How did primate brains get so big?

Top and bottom views, respectively, of the virtual brains of Notharctus tenebrosus (A, B, C, E and F), Adapis parisiensis (G and H) and Smilodectes gracilis (bottom two rows) within transparent renderings of their skulls.

Virtual brains reconstructed from ancient, kiwi-sized primate skulls could help resolve one of the most intriguing evolutionary mysteries: how modern primates developed large brains.

University of Florida paleontologists found clues in the remarkably preserved skulls of adapiforms, lemur-like primates that scurried around the tropical forests of Wyoming about 50 million years ago. Thought to be a link between primitive and advanced primates, their fossil skulls were the best evidence available for understanding the neuroanatomy of the earliest ancestors of modern primates. But there was just one problem -- the brain cavities of the fragile skulls contained only rock and dust.

That is, until Arianna Harrington, then a UF undergraduate student and later a master's student at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, used CT technology to create the first virtual 3-D brain casts of the early primates. The eight virtually reconstructed and dissected brains -- the most ever created for a single study -- show an evolutionary burst including improved vision and more complex neurological function preceded an increase in brain size, said Harrington, now a Duke University doctoral student. Details of the findings are described online in the Journal of Human Evolution.

"It may be that these early specializations allowed primate brains to expand later in time," said Harrington, the study's lead author. "The idea is that any patterns we find in primate brain evolution could lead to a better understanding of the early evolution that led to the human brain."

Scientists have long debated whether primates have always had big brains compared to body size, or if this was a trait that appeared later. The new study's findings are consistent with previous endocast studies of Australopithecus afarensis, the oldest hominid known, and Victoriapithecus macinnesi, an early Old World monkey, which showed brain size increase followed brain specialization in early hominids and monkeys.

Adapiforms, which are not directly related to humans, evolved after the earliest primate ancestors, called plesiadapiforms, which lived about 65 million years ago. Harrington and colleagues created virtual endocasts for three different species of adapiforms: Notharctus tenebrosus and Smilodectes gracilis from the middle Eocene Bridger formation of Wyoming and a late Eocene European specimen named Adapis parisiensis.

Adapiforms' skulls differ from the earlier plesiadapiforms in a few ways including having more forward-facing eyes. Thanks to the new virtual endocasts, scientists were able to take a closer look at anatomical features which revealed that, while adapiforms placed relatively less emphasis on smell more similar to modern primate brains, the relative brain size was not so different from that of plesiadapiforms, said study co-author Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum.

"While it's true humans and other modern primates have very large brains, that story started down at the base of our group," Bloch said. "As our study shows, the earliest primates actually had relatively small brains. So they didn't start out with large brains and maintain them."

Read more at Science Daily

New, Nearby Earth-Like Planet Discovered

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of our nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

Scientists are preparing to unveil a new planet in our galactic neighborhood which is "believed to be Earth-like" and orbits its star at a distance that could favor life, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Friday.

The exoplanet orbits a well-investigated star called Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri star system, the magazine said, quoting anonymous sources.

"The still nameless planet is believed to be Earth-like and orbits at a distance to Proxima Centauri that could allow it to have liquid water on its surface -- an important requirement for the emergence of life," said the magazine.

"Never before have scientists discovered a second Earth that is so close by," it said, adding that the European Southern Observatory (ESO) will announce the finding at the end of August.

The report gave no further details.

Contacted by AFP, ESO spokesman Richard Hook said he is aware of the report, but refused to confirm or deny it. "We are not making any comment," he said.

NASA has announced the discovery of new planets in the past, but most of those worlds were either too hot or too cold to host water in liquid form, or were made of gas, like our Jupiter and Neptune, rather than of rock, like Earth or Mars.

Last year, the U.S. space agency unveiled an exoplanet that it described as Earth's "closest-twin."

Named Kepler 452b, the planet is about 60 percent larger than Earth and could have active volcanoes, oceans, sunshine like ours, twice as much gravity and a year that lasts 385 days.

But at a distance of 1,400 light-years away, humankind has little hope of reaching this Earth-twin any time soon.

In comparison, the exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, if confirmed, is just 4.24 light-years away.

This is a mere stepping stone in relation to the scale of the universe but still too far away for humans to reach in present-generation chemical rockets.

