Sunday, January 19, 2020

Being copycats might be key to being human

by Connor Wood, The Conversation JANUARY 15, 2020

Chimpanzees, human beings' closest animal relatives, share up to 98% of our genes. Their human-like hands and facial expressions can send uncanny shivers of self-recognition down the backs of zoo patrons.

Yet people and chimpanzees lead very different lives. Fewer than 300,000 wild chimpanzees live in a few forested corners of Africa today, while humans have colonized every corner of the globe, from the Arctic tundra to the Kalahari Desert. At more than 7 billion, humans' population dwarfs that of nearly all other mammals—despite our physical weaknesses.

What could account for our species' incredible evolutionary successes?

One obvious answer is our big brains. It could be that our raw intelligence gave us an unprecedented ability to think outside the box, innovating solutions to gnarly problems as people migrated across the globe. Think of "The Martian," where Matt Damon, trapped alone in a research station on Mars, heroically "sciences" his way out of certain death.

But a growing number of cognitive scientists and anthropologists are rejecting that explanation. These researchers think that, rather than making our living as innovators, human beings survive and thrive precisely because we don't think for ourselves. Instead, people cope with challenging climates and ecological contexts by carefully copying others – especially those we respect. Instead of Homo sapiens, or "man the knower," we're really Homo imitans: "man the imitator."

Watching and learning

In a famous study, psychologists Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten showed two groups of test subjects—children and chimpanzees—a mechanical box with a treat inside. In one condition, the box was opaque, while in the other it was transparent. The experimenters demonstrated how to open the box to retrieve a treat, but they also included the irrelevant step of tapping on the box with a stick.

Oddly, human children carefully copied all the steps to open the box, even when they could see that the stick had no practical effect. That is, they copied irrationally: Instead of doing only what was necessary to get their reward, children slavishly imitated every action they'd witnessed.

Of course, that study only included three- and four-year-olds. But additional research has showed that older children and adults are even more likely to mindlessly copy others' actions, and young infants are less likely to over-imitate—that is, to precisely copy even impractical actions.

By contrast, chimpanzees in Horner and Whiten's study only over-imitated in the opaque condition. In the transparent condition—where they saw that the stick was mechanically useless—they ignored that step entirely, merely opening the box with their hands. Other research has since supported these findings.

When it comes to copying, chimpanzees are more rational than human children or adults.

Chimps and children watch how to open a puzzle box.

The benefits of following without question

Where does the seemingly irrational human preference for over-imitation come from? In his book "The Secret of Our Success," anthropologist Joseph Henrich points out that people around the world rely on technologies that are often so complex that no one can learn them rationally. Instead, people must learn them step by step, trusting in the wisdom of more experienced elders and peers.

For example, the best way to master making a bow is by observing successful hunters doing it, with the assumption that everything they do is important. As an inexperienced learner, you can't yet judge which steps are actually relevant. So when your band's best hunter waxes his bowstring with two fingers or touches his ear before drawing the string, you copy him.

The human propensity for over-imitation thus makes possible what anthropologists call cumulative culture: the long-term development of skills and technologies over generations. No single person might understand all the practical reasons behind each step to making a bow or carving a canoe, much less transforming rare earth minerals into iPhones. But as long as people copy with high fidelity, the technology gets transmitted.

Ritual and religion are also domains in which people carry out actions that aren't connected in a tangible way with practical outcomes. For example, a Catholic priest blesses wafers and wine for Communion by uttering a series of repetitive words and doing odd motions with his hands. One could be forgiven for wondering what on Earth these ritualistic acts have to do with eating bread, just as a chimpanzee can't see any connection between tapping a stick and opening a box.

But rituals have a hidden effect: They bond people to one another and demonstrate cultural affiliation. For an enlightening negative example, consider a student who refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Her action clearly telegraphs her rejection of authorities' right to tell her how to behave. And as anthropologist Roy Rappaport pointed out, ritual participation is binary: Either you say the pledge or you don't. This clarity makes it easily apparent who is or isn't committed to the group.

Surprise secret ingredient that makes us human

In a broader sense, then, over-imitation helps enable much of what comprises distinctively human culture, which turns out to be much more complicated than mechanical cause and effect.

