Scientists Uncover the Identity of Norway's 800-Year-Old 'Well Man'

Scientists Uncover the Identity of Norway's 800-Year-Old 'Well Man'

Sunday, October 27, 2024 / No Comments

"Researchers have confirmed details from the Sverris Saga through ancient DNA analysis of remains discovered at Sverresborg Castle. By merging history, archaeology, and modern genetics, the study sheds light on the Well-man’s identity and ancestry, establishing a new benchmark for research on historical figures."

A section of the Sverris Saga, an 800-year-old Norse account of King Sverre Sigurdsson, describes a military raid in AD 1197. During this attack, a body was cast into a well at Sverresborg Castle, near Trondheim in central Norway, likely to poison the primary water source for the local population.

A new study, published in iScience on October 25, details how researchers used ancient DNA to corroborate the saga’s account and uncover insights into the identity of the “Well-man.” This study merges history, archaeology, and genetics, setting a new precedent for historical research.

“This is the first time we’ve actually identified a person described in these historical texts,” says Professor Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum in Trondheim. “There are numerous medieval and ancient remains across Europe that are increasingly being studied with genomic methods.”

Bones discovered in Sverresborg Castle’s well in 1938 could only be examined visually with the technology of the time. However, radiocarbon dating and advanced gene-sequencing now offer a detailed profile of the Well-man. Radiocarbon analysis dates the remains to roughly 900 years ago, and studies in 2014 and 2016 revealed the remains belong to a male aged between 30 and 40 at death.

Unveiling Complexity Beyond Historical Texts

Archaeologist Anna Petersén from the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research in Oslo explains, “The text is not absolutely correct—what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text.”

Dr. Martin Rene Ellegaard of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology adds, “We can corroborate what actually happened in a more neutral way.” As part of his doctoral research, Ellegaard sequenced the genome of the Well-man using a tooth sample from his skeleton. This genetic analysis revealed that the Well-man likely had blue eyes, blond or light-brown hair, and ancestry tracing back to the southern region of present-day Vest-Agder, Norway.

The researchers achieved insights into the Well-man’s ancestry using extensive reference data from modern Norwegian genomes, provided through a collaboration with Professor Agnar Helgason at deCODE Genetics in Iceland. "Most of the work that we do is reliant on having reference data," explains Dr. Ellegaard. "So, the more ancient genomes that we sequence and the more modern individuals that we sequence, the better the analysis will be in the future."

Professor Martin adds, "These reference data comprise literally thousands of genomes from modern Norwegians and many thousands of other European genomes," enabling more precise ancestral links for historical DNA analysis.

Ethical Considerations and Limitations 

Researchers face ethical and technical challenges in ancient DNA analysis, as seen in the study of Norway’s “Well-man.” Sampling his genome required grinding a tooth to prevent contamination, sacrificing it for future tests and leaving pathogen data unretrievable. “It was a compromise,” says Dr. Ellegaard, highlighting the need for careful decision-making in historical DNA studies to preserve samples for potential future analysis.

Future ambitions include investigating remains of prominent figures, like Saint Olaf, if found. Such studies could unveil physical traits and lineage through genetic sequencing, advancing the field of archaeology by integrating history and science.

This research was funded by the NTNU Onsager Fellowship, the Norwegian Research Council, the Carlsbergfondet Semper Ardens grant, and the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Research.

The mystery of the pink dolphin: investigating an amazing animal

The mystery of the pink dolphin: investigating an amazing animal

Friday, July 10, 2015 / No Comments

Detectives went on the trail of pink dolphin of the Amazon, the boto, a strange and rare animal. Their investigation took them around the world to put the pieces of a planetary and old puzzle over millions of years, complicated by continental drift. The story ends course along the Amazon River and looks like a movie. Besides, it is one ... but everything is true in The Mystery of the pink dolphin, a documentary by French Connection, in partnership with Futura-Sciences, and soon broadcast on France 5, July 11, in the program L empire science. Its author, Nicolas Bazeille, tells us.

What is he doing here at this dolphin called pink Inia geoffrensis, in the rivers of the Amazon basin, so far from the ocean where whales are born? There are other known or freshwater dolphins porpoises, Asia or America, of course, but their history is well known. How and why mammals adapted to marine life have they sneaked into fresh water, shallow and constantly fogged by sediment?

"We wanted to understand the origin of this animal," says Nicolas Bazeille, author of the documentary The Mystery of the pink dolphin, directed by Eric Ellena for French Connection Films, to whom we owe Peru, Extreme Planet. He tells this long investigation that began in Brussels by meeting paleontologist Olivier Lambert then goes on to Amsterdam, where we study the environments of the past, and North Carolina, where researchers are working on the remains of a whale older than ten million years.

