Calculator of the Ancients

One of the oddest artifacts ever found, the Antikythera Mechanism, has been subjected to a reconstuction that shows just how amazing the original device was. Found off Greece in 1901 and dating back perhaps 2,100 years, this assemblage of precisely crafted gear wheels was more sophistiaced than anything that would appear for a millennium. The bronze construction was a calculator that could add, multiply, divide and subtract. It could track the movements of the sun and moon and locate them within the zodiac, and could even predict lunar and solar eclipses.

COMMENT: These new findings leave us with more questions than answers. What brilliant individual or group designed and built the Mechanism? (It's been speculated the mathematician and atronomer Hipparchos had something to do with it, but no one really knows.) Were other devices also made? (At the least, any invention so complex must have had prototypes.) Why did the know-how embodied in the Mechanism disappear completely, without leaving even a mention of its existence among the records of the time? One need not be an "ancient astronaut" kook to shake one's head in amazement.

Bomb-Sniffing Bees

We are used to bomb squads that go "woof." Now they may go "bzzzzz."

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have trained honeybees to stick out their proboscis when they smell explosives. The effort is called the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project. Operational use is some way off, but, if the bees prove sensitive and reliable enough, the advantages of cheap, tiny bees over large, ground-walking dogs or complex sensing machines are obvious.

Dunkleosteus: The Ultimate Predator

There is a new study out concerning my favorite fossil species, the Devonian-era Dunkleosteus terrelli. Scientists at the Field Museum looked at fossils to build a computer model and analyze the animal's bite. Their conclusion: Dunkleosteus, armed with "biting plates" of bone rather than true teeth, was as scary as it looked. The force exerted by the animal's gaping jaws when they closed was estimated at 11,000 lbs (5,000kg), with the force at the tip of a plate being over seven times that.
Researcher Mark Westneat put it this way: "It kind of blows sharks out of the water as far as bite force goes. A huge great white shark is probably only capable of biting at about half that bite force."
Dunkleosteus, nearly the size of a killer whale, went extinct over 300 million years ago, at the end of the Devonian.

Cue very scary music...

The Brain of the Whale

Patrick Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York report the brains of humpback whales include spindle neurons, an "advanced" type of brain cell previously known only from the higher primates and the dolphins. Spindle neurons, believed to be used in cognition, may play a role in some signature behaviors including the unique "singing" of the male humpback.
Hof and Van der Gucht wrote, "In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species, it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales, and certainly humpback whales, exhibit complex social patterns that included intricate communication skills, coalition-formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage. It is thus likely that some of these abilities are related to comparable histologic complexity in brain organization in cetaceans and in hominids."

Genetics: More Complicated than we thought

An international team of scientists has published a paper containing potentially revolutionary findings about the human genome.
Genes were classically believed to come in pairs, with rare exceptions called "copy-number variants," but the new research shows that having an unusual copy number - one, three, or more examples of a gene rather than two - is much more common and important than believed.
Shorn of the scientific jargon, the discovery means a couple of things. One is that the human genome is more complex and variable than thought, potentially making it harder to point to one gene as the cause of a problem or defect. Conversely, we now know to look for variations that we used to think were not present or at best unimportant.
James Lupski of Baylor University added, "I believe this paper will change forever the field of human genetics."

The Science of Sleight-of-Hand

We've always known that a great deal of what magicians do involves misdirecting the audience's attention. Now we know why it works.

Gustav Kuhn of the University of Durham in England has videotaped the magician and the audience while the former appears to make a ball disappear in midair. While audience members insist they were following the ball all the time, the video shows almost all glanced at the magician's eyes for a cue about which direction to look. As Kuhn put it, "Even though people claimed they were looking at the ball, what you find is that they spend a lot of time looking at the face. While their eye movements weren't fooled by where the ball was, their perception was. It reveals how important social cues are in influencing perception."

