DRINK A GLASS 

Japan assures diplomats tainted Fukushima water is safe



Japan plans to release contaminated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. File Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA-EFE

Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Japanese government said Monday the planned release of tainted water from Fukushima would have no impact on oceans.

During an information session for foreign embassy officials in Tokyo, the Japanese foreign ministry sent signals of reassurance regarding a plan to release tritium-tainted water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Mainichi Shimbun and Kyodo News reported.

A total of 28 diplomats representing 23 countries were in attendance, according to reports.

The water comes from Fukushima, where 170 tons of water is contaminated every day at the plant that was severely damaged during a catastrophic earthquake in March 2011. Water has been poured to cool the melted fuel, according to Kyodo.

Japan has been purifying the contaminated water using an advanced liquid processing system, or ALPS. The process does not remove tritium and leaves traces of radioactive elements.

Tokyo has defended its plan to release the water, but neighboring countries, including South Korea, are opposed to the measure.

On Monday, officials from Japan's ministry of economy, trade and industry said they do not think there would be an impact on surrounding countries.

Japanese fishermen also oppose the measure. Releasing the water into the ocean could affect sales of local seafood, they say.

Japan is planning to release the tritium-tainted water at a time when it is taking stricter measures against travelers from China.

Jiji Press reported Monday Japan turned away five foreign nationals originating from Hubei Province following new restrictions at the border.

Foreigners who have stayed in the Chinese province in the past 14 days or who hold passports issued in the province are banned from entry, according to the report.

Japan has confirmed 20 coronavirus cases since the outbreak in China in December. Japanese airports have built new quarantine stations exclusively for travelers from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, according to local press reports.

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Authorities investigate 15th inmate death at Mississippi state prison


A 15th inmate has died in Mississippi state prison since near the end of last year. Photo courtesy of Mississippi Department of Corrections/Twitter

Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Authorities are investigating the 15th inmate death in a Mississippi state prison since late December.

Officials found Jesus Garcia, 39, lying in his cell unresponsive Saturday at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, spokesperson Issa Arnita, of Management and Training Corp., the company that runs the prison, told The Hill in a statement.

Garcia was pronounced dead at 12:52 p.m. after life-saving efforts were unsuccessful.

"The cause and manner of death are under investigation," Arnita told the Hill. "There were no obvious signs of assault."

RELATED Mississippi prison system records 8th death in less than month

Garcia was serving a 20-year sentence for capital rape in a DeSoto County case, the Clarion Ledger reported.

His death marks the 15th inmate to die in a state prison since Dec. 29 and the fifth in little more than a week.

Two inmates, Nora Ducksworth and Jermaine Tyler, died at Marshall County Correctional Facility.

RELATED 2 inmates killed during fight in Mississippi prison

Ducksworth's death remains under investigation though initial signs showed the death was due to natural causes. Tyler's death showed "no initial signs of foul play," according to MTC.

One inmate, Joshua Norman, was found hanging in a one-man cell at Parchman, and another inmate, Limarion Reaves collapsed while talking to a relative on a facility phone at Kemper-Neshoba Regional Correctional Facility and was pronounced dead later at a local hospital, according to a release.

On Jan. 27, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves vowed to close Parchman's Unit 29 cell block after the ninth inmate death in a month there.

RELATED Mississippi authorities apprehend escaped inmate, one still at large

On Jan. 7, the South Poverty Law Center asked the Department of Justice to investigate the conditions in the state prison after five inmates died in 10 days.

Also, in early January, entertainment mogul Jay-Z filed a lawsuit on behalf of 29 state inmates who say authorities have done nothing to stem the violence.

Corrections officials previously attributed some of the deaths to gang violence and officials have said lack of funding prevents them from addressing problems.

Last week state lawmakers began to introduce legislation to address violence and living conditions.

"We need to get started as quickly as possible," House Corrections Chairman Kevin Horan, I-Grenada, said.

A group of sheriffs proposed taking medium-threat prisoners to regional jails to take pressure off state facilities. They said the plan could save $22.5 million because it costs about $14 more to house each inmate daily in a state-run facility compared to a county-managed one.

