360 Science News

Huge Frog Was Eating Machine

LiveScience.com

With an armored head and a mammoth 16-inch body, it wasn't quite the frog prince. Scientists have discovered the remains of what might have been the largest and fattest frog ever to have lived on Earth. A team of researchers unearthed the fossilized frog in Madagascar. Dating from about 65 million to 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, the frog is 3.5 inches longer than the largest living frog, the goliath frog of West Africa.

The scientists named the creature Beelzebufo ampinga, or "devil frog," because its incredible size, frightening appearance and predatory nature made them call it "the frog from hell," said Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, who led the team that discovered it.

Fierce predators

"They are just these big round blobs, basically all mouth and stomach," Krause told LiveScience. "They were sit-and-wait, ambush predators."

They didn't have very long legs, so they probably didn't hop around much. It was more likely they would let prey come to them. The scientists think they feasted on smaller frogs, lizards and mice.

"When you consider its size, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that it could have consumed some hatchling dinosaurs," Krause said. The largest living frog on Madagascar today, at just over 4 inches long, "would have been a nice hors d'oeuvre for Beelzebufo."

The discovery will be reported on-line this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Land bridge

Krause collaborated with frog experts Susan Evans, lead author of the PNAS article, and Marc Jones of the University College London, to find the ancient frog's closest living relatives. They were surprised to discover that Beelzebufo is very closely related to a family of modern frogs living in South America called Ceratophrys, or "pac-man" frogs, because of their huge mouths.

"The finding presents a real puzzle biogeographically, particularly because of the poor fossil record of frogs on southern continents," Krause said. "We're asking ourselves, ‘What's a South American frog doing half-way around the world, in Madagascar?'"

The discovery may provide direct evidence that Madagascar, the large island off Africa's southeast coast, was once linked by land to South America.

The frogs could not have swum between the two, because they rely on freshwater and can't live in saltwater. Scientists can't rule out the chance that they traveled across the ocean on some kind of float, "but it's sort of impossible to believe that they rafted from South AmericaMadagascar," Krouse said. to

The researchers think there was probably a bridge between the two places, possibly the land that would become Africa or Antarctica. The trouble is, so far the frog fossils found in AfricaSouth America or Madagascar, and paleontologists have found very few frog fossils in Antarctica. are not closely linked to those found in either

The scientists previously suspected a link between Madagascar and South America because they found closely related fossils of Cretaceous animals, including dinosaurs, in both places. The new discovery supports this hypothesis by providing the first evidence of a creature that once lived in Madagascar that has living relatives in South America.

• Antarctic depths reveal bizarre new life forms
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Florida's answer to the abominable snowman.
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Robot Plumbs Lake On Way To Jovian Moon
A polar-style, under-ice exploration may have out-of-this world applications. --ScienceDaily

DA's office finds cache of JFK memorabilia
The batch includes a suspect transcript of a conversation between Oswald and Ruby. --Dallas Morning News

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The weapon the Pentagon wants to use to shoot down a failing satellite has one weakness. --Danger Room

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HIV can 'never be cured'
AIDS virus thwarts even the best drugs by hiding in the gut. --Nature

Third right foot discovered in Gulf Islands
Three severed right feet have washed ashore on the Gulf Islands in the past six months. --Canada.com

First order for pet dog cloning
A South Korean company says it has taken its first order for the cloning of a pet dog. --BBC News

Does faith healing really work?
After years of tortuous pain, Ailsa Marsh was stunned when a spiritual healer banished her suffering in an instant. --News Monster

Identical twins not as identical as believed
Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. --PhysOrg.com

Ghosts of University Park Campus
There apparently are plenty of ghosts to be had at Penn State's University Park campus. --Centre Daily Times

First multiple planet system found by microlensing
The newly discovered system has less massive versions of Jupiter and Saturn. --New Scientist

Scientists Scan Striking Nanoscale Images
Gallery of photos from scanning probe microscopes.
--Wired

Map shows toll on world's oceans
Only about 4% of the world's oceans remain undamaged by human activity. --BBC News

Teleportation and Wormholes
The science behind the new movie 'Jumper.' --LiveScience

High-Tech Lockup
Inside 4 next-gen prison security systems.
--Popular Mechanics

Titan's surface organics surpass Earth
Saturn�s orange moon has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth. --PhysOrg.com

