Boston Dynamics Is Hoping Robot Dogs Are Less Creepy While Fighting Fire

Lucas Ropek 

“Spot,” the nascent Terminator on four legs invented by /Skynet/, er, I mean, Boston Dynamics, has landed its next public safety gig: firefighter.

© Photo: Alejandro Martinez Velez/Europa Press

The New York Times reports that the city’s fire department has procured two of the $75,000 quadrupeds and plans to deploy them “occasionally,” leveraging them in especially dangerous situations where it’s harder for human responders to deploy. The first fire agency in the country to do so, the FDNY wants to use the “dogs” on treacherous search and rescue missions, where they will allegedly help relay important situational data back to responders.

“I look forward to a positive and productive conversation with F.D.N.Y. leaders to ensure these robotic ‘dogs’ are only being used on rare, specialized, occasions with a goal of protecting our residents and first responders,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson, in a statement provided to the newspaper.

If this all sounds very familiar it’s because we’ve been here before, albeit with a different city agency. Back in early 2021, the Times reported that the New York Police Department would be one of the first police agencies in the country to deploy Spot (which the NYPD had renamed “Digidog”) for selective law enforcement missions.

And yet, only a few months into Digidog’s tenure, the Times reported that public backlash had forced the NYPD to return the mechanical canine to its kennel at Boston Dynamics. Adjectives like “creepy” and “dystopian” had dogged the unfortunate product, and, as it turned out, a lot of New Yorkers were uncomfortable with the idea of a quasi-sentient robot stalking around their neighborhood—especially one that could quite easily be equipped with a remote-controlled gun turret.

Now, Boston Dynamics seems to be hoping that New Yorkers will find their metallic contraption more digestible if it’s assisting a different public agency—one with a decidedly better reputation.

But privacy advocates fear that deploying the robo-Rover—even in a limited capacity—could come with a slew of new concerns over how exactly it’ll be used. In an email to Gizmodo, Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, all but called the dog an expensive, invasive toy, one that might never actually get out of the garage.

“This is a costly surveillance gimmick that New Yorkers never needed, and it’s unclear if this latest doggy drone will ever be used,” Cahn told Gizmodo. “The FDNY rank and file have been calling for a pay rise, not new surveillance tech,” he added. Cahn also worries that data collected by the robot could fall into the hands of other agencies: “While I’m more inclined to trust the FDNY with new surveillance gear, there’s nothing to stop the NYPD from taking the data it collects,” he said. “At most, data from other city agencies is just a court order away from the NYPD, and often they only have to ask. If the FDNY wants to have its surveillance tech treated differently, then we need real protections against NYPD access to that information.”

You can certainly see the appeal of having robots do dangerous, dirty work so that humans don’t have to. But fears over whether these dogs will just be creepy spies seems legitimate, given that we once considered flying robots to be a horrifying dystopian fantasy and now you can barely go to a public park without having some teenager’s drone whiz by your head. We reached out to the New York Fire Department for comment on its recent litter of robots but a spokesperson said nobody was immediately available for comment.

Power Corp. ends record year with profits flat in fourth quarter

MONTREAL — Power Corporation of Canada says it earned record profits last year as net income was flat in the fourth quarter.

The Montreal-based holding company said its earnings attributable to shareholders reached $2.92 billion last year, up from $1.99 billion in 2020, while adjusted profits increased 55 per cent to $4.77 per diluted share.

In the three months ended Dec. 31, Power earned $626 million or 93 cents per share, up from $623 million or 92 cents per share in the prior-year quarter.

Adjusted profits for the quarter were $676 million or $1 per share, in line with analyst forecasts and up from $627 million or 93 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2020.


The company says it has realized its $50-million targeted cost reductions from its reorganization completed in February 2020 in which it acquired the minority interests of Power Financial.

Power holds full control of Power Financial and with that majority stakes in Great-West Lifeco, IGM Financial and Wealthsimple Financial Corp., as well as a minority stake in Pargesa Holding.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:POW)

CANADIAN LIFE CO'S

GREAT WEST LIFE IS THIRD AFTER SUN LIFE AND MANULIFE

Rush's Geddy Lee set to guest star on 'Murdoch Mysteries' episode

TORONTO — Geddy Lee is putting down his bass guitar for a guest role on "Murdoch Mysteries."

