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Archive of science related articles Dr. Hawass to be Honored by Dominican Republic
Next Saturday, the great film actor Omar Sharif, and Dr. Zahi Hawass will fly to the Dominican Republic by the personal invitation of the President, Dr. Leonel Fernandez Reyna. Mr. Sharif will be given a lifetime achievement award for his career in the movies at the 4th annual Global Film Festival next week in Santo Domingo. The film festival will include other luminaries from the film world. Also, the Catholic University of Santo Domingo, the oldest university in the Americas, will bestow on Dr. Hawass an honorary doctorate. This will be a third honorary doctorate for Dr. Hawass, he also holds honorary degrees from the American University in Cairo and a University in Thailand. President Reyna will be in attendance at both events, he is a great fan of Mr. Sharif’s work and even named his son Omar. The Honorable Maria Gabriella Bonetti, the Dominican ambassador to Egypt, announced the events this week, indicating that the two men are the most famous living Egyptians after perhaps President Mubarak and also that the Dominican Republic wished to honor them for all of their fine work in their respective fields. While in Santo Domingo, the two will attend many cultural events in the capital. ....................Alleged Finds in Western DesertI need to inform the public that recent reports published in newspapers, news agencies and TV news announcing that “twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni have unearthed remains of the Persian army of Cambyses,” are unfounded and misleading. The brothers are not heading any archaeological mission in Berenike Panchrysos at the small Bahrin Oasis near Siwa Oasis. This site has been excavated since 2002 by an Italian mission led by Dr. Paulo Gallo of Turin University. The Castiglioni brothers have not been granted permission by the SCA to excavate in Egypt, so anything they claim to find is not to be believed. The Supreme Council of Antiquities has already informed the proper legal and security authorities in Egypt and are taking the necessary procedures. New Discovery at Tel El-DabaThe Austrian Archaeological mission from the Austrian Archaeological Centre in Egypt unearthed a fragment of a cuneiform seal impression dating to the last decades of the Babylonian Kingdom. Culture Minister Farouk Hosni made the announcement today, adding that the seal impression was found inside a pit that cuts into layers of the Late Period in Tel El-Daba, an archaeological site in the Sharqiya governorate, 120 km north-east Cairo. “This is the second cuneiform seal impression of this type to be found,” Hawass pointed out, adding that the first example was unearthed last year inside the well of the palace of the Hyksos king Khayan (1653-1614 BC). Dr. Manfred Bietak, the head of the Austrian mission, said that both seal impressions are of great archaeological importance, as they are the oldest to be found in Egypt. They are dated to 150 years before the cuneiform correspondence found in the capital of Akhenaten at Tel El-Amarna. “They are evidence that the Hyksos had foreign relations and extensive connections in the Near East that at this time reached southern Mesopotamia,” concluded Bietak. Dr. Irene Forstner Muller, director of the mission, said that excavations carried out by the mission at aTel El-Daba can be dated back to 2006 when they found a palace dating to the middle of the Hyksos reign (1664-1565 BC). Inside it they unearthed a number of seals of a well known Hyksos king. The mission also found an old house with several rooms and yards along with a collection of round containers, animal bones and glasses. The remains of a 5th Dynasty edifice were also found for the first time in this area, which houses a number of rooms, halls and yards that may have been used for administrative purposes. Soyuz Landing Caps Historic Space Station IncrementExpedition 20 Comes Home
Surrounded by medical personnel, seated from left to right are spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Expedition 20 Flight Engineer Michael Barratt.They had landed minutes before at 12:32 a.m. EDT aboard the Soyuz capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009. Padalka and Barratt are returning from six months onboard the International Space Station, along with Laliberte who arrived at the station on Oct. 2 with Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Maxim Suraev aboard the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft. Padalka, the Soyuz commander, guided the spacecraft to a parachute-assisted landing at 12:32 a.m. EDT at a site northeast of the town of Arkalyk. Russian recovery teams were on hand within minutes of landing to help the crew exit from the Soyuz vehicle and reacclimate to gravity. The crew members will return to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, for reunions with their families. Padalka and Barratt spent 199 days in space and 197 days on the station after their March 26 launch. Laliberte launched with the Expedition 21 crew on a Soyuz vehicle Sept. 30 and returned after nine days on the station. Padalka and Barratt presided over the inauguration of a six-person crew and two space shuttle assembly and resupply missions to the station. They also were station crew members during the delivery of tons of cargo and new science facilities for expanded research, and the arrival of the first Japanese H-II Transfer cargo vehicle. The station now is occupied by Expedition 21 Commander Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency and Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko and Max Suraev of Russia, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Nicole Stott and Jeff Williams of NASA. For information about the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station FWC needs help with feral hogs on Box-R