This is an amazing global unfolding story and demonstrating how life evolves. "About ten million years before the present, several cetacean species have invested fresh water, reports Nicolas Bazeille. But they are not particularly related: each has adapted to his way. And the oldest of them is the pink dolphin of the Amazon, which seems appeared to -25,000,000 years. "

"The pink dolphin was born the Amazon ..."

Why did you do that? The answer comes from palaeobiologists and paleoecologists. Less impressive than the bones of dinosaurs, their working subjects are microscopic remains of pollen, animal shells or plant debris. With these tenuous clues, they can reconstruct an environment and explain for example that there are ten million years before the erection of the Andes, was a vast inland sea where today lie Venezuela and Colombia .


"The water was shallow, brackish and ribs were lined with mangroves. It was a very rich environment, where the cetaceans could easily find prey, and many species have adapted to this environment. "The birth of the Andes near the current Pacific Ocean coast has isolated this sea, which is closed. The pink dolphin was already there, installed, and survived the transformation of this vast region which has seen erected a chain of high mountains to the east by running huge amounts of fresh water. "The pink dolphin was born the Amazon ..."

The pink dolphin has through the ages

Do not adapt to this habitat that wants so different from the ocean. To live, you have to hunt in small spaces, surrounded by turbid waters where visibility is often almost zero. The pink dolphin has also a sophisticated echolocation system. Perhaps the competition with the other she has played cetacean species. "It is not very fast, swimming much less quickly than its cousins ​​from the ocean, appeared later. His body is not very streamlined, it is even a little chubby, but it is flexible and agile, which is useful in a river. Perhaps the pink dolphin, in competition with other cetaceans, faster, more efficient, has he found a refuge. Finally, the morphology of the pink dolphin has changed very little over time, from the ocean into the river. I know that paleontologists do not like the term "living fossil", but it is well suited to this species. She crossed ages! "


The Amazon basin, teeming with lush life today it is still favorable and documentary shows us the boto home, observed by scientists and better protected in recent years. "The catfish fishermen used its meat as bait. And dams have divided its territory. But the safeguards seem to work. "

The story of  pink dolphin continues

Under the leadership of Brazilian biologist Vera Da Silva, a regular population monitoring began in 1995, which demonstrated their decline, like all freshwater cetaceans. Measures have been taken, including the creation of the Mamirauá Reserve, which today houses the largest population of pink dolphins. The animals are captured for auscultated and the team was surprised to find a female who had experienced two pregnancies close together, which is not usual.


The history of the pink dolphin continues, probably. In 2014, as reported Futura-Sciences, Tomas Hrbek and his colleagues discovered that the pink dolphin of the Araguaia, Brazil, actually belonged to another species, called araguaian river dolphin. Genetic analysis showed that the two have diverged there just over two million years, which is no coincidence. "This is the time when the Tocantins river which flows in the Araguaia and came to the sea, has been diverted to become a tributary of the Amazon. Populations were separated "... and followed their separate different stories.

The human race would be 400,000 years old

The human race would be 400,000 years old

Saturday, March 7, 2015 / No Comments

It is difficult to date certain important events on the phylogenetic tree of life as the paleontology data often come to the upside.Thus, the recent discovery of a fossil hominin in Ethiopia has led researchers to age at least 400,000 years of the date of the emergence of the genus Homo.

Towards the end of 1974, a team of thirty Ethiopian, American and French co-led by Donald Johanson (paleoanthropology), Maurice Taieb (geology) and Yves Coppens (paleontology) led excavations near Hadar in Ethiopia when some of them fell on the fossilized remains of a geological formation outcropping along the Awash River. This course is now world famous water rises in the Ethiopian plateau, flows north into the Great Rift Valley and the Afar depression and empties into Lake Abbe, near Djibouti.

What had thus discovered the researchers? Nothing less than the fragments of the skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis Lucy. This hominin lived there about 3.2 million years. Until now it was thought that the genus Homo had emerged a little less than a million years later with Homo habilis, whose direct descent from Australopithecus afarensis was not established. But now an international team of anthropologists and geosciences specialists, led by members of the Institute of Human Origins founded by Donald Johanson at the State University of Arizona (USA), has release two high profile publications in the journal Science.




A missing link between Australopithecus and Homo?

Paleoanthropologists from Arizona State University (ASU) are exploring the region Geraru-Ledi, near Hadar, since 2002. One of the goals of shipments they conducted was to find fossils of hominins corresponding to y a little-known period of 3 to 2.3 million years before present. There is actually very little information on the evolution that then leads the genus Australopithecus (which contains several species and not just the part which was Lucy) to the genus Homo. One can imagine the excitement that invaded in January 2013 the Ethiopian Chalachew Seyoum when he fell, as he says in the video above, a lower jaw fragment bearing fossilized teeth. The doctoral student in paleoanthropology immediately understood that he held in his hands a fossil hominin.


LD 350-1 cataloged under the code, it could be dated because it was between two layers of sediments containing volcanic ash. Radiometric method based on argon isotopes 40 / argon 39, supplemented by other dating methods, has shown that the hominin that came from this jaw fragment was aged 2.75 to 2.8 million years.

