Intergalactic mining

I am descended from miners, so this maybe a little more interesting for me than some others, but it's important for all.

BBC Science is reporting on an upcoming NASA mission that will see the space agency get up close and personal with asteroids.

While the article doesn't specifically mention mining, it does say this:

The mission's objectives include:

• study internal structure and density
• determine size, composition, shape and mass
• examine surface features and craters
• understand the role of water in controlling asteroid evolution

And anything that gives information on asteroid structure and composition is brining us one step closer to asteroid mining.

Your new solar ride...

This is a solar-powered motorcycle from Spanish design group SunRed. The solar shell is put up when at rest - you don't ride in the clamshell... well, I don't think so, anyway.

Next year, the company plans to have a working model. SunRed won this years Best Innovative Technology during the Barcelona Int'l Auto Show.

Found via Autoblog Green
The SunRed design

Garbage Truck Camper

I saw this little gem via a link on Treehugger. Now, I don't think this is an actual garbage truck conversion, but I do so like the idea. Also, in the far off time when I do a live web-show of my trip across the Asian steppes, following the escape clause route for Trotsky's Red Army - he never needed it - I want to be driving one of these.

Now, if I could get it to run on a stirling engine, everything would be awesome.

Giant Prehistoric Penguins in Equatorial Peru

Reconstructions of the first Paleogene penguins from equatorial regions, illustrating morphological diversity and size range in present the new early penguin faunas.The late Eocene giant penguin Icadyptes salasi(right) and the middle Eocene Perudyptes devriesi(left) are shown to scale with the only extant penguin inhabiting Peru,Spheniscus humbolti (center)

This penguin, Icadayptes salasi, was 1.5 m/ 5 ft tall (two feet taller than the living King penguin). It roamed the shores of South America 40 million years ago.

But this is not the largest penguin found, just the largest species found near the equator. For more on Giant penguins, go here.

And here is its skull in comparison to the humboldt penguin:
Why should you care? Because, extinct megafauna are cool, and this discovery is odd - size in penguins is associated with the temperatures they need to endure - the larger the penguin, the coller the environment (in general- the King penguin sticks to the relative temeperate island of South Georgia.) So why a big bird near the tropics? More food? Holdover from an ice age? No predators? Let's find out!

Science Daily
New Scientist

The Lost Wolf of North America

A larger, stronger, more carnivorous variant of the wolf has been found among the remains of the Pleistocene. Researchers from Uppsala University have done chemical and genetic tests on the remains of a species, or sub-species, of wolf from Alaska.

From Science Daily:
The researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the fossil wolf bones preserved in permafrost and compared the sequences, called haplotypes, with those of modern-day wolves in Alaska and throughout the world. The fossils showed a wide range of haplotypes--greater in fact than their modern counterpart--but there was no overlap with modern wolves. This was unexpected.

That means that at the end of the ice age, this group of wolves wen extinct, with no descendants. The researchers think that the area was then re-colonized by wolves from the south.

So how big were these wolves? They weren't dire wolf sized, but they did have larger teeth and jaws. It is thought that the wolf specialized in big game, like moose, caribous, mammoth and bison. The wolves also have a higher incidence of broken teeth, which supports the theory that they were large prey specialists.

As for why the wolf went extinct, the researchers says that it is because the prey it hunted disappeared. No mammoths and bison, no big wolf.

This discovery reminds me of another extinct sub-species of wolf - the Kodiak Island wolf. This wolf was a subspecies of the timber wolf, but had grown bigger because it's main prey was the moose.

Science Daily

Melting Icebergs provide nutrient and carbon sequestion

When Antarctic icebergs melt, locked-up nutrient in the ice are released into the sea, creating "eco-hotspots."

From Science Daily:

The icebergs hold trapped terrestrial material, which they release far out at sea as they melt. The researchers discovered that this process produces a "halo effect" with significantly increased phytoplankton, krill and seabirds out to a radius of more than two miles around the icebergs. They may also play a surprising role in global climate change.

What role? The researchers say that increased algae blooms, caused by the nutrient release, use CO2 to grow. More nutrients means more algae means less CO2.

But before you get carried away, realize that the little nutrients frozen away won't make up for the potential collapse of ocean currents should ice disappear. And that is not good for global warming.

Steampunk Slide-shows from Wired

My favorite genre - STEAMPUNK.

