'Pack Your Trunks' and Head out to the Western Plains Zoo' this Summer
So stated Environment Minister Mark Speakman this week when announcing a brand new baby elephant will arrive in November this year!:
ANOTHER BABY ELEPHANT ON THE WAY TO NSW ZOOS
Thursday, 12 May 2016
A mini baby boom of maximum proportions is coming to the state’s zoos with NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman today announcing another elephant calf is on the way, this time to Taronga’s Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.
The announcement of Asian Elephant Thong Dee’s pregnancy came a month after Mr Speakman announced Taronga Zoo Sydney elephantPak Boon was pregnant, with a calf due in April 2017. Thong Dee is due in November 2016.
%20by%20Rick%20Stevens.jpg?timestamp=1463178116186)
Thong Dee - photo by Rick Stevens
“This is a very exciting time for the entire team at Taronga, with two elephants due within six months of each other,” Mr Speakman said.
“It will be the first time an elephant has been born at Taronga Western Plains Zoo and demonstrates the success of Australia’s conservation breeding program.”
Deputy Premier and Member for Dubbo Troy Grant said Taronga Western Plains Zoo was a major tourism drawcard for regional NSW, presenting wildlife in an engaging and educational way.
“A baby elephant on the way is the perfect reason for visitors from other parts of the state to pack their trunks and head to the world-class Taronga Western Plains Zoo.”
The announcement also marked the one-year anniversary of the transfer of four Asian Elephants, Thong Dee, Porntip, Luk Chai and Pathi Harn from Taronga Zoo Sydney to Taronga Western Plains Zoo.
Pathi Harn and Luk Chai - photo by Rick Stevens
Taronga Western Plains Zoo’s Director Matthew Fuller said a conservation breeding program run across NSW and Victoria had been tremendously successful with three calves already born at Taronga Zoo Sydney and four at Melbourne Zoo.
“The program’s milestones have included bringing the elephants from Thailand to Australia, establishing a viable breeding program and developing conservation education and in situ projects with elephants across Asia,” Mr Fuller said.
World conservation agencies estimate there are as few as 33,000 elephants left in Asia. At the current rate of decline, Asian elephants could be extinct in the wild within 20 years.
_________________________________
A Few Facts About Asian Elephants
The Asian or Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus) is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Asian elephants are the largest living land animals in Asia.
In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. The distinctive trunk is an elongation of the nose and upper lip combined; the nostrils are at its tip, which has a one finger-like process.
Tusks serve to dig for water, salt, and rocks, to debark trees, as levers for maneuvering fallen trees and branches, for work, for display, for marking trees, as weapon for offense and defense, as trunk-rests, and as protection for the trunk. They are known to be right or left tusked.
The gestation period is 18–22 months, and the female gives birth to one calf, only occasionally twins. The calf is fully developed by the 19th month, but stays in the womb to grow so that it can reach its mother to feed. At birth, the calf weighs about 100 kg (220 lb), and is suckled for up to three years.
Asian elephants are highly intelligent and self-aware. They have a very large and highly convoluted neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species. Elephants have a greater volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing than all other existing land animals, and extensive studies place elephants in the category of great apes in terms of cognitive abilities for tool use and tool making. They exhibit a wide variety of behaviours, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and language. Elephants are reported to go to safer ground during natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes, although there have been no scientific records of this since it is hard to recreate or predict natural disasters.
Elephants are crepuscular. They are classified as megaherbivores and consume up to 150 kg (330 lb) of plant matter per day. They are generalist feeders, and both grazers and browsers, and were recorded to feed on 112 different plant species, most commonly of the order Malvales, and the legume, palm, sedge and true grass families. They browse more in the dry season with bark constituting a major part of their diet in the cool part of that season. They drink at least once a day and are never far from a permanent source of fresh water. They need 80–200 litres of water a day and use even more for bathing. At times, they scrape the soil for clay or minerals.
Asian elephants inhabit grasslands, tropical evergreen forests, semi-evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, dry deciduous forests and dry thorn forests, in addition to cultivated and secondary forests and scrublands. Over this range of habitat types elephants occur from sea level to over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). In the Eastern Himalaya in northeast India, they regularly move up above 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in summer at a few sites. In China, Asian elephants survive only in the prefectures of Xishuangbanna, Simao, and Lincang of southern Yunnan. In Bangladesh, only isolated populations survive in the Chittagong Hills.
Three subspecies are recognised—E. m. maximus from Sri Lanka, the E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m. sumatranus from the island of Sumatra.
the Sri Lankan elephant occurs in Sri Lanka;
the Indian elephant occurs in mainland Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Malay Peninsula, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam;
the Sumatran elephant occurs in Sumatra.
The Borneo elephant occurs in Borneo's northern and northeastern parts. In 2003, mitochondrial DNA analysis and microsatellite data indicated that the Borneo elephant population is derived from stock that originated in the region of the Sunda Islands. The genetic divergence of Borneo elephants warrants their recognition as a separate Evolutionarily Significant Unit.
