Chemistry Nobel for quasicrystals

"Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals, a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible."

Source: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-10-05-israeli-wins-chemistry-nobel-for-quasicrystals/

Prehistoric Children Finger-Painted on Cave Walls

"As many exasperated parents have discovered, kids like to draw on walls. It turns out they’ve been doing it since the Stone Age, in some cases with the help and encouragement of grown-ups. Researchers have uncovered evidence that children as young as 2 decorated France’s Rouffignac caves with markings known as finger flutings at least 13,000 years ago, drawing not only simple lines but also symbolic shapes. The most prolific budding artist, thought to have been a 5-year-old girl, braved the pitch-dark caverns’ rocky terrain to hone her craft on high, remote corners—perched, perhaps, on the shoulders of an approving adult."

Source: http://www.history.com/news/2011/09/30/prehistoric-children-finger-painted-on-cave-walls/

Dogma breaking: speed of light

"A startling find at one of the world's foremost laboratories that a subatomic particle seemed to move faster than the speed of light has scientists around the world rethinking Albert Einstein and one of the foundations of physics.

Researchers at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research outside Geneva, who announced the discovery Thursday are still somewhat surprised themselves and planned to detail their findings on Friday.


Source: http://www.wpri.com/dpps/news/strange_news/roll-over-einstein-pillar-of-physics-challenged-ob11-jgr_3948307

Workers Find 7-Million-Year-Old Beaver Teeth

"The Bureau of Land Management says a fossil found by employees on federal land represents the earliest record of living beavers in North America.

The pair of teeth was found on BLM land in northeast Oregon.

The Albany Democrat-Herald reports the teeth come from the Rattlesnake Formation and are 7 to 7.3 million years old.


Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/18/workers-find-7-million-year-old-beaver-teeth-in-oregon/

Marco Polo never reached China

"The doubters told Italian history magazine Focus Storia that there were numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Marco Polo’s  description of Kublai Khan’s attempted invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281.

'In his account of the first invasion, he describes the fleet leaving Korea and being hit by a typhoon before it reached the Japanese coast,' said Professor Daniele Petrella of the University of Naples, the leader of the archaeology team.

'But that happened in 1281 – is it really possible that a supposed eye witness could confuse events which were seven years apart?'

He said that Polo’s description of the Mongol fleet did not square with  the remains of ships that the team had excavated in Japan, as he had written of ships with five masts, while those which had been found had only three.

'It was during our dig that doubts began to emerge about much of what he wrote,' said Prof. Petrella.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024221/Marco-Polo-reached-China-picked-tales-Orient-Italians-claim.html

Magnetite 3D Colloidal Crystals Formed in the Early Solar System 4.6 Billion Years Ago

The Tagish Lake meteorite, which fell to Earth in Canada in 2000, contains unusual opal-like crystals.

"First, a certain amount of solution water must have been present in the meteorite to disperse the colloidal particles,” the report explains. “The solution water must have been confined in small voids, in which colloidal crystallization takes place. These conditions, along with evidence from similar meteorites, suggest that the crystals may have formed 4.6 billion years ago."

"We believe that, if synthesized, magnetite colloidal crystals have promising potential as a novel functional material,” the article notes."

Source: http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ja2005708 and http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=223&content_id=CNBP_027957&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=8730441f-f665-4dd4-805a-64b26f75a0ca

First observational test of the ‘multiverse’

"Many modern theories of fundamental physics predict that our universe is contained inside a bubble. In addition to our bubble, this `multiverse’ will contain others, each of which can be thought of as containing a universe. In the other ‘pocket universes’ the fundamental constants, and even the basic laws of nature, might be different.


Until now, nobody had been able to find a way to efficiently search for signs of bubble universe collisions – and therefore proof of the multiverse – in the CMB radiation, as the disc-like patterns in the radiation could be located anywhere in the sky. Additionally, physicists needed to be able to test whether any patterns they detected were the result of collisions or just random patterns in the noisy data."

Source: http://physicsinventions.com/?p=2735