California Ousts Libya for Heat Record

The world's all-time heat record lowered a tad on Thursday, as the World Meteorological Organization declared a phenomenal 58 degrees Celsius (136.4 degrees Fahrenheit) recorded in Libya 90 years ago was wrong.

Instead, the title of the world's hottest place should go to Death Valley, California, it said. "The all-time heat record held for exactly 90 years by El Azizia in Libya is invalid because of an error in recording the temperature," the UN body said in a statement.

The conclusion comes from a danger-fraught probe last year, conducted in the throes of the Libyan revolution, into how 58 Celsius (136.4 Fahrenheit) came to be documented on Sept. 13, 1922 at El Azizia, southwest of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

A panel of climate experts from around the world found that the thermometer used was not standard and determined that the person who measured the temperature was probably inexperienced.

"We're pretty sure that the person who was tasked with taking the measurements using this instrument didn't know how to use it," Randy Cerveny, the WMO rapporteur on climate extremes who headed the project, said in a video.

In the 1922 logsheet, "the observer had put the numbers in the wrong columns. That kind of tells us that he wasn't used to doing weather observation work," said Cerveny.

He theorized that the unidentified individual had in fact completely misread the thermometer "and was off by five degrees Celsius (8.2 Fahrenheit)."

The committee "decided that this measurement... simply wasn't valid," he said. "It was not the world's hottest temperature."

That honor, the WMO said, has thus been passed to what until now had been considered the next hottest temperature recorded on the planet: 56.7 degrees Celsius (134 degrees Fahrenheit) measured on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley, California.

The investigation "found some pretty startling things" in its detective work, Cerveny said.

And it was also a rollercoaster affair for those who took part in it.

Read more at Discovery News

Heavy Metal Acid Trip Blows the Rockies

Heavy metal and acid rock are taking over in the Rocky Mountains as the climate warms, but it isn't another music festival at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado.

Geologists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) suggested in a recent study that warmer temperatures may be one cause of increased erosion of zinc and other heavy metals into the waterways of the Rockies. Part of that erosional process is called acid rock drainage, in which weathering of pyrite rocks forms sulfuric acid and frees heavy metals into the watershed.

"Acid rock drainage is a significant water quality problem facing much of the Western United States," lead researcher Andrew Todd of the USGS said in a press release. "It is now clear that we need to better understand the relationship between climate and ARD as we consider the management of these watersheds moving forward."

Warmer temperatures are dropping water tables in the Rockies, melting permafrost and increasing the rate of mineral weathering. These processes all contribute to increasing heavy metal concentrations. Levels of dissolved zinc found in Rocky Mountain streams have increased fourfold over the past 30 years.

High metal concentrations can destroy the life of a stream. Some waterways in the Rockies have been rendered lifeless by metal contamination from abandoned mining sites. As the Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety and other organizations work to clean up mountains, climate change may complicate matters as acid rock drainage increases the rate of heavy metal contamination.

Read more at Discovery News

Moms Live Longer to Care for Sons' Young

Human and killer whale mothers often live long past menopause and now research suggests their prolonged life spans may be due, at least in part, to never-ending care for offspring -- especially sons.

The discovery could help to explain why both human and killer whale moms often live longer than males. In the case of killer whales (also referred to as orcas), the life span differences are profound, with females frequently surviving into their 90’s while males are rarely documented as living much past 50.

“For most animal species, the potential for an individual to increase the propagation of its genes stops when they stop reproducing,” co-author Darren Croft told Discovery News. “Our results show that, as with humans, female killer whales can continue to increase the propagation of their genes long after menopause.”

“They do this by helping to increase the survival of their older sons, which in turn increases the number of grandchildren fathered by their sons,” explained Croft, a senior lecturer in animal behavior at the University of Exeter. “Through this process, evolution favors females that live longer after their menopause."

Croft and his colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and York, the Center for Whale Research and the Pacific Biological Station analyzed records spanning 36 years documenting two populations of killer whales in the North Pacific Ocean off the coasts of the United States and Canada. The unique data set consisted of 589 individually identifiable animals, of which 297 died during the study period.