Asian elephant. (2016, May 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asian_elephant&oldid=719334213
66 arrested during Newcastle coal protest - Operation Stellway
Sunday, 08 May 2016 04:17:42 PM - NSW Police
Police have arrested 66 people during a large civil disobedience protest on Newcastle Harbour today.
About 8am (Sunday 8 May 2016), police spotted a man suspended by rope from a conveyor belt above a ship at Kooragang Island.
The 41-year-old was arrested and charged with enter enclosed lands and destroy or damage property.
About the same time, three females abseiled from Stockton Bridge at the Port Waratah coal facility.
Two women, aged 26 and 27, were arrested and charged with remain on enclosed lands and destroy or damage property.
A 22-year-old woman was arrested and charged with remain on enclosed lands.
A woman has been arrested after scaling a coal carrier’s mooring lines at Mayfield.
The 25-year-old has been charged with climb on or attach to vessel without authority and not comply with direction by authorised officer.
A 35-year-old man who allegedly dropped the woman at the location by boat has been charged with assist person climb on or attach to vessel without authority.
A third person, who was a passenger on the inflatable boat, was arrested and later released pending further inquiries.
A 39-year-old man has been charged with malicious damage and enter enclosed lands after allegedly attaching himself to a ship loader at Mayfield and a 50-year-old man has been arrested and charged with allegedly operating a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) within 30 metres of an unassociated person at Kooragang Island.
All have been granted police bail and are due to appear in Newcastle Local Court on June 9.
In addition, 57 protesters who occupied a rail bridge, blocking coal trains, at Sandgate have been arrested and issued with Field Court Attendance Notices (FCANs) for remain on enclosed lands.
Around 200 kayaks symbolically blocked Newcastle Harbour as part of the anti-fossil fuel protest by about 1,500 people.
Police conducted Operation Stellway during the protest.
Officers from the Newcastle City Local Area Command, the Public Order and Riot Squad, the Police Air Wing, the Police Transport Command, the Operations Support Group, Police Rescue and other commands were deployed to ensure a peaceful and lawful demonstration.
The Marine Area Command deployed 20 vessels to control activity on Newcastle Harbour.
Operation Commander, John Gralton, said police respect the right to protest but unfortunately some demonstrators set out to flout the law and put themselves and others at risk.
______________________________
Pittwater residents in their early 20's who attended this rally/protest report that it was 'very peaceful - nice vibe' with 'good music'. - Held on Mother's Day, May 8th, 2106 - none of them were arrested.
Photo: Anti-coal protesters on Newcastle Harbour- Supplied: 350.org
Coral mass spawning triggered by seasonal rises in ocean temperature
May 10, 2016
Acropora assemblage from Okinawa, Japan. Credit: Andrew Baird
Scientists have discovered rapidly rising seasonal sea temperatures are the likely trigger for coral reproduction allowing them to predict when mass spawning will occur.
Mass coral spawning is considered to be one of nature's most spectacular phenomena with dozens of coral species releasing eggs and sperm into the sea, on a few nights each year.
The event attracts divers to ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef to witness the corals in action. Up until now, what drives the release has been a mystery.
An international study published in the journal of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that spawning coincided with the largest month-to-month increase in sea surface temperature. Wind speed also contributed to the timing, although to a lesser extent.
The paper's lead author, Assistant Professor Sally Keith from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate in Copenhagen says, "There would appear to be no optimum temperature for spawning, at least beyond the scale of the local coral population. We found corals on Lord Howe Island, off the eastern coast of Australia, spawn when the sea water is 22 degrees Celsius, whereas in the Persian Gulf the same species spawn when the temperature is 32 degrees Celsius. So the most important thing seems to be for corals to spawn together to maximise fertilization success."
The research was conducted over 16 years with samples from more than 80,000 colonies collected from 34 eco-regions in the Indo-Pacific, from Kenya to French Polynesia and from Lord Howe Island to the Persian Gulf.
Co-author Professor Andrew Baird from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies says knowing when corals are ready to spawn is a game changer.
"It should be a huge advantage to dive tourism and allow for more effective management of coastal development," says Baird. "It means processes that are known to affect the early life stages of corals, such as dredging, can be stopped when the corals are spawning."
The authors hope their research will finally lay to rest a common misconception that all corals on the Great Barrier Reef spawn on one night of the year.
"On the Great Barrier Reef there are corals spawning every month from September to March. Mass spawning is only one piece of the reproductive puzzle," says Keith.
Another area of concern is the potential for climate change to disturb coral reproduction. Many organisms, such as fish, rely on the event to power their own reproductive efforts. A change in the timing of spawning, could have deleterious flow-through effects in the ecosystem.
