NASA seeking more than $10 billion in infrastructure bill

by Jeff Foust — May 19, 2021

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the agency would seek $5.4 billion in the upcoming infrastructure and jobs bill to fund competition for future missions in the Human Landing System program beyond the single award made to SpaceX in April. Credit: SpaceX

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told House appropriators May 19 that the agency is requesting more than $11 billion in an upcoming infrastructure bill that would go for the agency’s Human Landing System program and upgrading center facilities.

Nelson, testifying in a virtual hearing by the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice and science subcommittee about NASA’s fiscal year 2022 budget proposal, said the agency has submitted to Congress requests for funding to be included in legislation to enact what the White House calls the American Jobs Plan, which has a total value of $2.3 trillion over 10 years.

He told members that NASA was seeking $5.4 billion for the Human Landing System to fund competition for future lander missions beyond the “Option A” award the agency made to SpaceX April 16. That award covers development of a lander based on SpaceX’s Starship vehicle and a single crewed landing. NASA plans to conduct a separate solicitation for future missions, which will be open to both SpaceX and other companies.

“You, the appropriators, as a partner, you’ve got the opportunity to put over about $5 billion in the jobs bill,” he told members. “Specifically, we named about $5.4 billion on the Human Landing System.”

Several members of the subcommittee said they were concerned about NASA’s decision to make only a single Option A award after agency officials previously stated they would seek to make up to two awards. Nelson said the shortfall in funding for the HLS program, which received $850 million — a quarter its original request — in fiscal year 2021, led to the decision to select only one company. “They just simply didn’t have enough to keep going forward on more than one lander,” he said.

He declined to go into specifics about the HLS award selection process, referring to a “blackout period” as the Government Accountability Office reviews protests filed by the two losing bidders, Blue Origin and Dynetics. If the GAO sustains the protests, “then everything starts over” with the program, he said. If the GAO denies the protests, he said NASA will go forward with a competition for later landing missions.

Among the critics of the HLS award was the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who said it was “unacceptable for the fate of the U.S. access to cislunar space to be in the hands of only one company.”

Aderholt later asked if NASA could provide funding to all three companies that received HLS base period contracts in 2020 through this August. Nelson said procurement law prevented him from doing so because of the blackout period caused by the protests. He said the agency has obligated $410 million so far this fiscal year on the HLS program, but has spent no money on the Option A award to SpaceX because of the protest.

Nelson said that NASA would also request in the infrastructure bill another $5.4 billion to upgrade facilities at NASA centers. “There’s aging infrastructure that is dilapidated” at centers like the Ames Research Center and Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, he told Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)

He also cited an administration building at the Marshall Space Flight Center that needs to be demolished and the need for repairs of the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. “They’ve got holes in the roof where they’re putting together the core of the SLS,” he said. “You all can really, really help us.”

Nelson said NASA would also seek in the infrastructure bill $200 million to fund development of new spacesuits for the Artemis program and $585 million for nuclear thermal propulsion technology for later missions to Mars. “That would have not only extraordinary R&D benefits, but ultimately producing, because of the development of new technology, new things that produce new jobs,” he told Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), who asked about nuclear thermal propulsion work at NASA.

The funding in the infrastructure bill, which would likely be spent over several years, would be in addition to the agency’s overall budget request. The White House released an outline of its fiscal year 2022 budget proposal April 9, including $24.7 billion for NASA, a 6% increase over 2021. However, full details about the budget won’t be released until May 27.

That limited the level of detail that appropriators could ask Nelson about the budget, but many said they were pleased at least with the broad outlines of the proposal. “The president’s so-called ‘skinny’ budget sets a good tone, proposing $24.7 billion for fiscal year 2022,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), chairman of the subcommittee.

Aderholt, late in the two-hour hearing, probed Nelson for details about proposed funding for the upgraded SLS Block 1B vehicle, which uses the Exploration Upper Stage under development. “I don’t have the budget request because the president hasn’t put it out,” Nelson responded. “But, a little birdie told me that he thinks you’ll be happy with the budget request.”

Private sector seeks bigger role in NASA Earth science program

by Jeff Foust — May 19, 2021

Carbon Mapper, a partnership involving Planet, JPL and the state of California, will track “superemitters” of greenhouse gases with freely available data, while Planet will be able to commercialize other data products using the spacecraft. Credit: Planet

WASHINGTON — Companies and organizations used a House hearing May 18 to advocate for a larger role in NASA’s Earth science programs, arguing their capabilities can complement NASA spacecraft.

