How did the chest-hair-farming Hoff crab evolve? Scientists solve mystery (+ video)

Named for the hairy-chested actor David Hasselhoff, the Hoff crab is now thought to have originated in the Pacific Ocean. Today it is threatened by global warming, say scientists.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 19, 2013

Footage from first ROV dives to vent fields at depth ~2400 m on the East Scotia Ridge, near Antarctica, from RRS James Cook Voyage 42 in January-February 2010.

This crab has come a long way to farm its own chest hair.

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A team of Oxford University scientists has found that Hoff crabs are recent migrants from the Pacific Ocean, taking the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica and scuttling to deep-sea vents in the Southern and Indian Oceans. They are believed to have split from their cousins, the hairy-clawed Yeti crabs, in making the long move.

Hoff crabs were discovered in 2010, some five years after the discovery of the Yeti crab. The two species are now believed to share a common ancestor that lived about 40 million years ago.

Hoff crabs, so named after shaggy-chested actor David Hasselhoff, had previously thought not?to have moved much at all. Scientists had suggested that the unusual animals were living fossils, ancient crabs that had been forgotten deep beneath the sea.

The furry little crabs make their homes in some of Earth's most improbable environments, clinging to deep-sea volcanic vents that heat the water to 716 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no light there, and the water?offers little oxygen, but lots of?noxious chemicals, .?

To survive there, the Hoff crabs resort to inventive agriculture. These animal anomalies feed themselves by 'farming' bacteria in the hair on their chests. They then comb their hair with their mouth, like a tractor chugging through tracts of crops, and feast on the bacteria grown on their chest plantation.?

Still, despite that creative farming, the new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that the crabs are becoming increasingly vulnerable, as global warming alters the oxygen levels of our oceans. That change tips out of balance a delicate ecosystem in which the crabs survive: the crabs must get just close enough to the vents to farm their bacteria (which live off the vent?s chemicals) but also stay just far enough from the vents to source enough oxygen (which is not available to close to the vents) to breathe. Getting too close to the vents means getting boiled.

?The life of these charismatic crustaceans is a delicate balancing act,? said Nicolai Roterman of Oxford University?s Department of Zoology, in a press release. ?Their challenge is to position themselves close enough to the vents to thrive but not so close that they risk suffocating or getting cooked alive.??

Scientists believe that a previous period of global warming about 55 million years ago lowered the oxygen levels around the vents to the point that all the animals there were killed off, to be replaced with this latest batch of resourceful animals, including the Hoff Crab.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Ub8cZpXVAo8/How-did-the-chest-hair-farming-Hoff-crab-evolve-Scientists-solve-mystery-video

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Lavrov: Syria peace conference could be derailed

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) ? Russia's foreign minister said Friday that Washington is sending contradictory signals on Syria that could derail an international conference intended to end the civil war, warning that U.S. talk about a possible no-fly zone would only encourage the rebels to keep fighting.

Sergey Lavrov, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and the Bloomberg news agencies on Friday, also criticized demands that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down.

"Not because we like the regime, not because we want the regime to stay, but because it's for the Syrians to decide," Lavrov said. "And to say you must capitulate and deliver the power to us is just not realistic."

In addition, he dismissed allegations by the United States, Britain and France that Assad's regime has used chemical weapons.

Russia has been the key ally of Assad's regime throughout a two-year civil war, which has killed more than 93,000 people, shielding it from U.N. Security Council sanctions and continuing to provide it with weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that his country signed a contract for the delivery of S-300 state-of-the art air defense missile systems to Syria, but said it hasn't been fulfilled yet.

Lavrov defended the S-300 deal, pointing to the deployment of U.S. Patriot air defense missiles and fighter jets to neighboring Jordan.

"The contract on S-300s is absolutely legal, it's transparent and it's fully in line with the international norms and with the Russian export control legislation," he said.

