Yesterday the BBC reported on a global project to compile the world's scientific knowledge of rocks, and make the info accessible from a single online portal.  The OneGeology project, as it's being called, is being spearheaded by the British Geological Survey, and aims to make earth surface rock data available at a scale of 1:1,000,000.

The project, which has the backing of Unesco and five other global umbrella bodies, will be a centrepiece of the International Year of Planet Earth in 2008.

Scientists would expect to have the first release of their portal up and running by then. It will present the information with the use of a "virtual globe", in much the same way as Google Earth now presents satellite images.

 Google Earth became a useful tool for archaeologists, who were able to see faint discolorations in surface vegetation above unknown, buried structures. The OneGeology project promises surprises of its own. Whenever information is made freely available to people, scientists among them, new theories take form and old riddles find answers. I envision the OneGeology project becoming a major resource for new geologic models like flood geology. --Speaking of which, in July Cedarville University will be hosting a geology conference that will focus on (my favorite) young earth creation geology.

In Astronomy: A Max Planck Institute report says scientists have physically detected a tiny speed increase in the rotation rate of an asteroid. They say the acceleration is due to the heat from sunlight--an effect called YORP theory (here's a mouthfull: Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack effect), which had been predicted but never observed. You can view a 7 Meg QuickTime movie of the asteroid in question hurtling through space here.  (An idea similar to this was supposed to propel the private Cosmos 1 spacecraft to high speeds, except in that case I believe it was light pressure, not heat, that was expected to energize the craft.  Cosmos 1 was lost during launch in 2005.)

A study that will probably turn out to be controversial claims that mice can think about what they know or don't know, and make decisions accordingly. Read the evidence for yourself.  Could this explain those occasional mice who never seem to get caught in mousetraps?  "What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?" (Sorry.)

Even more controversial may be a neural theory proposed by Copenhagen University scientists who argue sound waves, not electric signals, are the driving force of nerve impulses. From CBC News:

The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect.

"For us as physicists, this cannot be the explanation," said Thomas Heimburg, an associate professor at the university's Niels Bohr Institute. "The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced."

. . .  

Heimburg and [Copenhagen University's Andrew] Jackson theorize that sound propagation is a much more likely explanation. Although sound waves usually weaken as they spread out, a medium with the right physical properties could create a special kind of sound pulse or "soliton" that can propagate without spreading or losing strength.

The physicists say because the nerve membrane is made of a material similar to olive oil that can change from liquid to solid through temperature variations, they can freeze and propagate the solitons.

 Such a theory, if proven to be true, would revolutionize our view of the nervous system.