Something about the idea of steam-driven velocipedes, fine dinner jackets, clock-work minds and goggles... I get giddy thinking about it.

And let us not forget the mighty airship.


Now, off you go to view two cog-driven fantasies, courtesy of Wired magazine:

Steam Driven Dreams
Finding Nemo

And now a post for Chris - A rare interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Listen to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle speak about the origins of Sherlock Holmes and hiw own views concerning psychic phenomena.



Found via Table of Malcontents

CITES meeting

"An Olive Ridley hatchling struggles out of its egg on a French Guianan beach. Egg collection and snaring in fishing nets have brought the turtle’s population down by 95% in 40 years. Turtle protection has been under discussion at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting."

The BBC has been covering the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in the Hague, Netherlands.

The outcome? Not all good/not all bad

Good: Sawfish are now considered a protected species, CITES does not support the uses of "domestic" tiger products in China, and better protection of wild rhinos.

Bad: CITES member nations argued over the budget, and only increased it by six percent (not enough), Deep Sea corals and sharks are not being protected.

Chris... Will you buy me a wooden monkey-robot?

I found this wooden robot toy from Japanese toy-maker Take-G on Boing Boing.

Wow. These toys look as addictive as stikfas.

Five thing you didn't know about armadillo's

I won't spoil the surprise, so go over to the Tetrapod Zoology for all the details.
But here are two tid-bits of info:

1. The Nine-banded armadillo Dasypus novemcinctus is slowly (or rapidly, take your pick) taking over the United States.

2. There are 25 living species of armadillo.

The New Planet is Bigger Than Pluto

Artists concept of the view from Eris with Dysnomia in the background, looking back towards the distant sun. Credit: A. Schaller (STScI)

From Wired Science coverage of CalTech release:

"[The] new results, obtained with Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory data, indicate that the density of the material making up Eris is about two grams per cubic centimeter. This means that Eris very likely is made up of ice and rock, and thus is very similar in composition to Pluto. Past results from the Hubble Space Telescope had already allowed planetary scientists to determine that its diameter is 2,400 kilometers, also larger than Pluto's."

Eris (2003 UB313), a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, has just been definitively measured -- however, it's bigger, and colder, than Pluto. This confirmation solidifies Pluto's status as a dwarf planet, and not one of the nine, or rather, eight, true planets in our solar system.

I once read (I will find out where) that the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud are so large that there could be multiple large ice planets out there, some the size of Mars and Earth.

Just more places for the colonization of the cosmos to mobilize.

Coming in 2008 - The Encyclopedia of Life

From The Encyclopedia of Life:

What does Encyclopedia of Life seek to accomplish? What are its objectives?

Ultimately, the Encyclopedia will serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described.

Encyclopedia of Life will be used as both a teaching and a learning tool, helping scientists, educators, students, and the community at large gain a better understanding of this planet and all who inhabit it.

Inspired by E.O. Wilson and Daniel Janzen, the EOL will engage the public in biodiversity, giving us the tools to identify and register our findings.

The site will be open to public information - Google-mapping species sightings, taking public pictures and population data.

Watch this infographic to get a better idea of how this site will work.

I am already registered.
To see a high rez version go here.
Links found via Infosthetics

Sudan and the Great Migration

Nineteen beisa oryx antelope—previously thought to be extinct in Southern Sudan—appear to chase the shadow of a survey plane in Boma National Park.

Southern Sudan may be host to the largest migration of land animals in the world. On Tuesday, the World Conservation Society released info that millions of animals were spotted migrating across the savanna. Species that were once thought to be locally extinct, like the beisa oryx, have shown up in healthy numbers, and other species, like elephants and the white-eared kob antelope, have healthier populations than once believed.

Ecologists had thought that the civil war had caused considerable damage to animal populations. Although some animals were seriously effected, like water buffalo and rhinoceros, scientists now think that millions of animals are on the move, rivaling or surpassing the Serengeti migration.

The researchers say that where the main animal to migrate on the Serengeti is the wildebeest, in Sudan the white eared kob makes up the bulk of the migration. The mass of animals on the move in Sudan is 80 km long and 48 km wide.

But, the aerial survey also said that many other areas of Sudan have been almost completely denuded, with animals that don't migrate, like rhino's, being wiped out.