"Second, the contract hasn't been yet finalized. Third, the Americans are leaving Patriots after this exercise in Jordan, together with F-16 planes, and no one is asking them not to do this. The region is really full of weapons, including offensive weapons which have been supplied in the past to the countries of the region, and some of these weapons are infiltrating into Syria."

He said supplies of weapons to the Syrian opposition, which have been promised by Washington and are being considered by the European Union, would be a "very big mistake."

Lavrov was asked if Russia is warning the West in particular against providing the rebels with shoulder-fired air defense missiles that could challenge Assad's air dominance. He replied: "We believe this is absolutely illegitimate, and we aren't going to legitimize it by starting discussing some conditions on which these supplies could be justified."

He said that while the U.S. says it favors sponsoring a Syria peace conference in Geneva, it has made statements that have sent a conflicting signal to the rebels. Lavrov said that the U.S. talk about a possible no-fly zone in particular has encouraged the opposition to step up fighting instead of sitting down for talks.

"The message the opposition is getting: Guys, don't go to Geneva, don't say you are going to negotiate with the regime, soon things will change in your favor," Lavrov said. "It's either the conference or the instigation of the opposition not to be flexible. I don't think it's possible to do both at the same time."

The date and location of the international conference on Syria haven't been announced yet, but it's already being dubbed "Geneva 2" since a similar event was held there a year ago.

"If our goal is the conference, then we must avoid any discussions and, of course, any action designed to establish a no-fly zone. We must avoid confrontational debates and one-sided resolutions in the General Assembly and in the Human Rights Council because all this isn't helping to create the atmosphere necessary to convene a conference," Lavrov said.

He shrugged off the U.S., British and French statements about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime as ungrounded, saying they "smack of politics and speculation."

"We have been told by the Americans, by the French, by the British that they have proofs," he said. "What they showed to us is absolutely unconvincing. It's not based on facts, and it can't be taken as a proof."

He said that a new international probe must determine the truth and added that after the conflict is over, Syria could be encouraged to destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lavrov-syria-peace-conference-could-derailed-131227642.html

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State OKs same-sex marriage, employers await DOMA ruling ...

Minnesota has become the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage, following enactment of legislation that re??quires employers to provide the same rights to same-sex couples as to opposite-sex couples in terms of health coverage and survivor benefits.

The legislation exempts religious organizations that want to preserve their freedom to recognize only those marriages that conform to their traditions. However, religious organizations that run secular operations separate from their religious or educational missions must recognize same-sex marriages.

The law changes all references to marriage in state statutes from ?marriage? to ?civil marriage.?

How does this affect federal pro??grams such as the FMLA? That de??pends?perhaps?on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a pending challenge to the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. A decision was expected by the end of June.

Minnesota?s medical leave law does not address leave to deal with spousal medical conditions, so the new state law has no effect on whether em??ployers must offer leave for same-sex spouses.

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Judge: No audio testimony in Zimmerman trial

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? The judge in the murder trial of George Zimmerman said Saturday that prosecution audio experts who point to Trayvon Martin as screaming on a 911 call moments before he was killed won't be allowed to testify at trial.

Judge Debra Nelson reached her decision after hearing arguments that stretched over several days this month on whether to allow testimony from two prosecution experts. One expert ruled out Zimmerman as the screamer and another said it was Martin. Defense experts argued there was not enough audio to determine who the screams are coming from. Zimmerman's attorneys also argued that the state experts' analysis is flawed.

Nelson ruled that the methods used by the experts aren't reliable. But her ruling doesn't prevent the 911 calls from being played at trial.

The screams are crucial pieces of evidence because they could determine who the aggressor was in the confrontation. Martin's family contends it was the teen screaming, while Zimmerman's father has said it was his son.

Opening statements are set for Monday in the second-degree murder trial for the former neighborhood watch volunteer who says he fired on the unarmed black teenager in self-defense last year. Zimmerman is pleading not guilty.

