redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Researchers working to decipher the role of genes since the completion of the Human Genome Project may see their efforts accelerated by a new approach that lets them permanently and selectively delete genes from a cell’s DNA.
The new system, known as CRISPR, was developed by researchers at MIT, the Broad Institute, and the Whitehead Institute, and should allow scientists to study the entire genome at once. In two new papers appearing in this week’s online edition of the journal Science, the researchers describe how it is possible to study all the genes in the genome by deleting a different gene in each of a large population of cells, then observing which cells proliferate under different conditions.
“With this work, it is now possible to conduct systematic genetic screens in mammalian cells. This will greatly aid efforts to understand the function of both protein-coding genes as well as noncoding genetic elements,” said David Sabatini of the Whitehead Institute, MIT professor of biology, and senior author of one of the Science papers.
Using this approach, the researchers were able to identify genes that allow melanoma cells to proliferate, as well as genes that confer resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs. Such studies could help scientists develop targeted cancer treatments by revealing the genes that cancer cells depend on to survive, the researchers said.
Feng Zhang, the assistant professor of biomedical engineering at MIT and senior author of the other Science paper, developed the CRISPR system by exploiting a naturally occurring bacterial protein that recognizes and snips viral DNA. This protein, known as Cas9, is recruited by short RNA molecules called guides which bind to the DNA to be cut. This DNA-editing complex offers very precise control over which genes are disrupted, by simply changing the sequence of the RNA guide.
“One of the things we’ve realized is that you can easily reprogram these enzymes with a short nucleic-acid chain. This paper takes advantage of that and shows that you can scale that to large numbers and really sample across the whole genome,” said Zhang.
Zhang and colleagues created a library of about 65,000 guide RNA strands that target nearly every known gene. They then delivered genes for these guides, along with genes for the CRISPR machinery, to human cells. Each cell took up one of the guides, and the gene targeted by that guide was deleted. If the gene lost was necessary for survival, the cell died.
“This is the first work that really introduces so many mutations in a controlled fashion, which really opens a lot of possibilities in functional genomics,” said Ophir Shalem, a Broad Institute postdoc and one of the lead authors of the Zhang paper, along with Broad Institute postdoc Neville Sanjana.
This approach enabled the researchers to identify genes essential to the survival of two populations of cells – cancer cells and pluripotent stem cells. The researchers also identified genes necessary for melanoma cells to survive treatment with the chemotherapy drug vemurafenib.
Separately, Sabatini and his research team targeted a smaller set of about 7,000 genes, but they designed more RNA guide sequences for each gene. The researchers expected that each sequence would block its target gene equally well, but found instead that cells with different guides for the same gene had varying survival rates.
“That suggested that there were intrinsic differences between guide RNA sequences that led to differences in their efficiency at cleaving the genomic DNA,” said Tim Wang, an MIT graduate student in biology and lead author of the paper.
From that data, the researchers deduced some rules that appear to govern the efficiency of the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and used those rules to create an algorithm that could predict the most successful sequences to target a given gene.
“These papers together demonstrate the extraordinary power and versatility of the CRISPR-Cas9 system as a tool for genomewide discovery of the mechanisms underlying mammalian biology,” said Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute and an MIT professor of biology, a study co-leader with Sabatini.
“And we are just at the beginning: We’re still uncovering the capabilities of this system and its many applications.”
The researchers say that the CRISPR approach could offer a more efficient and reliable alternative to RNA interference (RNAi), which is currently the most widely used method for studying gene functions. RNAi works by delivering short RNA strands known as shRNA that destroy messenger RNA (mRNA), which carries DNA’s instructions to the rest of the cell.
The downside to RNAi is that it targets mRNA and not DNA, so it is impossible to get 100 percent elimination of the gene.
“CRISPR can completely deplete a given protein in a cell, whereas shRNA will reduce the levels but it will never reach complete depletion,” Zhang said.
In future studies, the researchers plan to conduct genome-wide screens of cells that have become cancerous through the loss of tumor suppressor genes such as BRCA1.
If scientists can discover which genes are necessary for those cells to thrive, they may be able to develop drugs that are highly cancer-specific, Wang said.
The strategy could also be helpful in finding treatments that counterattack tumor cells that have developed resistance to existing chemotherapy drugs, by identifying genes that those cells rely on for survival.
The researchers also hope to use the CRISPR system to study the function of the vast majority of the genome that does not code for proteins.
“Only 2 percent of the genome is coding. That’s what these two studies have focused on, that 2 percent, but really there’s that other 98 percent which for a long time has been like dark matter,” Sanjana said.

