Surfing The Wierd

Five Species of Crocs Once in Sahara, Some Stood Upright

2009-11-24T00:58:00.024-06:00

Five Crocodile Species That Once Lived in Sahara/ BoarCroc

Prehistoric Crocodile In a newly published paper, scientists have described five crocodile species who once lived in present-day Niger and Morocco. The scientists gave their discoveries names that evoke each species' unique physical attributes. The meat-eating "BoarCroc," above, measured 20 feet, with an armored snout and three sets of dagger-shaped fangs.

Lead Scientist The expedition was guided by Professor Paul Sereno, from the University of Chicago, who stands with models of some of the team's discoveries in this photo.

RatCroc

RatCroc-2

RatCroc Discovered in Morocco, this three foot long croc could walk upright. Many of the specimens were found at one location, lying on the surface of a remote stretch of dunes, which in prehistoric times, had been covered by lush plains and broad rivers.

PancakeCroc PancakeCroc-2

PancakeCroc Named for its flat head, this 20-footer lived in Niger and Morocco.

DogCroc DogCroc Like several of the newly described species, the DogCroc was able to walk upright.

Croc Fangs Fangs Scientist Sereno theorizes that crocodiles as a species survived the dinosaur era because of their agility on land and in the water.

DuckCroc

DuckCroc The crocs will be featured in a documentary "When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs" to be shown on the National Geographic Channel. A story about them also appears in the November issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Dinosaur-Era Crocodiles are Discovered in the Sahara

2009-11-24T00:49:00.011-06:00

Prehistoric Super-Crocodiles May Have Dined on Dinosaurs

BoarCroc

time.com — Odd new species of ancient crocodiles stood on two legs, lived alongside dinosaurs and sometimes even hunted them

The Age of Dinosaurs may have been dominated by dinosaurs, but they certainly weren't the only fearsome creatures around. A series of remarkable discoveries by a team led by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, has made it clear that another, less celebrated group of animals lived alongside the dinos, and sometimes even dined on those better-known cousins.

Photos

Dinosaur-Era Crocodiles are Discovered in the Sahara

The animals in question were crocodiles, which thrived in abundance in the wetlands of the ancient Sahara 100 million years ago. Sereno found his first specimens of these prehistoric monsters about a decade ago, a species called Sarcosuchus, nicknamed SuperCroc: it was some 40 ft. long, and weight eight tons. (See a photoessay on the discovery of prehistoric crocodile fossils in the Sahara Desert) (post above)

Now, reporting in the journal ZooKeys, Sereno's team has announced the discovery of fossils from three brand-new species and new fossils from two known species. Along with SuperCroc, they add up to a virtual menagerie of ancient crocodiles that inhabited a range of ecological niches — species nicknamed BoarCroc, RatCroc, PancakeCroc, DuckCroc and DogCroc. See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.

The strangest thing about these animals isn't their names, though: it's the fact that many of them weren't flat to the ground, like modern crocs, but stood upright and walked on their legs, like modern mammals. "We have an idea of what a crocodile should be and what a mammal should be," says Sereno, "but you have to break down these categories to see what was going on in Africa back then." BoarCroc, for example, was 20 ft. long and had three rows of fangs, like a boar from Hell, which made it what Sereno calls "a dinosaur slicer." With its agile legs, he says, "that thing probably came out of the water and charged up the bank to attack dinosaurs." Photos: Where Did the Hobbit Come From?.

DocCroc, by contrast — dog-sized and with a doglike nose — mostly ate plants and grubs. It could run too, but, Sereno suspects, "it probably ran down the bank to escape from dinosaurs." Bucktoothed RatCroc was also small and ate a similar diet. DuckCroc, about 3 ft. long, had a broad snout for rooting in shallow water and onshore, duck-like, for fish and frogs. And PancakeCroc was named for its wide, flat head, which it kept on the bottom, jaws open, waiting for an unsuspecting dinosaur to step in. "Modern crocs can take prey three times their size, if necessary," says Sereno — which means that the 20-ft.-long PancakeCroc could have taken down some reasonably large dinosaurs, like a multiton, long-necked sauropod, for instance. And SuperCroc, which was probably too heavy to run, and which probably lurked at the water's edge, could have taken even bigger ones.

Oddly enough, it was a modern crocodile — an Australian freshwater croc known as a "freshy," that helped Sereno figure out how some of his ancient crocs behaved. "It's able to get up and gallop, unlike the saltwater crocodiles that live nearby," he says. Since many of the ancient crocodiles have legs like the freshies but tails like the salties, he figures they were both good swimmers and good runners — a lethal combination that may explain something intriguing about the dinosaurs.

"[Dinosaurs] never went into the water in a serious way," he says, "never radiated into the oceans the way mammals did after the asteroid hit." Maybe that's because dinos were simply afraid of what lurked in the waters waiting for them.

(Read "Maybe an Asteroid Didn't Kill the Dinosaurs.")

See pictures of the effects of global warming.

Fossil finds slideshow.

2009-11-11T04:54:00.002-06:00

http://news.aol.com/article/fossil-finds-photo-gallery/492446 Click on arrows to view all 34 pictures in slideshow. (photo not available. See slideshow ) All the better to eat you with? Paleontologist Richard Forrest measures the jawbone of a fossilized pliosaur that was discovered off the coast of England. The massive sea monster trawled the ocean 150 million years ago. The skull alone stretched 8 feet -- the entire creature, 52 feet. The discovery was announced Tuesday.

Weird Toothed Dino

2009-11-08T01:25:00.008-06:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/01/dinostory_2001-01-29.html Oddly Angled Teeth Make Masiakasaurus Stick Out

By National Geographic News (January 29, 2001)

It had a long neck and tail, walked on two feet, and weighed about as much as a German shepherd. But the most unique feature of the newly discovered Masiakasaurus knopfleri is its teeth, some of which protruded from its jaw almost horizontally.

Reconstruction of the head of Masiakasaurus knopfleri based on fossils recently discovered in Madagascar. Copyright Bill Parsons

From the blistering sands of the Sahara, paleontologist Paul Sereno has pulled an incredible find: the nearly complete remains of Sarcosuchus imperator, one of the largest crocodilians to ever walk the Earth.

As long as a city bus, and weighing in at about ten tons, “SuperCroc” lives up to its nickname.

Sarcosuchus imperator, or “flesh crocodile emperor,” lived roughly 110 million years ago, when rivers coursed over what is now sub-Saharan Africa. Sarcosuchus prowled the rivers’ banks, crushing fish—and other creatures—in its massive jaws.

Paleontologists first gave Sarcosuchus imperator a name in the 1960s. Four decades later, in 2000, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sereno and his team of fossil hunters found Sarcosuchus remains so enormous they dubbed the creature SuperCroc.

Sereno and his team, funded in part by the National Geographic Society, pored through the hot sands of a fossil graveyard called Gadoufaoua in Niger, unearthing scores of Sarcosuchus remains, including vertebrae, limb bones, armor plates, jaws, and a nearly complete 6-foot (1.8-meter) skull.

From their find, Sereno believes SuperCroc weighed as much as ten tons and measured as long as 40 feet (12 meters).

Now Sereno has teamed with National Geographic’s resident herpetologist, Brady Barr. They’re studying today’s tiny-by-comparison crocodilians—alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gavials—to learn more about the giant SuperCroc, which is undoubtedly one of the largest crocs that ever lived.

" SuperCroc" Fossil Found in Sahara (October 2001)

"SuperCroc" Fossil Found in Sahara

D.L. Parsell National Geographic News

October 25, 2001

SuperCroc Photo Gallery: Go>> Scientists have unearthed the remains of an ancient crocodile that was as long as a city bus and as heavy as a small whale.

The giant creature, which lived 110 million years ago, during the Middle Cretaceous, grew as long as 40 feet (12 meters) and weighed as much as eight metric tons (17,500 pounds).

Its jaws alone were nearly six feet (1.8 meters) long and its more than 100 teeth so powerful that the colossal creature probably consumed small dinosaurs as well as fish, the researchers say.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno and his colleagues pieced together a portrait of the monster—which they've dubbed SuperCroc—based on fossils they've collected at Gadoufaoua in Niger, a remote site in the Sahara Desert where Tuareg nomads roam.

The fossils are from an extinct species that first came to light more than 30 years ago. French paleontologists reported several skulls and other parts of the creature and named it Sarcosuchus imperator, meaning "flesh crocodile emperor."

Much about the giant croc remained a mystery, however, until Sereno's team began excavating at Gadoufaoua in 1997. "People hadn't gone back with any expedition capacity since then, so not much else was collected," said team member Hans Larsson.

The 1997 dig had barely begun when the team discovered the fossilized jaws, each as long as some members of the team. The group had traveled to the site—one of the richest fossil beds in Africa—to search for dinosaurs. But it was immediately clear that the giant jawbones had not come from a dinosaur, Sereno said.

"We had never seen anything like it," he said. "The snout and teeth were designed for grabbing prey—fish, turtles, and dinosaurs that strayed too close."

Other massive crocodiles have been reported, but Sarcosuchus imperator is the most complete specimen found so far and among the largest crocodilians that ever lived.

During expeditions in 1997 and 2000, Sereno's team found skulls, vertebrae, limb bones, and foot-long (30-centimeter) bony armor plates called scutes. From this trove of bones, the scientists were able to assemble about half of the giant croc's skeleton, providing a good picture of Sarcosuchus.

"The new material gives us a good look at hyper-giant crocodiles," said Sereno, an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and a professor at the University of Chicago. "There's been rampant speculation about what they looked like and where they fit in the croc family tree."

David Schwimmer, a paleontologist at Columbus State University in Georgia, said he was familiar with Sereno's discovery and was "thrilled with it" because it helps fill in the picture of giant crocs, which appeared repeatedly in evolutionary history. Schwimmer is an expert on a giant croc genus named Deinosuchus, which was prevalent in North America.

Sereno and his colleagues announced their discovery October 25 at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. The research expedition to Niger last year was funded in part by the National Geographic Society.

The announcement was made in conjunction with the publication of a scientific report on Sarcosuchus by the journal Science, which posted the paper on its Science Express Web site.

The co-authors of the Science paper are Sereno; Larsson, who is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University and the University of Toronto; Christian Sidor of the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury, New York; and Boubé Gado of the Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines in Naimey, Niger Republic.

Not a "Modern" Croc

SuperCroc lived in Africa during the Middle Cretaceous period, when broad rivers stretched across lush plains.

Larsson said Sarcosuchus was not from the same branch of the reptile family tree that gave rise to modern crocodilians, which consist of about 23 species that include alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gharials. "It's not a modern croc, but they share an early common ancestor," he said.

The oldest precursors of crocodiles may have spent more time on land, but Sarcosuchus was a river dweller that appeared after early crocodilians had already split into two separate land-based and marine groups.

Sereno said Sarcosuchus probably spent most of its time underwater, "living an ambush lifestyle." Like the gharial, a large long-nosed crocodilian in India, the ancient croc had eye sockets that tilted upward, which helped it conceal its huge body underwater while scanning the river's edge.

Another distinctive feature that Sarcosuchus had in common with the gharial was a round bony protrusion at the tip of its snout that housed a large bowl-shaped inflatable nasal cavity, called a bulla. The function of the bulla isn't clear, but the researchers think it may have heightened the croc's sense of smell or enabled it to emit striking calls. Larsson said gharials are known to use the muscles around the bulla to make different kinds of sounds, especially for mating.

Sereno said some people have an erroneous image of crocodiles "as dumb, clumsy, silent creatures." But crocodiles "are anything but clumsy, and they communicate extensively by calling, even roaring and splashing," he said. "It looks as if Sarcosuchus did some of that too."

The narrow jaws of an adult Sarcosuchus housed more than 100 teeth, which Larsson likened to "railroad spikes." While the giant croc shared the water with large fish, its hearty teeth—which included bone-crushing incisors—suggest that Sarcosuchus "didn't seem limited to eating fish," Larsson said. Other prey may have been small dinosaurs and other terrestrial animals, such as turtles.

Overlapping rows of scutes covered the crocodile's body from head to tail, forming a tough protective armor. The scutes, like trees, have annual growth rings. By counting these rings in the fossilized scutes, the researchers estimated the giant croc's full life span as 50 to 60 years.

Unusual Diversity

The fossils unearthed at Gadoufaoua included bones from four other croc species of varying sizes that lived at the same time as Sarcosuchus. One specimen was the three-inch (eight-centimeter) skull of a new species of dwarf croc.

The discovery of five ancient species existing side by side was especially interesting, Larsson said, because such diversity at a single site is seldom seen today. "Most modern crocs are relatively similar," he explained. "Perhaps for that reason, you rarely get more than one species at a particular location."

"The reason why we can get five [ancient] species at the same time," he added, "is because of differences in size and antomy. They were not eating the same thing or competing for the same resources."

Early forms of crocodiles first appeared about 230 million years ago, during the late Triassic, and diverged into "an amazing number of forms," said Larsson.

The few existing fossils show that these earliest crocs didn't much resemble the crocodiles we know today. "They were more dog- or cat-size, with elongated limbs like those of a gazelle or antelope," Larsson said. "The skull also was not crocodilian at all, but more 'dog-faced.'"

These earliest forms of crocodiles were succeeded in the late Triassic by a diverse group of terrestrials with squat bodies and more croc-like skulls (Crocodyliformes). In the early Jurassic, crocodilians split into two distinct groups—one group living in water (even sporting tail fins), the other on land. Crocs most like modern ones, with amphibian bodies and distinctive skulls, began emerging in the Early Cretaceous.

Behemoth Rivals?

Although it's still uncertain, Sarcosuchus may have had some rivals throughout history that matched or exceeded it in size and weight.

As with dinosaurs, many branches of crocodilians spawned giants. "There are actually quite a few giant crocodilians," said Schwimmer. "The idea of really big crocs is a repeat theme in evolution."

Deinosuchus, the subject of much of Schwimmer's research, lived in the Late Cretaceous, which means it's younger than Sarcosuchus. The two species "were not closely related," Schwimmer noted.

The range of Deinosuchus was much of North America. It dwelled from New Jersey to Montana, and was especially common in Texas and Alabama. The first report of the species came in 1858, based on ancient teeth that were discovered in North Carolina, said Schwimmer, who has received research grants from the National Geographic Society.

A number of fairly complete skulls of Deinosuchus have been found, but "we haven't yet put together a full body reconstruction," said Schwimmer. Once that happens, he added, the analysis might show that Deinosuchus was similar in body size or even bigger than Sarcosuchus.

That conjecture is based in part on differences in the snouts of the two species. "Sarcosuchus had a long, narrow snout, so a lot of its length is in the snout," Schwimmer explained. "But Deinosuchus was broad-snouted, built more like an alligator, so a skull of the same length [as Sarcosuchus] would, based on proportional size, be an even bigger animal."

Why have giant crocs recurred throughout evolutionary history?

One reason, Schwimmer said, is because crocodilians have been primarily aquatic. Massive bodies, like those of whales, are especially suited to an aquatic environment because they can float, thereby diminishing the physical burden of size that would be more taxing on land.

Another advantage is that crocodiles have osteoderms, or skin armor, across their backs. These armor plates are embedded in the creatures' back tissue, helping to support the back "like an external flying buttress," Schwimmer said. Crocodiles also have very strong skulls, he added, "so they can bite hard and feed on big prey."

