USS Ford to be Christened

As the Navy prepares for the Nov. 9 christening of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the service is getting ready for 27-months of rigorous, integrated testing of the ship’s new systems and technologies.

As the first in a new class of higher-tech aircraft carriers, the USS Ford represents an ambitious Navy effort to integrate a suite of new technologies onto a single platform.

The innovations built into the first ever Ford-class carrier include a larger flight deck designed to increase the sortie rate as well as more powerful nuclear reactor cores, advanced arresting gear, dual-band radar, computer automation, turbine generators and an Electro-magnetic Aircraft Launching System, or EMALS.. The new ship is slated for commissioning in 2016, following the test period.

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ReGrowing Tropical Rain Forests Recover Carbon Storage Quickly, but not Diversity

A new study of re-growing tropical forests has concluded that plant biodiversity takes longer to recover than carbon storage following major disturbances such as clearance for farming.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, have important implications for conservation since there are now many re-growing forests in South and Central America. The new study is the first large-scale analysis of the recovery of both plant biodiversity and carbon pools in re-growing forests.

Over half of all tropical forests have already been converted for agriculture, logged or burnt in the recent past. Re-growing forests could help both to soak up carbon emissions produced by human activities and to reduce species' extinctions.

The scientists, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and Bournemouth University, concluded that although carbon recovered most quickly, even after 80 years re-growing forests tended to have less carbon than old-growth forests. This is probably because these forests are often dominated by small, fast growing trees. It may take centuries for larger trees which hold more carbon to become established.

In contrast, although the number of tree species recovered relatively rapidly, many species characteristic of old-growth forests were rare in re-growing forests. This is worrying because these species are probably those most vulnerable to extinction.

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Techniques for Observing the Interiors of Exoplanets

DYNAMICAL MEASUREMENTS OF THE INTERIOR STRUCTURE OF EXOPLANETS

Authors:

Juliette C. Becker and Konstantin Batygin

Abstract:

Giant gaseous planets often reside on orbits in sufficient proximity to their host stars for the planetary quadrupole gravitational field to become non-negligible. In presence of an additional planetary companion, a precise characterization of the system's orbital state can yield meaningful constraints on the transiting planet's interior structure. However, such methods can require a very specific type of system. This paper explores the dynamic range of applicability of these methods and shows that interior structure calculations are possible for a wide array of orbital architectures. The HAT-P-13 system is used as a case study, and the implications of perturbations arising from a third distant companion on the feasibility of an interior calculation are discussed. We find that the method discussed here is likely to be useful in studying other planetary systems, allowing the possibility of an expanded survey of the interiors of exoplanets.

Directly Imaged Exoplanet HR 8799b Gives up Details of its Atmosphere

ATMOSPHERIC RETRIEVAL ANALYSIS OF THE DIRECTLY IMAGED EXOPLANET HR 8799b

Authors:

Jae-Min Lee, Kevin Heng and Patrick G. J. Irwin

Abstract:

Directly imaged exoplanets are unexplored laboratories for the application of the spectral and temperature retrieval method, where the chemistry and composition of their atmospheres are inferred from inverse modeling of the available data. As a pilot study, we focus on the extrasolar gas giant HR 8799b, for which more than 50 data points are available. We upgrade our non-linear optimal estimation retrieval method to include a phenomenological model of clouds that requires the cloud optical depth and monodisperse particle size to be specified. Previous studies have focused on forward models with assumed values of the exoplanetary properties; there is no consensus on the best-fit values of the radius, mass, surface gravity, and effective temperature of HR 8799b. We show that cloud-free models produce reasonable fits to the data if the atmosphere is of super-solar metallicity and non-solar elemental abundances. Intermediate cloudy models with moderate values of the cloud optical depth and micron-sized particles provide an equally reasonable fit to the data and require a lower mean molecular weight. We report our best-fit values for the radius, mass, surface gravity, and effective temperature of HR 8799b. The mean molecular weight is about 3.8, while the carbon-to-oxygen ratio is about unity due to the prevalence of carbon monoxide. Our study emphasizes the need for robust claims about the nature of an exoplanetary atmosphere to be based on analyses involving both photometry and spectroscopy and inferred from beyond a few photometric data points, such as are typically reported for hot Jupiters.

Playing God: Scientists Forcibly Evolve Multicellularity in Algae (Meanies!)

Scientists have puzzled for centuries over how and why multicellular organisms evolved the almost universal trait of using single cells, such as eggs and sperm, to reproduce. Now researchers led by University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences postdoctoral fellow William Ratcliff and associate professor Michael Travisano have set a big piece of that puzzle into place by applying experimental evolution to transform a single-celled algae into a multicellular one that reproduces by dispersing single cells.

"Until now, biologists have assumed that this single-cell bottleneck evolved well after multicellularity, as a mechanism to reduce conflicts of interest among the cells making up the organism," says Ratcliff. "Instead, we found that it arose at the same time as multicellularity. This has big implications for how multicellular complexity might arise in nature, because it shows that this key trait, which opens the door to evolving greater multicellular complexity, can evolve rapidly."

In an article published today in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers described how they produced the multi-celled strain by repeatedly selecting and culturing algae that settled quickly to the bottom of a liquid-filled test tube. After 73 rounds, they discovered that the algae in one of the tubes had gone multicellular.

Observing the new form, Ratcliff and Travisano discovered that it reproduced by actively breaking up, shedding motile single cells that go on to grow into new multicellular clusters. They developed a mathematical model that explained the reproductive benefit of this single-celled strategy over hypothetical alternatives in which the cluster would produce larger propagules. The model predicted that reproduction from single cells would be more successful in the long run. Even though single cells are less likely to survive than larger propagules, this disadvantage is more than made up for by their sheer number.

In collaboration with Matthew Herron and Frank Rosenzweig at the University of Montana, the researchers are now working to find the genetic basis for multicellularity and experimentally evolve even greater multicellular complexity.

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Experimental Paleontology: Determining Body Mass From Trackways

Quantitative Interpretation of Tracks for Determination of Body Mass

Authors:

Schanz et al

Abstract:

To better understand the biology of extinct animals, experimentation with extant animals and innovative numerical approaches have grown in recent years. This research project uses principles of soil mechanics and a neoichnological field experiment with an African elephant to derive a novel concept for calculating the mass (i.e., the weight) of an animal from its footprints. We used the elephant's footprint geometry (i.e., vertical displacements, diameter) in combination with soil mechanical analyses (i.e., soil classification, soil parameter determination in the laboratory, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and gait analysis) for the back analysis of the elephant's weight from a single footprint. In doing so we validated the first component of a methodology for calculating the weight of extinct dinosaurs. The field experiment was conducted under known boundary conditions at the Zoological Gardens Wuppertal with a female African elephant. The weight of the elephant was measured and the walking area was prepared with sediment in advance. Then the elephant was walked across the test area, leaving a trackway behind. Footprint geometry was obtained by laser scanning. To estimate the dynamic component involved in footprint formation, the velocity the foot reaches when touching the subsoil was determined by the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique. Soil parameters were identified by performing experiments on the soil in the laboratory. FEA was then used for the backcalculation of the elephant's weight. With this study, we demonstrate the adaptability of using footprint geometry in combination with theoretical considerations of loading of the subsoil during a walk and soil mechanical methods for prediction of trackmakers weight.