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

On August 29 of last year, Hurricane Sandy, noted as the most powerful hurricane of the 2012 season, made landfall in southern New Jersey, wreaking havoc across much of the eastern seaboard. Residents of the area faced property destruction and crisis situations like flooding and massive, long-term power outages just in time for a particularly frigid autumn. Now more than a year out from the superstorm, a University of Texas led research team has good news for the region.

In a presentation at this week’s autumn meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, the research team reported that Sandy, destructive as she was, was unable to seriously damage the offshore barrier system that controls erosion on Long Island. The good news was mixed with ongoing caveats regarding potential future sea level rise, the pollution of back-barrier estuaries and closer shore damage.

The team used pre-storm survey data compared to post-storm data to arrive at their conclusion. The post-Sandy data was collected as part of a rapid response coordinated among The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, Adelphi University, Stony Brook University and other regionally-affected institutions.

The post-storm rapid response included marine geophysical surveys of the seafloor and shallow subsurface. These surveys mapped out the sedimentary impact of Hurricane Sandy on the beach and barrier systems of the selected bays, inlets and near-shore areas centered around the south shore of Long Island.

[ Watch the Video: Hurricane Sandy & Rapid Response Science ]

“The shape of the bedforms that make up the barrier system did not change a whole lot,” said co-Principal Investigator (PI) John Goff of the Institute for Geophysics in a statement. “Where we might have expected to see significant erosion based on long-term history, not a lot happened — nothing that ate into the shoreface.”

Stony Brook University, for their part, provided the team with a CHIRP (compressed high-intensity radar pulse) sonar system as well as a high frequency seafloor mapping system. The team, exploring an area approximately one mile offshore, mapped nearly six square miles in total.

“The sand largely took the blow,” added co-PI Jamie Austin of the Institute for Geophysics. “Like a good barricade, the barrier system absorbed the significant blow, but held.”

The Texas-based team has previous experience in this sort of mapping endeavor. In 2008, with Hurricane Ike, their results were not as rosy. That storm, they found, disrupted the natural sedimentary barrier outside the Galveston area, potentially accelerating future erosion of the Texas shore.

Long Island, it turns out, is not Galveston. This is because Long Island has a greater abundance of sand in its overall system. While Hurricane Sandy effectively churned up much of this sand and moved bedforms, the scientists believe the overall quantity of sand in the offshore region helped to maintain the natural barriers shape and integrity.

As mentioned previously, however, the report was not all good news for Long Island. They report the storm brought in new pollutants to the waters just off the Long Island shoreline. Chief among these new pollutants was the detection of heavy metals in a layer of mud deposited offshore. Researcher Beth Christensen of Adelphi University traced their lineage to muds from the South Shore Estuary Reserve. This estuary system has been subjected to pollution from both industry and human habitation over the years.

Less than a year after the storm, the heavy metal concentrations had been naturally dispersed making the toxin level low enough so as not to be an immediate concern, said Christensen.

“But if we continue to see more events like Sandy, we’ll see the introduction of more and more muds from the estuary,” said Christensen, “adding additional toxins to an already stressed system.”

Also of concern is the increase in sea level rise, which is expected to place more pressure on the barrier system. As sea level rises, the onshore impacts from another Sandy-esque storm will go up, states Goff.

“In the long-term, if sea level gets high enough, the barrier system has no choice but to retreat and move landwards,” said Goff, exposing the shoreline to increased erosion. “But at least for the present, there’s no evidence of that being imminent.”

This research represents the sixth rapid response science mission funded by the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin. These missions are key in getting the research teams to the affected areas as quickly as possible after a natural disaster. The speed of deployment allows them to quickly measure the vanishing traces of hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters.

