Mars' climate system was often thought to be dormant, but new research says otherwise. Scientists observed that some glaciers in the red planet have actually been moving in the last 10 to 100 million years, and that could be an indication that Mars' climate is still active. Get the real deal when you digest the full story.

Now before you all start blowing extraterrestrial theories, please hear us out first: new information regarding the planet nearest the sun in our solar system were finally released during NASA's press conference, and the scientific community now had a clearer picture of the planet Mercury. NASA's Messenger, the spacecraft sent to gather new data from Mercury, transmitted images of a crater - yes, crater - now dubbed the "Spider". More of this mysterious find at the full story.

Remember that new Freedom-2 tattoo ink we posted about late last year? It's finally getting nearer towards market availability. Here's a refresher on how it works.

The ink consists of pigments encapsulated by microscopic clear plastic beads. The pigments are then mixed in a solution for use by tattoo artists. Brown University professor Edith Mathiowitz, the microcapsule developer, said that the pigment is "homogeneously dispersed in the capsule to get the right color".

When it's time for removal, the laser bursts the beads open so the dye can be absorbed and removed naturally by the body. This makes it important for the pigments to be free of any heavy metals and other toxins. The single-treatment removal is a far cry from the six or seven laser treatments usually needed to remove regular tattoos.

The new ink is currently being used by Freedom-2 to tattoo 50 people at three test sites across the U.S. as part of a long-term study. Freedom-2 president and CEO Martin Schmieg says that the new ink should be ready for the market this fall.

Who said black cats bring bad luck? In Rhode Island, a two-year old white feline named Oscar joining you in bed means you're going to die a few hours after.

The Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and other illnesses are treated, adopted Oscar as a kitten. Six months have passed before they noticed that he does his rounds, sniffing and observing patients, before curling up beside those that will die in less than four hours.

After observing Oscar in 25 cases, the staff came to believe that the cat is very accurate. Since then, family members of patients "chosen" by the furry death bringer are notified on what's about to happen. Even David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University, believes Oscar's ability. He stated in an essay on the New England Journal of Medicine:

He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die. Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one.

Another doctor from the nursing house, Dr. Joan Teno, who specializes in treating the terminally ill, said that Oscar is better in predicting death than people who work there.

Oscar is serious about his work, and very moody about it. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," said Dosa. Once, a family wanted the cat off the dying patient's bed. He was taken out, but his meows were nothing but signs of displeasure.

Up to now, it can't be explained how the feline can "predict" death. Teno suggests that the cat may be using the scents of dying patients, or he can tell by looking at the nurses' behavior. Staff in the nursing center don't mind if Oscar is left shrouded with mystery. A wall plaque was even given to him for his "compassionate hospice care."

Photo from Associated Press

For the past half-century medical practitioners have come to agree that the brain's memory system is similar to how a computer downloads data from the internet. New theories proposed by German and American scientists, however, are challenging the notion.

The old belief that memories for a day were temporarily stored in the hippocampus, similar to how data passes through the RAM. The hippocampus is a curved part of the brain which fires electric signals during sleep. When this happens, the information goes to the neocortex (which is similar to a hard drive) for permanent storage.

This was the basis of the explanation why people with damaged hippocampi had trouble with creating short term memories but could easily recall old ones because the neocortex is intact.

The old theory made a lot of sense, but new findings by researchers at Brown University and the Max Planck institute of Medical Research suggest a different explanation. They say that the hippocampus is not the engine driving the neocortex. Brown neuroscientist Mayank Mehta says "what seems to be [happening] is that all the neuron types in the hippocampus are showing some echo or antiecho of the neocortex. None of them seem to be driving neocortex."

In a nutshell, there is really no one-way data transfer that happens during sleep. The truth is, they claim, that both parts actually show activity through resonances of information. When all is said and done, the hippocampus is cleared of its content, and gets set for another day of data gathering.

Some experts, however, are not fully convinced that this explanation is entirely accurate. Pointing out to how the research was conducted. "One has to be very careful, in interpreting the results done under anesthesia," he warns, "because it's totally not the same brain." says Bruce McNaughton, University of Arizona director for the Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging.

In an act of class and professionalism, Mehta acknowledged the fragility of the theory, saying that many a researcher have been fooled by the brain before, and it will be foolhardy to say that this is how the brain really works at this point.

Until recently, most research into aerodynamics was focused on the proverbial birds and the bees (bugs in this case). However, if Brown University">Kenneth Breuer and Sharon Swartz's study proves fruitful, we may soon be taking flying lessons from something more mammalian - bats.

An engineering professor at Brown University, Breuer explained bats were the focus of the study due to the high flexibility their wings showed in flight as compared to birds and insects.

In connection with this, Swartz, associate professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, further explained how bats were assumed to have spun off from more common trends of gliding mammals such as flying squirrels. But compared to the relatively simple construct of skin flaps, the complex array of bones, joints and skin structure that bats use for flight hint that they may have spun off from a completely different evolutionary track.

The study proper involved tracking live bats using a combination of synchronized video, laser imaging systems, and motion capture technology. The team paid special attention to the way the bat's bones, skin, and joints behaved, as well as the way air-flow interacted with them mid-flight.

The results showed several intriguing characteristics not previously known. For one, the bat's flexible joints allowed for 180-degree turns in a space less than half their wingspan. Secondly, the same flexible joints also allowed for better lift characteristics and energy usage as compared to birds.

And while the study still requires more time to draw up solid conclusions, Swartz and Breuer felt the study showed great potential in the way of new aircraft designs. Full details to the study can found the journal "Bioinspiration and Biomimetics", with credit going to The Air Force Office of Scientific Research for sponsoring the research. Bruce Wayne was unavailable for comment regarding the results of this study.

  

Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Yellow River and the Nile - these have all long been accepted as "Cradles of Civilization." When Europeans arrived in what is now Mexico and Central America 500 years ago, they were reluctant to believe that anything comparable could have arisen among the native peoples they encountered. Since then, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the many groups comprising the Americas First People not only reached a highly sophisticated level of civilization, but did so independently of any outside influence - and did so far earlier than we imagined.

A slab recently discovered in the Veracruz region of Mexico contains what appears to be a hybrid form of writing that looks like hieroglyphs, but seem to have alphabetic traits as well. This slab dates from around 1,000 BCE, which was the height of the Olmec Civilization that predated the Mayans. This was roughly contemporaneous with Egypt's 21st dynasty, the reign of Israelite King David, the Greek "Dark Ages" (Dorian Invasions), and the Zhou Period in China.

The slab, known as the the "Cascajal Slab," was rescued from a quarry several years ago, where it had been destined for use as road material. It represents the first solid proof of a written language in the "New" World, according to Stephen Houston of Brown University in Rhode Island. "We're talking about something that happens once in a human lifetime," he said.