Baltica's Geographic Position From Supercontinents Columbia to Rodinia to Gondwana

From rodinia to gondwana with the ‘samba’ model–a distant view from baltica towards amazonia and beyond

Author:

Åke Johansson

Abstract:

A refined model of the late Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia is presented, with Baltica, Amazonia and West Africa attached to eastern Laurentia as in the SAMBA model (Johansson, 2009), and East Antarctica, Australia and India to western Laurentia in a SWEAT configuration (Moores, 1991). In such a model, the Proto-Andean margin of South America would form the conjugate margin of Laurentia's Grenville margin. With the Kalahari craton attached to SW Laurentia and East Antarctica, as proposed by Loewy et al. (2011), followed by the Congo and Tanzania cratons in Africa and the Sao Fransisco and Rio de la Plata cratons in South America, all these cratons would be part of Rodinia, but would still be separated from Amazonia by a wide Brasiliano (Clymene) ocean embayment. By rotating the African and eastern South American cratons ca 90° counterclockwise around a pole located close to the Laurentia–Kalahari junction, and East Antarctica, Australia and India ca 120° counterclockwise around a pole located inside the Kalahari craton, all relative to a fixed Laurentia, these cratons will move from a Rodinia to a Gondwana configuration. These rotations will open up the Proto-Pacific ocean, close the Brasiliano (Clymene) ocean, and both open and close the intervening Adamastor and Mozambque oceans, creating the various Brasiliano and Pan-African fold belts in the ensuing collisions. The maximum plate velocity, ca 7.5 cm/year (15 000 km in 200 m.y.), will occur along the outer periphery of this rotation, thereby explaining the formation of large amounts of juvenile Neoproterozoic continental crust within the oceanic Arabian–Nubian sector of the Pan-African Orogen. Rather than being an example of ‘introversion’ or ‘extroversion’, the change from Rodinia to Gondwana in this model would be more like the 90° ‘orthoversion’ model proposed by Mitchell et al. (2012)

Will Russia Get the Gas Pipeline to China Before Cheap American LNG Imports Arrive?

This week brought an increasingly familiar sight from Beijing: high-ranking Russian officials shaking hands with their Chinese counterparts. The occasion, just as it has been in recent months, was a slew of new energy deals that will further align the two countries as trading partners and bring Russia one step closer to becoming China’s primary fossil-fuel provider.

[...]

So everyone’s happy, right? Not exactly. Conspicuously absent from the flurry of new deals was the thing that Russia actually wants the most: a long-term agreement to sell China natural gas through a dedicated pipeline. Gazprom (SIBN:RU), the world’s largest gas company and by far the biggest company in Russia, left Beijing empty handed, again. Though officials indicated progress was made toward a deal, it’s hard to say that Gazprom is all that much closer to achieving its Chinese pipe dream, something it’s been after for more than a decade.

“I can remember first hearing about this pipeline in 1997,” says Derek Scissors, an Asia scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The sticking point appears to be the price that China is willing to pay, and the Chinese don’t seem to be budging. China can afford to be patient, while Russia is eager to lock in a price before the U.S. begins flooding the market with cheap LNG exports in the next few years. “I think the Chinese have the upper hand here,” says Scissors.

“The Russians probably need this more desperately than the Chinese,” says Erica Downs, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center and a former energy analyst at the CIA. Downs says she’s more optimistic about the prospects for the gas pipeline than she was a few years ago, but “another round of talks with no breakthroughs continues to illustrate how big a stumbling block price is,” she says.

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It may be that the world market price might be more dangerous than the actual import of American LNG. 

Ukraine Signs Gas Field Development Deals with Chevron, Exxon Mobil

Ukraine announced natural gas deals with Chevron Corp (CVX:US) and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM:US) in a push to cut costs by two-thirds and reduce its dependence on Russia.

The Ukrainian government signed a production-sharing agreement with Chevron for extraction of shale gas in the Oleske field, Energy Minister Eduard Stavytskyi said today at a press conference in Kiev. Another production-sharing agreement with an Exxon-led group for exploring the Skifska field in the Black Sea may follow by the end of the month, he said.

Ukraine, dependent on expensive Russian gas imports for more than 60 percent of its needs, is accelerating efforts to diversify supply. Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) signed a production-sharing agreement in January to develop shale in the Yuzivska field in the eastern part of the country.

“The cost of gas production will be at least three times lower than what Ukraine is paying for the imports,” Stavytskyi told journalists during the press briefing.

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It will be quite a while before these go online, I suspect, but I have to wonder how much of this will be able to meet Ukrainian demand and how much will this allow Ukraine to extinguish the Gas Wars with Russia.

Is the Russian Economy Stagnating?

STAGNATION has a particularly unpleasant resonance to the Russian ear, conjuring up memories of the ossified gerontocracy of the Brezhnev era. But with year-on-year GDP growth at just 1.2% last quarter and growth in investment and industrial production nearing zero, stagnation seems to be the most apt description of the Russian economy. Speaking at an investment forum last month, Alexei Ulyukayev, the economic-development minister, paraphrased an old joke: “Practically, there is no economic development,” he said, “but the economic-development minister is here in front of you!”

Throughout the 2000s, the Kremlin funnelled profits from oil and gas into the rest of the economy, largely through state-led investment projects and increases in wages and pensions. Consumption soared. Spare industrial capacity left over from the Soviet era meant that firms did not have to invest to produce more. They could simply unlock capacity that had been sitting unused.

That model is now outdated. According to the World Bank, the Russian economy “could be running very close to its maximum capacity”. Manufacturing is slowing and private consumption is also starting to cool, despite higher levels of household credit, unemployment of only around 5% and wage growth.

High prices for hydrocarbons will not solve this, because the economy has now “adapted” to expensive oil, says Natalia Akindinova of the Higher School of Economics. Future growth will require investment in new technology as well as gains in efficiency and labour productivity.

Yet state-driven investment is tapering off as big projects such as the preparations for the Winter Olympics in Sochi near completion. Private investment is flat. Relatively high wages mean that Russian firms struggle to compete on price.

The trouble is that Russian businesses cannot compete on quality either, since they are not investing in technology and equipment. This is related to the uncertainty of the business climate and the attractiveness of imports thanks to the strong rouble. According to a survey by the Gaidar Institute, 43% of businesses say they have kept investment levels static and another 33% have invested even less than they did last year.

The lack of opportunities has led to capital flight. This amounted to $48.2 billion in the first three quarters of the year, as firms took their savings abroad. An underdeveloped financial system offers no efficient way to channel surplus savings to the small and medium-sized businesses that need them.

The Kremlin seems to have decided to put those who rely on state munificence at the head of the queue. Regional governments were forced to raise salaries at the expense of their investment budgets. A country of 140m people, Russia has 20m state-sector workers and 40m pensioners. The Duma recently passed a law that calls for what is technically a temporary confiscation of $7.6 billion in individual pension savings, but which many fear may be used to plug the growing hole in the pay-as-you-go portion of the pension system.