The former Rush band member will make another case for his occasional acting career with a bit part on an episode of the detective series set to air Monday on CBC and stream on CBC Gem.

The storyline follows the mystery of a murdered blues saxophonist whose death was seemingly foretold in vivid detail through the lyrics of a song.

Lee is part of a subplot, playing a carriage driver who's transporting lead character William Murdoch and his pregnant wife.

The musician's appearance adds to his growing number of cameos and small roles on hit TV series, including "Chicago Fire," "How I Met Your Mother," and the Hollywood comedy "I Love You, Man," where he starred alongside Rush bandmates Alex Lifeson and the late Neil Peart as themselves.

In a promotional clip, Lee explained he first entertained the "Murdoch Mysteries" role while mingling with star Yannick Bisson and his wife at a fundraiser.

"We just got chatting through the course of the evening and he said, 'Why don't you come and hang out with us one day?' And I said, 'Sure sounds like fun.' And here I am," he said.

"I have to use some sort of modest acting skill to fit into the already well-established 'Murdoch Mysteries' scenario," he added with a laugh.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 16, 2022.

David Friend, The Canadian Press

Physicist Eugene Parker, namesake of NASA probe, dies at 94

CHICAGO (AP) — Eugene Parker, a physicist who theorized the existence of solar wind and became the first person to witness the launch of a spacecraft bearing his name, has died, his son and the University of Chicago said Wednesday.

His son, Eric Parker, said Eugene Parker died peacefully at a retirement community in Chicago on Tuesday, about a decade after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He was 94.

NASA administrators and university colleagues hailed Parker as a visionary in his field of heliophysics, focused on the study of the sun and other stars. He is best known for his 1958 theory of the existence of solar wind — a supersonic flow of particles off the sun's surface.

“Dr. Eugene Parker’s contributions to science and to understanding how our universe works touches so much of what we do here at NASA,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “Dr. Parker’s legacy will live on through the many active and future NASA missions that build upon his work.”

Parker recalled in 2018 that his solar wind theory was widely criticized and even mocked at publication. He was vindicated in 1962 when a NASA spacecraft mission to Venus confirmed his theory and solar wind's effect on the solar system, including occasional disruptions of communications systems on Earth.

The experience became part of Parker's identity as an educator and mentor.

“If you do something new or innovative, expect trouble,” he said in 2018 when asked to give advice to early career scientists. "But think critically about it because if you’re wrong, you want to be the first one to know that.”

Parker was born in 1927 in Houghton, Michigan. He studied physics at Michigan State University and California Institute of Technology, then worked as an assistant professor at the University of Utah before coming to the University of Chicago in 1955.

Eric Parker said he and his sister, Joyce, simply knew their dad was a scientist and didn't learn about his stature in the field until later in their lives.

The elder Parker would occasionally rise from the dinner table to jot down an idea, his son said. But his children most remember Parker as an involved dad and an avid hiker, camper and craftsman who carved busts of famous figures from wood and made much of the family's furniture.

“He always felt like workaholics were missing out,” Eric Parker said Wednesday. “He loved his job and he would tell you that when he discovered physics, he would have done it as a side gig because he enjoyed it so much. But he would also go on and on that if you’re getting over 40 hours a week in your job, you were missing out on the rest of life.”

In addition to his children, Eugene Parker is survived by his wife, Niesje, and three grandsons.

NASA honored Parker's scientific contributions in 2018 by naming a spacecraft after him that was destined to travel straight into the sun's crown. The Parker Solar Probe's successful launch — which the then-91-year-old Parker attended — has since provided unprecedented close views of the sun.

Angela Olinto, dean of the physical sciences division at the University of Chicago, accompanied Parker to the launch. She recalled his seemingly boundless energy in the early morning hours preceding the launch and his childlike grin when everything went smoothly.

“He was this ideal of a physicist: a person who has a strong intuition, who can see one step ahead and who can then sit down and show the intuition is correct,” Olinto said

Dr. Nicola Fox, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division, said Parker “was a visionary," adding that she will miss sharing the latest data from the probe's travels with him.

“Even though Dr. Parker is no longer with us, his discoveries and legacy will live forever," Fox said.

Kathleen Foody, The Associated Press

THE HUMBLE HANDLE

Early man's greatest invention was the handle, study suggests

Could the humble handle be an invention greater than the wheel?