Mississippi governor calls for closing prison cell block after 9th death

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

ByDaniel Uria

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Monday called for the closure of the 

Mississippi State Penitentiary's Unit 29 cell block after nine inmates 

have died in a month. 

Photo courtesy Mississippi Department of Corrections/Twitter

Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves vowed to close the Mississippi State Penitentiary's Unit 29 cell block after the ninth death of an inmate in a month.

During his State of the State address on Monday evening, Reeves ordered the closing of the cell block in the prison known as Parchman where nine inmates have died since Dec. 29.

"I have instructed the Mississippi Department of Corrections to begin necessary work to start closing Parchman's most notorious unit, Unit 29," Reeves said. "I've seen enough. We have to turn the page. This is the first step and I have asked the department to begin the preparations to make it happen safely, justly and quickly."

On Sunday, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said 26-year-old inmate Joshua Norman was found dead in his one-man cell.

"No foul play is suspected, according to the Sunflower County Coroner as an ongoing investigation continues and the official cause and manner of death are pending autopsy results," the department said.

Earlier this month, entertainment mogul Jay-Z filed a lawsuit on behalf of 29 inmates in the state penal system who say authorities have done nothing to stem violence inside prison walls.

The suit names Mississippi corrections chief Pelicia Hall and Parchman Penitentiary Superintendent Marshal Turner as defendants and cites violations of Eighth Amendment rights and identifies conditions within the Parchman facility.

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Two more Mississippi inmates killed in prison: 
9 inmates dead in less than a month
Alissa Zhu, Mississippi Clarion Ledger 
 

© Vickie D. King/Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Corrections In 1900, the Mississippi Legislature appropriated $80,000 to buy the nearly 4,000-acre Parchman Plantation to build a prison in the middle of the Mississippi Delta.

JACKSON, Miss. – Two inmates were killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman on Monday night, the Mississippi Department of Corrections announced Tuesday, bringing the death toll at Mississippi prisons up to nine in less than a month.


The most recent deaths appear to be "an isolated incident – not a continuation of the recent retaliatory killings," the department said in a tweet that provided scant information.

On Dec. 29, corrections department officials announced a statewide prison lockdown following a fight at South Mississippi Correctional Institution that left one inmate dead and two others injured. In the following days, riots and fights continued despite the lockdown, leading to four more killings across the state. Some of the violence, officials have said, is gang-related.

'A recipe for disaster': Democratic lawmakers visit Parchman after deadly violence
Prison crisis: Inmates killed during Mississippi's prison violence: Who are they?

The lockdown has since been lifted on all prisons except Parchman, where much of the violence has taken place. Seven men incarcerated at Parchman have died this month, including three who were killed by other inmates, one who died at a hospital of natural causes and one who was found hanging in his cell over the weekend, according to Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) did not release the names of the men who died Monday and said Parchman's chaplain has reached out to next of kin.

No additional details were provided. MDOC said the agency is investigating and will share more information later.

Burton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Activists say gangs alone are not to blame for the recent surge of violence. Systemic issues related to repeated budget cuts and chronic understaffing have created an environment for violence to thrive, they say.

Prison crisis: Jay-Z lawsuit. Deaths. Riots. Gang violence. What you need to know about Mississippi's troubled prisons

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and nearly a dozen civil rights and social justice organizations had requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Mississippi prisons, charging that state leaders have known about the understaffing and "horrific conditions," yet have repeatedly failed to take action.

Parchman inmates are suing former MDOC commissioner Pelicia Hall and the prison's superintendent Marshal Turner, alleging they have violated prisoners' constitutional rights by subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment. The incarcerated men are being represented by attorneys working with hip-hop stars Jay-Z and Yo Gotti.

The lawsuit describes unsanitary conditions inside Parchman, including flooding, black mold and a rat infestation. Units go without running water and electricity for days at a time, it alleges.

