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Weekly Update: Millipede is earth’s oldest creature
EDINBURGH: A millipede whose fossilized remains were discovered last year in eastern Scotland is the earth’s oldest known land-dwelling creature, according to scientists quoted in the Scottish press on Sunday.
Paleontologists from the Scottish National Museums and Yale University in the United States have concluded that the creature is more than 420 million years old, the weekly Sunday Herald reported.
Previously, the oldest known animal equipped with a respiratory system was a spider-like creature, also discovered in Scotland and thought to be around 400 million years old.
The record-breaking millipede, which scientists have called “Pneumodesmus”, was discovered by an amateur, Mike Newman, on the coast near the fishing port of Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen.
Doctor Lyall Anderson, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the National Museums, said: “It was obvious to me this was the oldest example of this group of animals that has ever been found.”
“The fact this has got very well developed structures to breathe air suggests there must have been things prior to that which these developed from, so we should be looking further back in time to see if this thing had ancestors,” he told the paper.
The research findings were first published in the American Journal of Paleontology. — AFP
Migrating birds could spread avian flu
MANILA: Despite its geographic isolation and strict poultry quarantines, migrating birds could still spread avian influenza to the Philippine islands, an official said on Wednesday.
“Don’t feed them, don’t go near them, don’t touch them,” Ronel Avila, quarantine chief at the agriculture department said.
Migratory birds from the Asian mainland spend winter in the Philippines or pass through the islands on their way to points south. Wild ducks and geese among them are hunted as delicacies in several areas.
The Philippines has banned all Asian poultry imports amid a bird flu outbreak sweeping through Asian nations. — APP/AFP
Raich scoops third win
SCHLADMING: Austria’s Benjamin Raich recaptured the lead in the overall World Cup standings after winning an action-packed floodlit slalom for a record third time on Tuesday.
Third after the first leg, Raich pulled off another blistering run through the driving snow for a combined time of one minute 41.67 seconds to collect his third victory of the season and 13th overall.
In a thrilling race staged before 40,000 spectators, 21-year-old Italian Manfred Moelgg raced into second in a time of 1:42.24 for his first podium finish, while overwhelming pre-race favourite Kalle Palander came third on 1:42.25.—Reuters
Snow, ice wreak havoc along US East Coast
WASHINGTON: Power remained out for hundreds of thousands of customers in the Carolinas on Tuesday after a winter storm that left at least 14 people dead as it ground its way up the US East Coast.
At least six people have died in traffic accidents in South Carolina since the ice storm hit on Monday. It cut power to more than a quarter of a million homes and businesses, authorities said.
Bitter, sub-zero cold along with high winds swooping in behind the storm added to the misery and reduced the effectiveness of road salting.
Temperatures in northern Minnesota hovered just above zero Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius) at mid-morning and readings well below zero were forecast at night for most of this week.—Reuters
New Internet Virus
WASHINGTON: A destructive new Internet virus was spreading rapidly on Tuesday through e-mail attachments and file-sharing services, with some experts saying it could match the impact of last year’s SoBig worm.
The virus — dubbed MyDoom or Norvag, and known as a worm because of the way it propagates itself — was clogging the Internet and e-mail servers around the globe, experts said.
More than one million copies of the virus had been intercepted as of early Tuesday, according to the security firm MessageLabs, which said the first copies detected were from Russia.
Security firm Central Command said MyDoom is “quickly gaining momentum and is causing serious e-mail congestion. This new aggressive Internet worm is spreading globally, with one out of every nine e-mails being infected.”
The bug also uses the e-mail addresses stored on infected computers to replicate itself and spread further, Albrecht pointed out.
Its main purpose, he said, is to attack and overload the website of one of the world’s biggest vendors of the Unix operating system, a competitor to Microsoft Windows.
Experts urged computer users to update anti-virus software and exercise caution in opening attachments. — AFP
Python appears in toilet
BARCELONA: A python snake mysteriously appeared in a toilet bowl in a home near Barcelona in northeastern Spain at the weekend, police said on Sunday.
Police were called in overnight Saturday to collect the metre-long intruder from a house in the suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
The python regius — or ball python — normally lives in wet environments. It had managed to slither up the pipes into the toilet bowl, said police, adding they did not know where he had come from.
Police handed the snake over to animal protection authorities. — AFP
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