© Provided by National Post 

Volunteer's movements and oxygen level is tracked while using 'hafted' tools.

According to University of Liverpool researchers, adding handles to stone tools increased their function and required less effort when scraping, chopping and hammering.

The handle’s emergence 500,000 years ago, according to the study, marked a technological leap that may have “shaped human social, cognitive and biological capabilities”. (For comparison, the wheel was invented 6,000 years ago.)

“The transition from hand-held to hafted tool technology marked a significant shift in conceptualizing the construction and function of tools,” they write.

Hafted tools, such as scrapers and axes, are made up of component parts that add up to a more useful whole, contributing to cognitive skills that corresponded with “development of language and extended planning,” the researchers add. Researchers cite a 2015 published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, that found late Middle Palaeolithic flake cleavers were more effective than hand-held cleavers in “tree felling and carcass butchery tasks as measured by number of blows and time required.”

Finding the oldest axe in the world was easy. Persuading academic reviewers it was real was an ordeal

Metal plate fused to 2,000-year-old Peruvian warrior's skull proof of early surgery

Early man’s use of handled tools increased “killing power” and “reduced contact with biological hazards,” the researchers also add.

It’s widespread implementation is also thought to have shaped the functionality of our upper limbs:

“It is assumed that addition of a handle improved the (bio)mechanical properties of a tool and upper limb by offering greater amounts of leverage, force and precision.”

The researchers carried out experiments with 40 volunteers of 24 men and 16 women, each of whom were given a range of tools to try. This included a chopping tool (a hatchet with a steel head and wooden handle) and a shave hook for scraping.

The participants wore trackers to study their muscle contraction and oxygen consumption while using the tools, both with the handles and with the handles removed.

The hatchet was used to chop off as much wood as possible from a 6 cm-thick wooden dowel in under 5 minutes, while the scraper was used to scrape out the fibres from a carpet with a thickness similar to that of animal hide.

The study found that the tools with handles provided leverage enabling “large velocities … without requiring heavy muscular effort.”

It concluded “The energetic and biomechanical benefits of hafting [adding handles] arguably contributed to both the invention and spread of this technology.

“These reductions in physiological and biomechanical demands, as well as demands on energy and time budgets, would enhance both individual and group survival.”

National Post Staff 

Works of Frederick Engels 1876

The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man

Three decades ago world told to 'act now' on climate


With the planet facing the "potentially serious consequences" of global warming, UN experts writing 32 years ago urged an indifferent world to take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

© Noel Celis

 Current levels of atmospheric CO2 have not been experienced for at least two million years, the IPCC says

Planet-warming carbon pollution has increased ever since.

In 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced the first trio of reports in a cycle of climate change assessments -- one on the physical science of warming, one on the impacts and one on solutions -- that has repeated roughly every six years.

While the authors of the most recent IPCC report on impacts, released in February this year, can say the evidence of harm to humanity and the entire planet is "unequivocal", the authors of those first reports 30 years ago could not be as forthright.

But they were clear that the risks were so high we couldn't afford to wait.

"The potentially serious consequences of climate change on the global environment," they said "give sufficient reasons to begin by adopting response strategies that can be justified immediately even in the face of such significant uncertainties".

They said cuts to the planet-warming gases that humans were pumping into the atmosphere should be swift and drastic.

"Because climate change could potentially result in significant impacts on the global environment and human activities, it is important to begin considering now what measures might be taken in response," the report said.

There was never an easy answer.

The scientists writing the 1990 report underscored the need to reduce emissions of different gases -- especially carbon dioxide and methane -- across a range of different sectors, from energy generation to agriculture.

"Our understanding has been refined over 40 years, but the alarm has been ringing since the first IPCC report," said Celine Guivarch, one of the authors of the latest IPCC assessment of solutions, set to be published on April 4.

With each new cycle of climate evaluation, the description of risks in the IPCC reports has become ever clearer and more urgent. The forecasts have become increasingly catastrophic.

Meanwhile, emissions have risen almost every year, only breaking their relentless pace because of major economic crises, such as the one triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a result, CO2 in the atmosphere has never been higher.

According to data from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, which has monitored the atmosphere for decades, C02 concentrations reached 416 parts per million in 2021, up from 354 ppm in 1990 when the first IPCC report was published.

