It’s kind of a scary thought, but it happens all across the natural world, even in our won back yards,  and has been going on for it seems like forever.  Almost weekly you read of a research report about an invasive species that is decimating the population of long-time inhabitants of some area of the world.  Even H.G. Wells wrote about such a possibility in War of the Worlds, where the alien invaders were conquered by a common cold virus, to which they had no exposure or immunity.

Rarely is it intentional, but for centuries humans have been carriers these types of plants and animals across the globe, and in a number of cases, the new species caused the extinction of an older established species in their home territory.

Now, a story in Smithsonian Magazine reports that a new study is suggesting that modern humans, migrating from Africa, may have brought tropical diseases with them that eventually led to the extinction of our neanderthal cousins, some 40,000 years ago.

Author of the new study, which was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology,  Charlotte Houldcroft of Cambridge University’s Division of Biological Anthropology offered this explanation in a press release, “Humans migrating out of Africa would have been a significant reservoir of tropical diseases.  For the Neanderthal population of Eurasia, adapted to that geographical infectious disease environment, exposure to new pathogens carried out of Africa may have been catastrophic.”

The authors cautioned they found no direct evidence of transmission of diseases between the two groups, but the timing suggests it was very likely.  But they don’t believe it was similar to the epidemics like smallpox, that Europeans brought to the Americas, killing millions of natives.  They suspect that small bands of modern humans and neanderthals intermingled and spread the disease through contact, one settlement at a time.

But still, that causes one to ponder if the spread of disease between groups is nature’s way of cleansing the planet, sort of a variation on survival of the fittest.  Was the demise of the neanderthals part of the overall plan to make room on the Earth for modern humans to flourish?  Or was it simply the luck of the draw?

The scariest part is not that we may have been the invasive species that caused the extinction, but, is there another undetected virus on the horizon that may lead to our own?

Remains of kilns, used to produce commercial quantities of raw pale green Judean glass, have been uncovered in Israel, where they lay dormant for over 1,600 years, according to discovery.com.

The kilns, which date back to the Late Roman period, were happened upon last summer by workers at a construction site that was a part of the Jezreel Valley Railway Project, near Haifa.

A statement issued by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said “the Land of Israel was one of the foremost centers for glass production in the ancient world.”  Yael Gorin-Rosen, head curator of the IAA Glass Department, added ““We know from historical sources dating to the Roman period that the Valley of Akko was renowned for the excellent quality sand located there, which was highly suitable for the manufacture of glass.”

Earlier discoveries of the glass in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean and at sites in Europe led to chemical analyses that indicated Israel was the source of the glass, and Gorin-Rosen adds now the kilns have been found where the raw material was used to produce this type of glassware.

The excavation of the site exposed fragments of the floor, pieces of vitrified bricks, used in the walls and ceilings of the kilns, and also clean raw glass chips, according to Abdel Al-Salam Sa’id, an inspector with the IAA.  “We were absolutely overwhelmed with excitement when we understood the great significance of the finds,” he adds.

Large quantities of glass were needed by the Romans, since nearly every house used the material to construct windows, mosaics and lighting fixtures, and an price edict from the Roman emperor Diocletian in the early fourth century indicated there were essentially two kinds of glass being used.  The light green Judean glass came from Israel, while the more expensive Alexandrian glass was manufactured in Egypt.

The findings indicate the glass was mass produced in Israel and widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean and across Europe.

Researchers at North Carolina State University and the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Center are combining  a number of bullet-stopping materials into a single type of armor, that not only may protect soldiers and police from being shot, but may one day be used to protect sensitive space equipment from being punctured by flying debris.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, this new material consists of a ceramic strike face, a composite metal foam as a kinetic energy-absorbing inner layer, and aluminum 7075 or Kelvar panels as a backing, and is only 25 millimeters in thickness.

The researchers say the new armor can stop a bullet with just under an inch of the metal foam, leaving an indentation of only eight millimeters.  Plus, evidence shows the material causes the bullet to disintegrate on contact, as shown in a video from the research team at NCSU.