Research Supported by the National Geographic Society:

Paul Sereno is one of a distinguished group of scientists from around the globe, in fields ranging from astronomy to zoology, who have been awarded grants from the National Geographic Society. Here are some recent news stories about the work of other NGS grantees:

Legged Sea Cow Fossil Found in Jamaica Africa's Rock Art in Peril After Thousands of Years Meerkats Become Fat Cats in Large Cooperatives Ancient Walking Whales Shed Light on Ancestry of Ocean Giants DNA Tests Show African Elephants Are Two Species Study Calls Into Question Global Quotas on Bluefin Tuna Skeleton of New Dinosaur Species Found in Madagascar Russian Tombs Hold Clues to Obscure Life of Asian Huns Egyptian Archaeologist Named National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Total Eclipse May Help Solve Mystery of Sun's "Halo" Expedition Reveals Black Coral's Bleak State Ancient Reptile Was First To Chew Plants

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/supercroc/supercroc-photography

Godzilla - Real Life Sea Monster

2009-11-07T02:25:00.019-06:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/photogalleries/godzilla/

Photos: 'Godzilla' Fossils Reveal Real-Life Sea Monster (November 2005

Fossils from a real-life sea monstera massive crocodile-like specieshave been unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina. The animal likely measured 13 feet (4 meters) long from nose to tail. The researchers who made the discovery say the marine reptile, nicknamed Godzilla, lived about 135 million years ago. They describe their find in the November 11, 2005, issue of the journal Science. Details about the ancient predator will also appear in the December 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine. The article will feature exclusive images, like this illustration, of what the reptile might have looked like. The fossilized skull of a newfound species of ancient marine reptile, pictured above, measures about two and a half feet (one meter) long. The creature's large jaws and jagged teeth prompted researchers to nickname the animal Godzilla after the sci-fi legend that first emerged from the ocean to terrorize Japan in the 1954 cult classic Gojira. "Other marine crocodiles that were around at the same time had very delicate featureslong, skinny snouts and needle-like teeth for catching small fish and mollusks," Diego Pol said in a press statement. The Ohio State University researcher helped identify the Paleontologist Zulma Gasparini, a professor at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de La Plata, examines the skull of the newly discovered species of ancient marine reptile. Gasparini and colleague Luis Spalletti recently unearthed the skull and other fossils in Patagonia. The scientists, along with Ohio State University researcher Diego Pol, describe their find in the November 11, 2005, issue of the journal Science and the December 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine. Computer images of the skull of a newfound species of crocodile-like marine reptile show how the massive predator might have looked. Diego Pol, a researcher at Ohio State University, used sophisticated software to map the features of the skull and other fossils discovered in Argentina. Using these images, Pol was able to place the unusual creature on the crocodile family tree.

TRex of Ocean Found in Arctic

2009-11-07T01:01:00.026-06:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/photogalleries/seamonster-pictures/index.html February 27, 2008Dubbed the "the Monster," this newly identified fossil predator is one of the largest marine reptiles ever found, scientists announced today. (Read full story.) The 50-foot-long (15-meter-long) "sea monster" was excavated last summer on Norway's Arctic island of Spitsbergen (see map). The Monster likely represents the biggest species of pliosaur known to science, said Jxrn Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, who led the dig teamand who called the reptile "the T. rex of the ocean." Pliosaurs were the top marine predators during the Jurassic period (200 to 145 million years ago), but their fossils are rarely found. The Monster is portrayed here leaping after a pterosaur, but the creature's main prey was likely other large sea reptiles. (See 3-D animations of other sea monsters in our interactive time line.) ................................................................. A newly excavated pliosaur from the Arctic island of Spitsbergen is illustrated in the company of a blue whale, a killer whale, and a human. The prehistoric "sea monster" is one of the largest marine reptiles known to science. Its head alone measures some ten feet (three meters) long, the Norwegian-led team that found the fossil skeleton announced on February 27, 2008. While blue whales are considered the planet's biggest ever animals, pliosaurs probably had the biggest bite, according to sea-reptile fossil expert Richard Forrest. "Inside their enormous skulls they had huge areas of muscle available for biting force," said Forrest, who is affiliated with the New Walk Museum in Leicester, England. "One of these animals would have been big and strong enough to pick up a small car and bite it in half." ........................................................................ A 150-million-year-old pliosaur with teeth the size of cucumbers, was excavated by fossil hunters last year among the desolate mountains of Spitsbergen, part of Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The recently discovered fossil site is described as a graveyard of dinosaur-era marine reptiles, including dolphin-shaped ichthyosaurs and previously unknown forms of long-necked plesiosaurs. (See related pictures: "'Sea Monster' Graveyard Found in the Arctic".) Some 40 skeletons have been located at the site as of February 27, 2008, when the new "sea monster" was announced. A second pliosaur fossil was also located in the barren landscape in the summer of 2007. The team plans to excavate the newfound skeleton during a return visit later in 2008. ............................................................................................ The remains of a massive pliosaur excavated on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen include sections of dinner-plate-size vertebrae and an almost complete forelimb "paddle." "Although we didn't get the entire skeleton, we found many of the most important parts," said team member Patrick Druckenmiller. "Amazingly, the paddle alone is nearly ten feet [three meters] long." The ocean predator likely used its giant flippers to launch sudden, ferocious attacks on other marine reptiles, according to fossil expert Richard Forrest. "We don't think they were particularly good at cruising but were very good at accelerating, so they'd lurk in the depths and shoot up to catch things," he said on February 26, 2008, the day before these images were released.

—Illustration by Tor Sponga/BT (top); Drawing by Espen M. Knutsen/ Natural History Museum/University of Oslo/Norway

.................................................. Fossil hunters removed a hundred tons of rock by hand last summer to extract the skeleton of a huge pliosaur in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Revealed to the public on February 27, 2008, the "sea monster" is one of the biggest marine reptiles ever found. It was discovered at the site of 40 other large Jurassic-era sea creatures some 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from the North Pole. The reptiles swam in temperate seas and sank to the ocean floor after they died, where their bodies were preserved in soft mud, according to expedition leader Hurum. The pliosaur's fossil bones have been softened by freezing Arctic conditions, Hurum noted. "They are almost like gravelthey have been frozen and thawed many, many times." So far, 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of glue have been used to stabilize the skeleton, he said

—Photograph by Natural History Museum/University o >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/photogalleries/arctic-monster/index.html A 33-foot-long (10-meter-long) marine reptile dubbed the Monster leaps from the water to snare a smaller reptile known as a plesiosaur in this artist's interpretation. The Monster is a member of a group of dino-era sea creatures called pliosaurs. Its fossil was among 28 specimens of predatory sea reptiles recently found on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. The 150-million-year-old graveyard was unearthed by a team from the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum, along with a paleontologist from Montana State University in Bozeman. The remains of the Monster may represent the largest complete pliosaur ever found. So far the team has uncovered a skull measuring 6.9 feet (2.1 meters) in length, dinner plate-size neck vertebrae, and portions of the lower jaw with huge teeth that the scientists say are as thick as cucumbers. Cliffs rise along the Inner Isfjorden, the second longest fjord in the Svalbard archipelago. The Norwegian islands lie about 600 miles (966 kilometers) from the North Pole. Experts say the recent discovery of a huge "sea monster" graveyard ranks the Arctic islandalready noted for its large polar bear populationas one of the best marine reptile fossil sites in the world. An outline of small rocks traces the final resting place of the fossil known as the Monster on the island of Spitsbergen. The labels show where different parts of the massive pliosaur have been revealed in the shale. Pliosaurs were the top marine predators of the Jurassic (200 million to 145 million years ago), a time when the oceans were teeming with large, meat-eating reptiles, says Jxrn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo. It was the T. rex of the ocean, Hurum added. It would have eaten everything. And the reptile's powerful jaws, scientists say, would have been capable of lifting a car and biting it in half.

—Photograph courtesy Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway

The skull of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile that resembles a dolphin, is prepared for study after it was found in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard. Ichthyosaurs, likely once a common prey for larger sea beasts such as pliosaurs, used an upright tail fin to propel themselves through the water. Most ichthyosaurs averaged 13 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) in length, but some reached 75 feet (23 meters). The Monster hunts a pair of ichthyosaurs in this artist's interpretation. The bed of fossils where the large pliosaur has been discovered also yielded six ichthyosaurs, including specimens that may be species new to science

Ancient Sea Life In Utah

2009-11-07T00:43:00.007-06:00

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/history-archaeology-news/utah-dig-missions-wcvin.html .......................................... .............................................................. T.Rex of Inland Sea http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/photogalleries/seamonster-pictures/index.html

Pterosauria

2009-11-07T00:14:00.007-06:00

More comprehensive article about Pterosauria at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosauria ............................................................................................................................................... Pterosaur Introduction to the Pterosauria The flying reptiles Rhamphorhynchus A fossil of Rhamphorhynchus, an early pterosaur. Ranging from the size of a sparrow to the size of an airplane, the pterosaurs (Greek for "wing lizards") ruled the skies in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and included the largest vertebrate ever known to fly: the late Cretaceous Quetzalcoatlus. The appearance of flight in pterosaurs was separate from the evolution of flight in birds and bats; pterosaurs are not closely related to either birds or bats, and thus provide a classic example of convergent evolution. It was once thought that pterosaurs were not well adapted for active flight and relied largely on gliding and on the wind to stay in the air. However, based on analyses of pterosaur skeletal features (including work done by Berkeley's own Kevin Padian), it is now thought that all but the largest pterosaurs could sustain powered flight. Pterosaurs had hollow bones, large brains with well-developed optic lobes, and several crests on their bones to which flight muscles attached. All of this is consistent with powered flapping flight. Various pterosaurs The largest pterosaur (Quetzalcoatlus, wonderfully named for the Aztec winged serpent god) had a wing span from eleven to twelve meters long (about forty feet). The wing's main support was an amazingly elongated fourth digit in the hand. Fibers in the wing membrane added structural support and stiffness. At least some pterosaurs may have had some sort of hair-like body covering, which could very well mean that they were endothermic. Pterosaurs had a diverse range of head types, as you can tell from the pictures below. Their ability to fly probably allowed them to evolve into many niches, taking advantage of many different food sources, which would explain the range of skull morphology seen. Pterosaurs consist of two main types (they do form a single (monophyletic) group, though): the "rhamphorhynchoids," more properly termed the basal Pterosauria, which had long tails, and their descendants the "pterodactyloids," which had shorter tails. Why is the term "rhamphorhynchoid" an invalid one? Since the later Pterosauria (the"pterodactyloids") are the descendants of the basal Pterosauria, "rhamphorhynchoid" is a paraphyletic term, which phylogenetic researchers shy away from using. The basal Pterosauria (including Rhamphorhynchus, pictured at the top of this page) first appeared in the Late Triassic and all went extinct at the end of the Jurassic. The more derived pterosaurs (including Pteranodon, below) that were the descendants of this group appear first in Late Jurassic rocks, and the last of them died out at the end of the Cretaceous. Below is a mounted skeleton of Pteranodon ingens on display at the UCMP. Click on the picture to view an enlargement. What was Pteranodon like? Pteranodon skeleton Pteranodon. Photo by Dave Smith, © 2005 UCMP. The genus Pteranodon includes several species of large pterosaurs from the Cretaceous period in North America. As you can tell from this photo, it had a large crested head, a huge wingspan (some 20-25 feet; the UCMP specimen is about 22 feet), and a comparatively small body. This is deceiving; it looks like the head and wing bones were too bulky, and the hindlimbs appear small and weak. Not so; the bones of Pteranodon are actually completely hollow (about 1 millimeter thick!), and were quite light. The whole animal probably weighed about 25 pounds, only slightly heavier than the largest flying birds. The hindlimbs are actually perfectly sized for the body; Pteranodon would have been capable of bipedal terrestrial movement (but was no rapid runner, unlike its ancestors, some of whom seem to have been fast bipedal runners). The wing bones look thick because a large bone diameter is more vital for resisting the bending stresses involved in flight (as opposed to large bone thickness, which is important for resisting compressive forces, such as those imposed by the weight of a large body), so actually the wings of Pteranodon were more than adequate for flight. Pteranodon was almost certainly a soaring animal; it used rising warm air to maintain altitude; a common strategy among large winged animals (among birds, albatrosses and vultures are adept at soaring). Its scooplike beak was used for snapping up fish as it soared over the oceans that it nested by. A good modern analog for Pteranodon would be the pelican. The UCMP's mounted specimen of Pteranodon ingens is actually a composite specimen, pieced together from a few different specimens to form a complete one.i

Find out more about Pterosauria by searching our Vertebrate Type Catalog or visit the Pterosaur Database.

……………………………

UCMP Special Exhibit: Vertebrate Flight For more information on pterosaur flight, see the pterosaurian flight portion of our series of pages on the wonder of flight in vertebrates.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html

Earlier, Smaller Version of T.Rex Found

2009-10-31T00:57:00.007-05:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090917-tiny-t-rex-dinosaur-raptorex.html (photos in article below first)

Tiny "T. Rex" Found -- 150-Pound Species Came First

Rebecca Caroll for National Geographic News

September 17, 2009

If dinosaur evolution were an Austin Powers movie, T. rex would be Dr. Evil. And today scientists unveiled Mini-Me.

But in this case, it was the tiny terror that gave rise to the larger, more infamous relation.

Raptorex kriegsteini, described this week in the journal Science, likely lived about 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.

That's almost twice as far back as the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, which first arose about 85 million years ago, according to study leader Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago.

Raptorex has all the main characteristics of its larger descendants such as T. rex—big head, nipping teeth, stubby arms, fast legs—but packed into a 9-foot (3-meter) frame.

This T. rex design in miniature "reveals a spectacular carnivore strategy," according to Sereno, a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

(Read National Geographic magazine editor Chris Sloan's take on Raptorex.)

Tiny T. rex "Evolutionarily Staggering"

The 150-pound (70-kilogram) Raptorex "was running things down, dispatching them with its powerful jaws, and clutching them with its two-fingered hands"—the same hunting strategy that apparently worked for 6-ton T. rex, Sereno said.

"That's the pretty evolutionarily staggering thing," he added. Raptorex is T. rex, but "scaled up, almost without change, a hundred times."

The find runs counter to previous theories, which had said that T. rex's stumpy arms were a relatively recent evolutionary development. As tyrannosaurs got larger, their arms simply didn't scale up fast enough, and the limbs eventually became small in relation to the dinosaurs' oversized bodies, the older theories say.

It's still thought, however, that T. rex's earlier ancestors—even before Raptorex—had relatively long arms.

T. rex-style Arms Not a Liability

The new dinosaur is "a very significant find" for understanding the evolution of tyrannosaurs, said paleontologist Thomas Holtz of the University of Maryland.

"We didn't know where and when in the history of the tyrannosaurs this arm-shortening occurred," said Holtz, who was not part of the study.

"Now the question is going to be, What were they doing [with those small arms]?" Holtz said. "There's not much of a reach," he added, speculating that the tyrannosaurs grabbed prey first with their jaws and then used their arms to help hold onto their quarry.

Study leader Sereno noted that it can be hard for people to appreciate the trade-offs that evolution inevitably entails.

"It would seem to a human that forelimbs are so useful, that only when you got to the size of a tyrannosaur and you could frighten everybody with a growl could you get rid of [forearms]," he said.

"But this common sense type of thinking almost never works with evolution," Sereno said. In the tyrannosaurs, for instance, "long, heavy forelimbs are a significant burden and would seriously curtail agility in the hunt."

Smuggled T. rex Ancestor Heading Home

The new findings are based on a nearly complete Chinese dinosaur skeleton, which was excavated in secret, smuggled into the United States, and sold at auction to private collector Henry Kriegstein.

Sereno said he convinced Kriegstein to donate the fossil back to science.

Although the exact location the dinosaur came from will never be known, the excavated block containing the dinosaur's skeleton also included fish bones and clamshells that link it to Northern China's Yixian fossil formation.

Raptorex kriegsteini, named after the collector's father, an Auschwitz survivor, will eventually be shipped back to Northern China, where it will be displayed in a museum in Hohhot, the capital of China's Inner Mongolia region.

