Wednesday Morning Science Supplement

Was Darwin right? Should schoolchildren be exposed to contrary views in science class? These two controversies continue to rage, partly because both sides are evenly matched.

Most scientists and courts that have ruled on the matter say that overwhelming evidence backs Darwin’s explanation of the origin and evolution of species, including humans, by natural selection.

But the squishy things are now being pushed aside by a group of amoeba-shaped creatures called Placozoans, according to a new analysis which shows the fairly simple but still multi-cellular animals are closer to the base of the tree, researchers say.

A weirder result follows from the fact that the analysis finds that corals, jellyfish, sponges, comb jellies and Placozoans (aka the “lower” animals) evolved in parallel to “higher” animals including flatworms, insects, mollusks and chordates (which includes all animals with backbones, ranging from frogs to apes and humans).

“Paleontologists have debated the function of the bizarre skulls of horned dinosaurs for years now,” said lead study researcher Andrew Farke, curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in California. “Some speculated that the horns were for showing off to other dinosaurs, and others thought that the horns had to have been used in combat against other horned dinosaurs. Unfortunately, we can’t just go and watch a Triceratops in the wild.”

Past research has also suggested Triceratops’ horns served as a means of communication and species recognition.

A survey of 13 space station astronauts found that their bone strength dipped by at least 14 percent on the average during their half-year stays aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Three of the astronauts lost up to 30 percent of their bone strength during their long-duration spaceflights, putting them on par with the bone strength of older women with osteoporosis on Earth, the study reported.

Now a computer simulation suggests that this idea falls apart under the turbulent forces within early protoplanetary systems.

The old, favored theory relies on the protoplanetary dust disk becoming denser and thinner until it reaches a tipping point, where it becomes gravitationally unstable and collapses into kilometer-sized building blocks that form the basis for gas giants. But 3D modeling has shown for the first time that turbulence prevents the dust from settling into the dense disk necessary for gravitational instability to work.

Funding for the Cassini program is scheduled to end Sept. 30, 2010. However, the spacecraft remains in good shape and could continue to return valuable data for years to come, scientists say, provided NASA approves the necessary funding to extend Cassini’s tour. Mission officials are preparing to present their case for a seven-year extension to NASA headquarters next month.

“The things that is magic about seven more years is that Saturn will reach its northern hemisphere’s summer solstice,” said Robert Mitchell, Cassini program manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “When we arrived in June 2004, it was a little ways past the southern hemisphere’s summer solstice. If we could go seven more years, we would see nearly half of Saturn’s orbit.”

William Hogarth, the chairman of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and US delegate to the body, told Sunday’s Washington Post that he had made the proposal in closed-door weekend talks in Hawaii.

Japan would be allowed to hunt whales near its shores in return for scaling back its Antarctic expeditions in the name of research which have infuriated Australia and New Zealand, the newspaper said.

“The government does not share this position that’s being advanced,” Garrett told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

International Whaling Commission (IWC) chairman William Hogarth reportedly raised the trade-off idea in closed-door talks with other member nations ahead of a meeting of the commision due in March.

“After a study of expert reports, I am convinced there are no scientific or legal objections against the … ocean research experiment LOHAFEX,” Research Minister Annette Schavan said in a statement.

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Berlin had previously been cool to the expedition which set sail from Cape Town in South Africa on January 7 and is poised to drop six tonnes of the dissolved iron over 300 square kilometres (115 square miles) of ocean.

Its authors say deep cuts in the world’s carbon emissions are needed to brake a trend capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas.

In a study published online by the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists in Denmark built a computer model to simulate climate change over the next 100,000 years.

“Hundreds of birds have been killed, including ducks, guillemots and divers,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the head of the Sakhalin diving centre Vladimir Bardin as saying.

“The shore is covered for three kilometres (two miles) with birds stuck in the fuel oil. The local population are trying to rescue the birds that are still alive and wash them,” he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meanwhile picked a veteran of the Kyoto Protocol talks as her envoy for climate change, as world leaders target a historic global warming pact this year.