"Sea temperature increases are greatest in the periods just before summer," says co-author Jeff Maynard from the research institute CRIOBE, in French Polynesia. "Our on-going research using climate models suggests summer in many reef areas will come earlier and last longer in the future. The effect this might have on coral reef ecosystems is an important area for further research."
Sally A. Keith, Jeffrey A. Maynard, Alasdair J. Edwards, James R. Guest, Andrew G. Bauman, Ruben van Hooidonk, Scott F. Heron, Michael L. Berumen, Jessica Bouwmeester, Srisakul Piromvaragorn, Carsten Rahbek, Andrew H. Baird. Coral mass spawning predicted by rapid seasonal rise in ocean temperature.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2016; 283 (1830): 20160011 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.0011
Court Stops Coal Explorer from Accessing Properties in Southern Highlands; Precedent Set for NSW
May 10, 2016 - from Lock the Gate Alliance
The Chief Justice of the NSW Land and Environment Court has this afternoon overturned a previous court decision and found in favour of 5 landholders in the Southern Highland who have been fighting to prevent a coal company from exploring on their properties.
Peter Martin from Coal Free Southern Highlands said “This is an incredibly significant decision for myself and 4 other landholders. It means that we have the right to reject coal exploration which will damage significant improvements on our land.
“We have been fighting for six years to prevent our highly developed farms and the vital water resources that lie beneath them from being destroyed by coal exploration and mining.
“This decision today is a body blow to the South Korean-owned company, Hume Coal, which no longer has the right to enter our lands if they are going to impinge on significant improvements on our properties.
“We believe this will be the death knell for their ill-considered mining project, which is completely inappropriate in a key part of Sydney’s drinking water catchment and one of the most historic and picturesque parts of NSW.
“This decision finally restores a semblance of balance to a planning system which gives big miners special treatment and which bullies and intimidates landholders into giving access.
“We’d like to thank our Senior Counsel, Mr Bret Walker, and our full legal team for their extraordinary hard work and commitment to deliver this outcome” he said.
Phil Laird from Lock the Gate Alliance said “The decision today by Justice Preston sets a vital and long-awaited precedent for landholders across NSW.
“Coal miners no longer have a god given right to unrestricted access to your property – there are some legal constraints and you can prevent miners from impacting on significant improvements on your property” he said.
Background Facts
• Hume Coal is proposing to use an experimental underground mining plan called ‘Pine Feather’ if approval is given.
• The company’s own documents concede it will draw down water from the pristine aquifer system underlying the area by up to 90 metres and affect an area of over 300 square kms, draining landowners’ bores in the process. Hundreds of landowners and many businesses in the area will be affected.
• The company plans to pump toxic mining rejects in a slurry back into the mined out voids, right under the aquifer itself. This risks polluting the groundwater for generations to come and creates a potential health hazard.
• A massive coal stockpile will be within 4kms of the historic township of Berrima, creating health risks for residents from dangerous coal dust.
• Hume Coal has been running an aggressive legal campaign for over four years, attempting to force landowners in Sutton Forest to allow them to drill on some of the most highly developed properties in NSW.
Photo: Kate Ausburn - Southern Highlands Blockade; Residents of the Southern Highlands are stopping Hume Coal (70% owned by Korean steel giant POSCO) from accessing a property in Sutton Forest, the site of a proposed underground coal mine.
How the spectacular Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain became so bendy
May 11, 2016: University of Sydney
This is a Hawaii-Emperor seamount chain. Credit: University of Sydney
The physical mechanism causing the unique, sharp bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain has been uncovered in a collaboration between the University of Sydney and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Led by a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences, researchers used the Southern Hemisphere's most highly integrated supercomputer to reveal flow patterns deep in the Earth's mantle -- just above the core -- over the past 100 million years. The flow patterns explain how the enigmatic bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain arose.
True to the old adage -- as above, so below -- the Sydney-US collaboration found the shape of volcanic seamount chains (chains of mostly extinct volcanoes), including Hawaii, is intimately linked to motion near the Earth's core.
The findings of PhD candidate Rakib Hassan and fellow researchers including Professor Dietmar Müller from the University's EarthByte Group, are being published in Nature.
Mr Hassan explained: "Until now, scientists believed the spectacular 60° bend in the Hawaiian seamount chain -- not found in any other seamount chains -- was related to a change in plate motion combined with a change in flow direction in the shallow mantle, the layer of thick rock between the Earth's crust and its core.
"These findings suggest the shape of volcanic seamount chains record motion in the deepest mantle, near the Earth's core. The more coherent and rapid the motion deep in the mantle, the more acute its effects are on the shape of seamount chains above," he said.
Although solid, the mantle is in a state of continuous flow, observable only over geological timescales. Vertical columns of hot and buoyant rock rising through the mantle from near the core are known as mantle plumes. Volcanic seamount chains such as Hawaii were created from magma produced near the surface by mantle plumes. Moving tectonic plates sit above the mantle and carry newly formed seamounts away from the plume underneath -- the oldest seamounts in a chain are therefore furthest away from the plume.