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BBC: Saudi Arabia to Take Delivery of Nuclear Weapons on Order if Iran Gets the Bomb

Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.

While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.

Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.

Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring."

Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions.

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This can only end well.

Monkeys Learn to Mentally Control Multiple Computer Avatar Arms

Two monkeys learned to move avatar arms toward shifting targets (see animation), simply by putting their minds to it.

Monkey mind. Two monkeys learned to move avatar arms toward shifting targets (see animation below), simply by putting their minds to it.
Monkeys Use Minds to Control Avatar Arms

Most of us don’t think twice when we extend our arms to hug a friend or push a shopping cart—our limbs work together seamlessly to follow our mental commands. For researchers designing brain-controlled prosthetic limbs for people, however, this coordinated arm movement is a daunting technical challenge. A new study showing that monkeys can move two virtual limbs with only their brain activity is a major step toward achieving that goal, scientists say.

The brain controls movement by sending electrical signals to our muscles through nerve cells. When limb-connecting nerve cells are damaged or a limb is amputated, the brain is still able to produce those motion-inducing signals, but the limb can't receive them or simply doesn’t exist. In recent years, scientists have worked to create devices called brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) that can pick up these interrupted electrical signals and control the movements of a computer cursor or a real or virtual prosthetic.

So far, the success of BMIs in humans has been largely limited to moving single body parts, such as a hand or an arm. Last year, for example, a woman paralyzed from the neck down for 10 years commanded a robotic arm to pick up and lift a piece of chocolate to her mouth just by thinking about it. But, "no device will ever work for people unless it restores bimanual behaviors,” says neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, senior author of the paper. "You need to use both arms and hands for the simplest tasks.”

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My Daughter's Braid

Lyudmila is out of the country on her long trip through Europe.  My daughter has long hair and leaving it down during the day is a disaster: it has to be brushed at least six times per day if it is and that is hardly practical.  We did attempt it.  That was a mistake.  

Lyudmila and her mom had been braiding Avrora's hair.  I had to make the attempt after my disastrous attempts to leave it down for school.  So, I've been learning to braid little girl hair.  This is my best one yet.  Far from perfect, but getting better.  After seven weeks of trying, I'd hope so.

Funny part.  This is a braid derived from what I use for cardamom bread.

KJ500 AWACS Prototype Spotted

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Cutting the Amazon Causes Knock-on Effects Not Unlike El Nino

In research meant to highlight how the destruction of the Amazon rainforest could affect climate elsewhere, Princeton University-led researchers report that the total deforestation of the Amazon may significantly reduce rain and snowfall in the western United States, resulting in water and food shortages, and a greater risk of forest fires.

The researchers report in the Journal of Climate that an Amazon stripped bare could mean 20 percent less rain for the coastal Northwest and a 50 percent reduction in the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water for cities and farms in California. Previous research has shown that deforestation will likely produce dry air over the Amazon. Using high-resolution climate simulations, the researchers are the first to find that the atmosphere's normal weather-moving mechanics would create a ripple effect that would move that dry air directly over the western United States from December to February.

Specifically, a denuded Amazon would develop a weather cycle consisting of abnormally dry air in the sun-scorched northern Amazon around the equator weighted by wetter air in the cooler south. Research has speculated that this pattern would be similar to the warm-water climate pattern El Niño, which during the winter months brings heavy precipitation to southern California and the Sierra Nevada region while drying out the Pacific Northwest.

The Princeton-led researchers found that the Amazon pattern would be subject to the same meandering high-altitude winds known as Rossby waves that distribute the El Niño system worldwide from its source over the Pacific Ocean. Rossby waves are instrumental forces in Earth's weather that move east or west across the planet, often capturing the weather of one region — such as chill Arctic air — and transporting it to another. Because the Amazon pattern forms several thousand miles to the southeast from El Niño, the researchers report, the Rossby waves that put the rainy side of El Niño over southern California would instead subject that region to the dry end of the Amazon pattern. The pattern's rainy portion would be over the Pacific Ocean south of Mexico.

[...]

"The big point is that Amazon deforestation will not only affect the Amazon — it will not be contained. It will hit the atmosphere and the atmosphere will carry those responses," Medvigy said.

"It just so happens that one of the locations feeling that response will be one we care about most agriculturally," he said. "If you change the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, where most of the irrigation for California's Central Valley comes from, then by this study deforestation of the Amazon could have serious consequences for the food supply of the United States."

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So what does an El Nino event look like under this climate regime?

Exoplanet Population Statistics and Planet Traps

PLANETARY POPULATIONS IN THE MASS-PERIOD DIAGRAM: A STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF EXOPLANET FORMATION AND THE ROLE OF PLANET TRAPS

Authors:

Yasuhiro Hasegawa and Ralph E. Pudritz

Abstract:

The rapid growth of observed exoplanets has revealed the existence of several distinct planetary populations in the mass-period diagram. Two of the most surprising are (1) the concentration of gas giants around 1 AU and (2) the accumulation of a large number of low-mass planets with tight orbits, also known as super-Earths and hot Neptunes. We have recently shown that protoplanetary disks have multiple planet traps that are characterized by orbital radii in the disks and halt rapid type I planetary migration. By coupling planet traps with the standard core accretion scenario, we showed that one can account for the positions of planets in the mass-period diagram. In this paper, we demonstrate quantitatively that most gas giants formed at planet traps tend to end up around 1 AU, with most of these being contributed by dead zones and ice lines. We also show that a large fraction of super-Earths and hot Neptunes are formed as "failed" cores of gas giants—this population being constituted by comparable contributions from dead zone and heat transition traps. Our results are based on the evolution of forming planets in an ensemble of disks where we vary only the lifetimes of disks and their mass accretion rates onto the host star. We show that a statistical treatment of the evolution of a large population of planetary cores caught in planet traps accounts for the existence of three distinct exoplanetary populations—the hot Jupiters, the more massive planets around r = 1 AU, and the short-period super-Earths and hot Neptunes. There are very few populations that feed into the large orbital radii characteristic of the imaged Jovian planet, which agrees with recent surveys. Finally, we find that low-mass planets in tight orbits become the dominant planetary population for low-mass stars (M * ≤ 0.7 M ☉).

Modeling the Envelope Evolution of Forming Planets

THREE-DIMENSIONAL RADIATION-HYDRODYNAMICS CALCULATIONS OF THE ENVELOPES OF YOUNG PLANETS EMBEDDED IN PROTOPLANETARY DISKS

Authors:

Gennaro D'Angelo and Peter Bodenheimer

Abstract:

We perform global three-dimensional (3D) radiation-hydrodynamics calculations of the envelopes surrounding young planetary cores of 5, 10, and 15 Earth masses, located in a protoplanetary disk at 5 and 10 AU from a solar-mass star. We apply a nested-grid technique to resolve the thermodynamics of the disk at the orbital-radius length scale and that of the envelope at the core-radius length scale. The gas is modeled as a solar mixture of molecular and atomic hydrogen, helium, and their ions. The equation of state accounts for both gas and radiation, and gas energy includes contributions from rotational and vibrational states of molecular hydrogen and from ionization of atomic species. Dust opacities are computed from first principles, applying the full Mie theory. One-dimensional (1D) calculations of planet formation are used to supplement the 3D calculations by providing energy deposition rates in the envelope due to solids accretion. We compare 1D and 3D envelopes and find that masses and gas accretion rates agree within factors of 2, and so do envelope temperatures. The trajectories of passive tracers are used to define the size of 3D envelopes, resulting in radii much smaller than the Hill radius and smaller than the Bondi radius. The moments of inertia and angular momentum of the envelopes are determined and the rotation rates are derived from the rigid-body approximation, resulting in slow bulk rotation. We find that the polar flattening is lsim 0.05. The dynamics of the accretion flow are examined by tracking the motion of tracers that move into the envelope. The anisotropy of this flow is characterized in terms of both its origin and impact site at the envelope surface. Gas merges with the envelope preferentially at mid- to high latitudes.