Earth has experienced periods of much higher C02 concentrations in the distant past.

But in its report on the physical science released in August 2021, the IPCC said the rate the gas has increased in the atmosphere since 1900 "is at least 10 times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years".

"Current levels of atmospheric CO2 have not been experienced for at least two million years," it added.

abd/klm/mh/bp

AFP

UN report to lay out options to halt climate crisis

Nearly 200 nations gather on Monday to confront a question that will outlive Russia's invasion of Ukraine: how do we stop carbon pollution overheating the planet and threatening life as we know it?

  

© Nikolay DOYCHINOV 

Current carbon-cutting commitments still put us on a catastrophic path toward 2.7C of warming by 2100

The answer is set to arrive on April 4 after closed-door, virtual negotiations approve the summary of a phonebook-sized report detailing options for drawing down greenhouse gases and extracting them out of thin air.

"The science is crystal clear, the impacts are costly and mounting, but we still have some time to close the window and get ahead of the worst of them if we act now," said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate and energy think tank E3G.

"This report will supply the answers as to what we need if we're serious about getting there."

In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) laid out the physical science: changes in global warming and sea level rise, along with shifts in the frequency, duration and intensity of cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and other forms of extreme weather.

That was the first instalment of a three-part assessment, the sixth since 1990. It projected that Earth's surface temperature will rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, perhaps within a decade.

A 1.5C cap on global warming -- the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris climate accord -- has been embraced as a target by most of the world's nations.

Current carbon-cutting commitments under the treaty, however, still put us on a catastrophic path toward 2.7C of warming by 2100.

- A liveable future -

Part two of the more than 10,000-page report -- described by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as an "atlas of human suffering" -- catalogued past and future climate impacts on human society and the natural world.

Delaying climate action would severely reduce the chances of a "livable future," it concluded.

Part three -- spread across thousands of pages -- is about how to slow and stop warming, with separate chapters on the key sectors where rapid and deep change is critical: energy, transport, industry, agriculture, among others.

"We are talking about the large-scale transformation of all the major systems," climate economist and co-author Celine Guivarch told AFP.

It also focuses on ways to curb carbon emissions by reducing demand, whether through making buildings more energy efficient or encouraging shifts in lifestyle, such as eating less beef and not flying half-way around the world for a week-long holiday.

The report details more than a dozen techniques for pulling CO2 out of the air, which will be needed to compensate for sectors -- such as aviation and shipping -- that are likely still carbon polluters by mid-century.

"Many things have changed" since the previous three-part report, which came out eight years ago, said Taryn Fransen, an analyst at the World Resources Institute.

The Paris Agreement -- the first climate deal in which all countries pledged action -- was signed.

The world has seen an endless crescendo of deadly climate impacts, from drought to fire to floods.

The price of renewable energy, key to the reducing emissions, has fallen below the cost of fossil fuels in most markets.

- 'Inflamed situation' -

The IPCC "solutions" report draws from hundreds of models projecting development pathways that keep Earth within the bounds of the Paris temperature goals.

"There are scenarios that show high renewables and low nuclear, and scenarios that show the opposite," said Fransen.

"This report lays out those pathways. Now it's up now to our leaders to take that to heart."

Besides feeding into UN political negotiations, which resume in November in Egypt at COP 27, the IPCC findings will also be important "for the conversation going on in the US and Europe around the need to transition away from Russian oil and gas," said Meyer.

The head of the IPCC delegation from Ukraine made this point in a dramatic statement at a closed plenary in February, only days after Russian troops invaded her country.

"Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots -- fossil fuels -- and our dependence on them," said Svitlana Krakovska, according to multiple sources.

The war in Ukraine will likely come up during the two-week IPCC negotiations starting Monday.

"It's a more enflamed situation," said Meyer. "I don't know how this is gonna play out but it's something to watch."

abd-mh/jm

AFP

Inside the plan to save some of the biggest freshwater fish

Stefan Lovgren 
 National Geographic

Captive-raised specimens of some of the world’s largest and most critically endangered freshwater fish—including a five-foot-long Mekong giant catfish—were released this month into Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. Scientists hope the released fish can survive and begin to rebuild wild populations decimated by decades of overfishing, dam building, and other human actions.

