According to Science editor Bruce Alberts:

[The Ardipithecus research] changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations, who carefully analyzed 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants.

Nicknamed Ardi, the hominid lived in what is now Ethioipa, and is a million years older than Lucy, the ancient hominid sometimes called the "missing link" between apes and humans. In fact, there is likely no one "missing link," and instead scientists have discovered there are many stages between proto-humans and what we would recognize as homo sapiens today.

Indeed, a release about the discovery explains:

After analyzing the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands, feet, and other bones, they determined that Ardipithecus possessed a mix of "primitive" traits, shared with its predecessors-the apes of the Miocene epoch-and "derived" traits, which it shared exclusively with later hominids. However, many of its traits do not appear in modern-day African apes. One surprising conclusion, therefore, is that it is likely that the African apes have evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor, which thus makes living chimpanzees and gorillas poor models for the last common ancestor and for understanding our own evolution since that time.

In other words, humans did not evolve from apes at all. Present-day apes and humans are radically different from their common ancestor.

Other breakthroughs this year, according to Science, included:

Pulsars Detected by Fermi: NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope helped to identify previously unknown pulsars-highly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars-and shed light onto their unique gamma-ray emissions.

Rapamycin: Researchers found that tinkering with a key signaling pathway produces life-extending benefits in mice-the first such result ever achieved in mammals. The discovery was particularly remarkable because the treatment did not start until the mice were middle-aged.

Graphene: In a string of rapid-fire advances, materials scientists probed the properties of graphene-highly conductive sheets of carbon atoms-and started fashioning the material into experimental electronic devices.

Plant ABA Receptors: Solving the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide and aiding biofuel production on marginal lands.

LCLS at SLAC: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory unveiled the world's first x-ray laser, a powerful research tool capable of taking snapshots of chemical reactions in progress, altering the electronic structures of materials, and myriad other experiments spanning a wide range of scientific fields.

Gene Therapy Comeback: European and U.S. researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder by developing new strategies involving gene therapy.

Monopoles: In an experimental coup, physicists working with strange crystalline materials called spin ices created magnetic ripples that model the predicted behavior of "magnetic monopoles," or fundamental particles with only one magnetic pole.

LCROSS Finds Water on the Moon: In October, sensors aboard a NASA spacecraft detected water vapor and ice in the debris from a spent rocket stage that researchers deliberately crashed near the south pole of the Moon.

Hubble Repair: In May, a nearly flawless final repair mission by space-shuttle astronauts gave the Hubble Space Telescope sharper vision and a new lease on life, resulting in its most spectacular images yet.

via Science

Scientists in India have been researching transplanting parts of the nervous system in order to help sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease. By replicating the disease's effects in rats, they've found that transplanting nerve-cells brings back the animals' ability to learn.

The researchers at India's National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences and National Centre for Biological Sciences first damaged the subiculum of the rats brain, which lead to the deterioration of the hippocampus. The shrinkage of the hippocampus during Alzheimer's disease is thought to lead to the loss of memory and learning, the most visible of disease's effects.

Once the rats had been brought to this Alzheimers-like state, the researchers took cultured lines of hippocampal cells — taken from newborn transgenic rats and cultured — and precisely injected them into the hippocampi of half the rodents. After two months, both batches of rats were run through standardized mazes. The rats that had received the injections were back to pre-damage levels of learning and recall, while those that hadn't received the transplants struggled to learn the course.

What seems to have happened is that the transplanted cells settled in an area of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, where they proceeded to help pump out growth factors which create an environment were neurons can grow. There was a threefold increase in neurotrophic and fibroblastic growth factor, which allowed the hippocampus to regenerate from the inflicted damage, and restored the rat's abilities to learn and remember to the level of un-damaged rats.

The implications of this research are astounding for sufferers of neurodegenerative diseases. This study is specifically designed as a precursor to further work with Alzheimer's, but altering the brain to create an environment where it can succeed in regenerating damaged components is a fascinating concept. These seedling transplants could revolutionize the way we look at repairing the brain, for a disease that effects millions.

[via APA, presented in Behavioral Neuroscience; image of rat hippocampus via University of Texas]

A team of California researchers discovered that they could create blood cells by layering hemoglobin and other proteins on top of a microscopic, donut-shaped polymer mold. When the proteins had a stable structure, they removed the polymer mold and presto - they had a classic blood-cell shaped hollow vessel. The cells are also biodegradable, so you wouldn't have synth-cells roaming your body forever. Here are typical red blood cells, below.

