Archive for August, 2008

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Fossil of Ancient Pregnant Turtle Discovered

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

A turtle that toddled alongside the dinosaurs died just days before laying a clutch of eggs. Now, about 75 million years later, paleontologists are announcing their find of the fossilized mother-to-be and the eggs tucked inside her body.

Scientists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Canada discovered the turtle in 1999 in a mud-filled channel in the badlands of southeastern Alberta. Then, in 2005, University of Calgary scientists found a nest of 26 eggs laid by another female of the same species in the same region.

Both specimens, described this week in the journal Biology Letters, belong to an extinct turtle in the Adocus genus, a large river turtle that resembles today’s slider and cooter turtles.

The pregnant turtle represents the first fossil turtle to be unearthed with eggs still inside the body cavity, the scientists say.

“Although it is relatively rare to find the eggs and babies of extinct animals, it is even rarer to find them inside the body of the mother,” said researcher Darla Zelenitsky, a geoscientist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, who was also involved in the first discovery of a dinosaur with eggs inside its body.

Fertile find

It was almost by accident that scientists realized that the fossil turtle had been pregnant.

“The reason we knew she was pregnant was because when the fossil was found the body was broken,” Zelenitsky told LiveScience, “so there was egg shell on the ground just below the fossil, it was falling out of the body.”

The team spotted at least five crushed eggs within the body of the fossilized female, and computed tomography (CT) scans revealed more eggs hidden beneath the turtle’s shell. The turtle, estimated to be about 16 inches (40 cm) long, could have produced about 20 eggs.

When still intact, the eggs would have been spherical and about 1.5 inches (4 cm) in diameter. The eggs from the nearby nest were about the same size and shape. Both sets of eggs also had extremely thick and hard shells, especially compared with most modern turtles whose shells are either thinner or soft.

Thick-shelled

The thick eggshell may have evolved to protect the eggs from drying out or from voracious predators that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs.

The pregnant turtle and nest specimens, the researchers say, shed light on the evolution of reproductive traits of modern turtles.

“Based on these fossils, we have determined that the ancestor of living hidden-necked turtles, which are most of today’s turtles and tortoises, laid a large number of eggs and had hard, rigid shells,” said François Therrien, the Museum’s Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology, who worked on the turtle report in the journal.

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New Orleans eyes new storm on Katrina anniversary

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Exactly three years after deadly Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans, authorities on Friday begin bussing people out of the city ahead of the possible landfall of Gustav, forecast to hit the area early Tuesday as a powerful Category Three hurricane.

Residents of the Big Easy were fearing the worst as Gustav regained hurricane strength Friday on it deadly rampage through the Caribbean, where it has killed at least 78 in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

President George W. Bush on Friday declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, freeing up aid from Washington.

The move recalled the botched response to Katrina, an event that shattered Bush’s approval ratings amid widespread criticism that he paid too little attention to the storm.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans on August 29, 2005 as a Category Three hurricane and smashed poorly-built levees surrounding the city. The subsequent flooding destroyed tens of thousands of homes and killed nearly 1,500 people.

State and city officials have vowed to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2005.

Officials in Saint Charles parish, in western New Orleans, on Friday began bussing out residents who want to leave the city.

While the evacuations were voluntary, authorities in all six New Orleans parishes are planning mandatory evacuations starting noon Saturday if Gustav remains on the same path.

Saint Charles officials “are extremely concerned about storm surge flooding” that Gustav would cause, read a statement from the office of Parish President V.J. St. Pierre.

“The entire parish remains at risk,” St. Pierre wrote. “All residents should be taking steps to secure their homes and prepare for evacuation NOW.”

Separately, the Red Cross announced it is preparing to assist residents in the storm’s path with evacuation shelters, food, and other services.

On its current path Hurricane Gustav is forecast to make landfall early Tuesday just west of New Orleans, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

There is “a very distinct possibility” that it will strike the area as a powerful Category Three hurricane, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen told AFP.

Category Three hurricanes pack wind speeds of up to 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour and nine to 12-foot (2.7 - 3.7 meter) storm surges.

In a city known for its laissez-faire attitude, many New Orleanians are preparing for the worst.

“This is driving me nuts,” said Liese Dettmer. “It’s like double down or get out.”

