A Dying Star has Been Caught in the Act of Resurrecting Itself by Eating its Neighbor.

The stars represented in the above illustration depict "a previously unseen stage in the lifecycle of millisecond pulsars, the fastest-spinning objects in the universe."

Pulsars are simply "a special class of neutron stars, the corpses of massive stars that exploded as supernovae. They’re born spinning quickly, up to tens of times per second, and sweep the sky with a beam of radio energy as they rotate. Eventually, they slow down to the point where they can no longer emit radio waves and die a second death."

Discovery of this process has eluded scientists for decades as they searched for the reason why "some old, dead pulsars become millisecond pulsars, which rotate hundreds of times a second." Now that scientists understand that there is "an intermediate step" that occurs as a transferral of material "between the companion neutron stars has provided researchers with a plausible solution that "appears to be the missing link," in the lifecycle of binary neutron stars.

"Astronomers have long theorized that these superfast stars share their orbit with a companion star from which they leech extra material. The material settles around the pulsar’s middle in a so-called accretion disk. As material from the disk falls onto the surface of the pulsar, it imparts enough angular momentum to spin back up into what scientists call a ”recycled pulsar.”"

“We mean it in the same sense as recycling your plastics,” Archibald said. “These pulsars have died and become invisible and useless to us, but they get brought back to life by getting fed from a companion.”

"Astronomers suspect that another type of pulsar-star pair is a way station between normal pulsars and millisecond pulsars. Called a low-mass X-ray binary, such a system is also made up of a neutron star and an accretion disk, but it doesn’t emit radio waves. While the neutron star feeds off its neighbor, the gas flowing between them blocks low-energy radio waves from escaping the system. But when the accretion disk runs out, the radio waves come back, and astronomers can recognize it as a pulsar.

"Until recently, this was only a theory. But Archibald and an international team using radio telescopes on four continents, stumbled on just such a pulsar right in the middle of this metamorphosis.

"The system, called J1023, was discovered in 2007 when the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia was down for repairs. The radio telescope couldn’t be steered to different points in the sky, but resourceful astronomers took data anyway, observing whatever happened to pass overhead. That survey uncovered a millisecond pulsar about 4,000 light years away, spinning 592 times per second.

"But this wasn’t the first time this system caught astronomers’ attention. Another survey in 1999 missed the pulsar but identified its companion as a sun-like star. When they looked again with radio telescopes in 2000, they saw evidence for an accretion disk around a neutron star. By 2002, the accretion disk had disappeared, but the neutron star was still not emitting radio waves as would be expected of a pulsar.

"It was only the 2007 observations that pinned it down as a millisecond pulsar. Astronomers had managed to catch the system changing over the course of 10 years, an eye blink on astronomical timescales.

“This is a completely new thing, seeing it go from one state to another,” said co-author Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University. “We’ve never seen that before, ever.”

'Aside from proving that recycled pulsars form through cannibalism, J1023 provides a living laboratory for studying how these systems evolve.

“Studying this system will teach us an awful lot about the recycling process,” McLaughlin said. “We may see the radio pulsations disappear and come back again a year from now. There are lots of neat things we can do.”

“It’s a bit of a landmark in tying together what we think happens in these dead stars,” said Don Backer, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the discoverers of the first millisecond pulsar. “You can see the transitions and understand more about how both of these stars work. That’s a great deal of fun.”

Missing Link: A Transitional Species Between Ancient Mammals and Primates Thought to be Found in Fossil of "Ida"

The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US.

"Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

"The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

"The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world"

"The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.



"The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.

"But some independent experts, awaiting an opportunity to see the new fossil, are sceptical of the claim.

"And they have been critical of the hype surrounding the presentation of Ida.

"The fossil was launched amid great fanfare at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, by the city's mayor.

"Although details of the fossil have only just been published in a scientific journal - PLoS One - there is already a TV documentary and book tie-in.

