Powerful X-rays are archaeological tool

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Powerful X-rays are archaeological tool DALLAS (UPI) -- Strong X-ray beams can be a tool in making striking discoveries in archaeology, U.S. researchers say, by revealing previously invisible features of artifacts. The technique, described at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas last week, can illuminate layers of pigment beneath the surfaces of artifacts or even show traces of the tools used to create them thousands of years ago, the BBC reported. Known as X-ray fluorescence or XRF, the technique works by measuring the after-effects of X-ray illumination. As atoms absorb the X-rays, the rays' energy is redistributed, and some is re-emitted as visible light. Since atoms of different elements release a different, characteristic color of light, a full chemical analysis of hidden layers can be revealed. Robert Thorne of Cornell University and his collaborators were the first to use the technique to analyze inscriptions from Greek and Roman pottery. The technique has been used to shed light on layers of glaze beneath the surface of finished pottery. It has even revealed, in one case of an inscription worn entirely away, that the tiny amounts of iron left by the chisel showed a visible version of the wording on what appeared to be smooth stone. "It's not a magic bullet -- there never is in this business," Thorne said. "But I think as a general tool for art and art historical and archaeological exploration, it's the best new thing to come out in a very long time." Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Study: Babies are sophisticated learners BOSTON (UPI) -- Research into how children learn by forming, testing and continually adjusting ideas about the world around them could help teachers, U.S. scientists say. Until recently, researchers were unsure of the precise ways babies and toddlers start to make sense of their surroundings, but studies are finding young children have a surprisingly sophisticated intuitive grasp of probabilities, which they use to make inferences about things, The Boston Globe reported Monday. "We start with these newborn babies and by the time they're 4 years old, they have a lot of common sense knowledge about the world," Laura Schulz, professor of cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. "They have ideas about physics, they have ideas about other people, they have ideas about causal relationships," she said. "The way we get the world right is by making bets -- based on probabilities, given the evidence." One surprise finding in the studies was that teaching too much can stifle exploration. Schulz and colleagues built a complicated toy and presented it to children. The toy had many functions: pulling on one tube caused a squeak, pressing a button turned on a light and pushing a pad made music play. In one session, an adult showed preschool children how the toy worked, but demonstrated only the squeak sound. In another session, other children were just shown the toy. In both cases, the researchers encouraged the children to play with the toy and figure out how it worked. They found that children taught explicitly how to make the toy squeak sent less time playing with it and discovered fewer functions than those who merely had the toy demonstrated to them. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Human virus blamed in gorilla deaths DAVIS, Calif. (UPI) -- A human virus that causes respiratory disease has been linked to the death of wild mountain gorillas, U.S. and African researchers say. Researchers say the finding confirms that serious diseases can pass from people to these endangered animals, a release from the University of California, Davis reported Monday. "Because there are fewer than 800 living mountain gorillas, each individual is critically important to the survival of their species," Mike Cranfield of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project and a UC Davis wildlife veterinarian, said. "But mountain gorillas are surrounded by people, and this discovery makes it clear that living in protected national parks is not a barrier to human diseases." Humans and gorillas share approximately 98 percent of their DNA, raising concerns that gorillas may be susceptible to many of the infectious diseases that affect people, researchers said. This is of particular concern because mountain gorillas have come into increasing contact with humans during the past 100 years and, in fact, national parks where the gorillas are protected in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are surrounded by the densest human populations in continental Africa, they said. Gorilla tourism, while helping the gorillas by funding the national parks that shelter them, brings thousands of people into contact with mountain gorillas annually, along with diseases that can prove fatal to gorillas. "The type of infection we see most frequently is respiratory, which can range from mild colds to severe pneumonia," Linda Lowenstine, a veterinary pathologist with the UC Davis Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, said. A report on the 2009 deaths of two mountain gorillas infected with a human virus was published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Spring means melting snow -- and pollution SCARBOROUGH, Ontario (UPI) -- Spring is in the air and so is the annual snowmelt -- carrying a dark side of pollution, a Canadian researcher says. "During the winter months, contaminants accumulate in the snow," University of Toronto Scarborough environmental chemist Torsten Meyer said. "When the snow melts, these chemicals are released into the environment at high concentrations." In a special temperature-controlled laboratory at UTSC, Meyer creates large baths of fresh snow already tainted with organic contaminants. This one-of-a-kind setup allows Meyer to slowly melt his "dirty" snow, collect the melt-water and track which chemicals emerge from the snowpack and when, a university release reported Monday. A worrying surprise has come out of his experiments, he said. "One of the main findings is that there is a peak contaminant flush at the very beginning of the melt," he said. In other words, Meyer said, with the advent of spring comes a deluge of pollution. By the time spring snow has turned black with muck and grime, many harmful chemicals -- including those from pesticides, car exhaust, telecommunications wiring insulation, water repellent clothing, paints or coatings -- may have already seeped out of the snow and into the surrounding ground water or surface water, Meyer said. The findings have real-world implications, such as how municipalities choose their snow dump sites. Cities and towns should be very careful to select well-contained sites to protect against that early flush of pollutants, he said. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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