A musician and club booking agent, Dettmer lost everything in Katrina and was set to mark the third anniversary by moving into her new home in the Musicians Village, a community designed for displaced musicians to help restore the jazz city’s culture.

But because of delays she and 28 other families must wait until September 5 to move in — provided Gustav spares New Orleans.

Dettmer was one of many New Orleanians who evacuated at the last moment before Katrina hit on August 29, 2005.

She rented a car and drove to her parents home in Tennessee at 2:00 am on Sunday August 28, barely 24 hours before Katrina’s outer edge reached the city.

Dettmer’s mid-city apartment of 12 years was flooded. The roof was ripped off by high winds and she lost everything.

“I am in a complete state of panic,” said Mary Clancy, a professor of biology who lost a subzero freezer full of enzymes when power went out for months after Katrina. “I still can’t bring myself to throw out those tubes.”

Clancy’s laboratory building still isn’t ready for another major storm. It was slated to get a rooftop generator to protect against loss of research materials due to power failure. It hasn’t been installed.

“We’re supposed to get a temporary generator before the weekend,” Clancy said. “It’s not here yet,” she said, sighing. “This (storm) can’t happen.”

Mayor Ray Nagin said Wednesday that nobody would be allowed to stay in New Orleans should Gustav achieve its forecasted strength and path.

“Everyone will be getting out,” Nagin told CNN.

“There’s buses, there’s drivers, there’s planes, there’s trains. There’s a whole different strategy for getting people out, starting with the people who have special medical needs.”

“Last time, the entire country was caught flat-footed,” Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu told Fox Business Network Friday.

“We’ve been in emergency meetings for the last three or four days. The state police, the national guard, everybody is ready to go,” he said.

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London mayor unveils climate crisis plan

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled a plan on Friday to help London tackle the challenge of climate change with less carbon dioxide, more trees, better drainage and increased water efficiency.

Some 15 percent of London is deemed at high risk from flooding due to global warming — an area including 1.25 million people, 480,000 properties, 441 schools, 75 underground and rail stations, 10 hospitals and one airport.

At stake is an estimated 160 billion pounds ($293 billion) worth of assets, not just in London and its vital financial district, but all along the banks of the Thames estuary where vast new housing developments are being planned.

“We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change,” Johnson told reporters at the iconic Thames Barrier flood defense system.

“The strategy I am launching today outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life — particularly that of the most vulnerable people — and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world’s leading cities.”

Global warming is expected to give London and its surrounding area longer, hotter summers as well as warmer wetter winters with the added problems of more frequent heat waves, droughts and flash floods from rising sea levels and downpours.

Some 600 Londoners died as a result of the 2003 heat wave that killed about 15,000 in France alone, while low rainfall in 2004/05 led to water shortages in the capital.

The plan, which builds on Johnson’s predecessor Ken Livingstone’s aim to cut London’s carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2025, is to help the city prevent climate change, prepare for its consequences and recover from its effects.

“London is not unique — all major cities such as New York and Tokyo are at risk from climate change. By producing this strategy, we put London in a position of strength,” Johnson said.

He wants more trees to be planted around the city both to absorb excess rainwater and offer more shade from heat waves.

Areas of the city at high risk of flooding must be identified and protected and the Victorian-era drainage system, which cannot cope with torrential downpours, must be extended and improved.

But water shortages are also a potential problem — the London area has less water availability per head than Morocco — and water usage is above the national average.

Johnson’s plan calls for compulsory water metering which has been shown to cut consumption by up to 10 percent, homes to be made more water efficient and greater use to be made of rainwater harvesting.

It also calls for urban designs that can cope with rising temperatures in a city whose centre is already on average significantly hotter than the surrounding area.

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Delphi says preparing revised reorganization plan

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi Corp (DPHIQ.PK) is preparing a revised plan of reorganization to file with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but does not know when such a plan will be ready, a company spokesman said on Friday.

“You can expect to see at some point the filing of a revised plan of reorganization,” Lindsey Williams told Reuters. “I just don’t have the time frame for you.”

Williams said Delphi was still engaged in discussions with former parent General Motors Corp (GM.N), with Delphi’s statutory committees, and with government agencies regarding Delphi’s pension funding issue.

