The War That Time Forgot

Here's the 1st part of a story from 'The War that Time Forgot' from Star-Spangled War Stories #116, 1964. It's not a classic example of all-out dinosaurs vs. marines carnage that most stories were, but it's enough to give you a feel for what they were all about.

The War that Time Forgot © DC Comics


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And here's what else you could have been spending your allowance on way back when:


Buy "The War That Time Forgot" HERE

Steranko's TALON

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Talon © Steranko

One of the great 'often promised but never published' concept's was Jim Steranko's 'Talon'. It first appeared as a poster in Steranko's Comicscene (or it may have been Mediascene by then), and then again (above) in one of Marvel's sword & Sorcery mags in the 70's. Too bad it never got off the ground.

Fermilab Physicists Discover "triple-scoop" Baryon

Physicists of the DZero experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a new heavy particle, the Ξb (pronounced "zigh sub b") baryon, with a mass of 5.774±0.019 GeV/c2, approximately six times the proton mass. The newly discovered electrically charged Ξb baryon, also known as the "cascade b," is made of a down, a strange and a bottom quark. It is the first observed baryon formed of quarks from all three families of matter. Its discovery and the measurement of its mass provide new understanding of how the strong nuclear force acts upon the quarks, the basic building blocks of matter.

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The cascade b is produced in high-energy proton-antiproton collisions at Fermilab's Tevatron. A baryon is a particle of matter made of three fundamental building blocks called quarks. The most familiar baryons are the proton and neutron of the atomic nucleus, consisting of up and down quarks. Although protons and neutrons make up the majority of known matter today, baryons composed of heavier quarks, including the cascade b, were abundant soon after the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe.

Six quarks -- up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top -- are the building blocks of matter. Protons and neutrons are made of up and down quarks, held together by the strong nuclear force. The DZero experiment, in which six Louisiana Tech researchers participated, has discovered the cascade-b particle, which contains a down quark (d), strange quark (s) and bottom quark (b). It is the first particle ever observed with one quark from each generation of particles. (Graphic and information supplied by Fermilab.)

The Standard Model elegantly summarizes the basic building blocks of matter, which come in three distinct families of quarks and their sister particles, the leptons. The first family contains the up and down quarks. Heavier charm and strange quarks form the second family, while the top and bottom, the heaviest quarks, make the third. The strong force binds the quarks together into larger particles, including the cascade b baryon. The cascade b fills a missing slot in the Standard Model.

Once produced, the cascade b travels several millimeters at nearly the speed of light before the action of the weak nuclear force causes it to disintegrate into two well-known particles called J/Ψ ("jay-sigh") and Ξ- ("zigh minus"). The J/Ψ then promptly decays into a pair of muons, common particles that are cousins of electrons.

Direct observation of the strange b baryon Xi_b^{-}. 2007. Authors: D0 Collaboration, V. Abazov, et al., Physical Review Letters, preprint.

Designer Lizards

Researchers have found that female side-blotched lizards are able to induce different color patterns in their offspring in response to social cues, "dressing" their progeny in patterns they will wear for the rest of their lives. The mother's influence gives her progeny the patterns most likely to ensure success under the conditions they will encounter as adults.

Spider-Man & The Lizard © Marvel Comics

The lizards' main predator, the coachwhip snake, is a highly efficient hunter, and the lizards need just the right combination of traits to avoid being eaten. Sneaky yellow-throated males like to hide in the grass and need a barred pattern that breaks up the outline of their body so it blends in with the background. Aggressive orange males spend a lot of time in the open and need stripes to help them escape from predators (the optical effect of stripes on fast-moving prey makes them hard to catch).

The researchers reported that female side-blotched lizards give an extra dose of the hormone estradiol to their eggs in certain social circumstances. The extra hormone affects the back patterns of lizards that hatch from those eggs, creating either lengthwise stripes down their backs or bars stretching from side to side. Whether they get stripes or bars depends on the genes for other traits.

"This is the first example in which exposure to the mother's hormones changes such a fundamental aspect of appearance. Even more exciting is that the mother has different patterns at her disposal, so she can ensure a good match between back patterns and other traits that her offspring possess," said Lesley Lancaster. link

The Chance Chemistry of Life

A pair of UCSF scientists has developed a model explaining how simple chemical and physical processes may have laid the foundation for life.

The basic idea is that simple principles of chemical interactions allow for a kind of natural selection on a micro scale: enzymes can cooperate and compete with each other in simple ways, leading to arrangements that can become stable, or “locked in,” says Ken Dill.

