DNA of 11,500 BP Alaskan Infant Remains Analyzed

DNA of 11,500 BP Alaskan Infant Remains Analyzed

What ancient babies reveal about ice-ageAmericans' travels DNA analysis of infants buried some 11,500years ago supports the Beringian Standstill hypothesis,suggesting that humans were isolated in Alaska for some10,000 years after crossing the Bering land bridge by EvaBotkin-Kowacki,
Christian Science Monitor, October 27, 2015
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/1027/What-ancient-babies-reveal-about-ice-age-Americans-travelsand

https://web.archive.org/web/20151028002101/http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/1027/What-ancient-babies-reveal-about-ice-age-Americans-travels



Utah genetics research links ancient babies in Alaska to Native Americans by Kristen Moulton, 

The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/home/3095008-155/utah-genetics-research-links-ancient-babiesand

https://web.archive.org/web/20151027014313/http://www.sltrib.com/home/3095008-155/utah-genetics-research-links-ancient-babies


Photo gallery athttps://web.archive.org/web/20151028002516/http://www.sltrib.com/csp/mediapool/sites/sltrib/Pages/gallery.csp?cid=3095008&pid=2872189



Останки аляскинских младенцев рассказали о долгой

жизни азиатов в БерингииОстанки аляскинских

младенцев рассказали о долгой жизни азиатов в

Берингии - Фото: Ben A. Potter / Univ. ofAlaska Fairbanks

http://m.lenta.ru/news/2015/10/27/beringia



The paper is:

Tackney, J. C., B. A. Potter, J. Raff, M.Powers, W. S.

Watkins, D. Warner, J. D. Reuther, J. D. Irish,and D. H.

O’Rourke, 2015, Two contemporaneous mitogenomes

from terminal Pleistocene burials in easternBeringia

PNAS 2015 ; published ahead of print October26, 2015,

doi:10.1073/pnas.1511903112

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/21/1511903112.abstract

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/21/1511903112/suppl/DCSupplemental

yours,

Paul H.

"Geology of Northern Arizona" Guidebooks Now Online

"Geology of Northern Arizona" Guidebooks Now Online

"Geology of Northern Arizona" Guidebooks Now
Online, Arizona Geological Survey, Oct. 14, 2015
http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2015/10/geology-of-northern-arizona-guidebooks.html

“Arizona Geological Survey has posted online for free
viewing and downloading "The Geology of Northern
Arizona - With Notes on Archaeology and Paleoclimate"
at http://repository.azgs.az.gov/uri_gin/azgs/dlio/1647 .”

“This is a two volumes set comprising 800 pages of
illustrated field trip guides for sites in Northern
Arizona that was published in 1974 as part of the
Rocky Mountain section meeting of the Geological
Society of America.”

Another set of guidebooks is:

Geologic Diversity of Arizona and its Margins:
Excursions to Choice Areas (For The 100th annual
meeting of The Geological Society of America (1984)
http://repository.azgs.az.gov/uri_gin/azgs/dlio/1646

Another publication is:

Gems and Precious Stones of Arizona
http://repository.azgs.az.gov/uri_gin/azgs/dlio/71

More publications and maps at:

Arizona Geological Survey Document Repository
document archiving, management and discovery
http://repository.azgs.az.gov
http://repository.azgs.az.gov/about

Yours,

Paul H.

Online Meteorite Lectures

Online Meteorite Lectures

Incoming: Learning to love the meteorite
Geological Society of London lecture
Lecture by Dr Ted Nield given at the Geological Society
on 19 December 2012 as part of the 2012 Shell London
Lecture series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuYKYRHMq4U

"New research is suggesting that 470 million years ago, a
stupendous collision in the Asteroid Belt (whose debris is
still falling, to this very day) bombarded the Earth with
meteorites of all sizes. A revolutionary idea is emerging
that the resulting ecological disturbance may have been
responsible not only for massive worldwide submarine
landslides, but for the single greatest increase in biological
diversity since the origin of complex life -- the hitherto
unexplained Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event."

Lecture 2

Geology in Space: Meteorites and Cosmic Dust
Geological Society of London
Published on Aug 7, 2014
By Matt Genge, a planetary scientist and geologist
from Imperial College London
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTl5fY4QW4

"Geology no longer is the study of the Earth. Rocks
are found throughout the universe on other planets,
asteroids and comets and as debris ranging in size
down to the tiniest pieces of stardust."

Lecture 3

The meaning of meteorites
Royal Astronomical Society Lecture
Published on March 24, 2015
by Dr Ted Nield, Geoscientist Magazine
Royal Astronomical Society public lecture, 10 February 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lgd_bJELtM

"Ted Nield surveys the ways impacts have influenced life
on Earth, and suggests that, as with ideas, meteorites have
'timeliness', because the effect of any single cause, in
human as in Earth history, is controlled largely by the
context in which it occurs."

The below lecture has nothing to do with meteorites.
It is just fun fossil hunting.

Fossils and Mud: A Jurassic Adventure‬
Geological Society of London, London, Lecture June 2015
‪by Neville Hollingworth,University of Birmingham‬
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0pj8MUicSA

"Having spent over 25 years wallowing around in mud,
Neville Hollingworth will introduce you to some of the
finer aspects of the Middle Jurassic of North Wiltshire
and South Gloucestershire. …

‪This lecture will be a pictorial tour of some quite unusual‬
sites, digging techniques, notable characters and chance
discoveries that made the national news."