“We will make it clear to the world that America is ready to lead,” Obama said, in an apparent swipe at former president George W. Bush’s reluctance to take control of international efforts to combat climate change.

People hoarding water in ever-more parched swathes of the country already affected by climate change inadvertently create perfect breeding grounds for the potentially deadly insects, the study found.

Once confined to Africa, Aedes aegypti also carries viruses that cause yellow fever and the painful joint inflammation called chikungunya, and is today found throughout the tropics.

Dong and the Palo Alto-based startup said they have signed a deal aimed at cutting the amount of Earth-warming carbon gas emissions by giving Danes access to environmentally-friendly electric vehicles “at attractive prices.”

Better Place is to make available battery-powered electric vehicles offering “at least the same road-holding qualities as fuel-based cars” by the year 2011.

The census — the first since specialised rangers were expelled by rebel forces from the Virunga National Park 16 months ago — showed a sub-population of gorillas used to humans had gone up from 72 to 81.

These so-called “habituated” gorillas are most at risk of being killed because they do not fear people.

“Europe has gained a strong partner,” said Czech Environment Minister Martin Bursik, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

“Barack Obama is quickly implementing what he has promised. He acts efficiently,” he added.

The study’s authors said there was “no going back” after the report showed that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are “largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped.”

NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon said the study, published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, showed that current human choices on carbon dioxide emissions are set to “irreversibly change the planet.”

But others argue the task of taking apart the Clemenceau will provide much-needed work, at a time when jobs are being cut across the country due to the global slowdown.

The ageing carrier, a former flagship of the French navy now known simply as hull Q790, could be towed within the next week to Hartlepool, in northern England, where British shipbreakers Able UK plan to finally dismantle it.

Iceland, which pulled out of an international whaling moratorium in 2006 after observing it for 16 years, had a quota of nine fin whales and 40 minke whales per year.

But outgoing Fisheries Minister Einar Gudfinnsson said the government would follow the recommendations of the Marine Research Institute, which suggested a quota of 150 fin whales and 100 to 150 minke whales a year over the next five years.

Authorities warned elderly, sick and infant residents of the states of Victoria and South Australia to stay home and keep cool as the mercury was tipped to hit 44 degrees Celsius (112 Fahrenheit), raising the spectre of heatstroke and wildfires.

The heatwave in Victoria, which was expected to last several days and be the region’s worst since 1908, raised fears of heat-related deaths and wildfires following years of drought, authorities said.

Food processors and the corn syrup industry group attacked the findings as flawed and outdated, but the researchers said it was important for people to know about any potential sources of the toxic metal in their food.

In one study, published in the journal Environmental Health, former Food and Drug Administration scientist Renee Dufault and colleagues tested 20 samples of high fructose corn syrup and found detectable mercury in nine of the 20 samples.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December said it planned more research into the safety of bisphenol A, or BPA, but the agency indicated no immediate plans to curb the chemical, found in baby bottles and other products.

Dr. Richard Stahlhut of the University of Rochester and colleagues looked at levels of the chemical in the urine of 1,469 U.S. adults who took part in a government health survey.

In the report published on Wednesday, researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia assessed the climate cooling potential of “geoengineering” schemes that also include pumping aerosol into the atmosphere and fertilizing the oceans with nutrients.

“We found that some geoengineering options could usefully complement mitigation, and together they could cool the climate, but geoengineering alone cannot solve the climate problem,” said Professor Tim Lenton, the report’s lead author.

“The high level of finish on the figurine is extraordinary, while meticulously adhering to the tiniest of details,” Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, directors of the excavation, said in a joint statement released Monday. Nothing similar has ever been uncovered in Israel, they said, calling it a “unique find.”

Carved from pale yellow marble, archeologists think the figurine was most likely carried to Jerusalem by a merchant.