The Week An Old Torah, Older Sunken Boats and a Seriously Old Primate By JENNIFER A. KINGSON “I hate paying taxes, but wouldn’t mind paying more if the money went to fund science and research like this,” wrote a reader from Connecticut, commenting on an article about the discovery of a pocket-size early primate that lived 55 million years ago in what is now China. It was the date and location of the primate’s skeleton that tantalized: Scientists marveled at the age of the fossil, the earliest well-preserved specimen so far, and the fact that it was found in Asia. Readers marveled, too. “Science rocks!” one person commented. “Science news is the best,” someone else said. “I really, really wish I could have one of these for a pet,” said another reader (one after my own heart). DEVELOPMENTS Biomedical Engineering Thought-Controlled Copter A cloverleaf-shaped robot called a quadcopter flies around a gymnasium at the University of Minnesota, ducking through large yellow rings, looking like an ordinary remote-controlled vehicle. But this one is steered by the brain of a person wearing a cap with 64 electrodes, which transmit instructions to a computer. The signals are translated into commands and beamed to the flying robot. “If you imagine making a fist with your right hand, it turns the robot to the right,” Karl LaFleur, a graduate student who worked on the project, explains in a mesmerizing video on YouTube. The research team, led by Professor Bin He, published an article last week in which they explained that the technology could be used to help people with disabilities, and that it differed from other systems being developed for people with paralysis in that the cap worn on the scalp is noninvasive. Archaeology 3,000-Year-Old Fleet The eight prehistoric boats, carved of oak and other woods, were deliberately sunk sometime during the Bronze Age in what is now the Fenland area of eastern England. But why? Archaeologists have postulated a few reasons — as a ritual, perhaps, or to keep the timber moist while the boats were not in use — and hope to know more after they restore the impressive fleet, which was found in 2011 in a quarry near Peterborough and is exquisitely preserved. Each boat was carved from a single tree trunk, and the longest is nearly 30 feet stem to stern. The decorative carvings on one look “as if they’d been playing noughts and crosses all over it,” Ian Panter, principal conservator at the York Archaeological Trust, told The Guardian, adding that “one still floated after 3,000 years.” Researchers say the boats, which were probably used to transport people and cargo, will be carbon-dated, spruced up and put on permanent display. Medical Research Global DNA Database As the price of genome sequencing plummets, more people are getting their DNA decoded, and the growing trove of genetic data should ultimately be a boon for medical research. Larger databases will allow scientists to see more patterns and spot more anomalies. Last week, the effort to pool resources took a huge step forward: More than 70 medical, research and advocacy groups active in 41 countries agreed to establish protocols for sharing genetic and clinical information. They will set standards on vital sticking points, like testing and analysis techniques and ensuring patient privacy. The goal is to create databases, with the consent of the study subjects, that would be open to all doctors and researchers. “There is lots of momentum now, and we really do want to move quickly,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told The Times. Antiquities Record-Setting Torah The scroll is made of soft sheep leather, measures 39 yards by 25 inches, and is about 800 years old — which makes it the oldest complete Torah in the world, according to a professor of Hebrew at the University of Bologna in Italy. The professor, Mauro Perani, found it in the university’s library, where it had been wrongly classified by a scholar in 1889 as a 17th-century document and ignominiously labeled “Scroll 2.” Professor Perani had a hunch it was much older. “I realized that the style of the writing was older than the 17th century, so I consulted with other experts,” he told Reuters. The experts, along with carbon dating tests, placed the date that the Torah had been sewn together somewhere between 1155 and 1225, making it older than the previous record-holder, from the late 13th century. Paleontology A Primate, Tiny and Old Primates started roaming the earth after the dinosaurs died out, which happened about 66 million years ago, scientists say. But when did primates start their journey? A new benchmark suggested itself last week, when the gloriously complete skeleton of a tiny primate found in China was revealed to be 55 million years old, roughly eight million years older than any other such fossil found so far, according to an article in the journal Nature. The primate owner of that early skeleton, an ancient relative of the tarsier, was of a species never seen before, and paleontologists named it Archicebus achilles. It was a tree-dweller that weighed no more than an ounce, so small that it probably spent most of its time hunting for the insects it craved. Its busy habits, plus an evocative rendering of it released by the scientific team, prompted some news reports to label it “hyperactive” and “wide-eyed.” The little guy did his scampering far before anything approaching human evolution would take place: Not until much later, about 38 million years ago, did primates appear in Africa, and Homo sapiens did not emerge until about 200,000 years ago.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:03:08 +0000
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