Science & TechnologyS


Fish

Giant Amoebas Discovered in Deepest Ocean Trench


OurAmazingPlanet
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:53 UTC
Deploying the Dropcam
© Shelbi RandenburgNational Geographic Society Remote Imaging engineers Eric Berkenpas (bottom) and Graham Wilhelm prepare to deploy Dropcam.

Gigantic amoebas have been found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest region on Earth.

During a July 2011 voyage to the Pacific Ocean chasm, researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers deployed untethered landers, called dropcams, equipped with digital video and lights to explore the largely mysterious region of the deep sea.

The team documented the deepest known existence of xenophyophores, single-celled animals exclusively found in deep-sea environments. Xenophyophores are noteworthy for their size, with individual cells often exceeding 4 inches (10 centimeters), their extreme abundance on the seafloor and their role as hosts for a variety of organisms.

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Meteor

Comets are raining down water on neighbouring Eta Corvi solar system

Alisdair Wilkins
io9.com
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:41 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Eta Corvi solar system is like a window into how our own solar system looked billions of years ago. All of Eta Corvi is being bombarded by giant comets - the exact same process that created Earth's oceans.

What's more, observations by NASA's Spitzer telescope show signs of huge dust clouds close to the system's star. The most obvious way to create dust clouds like that is if a huge comet collided with a planet near the star. Analysis of the light coming from the dust suggests it's composed of water ice, organic compounds, and rock, all of which points very strongly to a big comet.

We can't be sure, but it's certainly possible that this comet actually hit a planet located in Eta Corvi's habitable zone. If that's the case, then we're witnessing what is essentially a reenactment of the formation of our planet's oceans. Earth got huge amounts of its water and carbon-based organic compounds during an epoch known as the Late Heavy Bombardment, in which comets from the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune began hurtling towards the inner solar system due to gravitational disturbances from Jupiter and Saturn.
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Arrow Down

Mainstream Science catching up: Most Planets' Oceans are Probably Seeded by Comets

Mike Wall
SPACE.com
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:29 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL-CaltechArtist's concept illustrating an icy planet-forming disk around the star TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. Astronomers found huge stores of cool water vapor (illustrated in blue) in the frigid outer regions of the star system, where comets will take shape.
A still-forming alien solar system has enough water in its outer reaches to fill Earth's oceans several thousand times over, a new study finds.

The discovery marks the first time astronomers have detected water in a dusty planet-forming disk so far from its central star, in the frigid region where comets are born. Scientists think comet impacts delivered most of Earth's water, and the new study hints that alien planets may commonly acquire oceans in the same way.

"We now know that large amounts of water ice are available in planet-forming disks, ready to be incorporated in comets," said Michiel Hogerheijde, of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, the study's lead author. "Ultimately, some of this water may end up on Earth-like planets that form completely dry but this way may end up with life-supporting oceans."
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Better Earth

China Cuts Off World's Rare Earth Metal Supply

Jason Mick
Daily Tech
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:20 UTC
The hand giveth, the hand taketh away

China only has about 30 percent of the world's rare earth metal deposits, but thanks to clever planning it today controls 97 percent of the world's production of these scarce resources. Deposits of this family of 17 elements -- vital to power electronics found in televisions, smart phones, electric vehicles, and a variety of other devices -- are found in California, Canada, Australia, and Russia, but it will take years to bring them online.

In short the world is at China's mercy for now when it comes to rare earth supply. And China's biggest rare earth metal producer -- the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth (Group) has announced that it is severing shipments to the U.S., Japan, and Europe for one month in an attempt to artificially inflate prices.

Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth also plans to buy rare earth metals in an attempt to further move prices upward. The company already controls 60 percent of China's rare earth production, thanks to the Chinese government's decision to merge 35 other local companies into the Inner Mongolia business, or fade them out.
Image
© Wikimedia CommonsChina controls 97 percent of the world's rare earth metal production.
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Info

Pig Organs Could Be Transplanted Into Humans Within 2 Years


redOrbit
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:23 UTC
Porky
© redOrbit

Scientists said that organs grown in genetically modified pigs could be transplanted into humans in as soon as two years. Pittsburgh University scientists say that a trial transplanting pig corneas into humans with eye problems could begin as early as 2013.

"With new genetically modified pigs becoming available that are likely to improve the outcome of cellular and corneal xenotransplantation further, we believe that clinical trials will be justified within the next two to three years," the authors wrote in the journal The Lancet.

The researchers said transplants of larger organs like the lungs, hearts and kidneys is likely to take longer due to problems with clots forming.

"These problems mean that the longest survival time for pig organs in non-human primates to date ranges from a few days for lungs to around six to eight months for hearts, and trials of solid organ transplants of this nature in humans are likely to be several years away," they wrote.

However, they said that in dire situations, a heart transplant from a pig might be feasible.

"Life-saving transplants of a pig liver or heart could be justified as a bridge until a human organ becomes available."
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Info

'Gypsy Cemetery' Spawns Riddle of the Blue Sedge

Wynne Parry
Live Science
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:00 UTC
Cemetery
© Charles T. BrysonThe grave of the gypsy queen Kelly Mitchell, where her visitors leave gifts. Botanists think her followers may also have introduced a foreign plant, called blue sedge, to Mississippi.