After statistically modeling births to calculate the probability of survival for any individual whale at any age, the researchers found that whales with long-lived mothers tended to survive longer. This particularly held true for sons.

“Due to the stable social structure of resident type killer whales, when sons mate, their offspring are cared for by the females in another family group,” Croft said. “In contrast, when daughters reproduce, the offspring stay in the group, which increases local competition for resources within the family group.”

“Theory predicts that in order to have the best chance of spreading their genes, without carrying additional burden, mothers should focus their efforts on their sons,” he added. “Our research supports this theory and demonstrates the extent to which older sons are dependent on their mothers for survival.”

Killer whale moms may do this by assisting with foraging, providing support during fights and through other means.

Human mothers obviously live in a different societal structure, so caring for sons, daughters, and their grandkids may hold equal importance, at least from an evolutionary standpoint.

Such caregiving might even help to explain why menopause exists in the first place.

“While it is believed that menopause evolved in humans partly to allow women to focus on providing support for their grandchildren, it seems that female killer whales act as lifelong carers for their own offspring, particularly for their adult sons,” Croft said. “It is just incredible that these sons stick by their mothers’ sides their entire lives.”

Michael Cant, an associate professor in evolution and animal behavior at the University of Exeter, Cornwall, told Discovery News, “This new data offers an exciting new insight into the evolutionary puzzle of menopause.”

Read more at Discovery News

World's Tallest Dog and Cat Named

Guinness Book of World Records has just named the world's tallest known dog and cat.

The dog, seen in the above video, is a Great Dane named Zeus. When Zeus stands on his hind legs, he towers 7 feet 4 inches above his owner, Denise Doorlag of Otsego, Michigan.

The three-year-old measures 44 inches from foot to withers, making Zeus the same size as an average donkey.

The humongous hound weighs a whopping 115 pounds and eats around 12 cups of food a day, which is equivalent to an entire 30-pound bag of food. Despite his voracious appetite and the corresponding cost, Doorlag is very happy about her pet and his new honor.

"Zeus is an awesome dog," she was quoted as saying in a Guinness press release."The only downside is that everything costs more; the food, medicines, transport. We had to get a van to be able to transport him, oh, and if he steps on your foot - he leaves bruises!"

When she goes out with Zeus, "The most common thing people ask is: 'Is that a dog or a horse?' and 'Where's his saddle?'"

Zeus broke the record of the previous record-breaking tallest dog, Giant George, who is 1 inch shorter. Zeus is therefore the tallest dog ever recorded in history, according to Guinness.

I hope Giant George and Zeus get along, as that would be quite a sight to have the two of them walking together down the street.

In terms of the tallest cat, that honor went to a feline named Savannah Islands Trouble. (You can see and learn all about him here.) Unfortunately, the cat isn't around to celebrate the victory. He died on August 15 at the age of four years and five months, according to owner Debby Maraspini's tribute page. He "escaped his home on August 15 and was tragically killed," she wrote.

He was 19 inches tall, earning him the Guinness record.

Read more at Discovery News

New, Colorful, Long-Nosed Monkey Discovered

A shy, brightly colored monkey species has been found living in the lush rainforests at the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a find that utterly surprised the researchers who came upon it.

"When I first saw it, I immediately knew it was something new and different -- I just didn't know how significant it was," said John Hart, a veteran Congo researcher who is scientific director for the Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation, based in Kinshasa.

In fact, the find was something of a happy accident. Hart first spied the suspect monkey in 2007 while sifting through photographs brought back from a recently concluded field expedition to a remote region of central DRC.

Yet the image that caught his eye hadn't been taken in the field. It was snapped in a village, and showed a young girl named Georgette with a tiny monkey that had taken a shine to the 13-year-old.

What is that?

It was a gorgeous animal, Hart said, with a blond mane and upper chest, and a bright red patch on the lower back. "I'd never seen that on any animal in the area, so right away I said, 'Hmmm,'" he told OurAmazingPlanet.

