July 30, 2012

Good Morning,

Researchers in California beg the question: "How quickly can a new species evolve?" Their findings suggest a pretty
specific and surprisingly fast amount of time. Check out the first article for all the details, including what species evolves in as little as 6,000 years.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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'Fast-track' evolution studied in starfish

DAVIS, Calif. - How quickly can new species evolve? A study of Australian sea stars suggests it can happen in as little as 6,000 years, researchers in California say. "That's unbelievably fast compared to most organisms," said Rick Grosberg, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the study. On land, groups of plants and animals can be physically isolated by mountains or rivers and then diverge and evolve until they can no longer interbreed even if they come in contact again, researchers said. Grosberg and his colleagues said they wanted to know how new species arise in the ocean. They studied two closely related "cushion stars," Cryptasperina pentagona and C. hystera, living on the Australian coast on the Coral Sea. Although identical in appearance, they live in separate regions and their breeding mechanisms are completely different. "It's as dramatic a difference in life history as in any group of organisms," Grosberg said. The researchers looked at DNA sequences of both species and estimated the length of time since the species diverged. The findings suggest they did not diverge slowly with genetic changes over a long period of time but were isolated quickly, researchers said. The boundary between cold and warm water in the Coral Sea fluctuates north and south, they said, and a small population of ancestral sea stars might have colonized a remote area at the southern end of the range then been isolated by one of these changes in ocean currents.


Apple uncages Mountain Lion OS

CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple's new Mac OS X Mountain Lion brings the company's desktop and laptop computers closer to the iOS operating system of its iPad and iPhones, experts say. Mountain Lion, released Wednesday, is the ninth significant upgrade to OS X in 11 years and in its look and feel echoes many features in the OS of Apple's prized tablet and smartphone, USA Today reported. Features from the iOS mobile system such as Notification Center, Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Messages, Dictation and AirPlay Mirroring have made their way into Mountain Lion. Twitter and Facebook integration comes by way of a handy "share" button within apps, allowing users to share photos, videos, Web links and documents. Apple's iCloud online storage service is also integrated in Mountain Lion. The new OS carrying version number 10.8, which Apple says contains more than 200 new features over its predecessor Lion 10.7, is available only as a download from Apple's App Store, priced at $19.95.


NASA makes Mars landing preparations

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA says it has adjusted the orbit of its Mars Odyssey spacecraft to provide a more prompt confirmation of the August landing of the Curiosity rover. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying Curiosity can send limited information directly to Earth, but before the landing, Earth will set below the martian horizon from the descending spacecraft's perspective, ending that direct route of communication, the space agency reported Wednesday. Re-positioning Odyssey will help to speed up the indirect communication process, scientists said, noting that without the orbital adjustment Odyssey would have arrived over the landing area about 2 minutes after Curiosity's scheduled landing. "Information we are receiving indicates the maneuver has completed as planned," said Mars Odyssey Project Manager Gaylon McSmith of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Odyssey has been working at Mars longer than any other spacecraft, so it is appropriate that it has a special role in supporting the newest arrival." Two other Mars orbiters, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Mars Express, will also receive radio transmissions from the Mars Science Laboratory during its descent but will be recording information for later playback, NASA said. Only Odyssey can relay the information immediately, the agency said.


Astronomers use Internet for comet study

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Astronomers say they turned to Internet "crowd sourcing," using thousands of posted pictures of a comet that passed Earth in 2007 to reconstruct its orbit. A team of astronomers used a Yahoo! search to find images of Comet Homes, then combined them to determine the comet's orbit in three dimensions, proving data provided by an large but unwitting group of participants can advance scientific knowledge. "I think it's the beginning of something really, really important," Harvard University's Alyssa Goodman said of the study. "The biggest deal is the availability of all this data that isn't being collected for the purpose it was used." Dustin Lang at Princeton University initiated the study to harness the power of picture-posting astro-observers. He used an online computer program called Astrometry.net that sifted through the images and utilized objects in each image such as stars to determine where in the sky the image was taken, ScienceNews.org reported Monday. Lang and coauthor David Hogg of New York University narrowed the results to 1,299 usable images, a collection of photos snapped in different locations, and used them to reconstructed the comet's orbit in three dimensions. Their result came very close to the orbit determined by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., they said.

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