Excellent Mating Insects Fossils From Callovian Jurassic China

Forever Love: The Hitherto Earliest Record of Copulating Insects from the Middle Jurassic of China

Authors:

Shu Li, Chungkun Shih, Chen Wang, Hong Pang and Dong Ren

Abstract:

Background

Mating behaviors have been widely studied for extant insects. However, cases of mating individuals are particularly rare in the fossil record of insects, and most of them involved preservation in amber while only in rare cases found in compression fossils. This considerably limits our knowledge of mating position and genitalia orientation during the Mesozoic, and hinders our understanding of the evolution of mating behaviors in this major component of modern ecosystems.

Principal Finding

Here we report a pair of copulating froghoppers, Anthoscytina perpetua sp. nov., referable to the Procercopidae, from the Middle Jurassic of northeastern China. They exhibit belly-to-belly mating position as preserved, with male's aedeagus inserting into the female's bursa copulatrix. Abdominal segments 8 to 9 of male are disarticulated suggesting these segments were twisted and flexed during mating. Due to potential taphonomic effect, we cannot rule out that they might have taken side-by-side position, as in extant froghoppers. Genitalia of male and female, based on paratypes, show symmetric structures.

Conclusions/Significance

Our findings, consistent with those of extant froghoppers, indicate froghoppers' genitalic symmetry and mating position have remained static for over 165 million years.

Lythronax, Teratophoneus and the Linkage of Evolution of Tyrranosaurs and Sea Level in the Late Cretaceous

Tyrant Dinosaur Evolution Tracks the Rise and Fall of Late Cretaceous Oceans

Authors:

Mark A. Loewen, Randall B. Irmis, Joseph J. W. Sertich, Philip J. Currie and Scott D. Sampson

Abstract:

The Late Cretaceous (~95–66 million years ago) western North American landmass of Laramidia displayed heightened non-marine vertebrate diversity and intracontinental regionalism relative to other latest Cretaceous Laurasian ecosystems. Processes generating these patterns during this interval remain poorly understood despite their presumed role in the diversification of many clades. Tyrannosauridae, a clade of large-bodied theropod dinosaurs restricted to the Late Cretaceous of Laramidia and Asia, represents an ideal group for investigating Laramidian patterns of evolution. We use new tyrannosaurid discoveries from Utah—including a new taxon which represents the geologically oldest member of the clade—to investigate the evolution and biogeography of Tyrannosauridae. These data suggest a Laramidian origin for Tyrannosauridae, and implicate sea-level related controls in the isolation, diversification, and dispersal of this and many other Late Cretaceous vertebrate clades.

Evidence of a Microcontinent and Modern Plate Tectonics in MesoArchean India

An exotic Mesoarchean microcontinent: The Coorg Block, southern India

Authors:

M. Santosh, Qiong-Yan Yang, E. Shaji, T. Tsunogae, M. Ram Mohan and M. Satyanarayanan

Abstract:

Sandwiched between the Dharwar Craton in the north and the Neoarchean – Proterozoic crustal blocks to the south, the Coorg Block in southern India is composed dominantly of a suite of arc magmatic rocks including charnockites, TTG (tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite)-related granitoid suite and felsic volcanic tuffs together with minor accreted oceanic remnants along the periphery of the block. Coeval mafic and felsic magmatism with magma mixing and mingling in an arc setting is well represented in the block. Here we present the petrology, geochemistry, zircon U-Pb geochronology and Lu-Hf isotopes of all the major lithologies from this block. Computation of metamorphic P-T conditions from mineral chemical data shows consistent granulite-facies P-T conditions of 820-870 °C and up to 6 kbar. Our geochemical data from major, trace and REE on representative samples of the dominant rock types from the Coorg Block corroborate an arc-related signature, with magma generation in a convergent margin setting. The zircon data yield weighted mean 207Pb/206Pb ages of 3153.4 ± 9 to 3184.0 ± 5.5 Ma for syenogranites, 3170.3 ± 6.8 Ma for biotite granite, 3275 ± 5.1 Ma for trondhjemite, 3133 ± 12 to 3163.8 ± 6.9 Ma for charnockites, 3156 ± 10 to 3158.3 ± 8.2 for mafic enclaves, 3161 ± 16 Ma for diorite and 3173 ± 16 Ma for felsic volcanic tuff. An upper intercept age of 3363 ± 59 Ma and a lower intercept age of 2896 ± 130 Ma on zircons from a charnockite, as well as an evaluation of the Th/U values of the zircon domains against respective 207Pb/206Pb ages suggest that the Mesoarchean magma emplacement which probably ranged from greater than 3.3 to 3.1 Ga was immediately followed by metamorphism at ca. 3.0 to 2.9 Ga. The ages of magmatic zircons from the charnockites and their mafic granulite enclaves, as well as those from the volcanic tuff and biotite granite, are all remarkably consistent and concordant marking ca. 3.1 Ga as the peak of subduction-related crust building in this block, within the tectonic milieu of an active convergent margin. The majority of zircons from the Coorg rocks show Hf isotope features typical of crystallization from magmas derived from juvenile sources. Their Hf crustal model ages suggest that the crust building might have also involved partial recycling of basement rocks as old as ca. 3.8 Ga. The crustal blocks in the Southern Granulite Terrane in India preserve strong imprints of major tectonothermal events at 2.5 Ga, 2.0 Ga, 0.8 Ga and 0.55 Ga associated with various subduction-accretion-collision or rifting events. However, the Coorg Block is exceptional with our data suggesting that none of the above events affected this block. Importantly, there is also no record in the Coorg Block for the 2.5 Ga pervasive regional metamorphism that affected all the other blocks in this region. The geochronological data raise the intriguing possibility that this block is an exotic entity within the dominantly Neoarchean collage in the northern domain of the Southern Granulite Terrane of India. The Mesoarchean arc-related rocks in the Coorg Block suggest that the magma factories and their tectonic architecture in the Early Earth were not markedly different from those associated with the modern-style plate tectonics.

Chinese Hacking Continues Unabated

The disclosure early this year of a secretive Chinese military unit believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks has failed to halt the cyber intrusions, a U.S. computer security company and congressional advisory panel said on Wednesday.

