'Extinct' Gastropod rediscovered in Alabama.

The Mobile River Basin in Alabama and Georgia is considered to contain the most diverse Mollusc faunas of the entire North American continent. Unfortunately the area is also heavily urbanized and industrialized, with waterways channelized to allow shipping, blocked by hydroelectric projects and polluted by urban and mine runoff, leading to a large number of species being believed to be extinct; at last count 47 endemic Molluscs, including 37 Gastropods, were thought to have died out in the Basin.

In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on 8 August 2012, Nathan Whelan of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama, Paul Johnson of the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center at the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Phil Harris also of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama describe the rediscovery of Leptoxis compacta, an aquatic Snail endemic to the Cahaba River, which has not been alive for over 70 years, and which was declared extinct in 2000.

A specimen of Leptoxis compacta from the Cahaba River. Whelan et al. (2012).

The species was found at a single site on the Cahaba River, above the junction with Shades Creek, and established as being Leptoxis compacta by comparison with museum specimens. The site is considered highly vulnerable by Whelan et al., and believe the species should be classified as critically endangered under International Union for the Conservation of Nature criteria, and that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should consider L. compacta for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because of its highly restricted range and susceptibility to a single pollution or siltation event. They also suggest that, since the Snail proved willing to breed in captivity, it could be re-introduced to other parts of its former range.

Map showing known historical sites of Leptoxis compacta colonies and the site of the rediscovered colony. Whelan et al. (2012).

(A) Museum specimen of Leptoxis compacta. (B-F) Newly recovered specimens showing a growth series. Whelan et al. (2012).

Museum specimens of other species of Leptoxis and the related genera Elimia and Pleurocera used for comparison in the study. (A) L. ampla (B) E. ampla (C) E. annetae (D) E. cahawbensis (E) E. clara (F) E. showalteri (G) E. variata (F) P. prasinatum. Whelan et al. (2012).

(Top) The radula ('tongue') of a Leptoxis compacta specimen collected in 1881. (Bottom) The radula of a specimen collected in 2011. Whelan et al. (2012).

See also A new species of Pachychilid Snail from western Java, Deep-sea Gastropods from Miocene Cold Seeps and Whale-falls in Japan, Thirteen new species of interstitial Gastropods from New Zealand, The Snail that eats Crabs and Two new hydrothermal vent communities from the southern Central Indian Ridge.

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Hurricane Sandy causes devastation in Jamaica.

Hurricane Sandy, the eighteenth named tropical storm in the Caribbean this season, struck Jamaica five miles east of the capitol, Kingston, arriving from the south (tropical cyclones almost always move away from the equator, and therefore almost always hit Jamaica and neighboring nations from the south), causing widespread flooding and disruption to services. One man was reported to have been killed when his house was destroyed by a flooding-induced landslide, and a woman in nearby Haiti was swept away by a swollen river. 

Local power supplier The Jamaica Public Service Company reported that 70% of its customers had lost there electricity supplies (many Jamaicans cannot afford electricity). Attempts to arrange an evacuation of the worst hit parts of the island were largely ignored due to widespread looting after previous events, with only around 1000 people reportedly seeking cover in official shelters. Instead authorities have encouraged people to remain in their own homes, imposing a curfew across much of the affected area, though it is unclear how this could be enforced. A police officer has reportedly been shot an wounded by looters in the Craig Town area of Kingston.

Jamaica, and neighbors Haiti and the Dominican Republic, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of hurricanes due to week infrastructure, which leaves them vulnerable to damage caused by flooding, high winds and landslips. The area has received between 300 and 500 mm of rainfall, causing widespread flooding, and high winds have reportedly damaged many buildings. Several areas of Jamaica have also reported influxes of crocodiles into urban areas, driven from coastal mangrove forests by high water levels.

Satellite image showing the extent of Hurricane Sandy. Google Maps.

The hurricane has moved north from Jamaica, making landfall on Cuba near Santiago. Though it has grown slightly in intensity it is expected to cause less disruption due to better infrastructure and preparedness on the island, where large numbers of tourists and residents have been evacuated from vulnerable areas, and emergency generators have been deployed to compensate for power outages. The US naval base at Guantanamo Bay is also on high alert, and the Bahamas and Florida are preparing for the storm to hit.

Hurricanes, and tropical cyclones in general, are caused by solar heating of the air over the sea. This causes the air to rise, and air from the surrounding area to rush inwards, causing strong winds. In tropical areas such events can cover such large areas that they are effected by the Earth's rotation; centrifugal force causes winds to move counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern. This in effect causes a ring of lower pressure around the center (eye) of the hurricane, with each millibar drop in pressure causing a 1 cm rise in sea-level. This sea swell, combined with high rainfall caused by evaporation of sea water in the heated center, causes most of the destruction associated with hurricanes, not the more obviously destructive high winds.

