Evolutionary trait of dinosaurs discovered

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Perhaps the most famous of all dinosaurs is the Tyrannosaurus rex; this large carnivorous dinosaur with its huge teeth would have cut a fearsome figure. If it came to boxing however – with its disproportionately, almost comical, small arms – it would have come up short. However, the Tyrannosaurus wasn’t the only dinosaur to have such small arms; a whole family of dinosaurs known as the abelisaurids also shared this trait, and according to new discoveries, may have actually began with them.

Image: Wikipedia.

Fossil material of the abelisaurid family of dinosaurs discovered in the southern-most tip of South America, Patagonia, is showing a timeline of the evolution of this characteristic. The specimen in particular dates from the Jurassic age and is 40 million years older than any other known abelisaurid. It clearly shows that arm reduction began at an early stage in the group’s evolutionary history.

This discovery was made by Ludwig Maximilians University Munich (LMU) palaeontologist Dr Oliver Rauhut, who is also affiliated with the Bavarian State Collections for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich and his Argentinian colleague Dr Diego Pol. ‘Abelisaurids were a highly diverse and widely distributed group during the Cretaceous [period],’ says Rauhut, ‘but their origins have so far remained enigmatic.’

The abelisaurids were bipedal carnivores approximately seven to nine meters in length and feared predators in their day. They roamed the area of Patagonia and other areas of Gondwanaland, the southern-most continent which was comprised of what is now Africa, Antarctica, Australia and South America. In characteristics they closely resembled the tyrannosaurids, the main difference being their unusually short and high skulls which were unique. This feature suggests that they had an extremely powerful bite.

Image: Cordis

Rauhut and Pol have named the new abelisaurid species Eoabelisaurus mefi, or ‘dawn Abelisaurus of the Museo Palentológico Egidio Feruglio (MEF)’, in recognition of the Museum’s support for their research collaboration. ‘The new find reveals that the abelisaurid lineage is more ancient than we thought,’ says Rauhut. ‘The reason why so little is known about it is that the fossil record of predatory dinosaurs in the Southern hemisphere is very incomplete, especially for the period from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous.’

While they too had short arms like the Tyrannosaurus, they are different in that according to some research, the Tyrannosaurus was able to use its arms like powerful hooks to keep its prey immobile. The abelisaurids arms appear to be much weaker and simply vestigial remnants. Their finding however has allowed researchers to make a clearer picture of how these arms evolved.

‘The trend apparently set in early on, and began at the distal end,’ says Rauhut. ‘In Eoabelisaurus, the upper arm is of normal size, but the lower arm is much shorter in comparison; the hand is very stunted and the fingers and claws are tiny.’ This finding appears to confirm suggestions from other palaeontologists that the reduction in abelisaurids began with the hand.

What surprised the researchers with their find was that while the Eoabelisaurus had evolved on the supercontinent Pangaea, they are not found on every continent following its breakup. Pangaea was the supercontinent that consisted of every continent we know now of today and existed some 300 million years ago. ‘One possible explanation is that a huge desert in Central Pangaea prevented dispersal of the group to the North, confining the evolution of the lineage to the Southern hemisphere,’ says Pol.

The hypothesis of the existence of such a geographical barrier is supported by recent geological studies and the results of climate modelling.

Despite their significant findings there is still a lot to discover. ‘Our picture of dinosaur evolution in the Jurassic is largely based on fossils from Northern sites,’ says Rauhut. ‘The Southern hemisphere surely still has many surprises in store for us.’

The scientists hope to continue their research into the Jurassic dinosaurs of Patagonia, which has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Argentinian Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científíca y Tecnológica.

Sophisticated simulations predict future warming

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The chances of our planet being hit by a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is as likely as it being hit by an increase of 1.4 degrees, new research shows.

Presented in the journal Nature Geoscience, the British study ran close to 10 000 climate simulations on home computers via a sophisticated climate model to get the results, which suggest that failure to stop emissions will force Earth to cross the two-degree barrier before this century ends.