At heart, human beings are not brave, self-reliant innovators, but careful if savvy conformists. We perform and imitate apparently impractical actions because doing so is the key to learning complex cultural skills, and because rituals create and sustain the cultural identities and solidarity we depend on for survival. Indeed, copying others is a powerful way to establish social rapport. For example, mimicking another's body language can induce them to like and trust you more.

So the next time you hear someone arguing passionately that everyone should embrace nonconformity and avoid imitating others, you might chuckle a bit. We're not chimpanzees, after all.

Both chimpanzees and humans spontaneously imitate each other's actions

More information: Cristine H. Legare et al. Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning, Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2015). DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.005

Victoria Horner et al. Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens), Animal Cognition (2004). DOI: 10.1007/s10071-004-0239-6

Rohan Kapitány et al. Adopting the ritual stance: The role of opacity and context in ritual and everyday actions, Cognition (2015). DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.08.002

Mark Nielsen. The Social Glue of Cumulative Culture and Ritual Behavior, Child Development Perspectives (2018). DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12297

Journal information: Trends in Cognitive Sciences , Animal Cognition , Cognition

Linguistics student pinpoints differences in Western Canadian dialects

by Geoff McMaster, University of Alberta JANUARY 16, 2020

It's only a 40-minute drive from Queens to the Bronx in New York, but the difference in dialect is obvious to most familiar with the English language.

In Canada you probably have to cross the continent to hear such dramatic shifts in pronunciation. And in Western Canada, we all sound the same, don't we?

Not exactly, said University of Alberta undergraduate student Bryce Wittrock, who just published a study on Canadian Prairie dialects along with his supervisor, U of A linguist Ben Tucker.

Drive to Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan from Calgary or Edmonton, and if you listen closely enough, you'll hear slight differences in vowel pronunciation, said Wittrock.

"The dialects of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan English (SASE) and Edmonton English display measurable differences" in the pronunciation of certain vowels, he concluded in his study, published last month in the linguistics journal Canadian Acoustics.

One of the most striking examples of vowel shift is the word "fired," which in SASE country can sound similar to the way it's pronounced on the East Coast. However, Bryce pointed out this is an extreme example, and not everyone in the region necessarily pronounces it that way.

The word "head" sounds more like "hid" in the south, but that difference is only clear when pronunciations of the two regions are played back to back.

Wittrock recorded 24 interviews—13 with people from communities in southern Alberta, nine from southern Saskatchewan and two who had grown up in the south of both provinces—for a project that received funding from a Faculty of Arts Roger S. Smith Undergraduate Researcher Award two years ago.

Averaging about 25 minutes, the interviews were designed to be "free, light and conversational, often branching from summer holiday plans or leisure activities in an attempt to elicit maximally naturalistic vernacular," said Wittrock.

Interview subjects were encouraged to relax and think about what they were saying, not how they were saying it, he said, "because when people are self-conscious about how they're talking, they change it in ways that aren't necessarily authentic."

Comparing those recordings with samples from Edmonton residents already in Tucker's archive, Wittrock examined the "resonant frequencies" of the vocal tract, which produce qualities such as color and tone, to determine variation in dialects, said Tucker.

"Just like a pipe organ has a resonant frequency, your vocal tract has them too. The difference is that a pipe organ really only has one for each pipe, whereas your vocal tract has many colors and frequencies.

Those frequencies explain how we all identify subtle nuances of speech, said Tucker. "We can look at those resonant frequencies" to see how they shift between regions or populations.

A big challenge in defining a dialect is separating out differences between individuals or between, say, men and women. There are also variations according to social factors such as level of education, occupation and age.

"We're trying not to make assumptions and say a difference is necessarily dialectal, or related to differences between whole populations or regions," said Wittrock. "Maybe it's just that this is one social group of people and that is another."

Differences in Canadian dialect are largely determined by divides between rural and urban populations, he said, rather than between regions. Someone from Edmonton can sound more like someone from Calgary than like a person raised on a nearby farm.

Most vowel shifts are subtle in the Canadian West, but in certain rare cases, such as the English spoken by southern Alberta Mormons, the dialect has sharply distinct features.

Since the study of Canadian English in the West is largely unexplored territory—compared with research done in the East—Wittrock said there is plenty of work to carry him into graduate school and beyond.

One project he has in mind is an examination of English spoken by workers on Alberta's oil rigs, which may have unique inflections given that, traditionally, many of them have been workers from Newfoundland.

