Giant Dinosaur Discovered in Argentina

Argentinean scientists have discovered gigantic neck, back, and tail bones from one of the biggest dinosaurs to ever roam the Earth. Puertasaurus reuili, seen here in an artist's conception, is estimated to have been 115 to 131 feet (35 to 40 meters) long and weighed between 88 and 110 tons (80 and 100 metric tons).

The new species, which lived about 70 million years ago, is one of the titanosaurs, a group of plant-eating sauropod dinosaurs that walked on four feet and are known for their long necks and tails.

Based on analysis of the vertebrae and comparison with smaller, better-known titanosaurs, the paleontologist believes the new find was 115 to 131 feet (35 to 40 meters) long and weighed between 88 and 110 tons (80 and 100 metric tons).

Its chest alone was nearly 16 feet (5 meters) in diameter, about the size of an entire modern-day elephant.

Illustration by Gabriel Lio, courtesy Fernando Novas 


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Flying Wind Turbines Reach for High-Altitude Power

Turbines Ready for Takeoff

Photograph courtesy Makani Power

Like the wing of a propeller plane without a cockpit, a Makani Airborne Wind Turbine stirs the air in a California field where it is being tested to capture high-altitude wind power.

Anyone who has climbed a mountain, a tower, or even a tall tree knows that winds get stronger at greater heights. There's less drag resistance from objects on the ground. That's why wind energy prospectors typically weld their expensive turbines to high towers, because the most important factor in power production is how fast the wind blows past the blades.

But what if turbines could reel in the power whirling above the reach of those tall towers?

Airborne wind energy pioneers, from North America to Italy and Australia, aim to find out. The technology is still in its infancy, although Makani's system—pictured above—has received notable backing from Google's philanthropic arm and the U.S. government. The concept also gained support in a new study published September 9 in the journal Nature Climate Change, which focused on the steady, fast high-altitude currents, and concluded that there's enough power in Earth's winds to be a primary source of near-zero-emission electric power as the global economy continues to grow through the 21st century.

The study found that wind turbines placed on Earth's surface could extract kinetic energy of at least 400 terawatts (trillion watts), while high-altitude wind power could extract more than 1,800 terawatts. The latter is about 100 times greater than the world's current power demand, the authors noted.

"The upshot is that airborne wind starts to look a lot like solar power," said study co-author Ken Caldeira, a senior climate researcher at Stanford University's Carnegie Institution for Science. "It's a resource that is large relative to human demand, and harvesting it has to do with economics and engineering, not fundamental limitations of the resource." (Of course, wind power ultimately can be called a form of solar power, too, because it's uneven heating by the sun that drives the winds.)

Caldeira and his colleagues, however, had the luxury in their theoretical study of not worrying about the practical challenges of deploying airborne wind turbines. Research and development being done by Makani Power and others is aimed at developing a cost-effective system to bring that high-flying energy down to Earth.

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Toxic Land Generates Solar Energy

New Jersey is turning eyesores into solar farms. The U.S. state has become a leader in solar energy capacity. Energy from the sun now comes from contaminated land not suitable for development.

Oldest Dinosaur Nests Found in South Africa: Original Clutch

Photograph courtesy D. Scott

An egg clutch recovered from the South African site in 1976 (pictured) had two exposed skeletons, including the embryo in the first picture of this gallery, which wasn't formally studied until 2005. These embryos have since given scientists valuable insights into dinosaur evolution.

For example, the Massospondylus embryo resembles "a dwarf version of a sauropod dinosaur," the largest animals to walk the Earth, Hans-Dieter Sues, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said in 2010. 

This means that Massospondylus had characteristics that "foreshadowed" the look of sauropods, which evolved later, he said.


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Biofuels at a Crossroads: Perspectives Brett Lund Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GEVO

As part of National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge initiative, they've brought together two dozen experts from industry, academia, and environmental organizations to discuss whether biofuel can be a sustainable part of a cleaner energy future.





For more, visit greatenergychallenge.com.

Brett Lund, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GEVO, talks about how next generation isobutanol can replace ethanol as the primary substitute for petroleum products.

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Panda Poop Might Help Turn Plants Into Fuel

 

The same organisms that make pandas effective at digesting bamboo may help turn plant waste into biofuels, according to researchers.

Photograph by Keren Su, Corbis

Can panda poop help power the greener vehicles of tomorrow? It just might, scientists say, by yielding microbes that efficiently turn plant waste into biofuel—and the research just might help protect pandas at the same time. 

