Oh yes, and spending at least part of every day at the beach or pool. It is vacation, after all.

Hopefully with my batteries recharged I can get back on the #writemotivation train and get some stuff done for the month. Since I missed last week’s update, here’s my progress for the past two weeks:

1. Finish first round of Apollo edits. I’m only one chapter away on the paper edits! I just need to transcribe it all to the computer.

2. Finish critiques for Ryan and Lindsay.

3. Start critique for Tyffani.

4. Re-write NAMELESS query, and write APOLLO query/synopsis. The NAMELESS query is re-written and currently being looked over by the first round of judges in Query Kombat.

Not exactly how far I wanted to be by the halfway point of the month, but I still have half a month (and vacation!) to get farther along. The really daunting task is going to be transcribing the edits, but once that’s finished the critiques and APOLLO synopsis should be fairly simple. The APOLLO query won’t be as easy, but I learned with NAMELESS to write the synopsis first and pare it down to the query once you’re happy with it. Much easier that way.

Oh yeah, and Hubs and I made it through the Martha episodes of Dr Who and have moved on to Donna! It won’t be long before we’re done with Ten and on to Eleven (Ten is both Hubs and my least favorite of the new Doctors). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we’ll be on Eleven by the end of vacation

Do you have any vacation plans coming up, Aledans?

The Tower of Babel, by Paul Gosselin.

Before Babel? Ancient Mother Tongue Reconstructed: “We can trace echoes of language back 15,000 years to a time that corresponds to about the end of the last ice age,” said study co-author Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom….In other words, if modern-day humans could somehow encounter their Stone Age ancestors, they could say one or two very simple statements and make themselves understood, Pagel said.

This has got to be the coolest scientific thing I’ve read since the mega-volcano that ripped apart Pangea and killed half of the Earth’s species back in March.

Arctic Ocean ‘Acidifying Rapidly’: They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take tens of thousands of years for Arctic Ocean chemistry to revert to pre-industrial levels.

Nanoparticle Tech Could Bring Clean Water to Rural Poor: A water purification system that uses nanotechnology to remove bacteria, viruses and other contaminants may be able to deliver clean drinking water to rural communities for less than $3 a year per family, according to a new study.

Exposure to Fire Retardants During Pregnancy Linked to Hyperactivity, Lower IQ: Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are chemicals that have been used to lower the risk of fires in items like baby strollers, carpets and electronics. Because of known health risks, the chemicals have mostly not been used in items on sale in the U.S. since 2004. However, since they are not very biodegradable, PBDEs may still exist in older products that people may have or continue to exist in the tissue of people who were exposed to the chemicals.

Scientists Identify New Dog-sized Dinosaur: The discovery of the Acrotholus Audeti touched off further investigation that suggested the world’s dinosaur population was more diverse than once believed.

Pet Dino anyone?

Tongue Erections Help Bats Sop Up Nectar: Nectar-eating bats lap up the sweet liquid by engorging their tongues with blood, which, in turn, makes hairlike projections on the tongue stand at attention, new research finds. Together, the erect hairs, called papillae, act like a mop that grabs more liquid than a smooth surface could alone.

Admit it, that title made you giggle.

Bizarre Mars Mountain Possibly Built by Wind, Not Water: Many scientists suspect that the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers) Mount Sharp formed primarily from layers of lakebed silt, which is one of the main reasons that the mountain was selected as Curiosity’s ultimate destination. But the new study holds that wind probably did most of the heavy lifting.

Europeans All Closely Related, Gene Study Shows: For more than a decade, researchers calculated theoretically that all people shared common ancestors fairly recently.

To test that theory, Coop and his colleagues analyzed 500,000 spots on the genome of Europeans, from Turkey to the United Kingdom. To untangle European ancestry, they calculated the length of shared segments of DNA, or the molecules that contain the genetic instructions for life. When two people share a longer stretch of identical DNA, they are likely to share a more recent common ancestor, since over time those gene segments evolve and diversify.

The researchers found that all Europeans shared a common ancestor just 1,000 years ago.

Um….WHAT? That doesn’t seem long enough.

Ancient DNA Found Hidden Below Sea Floor: The DNA, from tiny, one-celled sea creatures that lived up to 32,500 years ago, is the first to be recovered from the abyssal plains, the deep-sea bottoms that cover huge stretches of Earth. In a separate finding published this week, another research team reports teasing out plankton DNA that’s up to 11,400 years old from the floor of the much shallower Black Sea. The researchers say that the ability to retrieve such old DNA from such large stretches of the planet’s surface could help reveal everything from ancient climate to the evolutionary ecology of the seas.

Maybe my wisteria needs a buddy?

Plant Seedlings Thrive by Talking with Friends: The research adds to growing evidence that plants “talk” via sound. Gagliano already has shown that fennel, which transmits nasty chemicals to curb competing plants, also shuts down seedling growth when its chemical signaling is cut off via a sealed box. Evidence abounds for acoustic signaling between plants and insects, such as orchids that release pollen only for the high-frequency buzz of a certain bee. And scientists are tracking drought by listening to hydraulic pops in drying tree and plant leaves.

Scientists Discover New Species of Bass in Florida: After confirming the initial discovery, scientists searched for the DNA profile in bass caught in nearby rivers to determine the bass’ range. They found the Choctaw bass in coastal rivers in Alabama and along the western Florida panhandle, including the Choctawhatchee River.