“The faster we get out into the field to measure Earth’s response to naturally destructive events, the better we can relate data to the disasters,” said Austin.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Existing GPS technologies have been enhanced by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to develop new systems for California and elsewhere to provide warning of hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and extreme weather events.

Forecasters at NOAA National Weather Service offices in Oxnard and San Diego, California demonstrated the new technology in July, using it to track a summer monsoon rain affecting Southern California and issue more accurate and timely flash flood warnings. The new technology uses real-time information from GPS stations that have been upgraded with small, inexpensive seismic and meteorological sensors.

Other real-world systems are integrating the new technology as well. For example, it is being used to make damage assessments for hospitals, bridges and other critical infrastructure that can be used in real time by emergency personnel, decision makers and first responders to help mitigate threats to public safety.

The primary goal for hospitals is to shut down elevators automatically and send alerts to operating room personnel in the event of, for example, an earthquake early warning. The earthquake early warning system is particularly effective during large events. The system could be used to detect changes in the structure of bridges due to earthquakes, wind shear and traffic loads, as well.

The implications and possible applications of the new technology were discussed by scientists from JPL and Scripps at the American Geophysical Union meeting this past week.

“These advancements in monitoring are being applied to public safety threats, from tall buildings and bridges to hospitals in regions of risk for natural hazards,” said Yehuda Bock of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Meaningful warnings can save lives when issued within one to two minutes of a destructive earthquake, several tens of minutes for tsunamis, possibly an hour or more for flash floods, and several days or more for extreme winter storms.”

An optimal combination of GPS, accelerometer, pressure and temperature data is the basis for the new technology. This data is collected in real time at many locations throughout Southern California and on large engineered structures—like tall buildings, hospitals and bridges—for focused studies of health and damage. The technology returns data products such as accurate measurements of permanent motions (displacements) of ground stations and instruments deployed on structures, which form the basis for early detection of sustained damage; and measurements of precipitable water in the lower atmosphere, a determining factor in short-term weather forecasting. The combination of sensors significantly improves current seismic and meteorological practices.

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory used a regional collaborative network of GPS stations—newly expanded to provide dense coverage in Southern California—to provide atmospheric moisture measurements to forecasters in the case of the first successful Southern California monsoon forecast and more accurate flash flood warnings in July.

Hundreds of scientific-grade GPS stations throughout Southern California are constantly receiving signals from GPS satellites to determine their precise positions. GPS ground stations are simultaneously measuring water vapor as well as position because water vapor in the atmosphere distorts GPS satellite signals.

“These water vapor measurements are currently being used to help forecasters better monitor developing weather during periods between satellite overpasses and weather balloon launches,” said research scientist Angelyn Moore of JPL. “Our project is upgrading GPS ground stations to get these data to forecasters in minutes to seconds to help them better understand whether summer monsoonal moisture is likely to cause harmful flash flooding.”

“This GPS network provides forecasters with timely and critical information on the availability of atmospheric moisture, allowing us to more accurately forecast and warn for potentially deadly flash flooding and wintertime heavy precipitation events in Southern California,” said Mark Jackson, meteorologist in charge at NOAA’s National Weather Service office in Oxnard.

“Having such detailed and timely information on how much moisture is available helps us better understand and forecast our extreme winter storms fueled by what are known as atmospheric rivers. It can also help us better pinpoint and anticipate thunderstorms capable of producing flash flooding.” Weather forecasters in Southern California are moving from periodic updates of moisture content once every 30 minutes to continuous updates. Balloon launches, from four locations, occur only twice a day.

According to Bock, the technology improves earthquake early warning by analyzing the very first moments of an earthquake in real time to characterize the more violent shaking that will follow. It is possible to predict the arrival of slower-traveling seismic “S” (secondary) waves that cause the most intense shaking by detecting the initial arrival of seismic ‘P’ (primary) waves, which travel through Earth the fastest, at the upgraded GPS stations.

Depending on distance from the earthquake’s epicenter, the warning time can range between several seconds to as long as two minutes. Critical fault parameters, such as earthquake magnitude, can be rapidly and accurately determined to generate ground intensity maps throughout the affected region, and form the basis of tsunami warnings.