"We have discovered microbes in panda feces might actually be a solution to the search for sustainable new sources of energy," Mississippi State University biochemist Ashli Brown, who led the study, told attendees at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Tuesday. "It's amazing that here we have an endangered species that's almost gone from the planet, yet there's still so much we have yet to learn from it. That underscores the importance of saving endangered and threatened animals."

Biofuels made from corn, soybeans, and other edible crops cause concerns over their potential impact on food supply and prices. Some even argue that such biofuels ultimately may produce even more carbon emissions than petroleum. 

Waste plant material, such as corn cobs and discarded stalks, long has been eyed as a rich, renewable source of biofuel feedstock. But in order for cellulosic biofuel to truly go mainstream, it must be transformed into ethanol efficiently and economically. That's where panda stomachs could give producers a valuable head start.
"These microbes may be very well suited to break down this biomass," said co-researcher Candace Williams, who originally developed the study several years ago while working on her Master's degree. "That's what they are doing in the gut of the panda with all of the bamboo the animal eats."

The Panda's Powerful Gut

Currently, plant waste biofuel processors must break down the tough composition of stalks or stems by cooking them with heat and/or pressure, or by treating them with substances like acids, to produce the simple sugars that they ferment into a final product—processes that can be difficult to scale economically.

Microbes could help make this process faster and cheaper, and the bacteria that dwell within pandas might be especially effective. After all, the tiny organisms can handle the 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo an adult panda eats each day. Pandas eat bamboo almost exclusively, munching for 12 hours out of every 24 each day.

Thanks to fecal contributions from Ya Ya and Le Le, giant pandas at Tennessee's Memphis Zoo, Brown and Williams have identified more than 40 different panda gut microbe species so far.

"We started out with the pandas because of their diet," Williams said. "They are really unique animals in that they are physiologically like a carnivore, but they eat a herbivorous diet. If you're studying these microorganisms that allow the panda to use this cellulose in bamboo for nutrition, you can see how they might be useful for investigating one of the main problems for biofuels—breaking down those lignocellulosic materials to produce sugars."

Pandas also have short digestive tracts for such large animals, and just a single stomach chamber, Williams added. (Cows, in comparison, use four different stomach regions to gradually remove the energy from grass.) "This means their bacteria have to be even more potent at breaking down the material quickly," she said, "making them very efficient and perhaps even more promising for biofuel production."

Pandas eat both the tough stalks and more tender leaves of the bamboo plant, and their many species of gut microbes wax and wane in number with these dietary changes, Williams said. In addition to producing sugars, some microbes in the lab were even able to accumulate lipids, which can produce the fatty acids needed for biofuel production.

Either the gut bacteria themselves, or the enzymes they use to do the work, possibly could be co-opted for cheaper, easier industrial biofuel production processes, the study's authors said. Yeasts, for example, could be genetically engineered to produce the beneficial enzymes and then grown on a large scale.

Panda poop is just one promising avenue of research into how waste can be transformed more easily into greener energy.

Some projects are already producing fuel from plant waste materials. Earlier this year, Mississippi-based KiOR shipped what it says is the world's first commercial volume of cellulosic diesel fuel, made from pine wood chips. (See related story: "Beyond Ethanol: Drop-In Biofuels Squeeze Gasoline From Plants.") In August, Florida's Indian River BioEnergy Center also began shipping cellulosic ethanol (sourced from wastes, woodchips, cornstalks and grasses) at commercial scale. The plant's operator, INEOS Bio, said the facility will produce some eight million gallons of ethanol from yard clippings and wood scraps, using hybrid gasification-fermentation technology.

"Electrofuels" researchers are using microorganisms to produce biofuels in the lab without any plants at all by genetically engineering microorganisms to "poop out" chemicals that can burn right in the gas tank. The U.S. Department of Energy helps fund this and similar initiatives out of its Bioenergy Technologies Office.

Some scientists believe algae can help power the future. Animal fat is another potentially enormous resource: Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture between Tyson Foods and synthetic fuel producer Syntroleum Corporation, is turning it into energy that can be burned in the tank.

For the next phase of panda poop research, droppings from another pair of giant pandas, the Toronto Zoo's Er Shun and Da Mao, may soon be added to the microbe investigation.

Brown explained at her ACS presentation that charismatic and endangered pandas like them may benefit from the research as well as biofuel producers. Detailed analysis of their gut microbes could reveal better ways to keep them healthy, because most of the diseases that affect pandas occur in the gut, Brown said.

"Understanding the relationships between the microbes and the pandas, as well as how they get their energy and nutrition, is extremely important from a conservation standpoint," she said, "as fewer than 2,500 giant pandas are left in the wild, and only 200 are in captivity."