"He might just find a kind of hybrid there," said Tucker. "But he could spend the rest of his life just working with the data he's recorded so far

Dogs found able to perceive slight changes in human spoken words

Solving the Greek monkey mystery gave us an important clue to Bronze Age world

by Tracie McKinney and Marie Nicole Pareja Cummings, The Conversation JANUARY 16, 2020

How we solved the Greek monkey mystery – and found an important clue to Bronze Age world — Monkeys frescoes in Akrotiri. Credit: Thera Akrotiri Excavations

The blue monkeys painted on the walls of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini are among many animals found in the frescoes of this 3,600-year-old city. Historians have studied the murals for decades since they were unearthed in the 1960s and 1970s on the island, which was once known as Thera. But when we and a team of other primatologists recently examined the paintings, we realized the monkeys could provide a clue that the Bronze Age world was much more globalized than previously thought.

Archaeologists had assumed the monkeys were an African species, with which the Aegean people that built Akrotiri probably came into contact via trade links with Egypt. But we think the paintings actually depict Hanuman langurs, a species from the Indian subcontinent. This suggests the Aegean people, who came from Crete and the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, may have had trade routes that reached over 2,500 miles.

The wall paintings of Akrotiri were preserved by ash from a volcano that destroyed the city some time in the 16th or 15th century BC and offer an incredible glimpse of an early civilization in Europe. We haven't been able to translate the earliest Aegean writing, but the paintings suggest just how developed these people's society, economy and culture were.

Much animal art from this period is generalized, meaning it's hard to confidently identify individual species. In the case of the monkeys, we also don't have any physical remains from Aegean settlements to provide additional evidence of which species are depicted.

The reason why archaeologists and art historians have assumed they came from Egypt is because that was the nearest location with an indigenous monkey population that had known trade links with the Aegean. As a result, the Akrotiri monkeys have been variously identified as baboons, vervets and grivet monkeys, all African species that live across a wide area.

Marie Pareja decided to take a different approach, gathering a team of primatologists who study apes, monkeys, and lemurs, including renowned taxonomic illustrator Stephen Nash. Together, we examined photos of the art and discussed the animals depicted, considering not only fur color and pattern but also body size, limb proportions, sitting and standing postures, and tail position. While we all agreed that some of the animals depicted were baboons, as previously thought, we began to debate the identification of the animals from one particular scene.

Identifying the langurs

The monkeys in the paintings are gray-blue. But although some living monkeys have small patches of blue skin—the blue on a mandrill's face, for example—none have blue fur. There is an African forest monkey called the blue monkey, but it is mainly olive or dark gray, and the face patterns don't match those in the paintings. So we needed to use other characteristics to identify them.

They were previously believed to be vervets or grivets, small monkeys weighing between 3kg and 8kg (roughly the size of a housecat) that are found in the savannas of north and east Africa. Despite their silvery white fur, they also have dark-colored hands and feet and an overall look that matches the depictions in the paintings.

However, Hanuman langurs, which weigh a more substantial 11kg to 18kg, have a similar look. They also move quite differently, and this was crucial to the identification.

Both primates primarily live on the ground (as opposed to in trees) and have long limbs and tails. But the langurs tend to carry their tail upward, as an S- or C-shape or curving towards the head, while vervet monkeys carry their tail in a straight line or arcing downward. This tail position, repeated across multiple images, was a key factor in identifying the monkeys as Hanuman langurs.

International links

We know from archaeological evidence that Aegean peoples had access to minerals such as tin, lapis lazuli and carnelian that came from beyond the Zagros mountains on the western border of modern Iran. But the artistic detail of the Akrotiri paintings, compared to other monkey art of the period, suggests that the artists had seen live animals, perhaps while traveling abroad.

It's understandable that earlier scholars thought the monkeys were African since relations between the Aegean and Egypt were already well known and supported by archaeological evidence. If you expect to find an African monkey, you will only look at African animals for possible explanations. But as primatologists, we were able to bring a fresh look at the evidence without preconceived notions of ancient peoples or trade routes, and consider species living further afield.

This study is an excellent example of the importance of academics from different disciplines working together. Without the expertise of primatologists, it may not have been possibly to confidently identify these animals. Conversely, primatologists may not have considered these ancient human-primate interactions without a prompt from archaeologists.