National Geographic
The Guardian

Adobe Structures on the Moon

Easy to set up structures made of rammed Earth are not only good for Earthlings, but could also serve our Lunar children in the future.

From Inhabitat:

Why are these “super-adobe” homes so feasible for a moon structure? Consider the amount of materials it takes to build one home, then ask yourself how we can get the same materials to the moon. The feasibility of one of CalEarth’s structures seems that much more practical, and has been acknowledged by NASA scientists. Which only leaves us with one question, “When can we move in?”

Underground gardens in Shanghai

Downtown Shanghai Park - not underground

From China Daily (via Inhabitiat):

While the city is digging deeper to make room for more metro lines, shops and public shelters, it is expected to welcome something truly ecological in the near future its first underground park.

The park will not only consist of grass lawns and green vegetation, but also winding streams, according to Shu Yu, deputy director of the Shanghai Urban Underground Space Development Institute, and a researcher involved in the ecological project.

Green areas will be extended from the ground to the walls and ceilings of the subterranean structure, and some indoor plants, such as the broadleaf bracket-plant, will also be used."

Architects plan to make the underground park look like a small forest. But the design has still to overcome some technical problems, such as adequate water supply and sunlight.

"We are considering using a sunlight receiver and transmitter," Shu said.

Awesome.

To get an idea of what the garden might look like, check out this underground garden in Tokyo. It is found in an old bank safe, and tended by unemployed Japanese youth who want to become farmers.



Trends in Japan (via TreeHugger), Times of London via Skyscraper City

Aside - Shanghai Urban Underground Space Development Institute is one of the coolest institute names ever.

Personal Rapid Transit is not dead...

I just didn't know it was still alive and possibly kickin'.

The worlds only Personal Rapid Transit system (PRT), found in Morgantown, Virginia, might be getting a few more mile of track.

The Nixon-era PRT is a transit system that gives individuals the ability to control their destination.

From the New York Times:

"Originally built to shuttle students and employees between West Virginia University’s two campuses, which sit two miles apart, Morgantown now sees it as more than just a way to get students to class on time. With commuting times increasing in the region, the university, which operates the system, is considering expanding it."

"Riders can push a button and select which of the five stops they want on the system’s 3.6-mile route; it is like a horizontal elevator that can go 30 miles per hour. The driverless, 21-passenger fiberglass cars, gliding on rubber wheels and powered by electric motors, pick up riders and deliver them to their stops quickly, bypassing intermediate stations along the concrete and steel guide way. It is this individualized destination option that sets it apart from other cities’ systems."

But, the system is expensive - when it was completed in 1979, the PRT had cost $138 million, and the annual operating costs are $3 million.

And the system is only operating during the school year.

So, open it up, put some new tech on the glide ways and lets see if something can be done.

Wow, if I don't watch myself, I may spiral into a Doctorow-ian ad-hoc fantasy that will have me writing all day... and I should really go and do some grocery shopping.

Found on the New York Times, via Planetizen

The ESA to Mars in 2013

Bigger, heavier, more equipment, more money - finally a full size researcher for Mars.

The ESA has announced that they are building a larger ExoMars rover, with a full suite of research tools, like a video mast, robotic arms, a chemical-lab, a drill that can reach a depth of 2 metres and a weather observation module.

But how big is big?

From the BBC:

It consists of a 205kg vehicle, carrying a 16.5kg package of science instruments - and it incorporates a 30kg GEP (Geophysics/Environment Package.)

Opportunity and Spirit are 174 kilos.

The ExoMars will be launched towards Mars. When it reaches Mars orbit, the robot will stop and study the atmosphere. Only when conditions are right will the ExoMars begin its descent.

It is nice to see that the ESA has decided to spend more money, instead of less, on a mission.

Not to say NASA's faster, cheaper, better mantra is bad. It is just that NASA has lucked out on research robots like Opportunity and Spirit, chugging along the Martian surface. Maybe if NASA just mass produced those little robots, maybe open-sourced their design and construction, more research could be done.

But until then, we better be sending the best stuff we have got.

Here is an oviraptor not to mess with...