"We had an intuition that, since the north Pacific experienced a prolonged phase where large, cold tectonic plates uninterruptedly sank into the mantle, the flow in the deepest mantle there would be very different compared to other regions of the Earth," Mr Hassan said.
One of the most contentious debates in geoscience has centred on whether piles of rock in the deep mantle -- to which plumes are anchored -- have remained stationary, unaffected by mantle flow over hundreds of millions of years.
The new research shows the shapes of these piles have changed through time and their shapes can be strongly dependent on rapid, coherent flow in the deep mantle.
Between 50-100 million years ago, the edge of the pile under the north Pacific was pushed rapidly southward, along with the base of Hawaii's volcanic plume, causing it to tilt. The plume became vertical again once the motion of its base stopped; this dramatic start-stop motion resulted in the seamount chain's sharp bend.
Using Australia's National Computational Infrastructure's supercomputer Raijin, the team created high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of mantle evolution over the past 200 million years to understand the coupling between convection in the deep Earth and volcanism.
Mr Hassan said the simulations were guided by surface observations -- similar to meteorologists applying past measurements to predict the weather.
"These simulations required millions of central processing unit (CPU) hours on the supercomputer over the course of the project," he said.
Professor Müller concluded: "Our results help resolve a major enigma of why volcanic seamount chains on the same tectonic plate can have very different shapes.
"It is now clear that we first need to understand the dynamics of the deepest 'Underworld', right above the core, to unravel the history of volcanism at Earth's surface," said Professor Müller.
Rakib Hassan, R. Dietmar Müller, Michael Gurnis, Simon E. Williams, Nicolas Flament. A rapid burst in hotspot motion through the interaction of tectonics and deep mantle flow. Nature, 2016; 533 (7602): 239 DOI: 10.1038/nature17422
Plains-Wanderer Joins Koala on Iconic Species List
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
The endangered plains-wanderer, a small grassland bird similar in appearance to a quail, joins the koala and the brush-tailed rock wallaby on the state’s list of six iconic species, Environment Minister Mark Speakman announced today.
As part of the listing, the plains-wanderer will be given priority investment under the NSW Government’s $100 million Saving our Species program in an attempt to prevent its declining numbers. The program aims to maximise the number of threatened species that can be secured in the wild in NSW for 100 years.
Mr Speakman also announced the first successful zoo bred plains-wanderer in more than 30 years under a joint Office of Environment and Heritage and Taronga Zoo partnership.
“The plains-wanderer is so discreet that only a handful of farmers, scientists and avid bird enthusiasts are likely to lay eyes on it in the wild,” Mr Speakman said.
“A pair of birds held at Taronga Zoo have mated and produced eggs and so far five healthy chicks have hatched and are thriving.
“In the past decade plains-wanderer numbers have dropped 80 to 90 per cent due to habitat loss – there are as few as 200 remaining in the wild.”
The Office of Environment and Heritage is working with Riverina farmers to help protect the plains-wanderer through careful management of grazing in areas of key habitat.
Ideal habitat has roughly equal parts bare ground and low vegetation, and the birds thrive where light to moderate grazing delivers these preferred conditions.
The five species currently listed as iconic are the brush-tailed rock-wallaby, the koala, the southern corroboree frog, the malleefowl and the Wollemi pine. They are listed as iconic for their social, cultural and economic importance.
For more information on NSW’s iconic species, visit:
www.environment.nsw.gov.au/SavingOurSpecies/iconic.htm
Photo of plains-wanderer chick courtesy Taronga Zoo
________________
The plains-wanderer (Pedionomus torquatus) is a bird, the only representative of family Pedionomidae and genus Pedionomus. It is endemic to Australia. The majority of the remaining population are found in the Riverina region of New South Wales.
The plains-wanderer is a quail-like ground bird, measuring 15–19 cm. It is such an atypical bird that it is placed in an entire family of its own, Pedionomidae. The adult male is light brown above, with fawn-white underparts with black crescents. The adult female is substantially larger than the males, and has a distinctive white-spotted black collar. They are excellent camouflagers, and will first hide at any disturbance. If they're approached too close, they will run as opposed to flying, which they are very poor at. Females lay four eggs, which the male then incubates.
This bird is listed as an endangered species on the 2007 IUCN Red List.
Plains-wanderers are listed as vulnerable on the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC). Their conservation status also varies from state to state within Australia. For example:
• The plains-wanderer is listed as threatened on the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988). Under this Act, an Action Statement for the recovery and future management of this species has been prepared.
• The plains-wanderer is listed as endangered on Schedule 1 of the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.
The plains-wanderer is likely to change status to nationally endangered under the EPBC Act 1999.
Plains-wanderer. (2016, March 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plains-wanderer&oldid=709120265
Environmental Impact of Poor Eating
World's oldest axe fragment found in Australia
May 10, 2016: University of Sydney
World's oldest axe fragment, seen here under a microscope, is the size of a thumbnail. Credit: Australian Archaeology.