Read more at Discovery News

'Flamboyant' New Sea Slug Needs a Name

A "photogenic and flamboyant" new species of sea slug has been found in waters off North Western Australia, according to the Western Australian Museum.

The discovery shows that even very distinctive animals can go undiscovered over long periods, particularly if they live in more remote or less-traveled locations.

In this case, Nerida Wilson, a senior research scientist at the museum, first noticed the nudibranch while diving. That was 16 years ago. It's taken this long to scientifically confirm that the colorful creature is a new species.

Now the race is on to name the new marine species, and the public is asked to help.

The museum, along with Radio Nation's "Off Track" program, is holding a contest to determine the second part of the slug's name. The genus for the new nudibranch species is Moridilla, so they are looking for Moridilla x, with you filling in the "x." (Scientists use the letters "sp" in place of the "x" when referring to a species that hasn't been fully named yet.)

Below are some examples of what common complete scientific names look like:

Humans = Homo sapiens; Domestic cats = Felis catus

Some pretty awful entries have come in so far. One media outlet suggested something like Moridilla mcslug. You can do better! The competition closes at the end of Sunday, Aug. 14, U.S. ET time (23:59 Australia time on Monday, Aug. 15).

In addition to the honor of naming the nudibranch, the winner will also receive two flights to Perth, Australia, hotel and transportation -- plus a private tour of the museum to see the specimen.

"Off Track" and the museum recently released the first ever video of the animal:

They have also shared a list of factoids to consider when coming up with the name. They include:

•     If threatened, the nudibranch has an amazing flashing display, which involves whipping its cerata (orange-tipped appendages) in and out. This creates a colorful and "scary" warning to predators that eating this thing might be dangerous.
•     The cerata will regenerate over time if they're lost in an accident.
•     It is a hermaphrodite and its sex organs are near what we might think of as its neck.
•     It can grow to about 4 inches long.
•     This species appears to be very active, and does not spend as much time hiding in crevices as other nudibranchs do.
•     It moves via a snail-like foot that is cream-colored.
•     Its oral tentacles are orange and tap in front of the sea slug as it moves, sensing the way by touch.
•     It has chemically sensitive organs known as rhinophores that stand up alert like feathery rabbit ears.
•     The nudibranch breathes through its skin.

Read more at Discovery News

Study Draws New Map of Human Passage into Americas

The first people to reach the Americas could not have passed through the ice sheet-cleaving inland corridor long thought to be the entry point of humans to the continents, according to a study published Wednesday.

More likely, the New World pioneers of our species -- probably some 15,000 years ago -- inched along a Pacific coastline free enough of ice to support life-sustaining flora and fauna.

The exact route and timing of this maiden migration remains conjecture, the researchers said.

But what is certain, according to findings reported in the journal Nature, is that the textbook version of that passage is wrong.

For decades, scientists favoured a scenario something like this.

About 14,500 years ago, a 1,500-kilometre (900-mile) north-south corridor opened up between the Cordilleran ice sheet -- which covered roughly what is today the Canadian province of British Colombia -- and the much larger Laurentide ice sheet, which smothered the rest of Canada.

The Ice Age was slowly giving way, but still held the region in its grip and -- draining the oceans by dozens of metres -- forged a land-bridge between Eurasia and Alaska.

So far, so good.

About a thousand years later, according to this theory, the first Ice Age humans moved through this elongated inland gateway to found new cultures to the south.

Among them was the Clovis people, who first show up in the archaeological record more than 13,000 years ago.

This storyline presumes, of course, that these path-breaking early people found sustenance along the way.

And that's where the theory falls apart, according to Mikkel Pedersen, a researcher at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, and lead author of the study.

"The earliest point at which the corridor opens for human migration is 12,600 years ago," he told AFP.

While the passage may have been free, "there was absolutely nothing before this date in the surrounding environment -- not plants, not animals."

Nothing, in other words, that would have allowed humans to feed themselves during a long, hard slog between towering cliffs of ice.

Other research showing that humans might have arrived in the Americas at least 14,500 years ago -- and perhaps a couple of thousand years before that -- had already begun to undermine the ice sheet corridor hypothesis, forcing experts to look more closely at the possibility of a coastal route.

Pedersen and colleagues now appear to have closed the door on the inland route for good.