"She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line." Dr Jens Franzen conjectured.

"Ida was discovered in the 1980s in a fossil treasure-trove called Messel Pit, near Darmstadt in Germany. For much of the intervening period, it has been in a private collection.

"The investigation of the fossil's significance was led by Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway.



"He said the fossil creature was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and described the discovery as "a dream come true".

"The female animal lived during an epoch in Earth history known as the Eocene, which was crucial for the development of early primates - and at first glance, Ida resembles a lemur.

"But the creature lacks primitive features such as a so-called "toothcomb", a specialised feature in which the lower incisor and canine teeth are elongated, crowded together and projecting forward. She also lacks a special claw used for grooming.

"The team concluded that she was not simply another lemur, but a new species. They have called her Darwinius masillae, to celebrate her place of origin and the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

"Dr Jens Franzen, an expert on the Messel Pit and a member of the team, described Ida as "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", because of the extraordinary completeness of the skeleton.

"It was information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", he said.

"In addition, Ida bears "a close resemblance to ourselves" he said, with nails instead of claws, a grasping hand and an opposable thumb - like humans and some other primates. But he said some aspects of the teeth indicate she is not a direct ancestor - more of an "aunt" than a "grandmother".

"She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line."

Independent experts are keen to see the new fossil but somewhat sceptical of any claim that it could be "a missing link".

Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at the journal Nature, said the term itself was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance.

"It's extremely nice to have a new find and it will be well-studied," he said. But he added that it was not likely to be in the same league as major discoveries such as "Flores man" or feathered dinosaurs.

/

"Dr Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and author of The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey, said he was "awestruck" by the publicity machine surrounding the new fossil.

"He argued that it could damage the popularisation of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be.

"Dr Beard has not yet seen scientific details of the find but said that it would be very nice to have a beautiful new fossil from the Eocene and that Ida would be "a welcome new addition" to the world of early primates.

"But he added: "I would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans."

"In the PLoS paper itself, the scientists do not actually claim the specimen represents a direct ancestor to us. But Dr Hurum believes that is exactly what Ida is.

"He told BBC News that the key to proving this lay in the detail of the foot. The shape of a bone in the foot called the talus looks "almost anthropoid".

"He said the team was now planning a 3D reconstruction of the foot which would prove this.

"We're not finished with this specimen yet," said Dr Hurum. "There will be plenty more papers coming out."

Five Minute Interview with Richard Dawkins on BBC News

I would like to thank my friend, Angie McAllister McQuaig for bringing my attention to this short BBC video.

5/16/09 President Barack Obama Weekly Radio Address...

Read Transcript

The White House Office of the Press Secretary released the following statement after 6am on Saturday, May 16, 2009

WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Says Progress on Clean Energy and Healthcare Reform Will Lay New Foundation

WASHINGTON – This week, President Barack Obama praised individuals representing different perspectives for coming together to address the challenges of building a clean energy economy, reforming the healthcare system and laying a new foundation for the long-term strength of our economy. Utility companies and corporate leaders are working with environmental advocates and labor leaders to find a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil, to fight climate change, and to create millions of new jobs in America. Recently, past critics and advocates of healthcare reform sat down with the President to work on reducing the healthcare costs by $2 trillion in the next decade and saving families $2,500 in the coming years.

On Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 11:59 pm the White House released the following:

Weekly Address: Two Pillars of a New Foundation
This week the President discusses breakthroughs on two issues where stakeholders from all sides, who once opposed each other, are coming together for real reform. On health care and energy, solutions would provide key pillars for a new foundation for the country.

Following up the president's weekly radio address, the Associated Press' Darlene Superville released the following news report:

"President Barack Obama says agreement on an energy bill and a promise by interest groups to squeeze trillions of dollars in savings from the health care system show that change has come to Washington.

"Some of those most opposed to past attempts at health care overhaul pledged this week to reduce the annual rate of growth in such spending by 1.5 percentage points, for a promised savings of $2 trillion in the next decade.