Australian archaeologists have discovered a piece of the world's oldest axe in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The axe fragment is about the size of a thumbnail and dates back to a Stone Age period of 45,000 to 49,000 years ago -- at, or very soon after, the time humans arrived on the continent, and more than ten millennia earlier than any previous ground-edge axe discoveries.
The University of Sydney's Professor Peter Hiscock is the lead and corresponding author of a new analysis of the fragment published in the journal Australian Archaeology. He said the axe revealed that the first Australians were technological innovators.
"Since there are no known axes in Southeast Asia during the Ice Age, this discovery shows us that when humans arrived in Australia they began to experiment with new technologies, inventing ways to exploit the resources they encountered in the new Australian landscape," he said.
The axe fragment was initially excavated in the early 1990s by lead archaeologist Professor Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University (ANU)among a sequence of food scraps, tools, artwork and other artifacts from Carpenter's Gap, a large rock shelter known to be one of the first sites occupied by modern humans.
"Nowhere else in the world do you get axes at this date. In Japan such axes appear about 35,000 years ago. But in most countries in the world they arrive with agriculture after 10,000 years ago," Professor O'Connor said.
In 2014, as further study was being carried out on the objects dug out of the site, Professor Hiscock's team discovered a small fragment of a polished axe, recovered from the oldest levels of the site.
New studies of the fragment have revealed that it comes from an axe that had been shaped from basalt then polished by grinding it on another rock until it was very smooth.
The fragment came from the polished edge when it was later re-sharpened. The team believes the axe was most likely carried away to be used elsewhere, leaving the fragment behind.
"Polished stone axes were crucial tools in hunter-gatherer societies and were once the defining characteristic of the Neolithic phase of human life. But when were axes invented? This question has been pursued for decades, since archaeologists discovered that in Australia axes were older than in many other places. Now we have a discovery that appears to answer the question," said Professor Hiscock.
Professor O'Connor said evidence suggests the technology was developed in Australia after people arrived around 50,000 years ago. "We know that they didn't have axes where they came from. There are no axes in the islands to our north. They arrived in Australia and innovated axes," she said.
Professor Hiscock said the ground-edge axe technology specifically arose as the dispersing humans adapted to their new regional landscapes.
"Although humans spread across Australia, axe technology did not spread with them. Axes were only made in the tropical north, perhaps suggesting two different colonizing groups or that the technology was abandoned as people spread into desert and sub-topical woodlands," he said.
"These differences between northern Australia, where axes were always used, and southern Australia, where they were not, originated around the time of colonization and persisted until the last few thousand years when axes began to be made in most southern parts of mainland Australia."
The team's latest discoveries are published in this month's issue of the journal Australian Archaeology.
Peter Hiscock, Sue O’Connor, Jane Balme & Tim Maloney. World’s earliest ground-edge axe production coincides with human colonisation of Australia. Australian Archaeology, 2016 DOI:10.1080/03122417.2016.1164379
Early Earth's air weighed less than half of today's atmosphere
May 9, 2016
The layers on this 2.7 billion-year-old rock, a stromatolite from Western Australia, show evidence of single-celled, photosynthetic life on the shore of a large lake. The new result suggests that this microbial life thrived despite a thin atmosphere. Credit: Roger Buick/University of Washington
The idea that the young Earth had a thicker atmosphere turns out to be wrong. New research from the University of Washington uses bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old rocks to show that air at that time exerted at most half the pressure of today's atmosphere.
The results, published online May 9 in Nature Geoscience, reverse the commonly accepted idea that the early Earth had a thicker atmosphere to compensate for weaker sunlight. The finding also has implications for which gases were in that atmosphere, and how biology and climate worked on the early planet.
"For the longest time, people have been thinking the atmospheric pressure might have been higher back then, because the sun was fainter," said lead author Sanjoy Som, who did the work as part of his UW doctorate in Earth and space sciences. "Our result is the opposite of what we were expecting."
The idea of using bubbles trapped in cooling lava as a "paleobarometer" to determine the weight of air in our planet's youth occurred decades ago to co-author Roger Buick, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. Others had used the technique to measure the elevation of lavas a few million years old. To flip the idea and measure air pressure farther back in time, researchers needed a site where truly ancient lava had undisputedly formed at sea level.
Their field site in Western Australia was discovered by co-author Tim Blake of the University of Western Australia. There, the Beasley River has exposed 2.7 billion-year-old basalt lava. The lowest lava flow has "lava toes" that burrow into glassy shards, proving that molten lava plunged into seawater. The team drilled into the overlying lava flows to examine the size of the bubbles.
A stream of molten rock quickly cools from top and bottom, and bubbles trapped at the bottom are smaller than those at the top. The size difference records the air pressure pushing down on the lava as it cooled, 2.7 billion years ago.