Three new primates named

The world's smallest primates, all residents of Madagascar, are the mouse lemurs of the genus Microcebus. German researchers have identified three previously unclassified members of this ever-expanding group. The new chipmunk-sized, nocturnal critters (Microcebus bongolavensis, Microcebus danfossi, Microcebus lokobensis) join a genus which has expanded considerably over the last decade as scientists race against deforestation and other threats to study Madagascarene fauna. A researcher from the German Primate Center in Gattingen explains that the mouse lemur species, which look very similar and need a lot of work to differentiate, appear to have been split up primarily by river barriers on the world's fourth-largest island.

New Support for Fusion Reactor project

Thirty nations, including the United States, have signed a pact committing them to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which will be built in Cadarache, France. The project's cost is estimated at up to $10.8 billion U.S. Also signed on are the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, China, and Russia: most of the world's major technological powers. Commercial fusion power is variously estimated at 20-50 years off: ITER is intended to be the proof-of-concept reactor.

COMMENT: Over the long term, it is hard to imagine a reasonable alternative to fusion. It is much more difficult and expensive to develop than was once hoped, but for large-scale power generation with minimal environmental impact, it's the planet's best hope, and we'd best get going on it.

Raiders of the Lost Duck

Conservationists from The Peregrine Fund Madagascar Project have rediscovered the Madagascar Pochard, a duck not seen since 1991 and classified as "possibly extinct." The site was a remote lake in the northern wilds of the island mini-continent.
Stuart Butchart,Global Species Programme Coordinator, BirdLife International, said,
“Spectacular rediscoveries like this are extremely rare, but they provide a glimmer of hope for the 14 other bird species classified as Possibly Extinct.”

COMMENT: Madagascar was the site of another spectacular rediscovery, that of the Madagascar Serpent Eagle, which was found by a conservationist from the Peregine Fund after decades in presumed extinction.

The AIr Force's New Space Vehicle

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and DARPA are working on the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, intended to carry new equipment, experiments, components, and satellites into orbit for testing, then return then to Earth. The X-37B may be thought of as a quarter-scale version of the space shuttle, minus the astronauts. The Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office is responsible for the program to acquire, test, and demonstrate the OTV. A first launch in 2008 is hoped for.

COMMENT: Building a reusable demonstrator of this type makes a lot of sense: not just to have the capability to test and retest equipment in space, but to see if the OTV itself is a workable concept. If it suceeds (or even if it fails in flight) it will contribute a great deal to the design and construction of future reusable spacecraft. However, similar programs have been started by the military and/or NASA many times since the 1950s and have never been funded to completion. So I wish them the best of luck. The environment of space may be harsh, but it's nothing compared to the ones encountered at the Office of Management and Budget and on Capitol Hill.

Decoding the Neanderthal genome

This blog post gives a nice capsule review of the recent papers in Nature and Science decoding the Neanderthal genome. Author John Timmer explains the methods and the difficulties of this work in language us non-geneticists can understand. On the most interesting question - whether modern humans still carry Neanderthal genes - one of these two studies suggested (although not definitvely) that we do, while the other found no evidence. These papers represent a quantum leap in understanding our heavy-browed prehistoric cousin, but we are a long was from knowing everything.

A Cryptic Carcass

Paleobiologist Darren Naish, one of the most thoughtful of scientifically-trained cryptozoologists, here takes a detailed look at one of the semi-holy grails for those who believe in large unidentified animals still prowl the seas.
Naish agrees the eyewitness evidence for some sort of elongated large marine animal is impressive, but he can't accept one of the most-discussed pieces of physical evidence, the Naden Harbor, British Columbia, carcass of 1937. Naish wonders if this 3-4 meter, very slender, odd-looking thing did, as the contemporary reports had it, come from the gullet of a sperm whale. Ed Bousfield and Paul LeBLond published a controversial paper naming this the type specimen of a marine reptile, Cadborosaurus willsi. Naish agrees he does not know what this thing was (the specimen was lost, and only photographs remain), but is quite sure that Bousfield and LeBlond entered into far too much speculation given the limited amount of data one can be sure of from the photographs.
COMMENT: While the whole topic is often buried in the silly-season term "sea serpent," there really is a suprisingly good body of sightings that remain unexplained. The gold standard, as Naish notes, is the 1905 sighting by two well-qualified British naturalists on the yacht Valhalla, who carefully observed and sketched an animal that still cannot be reasonably assigned to any known species. More details are available in (of course) my book Shadows of Existence, among other sources.