The real surprise came when the director of the Institute of Human Origins, William H. Kimbel, examined more closely LD 350-1 with colleagues including Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada (Las Vegas States States). The presence of thin molars, premolars symmetric and uniformly proportioned jaw is a hallmark of the genus Homo that particular found in Homo habilis there are 2 million years. The slope of the chin that betrays the jaw fragment, however, is a primitive ape-like feature that is observed in Australopithecus. The conclusion of Kimbel is clear: "This is an excellent example of a transitional fossil at a critical period of human evolution."

The appearance of a result of climate change?

But there is more, LD 350-1 allows to push at least 400,000 years the birth of the genus Homo, as the oldest known fossilized fragments previously went back only about 2.3 million years. Certainly, there is still much work to do to get a more complete picture of this species and to answer basic questions: What does it eat? She used stone tools? The research will continue.


Other fossils in the Ledi-Geraru region were also found and dated. They allow you to get an idea of ​​the time environment there are between 2.84 and 2.58 million years. While around Hadar lived there 3 million years monkeys, elephants and giraffes more characteristics of an environment where meadows and forests alternate, 200,000 years later we find around Ledi-Geraru fauna and flora signaling a drier period. It is reminiscent of the Serengeti with existing gazelles and zebras, or the Kalahari. New and many species of mammals have also emerged quickly. This intense period of apparent speciation may have been caused by climate change affecting East Africa at the time, but it's hard to tell if he actually played a role in the emergence of Homo .

Scientists plan to "resurrect" 4 extinct animals

Scientists plan to "resurrect" 4 extinct animals

Tuesday, October 14, 2014 / No Comments

The woolly mammoth

If the first complete specimen of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was discovered in 1799, many other findings, such as blood samples, provide a better understanding of this once extensive species Siberia to North America before extinction there about 11,000 years. At issue: climate change and perhaps overhunting by humans or a virus. Of US researchers hope to soon complete the sequencing of the genome of the species began in 2006 In parallel, they deepen the design methodology of an animal very similar to the original case. Japanese scientists are also working on the question of the DNA of individuals (it would remain 10,000 in the Siberian ice) is injected into eggs of elephants. The hybrids then reproduce them, and, eventually real mammoths. The first results are expected by ... 50 years.

The Tasmanian tiger

Also known thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was a striped marsupial about the size of a wolf. Living in Tasmania, but also in Australia and New Guinea, the species is considered extinct since 1936, due to eradication campaigns and the introduction of dogs on its territory. Researchers wishing to revive the animal for several reasons: it is not a canine, but a marsupial, a group of mammals including kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, wombats and possums Virginia, moreover, carnivore. Like all marsupials, the female was incubating her young in a pouch, but it was the only species in which the male also had a pocket that had to protect his genitals. The animal raises the fascination and some say still observe. In 2005, an Australian magazine offered $ 1.25 million reward to anyone who could prove his existence.

The passenger pigeon

The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), also known as pigeon migratory, was endemic to North America in the early nineteenth century. Its then estimated at over 5 billion population of individuals was deemed harmful by farmers and therefore depleted in a few decades only. According to researchers, this case can not be brought back to life with the cloning technique, because the DNA of a few stuffed specimens in museums are no longer functional. Rather, it is to rebuild some genes traveler dove and then bring them into the genome of stem cells from rock dove, a living species. They would then be transformed into germ cells, the precursors of sperm and oocytes. Injected into eggs rock dove, they migrate to the sexual organs of developing embryos. Hatched pigeons look like normal rock doves, but are carriers of modified germ cells. In breeding, they would give birth to a generation whose individuals have traits of the traveler dove (colors, long tail, long wings, etc.). Several crossings would complete reproductions and produce birds like the extinct species.

Gastric brooding frog

As its name suggests, this kind of frog swallowing eggs which then developed into his stomach, digestive function after taking birth tadpoles. The only two known species (Rheobatrachus vitellinus and R. silus) were endemic in Queensland, eastern Australia. They became extinct in the mid-1980s, following the introduction of human pathogenic fungi in their natural range, among other factors. Australian researchers are moving in the "resurrection" unique frogs in the world, living embryos were produced from genetic material extracted from dead specimens by a technique of nuclear transfer of somatic cell, but they have so far not survive. The experiments are therefore continuing to give life to a tadpole, then perhaps the first adult. Meanwhile, scientists improve preservation techniques cold embryonic cells and sperm of endangered amphibian species, but also other animals.

Swimming dinosaur found in north africa

Swimming dinosaur found in north africa

Saturday, September 13, 2014 / No Comments

Palaeontologists are reporting the world’s first known swimming dinosaur — a 15-metre-long behemoth with a crocodile-like face, feet well suited to paddling and a sail-like structure rising from its spine.
The creature, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, also had unusually dense bones, perhaps to help her up while hunting prey underwater, concludes a study in Science 1.