Reposted from National Geographics

Oldest Dinosaur Nests: Ancient Egg Clutch

Photograph courtesy D. Scott

One of the newfound egg clutches contained 34 eggs (pictured), which were likely submerged during a flood. The shells' extreme thinness—only about a hundred microns wide—made them hard to spot.

Eggs in the clutches were arranged in single layers, meaning a mother dino must have created a "controlled nesting environment" by possibly organizing the eggs.

Scientists were also surprised to find several generations of nests in different levels of rocks, suggesting the dinosaurs regularly returned to the same site to lay their eggs.

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Biofuels at a Crossroads: Perspectives Joe Fargione, The Nature Conservancy

As part of National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge initiative, they've brought together two dozen experts from industry, academia, and environmental organizations to discuss whether biofuel can be a sustainable part of a cleaner energy future.





For more, visit greatenergychallenge.com.

Joe Fargione, Science Director for the North American Region of The Nature Conservancy, tells us how drop-in transportation fuel can be made from biological wastes and residues, reducing land use.

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Paleontologist: John H. Ostrom

 Nowadays, pretty much all paleontologists agree that modern birds descended from dinosaurs. However, that wasn’t the case in the 1960's, when John H. Ostrom was the first researcher to propose that dinosaurs had more in common with big, flightless birds like ostriches than with contemporary reptiles (to be fair, the heavyweight paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh had proposed this idea in the late 19th century, but he didn't have enough proof at his disposal to carry the weight of scientific opinion).

Ostrom's theory about the dinosaur-bird evolutionary link was inspired by his 1964 discovery of Deinonychus, a large, bipedal raptor that had some uncannily birdlike characteristics. Today, it's (nearly) an established fact that Deinonychus and its fellow raptors were covered with feathers, not a popular image a generation ago. (In case you were wondering, those "Velociraptors" in Jurassic Park were really Deinonychus, disregarding the fact that they were portrayed with reptilian skin.)

In discovering Deinonychus, Ostrom smashed open the dinosaur equivalent of a hornet's nest. Paleontologists weren't used to dealing with muscular, man-sized, predatory dinosaurs, which prompted speculation about whether an ostensibly cold-blooded reptile could engage in such energetic behavior. In fact, Ostrom's student Robert Bakker was the first paleontologist to forcefully propose that all theropod dinosaurs were warm-blooded, a theory that's currently on slightly shakier ground than the dinosaur-bird connection.

 ____________________________________________________________________


Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer and book author; one of his specialties is explaining scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and professional audience.

Bob Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer books that range across the expanse of science, biology, history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).

Oldest Dinosaur Nests: Baby Print

Photograph courtesy D. Scott

The tiny footprint of a baby Massospondylus was also found at the South African nesting site.

The print suggests that the young dinosaurs "stayed around the nest after they hatched, at least until they grew about twice their size," study co-author Reisz said.

Staying put means that the newborn babies must have relied on their parents for food and protection—the "actual, real first evidence of it in the fossil" record, he said.


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Amazing Transportation Inventions: Maglev Train

Photograph by Keren Su, Corbis

The idea of high-speed magnetically levitated trains has floated around since the early 1900s. The concept involves using magnetic fields to levitate a train above the rails, or guideways. No contact between wheels and rails means less friction, and, in theory, lower maintenance costs compared to conventional bullet trains.

The technology has seen real-world operation, notably in German and Japanese demonstration projects, and in 2004 Shanghai launched the first commercial maglev line after two years of trials. Connecting the Shanghai airport to downtown, the Shanghai Maglev Train (pictured here) travels up to a blazing-fast 431 kilometers per hour, or about 268 miles per hour.

But the up-front costs are steep. In 2008, Germany ditched plans for a 40-kilometer (24.9 mile) maglev project in Munich after cost estimates ballooned to more than 3 billion euros, from a previous estimate of 1.85 billion euros. But maglev isn't over and out yet. This spring, Japanese officials gave the go-ahead for construction of a 9-trillion-yen ($111.4 billion), 320-mile (515-kilometer) maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka, much of it underground. If all goes according to plan-and maglev projects rarely do-the two cities will be connected by a 40-minute train ride by 2045.

A Billionaire's Bet on Biofuels

Investor Vinod Khosla Bets on "Drop-in" Biofuels 

 

Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla says the risks posed by climate change are on par with those of nuclear terrorism and proliferation, in terms of their potential scope and harm. He argues that biofuels are the cheapest way to scale up a solution to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. He believes the answer isn't ethanol, but biofuels that are chemically identical to today's gasoline and diesel ... like those made from wood chips.

