Mathematicians unearth fractal counting patterns to explain a cryptic claim By Davide Castelvecchi | Thursday, April 14, 2011 | 13 Srinivasa RamanujanImage: Photo Researchers, Inc. For someone who died at the age of 32, the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan left behind an impressive legacy. Number theorists have now finally managed to make sense of one of his more enigmatic statements, written just one year before his death in 1920. The statement concerned the deceptively simple concept of partitions. Partitions are subdivisions of a whole number into smaller ones. For example, for the number 5 there are seven options: 5?•?1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1?•?1 + 1 + 1 +…

Permanent Address: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=early-human-fossils-from-south-afri-2011-04-18 By Kate Wong | Monday, April 18, 2011 | 9   MINNEAPOLIS—It’s a great irony of paleoanthropology that for all the insights scientists have been able to glean from the fossil record about our early ancestors, the australopithecines (Lucy and her kin), they have precious little to document the origin of our own genus, Homo. They know that Homo descended from one of those australopithecine species and that over the course of that transition our ancestors evolved from chimp-size creatures with short legs and small brains into tall humans with long legs and large brains, among other hallmark traits. But the details of this evolutionary transformation—when the distinctive Homo characteristics arose and why—have remained elusive,…

Real-life ‘X-Files’ reveal policy of destroying documents related to UFO investigations because they would have taken up too much filing space. By John PlattTue, Apr 12 2011 at 10:21 AM EST 153 Comments Photo: Markus Ram/Flickr The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated hundreds of UFO sightings in the 1940s and ’50s, but the agency had a policy of destroying investigation records because they took up too much space. Some of the papers related to these UFO sightings went online this weekend through the FBI’s newly revamped electronic reading room, dubbed The Vault. Previously known as the FBI Records/Freedom of Information and Privacy Act website, the site contains more than 2,000 FBI…

Last Supper was a day earlier, scientist claims Mon Apr 18, 12:31 pm ET LONDON (AFP) – Christians have long celebrated Jesus Christ’s Last Supper on Maundy Thursday but new research released Monday claims to show it took place on the Wednesday before the crucifixion. Professor Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, believes it is all due to a calendar mix-up — and asserts his findings strengthen the case for finally introducing a fixed date for Easter. Humphreys uses a combination of biblical, historical and astronomical research to try to pinpoint the precise nature and timing of Jesus’s final meal with his disciples before his death. Researchers have long been puzzled…

Dear Guests & Loyal Readers, Having grown up in Oklahoma City, I have a special connection to the date of April 19 in history, as far as it being domestic terrorism in my own home town. It was a very tragic day as we all know now. I remember the smoke coming up in a large black cloud as I drove past downtown Oklahoma City. I wondered “what has happened!?” I was soon to find out. From the Owner & Creator, Copyright © 2011 Research History, At The Helm, LLC.