NASA Studying Cygnus Derived "Exploration Augmentation Module" for Orion Capsule?

NASA is examining adding a habitation module to the agency’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that would allow astronauts to stay at the asteroid for several additional weeks.

Chris Moore, deputy director of the Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters, said in a presentation at the 65th International Astronautical Congress here Oct. 3 that the module, intended to serve as a prototype of a habitat for future deep space missions, could be in place before the first crewed mission visits the captured asteroid in the mid-2020s.

“We’re doing a study now of different module types and different times it could be launched,” Moore said. “It may be used on the first mission, if it could be ready in time.”

Under NASA’s current ARM plans, a two-person crew would fly a 26-day mission in an Orion spacecraft once the captured asteroid reached a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. Only about five days would be spent at the asteroid, allowing for two four-hour spacewalks, with the rest of the mission spent in transit between the asteroid and Earth.

That schedule is driven by the life support capabilities of the Orion spacecraft. Moore said the use of what NASA calls the Exploration Augmentation Module would allow the overall mission to last as long as 60 days. “This module would provide extra life support and consumables to extend Orion’s mission,” he said.

One end of the module would attach to the robotic spacecraft that redirected the captured asteroid into lunar orbit, with Orion docking at the opposite end. The module could also include an additional docking port to allow logistics spacecraft to dock while Orion is there, and an airlock so that astronauts could perform spacewalks without depressurizing the Orion, as currently planned.

Moore described the Exploration Augmentation Module as similar in size to a Cygnus spacecraft, a comparison that may not be coincidental. Orbital Sciences Corp. has expressed interest in finding new applications for its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, including use as a habitat module for missions in cislunar or deep space.

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US Navy Launches AirWorks: a Military In-house Skunkworks

The U.S. Navy this month launched "AIRWorks," an initiative modeled on Lockheed Martin Corp's Skunk Works and Boeing Co's Phantom Works divisions that aims to develop new weapons more quickly to meet U.S. military needs.

AIRWorks completed several projects over the past year even as it took shape. They included bulletproofing V-22 tiltrotor aircraft built by Boeing and Textron Inc for the Air Force, and adding rockets to the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter built by Northrop Grumman Corp for the Navy.

"More than anything else, for us it's about speed and cost," Rear Admiral Mark Darrah, chief engineer for the Navy's Naval Air Systems Command and commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center's aircraft division, told Reuters in an interview.

The goal is to use prototyping and the Navy's substantial in-house know-how to develop rapid solutions for urgent military needs. Depending on the situation, the products developed could later be opened to competition by defense contractors, he said.

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An Abrupt Palaeoenvironmental Change Across the Danian/Selandian Paleocene Paleogene

Integrated bio-chemostratigraphical correlations and climatic evolution across the Danian–Selandian boundary at low latitudes

Authors:

Storme et al

Abstract:

The Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Selandian Stage is defined in the Zumaia section (Spain) at an abrupt change in lithology (base of Itzurun Formation), which coincides with the onset of a negative carbonate carbon isotope shift. However, this lithological change is not always very well expressed in other sections. In order to document the stratigraphic position of the Danian/Selandian boundary (DSB) on a more global scale, we have investigated three sections across the DSB, the Zumaia reference section (GSSP), the Loubieng section (auxiliary DSB reference section, France) and the Sidi Nasseur section (Tunisia). The Danian/Selandian boundary interval is subdivided and correlated throughout low latitudes, from the Altlantic Bay of Biscay to the Southern Tethys, on the basis of seven calcareous nannofossil and planktonic foraminiferal events (E-events). The base of the Selandian is proved to coincide with the end of the Braarudosphaera acme, which correlates with the lowest consistent occurrence (LCsO) of Lithoptychius aff. bitectus (= Fasciculithus janii sensu Steurbaut and Sztrákos, 2008) (event E4), but which is slightly posterior to the second radiation of the fasciculiths, up to now considered to represent the primary correlation tool of the DSB. A short-term δ13Corg negative excursion, associated with an increase in pCO2 is recorded at the very base of the Selandian. It is interpreted as a short period of global warming (hyperthermal), the duration of which is estimated at ~ 30 kyr. It is followed in all the three studied sections by a long-term decoupled carbon isotope event, marked by increasing δ13Corg and decreasing δ13Ccarb values. It may reflect a period of climatic cooling of a few 100 kyr, interpreted as a possible precursor of the global cooling event, marking the late Paleocene in the North Atlantic realm. The integration of the biostratigraphic and the isotope data indicates major differences in sedimentation rates during the early Selandian in the studied sections, but there is no evidence of substantial breaks in sedimentation in any of the sections during this interval. The lithological shift at the base of the Selandian points to an abrupt palaeoenvironmental reorganisation, although our integrated bio-chemostratigraphical investigation does not allow for estimating its duration nor the presence of a hiatus at that time.

High Resolution Crater Counting of Martian Terrains

Minimum Effective Area for High Resolution Crater Counting of Martian Terrains

Authors:

Warner et al

Abstract:

The acquisition of high-resolution imagery for the surface of Mars has enabled mapping of spatially limited (order of less than 103 km2) landforms such as alluvial fans, deltas, and lacustrine deposits that are targets for exploration due to their association with liquid water. It is essential for our understanding of the planet’s geologic and climate history therefore to place these landforms within the global chronostratigraphic context. Here, we analyze both the statistical variability in the cratering pattern as well as the influence of small crater resurfacing on crater counting small landforms. We identified and counted craters (diameter (D) > 200 m) on four type terrains using Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) imagery that span the Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian epochs. The counts from each location include a region covering 10,000 km2, ten 1,000 km2 subsets of that larger area, and approximately one hundred 100 km2 samples. The data demonstrate significant variation in the crater size frequency and derived model ages across a single terrain type for the 100 km2 samples. The crater size frequency at this area scale varies across a single, uniform geologic unit by up to a factor of 2 to 3 on the four different terrains. At 1,000 km2, the local pattern variations that are relevant at the 100 km2 scale become less important and the age variations are tighter. In all four terrain cases, the 10,000 km2 and 1,000 km2 samples capture distinct crater populations (km-sized craters) that formed before and after resurfacing event(s). However, due to the relatively high mean distance between km-sized craters, the 100 km2 size area samples more commonly than not exclude a statistically significant sample at the kilometer size range, masking important information about the pre-resurfacing history of the terrain. We therefore suggest that due to the effect of pattern variability in cratering over 100 km2 and the susceptibility of smaller craters to resurfacing, crater counts derived from small area samples are suspect to major uncertainties.

Where are the Likely Spots for Archaeology Under the Receding Glaciers?

Combining glaciological and archaeological methods for gauging glacial archaeological potential

Authors:

Rogers et al

Abstract:

Recent climate changes have led to an increase in the exposure of archaeological remains in frozen environments due to the melting of glaciers and ice patches, and the thawing of permafrost. In some cases, the discovery of glacial archaeological findings has occurred due to chance. In order to avoid the risk of losing exceptional, often organic, cultural remains due to decomposition, systematic and predictive methods should be employed to locate areas of high glacial archaeological potential. Here, we merged archaeological and glaciological methods to create a new type of archaeological prediction model in the field of glacial archaeology. Locational analysis and glaciological modelling were used to highlight current and future areas of archaeological potential in the Pennine Alps, located between Switzerland and Italy. Future glacier area was calculated in 10 year increments until 2100. By 2090, 93% of glacier area is expected to have disappeared. The results from the final model, GlaciArch, provide new insights into future glacial archaeological prospection in the Pennine Alps by narrowing down a study region of 4500 km2 into several manageable square kilometre sites.

