Say It In Song: Researcher Deciphers Meaning Within Bird Communication

To many people bird song can herald the coming of spring reveal what kind of bird is perched nearby or be merely an unwelcome early morning intrusion. But to Sandra Vehrencamp Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior bird song is a code from which to glean insights into avian beh Vehrencamp records bird songs and then plays them back to birds of the same species to decipher strategies that various species use to attract mates and resolve territorial disputes. The technique allows researchers to study birds reactions to songs when such elements as overlapping vocalization finer song structural features and the type of song played back are varied. “You kind of feel like you re talking to the bird ” Vehrencamp said. …  She found for example that song sparrows in southern California can interpret some forms of playback as “fighting words ” because they often resolve conflict by singing the same type of song — known as song-type matching — back to one another. “They get really mad ” Vehrencamp said. “They treat playback like it s another bird and will sometimes come right up to the speaker.”

via Say It In Song: Researcher Deciphers Meaning Within Bird Communication.

Colours that point to life on Mars – Times Online

A swirl of green detected by a spacecraft among purple and yellow rocks shows patches of the mineral carbonate on Mars, which suggests that the planet may support life.

Carbonate, which forms in water, was spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in Nili Fossae, a region of valleys that cut into the crust of the planet.

“It would have really been a clement, benign environment for early Martian life,” said Bethany Ehlmann, a mission scientist from Brown University, Rhode Island.

The results will be featured in the journal Science.

via Colours that point to life on Mars – Times Online.

Mystery ‘UFO’ Lights Over Halesowen In the Midlands

A “spectacular” display of dozens of UFOs has been reported in the skies over the West Midlands. Eyewitnesses told Sky News that up to 70 bright circular objects could be seen near Halesowen. Stunned residents watched in disbelief convinced they were viewing an extra-terrestrial spectacle. Each object was encircled with lights and had lights in the middle according to witness Steven Randall who lives in Halesowen with is wife and three children. He said “This was incredible and so spectacular. The lights seem to climb into the sky to the north of us just before 8pm last night. “A neighbour had shouted for us to come and look. There were so many objects. From a distance they looked like bubbles rising in a fizzy drink. “Then they came towards us and flew right over the top. Some were so close they were almost touching and were only a hundred feet or so above us. “The objects were absolutely silent and travelling at probably twice the speed of a normal aircraft. “They were all circular and had 13 to 15 lights around the rim. Each had lights in the centre which were flashing on and off. They went south at a terrific speed.” Birmingham International airport is to the east of the sightings but according to Mr Randall the flight path comes nowhere near the houses. “Aircraft are not allowed to fly over this area. We regularly see air traffic in the distance and I can assure you that this was something very different ” he said. Air traffic control at Birmingham International airport had nothing on their radar to suggest anything out of the ordinary. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that independent experts have concluded there are straightforward explanations behind alleged UFO reports such as aircraft lights or natural phenomena.

via Mystery ‘UFO’ Lights Over Halesowen In the Midlands | Strange News | Sky News.

More lanterns? Yup.

The truth could well be out there – just not necessarily in Halesowen. Stunned residents believed they were witnessing a UFO display after seeing a “long string of lights” moving slowly over the town at around 7.30pm on Thursday. But it turns out the flying mysteries were nothing more than a cluster of Thai lanterns released by Lutley primary school following a carol service. Janet Baker, from the Brookwillow Road school’s PFTA, explained 55 paper lanterns had been released at the climax of the evening. She said: “The lanterns are beautiful and we thought it would make a fitting end to the event – it was only when I went pick the children up the next day I realised the commotion that had been caused – it was quite amusing. “It was supposed to be a lovely end to a spiritual evening, we never thought it would cause so much chaos.” The lanterns, which are made of tissue paper, fill with hot air when lit and float into the sky and burn brightly for around 20 minutes. …

via Halesowen “UFO” mystery – truth revealed From Halesowen News .

BBC NEWS | Europe | Pope praises Galileo’s astronomy

Pope Benedict XVI has paid tribute to 17th-Century astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose scientific theories once drew the wrath of the Catholic Church.

The Pope was speaking at events marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s earliest observations with a telescope.

He said an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s work. In 1992, Pope John Paul said the church’s denunciation of Galileo’s work had been a tragic error.