"Fossils like these should be protected from smugglers, or there's a chance they could disappear forever," Sereno said.

Until that day comes, Sereno hopes the story of this fossil can serve as a model for saving—and learning from—smuggled dinosaurs.

"I think everybody involved with this Raptorex is a winner here," he said.

............................... story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/ap_on_sc/us_sci_tiny_t_rex

Early, smaller version of T. rex found

This undated handout illustration provided by the journal Science shows a Raptorex. Weighing as little as 1/100th of its descendant T.Rex, Raptorex shows off its distinctive body plan of this most dominant line of predatory dinosaurs. About 125 million years ago a tiny version of Tyrannosaurus rex roamed what is now northeastern China. Tiny, that is, by T. rex standards — you still wouldn't want to meet it face to face. Described by paleontologist Paul Sereno as 'punk size,' this early predator stood about 9 feet tall. It just seems small compared to the giant T. rex that evolved millions of years later and was as much as 100 times more massive. (AP Photo/Science, Todd Marshall) This image released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shows the two-fingered forelimb of an adult T. rex and the very similar 8-inch (20.3-cm) forelimb of Raptorex. The relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex was unearthed in China, researchers said. (AFP/AAAS-HO/Mike Hettwer) This image released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shows the skull of Raptorex dwarfed by the skull of 'Sue', the famous adult T. rex at the Field Museum in Chicago. The relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex was unearthed in China, researchers said. (AFP/AAAS-HO/Paul Sereno)

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Thu Sep 17, 5:44 pm ET

WASHINGTON – About 125 million years ago a tiny version of Tyrannosaurus rex roamed what is now northeastern China. Tiny, that is, by T. rex standards — you still wouldn't want to meet it face to face.

Described by paleontologist Paul Sereno as "punk size," this early predator would have weighed about 150 pounds.

It just seems small compared to the giant T. rex that evolved millions of years later and was as much as 100 times more massive.

"It really is the blueprint for the later (T. rex) dinosaurs," Sereno said, "it was a blueprint that was scalable."

Described for the first time in Thursday's ScienceExpress, the online edition of the journal Science, the new dinosaur has been named Raptorex kriegsteini.

Sereno reports that Raptorex has all the hallmarks of T. rex, including a large head, tiny arms and lanky feet — just in a smaller size.

"What we're looking at is a blueprint for a fast-running set of jaws," Sereno said at a briefing arranged by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The giant T. rex dominated much of the planet from about 90 million years ago until the great extinction 65 million years ago.

Raptorex would have stood a lanky 9 feet tall, said Sereno, of the University of Chicago and also a National Geographic explorer in residence.

The newly described remains were found by fossil hunters in northern China, smuggled out of that country and offered for sale to collector Henry Kriegstein of Higham, Mass., Sereno said. Kriegstein, for whom the animal is now named, donated the materials to science and they will be returned to China.

The fossil was encased in a single block of stone, Sereno said. That stone allowed the researchers to trace the find to its original location.

The way the bones were fused indicates the animal died at the age of five or six, which is nearly adult. It would have matured at eight or 10 and been old by 20, added co-author Stephen Brusatte of the American Museum of Natural History.

The find also shows that features such as the animal's tiny arms did not evolve as T. rex grew larger, but were present in the much earlier forms, Brusatte said.

"Much of what we thought we knew about T. rex turns out to be simplistic or out-and-out wrong," Brusatte said.

Sereno said Raptorex was a predator. Some scientists debate whether T. rex was a predator or scavenger.

Dinosaur expert John R. Horner of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University was cautious about the find.

"It's hard to evaluate their conclusions," he said, calling the report interesting but adding that the drawing in the paper shows some differences from a T. rex in addition to being smaller.

However, he added, he didn't see anything that would disprove their theory that Raptorex was an ancestor of T. rex.

The research was funded by the Whitten-Newman Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

Big Blobs-Giant Protozoans

2009-04-10T19:30:00.005-05:00

Big Blobs Change View of Evolution

By Sarah Hoffman, Natural History Magazine

posted: 28 March 2009 10:26 am ET

Above: a close-up view of Gromia sphaerica, about the size of a grape. Below: G. sphaerica making tracks on the seafloor. The modern tracks resemble ancient fossilized tracks seen elsewhere. Scientists had thought the fossilized tracks were made by multicellular creatures, perhaps worms. Now they're wondering if G. sphaerica long ago made the fossilized tracks. Credit: Mikhail Matz, the University of Texas at Austin/NOAA/HBOI

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: The giant deep sea protist, Gromia sphaerica, approaches three large cup corals growing on a half-buried sea urchin. Credit: Mikhail Matz, the University of Texas at Austin

On a submersible dive off the Bahamas, Mikhail V. Matz of the University of Texas at Austin and several colleagues were seeking big-eyed, glowing animals adapted to darkness.

Yet as they cruised above the seafloor, the team was distracted by hundreds of bizarre, sediment-coated balls the size of grapes. Each sat at the end of a sinuous track in the seafloor ooze. Indeed, the balls appeared to have made the tracks; some even seemed to have rolled upslope.

The team collected specimens and identified the creatures as giant protozoans, Gromia sphaerica, each one a single large cell with an organic shell, or "test." When cleaned of sediment, the test feels like grape skin, but squishier, Matz says.

Surprisingly, the tracks on the Bahamian seafloor resemble grooves found in sedimentary rocks formed as long as 1.8 billion years ago. The ancient grooves, bisected by a low ridge, had constituted the only evidence that multicellular, bilaterally symmetrical animals, such as worms, might have evolved so early in Earth's history.

Matz's discovery [of modern tracks apparently left by G. sphaerica] suggests that protozoans could have made those fossil traces rather than more advanced animals, which probably appeared much later. The next earliest evidence of multicellularity and bilateralism in animals occurs in fossils 580 million and 542 million years old, respectively.

G. sphaerica are rhizopods, an ancient protozoan group. Matz is planning further studies of the species, about which little is known.

The findings were detailed in the journal Current Biology in November.

Russian Creatures Resembling Horse Shoe Crabs.

2009-04-09T02:35:00.027-05:00

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/creature-2804/ Photos: Russian Creature found in abandoned pit. All photos webpark.ru Horse Shoe Crabs below (photos from internet): Compare to Russian Creatures above wierd creature These weird creatures (top photos)were found in an abandoned foundation pit in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. They bear a remarkable resemblance to the familiar horse shoe crab (lower set of photos). The tails of the creatures appear thicker and longer than that of horse shoe crabs, and there seems to be a difference in the shell formation. However, there are several different species of horse shoe crabs and I cannot find photos of each specie. Is this a horse shoe crab variant? Horse shoe crabs apparently come out of the sea only to procreate and bury their eggs in sand. Is there saline intertidal sand flats near the foundation pit so that the creatures bent on mating could have fallen into it? OR -- are these some sort of mutated horse shoe crab resulting from radiation poisoning from Chernobyl or other sources? (A serious nuclear accident occurred in 1957 at the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, 150 km north-west of the city, caused deaths in Chelyabinsk Oblast but not in the city. The province was closed to all foreigners until 1992. - wikipedia)

Mystery Sea Creature Washed Ashore

2009-04-09T02:22:00.006-05:00

Hellish hairy sea monster cast ashore

A strange ugly sea monster was cast ashore in Guinea. I have been unable to locate any real news about this creature. Various sites have described it as a decomposed juvenile whale, somewhat shredded by sea creatures scavaging it and causing it to look "hairy". It would seem that on site observers and scientists who alleged to have seen similar creatures would be able to distinguish shredded flesh from hair.

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/sea_monster-1816

Madagascar Extinct Great Elephant Bird

2009-03-25T16:10:00.006-05:00

http://www.answers.com/topic/aepyornis-1

elephant bird

Animal Classification: Elephant birds

(Aepyornithidae)

Class: Aves

Order: Struthioniformes

Suborder: Aepyornithes

Family: Aepyornithidae

Thumbnail description Extinct, large, flightless birds of massive build, known only from fragmentary fossil remains

Size Some species probably 10 ft (3 m), 880 lb (400 kg)

Number of genera, species 2 genera; 7 species

Habitat Thought to have inhabited woodland and forest in southwest Madagascar

Conservation status Extinct

Distribution Madagascar

Evolution and systematics

Elephant birds belong to the group of large, flightless birds known as ratites. Ratites had a distinctive palate, and a sternum (breastbone) with no keel, so there was no anchor for the strong musculature needed for powered flight.

The origin of these birds has recently been clarified by the discovery of numerous good fossils in North America and Europe. Ratites were once thought to have a southern origin in the ancient continent of Gondwana, but new fossil evidence shows that flying ratites inhabited the Northern Hemisphere in the Paleocene and Eocene, 40–70 million years ago. The present Southern Hemisphere distribution of ratites probably resulted from the spread of flying ancestors of the group from the north.

Another indication that ancestors of elephant birds reached Madagascar as flying birds is that no fossils of ratites or elephant birds are found in India. In the process of separation of Gondwana into multiple continents, Madagascar and India remained joined for millions of years after breaking away from Gondwana. If elephant birds had walked to Madagascar, they would surely also have reached India. On the other hand, numerous remains of birds from genera such as Mullerornis and Aepyornis are known from the Quaternary period of Madagascar. They were found in rock strata that are at most two million years old.

Elephant birds seem most closely related to present-day ostriches. Two fossil birds, Eremopezus eocaenus and Stromeria fajumensis, from the lower Tertiary of Egypt are sometimes placed in the Aepyornithidae, but opinion is divided about their relationships and they are omitted from the family in this treatment.

Seven separate species of elephant bird are known to have existed: Mullerornis betsilei, Mullerornis agilis, Mullerornis rudis, Aepyornis maximus, Aepyornis medius, Aepyornis hildebrandti, and Aepyornis gracilis.

Physical characteristics

No precise estimate can be made of the size and weight of these birds. Some were very large, up to 10 ft (3 m) tall, and weighed 880 lb (400 kg). Others were probably smaller, but more fossil material is needed to give good size-range estimates. When x-rayed, some eggs reveal embryonic elephant birds, giving clues about the form of the whole bird, or at least its chick. The middle bone of the leg, the tibia, is longer than the lowest bone, the tarsus, indicating the birds were not fast runners. They had no need to run because other animals on Madagascar were no larger than a cat.

Distribution

Most early reports and recent fossil material have come from southwestern Madagascar. Two intact elephant bird eggs were found on the beaches of western Australia, on the far side of the Indian Ocean from Madagascar. It was concluded that these eggs were laid near the sea, washed into the sea by rivers or brought to the coast by human inhabitants of Madagascar, and floated to western Australia. Their survival on a journey of at least 5,000 mi (8,000 km) is remarkable.

Habitat

Étienne de Flacourt, the first French governor of Madagascar, was the first to report to scientists about elephant birds. He stated that a giant bird called "vouron patra" was still frequently found in the southern half of the island in the mid-seventeenth century. It is thought that elephant birds lived in the forests and woodlands of southwestern Madagascar. When human inhabitants arrived on the island about 2,000 years ago, they fragmented and burned these environments, causing the birds to lose their livelihood and become extinct soon after Flacourt's report.

Behavior

Nothing is known of the behavior of these birds. An account by Marco Polo in which large birds seized elephants, flew into the sky, then dropped the elephants to kill them and feast on them is a delightful fairy tale that may have given elephant birds their name.

Feeding ecology and diet

Elephant birds are thought to have fed on forest fruits. They may have been important in the dispersal of some fruit-bearing plants on the island—plants that are now known only from a few very old individual trees.

Reproductive biology

It is likely that elephant birds laid small clutches, perhaps of only one egg, and therefore reproduced slowly. The first scientific data on elephant birds was a report on their eggs made when a traveler named Sganzin sent a sketch of one of the giant eggs to collector Jules Verreaux from Madagascar in 1832. The eggs would have weighed about 13 lb (6 kg) and would be some of the largest single cells ever known.

Conservation status

Extinct.

Significance to humans

Flacourt reported that the natives used remains of elephant bird eggs as vessels. The shells are several millimeters thick; they may be more than 12 in (30 cm) long, and their volume is given as more than 1.6 gal (6 l). This corresponds to more than six ostrich eggs or more than 150 chicken eggs. Even today, many broken eggshells litter the beaches of southwestern Madagascar. The eggs and the birds that laid them must have been a great food resource for local people.

Javan Rhino - Soon Extinct?

2009-03-22T07:38:00.006-05:00

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/animals-news/javan-rhino-apvin.html

Javan Rhinoceros

Javan Rhinoceros^[1]

A European hunter with a dead Javan Rhino in 1895

Conservation status

Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)^[2]

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	Rhinocerotidae
Genus:	Rhinoceros
Species:	R. sondaicus

Binomial name

Rhinoceros sondaicus Desmarest, 1822^[3]

Javan Rhinoceros Range^[4]

Subspecies

Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus Rhinoceros sondaicus inermis (extinct) Rhinoceros sondaicus sondaicus

The Javan Rhinoceros (Sunda Rhinoceros to be more precise) or Lesser One-horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is a member of the family Rhinocerotidae and one of five extant rhinoceroses. It belongs to the same genus as the Indian Rhinoceros, and has similar mosaicked skin which resembles armor, but at 3.1–3.2 m (10–10.5 feet) in length and 1.4–1.7 m (4.6–5.8 ft) in height, it is smaller than the Indian Rhinoceros, and is closer in size to the Black Rhinoceros. Its horn is usually less than 25 cm (10 inches), smaller than those of the other rhino species.

Once the most widespread of Asian rhinoceroses, the Javan Rhinoceros ranged from the islands of Indonesia, throughout Southeast Asia, and into India and China. The species is now critically endangered, with only two known populations in the wild, and none in zoos. It is possibly the rarest large mammal on earth.^[5] A population of at least 40–50 live in Ujung Kulon National Park on the island of Java in Indonesia and a small population, estimated in 2007 to be no more than eight, survives in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam. The decline of the Javan Rhinoceros is attributed to poaching, primarily for their horns, which are highly-valued in traditional Chinese medicine, fetching as much as $30,000 per kilogram on the black market.^[5] Loss of habitat, especially as the result of wars, such as the Vietnam War, in Southeast Asia, has also contributed to the species's decline and hindered recovery.^[6] The remaining range is only within two nationally-protected areas, but the rhinos are still at risk from poachers, disease and loss of genetic diversity leading to inbreeding depression.

The Javan Rhino can live approximately 30–45 years in the wild. It historically inhabited lowland rain forest, wet grasslands and large floodplains. The Javan Rhino is mostly solitary, except for courtship and child-rearing, though groups may occasionally congregate near wallows and salt licks. Aside from humans, adults have no predators in their range. The Javan Rhino usually avoids humans, but will attack when it feels threatened. Scientists and conservationists rarely study the animals directly due to their extreme rarity and the danger of interfering with such an endangered species. Researchers rely on camera traps and fecal samples to gauge health and behavior. Consequently, the Javan Rhino is the least studied of all rhino species.

Click here for remainder of article.

Chimps Use Tools - Have Culture

2009-03-22T06:57:00.021-05:00

Chimps use tools: Breaking into a bee hive for honey >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/News/story?id=144342&page=1

Researchers See How Chimps Use Tools

Researchers See How Chimpanzees Use Tools

By NED POTTER Oct. 6, 2004

Yes, we know they're cute, and, yes, we knew they were smart. But new research shows African chimpanzees to be smarter than anyone thought.

It has long been known that they use sticks as crude tools — but now there is proof that they switch tools, something that had never been seen before. Scientists say that is a remarkably advanced concept for a primate.