“We are in discussions with the same parties with regard to modification to our plan of reorganization, such that would position the company for emergence,” he said, adding that talks were “progressing.”

Asked about whether Delphi could be forced to liquidate, Williams said: “Our efforts are to successfully emerge.”

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Armed forces roped in to save Tibetan antelope, yak etc

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Tibetan antelope, popularly known as Chiru, blue sheep, wild Yak and many other rare and threatened species in the high-altitude Himalayan region have greater hope of survival with wildlife experts and armed forces joining hands for their conservation.

A research project has been initiated by Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in collaboration with forest department of Jammu and Kashmir, ITBP and Army in Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary’s Changchenmo valley in Ladakh to identify threats and management issues for the survival of these animals.

The idea is also to study the habitat characteristics and seasonal movement patterns of these ungulates which are on the verge of extinction due to massive destruction of their habitat and hunting by poachers.

For instance, wild Yak presently exists only in the Changchenmo valley in Ladakh in the entire Himalayas and are rarely sighted says K Sankar, senior scientist at the Dehradun-based WII who along with his colleague GS Rawat has undertaken the four-year-study.

In other areas in Himalayas, the bulky animals who weigh about 1,000 kgs and have long black hair with curved horns on their head are domesticated and their breed is not pure.

“The wild gene of yak is thus very important for future genetic studies for diseases resistance etc. The study aims to evolve a long-term population and habitat monitoring protocol for Yak as other fauna in the region,” says Sankar.

Since army and paramilitary forces personnel are always on patrol in inaccessible mountain terrain where temperature plummets to as low as minus 40C during winter, they can do the job better then any wildlife expert, explains Sankar.

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Computer virus goes into orbit

Friday, August 29th, 2008

NASA confirmed that a computer virus sneaked aboard the International Space Station only to be tossed into quarantine on July 25 by security software.

A “worm type” virus was found on laptop computers that astronauts use to send and receive email from the station by relaying messages through a mission control center in Texas, according to NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries on Wednesday.

The virus is reported to be malicious software that logs keystrokes in order to steal passwords or other sensitive data by sending the information to hackers via the Internet.

The laptop computers are not linked to any of the space station’s control systems or the Internet.

“The bottom line is it is a nuisance for us,” Humphries said. “The crew is working with teams on the ground to eradicate the virus and look for actions to prevent that from happening in the future.”

The virus had no adverse effect on space station operations, according to Humphries.

The space station orbits Earth once every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 350 kilometers.

NASA is reportedly looking into whether the virus got into the computers by hiding in a memory drive used to store music, video or other digital files.

Humphries said this is not the first computer virus stowaway on the Space Station.

“This is not a frequent occurrence but it has happened before,” Humphries said.

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Colliding galaxies show dark matter

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Astronomers have captured images of a powerful collision of galaxy clusters and say it may shed light on the behavior of dark matter.

They used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to study the cluster, known a MACSJ0025.4-1222.

They can see a clear separation between dark and ordinary matter, answering a crucial question about whether dark matter interacts with itself other than via gravitational forces, the researchers said on Wednesday.

“Dark matter makes up five times more matter in the universe than ordinary matter,” said Marusa Bradac of the University of California Santa Barbara, who led the work.

“This study confirms that we are dealing with a very different kind of matter, unlike anything that we are made of. And we’re able to study it in a very powerful collision of two clusters of galaxies,” Bradac said in a statement.

Using optical images from Hubble, the team was able to infer the distribution of the total mass of both dark and ordinary matter in the cluster using a technique known as gravitational lensing.

This method uses the distortion that mass causes as light passes by another object between the viewer and whatever is being observed. Dark matter cannot be directly seen but it has mass and thus gravitational pull.

The Chandra X-ray images showed more clearly where ordinary matter, in the form of hot gas, was.

As the two clusters collided and merged at speeds of millions of miles (km) per hour, the hot gas in each cluster collided and slowed down, but the dark matter did not.

The researchers are looking into the past with their observations. MACSJ0025 is 5.7 billion light years away, a light year being the distance light travels in a year, or 6 trillion miles.