The scientists compare this chemical process of “search, selection, and memory” to another well-studied process: different rates of neuron firing in the brain lead to new connections between neurons and ultimately to the mature wiring pattern of the brain. Similarly, social ants first search randomly, then discover food, and finally build a short-term memory for the entire colony using chemical trails.

They also compare the chemical steps to Darwin’s principles of evolution: random selection of traits in different organisms, selection of the most adaptive traits, and then the inheritance of the traits best suited to the environment (and presumably the disappearance of those with less adaptive traits).

Like these more obvious processes, the chemical interactions in the model involve competition, cooperation, innovation and a preference for consistency, they say.

In its simplest form, the model shows how two catalysts in a solution, A and B, each acting to catalyze a different reaction, could end up forming what the scientists call a complex, AB. The word “complex” is key because it shows how simple chemical interactions, with few players, and following basic chemical laws, can lead to a novel combination of molecules of greater complexity. The emergence of complexity – whether in neuronal systems, social systems, or the evolution of life, or of the entire universe -- has long been a major puzzle, particularly in efforts to determine how life emerged.

“A major question about life’s origins is how chemicals, which have no self-interest, became ‘biological’ -- driven to evolve by natural selection,” he says. “This simple model shows a plausible route to this type of complexity.” link

Stochastic innovation as a mechanism by which catalysts might self-assemble into chemical reaction networks. 2007. Justin A. Bradford and Ken A. Dill. PNAS

Cannibalistic Fish Keep Their Shape

Some fish of the same species display very different features (“resource polymorphism”) even though they live in the same lake because they eat different foods. A team of European researchers found that early cannibalism is found in all species displaying resource polymorphism.

The effect of early cannibalism is twofold. First, it stabilizes the variation in the number of individuals over time, which in turn increases the benefit of specializing on any resource since the risk of being dependent on a vanishing resource decreases. Second, an early disappearance of small newborn individuals increases the abundance of their prey due to decreased consumption from the small ones, hence increasing the benefit for larger individuals to specialize on this specific prey (typically zooplankton). link

Stabilization of population fluctuations due to cannibalism promotes resource polymorphism in fish. 2007. Jens Andersson, et al. American Naturalist 169:820–829.

Super Fungi Feed on Radiation

Art © Steve Ditko. Space Adventures © current copyright holder.

Scientists have long assumed that fungi exist mainly to decompose matter into chemicals that other organisms can then use. But researchers have found evidence that fungi possess a previously undiscovered talent with profound implications: the ability to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.

Those fungi able to "eat" radiation must possess melanin, the pigment found in many if not most fungal species. But up until now, melanin's biological role in fungi—if any--has been a mystery.

"Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum—ionizing radiation—to benefit the fungi containing it," says Dr. Dadachova.

The research began five years ago when Dr. Casadevall read on the Web that a robot sent into the still-highly-radioactive damaged reactor at Chernobyl had returned with samples of black, melanin-rich fungi that were growing on the reactor's walls.

Fungi exposed to levels of ionizing radiation approximately 500 times higher than background levels grew significantly faster (as measured by the number of colony forming units and dry weight) than when exposed to standard background radiation. link

Ionizing Radiation Changes the Electronic Properties of Melanin and Enhances the Growth of Melanized Fungi. Ekaterina Dadachova, et al. PLoS ONE 2(5): e457.

Pat Boyette: Carrion of the Gods

An on-line article HERE wondered if Pat Boyette and Steve Ditko were the same person. A quick search of the web would show that Boyette produced a lot of great work, most of which was for the ‘smaller’ publishers (e.g. Charlton) and included a lot of nifty gothic horror and Sci-Fi material like this fondly remembered tale:

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From Tales of the Macabre #2. Story & Art © Estate of Pat Boyette.

Read a nice interview with Boyette.

A short bio of the man is HERE

Bigger Is Better (& Smarter)

When it comes to estimating the intelligence of various animal species, it may be as simple measuring overall brain size. In fact, making corrections for a species' body size may be a mistake.

"It's long been known that species with larger body sizes generally have larger brains," said Robert Deaner. "Scientists have generally assumed that this pattern occurs because larger animals require larger nervous systems to coordinate their larger bodies. But our results suggest a simpler reason: larger species are typically smarter."

Deaner said the findings imply that a re-evaluation may be in order for many previous studies that have compared brain size across different animal species, including ancestral hominids.