Hart decided to get to the bottom of the mystery. Fast forward through five years of field work, genetic research and anatomical study, and today (Sept. 12) Hart and a list of collaborators formally introduced to the world a new primate species, dubbed Cercopithecus lomamiensis, and known locally as the lesula. Their work is announced in the online journal PLOS One.

It turned out that the little monkey that hung around Georgette's house had been brought to the area by the girl's uncle, who had found it on a hunting trip. It wasn't quite a pet, but it became known as Georgette's lesula. The young female primate passed its days running in the yard with the dogs, foraging around the village for food, and growing up into a monkey that belonged to a species nobody recognized.

Further investigation revealed the full story of the strange monkey. It turned out that C. lomamiensis, a cryptic, skittish primate, roams a swath of dense rainforest some 6,500 square miles (17,000 square kilometers).

"For a big mammal to go unnoticed is pretty unusual," said Kate Detwiler, a primatologist and assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University, and an author on the paper. Yet one visit to the area that the lesula calls home reveals why the monkeys escaped scientific notice for so long, Detwiler told OurAmazingPlanet. This region of the DRC is remote and vast.

The trees tower overhead, blocking out the sun, and the forest floor -- the chief domain of the lesula -- is steeped in a permanent gloom. The forest is full of sounds. At first light, the lesulas raise a lilting chorus of booming calls, distinct from the cries of their monkey neighbors who pass their lives in the trees high above the forest floor; at dusk, the cries of African grey parrots echo through the canopy. The earth is wet and soft, and feet sink into the ground with each step. There is a gentle, steady thud as fruit falls from the trees.

One gets the feeling of being on a ship very far out to sea, Detwiler said ?only here, the ocean is the endless expanse of the trees. "I felt so privileged to be there," she said. "I wish everybody could have that experience."

Blue buttocks

The lesulas live in this isolated region in groups up to five strong, and feeds on fruit and leafy plants. The males weigh up to 15 pounds (7 kilograms), about twice the size of the females. They also have some rather arresting anatomical features.

"They have giant blue backsides," Hart said. "Bright aquamarine buttocks and testicles. What a signal! That aquamarine blue is really a bright color in forest understory."

"So in terms of monkey viewing, females can definitely find males," Detwiler said.

"We don't really know what this means because it's very uncommon for monkeys in this lineage," she added.

The only other monkey to share this feature is the lesula's closest cousin -- the owl-faced monkey, a species that lives farther east. At first it was thought the monkeys were close kin, but genetic analysis suggests the two species split from a common ancestor about 2 million years ago.

Now that the new species has been formally identified, Hart said, the next task is to save it. Although the lesula is new to science, it is a well-established sight on the dinner table.

What's for dinner

There's a thriving market for bush meat, particularly in urban areas, Hart said, and the monkeys are just one of dozens of species, from snakes to elephants to apes, that are targeted.

"People have disposable income, and this is the cheapest meat," he said. "Bush meat is a go-to item because it's less expensive than chicken or beef. This is not a new problem, but it's a problem that doesn't have a solution yet."

Read more at Discovery News

Old Supernova Seen in Super Size

This colorful bubble of twisted strands of gas is all that remains of a star -- or, more technically, a pair of stars -- that exploded tens of thousands of years ago, lighting up the night sky here on Earth for several weeks in 1604 and attracting the attention of German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Kepler's supernova remnant is located within the constellation Ophiuchus, but astronomers haven't been able to accurately pin down its distance or how it was formed. Now, with new observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the structure and scale of the remnant are clearer than ever before... and it turns out the stellar explosion was a much larger -- and distant -- event than anyone thought.

Kepler's supernova remnant is what's left of a Type Ia supernova, the end result of a white dwarf star that's been "feeding" on material drawn off a companion star until a critical mass (aka the Chandrasekhar limit) is reached and rapid nuclear reactions are triggered, blowing the pair apart in a powerful, brilliant explosion equal to the light of 5 billion suns.

In fact the brightness of Type Ia supernovae is so consistent and well-known, astronomers use them to gauge intergalactic distances.