The innovative methods they used for reconstructing the late Ice Age ecosystem were crucial.

Rather than hunt for DNA traces of specific plants or animals buried in sediment -- the standard approach -- Pedersen's team used what is called a "shotgun" method, cataloguing every life form in a given sample.

"Traditionally, we have been looking for specific genes from a single or several species," he explained.

"But the shotgun approach really gave us a fantastic insight into all the different trophic" -- or food-chain -- "layers, from bacteria and fungi to higher plants and mammals."

The researchers chose to extract sediment cores from what would have been a bottleneck in the inland corridor, an area partly covered today by Charlie Lake in British Columbia.

The team did radiocarbon dating, and gathered samples while standing on the frozen lake's surface in winter.

Read more at Discovery News

Our ancestors: More gorilla than chimp

The StW352 partial right calcaneus (top) and images of a rendering (bottom) generated from high resolution CT scans.

A new study that for the first time examined the internal anatomy of a fossil human relative's heel bone, or calcaneus, shows greater similarities with gorillas than chimpanzees.

The study, titled: Trabecular architecture in the StW 352 fossil hominin calcaneus and published in the Journal of Human Evolution, was undertaken by a team of international researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, Duke University, University of Southern California and Indiana University in the US.

The team examined the internal anatomy of our human relative, the StW 352 Australopithecus africanus fossil, from South Africa's rich fossil record in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, some 40km from Johannesburg.

They analyzed the structure and orientation of trabecular struts -- the spongy material inside a bone -- in the fossil from Sterkfontein Member 4, demonstrating greater similarities between it and the heel bone of gorillas rather than humans or chimpanzees.

In doing this, the team revealed new insights into how our ancestors moved through and interacted with their environment approximately 2-2.5 million years ago. Similarities between the fossil from Sterkfontein and gorillas indicate that Australopithecus africanus, the species of human ancestor (or hominin) also represented by the Taung Child, or at least this individual member of the species, exhibited gorilla-like levels of joint mobility and structural reinforcement.

Results of the new study were surprising because other recent studies of the australopithecine calcaneus, focusing on its external anatomy, have emphasised similarities with chimpanzees or humans.

However, since the organisation of trabecular bone is determined in part by how an animal interacts with its environment during its lifetime, the gorilla-like features observed in the present study are particularly compelling in revising how we view behavioural reconstructions of our australopithecine ancestors.

Lowland gorillas are generally regarded as less arboreal than chimpanzees -- they spend less time in trees and generally less time climbing -- although it is important to remember that even gorillas depend on arboreal resources for their survival. Thus, the gorilla-like features in the Australopithecus africanus calcaneus substantiate claims that our hominin ancestors depended on arboreal resources for their survival, but importantly, it provides evidence that gorilla-like foot function should be considered more frequently when discussing the evolution of human feet and how they functioned within the environment.

Read more at Science Daily

Greenland Shark Lives at Least 272 Years

This Greenland shark has just been tagged and is swimming toward Uummannaq Fjord in northwestern Greenland.

There is a shakeup in the list of the world's longest-lived animals, as researchers have just determined that Greenland sharks live to be at least 272 years old, making them the vertebrates -- animals with a backbone or spinal column -- with the longest-known life expectancy.

Like an Olympic race for longevity, the Greenland sharks now exceed other incredibly long-lived animals, such as bowhead whales and tortoises. The findings, reported in the journal Science, indicate that the large, carnivorous sharks could even live much longer than 272 years.

Julius Nielsen, a doctoral student at the University of Copenhagen and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, told Discovery News: "We report the oldest shark to be at least 272 years (old). In more technical terms, it is with 95% certainty between 272 and 512 years old."

He added that the shark most likely died at around 390 years old, but due to the noted age range, he and his team stuck with the lower and more conservative figure for the paper.

It has long been suspected that Greenland sharks live ultra-long lives, but figuring out just how long has stumped marine biologists for decades. Usually the age of sharks and rays can be determined by counting seasonally deposited growth layers in hard calcified structures, such as fin spines. Greenland sharks, however, lack these hard structures.

To get around the problem, Nielsen and his team analyzed the eye lens nucleus of 28 female sharks sampled as accidental by-catch during the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources' annual fish and shrimp surveys. The research project is nicknamed Old and Cold, referring to the sharks' chilly environment and advanced ages.

