In 2010, construction crews found the hull of a very old ship, buried at the site of the World Trade Center towers. Using dendrochronology, scientists now know how old the ship is and what city it was made in.
Meg Gannon at LiveScience has a good, well-detailed story on how the scientists were able to learn about the ship by studying the tree rings visible in the timbers used to build it. Fair warning, the LiveScience website is just a mess of ads and rollover popups. Gannon's article is worth reading, despite all that.
"What makes the tree-ring patterns in a certain region look very similar, in general, is climate," said the leader of the new study, Dario Martin-Benito, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Regional ring patterns arise from local rain levels and temperatures, with wetter periods producing thicker rings and drier periods producing smaller rings, he said.
...The ship's signature pattern most closely matched with the rings found in old living trees and historic wood samples from the Philadelphia area, including a sample taken during an earlier study from Independence Hall, which was built between 1732 and 1756.
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Here’s a wonderful feature about my favorite constellation and the galaxy’s most awesome telescope (at least one of them!) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Though 1967’s Outer Space Treaty says no country can lay claim to the moon (and thus no person can get a deed to lunar territory), the treaty does allow for commercial and scientific installations on Luna, and there are some very small, very valuable bits of crater rim that could be squatted in this way, […]
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen funded the Allen Brain Observatory, a detailed, rich data-set derived from parts of a mouse-brain: what’s striking is that the Allen Institute released all the data into the public domain, at once, as soon as it was available, which is exactly what you’d want the publicly funded alternatives to do, and […]
If you’ve ever tried to quickly share a file with someone, you know there’s nothing actually quick about it. Between permissions, log-in credentials, size limitations, and download issues, it’s a miracle if you’re ever able to share the document at all. That’s why we think Droplr Pro is so essential.Droplr Pro lets you quickly, easily, and […]
You won’t want to hit another music festival without these essentials. Read on to find out what we’re packing for the final festivals of the year.This Smart Charger Always Knows Where The Car Is ParkedIn addition to charging your phone, the Zus Smart Car Charger and Locator ($29.99) helps you locate your car no matter […]
When the mood strikes you and you’re looking to light up, you shouldn’t have to hunt around for all the things you need: your pipe, your grinder, your favorite munchies, and so on. And with the Happy Kit, you won’t have to.This compact black case houses everything you need, including a grinder, a glass pipe, […]
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