Strange phallus-shaped creature provides crucial missing link Jeudi, 14 Mars 2013 08:49 News Two individuals of Harrimania planktophilus, a modern enteropneust (harrimaniid) worm. Proboscis to the left. Christopher Cameron of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences and his colleagues have unearthed a major scientific discovery - a strange phallus-shaped creature they found in Canada's Burgess Shale fossil beds, located in Yoho National Park. Their study, to be published online in the journal Nature on March 13, 2013, confirms Spartobranchus tenuis is a member of the acorn worms group which are seldom-seen animals that thrive today in the fine sands and mud of shallow and deeper waters. Since their discovery in the 19th-century, some of the biggest questions in hemichordate evolution have focused on the group's origins and the relationship between its two main branches: the enteropneusts and the pterobranchs, including graptolites. Undescribed species of a modern enteropneust (ptychoderid) worm.
The Vulcan Project | Plots The following represent particular space/time snapshots of the Vulcan inventory. They are presented as a checkpoint for using our data and to provide quick views of the Vulcan inventory. Full resolution images can be acquired by clicking the images. The image above-left shows the location and magnitude of CO 2 emissions from major power producers under the Continuous Emissions Monitoring program of the Emissions Trading System. Units: Million tonnes of carbon/facility/year. The image above-right shows the location and magnitude of the industrial point sources of CO 2 emissions derived from the National Emissions Inventory. The image above-left shows the location and magnitude of the transport CO 2 emissions (onroad, nonroad, and airport). The image above shows the complete Vulcan CO 2 emissions (all sectors - those presented in the first four figures above) after it has been gridded to the common 10 km x 10 km Vulcan grid. Here are a couple of images for the state of Indiana.
Investors Seek Ways to Profit From Global Warming Investing in climate change used to mean putting money into efforts to stop global warming. Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), and other firms took stakes in wind farms and tidal-energy projects, and set up carbon-trading desks. The appeal of cleantech has dimmed as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have faltered: Venture capital and private equity investments fell 34 percent last year, to $5.8 billion, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Photograph by Getty Images Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter. Photograph by Edith Polverni/Getty ImagesHotter temperatures Derivatives that help companies hedge against abnormal weather and natural catastrophes are drawing increased interest from some big players. Drought is helping spur business at Water Asset Management. Photograph by BloombergLonger droughts
Massive Louisiana sinkhole caused by oil industry just keeps on growing A sinkhole triggered in Louisiana by the fossil fuel industry grew to 12 acres over the weekend, and it appears that hundreds of displaced nearby residents will never be able to return to their homes. The sinkhole has been growing since it appeared in August. It was caused by a salt mining operation that sucked brine out from beneath the Assumption Parish marsh and piped it to nearby petrochemical facilities. Houston-based Texas Brine had apparently excavated too close to the surface, and officials are worried that a similar fate could befall another Texas Brine salt mining site nearby. Salt is used by the oil industry to stabilize the earth around drilled wells. Natural gas is belching out of the sinkhole and the waters that have filled it are covered with a rainbow slick of oil. From the Daily Comet: About 350 people living in the area have been under an evacuation order and many of them displaced for more than seven months, with no end in sight.
GSA press release - Hydro-Fracking: Fact vs. Fiction GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 4–7 November 2012 Boulder, CO, USA –In communities across the U.S., people are hearing more and more about a controversial oil and gas extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing – aka, hydro-fracking. Controversies pivot on some basic questions: Can hydro-fracking contaminate domestic wells? Does it cause earthquakes? How can we know? What can be done about these things if they are true? "When people talk about contamination from hydraulic fracturing, for instance, they can mean a lot of different things," says hydrogeologist Harvey Cohen of S.S. On the other hand, when petroleum companies talk about risks to groundwater from hydro-fracking, they are often specifically referring to the process of injecting fluids into geologic units deep underground and fracturing the rock to free the oil and gas it contains, says Cohen. “That would be the 100 percent confident solution,” says Cohen of the tracers. www.geosociety.org
First documented case of child cured of HIV Researchers today described the first documented case of a child being cured of HIV. The landmark findings were announced at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Confirmation of the cure was made possible by a grant the Foundation awarded to Dr. "The child's pediatrician in Mississippi [Dr. According to Dr. The only other documented case of an HIV cure to date remains that of Timothy Brown, the so-called "Berlin patient." This new case points to the tantalizing possibility that different populations of HIV-positive people might be cured in different ways. "Given that this cure appears to have been achieved by antiretroviral therapy alone," said Dr. The Mississippi case also underscores the importance of identifying HIV-positive pregnant women, expanding access to treatment regimens than can prevent mother-to-child transmission, and of immediately putting infants on antiretroviral therapy in the event that they are born HIV positive.