"Weeks of negotiations have led to the introduction in the House of an energy proposal that, for the first time, would mandate reductions in the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming and shift the country toward cleaner sources of energy.

"Obama campaigned for president on a promise to change the way Washington works.

"He said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address that he was heartened by the "willingness of those with different points of view and disparate interests to come together around common goals, to embrace a shared sense of responsibility and make historic progress."

"Obama singled out utility companies and health insurers, doctors and hospitals for coming to the table.

"I have always believed that it is better to talk than not to talk, that it is far more productive to reach over a divide than to shake your fist across it," he said. "This has been an alien notion in Washington for far too long, but we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change."

"Both agreements, in the long term, will strengthen an economy experiencing its worst days since the Great Depression, Obama said.

"The climate bill will help create millions of jobs producing wind turbines and solar panels, and developing alternative fuels with the goal of reducing U.S. reliance on foreign energy sources, he said. Controlling health care costs will make businesses more competitive and give families more money to save or spend.

"Republicans said they agree with Obama that the health care system needs an overhaul.

"But they warned against offering consumers an option for health insurance that would be run by the government and replace employer-based coverage, saying it could have "devastating consequences" that include limits on care and higher taxes.

"A government takeover of health care will put bureaucrats in charge of health care decisions that should be made by families and doctors," Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana said in the Republican radio and Internet message.

"It will limit treatment options and lead to rationed care. And to pay for government health care your taxes will be raised," said Boustany, a cardiovascular surgeon and member of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group. "That is something we cannot support, and frankly, it would clearly violate some of the principles the president himself has endorsed."

"Obama said during an appearance in New Mexico this week that his goal is to improve the existing system, not replace it."

35,000 Year Old Sexually Explicit Statuette Provides Clues Into Human Brain Development and How Art Evolved

Four Views of A 35,000 Year Old Sexually Explicit Statuette Found in a German Cave

A sculpted piece of "6-centimeter long" ivory in the shape of a voluptuous female "with huge, projecting breasts and sexually explicit genitals" has been found last "September in... the Hohle Fels ...cave in southwestern Germany, near Ulm and the Danube headwaters" by Nicholas J. Conard, an archaeologist at the German University of Tübingen.

Archeologist Conard said of the artistically designed exagerated carving, referred to as the "Hohle Fels Venus" (named after the cave of the same name it was found in) that is at least 35,000 years old and was carved from mammoth ivory is “one of the oldest known examples of figurative art” ever found. The true importance of the finding is that it drastically reshapes perceptions of Paleolithic art.

According to a summary in the scientific journal Nature: "Discovery of the sexually explicit figurine of a woman, dating to 35,000 years ago, provides striking evidence of the symbolic explosion that occurred in the earliest populations of Homo sapiens in Europe."

Hohle Fels Venus

Hohle Fels Venus (side View)

Willendorf Venus

Discovered in Willendorf, Germany in 1908, the Willendorf figurine provides the archetypal example of the Venus -type carvings. It is estimated to be approximately 28,000 years old.

Blanchard Phallus

Perhaps representative of 'girls toys,' not all Paleolithic carvings were devoted to the female form as this 36,000 year old object found in France demonstrates.

Hohle Fels figurine

This earlier find from the Hohle Fels Cave, thought to be around 30,000 years old, was described by Conard in Nature in 2003. He reported the discovery of this therianthropic (half-animal/half-human) figurine along with the oldest known representation of a bird and an animal that most closely resembles a horse.

As quoted in Nature: "Conard says the discovery should radically change our thinking about Paleolithic art... Previous sculptures from the Aurignacian culture found in Swabia have focused on animals or half-animal/half-human figures, with no female figures. The Hohle Fels Venus predates the famous Gravettian Venuses by more than 5,000 years, blowing apart suggestions that it was that era that developed three-dimensional female idols."