The new results showed that some primate species consistently outperform others across a broad range of cognitive tasks. It compared how well eight different brain size measures predicted the domain-general cognition variable generated in the earlier study. To the researchers' surprise, overall brain size and overall neocortex size proved to be good predictors, but the various measures that controlled for body size did not. The results did not change even when various statistical assumptions were altered.

Another unexpected finding was that the overall size of the whole brain proved to be just as good a predictor of intelligence as was the overall size of the neocortex. Scientists making cross-species comparisons have often assumed that the neocortex would be more closely linked to intelligence, since it is considered the "thinking part" of the brain. link

Overall Brain Size, and Not Encephalization Quotient, Best Predicts Cognitive Ability across Non-Human Primates. 2007. R. O. Deaner, et al. Brain, Behavior, and Evolution 70: 115-124.

Crashed This Day: The Hindenburg

In 1937, at 7:25 pm, the dirigible The Hindenburg burned while landing at the naval air station at Lakehurst, N.J. On board were 6l crew and 36 passengers. The landing approach seemed normal, when suddenly a tongue of flame appeared near the stern. Fire spread rapidly through the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen that filled the balloon. Within a few seconds the Zeppelin exploded in a huge ball of fire. The ship fell tail first with flames shooting out the nose.

It crashed into the ground 32 seconds after the flame was first spotted; 36 people died. Captain Ernst Lehmann survived the crash but died the next day. He muttered "I can't understand it," The cause remains the subject of debate even today. From Today In Science History.

The Crash...

Why Mothra Doesn’t Exist

Scientists in Sweden asked why insects such as butterflies that have a very high capacity for rapid growth during the larval stage do not continue growing just a few more days. This question is prompted by the common laboratory observation that larger bodied females have the capacity to produce many more eggs than smaller females. Since growing larger seems to be relatively easy for these butterflies, it is difficult to see what keeping them from doing so!

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In the paper the researchers report on experiments performed on a Swedish population of the Speckled Wood Butterfly, Pararge aegeria. They show that large females lay more eggs than smaller females if they are allowed to lay eggs throughout each day, but in a situation where only part of the day was suitable for egg-laying the size of the female did not matter for the number of eggs laid.

This exercise suggests that growing to a much larger size typically doesn’t pay off in more eggs laid, and the optimal female size predicted by the model is relatively close to what is actually observed.

The paper concludes that one important reason why insects with a high capacity of larval growth do not evolve towards larger sizes may be that the fecundity [# of offspring produced] benefit is in fact relatively limited under natural conditions.

Mothra To the Rescue!

What Keeps Insects Small? Time Limitation during Oviposition Reduces the Fecundity Benefit of Female Size in a Butterfly. 2007. K. Gotthard, D. Berger, and R. Walters. The American Naturalist, volume 169 (2007), upcoming paper.

Atlantis Destroyed By Giant Tsunami

A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of Crete was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture disappeared.

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Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers, while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts.

But around 1500BC the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic end may finally have been solved.

"The geo-archaeological deposits contain a number of distinct tsunami signatures," says Dutch-born geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

"The latter can only have been scooped up from the sea-bed by one mechanism - a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together in a destructive swoop," says Professor Bruins. The deposits are up to seven metres above sea level, well above the normal reach of storm waves.

"An event of ferocious force hit the coast of Crete and this wasn't just a Mediterranean storm," says Professor Bruins. Link

Wave of Mutilation:

Born This Day: Immanuel Kant

April 22, 1724 – Feb. 12, 1804

Kant was a German philosopher, trained as a mathematician and physicist, who published his General History of Nature and theory of the Heavens in 1755. This physical view of the universe contained three anticipations of importance to astronomers;

Metaphysics explained by Robert Williams.

1. He made the nebula hypothesis ahead of Laplace.

2. He described the Milky Way as a lens-shaped collection of stars that represented only one of many "island universes," later shown by Herschel.

3. He suggested that friction from tides slowed the rotation of the earth, which was confirmed a century later. In 1770 he became a professor of mathematics, but turned to metaphysics and logic in 1797, the field in which he is best known. link

His theme song:

Medusa's Deep Sea Vent

Art © Barry Smith; Medusa © Marvel Comics

A new "black smoker" -- an undersea mineral chimney emitting hot, iron-darkened water that attracts unusual marine life -- has been discovered at about 8,500 feet underwater by an expedition and dubbed the Medusa hydrothermal vent field.