The plant doesn't look as if it had an unusual story to tell. A type of sedge, it tops out at a foot (0.3 meters) tall and has leaves that look just like blades of green grass.

But after this plant turned up in a Mississippi cemetery four years ago, botanists put on their detective hats to figure out how it got there. The weedy species had never been found in North America before then.

Their main theory: Gypsies.

Cemetery sedge

Charles Bryson, a research botanist with the United States Department of Agriculture, recalls how he became involved in the mystery. In 2007, a graduate student named Lucas Majure came across an unknown type of sedge in Rose Hill Cemetery in the city of Meridian. He asked Bryson, who worked for the federal department's Agricultural Research Service, to help identify the plant.

"He showed it to me, and I immediately knew it was something new to science or something I had never seen in the U.S.," Bryson told LiveScience. "I have studied sedges for almost 40 years. I know them well enough to know if there is something different or unusual or new."

The plant turned out to be Carex breviculmis, or blue sedge, a widespread weed found in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
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Sun

Nearby planet-forming disk holds water for thousands of oceans


University of Michigan
Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:08 UTC
Image
© Tim Pyle, Spitzer Science Center, CalTechThis is an illustration depicting the sprawling cloud of cold water vapor that astronomers have detected around the burgeoning solar system at the nearby star TW Hydrae. The cold water vapor could could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets that are forming in the system.
For the first time, astronomers have detected around a burgeoning solar system a sprawling cloud of water vapor that's cold enough to form comets, which could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets.

Water is an essential ingredient for life. Scientists have found thousands of Earth-oceans' worth of it within the planet-forming disk surrounding the star TW Hydrae. TW Hydrae is 176 light years away in the constellation Hydra and is the closest solar-system-to-be.

University of Michigan astronomy professor Ted Bergin is a co-author of a paper on the findings published in the Oct. 21 edition of Science.

The researchers used the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) on the orbiting Hershel Space Observatory to detect the chemical signature of water.

"This tells us that the key materials that life needs are present in a system before planets are born," said Bergin, a HIFI co-investigator. "We expected this to be the case, but now we know it is because have directly detected it. We can see it."
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Info

Paleo CSI: Early Hunters Left Mastodon Murder Weapon Behind

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:00 UTC
Mammoth Bone
© Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&MHigh-tech CT scans show the point embedded in the mammoth's rib bone.

A new look at a very old mastodon skeleton has turned up evidence of the first known hunting weapon in North America, a tool made of bone that predates previously known hunting technology by 800 years.

The sharp bit of bone, found embedded in a mastodon rib unearthed in the 1970s, has long been controversial. Archaeologists have argued about both the date assigned to the bone - around 14,000 years old - and about whether the alleged weapon was really shaped by human hands. But now, researchers say it's likely that 13,800 years ago, hunters slaughtered elephant-like mastodons using bony projectile points not much bigger around than pencils, sharpened to needle-like tips.

"We're fortunate that the hunter 13,800 years ago was probably trying to get that bone projectile point in between the ribs, probably trying to get at a vital organ," said study researcher Michael Waters, an anthropologist at the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University. "Maybe the mastodon flinched or his thrust was off, and he hit a rib instead and broke his bone projectile point. So it's bad for him, and good for us."

Waters and his colleagues report their finding in the journal Science tomorrow (Oct. 21).
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Telescope

Astronomer captures image of forming planet

Audrey McAvoy
Associated Press
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:30 UTC
Called LkCa 15 b, it's the youngest planet ever observed
Image
© Karen L. Teramura/Univ. of HawaiiThis illustration shows LkCa 15 b, which is estimated to have started taking shape about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Honolulu - Astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet being born.

Adam Kraus, of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, said the planet is being formed out of dust and gas circling a 2-milion-year-old star about 450 light years from Earth.

The planet itself, based on scientific models of how planets form, is estimated to have started taking shape about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Called LkCa 15 b, it's the youngest planet ever observed. The previous record holder was about five times older.

Kraus and his colleague, Michael Ireland from Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory, used Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea to find the planet.
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Black Cat

Oldest Tiger-like Skull Yet - Hints Evolution Got It Right From Start

Dave Mosher
National Geographic News
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:14 UTC
Image
© Velizar Simeonovski , Field Museum of Natural HistorySkull photo and artist's reconstructions of (em>Panthera zdanskyi.
A tiger-like skull unearthed from 2.5-million-year-old rock is the oldest known complete specimen related to modern big cats, according to a new study.

Representing a new species, the skull isn't that different from those of modern tigers, suggesting evolution hit on a winning formula early on and stuck with it.

Paleontologists in 2004 discovered the remarkably complete skull in eastern China. Now an international group of researchers has teased out the specimen's age and its place on the feline evolutionary tree.

The head is as big as that of a very large modern jaguar's. But the teeth and other skeletal features make it most similar to the skulls of tigers, the largest living big cats. Siberian, or amur, tigers, for example - the world's largest cats - stretch about 11 feet (3.3 meters) long and weigh in at about 660 pounds (300 kilograms). (Pictures: "Toygers" vs. Tigers.)
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