A new method for dating ancient earthquakes

by Linnaeus University JANUARY 17, 2020

Constraining the history of earthquakes produced by bedrock fracturing is important for predicting seismic activity and plate tectonic evolution. In a new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports Jan 17, 2020, a team of researchers presents a new microscale technique to determine the age of crystals grown during repeated activation of natural rock fractures over a time range of billions of years.

The dramatic energy release of an earthquake forms as bedrock segments move in relative opposite directions to each other due to the collision or spreading of the tectonic plates that makes up the Earth's crust. The movement occurs along fault planes where new mineral crystals grow simultaneously.

The bedrock of Scandinavia, up to two billion years old, displays an extensive network of fractures formed at different episodes stretching from the early history of the Scandinavian crust to modern times. In rock samples retrieved from deep boreholes in Sweden, new microscale radioisotopic dating of individual fault crystals reveals the dominant fracturing episodes affecting Scandinavia.

Mikael Tillberg, a doctoral student at the Linnaeus University, Sweden, and first author of the paper, explains, "The ages of our analysed crystals matches several distinct periods of extensive mountain range formation when plate boundaries were directly neighboring Scandinavia. These temporal constraints demonstrate that our newly developed approach is suitable to untangle complex fracturing histories."

Thomas Zack, of Gothenburg University, Sweden, and a co-author of the study, describes how the dating method works. "Specific minerals contain radiogenic elements where certain isotopes decay over time. The abundances of these isotopes in tiny crystals formed on fracture surfaces are measured with high precision and detailed spatial resolution."

"The link between crystal growth and the frictional movement of earthquakes is ensured by identifying striation lines formed on fracture surface crystals by the movement. This microscopic investigation precedes age analysis to enable a simple and robust procedure for dating of faulting," Henrik Drake at Linnaeus University, also a co-author, adds.

Mikael Tillberg summarizes on the significance and possible future applications of this technique:

"Repeated earthquake episodes produce a chaotic array of broken rock and mineral growth even in a single crystal or on a particular fracture surface. Our methodology can resolve these sequences and connect the microscale mechanisms involved in fracturing to continent-wide plate tectonic forces. This allows reconstruction of geological models for diverse applications such as seismicity and infrastructure engineering."

Europe's largest meteorite crater home to deep ancient life

More information: Mikael Tillberg et al. In situ Rb-Sr dating of slickenfibres in deep crystalline basement faults, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-57262-5

ARACHNIDS

Fossil is the oldest-known scorpion

by The Ohio State University JANUARY 16, 2020

Scientists studying fossils collected 35 years ago have identified them as the oldest-known scorpion species, a prehistoric animal from about 437 million years ago. The researchers found that the animal likely had the capacity to breathe in both ancient oceans and on land.

The discovery provides new information about how animals transitioned from living in the sea to living entirely on land: The scorpion's respiratory and circulatory systems are almost identical to those of our modern-day scorpions—which spend their lives exclusively on land—and operate similarly to those of a horseshoe crab, which lives mostly in the water, but which is capable of forays onto land for short periods of time.

The researchers named the new scorpion Parioscorpio venator. The genus name means "progenitor scorpion," and the species name means "hunter." They outlined their findings in a study published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

"We're looking at the oldest known scorpion—the oldest known member of the arachnid lineage, which has been one of the most successful land-going creatures in all of Earth history," said Loren Babcock, an author of the study and a professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University.

"And beyond that, what is of even greater significance is that we've identified a mechanism by which animals made that critical transition from a marine habitat to a terrestrial habitat. It provides a model for other kinds of animals that have made that transition including, potentially, vertebrate animals. It's a groundbreaking discovery."

The "hunter scorpion" fossils were unearthed in 1985 from a site in Wisconsin that was once a small pool at the base of an island cliff face. They had remained unstudied in a museum at the University of Wisconsin for more than 30 years when one of Babcock's doctoral students, Andrew Wendruff—now an adjunct professor at Otterbein University in Westerville—decided to examine the fossils in detail.

Wendruff and Babcock knew almost immediately that the fossils were scorpions. But, initially, they were not sure how close these fossils were to the roots of arachnid evolutionary history. The earliest known scorpion to that point had been found in Scotland and dated to about 434 million years ago. Scorpions, paleontologists knew, were one of the first animals to live on land full-time.

The Wisconsin fossils, the researchers ultimately determined, are between 1 million and 3 million years older than the fossil from Scotland. They figured out how old this scorpion was from other fossils in the same formation. Those fossils came from creatures that scientists think lived between 436.5 and 437.5 million years ago, during the early part of the Silurian period, the third period in the Paleozoic era.