First Launch for Blue Origin

Blue Origin, the secretive space-tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, has carried out its first test launch. No information has been released about the rocket-powered test craft, except that it was a short suborbital flight, lasting under a minute and not exceeding two kilometers in altitude. No other information has come out of the launch site in western Texas or the company's Seattle HQ.

A Window onto ancient Rome

A beautifully preserved Roman cargo vessel, loaded with amphorae (sealed clay jars), is now yielding up its treasures, six years after it was discovered. The ship apparently sank in a storm of the southeastern coast of Spain about 2,000 years ago. The vessel was 100 feet long and carried 400 tons of cargo. This included lead, copper, and hundreds of amphorae, some containing fish sauce, a prized condiment in ancient Rome. Archaeologist Javier Neto told a reporter, "For archaeologists, a sunken ship is a historic document that tells us about ancient history and how its economy worked. This ship will contribute a lot."
COMMENT: The dimensions above make the ship considerably larger than the Santa Maria, the largest vessel in Christopher Columbus' little fleet sailing over fourteen centuries later.

Killer Whales: A dramatic look

In this stunning video posted on National Geographic News, two killer whales, or orcas, halfway beach themselves in pursuit of sea lion pups on the shore of Argentina. Once the two orcas (who are known to be brothers) have filled up their stomachs, they grab another pup and use it in what humans would call a sadistic game, tossing it back and forth to each other - in one case, batting it into the air with a mighty tail. Amazingly, the pup is not killed in this game. Even more amazingly, one whale takes the pup back to shore and releases it. Cetologists are puzzled, to say the least, at this behavior... just one more reminder of how hard it is to understand what goes on in the brain of another species.

Farewell, Mars Global Surveyor?

Mars Global Surveyor was launched ten years ago, and has been sending back data on the Red Planet ever since. Now NASA's mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have lost contact with the probe. A variety of things, from a power problem to a meteorite strike, could be to blame. The original mission, scheduled for one Martian year, has been extended many times, the MGS has mapped the entire planet, studied possible landing sites, and added greatly to our knowledge of the planet's past and the possibility of remaining water sources. The MGS may yet be revived, but, even if not, it's an example of how superbly a spacecraft can be designed, engineered, and operated to greatly exceed expectations. FOr those interested in costs, the mission cost $150M to build, $65M to launch, and costs about $7.5M a year to operate. Planetary scientists consider that one of the great bargains of the Space Age.

What's ahead for NASA?

Shelby Spires of the Huntsville (AL) Times writes that big changes are not likely to affect space programs, including NASA, in the wake of the U.S. midterm elections that brought the Democratic party to power in both houses of Congress. (Keep in mind it takes over a year to make a real change in the U.S. budget: the FY 2007 budget is set and the 2008 requests are well along). One thing experts agree on is that a Democratic Congress is more likely to fund space science, particularly Earth-focused environmental science.
COMMENT: Given that this Congress is unlikely to fund major NASA budget increases, the emphasis on science programs is likely to mean a slowdown in human spaceflight programs as money in 2008 and 2009 is shifted to science.

New Parrot Down Under

After ten years of fieldwork, wildlife cinematographer John Young has discovered a possible new species, the blue-fronted fig parrot, in the forests of southern Queensland, Australia. It's not certain yet whether this diminutive bird is a full species or a distinctive subspecies of the known double-eyed fig parrot Cyclopsitta diophthalma, but Young's discovery is important in any case: important enough that the Queensland government is keeping the location a secret while further expeditions are made. (The name "double-eyed" apparently derives from the brightly colored cheek patches (red for males, yellow for females) on this largely green-feathered bird, although they really don't look like eyes at all.)