Image: Cordis

The study was funded in part by the WATCH and ENSEMBLE projects. Both WATCH (‘Water and global change’) and ENSEMBLE (‘Ensemble-based predictions of climate changes and their impacts’) were backed under the ‘Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health’ Thematic area of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) to the tune of almost EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million, respectively.

If the model is correct in its prediction, that is if the warming of temperatures is up to three degrees (above the 1961-1900 average) within the next 38 years, it will be the fastest rate of warming ever.

‘It’s only by running such a large number of simulations – with model versions deliberately chosen to display a range of behaviour – that you can get a handle on the uncertainty present in a complex system such as our climate,’ said lead author Dr Dan Rowlands from the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ‘Our work was only possible because thousands of people donated their home computer time to run these simulations.’

For his part, Professor Myles Allen of Oxford’s School of Geography and Environment, as well as the Department of Physics, said: ‘Most forecasts of global warming are based on the range of results that different groups around the world happen to contribute to a model comparison. These groups don’t set out to explore the full range of uncertainty, which is why studies like ours are needed.’

Researchers the world over have been quantifying and making every effort to shed light on the consequence of climate uncertainties for future projections, said Ben Booth of the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and one of the authors of the paper.

‘Perhaps the most ambitious effort to date, this work illustrates how the citizen science movement is making an important contribution to this field,’ said Dr Booth.

Such ensembles are an innovative tool for researchers to investigate what could happen in the future. They can also ‘provide an exciting new resource for the climate adaptation and impact communities,’ said co-author Professor Dave Frame of Victoria University of Wellington, Visiting Fellow of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

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Hockey is one of the toughest sports games. Players need both finesse and speed on the ice, but they also need to be strong. Being slammed into the boards or glass while chasing the puck is hard on the body. And the stronger the players get, the higher the number of injuries.

Image: Wikipedia

Researchers in Finland investigated whether the shock-absorbing properties of different dasher board structures and materials can affect injury rates. Their findings show that the different types of boards’ shock-absorbing properties varied significantly.

Researchers from the Department of Biology of Physical Activity at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland measured the physiological properties of body-checking against the boards in real-life game play and in a laboratory setting. With respect to the latter, the team calculated the maximum force inflicted on the board by body-checking and the displacement of the board. The numbers they generated helped them calculate the rigidity of the dasher board system.

The researchers found that the shock-absorbing properties of various board types were not similar. They identified a 25% difference in the impact forces measured from the most flexible board and from the conventional dual base frame. The glazing of the flexible board is made of plastic, while the glazing of the dual base frame is made of tempered glass.

They also observed significant differences in displacement. According to them, the displacement of the most flexible board was more than 130% greater in some cases, when compared with the reference board. They also found that the most flexible board had around 30% of the rigidity of its conventional counterpart.

The researchers said the shock-absorbing properties of metallic support posts in dasher board systems were inferior to those containing a flexible plastic shield.

The results show that the maximum impact force of a body check against a support post was up to 70% higher than the maximum impact force of a similar body check against a protective shield. They also found that the posts were up to five times more rigid than a plastic shield.

‘By replacing the widely used tempered glass with a plastic shield, the impact force on players being body-checked against the boards is considerably reduced,’ said Professor Janne Avela and researcher Piritta Poutiainen.

It should be noted that dasher board systems with a plastic shield and metallic posts are not a safe option, because the rigidity in metallic posts can cause injuries in players who body-check. It makes no difference if the plastic shield is flexible, the team said. Mitigating the force of impact is possible if the board’s height is lowered. According to the researchers, this would allow the player who is body-checked to fall on the flexible shield.

EU-funded food technology project to help alleviate poverty by preventing food losses

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Image: Wikipedia.