Greenland’s Glacial Ice Melt May Slow: According to the model, which looked at four swiftly shrinking outlet glaciers, today’s breakneck retreat will soon hit the brakes, thanks to natural processes like narrow fjords that choke glacial retreat and increased iceberg production that cools warm ocean water. But that doesn’t mean Greenland’s overall ice loss will stop, Nick warns.

Giant Gas Clouds Found in Void Between Galaxies: The discovery comes from a new survey of the dark, starless void between the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), which revealed that the giant clouds of hot ionized hydrogen gas that could provide a fresh influx for star birth.

50-Year-Old Flouride Mystery Closer to Being Solved: The study suggests that fluoride works by reducing the ability of bacteria to stick to teeth, making the germs easier to wash away with saliva, brushing and other activities.

When fluoride bonds with tooth enamel, bacteria probably cannot hold onto it as strongly, said study researcher Karin Jacobs, a physicist at Saarland University in Germany.

Water on Earth and Moon May Have Same Source: The findings hint that water may have existed on Earth before the giant impact the planet received that created the moon, and that the moon possessed water from its earliest moments, scientists added. It remains a mystery exactly how water found within the moon survived this violent collision, though.

Hubble Telescope Discovers ‘Polluted’ Dead Stars: “We have identified chemical evidence for the building blocks of rocky planets,” researcher Jay Farihi of the University of Cambridge said in a statement Thursday (May 9). “When these stars were born, they built planets, and there’s a good chance that they currently retain some of them. The signs of rocky debris we are seeing are evidence of this — it is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our solar system.”

Submarine Ridge off Brazil: Piece of Sole Original Continent? After a month long expedition using a research submarine, the scientists say the so-called Rio Grande Elevation, a rise on the ocean floor about 1,500 km (932 miles) southeast of Rio de Janeiro, features granite and minerals, including iron, manganese, and cobalt, that differentiate it from the rest of the surrounding seabed.

Jerusalem’s Ancient ‘City of Quarries’ Reveals City-Building Rocks: The first-century quarry, which fits into the Second Temple Period (538 B.C. to A.D. 70), would’ve held the huge stones used in the construction of the city’s ancient buildings, the researchers noted.

Archaeologists also uncovered pick axes and wedges among other artifacts at the site in the modern-day Ramat Shlomo Quarter, a neighborhood in northern East Jerusalem.

Synthetic Spider Venom Makes a Kinder, Safer Antidote: Because it’s non-toxic, the synthetic “venom” might even be suitable for vaccinating people. “If they get bitten, they’ll already have antibodies capable of neutralising the most harmful effects of the venom,” says Chávez-Olórtegui.

Blood Hormone Restores Youthful Hearts to Old Mice: The protein, known as growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), circulates at high levels in the blood of young mice but declines with age. In a study published this week in Cell¹, the researchers report that elderly mice treated with the protein experience a reversal of tissue aging in the heart.

Cuthbert the Mouse (who ended up being female…oops)

Disease Threatens Florida’s Citrus Industry: Although the disease, citrus greening, was first spotted in Florida in 2005, this year’s losses from it are by far the most extensive. While the bacteria, which causes fruit to turn bitter and drop from the trees when still unripe, affects all citrus fruits, it has been most devastating to oranges, the largest crop. So many have been affected that the United States Department of Agriculture has downgraded its crop estimates five months in a row, an extraordinary move, analysts said.  

Saturn, by the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.

Monster Saturn Hurricane Spied by NASA Probe: The stunning new images and video of the Saturn hurricane, which were taken by NASA’s Cassini probe, show that the storm’s eye is 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide — about 20 times bigger than typical hurricane eyes on Earth. And the Saturn maelstrom is more powerful than its Earth counterparts, with winds at its outer edge whipping around at 330 mph (530 km/h).

Parking Lot with Medieval Knight’s Skeleton May Also Hold His Family: “This site just keeps getting more and more interesting, it is turning out to be a real treasure trove of archaeology,” Ross Murray, a former student at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement. “These new finds look likely to be the possible relations of the suspected Medieval knight we found earlier this year. The skull of the skeleton found immediately beneath the location of the knight looks like that of a female and the remains found on the other side of the ornate slab belong to an infant from the same period.”

Fish Use ‘Sign Language’ to Help Out Hunting Buddies: Both types of fish, grouper and coral trout, are known for hunting cooperatively with other kinds of animals. Whereas the grouper hunts with giant moray eels and a fish called the Napoleon wrasse, coral trout partner up with octopuses to snag prey. A study published last week in the journal Nature Communications found that the fish are able to “point” their heads toward prey, to help out their hunting buddies.

Honey Good for Bee Immunity: Beekeepers often feed bees to get them safely through the winter. Honey may be ideal, but corn syrup is cheaper, so most beekeepers feed bees artificial sweeteners, Evans said.

Dear Everyone: STOP IT WITH THE CORN SYRUP. SERIOUSLY.

Sincerely, a person who is allergic to processed sugars (including corn syrup).