Galileo used his scientific methods to demonstrate that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around. His view directly challenged the church’s view at the time – that the Earth was static and at the centre of the universe.

Galileo was accused of heresy in 1633 and forced to publicly recant his theories. He lived the rest of his life under house arrest at his villa in the hills outside Florence.

Pope Benedict had been criticised in the past for appearing to condone the heresy verdict against Galileo.

via BBC NEWS | Europe | Pope praises Galileo’s astronomy.

It will be the same with Darwin, some day.

Microscopic plankton get the big picture – Times Online

Pictures of beasts that look as if they come from a science-fiction movie but actually live in their billions off the British coast will be on show in an exhibition that will be touring aquariums around the country.

Plankton, organisms all under two millimetres long, from the sea off the south-west of England have been photographed by Richard Kirby, of the University of Plymouth, and then printed at huge magnification to help explain how the plankton world works. Dr Kirby said: “They account for half of the world’s photosynthesis and help regulate our climate. They also form a food web without which there would be no fish.”

The incredible pictures of plankton reveal the startling truth of life in our seas and may make you think twice about going back into the water next summer.

The pictures show the two types of plankton; phytoplankton, which are plant-like, and zooplankton – animals. The organisms form a food web without which there would be no marine life as we know it. Among the varieties is one of the smallest animals related to humans; the doliolid that has a primitive back bone, called a notochord.

via Microscopic plankton get the big picture – Times Online.

Here is an interesting photo of a woman swimming in biolumenscent plankton. A person on 43 things wrote: “I would recommend swimming underwater with your eyes open in the bioluminescent plankton, the blue colour and the blurred vision was amazing.”

Blood from mosquito traps Finnish suspect – Yahoo! News

Police in Finland believe they have caught a car-thief thanks to a DNA sample taken from a sample of his blood found inside a mosquito.

Last June a car was stolen in Lapua, some 380 kilometres (235 miles) north of Helsinki. It was soon found near a railway station in Seinaejoki, about 25 kilometres from where it was stolen.

“A police patrol carried out an inspection of the car and they noticed a mosquito that had sucked blood. It was sent to the laboratory for testing, which showed the blood belonged to a man who was in the police registers,” inspector Sakari Palomaeki told AFP.

The suspect, who has been interrogated, has insisted he did not steal the car, saying he had hitchhiked and was given a lift by a man driving the car.

Palomaeki said a prosecutor would decide if the evidence was solid enough for charges to be pressed.

Finnish police said it was rare for them to use insects to solve crimes, although they are interested in everything found at a crime scene.

“It is not usual to use mosquitoes. In training we were not told to keep an eye on mosquitoes at crime scenes,” Palomaeki said, laughing.

“It is not easy to find a small mosquito in a car, this just shows how thorough the crime scene investigation was,” he added.

via Blood from mosquito traps Finnish suspect – Yahoo! News.

Stains on Leonardo da Vinci panel turn out to be sketches

Leonardo da Vinci liked to hide things in his paintings… even his own self-portrait.

Now some new sketches have been found:

The mystery is set in the Louvre and the clues are hidden behind a 16th-century masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Remind you of anything Lovers of Dan Brown novels will be salivating at the discovery of three previously unknown drawings on the back of one of Leonardo s major works. A curator spotted the sketches on the back of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne when it was taken down in September for restoration. Sylvain Laveissiere pointed out grey marks that had previously been dismissed as stains. To him they resembled a horse s head and a human skull. When the painting was photographed with an infra-red camera at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France he was proved right. On the wood on which the work was mounted was an 18cm by 10cm equine head and a 16.5cm by 10cm skull complete with orbital and nasal cavities jaw and teeth. The camera detected a third drawing a 15cm-high infant Jesus with a lamb which was invisible to the naked eye. A spokeswoman for the Louvre said the discovery was “amusing and moving”. It is also mysterious because the drawings appear to have gone unnoticed for 500 years. “They were not meant to be kept ” said Bruno Mottin from the Louvre s art laboratory. “They had been largely wiped out which explains why no one had spotted them until now.” The Louvre said there was evidence to suggest the sketches – in black stone or charcoal – were indeed by da Vinci. “We re being very careful ” said Vincent Pomarede head of paintings at the Louvre. “But what is troubling is thesimilarity with drawings that are already known.” The skull resembles those in Leonardo s other sketches and the horse s head is reminiscent of those in The Battle of Anghiari – a lost masterpiece known only because it was copied. The baby Jesus appears to be a draft for the figure in The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. Jill Burke an Italian Renaissance specialist at Edinburgh University said “It would be quite typical of his working style for him quickly to sketch out ideas that came into his head on whatever paper – or in this case panel – was tohand.” The Louvre will carry out tests to try to confirm the identity of the author.

via Stains on Leonardo da Vinci panel turn out to be sketches | The Australian.