A report by the cybersecurity company Mandiant in February identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely culprit in hacking attacks on a wide range of industries. China's Defense Ministry denied the accusations.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, a panel which advises the U.S. Congress on China policy, said Mandiant's revelations brought only a brief pause in cyber intrusions by that PLA unit.

"There are no indications the public exposure of Chinese cyber espionage in technical detail throughout 2013 has led China to change its attitude toward the use of cyber espionage to steal proprietary economic and trade information," the commission said in a draft of their annual report to Congress.

The draft report, made available to Reuters on Wednesday, said Mandiant's revelations "merely led Unit 61398 to make changes to its cyber 'tools and infrastructure' (to make) future intrusions harder to detect and attribute."

The commission's report, to be released in final form later this month, quoted Mandiant experts as saying the Chinese military hackers decreased their activities for about a month following the February publication of that report.

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Russian Tu-160 Bombers Infringe on Colombian Air Space: Lost, Threatening or Annoying?

Colombia is preparing a letter of protest to Russia after two Russian bomber planes twice entered the Andean nation's airspace without authorization when flying between Venezuela and Nicaragua last week, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday.

Santos said the two planes crossed Colombian airspace on Friday flying from Venezuela to Nicaragua. They re-entered Colombian territory on their return journey but flew out of the zone when intercepted by two of Colombia's Kfir military planes.

"As they are military and government planes, they needed to request permission but didn't. We have simply requested that the Foreign Ministry make the respective notification to the Russian government," Santos told reporters after a government meeting on security issues.

Military sources told Reuters the planes were Russian-made Tupolev Tu-160 bombers flying from the Venezuelan coastal city of Maiquetia to Nicaragua's capital, Managua. The sources said the bombers flew into Colombian airspace over its San Andres y Providencia archipelago in the Caribbean Sea.

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Ukraine Pushing its Space Industry

Ukrainian space officials soon will begin bilateral talks with NASA on possible cooperation in civil space exploration, including lightweight radiation-shielding and a possible liquid-fuel upper stage for Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares launch vehicle.

On the heels of the successful demonstration flight of Antares, with its Ukrainian-built first stage, the Eastern European nation is pursuing cooperation with Russia, China and any other countries interested in buying its advanced space hardware, according to Ukrainian space officials visiting the U.S. this week.

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Autism Detected, Correcly Diagnosed at 2 Months of Age

Children with autism make less eye contact than others of the same age, an indicator that is used to diagnose the developmental disorder after the age of two years. But a paper published today in Nature reports that infants as young as two months can display signs of this condition, the earliest detection of autism symptoms yet.

If the small study can be replicated in a larger population, it might provide a way of diagnosing autism in infants so that therapies can begin early, says Warren Jones, research director at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jones and colleague Ami Klin studied 110 infants from birth — 59 of whom had an increased risk of being diagnosed with autism because they had a sibling with the disorder, and 51 of whom were at lower risk. One in every 88 children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to the most recent survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

At ten regular intervals over the course of two years, the researchers in the new study showed infants video images of their careers and used eye-tracking equipment and software to track where the babies gazed.

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Wikileaks Advisor to Snowden: Unsafe to Return Home

A WikiLeaks staffer who has been accompanying Edward Snowden said Wednesday she had left Russia for Germany, but the threat of prosecution made it unsafe for her to return home to Britain.

In August, Sarah Harrison helped former US National Security Agency contractor Snowden flee Hong Kong to Russia, where he has now been granted temporary asylum from US authorities who want to prosecute him for leaking official secrets.

In a statement datelined from Berlin and issued by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, Harrison said she had now left Snowden's side and had "arrived in Germany over the weekend".

She said that after spending 39 days with Snowden in a Moscow airport while he sought asylum, "I then remained with him until our team was confident that he had established himself and was free from the interference of any government".

But she said the detention under British anti-terror laws of David Miranda -- the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald who landed the scoop of the Snowden leaks -- showed there was a climate of "persecution" in her own home country, Britain.

"Almost every story published on the GCHQ and NSA bulk spying programs falls under the UK government's interpretation of the word 'terrorism'," she wrote.

"In response, our lawyers have advised me that it is not safe to return home."

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Healing Spinal Injuries in a Rat in a Heretical Method

Will Russia Use Borey Class SSBN as SSN Temporarily?

The Russian Navy doesn’t intend to use its two newest Borey-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) without their Bulava missiles in a multipurpose role. Not even temporarily. At least according to one source.

On 1 November, a Navy Main Staff source told ITAR-TASS that operating the new SSBNs without 16 Bulava (SS-NX-30) submarine-launched ballistic missiles would be analogous to employing Tu-160 strategic bombers like fighter aircraft.

Earlier, however, RIA Novosti reported the Navy might accept the two Borey SSBNs for “experimental” use without Bulava missiles, citing a highly-placed General Staff source.

A submarine in such a status would not technically be in the order-of-battle. Russia’s first Lada-class (proyekt 677) diesel submarine Sankt-Peterburg currently operates ”experimentally” in the Northern Fleet.

The General Staff source said, without their primary armament, Borey hull 2 Aleksandr Nevskiy and hull 3 Vladimir Monomakh could serve temporarily as multipurpose submarines. Their crews could fulfill non-strategic combat training missions until problems with Bulava are resolved.

Both new SSBNs were ready for fleet acceptance before the end of 2013. Vladimir Monomakh just completed sea trials in early October.

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BAe Systems to End 500 Year Tradition of Ship Building, Close Portsmouth Ship Yard

British defense contractor BAE Systems (BAES.L) said it would start a consultation process to lay off 1,775 ship workers across the UK and would stop all shipbuilding at Portsmouth on the south coast of England next year.

The decision, which marks the end of over 500 years of shipbuilding in Portsmouth, will also see BAE consolidate its shipbuilding operations in Glasgow, where it has two sites in Govan and Scotstoun.

The cuts will affect 940 workers in Portsmouth in 2014, as well as 835 at Filton, in south west England, and Glasgow and Rosyth in Scotland through to 2016, BAE said.

“Following detailed discussions about how best to sustain the long-term capability to deliver complex warships, BAE Systems has agreed with the UK Ministry of Defence that Glasgow would be the most effective location for the manufacture of the future Type 26 ships,” it said on Wednesday.

“Under these proposals, shipbuilding operations at Portsmouth will cease in the second half of 2014,” it said.

The cost of the restructuring would be borne by the MOD, it said.

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Obviously, BAe isn't worried about Scottish independence. 

They Ought to Have Called Themselves 'East Colorado'

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Permian-Triassic Boundary Antarctic Forests Behaved Like Both Tropical and Arctic Trees

Strange forests with some features of today's tropical trees once grew in Antarctica, new research finds.

Some 250 million years ago, during the late Permian and early Triassic, the world was a greenhouse, much hotter than it is today. Forests carpeted a non-icy Antarctic. But Antarctica was still at a high latitude, meaning that just as today, the land is bathed in round-the-clock darkness during winter and 24/7 light in the summer.

The question, said Patricia Ryberg, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, is how plants coped with photosynthesizing constantly for part of the year and then not at all when the winter sun set.

