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Rover arrives at new site on martian surface

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(PhysOrg.com) -- After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before.

Mars rover Opportunity studying new surroundings (Update)

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The Mars rover Opportunity is snapping pictures like a tourist since arriving at its latest crater destination, much to the delight of scientists many millions of miles away.

Opportunity begins study of martian crater, new samples 'unlike any seen before'

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(PhysOrg.com) -- The initial work of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity at its new location on Mars shows surface compositional differences from anything the robot has studied in its first 7.5 years of exploration.

Study of clays suggests watery Mars underground

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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new NASA study suggests if life ever existed on Mars, the longest lasting habitats were most likely below the Red Planet's surface.

Hydrodynamics of writing with ink

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For millennia, writing has been the preferred way to convey information and knowledge from one generation to another. We first developed the ability to write on clay tablets with a point, and then settled on a reed pen, as preserved from 3000 BC in Egypt when it was used with papyrus.

Baking in the details: Semitic Museum project conserves thousands of ancient clay tablets

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In the basement of Harvard’s Semitic Museum, Alex Douglas looked at the pieces of baked clay in front of him, teasing out how they fit together into a small tablet, thousands of years old and marked with ancient cuneiform writing.

The fermented cereal beverage of the Sumerians may not have been beer

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Archaeological finds from cuneiform tablets and remnants of different vessels from over 4,000 years ago show that even around the dawn of civilisation, fermented cereal juice was highly enjoyed by Mesopotamia's inhabitants. However, besides the two basic ingredients, barley and emmer (a species of wheat) the brew produced in the clay jars of the Sumerians is shrouded in mystery. Despite an abundance of finds and scribal traditions which point to an early love of fermented cereal beverages, reconstructing ancient brewing methods is very difficult, according to the historian of science and cuneiform writing scholar Peter Damerow of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. A scholarly paper by Damerow, who passed away at the end of November 2011 in Berlin, carefully examines the beer brewing technologies of the Sumerians. However, the author also expresses great doubts as to whether the popular brew in ancient times was even beer.

New analysis of clay deposits in ancient Martian Lakes

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Mars was once a much wetter world than it is now, with hot springs, rivers, lakes and perhaps even oceans. Just how wet exactly, and for how long, is still a subject of considerable debate. One vital clue comes from clay mineral deposits and sediments left over after the water disappeared, but still visible now. They provide a valuable insight into what Mars used to be like, and why it is the cold, dry place we see today.

Discovery of the first evidence for Pre-Columbian sources of Maya Blue

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Once again, science and anthropology have teamed up to solve questions concerning the fascinating, brilliantly hued pigment known as Maya Blue. Impervious to the effects of chemical or physical weathering, the pigment was applied to pottery, sculpture, and murals in Mesoamerica largely during the Classic and Postclassic periods (AD 250-1520), playing a central role in ancient Maya religious practice. This unusual blue paint was used to coat the victims of human sacrifice and the altars on which they were dispatched.

Redefining archaeological research

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Gently cradling a 5,000-year-old cuneiform clay tablet from Ur (modern day Iraq), Andrew Nelson wishes he could peel back the layers to find out what makes up this first-generation iPad. And thanks to a new microCT scanner at Western’s Sustainable Archaeology Repository (SAR), the Anthropology professor has done just that.

Bacteria alive (more or less) in 86-million-year-old seabed clay

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(Phys.org) -- A new study by scientists from Denmark and Germany has found live bacteria trapped in red clay deposited on the ocean floor some 86 million years ago. The bacteria use miniscule amounts of oxygen and move only extremely slowly.

Plump up the clay: Carbon dioxide moves into and expands a common mineral in carbon sequestration caprocks

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(Phys.org) -- For the first time, scientists have direct evidence that high-pressure carbon dioxide or CO2 migrates into the clay montmorillonite causing it to expand, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Montmorillonite is found in the rocks used to cap carbon sequestration sites, and scientists previously thought that only water could make it expand.  Caprocks spend thousands of years halting the escape of injected CO2. To learn how these rocks respond to CO2, the researchers studied the material under realistic sequestration conditions.

Scientists evaluate different antimicrobial metals for use in water filters

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Porous ceramic water filters are often coated with colloidal silver, which prevents the growth of microbes trapped in the micro- and nano-scale pores of the filter. Other metals such as copper and zinc have also been shown to exhibit anti-microbial activity.

Novel clay-based coating may point the way to new generation of green flame retardants

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(Phys.org) -- In searching for better flame retardants for home furnishings—a large source of fuel in house fires—National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers defied the conventional wisdom and literally hit a wall, one made of clay.

Turning glass into clay

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The magic mineral and microbial processes that transform volcanic glass into clay have been identified, adding important knowledge to how clay is formed.

Opportunity rover tops 35 kilometers of driving

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Meanwhile, back in Meridiani Planum … the Opportunity rover keeps on trucking, and has now exceeded over 35 kilometers (21.75 miles) of driving on its odometer! Quite an accomplishment for the Energizer Bunny of Mars rovers, now operating for 3,057 Martian sols. As the MER team says, "Not bad for a vehicle designed for only about 1 kilometer (.6 miles) of distance and 90 sols (days) of lifetime."

Early Mars may not have been hospitable after all: study

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Instead of a warm, wet and possibly life-bearing planet as some scientists contend, early Mars may have been a hostile and volatile place with frequent volcanic outbursts, a study said Sunday.

Martian clay minerals might have a much hotter origin

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(Phys.org)—Ancient Mars, like Earth today, was a diverse planet shaped by many different geologic processes. So when scientists, using rovers or orbiting spacecraft, detect a particular mineral there, they must often consider several possible ways it could have been made.

Opportunity rover finds intriguing new spherules at Cape York

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One of the most interesting discoveries made so far by the Opportunity rover on Mars has been the small round spherules or "blueberries" as they are commonly referred to, covering the ground at the rover's landing site. Typically only a few millimetres across, some lie loose on the soil while others are imbedded in rock outcrops.

Archeologists examine one of the oldest hoards found in Europe

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Jewelry and female figurines from Belica, Serbia, to be exhibited for the first time at Tübingen University Museum.
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