Monday, November 17, 2008

Stone-Age Nuclear family Unearthed

In central Germany, scientists discovered a 4,600 year old grave. This grave is the earliest evidence of people living together as a family and also the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far.DNA analysis showed the relationship between the man, woman, and two youngsters found in the small grave to be similar thus making them a family. Researchers hypothesized the family's death by concluding it as a violent attack. They stated that the skeletons had head injuries and injured vertebrae. Some had forearm and hand injuries (which researchers believed were from trying to protect themselves from the invaders.) Scientists also looked at at the strontium levels in teeth which builds up during childhood stages which could also help tell where the bodies were raised. They found out that women grew up in different areas then the men and children, which led the scientists to believe that they had marriage between different groups.

Monday, October 27, 2008

University of Western Ontario cameras capture "fireball"

On Wednesday, October 15 at 5:28 am,The University of Western Ontario Meteor Group's Physics and Astronomy department's all- sky cameras caught extremely rare video footage of a meteor falling to Earth. The cameras showed visual of a bright, slow fireball in the sky. Astronomers suspect that the fireball dropped meteorites in a region north of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Scientists explain that the meteorite was a very slow fireball which questionably made it far into the earth's atmosphere. Most meteoroids burn up by the time they hit an altitude of 60 or 70 km from the ground. I'm not sure how this meteoroid made it that far down on Earth (37km) but it doesn't matter to me, since it wasn't that great of an impact.http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/41119/University_of_Western_Ontario_cameras_capture_fireball.html

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The World's Largest Meteor Crater.

Two billion years ago, a meteorite (measuring the size of 10 km in diameter) hit the earth 100km southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. Result? Enormous impact crater. This meteorite, which is rumored to be the very same one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, was as I've previously stated 10 km in diameter. It was even larger than the Table mountains. This astonishing impact, who's site measured 380 km, may have increased the earth's oxygen levels to a point that made the development of multicellular life possible. Even though this impact site has a high chance of being the one that was big enough to kill the dinosaurs, the world itself has 130 crater structers that could've been the real one.Vredefort Dome ( the place the meteorite hit) is one of the top three, since it is the oldest (65 million) and largest clearly visible meteorite impact in the world. I presonally think, this impact site is what killed the dinosaurs and I hope nothing like this happens again. Noone is sure why the meteor hit, since we weren't around to study it. A simple guess of mine is that the meteor got pulled into the earth's atmosphere by it's magnetic pull and it was too big to get burned up in the atmosphere.





http://www.southafrica.info/about/geography/vredefort-080605.htm



Thursday, September 11, 2008