Honeybee, by Fir0002 [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

This is my diet already…well, except for all the cheese I eat

World’s Largest Infrared Space Telescope Shuts Down Forever: The $1.4 billion Herschel Space Observatory has exhausted the vital supply of liquid helium coolant that allowed it make the most sensitive and detailed observations of the cosmos in infrared light, ESA officials announced Monday (April 29).

Kinda sad that it’s floating in space now, all alone and dead

Dinosaur Lineage Traced to Africa: “Nyasasaurus is either the oldest known dinosaur or the closest known relative of dinosaurs, but we can’t completely rule out either option because the material is rather fragmentary,” said Angielczyk, who is Associate Curator of Paleomammalogy at the Field Museum of Natural History.

Protected Areas Help Green Sea Turtles: Until now, it wasn’t clear where these green sea turtles went after nesting and how much they might use nearby reserves. In this case, the animals spent much of their time in the nearby Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary eating sea grasses and algae.

Groundbreaking Surgery for Girl Born Without Windpipe: Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, a specialist in the field of regenerative medicine who developed the windpipe and led the complex nine-hour operation, said the treatment of the Korean-Canadian toddler, Hannah Warren, made him realize that this approach to building organs may work best with children, by harnessing their natural ability to grow and heal.

For Sand Tiger Sharks, a Deadly, Cannabalistic Battle Inside the Womb is Part of Evolution: Now scientists have concluded that this is not just a response to crowded conditions but represents an evolutionary strategy that allows the most aggressive male sharks to father the successful baby and thereby outcompete sexual rivals.

Astronomer Sleuths Solve Civil War Mystery of “Stonewall” Jackson’s Death: Olson has used astronomy to solve other historical whodunits before. For example, he calculated the direction of moonlight on the night of Paul Revere’s ride in 1775 to explain why Revere wasn’t spotted by British sentries on a nearby ship, and exposed how moonlight allowed soldiers on the Japanese I-58 submarine to see, and sink, the USS Indianapolis in 1945.

Insect’s Eyes Inspire New Digital Camera with Unique Imaging Capabilities: This class of technology offers exceptionally wide-angle fields of view, with low aberrations, high acuity to motion, and nearly infinite depth of field.

Frog Surprisingly Found to Live Underground: The study found that Iberian frogs can breed and live their entire lives in cavelike chambers, the first time this has been seen for a frog in Western Europe. The creatures were observed breeding in underground drainage compartments built beneath Portugal’s Serra da Estrela Natural Park; aboveground the animals are also found in “small ponds, humid meadows and soaked fields,” the authors wrote in a study.

Extinct Carnivores Lured into Cave of Death: In 1991, miners drilling about 18.7 miles (30 kilometers) outside Madrid, Spain, uncovered animal bones and called in local paleontologists to excavate. They uncovered a series of underground caverns full of animal fossils — including the remains of red pandas, bear dogs and saber-toothed cats, as well as ancient animals related to modern elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses and horses. To date, nearly 18,000 fossils have been recovered from the area.

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism: Much is still unknown about the circumstances of this grisly meal: Who exactly the girl researchers are calling “Jane” was, whether she was murdered or died of natural causes, whether multiple people participated in the butchering or it was a solo act. But as Owsley revealed along with lead archaeologist William Kelso today at a press conference at the National Museum of Natural History, we now have the first direct evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, the oldest permanent English colony in the Americas. “Historians have gone back and forth on whether this sort of thing really happened there,” Owsley says. “Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it’s clear that this body was dismembered for consumption.”

Tiny Winged Fossil Suggests How Hummingbirds and Swifts Evolved: “This particular lineage went off on its own direction, survived a couple of million years–even made it to Europe–and ultimately died out without leaving any descendants,” said Daniel Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. “The other side of the fork led to swifts and hummingbirds.”

Clingfish, by Hans Hillewaert [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Dawrf Lemurs Hibernate Like Bears: Yoder and colleagues captured several of the lemurs and outfitted them with temperature-sensitive radio collars before they were released. The team found that the lemurs take different sleep strategies depending on which part of Madagascar they live. The ones on the eastern side of the island bury themselves in the soft rainforest floor, maintaining cozy temperatures throughout their hibernation period. Meanwhile, western dwarf lemurs hide out in drafty tree holes, where their body temperature fluctuates with the chancing temperature of the outside air, the scientists found.

Single Gene Swap Helps Bird Flu Virus Switch Hosts: Chen Hualan of China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute took a different approach. Instead of focusing on mutations in the hemagglutinin gene, she wondered whether H5N1 might become pandemic by picking up entire genes from H1N1, the human influenza strain that first swept the globe in 2009. The flu genome consists of eight gene segments that strains can readily swap; this exchange can happen, for instance, when a person or an animal is infected with both strains.

Saturn’s Age-Defying Secret Discovered: “Scientists have been wondering for years if Saturn was using an additional source of energy to look so bright, but instead our calculations show that Saturn appears young because it can’t cool down,” Gilles Chabrier, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Exeter, said in a statement.

Superconducting Hose Transmits Magnetic Field: They made a hose from a cylinder of superconducting material filled with a highly magnetic cobalt-iron alloy, then ran a current through a coil at one end to produce a field. The field that leaked out of a crack in the tube 4 cm away was only about 40 per cent weaker than at the centre of the coil. Much longer distances should be possible, they say.

