Glenochrysa minima: A new species of Green Lacewing from Western Australia.

The Neuroptera, or Net-winged Insects, first appeared in the Permian and reached their maximum diversity in the Permian, when they were the most numerous Insects in many ecosystems. They are non-metamorphic Insects, in that they do not go through a dramatic metamorphosis on reaching maturity in the way that Butterflies or Wasps do, but rather the larvae grow progressively more like the adults with each molt Nevertheless the larvae are often quite different from the adults and may have quite different ecological roles. Today the Neuroptera are somewhat of a relic group, with many of the Jurassic groups having become extinct and most of the surviving groups having much lower diversity. One group that are still very successful today are the Green Lacewigs, Chrysopidae, with around 2000 species in about 85 genera found living around the world.

In a paper published in the journal ZooKeys on 1 December 2015, Shaun Winterton and Ivonne Garzón-Orduña of the California State Collection of Arthropods at the California Department of Food & Agriculture describe a new species of Green Lacewing from the El Questro-Emma Gorge Resort in northern Western Australia.

The new species is placed in the genus Glenochrysa, which is notable for the large finger-like prothoracic gland which protrudes from the back of the males as well as for often having distinctively patterned wings. Five species of this genus have previously been described from Australia, with another eleven known from tropical Africa, East Asia and the wider Austolasian region. It is named Glenochrysa minima, meaning small, due to its small size, with a forewing length of 7.5-7.8 mm, smaller than most other members of the genus.

Glenochrysa minima, male specimen in lateral view. Winterton & Garzón-Orduña (2015).

See also...

A Silky Lacewing from the Eocene of Washington State.                                        Silky Lacewings (Psychopsidae) are a group of Neuropteran Insects that are rare today, with only...

A new species of Osmylid from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou Biota of Inner Mongolia. Osmylids (Osmylidae) are a group of Neuropteran Insects with a fossil record dating back to the Early Jurassic and are still in existence today. They appear to have been at their most numerous and diverse in the Middle-Late Jurassic, with a number of lineages apparently disappearing at the...

A new species of Snakefly from the Middle Jurassic of Inner Mongolia.                    Snakeflies (Raphidioptera) are a group of carnivorous flying insects related to the Lacewings, Antlions and Alderflies. They have long life cycles, with a number of larval stages, but still feed as adults. Modern Snakeflies are found throughout Europe and Temperate Asia...

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Asteroid 2015 XE1 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2015 XE1 passed by the Earth at a distance of 5 080 000 km (13.2 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 3.40% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 3.00 am GMT on Saturday 19 December 2015. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented only a minor threat. 2015 XE1 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 13-41 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 13-41  m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to explode in an airburst (an explosion caused by superheating from friction with the Earth's atmosphere, which is greater than that caused by simply falling, due to the orbital momentum of the asteroid) in the atmosphere between 30 and 12 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

 The calculated orbit of 2015 XE1. JPL Small Body Database.

2015 XE1 was discovered on 2 December 2015 (seven days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Hawaii's PANSTARRS telescope on Mount Haleakala on Maui. The designation 2015 XE1 implies that it was the 30th asteroid (asteroid E1) discovered in the first half of December  2015 (period 2015 X).

2015 XE1 has a 694 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 3.91° to the plane of the Solar System that takes it from 0.997 AU from the Sun (i.e. 99.7% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 2.07 AU from the Sun (i.e. 207% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than the distance at which Mars orbits the Sun). It is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid (an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer). 2015 XE has occasional close encounters with the planet Earth, with the next predicted in February 2052. 

See also...

Asteroid 2015 XX169 passes the Earth.  Asteroid 2015 XX169 passed by the Earth at a distance of 3 231 000 km (8.41 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 2.16% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 3.00 pm GMT on Monday 14...

 

Asteroid 2015 XA169 passes the Earth. Asteroid 2015 XA169 passed by the Earth at a distance of 2 848 000 km (7.41 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 1.90% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 3.00 pm GMT on Saturday 12...

 

 

Asteroid 2015 XV261 passes the Earth.  Asteroid 2015 XV261 passed by the Earth at a distance of 2 609 000 km (6.78 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 1.75% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 3.05 am GMT on Tuesday 8 December...

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Widespread lead poisonng prompts city of Flint, Michigan, to declare a state of emergnecy.

The City of Flint, in Genesee County, Michigan, has declared a stare of emergency, following an outbreak of lead poisoning in the city. Mayor Karen Weaver made the declaration on 15 December 2015, effectively declaring that local authorities are unable to cope with the scale of the crisis and that help is needed from federal authorities. A declaration of this nature is unusual for an event of this kind, such declarations are mire usually declared in response to events such as floods or Earthquakes, and it is unclear what steps federal authorities can take, although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has begun distributing bottled water in parts of the city.

Volunteers delivering bottled water to a school in Flint, Michigan, in September 2015. Danny Miller/The Flint Journal/AP.