© Photograph courtesy Zeb Hogan Zeb Hogan and a Cambodian colleague release a Mekong giant catfish in the Tonle Sap River, Cambodia in November 2007. The more recent release of critically endangered Mekong giant catfish into the Tonle Sap Lake is part of a program to reinstate giant fishes in the wild.

Those threats still exist, and the released species—the giant catfish, giant barb, and striped catfish—are considered bellwethers of the danger to a larger fishery that sustains millions of Cambodians.


“This release is significant, but it is just the first step of many actions that will be needed for the long-term recovery of these giant fish,” says Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who coordinated the release effort for a U.S. Agency for International Development research project he leads, called Wonders of the Mekong.

The Tonle Sap is connected to the Mekong River, which flows through six countries. The Mekong Basin is a global biodiversity hotspot, home to almost 1,000 freshwater fish species, including the world’s largest.

Large freshwater fish are among the most threatened animals globally, studies show. Populations of Mekong giant catfish, which can reach the size of a grizzly bear—660 pounds— and giant barb, a type of carp that can grow to similarly huge proportions, have plummeted by more than 90 percent in recent decades, according to Hogan. Hogan, who has long studied giant fish in the region, has not seen a Mekong giant catfish in the wild since 2015.

© Provided by National Geographic

Another species, the striped catfish, which can grow over four feet long and made up most of the fishes released this month, was once a staple food in the region. But it, too, has seen sharp declines and is now classified as endangered.

“These fish are the first to go as fishing pressure becomes unsustainable,” says Hogan, who is a National Geographic Explorer.

Many large fishes in the Mekong region are now bred in captivity. Introducing them into the wild is problematic, however, because a lack of genetic diversity may make them unable to reproduce successfully.

In contrast, the fish released this month were reared at an aquatic research center in southeastern Cambodia—but weren’t bred there. They were collected in the wild when they were so tiny their species could not be distinguished.

The five-foot-long Mekong giant catfish was one of five donated to the research center by a local fish trader. This trader had collected the fish when they were little more than specks 13 years ago, not knowing they would turn into massive catfish too big for her ponds

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© Photograph courtesy Zeb Hogan Striped river catfish are introduced into a fish reserve in the Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia.

A long journey

© Photograph Courtesy Wonders of the Mekong Project Tach Phanara cradles a Mekong giant catfish in a holding tank prior to its release.

The endangered fishes’ two-day trip back to the wild began around 8 p.m. on March 2, when two vans fitted with oxygenated water tanks departed the research center. One van carried hundreds of striped catfish, along with dozens of juvenile giant barbs, Cambodia’s national fish. In the other van were the two Mekong giant catfish.

Traveling through the night, the vans arrived in the northwestern city of Siem Reap at sunrise. There, the fish were held in ponds and tanks before being taken the following morning by boats into the open waters of the Tonle Sap, where they were released into a government-operated fish reserve. Of the more than 1,500 fish released, only one, a striped catfish, did not survive the ordeal.

For a reintroduction to succeed in the long term, the habitat must be healthy enough to support the fish. A study published in the journal Conservation Biology some years ago concluded that inadequately addressing the initial cause of decline in a fish population was the best predictor of “reintroduction failure.”

Such projects “cannot just stock a higher number of fish, even though this approach is the easiest,” says Jennifer Cochran-Biederman, a biology professor at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, and the lead author of that study. “They must tackle broader causes of habitat degradation, such as pollution, climate change, urban development, and dams, which is much more complicated.”

© Photograph Courtesy Wonders of the Mekong Project Chea Seila, Cambodia country manager for the USAID-funded Wonders of the Mekong Project, poses next to juvenile giant barb prior to its release into a fish reserve in the Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia.

The Tonle Sap, which provides a fertile feeding ground for many fish, remains relatively intact, despite being disrupted by upstream dam operations and several years of drought exacerbated by climate change (though this year the lake has seen higher water levels). That makes it a good place to reintroduce the fish.

© Photograph courtesy Zeb Hogan Tach Phanara and a colleague from the Cambodian Fisheries Administration collect a DNA sample from a striped river catfish prior to releasing it into the Tonle Sap.

“We know that juveniles of these species historically occur in the lake at this stage in their life cycle,” says Hogan.

The main threat to fish in the lake, where communal fisheries employ hundreds of thousands of people, is overfishing. The use of illegal fishing nets and other gear is widespread—in fact, it’s not even hidden. Large ocean-going fishing vessels have increasingly been seen operating in the lake using huge trawling nets, in violation of fishing regulations.

But the Tonle Sap also has one of the world’s largest network of inland fish reserves, designated areas where fishing is not allowed. In addition to a string of government-operated ones established a decade ago, there are several hundred smaller community reserves. Such areas, conservationists say, have proved successful shelters for many fish species, especially large ones.

“Although these reserves aren’t as old as others in Southeast Asia, they’re showing comparable benefits, with more fish inside the reserves than in areas where fishing is allowed,” says Aaron Koning, a University of Nevada conservation ecologist (and National Geographic Explorer) who studies the efficacy of fish reserves.

But he and others stress that even if regulations are enforced—which most observers agree is spotty in the Tonle Sap, the world’s largest inland fishery—reserves alone cannot protect migratory fish that move large distances in the river system to complete their life cycles. “The likelihood of the fish getting caught once they move out of the reserves and even the lake is very high,” says Koning.

Community effort

The fish that were released were tagged so that researchers could track them and gather information if the fish are recaptured. Fishers will be rewarded for returning the tags with information about the capture.

“This information tells us the level of fishing intensity in the lake, which is critically useful to inform management interventions,” says Ngor Peng Bun, a fish ecologist and fisheries science dean at Cambodia’s Royal University of Agriculture.

Presiding at the fish release ceremony, which was attended by a large group of local officials, Poum Sotha, director-general of the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, urged fishers to help the research effort, while also suggesting that if anyone were caught who had killed tagged fish, they would face legal consequences.

There are early signs that fishers are willing to assist. In the days following the release, many fish captures were reported, including one of the giant barbs. It had been ensnared in a trap and was ultimately released into a different sanctuary.

More releases are planned, and researchers hope to fit the next batch of fish with tags that emit soundwaves, in order to track them more actively. They also want to release fish in other locations, such as the deep pools of the Mekong River in northern Cambodia, where many of the migratory fish are believed to spawn.

“This release is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Hogan. “It’s necessary to do more, to see what works and what doesn’t, and keep learning and improving if we want to save these iconic fish.”

He and his colleagues will closely monitor what happens to the two Mekong giant catfish before deciding whether to release those still being held in captivity. Hogan is confident that if the largest of the two, in particular, is caught, the catch will be reported and the fish will be re-released.

“It’s such a large and unique fish. People recognize it as something special,” he says. For extra protection, the researchers named it Samnang—the Cambodian word for “lucky.”



The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funded explorer Zeb Hogan’s work. Learn more about the Society’s support of explorers highlighting and protecting critical species. Hogan and Stefan Lovgren are co-authors of the forthcoming book Chasing Giants: The Search for the World’s Largest Freshwater Fish.

In Peru, skull of 'marine monster' points to fearsome ancient predator

By Marco Aquino and Carlos Valdez

© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA 36 million-year-old Basilosaurus whale fossil displayed in Lima

LIMA (Reuters) - Paleontologists have unearthed the skull of a ferocious marine predator, an ancient ancestor of modern-day whales, which once lived in a prehistoric ocean that covered part of what is now Peru, scientists announced on Thursday.

© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA 36 million-year-old Basilosaurus whale fossil displayed in Lima

The roughly 36-million-year-old well-preserved skull was dug up intact last year from the bone-dry rocks of Peru's southern Ocucaje desert, with rows of long, pointy teeth, Rodolfo Salas, chief of paleontology at Peru's National University of San Marcos, told reporters at a news conference

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© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA 36 million-year-old Basilosaurus whale fossil displayed in Lima

Scientists think the ancient mammal was a basilosaurus, part of the aquatic cetacean family, whose contemporary descendents include whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Basilosaurus means "king lizard," although the animal was not a reptile, though its long body might have moved like a giant snake.

The one-time top predator likely measured some 12 meters (39 feet) long, or about the height of a four-story building.

"It was a marine monster," said Salas, adding the skull, which has already been put on display at the university's museum, may belong to a new species of basilosaurus.

© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA 36 million-year-old Basilosaurus whale fossil displayed in Lima

"When it was searching for its food, it surely did a lot of damage," added Salas.

Scientists believe the first cetaceans evolved from mammals that lived on land some 55 million years ago, about 10 million years after an asteroid struck just off what is now Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, wiping out most life on Earth, including the dinosaurs.

Salas explained that when the ancient basilosaurus died, its skull likely sunk to the bottom of the sea floor, where it was quickly buried and preserved.

"Back during this age, the conditions for fossilization were very good in Ocucaje," he said.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Carlos Valdez; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Karishma Singh)

ICE HUNT

JAMES ROLLINS
RELEASED ON: Jul 01, 2003
Carved into a moving island of ice twice the size of the United States, Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than seventy years. The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible.
But an American undersea research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close – and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law. And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives, and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel’s lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries – because the terrible truths locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel could end human life on Earth.

https://jamesrollins.com/book/ice-hunt/

A new, armored dinosaur species was found in southwestern China

By Megan Marples, CNN 

A new dinosaur species from the early Jurassic period was discovered in southwestern China, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal eLife.

© courtesy Yu Chen

 Yuxisaurus kopchicki remains included pieces of its skull, jaws, limbs and armor plates.

Scientists originally found remains of an armored dinosaur, which they named Yuxisaurus kopchicki, in 2017 in the Yuxi region of Yunnan province, an area that has been a hotspot for dinosaur discoveries. Research on the specimens began in 2019, according to study author Shundong Bi, professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The ancient creature belongs to the thyreophoran group, the same as its distant cousin the Stegosaurus, said study author Paul Barrett, merit researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.

It likely lived 192 million to 174 million years ago and is the first thyreophoran from that time period to be recognized in the region, according to the study.

"This is the first early armoured dinosaur to be named from the entire Asian continent and helps to show how the group spread around the world shortly after its origin just a few million years earlier," Barrett said via email.

Yuxisaurus kopchicki likely spanned 6.6 to 9.8 feet (2 to 3 meters) in length and ate low-growing plants like ferns and cycads, he said.

A collection of diverse fossils

A series of bone plates encased the animal, covering its neck, back and limbs, with large spikes scattered on top of the armor, Barrett said.

The spikes served multiple purposes: deflecting the jaws and teeth of most predators while also possibly being a tool for showing off to other members of its own species during territorial or mate disputes, he explained.

A couple modern-day animals that behave similarly are porcupines and hedgehogs, Bi said.

More than 120 bone deposits were retrieved from the dig site, giving the researchers enough material to confirm a new species, he said.

The remains included multiple fragments of a single skeleton, including parts of the armor plates, limbs, jaws and skull. The dinosaur's heavy build and distinctive armor hinted that the researchers had a new species on their hands, Bi said.

Additionally, the findings show how diverse the group of dinosaurs was and how rapidly they spread across the northern hemisphere, he said.

The armored dinosaur's closest relatives are the herbivorous Scelidosaurus and the Emausaurus -- both of which originated in Europe during the Jurassic period, Barrett said.

Alberta looks to name ammolite its official gemstone
Ashley Joannou 15 hrs ago

© Provided by Edmonton Journal 

Alberta Culture Minister Ron Orr speaks about an amendment to the Emblems of Alberta Act to designate ammolite as the official gemstone of Alberta during a news conference in Edmonton, on Thursday, March 17, 2022. He's wearing an ammolite pin shaped like the province.

The Alberta government wants to make ammolite the official gemstone of the province.

If passed, Bill 6, tabled in the legislature Thursday, would amend the Emblems of Alberta Act to give ammolite the designation alongside more than a dozen other “official” things, including the province’s official bird (great horned owl), official mammal (Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep), official fish (bull trout), and official stone (petrified wood).

In a statement, Culture Minister Ron Orr said ammolite is an important part of Alberta’s heritage and economy.

“Recognizing ammolite as Alberta’s official gemstone reflects the unique nature of the stone and of our province,” he said.

Found mostly in southern Alberta, ammolite is created when fossilized shells of molluscs, known as ammonites, sink to the seabed and get covered in mud that hardens over millions of years to become shale.

NDP indigenous relations critic Richard Feehan said in a statement that ammolite has an important history with deeply rooted traditions for many Indigenous cultures

“I hope that honouring these traditions and practices will help us reflect on our relationship as treaty people,” he said