"People often think we use carbon dating to determine the age of fossils, but that doesn't work for something this old," Wendruff said. "But we date things with ash beds—and when we don't have volcanic ash beds, we use these microfossils and correlate the years when those creatures were on Earth. It's a little bit of comparative dating."

The Wisconsin fossils—from a formation that contains fossils known as the Waukesha Biota¬—show features typical of a scorpion, but detailed analysis showed some characteristics that were not previously known in any scorpion, such as additional body segments and a short "tail" region, all of which shed light on the ancestry of this group.

Wendruff examined the fossils under a microscope, and took detailed, high-resolution photographs of the fossils from different angles. Bits of the animal's internal organs, preserved in the rock, began to emerge. He identified the appendages, a chamber where the animal would have stored its venom, and—most importantly—the remains of its respiratory and circulatory systems.

This scorpion is about 2.5 centimeters long—about the same size as many scorpions in the world today. And, Babcock said, it shows a crucial evolutionary link between the way ancient ancestors of scorpions respired under water, and the way modern-day scorpions breathe on land. Internally, the respiratory-circulatory system has a structure just like that found in today's scorpions.

"The inner workings of the respiratory-circulatory system in this animal are, shape-wise, identical to those of the arachnids and scorpions that breathe air exclusively," Babcock said. "But it also is incredibly similar to what we recognize in marine arthropods like horseshoe crabs. So, it looks like this scorpion, this lineage, must have been pre-adapted to life on land, meaning they had the morphologic capability to make that transition, even before they first stepped onto land."

Paleontologists have for years debated how animals moved from sea to land. Some fossils show walking traces in the sand that may be as old as 560 million years, but these traces may have been made in prehistoric surf—meaning it is difficult to know whether animals were living on land or darting out from their homes in the ancient ocean.

But with these prehistoric scorpions, Wendruff said, there was little doubt that they could survive on land because of the similarities to modern-day scorpions in the respiratory and circulatory systems.

HORSESHOE CRABS ARE ALSO ARACHNIDSCompound eyes: The visual apparatus of today's horseshoe crabs goes back 400 million years

More information: A Silurian ancestral scorpion with fossilised internal anatomy illustrating a pathway to arachnid terrestrialisation, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-56010-z

Organized cybercrime—not your average mafia

by Caroline Brooks, Michigan State University

JANUARY 16, 2020

Organized cybercrime -- not your average mafia — Organized cybercrime differs from other types of criminal networks -- making trails to track them more challenging. Credit: Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Does the common stereotype for "organized crime" hold up for organizations of hackers? Research from Michigan State University is one of the first to identify common attributes of cybercrime networks, revealing how these groups function and work together to cause an estimated $445-600 billion of harm globally per year.

"It's not the 'Tony Soprano mob boss type' who's ordering cybercrime against financial institutions," said Thomas Holt, MSU professor of criminal justice and co-author of the study. "Certainly, there are different nation states and groups engaging in cybercrime, but the ones causing the most damage are loose groups of individuals who come together to do one thing, do it really well—and even for a period of time—then disappear."

In cases like New York City's "Five Families," organized crime networks have historic validity, and are documented and traceable. In the online space, however, it's a very difficult trail to follow, Holt said.

"We found that these cybercriminals work in organizations, but those organizations differ depending on the offense," Holt said. "They may have relationships with each other, but they're not multi-year, multi-generation, sophisticated groups that you associate with other organized crime networks."

Holt explained that organized cybercrime networks are made up of hackers coming together because of functional skills that allow them to collaborate to commit the specific crime. So, if someone has specific expertise in password encryption and another can code in a specific programming language, they work together because they can be more effective—and cause greater disruption—together than alone.

"Many of these criminals connected online, at least initially, in order to communicate to find one another," Holt said. "In some of the bigger cases that we had, there's a core group of actors who know one another really well, who then develop an ancillary network of people who they can use for money muling or for converting the information that they obtained into actual cash."

Holt and lead author E. R. Leukfeldt, researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, reviewed 18 cases from the Netherlands in which individuals were prosecuted for cases related to phishing. Data came directly from police files and was gathered through wire and IP taps, undercover policing, observation and house searches.