"This is the first dinosaur that shows these really amazing adaptations," says team leader Nizar Ibrahim, of the University of Chicago in Illinois. "There is no doubt in my mind that Spinosaurus would have been the most of their hunting in the water."

Researchers have long suspected that some dinosaurs had disappeared at the time of the dive; many modern birds as dinosaurs, are aquatic. But they found little evidence of an ancient aquatic behavior than magnetic mark when your foot of a dinosaur may have scratched swimming in a river.

In 2010, the geochemical used oxygen isotopes in fossil bones to conclude that Spinosaurus and his parents spent much time in the water, like a crocodile or hippo DOES2. But so far, there are not enough Spinosaurus bones were available to reconstruct the skeleton and try this idea. German paleontologist Ernst Stromer a partial skeleton found in Egypt a century ago, but their fossils have been destroyed in an Allied bombing raid on Munich in 19443.

Mystery box

In 2008, while Ibrahim was finishing a fossil hunting expedition to Morocco, a man approached him in the city of Erfoud Desert and showed him some bones in a cardboard box. Suspecting that were important, organized to be sent Ibrahim Hassan II University in Casablanca.


The following year, while Ibrahim was visiting the Natural History Museum of Milan, Italy, colleagues showed you a little more Spinosaurus rest of Morocco. "My mind started racing - the color and texture and size of the bone marrow was the same mysterious man had shown me in the carton," he said.

Ibrahim traveled to Morocco in search of the man, armed with a little more memory had a mustache. "Our last day in Erfoud, we were sitting in a cafe drinking mint tea, and I thought I would never find the guy," says Ibrahim. "At my lowest point, this great man, wearing white, walks past our table, and I recognize your face." Running after him, Ibrahim convinced the man to show him the cave where the bones were found.

There, the research team has discovered remains Spinosaurus and found the bones of the box, as well as Milan. From this 97 million years old, the skeleton, as well as notes on their samples destroyed Stromer related dinosaurs and fossils, paleontologists reconstruct even the most detailed picture Spinosaurus.

Other adaptations watery, Spinosaurus have noses that are relatively high in the head, maybe so you can breathe partially submerged. His teeth are embedded as fish trap and their powerful front legs have paddled through the water. His feet were webbed may even said team member Simone Maganuco Milan Museum.

Puzzle pieces
Spinosaurus lived at the time, what is now eastern Morocco was covered in large lakes, rivers and deltas. As a predator, the dinosaur would have been one of the leaders of an ecosystem full of animals like fish saw crocodiles, enormous size and coelacanths car.

Compared with other dinosaurs in their group - bipedal carnivores called theropods creatures - Spinosaurus has surprisingly short hind legs. Ibrahim's team interprets this to mean that the dinosaur walked on four legs. Its center of gravity would have been relatively far forward, helping to move smoothly while swimming.

John Hutchinson, a paleontologist at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, is less convinced. Different samples were concerned about the reliability of tweaks to create a single image of an animal. "We have to be careful about creating an illusion," he said. "It's really exciting speculation, but I would like to see more evidence."

Ibrahim said that some of the parties overlap in different specimens Spinosaurus, helping to confirm the unusual anatomy.

The bones, which are currently under study in Chicago, are destined to return to Casablanca later this year to form the centerpiece of the scientific collection of the hall of the University of Hassan II.

Geophysicists Detect Evidence of Large Amounts of Water in Earth’s Mantle

Geophysicists Detect Evidence of Large Amounts of Water in Earth’s Mantle

Thursday, September 11, 2014 / No Comments

A new study reveals large amounts of water bound to the rock in the center of the Earth's mantle.

The researchers found evidence of "the value of the ocean" deepwater potential in the United States.

Although not present in a familiar form, the basic components of water are linked in the rock in the center of the Earth's mantle, and enough water to represent the largest reservoir in the world according to the study.

For many years, scientists have tried to determine exactly how much water can be cycling between the surface of the Earth and the inner layers through the action of plate tectonics. Geophysicist Steve Jacobsen Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico seismologist Brandon Schmandt found pockets of magma about 400 kilometers below North America - a strong indicator of the presence of H₂O stored in the crystal structure of high-pressure minerals those depths.

"The total heat content H₂O has long been one of the most poorly controlled" geochemical parameters "in the Earth Sciences. Our study found evidence of widespread hydration of the mantle transition zone," Jacobsen said.

For at least 20 years geologists have known from laboratory experiments that the area of ​​the Land of transition - a layer of rocky mantle of the Earth between the lower mantle and the upper depths of between 250 and 410 miles mantle - can theoretically contain about 1 percent of its total weight as H ₂, mineral called wadsleyite and ringwoodite related. However, as Schmandt said so far has been difficult to determine if the water tank is empty potential, as many have suggested, or not.