Amazon Plant Discovery Could Yield Green Cash Crop: Bussmann, an ethnobotanist at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis, and Vega, head of the Institute for Sustainable Local Development and Andean Amazon Cultural and Biological Conservation (INBIAPERU) in Trujillo, Peru, had stumbled on a species unknown to science. Now, they hope to transform it into a ‘conservation crop’ that can be raised commercially in the shade beneath the Amazon’s forest canopy, without cutting down any trees.

Mom’s Iodine Levels Tied to Kid’s Poor Test Scores: Severe iodine deficiency during pregnancy is known to cause serious mental disabilities in children, but researchers examined the test scores of nine year olds whose mothers were only slightly iodine deficient during pregnancy and found the kids performed between 6 percent and 10 percent worse than peers born to mothers with sufficient iodine.

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That’s it for this week, Aledans. Stop by again next week for your weekly science fix!

If you want to receive the same daily science emails I do, you can sign up for the Sigma Xi SmartBrief here.

You might remember Kail from this post (Razz is doing much better now, if you were wondering). She’s the daughter of Bella and Canto, and I’ve known her for over ten years. I used to play her at a pony RP, and one year for Christmas I painted tiny pony ornaments of everyone’s main character and sent them as presents. I didn’t expect anything in return, but Jo – or as I know her, Whispering Wind at C03 (or Nightbow at Eventide) – sent me Kail. She made it by hand, and it’s gorgeous! It also came with lots of yummy Swedish candy and a couple sketches of Kail

Kailani Hoofspen, display side, by Whispering Wind.

Kailani Hoofspen, non-display side, by Whispering Wind.

She’s so freaking amazing! I keep her on the desk next to my computer <3

If you have a pony that you would like featured as a Custom of the Week, please email me: rebeccaenzor@gmail.com (I’m now accepting all customs, whether they be story-based or not!)

Wisteria-covered Spear, the symbol of Kindra and Kaye.

The nerves in his stomach quickened as he bent down and kissed her slowly, one hand holding hers, the other snaking its way behind her neck and into her hair. Bryant’s heart raced, but he took his time, kissing her fully, exploring her reactions. When his hand moved down her neck and over her shoulders she sighed, and when he trailed his fingertips down her wing she trembled.

She stepped closer, pressing herself to him and he did it again, running one finger from the base at her shoulder blade straight down to the tip. He lowered them to the cot without breaking contact, and lifted her onto his lap so she could feel how much he wanted her. He ran a hand up her leg, pushing the fabric up until she could sit straddling him. She was wearing nothing beneath the dress; his hand was so close he could feel the heat coming off her. She pushed him back and straddled his hips with her dress around her waist, just hiding her body from view.

Bryant pulled her down and kissed her hard before he let his hands wander again. Her hands lost their shyness and explored him as well. She touched soft and curious, staying above his waist but becoming more bold. Every time he touched her wings she stopped and shuddered, and she ran her hands under his shirt and up his chest. When he sat up to pull the article of clothing off she took the opportunity to reach behind him and trail her fingertips across his wings. Bryant let out a shuddering breath as her touch shot to his core and he pressed her hips down onto him, pushing against her as he leaned back for leverage. The fabric of his pants was a wall between them, and he wanted to tear the wall down.

He grasped her thighs as he pressed against her again, slowly, repetitively. He was surprised when she made the next move, slipping her small hand through the band of his pants and running her fingers over him like she had with his wing.

“Oh,” he groaned as she wrapped her hand around him. A sharp intake of breath when she reached the tip, and then she was moving her hand in the same slow rhythm he’d already begun.

He kissed her mouth, her neck, whatever was closest as she rocked against him, moving her hips in time with her hand. He slid his hand up her thigh and found the hidden place he wanted, her skin slick with desire. When he touched her she sucked in a deep breath and stopped her movement until he slid a finger inside and she relaxed onto him with a sigh. They moved together, rocking in fluid motion until he pulled his hand away and pushed her dress over her head and onto the floor. She helped him with his pants, and then they were both naked. They switched positions, Bryant laid Kaye on her back in the creaking cot. He ran his hands up her body—her skin was hot and perfect beneath him—before he lowered himself onto her. She moved her legs and gasped when he entered. But he moved slow and gentle and soon he could think only of the feel of her body and his movement inside her. Their pounding rhythm came to a climax as he let out a groan of delighted agony, and shivered as he lay on top of her.

Kaye ran her fingers through his hair, kissed his face, and pressed against him as her own body gave up the sensation of using and being used. She shuddered beneath him twice before he found the strength to roll to the side, careful as he released his hold on her. They lay with their arms and legs intertwined, brushing their fingers across sweaty skin, giving soft kisses and murmurs of appreciation.

Bryant hoped he made Kaye feel welcome.

Boudin is so happy it’s May!

Dear Aledans: it’s MAY! Finally that horrible month known as April is over, and it’s the wonderful month of Trina’s Day, Vacation, and my (7^th) Anniversary! (Although Hubs and I have been together for almost thirteen years now)

Camp NaNo didn’t go as well as I had planned, but it wasn’t a total bust. I’ve edited more than half of Apollo and Daphne, but I haven’t had time to type up most of those edits. I still feel like there’s something huge I’m missing, but I guess all the problems will be revealed when I send it to my critters (hopefully before vacation on the 17^th). If you know your mythology inside and out and want to critique Apollo let me know – I have some “I know nothing about mythology” critters already but I need a couple more “I know my myths like the back of my hand” critters.

