In the history of the first modern mammals (i.e., marsupials and placentals), during the Cretaceous, Europe is almost a Terra incognita. No fossils are known between 125 and 84 million years (my), and very few up to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (65 my). In the Cenomanian (99 my) of Charente-Maritime, the discovery of the scientist team from the Muséum1 (CNRS) and the University of Rennes 12 thus provides important information on the early history of these mammals in Europe. The discovery consists of a few teeth, collected after screenwashing of 5 tons of sediment. They belong to a new tiny mammal, named Arcantiodelphys marchandi, which is one of the oldest and most primitive marsupial known in the world. It is also the oldest known representative of the modern therians in Europe.
This discovery is the result of a research program of the University of Rennes 1 on the vertebrates from the Cretaceous of Charentes, in collaboration with the MNHN.
Arcantiodelphys marchandi improves our knowledge of the earliest stages of the marsupial history, so far known mostly from North American fossils. Its main significance is that the beginning of the marsupial history also involved Europe. Furthermore, it confirms faunal links between North America and Europe during the mid-Cretaceous. It is from these primitive marsupials from the “Euramerican” Cretaceous that the modern marsupials colonized the southern landmasses, South America and mainly Australia where they are nowadays well diversified. Opossums and kangaroos are extant representatives of this very old northern origin of the marsupials.
This is a video about carrion crows in Japan, using traffic to open nuts.
Yesterday, there was a BirdLife conference about birds in urban environments in the museum. Since very recently, more people live in the world´s cities and towns than in the countryside. This affects birds as well.
In the museum cinema, there was a lecture by urban planner Angelique Mergler on green urban planning; mentioning parks in New York City and Paris.
After her came biologist Marcel van der Tol from Zoetermeer town. His subject was 50 breeding bird species in Oosterheem. Oosterheem is a new neighborhood being built, with a park and ponds. Mr Van der Tol advises Zoetermeer local authorities on how to plan Oosterheem so that there will be at least 50 breeding bird species there.
Van der Tol said 23 species would almost certainly breed in Oosterheem. They include robin, collared dove, wood pigeon, moorhen, coot, mallard, tawny owl, kestrel, dunnock, chiffchaff, willow warbler, long-tailed tit, blackbird, song thrush, starling, wren, house sparrow, short-toed treecreeper, lesser whitethroat, blackcap, blue tit, great tit, magpie, jay, jackdaw, carrion crow, pheasant, and great crested grebe.
Species which might nest in Oosterheem as well, if helped by a little luck and authorities’ effort, include ring-necked parakeet, swift, sparrowhawk, great spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker, whitethroat, greenfinch, reed warbler, garden warbler, cuckoo, mute swan, and Egyptian goose.
Finally, a category of bird species which would be hard to attract to Oosterheem, which would require real luck and/or effort: long-eared owl, barn owl, stock dove, kingfisher (first nest ever in Zoetermeer this year), grey lag goose, oystercatcher, black-headed gull (there is a breeding colony of 500 couples elsewhere in Zoetermeer), common tern, icterine warbler, sedge warbler, black redstart, pied wagtail, bluethroat, reed bunting, linnet, tree sparrow, barn swallow, house martin (one breeding colony elsewhere in Zoetermeer), sand martin, goldfinch, pied flycatcher, spotted flycatcher, grey heron, tufted duck. And the hobby, with one couple nesting in Zoetermeer town centre now.
To get the maximum number of bird species to Oosterheem, authorities need to provide things like a nesting sandy wall for sand martins, and nest boxes for house martins.
Bird Atlas needs your bird records – Especially Ireland, Wales & Scotland: here.
It is believed that the dead included troops making their final arrangements for deployment to Iraq.
The largest US military base in the world stayed closed yesterday after an army psychiatrist trained to help personnel deal with post-combat stress shot dead 13 soldiers about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: here.
Right-wingers have been looking for a fresh excuse to scapegoat Muslims, and Fort Hood gave them one: here.
Editor’s Note: The horrific shooting Thursday at Fort Hood that claimed 13 lives and hospitalized another 30 people has set off a great deal of speculation as to why the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, did what he did. See here.
The US Army says seven people were killed and 20 wounded in two shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas this morning.
An Army spokesman at the Pentagon says the shootings began about 1.30pm Thursday (6.30am Melbourne time) at a personnel and medical processing centre at Fort Hood.
The spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Banks, says two shooters were apparently involved. There is no word yet on who they were, nor on identities of the dead.
Lieutenant Colonel Banks says the second incident took place at a theatre on the sprawling base.
He says it is too soon to tell whether there is any link to battle stress or repeated deployments. The army is suffering a record high suicide rate and other signs of stress from fighting two wars.
Scientists discover new deep sea life off NZ coast
Wed, 4 Nov 2009
A deep-sea marine biodiversity survey of seamounts on the Chatham Rise has produced a bounty of new species.
The finds were made by National Institute of Water Atmospheric Research (Niwa) research vessel Tangaroa, on 18-day voyage in July along the Chatham Rise.
The rise stretches for 1000km from near the South Island eastward.
The finds include a coral genus Narella and nicknamed “Rasta” because of its long white dreadlock-like branches; a tiny squat lobster measuring 1cm across; and some specimens of sea urchin which are commonly known as Tam O’Shanters due to their similarity to the Scottish hat.
“There are three new corals that we are confident are new species from the area,” said scientist Di Tracey. …
Three surveys of the Graveyard region since 2001 have revealed high levels of biodiversity, and many undescribed species.