Follow reporter Alissa Zhu on Twitter @AlissaZhu.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Two more Mississippi inmates killed in prison: 9 inmates dead in less than a month


2 Inmates Killed in Mississippi Prison That Continues to Struggle With Deadly Violence

Josiah Bates,Time•January 21, 2020

Two prisoners were killed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman on Monday night. It’s the latest deadly incident at the prison, which has been dealing with stretches of violence in the past few weeks.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) says an altercation between multiple inmates left Timothy Hudspeth, 35, and another inmate with fatal injuries. The second inmate was not named, pending notification of his family.

“The safety of staff and prisoners at Parchman is our immediate priority, and we are working hard to restore and maintain order,” Interim MDOC Commissioner Tommy Taylor said in a statement sent to TIME. “We believe that the motivation behind this latest altercation is limited to this new tragic set of circumstances. The environment that makes such violence possible must be addressed quickly, and we are committed to making changes to do so.”

Officials at the prison are continuing to investigate the incident. -

Parchman is the same prison that had three deaths from Dec. 29 to Jan. 3. During that same week, two other inmates were killed in separate Mississippi prisons. Two inmates also escaped from Parchman on Jan. 3 and were captured on Jan. 6. That same day, MDOC officials also sent more than 300 prisoners at Parchman to a private facility in Tutwiler, MS for their “safety” amid understaffing at the state penitentiary.

According to the Associated Press, another inmate was found hanging on Saturday night at Parchman. The inmate, Gabriel Carmen, had reportedly been upset and was throwing fecal matter before he died. An autopsy is underway, the AP reported.

More than two dozen inmates sued the state of Mississippi on Jan. 14, and are asserting that the prisons are understaffed, that they’re being forced to live in inhumane conditions and that the prisons are “plagued by violence,” according to AP. Rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti are paying their attorneys’ fees, the AP also reported.

MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall stepped down from her position last week shortly after Mississippi’s new governor, Tate Reeves, took office. Hall said she is going to work in the private sector and will be advocating for criminal justice reform. Former state lawmaker Tommy Taylor was appointed as Interim Commissioner. Reeves also announced last week that he was forming a group of “diverse, experienced Mississippians” to conduct a nationwide search for a permanent Commissioner, and that he will assign an officer from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations to look into possible criminal misconduct at Parchman.

“We must get to the heart of the problem. And it starts with bringing order to Parchman,” Reeves said in a statement. “We will make progress, day by day, until we have a system that we can trust. It will be a long road, but it starts today.”

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In New York lab, centuries-old corals hold clues to climate shifts

PALISADES, N.Y. (Reuters) - Some 20 miles north of New York City, a team of scientists is searching for clues about how the environment is changing by studying organisms not usually found in the woods around here: corals.


In the labs of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a research unit of Columbia University overlooking the Hudson River, the scientists led by Professor Braddock Linsley pore over feet-long coral cores they extracted from far-away reefs.

For Linsley and his colleagues, corals are a precious repository of clues tmsnrt.rs/360ebeX about the past that may help predict future climate trends. They can also reveal how much and how fast environmental conditions have changed during a certain period of time.

Cores are the hard, stony part of a coral underneath the top of the colony - its skeleton. Much like trees, corals produce growth rings that record climatic conditions like seawater temperatures and rainfall as they grow.

In a lab room packed with boxes of coral samples, Linsley and a small team of colleagues cut the cores into slabs and then X-ray the slabs to reveal the annual growth bands.

Using dentist drills, they pulverize small pieces and run geochemical analyses of the coral dust to reconstruct changes in the temperature, salinity and acidity of the water around the coral on a monthly basis going back hundreds of years.

A school of fish swim above a staghorn coral colony as it grows on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
“It is years of lab work and a lot of frustration but once you get to that point, the final product is just so exciting because you’ve got this long dataset,” Linsley said.

Coral reefs develop over thousands of years and are vital to the survival and prosperity of countless marine species. They also curtail flood damage from storms and support human activities like fisheries.

As humans burn more fossil fuel - the biggest contributor to global warming - oceans absorb growing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Some of Linsley’s recent research on corals from the South Pacific island of Tonga suggests that increased seawater acidification caused by excess CO2 could lead to a decline in coral growth rates, endangering the wellbeing of entire reefs.

