they erode away. Many early human fossils have been found in the region. The first photos, of a fossil hotspot to the east of Lake Turkana, cover only a tiny part of it.
60 Seconds
The project was set up by the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya and the University of Bradford, UK, to get a better understanding of the geology and the past environment by identifying where fossils are found and what kind of fossils are present. There is, of course, a chance that you could be the first to spot the bones of one of our distant relatives – any promising-looking finds will be followed up on the ground. Dinosaur fans will have to wait, however: there are currently no plans to post pictures of rocks dating back to the dinosaur era.
Moulting seals shed mercury too
Soggy rockets
FRANS LANTING/MINT IMAGES/SPL
HOUSTON, we’ll have a problem. SEAL fur may be toxic. Mercury is building up even in pristine areas, The effects of climate change and it’s coming from an unexpected could mean rocket launch sites source — moulting elephant seals. will soon be underwater, NASA Industrial pollution can release has warned. mercury into the environment, The space agency has launch where it may end up as an organic pads and research centres dotted compound called methylmercury. along the US coast, and more than This is taken up by bacteria, and it two-thirds of its infrastructure builds up in organisms much higher is at elevations that are within up the food chain, including top 5 metres of sea level. This is predators such as elephant seals. because launching near the ocean But it doesn’t end there. “Elephant is much safer than over land. seals undergo a catastrophic moult,” But their proximity to the says Jennifer Cossaboon of San Diego water has put many sites at risk State University in California. “It of flooding due to rising seas. comes off in big sheets of fur and “Some are more at risk than the top few layers of skin.” others,” said NASA climatologist Cossaboon has traced mercury in Cynthia Rosenzweig in a recent California’s coastal Año Nuevo State NASA report. “But sea level rise is a very real challenge for all of the centres along the coast.” Models suggest that sea levels at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the launch site for the moon landings and countless space shuttle missions, will rise by as much as 20 centimetres by the 2050s – or triple that if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt. NASA plans to redesign or move vulnerable buildings and improve sea defences to hold back the rising tides. But eventually, some launch sites may have to –A big fat source of mercury– be abandoned.
Park to moulting seals. She calculates that each year seals in the US and Mexico release a similar amount of methylmercury as enters San Francisco bay. Around 40 per cent of California, the most populous US state, drains into the bay, including areas of heavy industry (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1506520112). It isn’t yet clear if methylmercury in the seal’s coats can work its way back into the food chain, but if it can, then hair and feathers shed from other species may be releasing mercury into food webs, too. “We’re opening the methylmercury era,” says Amina Schartup of Harvard University. “We’re going to uncover more and more things that we didn’t realise were out there.”
‘Blue bastard’ is real The seafarers’ tales were true. An elusive “kissing” fish so hard to catch that anglers in Australia call it “blue bastard” has been documented – and its nickname has stuck . Its Latin name is Plectorhinchus caeruleonothus: Caeruleo is blue, nothus is bastard. The kissing is caused by rival males locking jaws during a fight (Zootaxa, doi.org/7h9).
Fat lot of good Believing your weight is determined by your genes is bad for your health. A study of 8000 people found that those who agreed most strongly that some people are just born fat and can’t do much to change it were more likely to eat unhealthily and less likely to exercise. They were also more likely to be overweight and have high blood sugar (Health Education and Behavior, DOI: 10.1177/1090198115602266).
All aboard the Starliner Aerospace firm Boeing has revealed the official name of its upcoming spacecraft, formerly known by the less evocative moniker CST-100. The Starliner capsule is designed to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and will begin test flights in 2017.
Name that storm Brits love talking about the weather – now they can name it too. The Met Office is teaming up with its Irish equivalent, Met Eireann, to crowdsource names for storms that could have a medium or high impact. The US already names storms in a bid to raise awareness of their risks.
Mum knows best Even astronauts have to call their parents sometimes. Andreas Mogensen, the first Dane in space, spoke to his mother via video link after arriving at the International Space Station last week. She urged him to call when he was back on Earth. “Yeah, yeah, I promise,” he replied.
12 September 2015 | NewScientist | 7
Bone-spotting club
about half a kilometre wide. It resembles an arena, and some think that is exactly what it was. Now the mystery has deepened: remote sensing surveys have revealed that around 4500 years ago giant stones were arranged along the ground where the bank now is. Around 30 stones up to 4.5 metres long are buried there, and the surveys suggest there were at least 90 originally. It appears the stones were deliberately toppled and buried when the bank was built around Durrington Walls, for reasons that are unclear. There are no plans as yet to excavate the stones.