A New, Exquisite Anhanguera piscator (Pterosaur) Specimen From Aptian/Albian Cretaceous Brazil

The pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil at the CosmoCaixa Science Museum (Barcelona, Spain)

Authors:

Dalla Vecchia et al

Abstract:

An apparently nearly complete and fairly well-articulated specimen of a large toothed pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil is exhibited at the CosmoCaixa – Museo de la Ciencia, Barcelona, Spain. The museum label refers it to Anhanguera piscator and reports a provenance from the Crato Formation. Its study shows that it is from the Romualdo Formation and is an assembled and composite specimen over 45% reconstructed. The original skeletal elements show no diagnostic feature of Anhanguera piscator, belong to non-tapejarid pterosaurs, and do not furnish further significative scientific information. Several mistakes were made in the reconstruction and assemblage of the skeleton and some elements do not follow the proportions of Anhanguera piscator. Care is suggested when describing pterosaur material from the Romualdo Formation prepared and sold by private fossil dealers in the absence of an adequate documentation on the original material and its preparation.

Two New Bystrowianid Chroniosuchians From Olenekian Triassic Russia

New bystrowianid chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from the Triassic of Russia and diversification of Bystrowianidae

Authors:

Shishkin et al

Abstract:

The first bystrowianids recorded in the Gamskian Horizon of the East European Platform, Vyushkoviana operta gen. et sp. nov. and Dromotectum abditum sp. nov. (Amphibia, Chroniosuchia), are described based on specimens from the Malaya Northern Dvina and Don river basins. The patterns of the dermal scute evolution observed in bystrowianids warrant the subdivision of the group into the subfamilies Bystrowianinae Vjuschkov 1957, Dromotectinae subfam. nov. and Axitectinae subfam. nov. The second and third show progressive reduction of the external (paraxial) zone of the interosteoderm articulation. New data supporting close proximity or phyletic succession of the chroniosuchid and bystrowianid types of the osteoderm design are revealed. The concept of the Chroniosuchidae as a paraphyletic group is rejected. Evolutionary significance of the key features distinguishing the bystrowianid subfamilies is analyzed.

Mid Cryogenian NeoProterozoic Intra Plate Magamatism's Implications for Rifting in Supercontinent Rodinia

First evidence for ca. 780 Ma intra-plate magmatism and its implications for Neoproterozoic rifting of the North Yili Block and tectonic origin of the continental blocks in SW of Central Asia

Authors:

Wang et al

Abstract:

The North Yili Block is one of the major continental constituents of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), study of its basement evolution and tectonic origin is essential for the understanding of the accretionary history of the CAOB and the reconstruction of global supercontinent as well. We conducted field geological, geochronological and geochemical investigations on the mafic dikes intruding in the highly deformed Proterozoic carbonate in the North Yili Block, NW Chinese Tianshan. Zircon U-Pb dating results suggest that the gabbro and gabbroic diorite dikes and associated granitic vein formed in 776-778 Ma. Element and isotope geochemical data reveal that these intrusive rocks derived from an OIB-like mantle source, and were variably influenced by fraction crystallization and important crustal contamination, thus, a continental rifting setting is proposed for these dikes. Our new data provide the first evidence for a Neoproterozoic continental intra-plate magmatism occurred in the North Yili Block, this event can be linked with the coeval continental rifting-related magmatism in northern Tarim and in other microcontinents within the SW CAOB (e.g., Central Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Middle Tianshan). Based on the comparison on the Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic stratigraphic sequences between the North Yili and Tarim blocks, it is suggested that the North Yili Block most likely originated from the Tarim Block, and is potentially one additional constituent member of the Rodinia supercontinent.

What Coral Reefs Will be Like in the Future Based on the Past

Persistence and Change in Community Composition of Reef Corals through Present, Past, and Future Climates

Authors:

Edmunds et al

Abstract:

The reduction in coral cover on many contemporary tropical reefs suggests a different set of coral community assemblages will dominate future reefs. To evaluate the capacity of reef corals to persist over various time scales, we examined coral community dynamics in contemporary, fossil, and simulated future coral reef ecosystems. Based on studies between 1987 and 2012 at two locations in the Caribbean, and between 1981 and 2013 at five locations in the Indo-Pacific, we show that many coral genera declined in abundance, some showed no change in abundance, and a few coral genera increased in abundance. Whether the abundance of a genus declined, increased, or was conserved, was independent of coral family. An analysis of fossil-reef communities in the Caribbean revealed changes in numerical dominance and relative abundances of coral genera, and demonstrated that neither dominance nor taxon was associated with persistence. As coral family was a poor predictor of performance on contemporary reefs, a trait-based, dynamic, multi-patch model was developed to explore the phenotypic basis of ecological performance in a warmer future. Sensitivity analyses revealed that upon exposure to thermal stress, thermal tolerance, growth rate, and longevity were the most important predictors of coral persistence. Together, our results underscore the high variation in the rates and direction of change in coral abundances on contemporary and fossil reefs. Given this variation, it remains possible that coral reefs will be populated by a subset of the present coral fauna in a future that is warmer than the recent past.

Russia Plans Two More Kilo Class Subs, Another Frigate for Black Sea Fleet

Russia plans to add a new frigate and two new diesel electric submarines (SSKs) to its Black Sea Fleet by years end, the head of the Russian Navy said on Monday.

The Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate and two Improved Kilo-class (Varshavyanka-class) SSKs will commission by the end of the year, Commander-in-Chief, Adm. Viktor Chirkov told Russian news outlet RIA Novosti in a Monday interview.

“The Black Sea Fleet will receive two out of six Varshavyanka-class boats by the end of the year,” he said.
“In addition, we are planning to raise the flag on the first out of six Project 1135.6 frigates by the same time.”

The plan is part of a previously announced $2.4 billion Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet expansion planned to be completed in 2020.

All told, the Russian Navy plans for 11 ships, including the two Kilos, an additional frigate, two Grachonok-class patrol craft and six other service and support vessels, according to local press.

The Russian Navy’s current fleet is composed of few capital ships and is oriented toward anti-submarine warfare and minesweeping.

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IMF: China's Economy has Become the Largest in the World

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NASA/APL's Europa Clipper Mission Moves Ahead, Selects Solar Panels Over RTGs

Designers of a proposed NASA mission to study the icy and potentially habitable Jupiter moon of Europa have decided to use solar panels rather than a nuclear power source for the spacecraft, while keeping spacecraft’s launch options open.

In an Oct. 3 presentation at the 65th International Astronautical Congress here, Europa Clipper deputy project manager Thomas Magner of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, said that using large solar panels for the mission was both technically viable and less expensive than a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG).

“For the last two years, we did extensive risk reduction work looking at whether solar is feasible,” Magner said. “We found that solar works fine, so our final decision about two months ago was to go to solar.”

Those tests included subjecting solar cells to a range of temperatures and radiation conditions the spacecraft would experience during the mission. Engineers also examined whether the large solar panels, with an area of 50 square meters, would cause jitter that would adversely affect the spacecraft’s scientific instruments.

Europa Clipper would not be the first solar-powered Jupiter mission: NASA’s Juno spacecraft, launched in 2011 and scheduled to go into orbit around Jupiter in July 2016, also uses solar panels. Magner said they tested solar cells used for Juno, exposing them to a wider range of temperatures to reflect the different trajectory that Europa Clipper would take to reach Jupiter.

A solar-powered Europa Clipper would be less expensive than one that used an RTG, Magner said, although he did not quantify the difference in costs. It would eliminate the need for an environmental impact statement that is required for nuclear-powered spacecraft and launch approval from the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It would also free up constrained supplies of plutonium-238, the isotope used in RTGs, for other potential missions.