"An analogy is, say, a human goes into the garage and picks, among a set of screwdrivers, a flathead instead of a Phillips head," said Augustin Fuentes, an associate professor of anthropology at Notre Dame. "This shows us that chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent, incredibly cognizant of their surroundings, and do very complex things."

Chimps Carrying Tool Sets

With sponsorship from the National Geographic Society and New York's Wildlife Conservation Society, a team of researchers went to the Goualougo Triangle, a remote forest in the Republic of Congo.

There, they set up remote-controlled video cameras and left them running for six months.

The chimps learned to ignore them — and went on to the much more interesting business of catching termites for lunch.

"I can't even tell you the surprise that we had [when viewing] that first video clip," said Crickette Sanz, the anthropologist from Washington University who led the expedition. "They [the chimps] arrive at these nests and they are carrying their tool sets with them. So they know the location that they're going to. And they're prepared. They've gathered the appropriate materials. And they arrive there ready to extract the termites from that underground nest or that elevated nest."

Sanz and her partner, David Morgan, have been camping in the Congolese forest to study the chimpanzees.

"To see it — the chimps using tools — and then to see it so clearly, it was a window into their lives that we had thought an awful lot about," Morgan said by satellite telephone. "But to be able to see it and to describe it and understand it a little bit better was amazing."

Sanz, Morgan and a third researcher, Steve Gulick, have just reported their findings in The American Naturalist, an academic journal.

Time and again, they say, the video, from six different locations in the forest, would show much the same thing: a chimpanzee using a sturdy stick to make a hole in a termite nest.

That done, the chimps would switch to a much thinner twig. They would flatten out the end with their teeth and use it to scoop out termites to eat.

The chimps would sometimes leave their stick tools in place to share with other chimps from their group. Other times, said Sanz, they would take the tools with them, apparently to reuse them elsewhere.

Line Is Blurring

Why does it matter if a chimp changes tools? Fuentes, the Notre Dame anthropologist who approved the publication of the study, says that until now, we've only known of one other species smart enough to do such a thing: human beings.

"We're not going to see chimpanzees flying airplanes; we're not going to see chimpanzees opening bank branches," said Fuentes with a smile. "We are, however, going to see chimpanzees doing the kinds of stuff we think our ancestors did."

So don't worry, say the scientists, we humans are still smarter; for one thing, the chimps depend on us to protect their forests.

But the line between human and animal, says Fuentes, just got a little murkier.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Chimpanzees make and use spears

Category: mammalogy Posted on: February 22, 2007 7:11 PM, by Darren Naish

By now you've probably heard the news: chimpanzees have been reported manufacturing, and using, spears (Gibbons 2007, Pruetz & Bertolani 2007). I'll say that again. Chimps Pan troglodytes make and use spears....

Specifically, the chimps concerned are of the subspecies P. t. verus, a taxon that some researchers (Morin et al. 1994, 1995) have tentatively elevated to specific status. As reported in Current Biology by Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University and Paco Bertolani of the University of Cambridge, the observations concern the 35 chimps of the Fongoli site in Senegal. On more than 20 occasions between March 2005 and July 2006 the Fongoli chimps were observed to fashion wooden spears and then use them in hunting concealed bushbaby prey that were hiding in cavities in trees and branches. Unlike many of the tool-using chimps we are familiar with, such as the Gombe and Tai National Park chimps, the Fongoli chimps are not rainforest animals, but inhabit a grassland-woodland mosaic.

Tool use in chimps has been known about for several decades, and over the years the sorts of tools that chimps have been observed using have become increasingly sophisticated. Termite fishing was reported by Jane Goodall in the 1960s and the use of hammers and anvils to break open nuts became well known in the 1990s (Goodall 1968, Boesch et al. 1994). The adjacent image shows one of the Gombe chimps using a tool to catch termites: those who've read any of Goodall's research will know the significance of the chimpanzee individual shown in the photo [image from here]. While there is one account in which a Tanzanian chimp was reported to use a tool to rouse a squirrel that was then killed and eaten (Huffman & Kalunde 1993), the manufacture and use of spears* is something very, very new. The chimps would break off a live branch, remove its twigs and leaves, and then form a sharpened point with their incisor teeth. The resultant tools averaged 60 cm in length.

* Some primatologists have already noted that use of the term 'spear' implies that the objects are thrown at prey, whereas the tools used by the Fongoli chimps are apparently used as stabbing weapons. There may, then, be some dispute over terminology.

The tools were deployed, not simply as probing devices as is the case when the chimps fish for termites, but as stabbing weapons that were thrust forcefully into the cavities. The spears were not used to extract the prey: from the description that Pruetz & Bertolani (2007) provide it seems that the bushbabies were killed within the cavity by the spear tip, and then extracted by hand. Only one successful kill was observed, and even in that case it could not be determined with certainty whether the spear was responsible for the death of the bushbaby. However, the evidence still looks pretty good.

The fact that chimps manufacture spears raises the possibility that such tools appeared much earlier within hominid history than we've thought until now. This ties in with recent work on archaeological sites, showing that chimps in what is now the Tai National Park have been using stone tools for thousands of years: a discovery which supports antiquity of tool use within hominids [adjacent image shows exacavated chimpanzee stone hammer, from here]. Pruetz & Bertolani (2007) draw attention to the fact that the Fongoli chimps are savannah-woodland inhabitants, apparently frequenting environments similar to those favoured by australopithecines and other close relatives of modern humans. It seems increasingly likely that the diversity of tools manufactured and used by australopithecines and other fossil hominids was higher than we can demonstrate from the fossil record, and the fact that female and immature chimps seem to be the primary makers and users of these tools suggests, significantly, that these are the animals that play the most important role in the early development of some tools.

This is pretty amazing stuff, and time constraints prevent me from writing more about it. National Geographic features the story here, and includes video clips of the chimps using their spears. The image at the top of the article is borrowed from National Geographic.

Do Chimps Have A Culture?

Hunting (even if chimps do not use tools for this) can be a social innovation. ... A 2006 research shocked when it found chimps using tools for hunting. ...

news.softpedia.com/news/Do-Chimps-Have-A-Culture-78956.shtml

Strange Fishes

2009-03-22T06:19:00.008-05:00

Symbiotoc Fishes ...................................... Mouth Fighting Cichlids ................................ Parent Cichlids Protect Eggs From Hungry Terrapin >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mouth Brooding Cichlids >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bizzare Huge Sunfish ................................................. Flasher Fish ............................................................ Mudskipper- a land fish ..................................................

Ain't Nature Grand? Huge StingRay

2009-03-22T06:10:00.001-05:00

Cheetahs - videos

2009-03-19T20:19:00.003-05:00

Video-Cheetahs .......................................................................... Mother Cheetahs ..................................................

Holy Grail of Palaeontology - Partially Intact Dinosaur Mummy

2009-03-19T19:59:00.010-05:00

Fossil Skeleton of Hadrosaur http://www.physorg.com/news115880934.html

Academic uncovers Holy Grail of palaeontology

December 3rd, 2007

Palaeontologist Dr Phil Manning, working with National Geographic Channel has uncovered the Holy Grail of palaeontology in the United States: a partially intact dino mummy.

Named Dakota, this 67-million-year-old dinosaur is one of the most important dinosaur discoveries in recent times - calling into question our conception of dinosaurs' body shape, skin preservation and movement.

The find is documented in the UK premiere of Dino Autopsy on Sunday 9 December at 9pm on National Geographic Channel. The special follows leading palaeontologists in the UK and United States as they uncover the rocky tomb of one of the most complete dino mummies ever found and carry out a CT scan on the specimen. Most of our understanding of dinosaurs is based on fossilised skeletal remains - from bones and teeth, usually the only tissue durable enough to fossilise. Dakota includes an uncollapsed skin envelope on many parts of the body and limbs that offers a degree of insight impossible from just bone structure. Fossilised skin and tendons have allowed us to reconstruct major muscle sizes - with many body parts offering a tantalising glimpse of a 3-D dinosaur. "It is quite fair to say that our dinosaur mummy [Dakota] makes many other dinosaurs look like road kill. Simply because the evidence we're getting from our creature is so complete compared to the disjointed sort of skeletons that we usually have to draw conclusions from", said Dr Manning, a palaeontologist from The School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Studies (SEAES) at The University of Manchester. Post excavation, Dakota was transported to the Black Hills Institute in the United States, where it was revealed to be a Hadrosaur, more commonly called a duck-billed dinosaur. A team of UK-based scientists then tested skin samples, examining the fossilised skin to determine how Dakota might have looked, and measuring muscle mass to determine how it might have moved. With the aid of a giant CT scanner provided by the Boeing Company, technology usually reserved for testing aircraft and spacecraft parts for NASA, the team also attempted to peer inside Dakota's preserved body and tail. The scan of the 3,600-kilogram body was of the one of the largest CT scans ever undertaken. Dino Autopsy reveals what the scans showed and examines the extent to which the results could change our understanding of Hadrosaurs forever. Dakota may contribute some significant findings to the field of palaeontology, altering our comprehension of how dinosaurs looked and moved: * The Hadrosaur's backside appears to be approximately 25 percent larger than previously thought; a surprising conclusion that could change our image of the dinosaur for the last 150 years. * With a larger backside, the Hadrosaur would have been able to reach top speeds of 45 kilometres an hour - 16 kilometres faster than the T. Rex. * The skin envelope also shows evidence that the Hadrosaur may have been striped and not block coloured, producing an almost striped camouflage pattern on some parts of the dinosaur. * With its body so well preserved, researchers are able to more accurately estimate the spacing between vertebrae. While most museums have dinosaur bones stacked tightly against each other, Dr. Manning's research suggests that the vertebrae should be stacked approximately one centimetre apart. This could mean that some dinosaurs are at least one metre longer than previously thought. Dakota was discovered in 1999 by Tyler Lyson (then aged just sixteen), on his family's land in North Dakota. Subsequently, he teamed up with British palaeontologist Dr. Phil Manning and scientists from the University of Manchester, who have worked with Tyler and his team of volunteers as they struggle to unearth the tomb, bringing us closer to understanding how this dinosaur really looked and moved, and whose fossil remains survived through the sands of time. The National Geographic Society partly funded analysis of the mummified dinosaur, including the CT scanning of the fossil. Scientific papers based on study of the dinosaur are in progress.

Rare Tuatara Found on NZ Mainland

2009-03-19T17:19:00.005-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090319/ap_on_re_au_an/as_new_zealand_rare_reptile

Rare reptile hatchling found on NZ mainland

By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer Ray Lilley, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 38 mins ago

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A hatchling of a rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found in the wild on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, a wildlife official said Thursday.

The baby tuatara was discovered by staff during routine maintenance work at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, conservation manager Raewyn Empson said.

"We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery," Empson said. "It means we have successfully re-established a breeding population back on the mainland, which is a massive breakthrough for New Zealand conservation."

Tuatara, which measure up to 32 inches (80 cm) when full grown, are the last descendants of a lizard-like reptile species that walked the Earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say.

There are estimated to be about 50,000 of them living in the wild on 32 small offshore islands cleared of predators, but this is the first time a hatchling has been seen on the mainland in about 200 years.

The New Zealand natives were nearly extinct on the country's three main islands by the late 1700s due to the introduction of predators such as rats.

Empson said the hatchling is thought to be about one month old and likely came from an egg laid about 16 months ago. Two nests of eggs — the size of pingpong balls — were unearthed in the sanctuary last year and tuatara were expected to hatch around this time.

"He is unlikely to be the only baby to have hatched this season, but seeing him was an incredible fluke," she said.

The youngster faces a tough journey to maturity despite being in the 620-acre (250 hectare) sanctuary and protected by a predator-proof fence. It will have to run from the cannibalistic adult tuatara, and would make a tasty snack for birds of prey, Empson said.

"Like all the wildlife living here, he'll just have to take his chances," Empson said.

"They've been extinct on the mainland for a long time," said Lindsay Hazley, tuatara curator at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery on South Island. He added that "you can breed tuatara by eliminating risk, but to have results like this among many natural predators (like native birds) is a positive sign."

About 200 tuatara have been released since 2005 into the Karori Sanctuary, which was established to breed native birds, insects and other creatures.

Tuatara have unique characteristics, such as two rows of top teeth closing over one row at the bottom and a parietal eye — a dot on the top of the skull that is believed to be light-sensitive and is sometimes referred to as the animal's third eye.

XXXOOPA---Sophisticated Cavemen.

2009-02-11T06:42:00.010-06:00

I have long contended that the race of true Man is older than believed, and that mankind's civilizations have risen to heights as great or nearly as great as ours today. Great cataclysms erased them from the archaeological/historical record except for anomalies that are unearthed from time to time. Such anomalies are usually met with a shrug and dismissed. Even when proof positive is presented, it is furiously rejected by other experts who will not tolerate their life's work coming to naught because of contradictory evidence. They claim the evidence has been erroneously "misinterpreted". Sometimes the governments conspire to hide such discoveries when it conflicts with mainstream science bodies, even to the point of having sites bull dozed and covered. .................................................. For other articles about Out Of Place Artifacts, check the following url. http://s8int.com/sophis7.html

Those Sophisticated Cave Men-- ... Page 7

Chaco Canyon shrouded in mystery Science Matters: Archaeology By Barbara Jolly

After years of intensive research, Chaco Canyon, located in a desolate region of northwestern New Mexico, leaves us with more questions than answers. A unique feature in the construction of many of the pueblos is that they were aligned not only with the movements of the sun, but also the 18 1/2 year lunar cycle. No other civilization is known to have accomplished this. Some 200 miles of straight roads 24- to 36-feet wide were built with raised beds, bridges, stairways and ramps. For the most part, these roads led to nowhere. For many years the theory prevailed that the "Chaco Phenomenon" existed as the distribution center for a large trading network. Colorful parrot feathers, copper bells and seashells from up to 3,000 miles away have been found in the ruins.

Huge pueblos, known as "Great Houses" are the distinguishing feature of a culture that flourished in this area starting around 850 AD and continued until 1250 AD. Ten massive structures, some four stories high, had approximately 3,000 rooms. Pueblo Bonito was the size of the Roman Coliseum.

Generations of The Ancient Ones, known also as Anasazi, dedicated themselves to the building of these pueblos. Not only did it require the transportation of sandstone from the cliffs above, timber required for the construction of the four story buildings was not available in the area.

Click and drag photo to resize.

Modern research has proven that the trees were carried by workers over 50 miles. Few crops could be grown in this arid region, so food to support the thousands of builders had to be imported. A unique feature in the construction of many of the pueblos is that they were aligned not only with the movements of the sun, but also the 18 1/2 year lunar cycle. No other civilization is known to have accomplished this.

Some 200 miles of straight roads 24- to 36-feet wide were built with raised beds, bridges, stairways and ramps. For the most part, these roads led to nowhere.

For many years the theory prevailed that the "Chaco Phenomenon" existed as the distribution center for a large trading network. Colorful parrot feathers, copper bells and seashells from up to 3,000 miles away have been found in the ruins.

Current archaeology disputes this theory. Upon closer examination, it is doubtful that these pueblos were used for ongoing habitation. Most of the rooms were closed off from the outside and at times, closed off from each other. Poor ventilation precludes heating the rooms by fire. In fact, evidence of very few hearths was found.

Only a few hundred burials have been found in the area. There is very little evidence of mounds containing household refuse. If these immense buildings were not used for day to day living, why were they built?

Click and drag photo to resize. Most likely it was a ceremonial center and was largely empty between periodic rituals. Modern day Pueblo descendants, the Hopi, Zuni and others, say their oral history indicates Chaco was a special gathering place where many peoples and clans converged to share their ceremonial traditions and knowledge.

This would explain the 15 Great Kivas, each capable of holding more than 400 people, and over 100 small Kivas that held from 50 to 100 people.

About 1250 AD, doors were sealed up, Kivas burned and the area abandoned. A modern day mystery exists. Chaco Canyon has been added to the World Heritage List, along with other notable places as the Egyptian Pyramids, Yellowstone, and the Great Wall of China. Why then do so few Americans know about this unusual place?

Source: American Archaeology summer 2003 and video "The Mystery of Chaco Canyon"

Originally published Monday, November 24, 2003

Reply tp Article: "Folks: In the article on Chaco Canyon it was mentioned that no other culture knew about the 18 1/2 year moon cycle. This is not correct. Many cultures knew about this cycle and used it in their ritual layouts.

That includes the Egyptians, Mayans, Stonehenge, and many others. Check the book "Hamlet's Mill" and you will find that astronomy is the most ancient science. Archaeologists don't realize the extent of the abilities of the ancients. And never correlate their finds to other finds.....Dave Edwards.

"200,000" Year Old Inlaid Tile Floor

On June 27,1969, workmen cutting into a rock shelf situated on the Broadway Extension of 122nd Street, between Edmond and Oklahoma City, came upon a find that was to create much controversy among the experts.

The find was an inlaid tile floor, found 3 feet below the surface, and covering several thousand square feet. Durwood Pate, an Oklahoma City geologist, commented on the floor in the Edmond Booster of July 3, 1969:

"I am sure this was man-made because the stones are placed in perfect sets of parallel lines which intersect to form a diamond shape, all pointing to the east.

We found post holes which measure a perfect two rods from the other two. The top of the stone is very smooth, and if you lift one of them, you will find it is very jagged, which indicates wear on the surface. Everything is too well placed to be a natural formation."

Pate also discovered a form of mortar between the tiles. He believes now that the tile surface served as a common floor for several human shelters over a wide area. Delbert Smith, a geologist and president of the Oklahoma Seismograph Company, summed up the mystery concerning the tile floor in the Tulsa World of June 29, 1969:

"There is no question about it. It had been laid there, but I have no idea by whom." Yet another facet of the mystery involved the question of age. There are some differing opinions as to the geology involved, but the best estimate places the tiles at 200,000 years old.

Another Ancient Tiled Floor? With Photo

Sophisticated Metallurgical Skills in Ancients

“Certain achievements of the South American Indian in metallurgy are enigmatic. Ornaments of platinum, were found in Ecuador. This poses a provoking question--how could the American Indian produce the temperature- of over 1,770 degrees Celsius necessary to melt it? It should be borne in mind here that the melting of platinum in Europe was achieved only two centuries ago.

In testing an alloy from a prehistoric artifact the United States Bureau of Standards ascertained that the original dwellers of America had furnaces capable of producing temperatures of 9,000 degrees Celsius 7,000 years ago. No satisfactory explanation has yet been given of how such a technical feat was possible at all at so remote a date as 5000 B.C.(Science et Vie, No 516).

The tomb of the Chinese general Chow Chu (A.D. 265-316) presents a mystery. When analyzed by the spectroscope, a metal girdle showed 10 percent copper, 5 percent manganese, and 85 percent aluminum. But according to the history of science aluminum was obtained for the first time by Oersted in 1825 by a chemical method.

To satisfy industrial demands, electrolysis was later introduced into the manufacturing process. Needless to say, an ornament made of aluminum, whether chemically or electrolytically, seems out of place in a third-century grave in China.

It is hardly reasonable to think that this aluminum article was the only one manufactured in China.

The Kutb Minar iron pillar in Delhi weighs 6 tons and is about 7.5 meters high. For fifteen centuries it has withstood the tropical sunshine of India plus the heavy downpours during the monsoons. It does not show any signs of rust formation and provides proof of the superior metallurgical skill of ancient India.

Aside from the mystery of the noncorrosive metal of which the column is made, the task of forging so large a pillar could not have been achieved anywhere in the world until recent times.

The production of rustproof iron of this type is possible today because of our high technology but it is surprising to find such, an achievement in AD. 415. The pillar stands as a mute Witness to the scientific tradition preserved by the people of antiquity in all parts of the world.

Men whom time has forgotten held the answers to these riddles of the history of science.”

Source:We Are Not The First, by Andrew Tomas Copywrite 1971

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Next>>>

New Species - Mekong River Region

2008-12-16T02:29:00.007-06:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/photogalleries/greater-mekong-new-species-photos/index.html

PHOTOS: Cyanide Millipede, Huge Spider Among New Species

More News Photos

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Living Fossils - Old is New

2008-12-06T21:57:00.018-06:00

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/whats-old-is-ne.html? npu=1&mbid=yhp

What's Old Is New: 12 Living Fossils

By Brandon Keim December 05, 2008 | 4:57:14 PMCategories: Animals

To navigate the currents of ecological fate, most creatures adapt — but a few have stuck to their evolutionary guns.

Known as living fossils, they lasted for millions of years with barely a change, even as their relatives went extinct or took different paths across the tree of life.

Many are now threatened or endangered. But with some luck and a little help, living fossils will be able to survive the age of humans, too.

The Purple frog, discovered just five years ago in western India, likely escaped detection because it lives underground, emerging for just two weeks during the monsoon season. Distinguished by a pointed snout, it's related to a family of frogs now found only on the Seychelles islands, which split from India 100 million years ago.

Image: WikiMedia Common

............................................................

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/photogalleries/frilled-shark/index.html

Rare "Prehistoric" Shark Photographed Alive

More News Photos

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Flaring the gills that give the species its name, a frilled shark swims at Japan's Awashima Marine Park on Sunday, January 21, 2007. Sightings of living frilled sharks are rare, because the fish generally remain thousands of feet beneath the water's surface. Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool. "We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters," a park official told the Reuters news service. But the truth may never be known, since the "living fossil" died hours after it was caught.

Scientists disagree over whether the frilled shark has survived for 380 milllion years, or a mere 95 million years. Only two living specimens have been found — both off the coast in Japan, in the late 19th century and again in 2007 — but they are sometimes caught accidentally by deep-sea fishing nets.

Video: Xagtho Channel

..........................................................

Until a preserved specimen was found in the Smithsonian in 1975, the 10-footed, lobster-like Jurassic shrimp was thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago. Living Jurassic shrimp have since been found.

Image: Census of Marine Life

....................................................................

What it lacks in convenient nomenclature, the Siberian Sikhotealinia zhiltzovae makes up for in uniqueness: it's the only three-eyed beetle. Some scientists consider it a forerunner of nearly all winged insects.

Image: St. Petersburg Zoological Institute .................................................................

Peripatus or Velvet Worm (Macroperipatus sp.), a nocturnal predator of small invertebrates, 'living fossil', central Panama.

Found mostly in Southern Hemisphere rain forests, velvet worms have legs and — unlike other worms — bear live young. Closely related to tardigrades, their legs are hollow and supported by fluid pressure. After a few early adaptations for land, they've hardly changed in 360 million years.

Video: InfiniteWorld

.....................................................

The most widespread of all living fossils, crocodiles have barely changed in the 230 million years since dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Image: Flickr/Keven Law ................................................................

One of the relatively few mammalian living fossils, duck-billed platypuses have been weird for 110 million years: in addition to their bills, they lay eggs and have venom-filled leg spurs. No wonder they were considered a hoax by early naturalists.

Video: Springbreakwas2short

Video: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-dna-missions-video-wc.html

Its spiraling chambered shell was a symbol of perfection in ancient Greece, and the nautilus has changed little in 500 million years.

Image: Flickr/Ethan Hein

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Found commonly on Atlantic beaches, horseshoe crabs are more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions than crabs. Their ancestors evolved in the Paleozoic's shallow seas, and they've evolved only slightly in the last 445 million years. If you see one on its back, flip it over: They can regrow lost limbs, but can't right themselves when tossed in the surf.

Image: Flickr/Chris Howard

....................................................................

Better known as the "Ant from Mars," Martialis heureka is a direct-line descendant of the last common ancestor of all ants — a subterranean forager who wouldn't go above-ground until flowering plants evolved 120 million years ago. Image: Christian Rabeling

..................................................................

Coelacanth vanished from the fossil record 410 million years ago — and then one was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. A second species was discovered in Indonesian waters in 1999.

Video: Pinktentacle3

Neither a mantis nor a shrimp, the mantis shrimp has changed little in 400 million years. It has the world's most complex eyes, and its prey-killing claw motion is the second-fastest animal motion. To quote mantis shrimp eye researcher Tom Cronin, "Whenever they get into any type of situation, they smash things. You can't pick these up. They're really great animals to have around."

Image: Tom Cronin

See Also:

Goliath Tarantula - Giant Sting Ray - videos

2008-11-28T22:47:00.002-06:00

Goliath Tarantula Spider ................................................................... Giant Sting Ray

Galapagos Rare Creatures

2008-11-28T16:35:00.004-06:00

Unusual Sights on the Galapagos Islands http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/popup?id=6097496

Unlike Anywhere in the World

The odd-looking and enchanting blue-footed boobies, with their fluorescent blue feet, are a Galapagos favorite. There also are red-footed boobies and Nazca boobies, with dusty-green feet. (Jeffrey Kofman/ABC News) Slide Show. Click on arrow to advance views:

1 of 10

Deep Sea Discoveries

2008-11-10T14:31:00.009-06:00

Incredible Deep-Sea Discoveries Announced -

http://www.livescience.com/animals/081109-marine-census.html

Photo galleries links

Animals

Incredible Deep-Sea Discoveries Announced

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 09 November 2008 01:06 pm ET

Buzz up!

Comments (13) | Recommend (0)

Bottom left: Megeleledone setebos, endemic to the Southern Ocean, surrounded by related octopus species that evolved in the deep-sea. Credit: Census of Marine Life

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: Bottom left: Megeleledone setebos, endemic to the Southern Ocean, surrounded by related octopus species that evolved in the deep-sea. Credit: Census of Marine Life

An astounding batch of new deep-sea discoveries, from strange shark behavior to gigantic bacteria, was announced today by an international group of 2,000 scientists from 82 nations.

The Census of Marine Life is a 10-year project to determine what's down there. Among the new findings:

A large proportion of deep sea octopus species worldwide evolved from common ancestor species that still exist in the Southern Ocean. Octopuses started migrating to new ocean basins more than 30 million years ago when, as Antarctica cooled and a large icesheet grew, nature created a "thermohaline expressway," a northbound flow of tasty frigid water with high salt and oxygen content. Isolated in new habitat conditions, many different species evolved; some octopuses, for example, losing their defensive ink sacs — pointless at perpetually dark depths.

The finding will be reported Nov. 11 in the journal Cladistics.

Scientists also discovered what they're calling a White Shark Café: Satellite tags revealed a previously unknown behavior of white sharks traveling long distances each winter to concentrate in the Pacific for up to six months. During these months, both males and females make frequent, repetitive dives to depths of 300 yards, which researchers theorize may be significant in either feeding or reproduction.

In the eastern South Pacific, researchers found a diverse set of giant, filamentous, multi-cellular marine bacteria. They may be "living fossils" that developed in the earliest ocean when oxygen was either absent or much diminished, living on the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide, the scientists said.

Another survey found frequent examples of gigantism common in Antarctic waters. The researchers collected huge scaly worms, giant crustaceans, starfish and sea spiders as big as dinner plates.

Among the other discoveries that will be revealed at a meeting this week in Spain:

The first record of abundant and diverse comb jellies under Arctic pack ice .
Surprising richness of species in many deep-sea locations, including the Celebes Sea in the southern Philippines and several deep canyons.
At least 85 new species of zooplankton, small drifting and swimming marine animals.

Scientists estimate there are at least 1 million species of marine organisms on Earth. But as of now, only about 230,000 are known.

This is the fourth report from the Census of Marine Life since the project began in 2000. A final report will be issued in 2010.

"The release of the first Census in 2010 will be a milestone in science," said Ian Poiner, chair of the Census's International Scientific Steering Committee and Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. "After 10 years of new global research and information assembly by thousands of experts the world over, it will synthesize what humankind knows about the oceans, what we don't know, and what we may never know – a scientific achievement of historic proportions."

Signs of and Solutions to World Water Crisis

2008-10-25T20:35:00.008-05:00

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/signsandsolutions/ National Geographic = signs and solutions to water shortage Click on "interactive map" link

Interactive Map

Explore the signs of and solutions to the world’s water crisis.

Western U.S. Faces Drought Crisis, Warming Study Says

The U.S. West will see devastating droughts as global warming reduces the amount of mountain snow and causes the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the year, a new study says.

Read Article

Healthy Drinking Water Program

More than one billion people worldwide have no access to safe drinking water, leaving them vulnerable to any number of water-associated illnesses. Get the facts with this Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site.

Read Article

Water Crisis Resources

Do you have all the facts about the water crisis facing our planet? Get more information, plus the latest water-related headlines, lesson plans, and much more from Water Partners International.

Read Article

Arsenic in Asian Drinking Water Linked to Microbes

Microscopic organisms that get their energy by inhaling metals in the ground play a key role in the arsenic poisoning of drinking water for millions of people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, according to a new study.

Read Article

How Can Such a Wet Planet Be So Short on Clean, Fresh Water?

Since its early days as a village, Kolkata's population has exploded, as has its need for water. Find out what life is like for those who live without an ample supply of fresh, clean water.

Read Article

Sites For Prehistoric Worlds

2008-10-25T20:14:00.011-05:00

CLICK HERE TO access site for slides of prehistoric world >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Prehistoric World Topics

ABCDEFGHIJ

Prehistoric Time Line

Quaternary Period

Silurian Period

Triassic Period

UFO-alleged order to shoot it

2008-10-23T02:56:00.010-05:00

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/20/2019135-uk-ufo-files-reveal-alleged-attempt-to-shoot-ufo

UK UFO files reveal alleged attempt to shoot UFO

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer – Mon Oct 20, 2:44 pm ET

LONDON – An American fighter pilot flying from an English air base at the height of the Cold War was ordered to open fire on a massive UFO that lit up his radar, according to an account published by Britain's National Archives on Monday.

The fighter pilot said he was ordered to fire a full salvo of rockets at the UFO moving erratically over the North Sea — but that at the last minute the object picked up enormous speed and disappeared. The account, first published in Britain's Daily Star newspaper more than 17 years ago and to this day unverified by military authorities, was one of many carried in the 1,500 pages the archives made available online.

The unnamed pilot said he and another airman were scrambled on the night of May 20, 1957 to intercept an unusual "bogey" on radars at a Royal Air Force Station Manston, an airfield at the southeastern tip of England about 75 miles from central London.

"This was a flying object with very unusual flight patterns," the pilot said, according to a typed manuscript of his account mailed to Britain's Ministry of Defense by a UFO enthusiast in 1988. "In the initial briefing it was suggested to us that the bogey actually was motionless for long intervals."

Ordered to fly at full throttle in cloudy weather, the pilot said he was given the order to fire a volley of 24 rockets at the mysterious object.

"To be quite candid I almost (expletive) my pants!" the pilot said, saying he asked for confirmation — which he received.

Retired U.S. airman Milton Torres told Britain's Sky News on Monday that he was the pilot and has spent 50 frustrating years attempting to uncover the truth of his mid-air encounter.

Speaking from his home in Miami, Florida, Torres said he never saw the UFO with his naked eye, but watched in awe as it appeared on his jet's radar and sped off before he had chance to fire.

"All of a sudden as it was coming in, it decided to take off and leave me behind ... The next thing I know it was gone," Torres told Sky News. "It was some kind of space alien craft. It was so fast, it was so incredible ... it was absolutely death defying."

In the newly published government file, the U.S. airman said the UFO appeared impossible to miss.

"The blip was burning a hole in the radar with its incredible intensity," the pilot said. "It was similar to a blip I had received from B-52's and seemed to be a magnet of light. ... I had a lock on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier."

As he closed in on the object to prepare for combat, however, the object began to move wildly before fading off his radar. The target gone, the mission was called off, and he returned to base to an odd reception.

"I had not the foggiest idea what had actually occurred, nor would anyone explain anything to me," the pilot said. He said he was led to a man in civilian clothes, who "advised me that this would be considered highly classified and that I should not discuss it with anybody not even my commander."

"He disappeared without so much as a goodbye and that was that, as far as I was concerned," the pilot said, according to the account.

Britain's military said it had no record of the incident, according to the files. Neither did the U.S. military. The second pilot's account, also included in the files, paints a somewhat different picture of events, saying there were not one but several "unknowns" and that he did not remember being contacted by anyone about staying quiet. He did not mention the targets' size.

"I know this is not a very exciting narrative but it is all I can recall," the second pilot said.

His name, like his colleague's, was redacted from the files.

David Clarke, a UFO expert who has worked with the National Archives on the document release, said it was one of the most intriguing stories he had culled from the batch of files released Monday.

He said that the CIA once had a program intended to create phantom signals on radar — and that this may have been an exercise in electronic warfare. Whatever the case, Clarke argued that "there's no doubt something very unusual happened."

Clarke said the batch of files released Monday — which include witness accounts, investigations, and sketches — was part of a three to four year program intended to make a total of 160 UFO-related files available to the public.

___

On the Net:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

Amazing Water Bears

2008-10-17T02:32:00.009-05:00

Water Bears Amaze Scientists - Yahoo! News

SPACE.com -- 'Alien' Water Bears Amaze Scientists
News. Space Flight. Science. Technology. Entertainment. SpaceViews. Night Sky. Video. Community ... with survival features like those used by water bears could ...
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'Alien' Water Bears Amaze Scientists By Lee Pullen Astrobiology Magazine posted: 16 October 2008 06:56 am ET

Astrobiologists work at the cutting edge of scientific research, investigating the possibility of life elsewhere in our universe. They are, however, plagued by a single, potentially critical problem: a lack of samples. Studying alien organisms is naturally difficult when none have been discovered.

Some scientists have taken a novel approach to circumventing this issue. Life on Earth is abundant, and often very hardy. Extremophile creatures exist in places we would consider as exceptionally hostile, such as deep in the ocean floor or areas where even a drop of water is almost impossible to find. Similarly, some of the potential places for life elsewhere in our solar system, such as the planet Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, or Saturn's moon Titan, have conditions that are viewed as extremely hostile but still potentially survivable. So extremophile organisms are studied in lieu of genuine extraterrestrial samples, to see if they could survive the rigors of life beyond the Earth.

Nearly indestructible

Dr. Daiki Horikawa from NASA Ames Research Center has been examining strange creatures called tardigrades for the last seven years. He explains, "tardigrades are small invertebrate animals, 0.004 to 0.04 inches (0.1 to 1.0 mm) in body length, that live in terrestrial mosses, soil, or lichens. They also inhabit ocean and polar regions." Often known by their nickname, "water bears," studies of these bizarre creatures have surprised scientists.

Recent research has shown that water bears can survive the dangerous conditions of space. Previously, the only organisms that have been exposed to the radiation and vacuum of space and lived to tell the tale are certain types of bacteria and lichen. That simple animals like tardigrades also can survive gives more credence to the theory of panspermia, which claims that organisms could move from world to world after travelling though space.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of tardigrades is their ability to enter a suspended animation-like state when they cannot find enough water. In this kind of survival mode they become very resistant to harsh environments. When they encounter water they awaken and become active again.

Horikawa realised that if he wanted to produce worthwhile, reproducible studies, he would have to raise samples of water bears in laboratory conditions. Those collected from their natural habitat can be quite different to one another because of climate variations, nutritional differences and other environmental considerations. So Horikawa raised a collection on agar plates with green algae for food. Although labor-intensive, this produced uniform water bears which were then separated into groups and exposed to various stresses to see how tough they really are.

A barrage of tests

First they were heated up to sizzling temperatures of 194 F (90 C). Then a group was frozen at -321 F (-196 C). The next batch was given a dose of radiation similar to what they would receive in space — around 4,000 times stronger than that which would make humans ill. The last selection was covered in a dissolving chemical (99.8% acetonitrile, a chemical which may be present in Titan's atmosphere).

The results, published in a recent issue of the journal Astrobiology, were that water bears in their suspended animation state survived everything that was thrown at them. Active creatures were less fortunate, but some did tolerate the extreme conditions. Now their tolerances to specific stresses are known, plans are underway to expose them to many harsh environments simultaneously.

If extraterrestrial life is as tough and resilient as water bears, then other worlds could be inhabited. "It's a possibility that water bear-like creatures could survive and thrive on other planets despite harsh environments," says Horiwaka. "Judging from data of the planets in our solar system, there could even be some in their suspended state on Mars." There is a chance that Earth-based water bears could be transported to other worlds via meteorite impacts, but more research is required before this is known for sure.

Self-repairing DNA

Horikawa plans on continuing his research, particularly looking at the ability of water bears to repair DNA after being exposed to high levels of radiation. As he says, "the most fascinating feature of tardigrades for me is their ability to survive complete dehydration of the body and high tolerance to radiation exposure which must cause critical DNA damages."

Horikawa's method of rearing water bears in the laboratory could lead to many more studies of these amazing animals, and may help astrobiologists in their search for genuine extraterrestrial life.

Knowing the survival tricks of water bears also could one day be a key component in enabling the human exploration of the universe.

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Some water bears eat microscopic animals, while others consume algae. Credit: Daiki Horikawa, NASA Ames

Water bears are fundamentally aquatic animals, using their eight legs to walk in liquid. Credit: Daiki Horikawa, NASA Ames

Alien creatures with survival features like those used by water bears could exist on other worlds. Credit: Daiki Horikawa, NASA Ames

Eight-Legged Space Survivor Gives 'Panspermia' New Life

Creature Survives Naked in Space

	Video - Looking for Life in All the Right Places
NASA scientists pick spots to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech

SPACE.com -- Astronaut Gloves Tested for Biological Contamination
'Alien' Water Bears Amaze Scientists. Stowaways Could Ruin Mars Missions ... Site Map | News | SpaceFlight | Science | Technology | Entertainment ...
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Astronaut Gloves Tested for Biological Contamination By SPACE.com Staff posted: 25 March 2009 09:34 am ET

Astronauts recently had their gloves swabbed in an early effort to develop planetary protection measures that prevent humans from accidentally contaminating the moon or Mars on future missions.

The crew of space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station used a new laboratory device to examine biological material on the gloves of astronauts servicing the space station. Such tests could help NASA understand and plan around how to prevent the spread of Earth life to other planets.

"This simple approach, designed to monitor the spread of biological material in space, takes very little crew time to perform and could prove to be a useful step in planning future human missions to the moon and Mars," said Jake Maule, a geophysicist with BAE Systems.

The space station's Lab-on-a-Chip Portable Test System, or LOCAD-PTS, can rapidly detect and identify a variety of biological materials relating to bacteria and fungi, and has been on the space station since March 2007.

A recent spacewalk on March 19 provided the opportunity for astronaut Sandy Magnus to swab the spacesuit gloves of STS-119 mission specialists Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold, both before they exited the space station airlock and after they returned.

The spacewalkers installed a solar array truss segment (S6), which had been sampled and analyzed with LOCAD-PTS prior to launch with Discovery on March 15. NASA clean room procedures ensured that most surfaces of the hardware remained clean, but the lab device did detect small levels of fungi — especially in the fabric gap spanners, or safety elements that connect handrails and allow astronauts to move safely around the outside of the space station as they work.

Dead or live bacteria or fungi that remained on the S6 segment would have likely ended up on the spacewalker gloves. An analysis by LOCARD-PTS will likely turn up results after the space shuttle undocks for the journey home.

"These guys were the first guys to put their hands on it since it's been in space, so we were swabbing their gloves and so we'll know what's just out there in space versus when we go looking for life on other places," said Tony Antonelli, shuttle pilot for Discovery.

Any life that survives in space may also evolve in unexpected ways. Studies from two recent space shuttle missions showed that Salmonella bacteria, which cause food poisoning on Earth, became more virulent in the space station's microgravity environment. Tiny creatures called water bears have also demonstrated the ability to survive exposure in the harsh vacuum of space.

LOCAD-PTS should help develop procedures and tools to keep an eye on biological contaminants that might creep aboard expeditions to the moon or Mars, said Mike Effinger, a LOCAD project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"Because spaceflight currently is limited to low Earth orbit, requirements don't exist yet in regard to biological contamination of other planetary surfaces by human missions," Effinger said. "This study seeks to begin development of test procedures that can be further developed on the moon in preparation for the human exploration of Mars."

Deepest Living Fish Discovered

2008-10-17T02:26:00.018-05:00

** 'Deepest ever' living fish filmed ** The deepest ever living fish are discovered 7.5km down, scientists say. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14889-worlds-deepest-living-fish-caught-on-film.html

Video:

.................... http://www.extremescience.com/DeepestFish.htm

Deepest Fish

The world's record holder for deepest fish goes to the brotulid* family, about which scientists know almost nothing. These fish are benthopelagic, living at depths of 7000 meters or more. The world's deepest fish (Abyssobrotula galatheae) was found in the Puerto Rican Trench at a depth of 8,372 meters (that's over five miles down!).

Their eyes appear to be virtually nonexistent. Maybe it's because there is never enough light for the fish to see, so why bother with the eyes? After all, eyes in most organisms are designed for gathering light in the creature's visual field and transmitting it to the brain - giving it useful information about its environment. In a world where no sunlight ever penetrates there's probably little use for eyes. The brotulids probably have other, highly developed senses to compensate for their lack of vision, which help them to find their way around in the dark depths. Maybe YOU could be the scientist who studies this species and unravels its mysteries.

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Blue Planet - pt 1

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Blue Planet - pt 2

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Great photos of deep sea creatures. Non-Muslim believers may ignore religious text but do view God's handiwork. http://www.55a.net/firas/english/?page=show_det&id=129&select_page=70 CLICK HERE to view fantastic photos of deep sea creatures.

World's Longest Insect

2008-10-17T02:14:00.009-05:00

http://townhall.com/news/sci-tech/2008/10/17/scientists_say_stick_bug_is_worlds_longest_insect

Friday, October 17, 2008

Scientists say stick bug is world's longest insect

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER

The Associated Press GBR XEN

In this undated picture made available Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 by Britain's Natural History Museum, Orthoptera Curator George Beccaloni, holds a giant stick insect named Phobaeticus chani, meaning "Chan's megastick." Britain's Natural History Museum says a Malaysian amateur naturalist has discovered the world's longest insect, the more than 22-inch long "megastick." The museum says the oversized walking stick bug was discovered by Datuk Chan Chew Lun on the Malaysian island of Borneo. (AP Photo/Natural History Museum/HO

A stick bug from the island of Borneo measuring well over a foot in length has been identified by researchers as the world's longest insect, British scientists said Thursday.

The specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honor.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the insect's discovery said there was no doubt it was the longest still in existence. That assessment was also confirmed by Marco Gottardo, an entomologist at Italy's Natural History Museum of Ferrara and Aaron T. Dossey, a researcher at the University of Florida in Gainesville who studies the insects.

Looking like a pencil-thin shoot of bamboo, the dull-green insect measures about 22 inches, if its twig-like legs are counted. Its body length is 14 inches, beating the previous record held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about an inch.

Stick bugs have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage. Although some use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter their predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

"Their main defense is basically hanging around, looking like a twig," Brock said. "It will even sway in the wind."

Global Warming - Changing Climate

2008-09-25T22:22:00.010-05:00

To view video CLICK HERE

Our Changing Climate Climatologists Forecast Completely New Climates

September 1, 2007 — Geographers have projected temperature increases due to greenhouse gas emissions to reach a not-so-chilling conclusion: climate zones will shift and some climates will disappear completely by 2100. Tropical highlands and polar regions may be the first to disappear, and large swaths of the tropics and subtropics will reach even hotter temperatures. The study anticipates large climate changes worldwide.

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Earth & Climate

Reference

The eastern United States has a mild, humid, temperate climate, while the western United States has a dry climate, right?

Well, according to climate models, global warming could change our current world climate zones, which would affect where crops are grown and even drive some plant and animal species to extinction, all in the next 100 years.

Al Gore brought the issue to the big screen. Global warming -- what impact could it really have on our world? Geographer Jack Williams says, based on his new analyses of climate forecasting models, we're headed for major change -- fast.

"One of the things that we can definitely say that the more carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere, the models very clearly show more of a warming that takes place in the U.S. and worldwide," said Williams, of the University of Wisconsin.

How much warming? With levels of CO₂ continuing to rise, Williams suggests areas of the world that currently have a tropical climate will be much warmer and drive vegetation and animal life north. Williams believes these changes would lead to the spreading of Malaria northward, more catastrophic natural disasters and overall greater human health risks.

"Even a few degrees Celsius can make a major difference in terms of where species grow and how well they thrive," Williams said.

As North America came out of the last Ice Age, spruce trees moved northward. Williams said the same thing will happen, potentially driving plant and animal species into extinction if they can't adapt to the changes fast enough. "Species can migrate in response to climate change, but there's the question of how quickly can they migrate, and will these climate changes over the next century be so rapid that species will be unable to keep up," Williams said.

Williams said that's why we need to take action now -- because later will be too late.

The American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

BACKGROUND: A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming predicts that by the year 2100, many of today's familiar climates will be replaced by climates unknown in today's world, if current rates of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gas emissions continue. The new global climate models for the next century forecast the complete disappearance of several existing climates currently found in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and subtropics may develop new climates unlike anything seen today.

ABOUT THE STUDY: The climate modeling study translates CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emission levels into climate change. It uses average summer and winter temperatures and precipitation levels to map the differences between climate zones today and in the year 2100. The most severely affected parts of the world span both heavily populated regions, including the southeastern United States, southeastern Asia, and parts of Africa, as well as known hotspots of biodiversity, such as the Amazonian rainforest and South American mountain ranges. The predicted changes also anticipate dramatic ecological shifts, with extensive effects on large segments of the Earth's population.

CARBON IN THE AIR: Carbon, in the form of CO₂, is a greenhouse gas continually released into the atmosphere as a direct result of human activities. This in turn raises the temperature of the earth, leading to global climate change. The concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ has already increased by about 30% since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. Most of this increase comes from the use of fossil fuel -- coal, oil and natural gas -- for energy, but approximately one-quarter of it can be attributed to changes in land use, such as the clearing of forests and the cultivation of soils for food production. Natural sources of atmospheric carbon include gases emitted by volcanoes, and respiration of living things. We breathe in oxygen, and breathe out CO₂.

ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING: Global warming refers to an increase in the earth's average temperature -- which has risen about 1 degree F over the past 100 years. A warmer earth may lead to changes in rainfall patterns, and a rise in sea level, for example, as polar glaciers melt. Some of this rise is due to the greenhouse effect: certain gases in the atmosphere trap energy from the sun so that heat can't escape back into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be too cold for humans to survive, but if it becomes too strong, the earth could become much warmer than usual, causing problems for humans, plants and animals.

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Harder Rain, More Snow

While raising average global temperatures, climate change could also bring more snow, harder rain, or heat waves, meteorologists say. Computer models. ... > full story

Oldest Rocks = Quebec

2008-09-25T20:16:00.006-05:00

Rocks May Be Oldest on Earth, Scientists Say

By KENNETH CHANG

Researchers report that this rock is 4.28 billion years old and formed when the Earth was less than 300 million years old. ..................................................

Ancient Rocks Show How Young Earth Avoided Becoming Giant Snowball
... scientists, the Quebec rocks are among the oldest-known in Earth's ... Oxygen May Be Cause Of First Snowball Earth (Oct. 29, 1999) — Increasing amounts of ...
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070205130615.htm - 54k - Cached
Ancient Rocks Show How Young Earth Avoided Becoming Giant Snowball

ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2007) — A greenhouse gas that has become the bane of modern society may have saved Earth from completely freezing over early in the planet's history, according to the first detailed laboratory analysis of the world's oldest sedimentary rocks.
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Earth & Climate
Fossils & Ruins
Reference
Scientists have for years theorized that high concentrations of greenhouse gases could have helped Earth avoid global freezing in its youth by allowing the atmosphere to retain more heat than it lost. A team at the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado has now analyzed ancient rocks from the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, Canada, which has yielded the first preliminary field evidence supporting this theory.

"Our study shows the greenhouse gas that could have sustained surface temperatures above freezing 3.75 billion years ago may have been carbon dioxide," said Nicolas Dauphas, Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. Dauphas and his co-authors, Nicole Cates and Stephen Mojzsis of the University of Colorado, and Vincent Busigny, now of the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, present their data in the Feb. 28 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

In a companion article in the same issue of the journal, Cates and Mojzsis establish with certainty the antiquity of the rocks and discuss their origin in a wider context.

The study led by Dauphas helps explain how the Earth may have avoided becoming frozen solid early in its history, when astrophysicists believe the sun was 25 percent fainter than today. Previous studies had shown that liquid water existed at the Earth's surface even though the weak sun should have been unable to warm the Earth above freezing conditions. But high concentrations of carbon dioxide or methane could have warmed the planet.

Discovered in 2001 by a team of Canadian scientists, the Quebec rocks are among the oldest-known in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. Slow-acting geologic processes destroy and recycle the Earth's crust on vast time scales, leaving only scraps of land containing remains of the planet's oldest rock.

The only other outcropping of rocks that are about as old occur in western Greenland. Scientists have studied those rocks exhaustively for more than three decades. But the limited extent of the rocks of this antiquity may have provided only a biased view of the early Earth, Dauphas said.

Mojzsis and Cates revisited the Canadian site to pursue new but as yet unrealized opportunities for analysis and comparison. Today Mojzsis describes the area as a landscape of rolling hills of grass and marsh, punctuated by lakes, streams and craggy rock outcroppings. Stunted trees of willow grow no more than six feet high, leaving unobstructed views all around.

"It is a grand landscape of water, wind and rock carved by glaciers and only lightly touched by the people who live there," Mojzsis said. But the region would have looked much different 3.8 billion years ago.

"At that time it would have appeared to be a totally alien world to us, with a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane that would have imparted a reddish cast to the sky, and deep dark greenish-blue oceans of iron-rich water washing onto beaches of small continents scattered across the globe," Mojzsis said.

The Chicago-Colorado scientists focused their analysis on rocks they suspected contained chemical sediments that precipitate like salt from seawater. "A critical issue with these rocks is that they have been cooked and deformed during burial in the crust for several hundred million years, which makes it difficult to identify their nature," Dauphas said.

First they dissolved the rock, separating iron oxides and iron carbonates from other constituents. Then they used a mass spectrometer to measure the isotopic composition of the iron. All iron atoms have 26 protons at their core, but they can be accompanied by a varying number of more numerous neutrons.

"Iron has several isotopes, and the ratio of these isotopes changes from one to another," Dauphas explained. "Sediments that formed by precipitation from seawater have a very distinct signature of iron isotopes." When the Chicago scientists analyzed the iron composition of the rocks, "We found that indeed they had the typical signature of something that formed by precipitation in a marine setting."

The iron probably was released with other metals in hydrothermal vents called black smokers found along mid-ocean ridges, where molten lava emerges on the sea floor to create new oceanic crust. In today's oxygen-rich oceans, the iron rapidly precipitates and concentrates near these vents. But in the oxygen-starved oceans of 3.8 billion years ago, oceanic currents could transport the iron long distances before becoming partially oxidized and deposited in sea-floor sediments.

Some of these sediments survive today as banded iron formations. "There are no banded iron formations being produced at present because there is too much oxygen," Dauphas said.

Previous research on the rocks from Greenland had already revealed the existence of ocean water at that early stage in Earth history, known as the Precambrian Period. But the Canadian rocks showed something else: the first hints that Precambrian oceans also contained iron carbonates. Iron carbonates can only form in an atmosphere that contains far higher levels of carbon dioxide than are found in Earth's atmosphere today, Dauphas said. This carbon dioxide would have played an important role as a planetary thermostat in the support of life on Earth.

"If it gets cold, ice caps form, chemical weathering decreases, carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, which increases the greenhouse effect and surface temperatures. If it gets hot, the rate of chemical weathering increases, the rate of burial of sedimentary carbonates increases, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and surface temperatures decrease," Dauphas said.

Other factors are involved in this simplified scheme. "Still, it is possible that such a thermostat was at work as early as 3.75 billion years ago," he said.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago.

Ancient Jewish Capital Discovered - Russia

2008-09-24T12:45:00.005-05:00

Russian archaeologists find long-lost Jewish capital AFP

Russian archaeologists find long-lost Jewish capital

Wed Sep 3, 12:08 PM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian archaeologists said Wednesday they had found the long-lost capital of the Khazar kingdom in southern Russia, a breakthrough for research on the ancient Jewish state.

"This is a hugely important discovery," expedition organiser Dmitry Vasilyev told AFP by telephone from Astrakhan State University after returning from excavations near the village of Samosdelka, just north of the Caspian Sea.

"We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period -- how the Khazars actually lived. We know very little about the Khazars -- about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture," he said.

The city was the capital of the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic peoples who adopted Judaism as a state religion, from between the 8th and the 10th centuries, when it was captured and sacked by the rulers of ancient Russia.

At its height, the Khazar state and its tributaries controlled much of what is now southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan and large parts of Russia's North Caucasus region.

The capital is referred to as Itil in Arab chronicles but Vasilyev said the word may actually have been used to refer to the Volga River on which the city was founded or to the surrounding river delta region.

Itil was said to be a multi-ethnic place with houses of worship and judges for Christians, Jews, Muslims and pagans. Its remains have until now never been identified and were said to have been washed away by the Caspian Sea.

Archaeologists have been excavating in the area if Samosdelka for the past nine years but have only now collected enough material evidence to back their thesis, including the remains of an ancient brick fortress, he added.

"Within the fortress, we have found huts similar to yurts, which are characteristics of Khazar cities.... The fortress had a triangular shape and was made with bricks. It's another argument that this was no ordinary city."

Around 10 university archaeologists and some 50 students took part in excavations in the region this summer, which are partly financed by the Jewish University in Moscow and the Russian Jewish Congress

New Species - Australia - Great Barrier Reef

2008-09-19T13:42:00.006-05:00

Video-Treasure Trove of new species around Great Barrier Reef, Australia

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=9810806

Dinos, Dinos, and More Dinos

2008-08-17T20:05:00.007-05:00

Ballerina tyrannosaur unearthed in Mongolia

More ballerina than brute. (Image: PNAS/Brusatte et al)

20:00 05 October 2009 by James O'Donoghue
For similar stories, visit the Dinosaurs and Evolution Topic Guides

Say "tyrannosaur" and most people picture a clunky, heavy-set beast with huge teeth and a brutish character. But the latest member of the team was built more like a ballerina.

The largely intact skeleton of Alioramus altai was excavated from 65-million-year-old rocks in the Gobi desert in Mongolia.

All the other tyrannosaurs discovered to date – even the recently discovered "prototype" T. rex, the dimunitive Raptorex – conform to the familiar chunky body plan with short deep skulls, massive jaws and heavily built bodies. Alioramus broke the mould with its long thin head, weak jaws and slender, air-filled body. Were it not for the eight small horns protruding from its snout and head, it might have been dino-elegance personified.

Fully grown individuals would probably have been up to 8 metres long to T. Rex's 13 metres. Its long head and puny bite didn't equip it for crunching through bones in the way other tyrannosaurs could, but what it lacked in strength and power it made up for in speed and agility.

Pneumatic dino

Alioramus had air sacs running through the vertebrae in its neck and spine which it used for ultra-efficient breathing. Modern birds – descendants of the order of dinosaurs to which tyrannosaurs belong – are similarly designed. Air fills these cavities when birds inhale, and then flows from the bones into the lungs when they exhale. This means that the lungs have a constant stream of fresh air and can extract up to two and a half times as much oxygen per breath as a mammal.

Highly "pneumatic" bones would have also made Alioramus remarkably light for its size. Growth rings show that the Gobi desert specimen was a 9-year-old juvenile, weighing in around 370 kilograms when it died. Its close cousin Tarbosaurus would have weighed twice as much at that age. T. Rex, meanwhile, probably weighed at least five metric tonnes.

"Alioramus was more of a ballerina than Tarbosaurus," says Steve Brusatte of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "It surely went after smaller prey and relied more on speed and stealth than on brute strength."

Journal references: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906911106

Before the Sahara Was a Desert

2008-08-17T19:42:00.010-05:00

Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green Sahara' http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080815101317.htm

The largest Stone Age graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unparalleled record of life when the region was green, has been discovered in Niger by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno, whose team first happened on the site during a dinosaur-hunting expedition.

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Photo Below:

>Stone Age embrace: A remarkable triple burial -- containing a woman and two children who were 5 (left) and 8 years old, their limbs entwined -- was discovered at the Gobero site during the 2006 field season. Pollen clusters found in the sand indicated who were 5 (left) and 8 years old, their limbs entwined -- was discovered at the Gobero site during the 2006 field season. Pollen clusters found in the sand indicated the three had been buried on top of flowers. The skeletons showed no sign of injury and had been ceremonially posed and buried, along with four arrowhead

>Stone Age embrace: A remarkable triple burial -- containing a woman and two children arrowheadLoading Image..

Science News

Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green Sahara'

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2008) — The largest Stone Age graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unparalleled record of life when the region was green, has been discovered in Niger by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno, whose team first happened on the site during a dinosaur-hunting expedition.

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Fossils & Ruins

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The remarkable archaeological site, dating back 10,000 years and called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the area, was brimming with skeletons of humans and animals — including large fish and crocodiles. Gobero is hidden away within Niger’s forbidding Ténéré Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a “desert within a desert.” The Ténéré is the setting of some of Sereno’s key paleontological discoveries, including the 500-toothed, plant-eating dinosaur Nigersaurus that lived 110 million years ago and the enormous extinct crocodilian Sarcosuchus, also known as SuperCroc.

The discovery of the lakeside graveyard — representing two successive human populations divided by more than 1,000 years — is reported in the September 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine and the Aug. 14 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

As they explored the site, the team tiptoed among dozens of fossilized human skeletons laid bare on the surface of an ancient dune field by the hot Saharan wind. Jawbones still clenched nearly full sets of teeth; a tiny hand reached up through the sand, its finger bones intact. On the surface lay harpoon points, potsherds, beads and stone tools. The site was pristine, apparently never visited.

“Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don’t live in the desert,” said Sereno. “I realized we were in the green Sahara.”

Two seasons of excavation supported by the National Geographic Society eventually revealed some 200 graves clearly belonging to two successive lakeside populations. The older group, determined to be Kiffian, were hunters of wild game who left evidence that they also speared huge perch with harpoons when they colonized the green Sahara during its wettest period between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Their tall stature, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet, was not immediately apparent from their tightly bound burial positions.

The more recent population was the Tenerian, a more lightly built people who appeared to have had a diverse economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding. They lived during the latter part of the green Sahara, about 7,000 to 4,500 years ago. Their one-of-a-kind burials often included jewelry or ritual poses — a girl wearing an upper-arm bracelet carved from a hippo tusk, for example, and a stunning triple burial containing a woman and two children in a poignant embrace.

“At first glance, it’s hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place,” said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University. “The biggest mystery is how they seemed to have done this without disturbing a single grave.”

Although the Sahara has long been the world’s largest desert, a faint wobble in Earth’s orbit and other factors occurring some 12,000 years ago caused Africa’s seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to the Sahara. From Egypt in the east to Mauritania in the west, lakes with lush margins dotted the formerly parched landscape, drawing animals, fish and eventually people. Separating these two populations was an arid interval perhaps as long as a millennium that began about 8,000 years ago, when the lake disappeared and the site was abandoned.

Dating the sun-bleached bones of fossil humans in the Sahara has proved very difficult. Using a new technique, the team has obtained nearly 80 radiocarbon dates from Gobero bones and teeth, including comprehensive dates based directly on human skeletons.

Archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino in Italy helped identify the poorly known cultures so well-preserved at the site. Garcea, an expert in ancient pottery who has spent nearly three decades digging at Stone Age sites in northern Africa, traveled with Sereno in 2005 to the site, where she stood amazed, gazing at far more human skeletons than she had seen in all her previous digs combined.

She quickly homed in on two distinct types of pottery, one that bore a pointillistic pattern linked with the Tenerian and another that had wavy lines and zigzags. “These are Kiffian,” a puzzled Garcea told Sereno. “What is so amazing is that the people who made these two types of pots lived in the same place more than a thousand years apart.”

Over the next three weeks Sereno, Garcea and their team of five American excavators made a detailed map of the site. They exhumed eight burials and collected scores of artifacts from both cultures. In a dry lake bed nearby, they found dozens of Kiffian fish hooks and harpoons carved from animal bone as well as skeletal remains of massive Nile perch, crocodile and hippo.

A year later, a second round of excavation turned up more riddles: An adult Tenerian male was buried with his skull resting on part of a clay vessel; another adult male was interred seated on the shell of a mud turtle.

One burial, however, brought 2006 activity at the site to a standstill: Lying on her side, the skeleton of a petite Tenerian woman emerged from the sand, facing the skeletons of two young children; their slender arms reached toward her and their hands were clasped in an everlasting embrace. Samples taken from under the skeletons contained pollen clusters — evidence the people had been laid out on a bed of flowers. The team employed a range of new techniques to preserve this remarkable burial exactly as it had been for more than 5,000 years.

Bioarchaeologist Stojanowski analyzed dozens of individuals’ bones and teeth for clues to the two populations. “This individual, for example, had huge leg muscles,” he said of ridges on the thigh bone of a Kiffian male, “which suggests he was eating a lot of protein and had an active, strenuous lifestyle. The Kiffian appear to have been fairly healthy — it would be difficult to grow a body that tall and muscular without sufficient nutrition.” In contrast, the femur ridge of a Tenerian male was barely perceptible. “This man’s life was less rigorous, perhaps taking smaller fish and game with more advanced hunting technologies,” Stojanowski said.

Analysis of measurements on Kiffian skulls links them to skulls found across northern Africa, some as old as 16,000 years, Stojanowski said. The Tenerian, however, are not closely linked to these ancient populations.

Ancient bones from many animals common today on the Serengeti were identified at the site by Hélène Jousse, a zooarchaeologist from the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria. The evidence showed that elephants, giraffes, hartebeests, warthogs and pythons all made Gobero their home. Abundant bones of 6-foot-long Nile perch indicate the presence of a deep lake during Kiffian times; remains of small catfish and tilapia make it likely that the waters were shallower during Tenerian times.

The team is continuing to analyze Gobero bones for more clues to the people’s health and diet. A large-scale return expedition is planned to the site to further explore the two populations that coped with extreme climate change.

Besides National Geographic, the research at Gobero is funded by the Island Fund of the New York Community Trust, the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

The National Geographic magazine article and special Web features on Gobero are at http://www.nationalgeographic.ngm.com. Extensive information about the discovery and science of Gobero is available at Project Exploration’s “People of the Green Sahara” Web site, http://www.projectexploration.org.

Heat - Cold Changes Gender in Fish, some Reptiles

2008-08-17T17:51:00.006-05:00

Global Warming's Fish-Sex Effect

Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2008 By LISA ABEND / MADRID

A small increase in water temperature among sensitive fish like the South American pejerrey can result in a population that is 98% male

Cousseau, B. and Perrotta, R.G. / Fishbase.org

Once scientists began studying the impact of global warming on everything from tourism to asthma, it was only a matter of time before they got around to sex. Now two biologists at Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) have done just that, at least when it comes to fish.

You may have missed it in biology class, but in some finned species, like the Atlantic silverside — as well as in many reptiles — sex is determined not by genetics but by temperature: the undifferentiated embryo develops testes or ovaries on the basis of whichever option conveys evolutionary advantages for that particular environment. Now, in a study published in the July 30 edition of the scientific journal Public Library of Science, Natalia Ospina-Alvarez and Francesc Piferrer have gone a little further in explaining how that mechanism works. In laboratory tests, they have demonstrated that higher water temperatures result in more male fish.

"We found that in fish that do have temperature-dependent sex determination [TSD], a rise in water temperature of just 1.5 degrees Celsius can change the male-to-female ratio from 1:1 to 3:1," says Piferrer, the study's co-author. In especially sensitive fish, a greater increase can throw the balance even more out of whack. Ospina-Alvarez and Piferrer have found that in the South American pejerrey, for example, an increase of 4 degrees Celsius can result in a population that is 98% male.

What makes these findings especially troubling, of course, is that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that ocean-water temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5 degrees over the course of this century — and they may even go up a few degrees more. "If climate change really does result in a rise of 4 degrees, which is the maximum the IPCC predicts, and if species can't adapt in time or migrate, then in the most sensitive cases of TSD, we're looking at extinction," says Piferrer.

Most research into fish sex determination has been done in the lab (for obvious reasons), but the pejerrey is one of the few species that scientists have been able to study in the field. And those studies have revealed that already, its proportion of males to females is skewed. "It could be because of chemical pollution or it could be because of climate change. We don't know," cautions Piferrer. "But the field data matches our predictions."

At this stage, it is hard to tell what these results bode for already declining fish populations around the world. Of the estimated 33,000 piscatorial species, only 5,000 have had their sex-determination mechanism affirmed. But the study by the two CSIC scientists also suggests that the percentage of TSD fish is lower than previously believed. In tests of 59 species believed to be reproductively sensitive to temperature, only 40 proved to be true TSDs.

That would be good news in this grim era of climate change if it weren't for one factor: even genotypic sex determination can be affected by anomalous conditions, including anomalous temperature. "Basically, if you freeze it or cook it enough," says Piferrer, "you can get whatever sex you want."

60 Year Old Death Solved

2008-08-17T17:04:00.004-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080817/ap_on_re_us/mummified_remains

Mummified remains from 1948 plane crash identified

Sun Aug 17, 12:15 AM ET

This undated photo provided by Alaska State Troopers shows a photo of Francis Joseph Van Zandt on his merchant marine application. The frozen human forearm and hand found near the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422 on Mount Sanford located about 200 miles from Anchorage, Alaska was identified as belonging to Van Zandt. The flight from Shanghai China to New York crashed on the 16,237-foot peak in 1948 killing 24 merchant marines and six crewmen including Van Zandt.

(AP Photo/ Alaska State Troopers)

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 17, 3:28 AM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Nine years of sleuthing, advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques have finally put a name to a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier.

The remains belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who was on a plane rumored to contain a cargo of gold when it smashed into the side of a mountain 60 years ago. Thirty people died in the crash.

"This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains," said latent fingerprint expert Mike Grimm Sr., during a teleconference Friday, during which the two pilots who found the remains, genetic scientists and genealogists talked about the discovery.

Twenty-four merchant marines and six crewmen were flying from China to New York City on March 12, 1948, when the DC-4 slammed into Mount Sanford, perhaps because the pilots were blinded by an unusually intense aurora borealis that night. The wreckage disappeared into the glacier within a few days.

The DC-4 was thought to be carrying gold because the merchant marines had just delivered an oil tanker to Shanghai. Though no gold was found, the two commercial airline pilots who discovered the wreckage found themselves on a scientific adventure filled with high-tech sleuthing.

The pilots, Kevin McGregor and Marc Millican, discovered the mummified remains in 1999 while recovering artifacts to identify the wreckage they had found two years earlier.

An Alaska State Trooper flew to the glacier to take possession of the remains, which were flown to Anchorage where the state medical examiner tried to obtain fingerprints. The remains then were embalmed.

The Alaska Department of Public Safety attempted to match the fingerprints to numerous databases but came up empty because the details of the fingerprints were unclear.

A few pieces of the arm were sent to a commercial DNA laboratory. However, no data could be obtained because the remains, having been in a frozen and dehydrated state for decades, were too degraded.

In 2002, the arm and hand were sent to a DNA expert in Canada. Dr. Ryan Parr at Genesis Genomics in Thunder Bay was able to extract some DNA. However, it was still necessary to locate family members related to the victim for a mitochondrial DNA match. Mitochondrial DNA is DNA passed down by females.

In 2006, Dr. Odile Loreille at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md., was asked to help. Her expertise is extracting DNA from the embalmed remains of unidentified soldiers from the Korean War.

Loreille developed new methods that allowed her to read the hand and arm's mitochondrial DNA.

"I managed to get a mitochondrial sequence," she said. "Now I just needed some relatives to compare."

That's when forensic genealogist Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick got involved in the frustrating search for living relatives of the victims. She and her assistants found family members of 16 of the victims, but no DNA matches.

In the meantime, Grimm Sr., and his son, Mike Grimm Jr., began work with Edward Robinson, a professor of forensic science at George Washington University. Robinson made several attempts to rehydrate the fingers to raise the fingerprint swirls, but by this time only the layer of skin below the outer epidermal layer remained.

Robinson tried again with a newly-developed rehydrating solution. The fingers were soaked in the fluid and examined hourly. Special imaging techniques then were used to produce a complete set of fully legible fingerprints.

On Sept. 6, 2007, the prints were compared with some kept at the National Marine Center in Arlington, Va., and a match was found.

In the meantime, Loreille confirmed the finding with nuclear DNA from a nephew of Van Zandt's. A genealogist also located a relative whose mitochondrial DNA matched the remains.

Worse Than 1984 !

2008-08-17T14:57:00.005-05:00

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/brain-advertisement.htm

Can companies beam advertisements into my brain?

by John Fuller

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this How Stuff Works article:

Fuller, John. "Can companies beam advertisements into my brain?." 05 August 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 17 August 2008.

Inside this Article

Find the answer to these problems by clicking here. The implication of some of this technology is frightening. Abuse would be too enticing for government and Big Business to control the citizens.

Monkey Mind Controls Robot: In a first-of-its-kind experiment, the brain activity of a monkey has been used to control the real-time walking patterns of a robot halfway around the world, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. (January 18)
: This technology could be a godsend to people with certain disabilities.

More Electronics Videos »

Stephen Hawking - His Marvelous Wheelchair

2008-08-17T14:37:00.009-05:00

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/audeo.htm

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Stephen Hawking's Wheelchair Physicist Stephen Hawking suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Hawking has near complete paralysis but retains enough muscle control to allow him to press a button with his right hand. A computer screen displays a series of icons that allow control of his wheelchair, doors and appliances in his house. He can select items on the screen by pressing the button when a moving cursor passes over the correct area of the screen.

Hawking speaks in a similar manner. The screen displays the alphabet, with a cursor moving over it. He presses the button at the appropriate letter. Once he has constructed a complete sentence, he can send the text to the voice synthesizer built into his chair [source: Professor Stephen Hawking]. Hawking’s ability to move a finger on his right hand differentiates him from many other victims of paralysis or disease, who are unable to communicate or interact with control systems at all.

..................................................

How Stuff Works

Communication system I communicate with a computer system. I have always used IBM compatible computers, on my wheel chair. They run from batteries under the wheel chair, although an internal battery will keep the computer running for an hour if necessary. The screen is mounted on the arm of the wheel chair where I can see it, more recent systems have the whole computer in a box on this arm. The original systems were put together for me by David Mason, of Cambridge Adaptive Communications. This company manufacture and supply a variety of products to help people with communication problems express themselves. Recently, Intel engineers designed a new computer for me powered by a Pentium II processor, which I now use. On the computer, I run a program called Equalizer™, written by a company called Words Plus inc. A cursor moves across the upper part of the screen. I can stop it by pressing a switch in my hand. This switch is my only interface with the computer. In this way I can select words, which are printed on the lower part of the screen. When I have built up a sentence, I can send it to a speech synthesizer. I use a separate synthesizer, made by Speech+. It is the best I have heard, though it gives me an accent that has been described variously as Scandinavian, American or Scottish. I also can use Windows 98 through an interface called EZ Keys, again made by Words Plus. I am able to control the mouse with the switch through cleverly selected process from a small box shown on the desktop. I can also write text using similar menu's to those in Equalizer. I can save what I write to disk. I write papers using a formatting program called TEX. I can write equations in words, and the program translates them into symbols, and prints them out on paper in the appropriate type. I can also give lectures. I write the lecture beforehand, and save it on disk. I can then send it to the speech synthesiser, a sentence at a time. It works quite well, and I can try out the lecture, and polish it, before I give it.

Stephen Hawking

Recent Improvements Professor Hawking is determined that he is able to keep up with the recent improvements in computer and communication technology. Below are some of the recent improvements, which have been carried out on the system within the last 12 months. Latest Pentium chip In November '03, Professor Hawking was donated a new custom-made mobile computer system by Intel. It is powered by a Centrino Pentium M 1.5GHz chip. With inbuilt wireless, it allows him accesses to the internet throughout his home and office. In non-wireless areas, Intel manage a mobile phone account for us so that Professor Hawking is able to dial in to the Cambridge server from anywhere in the world, via a Nokia laptop card phone. Upgrade to Windows XP To keep up with the times, the new computer is running on Windows XP. For many years it has been impossible to upgrade beyond Windows'98, because Professor Hawking's favourite speech software, Equalizer by Words-Plus, was made many years ago, and was designed to run only on DOS based operating systems. However, Intel has kindly funded the conversion of the software to XP. This involved Words-Plus re-writing the whole program for today’s operating system. Power Due to Professor Hawking's active lifestyle, it is impossible to power his chair computer via the mains as he is never in one place long enough to make this practical. Thus the laptop needs to be powered by a set of slim PowerPad batteries on his chair. The new computer can also be powered directly off his wheelchair motor battery too. Keep talking It is essential that Stephen is able to make use of a telephone. He is able to use either his laptop mobile card phone, or connect his chair computer directly to a telephone socket. The process works by sending digital commands from his computer instructing the phone system to dial a number, answer the phone or hang up at the end of a call. Who's got the remote? Stephen has a universally programmable infra-red remote control attached directly to his computer system. This enables him to operate many of the electronic items in his home, such as televisions, video recorders and music centres. He also has a radio control device which enables him to open doors and operate lights throughout his home. He is now also able to operate doors within his workplace. With the opening of the newly built Centre for Mathematical Sciences, he will be able to get about the building virtually unassisted.

Bigfoot or Hoax??

2008-08-16T20:12:00.019-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080815/ap_on_re_us/bigfoot_claim;_ylt =AgxMc_QAA2VuH5p2N_lYfjdH2ocA

Georgia men claim hairy, frozen corpse is Big Foot

Fri Aug 15, 5:17 PM ET

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This still frame image from video provided by Bigfoot Global LLC, shows what is claimed by them to be a bigfoot or sasquatch creature in an undisclosed area of a northern Georgia forest in June 2008.

(AP Photo/Bigfoot Global LLC)

Slideshow: Bigfoot

plus: video news report at end of article

By MALIA WOLLAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 15, 7:44 PM ET

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Bigfoot or big fat lie? Whenever someone reports sighting the hairy beast of yore (details always fuzzy) or capturing the hirsute humanoid on film (images always grainy), it scares up a dubious debate of international proportions. Friday was just the latest episode in the Sasquatch show, as unreal as it may be.

Two men who claim to have stumbled across a Bigfoot corpse in the woods of northern Georgia indignantly stood by their story at a news conference in Palo Alto during which they offered an e-mail from a scientist as evidence and acknowledged they wouldn't mind making a few bucks from the "find" they have kept stuffed in a freezer for over a month.

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," predicted Matt Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department.

Whitton and Rick Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site. Although they did not consider themselves devoted Bigfoot trackers before then, they have since started offering weekend search expeditions in Georgia for $499. The specimen they bagged, the men say, was one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods.

As they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans that included one curiosity seeker in a Chewbacca suit, the pair were joined Friday by Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot. Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster looking for media attention.

Biscardi fielded most of the questions. Among them: Why should anyone accept the men's tale when they weren't willing to display their frozen artifact or pinpoint where they allegedly found it? How come bushwhackers aren't constantly tripping over primate remains if there are as many as 7,000 Bigfoots roaming the United States, as Biscardi claimed?

"I understand where you are coming from, but how many real Bigfoot researchers are out there trekking 140,000 miles a year?" Biscardi said.

Biscardi, Whitton and Dyer presented what they called evidence supporting the Bigfoot theory. It was an e-mail from a University of Minnesota scientist, but all it said was that of the three DNA samples sent to the scientist, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems.

At least one other Bigfoot researcher, Idaho State University anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, called the trio's claims "not compelling in the least." He told the Scientific American that photographs posted on the Web site "just looks like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect."

Whitton and Dyer have offered three different accounts of how they found the beast's remains.

In early videos, the animal was shot by a former felon, and the men followed it into the woods. In a second version, they found a "family of Bigfoot" in the north Georgia mountains. In the third, the two were hiking and stumbled upon the corpse with open wounds.

In one of their YouTube videos, they are shown speaking with a man they identify as a scientist. Earlier this week, they admitted that the man was Dyer's brother. Dyer said they were simply having fun.

Asked why anyone should believe his claims when he already had shown a flair for tomfoolery, he suggested that skeptics simply are jealous.

"They don't have a choice to believe us. We have a body," Dyer said.

___

Associated Press writer Juanita Cousins in Atlanta contributed to this report

..........

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n15448807-bigfoot/

"Bigfoot" fails DNA test

Posted 2008/08/17 at 12:16 am EDT

PALO ALTO, California, Aug. 17, 2008 (Reuters) — Bigfoot remains as elusive as ever. Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.

Its spread was fueled by a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, according to Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the DNA analysis.

Bigfoot creatures are said to live in the forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. An opossum is a marsupial about the size of a house cat.

Results of the DNA tests were revealed in an e-mail from Nelson and distributed at the Palo Alto, California, news conference held by Tom Biscardi, host of a weekly online radio show about the Bigfoot.

Also present were Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two who say they discovered the Bigfoot corpse while hiking in the woods of northern Georgia. They also are co-owners of a company that offers Bigfoot merchandise.

Despite the dubious photo and the commercial interests of the alleged discoverers, the Bigfoot claim drew interest from Australia to Europe and even The New York Times.

Biscardi said the DNA samples may not have been taken correctly and may have been contaminated, and that he would proceed with an autopsy of the alleged Bigfoot remains, currently in a freezer at an undisclosed location.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin in Palo Alto; writing by Jim Christie; editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Henderson)

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Another Yeti?? In India. video: testing hairs file: yeti, sasquatch,abominable snowman, etc..: Scientists test 'Yeti hairs' http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=9318405

___

On the Net:

Bigfoot Tracker: http://www.bigfoottracker.com

Big Foot Field Researchers Organization: http://www.bfro.net/

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