The distance to Kepler's remnant, however, has proven to be more elusive. Data gathered with Chandra over the span of more than 200 hours in 2006 has led to the image above, which shows varying X-ray energy levels emitted by the still-expanding gas of the supernova as well as the optical light shed by stars. We can see asymmetrical arcs of X-ray-bright gas in the upper regions of the remnant, which some astronomers are suggesting is the result of the supernova's ejected material plowing through the surrounding, slower-moving interstellar material.

In addition the spectra of these bright arcs reveals the presence of a large amount of iron, which indicates the explosion must have been very powerful. The original white dwarf may have even been emitting nova eruptions prior to the ultimate supernova.

Read more at Discovery News

Controversial ESP Study Fails Yet Again

A study published last year in a scientific journal claimed to have found strong evidence for the existence of psychic powers such as ESP. The paper, written by Cornell professor Daryl J. Bem, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and quickly made headlines around the world for its implication: that psychic powers had been scientifically proven.

Bem’s experiments suggested that college students could accurately predict random events, like whether a computer will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. However scientists and skeptics soon questioned Bem’s study and methodology. Bem stood by his findings and invited other researchers to repeat his studies.

Replication is of course the hallmark of valid scientific research—if the findings are true and accurate, they should be able to be repeated by others. Otherwise the results may simply be due to normal and expected statistical variations and errors. If other experimenters cannot get the same result using the same techniques, it’s usually a sign that the original study was flawed in one or more ways.

Last year a group of British researchers tried and failed to replicate Bem’s experiments. A team of researchers including Professor Chris French, Stuart Ritchie and Professor Richard Wiseman collaborated to accurately replicate Bem’s final experiment, and found no evidence for precognition. Their results were published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Now a second group of scientists has also replicated Bem’s experiments, and once again found no evidence for ESP. In an article forthcoming in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Jeff Galak, Robyn LeBoeuf, Leif D. Nelson, and Joseph P. Simmons, the authors explained their procedure: “Across seven experiments (N = 3,289) we replicate the procedure of Experiments 8 and 9 from Bem (2011), which had originally demonstrated retroactive facilitation of recall. We failed to replicate that finding. We further conduct a meta-analysis of all replication attempts of these experiments and find that the average effect size (d = .04) is no different from zero.” In other words there was no evidence at all for ESP. The paper, “Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi,” is available on the web page of the Social Science Research Network.

Anomalous Results And Replication

So far it’s not looking good for scientific evidence of psychic powers. There are many examples of anomalous studies and experiments that—if true—promise to revolutionize the world but turn out to be wrong. In March 1989 two chemists at the University of Utah, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, announced that they had discovered a technique for creating cold fusion, a potentially limitless source of free energy. Pons and Fleischmann insisted that their research was valid, though in the past quarter-century no one has reproduced their findings; Fleischmann died last month never having been vindicated.

Last year worldwide headlines crowed that a new experiment may have found particles moving faster than light, disproving a fundamental physics premise posited by Albert Einstein. Follow-up studies and experiments failed to replicate the original results.

As the authors of the new study conclude, “[Philosopher of science Karl] Popper defined a scientifically true effect as that ‘which can be regularly reproduced by anyone who carries out the appropriate experiment in the way prescribed’... Though decades have passed, that is still the operational definition of scientific truth. An effect is not an effect unless it is replicable, and a science is not a science unless it conducts (and values) attempted replications. No matter the outcome, it is indisputably admirable for Bem to encourage and facilitate the independent replication of his experiments. It is, by definition, what any scientist should do.”

Of course, the two studies so far do not completely invalidate Bem’s findings; there is no fixed number of failed replications that proves that an original experiment was fatally flawed. However with each study it becomes more and more likely that the claimed scientific evidence for psychic powers was never real.

There is no shame in proposing a wrong hypothesis or offering evidence of an effect that turns out not to be true; in fact it is exactly that self-correcting mechanism that makes science so robust and fruitful. No experiment is perfect, and there is always a margin of error. The problem is not in making mistakes, but in refusing to acknowledge those mistakes.