"The pieces of the Swabian figurine "were recovered in association with characteristic stone, bone and ivory tools belonging to a period, the Aurignacian, that represents the earliest settlement of Europe by fully anatomically and genetically modern human populations, and which saw the simultaneous demise of the preceding Neanderthals", says Paul Mellars, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, UK.

"And the figure is explicitly — and blatantly — that of a woman," he says, "with an exaggeration of sexual characteristics (large, projecting breasts, a greatly enlarged and explicit vulva, and bloated belly and thighs) that by twenty-first-century standards could be seen as bordering on the pornographic."

"Mellars adds that while symbolic expressions have been found in Africa dating back to at least 75,000 years ago, attempts to represent reality with 'figurative art' currently appears to be an exclusively European phenomenon."

"The discovery, Dr. Conard wrote, “radically changes our view of the origins of Paleolithic art.” Before this, he noted, female imagery was unknown, most carvings and cave drawings being of mammoths, horses and other animals.

"Scholars say the figurine is roughly contemporaneous with other early expressions of artistic creativity, like drawings on cave walls in southeastern France and northern Italy. The inspiration and symbolism behind the rather sudden flowering have long been debated by art historians.

"Commenting in the journal on the discovery, Dr. Mellars, who did not take part in the research, wrote that the artifact was one of 25 similar carvings found over the past 70 years in other caves in the Swabian region of southern Germany, “a veritable art gallery of early ‘modern’ human art.”

"These sites, he concluded, “must be seen as the birthplace of true sculpture in the European — maybe global — artistic tradition.”

"Scholars say the large caves were presumably inviting sanctuaries for populations of modern humans migrating then into Central and Western Europe. These were the people who eventually displaced the resident Neanderthals, around 30,000 years ago.

"Dr. Conard reported that the discovery was made beneath three feet of red-brown sediment in the floor of the Hohle Fels Cave. Six fragments of the carved ivory, including all but the left arm and shoulder, were recovered. When he brushed dirt off the torso, he said, “the importance of the discovery became apparent.”

"The short, squat torso is dominated by oversize breasts and broad buttocks. The split between the two halves of the buttocks is deep and continuous without interruption to the front of the figurine. A greatly enlarged vulva emphasizes the “deliberate exaggeration” of the figurine’s sexual characteristics, Dr. Conard said.

"The object reminded experts of the most famous of the sexually explicit figurines from the Stone Age, the Venus of Willendorf, discovered in Austria a century ago. That Venus is somewhat larger and dated about 24,000 years ago, but it is in a style that appeared to have been prevalent for several thousand years. Scholars speculate that these Venus figurines, as they are known, were associated with fertility beliefs or shamanistic rituals.

"The Hohle Fels artifact, less than 2.5 inches long and weighing little more than an ounce, is headless. Carved at the top, instead, is a ring, evidently to allow the object to be suspended from a string or thong."

"Though 77,000-year-old carvings have been found in South Africa, they consist of cross-hatched lines. Such abstractions are relatively simple compared to representational art, which requires high levels of cognition to both conceive and make.

"Perhaps not coincidentally, the rise of figurine-carving modern human cultures in Europe coincided with the decline of Neanderthals. Some anthropologists suspect that humans of the era experienced a leap in mental abilities, fueled by random genetic mutation or the neurological nourishment of language and culture.

“The advent of fully representational, ‘figurative’ art seems at present to be a European phenomenon, without any documented parallels in Africa or elsewhere earlier than about 30,000 years ago,” writes ... Paul Mellars in a commentary accompanying the discovery, published Wednesday in Nature.

“How far this ‘symbolic explosion’ associated with the origins and dispersal of our species reflects a major, mutation-driven reorganization in the cognitive capacities of the human brain — perhaps associated with a similar leap forward in the complexity of language — remains a fascinating and contentious issue,” he wrote.