The hearing by the House space subcommittee on NASA’s Earth science programs devoted much of its attention to how commercial Earth imaging spacecraft could supplement NASA missions to study climate change, a growing priority for both the agency and the Biden administration.

“As NASA is creating its next flagship missions, including the Landsat Next program, NASA should incorporate the planned, viable commercial capabilities into their procurement strategies and seek commercial capabilities as a forethought, rather than an afterthought,” said Robbie Schingler, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Planet.

NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are, under Landsat Next, studying architectures for future Earth science satellites to follow Landsat 9. The agencies have said they are open to approaches far different from the traditional designs of single large spacecraft, but Schingler said in his written testimony that the government has offered mixed messages in recent requests for information “that favor a more traditional and expensive architecture toward large satellite designs.”

He said NASA should be thinking about how to fill data gaps in a “system of systems” that includes both its own spacecraft and Europe’s Copernicus series of Earth observation missions, something that he said could be done with commercial spacecraft. “At this early stage of a procurement strategy, we do urge this committee, and NASA and USGS, to open up the aperture and to consider more novel and innovative approaches toward the next-generation Landsat Next program.”

An example of a novel and innovative approach highlighted at the hearing is Carbon Mapper, a public-private partnership that includes Planet, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the state of California. The project, announced April 15, will place a series of satellites in orbit to track emissions of greenhouse gases.

Riley Duren, a research scientist at the University of Arizona and chief executive of Carbon Mapper Inc., the nonprofit organization leading the project, said at the hearing that the project will provide data to identify “superemitters” of methane and carbon dioxide, such as pipeline or tank leaks.

“This suggests low-hanging fruit, if you will, for near-term progress,” he said. “The idea here is that a high-fidelity constellation of satellites could offer daily facility-scale methane monitoring over key regions globally to alert operators and regulators of leaks in the most timely and cost-effective way.”

He noted that, like NASA missions, Carbon Mapper will make data freely available, leveraging the project’s philanthropic support. Planet, though, will be able to commercialize other applications of the data the project’s satellites collect, sharing revenue with Carbon Mapper. “It’s part of what’s innovative about this,” he said. “It will help address one of the challenges we face with federal programs, and that is continuity: how do you keep these observations going once you start them?”

Schingler also asked Congress to support NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program. Under that program, NASA purchases imagery and other data from commercial spacecraft for use by scientists. “My main recommendation for this committee in particular is to put into statute the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program and to robustly fund it,” he said.

That program is not formally authorized, and it is not included in a NASA authorization bill that the Senate Commerce Committee attached to a National Science Foundation bill May 12. That bill, now called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, is being debated by the full Senate this week.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), chairman of the space subcommittee, appeared open to including it, stating at the hearing that he hopes to take up a NASA authorization bill later this year.

Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth sciences division, said she supported greater partnerships with commercial providers. The agency has been working to negotiate, as part of commercial smallsat data purchases, licensing terms that will allow it to distribute the data not just to the agency’s own researchers but others as well.

“I couldn’t be more excited by the possibilities enabled by all of the growth in commercial Earth observation,” she said. “They absolutely complement our government systems and they expand the scope of the science that we can do.”

 RED SCARE 2.0 COMMIES ON MARS

Nelson uses Chinese Mars landing as a warning to Congress

by Jeff Foust — May 19, 2021

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shows an image taken by China’s Zhurong Mars rover, which he used as evidence of China’s growing capabilities in space exploration during a May 19 House appropriations hearing. Credit: House Appropriations Committee webcast

 Washington-NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated China for successfully landing a rover on Mars, but also used the milestone to warn Congress of China’s competitive threat to American leadership in human spaceflight.

In a statement May 19, hours after the China National Space Administration (CNSA) released the first images taken by the Zhurong rover since its May 14 landing on Mars, Nelson congratulated China for being only the second country, after the United States, to land a spacecraft on Mars and operate it there for more than a brief period.

“As the international scientific community of robotic explorers on Mars grows, the United States and the world look forward to the discoveries Zhurong will make to advance humanity’s knowledge of the Red Planet,” Nelson said in the statement. “I look forward to future international discoveries, which will help inform and develop the capabilities needed to land human boots on Mars.”

NASA distributed the press release at the same time that Nelson was testifying before the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice and science subcommittee. During that hearing, he used the Zhurong landing as a warning against American complacency in space exploration.

