Glass kilns dating to the 4th century have been discovered in Israel, indicating that “the land of Israel was one of the foremost centers for industrial scale glass production in the ancient world,” according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Turquoise chunks of raw glass were found, as well as ash-covered kilns, providing the first archaeological evidence of the production of glass in Israel during the late Roman period.

The kilns are the oldest in the country, and are thought to have produced commercial quantities of raw, pale green “Judean glass,” which was used in almost every household during the Roman period and beyond. Public buildings also used it as windows, lighting fixtures and mosaics. Ian Freestone, an expert on the ancient technologies of glass from University College Lyndon said this glassware would have been widely distributed through Europe and the Mediterranean.

Chemical analysis of glass vessels found in European sites and in Mediterranean basin shipwrecks had already indicated that the material came from Israel, but this is the first finding of the kilns where the raw material to produce the glassware was produced.

The process of making glass in that time period required heating sand to temperatures of 2,192 degrees Fahrenheit in a melting chamber for at least a week. Sometimes the chunks of raw glass produced weighed more than 10 tons, but these chunks were typically broken into smaller pieces and sold to workshops. There they would be melted down again and blown into glass cups, bowls and other vessels.

The kilns were discovered last summer near Haiifa prior to construction work on a new railroad. Fragments of floors, clean raw glass chips, and pieces of bricks from the walls and ceilings of the kilns were exposed.

They are older than the 6th-century kilns that were discovered at Apollonia, previously thought to be Israel’s oldest glass kilns.

Photo Credit: Assaf Peretz, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority

A new study involving images of the brain under the influence of LSD has shown exchanges of information between parts of the brain that normally do not communicate, making the brain more “complete.” As seen in the right image above, the visual cortex of the brain shows increased connectivity with other regions of the brain when affected by the drug. Researchers from Imperial College London say the findings help to explain the complex and vivid hallucinations people experience while taking lysergic acid diethylamide.

The results also showed that some important brain networks that normally fire together experienced reduced blood flow, which resulted in a loss of synchronization between neurons that normally fire together. Neuropsychopharmacologist and senior author of the study David Nutt says this correlates with reports of an effect known as “ego dissolution,” the sense a person on LSD has that they are melded with people and things around them, a feeling of “oneness with the universe.”

LSD was studied for possible therapeutic uses before the 1960s, but it was heavily restricted around the world after 1967 because of its potential dangers. Nutt says he finds the hysteria to be “unfounded.” However, in general countries worldwide have concluded that LSD has no medical value. This makes it extremely difficult to work with. However, Nutt told the Nature that he hopes it might ultimately be useful in therapies.

Because of the restrictions it took Nutt and his team 9 months to get approval for the work from a UK ethics committee. United Nations laws do allow academic research on restricted drugs such as LSD, and research is legal in the UK as long as the use of the drug is not therapeutic.

Nutt says this was not a clinical trial. LSD was given to 20 volunteers who had already experienced hallucinogenic drugs. Study participants received infusions on two days, one containing 75 micrograms of LSD and the other containing a placebo. They then had their brains imaged using three different techniques, MRI, MEG and arterial spin labelling, which were used to build a picture of their neural activity and how it occurred both under the effect of the drug and without it.

MRI scans showed less coordinated activity in the parts of the brain that make of the default mode network. The size of the effect on this area correlated with the subject’s rating of ego dissolution, which suggests that this network is responsible for a stable sense of self.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) imaging showed that alpha brainwave rhythm weakened under LSD, which also correlates with ego dissolution.

However, the images showed that brain more unified in its activity, with parts working together that normally do not. “The brain is functioning in a simpler way,” said Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London.

Carhart-Harris says, “In many ways, the brain in the LSD state resembles the state our brains were in when we were infants: free and unconstrained.” She added that the brain becomes more compartmentalized as humans grow to adulthood, resulting in more rigid thinking.

The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Image from Imperial College London

The Mars Rover “Opportunity” has recorded the exciting image of a Martian dust devil as seen through a valley below the NASA vehicle. The whirling cloud was seen on March 31, looking back at the rover’s tracks which lead up “Knudsen Ridge,” part of the southern edge of “Marathon Valley.” The image was taken using the Rover’s navigation camera as the vehicle navigated a 32-degree uphill climb, the steepest ever for any rover working on Mars.

Although frequently seen by the previous rover, Spirit, from its station at Gusev Crater, dust devils have been an uncommon sight for Opportunity.

The phenomenon is created by a rising, rotating column of air that gets heated by the sun, just as they are on Earth. Once it whirls fast enough it picks up tiny grains of dust, which then makes the whirling vortex visible. Scientists believe that dust devils help shape the global climate of Mars, since, in the planet’s thin atmosphere, they carry out the important role of dust cycling.

The dust devils are also a clue to the Mars climate puzzle. Dust in the martian air during the day reduces the amount of sunlight that makes it through to the planet’s surface. During the night the atmospheric dust warms the surface. Understanding how the dust gets into the thin Mars air through dust devil activity can help in developing Mars climate models.

Some dust devils can rival the size of tornadoes on Earth, rising hundreds of meters into the air. Some have been measured at 12 miles high. “To start a dust devil on Mars you need a convection, a strong updraft” according to University of Alabama in Huntsville atmospheric science graduate Bryce Williams, who said that twice as much convective updraft is needed in the thin atmosphere of the Red plant as what is required on Earth.

The Marathon Valley region of Mars is of interest to scientists due to orbital measurements that suggest the presence of clays. They are eager for Opportunity to study these minerals since they were created through chemical processes with ancient surface water. The clays may offer answers to more of the mysteries of Mars’ what happened to Mars water.

Spirit lost communication with Earth after becoming stuck in a sand trap in 2010. Opportunity has spent the last 12 years on the planet. The mini-tornadoes play an important part in the continued operations of Opportunity, since they occasionally spin over the solar panels of the rover and blow away accumulations of dust. This allows for a power burst to the solar-powered vehicle.

Photo credit NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

On Tuesday U.S. officials announced that the green sea turtles of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Florida are no longer classified as “endangered.” Although still considered “threatened,” and still coming under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, they are not facing imminent extinction after decades of conservation efforts. Most green sea turtle populations throughout the world are listed as threatened.

In 1978, when the green sea turtle breeding populations were first listed as endangered, there was only a handful of nesting females. In Florida alone there are now over 2,250 counted on beaches each year. They will remain in the threatened classification until the species has fully recovered.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries have divided green sea turtle populations around the world into 11 distinct segments. Conservation approaches are tailed to each area.

There are still three areas of the world where green sea turtles are considered endangered, meaning they are at the highest risk of disappearing from the Earth. Those that live in the Central West Pacific Ocean, as well as those in the Central South Pacific and Mediterranean Seas are at the highest risk of disappearing. NOAA administrators hope that the success seen with the Pacific Coast populations are a model for further recovery strategies that can be used around the world.

Sea turtles face many threats, including beach development that has destroyed nesting habitats, fishing nets and pollution. Conservation efforts have included a reduction in bycatch in fisheries, protection of nesting beaches and prohibitions on the direct harvest of sea turtles.