LOVE AT FIRST CHANCE

Linsley, a tall and soft-spoken 60-year-old, grew up on the Connecticut coast, making dams in the sand and observing erosion on the beaches near the town of Guilford. He loved water and began his career studying ocean sediments and fossils.

His work on corals began after a chance encounter with a colleague who was visiting his girlfriend at the University of New Mexico - where Linsley was studying to get his PhD in the late 1980s - led to a collaboration.

“I was fascinated by the fact that the corals had these annual bands in them and you could potentially extract annual resolve records back several hundred years,” he said at his office in the leafy campus, papers and books scattered on his desk and photos of diving expeditions on the wall.

Slideshow (34 Images)
Corals also brought him closer to the water and he had to learn how to dive, a perk of the job for Linsley.

By studying the environmental records derived from corals, the scientist is hoping to be able to shine a light on issues like the rate of surface ocean warming, ocean acidification and the impact on coral reef ecosystems worldwide.

But one thing is already evident, he said. Environmental changes are happening much more rapidly than in the last several thousand years and they are “clearly linked” to human activity.

Linsley’s childhood home in Connecticut – which he said now regularly battles encroaching waters - stood as a stark reminder.

“My children are 11 and 13. I think about in 50 years from now when I’m not here, what’s it going to be like,” he said.

China plans to issue biosafety certificates to domestic GM soybean, corn

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s agriculture ministry said on Monday it plans to issue biosafety certificates to a domestically grown, genetically modified (GM) soybean crop and two corn crops, in a move toward commercializing GM grain production in the world’s top market.



FILE PHOTO: An employee picks out bad beans from a pile of soybeans at a supermarket in Wuhan, Hubei province April 14, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo


China will grant the certificate to SHZD32-01 soybean developed by Shanghai Jiaotong University, provided there is no objection during a 15-day period soliciting public opinion, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement.

If approved, it will become China’s first GM soybean crop to receive such a certificate, a first step toward commercialized production.

Dabeinong’s DBN9936 corn and double-stacked 12-5 corn developed by Hangzhou Ruifeng Biotech Co Ltd and Zhejiang University were also expected to receive the certificate.

Beijing has spent billions of dollars researching GM crops, but has held back from commercial production of any food grains because of consumer concerns about their safety.

China granted biosafety certificates to its first GM corn varieties and two domestic rice varieties in 2009, but has never moved to commercialize these crops.

Some in the industry believe Beijing’s most recent move could mean that China is ready to start commercialization of some domestic GM crops.

“This signifies the policy changes from the central government as China is moving to commercialize GMO corn,” said James Chen, chief financial officer of Origin Agritech Limited

“GMO corn commercialization would benefit Chinese farmers, especially those in northeastern China,” Chen said.

Origin Agritech received biosafety certificates for its phytase GM corn trait in 2009 and has several new varieties of GM corn in the pipeline for biosafety approval, including insect resistance and glyphosate tolerance double-stacked traits.

China has said it aims to push forward the commercialization of GM corn and soybeans by 2020. Beijing has long approved imports of these products.

“If the government actually issues the certificate, it will be significant progress,” said another source with a major developer of GM crop strains in China.

“But it really depends on whether the crops can be commercialized in the end,” added the source, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

No eyes? No problem. Marine creature expands boundaries of vision


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A cousin of the starfish that resides in the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico lacks eyes, but can still see, according to scientists who studied this creature that expands the boundaries of the sense of sight in the animal kingdom.

Researchers said on Thursday that the red brittle star, called Ophiocoma wendtii, is only the second creature known to be able to see without having eyes - known as extraocular vision - joining a single species of sea urchin.

It possesses this exotic capability thanks to light-sensing cells, called photoreceptors, covering its body and pigment cells, called chromatophores, that move during the day to facilitate the animal’s dramatic color change from a deep reddish-brown in daytime to a stripy beige at nighttime.



A red brittle star, Ophiocoma wendtii, is seen in this image released on January 2, 2020. Lauren Sumner-Rooney/Handout via REUTERS. A cousin of the sea star and sea cucumber, this species that lives among the coral reefs of the Caribbean is one of two known animals that lack eyes but still possess the ability to see.