Magner said after his presentation that using solar power would increase the spacecraft’s mass in order to accommodate the panels and structures, although it remained well within current design margins. A few other tweaks would be needed to the spacecraft’s design to incorporate the solar panels, he said.

While NASA has not yet decided to develop Europa Clipper or any other mission to Europa, Magner said the project passed a NASA-sponsored mission concept review in September “with flying colors” and predicted the agency would move ahead with it.

“We expect later this year for NASA to select us as the mission they want to go forward with to Europa, and we’ll get a new start early next year,” he said.

If NASA does choose to proceed with Europa Clipper, it will defer a choice of launch vehicle for several years. One mission design could use an existing rocket, such as the workhorse Atlas 5. In that scenario, Europa Clipper would launch in mid-2022 and, after a series of gravity assist flybys of Venus and Earth, would arrive at Jupiter in early 2030.

An alternative approach would use NASA’s still-in-development Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket to send Europa Clipper on a direct trajectory to Jupiter. A mid-2022 launch would allow the spacecraft to reach Jupiter in fewer than three years, without the need of any flybys.

Launching on SLS, Magner said, would reduce the costs of operating Europa Clipper given the much shorter travel time to Jupiter, and also simplify the thermal design since the spacecraft would not have to perform a Venus flyby in order to reach Jupiter. However, it was unclear how much more Europa Clipper would have to pay for an SLS launch.

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New, Promising Gene Therapy for X-linked Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome

A new form of gene therapy for boys with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID-X1), a life-threatening condition also known as "bubble boy" disease, appears to be both effective and safe, according to a collaborative research team from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and other institutions conducting an international clinical trial. Early data suggest that the therapy may avoid the late-developing leukemia seen in a quarter of SCID-X1 patients in pioneering gene therapy trials in Europe more than a decade ago.

Eight of nine boys recruited to date onto the trial are alive between 12 and 38 months after treatment, with no SCID-X1-associated infections, the research team reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Gene therapy alone generated functioning immune systems in seven of the eight. Genetic studies of the boys' new T-cells, which are critical components of the body's immune system, reveal that the viral vector used to deliver the gene therapy did not lead to an expansion of cells with vector insertions near known cancer-causing genes, raising cautious hopes about the vector's long-term safety. One child died of an overwhelming infection present at the time gene therapy began. Left untreated, boys with SCID-X1 usually die of infection before their first birthday.

The investigators will continue to monitor the patients for any signs of treatment-related leukemia for 15 years. In the prior European trials—which were the first to demonstrate gene therapy's potential to successfully cure a disease—leukemia appeared two to five years after treatment. This outcome was one of several events that together slowed clinical progress in gene therapy for many years.

The modified vector created for the current trial is a self-inactivating gammaretrovirus, designed to deliver its payload effectively while minimizing the chance of inadvertently turning on genes, called oncogenes, that could lead to leukemia.

"Our goal was to take the molecular data from the prior trial and use it to produce a vector that would remain effective and at the same time reduce the risk of leukemia," said David A. Williams, MD, a leader of Dana-Farber/Boston Children's, chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology and director of clinical and translational research at Boston Children's Hospital, principal investigator for the gene therapy trial's U.S. sites, and corresponding senior author of the NEJM paper. "The efficacy data from our study is clear: The vector does work to correct the disease. And by a surrogate endpoint, we have improved the treatment's safety, although it's too early to say that we've completely eliminated the long-term risk of leukemia."

After a single round of treatment, six of the seven boys for whom the gene therapy was successful had achieved the trial's primary efficacy endpoints—a T-cell count greater than 300 cells per microliter of blood and T-cell proliferation in response to stimulation with phytohemagglutinin (a test used to measure T-cells' ability to react to pathogens). The seventh boy received a second round of gene therapy and remains healthy despite having relatively low T-cell counts. The eighth surviving patient was successfully treated with a conventional hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cell transplant after gene therapy failed to stimulate T-cell production.

"Only a minority of babies with SCID-X1 have the optimal donor for standard transplant, a brother or sister who is tissue-type matched," said co-lead author Sung-Yun Pai, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's. "For the rest, gene therapy is a therapeutic option that avoids the need to find an alternative donor and avoids complications of allogeneic transplant such as graft-versus-host-disease."

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NASA Video 'Trial by Fire' Describes Upcoming Orion Capsule Test

The Robopocalypse has Come for the Outsourced IT Workers

Remember when a majority of new tech jobs were going to India and China? Well, increasingly, those jobs are going away altogether. Outsourcing, it turns out, is in the early stages of being automated.

This morning, news broke that Yahoo would be laying off at least 400 workers in its Indian office, and back in February, IBM cut roughly 2,000 jobs there. Cisco has been considering cuts in India as well.

Labor in India and China is still cheaper than it is in the United States, but it's not the obvious economic move that it was just a few years ago: Wages in India have increased about 10 percent annually over the last five years, according to Cliff Justice, an analyst who studies outsourcing.

"The traditional low cost arbitrage markets have been India, China and other parts of Asia," Justice wrote in a paper he called "The Death of Outsourcing." "However, the success of outsourcing and global manufacturing has spawned a rapidly growing middle class in these regions, which is both increasing the cost of labor and broadening the potential customer base for many companies."

A late 2012 report by IT analysts HFS Research suggested that "robotic automation has the potential to wreak some dramatic, painful changes on the Indian outsourcers who are the current bulwark of the industry," and analyzed several instances in which an automated IT program has already started doing important work for several (unnamed) companies.

That discussion of automation is becoming much more common in the tech industry, with tech jobs in Asia having at least the potential to be on the chopping block, said Mark Muro, an economist at Brookings.

"The labor costs are becoming significant enough in China and India that there are very real discussions about automating jobs there now," Muro said. "The next generation of robots, the next generation of computer learning, is going to be much better than they were at handling things like customer service."

"I think it's going to create some disruptions not only here, but also in the emerging world, where the whole appeal is that labor is cheaper," he added.

Unsurprisingly, robots are and will be cheaper. Meanwhile, Yahoo and other major tech firms are trying to consolidate their human operations to larger offices centered in urban centers—most often in the United States.

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US Air Force Taking Over Space Shuttle Orbiter Processing Facility Bays 1 & 2 for X-37B

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B Program for use of the center’s Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) Bays 1 and 2 to process the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for launch.

The OPF bays were last used during NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. With the agency’s transition to the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, the agency currently does not have a mission requirement for the facilities. This agreement ensures the facilities will again be used for their originally-intended purpose — processing spacecraft.

“Kennedy is positioning itself for the future, transitioning to a multi-user launch facility for both commercial and government customers, while embarking on NASA’s new deep space exploration plans,” said Kennedy Center Director Robert Cabana. “A dynamic infrastructure is taking shape, designed to host many kinds of spacecraft and rockets.”

In addition to vehicle preparation for launch, the X-37B Program conducted testing at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility to demonstrate that landing the vehicle at the former shuttle runway is a technically feasible option.

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US Army Pushing Forward With Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator

The U.S. Army is immersed in testing with two industry teams contracted to develop and build a fuel-efficient, high-speed, next-generation medium-lift helicopter to enter service by 2030.

The service’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator, or JMR TD, program awarded development deals to Bell Helicopter-Textron and Sikorsky-Boeing teams to build demonstrator aircraft by 2017 to help inform the development of a new medium-class helicopter.

“These teams will build technology demonstration aircraft with flight tests starting in 2017,” an Army statement said.

