Fossil skull challenges understanding of human evolution

The discovery of a complete hominid skull and other fossil remains in Dmanisi, Georgia, suggests that the earliest members of the Homo genus -- currently split into half a dozen distinct species -- actually belonged to a single species: Homo erectus. These early human ancestors probably just had a wide range of physical appearances, say researchers in the journal Science. The skull is 1.8m years old and has a small braincase, a long face and large teeth, a combination of features not previously seen in other early Homo fossils.

Gaia satellite lifts off on mission to map the Milky Way in 3D

The European Space Agency successfully launches the Soyuz rocket which is carrying Gaia, an advanced satellite, into space. The satellite's mission is to conduct a cosmic census and chart all the stars in the Milky Way in a 3D map. The satellite is expected to be in orbit for five years.

Giant dinosaur that rivalled T-rex discovered

A giant new predatory dinosaur that roamed the Earth about 100 million years ago and even rivalled the mighty tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered.

The new species of carnivorous dinosaur — one of the three largest ever discovered in North America — lived alongside and competed with small-bodied tyrannosaurs.

The species, called Siats meekerorum, was the apex predator of its time, and kept tyrannosaurs from assuming top predator roles for millions of years.

Siats is a species of carcharodontosaur, a group of giant meat-eaters that includes some of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever discovered.

Siats is only the second carcharodontosaur ever discovered in North America; Acrocanthosaurus, discovered in 1950, was the first.

“It’s been 63 years since a predator of this size has been named from North America,” said Lindsay Zanno, a North Carolina State University paleontologist.

Zanno and colleague Peter Makovicky, from Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, discovered the partial skeleton of the new predator in Utah’s Cedar Mountain Formation in 2008.

The recovered specimen belonged to an individual that would have been more than 30 feet long and weighed at least four tons. Despite its giant size, these bones are from a juvenile.

Zanno and Makovicky theorise that an adult Siats might have reached the size of Acrocanthosaurus, meaning the two species vie for the second largest predator ever discovered in North America.

Tyrannosaurus rex, which holds first place, came along 30 million years later and weighed in at more than twice that amount.

Siats terrorised what is now Utah during the Late Cretaceous period — 100 to 66 million years ago.

“Carcharodontosaurs reigned for much longer in North America than we expected,” said Zanno.

In fact, Siats fills a gap of more than 30 million years in the fossil record, during which time the top predator role changed hands from carcharodontosaurs in the Early Cretaceous to tyrannosaurs in the Late Cretaceous.

The lack of fossils left paleontologists unsure about when this change happened and if tyrannosaurs outcompeted carcharodontosaurs, or were simply able to assume apex predator roles following carcharodontosaur extinction.

It is now clear that Siats’ large size would have prevented smaller tyrannosaurs from taking their place atop the food chain.

“The huge size difference certainly suggests that tyrannosaurs were held in check by carcharodontosaurs, and only evolved into enormous apex predators after the carcharodontosaurs disappeared,” said Makovicky.

“Contemporary tyrannosaurs would have been no more than a nuisance to Siats, like jackals at a lion kill. It wasn’t until carcharodontosaurs bowed out that the stage could be set for the evolution of T-rex,” Zanno added.

Robots let doctors 'beam' into remote US hospitals

Remote presence robots are allowing physicians to "beam" themselves into a growing number of U.S. hospitals to diagnose patients and offer medical advice during emergencies.

Some hospitals in California and other states are using telepresence robots to expand access to medical specialists, especially in rural areas where there's a shortage of doctors.

These mobile video-conferencing machines move on wheels and typically stand about 5 feet (1.4 meters), with a large screen that projects a doctor's face. They feature cameras, microphones and speakers that allow physicians and patients to see and talk to each other.

Dignity Health, which runs Arizona, California and Nevada hospitals, began using the telemedicine machines five years ago to diagnose patients suspected of suffering strokes—when every minute is crucial to prevent serious brain damage.

The San Francisco-based health care provider now uses the telemedicine robots in emergency rooms and intensive-care units at about 20 California hospitals, giving them access to specialists in areas such as neurology, cardiology, neonatology, pediatrics and mental health.

"Regardless of where the patient is located, we can be at their bedside in several minutes," said Dr. Alan Shatzel, medical director of the Mercy Telehealth Network. "Literally, we compress time and space with this technology. No longer does distance affect a person's ability to access the best care possible.

Dignity Health is one of several hospital chains that recently began using RP-VITA, which was jointly developed by InTouch Health and iRobot Corp. It's approved for hospital use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Hospitals are now using this type of technology in order to leverage the specialists that they have even better and more efficiently," said Dr. Yulun Wang, CEO of Santa Barbara-based InTouch Health.

Nearly 1,000 hospitals in the U.S. and abroad have installed InTouch telemedicine devices, including about 50 RP-VITA robots launched in May, according to company officials. The company rents out the RP-VITA for $5,000 per month.

When a doctor is needed at a remote hospital location, he can log into the RP-VITA on-site by using a computer, laptop or iPad. The robot has an auto-drive function that allows it to navigate its way to the patient's room, using sensors to avoid bumping into things or people.

Once inside the hospital room, the doctor can see, hear and speak to the patient, and have access to clinical data and medical images. The physician can't touch the patient, but there is always a nurse or medical assistant on-site to assist.

On a recent morning, Dr. Asad Chaudhary, a stroke specialist at Dignity Health, beamed into a robot at the neuro-intensive care unit at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael to evaluate Linda Frisk, a patient who recently had a stroke.

With his face projected on the robot screen, Chaudhary asked Frisk to smile, open and close her eyes, make a fist and lift her arms and legs—common prompts to test a patient's neurological functioning.

"If you develop any weakness, any numbness, any problem with your speech or anything else, let us know right away," Chaudhary told Frisk before the robot turned around and left the room.

"It's just like being with the patient in the room," Chaudhary said. "Of course, nothing can replace seeing these patients in person, but it's the next best thing."

Frisk, 60, who was flown into the hospital for treatment, said she was surprised when she first saw the robot, but quickly got used to the doctor's virtual presence.

"You feel like he was right there," said Frisk, who lives near Merced. "Although I am a little spoiled and like to see him in person."

Infant Galaxies Merge Near 'Cosmic Dawn'

Astronomers using the combined power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile and NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have discovered a far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth. It's possible the trio will eventually merge into a single galaxy similar to our own Milky Way.

"This exceedingly rare triple system, seen when the universe was only 800 million years old, provides important insights into the earliest stages of galaxy formation during a period known as 'cosmic dawn,' when the universe was first bathed in starlight,” said Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, a member of the research team.

Researchers first detected this object, which appeared to be a giant bubble of hot, ionized gas, in 2009. Dubbed Himiko (after a legendary queen of ancient Japan), it is nearly 10 times larger than typical galaxies of that era and comparable in size to our own Milky Way. Subsequent infrared observations with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provided more clues about the object's mass, suggesting Himiko might represent a single galaxy, which would make it uncharacteristically massive for that period of the early universe.

“The new observations revealed that, rather than a single galaxy, Himiko harbors three distinct, bright sources, whose intense star formation is heating and ionizing this giant cloud of gas,” said Masami Ouchi, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo who led the international team of astronomers from Japan and the United States.

New data from ALMA, Hubble and Spitzer also led astronomers to speculate that Himiko could be made up almost entirely of primordial gas, a mixture of the light elements hydrogen and helium, which were created in the Big Bang event that gave birth to our universe. If correct, this would be a landmark discovery signaling the detection of a primordial galaxy seen during its formation.

-NASA

How butterflies stay dry

So much for rain slickers. Slightly bumpy surfaces, like those of butterfly wings, repel water better than completely smooth surfaces do,researchers report November 20 in Nature.

James Bird of Boston University and colleagues dripped water onto silicon wafers with different textures and filmed the droplets’ splashes. Drops of water striking smooth surfaces flattened into a Frisbee shape before bouncing away. But droplets hitting ridged wafers flared into a splatter that skimmed surfaces only briefly before rebounding.

Ribbed textures force droplets to skip off surfaces quickly, cutting the contact time between water and wafer, the authors found. The results help explain why the veined wings of Morpho butterflies are so good at staying dry.

SURFACE SPLASH  Water droplets take longer to rebound from a smooth surface (top) than one with raised ribs (bottom). This ridged texture reduces the length of time that water touches a surface, helping it stay dry. The first clip shows the droplets moving at normal speed. The second clip shows the video at a quarter of its original speed.

Experiments in pasta

Tonight, like almost every other night, I had the distinct pleasure of dining with my daughter. Perched in her hippopotamus highchair, Baby V feasted on beef stew, avocado, sharp cheddar cheese and a blueberry pancake. For dessert, she got a strand of linguine.

As far as I can tell, nothing is dearer to Baby V’s heart than linguine. Tonight when she spotted the noodle, her eyes electrified with laser focus, her face turned serious and she started to emit urgent “mmmm” noises. When she got it in her hands, it was all business. First, she held the strand in both hands and pulled hard enough to create nice tension but not so hard as to break it. Then, she moved the noodle to her left hand and shook it over the side of her high chair. Next, it was over to the right hand for the same shakey-shakey on the other side. After the noodle had orbited around her, it was time to get it in the mouth.

She carefully threaded the linguine so that it nestled behind her top and bottom teeth, affording her the opportunity to pull each side as she pleased, kind of like she was flossing. This went on successfully for quite some time. Finally, her new teeth (four on top and two on bottom) compromised the noodle’s integrity and it broke.

Baby V played that noodle for all it was worth. And it’s not just noodles that capture her fancy. It’s watching the key go into the front door, smelling fresh olive oil, seeing herself in the mirror, bouncing on her granddaddy’s knee, peering inside the sudsy washing machine, feeling crunchy leaves on her bare feet. Ordinary, everyday things delight her 9-month-old senses in a way that adults have long forgotten about.

As I watched her make her linguine discoveries like the little scientist she is, I’m reminded of some research I wrote about pre-Baby V (which is hard to even contemplate) that suggests babies and children are capable of sophisticated statistical reasoning. This particular brand of thinking, called Bayesian statistics, is a powerful way to make predictions about the world. Bayesian statistics work because they rely in part on a person’s prior beliefs.

Like most other adults, I’ve amassed a huge collection of prior beliefs. I am certain that my key will unlock my door tomorrow, for instance, because that’s what always happens. I don’t even entertain the idea that the key wouldn’t work.

Baby V, in contrast, is just starting to collect data about the world. She has some ideas about how things should go, but they’re not as solid as mine. She is in full-on discovery mode, and needs to scrutinize my key going into the lock every time, study the rumbling washing machine and figure out her reflection in the mirror. Every new experience is a way for her to accumulate more evidence about her world. Washing machines are noisy. Dry leaves are prickly. Dogs are sometimes wet and sometimes dry.

Far from being dull fact-finding missions, these explorations are exhilarating for Baby V. And for me. There’s nothing better than watching that girl shake her linguine. 

BY LAURA SANDERS