Conspiracy Theories and Cut InterTube Cables
Did the Israelis or the US sever the intertubes providing Iran with internet access? --Earthfiles

Ear-Piercing Sirens Used to Drive Teens Away
'Mosquito' device emits high-frequency noise which is audible to young ears. --AP

Druid Grave Unearthed in U.K.?
A series of graves found in a gravel quarry have been dated to 40-60 A.D. --Discovery News

Barnacles Reach Out To Valentines
Barnacles are stuck to rocks, which presents a challenge for mating. --Scientific American

The End of Aging?
Inside the new hunt for a cure to growing old.
--Popular Mechanics

Organic molecules found on exoplanet for 1st time
Detection offers hope that one day astronomers will be able to analyze the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds.
--New Scientist

UFO spotted over foggy car park?
A freelance photographer captured something unusual in Portsmouth, UK. --Metro.co.uk

Great Seal Secrets Revealed!
Myths surrounding one of America's oldest and most enduring national symbols are about to be debunked.
--AP

Mini-muscleman
Meet the world's smallest bodybuilder. --Daily Mail

Navy Research Paper: 'Disrupt Economies'
A research project calls for creating man-made floods and droughts to disrupt an enemy state.
--Danger Room

Law Officers Describe Shape-Shifting UFO
An interview with a Dublin, Texas constable.
--Earthfiles

Makeover for Europe's Mars robot
ESA's ExoMars rover is scheduled to launch in 2013.
--BBC News

Ghostly Receptors
Seldom are the odd parallels between ghosts and UFOs given their due. --Fate Magazine

Loch Ness monster quest nears end
Robert Rines believed there were at least two Nessies alive in the murky depths of Loch Ness.
--Boston Globe

Reporter on Texas UFO case leaves newspaper
Steve Hammons comments on the integrity of local and national news media. --American Chronicle

UC Davis Tackles Legend Of Chupacabra
California scientists test mysterious DNA.
--CBS 13, Sacramento

Have You Seen This Dog? Only With Telepathy
Animal psychics claim to communicate with missing dog.
--New York Times

Shootings Shatter Gender Barrier
Loren Coleman examines the changing pattern of school shootings. --Copycat Effect

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels.
--New York Times

Ghost attacked me, says spooked Alba
Actress Jessica Alba says she was attacked by a ghost when she was 17. --smh.com.au

3D television 'a reality within five years'
A true 3D TV that does not depend on wearing glasses could be demonstrated within five years.
--Telegraph.co.uk

Shake a leg to power your phone
Electricity can be produced using the mechanics of human walking. --Nature

The world's first time machine?
Tunnel to the past could open door to future within three months, say Russians. --Daily Mail

UFO sightings on the rise
The number of UFO sightings in Britain soared by 40% last year. --Ananova

Wildlife expert tries to back his belief in Bigfoot
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Company sequences man's genome cheaply
Critics question accuracy and US$100,000 price tag.
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Welcome to the Turbulent Year of the Rat
The new Chinese year could see a build-up of international tensions, & natural and air disasters. --AFP

Son of Concorde
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10 Sci-Fi Techs We Could Build...
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Mysterious Symbols Projected in Night Sky
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Scientists Create See-Through Fish
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The long quest for life on Mars
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Cosmic Finger Taps Our Galaxy's Shoulder
A giant gas finger has hooked into the starry disk of the Milky Way. --Space.com

A Medical Mystery Unfolds in Minnesota
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--New York Times

UFO witness claims harassment
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One Embryo from Three Parents
Genetically modified embryos may be answer to deadly disease. --ABC News

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in peace
The guru who introduced the Beatles to transcendental meditation has died at his home in the Netherlands.
--The Guardian

Witnesses in Texas Saw Large Rectangles in Sky
New drawings and testimony emerges from January sighting. --Earthfiles

High-Tech Weaponry at Las Vegas Gun Show
Gallery includes automatic rifles, fiber-optic sights, designer pepper spray. --Wired

Blind Man 'Sees'
With Charles Bonnet syndrome, people who lose sight start seeing things (with audio). --NPR

Luminous UFO Lands in Mexico
Flashes were emitted for over 30 hours, causing alarm among the locals. --Inexplicata

Sniffling mouse could unlock cold cure
The breakthrough means it should now be easier to test new cold remedies. --AFP

Dutch unveil robot to fill car gas tank
A robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors extends from a regular gas pump. --Reuters