One synth-cell could carry oxygen through the blood just like a typical red blood cell, its unique shape allowing it to squeeze through tiny capillaries. But it could also carry drugs like anti-coagulant heparin, releasing it gradually. This could prove a boon for doctors trying to administer drugs to highly-targeted areas fed by the circulatory system. And of course it could prove a perfect system for hiding data or other sensitive substances in your bloodstream. One injection of synth-cells and you're carrying secret plans around in your blood that can't be detected by anyone.

via PNAS

In 2006, Haering's company was drilling in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a project to convert heat in the underground rocks into electricity. But Swiss authorities charge that the drilling activated the major fault line that runs underneath the city, triggering a series of small earthquakes. Although the most intense of these quakes only rated a 3.4 on the Richter Scale and resulted in no injuries, the Swiss government claims Haering's drilling caused $9 million worth of property damage. Furthermore, they claim there is a 15 percent chance that, had the drilling continued, it would have triggered a major quake that could have caused $500 million in damage.

If Haering is found guilty of deliberately triggering the quakes, he could be jailed for up to five years. But this wouldn't be the first time human actions led to shaky ground. Wired lists five ways humans can cause earthquakes of their very own, including examples of a handful of other accidental Lex Luthors.

Switzerland geologist on trial for 'causing quakes' [BBC via Slashdot]

Humans living on the Indonesian coast frequently discard halved coconut shells in the ocean, and it turns out that their eight-legged neighbors have been making use of them. Researchers have filmed veined octopi, Amphioctopus marginatus, moving the shell halves by placing their bodies inside the hollowed-out portion, draping their legs over the edges, and bringing the shells along for the ride. When the coconut-carrying octopus feels threatened, it will pull the half shell over its body (or sometimes pulls two halves of a whole coconut over itself), and wait inside their armored home until the threat passes.

Veined octopi have been seen hiding out inside coconut shells before, but researchers hadn't realized that the creatures were deliberately carting the shells around for this purpose. Marine biologist Julian Finn of Melbourne's Museum Victoria caught a lucky glimpse of a veined octopus carrying and using the shells, and has since filmed four octopi doing the same thing.

Finn and other researchers argue that this is the first reported use of tools by an invertebrate species, as this is a sophisticated, costly behavior in which an animal manipulates an object for future plans. While others argue that it does not fit the standard definition of tool use, since the octopus isn't using the object to act on another object, it may still require a sophisticated level of cognition, and we should investigate what makes such foresight possible.

Octopuses use coconut shells as portable shelters [New Scientist]

The experiments were undertaken on patients who already had electrodes in their brain to monitor epilepsy. Readings were taken via electrocorticography (ECoG), as the subjects were shown a grid of letters and numbers. As each symbol was illuminated, the patient was told to focus on the letter or number, and data was recorded. Once this calibration data was taken, the patients would think of a letter or number, and their brain waves would be appropriately translated to the screen. The theory is that this technique will allow people to communicate and type far more easily when they suffer from Lou Gehrig's disease, MS, or paralysis.

The lead scientist on the project, Dr. Jerry Shih, says the program is able to perform near or at 100% accuracy for the patients. While this isn't far from the results from studies using non-invasive EEG, Shih believes that ECoG has advantages, as the scalp and skull distort the information coming from the brain, which means that ECoG has potential to be faster and more accurate. Shih also said that with EEG, "the accuracy isn't terribly great, and it takes a long time for the computer system to learn an individual's brain signals and to correctly interpret."

It is early days yet, and there are still numerous hurdles for the research. The initial study was only with two patients, but they're now on to the sixth, with plans for a wider study, to ensure that this technique is universally applicable. Shih's system does require a craniotomy, which is not a surgery to be taken on a whim; and an interpreter device is required, which must be tuned to an individual user. There is also the fact that EEG based interfaces don't require the invasive surgery, and are similarly accurate, even if they are slower and not quite as precise. So in terms of market adoption, the implant is at a disadvantage. Most people would be willing to deal with the speed loss to avoid dangerous procedures.

Shih is currently working on ensuring the method's effectiveness. He believes it could be used for controlling prosthetics as well as typing. It could also possibly be trained with images instead of letters. Imagine an item, and an image or word for it would appear on your screen.

The device could be available in as little as 5-10 years.