Artist's impression of the huge Gigantoraptor, alongside much smaller feathered ornithomimids (Image: Zhao Chuang and Xing Lida/IVPP)

From New Scientist:

Imagine an ostrich that tipped the scales at 1400 kilograms, standing twice as tall as a human, with a solid tail and massive body, plus long, feathered arms with sharp claws, and a turtle-like beak. That’s how a newly discovered dinosaur called Gigantoraptor looked as it roamed what is now China about 70 million years ago.

Not only is Gigantoraptor big, but is much bigger than other species of oviraptors. Oviraptors usually max out in size at 2 m tall, and usually weighed around 40 kilos.

Paleontologists also think that Gigantoraptor may have been one of the fastest running dinosaurs, based on the length and positioning of its legs.

But what were the claws for? Oviraptors are usually seen as omnivores that may have done a little predation. Maybe the claws were for digging in the dirt, raiding underground burrows and termite mounds?

The fossil was found in Inner Mongolia by paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Bejing.

Despite earlier claims, no puddles have been found on Mars

New Scientist's claim that Opportunity rover had found a puddle on Mars was not correct.
Not because there couldn't be a puddle on the surface of Mars, just that puddles can't form on the side of a crater (a crater wall being more vertical than horizontal in nature.)

The reporter, David Chandler, went to print without enough back-up. New Scientist has apologised, and promises never to make this mistake again.

But, that doesn't mean we are stopping the search for water on Mars - just consider this a little lesson in observation.


This "puddle"...
Is actually on the wall of this...

NASA Mars Rover site

"Because I wanted to" - The Red Star

The Red Star is my favorite comic series (after, of course, the Sandman.) Set in a universe where magic is technological, The Red Star Republic is being destroyed by internal forces that have corrupted the will of the people. Essentially, this comic is an allegory of the fall of the Soviet Union, and the mess that comes after.

I don't play video games, but I love this trailer.

That is all, comrades.

Coming in Fall 2007 - Postcards From The Future

From the Postcards From the Future site:

Postcards is the story of our possible future in space exploration and colonization - seen through the eyes of an engineer working to build a base on the moon, who occasionally sends 'video postcards' back to wife and family on Earth..

A 'future documentary' with a narrative form and story function that lets the audience humanize space exploration - to see how the New Vision for Space Exploration will affect their lives..

Now there are a number of very cool things about this film

1) The tech - space elevators, Mars Rovers, manned deep-space exploration ships.

2) A glimpse of humanity in space that reflects the reality and sacrifice of space travel.

3) How the producers are going to get this film on screens - by getting people to "geo-comment" on a Google Map, they hope to see the demand for the film. That means that when enough people sign-up in an area, the producers will push for a screening in a local cinema.
But if you are willing to wait, the film's DVD ships in the fall.

I haven't been so excited about a space film since I saw "The Astronaut Farmer."

Lions, Crocodiles, Cape Buffalo - The Most AMAZING YouTube Video EVER!

What you are about to see is the most amazing video of Cape Buffalo, lion and crocodile interaction that you will ever see.

This is a long video, but your time will be well spent - mostly in amazement.



I found this video on the PopSci blog.

Watch This - A Lonely Sky

A Lonely Sky tells the story of one test pilot's push to break through the Mach 1 "wall."
It is a fictional story about the heroics of 1947 test pilots, and what that heroism costs.

Written and directed by Nick Ryan.

And the cg is amazing!

A Lonely Sky
Nick Ryan Films

The Old-Future - Rocket Mail!

Found on Wired's Day In Tech:

“Rocket mail” becomes “missile mail” when 3,000 pieces of mail are delivered by a cruise missile fired from a U.S. Navy submarine.

Experiments in delivering mail by rocket had met with mixed success since the first rocket mail was sent between two Austrian villages in 1931. The first successful delivery by this method in the United States occurred in 1936, when two rockets fired from Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, landed on the New York shore about 300 meters away.

The 1959 attempt, however, was something entirely new, since the mail was not packed in rockets built for the purpose but stowed in mail containers that replaced a nuclear warhead on top of a missile built for war. Because this was strictly an experiment, the mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers addressed to a host of government officials, including President Eisenhower.

Rocket mail, which has a whiff of theatrics to it, still exists and still has advocates around the world. Since the end of the cold war, a number of surplus missiles culled from the Soviet nuclear arsenal have been used to fire mail around Russia, including a few experimental launches from nuclear subs.

More on Rocket Mail

Puddles on the surface of Mars?

Maybe.