Co-author Christopher Bronk Ramsey, a professor of archaeological science at the University of Oxford, told Discovery News, "The eye lens in all large animals forms during the initial development of the animal, and so dating this gives the age of the animal. Other body parts typically grow, or at least the carbon overturns over time. This is not possible for the lens because it has no internal blood supply."

The scientists measured the radiocarbon content of the Greenland shark eye lenses. Then, they estimated the age of the individuals by matching and calibrating the data using data representing radiocarbon changes in the northern North Atlantic marine food web the past 500 years.

The study marks the first time that scientists have applied a radiocarbon approach on eye lenses to date the longevity of a fish, which sharks are. Ramsey indicated that even he is in awe of the fact that the Bayesian statistics behind some of his and his colleagues' work were formulated in the 18th century, when the oldest of the sharks in the study were alive.

"This perhaps puts quite nicely into perspective how long the lives of these animals are, and conversely, how much humans have achieved within the lifetime of one of these sharks," he said.

A Greenland shark in the icy waters of Disko Bay, western Greenland.

The researchers estimate that the long-lived Greenland sharks do not reach sexual maturity until around 156 years of age. Ramsey suspects that, since females have to attain a certain size to keep the developing shark embryos within their bodies, they cannot begin to mate until they reach that size. Their growth rate is incredibly slow.

As for why this rate is so slow, and why the sharks live such long lives, Ramsey said these characteristics are probably due to "low metabolic rate, cold temperatures and limits to food supply. The shark is a very slow moving, cold-blooded species."

Researchers like Michael Keane of the University of Liverpool are studying long-lived animals to determine if they possess special genes or other features that help to safeguard them against age-related diseases, particularly cancer. Such research is still in its relative infancy, so more revelations about nature's own 'fountain of youth' are yet to come.

Ramsey said at least one commonality seems to apply to all of the long-living species: a very low metabolic rate.

Read more at Discovery News

Perseid Meteor 'Outburst' Could Be Awesome

All predictions suggest there's going to be a spectacular meteor shower, so get outside and look up!

It's that time of the year when dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle rains down on our atmosphere, producing the famous Perseid Meteor Shower.

The shower, which peaks around Aug. 12 every year, rarely disappoints and is known to generate its fair share of bright meteors, colloquially known as "shooting stars." The Perseids are a favorite among amateur astronomers, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere as the warmer nights and (if you're lucky) clear summer skies allow comfortable and extended viewing sessions.

Also, as with every meteor shower, no specialist equipment is needed. You just need a comfortable spot, warm clothes (yes, even in the summer, as sitting and lying still for long periods can sap body heat) and patience.

But this year holds some extra excitement -- there's going to be an outburst... probably.

As a comet orbits the sun, it deposits ice and dust particles as a trail through interplanetary space called a meteor stream. You can imagine these streams as the contrail produced by aircraft; meteor streams trace out the paths the comets have taken during their various orbital circuits. Every year at around this time, the Earth passes into Comet Swift-Tuttle's dusty trail.

Over the tens to hundreds to thousands of years after being deposited in space, these meteor streams are influenced by the gravities of the planets (particularly Jupiter) and it just so happens that this year, three different meteor streams are coinciding as Earth orbits through them.

"This year Jupiter's influence has moved the 1079, 1479, and 1862 streams closer to Earth, so all forecasters are projecting a Perseid outburst with double double normal rates on the night of August 11-12," Bill Cooke, Head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, told EarthSky.org.

So what does this mean for us? It could mean that we see up to 200 meteors per hour. But these are meteors and just because there's a statistically higher chance of seeing more meteors than usual, it's by no means a sure bet. Still, the models strongly suggest there will be an outburst, so don't miss it -- get outside and watch for those streaks of light.

Though the peak is likely to be observed from the night of Aug. 11 to the pre-dawn morning of Aug. 12, it's worth taking a look tonight (Aug. 10) as activity will be picking up. Just go outside, look for the Perseid "radiant" (the location in the sky the meteors appear to originate), which is the constellation of Perseus and get comfortable.

Want to find out more about the Perseids and chat with astronomy amateurs and professionals? Be sure to follow #MeteorWatch on Twitter and across other social media platforms to join in!