It's just a matter of time before this technology filters down from medical to elective, and we can all live out our cyberpunk dreams of plugging our brains directly into a computer.

Via American Epilepsy Society and Mayo Clinic

A research team led by Klaus Zuberbühler of the University of St. Andrews has been studying the calls of the Campbell's monkey, a primate found in the Ivory Coast. The team looked at how the calls of adult male monkeys vary in response to various stimuli. Campbell's monkeys have six different types of individual calls, each of which has a distinct meaning. What's surprising, however, is that these monkeys actually string together multiple types of calls to create communications with entirely new meanings. Zuberbühler and his team claim this is a form of syntax, suggesting that Campbell's monkeys have developed a sort of sentence structure. Other primates, such as chimpanzees, have shown an understanding of language, able to connect words and symbols with specific meanings, but haven't been able to combine those words into sentences.

The team has identified the meanings of the individual calls, as well as how they can be combined to form completely different communications:

The "boom-boom" call invites other monkeys to come toward the male making the sound. Two booms can be combined with a series of "krak-oos," with a meaning entirely different to that of either of its components. "Boom boom krak-oo krak-oo krak-oo" is the monkey's version of "Timber!" - it warns of falling trees.

Combining the "boom-booms" and "krak-oos" with a third sound, "hok-oo," warns monkeys of the presence of other monkey groups. It appears that initially, the monkeys developed the calls to warn each other of specific predators, such as leopards and eagles, but their anti-predator vocabulary has evolved into something much more sophisticated.

Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered [NY Times]

The always excellent New Scientist has an article synthesizing much of the research into same-sex sexual behavior in animals and the possible evolutionary explanations. They spoke with University of California evolutionary biologists Marlene Zuk and Nathan Bailey, who recently published a paper examining same-sex behavior in various species. Zuk and Bailey note that same-sex sexual behavior in other animals can't necessarily be equated with sexual orientation in humans, researchers have come up with similar questions as to why certain animals have evolved to include members who expend energy on same-sex liaisons.

Evolutionary biologists have come up with various hypotheses for why same-sex behavior has evolved in various animals. In some cases, same-sex behavior has emerged as a result of specific adaptations, such as to foster social bonding, or because certain genes for same-sex attraction hold another survival benefit when only one copy is present. In some cases, though, the behavior is incidental, such as in certain fish that cannot easily tell male and female members apart.

Below, New Scientist charts several of the possible evolutionary explanations for same-sex sexual behavior in various species:

Bailey believes that exploring the evolution of sexual behavior will give us a better understanding of evolution, including the development of our own species:

"Given its persistence in species in many different animal groups, including humans, viewing it as an evolutionary force in its own right promises to provide a much richer understanding of the evolution of reproductive behaviour," Bailey says. He suggests we could make some fascinating comparisons. Might male-male copulation in species as diverse as flour beetles and dolphins have similar, even predictable, evolutionary consequences? More daringly, could understanding the evolutionary consequences of same-sex interactions in animals help us understand our own evolution?

Homosexual selection: The power of same-sex liaisons [New Scientist]

One set of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics are trialling a device for quickly disinfecting human skin using low-temperature plasma, which would save a significant amount of time, compared to traditional hospital scrubbing.

The second is an "argon plasma torch", developed with ADTEC Plasma Technology Ltd in Japan, for disinfecting chronic non-healing wounds. This terrifying sounding device can specifically target bacteria but is harmless to human cells.

MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) arose as such a threat because it is mutation that is resistant all but the most powerful antibiotics. It can prove lethal if it spreads to your heart or other key organs. But finding stronger treatments against MRSA may not be the best long-term solution — by attacking the bugs with plasma, we may ensure that the mutations that survive will be even tougher. We're effectively breeding Fremen bacteria.

[via the Institute of Physics]

First of all, there haven't been very many biotech apocalypse flicks at all, even though genetic engineering and other genome/proteome-based weirdness are freaking everybody out in the pop science media. Possibly 28 Days Later is the iconic example of a biotech apocalypse, since it's a human-made virus that unleashes the zombie hoardes. But honestly, we can do better than plagues - we've all seen those before. Besides, the upcoming World War Z movie is probably going to hold the whole plague subgenre hostage to its awesomeness next year.

So what would have to happen to produce a really great biotech apocalypse that wasn't just a virus scare with zombies that made us all think disappointedly of I Am Legend?