See also Earthquake in the Dominican Republic, Satellite tracking Manta Rays off the coast of Mexico, Volcanic activity on Soufrière Hills, Montserrat, How the Deepwater Horizon oil spill effected wildlife on the Gulf of Mexico and BP hopes to have reached settlement with thousands of Gulf Oil Spill victims.

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A new Isopod Crustacean from a limestone cave in Brazil.

Isopods are small, flat, benthic Crustaceans known from marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments, where they are known as Woodlice or Pill Bugs, due to the tendency of many species to roll up into tight balls resembling pills for defencive purposes. They are a successful and widespread group with a fossil record that dates back to the Carboniferous. Most species are detritivores, though some marine forms are parasitic on Fish.

In a paper published in the journal Zootaxa on 4 September 2012, Simona Prevorcnic of the Biotehniška fakulteta at  the Univerza v Ljubljani, Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira of the Departamento de Biologia at the Universidade Federal de Lavras and Boris Sket, also of the Biotehniška fakulteta at  the Univerza v Ljubljani, describe a new species of aquatic Isopod Crustacean from a karst (eroded limestone) cave from Bahia State in Brazil.

The new species is named Brasileirinho cavaticus, meaning 'the small Brazilian from the cave'. It is a 1.7-2.5 mm colourless Crustacean, known only from a single location, Baixa Funda Cave in Paripiranga District in the northeast of Bahia, where they apparently feed on guano. The Crustaceans were unable to swim, but did not appear to have any natural predators.

Brasileirinho cavaticus, (Top) colony on bottom of pond in cave, arrows indicate guano. (Middle) Smaller group magnified. (Bottom) Individual specimen. Prevorcnic et al. (2012).

See also Nine new species of cave-dwelling huntsman spider from Laos, New species of Cave Spider from Oregon, Two new species of Cave Crab from Christmas Island, Nauplius Larvae frim the Windyfield Chert in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and Two new species of freshwater Isopod Crustaceans from Lake Pedder in Tasmania.

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Sunspot AR 11598 releases a huge flair.

On Monday  22 October 2012 NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a major flare erupting from Sunspot AR 11598, peaking at 3.22 am GMT on Tuesday 23 October. The event has been classified as an X1.8 type flare, which implies an energy discharge of between 0.001 and 0.01 Whatts per square meter, enough to cause disruption to radio signals of the flare was directed towards the Earth. This is the third significant flare since the sunspot came into view on 20 October, and it has been followed by about a dozen smaller events, suggesting it has a high probability of sending a large flare in our direction.

The location of AR 11598 on the Sun's surface. Solar Monitor.

Solar flares are major energy discharges from the Sun's surface; these are immediately disruptive to life on Earth themselves, but are almost invariably accompanied by coronal mass ejections, streams of charged particles (ions and electrons) which can be disruptive to radio signals and power supplies when they reach the Earth (although modern power networks tend to be better insulated against their effects than was the case in the past), as well as triggering Aurora Borrealis and Aurora Australis events.

Auroras are triggered by the interaction of charged particles in coronal mass ejections with the Earth's magnetic field. They tend to be concentrated at the poles, where the magnetic field crosses, rather than running parallel to, the atmosphere, and produce light by exciting atoms in the upper atmosphere, provoking them to produce light.

See also Sunspot AR 1520 releases a powerful Solar Flare, The Earth reaches its aphelion, Solar flare may hit Earth on 4 July 2012, NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory observes the transit of Venus, and Comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) survives a close encounter with the sun.

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Volcanic activity on Mount Alaid.

Alaid is the northernmost volcano of the Kurile Islands, a volcanic archipelago that stretches from the northeastern tip of Hokkaido in Japan to the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is a stratovolcano (cone shaped volcano made up of layers of ash and lava, the kind of volcano most often seen in films) with a breached crater open to the south. It rises 2339 m above sea level, making it the highest volcano in the Kuriles.

(Top) Mount Alaid photographed from sea level. Travel Doyenne. (Bottom) Mount Alaid photographed from the International Space Station. NASA/Earth Observatory.

On 5 October 2012 residents of Paramushir Island, roughly 20 km to the southeast, reported seeing a plume of gas and steam rising 200 m above the summit of Mount Alaid, and on 6 October satellites reported a thermal anomaly (hotspot) on the volcano that persisted at least 7.5 hours, causing the Kamchatkan Volcanic Eruption Response Team to raise the aviation alert level near Alaid. Such thermal anomalies, when detected by satellites using infra-red imaging, may represent heat from within a volcano or hot lava on the surface. The thermal anomaly was observed again on 15 October.