Rough measurements in the field suggested a surprisingly lightweight atmosphere. More rigorous x-ray scans from several lava flows confirmed the result: The bubbles indicate that the atmospheric pressure at that time was less than half of today's.
Earth 2.7 billion years ago was home only to single-celled microbes, sunlight was about one-fifth weaker, and the atmosphere contained no oxygen. But this finding points to conditions being even more otherworldly than previously thought. A lighter atmosphere could affect wind strength and other climate patterns, and would even alter the boiling point of liquids.
"We're still coming to grips with the magnitude of this," Buick said. "It's going to take us a while to digest all the possible consequences." Other geological evidence clearly shows liquid water on Earth at that time, so the early atmosphere must have contained more heat-trapping greenhouse gases, like methane and carbon dioxide, and less nitrogen.
The new study is an advance on the UW team's previous work on "fossilized raindrops" that first cast doubt on the idea of a far thicker ancient atmosphere. The result also reinforces Buick's 2015 finding that microbes were pulling nitrogen out of Earth's atmosphere some 3 billion years ago.
"The levels of nitrogen gas have varied through Earth's history, at least in Earth's early history, in ways that people just haven't even thought of before," said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. "People will need to rewrite the textbooks."
The researchers will next look for other suitable rocks to confirm the findings and learn how atmospheric pressure might have varied through time.
While clues to the early Earth are scarce, it is still easier to study than planets outside our solar system, so this will help understand possible conditions and life on other planets where atmospheres might be thin and oxygen-free, like that of the early Earth.
Som is CEO of Seattle-based Blue Marble Space, a nonprofit that focuses on interdisciplinary space science research, international awareness, science education and public outreach. He currently does astrobiology research at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
Sanjoy M. Som, Roger Buick, James W. Hagadorn, Tim S. Blake, John M. Perreault, Jelte P. Harnmeijer, David C. Catling. Earth's air pressure 2.7 billion years ago constrained to less than half of modern levels.Nature Geoscience, 2016; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2713
'Hammerhead' creature was world's first plant-eating marine reptile
May 6, 2016
A fossil of Atopodenatus unicus is alongside a reconstruction showing what it would have looked like in life. Credit: © Nick Fraser
In 2014, scientists discovered a bizarre fossil--a crocodile-sized sea-dwelling reptile that lived 242 million years ago in what today is southern China. Its head was poorly preserved, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like beak. But in a paper published today in Science Advances, paleontologists reveal what was really going on--that "beak" is actually part of a hammerhead-shaped jaw apparatus, which it used to feed on plants on the ocean floor. It's the earliest known example of an herbivorous marine reptile.
"It's a very strange animal," says Olivier Rieppel, Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology at The Field Museum in Chicago. "It's got a hammerhead, which is unique, it's the first time we've seen a reptile like this." Rieppel co-authored the study with colleagues at National Museums Scotland and China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Wuhan Centre of the China Geological Survey.
The reptile's name, Atopodentatus unicus, hints at its muddled past--it's Latin for "unique strangely toothed." But newly discovered fossils make it clearer how its "strange teeth" were actually configured. Its wide jaw was shaped like a hammerhead, and along the edge, it had peg-like teeth. Then, further into its mouth, it had bunches of needle-like teeth.
"To figure out how the jaw fit together and how the animal actually fed, we bought some children's clay, kind of like Play-Doh, and rebuilt it with toothpicks to represent the teeth," says Rieppel. "We looked at how the upper and lower jaw locked together, and that's how we proceeded and described it."
The verdict: Atopodentatus unicus used its bizarre jaw to help it eat plants. "It used the peg-like front teeth to scrape plants off of rocks on the sea floor, and then it opened its mouth and sucked in the bits of plant material. Then, it used its needle-like teeth as a sieve, trapping the plants and letting the water back out, like how whales filter-feed with their baleen," explains Rieppel.
Not only does this discovery solve the mystery of the strange-toothed animal, but it also provides us with an example of the first herbivorous marine reptile. "The jaw structure is clearly that of an herbivore," says Rieppel. "It has similarities to other marine animals that ate plants with a filter-feeding system, but Atopodentatus is older than them by about eight million years."
Atopodentatus also helps tell a bigger story about the world's largest mass extinction 252 million years ago. "Animals living the years surrounding the Permian-Triassic extinction help us see how life on earth reacted to that event," says Rieppel. "The existence of specialized animals likeAtopodentatus unicus shows us that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously though. And it's definitely a reptile that no one would have thought to exist--look at it, it's crazy!"
L. Chun, O. Rieppel, C. Long, N. C. Fraser. The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus.Science Advances, 2016; 2 (5): e1501659 DOI:10.1126/sciadv.1501659
Deep-water seaweed evolved into a multi-cellular plant more than 540 million years ago
May 10, 2016
A sample of green algae collected from the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: Image courtesy of The University of Alabama
The discovery of a deep-water seaweed that evolved into a multi-cellular plant more than 540 million years ago has added a new branch to the tree of life, according to a biologist at The University of Alabama.