From New Scientist:

A new analysis of pictures taken by the exploration rover Opportunity reveals what appear to be small ponds of liquid water on the surface of Mars.

The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet’s thin atmosphere.

The researchers "have published calculations showing the possibility of "micro-environments" where water could linger, but the idea remains controversial.

“The temperatures get plenty warm enough, but the Mars atmosphere is essentially a vacuum," says Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, developer of the Mars rovers' mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometers. That means any water or ice exposed on the surface evaporates or sublimes away almost instantly."

Below: Smooth bluish areas on a Martian crater floor could be ponds, according to two scientists. The area is approximately 1 square metre (Image: Ron Levin)

The Slow Loris is so cute that its existence is in danger.

BBC is reporting that the Slow Loris is under threat of extinction because of the illegal animal trade.

"The pet shops advertise them, and they're very popular to Japanese ladies," says Masayuki Sakamoto from the Japan Wildlife Conservation Society.

"They're easy to keep, they don't cry, they're small, and just very cute."

But they are easily damaged, babies often die because they can't clean themselves, and they are separated from other members of their species, which means no breeding.

And that doesn't even touch on the young that are killed during capture, and the destruction of their rainforest habitat.

And it gets worse, because researchers now suspect that the slow loris population in comprised of multiple species, not just one. The slow loris habitat ranges from northern India down through Burma, Thailand, and peninsular Malaysia, across into Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and into the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines.

So now multiple species are under threat.

Not good.

Polynesians made it to America's before Spanish, after Vikings

The Red Jungle Fowl - ancestor of the domestic chicken.

From ABC News Online:

New Zealand anthropologists have unearthed evidence that may prove Polynesians, not Europeans, discovered the New World. In the process, they may have also cracked the mystery surrounding the origins of takeaway chicken. What scientists really needed was some conclusive proof - leftovers, if you like, from the earliest takeaways - so when an archaeologist turned up chicken bones during a dig in central Chile, they were onto something.

So, the researchers did a little DNA analysis and radio carbon-dating and found out how the chickens got to Chile.

The result shows that Polynesians probably continued sailing eastwards beyond Easter Island and reached the shores of South America, and introduced the chicken to South America before the Europeans brought them about 100 years later.

Referring to picture above - I don't know what the breed that made it to Chile looked like.

Oh yeah, the Polynesians did not beat the Vikings. However, the Norse are not known to have kept chickens (the environment may have been a little harsh in old Iceland.)

And here is a better item on Polynesian chickens from Radio Australia.

Dark Sky Villages

Exposure of night sky over Arizona Sky Village. Image for NYT

I stumbled across this article in the New York Times (via Archinect):

The community at Chiefland was, its residents believe, the first astronomy village. It began spontaneously in the 1980s when an amateur astronomer, Billy Dodd (who died this year), retired from his job as a baker and traveled with his wife, Alice, through Florida, looking for skies that offered the clearest views of the stars. They found what they were looking for three hours north of Tampa Bay, in a little-populated area near the Gulf of Mexico. They bought 40 acres six miles south of Chiefland, a town of about 2,000 people, and Mr. Dodd built himself an observatory and trained his telescope and cameras on the stars.

As years passed, he wanted some company, so he subdivided his property and sold it to other amateur astronomers, creating Chiefland Astronomy Village, an unincorporated enclave where property owners agree to observe dark-sky rules. Chiefland’s fame grew when one buyer, Tom Clark, purchased five acres and turned three of them into a communal field for star-gazing, a place where amateurs could — and still can — arrive in R.V.’s and campers and pull out their telescopes.

Dark sky refers to the amount of light pollution - most cities and towns flood the night sky with light, making it difficult to see the stars. People who want a dark sky want to limit that light pollution through more efficient lighting schemes (lights that don't shoot up.)

And there are other "dark sky villages" out there: Arizona Sky Village and the Georgian Deerlick Astronomy Village. These communities are mostly built out of pre-fab homes, with telescope sheds in the backyard. And the Arizona Sky Village is installing a large telescope for general community and public use.

These people get together and observe the stars. Fellow travelers, one and all.