If this proves to be a substantial amount of H₂O in the transition zone, and laboratory experiments recently conducted by Jacobsen indicate that there should be no large amounts of what he calls "partial melting" in areas where warm flowing through the area. This rich silicate melt water molten rock is produced in the grain boundaries between crystals of solid minerals and may represent about one percent of the volume of rock.

"The merger is because the hydrated rocks are made of the transition zone, where rocks can contain many H ₂, in the lower mantle, where rocks can not contain as H ₂. Fusion is the way to get rid of H₂O that do not fit this crystal structure in the lower mantle, "says Jacobsen.

He adds:

"When a rock starts to melt, regardless H₂O is bound up in the rock will go in the bathroom immediately. Hence, the melt would H₂O that remaining solid concentration much higher. We're not sure how it got there. Perhaps he was trapped there since the beginning of the history of the Earth, or perhaps it is constantly recycled by plate tectonics "

Mantle Rock Studies

The combined study of the analysis of seismic data Schmandt of USArray, a network of more than 2,000 seismometers across the United States, with laboratory experiments of Jacobsen, in which he examined the behavior of mantle rocks under conditions designed to simulate the high pressures and temperatures of 400 miles below the surface of the Earth.

The EarthScope USArray is part of, sponsored by the program of the National Science Foundation. The experiments were conducted at two sites Jacobsen Ministry user of energy, the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 

Taken together, the findings produced strong evidence that fusion can occur at about 400 kilometers deep in the earth, with H ₂ $ stored in mantle rocks, such as those containing mineral ringwoodite, which is likely to is a dominant mineral in these depths. 

Schmandt said he made the discovery after conducting seismic images of the boundary between the transition zone and lower mantle. Evidence that, in areas where the "abrupt transitions" as are present in the melt, was found the energy of the earthquake was converted from a compression wave, or longitudinal, shear or S waves Phase waves S converted in areas where layer is rolled down and out of the transition zone showed a significantly lower rate than the surrounding mantle. The discovery suggests that the water from the surface of the Earth can be driven at these great depths for plate tectonics, ultimately resulting in the partial melting of rocks found deep in the mantle. 


"We used a lot of conversions of seismic waves to see many parts of the United States who may have some melt just below the transition zone. The next step was to compare these zones in areas where flow models to predict the mantle flow to the bottom of the transition zone, "Schmandt said.

Big Questions

For the future, Jacobsen admits that some big questions remain. For example, if the transition zone is full of H₂O, what does this say about the origin of water on Earth? And the presence of ringwoodite in the planet's mantle necessary for a planet to retain original water sufficient to form the oceans? Also, how is the H₂O in the transition zone connected to aboveground tanks? It is the transition zone, if it contains more than oceans, somehow dampen the amount of liquid water on the surface of the reservoir geochemistry H₂O Earth? 

"An analogy may be a sponge, which must be filled before liquid water may be supported on the top. Water was in the transition region by said tectonic plates of the early history of the earth, or does the mantle of oceans gas until equilibrium between the surface and the inner layers? "Ask Jacobsen is reached. 

However, the investigation is likely to be of great interest to astrobiologists largely because water is often closely linked to the formation of biological life. Remote geochemical analysis could be a way to detect whether these processes occur elsewhere in the universe, and it is likely that this analysis involve the use of gamma rays from neutron spectrometers and X-ray of the type used by the NASA MESSENGER spatial distance for geochemical mapping of Mercury. 


"On other planets inaccessible that it is impractical to apply the type of earthquake that I used. Imaging So, I guess the geochemical analysis of volcanic rocks from other planetary bodies can be our best way to check if the volatile are stored inside the planet, "Schmandt said.

A newly identified species of supermassive dinosaur might have been one of the largest creatures ever to walk on land

A newly identified species of supermassive dinosaur might have been one of the largest creatures ever to walk on land

Tuesday, September 9, 2014 / No Comments

Earth-shaking dinosaur discovered ,59-tonne behemoth was probably one of the largest land animals ever.

A newly identified species of supermassive dinosaur might have been one of the largest creatures ever to walk on land, suggests a study published on 4 September in Scientific Reports1.

Dreadnoughtus schrani, were excavated in southern Argentina between 2005-09. The animal is a titanosaur, one of the heavy subgroup generally herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks-known sauropods.

The genus name Dreadnoughtus, which means Old English "fear nothing" is a nod to the idea that was so gigantic dinosaur This healthy adult Dreadnoughtus probably were attacked by predators, says Kenneth Lacovara a vertebrate paleontologist at the Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who led the study. The bones of two individuals of the newly described species have been found in rocks originally envisaged in the sediments in a floodplain of the time between 66 million years and 84 million years.


About 45% of post-cranial bones of larger sample recovered, Lacovara said. If mirror images researchers use this bone on one side of the creature, for example, to replace lost bone on the other side, which "can produce a reconstruction of fossil About 70% including species bone in neck, body and tail.