Dr. Juan Lopez-Bautista, professor of biological sciences at UA, co-authored a study of algae collected from the Gulf of Mexico that revealed a significantly different cellular structure than first believed. The finding, published Monday in Scientific Reports, details the unique order, known as Palmophyllales, examined by Lopez-Bautista and post-doctoral researchers at UA and how it diverged to create its own lineage.
"For many years, more than a century, there was speculation that the primordial green algae were single cells, like phytoplankton," Lopez-Bautista said. "And in our work, these very strange groups of algae that live deep in the oceans, they're not single cells -- they actually aggregate inside of a jelly. It gives us an idea of how the most ancient green plants will look like.
"When you try to figure out how things evolve, now we have a point of comparison. This is the first group that evolved, and they have these specific features, and now all green plants (sea and land-based) will be compared to them. At the same time, we discovered this is the deepest branching of the tree of life, and this is a group that hasn't been recognized, so we created a new class for it."
Lopez-Bautista was principal investigator in a large National Science Foundation project designed to discover and describe various types of green algae. Lopez-Bautista's lab, Phycolab, in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall, received $600,000 of the $2.76 million NSF grant to determine where algae fit in the evolutionary chain. The funding was used to hire post-doctoral researchers and map the genomes of the algae collected from the gulf. Additional samples and phylogenetic software allowed for more comparisons to other algae and plants and helped researchers pinpoint when Palmophyllales branched off from related plant species.
Lopez-Bautista spotted the bright, green algae while taking an oceanographic cruise a few years ago. He said there were existing studies of an ancient group of algae but no clear answer to where it belonged in the tree of life.
"I knew we had the technologies at our lab at The University of Alabama to answer that question," he said. "And the techniques and software used to map chloroplast genomes advanced over the last few years, cutting down the time for analysis from weeks to days.
"We are going to the edge of science."
The discovery has opened many new questions about why the algae diversified nearly 540 million years ago. Lopez-Bautista said there are many findings to compare and habitats to explore to and that he'll continue to pursue funding for bio-diversity research.
He plans to present findings from the study in Italy, Mexico and Colombia in the coming weeks.
"I've been a reviewer on NSF panels many times," Lopez-Bautista said. "And when I've asked what will it take for NSF to fund our research proposal, what I was told always sticks with me: 'is it research that will change our textbooks?' To do that, it has to be highly significant. I think this will rewrite the history of the green plants."
Frederik Leliaert, Ana Tronholm, Claude Lemieux, Monique Turmel, Michael S. DePriest, Debashish Bhattacharya, Kenneth G. Karol, Suzanne Fredericq, Frederick W. Zechman, Juan M. Lopez-Bautista.Chloroplast phylogenomic analyses reveal the deepest-branching lineage of the Chlorophyta, Palmophyllophyceae class. nov.. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6: 25367 DOI:10.1038/srep25367
Major global study identifies a safer treatment of acute stroke
May 10, 2016
The safety of a controversial clot-busting drug has been investigated by researchers, who have shown a modified dosage can reduce serious bleeding in the brain and improve survival rates.
It is hoped the findings from the trial of more than 3,000 patients in 100 hospitals worldwide could change the way the most common form of stroke is treated globally.
Intravenous rtPA (or alteplase) is given to people suffering acute ischaemic stroke and works by breaking up clots blocking the flow of blood to the brain.
However, it can cause serious bleeding in the brain in around five per cent of cases, with many of these proving fatal.
The study was conducted by teams at the George Institute for Global Health, and the University of Leicester's Department of Cardiovascular Sciences. The UK arm of the trial was funded by the Stroke Association.
National Coordinator of the study in the UK, Professor Tom Robinson of the University said: "This trial was a randomised controlled trial, which is the gold standard for determining whether a medicine actually has the desired effect.
"The results provide important information when discussing clot-busting treatment with patients and their families.
"Most patients who have a major stroke want to know they will survive but without being seriously dependent on their family. We have shown this to be the case with the lower dose of the drug.
"Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the UK and the leading cause of adult neurological disability. There are over 150,000 strokes each year in the UK, one in four of whom are in people of working age.
"Currently, approximately 11 per cent of stroke patients receive thrombolysis treatment for stroke in the UK."
Professor Craig Anderson, Lead Author of the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, said: "At the moment you could have a stroke but end up dying from a bleed in the brain. It's largely unpredictable as to who will respond and who is at risk with rtPA.
"What we have shown is that if we reduce the dose level, we maintain most of the clot busting benefits of the higher dose but with significantly less major bleeds and improved survival rates. On a global scale, this approach could save the lives of many tens of thousands of people.
"There is a trade off with the lower dose in regards to recovery of functioning, but being alive is surely preferable to most patients than suffering an early death."