The researchers picked that name to highlight the presence of a pink form of the jellyfish order Stauromedusae as well as numerous spiky tubeworm casings that festoon the vent chimney and bring to mind "the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek myth," said expedition leader Emily Klein.

"It's astonishing that a rich ecology thrives in these extreme environments," Klein added. She noted, however, that while all the organisms near vents are adapted to the high pressures at these depths, not all experience extremely high temperatures.

"The temperature of the ocean floor is about 2 C and there is a strong temperature gradient as you move away from the vent, so animals living a few inches away may experience temperatures only a few degrees above normal for the ocean floor."

"Despite the great tempeature of the vent water, it doesn't boil until 390 C because pressures on the ocean floor are so great, about 200 times the pressure at sea level," Klein said. The tremendous pressures result from the weight of almost two miles of seawater pressing down from above. link

Colours Out of Time & Space

Scientists studied light absorbed and reflected by organisms on Earth, and determined that if astronomers were to look at the light given off by planets circling distant stars, they might predict that some planets have mostly non-green plants.

Cover by Pete Von Sholly

"We can identify the strongest candidate wavelengths of light for the dominant color of photosynthesis on another planet," said Nancy Kiang, lead author of the study.

On Earth, Kiang and colleagues surveyed light absorbed and reflected by plants and some bacteria during photosynthesis, a process by which plants use energy from sunlight to produce sugar. Organisms that live in different light environments absorb the light colors that are most available. For example, there is a type of bacteria that inhabit murky waters where there is little visible light, and so they use infrared radiation during photosynthesis.

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According to scientists, the Sun has a specific distribution of colors of light, emitting more of some colors than others. Gases in Earth's air also filter sunlight, absorbing different colors. As a result, more red light particles reach Earth's surface than blue or green light particles, so plants use red light for photosynthesis. There is plenty of light for land plants, so they do not need to use extra green light. But not all stars have the same distribution of light colors as our Sun. Study scientists say they now realize that photosynthesis on extrasolar planets will not necessarily look the same as on Earth.

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"It makes one appreciate how life on Earth is so intimately adapted to the special qualities of our home planet and Sun," said Kiang. link

Spectral Signatures of Photosynthesis. I. Review of Earth Organisms. 2007. Kiang, et al. Astrobiology 7: 222 -251. N.Y.

Spectral Signatures of Photosynthesis. II. Coevolution with Other Stars And The Atmosphere on Extrasolar Worlds. 2007. N.Y. Kiang, at al. Astrobiology 7: 252 -274

Bill Nelson Asks Max Headroom: Do You Dream In Colour?

The Hyborian Age: Chapter Six

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Script by Roy Thomas; Art © Walt Simonson; The Hyborian Age and Conan © their current copyright holders.

Read:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

The Why of Fly Flying

Armed with a computer video tracking system and an array of mathematical techniques researchers have revealed how the flight patterns of starved fruit flies constitute an optimal scale-free searching strategy – like the fractal patterns of a snowflake, a fly flight path appears similar whether viewed up close, or from a distance.

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The researchers also found that searching is intermittent, such that flies actively search by making tight turns, and fly straight some distance to begin searching again. Scale-free movement patterns have been found in diverse animals including zooplankton, wandering albatrosses, jackals, and even human hunter-gathers. Intermittent searchers include octopi, graylings, and mating crickets.

Andy Reynolds says, "Our results with freely flying Drosophila appear to be the first reported example of searching behaviour that is both scale-free and intermittent. This suggests that these behaviours are not part of two different searching strategies, but rather represent a single very effective and perhaps widely adopted strategy." link

Fly on the Windshield:

Free-Flight Odor Tracking in Drosophila Is Consistent with an Optimal Intermittent Scale-Free Search 2007. AM Reynolds and MA Frye. PLoS ONE 2(4): e354.

Irrational Fashion Changes Explained

New research reveals that trends in popular culture (music, fashion, baby names) come and go at surprisingly regular and predictable rate, which is fueled by very few innovators amidst millions of people copying each other.

To come up with a template of the trend-setting machine, the scientists developed computer simulations based on a system of random copying in which hundreds or thousands of individuals copy each other with 2 percent or fewer being innovators. The model predicted regular and consistent turnover rates that matched the real-world data.