Textron Inc.’s Bell Helicopter is building a tilt-rotor aircraft called the Bell V-280 Valor – and the Sikorsky-Boeing team is working on early testing of its SB> 1 Defiant coaxial rotor-blade design.

Planned mission sets for the JMR include cargo, utility, armed scout, attack, humanitarian assistance, medical evacuation, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, land/sea search and rescue, special warfare support, vertical replenishment, airborne mine countermeasures, and others, Army officials said.

Although requirements for the aircraft are still being refined, the notional concept is to succeed in building a new aircraft which can reach speeds of 230 knots, carry up to 12 troops, operate in what’s called “high-hot” conditions and achieve a combat radius of 424 kilometers.

A key intent of the program is to develop a fuel-efficient aircraft which can reach high-speeds while retaining an ability to hover and maneuver as though it is a traditional helicopter.

A combat radius of 424 kilometers means the aircraft will be engineered with an ability to fly 848 kilometers on a round-trip mission without needing to refuel. Along with calling for increased fuel efficiency, the draft requirements also ask that the aircraft be able to operate at altitudes of 6,000-feet and temperatures of 95-degrees Fahrenheit.

Described as “high-hot” conditions, the decreased air pressure at higher altitudes and hotter atmospheric temperatures typically make it

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There Were Asian Monsoons During the Eocene Paleogene

Asian monsoons in a late Eocene greenhouse world

Authors:

Licht et al

Abstract:

The strong present-day Asian monsoons are thought to have originated between 25 and 22 million years (Myr) ago, driven by Tibetan–Himalayan uplift. However, the existence of older Asian monsoons and their response to enhanced greenhouse conditions such as those in the Eocene period (55–34 Myr ago) are unknown because of the paucity of well-dated records. Here we show late Eocene climate records revealing marked monsoon-like patterns in rainfall and wind south and north of the Tibetan–Himalayan orogen. This is indicated by low oxygen isotope values with strong seasonality in gastropod shells and mammal teeth from Myanmar, and by aeolian dust deposition in northwest China. Our climate simulations support modern-like Eocene monsoonal rainfall and show that a reinforced hydrological cycle responding to enhanced greenhouse conditions counterbalanced the negative effect of lower Tibetan relief on precipitation. These strong monsoons later weakened with the global shift to icehouse conditions 34 Myr ago.

Evidence of Lake Missoula-like Glacial Lake Drainage From Mid Amazonian Chryse Planitia, Mars

Evidence for Middle Amazonian catastrophic flooding and glaciation on Mars

Authors:

Rodríguez et al

Abstract:

Early geologic investigations of Mars revealed some of the largest channels in the Solar System (outflow channels), which appear to have mostly developed ∼3 byr ago. These channels have been the subject of much scientific inquiry since the 1970s and proposed formative processes included surface erosion by catastrophic floods, glaciers, debris flows and lava flows. Based on the analysis of newly acquired Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context (CTX, 5.15–5.91 m/pixel) and High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE, 25–50 cm/pixel) image data, we have identified a few locations contained within relatively narrow canyons of the southern circum-Chryse outflow channels that retain well-preserved decameter/hectometer-scale landform assemblages. These terrains include landforms consistent in shape, dimension and overall assemblage to those produced by catastrophic floods, and at one location, to glacial morphologies. Impact crater statistics for four of these surfaces, located within upstream, midstream and downstream outflow channel surfaces, yield an age estimate of ∼600 myr. This suggests that the southern circum-Chryse outflow channels were locally resurfaced by some of the most recent catastrophic floods on the planet, and that these floods coexisted within regional glacier environments as recently as during the Middle Amazonian.

Chimps Teach Other Chimps

Social Network Analysis Shows Direct Evidence for Social Transmission of Tool Use in Wild Chimpanzees

Authors:

Hobalter et al

Abstract:

Social network analysis methods have made it possible to test whether novel behaviors in animals spread through individual or social learning. To date, however, social network analysis of wild populations has been limited to static models that cannot precisely reflect the dynamics of learning, for instance, the impact of multiple observations across time. Here, we present a novel dynamic version of network analysis that is capable of capturing temporal aspects of acquisition—that is, how successive observations by an individual influence its acquisition of the novel behavior. We apply this model to studying the spread of two novel tool-use variants, “moss-sponging” and “leaf-sponge re-use,” in the Sonso chimpanzee community of Budongo Forest, Uganda. Chimpanzees are widely considered the most “cultural” of all animal species, with 39 behaviors suspected as socially acquired, most of them in the domain of tool-use. The cultural hypothesis is supported by experimental data from captive chimpanzees and a range of observational data. However, for wild groups, there is still no direct experimental evidence for social learning, nor has there been any direct observation of social diffusion of behavioral innovations. Here, we tested both a static and a dynamic network model and found strong evidence that diffusion patterns of moss-sponging, but not leaf-sponge re-use, were significantly better explained by social than individual learning. The most conservative estimate of social transmission accounted for 85% of observed events, with an estimated 15-fold increase in learning rate for each time a novice observed an informed individual moss-sponging. We conclude that group-specific behavioral variants in wild chimpanzees can be socially learned, adding to the evidence that this prerequisite for culture originated in a common ancestor of great apes and humans, long before the advent of modern humans.

Two Distinct Pterosaur Tracks Alongside Avian Tracks From Campanian/Maastrichtian Cretaceous Alaska

Pterosaur tracks from the Lower Cantwell Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian) of Denali National Park, Alaska, USA, with comments about landscape heterogeneity and habit preferences

Authors:

Fiorillo et al

Abstract:

We report on new records of pterosaur tracks from Alaska. Recent palaeontological investigations in the Lower Cantwell Formation of Denali National Park, central Alaska Range, Alaska, had resulted previously in the discovery of a single pterosaur manus track. Subsequent and ongoing investigation has shown that the track record for pterosaurs in this region is more robust. These new pterosaur records comprise large and small traces. The larger tracks are up to approximately 18 cm long and 6 cm wide. The smaller tracks are approximately 6 cm long and 4 cm wide. The assemblage of pterosaur traces from Denali National Park consists of manus impressions. The morphology of the pterosaur traces found in the Lower Cantwell Formation compares favourably with the morphology of the ichnogenus Pteraichnus. The presence of two very different body sizes of pterosaurs, along with the abundant record of fossil bird tracks, indicates the presence of ecological complexity among aerial vertebrates during the time that the sediments of the Lower Cantwell Formation were deposited. Sedimentological and palaeobotanical data, combined with the vertebrate ichnology record, offer details into how these aerial vertebrates were separated within this heterogenetic ecosystem.

Just What WAS the "Parrsboro jaw" From Pennsylvanian Carboniferous Nova Scotia

Redescription and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Mandible of an Enigmatic Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) Tetrapod from Nova Scotia, and the Lability of Meckelian Jaw Ossification

Authors:

Sookias et al

Abstract:

The lower jaw of an unidentified Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) tetrapod from Nova Scotia – the “Parrsboro jaw”- is redescribed in the light of recent tetrapod discoveries and work on evolution of tetrapod mandibular morphology and placed for the first time in a numerical cladistics analysis. All phylogenetic analyses place the jaw in a crownward polytomy of baphetids, temnospondyls, and embolomeres. Several features resemble baphetids and temnospondyls including dermal ornamentation, absence of coronoid teeth, and presence of coronoid shagreen. Dentary dentition is most similar to Baphetes. An adsymphysial toothplate may not preclude temnospondyl affinity. An apparent large exomeckelian fenestra, with the dorsal foraminal margins formed by an unossified element, echoes the morphology of the stem tetrapod Sigournea and is unusually primitive given the other features of the jaw. The jaw may thus provide an example of an intermediate stage in Meckelian element evolution.