Brittle stars, with five radiating arms extending from a central disk, are related to starfish (also called sea stars), sea cucumbers, sea urchins and others in a group of marine invertebrates called echinoderms. They have a nervous system but no brain.

The red brittle star - up to about 14 inches (35 cm) from arm tip to arm tip - lives in bright and complex habitats, with high predation threats from reef fish. It stays hidden during daytime - making the ability to spot a safe place to hide critical - and comes out at night to feed on detritus.

Its photoreceptors are surrounded during daytime by chromatophores that narrow the field of the light being detected, making each photoreceptor like the pixel of a computer image that, when combined with other pixels, makes a whole image. The visual system does not work at night, when the chromatophores contract.

“If our conclusions about the chromatophores are correct, this is a beautiful example of innovation in evolution,” said Lauren Sumner-Rooney, a research fellow at Oxford University Museum of Natural History who led the study published in the journal Current Biology.

Laboratory experiments indicated the brittle stars have rudimentary vision. Placed in a circular arena, they moved toward walls that were white with a black bar, suggestive of a daytime hiding place.

Another scenario showed they were not simply detecting brightness versus darkness. When they were presented with gray walls making it so no part of the arena was lighter or darker overall, they still moved toward the black stripe, which was centered on a white stripe so as to reflect the same amount of light as the gray.

“It’s such an alien concept for us, as very visually driven animals, to conceive of how an animal might see its habitat without eyes, but now we know of two examples,” Sumner-Rooney added.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler

Oldest stuff on Earth found inside meteorite that hit Australia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A meteorite that crashed into rural southeastern Australia in a fireball in 1969 contained the oldest material ever found on Earth, stardust that predated the formation of our solar system by billions of years, scientists said on Monday.

A scanning electron micrograph of a presolar silicon carbide grain, about 8 micrometers in its longest dimension, from a meteorite that crashed into Australia in 1969 is seen in this image released in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. January 13, 2020. Janaina N. Avila/Handout via REUTERS
The oldest of 40 tiny dust grains trapped inside the meteorite fragments retrieved around the town of Murchison in Victoria state dated from about 7 billion years ago, about 2.5 billion years before the sun, Earth and rest of our solar system formed, the researchers said.

In fact, all of the dust specks analyzed in the research came from before the solar system’s formation - thus known as “presolar grains” - with 60% of them between 4.6 and 4.9 billion years old and the oldest 10% dating to more than 5.6 billion years ago.

The stardust represented time capsules dating to before the solar system. The age distribution of the dust - many of the grains were concentrated at particular time intervals - provided clues about the rate of star formation in the Milky Way galaxy, the researchers said, hinting at bursts of stellar births rather than a constant rate.

“I find this extremely exciting,” said Philipp Heck, an associate curator at the Field Museum in Chicago who led the research published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Despite having worked on the Murchison meteorite and presolar grains for almost 20 years, I still am fascinated that we can study the history of our galaxy with a rock,” Heck added.

The grains are small, measuring from 2 to 30 micrometers in size. A micrometer is a one-thousandth of a millimeter or about 0.000039 of an inch.

Stardust forms in the material ejected from stars and carried by stellar winds, getting blown into interstellar space. During the solar system’s birth, this dust was incorporated into everything that formed including the planets and the sun but survived intact until now only in asteroids and comets.

The researchers detected the tiny grains inside the meteorite by crushing fragments of the rock and then segregating the component parts in a paste they described as smelling like rotten peanut butter.

Scientists have developed a method to determine stardust’s age. Dust grains floating through space get bombarded by high-energy particles called cosmic rays. These rays break down atoms in the grain into fragments, such as carbon into helium.

These fragments accumulate over time and their production rate is rather constant. The longer the exposure time to cosmic rays, the more fragments accumulate. The researchers counted these fragments in the laboratory, enabling them to calculate the stardust’s age.