King of the giants

The bone measurements and proportions of the nearby to estimate the lengths of the missing bones, Lacovara and his colleagues believe Dreadnoughtus stretched 26 meters nose to tail relatives. By measuring the circumference of the humerus and femur (upper in the forelimb and hindlimb bones), recognized gold standard for estimating body mass of the animals, the team estimates that the largest specimens Dreadnoughtus would have weighed about 59.3 tonnes when he died.

Even though some other titanosaurs were estimated up to 100 tons, the figures are based on less accurate methods are extrapolated from the fossils are fragmentary, Lacovara said. Therefore, argues that Dreadnoughtus is the largest land animal known which body mass can be calculated accurately.

In addition, he said, the biggest fossil specimens suggest that the creature was not yet fully mature and has continued to grow when he died.

However, the researchers suggest that the relative degree of these fossils, not because of its size, is what matters most. The well-preserved bone will help scientists better understand the close relatives of this species, which is known for a much smaller proportion of the bones, said Curry Rogers.


The fact that these researchers have identified two relatively complete specimens of different sizes Dreadnoughtus means that paleontologists can better assess the growth of the species if eventually fall in the fossil of an adult, said Curry Rogers. "This is a great show, even if it's not the biggest out there," he said.

researchers are pushing hard to put an earthquake warning system

researchers are pushing hard to put an earthquake warning system

Thursday, September 4, 2014 / No Comments

Trains Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in San Francisco are not running at 3:20 on August 24, when a magnitude 6 earthquake shook the region. But BART's computers were working - and they knew what was going to happen 10 seconds before the earth began to shake, thanks to an alert warning system prototype in California. The earthquake occurred in the middle of the day, computers are loaded trains to stop slowly - potentially prevent derailment and save the lives of passengers.

With this scenario in mind, researchers are pushing for a much broader connect the west coast of the United States band from California to Washington, with an earthquake warning system in its own right. The project of the United States of $ 120 million is funded is not yet guaranteed, but the last earthquake, centered near Napa, California, which caused the damage value of several hundred million dollars, political fortunes could tip your favor. Seismologists and managers of emergency services will discuss the practical aspects of implementing these systems at a conference on 3 September at the University of California, Berkeley.

"I hope the Napa earthquake has created a sense of urgency," said Alex Padilla, a senator from the state of California who represents a district near Los Angeles. Padilla filed a bill that Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law last September, which gives the state until 2016 to implement an early warning system before the expiry of the legislation.

However, the law does not specify that the $ 80 million for the portion of the system would come from California. That puts us at a crossroads seismologists: if they are not able to push through an early warning system in time, could fight for everything.

Several countries, including Mexico and Japan have extensive systems to protect key infrastructure alert. And Istanbul, seismic sensors allow a major supplier of natural gas from Turkey to close its pipelines if the plant is about to start shaking. Similar warnings flow of nuclear power plants in Romania.

California has the backbone of a warning system - ShakeAlert, a project led by a consortium of universities and the Geological Survey project (USGS). The system uses real-time information from seismic waves reach the sensor network in California to send warnings that the most damaging secondary waves, are underway. Alerts are scientists and about 150 organizations, emergency managers and other testers.

And the system works. In the recent earthquake in Napa (see "History repeats itself") ShakeAlert provided about 10 seconds warning to San Francisco, which is about 50 km from the epicenter. "If it is not a sufficient demonstration of the system for financing the implementation of their own, size does an earthquake have to be?" When asked Richard Allen, a seismologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

ShakeAlert developed with 6.5 million philanthropic dollars Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto, California, but that money will run next year. So far, no one with money to become a mature operating system. In an ideal world, the USGS years have implemented a federal electoral system warning, said Thomas Heaton, seismologist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
And the system works. In the recent earthquake in Napa (see "History repeats itself") ShakeAlert provided about 10 seconds warning to San Francisco, which is about 50 km from the epicenter. "If it is not a sufficient demonstration of the system for financing the implementation of their own, size does an earthquake have to be?" When asked Richard Allen, a seismologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

ShakeAlert developed with 6.5 million philanthropic dollars Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto, California, but that money will run next year. So far, no one with money to become a mature operating system. In an ideal world, the USGS years have implemented a federal electoral system warning, said Thomas Heaton, seismologist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

But the USGS budgets were declining for years, and the United States, probably will end up with at least part of the bill. In the spirit of Heaton, this is not an ideal solution, because states do not have the resources or experience: with the support of the state is "like Florida runs an early warning system for hurricanes," he said.

Padilla and other politicians tried to get money through various infrastructure projects to improve the existing seismic network in California and add hundreds of new stations. An earthquake early warning system will never be perfect: there will always be a dead zone, an area very close to the shock of receiving a warning. But this area can be reduced by adding stations and network upgrades, Allen said.