A Gondwanan Geological Suture in Ediacaran/Cambrian Madagascar Into India and Africa

The 580–520 Ma Gondwana suture of Madagascar and its continuation into Antarctica and Africa

Authors:

Boger et al

Abstract:

U–Pb age data from southwest Madagascar provides a compelling case that the pre-Gondwana Indian plate was stitched with the arc terranes of the Arabian Nubian Shield along a suture that closed between 580 Ma and 520 Ma. The key observations supportive of this interpretation are: (1) metamorphism dated to 630–600 Ma is manifested only on the west side of the suture in rocks that have affinities with the oceanic and island arc terranes of the Arabian Nubian Shield, or represent continental rocks welded to these terranes prior to the amalgamation of Gondwana, and (2) orogenesis at 580–520 Ma is manifest in rocks on both sides of the suture, an observation taken to mark the timing of collision and reflect spatial continuity across the suture. In southwest Madagascar the distribution of metamorphic ages places the suture along the Beraketa high-strain zone, the tectonic boundary between the Androyen and Anoysen domains. Similar age relationships allow for the extrapolation of this tectonic boundary into both East Antarctica and Africa.

Evidence Walker Circulation is Weakening Over the Pacific Ocean

Equatorial Pacific coral geochemical records show recent weakening of the Walker Circulation

Authors:

Carilli et al

Abstract:

Equatorial Pacific ocean-atmosphere interactions affect climate globally, and a key component of the coupled system is the Walker Circulation, which is driven by sea surface temperature (SST) gradients across the equatorial Pacific. There is conflicting evidence as to whether the SST gradient and Walker Circulation have strengthened or weakened over the late 20th century. We present new records of SST and sea surface salinity (SSS) spanning 1959-2010 based on paired measurements of Sr/Ca and δ18O in a massive Porites coral from Butaritari atoll in the Gilbert Islands, Republic of Kiribati, in the central-western equatorial Pacific. The records show 2-7 year variability correlated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and corresponding shifts in the extent of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, and decadal-scale signals related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In addition, the Butaritari coral records reveal a small but significant increase in SST (0.39 °C) from 1959 to 2010 with no accompanying change in SSS, a trend that persists even when ENSO variability is removed. In contrast, larger increases in SST and SSS are evident in coral records from the equatorial Pacific Line Islands, located east of Butaritari. Taken together, the equatorial Pacific coral records suggest an overall reduction in the east-west SST and SSS gradient over the last several decades, and a recent weakening of the Walker Circulation.

Russian Armata Main Battle Tank to Debut in May 2015 Victory Day Parade in Moscow

The Russian Land Forces are to receive a first batch of 32 Armata main battle tanks (MBTs) in 2015, Russia's Land Forces Commander, Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, has stated. The new MBT is expected to make its public debut at the 2015 Victory Day Parade in Moscow, he also revealed.

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Is China a Paper Dragon?

China’s rise over the past 30 years has been nothing short of spectacular.

After decades of double-digit growth, today China is the world’s second largest economy—and possesses an increasingly sophisticated military that’s among the planet’s most powerful. Despite China bordering a number of unstable countries, its borders are secure.

That wasn’t always the case. In 2,000 years, China has suffered invasions, revolutions and humiliations from the outside world—plus its own internal rebellions. It has been brutalized, conquered and colonized.

No longer. China’s defense spending has increased tenfold in 25 years. Beijing is building a powerful blue-water navy, developing stealth fighters and carefully experimenting with peacekeeping and expeditionary operations.

China’s military buildup, along with an aggressive foreign policy, has inspired a fair amount of alarm in the West. Some American policymakers consider Beijing to be Washington’s only “near-peer competitor”—in other words, the only country with the military might to actually beat the U.S. military in certain circumstances.

But they’re wrong. Even after decades of expensive rearmament, China is a paper dragon—a version of what Mao Zedong wrongly claimed the United States was … in 1956.

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No time for a Ukraine the Boil Frog Post: Enjoy the People's Republic of Donetsk Instead

That's not a Blackhole...Its a Pulsar! The Impossible Pulsar With All the Power of 10 Million Suns

Astronomers working with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), led by Caltech's Fiona Harrison, have found a pulsating dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. The object, previously thought to be a black hole because it is so powerful, is in fact a pulsar—the incredibly dense rotating remains of a star.

"This compact little stellar remnant is a real powerhouse. We've never seen anything quite like it," says Harrison, NuSTAR's principal investigator and the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech. "We all thought an object with that much energy had to be a black hole."

Dom Walton, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech who works with NuSTAR data, says that with its extreme energy, this pulsar takes the top prize in the weirdness category. Pulsars are typically between one and two times the mass of the sun. This new pulsar presumably falls in that same range but shines about 100 times brighter than theory suggests something of its mass should be able to.

"We've never seen a pulsar even close to being this bright," Walton says. "Honestly, we don't know how this happens, and theorists will be chewing on it for a long time." Besides being weird, the finding will help scientists better understand a class of very bright X-ray sources, called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs).

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U Washington's Dynomak Fusion Reactor Design: a Derived Spheromak

Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven’t penciled out. Fusion power designs aren’t cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“Right now, this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current concept,” said Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics.

The UW’s reactor, called the dynomak, started as a class project taught by Jarboe two years ago. After the class ended, Jarboe and doctoral student Derek Sutherland – who previously worked on a reactor design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – continued to develop and refine the concept.

The design builds on existing technology and creates a magnetic field within a closed space to hold plasma in place long enough for fusion to occur, allowing the hot plasma to react and burn. The reactor itself would be largely self-sustaining, meaning it would continuously heat the plasma to maintain thermonuclear conditions. Heat generated from the reactor would heat up a coolant that is used to spin a turbine and generate electricity, similar to how a typical power reactor works.

“This is a much more elegant solution because the medium in which you generate fusion is the medium in which you’re also driving all the current required to confine it,” Sutherland said.

There are several ways to create a magnetic field, which is crucial to keeping a fusion reactor going. The UW’s design is known as a spheromak, meaning it generates the majority of magnetic fields by driving electrical currents into the plasma itself. This reduces the amount of required materials and actually allows researchers to shrink the overall size of the reactor.

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Files on J. Robert Oppenheimer Declassified

The U.S. Department of Energy has declassified documents related to a Cold War hearing for the man who directed the Manhattan Project that developed atomic bombs and was later accused of having communist sympathies.

The department last week released transcripts of the 1950s hearings on the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, providing more insight into the previously secret world that surrounded development of the atomic bomb.

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Despite Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator Loss, Karem & AVX Aircraft may Still get US Army Funding

The US Army could fund development of rotorcraft technology offered by two companies not selected to build demonstrator aircraft under the Pentagon's Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) programme, officials announced on 3 October.

The army selected a Sikorsky-Boeing team and Bell Helicopter in August to build rotorcraft for JMR-TD with partial government funding,

However, in a 3 October statement, the Army said AVX Aircraft Company and Karem Aircraft Inc, two smaller companies, "also offer technologies and configurations of interest", adding it would "seek to continue technology development efforts with those teams based on resources and opportunities".