The crisis began in April 2014, when the city changed the source of its water from the Detroit River to the Flint River, the first stage of a project eventually intended to source water from Lake Huron via a new pipeline. However almost immediately people began to complain of a reduction in water quality, reporting that the water was cloudy in colour and gave off a foul odor. Cases of lead poisoning began to be reported in the city in April 2014, with tests showing dangerously high levels of lead in the blood of 15% of children in parts of the city. Shortly thereafter state officials found water in the city also contained dangerously high levels of trihalomethanes.

Lead poisoning can cause a variety of health problems, including kidney damage, high blood pressure, anemia, hypertension, damage to the immune and reproductive systems and even more worryingly reduced intelligence, lower attention spans and behavioral problems. Children are affected more severely than adults, and because the lead is rapidly distributed to the organs and cannot be expelled by the body, the condition is effectively permanent and incurable. This means that in addition to the immediate health crisis, Flint is likely to suffer a long tern need for additional special education resources, mental health services and a more adaptable juvenile justice system. Because the level of exposure to lead in Flint has largely been linked to peoples ability of afford bottled water these problems are likely to affect poorer citizens, who are also likely to find it harder to access education, healthcare and representation within the  justice system.

Trihalomethanes are thought to be carcinogenic (cause cancer) and has been linked to a variety of other health problems, and can be absorbed dermally (through the skin), so that drinking bottled water will lower but not prevent exposure.

Map showing the location of Flint, Michigan. Google Maps.

High levels of lead have not been found in the Flint River, neither have they been detected at the water processing plant which treats water from the river. However the water is slightly acidic, and appears to be corroding piping within the city, releasing lead compounds from older lead pipes and trihalomethanes from more modern plastic pipes. This makes it likely that in to addition to the pollution and healthcare crisis in the city, there is likely to be damage to much of the city's water distribution system with  areas of acid damaged piping to be replaced.

The agency responsible for the switch in water supply was the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and this agency has been widely blamed for the ensuing crisis. Current US legislation requires that water supplying agencies actively control levels of lead in water supplied for domestic use, including lead from corrosion of pipes.Such agencies are also obliged to monitor the acidity of water supplied, which should provide an early warning for problems such as those that have occurred in Flint. Neither of these requirements appears to have been met by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and when outside agencies began to raise concerns officials from the department challenged the findings rather than acting on the information. This has led to a class action being brought against the City of Flint, the State of Michigan and several named officials, and calls for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

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Cryptosporidium discovery at water treatment plant leaves around 300 000 without drinkable water in Lancashire, England.                                                    Around 300 000 homes were left without drinkable...

Monitoring water quality in South African reservoirs from space.                                 Water quality is a major issue in South Africa, where efforts to expand clean water supplies to the whole population in the post-Apartheid era have faced severe challenges due to a limited supply of potable... 

Free-living Amoebae in the water system of a South African hospital.                                        Free-living Amoebae are unicellular protozoan’s common in aquatic ecosystems, which are also known to colonize Human created water systems such as water supply systems and swimming pools. Whilst in some ways these organisms can be helpful...

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Prunus kunmingensis: Peaches from the Late Pliocene of Yunnan Province.

Peaches, Prunus persica, are widely grown and consumed fruit around the world today, with a total annual production of about 20 million tons. They have a long historical association with humans, particularly in East Asia, with the oldest known archaeological specimens from 7000-8000 year-old sites in China and Peaches being mentioned in Chinese literature from about 1100 BC onwards. However today all known populations of Peaches are domesticated; no similar species is known from the wild, nor been documented in the fossil record. This makes it unclear to what extent modern Peaches resemble their wild ancestors and how much they have been modified by cultivation.

In a paper published in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports on 26 November 2015, Tao Su of the Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and the State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Peter Wilf of the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, Yongjiang Huang, also of the State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology and of the Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Shitao Zhang of the Faculty of Land Resource Engineering at the Kunming University of Science and Technology and Zhekun Zhou, also of the Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and of the Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia at the Kunming Institute of Botany describe a series of Peach specimens from the Late Pliocene Ciying Formation at Kunming in Yunnan Province, China.

 The specimens comprise eight Peach endocarps (stones), apparently identical to those of modern Peaches. This being the case extreme care had to be taken to exclude the possibility of modern contamination. examination of the specimens determined that much of the original woody material had been replaced by iron oxides; attempts to obtain carbon-14 dates from the surviving woody material found them to be beyond the range of this method (about 43 500 years), effectively excluding the possibility of the specimens being modern. The specimens were slightly flatter than modern Peach stones, but this is thought to be a result of compression after burial, however due the presumed age of the specimens they are assigned to a new species, Prunus kunmingensis (meaning 'from Kungming') rather than to the modern Prunus persica.

 Prunus kunmingensis. (a–e) Original specimens.  (f) CT scan showing longitudinal section and seed. Scale bar is 1 cm. Su et al. (2015).