Despite occasional steam plumes and bouts of seismic activity, Alaid has not erupted in ernest since 1981, when an explosive eruption threw ash 15 km into the air, and covered an estimated 150 000 km³ (much of it at sea) in ash up to 30 cm thick, causing severe disruption to the town of Severokurilsk on Paramushir Island.

Map showing the relationship between Mount Alaid (top left) and Paramushir Island (centre). Google Maps.

The Kurile Archipelago is a volcanic island arc on the boundary of the Okhotsk and Pacific Plates. The Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the Okhotsk Plate. As the Pacific Plate sinks into the Earth it is partially melted by the friction and the heat of the Earth's interior. Some of the melted material then rises through the overlying Okhotsk Plate, fueling the volcanoes of the Kurile Archipelago, Hokkaido and south Kamchatka.

See also Volcanism on Mount Kliuchevskoi, Eruption on Mount Bezymianny, Seismic activity on Little Sitkin, Eruption on Ivan Grozny and Volcanoes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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A new species of Asian Warty Newt from Guizhou Province, China.

Asian Warty Newts of the genus Paramesotriton are small Salamanders (Urodels) known from China and Southeast Asia. They tend to be dull in colour compared to other Salamanders, typically a uniform grey of brown.

In a paper published in the journal Zootaxa on 9 October 2012, a team of scientists led by Xiaoming Gu of the School of Life Sciences at Guizhou Normal University, describe a new species of Asian Warty Newt found in the Maolan National Nature Reserve in Libo County in Guizhou Province, China.

The new species is named Paramesotriton maolanensis, in reference to the reserve where it was found. It is bigger than any previously known member of the genus, with adults ranging from 177 to 208 mm in length, compared to 160 to 200 mm for the next largest species, Paramesotriton deloustali, and 94 to 186 mm for other members of the genus. The species was also found to differ in the structure of its skull and hyloid bone (in the neck), and was genetically distinct from other members of the genus. Paramesotriton maolanensis was also found to have very poorly developed eyes, apparently being at least partially blind; whereas other members of the genus have well developed eyes and good vision.

Paramesotriton maolanensis is brown in colour, with an orange stripe along its back, and mottled red markings on its belly. It has horny protuberances on the back of its skull (a feature seen in some, but not all, other members of the genus), and lacks conspicuous warts. 

Paramesotriton maolanensis, whole body. Gu et al. (2012).

Detail of the heads of Paramesotriton maolanensis (top), Paramesotriton zhijinensis (middle) and Paramesotriton longliensis (bottom). Note the variation in eye-development and wartyness. Gu et al. (2012).

The pool where Paramesotriton maolanensis was found living. Gu et al. (2012).

See also Three new species of Frog from the Peruvian Andes, New species of Robber Frog from Panama, A cryptic species of Ground Frog from southern Chile, A Salamander from the Late Jurassic of China and New Spadefoot Toad from southeastern Laos.

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Six Italian scientists gaoled for failure to predict Earthquake.

Six Italian geoscientists and one government official have been gaoled by Judge Marco Billi today for failure to predict an Earthquake, following a guilty verdict at a trial in a prefabricated building on the outskirts of L'Aquila, the Italian city devastated by the quake on 6 April 2009. All seven received six year sentences, and will be expected to pay reparations to the families of around €100 000 each to the families of all 29 quake victims named in the case, and potentially to the families of all 309 people killed in the quake, as well as others injured or who lost property (including the city council).

Public Prosecutor Fabio Picuti (left) talks to Judge Marco Billi (right) during the trial. Science.

The trial has been widely criticized both within and outside Italy, with a open letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science attracting over 5000 signatures. It is likely that if the verdict is not overturned fairly quickly then Italy may suffer a curtailment of scientific cooperation with other countries, and potentially suspension from international scientific bodies.

Geoscientists do attempt to predict geological hazards, but this is far from a precise science, and the likelihood of it becoming more precise in the future will be greatly curtailed if scientists feel that the very attempt might lead to legal action being taken (some of the bodies involved had previously been warned of legal action by authorities over false-alarms, and consequent disruption to business). Potentially this case could open the road to legal action against scientists in any field (including medicine) who are unable to make 100% accurate predictions on every occasion. 

It is unclear at this time if the scientists involved will appeal, or if the Italian government will (or can) intervene to overturn the verdict.

See also Italian scientists face gaol over failure to predict Earthquake, Modena Plane hit by second major Earthquake, Earthquake on the Modena Plane, northern Italy, Earthquakes shake northern Italy  and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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