‘Hobbit’ Fossils Represent A New Species, Concludes Anthropologist

University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty along with colleague Karen Baab of Stony Brook University in New York has made an important contribution toward solving one of the greatest paleoanthropological mysteries in recent history — that fossilized skeletons resembling a mythical “hobbit” creature represent an entirely new species in humanity s evolutionary chain. Discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 controversy has surrounded the fossilized hominid skeletons of the so-called “hobbit people ” or Homo floresiensis ever since. Experts are still debating whether the 18 000-year-old remains merely belong to a diminutive population of modern-day humans with one individual exhibiting “microcephaly ” an abnormally small head or represent a previously unrecognized branch in humanity s family tree. Using 3D modeling methods McNulty and his fellow researchers compared the cranial features of this real-life “hobbit” to those of a simulated fossil human of similar stature to determine whether or not such a species was distinct from modern humans. ” Homo floresiensis is the most exciting discovery in probably the last 50 years ” said McNulty. “The specimens have skulls that resemble something that died a million years earlier and other body parts reminiscent of our three-million-year-old human ancestors yet they lived until very recently — contemporaries with modern humans.”

via ‘Hobbit’ Fossils Represent A New Species, Concludes Anthropologist.

Bogus carol singers targeting residents in Furzedown (From Your Local Guardian)

Frausters have been posing as carol singers this week to get cash, Furzedown residents fear.

A little girl singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” has been knocking on doors accompanied by a hooded man.

They claimed to be from St Luke’s Church in Wimbledon, but no singing was planned by the church on Friday- the day they struck.

If you suspect bogus callers, call Wandsworth police on 0300 123 1212.

via Bogus carol singers targeting residents in Furzedown (From Your Local Guardian).

General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book – Telegraph

George S. Patton, America’s greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book.

The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.

But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS head General “Wild Bill” Donovan ordered a highly decorated marksman called Douglas Bazata to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname “Old Blood and Guts”.

His book, “Target Patton”, contains interviews with Mr Bazata, who died in 1999, and extracts from his diaries, detailing how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton’s Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile, which broke his neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.

Mr Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general.

Mr Wilcox told The Sunday Telegraph that when he spoke to Mr Bazata: “He was struggling with himself, all these killings he had done. He confessed to me that he had caused the accident, that he was ordered to do so by Wild Bill Donovan.

“Donovan told him: ‘We’ve got a terrible situation with this great patriot, he’s out of control and we must save him from himself and from ruining everything the allies have done.’ I believe Douglas Bazata. He’s a sterling guy.”

Mr Bazata led an extraordinary life. He was a member of the Jedburghs, the elite unit who parachuted into France to help organise the Resistance in the run up to D-Day in 1944. He earned four purple hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre three times over for his efforts.

After the war he became a celebrated artist who enjoyed the patronage of Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

He was friends with Salvador Dali, who painted a portrait of Bazata as Don Quixote.

He ended his career as an aide to President Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission and adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign.

Mr Wilcox also tracked down and interviewed Stephen Skubik, an officer in the Counter-Intelligence Corps of the US Army, who said he learnt that Patton was on Stalin’s death list. Skubik repeatedly alerted Donovan, who simply had him sent back to the US.

“You have two strong witnesses here,” Mr Wilcox said. “The evidence is that the Russians finished the job.”

The scenario sounds far fetched but Mr Wilcox has assembled a compelling case that US officials had something to hide. At least five documents relating to the car accident have been removed from US archives.

The driver of the truck was whisked away to London before he could be questioned and no autopsy was performed on Patton’s body.

With the help of a Cadillac expert from Detroit, Mr Wilcox has proved that the car on display in the Patton museum at Fort Knox is not the one Patton was driving.

“That is a cover-up,” Mr Wilcox said. …

via General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book – Telegraph.