New Phylum is Very Old

Xenoturbella is a 12-mm wormlike creature that would not seem very important, and no one thought much about it when it was first dredge from the Baltic Sea some 50 years ago. A new study, now, shows it is a very interesting beastie indeed. The critter is so different from everything else it belongs in its own phylum. There are only 30-some phyla in the animal kingdom (the exact number is disputed). Xenoturbella is literally brainless, and shows features indicating it has retained characteristics of the original missing link - the presumed common ancestor of all chordates, including humans. One researcher explained, "It is a basal organism, which by chance preserved the basal characteristics present in our common ancestor. This shows that our common ancestor doesn't have a brain but rather a diffuse neural system in the animal's surface."

Wind energy gaining steam (so to speak)

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates that, if wind energy is pursued "aggressively," it could account for 20% of US electricity demand by 2020. Factors slowing the expansion of wind energy include questions raised by environmentalists concerned with the number of birds killed by the turbine blades. A new report by the Department of Defense also raises concerns that tall windmills in some locations could degrade the capabilities of air-defense and air traffic control radars. So far, radar-related concerns have resulted in delays of some energy projects, but no cancellations. AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher says, "Decades of experience tell us that wind and radar can coexist. The American wind energy industry will continue to work collaboratively with government and others."

One Dolphin, four flippers?

Japanese scientists are studying a captured dolphin with a unique anomaly - it has four flippers. The animal has a second, small pair where hind legs might be expected in a land mammal. Seiji Osumi of the Institute of Cetacean Research said, "I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery." Vestigial hind legs or unformed protrusions have, in very rare cases, been found on other cetaceans, but this is the first case of well-formed, functional flippers.

Bigfoot and academia

Idaho State University anthropologist Jeff Meldrum is one of the leading scientific experts on the alleged unclassified ape of North America, the sasquatch. Unfortunately, that does not make him very popular with the rest of the faculty. Dr. Meldrum, a tenured professor, is considered an embarrassment by some of his colleagues. Thirty of them signed a letter objecting to his hosting a sasquatch symposium on campus. Fortunately, John Kijinski, dean of arts and sciences, is more tolerant, saying, "He's a bona fide scientist. I think he helps this university. He provides a form of open discussion and dissenting viewpoints that may not be popular with the scientific community, but that's what academics all about."

COMMENT: I'm with Kijinski. Yes, the odds are against there being an undiscovered primate wandering the Northwest. However, the scientific method demands freedom of inquiry, including inquiry into subjects that are considered "fringe."

NASA approves Hubble repair mission

NASA has approved a Shuttle mission to extend the life of the Hubble telescope. The action was widely applauded in the space science community, which has not had much to cheer about from NASA lately. The mission would launch in 2008 to allow astronauts to add seven years of life to Hubble by upgrading guidance and control components. They would also attempt to repair one instrument and replace two others, greatly improving the telescope's capabilities. However, NASA, having directed all possible funding into the Shuttle missions supporting the International Space Station, the planned retirement of the Shuttle in 2010, and the demands of the new Vision for Space Exploration, does not know where the estimated $900M budget for the mission will come from.

World fish stocks trending sharply downward

A new study indicates that global stocks of fish and other edible marine life, with the ecosystems they support, are headed for a cliff by 2050. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said, "I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are - beyond anything we suspected." He and his colleagues, who spent four years collating results of experiments and other studies worldwide, report that 29% of commercially valuable marine species have already "crashed" - that is, the populations are down an estimated 90 % or more - and the rest are following quickly. Overfishing in the main culprit, but coastal development and other ecological degradation is blamed as well.

COMMENT: This is not like global warming, where the observed changes leave some doubt about the overall trend and the human role in it. This is a crisis that essentially is impossible to dispute. While some nations, notably the US, believe they are maintaining proper controls keeping harvesting by their own fishing fleets to sustainable levels, the global picture is a very bleak one. This situation requires coordinated global action NOW.