The scientists are planning to integrate the technology into earthquake and tsunami early warnings and structural monitoring for the San Diego County Office of Emergency Service. Other institutions are examining the applications of the technology as well, such as hospital monitoring and early warnings for UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest; monitoring of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Long Beach for Caltrans; and forecasts of storms and flooding for NOAA’s weather forecasting offices in San Diego and Los Angeles.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Mysterious green lightning, seen emerging from an ash cloud in images of a May 2008 volcanic eruption in Chile, is likely more common than we realize, according to research presented Monday during the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Green lightning had not really been observed before photographer Carlos Gutierrez snapped photographs of the Chaiten volcano eruption, according to Olive Heffernan of National Geographic. The origin of the unusual phenomenon was unknown until Arthur Few, an atmospheric scientist and professor emeritus at Rice University, began investigating the unusual climatic event.

“I thought, ‘That’s funny; why don’t we see this in lightning storms?’” Few said during the conference. Few believes that the phenomenon is not all that unusual, said Larry O’Hanlon of Discovery News. He believes that it is more common than people realize, but is most likely hidden inside of regular thunderstorms.

“The concealment results from the structure of storm clouds,” Heffernan said. “On the inside, the clouds contain ice crystals that are either positively or negatively charged. Surges of electricity occur between positively and negatively charged regions within the cloud – lightning – but they remain inside, unseen by even the most committed storm chasers. In contrast, volcanic ash clouds carry their electrical charges on the outside, where they are sparked by fragments of rock forcefully ejected into the air during an eruption.”

What Few doesn’t understand, and is currently attempting to find out, is why the ash column produced during the Chilean eruption produced visible green lighting. For answers, he looked at other atmospheric phenomena which appear to be green, such as the northern lights. The aurora glows green, red and white when their oxygen atoms are excited by electrons originating from space. Above 100 km, the northern lights appear to be green.

“My working hypothesis is that the green ones are actually streamers,” Few explained. Streamers are lightning bolts which are effectively “a positive channel being pulled to a negative charge” occurring higher up in the ash cloud. Essentially, the white lightning visible in the Chaiten pictures is a negative charge generating throughout the cloud and curving into its bottom, while the green lighting is the positive streamer that reverses the flow, O’Hanlon said.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Between San Francisco and the Mexican border, US nautical charts have shown seven “chemical munitions dumping areas” along the Pacific Coast since World War II. Little to no information is available, however, about the amount, location or nature of the materials dumped at most of these sites.

Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) described a survey of one supposed deep-water dump site off the coast of Southern California at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Conference earlier this week. The survey found 55-gallon drums and trash, but no chemical munitions. The findings suggest that not all marked sites contain chemical munitions, and also demonstrate the usefulness of underwater robots in surveying such sites to identify areas of concern.

In nautical charts of the US waters, there are a total of 32 chemical munitions dumping areas, seven of which lie between San Francisco and the Mexican border along the California coastline. Some of the marked areas off the coast of California are huge, encompassing more than 1500 square miles of seafloor. Only the area off the coast of San Francisco has been studied in any detail.

MBARI chemical oceanographer Peter Brewer is concerned by the lack of available information. Chemical munitions dumped at these sites could pose hazards to fishers and researchers studying the seafloor. Hundreds of fishermen in Japan, the Baltic Sea, and off the east coast of the United States have been injured by chemical munitions caught in their nets over the last 50 years. Brewer suspects, however, that some of the sites off the coast of California may not contain such munitions. Some of the sites might contain munitions, but the affected areas are likely to be much smaller than the marked off areas of the charts.

To perform a preliminary survey of a marked dump site in the Santa Cruz Basin, about 70 miles southwest of Los Angeles, Brewer and his team used two different types of underwater robots. The site Brewer and colleagues studied is approximately 6,300 feet deep.

MBARI’s seafloor‐mapping autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) spent 18 hours in March 2013, surveying a portion of the Santa Cruz Basin using side‐scan sonar. The AUV followed a preprogrammed zig-zag path approximately 82 feet above the ocean bottom, surveying almost 10 square miles of seafloor. The survey site included areas both inside and outside the marked dump site. The researchers counted 754 “targets,” or objects sticking up from the seafloor, within the surveyed areas.