"The Perseid Meteor Shower will be at its most active over the next few days and I will be doing my yearly #MeteorWatch for it," Adrian West (@VirtualAstro), astronomer and organizer of the MeteorWatch.org website, told Discovery News. "I'm trying my best to make astronomy more popular and accessible and the Perseids are always a winner."

Read more at Discovery News

Did Meteorite Impacts Sterilize Subsurface Mars Life?

The sites of meteorite impacts on Mars are often considered to be good places to look for life. After all, it's most likely that if any trace of life (past or present) ever took hold on the Red Planet, it would most likely be preserved under the bedrock of Mars' harsh surface. Should there be a recent impact, could we search the debris to seek-out this recently excavated pristine rock for life?

Alas, in new research, this kind of impact crater search could be a fool's errand; the energy of the impact likely sterilized any material we'd consider organic and related to life.

Researchers from Imperial College London carried out simulations of meteorite impacts in the lab to see how organic compounds fared when exposed to the kinds of impact pressures they could experience on Mars.

What they found wasn't very promising if we hope to find evidence of life inside impact craters. For example, organic compounds associated with basic microbial and algal life (known as long chain hydrocarbon-dominated matter) were destroyed by the pressure of impact. On the other hand, other organic compounds associated with plant life (known as aromatic hydrocarbons) were chemically altered, but, according to a press release, "remained relatively resistant to impact pressures."

Meteorites often contain organic chemicals not related to life that are resistant to the pressures of massive impacts.

So far, there has been little evidence of organics found that would suggest any kind of life has ever existed on Mars, but this new research provides an insight to what could be a previously overlooked complication in that search for life.

"We've literally only scratched the surface of Mars in our search for life, but so far the results have been inconclusive," said Mark Sephton of Imperial College London. "Rocks excavated through meteorite impacts provide scientists with another unique opportunity to explore for signs of life, without having to resort to complicated drilling missions. Our study is showing us is that we may need to be nuanced in our approach to the rocks we choose to analyse."

Rather than relying on computer simulations of meteorite impacts, the researchers used a piston cylindrical device to recreate the pressures and temperatures associated with a range of impact energies on various materials. They will continue to carry out these lab tests to see what energies give hypothetical Mars life the best chance of leaving their biological signature and which will pulverize their biology into oblivion.

Read more at Discovery News

Galápagos faces first-ever bird extinction

This is an adult male Galápagos Vermilion Flycatcher on Isabela Island, Galápagos. This species of Vermilion Flycatcher is not extinct, unlike its close relative, the San Cristóbal Island Vermilion Flycatcher.

Scientists have discovered a new species of colorful songbird in the Galápagos Islands, with one catch: it's extinct. Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco State University (SFSU), the University of New Mexico (UNM), and the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO) used molecular data from samples of museum specimens to determine that two subspecies of Vermilion Flycatchers, both found only in the Galápagos, should be elevated from subspecies to full species status. One of these newly recognized species -- the characteristically smaller San Cristóbal Island Vermilion Flycatcher -- hasn't been seen since 1987 and is considered to be the first modern extinction of a Galápagos bird species. The findings were published online earlier this May in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

"A species of bird that may be extinct in the Galápagos is a big deal," says Jack Dumbacher, co-author and Academy curator of ornithology and mammalogy. "This marks an important landmark for conservation in the Galápagos, and a call to arms to understand why these birds have declined."

The study examined the complex evolutionary history of Vermilion Flycatchers by using advanced genetic techniques. In the absence of living tissue, the team turned to the California Academy of Sciences, which houses the largest collection of Galápagos bird specimens in the world. Specimens collected and preserved over 100 years ago allowed the team to carry out DNA sequencing and piece together an evolutionary history of the species.

Vermilion Flycatchers exhibit a complex evolutionary history having branched from an ancestral population into twelve recognized subspecies with ranges that span across the Americas and the Galápagos Islands. This study compares their evolutionary history against the way scientific authorities currently classify the species (and subspecies) to look for any inconsistencies.

"Access to museum collections such as the Academy's for pursuing these types of studies is invaluable," says Christopher Witt, study co-author and associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico. "Preserved specimens can provide the crucial links needed to better understand how life on Earth evolved."