The elimination of the audio experts will likely shorten the trial by a week. Before the ruling, attorneys had predicted the trial could last two to four weeks after opening statements.

A spokeswoman for prosecutors didn't immediately return an email Saturday.

Audio experts from both sides testified at different times during the hearing, which stretched over three weeks. Voice experts were hired by lawyers and news organizations to analyze the calls, which were made during the confrontation between the two. The experts arrived at mixed conclusions.

In deciding whether to admit the voice-recognition technology used by prosecution audio experts Tom Owen and Alan Reich, Nelson had to determine whether it is too novel or whether it has been accepted by the scientific community at-large.

"There is no evidence to establish that their scientific techniques have been tested and found reliable," the judge said in her ruling.

Owen was hired by the Orlando Sentinel last year to compare a voice sample of Zimmerman with screams for help captured on 911 calls made by neighbors. He said Zimmerman's voice doesn't match the screams. He only compared Zimmerman's voice to the 911 calls because he didn't have a voice sample for Martin at the time.

"The screams don't match at all," Owen testified during the hearing. "That's what tells me the screams aren't George Zimmerman."

Owen also testified that remarks Zimmerman made in a conversation with a police dispatcher aren't a racial slur. He testified Zimmerman said, "These f------ punks."

Reich testified in a report for prosecutors that the screams on the 911 tapes were from Martin, and the defense does not want him to testify at trial.

Reich's analysis also picked up words that other experts couldn't find. They include the words, "This shall be" from Zimmerman and "I'm begging you" from Martin.

Reich's testimony would "confuse issues, mislead the jury," the judge said.

In contrast, a British audio expert testified for the defense that it would be extremely difficult to analyze voices by comparing screaming to a normal voice.

"I've never come across a case in my 13 years where anybody's tried to compare screaming to a normal voice," said audio expert Peter French.

A second audio expert for the defense, George Doddington, also criticized prosecution experts who said Friday that screams and pleas on a 911 recording likely belonged to Martin.

"It's all ridiculous," Doddington said.

___

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower .

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-no-audio-testimony-zimmerman-trial-140933201.html

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Gandolfini mourned in NJ's 'Sopranos' towns

ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) ? A bag of uncooked ziti in the driveway, a "reserved" sign at the ice cream parlor booth where the series abruptly ended, and a framed photo at a strip club were among the tributes paid to James Gandolfini in the northern New Jersey communities where his TV character Tony Soprano lived, loved and whacked people.

The star of the HBO series about a mob boss with anxiety issues and a midlife crisis died Wednesday night in Italy of an apparent heart attack.

In neighborhoods where "The Sopranos" was shot, Gandolfini was recalled Thursday with mixed emotions: a global star who made their communities famous, but sometimes at the expense of their reputations.

Vito Mazza, who was busily preparing for an Italian-American festival in Elizabeth this weekend, said the actor had local credibility.

"He was as Jersey as it gets, through and through," he said.

The "Sopranos" star was born and raised in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. His character has become an indelible part of the state's global image, as much a part of New Jersey culture as tolled highways, smokestacks and crooked politicians.

Pete Canu, a limousine fleet owner who was sipping coffee in an Elizabeth butcher shop Thursday morning, said Tony Soprano was very realistic.

"He had frailties and failings; he was human, aside from all that gangster crap," Canu said. "A lot of people were offended by it. They say it makes it look like all Italian-Americans are mobsters, but people know we're not. We're just hardworking people who get up every day and do our jobs and provide for our families. It was just a TV show."

But the butcher shop's owner, John Sacco, said "The Sopranos" spread negative stereotypes about Italian-Americans far and wide.

He said when he went to a dentist in Florida and when he revealed he was from New Jersey, someone in the office said, "Oh, the place with all the mobsters!"

"It didn't show us in a real great light," he said.