Scientists previously had found a presolar grain in the Murchison meteorite that was about 5.5 billion years old, until now the oldest-known solid material on Earth. The oldest-known minerals that formed on Earth are found in rock from Australia’s Jack Hills that formed 4.4 billion years ago, 100 million years after the planet formed.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler

Brain freeze: Russian firm offers path to immortality for a fee

Dmitriy Turlyun

SERGIYEV POSAD, Russia (Reuters) - When Alexei Voronenkov’s 70-year-old mother passed away, he paid to have her brain frozen and stored in the hope breakthroughs in science will one day be able to bring her back to life.
It is one of 71 brains and human cadavers - which Russian company KrioRus calls its “patients” - floating in liquid nitrogen in one of several metres-tall vats in a corrugated metal shed outside Moscow.

They are stored at -196 degrees Celsius (-320.8°F) with the aim of protecting them against deterioration, although there is currently no evidence science will be able to revive the dead.

“I did this because we were very close and I think it is the only chance for us to meet in the future,” said Voronenkov who intends to undergo the procedure, known as cryonics, when he dies.

The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Pseudoscience Commission, Evgeny Alexandrov, described cryonics as “an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis”, in comments to the Izvestia newspaper.

It is “a fantasy speculating on people’s hopes of resurrection from the dead and dreams of eternal life”, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Valeriya Udalova, KrioRus’s director who got her dog frozen when it died in 2008, said it is likely that humankind will develop the technology to revive dead people in the future, but that there is no guarantee of such technology.

KrioRus says hundreds of potential clients from nearly 20 countries have signed up for its after-death service.

It costs $36,000 for a whole body and $15,000 for the brain alone for Russians, who earn average monthly salaries of $760, according to official statistics. Prices are slightly higher for non-Russians.

The company says it is the only one in Russia and the surrounding region. Set up in 2005, it has at least two competitors in the United States, where the practice dates back further.

Voronenkov said he set his hopes on science. “I hope one day it reaches a level when we can produce artificial bodies and organs to create an artificial body where my mother’s brain can be integrated.”

KrioRus’ director Udalova argues that those paying to have dying relatives’ remains preserved are showing how much they love them.

“They try to bring hope,” she said. “What can we do for our dying relatives or the ones that we love? A nice burial, a photo album,” she said. “They go further, proving their love even more.”

Reporting by Dmitriy Turlyun; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Philippa Fletcher

Deep-sea microbe sheds light on primordial evolutionary milestone

Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A microorganism scooped up in deep-sea mud off Japan’s coast has helped scientists unlock the mystery of one of the watershed evolutionary events for life on Earth: the transition from the simple cells that first colonized the planet to complex cellular life - fungi, plants and animals including people.

A scanning electron microscopy image of the single-celled organism Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum strain MK-D1 showing the cell with tentacle-like branching protrusions is seen in this image released at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) in Yokosuka, Japan on January 15, 2020. Hiroyuki Imachi, Masaru K. Nobu and JAMSTEC/Handout via REUTERS

Researchers said on Wednesday they were able to study the biology of the microorganism, retrieved from depths of about 1.5 miles (2.5 km), after coaxing it to grow in the laboratory. They named it Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum, referring to the Greek mythological figure Prometheus who created humankind from clay and stole fire from the gods.

Prometheoarchaeum’s spherical cell - with a diameter of roughly 500 nanometers, or one-20,000th of a centimeter - boasts long, often branching tentacle-like appendages on its outer surface.

It is part of a group called Archaea, relatively simple single-cell organisms lacking internal structures such as a nucleus. Scientists have long puzzled over the evolutionary shift from such simple bacteria-like cells to the first rudimentary fungi, plants and animals - a group called eukaryotes - perhaps 2 billion years ago.

Based on a painstaking laboratory study of Prometheoarchaeum and observations of its symbiotic - mutually beneficial - relationship with a companion bacterium, the researchers offered an explanation.

They proposed that appendages like those of Prometheoarchaeum entangled a passing bacterium, which was then engulfed and eventually evolved into an organelle - internal structure - called a mitochondrion that is the powerhouse of a cell and crucial for respiration and energy production.