I’ve re-worked my query for Nameless to try to get into the Query Kombat Brackets on May 13^th, and once Apollo is finished I’m going to go through the first 50 pages of Nameless again to see what needs to happen. It seems that’s where I’m losing agent interest, and I think I know exactly where it’s happening. Even Kindra says “will this night never end?” – that should have tipped me off right away.

Hubs and I have been slogging through the beginning of Martha on Dr Who. I love Martha as a companion, but all of her episodes before “Human Nature” suck. From then on she has one of my favorite seasons, but getting to that point with her is painful and boring.

I’ve also been slogging through A Feast for Crows – again, painful and boring

On the #WriteMotivation front, here’s my list again:

1. Finish first round of Apollo edits.

2. Finish critiques for Ryan and Lindsay.

3. Start critique for Tyffani.

4. Re-write NAMELESS query, and write APOLLO query/synopsis.

And #4 is already halfway done! Laura still has a couple tweaks on the query that she’ll email me about this weekend, but that sucker is just about as good as it’s ever going to get.

Trina’s Day is on Sunday, so I’ll be putting up a special, sexy Fie Eoin Friday tomorrow. I just have to decide which one. Go back in time to Kindra’s first Trina’s Day with Gar? Or maybe some sexy Faye-action with Kaye and Bryant? Or I could go way back in time to Fennec and Loria, although that might give away spoilers about the High Priestess…

I hope you have a happy May, Aledans. Don’t forget to celebrate the Feast of Lovers on Sunday and I hope to see you back here tomorrow for FEF

Redwood Trees, by Two+two=4 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The challenge is to find places to put the trees, people to nurture them and money to continue the project, Jared Milarch said. The group is funded through donations and doesn’t charge for its clones.

Could – and Should – Astronauts Have Babies on Mars? Today (April 22), the nonprofit Mars One organization announced its plan to begin selecting astronauts for one-way missions to Mars. These spacefarers would establish the first Martian colony, with subsequent crews arriving every two years. Eventually, those Mars settlers may want to have families — but can they? Doctors say they don’t know whether humans would be able to become pregnant and give birth in the lesser gravity on Mars (it’s got 38 percent of the gravity on Earth), not to mention how babies would fare under the excess radiation outside of Earth’s protective atmosphere.

Forest Conservation Could Reduce Malaria Transmission: No malaria cases have been reported on the mountain range in the past 30 years, but the primary malaria mosquito in the Atlantic Forest, Anopheles cruzii, lives nearby and could introduce the Plasmodium vivax parasite — associated with an estimated 80–300 million cases of malaria worldwide.

Tumors Fall to Radioactive Bacteria: The notion of using bacteria to attack tumors—often by helping to elicit an anti-cancer immune response or delivering a chemotherapeutic agent to cancer cells—is not new, noted Robert Hoffman, a cancer biologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the current study. Hoffman’s own research on engineered Salmonella has shown that the bacteria can kill mouse cancer cells, including metastases of pancreatic cancer. And a Listeria strain called CRS-207 that expresses a tumor-associated protein has demonstrated safety and the ability to stimulate an immune response in Phase 1 and 2 trials of cancer patients. But in the new study, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have paired this technique with a radioactive isotope to selectively kill tumor cells, focusing on the metastatic cells that so often elude current treatment regimens.

Oldest Temple in Mexican Valley Hints at Possible Human Sacrifice: The evidence of such sacrifice is far from conclusive, but researchers did uncover a human tooth and part of what may be a human limb bone from a temple room scattered with animal sacrifice remains and obsidian blades. The temple dates back to 300 B.C. or so, when it was in use by the Zapotec civilization of what is now Oaxaca.

66 Ancient Skeletons Found in Indonesian Cave: The cave is known as Harimaru or Tiger Cave, and also contains chicken, dog and pig remains. Thousands of years ago, the Tiger Cave and other limestone caverns nearby were occupied by Indonesia’s first farmers. They used the caves to bury their dead, explaining the 3,000-year-old cemetery unearthed by Simanjuntak’s team. The ancient farmers also manufactured tools in the caves.

Early Flying Dinosaur Included Fish in its Menu of Prey: “We were very fortunate that this Microraptor was found in volcanic ash and its stomach content of fish was easily identified,” paleontology graduate student Scott Persons said.

This isn’t very surprising, but yay for proof.

Gold-Bedecked Skeleton May Have Been Ancient Queen: The excavation team believes she belonged to the Beaker people, a widespread Neolithic culture that gets its name from the shape of the ceramic pots they left behind. Beaker remains have been found across Europe, but few in Britain have been found with gold ornaments and most contain male skeletons, excavators say.

Australia Wasn’t Found By Accident: The results raise new questions, Williams said, including what prompted the gradual increase in population about 11,000 years ago. Given that the founding population would have numbered in the thousands, the results also require a look at what might have motivated an organized exploration and colonization effort 50,000 years ago.

“Was it climatic? Was it cognitive?” Williams said. “It looks less like an accidental discovery.”

