Pictures: Mysterious Viking-era Graves Found With Treasure

Who Was the Young Warrior? Photograph courtesy S. Gronek Sword at his side, the so-called Young Warrior (left) is among the thousand-year-old discoveries in a newfound cemetery in Poland, a new study says. The burial ground holds not only a hoard of precious objects but also hints of human sacrifice—and several dozen graves of a mysterious people with links to both the Vikings and the rulers of the founding states of eastern Europe. (Related: "'Thor's Hammer' Found in Viking Grave.") Researchers are especially intrigued by the Young Warrior, who died a violent death in his 20s. The man's jaw is fractured, his skull laced with cut marks. The sword provides further evidence of a martial life. Objects in the warrior's grave suggest he had ties to one of the region's earliest Slavic monarchs, said the project leader Andrzej Buko, head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. But the north-south orientation of the man's body is a Scandinavian custom. Slavic graves were oriented east-west, Buko says. Buried just below the Young Warrior—probably at the same time, Buko said—is a woman in her early 20s who may have met a similarly violent end. Though evidence is scanty, Buko guesses she was killed to be buried with the man, "because it's very hard to suppose she died at the same moment as the warrior." Alongside the warrior is a second woman (right), also in her early 20s. The timing of her death is unclear. Archaeologists stumbled upon the cemetery, which dates to the late 10th and early 11th centuries, after surveying a highway-construction site near the village of Bodzia, roughly 90 miles (150 kilometers) northwest of Warsaw. The find is reported in this month's issue of the journal Antiquity. "The best discoveries are not planned, and so it was in this case," Buko said. "Among many other things, we discovered this marvelous cemetery." LINK —Traci Watson

Rimino - A Human Touch on Mobile Experience

Project Rimino redefines mobile experience through human factors research and design thinking. Informed by human experience, the project is guided by both observational and experimental design research methods.

The Rimino concept is an E-paper mobile device with a user interface inspired by print posters. Historically, as technology has progressed, devices have become more conspicuous. Rimino challenges this trend and presents the alternative: technology that is more integrated and more sensitive to the human experience.

for more information please visit project website:
rimino.com, Via: Vimeo

Kamal Meattle: How to grow your own fresh air

Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. LINK: Youtube

Why is the Sky Dark at Night?

Fantastic video. LINK: Youtube

Plants Can Think And Remember

Plants are able to remember and react to information contained in light, according to researchers. Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems. These electro-chemical signals are carried by cells that act as nerves of the plants.

In their experiment, scientists from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond. And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark. This showed, they said, that the plant remembered the information encoded in light. LINK: The Presurfer

Polymer Flower

Image: Russell Taylor, Briana Whitaker and Briana Carstens /
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Beautiful flowers? Not quite – they’re polymer pillars serendipitously photographed by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

The groovy flower pattern in this image actually came about by accident. Briana Whitaker and Briana Carstens of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, snapped this photograph as a quality-control step in their experiments to study the forces that cells, such as those that stitch together skin wounds, exert. They visualize these forces by watching how forests of 10-micrometer-tall polymer pillars bend when they place the cells on top of them. Ideally, the pillars should stand straight up, but on this occasion, as in the image, most of the pillars have fallen over, revealing a flower pattern.

Link, Via: Neatorama

Ritualized acoustic signals in caterpillars

Watch how the masked birch caterpillar defends its leaf shelter. New research shows that the noisy, bottom-scraping display you see here evolved from walking. The finding has implications for the evolution of animal communication in many species. Read the original research here (open access): http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/...Link, Via: Youtube

Video of NASA dropping helicopter to watch it crash

( Video Link: Youtube )

The second crash test of a small lightweight helicopter at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., was a smashing success, literally -- just as engineers had predicted.
The helicopter smacked hard into the concrete. Its skid gear collapsed, its windscreen cracked open and its occupants lurched forward violently, suffering potentially spine-crushing injuries according to internal data recorders. The crash test was all in the name of research to try to make helicopters safer.
For full story: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautic.