The AUV sonar surveys allowed the research team to locate hard objects on the bottom of the ocean, however, they did not provide enough detail so that these objects could be positively identified. In May 2013, Brewer and his team returned to the Santa Cruz Basin to videotape the seafloor using one of MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles, the ROV Doc Ricketts.

The ROV captured video showing 55-gallon drums in and on the muddy seafloor. The majority of these rusting barrels were covered with anemones, sponges, crabs and other animals. Other targets discovered by the AUV turned out to be garbage such as canned goods and cases of bottled water. Two small, unarmed drones used by the military for target practice, along with a 98-foot long steel mast from a ship, were also found. The ROV survey found no chemical weapons.

The findings of this partial survey suggest that not all sites marked as chemical munitions dumps may actually have been used for this purpose. The work does demonstrate the usefulness of modern undersea robots, such as MBARI’s seafloor‐mapping AUV, for surveying such marked dump areas relatively quickly. Cartographers will be able to redraw the lines around these areas, based on such surveys, to more accurately reflect what’s on the seafloor.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
An asteroid or comet crashed into a shallow sea near what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico approximately 65 million years ago. A firestorm and global dust cloud resulted, causing the extinction of many land plants and large animals, including most of the dinosaurs.
Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) presented evidence this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) that remnants from this devastating impact are exposed along the Campeche Escarpment—an immense underwater cliff in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
The impact from this ancient meteorite created a crater over 99 miles across. The crater is buried beneath hundreds of feet of debris and at least half a mile of marine sediments, making it nearly invisible for modern geologists, however. The fallout from the impact has been found in rocks around the globe, although there has been surprisingly little research done on the rocks close to the impact site, partially because they are so deeply buried. Currently existing samples of impact deposits close to the crater have come from deep boreholes drilled on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Led by MBARI scientist Charlie Paull, an international team of scientists created the first detailed map of the Campeche Escarpment in March 2013 using multi-beam sonars on the research vessel Falkor, operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Google Maps and Google Earth have recently incorporated the new maps for viewing by researchers and the general public.
Just northwest of the Yucatan Peninsula is the Campeche Escarpment, a 372-mile long underwater cliff. Paull has long suspected that rocks associated with the impact crater might be exposed along this nearly 13,000-foot tall cliff, which is one of the steepest and tallest underwater features on Earth. Except that the Escarpment is thousands of feet below the sea, it is comparable to one wall of the Grand Canyon.
Sedimentary rock layers are exposed on the face of the Campeche Escarpment, much like on the walls of the Grand Canyon. These layers provide a sequential record of the events that have occurred over millions of years. The new maps suggest that rocks formed before, during and after the impact are all exposed along different areas of the cliff face.
Paull hopes that one day, geologists will be able to perform geologic fieldwork — such as collecting samples along the Escarpment — just as they can map layers of rock walking the Grand Canyon. Performing large-scale geological surveys thousands of feet below the ocean surface would have seemed a distant fantasy just a few decades ago. Such mapping has become almost routine for MBARI geologists in the last eight years, with the use of underwater robots.
A new chapter in research about one of the largest extinction events in the history of our planet could be opened up by the new maps and the data they represent. Researchers from MBARI and other institutions are already using these maps to plan further studies in this little-known area. Fascinating new clues about what happened during the massive impact event that ended the reign of the dinosaurs will be revealed through detailed analysis of the bathymetric data and eventual fieldwork on the escarpment – clues that have been hidden beneath the ocean for 65 million years.

[ Watch the Video: Airborne Snow Observatory: Measuring Snowpack from the Sky ]

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

It might have been the driest year ever recorded in California, but thanks to NASA, the millions of people who call the San Francisco Bay Area home had plenty of water this summer, the US space agency said Monday during a media briefing at the 2013 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.

NASA’s prototype Airborne Snow Observatory mission helped water managers in the region achieve near-perfect water operations over the summer, the agency said in a statement. The high-resolution snow maps produced showing the Tuolumne River Basin in the Sierra Nevada helped officials optimize reservoir filling and hydroelectric power production at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and the O’Shaughnessy Dam.