“I want you to see this photograph,” he said, brandishing one of the Zhurong images. He argued that the landing was evidence that China was serious about sending spacecraft to both the Moon and Mars, including, eventually, human missions. “I think that’s now adding a new element as to whether or not we want to get serious and get a lot of activity going in landing humans back on the surface of the moon.”

Nelson revisited the issue near the end of the two-hour hearing, again showing the Zhurong image. “It is a very aggressive competitor,” he said of China. “They’re going to be landing humans on the moon. That should tell us something about our need to get off our duff and get our Human Landing System program going vigorously.”

While Zhurong is on Mars, Nelson focused his concern on the moon. He said China is planning three “big landers” that will go to the south pole of the moon. He cited unnamed reports that claim that China is planning “a flyby and a lunar lander in the decade of the 2020s.” The implication, not explicitly stated by Nelson, is that the flyby and lander missions would be crewed.

In a presentation during a Royal Aeronautical Society conference May 19, Yao Jianting, deputy general secretary of CNSA, said China was planning a second lunar sample return mission, Chang’e-6, in 2024 or 2025. Two other lander missions to the lunar poles, Chang’e-7 and 8, are scheduled for between 2024 and 2028. That would be followed by an international lunar research station between 2030 and 2035, in cooperation with nations such as Russia.

However, Yao did not mention the crewed lunar flyby or lunar landing mission concepts that Nelson brought up at the hearing. Yao’s brief discussion of China human spaceflight programs focused on development of a space station over the next two years.

“This needs to be taken note of by the committee,” Nelson said of the Chinese lunar exploration plans he outlined at the hearing. He called on Congress to provide funding for the HLS program through a proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure and jobs bill.

“NASA can’t do it alone. You all are our partners,” he told the committee, citing recommendations he made earlier in the hearing for additional funding. “We want a vigorous competition, but we’ve got to have the money in order to be able to do that.”

HEY TESLA BEAT IT
Ford launches ‘truck of the future’

 F-150 Lightning – and it’s a beast

By Axel Metz 

Power and practicality

(Image credit: Ford)

Ford has announced an all-electric version of North America’s best-selling vehicle, the F-Series pick-up truck.

The Ford F-150 Lightning will arrive in 2022 for the US and Canada, and marks “a defining moment” for the American car industry, according to chairman Jim Ford.

The announcement comes as Ford plans to dramatically increase its EV sales in the US, with the F-150 Lightning primed to rival the likes of the Tesla Cybertruck when it goes on sale early next year.

Ford F-150 and Mustang Mach-E will get a free Amazon Alexa update

Electric Ford Mustang Mach-E GT packs the horsepower to rival Audi

The Lightning borrows its name from a previous performance-focused iteration of the F-Series and boasts similarly impressive on-the-road specs. Thanks to a 555bhp four-wheel-drive powertrain, the electric truck can sprint from 0-60mph in just 4 seconds and offers 775 lb ft of torque – the most yet on an F-150. 

It will be available in two battery capacities, offering official ranges of up to 230 and 300 miles, respectively. Ford will also throw in an at-home charging station as standard, which the company says will be capable of 150kW DC fast-charging, allowing the Lightning to gain 15-80% charge in just 41 minutes.

The truck also offers a power-at-home function, which gives owners the option to use 9.6kW of its battery charge to – you guessed it – power a home during a power outage. Impressively, Ford says the Lightning is capable of powering the average home for up to 10 days, and can also provide charge to electrical equipment.


Naturally, the Lightning is a pretty strong machine, too. The standard, 18-inch wheel variant boasts a maximum payload of 907kg, along with a towing capacity of up to 4536kg. To add some perspective, that means the Lightning could comfortably tow an adult Hippopotamus behind it – or two-thirds of a T-Rex, if you can find one.
Bells and whistles

The Ford F-150 Lightning is no slouch when it comes to interior design, either.

Inside, the truck will pack a 15.5-inch touchscreen display alongside a 12-inch digital instrument cluster – not dissimilar to the configuration we’ve seen in the GMC Hummer EV – both of which will utilise Ford's new SYNC 4A infotainment system. The Lightning’s main display is portrait, mind, while the Hummer’s is landscape.

That new system employs natural voice control, cloud-connected navigation and wireless access to popular in-car services – specifically Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, integrated Amazon Alexa and SYNC AppLink apps.