Though the military and police are very interested in the new material, which could replace the much heavier body armor now in use, the researchers say they also want to see the metal foam used in a variety of other more peaceful uses.  They say there are possibilities of the material being used for protection from, and containment of, hazardous materials, such as nuclear waste storage, and as protection for satellites and other spacecraft from being struck by space debris in orbit.

Some are going as far as imagining the new materials could provide protection for passengers in automobile accidents, and maybe even for airplane crashes.  The article pointed out the crash of NASA’s Columbia Space Shuttle in 2003, which was caused by a damaged ceramic heat shield, and say this new foam may be able to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

This is not the only new process that is being perfected in this field, as researchers at Rice University and MIT have designed a structured polymer composite material, that seals itself after being penetrated by a projectile.  This new material “would be a great ballistic windshield,” according to the researchers, as it remains clear and undamaged after stopping a bullet.

One of the giant questions about the origin of life on the planet has always been, did it originate here, or was it delivered to Earth by another celestial object?  Scientists have found most of the compounds for the major building blocks needed for the formation of life in meteorites, comets and interstellar dust. But one, sugar ribose, which is the backbone that forms RNA had not been detected in this manner.

A new study, cited in the Christian Science Monitor, is suggesting that even though it hasn’t been found, ribose can also form in comets, giving credence to the theory of comet colllisions being the beginnings of life on Earth, and also giving hope that these same comets may also have seeded other worlds.

RNA is much like DNA, but is a simpler, single-strand molecule, which many scientists believe may have been used by early life to pass along genetic information.  Many viruses still today use RNA for that purpose.

Experiments in the study tried to replicate the conditions that formed not only comets, but also the planets in our solar system, by super cooling a mixture of water, methanol and ammonia, and heating it back up again, as a comet would be heated as it approached the sun.

The results show that a number of organic compounds were formed, including ribose and other sugar molecules.  If a similar action transpired on the comets, any collision with Earth, or another world, could have delivered all of the basic building blocks of life to the planet.

Before we can make a definite assumption, researchers say they will have to see these results verified and observed in a real comet, and even then, it may not prove that the compounds that led to life as we know weren’t already here before the comets collided with the planet.

More intriguing is the thought that comets, passing through the outer reaches of the universe, may have carried these same compounds to other Earth-like planets, and life may have formed there as well.  What kinds of life, and, if it exists, did it evolve similarly to ours, are questions that will keep the search for extra-terrestrial life alive.

Most everyone has heard of the announcement of a discovery of a group of objects past the outer regions of our known solar system that has astronomers believing they have found evidence of a new planet, being called Planet Nine.  But exactly where is this mysterious world and how do we go about proving it is there?

That’s a question that has been plaguing scientists ever since the Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin made their announcement, according to discovery.com.  It’s a bit more complicated than just looking through a powerful telescope for the planet.  First, you have to know where to look, and even then, its like the needle-in-the-haystack approach.

Planet Nine was discovered using the same method as was Neptune back in the 19th century, namely the motion of other celestial bodies in the general area that appear to be influenced by a strong gravitational pull from another object.  Astronomers are still looking for unusual drift from their paths to seek the source of the gravitational pull, hoping that will lead them to the location of the new world.

The models show Planet Nine would be orbiting in an elliptical shape, being 200 AU at its closest point to the Sun and as much as 1200 AU at its most remote.  An AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and is used to measure distance in the solar system.  That would place the new planet about four times farther away than the former planet Pluto.

The researchers, using the gravitational data they have available, estimate the mass of Planet Nine at about 10 times the mass of Earth, making the planet comparable to Uranus in size.  They also reason the planet’s upper atmosphere would be in the -226 degree Celsius range, bitterly cold, but warmer that the scientists would have predicted.  This leads to the belief that the planet is being heated by its inner core.

The most prevalent theory is that the mysterious planet formed from our own sun’s proplanetary disk and used the same materials that formed the rest of the planets in our solar system, but the possibility exists, due to its extreme distance from the sun, that the planet was caught from another system and pulled into ours.  That may help explain the elliptical nature of its orbit.

Until actual observations of the fascinating Planet Nine can be made, we may only speculate as to its origins and composition.