As a result, the reservoir was full at the end of the snowmelt season, there was no water spillage, and nearly $4 million worth of hydropower was generated, scientists from NASA, the University of Washington and McGurk Hydrologic Associates said during the media briefing. The collaboration is a three-year demonstration project between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JP) and the California Department of Water Resources.

“For the first time, Airborne Snow Observatory data are telling us the total water in the snowpack in the watershed and the absorption of sunlight that control its melt speed, enabling us to estimate how much water will flow out of a basin when the snow melts,” explained Tom Painter, the observatory principal investigator at JPL and an adjunct professor of geography at UCLA.

“By combining near-real-time information on the total amount of water in the snowpack with observations of water inflow to Hetch Hetchy reservoir between April and July, we were able to greatly improve the model we developed to predict inflow into the reservoir,” he noted, adding that this allowed reservoir managers to more efficiently distribute water inflow among power generation, water supply and ecological purposes.

Painter said that the higher-quality snowpack measurements and the more efficient reservoir operations will prove to be valuable assets as the community (and the rest of the world) has to deal with global warming, uncertain weather, continuing drought conditions throughout the state and an ever-growing demand for water.

The Airborne Snow Observatory is stationed on board a Twin Otter aircraft, and it measures snow depth and snow reflectivity – the two properties most essential to understanding snowmelt runoff, NASA said. By combining snow depth and estimated density, snow water equivalent (or the amount of water contained in the snow) can be derived and then used in order to determine how much water will run off.

“Snow reflectivity, or albedo, is the fraction of the incoming amount of sunlight reflected by snow. Subtracting reflected sunlight from incoming sunlight gives the absorbed sunlight, which largely controls the speed of snowmelt and timing of its runoff,” the agency explained.

Previously, Tuolumne River Basin runoff forecasts were made using monthly ground snow surveys and daily automated measurements at lower or middle elevations. However, when snow melted in those locations, an unknown amount of snow remained at higher elevations. The observatory was able to measure snow in an area 46 million times larger than that covered by the survey sites, according to the researchers.

“Snow controls high-elevation streamflow and ecosystems, but we’ve historically had to guess how much snow fell and where it was stored,” said Jessica Lundquist, an associate professor at the University of Washington. “With these data, we can improve how we model mountain systems and predictions of how those systems will change in time… To me, the Airborne Snow Observatory snow maps are cooler than pictures from Mars.”

“The Airborne Snow Observatory is an innovative use of NASA advanced sensor research applied to one of the top challenges our nation and our planet face: freshwater management and practical water management information needs,” added Brad Doorn, program manager in Applied Sciences at NASA Headquarters. “The observatory is also advancing our scientific understanding of Earth processes and how we can better monitor them in the future, from both air and space.”

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

It has long been known that ancient Vikings buried dead slaves with their masters, but new isotopic research of ancient skeletal remains is providing at least one researcher with more evidence of how these people lived their lives – more notably what their diets were like.

Elise Naumann, a PhD candidate in archeology at the University of Oslo in Norway, has made several remarkable discoveries using the skeletons that were exhumed at Flakstad in Lofoten. Her research is based on a total of ten individuals, of which at least three were found in double and triple graves and were headless. Her findings are published in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The isotope analyses, combined with analyses of ancient DNA, gave suggestive evidence that the headless skeletons were slaves who were decapitated before being buried with their masters. This discovery says a lot about the great differences between people in the society of the time. “Life was undoubtedly difficult and brutal for the majority of people. Only a very few were privileged,” wrote Mari Kildahl, a journalist with the University of Oslo.

Naumann noted, however, that there is nothing new about the fact that slaves during the Viking era were buried with their masters, often bound hand and foot and beheaded before burial.

What is new, Naumann explains, is how the analytical methods used and their results have offered fresh insights into the society and people of the past. The isotopic analyses have given researchers new information about the diet and health of these people who lived more a thousand years ago. Analyses of the ancient DNA also yield knowledge about genealogy and genetics.