First of all, the biotech armageddon would have to affect the entire biosphere, not just humans. When it comes to imagining this scenario I always think of Kathleen Ann Goonan's Jazz Quintet novels, which begin with Queen City Jazz. She creates a future where many people move into biotech cities whose entire infrastructure is mutable and organic - genetically-engineered bees keep the cities "growing" by fertilizing the buildings, which are actually giant wildflowers. The problem comes when the city itself is infested with a virus that causes its entire fabric to remake itself to resemble stories from files stored in the city's library. What if your city decided that it wanted to be a film noir Paris, and then reprogrammed every person and building to emulate that (fictional) place?

If you wanted to go even weirder, visit the scenarios that Rudy Rucker comes up with in Hylozoic, where every object on the planet becomes sentient. Suddenly you are having an emotional relationship with your telephone, which has a lot of opinions about how you've abused it in the past.

I'm not saying we need movie versions of these books, though that might be nice if done by the right people. What we need is for mainstream media to catch up to what is happening in literature and in the lab.

Though I wasn't entirely crazy about Minority Report, one thing that film got right was its emphasis on believable technology. The filmmakers went to MIT, checked out labs where futuristic computer interfaces and biotech are being invented, and incorporated them into the film. I'd love to see the movie that got made after some filmmakers spent some time hanging out at the Department of Energy's Genome Research Institute, or the Max Planck Institute in Europe - or, hell, how about just reading even one essay by Drew Endy? In fact, you don't have to read - you can just watch him talk about synthetic biology here:

If researchers can genetically-engineer bacteria whose behavior changes with a flash of light, or build poplars that contain termite genes so that they break down into ethanol more easily, imagine what kind of apocalypse we're facing. That's right - it's not necessarily an apocalypse at all. It's simply a world packed with flora and fauna we couldn't possibly recognize today. In her novels Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood imagines that this will result in creepy half-human pigs and sheep who sprout human hair that can be sold as wigs. There is something admittedly horrifying about the idea that humanity could reshape the biosphere in its greedy, simian image. What marks the biotech apocalypse is that it's a scenario where life as we know it doesn't end - it turns into new forms of life.

What I'm saying is that I want to see stories where synthetic biology generates cities and technologies like the ones Jeff VanderMeer imagined in his recent novel Finch, where spore people grow buildings and guns from mushrooms. And I want these tales to do what few apocalyptic tales have dared to do: Explore what it means when what has been destroyed isn't the world, but instead just one instance of the world.

One of the most basic truths we learn from evolutionary theory and geology is that the world we live in - the one whose climate and landmasses we fuss about endlessly - is in fact just one version of Earth. For a long period, Earth had a different set of gasses in its atmosphere, and all life lived in the seas. The composition of our biosphere and state of our climate has changed dramatically over the millennia. C'mon Hollywood - give us a story where the world doesn't suffer apocalyptic death, but instead a dramatic rebirth. One that begins in our nanoscopic genomes, not in mega-explosions.

Image via Yanko Design

An Italian research team, lead by neurologist Paolo Maria Rossini, created the LifeHand, the latest in a long line of robotic prostheses. The team performed microsurgery to attach the hand 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello, who lost much of his left hand in a car accident. Petruzziello apparently mastered the hand in just a few days, and it responded to 95 percent of his mental commands. He claims that he also received incredible sensory feedback from the hand, even registering needle pinpricks.

Several weeks ago, another team reported successful experiments with an artificial hand that provided sensory feedback, but the LifeHand team claims that the experiments with Petruzziello represent the first time a subject has made achieved such complex movements with a prosthetic using only their mind. It's also the longest a subject has worn such a prosthetic; Petruzziello wore the LifeHand for a month. More research is needed, however, before a prosthetic can be tested long-term.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the LifeHand is that it didn't require Petruzziello to learn any new neurological tricks. He simply sends the same sorts of signals to the robotic hand as he sends his right hand, and gets nearly the same result.

The bionic hand controlled by thoughts [Sun via DVICE]

Scientists at Caltech think they may have uncovered the reasons for Titan's extremely odd lake arrangement. Data gathered by the Cassini orbiter showed 20 times more area in the Northern extremities were covered by liquid ethane and methane, when compared to the South. The researchers, headed by Oded Aharonson, think that the transport of methane northwards may be due to the elliptical orbit of Saturn, and hence Titan.