April 9, 2009 Contact: Jerry Pitts, 850-653-2747 Wildlife managers often tolerate a few wild hogs, but there are so many on the 11,200-acre Box-R Wildlife Management Area in Franklin and Gulf counties they are destroying agricultural fields, native plants and habitat. Official Cites Value of Cyberspace to Warfighting OperationsBy Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, April 8, 2009 -For the United States military, cyberspace is a warfighting domain and it is critical to our operations Trend Micro Discovers New Variant of Conficker: WORM_DOWNAD.ECriminals behind the Conficker worm finally showing signs of activity that may indicate something larger brewing at bay. FBI Statement Regarding Conficker Worm"The FBI is aware of the potential threat posed by the Conficker worm. We are working closely with a broad range of partners, including DHS and other agencies in the U.S. government, as well as throughout the private sector, to fully identify and mitigate the threat. “The public is once again reminded to employ strong security measures on their computers. That includes the installation of the latest anti-virus software and having a firewall in place. Additionally, the public should be aware of the potential dangers associated with spam e-mail. Opening, responding to, or clicking on attachments contained in unsolicited e-mail is particularly harmful and should be avoided." Shawn Henry, Assistant Director, FBI Cyber Division New Satellite Map of Antarctica Is a Unique Tool for Scientists, Educators and the PublicJoint Project Embodies Spirit of International Polar YearA uniquely detailed and scientifically accurate satellite mosaic map of Antarctica was unveiled today by three federal agencies and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that is expected to become a standard geographic reference. The map will give both scientists and the general public an unmatched tool for studying the southernmost continent. Representatives of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and BAS worked cooperatively to produce the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), a map that combines more than 1,100 hand-selected Landsat satellite scenes digitally compiled to create a single, seamless, cloud-free image. The new map was introduced to the media and public during an event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. At a moment in history when there is unprecedented concern about the state of the polar ice caps in the face of documented regional Arctic and Antarctic warming trends, the LIMA mosaic provides a critical "snapshot in time" of Antarctica's ice sheets, which contain over 60 percent the world's fresh water, noted Scott Borg, director of NSF's division of Antarctic sciences. "But LIMA is also a fundamental tool for scientists. It will be used in every discipline from biology to geology to glaciology, both to answer scientific questions and plan fieldwork in the vast unexplored tracts of Antarctica. For educators, students, and the general public, LIMA will bring to life the Antarctic continent like nothing before it," Borg said. "Imagine a middle-school Earth-science student comparing landforms in the glaciated valleys of Antarctic to similar features in the Rocky Mountains or even comparing a rock glacier in Antarctica with some of the features scientists are studying in images from Mars." "This mosaic draws on 35 years of experience by the USGS's Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) center, whose goals include the preservation of and access to the Nation's remotely sensed land data assets through the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive," said Barbara Ryan, USGS associate director for geography. LIMA was produced using EROS images from the Landsat 7 satellite launched in 1999. The Landsat Program began in 1972, with the launch of the first Landsat satellite. "Sensors aboard Landsat satellites have captured millions of digital images of the Earth's land masses and coastal regions used by researchers worldwide to study global change, natural disasters, and other aspects of the Earth's terrestrial environment," Ryan said. Robert Bindschadler, chief scientist of the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Goddard, noted that the new mosaic is the most detailed map of the continent in existence and offers the most geographically accurate, true-color views of the continent possible. "This innovation, compared to what we had available most recently, is like watching the most spectacular high-definition TV in living color versus watching the picture on a small black-and-white television,"he said. An NSF grant provided the nearly $1 million U.S. contribution to the LIMA project. Tom Wagner, earth sciences program director for the NSF-managed U.S. Antarctic Program, noted that this project is the first major scientific product of the International Polar year (IPY). "LIMA represents the true spirit of the IPY in two ways," Wagner said. "Firstly, it's an international collaboration between the U.S. and the United Kingdom, and secondly, the map and raw data are freely available to the world community of scientists, educators, and the general public." IPY is a coordinated international field campaign that began in March 2007. During IPY, hundreds of scientists from more than 60 nations will deploy to the Arctic and Antarctic to study a range of