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Mystery Solved: Deinocheirus is a Giant, Sail-Back Ornithomimosaur

An enigma for decades, a giant dinosaur known only for its brawny arms actually towered over the local tyrannosaurs, paleontologists report. It also ate plants and perhaps sported a surprising sail or hump on its back.

The dinosaur Deinocheirus mirificus (which means, essentially, "terrible hands that look peculiar") had been a stubborn fossil enigma for nearly 50 years.

Nothing except the dinosaur's eight-foot-long arms, tipped in three huge claws, and a handful of other bone fragments had ever been found.

But at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference held in Los Angeles last week, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources paleontologist Yuong-Nam Lee presented a wealth of new fossils that make Deinocheirus stranger than anyone had previously imagined.

Go read Brian's post or  Asher's.

Therizinosaur Nesting Site Discovered From Maastrichtian Cretaceous Mongolia

A nursery of bizarre-looking dinosaurs known as therizinosaurs has been found in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

The nesting colony contained at least 17 clutches of eggs

"Not only is this the largest colony of nonavian theropods, but this is the best documented site," said study co-author Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, a vertebrate paleontologist at Hokkaido University in Japan, who presented the findings here at the 73rd annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference.

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Frasnian–Famennian Devonian Geirud Formation in Iran has Fascinating Trace Fossils

Trace fossils analysis of fluvial to open marine transitional sediments: Example from the Upper Devonian (Geirud Formation), Central Alborz, Iran

Authors:

Sharafi et al

Abstract:

This study integrates ichnological and sedimentological data to interpret depositional environments of the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate fluvial to marine sediments of the Geirud Formation (Upper Devonian) in the central Alborz, northern Iran. Lithofacies analysis shows that these sediments are deposited in fluvial, tidal, shoreface, and shelf environments. Fluvial and tidal deposits are characterized by the presence of bi- to multi-directional cross beddings, reverse directional current ripples, low angle cross beddings, and herringbone cross beddings, with a few scattered Skolithos and Palaeophycus. Shoreface sediments, accumulated in a storm-influenced setting, are characterized by a preferentially interface and low diversity Cruziana ichnoassemblage (Rhizocorallium, Thalassinoides, Palaeophycus, Chondrites, and Ophiomorpha). In contrast to the fluvial-tidal assemblage, the storm-influenced shelf sediments display a highly diversified, mixture of dwelling and feeding forms (Arenicolites, Protovirgularia, Diplocraterion, Palaeophycus, Thalassinoides, Chondrites, and Helminthopsis), reflecting the presence of adequate food resources both in substrate and water column under normal salinity conditions. A fluvial-shelf replacement of the weakly to scarcely bioturbated sediments by the Rhizocorallium-Thalassinoides suite (Cruziana)–Chondrites-Helminthopsis (distal Cruziana) suite from the lower to upper parts of the succession clearly indicates an overall deepening upward in the Geirud Formation. In contrast to the lower part, generally of restricted environment, the upper part of the succession mainly shows open marine conditions. Ichnofabric development is controlled primarily by depositional conditions, e.g., bottom water oxygenation, sediment type, food abundance, and hydrodynamic level, which all exert control on substrate colonization style.

Tracking Mantle Plume Activitiy Through Deep Time

Accretionary complexes in the Asia-Pacific region: Tracing archives of ocean plate stratigraphy and tracking mantle plumes

Authors:

I.Yu. Safonova and M. Santosh

Abstract:

The accretionary complexes of Central and East Asia (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, and China) and the Western Pacific (China, Japan, Russia) preserve valuable records of ocean plate stratigraphy (OPS). From a comprehensive synthesis of the nature of occurrence, geochemical characteristics and geochronological features of the oceanic island basalts (OIB) and ophiolite units in the complexes, we track extensive plume-related magmatism in the Paleo-Asian and Paleo-Pacific Oceans. We address the question of continuous versus episodic intraplate magmatism and its contribution to continental growth. An evaluation of the processes of subduction erosion and accretion illustrates continental growth at the active margins of the Siberian, Kazakhstan, Tarim and North China blocks, the collision of which led to the construction of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB). Most of the OIB-bearing OPS units of the CAOB and the Western Pacific formed in relation to two superplumes: the Asian (Late Neoproterozoic) and the Pacific (Cretaceous), with a continuing hot mantle upwelling in the Pacific region that contributes to the formation of modern OIBs. Our study provides further insights into the processes of continental construction because the accreted seamounts play an important role in the growth of convergent margins and enhance the accumulation of fore-arc sediments.

Real or Just Positioning for the Press? China Signals Flexibility on Climate Accords

China will be "flexible" in U.N. talks for a new global climate change deal, but the key to progress is getting rich nations to keep pledges to fund mitigation steps by poorer countries, the country's top climate change official said on Tuesday.

Representatives of more than 190 nations gather in the Polish capital of Warsaw from Nov 11 to 22 to push towards a new global deal to cut climate-warming greenhouse gases that is set to take effect by 2020.

Last month, the United States' chief climate change envoy, Todd Stern, urged a more flexible approach over a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, saying nations should be allowed to set individual timetables and commitments.

China was just as willing to compromise, said the country's chief negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, who is also vice-director of top economic planning body the National Development and Reform Commission.

"As long as it is fair, and accords with the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibilities', as long as it has the agreement of all parties, and as long as it is in line with agreements already reached, we have a very flexible approach," Xie told reporters, adding that he had seen Stern's remarks.

China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, blamed by scientists for causing dangerous climate change. The United States is next, followed by the European Union.

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Beijing to Cut Number of Cars Sold in 2014

China's capital, Beijing, infamous for its thick smog and heavy traffic, will slash the city's new car sales quotas by almost 40 percent next year, as it looks to curb vehicle emissions and hazardous levels of pollution, the city government website said.

The change in policy gives greater support for new, cleaner cars and could strengthen foreign carmakers' determination to accelerate growth in China's less crowded lower-tier cities.

In the last month alone, high levels of pollution have forced China to all but shut down the northeastern city of Harbin, a major urban center with a population of 11 million.

Over the next four years, Beijing will issue 150,000 new license plates annually, down from 240,000 each year now, according to the city government's website. Car buyers must put on plates before they are allowed to drive on Chinese roads.

That means Beijing's new passenger vehicles sales during the 2014-2017 period will be capped at 600,000 units, few than the city's vehicle sales in 2010 alone.

In addition, the government will allot a higher proportion of license plates every year to buyers of new-energy vehicles that need lower amounts of gasoline or use alternative energy. This could benefit electric automakers such as BYD Co Ltd.

The number of plates for such vehicles will triple from 20,000 in 2014, to 60,000 in 2017, accounting for 40 percent of that year's total plate quota.

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I wonder what the economic knock effects of cutting back the sales....

This is my Shocked! Shocked! Shocked! Face: Brazil Spied on American, Russian and Other Diplomats

Brazil this week admitted to spying on diplomats from countries including the US, Russia, and Iran as part of a domestic program launched 10 years ago under former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The program was first revealed in a Monday report from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, which obtained documents from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, commonly known as ABIN. The revelations come at a sensitive time for current Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who has been among the most outspoken critics of the widespread surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

According to Folha, Brazilian intelligence spied on rooms rented out by the US embassy in Brasilia from 2003 to 2004. ABIN believed that the US was using the rooms to coordinate espionage activities, but the American embassy this week claimed they were only used for walkie-talkie communications in case of emergency. The report also claims that ABIN targeted Russian and Iranian officials, tracking their movements within the country by foot and by car. Among those targeted were Russian military personnel and Seyed Davood Mohseni Salehi Monfared, Iran's ambassador to Cuba at the time.