Dr Dale Webb, Director of Research and Information at the Stroke Association, said: "We've known for a while that giving stroke patients alteplase carries the risk of bleeding in the brain which can be fatal.
"However, an independent review in the UK concluded last year that the benefits outweigh the risks. This new study will be welcome news for clinicians and patients, because it suggests that we can reduce the risk of bleeding with a lower dose of alteplase, whilst retaining most of its benefit."
These differing effects meant that the trial was unable to show conclusively that the low dose was as effective as standard dose rtPA in terms of survivors being free of any disability.
rtPA is used to dissolve clots that block a blood vessel in a patient's brain within the first few hours after the onset of stroke symptoms.
Yet, because many people with stroke arrive at hospital after this crucial time window, only around five per cent of eligible people currently receive this therapy in most countries.
Concerns over the risks of bleeding on the brain associated with rtPA have prompted independent reviews of the research evidence in Australia and the UK.
Professor Tom Robinson is also from the NIHR Leicester Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit.
KEY FINDINGS
Compared to standard dose (0.9mg/kg body weight), the lower dose (0.6mg/kg) of rtPA reduced rates of serious bleeding in the brain, known as intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH), by two thirds.
After 90 days, 8.5 per cent of patients had died after receiving low dose rtPA, compared to 10.3 per cent who received the standard dose.
The survival benefit was offset by a slight rise in the amount of people suffering residual disability. For every 1000 patients treated, low dose rtPA, compared to the standard dose, 41 more people had physical disabilities, such as needing help dressing or walking, but 19 fewer people died.
The George Institute for Global Health
The George Institute for Global Health is improving the lives of millions of people worldwide through innovative health research. Working across a broad health landscape, the Institute conducts clinical, population and health system research aimed at changing health practice and policy worldwide. The Institute has a global network of medical and health experts working together to address the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Established in Australia and affiliated with The University of Sydney, the Institute today also has offices in China, India and the United Kingdom, and is also affiliated with Peking University Health Science Centre, the University of Hyderabad and the University of Oxford. The Institute has been ranked among the top 10 global institutes for impact for the last several years.
Martin B. Leon, Craig R. Smith, Michael J. Mack, Raj R. Makkar, Lars G. Svensson, Susheel K. Kodali, Vinod H. Thourani, E. Murat Tuzcu, D. Craig Miller, Howard C. Herrmann, Darshan Doshi, David J. Cohen, Augusto D. Pichard, Samir Kapadia, Todd Dewey, Vasilis Babaliaros, Wilson Y. Szeto, Mathew R. Williams, Dean Kereiakes, Alan Zajarias, Kevin L. Greason, Brian K. Whisenant, Robert W. Hodson, Jeffrey W. Moses, Alfredo Trento, David L. Brown, William F. Fearon, Philippe Pibarot, Rebecca T. Hahn, Wael A. Jaber, William N. Anderson, Maria C. Alu, John G. Webb. Transcatheter or Surgical Aortic-Valve Replacement in Intermediate-Risk Patients. New England Journal of Medicine, 2016; 374 (17): 1609 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1514616
Further clues in the fight against chronic fatigue syndrome
May 10, 2016: Griffith University
This is professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik. Credit: Murray Rix
New findings regarding the pathology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are bringing Griffith University researchers closer to identifying the cause of this disabling illness.
This is the news from a team at the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases at the Menzies Health Institute Queensland.
Professors Marshall-Gradisnik and Don Staines and their research team have identified significant impairments in cellular function of people with CFS.
CFS -- sometimes known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) -- is a complex illness characterized by impaired memory and concentration, metabolic, cardiac, gut and immune dysfunction and debilitating muscle pain and fatigue on exertion (also known as neuroimmune exhaustion).
It is estimated that the prevalence rate of CFS/ME worldwide is between 1 and 2 per cent.
"While the patho-mechanism of CFS/ME is unknown, these recent findings by NCNED researchers provide further evidence for the pathology of this illness," says Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik, who speaks as we approach International CFS Awareness Day on Thursday May 12.
Published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, the results report significant differences in intracellular signalling of cells with CFS patients.
"In this group, we see that dysfunctional signalling may contribute to impaired cell activity. These findings are consistent with our previous findings and align with the presentation of symptoms in patients," says Professor Staines.
The current research findings build upon recent discoveries including novel identification of key genetic changes in cells of the immune system.
The NCNED -- internationally recognised for research into CFS/ME -- will present a seminar on current research findings on this disease on International CFS/ME Awareness Day, Thursday May 12 at Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, commencing 1pm, location G17, Lecture theatre 3.
Griffith University will also be illuminating the Griffith Health Centre in blue to further help raise awareness for CFS/ME.
Teilah Kathryn Huth, Donald Staines, Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik.ERK1/2, MEK1/2 and p38 downstream signalling molecules impaired in CD56dimCD16 and CD56brightCD16dim/− natural killer cells in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis patients. Journal of Translational Medicine, 2016; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12967-016-0859-z