Bentley found that how quickly something comes into fashion and then fades out depends on the size of the list, with a top-100 list changing much faster than a top-40 list. However, the population number had no effect on turnover rate. The scientists suggest a larger population does mean more new ideas but it also means more competition for a top spot and they balance each other out.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the study also found that the more trendsetting innovators there are in a society, the faster one trend will replace another within a particular sector. “Innovators are the cool ones who ‘pump’ new fashions into our world,” Bentley said.

Wonder Woman © DC Comics

The results suggests that the practice, common among captains of the fashion industry, of trying to handpick the next consumer “gems” amongst millions of proposals is a hopeless undertaking.

Regular rates of popular culture change reflect random copying. 2007. R.A. Bentley, et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, published online 17 January 2007.

So many fashions...spinning...dizzy...

Steve Hickman's Kong

Art © Steve Hickman

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Scanned from The Monster Times #7, 1972.

Brewed This Day: 1st Batch of Coca-Cola

In 1886, the first batch of Coca Cola was brewed over a fire in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. John Pemberton had created the concoction as a cure for "hangover," stomach ache and headache. He advertised it as a "brain tonic and intellectual beverage," and first sold it to the public a few weeks later on 8 May. Coke contained cocaine as an ingredient until 1904, when the drug was banned by Congress. link

Who Is Hoverboy?

Only in South America would you get this:

Born This Day: Surf Board Pioneer

Tom Blake (March 8, 1902 – May 5, 1994) was the American inventor of the hollow-core surfboard. Following his first experimental hollow surfboard in 1926, his innovative, hollow-core surf/paddle boards dominated the surfing world until the late 1940's. It became standard rescue equipment in California's early lifeguard corps.

Early surfboard designs consisted of solid wooden boards dating back to the ancient Hawaiians, these new-concept, lighter boards were an immediate success and became extremely important in the evolution of the modern surfboard. In the 1930's he made the first major design advancement with the invention of fins. Before this, a surfer had to use his back foot to make the board turn. link Images © Rick Griffin

Journey To The Center of The Sinkhole

Cave Carson © DC Comics

Scientists return this week to the world’s deepest known sinkhole, Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, to resume tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth’s most extreme regions and potentially in outer space. Sinking more than 1,000 feet, Zacatón has only been partially mapped and its true depth remains unknown.

The system’s unusual hydrothermal nature is analogous to liquid oceans under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Technology developed to explore the sinkholes could be applied to future space probes of Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.

Microbes which appear to be new to science have been discovered floating in deep water and lining rocks in Zacatón. Far below sunlight’s ability to penetrate, they may get their energy from nutrients welling up from hot springs. Gary and others speculate that previously undocumented life may await discovery in the murky depths.

Unique in the world of robotic explorers, DEPTHX is autonomous. The probe does not rely on instructions from humans to decide where to go or what to do. It creates 3D maps of previously unexplored areas as it swims along and then uses those same maps to navigate back to the surface.

Doctoral student Marcus Gary SCUBA dives with the DEPTHX probe during initial in-water tests at The University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories wet test facility.

Cenote Zacatón first achieved notoriety when two divers attempted to reach the bottom in 1994. One of them, Sheck Exley, died in the attempt. The other, Jim Bowden, survived, descending to a record depth of 925 feet. The outcome caused scientists to rethink ways that Zacatón could be explored safely. link

Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1959)

Watching The Brain See The Future

Scientists can now "read" a person’s intentions from their brain activity. This is made possible by a new combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and sophisticated computer algorithms. The researchers were able to recognize the subjects intentions with 70% accuracy based alone on their brain activity - even before the participants had seen the numbers and had started to perform the calculation.

Saturn Girl & Superboy © DC Comics

The trick by which the invisible is made visible lies in a new method called "multivariate pattern recognition". A computer is programmed to recognize characteristic activation patterns in the brain that typically occur in association with specific thoughts. Once this computer has been "trained" it can be used to predict the decisions of subjects from their brain activity alone. An important technical innovation also lies in combining information across extended regions of the brain to strongly increase sensitivity.

In the future it will be possible to read even abstract thoughts and intentions out of a person’s brain.

Brain regions from which it was possible to "read out" peoples' intentions. In specific regions fine-grained patterns of brain activity showed slight differences depending on whether a person was preparing to perform an addition or a subtraction. From activity patterns in the green regions it was possible to read out covert intentions before subjects began to perform the calculation. From the regions marked in red it was possible to read out intentions that were already being acted upon.

Ref.: Reading hidden intentions in the human brain. 2007. John-Dylan Haynes, et al. Current Biology, February 20th, 2007 (online: February 8th).