Millions of the world’s poorest people in some of the most deprived regions could soon be helped by a new EU-funded food technology project that brings together researchers from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The 3-year project GRATITUDE (‘Gains from losses of root and tuber crops’) brings together 16 project partners from Ghana, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. It received close to EUR 3 million of funding from the ‘Food, agriculture and fisheries, and biotechnology’ Theme of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

Led by scientists from the University of Greenwich’s Natural Resources Institute in the United Kingdom, the project partners aim to find new ways of reducing waste during the production of food crops vital to families in parts of Africa and Asia. Another aim of the project is to develop new products such as snack foods from the crops, and seek new markets. The fact that the consortium is made up of partners from both academic and business will help meet this aim.

Image: Wikipedia.

Cassava and yam are important food security crops for approximately 700 million people worldwide, and their post-harvest losses are significant. These losses can be physical or economic, through discounting or processing into low-value products, or can result from bio-wastes. By reducing such losses, the role these crops play in food and income security can be enhanced.

Post-harvest physical losses are exceptionally high and occur throughout the food chain. Losses in economic value are also high, for example, cassava prices can be discounted by up to 85% within a couple of days of harvest. The project will also focus on improving how waste such as peels, liquid waste, and spent brewery waste is used, so that higher value products can be produced for human consumption, including snack foods, mushrooms and animal feed.

At the moment, growers can lose up to 60% of yam and 30% of cassava during the processing of the crops after harvesting through rotting, poor storage, transport and price discounts. The researchers hope to reduce these losses by implementing better storage and processing techniques to reduce waste and turn it into something of value.

The success of different products in different regions will shared with partners in other parts of the world via digital links. It is hoped that the project will help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) make connections with large-scale industry and lead to job creation.

The project will start by launching pilot schemes to reduce waste in Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam and Thailand.

Project coordinator Keith Tomlins from the University of Greenwich’s Natural Resources Institute described the project as an ‘ambitious scheme that could have a huge effect on many millions of people’.

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Scientists have refuted recent claims that sex-linked chromosomes such as the male Y chromosome could become extinct. The new claims have been made in a genetic study into the sex chromosomes of chickens, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Image: Cordis

The team, who hail from Sweden and the United Kingdom, looked at how genes on sex-linked chromosomes are passed down through generations and linked to fertility, using the specific example of the W chromosome in female chickens.

W chromosomes in female chickens are akin to Y chromosomes in men in that they are sex-limited and do not re-combine when males and females reproduce, as the other regions of the genome do. This means that any studies on chickens are relevant for humans too.

The recombination process allows chromosomes to break up linked genes, which makes selection more effective and helps get rid of faulty mutations. Some scientists believe that Y and W chromosomes are set to perish because of this lack of recombination.

But this new study shows that although these chromosomes have shrunk over millions of years, and have lost many of their original genes, those that remain are extremely important in predicting fertility and are, therefore, unlikely to become extinct. Lead study author Professor Judith Mank, from University College London, says: ‘Y chromosomes are here to stay, and are not the genetic wasteland that they were once thought to be.’

The study, which received a funding boost from the European Research Council (ERC), compared DNA regions on the W chromosome in different breeds of chickens, whose fertility rates are very easy to measure simply by counting eggs.

Genetic information from two breeds, the Minorca and Leghorn, which lay more than 250 eggs per year, were compared with two breeds selected for male traits (fighting and plumage) called Yokohama and Old English Game. The researchers also looked at Red Jungle Fowl, a tropical member of the Pheasant family that is ancestral to the domestic chicken.

The scientists measured gene expression levels from the W-linked genes in all the breeds, and showed that selection for laying lots of eggs has led to elevated gene expression for almost all the W-linked genes in the layer breeds. At the same time, relaxed female selection in the fighting and plumage breeds has led to a loss of W gene expression.

This means that female-specific selection related to fertility acts to shape the W chromosome, and also that the chromosome is able to respond to that selection despite all the problems surrounding the lack of recombination.

Professor Mank comments: ‘We have shown that Y and W chromosomes are very important in fertility – the Y in males and the W in females. It is the ability of the W-linked genes to evolve that is the key to their survival, and which suggests that both the Y and the W chromosomes are with us for the long haul.’