At Satin Dolls, the real-life Lodi strip club that served as the fictional Bada Bing club in the show, employees put a framed photo of Gandolfini where he frequently sat, calling it "the boss's seat."

"It's like we lost a member of the family," spokesman Bill Pepe said. "Everybody is shocked."

Paul Pereira, of Lodi, stopped to put flowers on a sign in front of the club. He said the show gave a more nuanced picture of people involved in or somehow connected to the mob.

"It showed that these are real people, family people," Pereira said. "You notice that every episode ended with him with his family."

Thursday afternoon, a workman outside the club climbed a ladder and changed the club's marquee from "Bartenders Wanted" to "Thank You, Jimmy; Farewell Boss."

At Green Hill, the West Orange nursing home where scenes involving Tony's ailing mother were shot, executive director Toni Lynn Davis said the residents loved the show. Several even got hired as extras, and the show's payments helped buy a giant flat-screen TV on which they watched the show each week.

"They said it was their weekly vocabulary lesson," Davis said. "They learned all those new swear words."

She said the show has become part of the fabric of New Jersey.

"There are definitely parts of New Jersey that are very close to what was depicted," she said. "You can't go anywhere in New Jersey and not hear that the Sopranos was shot there. They went all over."

The house where Tony Soprano lived is in North Caldwell, and fans were stopping by to show their respects to Gandolfini. Michael Primamore, who lives nearby and whose family runs an auto repair business, left a bag of dried ziti next to the candles that sprouted in the driveway.

He said the show accurately reflected the experiences of his and other Italian-American families who settled in Newark before moving to the suburbs.

"The show was full of so many northern New Jersey Italian expressions, if you weren't raised in that world, you wouldn't get some parts of it," he said. "The show reached me on a personal level in so many ways."

Several North Caldwell residents recalled seeing and meeting cast members.

"They were great people, very personable," said Chris Masi, who said he met Gandolfini. "They would come up and give you a hug. They put us on the map. It meant a lot."

Fans also gathered at Holsten's, the Bloomfield ice cream parlor where the show's famous cut-to-black last scene was shot.

"I'm sad he died," said Fred O'Neil of Montclair, who, like Gandolfini, is 51. "I can't believe it. It makes me think of my own mortality."

Primamore said his reaction to Gandolfini's death was a lot like what Tony Soprano's would have been: "It's a tragedy. What are you gonna do?"

___

Associated Press writers David Porter in North Caldwell, N.J., Julio Cortez in Bloomfield, N.J., and Katie Zezima in West Orange, N.J. contributed to this report.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gandolfini-mourned-njs-sopranos-towns-133116230.html

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Supreme Court 2013: The Year in Review

Justice Samuel Alito has turned out to be one of the most conservative justices to be appointed to the court in a very, very long time

Photo by J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images

Emily, thank you for having me back again. It has now been more than a decade since I hit the ?send? button on my first piece in this Slate Supreme Court dialogue. I guess I have written more than 100 posts in that time and I shudder to think how many ill-considered snap judgments of mine still lurk in cyberspace. I?m nonetheless looking forward to being in a discussion this coming week with you and the esteemed Posners p?re and fils.?

Eric opens with the interesting observation that the justices appointed by Republican presidents are showing up, in recent statistics, as exhibiting more disagreement with one another than the justices appointed by Democratic presidents. Particularly interesting is Eric?s suggestion that a partial explanation for this may lie in the conflicting strands of conservatism currently in play, with libertarians often in disagreement with more authoritarian conservatives, and even those who distrust government differing about whether the judiciary is more or less dangerous than the other branches.

One driver of this disagreement may be that Justice Samuel Alito has turned out to be one of the most conservative justices to be appointed to the court in a very, very long time. This is evident this very week. First came the 7-2 decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, in which only Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas voted to uphold Arizona?s attempt to add additional requirements of documented citizenship to the uniform federal voter registration form mandated by Congress. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion sustaining the authority of the federal form, based upon Congress? power to alter the ?Times, Places and Manner? of holding federal elections. (In case you don?t think oral argument ever matters, look at then Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan?s calm and skillful responses to every question raised about the government?s position by Justice Scalia at oral argument in the case.)