Archaeologist Finds Ancient Nasca Iron Ore Mine
Discovery in Peru shows how civilizations before the Inca Empire were mining. --Science Daily

Acid House smiley face found on Mars
The vast visage stares out from a crater.
--The Telegraph

Ayahuasca: A Strange Brew
Can a psychotropic jungle potion cure the existential angst of the McMansion set? --Los Angeles Times

After Accident Woman Finds Cow In Car
Cow lands in back seat (w/photos & video).
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Conspiracy theories emerge after net cables cut
Is information warfare to blame for the damage to underwater internet cables? --abc.net.au

Solar Eclipse Mostly for Penguins
On Feb. 7 the sun will undergo an eclipse that few will see. --Space.com

The Worst Building in the History of Mankind
It's the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea, where the world's 22nd largest skyscraper has been vacant for two decades. --Esquire

'Electricity Woman with amazing powers'
Debbie Wolf claims she causes lights to flicker when she gets stressed. --Daily Mail

Navy Tests Incredible Sci-Fi Weapon
The railgun will fire a projectile more than 230 miles with a muzzle velocity 7 times the speed of sound.
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Scientists create 'no tears' onions
Scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created a "tear-free" onion. --PhysOrg.com

Bouts of hysteria after 'ghostly sightings'
Some 200 students are convinced they saw ghosts flying around their school. --NST Online

Researchers make tiny radio from nanotubes
Nanotechnology advances could lead to faster devices.
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Tamiflu-Resistant Flu in U.S. and Canada
Mutant strain threatens to breach first line of pandemic defense. --Reuters

Blind golfer hits hole-in-one
A 92-year-old blind golfer has hit a hole-in-one in Florida. --Ananova

China plans to halt rain for Beijing Olympics
'Weather modification' team will manipulate the clouds in summer to try to keep the open-air stadium dry.
--Los Angeles Times

Anti-smoking drug may be tied to suicide risks
FDA: Connection between Chantix, psychiatric problems 'increasingly likely'. --AP

Norway in UFO photos
Major research paper available on UFO Photographs in Norway. --forgetomori

'Bizarre' new mammal discovered
The creature is a type of giant elephant shrew.
--BBC News

Blue eyes result of ancient genetic 'mutation'
Scientists believe they have tracked down the cause of the eye color of all blue-eyed humans. --The Telegraph

US drought 'man-made' says study
Water shortages gripping the western US are the result of global warming. --New Scientist

Bat Deaths in NY, Vt. Baffle Experts
Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines. --AP

Green eggs, hold the ham
A chicken in Mexico has gained fame for being able to lay green eggs (video). --Reuters

Tonight - Total Lunar Eclipse

"The Eclipse That Saved Columbus"

On the night of Feb. 20, the full moon will pass into Earth's shadow in an event that will be visible across all of the United States and Canada. The total lunar eclipse will be made even more striking by the presence of the nearby planet Saturn and the bright bluish star, Regulus.

Eclipses in the distant past often terrified viewers who took them as evil omens. Certain lunar eclipses had an overwhelming effect on historic events. One of the most famous examples is the trick pulled by Christopher Columbus.

Shipwrecked

On Oct. 12, 1492, as every schoolchild has been taught, Columbus came ashore on an island northeast of Cuba.

It was on his fourth and final voyage, while exploring the coast of Central America that Columbus found himself in dire straits. Because of an epidemic of shipworms eating holes in the planking of his fleet, Columbus was forced to abandon two of his ships and finally had to beach what was left on the north coast of Jamaica on June 25, 1503.

Initially, the Jamaican natives welcomed the castaways, providing them with food and shelter, but as the days dragged into weeks, tensions mounted. Finally, after being stranded for more than six months, half of Columbus' crew mutinied, robbing and murdering some of the natives, who, themselves grew weary of supplying cassava, corn and fish in exchange for little tin whistles, trinkets, hawk's bells and other rubbishy goods.

With famine now threatening, Columbus formulated a desperate, albeit ingenious plan.

Coming to the Admiral's rescue was Johannes M von Konigsberg (1436-1476), an important German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. Before his death, Konigsberg published an almanac containing astronomical tables covering the years 1475-1506. After it was published, no sailor dared set out without a copy. Columbus, of course, had a copy of the Almanac with him when he was stranded on Jamaica and he knew that on Feb. 29, 1504, a total eclipse of the moon would take place soon after the time of moon rise.