Santino showed an innovative use of concealments

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The Furuvik Zoo in Sweden is home to Santino, the chimpanzee known for gathering stones and making concrete projectiles to throw at anyone visiting the zoo in 2009. But stone-throwing is not all that Santino does. A new study has found that the infamous chimp finds innovative ways to fool the visitors.

Image: Cordis

Presented in the journal PLoS ONE, the findings suggest that chimps can represent the future behaviours and actions of others while those others are not present, effectively producing a future event instead of merely preparing for an event. The results might indicate that chimps recombine episodic memories in perceptual simulations.

Researchers from Lund University in Sweden investigated the ability a chimp has to carry out complex planning. They observed that chimps, which experts believe are the closest relatives from the animal kingdom to humans, have the capacity to fool others cunningly and skilfully.

Santino’s behaviour piqued the curiosity of researchers, because he planned the deception when the humans were out of sight. In a nutshell, the chimp followed through on his plan without having immediate perceptual feedback of his objective, which in this case, were the people visiting the zoo.

Santino became popular worldwide in 2009 when visitors to the zoo were the targets of his stones and concrete projectiles. Researchers thought then that his behaviour was an example of spontaneous planning for a future event. So his psychological state was clearly different from that of his subsequent aggressive displays.

Most researchers have long thought that such cognitive abilities belonged only to humans. For the purposes of this study, the researchers collected more detailed data on Santino’s projectile-throwing behaviour over the course of the 2010 zoo season.

They found that Santino continued and extended his previous behaviour of caching projectiles to be used for future throwing displays of aggression. The chimp also showed an innovative use of concealments: those made from hay and those made naturally (e.g. rock).

To test Santino, the team placed the people participating in the study in the visitors’ area. The chimp could throw his missiles before the people had a chance to get away. Santino created his hay concealments when the visitors were away. He launched his missiles when they returned. During their observation of the chimp, the researchers discovered that Santino preferred to conceal his missiles. However, he combined two strategies consistently: he hid projectiles and he inhibited the displays of dominance that otherwise preceded his throws.

‘When planning for potential future behaviours of others, we suggest that this could in principle also be solved by detached perceptual construct of behaviours priorly experienced under different circumstances,’ the authors of the study write. ‘Then there is no need for theory like reasoning about others’ mental states; the behaviour could be “read” from the perceptual simulations (it is not necessary to represent other’s mental states even for creating the constructs; a learned behavioural catalogue would suffice). What underlies the perceptual simulations of potential futures, what makes them [...] form, is a highly interesting question beyond the scope of speculations of this study.’

The researchers say further work should be carried out to determine whether chimps, and other great apes, are in general capable of planning for future deception, and whether they can form representations of future behaviours of others who are out of sight.

André Kuipers: world ambassador

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Observing Earth from far above, ESA astronaut André Kuipers is acting as a world ambassador for the WWF, which issued its flagship publication the Living Planet Report today.

André Kuipers. Credits: ESA/NASA

The Living Planet Report measures changes in biodiversity by tracking 9000 populations of more than 2600 of the world’s species. André wrote the foreword to the report and is doing his part to show how fragile our world really is.

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We only have one Earth

André has been concerned about our planet since his last mission to the International Space Station in 2004. He has been sending us images that show the impact humans are having on our climate.

Jet contrails pictured from the International Space Station. Credits: ESA/NASA

“We only have one Earth. From up here I can see humanity’s footprint, including forest fires, air pollution and erosion – challenges which are reflected in this edition of the Living Planet Report,” said André.

The report illustrates how our demand on natural resources has become unsustainable. By 2050, two out of every three people will live in a city. Humanity requires new and improved ways of managing natural resources.

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André’s Flickr stream: recording humanity’s presence

Using ESA’s new NightPod camera aid, André is taking sharper pictures than ever before of cities at night. Light pollution is a dramatic example of energy that humans waste.

View all of André’s images in his Flickr photo stream, or follow the astronaut on Twitter.

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Satellites spot invisible effects

The effect we have on our planet extends beyond what is visible to the human eye. To be able to understand and manage human impact better, ESA is providing data from a range of satellites.