Beyond accessing credit cards and banking information, Holt and Leukfeldt found that cybercriminals also worked together to create fake documents so they could obtain money from banks under fraudulent identities.

The research, published in International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, also debunks common misconceptions that sophisticated organized criminal networks—such as the Russian mafia—are the ones creating cybercrime.

Looking ahead as law enforcement around the world takes steps to crack down on these hackers, Holt hopes his findings will help guide them in the right direction.

"As things move to the dark web and use cryptocurrencies and other avenues for payment, hacker behaviors change and become harder to fully identify, it's going to become harder to understand some of these relational networks," Holt said. "We hope to see better relationships between law enforcement and academia, better information sharing, and sourcing so we can better understand actor behaviors.

Here's what police know about digital evidence

More information: E. R. Leukfeldt et al. Examining the Social Organization Practices of Cybercriminals in the Netherlands Online and Offline, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (2019). DOI: 10.1177/0306624X19895886

New dinosaur discovered in China shows dinosaurs grew up differently from birds

by San Diego Natural History Museum JANUARY 16, 2020

A new species of feathered dinosaur has been discovered in China, and described by American and Chinese authors and published today in the journal, The Anatomical Record.

The one-of-a-kind specimen offers a window into what the earth was like 120 million years ago. The fossil preserves feathers and bones that provide new information about how dinosaurs grew and how they differed from birds.

"The new dinosaur fits in with an incredible radiation of feathered, winged animals that are closely related to the origin of birds," said Dr. Ashley Poust, who analyzed the specimens while he was a student at Montana State University and during his time as a Ph.D. student at University of California, Berkeley. Poust is now postdoctoral researcher at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

"Studying specimens like this not only shows us the sometimes-surprising paths that ancient life has taken, but also allows us to test ideas about how important bird characteristics, including flight, arose in the distant past."

Scientists named the dinosaur Wulong bohaiensis. Wulong is Chinese for "the dancing dragon" and references the position of the beautifully articulated specimen.

About the Discovery

The specimen was found more than a decade ago by a farmer in China, in the fossil-rich Jehol Province, and since then has been housed in the collection of The Dalian Natural History Museum in Liaoning, a northeastern Chinese province bordering North Korea and the Yellow Sea. The skeletal bones were analyzed by Poust alongside his advisor Dr. David Varricchio from Montana State University while Poust was a student there.

Larger than a common crow and smaller than a raven, but with a long, bony tail which would have doubled its length, Wulong bohaiensis had a narrow face filled with sharp teeth. Its bones were thin and small, and the animal was covered with feathers, including a wing-like array on both its arms and legs and two long plumes at the end of its tail.

This animal is one of the earliest relatives of Velociraptor, the famous dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 75 million years ago. Wulong's closest well-known relative would have been Microraptor, a genus of small, four-winged paravian dinosaurs.

The discovery is significant not only because it describes a dinosaur that is new to science, but also because it shows connection between birds and dinosaurs.

"The specimen has feathers on its limbs and tail that we associate with adult birds, but it had other features that made us think it was a juvenile," said Poust. To understand this contradiction, the scientists cut up several bones of the new dinosaur to examine under a microscope. This technique, called bone histology, is becoming a regular part of the paleontology toolbox, but it's still sometimes difficult to convince museums to let a researcher remove part of a nice skeleton. "Thankfully, our coauthors at the Dalian Natural History Museum were really forward thinking and allowed us to apply these techniques, not only to Wulong, but also to another dinosaur, a close relative that looked more adult called Sinornithosaurus."

The bones showed that the new dinosaur was a juvenile. This means that at least some dinosaurs were getting very mature looking feathers well before they were done growing. Birds grow up very fast and often don't get their adult plumage until well after they are full sized. Showy feathers, especially those used for mating, are particularly delayed. And yet here was an immature dinosaur with two long feathers extending beyond the tip of the tail.

"Either the young dinosaurs needed these tail feathers for some function we don't know about, or they were growing their feathers really differently from most living birds," explained Poust.

An additional surprise came from the second dinosaur the scientists sampled; Sinornithosaurus wasn't done growing either. The bone tissue was that of an actively growing animal and it lacked an External Fundamental System: a structure on the outside of the bone that vertebrates form when they're full size. "Here was an animal that was large and had adult looking bones: we thought it was going to be mature, but histology proved that idea wrong. It was older than Wulong, but seems to have been still growing. Researchers need to be really careful about determining whether a specimen is adult or not. Until we learn a lot more, histology is really the most dependable way."