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Temperature was Very Important for Warm Water Carbon Cycling in Eocene Oceans

Temperature-dependent remineralization and carbon cycling in the warm Eocene oceans

Authors:

John et al

Abstract:

Metabolic rates in heterotrophic bacteria are more sensitive to temperature than rates of primary production (e.g., López-Urrutia et al., 2006; Regaudie-de-Gioux and Duarte, 2012). Consequently, faster bacterial respiration rates in a warmer ocean may result in more efficient remineralization of sinking organic matter higher in the water column, with implications for carbon and nutrient cycling during warm climate states. This is supported by a series of reconstructed δ13CDIC: depth profiles based on well-preserved planktonic foraminifera assemblages from Tanzania from the warm Eocene epoch (55.5–33.7 Ma) when global surface and deep ocean temperatures exceeded those of the modern day (John et al., 2013). These results indicate relatively sharp δ13CDIC gradients in the upper water column which supports the hypothesis that high metabolic rates in warm Eocene oceans led to more efficient recycling of organic matter and reduced burial rates of organic carbon (Olivarez Lyle and Lyle, 2006). Shallower remineralization depths would also cause an upward displacement and intensification of the oxygen minimum zone which is consistent with evidence for a pelagic ecosystem that was focused in a narrow depth range near the surface during the warm early and middle Eocene. Here we use the Earth System model, cGENIE, that incorporates a new temperature dependence of remineralization rates to illustrate the potential effects of temperature on particulate organic carbon fluxes and hence vertical δ13CDIC gradients. Modeled δ13CDIC vertical profiles off the coast of Tanzania for the Eocene agree well with the reconstructed δ13CDIC profiles, supporting our interpretations based on temperature-dependent remineralization.

Evidence for Past Glaciation in Valles Marineris, Mars

A new type of jarosite deposit on Mars: Evidence for past glaciation in Valles Marineris?

Authors:

Cull et al

Abstract:

Acid-sulfate minerals such as jarosite are often used as indicators of environmental conditions on Mars. These minerals form in a diverse set of environments on Earth; however, all known Martian jarosite deposits are most likely evaporative, from evaporation of either groundwater or ponded water. Here, we use the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment to report a new jarosite deposit along the southern wall of Ius Chasma. The morphology and geologic context of the Ius deposit are unique on Mars, and difficult to explain with an evaporative or groundwater mechanism. We propose instead that it was deposited along the margins of a past glacier. Such acid-ice interactions would be similar to those reported along the margins of Svalbard glaciers (arctic Norway), and would represent a new style of acid-sulfate formation on Mars.

50,000 Year Old Cave Paintings Found From Pleistocene Quaternary Sulawesi, Indonesia

Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia

Authors:

Aubert et al

Abstract:

Archaeologists have long been puzzled by the appearance in Europe ~40–35 thousand years (kyr) ago of a rich corpus of sophisticated artworks, including parietal art (that is, paintings, drawings and engravings on immobile rock surfaces) and portable art (for example, carved figurines) and the absence or scarcity of equivalent, well-dated evidence elsewhere, especially along early human migration routes in South Asia and the Far East, including Wallacea and Australia where modern humans (Homo sapiens) were established by 50 kyr ago. Here, using uranium-series dating of coralloid speleothems directly associated with 12 human hand stencils and two figurative animal depictions from seven cave sites in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, we show that rock art traditions on this Indonesian island are at least compatible in age with the oldest European art11. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, is now the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa (‘pig-deer’) made at least 35.4 kyr ago is among the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. Among the implications, it can now be demonstrated that humans were producing rock art by ~40 kyr ago at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world.

Sauropod Niche Partitioning in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation

How the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth fed, and how this allowed them to live alongside one another in prehistoric ecosystems is the subject of new research from the University of Bristol and the Natural History Museum, London.

The sauropods – large, long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs such as Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus – dominated the land between 210 and 65 million years ago. They were the largest land animals of all time, with the biggest weighing 80 tonnes (more than 11 elephants) and would have needed vast amounts of food.

Despite this, multiple sauropod species often lived alongside each other. The most notable example is the community of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, a distinctive sequence of sedimentary rock in the western United States from which over 10 species of sauropod are known.

How so many giant herbivores could have coexisted has long been a mystery: even the highly diverse faunas seen in modern Africa only support one truly gigantic species, the elephant. This is made even more puzzling by the harsh, semi-arid environment of the Morrison Formation during the Jurassic, which would have limited plant growth.

A study conducted by David Button, a PhD student in Bristol's School of Earth Sciences and the Natural History Museum, and colleagues used a novel combination of approaches to investigate this problem.

Although sauropods were gigantic, their heads were comparatively very small and so how they ingested enough food has puzzled many scientists. The researchers focussed on the skull and jaws of sauropods, using a variety of biomechanical techniques to investigate how they functioned and what this would mean for sauropod ecology.

Using CT scans, the researchers digitally reconstructed the skulls of the sauropods Camarasaurus and Diplodocus, along with the jaw and neck muscles of both species from the traces left on the bones where these muscles were attached in life. These two species are very common in the Morrison Formation, and are known to have widely co-existed. From this data, a biomechanical computer model of the skull of Camarasaurus was built using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a modelling technique often employed in engineering and design to calculate stress and strain distribution in complex shapes. This model was then compared to a pre-existing model of Diplodocus in order to investigate how the dinosaurs fed.

David Button said: "Our results show that although neither could chew, the skulls of both dinosaurs were sophisticated cropping tools. Camarasaurus had a robust skull and strong bite, which would have allowed it to feed on tough leaves and branches. Meanwhile, the weaker bite and more delicate skull of Diplodocus would have restricted it to softer foods like ferns. However, Diplodocus could also have used its strong neck muscles to help it detach plant material through movements of the head. This indicates differences in diet between the two dinosaurs, which would have allowed them to coexist."

The researchers also used a series of biomechanical measurements from other sauropod species to calculate the functional disparity in their skulls and jaws and found that other Morrison Formation sauropods were also highly varied in feeding adaptations, suggesting different diets.

Co-author, Professor Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol said: "In modern animal communities differences in diet such as this – termed 'dietary niche partitioning' – allow multiple similar species to coexist by reducing competition for food. Although, dietary niche partitioning has been suspected between Morrison Formation sauropods based on their structural features and patterns of tooth-wear, this is the first study to provide strong, numerical, biomechanical evidence for its presence in this fossil community."

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Tachiraptor admirabilis: a new Theropod From Hetttangian Jurassic Venezuela

A newly described dinosaur, whose fossils are some of the first to be unearthed in Venezuela, turns out to be the close, relatively small kin of creatures that later evolved into multiton meat eaters such as Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex. The creature, and another dinosaur whose fossils were found nearby and reported just 2 months ago, are filling in gaps in the fossil record and revealing new insights into dinosaur evolution in the wake of a mass extinction that happened about 201 million years ago.

The new species, dubbed Tachiraptor admirabilis, is a predator that gets part of its name from the Venezuelan state of Táchira, where the fossils were found. Only two bones of the ancient species have been unearthed, says Max Langer, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Nevertheless, those bits (each from a different individual, and one of them not even a complete bone) tell scientists a lot, Langer notes.