Over the course of one Titan year (29.5 Earth years), the Northern hemisphere summer is long and mild, but the Southern hemisphere version is short and intense. That's because in the Southern summer season Titan is around 12% closer to the sun. While this doesn't make a huge difference over the course of a year, it does over a longer time period: It's possible that these uneven seasons result in methane evaporating in the south, drifting northward in the clouds, and then raining prodigiously in the milder north.

Around 32,000 years ago, the situation would have been reversed, with the hydrocarbons traveling Southward instead of North.

This theory is being published in this month's Nature Geoscience. Other possible explanations for the lakes include the idea that there is some (as yet unknown) fundamental difference between the hemispheres. It's also possible the methane transfer happens every season, not gradually.

We've written about this kind of work before, specifically the research into optogenetics, which allows scientists to genetically-engineer light-sensitive reactions in animals or plants. What's different about this nematode experiment, however, is that no genetic engineering was involved - the little worm just ate a small amount of a chemical (basically the equivalent of popping a pill).

According to National Geographic:

After feeding a light-sensitive chemical to transparent, microscopic worms called nematodes, scientists at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia were able to paralyze the tiny creatures by exposing them to UV light. The paralysis works because UV light changes the structure of the ingested chemical, called dithienylethene.

Upon UV exposure, the normally clear chemical turns blue, and it shuts down the worms' metabolism, said study co-author Neil R. Branda. A shot of visible light restored the worms to normal, and the animals slowly began to wiggle around "as if they had never been paralyzed," the study authors say.

Will we be seeing the equivalent kinds of experiments taking place with humans? Yes indeed, though not for paralyzing people. Researchers are interested in light-activated medicines, which only get activated when exposed to light. This would allow doctors to activate drugs in very precise places in your body.

via NatGeo (thanks to Marilyn Terrell)

Researchers in Japan manipulated mouse eggs to grow mice that were bi-maternal, having genetic material from two female parents, but no male parent. They then studied these mice alongside mice with one male and one female parent. The bi-maternal mice and the control mice were kept in the same conditions and fed the same diet, but the bi-maternal mice were significantly smaller and lighter, seemed to have better immune systems, and had an average lifespan 186 days longer than the control mice.

Tomohiro Kono from the Tokyo University of Agriculture, one of the researchers, believes that the bi-maternal mice might have lived longer because of the absence of a gene mice inherit from their fathers, though further study is needed:

"We believe that the most likely reason for the differences in longevity relates to the repression of a gene called Rasgrf1 in the BM mice. This gene normally expresses from the paternally inherited chromosome and is an imprinted gene on chromosome 9 associated with post-natal growth. Thus far, it's not clear whether Rasgrf1 is definitively associated with mouse longevity, but it is one of the strong candidates for a responsible gene. Furthermore, we cannot eliminate the possibility that other, unknown genes that rely on their paternal inheritance to function normally may be responsible for the extended longevity of the BM mice."

If Rasgrf1 is responsible for mouse longevity, it could be responsible for human longevity as well, and could go a long way toward explaining why women tend to live longer than men.

Why Females Live Longer Than Males: Is It Due to the Father's Sperm? [Science Daily — Thanks to Robert Atlas]

An upcoming paper in NeuroReport details the latest research on the remarkable abilities of naked mole rats. Mole rats, who live in underground tunnels where oxygen is low, are uniquely capable of surviving for lengthy periods without oxygen — and avoid suffering brain damage. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago found that naked mole rats can endure more than half an hour of extreme oxygen deprivation without damage to their brain cells. At the outset, their neurons maintain function six times longer than mouse neurons do in similar circumstances. The hope is that learning more about the mechanism that preserves mole rat brains could someday prevent brain damage in victims of stroke, heart attack, drowning, and other incidences of oxygen deprivation.

This isn't the first remarkable ability the mole rats have shown. The creatures live longer than any other rodent, are apparently impervious to pain, and, as we mentioned a few weeks ago, are completely immune to cancer.

Suddenly, the choice of animal sidekick in Kim Possible makes so much more sense.

Naked Mole Rats Survive Extreme Oxygen Deprivation [LiveScience]

Researchers at Eindhoven University, backed by funding from a sausage manufacturer and the Dutch government, have grown pork from cells harvested from a live pig. Although meat from goldfish has been grown from a lab, this is the first time mammal meat has been grown in-vitro.