Mosh Pit Math: Physicists Analyze Rowdy Crowd hide captionFans in the mosh pit during the performance of Liturgy at the 2012 Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park, Chicago, on July 14, 2012. Roger Kisby/Getty Images Fans in the mosh pit during the performance of Liturgy at the 2012 Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park, Chicago, on July 14, 2012. Physics and heavy metal don't seem to have a lot in common, but Matt Bierbaum and Jesse Silverberg have found a connection. Both are graduate students at Cornell University. They're also metal heads who enjoy going to concerts and hurling themselves into mosh pits full of like-minded fans. About five years ago Silverberg took his girlfriend to her first gig. While he was watching, he realized that the motion of people in a mosh pit looks kind of like molecules moving in a gas. "It was basically just this random mess of collisions, which is essentially how you want to think about the gas in the air that we breathe," he says. YouTube Note: This video contains profanity.
Adam Lanza Taking Antipsychotics By now the whole country is fully embroiled in the Gun Control debate, spurred by the grisly murder of 27 people, mostly kids, at the Sandy Hook Elementary school last Friday. Guns might not be the only problem though. New York Magazine wrote a piece about shooter Adam Lanza's supposed "aspergers" syndrome as a "red herring" meant to distract from the real problem (guns, of course, the subject goes without mentioning). Inside the piece though they report Adam Lanza's uncle said the boy was prescribed Fanapt, a controversial anti-psychotic medicine. UPDATE: Since the publishing of this article, New York Daily News has removed the reference, the originator of the quote from Lanza's "uncle," because they believed him to be an "imposter." Fanapt was the subject of a Bloomberg report when it passed regulators, after previously getting the "nonapproval" stamp. There are many reasons, some of which have to do with competing entities in a competitive market. Psychiatric
NASA MSFC on USTREAM: . Science At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where the nation's journey to space began more than a half-century ago, a dedicated group of engineers, scientists and business professionals lead the development and testing of tomorrow's flagship space vehicles, space systems and rocket engines. We pursue cutting-edge scientific discoveries that improve and protect lives on Earth. And we work to discover the secrets of the universe, increasing our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it. Marshall became a NASA field center on July 1, 1960. With our highly skilled and diverse workforce, proven technical and scientific experience, and state-of-the-art laboratories and test facilities, Marshall stands at the intersection of science and exploration -- delivering safe, affordable and sustainable solutions that will change our world… and bring us closer to countless others across the cosmos. Below are links to the NASA missions supported by the Marshall Center.
Sentient Organizations: A Cryptozoological Approach First of all, let go of the possibility that I might at all be speaking metaphorically or figuratively. I think it is possible — probable, even — that some organizations, be they businesses or churches or street gangs or what have you, are literally alive. Alive to the point that studies should be made to classify them taxonomically as a new branch on the tree of life. Alive to the point that many of them are aware and self-aware. And I’m going to say the word “literally” again just so you get the point. I first broached this topic in a serious fashion when I was researching and writing my portion of the presentation for Stan Woodard’s Atlanta Zombie Symposium in September of 2009. I understand that for some of you this isn’t going to be anything like a gosh-wow concept. While I am definitely speaking literally, I will resort to metaphors to paint the picture. And yes, I am working on the assumption that evolutionary mechanisms are a fact. You see that in humans, too. Ask any demon.
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