Pictojam
Another Candidate for the Origin of Atlantis
A project to study volcanic activity off the Canary Islands has found three sunken volcanos in the Atlantic that once formed a group of islands. These now-underwater mountains exist at a depth between 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) and only 300 feet below the surface. This seamount was named Mount Los Atlantes, after Plato's fictional Atlantis. Mount Los Atlantes was above the surface during the Eocene epoch. Some some tens of millions of years ago, they stopped erupting and sank under the weight of their own cooling lava. The project has identified beaches, sand dunes, and cliffs among the features of the volcanos. How could these islands possibly have anything to do with the legend of Atlantis, since they sank so long ago? The peaks aren't that deep, so they would have been exposed during the last ice age, which ran from 115,000 to 11,700 years ago. Sea level was much lower then, and the islands may have developed a flourishing ecosystem during that time, before glacial ice melted, seas rose, and the islands were submerged once again. Read what we know so far about these newly-discovered ancient volcanos at LiveScience.-via Strange Company (Image credit: IGME-CSIC)
There Might Be a Lot More Water on Mars
From what we know now, scientists figure that Mars had plenty of water around three billion years ago. But then as the red planet lost its atmosphere, it also lost its surface water. All that is left is the ice around the poles, too cold and solid to have evaporated or have been flung away into space. But the surface is not the only place a planet can store water. A study of gravity and seismic waves that travel through Mars' crust yielded data that didn't make sense when compared with the rocky crust. But the anomalies would make sense if there was liquid water trapped in the planet's mid-crust, between 11.5-20 kilometers (7-12 miles) below the surface. Dr. Vashan Wright, lead author of the study, says that if we extrapolate the data to the rest of the planet, the amount of water would fill an ocean one to two kilometers deep. If there is water in the mid-crust, and it's been there all this time, it opens up the possibility that that water contains some form of life. Read about the implications of this discovery, both for the search for extraterrestrial life and for the future manned missions to Mars, at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)
The First Dinosaur Fossil Was Wildly Misidentified
Modern-day paleontologists and rockhounds alike know how to recognize dinosaur fossils because we have a couple hundred years of research to rely on. That wasn't the case when Oxford naturalist Robert Plot was presented with a fossilized bone unearthed at a quarry in 1677. No one knew what a dinosaur was then, so the bone was a mystery. Plot recognized it as a femur, but it was too big to be from a horse or an ox, so it must have come from an elephant. When Plot later got to examine an elephant skeleton, he knew that was wrong. So the fossil must have been from a human giant, like those described in the Bible. Almost 100 years later, that fossil got a Latin name based on a drawing Plot had made of a portion of that by-then-lost fossil, Scrotum humanum. The drawing sure looks like a human scrotum, but real scientists never took that seriously. To this day, the public takes delight in the story of that name. The point about these misidentifications is that we have to put ourselves into the mindset of those early scientists who confronted fossils and had no concept of species that had gone extinct. They, like we, were building their theories upon what was already known, and that knowledge had gaps that weren't obvious at the time. It makes you consider what scientists in future generations will think about the knowledge base of the 21st century. Read about that first dinosaur fossil in an excerpt from a new book on the subject by Edward Dolnick at Literary Hub. -via Damn Interesting
Brick Frog Saunas Protect Frogs From Fungus
A fungus called chytrid is responsible for the extinction of 90 frog species once found all over the world. It is a danger to the green and golden bell frog (Ranoidea aurea), which is not only endangered, but sports the colors of Australia's national sports teams. So it may be quite appropriate to know the these frogs took refuge in an area of Sydney that was slated to be developed for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. They were discovered thriving in a closed brickyard, which was then eliminated from development and declared a frog sanctuary. The frogs were drawn to the discarded bricks, which not only retain heat from sunlight, but also contain "frog-sized holes." Studies in the years following the discovery show that keeping the green and gold bell frog warm in winter causes them to be resistant to chytrid fungus infection. Conservationists are building small greenhouses with bricks inside, which they call "frog saunas" to help the species thrive. Read about the frog saunas for the green and golden bell frogs of Sydney at ABC. If you live in eastern Australia and would like to build your own frog sauna, there are instructions for how to do that. -via Metafilter(Image credit: Bernard Spragg)
The Prehistoric Mystery of the Cerutti Mastodon
In 1992, the fossilized skeleton of a mastodon was unearthed near San Diego. It was studied by paleontologist Richard Cerutti, and became known as the Cerutti Mastodon. The position and condition of the bones, the marks on them, and the rocks found near the bones show evidence that that mastodon was butchered by humans wielding sharpened rocks as knives. This was a shocking claim, since the fossil is dated to 130,000 years ago. The prevailing theory is that humans did not inhabit the Americas until 25,000 years ago at the earliest. Homo sapiens didn't venture out of Africa until less than 100,000 years ago. The research on the Cerutti Mastodon was dismissed or ignored for years. When other scientists studied the find and made the same claim years later, they were also roundly criticized. So how do we explain the Cerutti Mastodon? Clearly, someone is wrong somewhere. Maybe the dating of the fossil is wrong. Maybe there is some other explanation for the cut marks and the shaped stones. Or maybe some species of humans were migrating to the Americas earlier than we previously thought. Read about the conundrum of the Cerutti Mastodon at Atlas Obscura. -via Strange Company (Image credit: Charles Robert Knight)
Robot Dentist: A Good Idea or Just Terrifying?
We've seen enough blooper videos from robotics companies to know that robots can malfunction, and we've seen enough science fiction to know that when robots go wrong, there's no stopping them. That's why the thought of a robot drilling your teeth is quite frightening, as if getting dental work done isn't frightening enough on its own. But a dentistry robot is here, from a company called Perceptive. Their robot offers quite a few advantages over a flash-and-blood dentist, starting with a unique imaging system called optical coherence tomography (OCT) that uses light like a sonar, investigating exactly where that tooth decay is inside a tooth, and therefore being able to plan a procedure to remove precisely enough material to get the job done. By contrast, a dentist is usually drilling in exploration, making procedural decisions as he/she goes. But what if the patient moves during robotic drilling? The Perceptive robot moves with them, because the drill is anchored inside the mouth. Genius. The Perceptive robot has been used on people with good results. The next step will be clinical trials to get FDA approval, so it may be a few years before you have to decide whether to let a robot fill your cavities. Read a more thorough explanation of what this dental robot does at Spectrum IEEE. -via Real Clear Science (Image credit: Perspective)
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