So three days before the eclipse, Columbus asked for a meeting with the native chief and announced to him that his Christian god was angry with his people for no longer supplying Columbus and his men with food. Therefore, he was about to provide a clear sign of his displeasure: Three nights hence, he would all but obliterate the rising full moon, making it appear "inflamed with wrath," which would signify the evils that would soon be inflicted upon all of them.

On the appointed evening, as the Sun set in the West and the moon started emerging from beyond the eastern horizon, it was plainly obvious to all that something was terribly wrong. And, just over an hour later, as full darkness descended, the moon indeed exhibited an eerily inflamed and "bloody" appearance: In place of the normally brilliant late winter full moon there now hung a dim red ball in the eastern sky.

According to Columbus' son, Ferdinand, the natives were terrified at this sight and ". . . with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions, praying to the Admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf."

If Columbus achieved that much with a 15th Century almanac, imagine what he could have done with our modern scientific research. For example, from Physorg.com:

On a large scale, the Milky Way is considered to be a vast cold region punctured with isolated hot clouds and star clusters. While much of this space is cold and empty, researchers have recently discovered the phenomenon of funneling hot plasma. Flowing plasma may funnel from one region to another through empty space, connecting otherwise isolated clouds and clusters throughout the galaxy. The Milky Way as a vast plasma mass?

And you thought you had a huge flat screen TV? Next year, let's use the Hubble to reflect the Sugar Bowl on some giant space cloud.

Enjoy the eclipse - another of God's many wonders.....

Walter

D. B. Cooper

The FBI has issued a new appeal for help in finding the mysterious man who parachuted from a Northwest jet with $200,000 in 1971.

The Star Tribune

It has been more than 37 years, but the FBI hasn't lost interest in Dan (D.B.) Cooper, the man who parachuted from a Northwest Airlines jet over the Pacific Northwest while clutching a bag with $200,000 in ill-gotten gain.

Federal agents say they have reignited their pursuit of the mysterious Cooper.

In a news release issued Monday, the FBI said it is providing to the public a series of photos and information about the case, which has baffled and mesmerized authorities and the public for decades.

"Would we still like to get our man?" the FBI release said. "Absolutely."

The FBI said it's taking the action because of "new technologies like DNA testing."

The questions the FBI said it hopes to answer: Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?

Walter

Sign found in a grocery store......

Rand Study Says Renewable Energy Could Play Larger Role In U.S. Energy Future

Renewable resources could produce 25 percent of the electricity and motor vehicle fuels used in the United States by 2025 at little or no additional cost if fossil fuel prices remain high enough and the cost of producing renewable energy continues falling in accord with historical trends, according to a RAND Corporation study issued in November. Renewable sources currently provide about 6 percent of all the energy used in the United States.

The study was conducted within the Environment, Energy, and Economic Development program of RAND, a nonprofit research organization. RAND found that meeting the 25 percent renewable energy target for electricity and motor fuels together would not increase total national energy spending if renewable energy production costs decline by at least 20 percent between now and 2025 (which is consistent with recent experience), unless long-term oil prices fall significantly below the range currently projected by the Energy Information Administration.

Wind power, solar power and the burning of agricultural waste are all examples of renewable energy sources that can be used to produce electricity. Biomass resources like stalks from food crops, wood material, and grasses also can be turned into ethanol that can be used to power motor vehicles.

The study evaluates the goal known as 25x'25. This refers to having 25 percent of the energy used for electricity and motor vehicle fuel in the United States supplied by renewable energy sources by the year 2025. The report is titled “Impacts on U.S. Energy Expenditures of Increasing Renewable Energy Use.”

The Energy Future Coalition, a nonprofit organization, asked RAND to assess the economic and other impacts of meeting the 25x'25 goal. The RAND study considered technological and economic factors that would affect the costs of renewable energy as well as non-renewable fossil fuels.

“When talking about the impact of increasing use of renewable energy sources in our energy future, it's important to be clear about the assumptions being made about future energy prices and technological developments, not just for renewables but also for competing fossil energy sources,” said Michael Toman, director of RAND's Environment, Energy, and Economic Development program.

Significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion also can be achieved by meeting the 25x'25 goal, the study found – amounting to 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2025, or 15 percent of projected U.S. emissions. In addition, an estimated 2.5 million barrels of oil consumption would be displaced, according to the study.