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Evidence of Continental Growth in the North China Craton From Neoarchean (MesoArchean?) to Statherian Paleoproterozoic

Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic continental growth in the southeastern margin of the North China Craton: Geochemical, zircon U-Pb and Hf isotope evidence from the Huoqiu complex

Authors:

Liu et al

Abstract:

The Huoqiu complex in the southeastern margin of the North China Craton (NCC) is dominated by Neoarchean grey gneisses, amphibolites and voluminous metasediments. Here we report the occurrence of Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic rocks from drill core samples. The gneisses are similar to TTG (tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite) in composition and show close spatial association with amphibolites. Geochemical characteristics such as high Sr/Y and (La/Yb)N with steep REE patterns and trace element modeling suggest that these rocks were generated by partial melting of hydrous meta-basalts (amphibolites) at the base of a thickened mafic continental crust, leaving a rutile-bearing eclogite residue. LA-MC-ICP-MS U-Pb age data from magmatic zircon grains show protolith emplacement ages of 2.76-2.71 Ga. Subsequently, widespread migmatization took place at 1.91-1.82 Ga, generating voluminous migmatites and high-K granites. Hf isotopic compositions of zircon grains from the amphibolite and gneiss show εHf(t) values of 2.4-15.5 and − 3.0-1.5, respectively. The tDM2(Hf) model ages of the gneisses range from 2.87 to 3.14 Ga, and are identical to the tDM1(Hf) ages of amphibolites (2.84-3.16 Ga) within analytical uncertainty, suggesting that the gneisses formed by partial melting of amphibolite, and attest to large-scale reworking of the ancient continental crust during Neoarchean. The zircon grains from the granites define two groups with regard to their Hf isotopic composition. The older group (1916 ± 42 Ma) has εHf(t) values and tDM2(Hf) ages of − 10.5-2.4 and 2.40-3.20 Ga, respectively, whereas the younger one (1823 ± 41 Ma) shows a large variation in εHf(t) values ranging from − 18.1 to 12.5, with tDM2(Hf) model ages of 1.70-3.59 Ga. A couple of zircon grains from the younger group display consistent U-Pb ages and tDM2, indicating accretion of juvenile crust from depleted mantle sources during 1.82 to 1.91 Ga. However, the dominant Hf isotope features are consistent with the reworking of preexisting continental crust. We therefore infer that only limited accretion of juvenile crust occurred during this time, and that the Paleoproterozoic (1.82 to 1.91 Ga) tectonics in the southeastern margin of the NCC witnessed extensive reworking of older continental crust.

Economic Growth Outstripping Carbon Efficiency Improvements in China

Efforts to reduce China's carbon dioxide emissions are being offset by the country's rampant economic growth, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Research published today in Nature Climate Change reveals how carbon efficiency has improved in nearly all Chinese provinces. But the country's economic boom has simultaneously led to a growth in CO2-emitting activities such as mining, metal smelting and coal-fired electricity generation – negating any gains.

According to the study, China, the world's largest producer of CO2 emissions, increased its carbon intensity by 3 per cent during a period of unprecedented economic growth. This was despite its pledge to reduce carbon intensity by up to 45 per cent by 2020 (relative to the 2005 level).

The findings are part of a seven-year study conducted by Prof Dabo Guan of UEA's School of International Development, and an international research team. The research was partly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) at the University of Leeds.

Wide variations were reported between China's 30 provinces. The less economically advantaged province of Guizhou achieved a 98 per cent gain in carbon efficiency, but concurrent production increases led to a 125 per cent efficiency loss. Consequently, the net carbon efficiency of the province fell by 27 per cent.

The most marked improvements occurred in the economically advanced coastal areas and the heavily industrialised inland regions.

While the implementation of new, less wasteful technologies helped most provinces boost their carbon efficiency, China's emissions-intensive capital projects offset those advances. For example, Inner Mongolia replaced many inefficient, carbon-intensive factories with large-scale modern facilities. This resulted in metal smelting and cement production increasing 14-fold between 2002-2009. As a consequence, the region experienced a 159 per cent efficiency improvement, but a 141 per cent increased scale of production meant the net efficiency gain was a comparatively modest 18 per cent.

Likewise, the carbon efficiency of China's coal-fired power plants improved by 10 per cent, while its production capacity more than doubled and its share in the total economy also increased. Other CO2-intensive industries showed similar trends.

In the past decade, China has maintained at least an 8 per cent annual GDP, propped up by the construction of railroads, highways, power grids and housing.

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Should India be Concerned About Ports China is Building for Indian Ocean Countries?

As China flexes its economic and military muscle, it's bumping elbows with Asia's other big and fast-growing power: India.

China's hunger for energy from the Middle East and resources from Africa brings it into the Indian Ocean. And some defense analysts in India are watching uneasily as China develops commercial ports in some of India's neighbor countries.

To understand India's concerns about China, it helps to remember that the two countries have a history of border disputes, and that they fought a brief but ferocious war over territory in 1962.

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Could Ebola Reaching Central America or Caribbean Trigger a Mass Emigration?

The head of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) warned an Ebola outbreak in Central America or the Caribbean could trigger a mass migration to the U.S. of people fleeing the disease and implied established Central American illegal trafficking networks could introduce the infected into the U.S., during remarks at a Tuesday panel on security issue in the Western Hemisphere at the National Defense University.

“If it comes to the Western Hemisphere, the countries that we’re talking about have almost no ability to deal with it — particularly in Haiti and Central America,” SOUTHCOM Commander, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, said in response to a question of his near term concerns in the region.
“It will make the 68,000 unaccompanied minors look like a small problem.”

An Ebola outbreak could encourage the poor and increasingly desperate populations in Central American countries — like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — to leave in droves.

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Chinese Researchers Successfully "Teleport" Multiple Quantum Properties

Back in 1997, physicists performed an extraordinary experiment that will be forever remembered by researchers and Star Trek fans alike. In this demonstration, the team transported photons from one point in the universe to another without sending them through the space in between — the first successful teleportation in history.

Teleportation is the transfer of the information that describes one object to another object elsewhere in space. In effect, this second object takes on the identity of the first. A more precise description of the team’s experiment with photons is that they transferred the quantum information that describes the polarisation state of one photon to another photon.

Still impressive but not quite the teleportation of the entire photon, which has multiple quantum properties. All of these need to be teleported to recreate it exactly.

Since then, this kind of teleportation has become routine in quantum optics labs all over the world but always with the same limitation. All these experiments involve the transfer of a single quantum property. Nobody has ever found a way to transmit the multiple quantum properties of a single object at the same time and thereby truly teleport it.

Until now. Today, Xi-Lin Wang and buddies at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei say they have done just that. The team have worked out how to teleport two quantum properties of a single photon to another photon at the same time — the first time this has ever been done. The work is an important stepping stone towards the ultimate goal of teleporting complex objects such as atoms and small molecules in their entirety.

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The Future Off Hold (finally): Aeromobil to Unveil Production Ready Flying Car This Month

While the practical challenges to a flying car are myriad, Slovakia's Aeromobil has steadily tried to overcome them. The company plans to unveil a production-ready version of its 'Flying Roadster' at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, Austria on October 29.

The latest version—Aeromobil 3.0—is the result of continuous work by designer Štefan Klein that dates back to 1990. The Aeromobil 2.5 prototype made its first flight about one year ago.

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Ann Arbor Embracing Robopocalyptic Future for Taxi Drivers, Truckers

A mocked-up set of busy streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will provide the sternest test yet for self-driving cars. Complex intersections, confusing lane markings, and busy construction crews will be used to gauge the aptitude of the latest automotive sensors and driving algorithms; mechanical pedestrians will even leap into the road from between parked cars so researchers can see if they trip up onboard safety systems.

The urban setting will be used to create situations that automated driving systems have struggled with, such as subtle driver-pedestrian interactions, unusual road surfaces, tunnels, and tree canopies, which can confuse sensors and obscure GPS signals.

“If you go out on the public streets you come up against rare events that are very challenging for sensors,” says Peter Sweatman, director of the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center, which is overseeing the project. “Having identified challenging scenarios, we need to re-create them in a highly repeatable way. We don’t want to be just driving around the public roads.”