The Lightning will also utilize BlueCruise as part of Ford’s Co-Pilot 360 technology, allowing true hands-free driving on more than 100,000 miles of pre-qualified divided highways in the US and Canada. Ford says more hands-free ‘Blue Zones’ are on the way in the future, too.

“It really is the smartest F-150 we’ve ever made,” said Darren Palmer, general manager of Battery Electric Vehicles at Ford.

The F-150 Lightning will launch in the US and Canada between March and May next year, with a starting price of $39,974 – which puts it alongside its combustion engine counterparts, price-wise.

It won't be offered in the UK, though, so no Hippopotamus-towing for the Brits.

Yes, the fully-electric Hummer SUV can also walk like a crab

COLD WAR 2.0 RED SCARE REDUX

NEW REPORT: Hong Kong Watch ‘Red Capital’ report warns democratic governments to learn from China’s strategy of ‘economic coercion’ in Hong Kong


On 3 March, Hong Kong Watch publish a new report entitled: ‘Red Capital in Hong Kong: The Invisible Hand transforming the city’s politics.’ The report provides a warning to democratic governments about the way that Beijing has used ‘economic coercion’ as a key strategy of control in Hong Kong.

The report underlines the way that an influx of mainland money and assets - red capital - changed the power dynamics in the city’s politics. With mainland chambers of commerce now major players, able to dictate which media companies get advertising and how their employees vote, the reservations of the international business lobby about the effect of the extradition bill on the rule of law were batted aside. Beijing has been subsequently able to issue an ultimatum to international business: endorse the national security law or face the treatment of Cathay Pacific – finding that China is a no-fly zone.

Johnny Patterson, Policy Director of Hong Kong Watch says: “20 years ago, Hong Kong’s success relied on international business. The rise of red capital has turned the tables, and recent trends have exposed the level of dependency that many of these international firms have on China. The business community’s acquiescence to the new normal, or in HSBC’s case active enforcement of the Hong Kong government’s priorities, should alarm international policy makers. HSBC’s position has undoubtedly undermined the strength of the UK government’s position on the Sino-British Joint Declaration.”

In its conclusions, the report considers the fact that despite geopolitical tension, capital flows between the West and China have increased in recent years, arguing this should be a cause of concern. Despite the situation in Hong Kong, the coronavirus, and the US-China Trade War driving a growing fissure between China and the West, ties between China and Global Finance are growing, and the total value of China’s stock market has hit record highs. Over the first eight months of 2020, the amount of Chinese onshore bonds held by foreign institutional investors increased more than 20 per cent year on year to Rmb2.8tn ($421bn), according to Fitch Ratings.

The report concludes that steps should be taken to question and stall major institutional investment into firms with ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex or complicit in gross human rights abuses. It underlines that scrutiny should be placed on the component members of passive index funds which track major investment indices such as the MSCI Emerging Markets index.

Patterson continues: “It is time to wake up. We need to be looking at where Western institutional investment is going and where China is targeting its investments. If we allow another ten years of Beijing’s strategic investment of red capital across Africa and Europe, Latin America and Asia to take place unchallenged, we should not be surprised if – when inevitably there are geopolitical flashpoints – we see a rerun of Beijing’s domination of Hong Kong in other strategic geo-political battlegrounds or indeed on our own doorstep. Hong Kong is a canary in the coalmine. It shows why Western researchers need to take red capital seriously, and policy makers need to find solutions.”

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.

European Parliament 'freezes' EU-China investment deal

On 20 May 2021, the European Parliament announced that it was freezing all consideration of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment Agreement until the sanctions on European Parliamentarians are lifted.

The resolution passed with 599 votes in favour states that: “any consideration of CAI & any discussion on ratification by the Parliament have justifiably been frozen because of Chinese sanctions; demands that China lift the sanctions before dealing with CAI, without prejudice to the final outcome of the ratification process.”

It continues to underline that the Parliament will “take the situation in China, incl. in Hong Kong, into account when asked to endorse CAI.”

The Parliament also called for the revocation of European extradition treaties with mainland China and for the European Commission to adopt a package of measures in response to the crisis in Hong Kong.

In the drafting process of the resolution, Hong Kong Watch were pleased to work with parliamentary allies to feed into the drafting process. We strongly welcome this resolution, but now call for CAI to be dropped in its entirety. It is a bad deal which is geopolitically ill-timed, promises more economically than it can possibly deliver, and would send a message that the EU is willing to sell-out its human rights commitments for the sake of trade.