ALWAYS dreamed of being a fossil hunter? Now’s your chance – and you don’t have to leave home. A citizen science project called FossilFinder is asking volunteers to look through high-resolution photos of the Turkana basin in Kenya taken from drones and kites, with the hope that they will spot newly exposed fossils before they erode away. Many early human fossils have been found in the region. The first photos, of a fossil hotspot to the east of Lake Turkana, cover only a tiny part of it.
60 Seconds
The project was set up by the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya and the University of Bradford, UK, to get a better understanding of the geology and the past environment by identifying where fossils are found and what kind of fossils are present. There is, of course, a chance that you could be the first to spot the bones of one of our distant relatives – any promising-looking finds will be followed up on the ground. Dinosaur fans will have to wait, however: there are currently no plans to post pictures of rocks dating back to the dinosaur era.
Moulting seals shed mercury too
Soggy rockets
FRANS LANTING/MINT IMAGES/SPL
HOUSTON, we’ll have a problem. SEAL fur may be toxic. Mercury is building up even in pristine areas, The effects of climate change and it’s coming from an unexpected could mean rocket launch sites source — moulting elephant seals. will soon be underwater, NASA Industrial pollution can release has warned. mercury into the environment, The space agency has launch where it may end up as an organic pads and research centres dotted compound called methylmercury. along the US coast, and more than This is taken up by bacteria, and it two-thirds of its infrastructure builds up in organisms much higher is at elevations that are within up the food chain, including top 5 metres of sea level. This is predators such as elephant seals. because launching near the ocean But it doesn’t end there. “Elephant is much safer than over land. seals undergo a catastrophic moult,” But their proximity to the says Jennifer Cossaboon of San Diego water has put many sites at risk State University in California. “It of flooding due to rising seas. comes off in big sheets of fur and “Some are more at risk than the top few layers of skin.” others,” said NASA climatologist Cossaboon has traced mercury in Cynthia Rosenzweig in a recent California’s coastal Año Nuevo State NASA report. “But sea level rise is a very real challenge for all of the centres along the coast.” Models suggest that sea levels at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the launch site for the moon landings and countless space shuttle missions, will rise by as much as 20 centimetres by the 2050s – or triple that if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt. NASA plans to redesign or move vulnerable buildings and improve sea defences to hold back the rising tides. But eventually, some launch sites may have to –A big fat source of mercury– be abandoned.
Park to moulting seals. She calculates that each year seals in the US and Mexico release a similar amount of methylmercury as enters San Francisco bay. Around 40 per cent of California, the most populous US state, drains into the bay, including areas of heavy industry (PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1506520112). It isn’t yet clear if methylmercury in the seal’s coats can work its way back into the food chain, but if it can, then hair and feathers shed from other species may be releasing mercury into food webs, too. “We’re opening the methylmercury era,” says Amina Schartup of Harvard University. “We’re going to uncover more and more things that we didn’t realise were out there.”
‘Blue bastard’ is real The seafarers’ tales were true. An elusive “kissing” fish so hard to catch that anglers in Australia call it “blue bastard” has been documented – and its nickname has stuck . Its Latin name is Plectorhinchus caeruleonothus: Caeruleo is blue, nothus is bastard. The kissing is caused by rival males locking jaws during a fight (Zootaxa, doi.org/7h9).
Fat lot of good Believing your weight is determined by your genes is bad for your health. A study of 8000 people found that those who agreed most strongly that some people are just born fat and can’t do much to change it were more likely to eat unhealthily and less likely to exercise. They were also more likely to be overweight and have high blood sugar (Health Education and Behavior, DOI: 10.1177/1090198115602266).
All aboard the Starliner Aerospace firm Boeing has revealed the official name of its upcoming spacecraft, formerly known by the less evocative moniker CST-100. The Starliner capsule is designed to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and will begin test flights in 2017.
Name that storm Brits love talking about the weather – now they can name it too. The Met Office is teaming up with its Irish equivalent, Met Eireann, to crowdsource names for storms that could have a medium or high impact. The US already names storms in a bid to raise awareness of their risks.
Mum knows best Even astronauts have to call their parents sometimes. Andreas Mogensen, the first Dane in space, spoke to his mother via video link after arriving at the International Space Station last week. She urged him to call when he was back on Earth. “Yeah, yeah, I promise,” he replied.
12 September 2015 | NewScientist | 7