Europeans kick-start solar cell production project

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Development of more efficient and cost-effective solar cells is high on the EU agenda. Helping drive this effort is the SCALENANO (‘Development and scale-up of nanostructured-based materials and processes for low-cost high-efficiency chalcogenide-based photovoltaics’) project, which has clinched more than EUR 7.5 million under the ‘Energy’ Theme of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to make efficient and cheaper solar cells a reality.

Image: Cordis

Led by the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research in Spain, the SCALENANO project partners are developing and scaling up new processes based on nanostructured materials to generate high efficiency and cheaper photovoltaic devices and modules that comply with mass production requirements. The SCALENANO team comprises experts from France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

By today’s standards, the production of solar cells, the ‘power generators’ inside solar panels, can burn holes in many pockets. However, researchers and industry recognise the significance of making photovoltaic devices, as they can convert light energy from the Sun into electrical energy for personal and corporate use.

Solar energy can also help Europeans mitigate the use of nuclear fuel and oil. Efforts to secure alternative ways to power up the region keep intensifying following recent disasters like the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan. Germany’s decision to start decommissioning nuclear power plants within the next 10 years is also compelling researchers to look for alternative options.

It should be noted that investing in the development of more efficient solar panels could help put Europe at the forefront of this field.

Dr Phillip Dale, head of the Electrodeposition Group under the Laboratory of Photovoltaics at the University of Luxembourg, says: ‘Our main objective is to develop low-cost and efficient solar cell technology. Increasing the competitiveness of this technology will bring the cost down for everyone, which will eventually allow solar technology to reach the masses.’

The University of Luxembourg’s contribution to SCALENANO is the use of sophisticated research tools to specifically examine ways to optimise the process of combining and baking the chemicals, to create the required solar cell materials. A rapid thermal annealing furnace is being used for this. According to the Luxembourg team, cutting the time needed for baking means less energy will be used, and in turn this will decrease the cost of manufacturing solar cells.

SCALENANO got off the ground earlier this year and will end in 2015. ‘We are excited to get started and are confident we have the tools and the capacity to significantly contribute,’ Dr Dale says. ‘We look forward to collaborating well with our research partners.’

The SCALENANO team says the findings of their project will benefit future work making energy sustainable.

Study finds link between languages and high biodiversity regions

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Earth is home to some of the most linguistically diverse regions, which are found specifically in hot spots and high biodiversity wilderness areas, new British-American research shows.

Presented in the journal PNAS, the findings suggest that around 70% of all languages have found a niche in these regions. The study will help shed light on the lives of people who reside in these areas, and provide insights into the conservation of biodiversity.

Images: Cordis

Conservationists from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the United States say the languages in question are for the most part unique to particular regions and could be potentially wiped out.

Experts believe species are becoming extinct at a rate 1,000 times higher than historic rates. For their part, linguists say 50% to 90% of the languages spoken worldwide will become extinct by the end of the 21st century.

Researchers in the past had identified a link between language diversity and biodiversity. The datasets, however, were not geographically accurate.

‘Paul Ehrlich likened the loss of species to removing the rivets in a plane’s wings,’ said Professor Larry J. Gorenflo from Penn State. ‘How many rivets can you remove before the wing falls off and the plane falls out of the sky? Similarly, how many species can you lose before an ecosystem fails? Unfortunately, stopping species loss in a world of 7 billion people is extremely challenging. We conducted this study to understand more about the people living in areas important for biodiversity conservation.’

For the purposes of this study, Professor Gorenflo and colleagues used two sets of data: the locations of the hot spots and high biodiversity wilderness areas, and the geographic locations of more than 6,900 languages. The former were compiled for geographic information system (GIS) applications by Conservation International and the latter for GIS by Global Mapping International.

‘We looked at regions important for biodiversity conservation and measured their linguistic diversity in an effort to understand an important part of the human dimension of these regions,’ Professor Gorenflo explained.

