Ancient Meteor Blast Peppered Mammoths With "Shrapnel"

An ancient meteor impact in North America sent up waves of rock fragments that peppered prehistoric mammals with "space shrapnel" about 34,000 years ago, scientists say.
Many of the animals, particularly in the region near present-day Alaska , didn't survive. That's the story being pieced together by a research team led by Richard Firestone of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
The team had done previous work on a suspected impact that occurred 13,000 years ago. But while looking for evidence of that more recent blast in mammoth tusks, the scientists found traces of the much older event.
"The surprise was the tusks were dating back to 30,000 to 34,000 years ago," Firestone said.
"Nobody had thought of it before. It was serendipitous."
The work was presented this week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California.
Tiny "Bullet Holes," Micrometeorites Found
While searching for evidence of the more recent cosmic impact, team member Allen West, an Arizona geophysicist, noticed an odd pattern as he was combing through thousands of ancient tusks.
He found that the top-facing sides of a few tusks were pockmarked by holes 0.08 to 0.11 inch (2 to 3 millimeters) across.
The pockmarks were found on seven mammoth tusks—most likely from near Alaska's Yukon River—and the skull and horns of a Siberian bison. (That the holes were found on only one side of the bones indicated that the impacts came from a single direction, Firestone said.

Largest Spitting Cobra Found -- New Species

The newly anointed Ashe's spitting cobra, or large brown spitting cobra (Naja ashei), can reach lengths of more than 9 feet (274 centimeters) and is believed to deliver more venom with a single bite than any other cobra on the planet.

The aggressive reptile was previously identified as a brown-colored variant of the black-necked spitting cobra, though researchers had long suspected that it merited its own species. Now blood and tissue analysis have confirmed this theory to be true.
The snake dwells in the dry lowlands of north and east Kenya, as well as in Uganda and Ethiopia.
It is named after James "Jimmy" Ashe, a prominent herpetologist who founded the Bio-Ken snake farm and research center in Watamu, Kenya, where the snake is commonly found. Bio-Ken milks snakes for their venom and sends it to labs to develop antivenin.
The findings were first published earlier this year in the animal taxonomy magazine Zootaxa by researchers at the University of Wales and the Biodiversity Foundation for Africa in Buluwayo, Zimbabwe.
But they gained wider notice on Friday when the researchers announced the new species through the nonprofit conservation group Wildlife Direct.
Royjan Taylor, the director of Bio-Ken, said the paper's authors had asked him to wait several months to give time for other herpetologists to challenge their findings. None did.
Spitting cobras eat eggs, carrion, snakes, lizards, and birds. Their venom has two uses: to kill prey and for defense. The reptiles can spray venom several yards and usually aim for the attackers eyes, giving the snake the best chance for escape.

Ancient trade route discovered...

Mineral analysis shows that most of nearly 150 sampled artifacts dated as far back as 3000 B.C. can be traced back to a single site in Taiwan about 190 miles (120 kilometers) off the coast of mainland China.

This indicates that the small island supplied much of Southeast Asia with a unique variety of the semiprecious stone via a 1,800-mile (3,000-kilometer) trade route around the South China Sea.
The existence of such a vast trading network shows that these populations had developed sophisticated seafaring vessels and had extensive communication much earlier than previously believed.
"I think [ancient Southeast Asian cultures] were more advanced than we thought," said study co-author Peter Bellwood, an archaeologist at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
"These are very widespread connections. We really had no idea that this jade from Taiwan was traveling so far."
Traveling Craftsmen
The researchers studied 144 jade artifacts from 49 locations in modern-day Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Most of the objects had been found next to prehistoric skeletons buried in jars or on the sides of skulls, suggesting that they were earrings belonging to the wealthier members of society.
"They were clearly being worn," Bellwood said.
Specifically, the team focused their study on two types of distinctive jade ornaments: three-pointed "lingling-o" earrings and two-headed animal pendants that were popular from 500 B.C. to A.D. 500.

What is Historical Trekking?