Ancient Europeans Mysteriously Vanished 4,500 Years Ago: “What is intriguing is that the genetic markers of this first pan-European culture, which was clearly very successful, were then suddenly replaced around 4,500 years ago, and we don’t know why,” said study co-author Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide Australian Center for Ancient DNA, in a statement. “Something major happened, and the hunt is now on to find out what that was.”

Robot Discovers Burial Chambers in Ancient Temple: In 2011, archaeologists using radar technology discovered a long tunnel marked with mysterious symbols deep beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. The tunnel was largely sealed off about 1,800 years ago.

It was expected that the tunnel would end in a burial chamber — but the Tlaloc II robot instead found three chambers. Archaeologists expect that future explorations, by robots or humans, will reveal the burial chambers of some of Teotihuacan’s leaders.

Canadian Lynx, by Art G. [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Jupiter Got a Soaking from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9: I remember when the comet hit – amazing that it spread so much water into the atmosphere.

Rare Meteorite Grains May be from Supernova That Sparked Solar System: Two surprising grains of sand in a pair of meteorites that landed on Earth suggest they were formed in a single supernova that occurred billions of years ago, new research suggests. These grains may even come from the same star explosion that sparked the formation of the solar system, scientists say.

Professor Encourages His Students to Cheat in Order to Teach Them Game Theory: In the end, the students learned what social insects like ants and termites have known for hundreds of millions of years. To win at some games, cooperation is better than competition. Unity that arises through a diversity of opinion is stronger than any solitary competitor.

Earth’s Core 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Expected: A team of scientists has measured the melting point of iron at high precision in a laboratory, and then drew from that result to calculate the temperature at the boundary of Earth’s inner and outer core — now estimated at  6,000 C (about 10,800 F). That’s as hot as the surface of the sun.

Monkeys Conform to Popular Diet: A study of wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) in South Africa provides proof that primates other than humans adopt and conform to cultural behaviors. Given a choice between two foods, infant monkeys ate only the foods that their mothers ate. And young males that ventured to other groups soon switched to the local diet, researchers report online today (April 25) in the journal Science.

Oldest Maya Sun Observatory Hints at Origin of Civilization: A construction date of 1000 B.C. makes the Ceibal structures about 200 years older than those at La Venta, meaning the Olmec’s construction practices couldn’t have inspired the Mayans, the researchers report Thursday (April 25) in the journal Science. Instead, it appears that the entire region underwent a shift around this time, with groups adopting each other’s architecture and rituals, modifying them and inventing new additions.

New Meat-Eating Dinosaur Found: The reptile’s unusual name — which roughly translates to “lonely little cattle rustler” — is derived from the Malagasy language, “rather than the ‘traditional’ (and Eurocentric) Greek or Latin,” paleontologist and project leader Andrew Farke wrote on a PLOS blog.

Best dinosaur name ever? I think so.

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That’s it for this week, Aledans. Stop by again next week for your weekly science fix!

If you want to receive the same daily science emails I do, you can sign up for the Sigma Xi SmartBrief here.

Apollo and Daphne, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

It’s been a couple weeks since we’ve had a Fie Eoin Friday on the blog, and since we saw Daphne’s POV last time, I thought today I’d give you Apollo’s POV. This is the new version of the first scene of Apollo and Daphne. Enjoy!

Apollo would never outrun the ghost of Hyacinth. She was in the photographs on his nightstand when he woke in the morning. In the smell of her shampoo that still lingered in his car. In the face of every dark-haired girl he caught a glimpse of. He would never escape the memory of what he’d done.

His feet pounded the ground as he ran. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down his nose, dropping to the damp leaves of the cross country course. He focused on his breath, on the rhythmic beating of his feet, on the red and gold jersey of his best friend, Hermes, who ran ahead of him. He focused on the heartbeat thundering in his chest.

Hyacinth’s heart had stopped by the time Apollo got to her.

A twig cracked under his foot, but instead he heard the dull crack of her head as the discus hit her temple. Saw the expression on her face as she fell. The doctors said she was dead before she hit the ground. Dead as she stared at him and fell.

Apollo growled and his feet picked up the rhythm of his new heartbeat. Angry, thundering. He was going to outrun his guilt today. Run faster than the ghost of Hyacinth.

“Too soon, man,” Hermes said between breaths as Apollo passed him.

Apollo ignored him and kept his pace. He wouldn’t tire today. He would burn up the hot regret running through his veins. Burn it up until there was nothing left and he was empty. As empty as Hyacinth’s eyes as she fell.

The sound of Hermes feet behind him changed, and soon he was inching up on Apollo. Hermes had always been the faster runner, ever since they were little, but today Apollo wanted to win. Today he would win.

Hermes matched his pace, breath harsher than before, and when he began to pull ahead near the end Apollo called up all of his guilt and shame and anger and ran, as fast as he could, and broke out of the trees ahead of his friend.

Apollo crossed the finish line a single step ahead.

My brand new – blooming! – wisteria plant.

It’s been quite the couple weeks, hasn’t it Aledans? I didn’t feel like posting an update last week because there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. I didn’t get any work on Apollo done because I was glued to the news like just about everyone else. This week has been much kinder, until I found out it’s going to cost almost a grand to fix the lawn that TruGreen killed. If you’re thinking of using a lawn service in the future stay very, VERY far away from TruGreen.

