Ancient zombie ants, liquefying your body, recovering meteorites and more. What Tim’s talking about on radio this week.

Tim’s blog

This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about tracking and recovering meteorites; liquefying your body; chlorophyll that works with low energy light; ancient zombie ants; and more…

1. Desert fireballs—An intelligent camera system has been set up to track and recover meteorites in the Nullarbor. It is expected to detect about three or four of them a year. Many of these will be recovered. As debris left over from when planets were constructed, they carry a unique record of the birth of the Solar System.—Australasian Science.

This story can be found in the latest issue of Australasian Science.

2. Solar system slips back in timeA meteorite found in the Sahara Desert by American researchers has helped to pin down the age of the Solar System. It’s a little older than previously thought, and that means it may have formed in a slightly different way.—Nature Geoscience

A Nature report can be found at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100822/full/news.2010.423.html

3. Infrared chlorophyll could boost solar cells—Sydney researchers have found chlorophyll that absorbs red and infrared light—in ancient form of marine bacteria still living in rock-like structures in Shark Bay in Western Australia. The new type of chlorophyll could be harnessed to help solar cells convert more light into electricity.—Science

A New Scientist report can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19338-infrared-chlorophyll-could-boost-solar-cells.html

4. Earth’s green carbon sink on the wane The capacity of green plants to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could be declining, according to US scientists. The researchers used satellite data to estimate net primary production of plants between 2000 and 2009. While carbon uptake increased in the Northern Hemisphere, it dropped sharply in the Southern Hemisphere. The researchers attributed the decrease to drought—Science

A Nature report can be found at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100819/full/news.2010.418.html

5. Where has all the plastic gone?The amount of plastic trapped in a North Atlantic current system hasn’t increased in the past 22 years, American researchers say, despite more and more plastic being thrown away. They think the plastic may well be degrading into pieces small enough to pass through the nets used in their study, or it is sinking out of reach to the bottom. And they are very concerned it might be harming fish.—Science

A Science report can be found at http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/where-has-all-the-plastic-gone.html

6. Dissolving your earthly remains will protect the EarthA Gold Coast company has developed a burial technology it calls “aquamation”, which decomposes bodies leaving only the bones. The company claims the process can provide the same result as cremation, but uses only 10 per cent of the energy, and releases no toxic emissions. And the decomposing liquid can be used as fertiliser.—New Scientist

A New Scientist report can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19333-dissolving-your-earthly-remains-will-protect-the-earth.html

7. Attack of the ancient ‘zombie’ antsAmerican researchers claim to have found cuts characteristic of ‘zombie’ ants on a 48-million-year-old fossil leaf. Zombie ants are infected by a fungus which manipulates their behaviour to bite into the very part of a leaf which provides optimum nutrients for fungal growth.—Biology Letters

A Nature report can be found at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100817/full/news.2010.415.html

8. “Terror bird”: The Muhammed Ali of predatorsAn international team including researchers from Sydney has used sophisticated computer modelling to reveal that the ancient terror bird used an agile attack-and-retreat fighting strategy. The flightless bird stood 1.4 metres tall and used hatchet-like jabs of its hawk-like beak to bring down its prey.—Public Library of Science, ONE

A New Scientist report can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19334-ancient-terror-bird-stabbed-its-prey-to-death.html

9. Insect aerobaticsFruit flies are formidable flying machines. They can evade human swats with split-second aerobatics, and have more moves than your average jet fighter. Now, US researchers have worked out how they set their cruising altitude, which may well assist in the design of robot aircraft.—Current Biology

A Science report can be found at http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/you-are-now-free-to-move-about-t.html

10. Wasps punish fake fighters—If you are a wasp with the face of a fighter, but can’t handle yourself, look out! The same goes if you really are tough, but don’t look the part. Wasps don’t like fakers, American researchers have found, and they make them suffer.—Current Biology

A New Scientist report can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19336-wasps-punish-fake-fighters.html