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SCIENCE UPDATE: Fossils give insight into first complex life
FOSSILISED embryos dating back more than half a billion years have revealed that complex life emerged on Earth at least 10 million years before the “Cambrian explosion”, a momentous event which saw a sudden mass diversification of animal forms. Scientists plucked 162 “pristine” embryo fossils from the Doushantuo Formation in south-central China that has been dated to between 550m and 635m years ago. Analysis of the embryos found they contained minute, highly specialised structures, suggesting the intricate cellular machinery found in modern organisms was already beginning to evolve.
The fragile fossils are extremely rare, but precious for the wealth of information they hold on evolutionary changes that have shaped embryos from the earliest days of life on Earth. “We’re learning something about how the very earliest multi-cellular animals formed embryos and how the embryos developed,” said Indiana University researcher Rudolf Raff, whose study has appeared in the journal Science.
The scientists used a technique called microfocus x-ray computed tomography to peer inside the fossilised embryos and build up images of their internal molecular machinery. Using computer software, the team was able to digitally remove individual cells from the embryo images and look inside each one individually.
Some of the embryos were found to contain two kidney bean-like structures, which may have been DNA-holding nuclei that were fossilised as the cells divided. Other bubble-shaped structures may have been used to transport, store or metabolise molecules. Darwin’s works online
A missing notebook clutched by a Shropshire lad who circumnavigated the globe, returned to Britain, and demolished the Victorian hubris that humans stood alone as the pinnacle of creation was published for the first time last week.
The original notebook, which documents Charles Darwin’s observations throughout his five-year voyage to the Amazon, Patagonia and the Pacific aboard HMS Beagle, is presumed stolen, but using a microfilm copy, Cambridge University scientists made it available online, along with the entire works of the scientist credited with the most important advance in science of the past 300 years.
The collection brings Darwin’s breathtaking range of writing together for the first time, with 50,000 pages of searchable text, and tens of thousands of images, many from previously unpublished manuscripts, together with notebooks, diaries and original publications such as The Origin of Species, The Voyage of the Beagle (the Journal of Researches) and The Descent of Man. Audio versions of key works will be free to download at the project website darwin-online.org.uk.
Internet and US judges
HAD a court in Illinois done what the winner of a case there desired, billions of spam emails could have begun landing in the inboxes of 650 million people all over the world — including the European Parliament, US Army, the White House and Microsoft — every day this month.
The reason: Judge Charles Kocoras, of the district court of the northern district of Illinois, was asked to rule that a British company called Spamhaus, which runs a commercial spam-blocking service for 700 million users, should have its website taken away for failing to comply with an earlier court order — which was to stop blocking emails from e360Insight, a Chicago-based bulk emailing company.
Spamhaus has for some time maintained that e360Insight belongs on its list of “known spammers”; in June, David Linhardt — the owner and operator of e360Insight — sued, asking for monetary damages and removal from Spamhaus’s list. But the suit was brought in Illinois — even though, as Steve Linford, chief executive and founder of Spamhaus points out: “Spamhaus in fact operates no business in the United States, and has no US office, agents or employees in Illinois or any other US state.”
A lawyer representing Spamhaus in the US at first began defending the case, but the company then effectively thumbed its nose at Judge Kocoras, saying that an Illinois court had no jurisdiction over a British company. Because Spamhaus had initially shown up as a defendant, but then did not defend its case, the judge of course ruled in Linhardt’s favour, awarding $11.7m in damages for lost business, and $1.97m in legal costs. Spamhaus has not paid it.
Thus last month a new order — written by e360Insight — was submitted to the court, demanding that Icann, the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and Tucows, the Canadian domain company through which Spamhaus is registered, should remove www.spamhaus.org from the internet. The ruling did not have the force of law; but it could, should the judge choose to accept it.
That sent a shiver through people who follow the application of the law to the internet. There were murmurs of a “constitutional crisis”. Could a judge in America really force a company in another country off the net? If it could, would that be because Icann is based in the US? The idea that Spamhaus might be pitched into a sort of internet limbo by a judge in one country raised important issues. Would it mean that a British judge could rule an American company off the net? And if not, why not? What would make America’s courts special in that regard?
Those questions won’t arise — at least not for now. Icann put out a statement (tinyurl.com/fwrmv) saying: “Icann cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name because Icann does not have either the ability or the authority to do so.” Even if brought before the judge (which it has not been), Icann’s chiefs don’t have the power to suspend organisations from the net; its purpose, essentially, is to decide which domain names to hand out, and how. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service
The next wave
OREGON’S spectacular coastline could become the United States’ centre for wave energy development in coming years, with plans underway to install power buoys in locations with enough potential to meet the state’s future energy needs. Electrical engineers at Oregon State University are developing electricity-generating buoys they believe will be a key component for clean, green wave power. Their objective is to convert the Pacific Ocean’s heavy rolling swell into a renewable energy resource, relying on buoys to harness the near constant rise and fall of waves to produce electricity.
“Waves generate energy through motion,” said Dr Annette von Jouanne, an electrical engineering professor at Oregon State University (OSU). The OSU project is part of a renewed global effort to investigate wave and tidal power as a potential source of alternative energy, she noted. — Dawn/IPS News Service
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