For example, the decade old sensor closest to the epicenter of Napa seismic station took 2.8 seconds to record tremor, process and transmit network that monitors earthquakes in California. The sensor was, I could do all this in just 0.3 seconds - fast enough to alert the city of Napa that an earthquake was imminent, which allows residents to dive for cover, Allen said.

To be most effective, the warning network is also required to connect to the infrastructure, as it does for computers BART. "We're really talking about a system of command and control of modern," says Heaton. "For our seismic networks is something that trains and elevators and other automatically controlled, we need a team of software developers working for several years," he says.

This connectivity becomes even more important were California to integrate your system with the most seismic networks in northern Oregon and Washington. There, the area of ​​the Cascadia fault off has the potential to trigger a big quake as magnitude 9 Fault is relatively far from the cities, if an early warning system could give minutes custody in Portland, Seattle or Vancouver.

Expansion in Oregon and Washington, it would take 40 million years. Seismologists in the region are designed to test alerts using testers - both as ShakeAlert done - next spring, said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“We don’t want to wait until we have a major damaging earthquake with hundreds of fatalities,” says Allen. “We want to build it now.”

Fractal creatures filtered the Precambrian oceans

Fractal creatures filtered the Precambrian oceans

Tuesday, September 2, 2014 / No Comments

The comprehensive study of the anatomical organization of Aranéomorphes can lift a mystery about these strange marine living organisms on Earth, there are 575 million years. Branches that are composed and which duplicate according to a fractal model light on their feeding mode.

We knew it was not Rangeomorfos plant or marine fungi, but many animals belonging to the phylum Petalonamae. For about 40 million years ago during the Ediacaran, dominated the oceans of the world, living attached to a substrate at different depths. Before they occur, life was microscopic.
However, we did not take into account the mode of nutrition. Since fossil specimens, researchers have managed to recreate the 3D morphology of 11 taxa and measure their functional properties.
Three main, vertical and horizontal types, have been highlighted: tall, thin as other side, spruce flourished, such as deciduous trees, and a shape resembling a sponge deployed on the seabed. These organizational plans fractals, which are unlike any other known to reinforce the idea that they have their clade, ie, his own group comprising the ancestors and all descendants.

For scientists, the anatomy of these animals maximizes pluribranche body surface and is consistent with the osmotrophie, fashion power supply filter, from dissolved in seawater substances.

These filters optimize in an almost perfect anatomical area

"Speaking geometrically, are well organized to do it, capable of creating the greatest possible surface area for absorption in any space they occupied," says Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill, University of Cambridge, UK, lead author of the paper published in the Proceedings of magazines National Academy of Sciences.
This result is consistent with the ecological conditions of the time: the competitors and predators were absent and the marine environment rich in microscopic nutrients. "Ediacaran Oceans more like a thick soup, full of nutrients such as organic carbon, whereas today, the food particles in suspension was rapidly collected by a myriad of animals," says study co-author Simon Conway Morris, paleontologist at the University of Cambridge.

With the explosion of multicellular life in the Cambrian era, Rangéomorphes died there about 540 million years. The alleged causes are competing for nutrients with other agencies, predation and depletion of the specific resources they needed.

two new holes in Siberia, the mystery remains

two new holes in Siberia, the mystery remains

Saturday, August 30, 2014 / No Comments

What is happening in the permafrost of Siberia? After the first open hole in the Yamal Peninsula, two were seen by reindeer herders in neighboring regions. Scientists have not yet chosen among possible hypotheses, but the heating of the ground, in principle, frozen, probably plays a role.

How many holes? This is the question posed in Siberia for several days. On July 15, the Times newspaper Siberian unveiled images of a curious crater formed in the Yamal Peninsula, the "end of the world" in the local dialect in northwest Siberia, washed by the Kara Sea. Opening with clean edges, which gives a large underground cavity, appeared on earth that usually remains frozen all year round (permafrost or permafrost in English), not far from one of the largest gas deposits Europe.

Reported by the journal, two new holes were discovered by reindeer herders, the few people that go to those areas. One of them, a diameter of 15 m, were a few hundred kilometers of the first, near the Yamal Peninsula, across the Gulf of Ob, Taz in the district. According to nearby residents, would have formed in September 2013, with explosive sound. The third crater, meanwhile, was far beyond the Taimyr Peninsula, east and north. This crater is a perfect cone, surrounding a central hole diameter of 4 m.

These holes they explain a feature of the landscape of the Yamal peninsula?

Scientists are very interested in this phenomenon and studies are carried out in the first crater discovered. According to Andrey Plekhanov's Arctic Research Center, this hole is formed there are one or two years. Teams work on images taken by satellites to determine. The snapshots have been made inside the cavity, which would be approximately 70 m deep. The fund, which was not achieved, appears full of ice. It seeps from the lips of the crater, it sinks to the bottom and then freezes. (See all pictures of the three sections of Siberia Times, whose links are grouped at the bottom of this article.).