I’ve been working in the yard a lot on the weekends, and I’ve been crazy busy at work, so I haven’t been online much lately. Hubs and I tamed one giant azalea and hacked back the other to make a space for the oak tree that was growing out of the backside (and hacked a second oak tree out of the middle of that giant azalea). That took all weekend (they are seriously as big as a small room), and then last weekend we put together the most annoying composter ever – without wanting to kill each other!

My wisteria also arrived last weekend, and it was blooming! It’s so pretty, and it makes me smile every time I look at it.

In Camp NaNo news, I’m way behind. On the hand-written edits I’m about 35% finished, but I’ve only typed up about 10% of them. Instead I’ve been carrying around a quarter of the book in my purse, just waiting for a chance to transcribe everything. It’s supposed to rain all weekend though, so I should have some time to type. I definitely won’t finish by the end of April as I’d hoped. This month has just been too crappy for that.

I’ll be joining #WriteMotivation next month to complete Apollo’s edits and finish all the critiques I’ve promised. I also need to re-write my query based on feedback by Lauren Spieller (she gives amazing feedback by the way – I won a critique on Twitter, but I’d seriously consider hiring her to look at future queries). So Thursdays throughout May will be #WriteMotivation update days. For now my goals look like this:

1. Finish first round of Apollo edits.

2. Finish critiques for Ryan and Lindsay.

3. Start critique for Tyffani.

4. Re-write NAMELESS query (if I haven’t already), and write APOLLO query/synopsis.

Feel free to brandish the whip if I’m not getting things done, Aledans. What are your goals for next month?

Old Faithful, by Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

New Species of Porcupine that Lives in Trees Discovered in Brazil: It was discovered in the Brazilian Atlantic forest, which is a location known for its biodiversity and is considered to be the fourth most important hotspot for species on the entire planet.

Red Wood Ants Sense Earthquakes Before They Strike: During the day, ants busily went about their daily activity, and at night the colony rested inside the mound, mirroring human diurnal patterns, Berberich said at a news conference today. But before an earthquake, the ants were awake throughout the night, outside their mound, vulnerable to predators, the researchers found. Normal ant behavior didn’t resume until a day after the earthquake, Berberich said.

Mysterious Sundial May Be Secret to Viking Navigation: The team found that at noon every day, when the sun is highest in the sky, a dial in the center of the compass would have cast a shadow between two lines on the plate. The ancient seafarers could have measured the length of that noon shadow using scaling lines on the dial, and then determined the latitude.

This goes along with the Sunstone article from the first Science Tuesday.

Paralyzed Monkey Controls Arm Via Brain: Even after a spinal cord injury or stroke, the nervous system wiring above and below the injury can remain intact. With that in mind, researchers created an artificial electrical connection between the injured monkey’s brain and an area below the damaged part of its spinal cord. This allowed the animal to send neural signals to its spinal cord to engage its arm muscles.

Lab-Engineered Kidney Works in Animals: “If this technology can be scaled to human-sized grafts, patients suffering from renal failure who are currently waiting for donor kidneys, or who are not transplant candidates, could theoretically receive new organs derived from their own cells,” said study researcher Dr. Harald Ott, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine. Building kidneys using this technique could the risk that the organ would be rejected, he said.

Laura was on top of this one and posted it as a reply to last week’s science news blog. If you’re on top of the science news that I missed, please leave me a link!

Historic Marine Mammal Protection Act Worked: More than 40 years later, a new report shows that the law has been effective: It not only prevented extinctions that seemed imminent, but also helped some species bounce back in strong numbers, researchers say.

Florida Battles Slimy Invasion by Giant Snails: A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells.

It was noted on Twitter by @MarkHaggan that this snail is particularly tasty itself. So get thee to Florida and start feasting!

Weizenbier, by Trexer (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

This effect persisted even though many of the participants actually said that the Gatorade tasted better than the beer.

Cheers to that!

Egypt Discovers Ancient Port and Writings: Ibrahim said the port was used to transfer copper from Sinai to the Nile valley.

The team working in the Suez archaeological area also discovered hieroglyphic papyri, considered the oldest found in Egypt.

2,000-Year-Old Ritual Bath Found in Jerusalem: “It is interesting to note that the bath conforms to all of the laws of kashrut (the set of Jewish dietary laws), like collecting the water in it naturally without human contact, and ensuring that the water does not seep into the earth, which is why the bath was treated with a special kind of plaster,” the archaeologist added.

The Real ‘Hobbit’ Had Larger Brain Than Thought: Past studies had argued the hobbit could not have evolved from Homo erectus, which typically had a brain about 1,000 cubic centimeters (61 cubic inches) in size, because it would have suggested Homo erectus shrunk an unreasonable degree over time. However, it turned out Javanese specimens of Homo erectus had brains about 860 cubic cm (52 cubic inches) large, and combined with the newfound increased size of the hobbit’s brain, the researchers say it now seems possible that Homo erectus may be the ancestor of Homo floresiensis.

Possible Tomb of Chinese Tyrant Uncovered: Emperor Yang, also known as Yang Guang, is remembered as a fearsome and decadent tyrant. During his rule from 606 until his death at the hands of rebels in 618, he forced millions of laborers to take part in ambitious construction projects, such as building royal palaces,  completing of the Grand Canal and reconstructing of the Great Wall. Emperor Yang also launched costly military campaigns, including a failed conquest of Goguryeo, an ancient kingdom of Korea, which eventually led to the collapse of the Sui Dynasty.