disciplines. IPY marks the beginning of a sustained effort to understand large-scale environmental change in the Earth's polar regions. NSF is the lead U.S. agency for IPY. Wagner added that apart from the international collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, the project is a major interagency collaborative, with both USGS and NASA playing unique and key roles in bringing the map into existence, and that the LIMA project grew out of a "grassroots" scientific consensus across the government that the project had merit. Two researchers, Jerry Mullins, at USGS, and Bindschadler, at NASA, he added, were instrumental in LIMA's development. "Recognizing that change was afoot in the mapping community, Jerry Mullins, with NSF's support, organized a meeting of Antarctic researchers to determine their needs for information about Antarctica. And it quickly became apparent that Landsat imagery had great potential but needed to be shaped into a new map for its potential to be realized," Wagner said. Wagner said that "Bob Bindschadler had the foresight many years ago to convince NASA that the Landsat satellite should collect data over Antarctica. His group also picked all of the images that make up the mosaic. It wasn't easy work; many thousands of scenes were considered and rejected. New techniques to interpret the data were also developed by Bob's group just for this project." NEW ASTRONAUT CREW LAUNCHES TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATIONHOUSTON -- The 19th crew to live and work aboard the International Space Station launched into orbit Thursday morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, and spaceflight participant and U.S. software engineer Charles Simonyi lifted off at 6:49 a.m. CDT. They are scheduled to dock with the station at 8:14 a.m. Saturday, March 28. Padalka will serve as commander of Expeditions 19 and 20 aboard the station. Barratt will serve as a flight engineer for those two missions. Padalka and Barratt's other crewmate is Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. He arrived to the station March 17 on space shuttle Discovery. Simonyi, flying to the station under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency, previously visited the complex in April 2007. He is the first spaceflight participant to make a second flight to the station and will spend 10 days aboard. Simonyi will return to Earth April 7 with Expedition 18 Commander Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, who have been on the station since October 2008. The Expedition 19 crew will continue science investigations and prepare for the arrival of the rest of the station's first six-person contingent. Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk will launch from Baikonur on May 27, arriving at the station on May 29. After all the astronauts are aboard, Expedition 20 will begin, ushering in an era of six-person station crews. This mission also will be the first time the crew members represent all five International Space Station partners. FLORIDIAN TO LIVE ABOARD INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION.................... Antarctic Glacier Thinning at Alarming RateAugust 14, 2009 The thinning of a gigantic glacier in Antarctica is accelerating, scientists warned today. The Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, which is around twice the size of Scotland, is losing ice four times as fast as it was a decade years ago. The research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, also reveals that ice thinning is now occurring much further inland. At this rate scientists estimate that the main section of the glacier will have disappeared in just 100 years, six times sooner than was previously thought. The Pine Island Glacier is located within the most inaccessible area of Antarctica – over 1000 km from the nearest research base – and was for many years overlooked. Now, scientists have been able to track the glacier's development using continuous satellite measurements over the past 15years. "Accelerated thinning of the Pine Island Glacier represents perhaps the greatest imbalance in the cryosphere today, and yet we would not have known about it if it weren't for a succession of satellite instruments," says Professor Andrew Shepherd, a co-author of the research from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. "Being able to assemble a continuous record of measurements over the past 15 years has provided us with the remarkable ability to identify both subtle and dramatic changes in ice that were previously hidden," he adds. Scientists believe that the retreat of glaciers in this sector of Antarctica is caused by warming of the surrounding oceans, though it is too early to link such a trend to global warming. The 5,400 km squared region of the Pine Island Glacier affected today is big enough to impact the rate at which sea level rise around the world. "Because the Pine Island Glacier contains enough ice to almost double the IPCC's best estimate of 21st century sea level rise, the manner in which the glacier will respond to the accelerated thinning is a matter of great concern " says Professor Shepherd. NASA DEBUTS GLOBAL HAWK AUTONOMOUS AIRCRAFT FOR EARTH SCIENCEWASHINGTON -- NASA and the Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles have unveiled the first Global Hawk aircraft system to be used for environmental science research, heralding a new application for the world's first fully autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft. The debut took place Thursday at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. |
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