The solar system including Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. The first life on Earth, simple marine microbes, appeared roughly 4 billion years ago. The later advent of eukaryotes set in motion evolutionary paths that led to a riotous assemblage of organisms over the eons like palm trees, blue whales, T. rex, hummingbirds, clownfish, shiitake mushrooms, lobsters, daisies, woolly mammoths and Marilyn Monroe.

“How we - as eukaryotes - originated is a fundamental question related to how we - as humans - came to be,” said microbiologist Masaru Nobu of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, one of the leaders of the study published in the journal Nature.

Prometheoarchaeum is a member of a subgroup called Asgard archaea - named for the dwelling place of the gods in Norse mythology. Other members of this subgroup were retrieved from the frigid seabed near a hydrothermal vent system called Loki’s Castle, named after a Norse mythological figure, between Greenland and Norway.

The research on Prometheoarchaeum, Nobu said, indicates that the Asgard archaea are the closest living relatives to the first eukaryotes.

The researchers used a submersible research vessel to collect mud containing Prometheoarchaeum from the Omine Ridge off Japan in 2006. They studied it in the laboratory in a years-long process and watched it slowly proliferate after incubating the samples in a vessel infused with methane gas to simulate the deep-sea marine sediment environment in which it resides.

“We were able to obtain the first complete genome of this group of archaea ---30conclusively show that these archaea possess many genes that had been thought to be only found in eukaryotes,” Nobu said.

Prometheoarchaeum was found to be reliant on its companion bacterium.

“The organism ‘eats’ amino acids through symbiosis with a partner,” Nobu said. “This is because the organism can neither fully digest amino acids by itself, gain energy if any byproducts have accumulated, nor build its own cell without external help.”

---30---

Did asteroid that hit Australia help thaw ancient 'snowball Earth'?


Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have identified Earth’s oldest-known impact crater, and in doing so may have solved a mystery about how our planet emerged from one of its most dire periods.

Researchers have determined that the 45-mile-wide (70-km-wide) Yarrabubba crater in Australia formed when an asteroid struck Earth just over 2.2 billion years ago. The collision occurred at a time when the planet was believed to have been encased in ice and the impact may have driven climate warming that led to a global thaw.

“Looking at our planet from space, it would have looked very different,” said isotope geology professor Chris Kirkland of Curtin University in Australia, one of the researchers in the study published in the journal Nature Communications. “... You would see a white ball not our familiar blue marble.”

The researchers suspect the region was covered in an ice sheet up to 3 miles (5 km) thick at the time. They calculated that the violent asteroid strike may have transformed immense amounts of ice into water vapor - sending perhaps 200 billion tons of it billowing into the atmosphere. It would have served as a greenhouse gas trapping heat in the atmosphere.
The researchers are wondering whether this thaw helped shepherd Earth into a climate more favorable for the simple microbes that inhabited the planet at the time to thrive and evolve, possibly making it a pivotal event in the history of life on Earth.

The planet descended into one of its two primordial “snowball Earth” periods 2.4 billion years ago amid a rise in oxygen in an atmosphere formerly dominated by methane and carbon dioxide. The asteroid, estimated at 4-1/2 miles (7 km) wide, landed at Yarrabubba in the state of Western Australia, coinciding with the end of the deep freeze.

“During the time of the Yarrabubba impact, life was more simple but did contain organisms like stromatolites, algal mounds that are still in existence today,” said study lead author Timmons Erickson, a NASA research scientist at the Johnson Space Center’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division.

“It is curious to think of an asteroid impact shifting the Earth’s atmosphere to something more clement for life than a ‘snowball’ scenario,” Erickson added.

The researchers determined the crater’s age by examining tiny crystals of the minerals monazite and zircon formed in the asteroid impact.

Earth has been hit by space rocks many times since it formed 4.5 billion years ago. For example, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But the inexorable movement of Earth’s tectonic plates and surface erosion have erased most of the oldest craters. Until now, the oldest-known impact crater was one in South Africa with a diameter of more than 120 miles (200 km) that formed just over 2 billion years old.

The other “snowball Earth” period lasted from 700 million to 600 million years ago.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler