Day: October 5, 2017

When black rats invaded Lord Howe Island after the 1918 wreck of the steamship Makambo, they wiped out numerous native species on the small Australian isle in the Tasman Sea including a big, flightless insect that resembled a stick.

But the Lord Howe Island stick insect, once declared extinct, still lives.

Scientists said on Thursday DNA analysis of museum specimens of the bug and a similar-looking one from an inhospitable volcanic outcrop called Ball’s Pyramid 14 miles (23 km) away confirmed they are the same species. The finding could help pave the way for its reintroduction in the coming years.

“The Lord Howe Island stick insect has become emblematic of the fragility of island ecosystems. Unlike most stories involving extinction, this one gives us a unique second chance,” said evolutionary biologist Alexander Mikheyev of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in Japan.

The glossy-black insect that grow up to six inches (15 cm) in length is nicknamed the “land lobster.” Other stick insects are found around the world, so named because their appearance lets them blend in with trees and bushes to evade predators.

As adults, the wingless Lord Howe Island stick insects shelter in trees during daytime and come out at night to eat shrubbery. The bright-green babies are active during daytime.

By about 1930, they had vanished on Lord Howe Island, which was thought to be their only home. There were no land-dwelling mammals there when the rats arrived, and they also vanquished five bird species and 12 other insect species.

A rock-climbing ranger made a curious discovery in 2001 on Ball’s Pyramid: a similar-looking insect. Since then, captive breeding programs have begun at the Melbourne Zoo and elsewhere.

Because of certain differences between the Ball’s Pyramid insects and the Lord Howe Island insect museum specimens, there was some question about whether they were the same species.

“We found what everyone hoped to find, that despite some significant morphological differences, these are indeed the same species,” said Mikheyev, who led the research published in the journal Current Biology.

Officials are planning a program to eradicate the invasive rats on Lord Howe Island, which could allow the stick insects to return.

“I imagine that maybe a decade from now, people will travel to Lord Howe Island and take night walks, hoping to glimpse this insect,” Mikheyev said. “In maybe 20 years, they could become a ubiquitous sight.”
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Seated before the grounded space shuttle Discovery, a constellation of Trump administration officials used soaring rhetoric to vow to send Americans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

After voicing celestial aspirations, top officials moved to what National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called “a dark side” to space policy. Coats, Vice President Mike Pence, other top officials and outside space experts said the United States has to counter and perhaps match potential enemies’ ability to target U.S. satellites.

Pence, several cabinet secretaries and White House advisers gathered in the shadow of the shuttle at the Smithsonian Institution’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to chart a new path in space — government, commercial and military — for the country. It was the first meeting of the National Space Council, revived after it was disbanded in 1993.

But details, such as how much the new ideas will cost, were scant and outside experts said they’ve heard grandiose plans before only to see them fizzle instead of launch.

“We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” Pence said.

Timelines

Space industry leaders say they and NASA are building the spaceships to get there. And they’re promising that in five years, astronauts could be working around the moon.

David Thompson, president of the space company Orbital ATK, said NASA’s Orion capsule and super-sized Space Launch System rocket should be ready in a couple years, so flying around the moon and even making a lunar orbiting outpost is within reach. But he said a lunar landing would take longer. Blue Origin rocket company chief executive officer Bob Smith said his firm could have a lunar lander program ready within five years.

Past presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and to a lesser extent Barack Obama have proposed spectacular missions to the moon or Mars or both, only to have funding trouble keep them from coming true, said space expert Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. He wasn’t part of the council meeting.

“Is it going to happen? Who knows? I feel like I’ve been disappointed so many times I refuse to get excited,” said Roger Launius, a longtime space historian.

And Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said her company next year will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the first American launch of people since 2011. After the 2003 space shuttle Columbia broke apart on descent, then-president George W. Bush announced the phasing out of the space shuttle program. Eventually, NASA started building new multibillion dollar ships, the Orion capsule and the SLS mega-rocket.

Pence several times bemoaned a U.S. space program that had fallen behind, asking space executives what they thought.

“America is out-innovating the world in space launch,” Shotwell said, noting that her company had launched 13 rockets this year, more than any other nation.

Weaponizing space

After talking about how “we will blaze new trails into that great frontier” Pence turned the discussion to the dangers of space and how much of the U.S. intelligence system and day-to-day life are dependent on commercial satellites operating safely. And he and others outlined threats to those satellites from potential enemies that could cripple American security and daily life.

Experts worried that satellites could be destroyed and debris in orbit could ruin others.

Pence asked if the U.S. should “weaponize” space.

“The choice whether or not to weaponize space is not one that we can make. We can only decide to match and raise our adversaries who are already weaponizing space,” former NASA chief Michael Griffin said. “That horse is already out of the barn.”

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the country needs to “deter and when necessary defeat adversaries’ counter-space efforts. … We may not start it, but we will finish it.”
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When researchers collected honey samples from around the world, they found that three-quarters of them had a common type of pesticide suspected of playing a role in the decline of bees. Even honey from the island paradise of Tahiti had the chemical.

That demonstrates how pervasive a problem the much-debated pesticide is for honeybees, said authors of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. They said it is not a health problem for people because levels were far below governments’ thresholds on what’s safe to eat.

“What this shows is the magnitude of the contamination,” said study lead author Edward Mitchell, a biology professor at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, adding that there are “relatively few places where we did not find any.”

Over the past few years, several studies — in the lab and the field — link insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics, to reduced and weakened honeybee hives, although pesticide makers dispute those studies. Neonics work by attacking an insect’s central nervous system.

Bees and other pollinators have been on the decline for more than a decade and experts blame a combination of factors: neonics, parasites, disease, climate change and lack of a diverse food supply. Honeybees don’t just make honey; about one-third of the human diet comes from plants that are pollinated by the insects. Bees pick up the pesticide when they feed on fields grown from treated seeds.

As part of a citizen science project, the Swiss researchers asked other experts, friends and relatives to ship them honey samples. More than 300 samples arrived and researchers tested 198 of them for five of the most common types of neonics.

Overall, 75 percent of the samples had at least one neonic, 45 percent had two or more, and 10 percent had four or more.

Results varied by region. In North America, 86 percent of samples had the pesticide; Asia, 80 percent; Europe, where there’s a partial ban, 79 percent; Africa, 73 percent; the Australian region, 71 percent and South America, 57 percent.

The study found that nearly half of the honey samples exceeded a level of the pesticide that some previous research said weakens bees, but the pesticide makers say otherwise. An outside expert, University of Nebraska’s Judy Wu-Smart, said the study used too few honey samples to make the broad conclusions the researchers did.

Ann Bryan, spokeswoman for Syngenta which makes the neonic thiamethoxam, said the amount of the pesticide found in honey samples “are 50 times lower than what could cause possible effects on bees.”

Jeffrey Donald, a spokesman for Bayer Crop Science which makes the neonic clothianidin, said the study “perpetuates the myth that exposure to low levels of neonicotinoids implies risk, even though there is no compelling scientific evidence to support this conclusion.”

The study authors likened neonics to DDT, the pesticide in the 1960s linked to declines in bald eagles and other birds. They said neonics are dangerous to all sorts of insects, even ladybugs. University of Illinois bee expert Sydney Cameron and other scientists said those comparisons aren’t right because neonics don’t stay in an animal’s system like DDT did and are applied to seeds and not sprayed in mass quantities.

“This is an important paper if for no other reason that it will attract a great deal of attention to the mounting problem of worldwide dependence on agrochemicals, the side effects of which we know relatively little,” Cameron said in an email. She wasn’t part of the study.

One side benefit of collecting honey is that researchers could sample some. Mitchell’s favorite is a dark and bitter honey from Africa. He called the honey fantastic, but added “I couldn’t eat it all the time. It was just too strong.”
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Spacewalking astronauts gave the International Space Station’s big robot arm a new hand Thursday.

Commander Randy Bresnik and Mark Vande Hei accomplished the job on the first of three NASA spacewalks planned over the next two weeks.

“One down, two to go,” Bresnik said as the seven-hour spacewalk came to a close. The pair will go back out Tuesday to lubricate the new arm attachment.

The latching mechanism on one end of the 58-foot robot arm malfunctioned in August. It needed to be replaced before the arrival of an Orbital ATK supply ship in November.

Hustling through their work, the spacewalkers unbolted the old mechanism and promptly installed the spare. Initial testing by ground controllers indicated success.

“All right, gentlemen, we show a good arm,” Mission Control radioed.

“That is great news, Houston,” Bresnik said. “Much rejoicing.”

This bulky bundle of latches — more than 3 feet (a meter) long — is used to grab visiting spacecraft, and provides power and data. The arm can also move like an inchworm across the space station by grabbing onto special fixtures.

The Canadian-built arm has been in orbit for 16 years. Engineers attribute the recent trouble to wear and tear. The original latching mechanisms, one on each end of the arm, have been used nearly 400 times.

The latching mechanism on the opposite end will be replaced early next year.

It was the first spacewalk for Vande Hei, a rookie astronaut who arrived at the orbiting outpost a few weeks ago.

“Congratulations, my friend, on becoming the 221st human to exit in your own personal spacecraft into the void of space,” said Bresnik, a veteran spacewalker.

“That’s it for all of the tender moments you’ll get from me,” Bresnik joked. “Now back to work.”

As the duo worked, they marveled over the views of Earth below and the full moon above. They also cranked out some extra chores. As he packed up an insulating cover from outdoor electronic equipment, Bresnik noted how his son, a new Boy Scout, was working on rolling up sleeping bags back home.

Mission Control assured Bresnik he wouldn’t have to camp outside the space station.

“It would be worth it,” Bresnik replied.

Six men currently live at the 250-mile-high outpost: three Americans, two Russians and an Italian.

On Wednesday, they marked the 60th anniversary of the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, and the beginning of the Space Age.
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As India’s financial capital, Mumbai, reeled under swirling floodwaters in August after it was lashed with more rain in 12 hours than it receives in two weeks, the inevitable question followed: Are such events being increasingly triggered by climate change?

A new study gives an answer. It says extreme rainfall events that lead to widespread flooding, and have risen threefold across a vast swath of Central India since 1950, are the result of rapid warming of the Arabian Sea.

The bad news is that they could increase in frequency as climate change continues to warm the oceans. The good news is that these events could become more predictable as they are linked to rising sea temperatures according to the study.

“A moisture surge from the Arabian Sea over the Indian landmass is one of the major culprits for huge increase in widespread extreme rainfall,” said Professor Subimal Ghosh at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, who was involved in the study.

​Flooding increases

In recent years, the frequency of flash floods that kill hundreds, displace millions, cause urban flooding and leave farmland inundated have increased in India even in areas where monsoon winds have been bringing less rain. Central India is one of the hardest hit areas.

In the last two months, Mumbai, a coastal city lying off the Arabian Sea, was not the only place to experience extreme rainfall, several parts of neighboring Gujarat state coped with torrential rain in short spells and the countryside was also hit by flooding.

One of the dominant factors warming the Arabian Sea is increased carbon emissions. But its temperatures are rising more because unlike the Pacific and the Atlantic, it is land-locked in the north, which causes a lot of extra heat because of global warming to be trapped in the basin, according to Roxy Mathew Koll, co-author of the study.

Research and warnings

The study was conducted by scientists from the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, IIT, Mumbai, and University of Maryland, USA.

Pointing to the need for refining forecasting methods, the study said the warmest ocean temperatures appear two to three weeks before the event, giving an opportunity for better warnings.

Koll said these events are predictable a week in advance so that the public is alerted and precautionary measures can be taken. For example, schools and offices could be shut and people in low lying areas moved to higher ones.

According to the study, there were 268 floods in India between 1950 and 2015, killing almost 70,000 people and leaving about 17 million homeless.

A study by the International Monetary Fund this month said countries in the tropics, which include India, will be hit hardest by global warming.

Such concerns are shared by environmentalists in India, who have been highlighting the urgent need to tackle global warming.

India is more vulnerable not only because it is more exposed to climate change, but because it lacks adequate coping mechanisms according to Vijeta Rattani from New Delhi’s Center of Science and Environment. “For example it does not have the technology of better forecasting, it does not have proper relief and rescue mechanisms in place,” she said. “The main crunch is money, already states are struggling for resources for climate and environment factors.”
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News bulletin in 1957: Sputnik stuns the world.

CIA in 2017: Not really.

The CIA released newly declassified documents Wednesday revealing that while the American public was surprised when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite 60 years ago, intelligence agencies weren’t caught off guard.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower had advance knowledge about the Soviets’ work on Sputnik, which was launched by a rocket on October 4, 1957. He had been worrying for several years about the Kremlin’s long-range missile capability and how rockets armed with nuclear warheads could threaten America.

The documents indicate that U.S. intelligence and military officials and members of the Eisenhower administration not only knew that the Soviet Union was planning to launch Sputnik but also knew it could be put into orbit by the end of 1957.

The launch of Sputnik opened the space age and became a major victory for the Kremlin that highlighted its military might and technological abilities. But it wasn’t a surprise to those in the know within the Eisenhower administration.

Before the launch, the CIA issued two National Intelligence Estimates that included possible timelines for what was then called an “Earth satellite vehicle.” In December 1955, one predicted the Soviets could launch one by 1958. In March 1957 — about six months before the launch — another intelligence estimate said Moscow was capable of putting a satellite into orbit before the end of that year.

And even earlier, then-CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote a letter to the defense secretary in which he pushed for rapid development of an American Earth satellite and warned of a public relations fallout for the United States if the Soviets were first to launch one.

“In addition to the cogent scientific arguments advanced in support of the development of Earth satellites, there is little doubt but what the nation that first successfully launches the Earth satellite, and thereby introduces the age of space travel, will gain incalculable international prestige and recognition,” Dulles wrote in January 1955.

“Our scientific community as well as the nation would gain invaluable respect and confidence should our country be the first to launch the satellite.”
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