International Dark Sky Association (IDA)

A Short Primer on Contrails

From Air and Space Magazine:

(Contrails) are created by airplanes flying at high altitudes, where the air is below –39 degrees Fahrenheit (-39 degrees Celsius). Exhaust from airplane engines contains water vapor as well as other gases and particles of soot and metal. When the exhaust is expelled into and mixes with the cold air, the water vapor condenses into droplets, which instantly freeze into tiny ice crystals. What you see from the ground is a dense white stream of ice crystals behind an airplane.



It’s not only jets that make contrails; piston aircraft do too. So do rockets. So, apparently, do birds. “I have heard of wild geese leaving vapor trails high over the Canadian Rockies,” Guy Murchie wrote in his book Song of the Sky. A goose exhaling warm, moist air into –38-degree air could produce a contrail, Minnis allows, although “it would certainly be a small one.”

Found via boingboing

I wish I was New York's official Clock Master

Marvin Schneider, New York's Clock Master

Found on New York Times (via Brassgoggles)

The rickety steps of the two-story spiral staircase that snakes up to the tower, and the drips and smells and feel of a place long unaccustomed to visitors, all imparted a sense of adventure. But the clock tower itself was nothing short of sublime, and there were gasps as the guests approached the landing.

Four massive clock faces, composed of frosted glass and cast-iron Roman numerals, stare out over the four directions of Manhattan’s grid. From the center of each face a delicate rod runs to the center of the room, where a confounding jumble of gears, spindles, levers and paddles perches improbably atop four cabriolet legs.

With more than a dozen gears, ranging in diameter from a half inch to two feet, this is the city’s largest mechanical clock, and it is attached to a hammer that hourly strikes a 5,000-pound brass bell. The clock keeps time in a manner appropriate to the pace of the era that spawned it — that is, it’s off about 10 seconds a month, a lag unthinkable for today’s electronic devices that register milliseconds with the self-importance of a nuclear countdown.

And here are a few extra shots:
The Clock Tower Building in all its 1898 glory


















And another shot of the clock

The Green Wall of China

The Gobi and the Green

From SEED Magazine (via Agence France-Presse):

Officials in Inner Mongolia say they have established a living barrier of trees, grass and shrubs wide enough to hold back the Gobi desert and to curb the sandstorms blowing over northeast Asia and hitting the United States.

Taipusi, one of Inner Mongolia's banners or counties, is at the centre of a project to plant a so-called Green Wall of China, designed to act as a buffer between the expanding desert and Beijing, just 200 kilometres (120 miles) to the south.

"We are pretty confident it will be effective," Hu Cun, Inner Mongolia's vice director of forestry, told some 30 journalists invited from Beijing to inspect the work ahead of World Environment Day on Tuesday.

The journalists were taken to a small hill on the southern edge of the "green wall" from where they could look north towards the desert five kilometres away over a ridge.

Between the hill and the desert were hardy young poplar trees, newly planted Mongolian pine that had yet to grow beyond a metre in height, as well as apricot bushes and grassland.

Millions of trees have been planted and grass seeds dropped from airplanes, while herdsmen have been banned from fragile grassland and thousands of families have been relocated from distressed areas.

But sceptics say the root of the problem, overpopulation and unsustainable development, has not been addressed by a narrow corridor of grass and trees.

Greening the encroaching desert and cleaning the air. Reading about this green wall reminded me of the Great Hedge of India. Planted by the British Empire in the 1840's to monopolize salt trading within India, this massive thorn hedge extended more than 3200 km., with up to
12 000 personal manning it.

So build your hedges - just make sure they are inclusive tools of ecological and social growth.

More about this later.

The nervous system is 600 million years old

Marine Sea Sponge

From CBC News:

"Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have discovered that while sponges remain the only multicellular animals without a nervous system, they do possess most of the genetic components of synapses, one of the essential building blocks of a nervous system."

"While sponges do not possess synapses, a comparison of the genes of the sponge Amphimedon queenslandica to the genes expressing a human synapse found striking overlap, suggesting sponges possess many of the building blocks needed to create synapses.

Even more surprising, the scientists also found the complex protein structures present in sponges had distinct "signatures," suggesting they probably interact with each other in a manner similar to how information is passed through synapses."

The researchers figured out the rough date of 600 million years ago for the first nervous system by looking at when the cnidarians, sea jellies, first appeared. This date was known before, but the researchers think that it happened over a very short period of time.

"It is clear that evolution was able to take this entire structure, and, with small modifications, direct its use toward a new function..."