And also on Thursday, Alito was the lone Justice to dissent from a ruling that limited the range of state felonies that would serve as the kind of prior offenses that can prompt longer prison terms. All of the other participating justices read the unclear language in the relevant statute in a way that mitigated its harshness.? Alito?s justification for his dissent was that his interpretation was the more ?practical? reading of the statute.

It might be suggested that Justice Alito voted in a more ?liberal? way in another of Thursday?s decisions, Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, when he joined the majority in holding that Congress violated the First Amendment in denying federal funds to any international aid organization that failed to adopt ?a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.?? That decision, over a strong dissent from Justice Scalia, is, to be sure, welcome news to organizations like Planned Parenthood that fear the government?s growing use of ideological restrictions on federal funds. But here Alito?s vote might be explained in part by his view that the underdogs most likely to be oppressed by these restrictions are religious fundamentalists and other conservatives. See, for example, his concurring opinion a few years ago in Doe v. Reed, in which he suggested that opponents of gay marriage who sign petitions for ballot initiatives should be able to remain anonymous, because of? ?the widespread harassment and intimidation? suffered by supporters of California?s gay marriage ban. Alito?s distrust of government comes usually not from the left but from the right.

And he is powerfully smart. It is often said that when Justice Kennedy retires, the future of the court will be at stake with the nomination and confirmation of his successor. But that future is already the past. The profound shift in this court occurred when Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O?Connor in 2006. That change was the most profound shift in the Supreme Court at least since 1937, when New Dealer Hugo L. Black replaced old guard conservative Willis Van Devanter in 1937. With Justice O?Connor?s opinion allowing affirmative action to continue in the 2003 Michigan Law School case up for reconsideration next week, and with the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act at stake, we may see just how profound the shift from her to Alito will be. And it appears that Justice Alito is the author of at least two of the court?s remaining 11 decisions (based on the tally of how many opinions each justice has written so far).?

I should add that I believe that the ?better argument on the law? has a greater influence on the outcome of cases than many comments about the court (including parts of what I wrote above) would suggest. Emily, you refer to the yearlong speculation about why Chief Justice Roberts would have voted to uphold Obamacare. Well, one reason is that he may simply have thought it would be crazy to conclude that an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that adds a 2.5 percent penalty to be paid with federal income taxes (for those who decline to purchase health insurance) is not an exercise of Congress?s power to raise revenue. Sometimes the merits really do matter.

The gay marriage cases loom large over the court?s last week. This is an amazing social moment. I will try to write more about it over the weekend. But for now I can say that no one thought, when the Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996, that it was conceivable that the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional. And now that is the conventional wisdom. We will see.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2013/supreme_court_2013/when_doma_passed_no_one_imagined_it_could_be_unconstitutional.html

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FOR KIDS: Old, cold moss grows again

Scientists prod new growth from a plant buried for centuries

By Stephen Ornes

Web edition: June 20, 2013

Enlarge

Back from the deep freeze

This moss sprung back to life after being buried beneath ice for hundreds of years.

Credit: Courtesy of C. La Farge

Mosses are mini but mighty: Even after centuries buried beneath a glacier, some of these small, flowerless plants can regrow.

Glaciers are flowing rivers of ice. The one that trapped these mosses grew during a cool period now known as the Little Ice Age. It lasted from 1550 to 1850. The glacier buried all plant life on remote Ellesmere Island, north of the Arctic Circle. But as global temperatures have been climbing, this and many other glaciers have retreated, exposing ancient mosses.

Visit the new?Science News for Kids?website and read the full story:??Old, cold moss grows again

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351155/title/FOR_KIDS_Old_cold_moss_grows_again

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