Science Actualit�s : - Picture of the day

The "Green Gallant" authenticated

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100

This mummified head really does belong to "Good King Henry". A multidisciplinary team led by forensic scientist Philippe Charlier has just authenticated it. Separated from his body during the Revolution, it was rediscovered in 2008 in the possession of a member of the public and was analysed by a team of researchers. Examination revealed a small dark mark 11 mm in size on the right nostril, a hole in the right earlobe where an earring was worn and a bone lesion above the left upper lip resulting from a slash received during an assassination attempt in 1594. These features and carbon-14 dating enabled the researchers to identify the head as Henry IV's. (On the home page: 3D reproduction of the skull)
Source: British Medical Journal, 14th December 2010

The "hairy fly" rediscovered in Kenya

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100

In a rock formation 200 km to the East of Nairobi, two entomologists from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya have rediscovered an insect described in 1936 by British entomologist Ernest E. Austen and seen for the last time in 1948. A fly one centimetre long covered in yellow hairs (Mormotomyia hirsuta), it has long legs and atrophied wings, and reproduces in bat faeces. Since it cannot fly, its species is probably limited to this restricted Ukazi Hill habitat.
Source: NewScientist, 8 December 2010

The chikungunya virus in 3D

Tue, 7 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Using the very special light produced by the Soleil synchrotron (a particle accelerator located in the Paris Region), a French team has been able to visualise the 3D architecture of the chikungunya viral envelope and determine the role and origin of each of its surface proteins for the first time: protein E1 (here in blue) and protein E2 (here in red and yellow).
Source: Nature, 2010, 468(7324): 709-712 (2 d�cembre 2010)

The first salt mine

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100

According to French archaeologists, the Araxe Valley in Azerbaijan is home to the oldest salt mine discovered to date. The salt deposits of Duzdagi were already mined in 4500 BCE and by 4000 BCE, mining at Duzdagi (meaning "salt mountain" in Azeri, a Turkic language) had become intensive, as suggested by the discovery of remains dating from the Bronze Age. Hundreds of stone hammers and picks have been found around its tunnels, remains that can be dated by the recurrent presence of ceramic fragments specific to the Transcaucasian culture that originated in the South Caucasus. Research should provide a better understanding of the organisation of the first civilisations that appeared in the region between 4500 and 3500 BCE.

How the baby neurone leaves the nest

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Using this type of image - which laypersons will find a little bewildering - an American team has been able to monitor the migration of newborn neurones in a mouse's brain from the cerebellum (where they are formed) to the position they will finally occupy.

Modern stone for prehistoric humans

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The archaeological site of Blombos in South Africa has taught us a little more about tools produced using stone-sharpening techniques. Made by prehistoric humans who populated Africa at least 75,000 years ago, these tools were produced 50,000 years earlier than scientists previously thought, using heated silcrete, a hard material made up of quartz cemented by silica. The stones were worked and sharpened by the application of high pressure through wood or bone hammers. Called pressure retouch, the technique shows that these humans used modern methods in very ancient times.

Typhus in dental pulp

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Researchers at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) have just identified the bacterium responsible for typhus. Introduced into Europe by the Spanish conquistadors at the start of the 16th century, the bacterium was determined through the genetic analysis of the dental pulp of skeletons uncovered by engineering works in Douai in the North of France.

First experimental surgery

Thu, 4 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Researchers are fascinated by this 5,000-year-old bovid skull with a frontal hole 5 cm by 6.5 cm (here, a reconstruction; bottom right, the original). Indeed, it shows no trace of healing and, like human skulls trepanned in prehistoric times, its edge displays grooves made by flint. Study of these marks with a scanning electron microscope has tended to confirm the impression that this is the earliest evidence of experimental surgery discovered to date. In other words, before trepanning people, humans practised on calves.

Our ancestors the anthropoid apes

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0200

Fossilised teeth of formerly unknown small anthropoid apes 38 to 39 million years old have been found in Libya (Jean-Jacques Jaeger et al, Nature 28th October 2010). These fossils add to our still limited knowledge of these very distant ancestors of ours, anthropoid apes apparently native to Asia who seem to have subsequently migrated to Africa, where they evolved into the first hominids about 7 million years ago.

A new mongoose in Madagascar

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0200

A new species of carnivorous mammal belonging to the mongoose family has just been found in Northeast Madagascar in the marshes of Lake Alaotra. Named Salanoia durelli, the mongoose was previously identified in 2004, but this time, it has been caught and photographed. Examination of the pictures and subsequent genetic analysis has confirmed the researchers' opinion that the cat-sized mongoose is indeed a new species of mammal.