Two subspecies of the Vermilion Flycatcher, both found only in the Galápagos, were determined to be so genetically distinct that the team elevated them to full species status: Pyrocephalus nanus (throughout most of the Galápagos) and Pyrocephalus dubius (only on the island of San Cristóbal). The latter -- significantly smaller and subtly different in color from the other species -- is commonly known as the San Cristóbal Vermilion Flycatcher and hasn't been seen since 1987.

"Wouldn't it be great if the San Cristóbal Vermilion Flycatcher weren't extinct? No one is looking, I'm pretty sure of that," says Alvaro Jaramillo, study co-author and biologist at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Searches for the San Cristóbal Vermilion Flycatcher have turned up no evidence so far of its existence on the easternmost island of the archipelago, the only place on Earth it is known to have existed. But Jaramillo claims we shouldn't be so quick to give up on future sightings. "At the very least, this discovery should motivate people to survey and see if there are any remaining individuals of the species hanging on that we don't know about."

What exactly drove the San Cristóbal Vermilion Flycatcher to extinction remains unknown, but two invasive threats to the archipelago likely played a part: rats and parasitic flies (Philornis downsi). Rats often climb into nests to eat bird eggs, while the parasitic fly can kill growing chicks. These invasive species are severely impacting the remaining populations of Vermilion Flycatchers in the Galápagos, with some islands no longer hosting populations that once thrived there.

The Galápagos have been renowned for their species diversity since Charles Darwin -- an honorary Academy member inducted in 1872 -- described the islands' biodiversity in vivid detail through his writings. Despite the lasting connection between Darwin's landmark work on evolutionary biology and the iconic islands, conserving Galápagos biodiversity remains a challenge.

Read more at Science Daily

Specialized life forms abound at Arctic methane seeps

This image shows a chemosymbiotic worm (Siboglinidae) from Bjørnøyrenna crater field. The siboglinids are dependent on microbes for their nutrition. This successful symbiosis relies on the microbes to convert the methane to organic material that provides energy for the worms.

Cold seeps are places where hydrocarbons, mostly methane, emanate from the sea floor. Unlike the hydrothermal vents, the fluids and bubbles are no hotter than the surrounding seawater, thus the name.

But like the hydrothermal vents, cold seeps can support high densities of specialized life forms through a process called chemosynthesis.

These seeps can dramatically influence many aspects of the overall seabed community, even in the frigid and dark Arctic Ocean, new study featured in Marine Ecology Progress Series shows.

"For the first time, we have documented that methane seepage clearly influences faunal communities on the bottom of the ocean in high Arctic areas around Svalbard Archipelago." says CAGE PhD candidate Emmelie Åström who is the lead author of the study.

Plenty but not diverse

Many cold seeps have recently been discovered and mapped on the Arctic shelf of Western Svalbard and Barents Sea. These are connected to melting of methane hydrate, an ice-like substance that forms, and is stable, under the sea floor in cold temperatures and under high pressure.

The study found that methane seeps have a strong localized influence on the abundance and diversity of benthic organisms. The total biomass at seepage sites was significantly higher around the cold seeps compared to non-seepage sites nearby.

"However even though there was a lot of life around those seeps, most of it was composed of a few species that are highly tolerant of the difficult, methane-rich environments, or even more specially adapted to thrive on methane as an energy source. This led to a substantially lower diversity of species at the cold seeps," says Åström.

Chemosynthesis -- a successful life strategy

Åström and colleagues discovered dense fields of chemosymbiotic worms, so-called Siboglinids, around the cold seeps. These are cousins to the dramatic and huge hydrothermal vent worms.

The siboglinids are dependent on microbes for their nutrition. This successful symbiosis relies on the microbes to convert the methane to organic material that provides energy for the worms.

"Our study shows that the effect of these Arctic methane seeps on life at the sea bottom can be strong but is highly localized, reflecting strong gradients associated to the focused methane emission. This means that the environment changes quickly. The organisms living here have to be flexible and tolerate large changes." Emmelie Åström points out.

Cold seeps can be difficult to spot in contrast to dramatic black smokers of hydrothermal vents. But the observations of specialized -- life forms surrounding them may give scientists an indication on location and the amount of methane release.

Read more at Science Daily