The team observed that intact habitat in 35 hotspots hold over 50% of the world’s vascular plants and 43% of terrestrial vertebrate species. Intact habitat represents just 2.3% of the surface of the planet. Overall, 3,202 languages, or almost 50% of the world’s spoken languages, are found within the 35 hotspots. They exist all around the world, save for Antarctica.

Looking specifically at 5 high biodiversity wilderness areas, which represent just over 6% of the planet’s surface and are home to around 17% of the vascular plant species and 6% of the terrestrial vertebrate species, the researchers identified another 1,622 languages. The uniqueness of these languages, however, makes them vulnerable and increases their risk of extinction.

‘What ends up happening when we lose linguistic diversity is we lose a bunch of small groups with traditional economics,’ said Professor Gorenflo. ‘Indigenous languages tend to be replaced by those associated with a modern industrial economy accompanied by other changes, such as the introduction of chain saws. In terms of biodiversity conservation, all bets are off.’

The loss of a language can trigger a lot of damage. Environmental information is lost, putting much strain on culture, language and words. The researchers say it is important to act and protect cultural and linguistic diversity.

‘I think it argues for concerted conservation efforts that are integrated and try to maintain biodiversity and cultural diversity,’ Professor Gorenflo remarked.

Gorenflo also warns that without cultural and linguistic diversity, which increasingly appears to be tied to biological diversity, biodiversity loss is likely to continue at an alarming rate.

‘In many cases it appears that conditions that wipe out species wipe out languages,’ he adds.

The team said their work can help others further investigate the link between biological and linguistic-cultural diversity.

Multiple thought channels secret to avoiding brain congestion, researchers report

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EU-funded researchers from Germany and the United States report that brain networks may avoid traffic jams at their busiest junctions by communicating on different frequencies, according to findings in a new paper published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The work was boosted by the BRAINSYNC (‘Large scale interactions in brain networks and their breakdown in brain diseases’) project which was funded under the ‘Health’ Theme of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to the tune of EUR 2,978,242.

Image: Cordis

Normally, when scientists study brain networks, areas of the brain that regularly work together, they use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which tracks blood flow. This practice is founded on the assumption that an increase in blood flow to part of the brain indicates increased activity in the brain cells of that region.

Instead, for this study the team, made up of researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in the United States and the University of Tübingen in Germany, used a technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) to analyse brain activity in 43 healthy volunteers.

One of the study authors, Maurizio Corbetta from Washington University School of Medicine, outlines the limitations of MRI: ‘It only allows us to track brain cell activity indirectly, and it is unable to track activity that occurs at frequencies greater than 0.1 hertz, or once every 10 seconds. We know that some signals in the brain can cycle as high as 500 hertz, or 500 times per second.’

MEG however can detect very small changes in magnetic fields in the brain that are caused by many cells being active at once and it can detect these signals at rates up to 100 hertz.

Lead author Joerg Hipp who is based at both the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University of Tübingen reports on their findings:
‘We found that different brain networks ticked at different frequencies, like clocks ticking at different speeds.’

Networks that included the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory formation, tended to be active at frequencies around 5 hertz. Networks comprising areas involved in the senses and movement were active between 32 hertz and 45 hertz. Many other brain networks were active at frequencies between 8 hertz and 32 hertz. These ‘time-dependent’ networks could be described as resembling different airline route maps, overlapping but each ticking at a different rate.

Maurizio Corbetta comments: ‘There have been a number of MRI studies of depression and schizophrenia showing ‘spatial’ changes in the organisation of brain networks. MEG studies provide a window into a much richer ‘temporal’ structure. In the future, this might offer new diagnostic tests or ways to monitor the efficacy of interventions in these debilitating mental conditions.’

The overall aim of the BRAINSYNC project was to understand how neuronal assemblies exchange information (functional or neuronal communication), and how variability in neuronal communication explains variability in behavioural performance, both in the intact and injured brain.

‘Many neurological and psychiatric conditions are likely to involve problems with signaling in brain networks,’ says Maurizio Corbetta. ‘Examining the temporal structure of brain activity from this perspective may be especially helpful in understanding psychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia, where structural markers are scarce.’