More on animal intelligence (now with emotion!)

I recently finished an intriguing book about one of my favourite topics. Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys is an easy to read compendium of crow information. It covers stories I've blogged about (Betty), mythological stories (Sketco), and some amazing things I had not heard of before.

Crows are not the only animals I've special interest in. Wolves are another group that I've always been particularly fond of, and this book enlightened me to the fact that these two brilliant creatures help each other out.

Crows, when they find a dead animal, cannot tear into the skin, but they're not ashamed to ask their wolfen friends for some help. It seems that crows will lead and wolves will follow each other to carcasses and, once the wolves have torn through the skin and started feeding, the two animals will eat together.

So, I read this book, and then I received a new issue of New Scientist. The cover story was about animal emotions and a sort of cost-benefit analysis in using anthropomorphism to determine whether animals have emotions similar to that of humans.

Both sides of the anthropomorphism argument were argued very well, but what really caught my interest were the apparent displays of emotions in animals. Apes, whales, canines and corvids all figured prominently in those.

Antarctic glaciers on the move

From Science Daily:

"Hundreds of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are flowing faster, further adding to sea level rise according to new research published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Climate warming, that is already causing Antarctic Peninsula increased summer snow melt and ice shelf retreat, is the most likely cause. "

The Antarctic Peninsula temperature has risen by 3 degrees Celsius over the last fifty years. As ice melts, sea level rises. This creates a "fluid wedge" that floats the glaciers on sea-water, de-stabilizing the ice, and causing ice to break-off into the sea. Which causes more water to seep under the glacier and "floating" it.

This leads to a positive feedback loop that essentially "pulls" ice into the ocean to melt.

The researchers hope that this new study will allow them to better model the future thawing of the Antarctic.

BBC story

Urban Parrot Conservation

Yes, Chris, that is a parrot with a crow.

I found City Parrots while looking for a picture of a kakapo (see previous post.) And it is great.

The Ara foundation was set up by Roelant Jonker and Grace Innemme, two parrot specialists from the Netherlands.

Their blog covers parrot conservation, "wild" parrots in urban areas (like San Francisco, Brooklyn, Sydney... pretty much everywhere) and trafficking of parrot species.

City Parrots

2050 could be a bad year for birds

Up to 10% of known land bird species could be critically endangered by 2050. That is between 400 and 900 species.

From New Scientist:

Walter Jetz from the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues from Princeton University, both in the US, mapped the distributions of all 8750 known land bird species against habitat changes predicted in several possible environmental futures proposed by the recently completed UN-led Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

"Species in temperate regions will suffer mostly from climate change. But in the tropics, where birds are especially diverse and have small ranges, land conversion such as deforestation will have an even bigger impact," says Jetz.

The team also found that climate change would lead to a large number of extinctions in Arctic and Antarctic bird species.

Very bad news.

The scientists who carried out this study hope that law makers and citizens will wise up and help fund bird conservation.

The picture above is a kakapo. It is a large, flightless parrot from New Zealand. This species breeds slowly and cannot protect itself from introduced predators (like weasels and foxes.) That is why there are only 86 of these birds left. Although climate change is not the cause of their extinction, it probably isn't going to help.

To find out more about the kakapo, go to the Kakapo Recovery Program.

Coming Soon - 2 Billion Years In The Future

One day, in the mid distance of astronomical time, the Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.

Don't panic.

Almost all galaxies show evidence of collision and amalgamation of matter, but it is only now that we have supercomputers that can crank out the data to make nifty computer models.

Like this one from New Scientist:



Found via New Scientist space blog.

Backyard robots in China

Mr. Woo is a farmer/mechanic that lives about an hour outside of Beijing. He makes robots out of old machinery and scrap parts.

Fantastic.



I found this via boingboing - I know, I know, not that origional a source, but who cares.

This video reminds me of an old fisherman from Port Alberni I met once. I was working on his fishboat out of Ucluelet (if you can call being sick from the diesel fumes from his engine and then hallucinating from too large a dose of anti-sea sick patches "work".)

Anyway, this old sea-captain used to make every piece of machinery in his garage. Engines, ballast pumps, electric winches, everything.

But the best creation was a walking hydraulic tractor (or at least he said it could walk.) It was all pistons and old tubing, with a bucket arm on the front.

Funny guy, that old sea captain.