Decision to keep Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford college ‘a slap in the face’

The governing body of Oriel College said it will not take down the monument at this stage.

The statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, University of Oxford / PA Archive

Eleanor Busby
THE EVENING STANDARD

20/5/2021

An Oxford University college’s decision not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes has been called “a slap in the face” by campaigners.

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign accused Oriel College of “institutional racism” after the governing body said it would not seek to move the monument at this stage.

The campaigners – which staged protests last summer over the statue of the British imperialist – are urging the college “to reconsider their position immediately” as they pledged to continue their fight.

An independent inquiry to examine Rhodes’ legacy was set up in June last year after the governing body of Oriel College “expressed their wish” to remove the statue from outside the college.

A majority of members on the commission supported the college’s original wish to remove the statue.

The morality of the decision of whether to remove the statue above High Street has been subsumed into a cost-benefit analysis, one that does not take into account the human cost of letting the statue remain

But a statement by Oriel College on Thursday said: “The governing body has carefully considered the regulatory and financial challenges, including the expected time frame for removal, which could run into years with no certainty of outcome, together with the total cost of removal.

“In light of the considerable obstacles to removal, Oriel’s governing body has decided not to begin the legal process for relocation of the memorials.”

The decision comes after a long-running campaign demanding the removal of the British imperialist’s monument gained renewed attention amid the Black Lives Matter movement.

A statement from the Rhodes Must Fall campaign said: “No matter how Oriel College might try to justify their decision, allowing the statue to remain is an act of institutional racism.

“The morality of the decision of whether to remove the statue above High Street has been subsumed into a cost-benefit analysis, one that does not take into account the human cost of letting the statue remain.

“Pretending that this is a choice made due to financial costs is a slap in the face with the hand of white supremacy, fed by the value system of profit before humanity, the same value system that justified enslavement.”

The campaigners added: “We are disappointed at the refusal to listen to not only the voices of the people who have called for the removal of the statue of Rhodes for many years, but their own governing body and the recommendations of the independent commission.


“We will continue to fight for the fall of this statue and everything it represents.”

Black Lives Matter protests / PA Archive


Councillor Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, said: “I am personally deeply disappointed that Oriel College have chosen today to backtrack on their previous decision to remove the Rhodes statue and ignore the views of the commission on this crucial part of their work.

“For people in our city this was the most important action that Oriel College could have taken to show an acknowledgement of the discrimination of the past and they have failed to act.”

But Education Secretary Gavin Williamson tweeted: “Sensible & balanced decision not to remove the Rhodes statue from Oriel College, Oxford – because we should learn from our past, rather than censoring history, and continue focussing on reducing inequality.”

Meanwhile, Dr Samir Shah, vice-chair of think tank Policy Exchange’s History Matters Project, said: “Oriel has rightly decided not to spend time on a fruitless effort to change the past, but to plough resources into trying to change the future, especially for ethnic minority young people.”

Announcing its decision not to remove the statue now, the college said it will focus its time and resources on “improving educational equality, diversity and inclusion” among its student cohort and academic community.

The governing body has agreed to:

– Create the office of Tutor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion– Fundraise for scholarships to support students from southern Africa– Have an annual lecture on a topic related to the Rhodes legacy, race, or colonialism– Provide additional training for academic and non-academic staff in race awareness– Introduce further outreach initiatives targeted at BME student recruitment

The independent commission was due to publish its findings in January, but the report was delayed due to Covid and the volume of submissions received.

A statement from Oriel College said most of the submissions to the commission backed the retention of the statue, but commission members did not make specific recommendations on the issue.

The report acknowledged the considerable planning and heritage considerations involved in removing the statue from a Grade II* listed building.

The governing body of Oriel College has agreed to contextualise the Rhodes legacy and memorials, including both physical elements at the site and virtual resources, and it will commission a virtual exhibition to provide an arena for contextualisation and explanation of the Rhodes legacy.

Lord Mendoza, provost of Oriel College, said: “It has been a careful, finely balanced debate and we are fully aware of the impact our decision is likely to have in the UK and further afield.

“We understand this nuanced conclusion will be disappointing to some, but we are now focused on the delivery of practical actions aimed at improving outreach and the day-to-day experience of BME students.

“We are looking forward to working with Oxford City Council on a range of options for contextualisation.”

An Oxford City Council spokesperson said: “We note the college’s decision not to remove the statue, but we are ready to progress any planning issues should they revise this decision.”

In 2016, Oriel College decided to keep the controversial statue in place following a consultation despite protests from campaigners.

Last summer, demonstrations took place outside Oriel College, calling for the statue to be removed from the High Street entrance of the building, as well as anti-racism protests, following the death of George Floyd in the US.

 AQUARISTS:

CT scans offer new view of Lake Malawi cichlid specimens in Penn State museum

Modern technology aids effort to characterize fish species in huge southern Africa water

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS ILLUSTRATION SHOWS THE VARIATION IN BODY MORPHOLOGY IN CICHLID FISHES IN LAKE MALAWI. THE BODY OF WATER IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, HOME TO BETWEEN 800 AND 1,000 SPECIES OF THE... view more 

CREDIT: JAY STAUFFER JR., PENN STATE

Computed tomography -- CT scanning -- which combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles around an organism and uses computer processing to create cross-sectional images of its bones, is providing new insight into an old initiative to characterize fishes in Africa's Lake Malawi.

The process, demonstrated in a new study using the high-resolution X-ray computer system in Penn State's Center for Quantitative X-Ray Imaging, is important because it will lead to the identification and management of more of the fish species in Africa's second largest lake, according to lead researcher Jay Stauffer Jr., distinguished professor of ichthyology in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

"Before they can effectively manage fish populations, they have to know what is there," he said.

Regarded by scientists as the most vibrant and diverse body of water in the world, Lake Malawi is home to between 800 and 1,000 species of colorful fish called cichlids; however, the lake is overfished by humans for food. As a result, about 10% of those species are believed to be endangered.

Located between Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique, Lake Malawi is immense. It covers an area of more than 11,000 square miles and holds 7% of the world's available surface freshwater -- by comparison, appreciably more than Lake Erie.

"About half the species in the lake still haven't been described," said Stauffer, who has characterized, or discovered, more than 60 cichlid species himself. Since 1983, he has visited Lake Malawi for extended periods annually, collecting cichlid specimens while scuba diving.

After preservation, those specimens have been housed in the Penn State Fish Museum at Rock Springs, and approximately 35,000 are scheduled to be transferred to the National Research Institute of South Africa this year after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. In the recent study, Stauffer and colleagues performed CT scans on selected specimens in the collection.

The entire head of each fish was scanned, and the researchers focused on the "morphology" -- analyzing the shape and profiles of the skulls and the structure and arrangement of teeth on the pharyngeal jaws and the oral jaws. This helps to determine a species' specialization to capitalize on certain food sources and to compete with other species.

"We chose species to scan that we knew had different feeding repertoires, and then we wanted to compare their head morphology with their species' feeding specializations to determine the relationships between morphology and behaviors," Stauffer said. "The purpose of this research was to show how observed behavioral traits of shallow-water species can be linked with morphological attributes using data collected from selected cichlids. Such associations can be used to predict behavior of deep-water or rare species, based on head morphology."

CAPTION

High-resolution CT scans and photographs of herbivorous cichlids, with key characters emphasized by arrows, such as strong jaws, small close-set teeth, straight-line mouth, deeply set teeth, comb-like triple crown teeth and widely spaced conical teeth.

CREDIT

Jay Stauffer Jr., Penn State

In findings recently published in Ecology and Evolution, the researchers reported that high-resolution CT scanning will enable scientists to infer life history and behavioral characteristics of rare or extinct fishes from a detailed examination of morphology and linkages between morphology and behavior observed in surviving species.

Stauffer and other scientists will use CT scanning as they continue to identify cichlids in Lake Malawi. The technology is nondestructive, he explained, so they can collect data from specimens in museum collections.

"High-resolution computed tomography permits us to view the internal morphology and examine areas that would otherwise be destroyed by dissection," he said. "It will be a great help to me because I'm going over there and spending four to six weeks a year at the institute, identifying fishes that are in its museum."

Many of those older museum specimens are surprising him, noted Stauffer, who is 70 and has no plans to retire. "I'm finding a lot of species I've never seen before in more than 30 years of diving in Malawi. I think they're probably extinct. I'd like to describe these species, and the CT scans will help me to make accurate guesses about what their behavior was in the lake."