They include benthic macroinvertebrates — animals without backbones that are larger than millimetre long — such as corals, sponges, seastars, snails, lobsters, clams, and marine worms.
The first survey alone showed 15 percent of the species collected were unknown in the New Zealand region, plus 14 species new to science. Six new species of lace coral were discovered in the second survey in 2006.
Seamounts can be ecologically valuable as hotspots of biodiversity and economically valuable and they are often the target of commercial fishing.
But the Chatham Rise — where the fishing industry wiped out the commercial viability of the orange roughy through overfishing — is also being targeted by miners eyeing its multi-billion dollar phosphate resources.
Widespread Energy and its parent company Widespread Portfolios applied in August 2007 for a prospecting licence over a 3048 square kilometre area of the rise.
It hoped that 100 million tonnes of phosphorite (rock phosphate) valued at more than $50 billion can be scraped off the seabed.
And an Auckland company Chatham Phosphate Ltd has applied for another 71,750sq km around the Widespread prospect.
The two-legged meat-eater would have measured about 3m long and weighed up to 60kg.
The palaeontologists used computed tomography (CT) techniques to generate a 3D image of the delicate skull to investigate its internal structure in meticulous detail.
Dr Angela Milner, associate keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, told BBC News: “This is a unique specimen. It is the only one of its kind known in the world.”
She added: “It was quite a surprise when our analysis showed we had the oldest known relative of T. rex.
“Fossils collected a century ago can now be studied again with the benefit of much greater knowledge of dinosaurs from around the world.”
Originally described in 1910 as a new species of Megalosaurus, the fossil was presented to the museum in 1942.
The skull had been unearthed during excavations for a reservoir close to Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire.
Dr Milner said that despite obvious differences between the skulls of Proceratosaurus and T. rex - such as their divergent sizes - the two shared many similarities.
“If you look at the animal (Proceratosaurus) in detail, it has the same kinds of windows in the side of the skull for increasing the jaw muscles,” she told BBC News.
“It has the same kinds of teeth - particularly at the front of the jaws. They’re small teeth and almost banana-shaped, which are just the kind of teeth T. rex has.”
“Inside the skull, which we were able to look at using CT scanning, there are lots of internal air spaces. Tyrannosaurus had those as well.”
Although the skull has attracted much interest because of its exquisite preservation, it has not been closely studied until now, thus, its link to the tyrannosaurs remained undiscovered.
“This is still one of the best-preserved dinosaur skulls found in Europe,” said co-author Dr Oliver Rauhut from the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich.
“It is really surprising that it has received so little attention since its original description.”
The International Labour Organization (ILO) warned Tuesday that global growth in workers’ real wages, which fell sharply in 2008, will decline even more in 2009, despite what is being touted by governments around the world as an economic recovery: here.
Workers in the US are increasingly giving up on the idea of retiring at 65, or even 67, while top CEOs are planning to quit their positions and live like royalty: here.
Petrino DiLeo reports that executive bonuses on Wall Street are back to their pre-crisis levels–courtesy of the federal government: here.
A Michigan woman died from a severe dental infection after adult dental Medicaid benefits were cut in the state: here.
The higher education sector in Scotland is facing hundreds of job cuts, as universities declare they are facing a funding crisis: here.
England: Tube workers have besieged London Underground’s HQ in protest at an “obscene” 10-to-one difference between workers’ and bosses’ pay: here.
Left MPs have condemned a cynical Whitehall plot to quietly continue letting Britain’s biggest Rolls-Royce scroungers dodge billions in taxes through offshore banking: here.
Francisco Ayala García-Duarte (16 March 1906 – 3 November 2009) was a Spanish writer and teacher. Born in Granada, at the age of nineteen he published his first novel, Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espíritu.
At the start of the Spanish Civil War, Ayala was out of the country. He returned for a brief time, later serving as secretary of the Spanish Republic’s legation in Prague. After the war he moved to Argentina where he lived between 1939 and 1950. There he taught sociology while continuing to publish works of fiction, literary criticism and sociology, notably a three-volume Tratado de la sociología (1947.) …
Many of his writings deal with the topics of power and abuse of power. In general he has not directly written about the war in Spain, but examines it instead through other periods of history.
He was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the top literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, in 1991 and seven years later the Prince of Asturias Prize for literature, the Spanish equivalent of the Nobel Prize. …
Ayala went into exile at the end of Spain’s 1936-39 civil war as right-wing General Francisco Franco consolidated power, and he only permanently returned to the country in 1980, five years after the dictator’s death.
Scientists have launched an excavation project to dig up Britain’s oldest dinosaur after it spent more than 210 million years entombed in rock.
The condontosaurus antiquus
No, it is Thecodontosaurus antiquus
is the oldest known dinosaur in Britain and one of the oldest in the world.
A rock specimen discovered at Tytherington Quarry in South Gloucestershire in the 1970s contains the fossilised remains of the so-called Bristol Dinosaur.
Scientists at the University of Bristol were finally able to begin the excavation project after securing a grant of £295,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Bristol Dinosaur project will last three years and will see a complete skeletal reconstruction of the dinosaur attempted for the first time.
During the Triassic period, the kangaroo-sized, plant-eating species lived in herds grazing on the lush islands around what is now Bristol.
The outlines of these islands can still be seen today in the shape of the land - Bristol’s Downs were one such island.
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