Previous studies have relied on a handful of scenarios to capture uncertainties in the U.S. Department of Energy's projections of future energy prices and changes in the costs of various technologies. The RAND study examined 1,500 cases of varying energy price and technology cost conditions for renewable and nonrenewable resources. The RAND team developed a model based on the National Energy Modeling System created by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

RAND researchers did not assess the impact of renewable energy used directly by industry in buildings currently using natural gas, in off-road vehicles used for construction and recreation, or in railroad and jet fuel.

RAND researchers assumed that implementation of increased renewable energy use would be carried out at a national level in the least costly manner, versus a more piecemeal approach. Among the important uncertainties considered is the cost to ramp up use of new renewable energy technologies.

The lead author of the study was Mark Bernstein, who was a RAND researcher at the time the report was prepared. Other authors are Jay Griffin and Robert Lempert of RAND.

The study was carried out within the Environment, Energy, and Economic Development program of the RAND Infrastructure, Safety and Environment Division. The division's mission is to improve the development, operation, use and protection of society's essential physical assets and natural resources, as well as to enhance the safety and security of individuals in their workplaces and community.

Walter

---

Adapted from materials provided by RAND Corporation.

Dino-Mummy

A newly found "dino mummy" has exquisitely preserved bones, skin, and possibly muscle and internal organs, scientists have announced.

The duck-billed dinosaur, named Dakota, is already changing theories of how the extinct creatures looked and moved—and may contain preserved ancient proteins that could better reveal the dino family tree.

Scientists today announced the discovery of an extraordinarily preserved "dinosaur mummy" with much of its tissues and bones still encased in an uncollapsed envelope of skin. Preliminary studies of the 67-million-year-old hadrosaur, named Dakota, are already altering theories of what the ancient creatures' skin looked like and how quickly they moved, project researchers say.

Further investigations may reveal detailed information about soft tissues, which could help unlock secrets about the evolution of dinosaurs and their descendents, the scientists added. For now, the team continues to examine the rare specimen, which included preserved tendons and ligaments, and to prepare scientific articles on the find for publication.

"This specimen exceeds the jackpot," said excavation leader Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at Britain's University of Manchester. Most dinosaurs are known only from their bones, which are seldom found joined together as they would be in real life. But "we're looking at a three-dimensional skin envelope," Manning said. "In many places it's complete and intact—around the tail, arms, and legs and part of the body."

(The excavation is the subject of Dino Autopsy, a National Geographic Channel special airing December 9 at 9 p.m. ET/10 p.m. PT. The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and co-owns the National Geographic Channel.)

Find of a Lifetime

The hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, was discovered in 1999 by then-teenage paleontologist Tyler Lyson on his family's North Dakota property. It was an extremely fortuitous find, because the odds of mummification are slim, researchers noted.

First the dinosaur body had to escape predators, scavengers, and degradation by weather and water. Then a chemical process must have mineralized the tissue before bacteria ate it. And finally, the remains had to survive millions of years undamaged.

"What usually would have been wiped out by the decay process—the mineralization has been so rapid that it is trapped and preserved," Manning said. "It's such a unique preservational environment here that we'll be able to say, Well, you basically need these conditions to mummify a dinosaur," Lyson, now a graduate student in geology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, told a National Geographic reporter during a field trip to the excavation site.

"I think that's going to be pretty neat."

Big Rear, Fast Runner

Plant-eating hadrosaurs are often called the "cows of the Cretaceous"—the geologic period that spanned 145 million to 65 million years ago—Manning said. They had horny, toothless beaks but hundreds of teeth in their cheeks and a long, stiff tail that was likely used for balance. Preliminary studies are revealing a surprising side to these reptiles, suggesting that Dakota—even though roughly 35 feet (12 meters) long and weighing some 3.5 tons—was no slowpoke.

With the aid of a large-scale CT scanner, the researchers determined how much muscle mass was packed between the bone and skin of Dakota's tail. This allowed the researchers to infer the muscle mass of the dinosaur's rear end, which they calculated is about 25 percent larger than previously believed. A more muscular rear end means more powerful legs, Manning noted.

He plugged this new measurement into a computer model his team created to figure out how dinosaurs moved.

"Our models confirm this hadrosaur would have had potential to run faster than T. rex," Manning said.