Yours,

Paul H.

Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure ?

Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure ?

Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure ?
by Ian o,Neill, Discover Magazine, Oct 14, 2015
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/has-kepler-discovered-an-alien-megastructure-151014.htm

The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy.
Astronomers have spotted a strange mess of
objects whirling around a distant star.
Scientists who search for extraterrestrial
civilizations are scrambling to get a
closer look. Ross Anderson, the Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

Did Astronomers Find Evidence of an Alien
Civilization? (Probably Not. But Still Cool.)
By Phil Plait, Slate Magazine, Oct. 14, 2015
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/10/14/weird_star_strange_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

KIC 8462852 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852

The paper is:

Boyajian, T. S., D. M. LaCourse, S. A. Rappaport,
and others, 2015, Planet Hunters X. KIC 8462852
– Where’s the flux? Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf

Yours,

Paul H.

Fossils and Mud: A Jurassic Adventure in the United Kingdom

Fossils and Mud: A Jurassic Adventure in the United Kingdom

Fossils and Mud: A Jurassic Adventure
Geological Society of London, London, Lecture June 2015
‪by Neville Hollingworth,University of Birmingham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0pj8MUicSA


"Having spent over 25 years wallowing around in mud, Neville Hollingworth will introduce you to some of the finer aspects of the Middle Jurassic of North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire. …

‪This lecture will be a pictorial tour of some quite unusual sites, digging techniques, notable characters and chance discoveries that made the national news."

Yours,

Paul H.

Re: [Rockhounds] Communicating and Conducting Science

Re: [Rockhounds] Communicating and Conducting Science

I wrote:

“or as stated by Dr. Ralph B. Peck:
“If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to
just one 8 1⁄2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably
never understand it."

From “Ralph B. Peck: Engineer Educator A Man of Judgement at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150221014758/http://www.ngi.no/upload/6661/NGI%20Publ%20207%20%20Ralph%20B%20Peck%20-%20Engineer%20-%20Educator%20-%20A%20Man%20of%20Judgement.pdf
“

J Bryan Krämer replied:

“Number two reminds me of the Elevator talk
principal: if you cannot condense a difficult idea
down to a elevator talk then you don't understand
it. Author was some big name Physicist. Apparently
not Einstein or Fermi. Anyway I'd like to see a
mathematician do that for the Riemann Problem, I
read a whole book on it and still don't get what
it's about.”

Even the best of matheticians have the same problem
with understanding what their fellow matheticians write.

Go see:

The biggest mystery in mathematics: Shinichi
Mochizuki and the impenetrable proof by Davide
Castelvecchi, Nature News, Oct. 7, 2015
http://www.nature.com/news/the-biggest-mystery-in-mathematics-shinichi-mochizuki-and-the-impenetrable-proof-1.18509?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.18509!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/526178a%20corrected.pdf

"A Japanese mathematician claims to have solved
one of the most important problems in his
field. The trouble is, hardly anyone can work
out whether he's right."


Yours,

Paul H.

Communicating and Conducting Science

Communicating and Conducting Science

Below are a couple of useful articles about scientific
writing and research.

Scientists should speak simply to other scientists, too
Posted by mcadams, AGU Blogosphere, May 28, 2015
http://blogs.agu.org/sciencecommunication/2015/05/28/scientists-should-speak-simply-to-other-scientists-too/

or as stated by Dr. Ralph B. Peck:

“If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to
just one 8 1⁄2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably
never understand it."

From “Ralph B. Peck: Engineer Educator A Man of Judgement at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150221014758/http://www.ngi.no/upload/6661/NGI%20Publ%20207%20%20Ralph%20B%20Peck%20-%20Engineer%20-%20Educator%20-%20A%20Man%20of%20Judgement.pdf
and 
https://web.archive.org/web/20151010232130/http://www.ngi.no/no/Arkiv/Aktualiteter---ARKIV/73884/

Another article is:stated

How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop
Humans are remarkably good at self-deception. But
growing concern about reproducibility is driving many
researchers to seek ways to fight their own worst instincts.
by Regina Nuzzo, Nature News, October 7, 2915.
http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox
and 
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.18517!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/526182a.pdf

Yours,

Paul H.

Great YouTube Lecture Series On Engineering Geology

Great YouTube Lecture Series On Engineering Geology

There are some great Youtube lectures about engineering
geology by Dr. David Rogers, University Missouri at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rEEIEMhazZBvsKB_e7xzg .

Although long, the nice thing about these lectures is
that person can view them at their own pace and time.
Also, Dr. Rogers occasionally talks about how to survive
as an consulting engineering geologist and the trials and
tribulations of field work during his lectures.

Another web page contains links to the Powerpoint files of
the lectures at
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge341/ .

For example, are some very nice examples of spheroidal
weathering and jointing in the powerpoint at
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge341/online_lectures/weathering/Weathering-pt4.ppt
.

They go with the lecture at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JOmOgBBIAk .

Yours,

Paul H.