Historical Trekking (also called Period Trekking, Experimental Archeology, or Experiential Anthropology) is a hobby where we as 21st century people attempt a task someone in our chosen time period would have done, using only the tools and equipment they would have used, or the knowledge we have gleaned from research. Whether you are interested in the Longhunter of the 18th Century and you are out on a hunt using only period clothing and flintlock, or if your interest lies in the Mountainman of the 19th Century, and you want to use period traps to try and catch beaver, even if your interest is in cooking, and you limit yourself to the kitchen-ware and foods of your chosen period and a bed of coals for heat, yet you never leave your house, you are involved with the hobby of Historical Trekking. This hobby gives us more insight into the daily lives of the people in our chosen time period, and helps to make us better historians.

Indira days running out..

It began with a decision to quit ISB&M over ideological issues...i joined Indira approximately an year back. The journey has had its ups and downs, bright and dull moments but it has been a journey to remember. College days are always worth savouring; I spent most of my time playing football with Arab students or sweating it out in the gym...or as Dheeraj ( my dear classmate) would have added 'Typing a complaint letter!' I can't forget entering the director's cabin for the first time and seeing Mr Bahl there...the man who had taken my interview at ISB&M. As they say....life takes a full 360 degrees turn! There were many firsts...the first class mates I met (Rohit and Natasha), the first study related conversation with Chetna etc. Chetna...has had quite a role to play from being my permanent group member in the second sem to providing me her notes before the exams...to telling me what others had to say about me.(her last input pertaining to the BAJM juniors turned out to be quite handy!)

Staying away from home has been sometimes boring but because I was in Pune, I had enormous opportunity to travel and Pune is quite strategically located. From Shivaji's forts to biking to Ajanta & Ellora with Rahul. That was quite a journey....Rahul on tuesday heard me say 'be ready on saturday, we're going out' and on saturday morning I tell him that we'll be riding 400 kms one way to Ajanta and Ellora caves! (cant forget the Burhanpur board!!)

As an institute, i don't think there are too many better institutes than Indira but I may dare say that doesn't apply to my classmates! There are several things which will go down memory lane...like Sushil Bahl, internships, late night table tennis...and the various treks. How can I not mention all the bunked lectures, the walkouts, the fights and arguments or winning the Mock UN with Manish..

Arjit's loss has been an irreplacable one..a wound that perhaps even time can't heal...On the brighter side, I've found younger siblings in Dheeraj and Nidhi who will surely continue to be a part of my life post Indira. Their love and support has been unfailing.. Milan paaji and his alternate day tactics also need a special mention.

But now that things are drawing to a close.... Indira has given me two rays of sunshine before the dusk sets in...TCS being the first one via which I can be a part of Pune and Indira for a long time to come and the second being one which will cement Indira's place in my life forever...any guesses??

Oldest Known Reptile Tracks Found

Newly found fossilized footprints show that reptiles walked the Earth a bit earlier than scientists believed.
An unknown animal created the fossilized prints seen above while strolling along the muddy bottom of a nearly dry riverbed.
The tracks were found in the same region of New Brunswick, Canada, where the oldest-known reptile skeletons were unearthed 150 years ago.
But the ancient footprints are preserved in sediments that lay more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) deeper than those 315-million-year-old bones—which suggests they were made by an animal that lived one to three million years earlier.
Howard Falcon-Lang from the U.K.'s University of Bristol said it was lucky that his team even found the fossil. The slab of rock had fallen from a remote stretch of sea cliffs, and a low sun shining across the surface cast revealing shadows.
"This kind of work was a bit like a crime scene investigation," Falcon-Lang added. "We had the footprints, and we needed to know what kind of [animal] left the prints behind."
Distinctive digits told the tale. Because the tracks showed five fingers and some evidence of scales, they had to have been made by a reptile, the team reports in a recent issue of the Journal of the Geological Society of London.
The find helps fill a critical gap between the oldest reptile fossils and those of an amphibian ancestor that lived some 20 million years earlier, Falcon-Lang said.
The prints also seem to confirm theories of how reptiles evolved to live and breed on land, eventually inhabiting terrestrial ecosystems that amphibians could not.
"The expectation we have is that reptiles, once they evolved, would be moving into dry environments," Falcon-Lang said. "That's exactly what these tracks show us."