08 Science News Podcast | Savvy Strippers & Mans Oldest Friend

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The head and chest of a statue has been discovered in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan. The Antiquities Ministry are attributing the find in the Temple of Kom Ombo to Ramses II or Ramses the Great. Ramses ruled over Egypt from 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C. overseeing Egypt’s rule from Syria to Sudan.

Executive director of The Crop Trust, Marie Haga explains to Reuters that we are not living in harmony with our planet in terms of sustainable agriculture. She says we must provide our populations with food using "less land, with less water, less pesticides, less fertiliser to keep within what the planet can stand... Our food system is extremely vulnerable. We are basing ourselves now on 12 plants and five animal species for 75 percent of the food we eat". Farmers have historically used thousands of seeds to alternate a nutritionally varied system. In 2015 the seed bank near Aleppo, Syria was withdrawn after being damaged.

The oldest known shared grave consisting both humans and dogs has been discovered. Luc Janssens et al. Write in Journal of Archaeological Science that “late Pleistocene humans regarded dogs not just materialistically, but may have developed emotional and caring bonds for their dogs”. The Pleistocene ended 11,700 years ago.

A virus has been discovered in Brazil which has the ability to synthesize all 20 amino acids; the building blocks of life. The giant Viruses are the largest of their kind up to 2.3 micrometers in length. They are no threat to humans and currently considered non-living. (require hosts)

China’s science minister said their research and development spending has increased 14% year-on-year to $279bn last year (70.9 percent from 2012). Minister Wan Gang “China needs to enter the ranks of innovative countries and become a big technological innovation power by 2050” (A move away from low-end heavy industry).

IBM has developed a floating head robot able to interact with astronauts working aboard the International Space Station. With the ability to identify, speak and advise crew undertaking their daily activities this will be humanities first independent AI robot space resident. The name given has been CIMON for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion.

James Anderson professor of atmospheric chemistry at Harvard University, recognized by the United Nations, receiving the United Nations Vienna Convention Award for Protection of the Ozone Layer and academics across the globe, has shown the climate is pushing us back to the Eocene Epoch (33 million BC) when neither pole was home to ice caps. Also our Ozone has been taken to new lows unseen for 12 million years.

The ExoMars Orbiter deployed by the European Space Agency arrived at Mars in 2016, its mission? To sniff for methane. Microbes known as methanogens form methane by Methanogenesis or biomethanation. Organisms which produce methane are technically aliens.

A new species of shark has been discovered and published in the Journal Marine Biodiversity called the Atlantic Sixgill shark. Inhabiting the depths of the Atlantic Ocean since before the dawn of dinosaurs their DNA has only just been sequenced with the expectation it was something we already knew, under the radar for 250 million years (or since 1935).

Las Vegas strippers are using QR codes tattooed upon their skin to accept donations in Bit coin. A stripper named Summer Chase said “I’m not going to name names, but there are certain banks that… will shut down your account and actually deny you from having an account because we work in the adult entertainment industry”. A leg up for women in a male dominated crypto economy. (also its untraceable).