Archeologists Unveil Pharaonic Tomb in Eygpt
Archeologists on Wednesday fully unveiled the first tomb discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in over 80 years, and cracked open the last of seven sarcophagi inside to reveal embalming materials and jewelry.
"This is even better than finding a mummy _ it's a treasure," said chief curator Nadia Lokma, beaming at the sarcophagus packed with fragile remains that would crumble into dust if touched.
One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway.
A German/UK team has put the giant GEO 600 gravitational wave detector in a continuous observational mode.
The Hanover lab is trying to detect the ripples created in the fabric of space-time when black holes fall onto each other or massive stars explode.
Success would confirm fundamental physical theories and open a new window on the Universe, enabling scientists to probe the moment of creation itself.
GEO 600 is working alongside a US project known as Ligo (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). It may also be joined in the hunt by an Italian lab within a year.
A confirmed detection would require the super-sensitive equipment at more than one of these widely spaced facilities to record an event simultaneously.
Compelling independent corroboration would come from a spacecraft that can see the burst of gamma-ray radiation expected to accompany the cataclysmic events that produce gravitational waves.
"If there is a supernova in our vicinity during the next couple of months, our chances of detecting and measuring the resulting gravitational waves are good," said Professor Karsten Danzmann, head of the International Centre for Gravitational Physics, which is jointly run by the Max Planck Society and the University of Hanover.
"The first step towards gravitational wave astronomy has been taken."
Researchers are extremely confident they now have the technology to detect gravitational waves.
Observatories such as GEO 600 bounce lasers down long tunnels, hoping to pick up the fantastically small disturbances the waves should generate as they pass through the Earth.
Unlike electromagnetic waves - the light seen by traditional telescopes - gravitational waves are extremely weak. If one were to pass through the Earth it would alternately stretch its space in one dimension while squashing it in another; but the changes are tiny.
Laser interferometers are looking for disturbances in their experimental set-ups that are equivalent to mere fractions of the diameter of a proton, one of the particles that make up the nucleus of an atom.
Getting GEO 600 to approach this level of sensitivity has been an immense challenge.
"There's more to come from GEO 600; I think we're still about a factor of three away from the design sensitivity over part of the frequency range. But the sensitivity we have makes it very worthwhile stopping improvement to run for an extended period," said Professor Jim Hough, from the Institute for Gravitational Research at Glasgow University, UK.
Senator seeks tax on pimps, prostitutes
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don't pay.
The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote Wednesday morning on the pimp tax. The bill also calls for more jail time for sex workers.
If passed, the provision will authorize at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.
"Recent headlines have focused on sex trafficking in connection with the World Cup in Germany," Grassley said. "This vile crime is under our noses in the United States, and it's a no-brainer to have the IRS go after sex traffickers. Prosecuting these tax code violations can get these guys off the street and yank from their grasp the girls and women they exploit."
Grassley said the problem is "especially horrible" when underage girls are involved.
Asked if taxing sex workers would legitimize their trade, a Grassley spokesman said the goal was simply to find "yet another alternative to track the money flowing in this industry to get at potential criminals."
Currently, the IRS has to prove a prostitute's or pimp's income to pursue a tax law violation. But under Grassley's proposal, a pimp could get up to 10 years in prison for each prostitute for whom the pimp hasn't filed a W-2, which means a pimp caught with 10 unregistered prostitutes faces a century in prison.
Carol Leigh, a representative of the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network in San Francisco, California, called the proposal short-sighted.
"Forced labor, kidnapping should be targeted. But this legislation broadly targets the sex trade in general, and could target your local strip club," Leigh said. "We want laws enforced against those who abuse us, against those who are violent, and enforcement of labor regulations. That is the only truly effective way to protect the welfare of the women who work in the industry."
Study finds: The feeling of being watched increases honesty
The feeling of being watched makes people act more honestly, even if the eyes are not real, a study suggests.A Newcastle University team monitored how much money people put in a canteen "honesty box" when buying a drink.
They found people put nearly three times as much in when a poster of a pair of eyes was put above the box than when the poster showed flowers.
The brain responds to images of eyes and faces and the poster may have given the feeling of being watched, they say.
Writing in the journal Biology Letters, the team says the findings could aid anti-social behaviour initiatives.
The experiment made use of a long-running honesty box scheme based in a canteen at Newcastle University.
Over the course of 10 weeks, an A5 poster listing hot drink prices was placed at eye-level above the honesty box.
Each week, the poster featured different images of either flowers or a pair of eyes looking directly at the observer.
At the end of every week, the team calculated the total amount of money collected and the amount of drink likely to have been consumed.
Processing faces
Dr Melissa Bateson, a behavioural biologist from Newcastle University and the lead author of the study, said: "We found that people paid 2.76 times as much money when we put a notice on the wall that featured a pair of eyes as opposed to when the image was of some flowers."
She believes this happens because the eyes on the poster may affect people's perception that they are being watched by other people.
"Although it was just a photocopied black and white poster, we know that people's brains are set up to process faces and eyes, and that is probably because it is very important for us to know if we are being watched by other people."
The scientists believe their findings may have applications in initiatives to curb anti-social behaviour or for law enforcement.
"It does raise the possibility that you could get people to behave more co-operatively or pro-socially by putting up pictures of eyes," said Dr Bateson.
"It would work particularly in instances where people have to make a choice between whether to behave well or badly."
She said CCTV or speed cameras might be a possible application.
Professor George Fieldman, an evolutionary psychologist from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, said: "This paper beautifully demonstrates that people behave better when being watched.
"It would be interesting to know how one can apply these sorts of findings more generally in organisational structures and in society in general to maximise upon honourable and altruistic behaviour."
Sorry... but this is just funny..
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