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Textron Wins Contract for Mine-hunting Unmanned Surface Vehicle From US Navy

A division of Textron Systems has won a $33.8 million Navy contract for an unmanned surface vehicle designed to sweep for acoustic and magnetic mines from the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), company officials told USNI News last week.

The Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS previously known as the unmanned surface sweep system or USSS) is planned for the Mine Countermeasure (MCM) mission package planned for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

The USV is designed to methodically sweep a patch of ocean towing a cable designed to trigger so-called influence mines — mines that activate when they detect sounds or magnetic signatures that correspond to those of a large ship.

“It’s a cable that you tow behind the USV,” Rear Adm. John Ailes, former program manager for LCS Mission Modules, told USNI News in 2013.

“It provided both acoustic — making noise like a ship — and the magnetic signature of a ship… It tells the mines, ‘I’m a ship, you should blow up’.”

UISS is based on Textron Systems Unmanned Systems’ Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV) the company has been testing for years, Bill Leonard of Textron Systems Unmanned Systems told USNI News.

“We started doing all of our lessons learned and came up with a fourth generation of our CUSV,” Leonard said.

“We made improvements to the hull form, we made the payload bay larger. Got a new propulsion system and just various other improvements that we’ve learned over the five or six years we’ve been doing this and that translate over to the Navy program.”

Textron now has two years to finalize the development of the UISS before a 2017 test of the MCM package.

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Indonesia Reaffirms Participation in South Korea's KFX Stealth Fighter Program

Jakarta has reaffirmed its commitment to partnering with Seoul on the KFX indigenous fighter programme.

In a statement, Indonesia’s defence ministry says that six prototypes will be developed, of which one will be given to Indonesia for flight tests. In addition, it reiterates the role of Indonesian personnel in the programme, and that a final assembly line will eventually be located in Indonesia.

The statement follows the recent signing of an agreement between Jakarta and Seoul, which sets the stage for the KFX to move into the “engineering and manufacturing phase” – the second of the programme’s three phases.

The statement says the first phase, which covered technology development, was completed in December 2012. The third and final phase of the programme covers the development of production capabilities.

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How Much Atmospheric Carbon is Necessary to Create the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum?

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: How much carbon is enough?

Authors:

Meissner et al

Abstract:

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), ~55.53 million years before present, was an abrupt warming event that involved profound changes in the carbon cycle and led to major perturbations of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The PETM was triggered by the release of a massive amount of carbon, and thus the event provides an analogue for future climate and environmental changes given current anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Previous attempts to constrain the amount of carbon released have produced widely diverging results, between 2000 and 10000 gigatonnes carbon (GtC). Here we use the UVic Earth System Climate Model in conjunction with a recently published compilation of PETM temperatures [14] to constrain the initial atmospheric CO2 concentration as well as the total mass of carbon released during the event. Thirty-six simulations were initialized with varying ocean alkalinity, river runoff, and ocean sediment cover. Simulating various combinations of pre-PETM CO2 levels (840, 1680, and 2520 ppm) and total carbon releases (3000, 4500, 7000, and 10000 GtC), we find that both the 840 ppm plus 7000 GtC and 1680 ppm plus 7000–10000 GtC scenarios agree best with temperature reconstructions. Bottom waters outside the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans remain well oxygenated in all of our simulations. While the recovery time and rates are highly dependent on ocean alkalinity and sediment cover, the maximum temperature anomaly, used here to constrain the amount of carbon released, is less dependent on this slow acting feedback.

Fan Deposits at Apollinaris Mons are Either Modified Pyroclastic or Mud Flows

Radar Investigations of Apollinaris Mons on Mars: Exploring the Origin of the Fan Deposits

Authors:

El-Maarry et al

Abstract:

Apollinaris Mons is an isolated volcano on Mars straddling the boundary between the southern highlands and the northern plains. One of its most distinctive features is its massive fan-shaped deposit that extends from a breach on its summit to distances of more than 150 km and drapes its entire southern flank. The composition and formation mechanism of these deposits remains controversial. We investigate the radar properties of the fan deposits (FD) of Apollinaris Mons using low-frequency sounding radar data in combination with high-resolution images and crater-size frequency analysis to constrain their inner shape and bulk composition. Our analysis indicates that the FD attains an irregular thickness and is gradually thinner towards their lateral margins. The crater-size frequency analysis shows that they may have undergone repeated resurfacing, which is suggestive of long-term evolution. Our analysis of Shallow Radar (SHARAD) radargrams traversing different sections of the FD reveals multiple and different subsurface interfaces among the radargrams crossing the thinnest part, which suggests a layered and complex inner shape. Our estimates for the bulk real part of the dielectric constant of the FD ranges from 3 to 5, which is consistent with an icy-silicate mixture or pyroclastic composition. Therefore, we conclude that lahars or pyroclastic flows are the most likely mechanism that created the FD, yet we cannot rule out additional contributions from lava flows. A combination of multiple processes is also possible since the deposits appear to have been modified by fluvial processes at a later stage of their formation.

Acheulean Stone Tools Recovered From Pleistocene Quaternary China

The Middle Pleistocene handaxe site of Shuangshu in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, central China

Authors:

Li et al

Abstract:

The presence of Acheulean tool types (e.g. handaxes and cleavers) in East Asia has recently attracted considerable attention. They challenge the long lasting concept that the Early Palaeolithic in East Asia is characterized only by Mode 1 technology, and they reflect the diversity and complexity of Palaeolithic culture during hundreds of thousands of years. In this paper, we present a detailed technological analysis of the in situ artifact assemblage at the Shuangshu site (Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, central China), as well as intra- and inter-regional comparisons of some characteristic traits used to test the difference between handaxes in the East and the West. The results show that there are two reduction sequences taking place. One is expressed in the predominant use of quartz in the production the small-to-medium sized artifacts, which is an expedient technology that dominates the whole assemblage, and the other is represented by the predominant use of quartz phyllite and trachyte in the production of Large Cutting Tools (LCTs). The latter displays the technical criteria characteristic of Acheulean technology, although its origins are much debated. In addition, the number of LCTs and total artifacts is generally low for the size of the excavation area, which probably is a result of relatively small population size and the high mobility of hominids. The thickness of handaxes has been shown not to be a reliable variable in demonstrating the difference between the East and the West.

How Species Rich Were the Titanosaur Sauropods of South America During the Campanian/Maastrichtian Cretaceous?

Species Richness and Evidence of Random Patterns in Assemblages of South American Titanosauria during the Late Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian)

Authors:

Silva Viera et al

Abstract:

The Titanosauria were much diversified during the Late Cretaceous, but paleobiological information concerning these sauropods continues to be scarce and no studies have been conducted utilizing modern methods of community analysis to infer possible structural patterns of extinct assemblages. The present study sought to estimate species richness and to investigate the existence of structures in assemblages of the South American Titanosauria during the Late Cretaceous. Estimates of species richness were made utilizing a nonparametric estimator and null models of species co-occurrences and overlapping body sizes were applied to determine the occurrence of structuring in this assemblages. The high estimate of species richness (n = 57) may have been influenced by ecological processes associated with extinction events of sauropod groups and with the structures of the habitats that provided abundant support to the maintenance of large numbers of species. The pseudocommunity analysis did not differ from that expected by chance, indicating the lack of structure in these assemblages. It is possible that these processes originated from phylogenetic inertia, associated with the occurrence of stabilized selection. Additionally, stochastic extinction events and historical factors may also have influenced the formation of the titanosaurian assemblages, in detriment to ecological factors during the Late Cretaceous. However, diagenetic and biostratinomic processes, influenced by the nature of the sedimentary paleoenvironment, could have rendered a random arrangement that would make assemblage structure undetectable.