Read more at Discovery News

Battle-Bruised Skeleton May Be King Richard III

A human skeleton with a cleaved skull discovered beneath a parking lot in England may belong to King Richard III, researchers announced today (Sept. 12), though they have a long way to go in analyzing the bones to determine the identity.

The researchers note they are not saying they have found King Richard III's remains, but that they are moving into the next phase of their search, from the field to the laboratory.

"(W)e are clearly very excited, but the University now must subject the findings to rigorous analysis. DNA analysis will take up to 12 weeks," Richard Taylor, the director of corporate affairs at the University of Leicester, told reporters this morning, as recorded in a tweet.

The remains were hidden within the choir of a medieval church known as Greyfriars, where the English monarch was thought to be buried. Though the location of this church had been lost, historical records suggested Richard III was buried there upon his death in battle in 1485.

Two skeletons were discovered: a female skeleton that was broken apart at the joints was discovered in what is believed to be the Presbytery of the lost Church; the other skeleton, which appears to be an adult male, was found in the church choir and shows signs of trauma to the skull and back before death, which would be consistent with a battle injury, the researchers said.

"A bladed implement appears to have cleaved part of the rear of the skull," according to a University of Leicester statement.

In addition, a barbed metal arrowhead was lodged between the vertebrae of the male skeleton's upper back, Taylor said, adding that the spinal abnormalities suggest the individual had severe scoliosis, though was not a hunchback, as he was portrayed by Shakespeare in the play of the king's name.

Even so, the scoliosis seen in the skeleton would've made the man's right shoulder appear visibly higher than the left one. "This is consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance," according to the university statement.

University of Leicester archaeologists began excavating the parking lot of the Leicester City Council building on Aug. 25, in search of the church and the king's remains. Since then, they have turned up the Franciscan friary, a 17th-century garden thought to hold a memorial to the king and various other artifacts.

On Aug. 31, the dig team applied to the Ministry of Justice for permission to begin exhuming the two skeletons, a process that began on Sept. 4.

"We are hopeful that we will recover DNA from the skeleton," University of Leicester geneticist Turi King said at the briefing, as recorded in a tweet by the university.

The king's tales

King Richard III ruled for England two years, from 1483 to 1485, before dying in the Battle of Bosworth Field, part of the War of the Roses, an English civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

A century later, William Shakespeare penned "Richard III," a play about the tragic king — the last English king to die in battle.

The king seemed to have his own following. "Richard III is a charismatic figure who attracts tremendous interest, partly because he has been so much maligned in past centuries, and partly because he occupies a pivotal place in English history," Philippa Langley, a representative of the Richard III society, said in a statement.

"The continuing interest in Richard means that many fables have grown up around his grave," Langley added. For instance, one far-fetched tale described his bones being thrown into the Soar River.

Read more at Discovery News

Males? These Snakes Don't Need 'Em

Virgin births among captive animals have been described as a desperate attempt by females with no access to males to procreate, but a new study documents several cases of birth by wild female snakes that had no help from the males.

The study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, represents the first time that virgin births have been detected in the wild. It also suggests that absence of males does not always instigate the phenomenon, which occurs among chickens, turkeys, lizards, sharks, insects and many other animals.

For this latest study, the researchers focused on two closely related species of North American pit viper snakes: the copperhead and the cottonmouth.

“In these populations, males are relatively common, hence females were not restricted from access to males, and therefore isolation from males is not a driving factor for parthenogenic reproduction (virgin births) here,” lead author Warren Booth, an assistant professor of molecular ecology at the University of Tulsa’s Department of Biological Sciences, told Discovery News.

Booth studied field-collected pregnant snakes and worked on the research with colleagues Charles Smith, Pamela Eskridge, Shannon Hoss, Joseph Mendelson III, and Gordon Schuett.

Out of a total of 59 litters from the snakes, the scientists selected two for DNA analysis. These two already showed signs of virgin birthing, since the eggs had multiple yolks and the litters included just a single male offspring.

The genetic analysis supported the suspected lack of paternal DNA contribution. Booth explained that, in each case, the female’s egg cell “fused to a part of itself, and her chromosomes doubled.” The offspring wound up having two copies of her set of chromosomes, and therefore half the genetic materials.