The preliminary calculations suggest Dakota could run 28 miles (45 kilometers) an hour. Tyrannosaurus rex tops out at about 20 miles (32 kilometers) an hour, according to the model.For Manning, the finding makes perfect sense. Hadrosaurs are believed to have been T. rex prey, so evolution would have favored a faster running speed.

"And that's what our initial findings support," he said.

John Hutchinson studies the movement of living and extinct animals at the University of London's Royal Veterinary College. He said caution is warranted for claims based on computer simulations, which he uses for his own work. The margin of error for locomotion computer models can be greater than 50 percent, he noted—enough to wipe out the speed difference between a hadrosaur and a T. rex.

"Knowing the leg muscle mass would reduce at least one uncertainty," he commented via email. "That's progress, but there are still huge uncertainties left."

Showing Some Skin

Research into Dakota's fossilized skin is also yielding image-altering clues to how hadrosaurs may have appeared, Manning's team says. Though the skin has lost its color, much of its texture is still intact, allowing scientists to map it in 3-D to see what Dakota might have looked like.

"There seems to be a variation in scale size that might possibly correlate—as it does in modern reptiles in many cases—with changes in color," Manning said.

"There seems to be striping patternations associated with joint areas on the arm," he added, "and there's interesting information we're looking at in the tail as well." The 3-D preservation of the skin has also prompted the researchers to search for traces of unfossilized soft tissue in the hopes that it might yield protein.

This April, for example, two teams announced the successful extraction and analysis of collagen - a bone protein - from 68-million-year-old T. rex fossils. Those findings supported the hypothesis that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs. Manning's team is currently unable to discuss specific findings, which are pending peer review for publication in a scientific journal.

But team member Roy Wogelius, a geochemist at the University of Manchester, said: "We have an array of chemical analysis techniques that we're applying to the organism—and not just to the skin."

Remains to Be Seen

Other experts remain tight-lipped about the potential of Dakota to yield similar information as the T. rex studies. Mary Schweitzer, a North Carolina State University scientist who worked on one of those projects, declined to comment until formal publication. And Peggy Ostrom, a zoologist at Michigan State University who also studies ancient proteins for clues to how organisms are related to each other, commented only in general terms.

"It's rare to find an articulated skeleton and even more so to find one with fossilized soft tissue," she wrote in an email.

"If such finds show extraordinary preservation, they tempt us to wonder about the possibility of finding [unfossilized] biomolecules that might be remnants of the ancient organism."

Sources: Yale University; NC State; Michigan State University; National Geographic News editor Blake de Pastino contributed to this story.

Mars: Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Solar Cycles

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets. Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars. Abdussamatov's work, however, has not been well received by other climate scientists.

"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. "And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report."

Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."

Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years. These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

No Greenhouse

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.

He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars. But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.

Most scientists now fear that the massive amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air will lead to a catastrophic rise in Earth's temperatures, dramatically raising sea levels as glaciers melt and leading to extreme weather worldwide.

Abdussamatov remains contrarian, however, suggesting that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

Information from NASA and National Geographic contributed to this post.

AT&T Agrees to Net Neutrality for Two Years

Net neutrality is the principle that companies providing access to the Internet cannot discriminate between customers. For instance, consumers get the exact same service from their homes as ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, HBO, Disney, and Dreamworks. Telecom companies claim that they cannot build the advanced Internet of the future unless they are able to charge extra for premium access.

Net Neutrality advocates argue that the Internet was originally developed and built with taxpayer monies and should be seen as a public utility and that it has become, in essence, the public square of the twenty-first century. A multi-tiered system of access would not only limit free speech but also limit important new technologies. What would have happened if YouTube, MySpace, and Flikr had had to pay for premium service? What about the blogosphere?

In order to win approval for its $85 billion merger with BellSouth, AT&T has agreed to observe net neutrality for two years, a window of opportunity for advocates to lobby Congress for a law enshrining net neutrality as a guiding principle of the Internet. It will also put pressure on other telecom companies to follow AT&T's lead as well as a breakthrough for consumers.

Links:

Video from Save the Internet Coalition

Commercial from the Cable and Telecommunications Association

Don't Regulate coalition that includes AT&T and BellSouth

Robert McChesney on COPE Bill working its way through Congress (on Democracy Now, May 8, 2006)

NetCompetition.org coalition that includes AT&T, BellSouth, and other cable and telecommunications firms

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