15 House Plants You Can Use As Air Purifiers

A NASA research document came to the conclusion that 'house plants can purify and rejuvenate air within our houses and workplaces, safeguarding us all from any side effects connected with prevalent toxins such as formaldehyde, ammonia and also benzene.'

Here are 15 plants that could clean your air for just the price of a few drops of water each day. LINK: Presurfer

Dolphins: Second-Smartest Animals?

When human measures for intelligence are applied to other species, dolphins come in just behind humans in brainpower, according to new research. Dolphins demonstrate skills and awareness previously thought to be present only in humans.

New MRI scans show that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size when compared to another animal of similar size. LINK: The Presurfer

Queen Eadgyth's Remains Discovered in Germany

The oldest remains yet of a member of English royalty are thought to have been found in Germany. Queen Eadgyth (pronounced Edith) was the sister of King Athelstan and married the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 929 AD. She died in 946. The bone fragments from a lead coffin in Magdeburg will be analyzed by a team of forensic specialists.

Professor Mark Horton of the Bristol University’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, who is coordinating this side of the research, explained the strategy: “We know that Saxon royalty moved around quite a lot, and we hope to match the isotope results with known locations around Wessex and Mercia, where she could have spent her childhood. If we can prove this truly is Eadgyth, this will be one of the most exciting historical discoveries in recent years.”

Eadgyth is likely to be the oldest member of the English royal family whose remains have survived. Her brother, King Athelstan is generally considered to have been the first King of England after he unified the various Saxon and Celtic kingdoms following the battle of Brunanburgh in 937. His tomb survives in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, but is most likely empty. Eadgyth’s sister Adiva – also offered to Otto as wife, but he choose Eadgyth instead – was also married to an unknown European ruler, but her tomb is not located.

Link, -Via: Fark, Via: Neatorama

(image credit: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Juraj Liptak)

Drew Blames Cancer, Beats Cancer

Drew Olanoff, who created the site "Blame Drew's Cancer" (where citizens can blame Olanoff's cancer for their problems) skyrocketed to techno-stardom when Drew Carey offered him $100,000 for his @drew Twitter handle. Afterwards, Carey offered to match up to 1 million dollars in donations to the LiveStrong Foundation, Lance Armstrong's cancer research org.

Today, Olanoff announced that he had his final chemo today and beat cancer. See the video: LINK, Via: Youtube

How Squirrels Learn To Steal

“The ability of gray squirrels to learn from observing others is highlighted in a new study. The research shows how squirrels can quickly learn from watching their peers, particularly if it relates to stealing food. The research adds to growing evidence that animals are primed to learn quickly about what is most important to their survival and that they learn by observing others. It is the first study to test the ability of gray squirrels to learn from observation.” LINK, Via: UniqueDaily

Another Set of Cool Research Facilities

Odeillo Solar Furnace, Odeillo, France.
Built in 1969, this brilliantly shiny oddity is the 8-Story high Odeillo solar furnace in France: at present the largest on the planet. the 63 smaller mirrors on the hillside reflect the sun onto the huge parabolic reflector you see in the photos, this in turn reflecting the solar radiation very precisely onto a point just 18 meters in front of the parabola. Using this method, temperatures can reach an unbelievably hot 3400°C. The incredible amount of heat generated by the furnace is used for research in many areas including high temperature solar engineering (advanced solar power systems, solar chemistry, etc.), photo-physics and chemistry applied physics. LINK

Unbelievably Cool Research Facilities

Super Kamiokande detector, Kamioka Observatory, Japan.
An old favorite on the inter tubes, this 50′000 ton cylindrical ‘ring-imaging water Cerenkov detector’ can be found at the Kamioka Mozumi mine in Japan - 1′000m underground. clever people built the machine to detect neutrinos, proton decay and cosmic rays: this is done using the 12′000-ish photomultiplier tubes (extremely sensitive light detectors) visible on all walls of the ‘ultra-purified water-filled’ tank. LINK