In spite of these cautions, Poust says there is a lot more to learn about dinosaurs.

"We're talking about animals that lived twice as long ago as T. rex, so it's pretty amazing how well preserved they are. It's really very exciting to see inside these animals for the first time."

About the Jehol Biota

The area in which the specimen was found is one of the richest fossil deposits in the world. The Jehol biota is known for the incredible variety of animals that were alive at the time. It is also one of the earliest bird-rich environments, where birds, bird-like dinosaurs, and pterosaurs all shared the same habitat.

"There was a lot of flying, gliding, and flapping around these ancient lakes," says Poust. "As we continue to discover more about the diversity of these small animals it becomes interesting how they all might have fit into the ecosystem." Other important changes were happening at the same time in the Early Cretaceous, including the spread of flowering plants. "It was an alien world, but with some of the earliest feathers and earliest flowers, it would have been a pretty one."

First evidence of feathered polar dinosaurs found in Australia

More information: Ashley W. Poust et al, A new microraptorine theropod from the Jehol Biota and growth in early dromaeosaurids, The Anatomical Record (2020). DOI: 10.1002/ar.24343

Fossils of largest theropod to date found in Australia

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org JANUARY 16, 2020

A team of researchers from the University of New England, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum and Swinburne University of Technology, all in Australia, has identified fossils found near Winton as remains of the largest theropod found to date in Australia. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes the bones they found and its likely species.

In 2017, a farmer in the central-western Queensland town of Winton discovered several fragmented bones on his property. Suspecting they might be dinosaur fossils, he contacted the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. A team was assembled, and a dig was established. The researchers found 15 more limb and vertebrae fossils.

The fossils closely resembled Australovenator wintonesis—a theropod species that was discovered in Australia in 2006. Theropods are a group of large, bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs—included in the group are both Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. The newly found fossils are bigger than those of the specimen found in 2006, making it difficult to determine if the two specimens are the same species. The fossil size suggests the creature was approximately two meters tall and five to seven meters long. The researchers are not ruling out the possibility that the fossils belong to an undiscovered species. But the larger size indicates that the find represents the largest known carnivore to have lived in Australia.

The newly found fossils include two partial vertebrae, an unspecified number of hands and feet and multiple fragments that have yet to be identified. The hand bones are large and have recurved claws with a horny sheath, reminiscent of birds. Their size and shape suggest the dinosaur used them to grapple prey—strongly indicating that it was a predator. According to the researchers, the creature likely fed on quadrupedal herbivores, though there was the possibility it was also a scavenger.

The newly discovered dinosaur is just the third theropod found in Australia—the only other evidence of them in Australia is shed teeth found at sauropod dig sites. The researchers note that there is still debate regarding whether the theropods living in Australia had feathers.

Huge-clawed predatory dinosaur discovery in Victoria

More information: Matt A. White et al. New theropod remains and implications for megaraptorid diversity in the Winton Formation (lower Upper Cretaceous), Queensland, Australia, Royal Society Open Science (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191462

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

Male and female firefighters have different problems with protective suits

LIKE SPACE SUITS FOR WOMEN

by Bill Wellock, Florida State University JANUARY 17, 2020

Male and female firefighters have different problems with protective suits — Meredith McQuerry, an assistant professor in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship. Her research investigated the different problems male and female firefighters have with flexibility and range of motion in their protective equipment. Credit: Florida State University

When female firefighters put on the protective suits they need for their work, they're often using gear that has been designed for a male body.

Because of that mismatch, the suits don't fit as well as they should, and their mobility is impaired. Firefighters working in gear that restricts their movement must work harder to move around in a stressful and physically demanding environment, which puts them at greater risk of overexertion and heart attacks, the leading cause of on-duty deaths.

New research from Florida State University investigates differences in mobility for male and female firefighters while wearing the gear that is essential for protection from the intense heat of fires. The study is available in the January print edition of the journal Applied Ergonomics.

"There's not enough research to say 100 percent, 'This is what a female turnout suit needs to be,' but we do know women need a suit designed for them," said author Meredith McQuerry, an assistant professor in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship. "The National Fire Protection Association sees the need. There are female and male sizes, but those are oversimplifications that don't take different anthropometric proportions into account, like the waist-to-hip ratio, the bust or shoulder breadth."