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Dino Day Care

Illustration courtesy Julius Csotonyi

A Massospondylus parent cares for its young in an artist's rendering.

The newfound dinosaur-egg clutches provide the oldest evidence yet for several aspects of dinosaur behavior, according to the study.

For example, paleontologists found multiple nests in a single layer of rock, suggesting that mothers gathered in groups to lay their eggs. This is the oldest example of "colonial nesting" in the fossil record, the scientists say.

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Why Oil Prices May Remain Strong, War or No War

By Katie Holliday

Uncertainty over rising tensions in Syria has driven oil prices to fresh highs in recent weeks, but analysts say the bullish sentiment is expected to stay regardless of whether or not the scenario escalates into a full blown war.

"Even if there is a war in Syria or no war in Syria I think oil will remain strong," said Sean Hyman, editor of Moneynews at the monthly newsletter Ultimate Wealth Report. "WTI could go from $108 to $117 [a barrel] and Brent could go from $115 to $125 [a barrel] very easily."

"You've got strikes of oil workers in Libya ... you've got Egypt really still in limbo with their government ... and you've also still got what could turn into a war in Syria. I believe you've got a big case for oil and oil stocks to go higher," he said.

Syria tensions were renewed this week after key U.S. congressional leaders voiced their support for President Barack Obama's call for a military strike against Syria to retaliate against its use of chemical weapons against civilians, making the likelihood of action look more imminent.

Libya's oil production has fallen to about one sixth of its pre-2011 civil war levels in recent weeks due to a month-long disruption by armed security guards who shut the country's main export ports. Meanwhile an attack on a ship passing through the Suez Canal over the weekend has flagged continued geopolitical risk in Egypt.

Han Pin Hsi, global head of commodities at Standard Chartered, said if Syria tensions ease, he doubted Brent would spike as high as $125 a barrel. It would likely trade in a $105-$115 a barrel range, while WTI would trade at a $5 discount to Brent, he said. "Oil will remain firm because of risks to supply from other oil producers: Iran is not coming back quickly, there are issues with Libya and tensions in the Middle East North Africa area will keep oil firm," he said.

However, oil could reach $125 a barrel if tensions in Syria escalate, Hsi added.

"It's anyone's guess what would happen to oil then, but we would probably see a spike. But oil at $125 a barrel would be a significant headwind for the already fragile global economy, causing a lot of problems, so it would not be sustainable for long," he said.

Last week, Societe Generale analysts laid out a case for Brent to spike to $150 a barrel temporarily if Syria's supporters seek to punish the U.S. and its allies for a military strike, a development many industry watchers see as a worst case scenario.

Last week U.S. crude reached its highest level in over two years, while Brent crude moved to its highest level since February. They have since pulled back. On Wednesday, Brent traded at $115.77 a barrel at mid-morning in Asia, while WTI traded at $108.29 a barrel.

Reposted from Daily Finance

Oldest Dinosaur Embryo

Photograph courtesy D. Scott

The oldest known dinosaur nests have been found at the same South African park where scientists previously unearthed the oldest known dinosaur embryo (pictured).

Paleontologists recently found ten nests—each containing several tightly clustered eggs—in a nearly vertical cliff in Golden Gate Highlands National Park. Both the nests and the previously discovered embryo date back 190 million years.

The new find shows that the region was an early Jurassic nesting site used by a plant-eater called Massospondylus carinatus. The site predates other known dino nesting grounds around the world by more than a hundred million years.

After the ancient fossil embryo was described in 2005, "we decided to go back to the original site and see if we [could] find embryos and nests in place in the rock wall," said study co-author Robert Reisz, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Toronto in Mississauga.

"After a lot of searching and walking on hands and knees and crawling ... we found a total of ten nests altogether in locality, which is amazing."

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Alternative Energy Sources That Are Cheaper Than Solar

Coal

 Perhaps the most "alternative" of energies -- in the sense that it's so counterintuitive that you'd never think of it as alternative -- is coal. More specifically, coal burned in high-tech facilities that scrub out the pollutants, known by the seeming oxymoron "clean coal."

According to the EIA, if you take all the cost of creating a real clean coal industry with the latest scrubbing equipment factored in, then add the cost of developing technology to sequester carbon emissions and inject them deep underground so they can't leak back out, plus the cost of the coal itself ... you're still likely to come up with an average cost that's about 59 percent that of solar -- 13 cents a kwh.

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