DIETARY DIFFERENCES

Along with the 10 individuals in the latest discovery, Naumann has also investigated the skeletons of at least 46 other individuals buried in single, double and triple graves in the region. Most of these remains were discovered in the three northernmost Norwegian counties and date from between 400 and 1050 AD. Much of the skeletal material for Naumann’s research was borrowed from the Schreiner Collection at the University of Oslo.

Naumann noted that her work on the diet and social structure of these ancient people is fairly novel, noting that hardly any isotopic research has been conducted on skeletal material from this time period.

She found, through the isotopic analyses that sites with double and triple burials included people who did not share a direct bloodline, and diets in each individual were found to be vastly different. In the headless remains, the analyses uncovered diets of mostly fish, synonymous with poor individuals of the period. The other remains showed evidence of diets rich in meat and other land-based foods – foods generally associated with royalty of the time.

The findings suggest that people of rank ate more meat and other animals products than the poor did. The differing diets reflected difference in social status and different lives. Even in a small place like Flakstad, large variations in diet were seen during the time of the Vikings. These variations were seen even within the same household, with large variations seen between men and women, and adults and children.

Naumann explains that this is typical because men traveled more than women. And even though there is little known about the scope of the practice, experts suggest that it was common for parents to put their children in foster care, often with people of lower social status, such as with slaves or servants. This would likely affect the diet of the child and may explain why some of the isotopic analyses show that many people had different diets as adults than they had as children.

Naumann’s research suggests that distribution of food was a significant structuring factor for society during the Iron Age in Norway. She plans to continue her work to learn more about an individual’s life cycle during the Viking era.

“It is possible to use isotope analyses to learn about an individual’s life cycle – about their journey through life. This is something I want to study further. I see a great potential in more advanced use of isotope analysis,” Naumann concluded.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Alternately lethargic and viciously violent, crocodilians are not often thought of as cunning, duplicitous predators. However, a new study in the journal Ethology, Ecology and Evolution has found that these massive reptiles sometimes use sticks and twigs to lure in unsuspecting birds, particularly during nest-building season.

“Our research provides a surprising insight into previously unrecognized complexity of extinct reptile behavior,” suggested study author Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee. “These discoveries are interesting not just because they show how easy it is to underestimate the intelligence of even relatively familiar animals, but also because crocodilians are a sister taxon of dinosaurs and flying reptiles.”

The study focused on two crocodilian species—marsh crocodiles, or muggers, and American alligators. The research team said their study is the first to report tool use by any reptiles and the first known case of predators timing their use of lures to the seasonal activities of their prey.

Dinets said he first observed the behavior in 2007 when he saw crocodiles in shallow water near the edge of a pond in India with small twigs laying across their snouts. The sticks fooled nest-building birds into wading into the water. After lying still for hours, the crocodiles would lunge when a bird neared the stick.

Dinets told The Telegraph that the muggers living in the marshes of India were able to fool some larger birds.

“On one occasion, an intermediate egret approached one of the crocodiles and stretched its neck towards the stick,” he said. “The crocodile lunged at the bird.”

To further investigate this behavior, Dinets and his colleagues observed the reptiles for one year at four sites in Louisiana, which included two bird breeding ground sites and two non-breeding sites.

The researchers saw a significant increase in alligators prominently displaying sticks on their snouts from March to May, nest-building season. The team also saw that the reptiles in the breeding, or rookery, sites used the lures during and after the nest-building season. At non-rookery locations, the reptiles used lures only during the nest-building season.

Dinets added that juvenile crocodilians did not exhibit this same behavior. He said the narrowness of their snout could be a limiting factor.

“This study changes the way crocodiles have historically been viewed,” said Dinets. “They are typically seen as lethargic, stupid and boring but now they are known to exhibit flexible multimodal signaling, advanced parental care and highly coordinated group hunting tactics.”

While American alligators are fairly common, muggers are considered ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The muggers’ range stretches from the Middle East to nearly China.