New Species from the Pacific

A protected marine area northwest of Hawaii has yielded a bonanza of new and rare species of marine animal. A three-week expedition in the French Frigate Shoals area netted over a thousand species of invertebrates. Examples include a sea star (starfish) colored bright purple and measuring a foot (30cm) across the arms and "a hermit crab that dons a sea anemone and sports shiny golden claws."
There is still much work to be done to determine how many of these are new, but one zoologist with the team said, "There were lots of organisms that people were saying, 'Wow! What's that?'"

Elephant awareness?

An Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo showed the ability to recognize herself in a mirror. This behavior, indicating at least a basic level of self-awareness, has been seen only in humans and chimps until now. (Results on dolphins are suggestive but not definite.) Some animals ignore mirrors, while others assume the image is another individual. Interestingly, only one of the three elephants clearly understood the test, touching her trunk to her face where the mirror showed a marking.

Another nation resumes whaling

Iceland, citing its centuries-old whaling tradition, has announced it will issue permits for taking a total of 39 fin and minke whales. Iceland stopped commercial whaling when an international moratorium was agreed on in 1989. While the minke whale is relatively abundant, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands (it has benefited greatly from past hunting that decimated the numbers of larger baleen whales), the "finner" is still listed as an endangered species by the IUCN.

COMMENT: The north Atlantic minke and fin stocks could, from a hard-nosed numerical point of view, survive a limited annual cull without significant harm. HOWEVER, in the bigger picture, this is a very bad idea. First, it further legitimizes whale hunting, encouraging more nations to resume the practice, inevitably leading to larger kills and environmental impacts. Second, the more widespread whaling is, the more it provides cover for the taking of protected species. Numerous samples of humpback, blue, and other rare species have been found in markets selling meat from Japan's "scientific" harvest of minke whales. (How good can their scientists be if they can't tell a humpback from a minke? One sample was even shown to come from a blue/fin hybrid. Try mistaking that for a minke sometime).

The Bionic Dolphin

That's what Thomas "Doc" Rowe calls his invention, but it's more like a sports car for the oceans. Rowe is currently working with regulators on how to license his prototype, which can carry passengers on the surface at 55 miles per hour or dive underneath the waves and manuever like a marine mammal. Projected consumer cost for this ultimate toy: $350,000.

Science and Ghosts

It's Halloween....

We all know someone who has experienced a seemingly ghostly event. Maybe we've experienced one ourselves. But is there any way to prove whether there's a ghost in the room?
Skeptic Benjamin Radford has no doubts: the answer is no. Radford looks at TV "ghost hunters" and complains that, despite their habit of carrying instrumentation like electromagnetic field detectors, they never really find a ghost. Anything anomalous, like a cold spot, is considered to be evidence a ghost is present, but all that's left at the end is a collection of anomalies.. nothing consistent, nothing repeatable, nothing definite.

Is Mars getting boring?

Read The Onion's version fo the adventures of the rover Opportunity and judge for yourself.

Fun with Rockets

Alan Boyle writes, "What do you get when you cross a circus with a space shot? That breed of alien hybrid would probably look very much like the Wirefly X Prize Cup, gearing up at the Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico." The events underway range from flight tests of lunar lander technology to demonstrations of what is pretty likely to be the world's only rocket-powered truck.

Honeybees - Past and Present

News (or buzz) came out almost simultaneously of two discoveries involving that indispensable insect, the honeybee.
First, the genetic blueprint of the honeybee was published. Only three other insects have had their genomes sequenced so far. Among the surprises: two genetically distinct European bee populations are more closely related to African bees than to each other.
Second, a tiny (3mm) amber-preserved specimen 100 million years old was identified as the earliest known bee. Melittosphex burmensis came from a mine in Burma's Hukawng Valley. The ancient insect showed features supporting the idea that bees were then in the process of descending from a wasp ancestor.

Thanks (as usual) to Kris for this item.

Interview with an Explorer

Robert Ballard, whose teams discovered the first known hydrothermal vent ecosystem in 1977 and the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985, is busily working on new robotic technology to open the deep to routine study through "telepresence." He's helping to outfit a new exploration vessel, the Okeanos Explorer, with a next-generation system of remotely operated vehicles dubbed Hercules.
When asked what mysteries of the ocean he would like to solve next, Ballard told an interviewer, "I have no idea. When you make a true discovery, like the hydrothermal vents, we didn't know they were there, we tripped over them. What ocean exploration does and will do is trip over stuff. I can tell you that statistically there has to be stuff there because we've only looked at a small percentage of the ocean floor, and look what we've discovered. There's got to be countless more discoveries to be made."

A Great White on display

A great white shark - perhaps the hardest creature to keep alive in captivity - is wowing the crowd at the Outer Bay Exhibit, a million-gallon tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium designed with great whites in mind. The inhabitant is a male, about a year old and about 5 feet 8 inches long. It's not what people normally think of when they picture a great white - we all have the maneating monster from Jaws planted in our minds - but people are flocking to see the animal just the same. "We're not trying to display a large 18-foot animal," curator Jon Hoech told USA Today. "We believe starting small gives us our best chances."

"Lucy" fossil to be exhibited in the U.S.

One of the pivotal finds in the study of human evolution - the 3.2 million-year-old fossil skeleton of a female hominid known as "Lucy" - will be joining other items showcasing Ethiopia's heritage in an 11-city tour of the United States. The exhibit will open in Houston next September.

Life finds a way

Two miles beneath the surface of the Earth, in a South African gold mine, scientists have discovered a bacterial ecosystem that needs no connection, not even indirectly, to the Sun. Sulfur and hydrogen, of geological origin, are the only nutrients required. Other "chemoautotrophic" ecosystems, like those at deep-sea vents, still use, at least in part, some nutrients that can be traced to the photosynthetic world. One of the discoverers, Douglas Rumble, observed, "It is possible that communities like this can sustain themselves indefinitely, given enough input from geological processes. Time will tell how many more we might find in Earth's crust, but it is especially exciting to ponder whether they exist elsewhere in the solar system."

Cyprus mouse not as unique as claimed

Every article I've seen on the new species of mouse from Cyprus (see earlier post) includes the discoverers' statement that this is the first new mammal described from Europe in over a century. Paleobiologist Darren Naish wondered if that was true. It turns out to be way off. Naish counts no fewer than 29 new species of moles, voles, mice, bats, and other odds and ends described from the world's most densely populated continent in that time frame. It's a good reminder that just because a qualified scientist says something is true, and presumably believes it's true, does not guarantee he or she has done the homework before putting out the claim.

Thanks to Darren Naish

A Dog-Sized Buffalo?

Such a buffalo (part of the Asian buffalo family, not related to the American bison) once lived in the Philippines. On the island of Cebu, the buffalo formed an isolated population whose members shrank in size by about two-thirds over time, resulting in an animal shorter than the largest domestic dogs and weighing about 350 lbs. The bones of the only known example were found fifty years ago in a phosphate mine by engineer Michael Armas, who kept them without thinking much of them until he showed them to specialists in 1995. Estimated at ten to twenty thousand years old, the remains are now the basis for a formally described species, Bubalus cebuensis. The buffalo is an important example of "island dwarfism," a phenomenon in which island populations develop smaller size compared to their counterparts in mainland environments. (In an amusing example of the vagaries of evolution, the feet of B. cebuensis did not shrink as much as the rest of the animal, so it has disproportionately large feet.)
The concept of island dwarfism has been most famously debated in the case of the proposed hominid species, Homo floresiensis, the "hobbit" from the Indonesian island of Flores.

Still Roving the Red Planet

This article includes an awesome photograph: an image taken by one spacecraft (the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) of another space voyager (the rover Opportunity) at the edge of the Victoria Crater on Mars. Opportunity has so far traveled 9.4 kilometers on our most intriguing planetary neighbor.

COMMENT: I will always remember one great cartoon published during the Mars Pathfinder mission... it showed the little Sojourner rover crossing the Martian sands, leaving human footprints.

New National Space Policy unveiled

For the first time since 1996, the basic statement of American space policy has been updated. The new policy approved by President Bush reinforces the view, expressed in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, that resources in space are not subject to commercial or governmental appropriation. It states in slightly stronger terms than the 1996 policy the US intent to maintain freedom of action in space for uses such as reconnaissance satellites. Most importantly, from a scientific point of view, the old policy said NASA should study human expansion to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The new policy, in line with the Vision for Space Exploration the President announced in 2004, makes it clear the nation's intent is to carry out such exploration, not just study it.

Europe's first new mammal in a century

Scientists used to think the little gray mouse roaming the island of Cyprus was just a house mouse brought by human settlers nine or ten thousand years ago. As it turns out, they were very wrong. Mus cypriacus , the first new species of mammal described from Europe in 100 years, shows an affinity to fossils dated well before the human colonization. It is, in fact, the only pre-human rodent still living on Cyprus. The term "living fossil" is overused, but, to mammologists, the mouse is a window to the long-ago development of the region's mammalian fauna.

Thanks once again to Kris Winkler, who could put me out of a job if she started her own blog :)

A stunning view of Saturn

This NASA image from the Cassini probe shows the ringed planet with a "string of pearls" formation, seemingly circling the entire atmosphere. The pearls are clearings in one layer of Saturn's cloud cover. Scientists are still a long way from understanding this phenomenon.


COMMENT: While I try to take a scientific view of the world, I can't work out why evolution alone would equip us with the capacity to look on a sight like this and feel, not just curiosity or scientific interest, but awe, wonder, and beauty. There is something in the human spirit that evolutionary biology alone has not yet explained. I don't think it ever will.

Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.

— Charles A. Lindbergh

Another colorful feathered friend

From Columbia comes word of a snazzy-looking new species, the bright yellow and red-crowned Yariguies brush-finch. Add this to the discovery from India (see earlier post) and it's been a good month for ornithologists. The new brush-finch dwells in the cloud forests on the eastern side of the Andes.

A "camelephant" from ancient Syria?

Researchers have unearthed 100,000-year-old remains of a camel the size of an elephant from the central region of Syria. According to Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel, "The camel's shoulders stood three meters high and it was around four meters tall; as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed."
The find is important in another way, too. "It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago," Le Tensorer added.
It's not yet clear whether the camels were hunted by early humans, although the two species did coexist. The human remains found at the site are puzzling in themselves: it's not clear whether they belong to modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) or H. s. neanderthalensis, and further study is underway.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Kris Winkler for pointing me to this article.

Irwin's Turtle Discovery Endangered

The Sydney Morning Herald reports, "A rare turtle named after the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin could be under threat of extinction if a dam planned for construction in its habitat goes ahead. Elseya irwini is named as a species at risk in a Queensland Government environmental impact report."
The first person to catch a specimen of E. irwini was Steve Irwin's father, Bob, in 1990. Steve could not identify the animal, so he took pictures and sent them to turtle expert John Cann. "I saw the photos and jumped on the telephone because I knew it was a new species," Cann said. "I think if someone discovers something they should have a reward for it. It's a good legacy for Steve."

Time for the Ig Nobel Prizes

The Ig Nobels are given each year for scientific (or kind of scientific) research that "cannot or should not be repeated." The prizes have been handed out at a Harvard University ceremony every year since 1991. Some people have traveled from other nations to accept their Igs, which are handed out by real Nobel laureates. (As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.) 2006 Igs include an award for figuring out why we hate the noise of fingernails scraping on a blackboard. Another went to Harry Stapleton for inventing the Mosquito "teenager repellent" device, which emits annoying noise at a frequency teens can hear but most adults can't. Then there was Dr. Ivan Schwab, who figured out why woodpeckers don't get headaches. This is no doubt of great interest to the Bayer Aspirin people, whose sales to woodpeckers have been far short of projections. There are times science could definitely use a dose of humor, and the Annals of Improbable Research, which hands out the Ig Nobels, definitely does its part.

A Collision in Space

Around the Earth orbit thousands of pieces of debris, from dead satellites to screws, bolts, and paint flakes. Despite being spread out over the vast expanse of near-Earth space, this junkyard poses a threat to every spacecraft. On its last mission, the Space Shuttle Atlantis was hit by a tiny piece of debris that left a hole about a tenth of an inch (2.5mm) in the right payload bay door radiator. This impact posed no threat to the Shuttle and crew, but illustrates one more hazard that must be accounted for in our plans for the final frontier.

Monsters from the Ancient Seas

Norwegian scientists are describing new species from a huge cache of marine reptile fossils. The fossil "graveyard," dating back 150 million years, was found on the Arctic island of Spitzbergen. Fishlike icthyosaurs, long-necked plesiosaurs, and short-necked pliosaurs once roamed the area. One pliosaur skeleton has been nicknamed "The Monster." The Monster's skull is almost three meters long, and still sports teeth the size of bananas. One scientist exclaimed, "What's amazing here is that it looks like we have a complete skeleton. No other complete pliosaur skeletons are known anywhere in the world."

Meanwhile, Canadian researchers found a new species of ichthyosaur in a unique place - under a ping-pong table. At the University of Alberta, researchers renovating their lab space moved an old ping-pong table and looked into the boxes they found underneath. There, untouched since someone had stashed them in 1971, were the 100-million-year-old remains of a new species of icthyosaur. Michael Caldwell, who co-authored the paper naming the new species, said, "I did my undergraduate work here and I was studying specimens right on top of this table."
See:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

THANKS TO: Kris Winkler for noticing the first article, and to Angela (I know her only by her MySpace name) for the second.

Solving the Monarch Mystery

How do monarch butterflies find their way thousands of miles to places they have never seen?
Dr. Orley Taylor of the University of Kansas has enlisted a small army of butterfly hunters - many of them children - in solving this conundrum. Dr. Taylor's Monarch Project is tagging thousands of butterflies in an effort to trace their migration patterns. The monarchs are not like salmon, who return to the stream where they were born: these colorful orange insects make a multi-generational trip across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. At the end, they somehow manage to locate roosts in Mexico where their great-grandparents originated. Do they use light? Magnetic fields? Scent? Scientists are divided. All we know for sure is, as Ian Malcolm liked to say in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way."

Thanks to Kris Winkler for pointing me to this item.

George Schaller: Conservation and Cryptozoology

In this interview with a leading Indian newspaper, The Hindu, Dr. George Schaller has a lot to say. Schaller, one of the world's best-known conservationists and a biologist of great accomplishment, makes, as one would expect, a passionate plea for conservation of species like the tiger and lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What may be surprising is his view of a very controversial topic, cryptozoology.
Schaller has played a role in describing several new or extremely rare species of mammals. He thinks the yeti and sasquatch are, while seemingly doubtful, still worthy of study. "There are so many human-like creatures in different places. But after all these years there is not a single bone, a single hair. There is no physical evidence other than tracks. There is one film, taken in 1960, and it has been played endlessly for years analyzed, but they can't say it is fake. A hard-eyed look is absolutely essential." [Editor's note: Either Schaller misremembered, or a typo crept into the story, since the film he is referring to is from 1967.]
"I'm not one to say that something does not exist. Look at the Himalayan area. ...People said that the Javan Rhino was extinct. We started talking to local people and one of them said that a rhino was killed recently. He brought out a horn that was selling for a very high price. Local people know a lot, you have to ask the right questions."

Web journals vs. Peer Review

There's a revolution coming in science. Will it be good or bad?

The first Web-based "open peer-review" journals are appearing. Traditionally, a paper is scrutinized (sometimes savaged) by qualified reviewers before it appears in a print journal or its online counterpart. But the Public Library of Science is launching its first open peer-reviewed journal, PLoS ONE, which will appear on the Web and then be subject to review from anyone who puts forth the effort. Will it lead to a flowering of new and innovative ideas? Or will the result be a flood of shoddy work unleashed on the public? Opinions differ, but the idea of open web journals can't be stuffed back in a box. It's going to happen - for good or ill.