Rousseff's office acknowledged Monday that the spying took place, but stressed that the operations were carried out within the law. The administration added that publishing classified documents is a crime in Brazil, and that those responsible "will be prosecuted according to the law."

"The operations in question [took place] in accordance with Brazilian legislation pertaining to the protection of the national interest," Rousseff's office said in a statement released Monday. "As Folha preferred not to send copies of the documents obtained, the Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) could not verify their authenticity." (Folha says it confirmed the authenticity of the documents after consulting with former intelligence, military, and government officials.)

Not a great source, but I've seen it elsewhere.

Gliese 667C System

Someone ought to include Gliese 667A and Gliese 667B.  The Gliese 667 would be an awesome one to have as a SFnal setting.

Latest Kepler Orrery

I Got Caught in This This Morning

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Fortunately, I wasn't hit by the truck, but had I been at my usual place at my usual time, I would have been a prime target for the twit driving this monster. Instead, I got stuck in two hours of traffic driving from Lafayette to DT Oakland.  Normally, it takes 10 minutes...this time it took 2 hours.

Arthropods in Patagonia Were Less Impacted by KT/K-Pg Extinction

There may be some truth to the old joke about only insects surviving an apocalypse.

Down in Patagonia, thousands of miles from the site of the deadly asteroid impact in present-day Mexico that killed off the dinosaurs, most bugs easily survived one of Earth's worst mass extinctions 65 million years ago. The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the Cretaceous mass extinction had varied effects on species in different spots around the world.

Evidence from fossilized leaves suggests that, compared with insects in North America, a greater diversity of insects in South America chewed, sucked and otherwise fed off plants after the Cretaceous extinction, researchers reported Oct. 28 at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Denver.

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Advanced Super Hornet: Should the USN Call it the F/A-18H/I?

The Navy is evaluating a series of upgrades to the F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft designed to increase the range, performance and “stealthy-ness” of the aircraft.

The technological innovations include engine improvements, new electronics, the use of a conformal fuel tank, an enclosed weapons pod and efforts to reduce the radar detectability or “signature” of the aircraft, service officials said.

These upgrades have resulted in newly configured or modified F/A-18s demonstrator flights in St. Louis, Mo., and Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Md., to provide assessment data for the Navy, said Capt. Frank Morley, F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Manager.

“We’re getting good performance numbers on it and good signature measurements. These are items the Navy is considering,” Morley said in an interview with Military​.com.

The Boeing-funded enhancements, called the Advanced Super Hornet, are aimed at increasing performance while reducing the radar cross-section of the aircraft.

“We reduced the signature of the aircraft by over 50-percent. We added low-signature treatments to specific areas of the airplane and then when we designed the conformal fuel tanks and enclosed weapons pod. They are designed specifically to address aerodynamic and signature components,” said Paul Summers, director of capabilities growth, F/A-18, Boeing.

Aerodynamically configured conformal fuel tanks are engineered to carry up to 3,500 pounds of fuel, Boeing officials said. The conformal fuel tank and external weapons pod are engineered to help make the aircraft able to fly further with more weapons — without increasing signature or drag for the airplane, Morley explained.

“If you have an external weapons pod then you can put weapons on that have a higher signature. You can be more aggressive in an anti-access or denied environment. It will give you more options for firepower without bringing up the signature of the airplane,” Morley said.

The external weapons pod, as opposed to using pylons for weapon, could lead to greater use of air-to-air missiles as well as air-to-ground bombs. The enclosed, external aerodynamically engineered weapons pod is built to carry up to 2,500-pounds of weapons.

The Super Hornet is configured to fire AIM-9X sidewinder air-to-air missile, the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM, the Joint Standoff Weapon, the Small Diameter Bomb and the Mk-84 general purpose bomb, among others.

Additional aspects of the Advanced Super Hornet innovations include improvements to the engine designed to increase acceleration for the aircraft and next-generation cockpit technology, Boeing officials indicated.

Currently, the Super Hornet cockpit includes four separate screens; however Boeing engineers are suggesting a larger single-screen, touchpad approach, Summers said.

“We’re proposing one large 11 by 19 [inch] cockpit display surface which is high resolution, multi-color and touch sensitive so that it works like an ipad,” Summers said.

Overall, the Navy is looking at technological and budget considerations as it weighs the prospect of making these innovations as part of the future F/A-18 program. The Navy plans to have Super Hornet’s serve through 2030 alongside F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and EA-18G Growler aircraft, Morley said.

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Culinary Paleontology: World's Oldest Tomatillo Fossil Found in Ypresian Eocene Paleogene Argentina

A fossilized tomatillo, still in its papery shell, is the earliest fruit from the tomato family ever found in South America, researchers reported Oct. 30 at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Denver.

The 52.2-million-year-old tomatillo was discovered at the fossil-rich Laguna del Hunco, Argentina, where ancient lakebeds interlayer with volcanic ashes, providing paleontologists with precisely dated discoveries. (Minerals in the ash pin down the rock ages.)

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Mike Brown: Something's Weird With Kupier Object 2002 UX25

[Mike Brown] gave a presentation of these results at the 2013 meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in October. At this point in the talk I stopped and had the ~100 people in the audience guess what the density of 2002 UX25 was going to be. I gave them the option of (1) lower than water ice like the small objects (2) midway between the small and large objects (3) very rocky like the big objects. The votes were nearly evenly split. Evenly split! Often a group of experts kind of knows what the answer is going to be before you give it. Here no one really had a clue. Including me, I must say. Though, for the record, I voted (2). What’s your vote?

And the answer is….. (1). The Kuiper belt object 2002 UX25 has a density smaller than that of water ice. In fact, 2002 UX25 is the largest solid object in the solar system which could float in water. If you could find a big enough body of water to float it in. As I explained to the audience at the time, this is such a startling result that everyone should currently be gasping.

This answer begs an important question: WHAT IS GOING ON????

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22%: Census of Kepler Data Predicts Likelihood of Sun-like Stars Have Terrestrial Planets in the Habitable Zone

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, now crippled and its four-year mission at an end, nevertheless provided enough data to complete its mission objective: to determine how many of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets.

Based on a statistical analysis of all the Kepler observations, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Hawaii, Manoa, astronomers now estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.

"What this means is, when you look up at the thousands of stars in the night sky, the nearest sun-like star with an Earth-size planet in its habitable zone is probably only 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye. That is amazing," said UC Berkeley graduate student Erik Petigura, who led the analysis of the Kepler data.

"It's been nearly 20 years since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal star. Since then we have learned that most stars have planets of some size and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life," said Andrew Howard, a former UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow who is now on the faculty of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. "With this result we've come home, in a sense, by showing that planets like our Earth are relatively common throughout the Milky Way galaxy."