“This means she has very reduced diversity across her genome,” he said. “This is essentially an extreme form of inbreeding.”

Loss of genetic diversity can be a problem, leading to deleterious genes in the population. On the other hand, the process for certain species can sometimes purge out bad genes.

For example, Booth said, “We see extreme inbreeding in many insect species, such as bed bugs and cockroaches, and they thrive. So while inbreeding is never ideal, it is not necessarily bad in all cases.”

So far, the offspring of the studied snakes “are outwardly healthy,” he shared, “and on their way to sexual maturity.”

Demian Chapman, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is a leading shark expert. He has documented virgin births in sharks, such as in a female blacktip that was once housed at the Virginia Aquarium.

At the time, Chapman told Discovery News that such a male-less birth “may just be an occasional mistake that sometimes occurs when eggs are left unfertilized.”

But the latest findings suggest that this form of birth may be far more common among some animals than previously realized. Booth said that, based on his own past research on boa constrictors and cottonmouths, virgin births produce about 2.5 to 5 percent of litters. While those numbers aren’t huge, they indicate that dad-less snakes aren’t just an every-so-often novelty.

Read more at Discovery News

Dark Energy Really IS Real

Our universe is a mysterious place. Only 4 percent or so is made up of the ordinary matter we see around us, including all those galaxies filled with stars. The rest, physicists believe, is made of up weakly interacting dark matter, and a mysterious substance called dark energy that is causing the cosmos to expand at an accelerating rate.

At least, that's the working hypothesis, and it seems to fit the data, although there are scientists who question its existence and tout alternatives to explain that accelerating expansion.

A new, two-year study by scientists at the University of Portsmouth and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen concludes that dark energy does, indeed, exist. Those results just appeared in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In the early 20th century, scientists believed the universe was in a steady state. But when Albert Einstein was working on his theory of general relativity, the math just didn't add up: the universe should have been expanding. So he invented something called the cosmological constant -- a mathematical trick to balance everything out so that the equations described a static universe, rather than an expanding one.

But then astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the universe actually was expanding -- Einstein's original equations were correct. He dubbed the cosmological constant (lambda) his "greatest blunder."

The universe wasn't done surprising us, however. In 1998, astronomers studying distant exploding stars called a Type 1A supernovae discovered that not only was the universe expanding, but that the rate of expansion was accelerating due to some type of unknown force or dark energy. And one of the explanations for this effect is -- you guessed it -- Einstein's cosmological constant.

While that discovery snagged its team leaders the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, it's not the only evidence in favor of dark energy. For instance, last May, a team of scientists from Melbourne's Swinburne University announced their independent confirmation of both the existence of dark energy and its rate of expansion, based on four years of data collected by a powerful spectrograph at the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

That study included more than 240,000 galaxies going back over seven billion years and showed that the growth of galaxy clusters and super clusters has slowed down. This means that in the most distant parts of universe -- those further back in spacetime -- gravity dominates. It's only in our current part of the cosmos where dark energy dominates, and hence we are seeing accelerated expansion.

The Swinburne researchers also looked at the distances between pairs of galaxies, and the ripples in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). They found that the average distance between galaxy pairs (about 500,000,000 light years) has been growing because of the expansion of space-time, providing further confirmation of dark energy.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence can be found in a unique feature of the CMB, known as the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect, based on a 1967 prediction that light from the CMB would show a redshift -- i.e., it would become slightly "bluer" -- as it passed through gravitational fields of clumped matter.

Scientists didn't detect the Sachs-Wolfe Effect until 2003 -- Science magazine deemed it the "discovery of the year." It showed up as tiny gains in energy among photons in the CMB, based on comparing the temperature of the CMB with maps of galaxies in our local part of the universe.

As exciting as that discovery was, it was pretty weak signal, and might have been caused by something else -- space dust, for instance. So Tommaso Giannantonio and Robert Crittenden took the lead on a two-year study to re-examine that data and improve the galactic maps used in the original work.

Read more at Discovery News