Adrianus Konings, ichthyologist, photographer, and founder and publisher of Cichlid Press in El Paso, Texas; and Joshua Wisor, doctoral degree student in wildlife and fisheries science, contributed to this research.

###

Funding for the study was provided in part by the National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health joint program in ecology of infectious diseases and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station, Penn State.

World's biggest iceberg breaks off from Antarctica

CBC/Radio-Canada 

20/5/2021

© ESA/Copernicus Sentinel-1 Mission, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/Reuters A view of the newly calved iceberg designated A-76 by scientists, the largest currently afloat in the world according to the European Space Agency (ESA), and captured by the ESA's Copernicus…

A giant slab of ice has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.

The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet.

Its surface area spans 4,320 square kilometres (1,668 square miles) and measures 175 kilometres (106 miles) long by 25 kilometres (15 miles) wide. That makes it three-quarters the size of P.E.I., which has an area of 5,660 square kilometres, and larger than Spain's tourist island of Majorca in the Mediterranean, which occupies 3,640 square kilometres (1,405 square miles). The U.S. state of Rhode Island is smaller still, with a land mass of just 2,678 square kilometres (1,034 square miles).

The enormity of A-76, which broke away from Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet, surpassing the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 square kilometres (1,305 square miles) in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea.

Another massive Antarctic iceberg that had threatened a penguin-populated island off the southern tip of South America has since lost much of its mass and broken into pieces, scientists said earlier this year.

A-76 was first detected by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed by the Maryland-based U.S. National Ice Center using imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-1, consisting of two polar-orbiting satellites.

The Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest of several enormous floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent's landmass and extend out into surrounding seas.
Not linked to climate change

Periodic calving of large chunks of those shelves is part of a natural cycle, and the breaking off of A-76, which is likely to split into two or three pieces soon, is not linked to climate change, said Ted Scambos, a research glaciologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Scambos said the Ronne and another vast ice shelf, the Ross, have "behaved in a stable, quasi-periodic fashion" over the past century or more. Because the ice was already floating in the sea before dislodging from the coast, its breakaway does not raise ocean levels, he told Reuters by email.

Some ice shelves along the Antarctic peninsula, farther from the South Pole, have undergone rapid disintegration in recent years, a phenomenon scientists believe may be related to global warming, according to the U.S. National Snow & Ice Data Center.

Sharks use Earth's magnetic field as a GPS, scientists say


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Sharks use the Earth's magnetic field as a sort of natural GPS to navigate journeys that take them great distances across the world's oceans, scientists have found.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Researchers said their marine laboratory experiments with a small species of shark confirm long-held speculation that sharks use magnetic fields as aids to navigation — behavior observed in other marine animals such as sea turtles.

Their study, published this month in the journal Current Biology, also sheds light on why sharks are able to traverse seas and find their way back to feed, breed and give birth, said marine policy specialist Bryan Keller, one of the study authors.

“We know that sharks can respond to magnetic fields," Keller said. “We didn’t know that they detected it to use as an aid in navigation ... You have sharks that can travel 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) and end up in the same spot.”

The question of how sharks perform long-distance migrations has intrigued researchers for years. The sharks undertake their journeys in the open ocean where they encounter few physical features such as corals that could serve as landmarks.

Looking for answers, scientists based at Florida State University decided to study bonnethead sharks — a kind of hammerhead that lives on both American coasts and returns to the same estuaries every year.

Researchers exposed 20 bonnetheads to magnetic conditions that simulated locations hundreds of kilometers (miles) away from where they were caught off Florida. The scientists found that the sharks began to swim north when the magnetic cues made them think they were south of where they should be.

That finding is compelling, said Robert Hueter, senior scientist emeritus at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium, who was not involved in the study.

Hueter said further study is needed to find how the sharks use the magnetic fields to determine their location and whether larger, long-distance migrating sharks use a similar system to find their way.

“The question has always been: Even if sharks are sensitive to magnetic orientation, do they use this sense to navigate in the oceans, and how? These authors have made some progress at chipping away at this question,” he said.

Keller said the study could help inform management of shark species, which are in decline. A study this year found that worldwide abundance of oceanic sharks and rays dropped more than 70% between 1970 and 2018.

Researchers say the bonnethead's reliance on Earth's magnetic field probably is shared by other species of sharks, such as great whites, that make cross-ocean journeys. Keller said it's very unlikely bonnetheads evolved with a magnetic sensitivity and other traveling sharks did not.

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Patrick Whittle, The Associated Press