Paleontology and Astronomy

Mammals may be linked to earlier flight

Mammals may have taken to the skies much earlier than previously believed, according to research published recently in Nature.

Paleontologists have recovered a fossil of a previously unknown bat- or squirrel-size creature that lived in Mongolia about 125 million years ago. It bears evidence that a skin membrane stretched between the animal’s front and rear limbs, providing enough lift for it to glide through the air. The creature, which weighed less than a pound, also apparently had a long, stiff tail that could be used like a rudder in flight, researchers found.

The animal, which is not a direct ancestor of flying squirrels, bats or any other living mammals, lived tens of millions of years before the earliest confirmed record of bats taking wing about 51 million years ago. Before now, the earliest known gliding mammal, a rodent, lived 30 million years ago. The research, led by Jin Meng, associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History’s division of paleontology, shows that there was greater diversity among early mammals than scientists had thought. Indeed, the fossil’s discovery points to the existence of an entirely new group of mammals, researchers said.

“This new evidence of gliding flight in early mammals is giving us a dramatically new picture of many of the animals that lived in the age of the dinosaurs,” Meng said.

— Washington Post

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Google, NASA team up to deliver space images

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (AP) — Google Inc. and NASA Ames Research Center have finalized an agreement to deliver more of the space agency’s imagery and information through the Internet’s leading search engine.

The collaboration marks another step in a partnership announced 15 months ago when Google unveiled plans to build a 1 million- square-foot campus at the NASA center, located a few miles south of the company’s Mountain View headquarters.

Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights so the pictures and data are available to anyone with an Internet connection. “This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said.

Google already draws upon some of NASA’s imagery to provide Web surfers with interactive tours of Mars as part of a 9-month-old service.

“Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google, as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said.

On the Net:

Google Mars: www.google.com/mars/

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