Petigura, Howard and Geoffrey Marcy, UC Berkeley professor of astronomy, will publish their analysis and findings online the week of Nov. 4 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


[...]

What distinguishes the team's analysis from previous analyses of Kepler data is that they subjected Petigura's planet-finding algorithms to a battery of tests in order to measure how many habitable zone, Earth-size planets they missed. Petigura actually introduced fake planets into the Kepler data in order to determine which ones his software could detect and which it couldn't.

"What we're doing is taking a census of extrasolar planets, but we can't knock on every door. Only after injecting these fake planets and measuring how many we actually found, could we really pin down the number of real planets that we missed," Petigura said.

Accounting for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth, allowed them to estimate that 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.

"The primary goal of the Kepler mission was to answer the question, When you look up in the night sky, what fraction of the stars that you see have Earth-size planets at lukewarm temperatures so that water would not be frozen into ice or vaporized into steam, but remain a liquid, because liquid water is now understood to be the prerequisite for life," Marcy said. "Until now, no one knew exactly how common potentially habitable planets were around Sun-like stars in the galaxy."

All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun, Petigura said. But the team's analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun. Had Kepler survived for an extended mission, it would have obtained enough data to directly detect a handful of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of G-type stars.

"If the stars in the Kepler field are representative of stars in the solar neighborhood, … then the nearest (Earth-size) planet is expected to orbit a star that is less than 12 light-years from Earth and can be seen by the unaided eye," the researchers wrote in their paper. "Future instrumentation to image and take spectra of these Earths need only observe a few dozen nearby stars to detect a sample of Earth-size planets residing in the habitable zones of their host stars."

In January, the team reported a similar analysis of Kepler data for scorched planets that orbit close to their stars. The new, more complete analysis shows that "nature makes about as many planets in hospitable orbits as in close-in orbits," Howard said.

 link.

pop sci link and link and link.

paper link.

Obdurodon tharalkooschild: Largest Fossil Platypus Found in Miocene Neogene Australia

No living mammal is more peculiar than the platypus. It has a broad, duck-like bill, thick, otter-like fur, and webbed, beaver-like feet. The platypus lays eggs rather than gives birth to live young, its snout is covered with electroreceptors that detect underwater prey, and male platypuses have a venomous spur on their hind foot. Until recently, the fossil record indicated that the platypus lineage was unique, with only one species inhabiting the Earth at any one time. This picture has changed with the publication of a new study in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology that describes a new, giant species of extinct platypus that was a side-branch of the platypus family tree.

The new platypus species, named Obdurodon tharalkooschild, is based on a single tooth from the famous Riversleigh World Heritage Area of northwest Queensland. While many of Riversleigh's fossil deposits are now being radiometrically dated, the precise age of the particular deposit that produced this giant platypus is in doubt but is likely to be between 15 and 5 million years old.

"Monotremes (platypuses and echidnas) are the last remnant of an ancient radiation of mammals unique to the southern continents. A new platypus species, even one that is highly incomplete, is a very important aid in developing understanding about these fascinating mammals," said PhD candidate Rebecca Pian, lead author of the study.

Based on the size of tooth, it is estimated that this extinct species would have been nearly a meter (more than three feet) long, twice the size of the modern platypus. The bumps and ridges on the teeth also provide clues about what this species likely ate.

"Like other platypuses, it was probably a mostly aquatic mammal, and would have lived in and around the freshwater pools in the forests that covered the Riversleigh area millions of years ago," said Dr. Suzanne Hand of the University of New South Wales, a co-author of the study. "Obdurodon tharalkooschild was a very large platypus with well-developed teeth, and we think it probably fed not only on crayfish and other freshwater crustaceans, but also on small vertebrates including the lungfish, frogs, and small turtles that are preserved with it in the Two Tree Site fossil deposit."

The oldest platypus fossils come from 61 million-year-old rocks in southern South America. Younger platypus fossils are known from Australia in what is now the Simpson Desert. Before the discovery of Obdurodon tharalkooschild, these fossils suggested that platypuses became smaller and reduced the size of their teeth through time. The modern platypus completely lacks teeth as an adult and instead bears horny pads in its mouth. The name Obdurodon comes from the Greek for "lasting (obdurate) tooth" and was coined to distinguish extinct toothed platypuses from the essentially toothless modern species.

[...]

The specific epithet of the new species, tharalkooschild, honors an Indigenous Australian creation story about the origin of the platypus. In the Dreamtime, Tharalkoo was a head-strong girl duck inclined to disobey her parents. Her parents warned her not to swim downriver because Bigoon the Water-rat would have his wicked way with her. Scoffing, she disobeyed her parents and was ravished by Bigoon. By the time Tharalkoo escaped and returned to her family, the other girl ducks were laying eggs, so she did the same. But instead of a fluffy little duckling emerging from her egg, her child was an amazing chimera that had the bill, webbed hind feet, and egg-laying habit of a duck, along with the fur and front feet of a rodent—the first Platypus.

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Permian Extinction Tied to Wilson Supercontinent Cycle Through Pangea Integration

Mass extinction and Pangea integration during the Paleozoic-Mesozoic transition

Authors:

YIN HongFu and SONG HaiJun

Abstract:

The greatest Phanerozoic mass extinction happened at the end-Permian to earliest Triassic. About 95% species, 82% genera, and more than half families became extinct, constituting the sole macro-mass extinction in geological history. This event not only caused the great extinction but also destroyed the 200 Myr-long Paleozoic marine ecosystem, prompted its transition to Mesozoic ecosystem, and induced coal gap on land as well as reef gap and chert gap in ocean. The biotic crisis during the Paleozoic-Mesozoic transition was a long process of co-evolution between geospheres and biosphere. The event sequence at the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) reveals two-episodic pattern of rapidly deteriorating global changes and biotic mass extinction and the intimate relationship between them. The severe global changes coupling multiple geospheres may have affected the Pangea integration on the Earth's surface spheres, which include: the Pangea integration→enhanced mountain height and basin depth, changes of wind and ocean current systems; enhanced ocean basin depth→the greatest Phanerozoic regression at PTB, disappearance of epeiric seas and subsequent rapid transgression; the Pangea integration→thermal isolation effect of continental lithosphere and decrease of mid-ocean ridges→development of continental volcanism; two-episode volcanism causing LIPs of the Emeishan Basalt and the Siberian Trap (259-251 Ma)→global warming and mass extinction; continental aridification and replacement of monsoon system by latitudinal wind system→destruction of vegetation; enhanced weathering and CH4 emission→negative excursion of δ13C; mantle plume→crust doming→regression; possible relation between the Illawarra magnetic reversal and the PTB extinction, and so on. Mantle plume produced the Late Permian LIPs and mantle convection may have caused the process of the Pangea integration. Subduction, delamination, and accumulation of the earth's cool lithospheric material at the "D" layer of CMB started mantle plume by heat compensation and disturbed the outer core thermo-convection, and the latter in turn would generate the mid-Permian geomagnetic reversal. These core and mantle perturbations may have caused the Pangea integration and two successive LIPs in the Permian, and probably finally the mass extinction at the PTB.

Go, Baby! Go! India's Mars Orbiter Has Perfect Launch

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