Previous studies have investigated the effects of bulky firefighting gear on the movement of male firefighters, but most research has not considered the measurements and range of motion of female firefighters.

McQuerry's study surveyed 16 career firefighters (10 men and six women) from the Tallahassee Fire Department on the fit and mobility of their firefighting gear. The research measured range of motion in three configurations: with only a base layer, with the "turnout suit" firefighters don for protection at the scene of a fire and with a full "turnout ensemble" that includes a breathing apparatus and helmet. The subjects were measured in a three-dimensional body scanner, then performed a range-of-motion test and recorded how comfortable they were and how easy it was to move.

McQuerry found that for both male and female firefighters turnout equipment significantly reduced mobility, but the men and women reported significant differences with the parts of the suit that gave them problems. Women reported more problems with the upper body areas of their turnout suit during overhead activities and were more likely to say that the suits were too large. Men expressed more dissatisfaction with restrictions in the crotch and pant leg during lower body movements.

Because these restrictions are gender specific, there is a strong need to develop a female-specific turnout gear sizing system in addition to the existing gear designed for men, McQuerry said. Researchers should collect more data, including body measurements and mobility assessments with a larger sample size, so that both men and women fighting fires can be equipped with appropriately sized personal protective clothing, she said.

A recently awarded grant of more than $400,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will help McQuerry continue her research.

"We need more data on female firefighter anthropometrics," she said. "A little bit has been done, but it is very limited. We need to conduct more research to understand what all of the barriers are along the production pipeline, from the design, to the sourcing, all the way to the purchasing within the fire service."

The goals for an improved turnout suit are clear, she said: "Better performance, less exertion, better safety."

Female firefighters more likely to suffer PTSD, contemplate suicide

More information: Meredith McQuerry. Effect of structural turnout suit fit on female versus male firefighter range of motion, Applied Ergonomics (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2019.102974

Wooden Shigir idol found to be over twice as old as Egyptian pyramids

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org APRIL 27, 2018 REPORT Wooden Shigir Idol found to be over twice as old as Egyptian pyramids

Credit: Antiquity (2018). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.48

A team of researchers in Germany has found evidence suggesting that the famous wooden Shirgir Idol is actually 11,500 years old. The team has documented their efforts and findings in a paper published on the Cambridge University Press site Antiquity.

The Shigir Idol was discovered in an ancient peat bog by miners in Russia back in 1890. Early analysis showed that it was made entirely of larch wood and was constructed from several chunks. It remained preserved for thousands of years because of antimicrobial properties found in the peat. The idol was also covered extensively with markings, some of which depicted tiny human faces. To this day, no one knows what most of the markings depict. It was also noted that some of the original pieces of the idol had been lost—it is believed that it originally stood approximately five meters tall. In 1997, a team in Russia used radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of the icon and found it to be approximately 9,500 years old.

Experts have studied the carvings on the idol over the years, and many have suggested they likely represent a form of art, possibly linked with spiritual or religious activities.

Recently, the team in Germany expressed interest it taking a closer look at the idol, which is normally housed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum, in Russia. Arrangements were made for the idol to be shipped to Germany, where it was studied, along with other original material found in the peat bog. Using accelerator mass spectrometry, the team found the true age of the idol to be approximately 11,500 years old, placing its creation at around the time of the end of the Ice Age. That age also makes it the oldest known wood monumental sculpture ever found and more than twice the age of the Egyptian pyramids. The researchers report that they also found another face carved into the wood, bringing the total to eight. Their findings suggest that researchers looking to better understand very early human behavior perhaps need to widen their search beyond the Fertile Crescent.

Rejection from 'American Idol' provides insights into perseverance

More information: Mikhail Zhilin et al. Early art in the Urals: new research on the wooden sculpture from Shigir, Antiquity (2018). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.48

Abstract
The carved wooden object uncovered from the Shigir peat bog in the Sverdlovsk region towards the end of the nineteenth century remains one of the oldest, known examples of monumental anthropomorphic sculpture from anywhere in the world. Recent application of new analytical techniques has led to the discovery of new imagery on its surface, and has pushed the date of the piece back to the earliest Holocene. The results of these recent analyses are placed here in the context of local and extra-local traditions of comparable prehistoric art. This discussion highlights the unique nature of the find and its significance for appreciating the complex symbolic world of Early Holocene hunter-gatherers.

Journal information: Antiquity

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