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Arctic sea ice drops to 2nd lowest level

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Arctic Ocean sea ice has melted to the second lowest minimum since satellite observations began, according to scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sea ice had melted recorded on Monday exceeded the low recorded in 2005, which had held second place. With several weeks left in the melt season, ice in summer 2008 has a chance to diminish below the record low set last year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Environmental groups said the ice melt was another alarm bell warning of global warming. “It’s an unfortunate sign that climate change is coming rapidly to the Arctic and that we really need to address the issue of global warming on a national level,” said Christopher Krenz, Arctic project manager for Oceana.

“This is not surprising but it is alarming,” said Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department special assistant for Alaska. “This was a relatively cool summer, and to have ice decrease to the second lowest minimum on record demonstrates that global warming’s ongoing impact is profound.”

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado, reported the ice Monday melted below the 2005 minimum of 5.3 million square kilometers set on September 21 that year. Exact figures will be released on Wednesday.

Through the beginning of the melt season in May until early August, daily ice extent for 2008 closely tracked the values for 2005, the center said.

In early August 2005, the decline began to slow. In August 2008, however, the decline has remained steadily downward at a brisk pace.

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Attorney: Obese Texas woman didn’t strike nephew

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

A nearly half-ton Texas woman charged in the death of her toddler nephew couldn’t have beaten the boy to death because of her limited movement from weight problems, her attorney said Tuesday.

Mayra Rosales, who weighs nearly 1,000 pounds, was indicted last week on capital murder charges in the death of Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. Prosecutors said the 2-year-old boy died after being struck at least twice in the head while in the care of Rosales, who is bedridden.

Jamie Rosales, the boy’s 20-year-old mother, believes the death was possibly caused by the morbidly obese woman rolling onto the toddler, said Oscar Vega, her attorney. She faces one felony count of injury to a child, which carries a life sentence and 10,000 in fines.

“She doesn’t believe her sister intentionally did anything to her child,” Vega told The Associated Press.

A state district judge put Mayra Rosales, 27, under house arrest Monday because the county jail lacks a large enough cell or necessary medical resources. She is required to wear a global-positioning tracker until her trial.

Sergio Valdez, Mayra Rosales’ attorney, said she lacks the movement in her arms to have killed the child, calling it an “impossibility.”

“She is not physically capable of having committed those acts,” Valdez said.

Valdez said Rosales suffers from a thyroid problem that has caused her to put on hundreds of pounds over the past three to four years and has been bedridden for more than a year.

The stress of the arrest and charges has exacerbated the poor health of Mayra Rosales, who also suffers from a “life-threatening” ailment he would not disclose, Valdez said.

“This whole ordeal has taken a very negative effect on her, emotionally and physically,” Valdez said. “She wants this to be over. She wants to be vindicated.”

Vega said Jamie Rosales has a learning disability and will plead not guilty.

He declined to say where his client was the day of her son’s death, but said he knew of no order forbidding the boy to be watched by his aunt.

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Bush seeks to protect 3 remote island chains

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

President Bush on Monday proposed protecting three remote island chains, launching a marine conservation effort that could be one of the largest in history.

Bush is considering conserving parts of the Northern Mariana islands in the western Pacific, as well as eight islands and coral reef atolls and their surrounding waters in the central Pacific that are part of the Line Islands and American Samoa.

The president signaled his intentions in a memo to members of his Cabinet and is now awaiting their advice on how to provide additional protection to the island chains. The archipelagos are home to a diverse array of fish, birds and other marine species that are rapidly vanishing elsewhere in the world, the memo said.

“These areas are host to some of the world’s most bio-diverse coral reefs and habitat, and some of the most interesting and compelling geological formations in all of our oceans,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is on vacation at his ranch.

The president has a range of ways to order environmental protection, with varying restrictions on development and fishing. In his memo, Bush did not indicate what type of protection would be offered for the three marine habitats under consideration.

Bush also made clear that he would protect the rights of the Department of Defense, which has active bases on two of the islands.

The conservation effort could be completed before Bush leaves office.

Environmentalists responded to the announcement as a hopeful sign.

While an assortment of activities including commercial fishing, oil and gas exploration and deep sea mining could be allowed, barring extractive activities “would be one of the most significant environmental achievements” of any president, said Joshua S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group.

In June 2006, Bush designated a huge swath of the Northwestern Islands as a national marine monument. It is the largest conservation area in the world.

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