Two Strange Moth Species Discovered in Russia: The moths may have gone undiscovered for so long because they are difficult to collect; unlike most moths, they don’t usually fly toward lights, a common method of capturing insects for identification, according to the study, published recently in the journal ZooKeys.

Bees Age Faster When They Raise Offspring: Researchers have found that nurturing the hive’s progeny accelerates aging in the insects.

Well, that’s the final nail in the kiddie-coffin. I’m never reproducing

Ants Use Math to Find Fastest Route: En route to their roach banquet, the ants did not follow the most direct travel path, the study found. Rather, they followed an angled path, traveling over more of the smoother material in order to reach the food morsels in the shortest amount of time. The findings demonstrate that Fermat’s principle of light travel also applies to living creatures, the researchers conclude.

Fish’s DNA May Explain How Fins Turned Into Feet: Another helpful preadaptation is a snippet of DNA that enhances the activity of the genes that drive the formation of limbs in the embryo. The Amemiya team focused on the enhancer DNA sequence because it occurred in the coelacanth and animals but not in ordinary fish. They then inserted the coelacanth enhancer DNA into mice.

“It lit up right away and made an almost normal limb,” said Neil Shubin, meaning that the coelacanth gene enhancer successfully encouraged the mouse genes to make a limb.

They used fish DNA to make a mouse GROW LIMBS. Science doesn’t really get much cooler than that.

Bacteria on Dog Lover’s Skin Reveal Their Affection: Yay! I’m a cesspool of dog germs!

My little cesspools of doggy germs, Boudin and Hops <3

Babies Have Consciousness: “Our study suggests that babies are much more conscious than we believed before, and they’re probably much more conscious of pain when they experience [it],” Kouider said. Researchers might also be able to detect abnormalities in conscious experience before babies learn to talk, he added, perhaps leading to earlier diagnoses of disorders such as autism.

Solar Cell Could Dramatically Improve Energy Harvest: For every photon (or particle of light) that hits a solar cell, the coating — called pentacene — doubles the number of electrons, and energy, that can be harvested, at least with high-energy blue or green wavelengths of light.

Sustainable Intensification ‘Can Work For African Farmers’: Majele Sibanda cites the water pockets technique known as zai, pioneered by farmers in Burkina Faso, as an example of a traditional practice recognised by modern science. Farmers dig holes — or zais — across the fields during the dry season, and fill them with manure to attract termites. The termites then create an extensive network of underground tunnels beneath the holes and bring up nutrients from the deeper soils.

Rainwater is captured in the zais, and water loss through drainage is limited by the manure. Thus even in drought-prone environments, sufficient water capture to sustain crop yields is ensured.

In the northeast of Burkina Faso, where the zai technique has been practised since the early 1980s, grain yield has increased by 120 per cent, equating to around 80,000 tonnes of extra grain per year.

Two Promising Places to Live, 1,200 Light-Years from Earth: Nobody will probably ever know if anything lives on these planets, and the odds are that humans will travel there only in their faster-than-light dreams, but the news has sent astronomers into heavenly raptures. William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center, head of the Kepler project, described one of the new worlds as the best site for Life Out There yet found in Kepler’s four-years-and-counting search for other Earths. He treated his team to pizza and beer on his own dime to celebrate the find (this being the age of sequestration). “It’s a big deal,” he said.

Antarctic Freeze Paved the Way for Baleen Whales: Up until around 34 million years ago, Antarctica was warm and lushly forested. Then, within just 200,000 years, glaciers formed and spread over the entire continent creating a vast frozen wasteland.

Dinos Sat on Nests Like Birds, Shells Reveal: They found that porosity varied across the dino eggshell, suggesting the dinosaur laid its eggs almost vertically in sand or mud, but didn’t bury the eggs completely. The adult would have had direct contact with the upper portions of these partially buried eggs, Varricchio said.

Roman-Era ‘Costmetics’ May Have Treated Eye Chlamydia: For now, this interpretation is just a guess. So far, no one has been able to unearth a cosmetics grinder with testable material still clinging to it. If archaeologists were to find something like that, they might be able to determine what, exactly, Roman-era Britons were grinding up. A discovery like that, or of a newly translated text referring to the objects, could strengthen the trachoma theory.

Russia Launches Animals Into Space on One-Month Journey: One of the NASA experiments focuses on how microgravity and radiation affect sperm motility in mice. If humans are going to visit other planets on long flights, Rayl said, it’s important to understand if people will be able to procreate from sex in space. Some missions could take decades, so space-based reproduction could be a necessity.

Moscow Subway’s Stray Dogs: Each morning, like clockwork, they board the subway, off to begin their daily routine amidst the hustle and bustle of the city.

But these aren’t just any daily commuters. These are stray dogs who live in the outskirts of Moscow Russia and commute on the underground trains to and from the city centre in search of food scraps.

Then after a hard day scavenging and begging on the streets, they hop back on the train and return to the suburbs where they spend the night.

Dogs have learned to use the subway!

~~~~~

That was a LOT of science-y goodness for one week! Here’s to hoping science continues to rock it.

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