The explanation of this phenomenon has not yet been written. According to Andrey Plekhanov, there was no explosion, as has been said. The soil around the hole was launched by "internal strength". The first possible cause is the unusually high temperature prevailing in the region this summer, as was the case in 2012 and 2013, but there is nothing at this time no reason to make this assumption to certainty. The researcher recalls a sense of the 1980s, and abandoned, that small lakes are typical of the Yamal peninsula, formed by a phenomenon of the same type. He said that if these things happen from time to time by 8,000 years, could explain the landscape of this region.

Hurricane Marie Could Swallow Smaller Storm Karina

Hurricane Marie Could Swallow Smaller Storm Karina

Wednesday, August 27, 2014 / No Comments

Space Images show the enormous hurricane Marie is about to swallow another small storm in the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Recently released NASA photos show severe storms and small swirls together. The images were taken by (NOAA) Earth Observation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-West satellite yesterday (August 26) at 8 pm EDT (17:00 PDT).

Karina, but maybe not for an hour of substantial snack Marie devours. With winds decreased to 30 mph (48 km / h), Karina weakened by a tropical depression in a low-pressure system is the last night, having traveled across the Pacific for two weeks, the National Hurricane Center (NHC ) announced.

Mary, meanwhile, is already sending strong waves off the coast of California. As large as 15 feet (4.6 meters) Swells hit beaches around Los Angeles yesterday, a surfer was pronounced dead in Malibu after being removed from the choppy waters, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hurricane Marie surf conditions are likely to produce common and deadly areas in southern California and Baja California in Mexico until tomorrow (August 28), according to the NHC.

Marie is currently about 810 miles (1300 km) west of the southern tip of Baja California. It is expected that storm with winds up to 85 mph (140 km / h), but to weaken as it moves over cooler waters in the coming days, the NHC said in its latest update officials.

NOAA GOES satellites are geostationary, meaning that stands in the same spot above the Earth all the time, orbiting in tandem with the planet's rotation. Satellites captured images of clouds that are used by the National Weather Service NOAA to track storms. The GOES-West satellite provides coverage for much of western North America and the Pacific.

Pipeline emissions up to four times worse than predicted

Pipeline emissions up to four times worse than predicted

Monday, August 25, 2014 / No Comments

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry crude oil from Canada to refineries and barges farther south.

North America's proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline could significantly increase greenhouse-gas emissions, suggests an analysis published on 10 August in Nature Climate Change.
The pipeline carrying up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day from tar sands in western Canada to the Midwestern United States, where it would connect with existing pipelines operating in the Gulf of Mexico. The economic model used in the latest study suggests that this extra oil could lower prices and consumption, producing the equivalent of 110 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. (This is equivalent to about 1.7% of total GHG emissions in the United States in 2012, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.)

In essence, each additional barrel of oil produced as a result of Keystone XL increase the overall consumption of 0.6 barrels, the study finds. "If that's the case, would be a major impact of greenhouse gases," says co-author Peter Erickson, senior researcher of the Institute of the Stockholm Environment in Seattle, Washington.

Pollution problem
Keystone XL has been the subject of intense debate in the United States and Canada since it was proposed by TransCanada pipeline company in 2008 The decision on whether to proceed with the construction ultimately rests with President Barack Obama, who said he supports the pipeline if "does not significantly increase the problem of carbon pollution." An evaluation by the State Department of the United States has concluded that Keystone XL would increase emissions of only 1.3 million tonnes to 27.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year.
But Erickson and his co-author Michael Lazarus say that the economic model of the State Department did not consider the effect of the pipeline on world oil prices, and therefore consumption. Because the State Department did not disclose all the details of their model, the authors of the latter study can not be certain of the variables used in the analysis of government. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the article in Nature Climate Change.
David Victor, an expert on climate policy at the University of California, San Diego, said the production of oil from tar sands in Canada will increase regardless of whether Keystone XL is becoming a reality. Provide additional oil by rail could be a little more expensive than oil transport by pipeline, but that would reduce the profits of oil companies slightly, Victor said. "It's very difficult to stop the oil," he added.

Critics of Keystone XL Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, says that the price effects of the pipeline are to some extent irrelevant. "My concern is not so much the increase in emissions of Keystone XL, Keystone XL but is part of a larger pattern of behavior," he said. If the pipeline were to be canceled, that "signals to the market that these pollutants will not approve projects," says Caldeira.

Others are skeptical that any incremental oil production allowed by Keystone XL could push oil prices. The study shows "a reasonable history," said Maximilian Auffhammer, an environmental economist at the University of California, Berkeley. But the oil industry might react to a cheaper oil production limits, which would increase prices - and, in principle, reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
Erickson acknowledged that his analysis is not the final outcome. But he says that this shows why the price effects should be taken into account for the Keystone and other energy developments. "These are the types of questions that must be analyzed," he said.