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5,000 years ago on a terraced slope above the Chan River in Shaanxi Province, China, some enterprising villagers built two sophisticated beer brewing kits. Part of the Mijiaya site, once the location of a thriving civilization, both kits were housed in pits sunk 2 to 3 meters into the ground, lined with rock, and accessed by stairs. One is fitted with a small shelf, and both have ceramic ovens for brewing in wide-mouthed pots that once held boiled barley. Archaeologists found other telltale beer-brewing tools (all covered in an ancient yellow residue), including funnels for filtration and amphorae, or cocoon-shaped containers, for fermentation. After careful analysis of plant and chemical remains on the inside of these storage containers, the scientists reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had a pretty good idea of what kinds of ingredients went into this ancient beer.

Illustrations of the beer brewing pit and the 5,000-year-old components of the kit discovered at the Mijiaya site in Shaanxi Province, China. (credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Most of these ingredients will sound familiar to beer lovers. The scientists found traces of broomcorn millet, barley, Triticeae (wheat), and Job’s tears (a grain plant often called Chinese pearl barley, though it is not actually barley), plus small amounts of snake gourd root and lily (both are tubers often used in Chinese medicine), as well as yam. It's possible that the yam was added to enhance what was probably already a slightly sweet brew due to the barley. What impressed the archaeologists was that people living 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic Yangshao period had already mastered a pretty sophisticated system for brewing, including temperature regulation. This finding pre-dates by thousands of years the earliest writing about fermenting beer, which comes from Shang Dynasty manuscripts circa 1240-1046 BCE.

In their article, the researchers write that all the evidence they examined indicates that "the Yangshao people brewed a mixed beer with specialized tools and knowledge of temperature control. Our data show that the Yangshao people developed a complicated fermentation method by malting and mashing different starchy plants." This discovery may also shed light on a longstanding mystery about how barley came to Eastern China from Western Eurasia. By the time of the Han Dynasty, roughly 200 BCE, barley was already a popular crop. But what would have motivated early farmers to bring this grain all the way across the Central Plains? Apparently, it was for partying, not for eating. Write the archaeologists:

(credit: Gage Skidmore)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hasn’t had to answer many questions about his position on climate change yet. But in a handful of colorful tweets over the last few years, Trump has made it clear that he rejects the conclusions of climate science, opting for descriptors like “hoax” and “bullshit.”

However, that belief is apparently not always reflected in the management of coastal property owned by Trump. A story in Politico reports that the permit request to build a seawall along a golf course and resort in Ireland, which Trump purchased in 2014, cites sea level rise as part of the reason for its construction. Coastal erosion is eating away at the property, and Trump is seeking to armor the beach with rock.

The environmental impact statement prepared for the prospective project explains, “If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland.”

This aerial view of Monterey Bay from the south was created by combining computer-generated topographic and bathymetric data. Vertical relief has been exaggerated to better show the Monterey Canyon and mountains on either side of the bay. (credit: Monterey Bay Acquarium Research Institute)

Prosecutors have dropped their lawsuit against a California fisherman who they alleged took a government-owned scientific buoy "hostage" after it nearly struck his fishing vessel earlier this year in Monterey Bay.

Daniel Sherer, the fisherman, had kept the buoy in his possession for at least 10 weeks after the January 15 incident where it came loose and nearly struck his vessel. He demanded that the United States Geological Survey compensate him.

According to Courthouse News Service, the buoy has been returned to authorities, but it is not clear when or how the handover took place.

Convenience store ATMs were hit hard by counterfeiters in Japan this month. (credit: Meredith P.)

On Sunday evening, Japanese newspapers reported that an ATM heist involving around 1,400 machines in convenience stores resulted in the loss of 1.4 billion yen ($12.7 million).

The theft took place on May 15, a Sunday, between the hours of 5am and 8am. ATMs were targeted across Tokyo and 16 other prefectures in the country. Police said they believe up to 100 people were involved in the heist, according to the Kyodo News Agency. The thieves apparently went to ATMs like those found in 7-11s across Japan and swiped counterfeit South African credit cards, created using information from cards issued by South Africa's Standard Bank.

At each of the approximately 1,400 ATMs that were struck, the culprit withdrew 100,000 yen (about $900), which is the maximum withdrawal permitted on the machines.

Oracle Corp. headquarters in Redwood City, California. (credit: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle's copyright lawsuit is all about one "very simple rule," the company's attorney told a jury today.

"You don’t take people’s property without permission and use it for your own benefit," said Oracle lawyer Peter Bicks. "Google took a shortcut, and they took a shortcut at Oracle’s expense."

The closing argument Bicks delivered today was his final chance to convince a jury that Google should be held liable for copyright infringement for using 37 Java APIs, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. An appeals court has ruled that the APIs can be copyrighted. Now, Google's only hope of avoiding a payment to Oracle—which could potentially be in the billions of dollars—is a finding that it was "fair use" to harness the Java APIs.

To get Oculus Dreamdeck running on the HTC Vive, LibreVR is willing to break Oculus' DRM entirely, opening the platform up to potential piracy.

On Friday, an Oculus Runtime update blocked a fan-made workaround that had let HTC Vive owners play previously Rift-exclusive software. At the time, Oculus said the update wasn't targeted at the workaround, and was instead trying "to curb piracy and protect games and apps that developers have worked so hard to make." Now, though, Oculus' move has encouraged the patch's developer to break Oculus' digital rights managements entirely, potentially opening VR software up to piracy as well as hardware freedom.

On Saturday, just one day after Oculus' latest Runtime update, Revive developer LibreVR released Revive version 0.5.2. That update gets around Oculus new hardware checks by completely bypassing the DRM for Oculus Dreamdeck and, in theory, any other Unreal Engine game designed for the Rift (a similar workaround for Unity engine games is being worked on). This circumvents the "entitlement check" that confirms a Rift headset is plugged in, but also gets around the ownership check that confirms the software was legitimately purhased through Oculus' Home platform.

Breaking the DRM entirely is now the now the only way to break Oculus' hardware check, LibreVR writes on Reddit. "The problem is that Oculus added the check for the Rift being attached to your PC to the actual DRM. They now use the same function to check that you own the game and that you have the headset," he said. "I can't disable one check without disabling the other one too. Previously these checks were separate and the DRM would only check whether you owned the game."

The best-ever image of the far side of the Moon. (credit: NASA)

On Tuesday, budget writers in the US House will make changes to a bill that funds federal commerce, justice, and science agencies—which includes NASA—for the coming fiscal year. But a draft of the full bill released Monday contains a blockbuster for the space agency: the House calls for a pivot away from NASA’s direct-to-Mars vision toward a pathway that includes lunar landings first.

Since a space policy speech in 2010 by President Obama, the space agency has been following a loosely defined plan to first send astronauts to visit a fragment of an asteroid near the Moon and then conduct other operations in the vicinity of the Moon before striking off for Mars some time in the 2030s. However a number of independent reports, such as the National Research Council’s Pathways to Exploration, have questioned the viability and sustainability of a direct-to-Mars plan. That panel called for NASA and the White House to reconsider the Moon as an interim destination.

In the new House budget, which provides funding for fiscal year 2017, the committee recognizes there are some useful components of the asteroid mission. These include propulsion research and asteroid deflection, but committee members found that “neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute to the overarching mission to Mars.” The costs of such a mission are also unknown, the committee wrote.