A freshwater species of crocodiles, muggers prefer shallow lakes, marshes or slow-moving rivers. Muggers are considered to be more mobile on land and will travel sizable distances over land in search of a better habitat. They will also chase prey on land for short distances. They have been known to dig burrows for shelters during the dry seasons in Southern Asia.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Alaska climate scientist Charles Monnett has settled a lawsuit with the US Department of the Interior over the now famous ‘Drowning Polar Bear’ controversy. Monnett alleges that the government office was tried to silence him to protect its agenda.
Monnet was temporarily suspended in 2011 during an inspector general’s inquiry into a polar bear research contract he oversaw while working with what is currently the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). An employee within the Department of the Interior asserted that the scientist wrongfully leaked government records and that he and a collaborator intentionally left out or supplied false data in a paper documenting the drowning of polar bears.
In the paper, Monnett and a colleague reported seeing four dead polar bears while conducting an aerial survey in 2004. The bears were seen floating in the water after a storm and were presumed drowned while trying to swim long distances between ice packs. The Monnett paper concluded that drowning-related polar bear deaths may become more prevalent in the future if the regression of Arctic ice continues. The paper is said to have galvanized the climate change movement regarding the plight of the drowned polar bears.
The federal inquiry ultimately found no evidence of scientific misconduct. However, Monnett was chastised for the improper release of emails that would eventually be used by an appeals court to stop an Arctic oil and gas exploration plan approved by BOEM.
The scientist was eventually allowed to return to work, but work focusing on the Arctic had been reassigned, according to Jeff Ruch, executive director of the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which helped Monnett file a complaint last year.
According to details of the settlement release by PEER, Monnett will receive $100,000 but cannot work for the Interior Department for five years. He also agreed to retire, effective Nov. 15. For their part, the federal agency agreed to vacate the letter of reprimand and give Monnett a certificate for his work on the contested project.
“This agency attempted to silence me, discredit me and our work and send a chilling message to other scientists at a key time when permits for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic were being considered,” Monnett said in a statement released by PEER. “They failed on the first two goals, but I believe that what they did to me did make others afraid to speak up, even internally.”
“Following over two years of hell for me and my family, my name has been cleared and the accusations against the scientific findings in our paper have been shown to be groundless,” Monett added. “However, I can no longer in good conscience work for an agency that promotes dishonesty, punishes those who actually stand up for scientific integrity, and that cannot tolerate scientific work not pre-shaped to serve its agenda.”
“Dr. Monnett made it clear that he wanted to return to meaningful scientific work again but could not foresee that being possible anymore inside Interior,” Ruch said in the same statement. “If there was any doubt, the five-year employment ban on such a well-qualified, award-winning scientist makes it unmistakably clear that independent scientific views are not welcome in any corner of the Department of Interior.”

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The world’s largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations, according to a new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

The research team consisted of 40 scientists from 28 international organizations. They assessed 14 desert species, finding that half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range. It is difficult to be certain of the causes of these declines because of a chronic lack of studies across the region due to political instability. The team suggests, however, that over-hunting is likely to have played a major role.

The Bubal hartebeest is completely extinct; the scimitar horned oryx is only found in captivity; and the African wild dog and African lion have disappeared from the Sahara. The study, published in Diversity and Distributions, reveals that other species have fared only marginally better. The dama gazelle and addax are gone from 99 percent of their range; the leopard has lost 97 percent of its range; and the Saharan cheetah has disappeared from 90 percent.

The only species that still inhabits most of its historical range is the Nubian ibex, but even this species is classified as vulnerable due to numerous threats including widespread hunting.

More conservation support and scientific attention for the desert is necessary, according to the team. They note that 2014 is the halfway point in the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification and the fourth year of the United Nations Decade for Biodiversity.

“The Sahara serves as an example of a wider historical neglect of deserts and the human communities who depend on them,” said Sarah Durant of WCS and ZSL. “The scientific community can make an important contribution to conservation in deserts by establishing baseline information on biodiversity and developing new approaches to sustainable management of desert species and ecosystems.”

Some governments in the region have recently made large commitments to protect the Sahara. For example, Niger has established the massive 37,451 square-mile Termit and Tin Toumma National Nature Reserve, which harbors most of the world’s 200 or so remaining wild addax and one of a handful of surviving populations of dama gazelle and Saharan cheetah. With the support of the Chadian government, the scientists hope to reintroduce the scimitar horned oryx in the wild in the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve.