Kilauea's Bubbling Lake

 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory the newly-formed lake inside Kilauea volcano is almost 130 feet deep, 880 feet long and 430 feet wide. The temperature of the water at the surface is now between 160 and 180 F, with temperatures beneath potentially higher. This makes the lake one of the world's hottest bodies of water. Scientists are using thermal cameras to monitor temperatures.

The water in the volcano's belly began to form a lake after the volcano erupted in 2018. In July 2019, helicopter pilots began to notice water pooling in the lowest part of the crater. Since then, water levels have risen steadily. Today, the lake has an area larger than five combined football fields. The water color is rust brown due to chemical reactions.

In May 2018, lava poured from fissures to the east, the lake swiftly drained and part of the caldera floor collapsed. This lowered the base of the volcano to the level of the water table. Don Swanson, at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory explains, “We know that the crater floor dropped a little more than 70 meters below the water table in 2018. Any time that you punch a hole below the level of the water table, water is eventually going to come in and fill that hole.”

Kilauea has an explosive history. Now scientists are concerned about the possible effects of the water coming into contact with the magma. The magma could rise up the conduit and intersect with the lake, causing a steam explosion. Or the crater floor could collapse and the water drop to a zone where it would become steam. Either scenario is likely to produce a steam explosion.

Related reading: Deadly Lava Lake is Bubbling; Volcanic Eruptions and Climate

A Late Neolithic Structure at Durrington Walls

 

How Durrington Walls might have looked with this structure at the exact center. 

Durrington Walls in the parish of Durrington, England is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. It lies 2 miles north-east of Stonehenge. Researchers have been studying ancient shafts there.

There are at least 20 shafts or pits that formed a circuit exceeding 1 mile (over 2 kilometers) in circumference. There is evidence that an inner post may have existed within the circuit of pits. 

The circle of pits is much larger than any comparable prehistoric monument in the UK. The team of archaeologists estimates there may have been more than 30 post holes originally.

The researchers believe that one of the pits (5A) was recut during the Middle Bronze Age, suggesting that the site continued to be important long after the major period of development and modification of the henge at Durrington Walls.

Testing of the shafts indicates that they were dug more than 4500 years ago, around the time Durrington Walls and Stonehenge were built. The Late Neolithic was a period when ritual structures of an enormous scale were built in various parts of he world.

Source: A Massive Pit Structure at Durrington Walls

The Brain's Drainpipes

The human body is an extraordinary thing! It has intrigued scientists and fascinated painters and sculptors for thousand of years. As early as 3100 BC the ancient Nilotic priests were studying human anatomy in their efforts to heal the sick and injured. The Edwin Smith Papyrus is an example.

Today scientists have been talking about parts of the human anatomy that have become more evident through the use of advanced microscopy and imaging techniques.

The discoveries include the 2017 MRI evidence for lymphatic vessels in the human meninge, the membrane that covers the brain. These vessels drain fluids and removes waste from brain tissues.

Early reports of lymphatic vessels in the meninges appeared in the 18th century but were met with skepticism. However, lymphatic vessels in mouse meninges were reported in 2015.

Related reading: New Discoveries in Human Anatomy

The Amazing Human Eye!

The human eye is an extraordinary member of the body. The human retina contains 125 million rods and about 6 million cones. This is 70 percent of all the human sensory receptors for touch, taste smell, hearing and sight all put together. That’s how important vision is to our survival. But how does the eye actually see?

Light bouncing off an object goes into the eye, through the cornea and the oval-white lens, which focuses that light on the retina. That’s a thin layer of tissue covering the eye’s back wall (inside the sclera). The retina hosts the eyes’ rods and cones. At the center back is the fovea. Most color-sensing cone cells are here. These cells relay signals that move through the optic nerve to the brain.

Read it all here.

Nile Crocodile and American Crocodile Linked

The 7 million year skull of Crocodylus checchiai from As Sahabi, Libya 

was found in the 1930s.

This C. checchiai specimen predates the earliest known crocodile in the Americas by about 2 million years. Genetic research indicates that the animal also was a close relative of the Nile crocodile. 

According to Massimo Delfino, the extinct Crocodylus checchiai “fills a gap between the Nile crocodile in Africa and the four extant American species.” 

It is interesting that the oldest known American fossils of Crocodylus are older than the oldest known fossils of the Nilotic crocodile (C. niloticus). This fossil is older than both. Apparently, these ancient beasts were swimming between continents.

“It’s not so surprising,” Delfino says, "given today’s crocodilians’ ability to survive saltwater and travel hundreds of kilometers when helped by ocean currents."

Source: Old African Fossils Provide New Evidence for the Origin of the American Crocodiles

Saving the Largest Online Linguistics Database

In 2015, spare funds started to dry up at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), a Bible translation group that revolutionized the documentation of endangered languages in the mid–20th century. SIL’s budget had long supported a massive online database considered by many to be the definitive source for information on the world’s languages.

The SIL Ethnologue has served anthropological and linguistic research for decades, but it has become to expense for many researchers.

Simon Greenhill, a linguist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, said, “In the last few years, [Ethnologue has] gotten increasingly expensive and locked down."

Since 2013, SIL Chief Innovation Development Officer Stephen Moitozo has been trying to grow Ethnologue and make it self-sustaining. After the first paywall went up, interactive maps and customer service chatbots were added. Ongoing costs include website maintenance, security, and paying researchers to update the databases whenever new information comes in from independent researchers or SIL’s 5000 field linguists.

To pay for its valuable data, SIL is counting on institutions and corporations, as well as individual subscribers. SIL is planning to sell tailored access to corporations, including business intelligence firms, and Fortune 500 companies.

Source: Science Magazine

Gene Edited for Sickle Cell Disease

Victoria Gray is the first person with a genetic disorder to be treated in the United States with the revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR.

As the one-year anniversary of her landmark treatment approaches, Gray has received good news: She is functionally cured. The billions of genetically modified cells infused into her body are alleviating virtually all the complications of her sickle cell disease.

Gray hasn’t had any severe pain attacks since the treatment one year ago. Nor has she had to receive any emergency room treatments, hospitalizations, or blood transfusions.

In each of the previous two years, Gray required an average of seven hospitalizations and emergency room visits due to severe pain episodes as well as requiring regular blood transfusions. She has been able to significantly reduce her need for narcotics to relieve her pain.

Source: Genetic Literacy Project