The researchers harvested myoblasts from the muscles of a live pig. These cells are programmed to repair damage and grow into muscle, and the team was able to culture a mass of muscle cells by incubating the myoblasts in a nutrient-rich "broth." The resulting meat is a bit soggy, and needs exercise to be as tough as the meat that comes from a once-living animal, but the team is looking for ways to "train" the meat and improve its texture. They are also looking to create a synthetic version of the incubation broth, which is current made from the blood products of animal fetuses.

Laboratory rules prevent anyone from actually tasting the meat, so we don't yet known how the flavor of soggy, lab-grown meat compares to that grown on pigs. But the researchers believe that in-vitro meats could be available to consumers in as little as five years. Cue the references to Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Food of the Gods."

But at least real science has nearly caught up to Veridian Dynamics:

Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory [Times Online]

The photic zone is an area of the ocean that extends beyond the reach of sunlight, as deep as 5,000 meters. For the first time, a serious effort has begun to try and catalogue the vast array of deep sea life, under the auspices of the Census Of Marine Life (COML). Currently, they've identified more than 17,000 species inhabiting the dark depths, which will join with information from hundreds of other projects next October to reveal the complete results of the census.

Most of these creatures survive on marine snow—particles of decaying plants and animals that descend to the ocean floor. This transparent sea cucumber was found at 2,750m, creeping forward at a rate of 2 cm per minute, sweeping detritus into its mouth.

[via COML]

Photos courtesy of Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The tiny copepod, from the Atlantic.
Image © Büntzow/Corgosinho

One of the dumbo octopods, which can grow up to five feet in length.
Photo by David Shale



The jewel squid has tiny light organs all along its body, which emit and perceive light.

This is only the fifth ever found Neocyma, discovered between 2,000 and 2,500m. Image from David Shale.

The northern comb jelly has oscillating lights up and down its length.



The snake pipefish

The "wildcat" tubeworm, which drills for oil, then dines on the chemicals inside when it hits a small well.

It wouldn't be the deep sea without nightmare fuel. Like the loosejaw, with its extendible lower jaw and red-light sensitive eyes.

Or the swallower.

Spaceflight Now is reporting that, within the next few days, NASA plans to publicly discuss new research concerning ALH 84001, the Martian meteorite found in Allan Hills, Antarctica. The research is said to strengthen the findings of the team that studied the meteorite over a decade ago and announced in 1996 that the meteorite might contain evidence of bacterial life.

The new research, detailed in a 46-page peer reviewed paper, looks at magnetic bacteria found on Earth. The researchers have closely studied magnetic bacteria and the formations they create in rocks. The bacteria leave distinctive remnants in the rock, uniquely-shaped magnetite crystals that test with a chemical purity that reflects biological, rather than geological, origins. That these remnants are unique to magnetic bacteria on Earth and are also found in the Allan Hills meteorite strongly suggests that the crystals indicate ancient bacterial life on Mars.

Critics of the original NASA report have doubted these features as reliable fossils, claiming that the shape and chemical purity could be achieved by the same thermal shock that separated the material from Mars in the first place. But new research reported in the paper disproves the thermal shock theory.

Spaceflight says that the new research isn't quite a "smoking gun," but it greatly strengthens the case for life on Mars, and could change the conversation about future NASA missions.

Martian meteorite surrenders new secrets of possible life [Spaceflight via Universe Today]

At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, researchers announced that the colorful deposits, found in lava caves all over the world, are in fact biological in origin. Previously undetected microbes excrete waste inside the caves and the buildup of what one geomicrobiologist terms "bug poop" creates these impressive displays.

This discovery — that something long thought to be mineral turned out to be biological — has implications for researchers looking for life on Mars. Based on photos of the surface, it appears that Mars holds, or at one time held, lava caves similar to those where the microbe waste was found, and similar microbes might have thrived inside those caves. Mars researchers may want to consider taking samples of apparent mineral deposits to determine if those deposits are, in fact, "bug poop."

Lava Cave Minerals Actually Microbe Poop [National Geographic via Neatorama]

Three days after the restart, CERN announced that it has circulated two beams simultaneously, and has observed proton-proton collisions. It's an exciting first step, but still a very first step:

"It's a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there's still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme."

It will still be a while before the LHC can go fishing for the Higgs boson, but the CERN researchers are fired up about collecting data on the proton collisions. The next step will involve altering the intensity and acceleration of the beams while getting a feel for the LHC's performance.

Two circulating beams bring first collisions in the LHC [CERN]