The discovery of the Kungming Peaches strongly suggests that Peaches with an essentially modern form have existed long before Humans domesticated them; modern Humans arrived in China  in the Late Pleistocene and are not thought to have started cultivating crops for some time after. The earlier Homo erectus, who are not thought to have practiced agriculture of any kind, appeared in East Asia about 1.9 million years ago, or about 700 000 years after the end of the Pliocene, indicating that Peaches predate even this species of human. It is therefore likely that Peaches relied upon a large non-human Mammal to spread their seeds before the arrival of Humans in the area, possibly some form of Ape.

Other fossil material from the same beds as the Peach specimens indicate that the climate of Kunming was warmer and wetter in the Late Pliocene, which is in keeping with what is predicted from climatic models for the period. The Ciying Formation has produced numerous acorns of Ring-cupped Oak, Quercus glauca, a species today found in tropical and subtropical forests in Asia. These forests are a biodiversity hotspot for fruit bearing Rosaceae trees today, with Apples, Almonds, Apricots, Cherries, Plums and Pears all thought to be native to such forests. The addition of Peaches to this list adds to the importance of these forests as a source of fruit crops utilized by Humans. 

See also...

The origin of the ‘King of Flowers’.                  The Domestic Tree Peony, Paeonia suffruticosa, has a long history of cultivation in China, where records of the plant growing in gardens go back at least 1400 years. Domestic Tree Peonies are noted for their beauty and fragrance, and are known as the ‘King of Flowers’ in...

 

A new species of Whitebeam from the Transdanubian Mountains of Hungary.       Trees and shrubs of the genus Sorbus are variously known as Rowans, Service Trees, Whitebeams and Mountain Ashes. They are members of the Rose Family (Rosaceae), found in Europe, Asia, North America and North Africa. The group contains between 100 and...

A new species of Cherry from central Zhejiang Province, China.                                    Cherries are flowering fruit trees in the genus Prunus, members of the Rose Family (Rosaceae), found across much of the Northern Hemisphere, related to Plums, Peaches, Apricots and Almonds. Many species...

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Numerous deaths feared after landslide at waste tip in Shenzhen.

Many people are feared to have died following a landslide at construction waste tip in the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, China, on Sunday 20 December 2015. The event is thought to have buried numerous workers at the site as well as nearby homes and businesses. Only two bodes have been recovered during the event, but at least seventy eight more are missing, and it is feared that the actual number burred may be higher due to the high number of migrants from the Chinese interior living and working in the area, who may not have been reported. A further sixteen people are being treated in local hospitals, three of whom are described as being in serious conditions.

The scene of the 20 December 2015 Shenzhen landslide. AP.

The waste site was opened at a former quarry in 2013, to accommodate waste from the city's numerous construction sites, however it had outgrown its original purpose with waste piled several tens of meters above the quarry at the time of the collapse, with many people in the area having expressed concern about the situation and an environmental consultancy, Zongxing Technology, having  published a report in January this year highlighting the site's instability, which resulted in operations being halted temporarily, though it is unclear what steps were taken to alleviate the problems before activity resumed. Running of the site was contracted to a company called Lüwei Property Management, however the actual management of the site was undertaken by a subcontractor, Yixianglong Investment, and Lüwei Property Management are claiming to have also raised concerns about conditions at the site.

The approximate location of the 20 December 2015 Shenzhen landslide. Google Maps.

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A new species of heavy metal Tolerant Bacterium from the Dabaoshan Mining Area in Guangdong Province, China.                 Heavy metal extraction is a notorioulsy high pollution risk industry, as the metals are highly toxic to most forms of life, and most extraction techniques involve extracting them from ores using acids or other toxic materials (e.g. mercury), creating a toxic sludge, which, if it escapes into the environment, can prove extremely harmful...

Typhoon Usagi kills at least 25 in Guangdong Province, China.                                      Typhoon Usagi arrived in Guangdong Province in south China, brining with it winds of up to 165 km per hour...

Over a million rail passengers trapped by landslides in China.                                     Over a million rail passengers were still trapped at Guangzhou Railway Station by a series of landslides in China in the wake of Typhoon Utor on Saturday 17 August 2013. The station serves as a major hub...

 

 

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Painted Frogs from the Middle Miocen of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Painted Frogs, Discoglossinae, are found today in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, with fossils known from a number of Tertiary European sites. However the group are thought to be ancient and a specimen has been described from the Cretaceous of Wyoming while a member of the closely related Midwife Toads, Alytinae, which are also restricted to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin today, has been found from the Cretaceous of Central Asia, suggesting that the group was once widespread.

In a paper published in the International Research Journal of Earth Sciences on 24 September 2014, Varun Parmar and T Jigmet of the Post Graduate Department of Geology at the University of Jammu describe a series of Painted Frog remains from the Middle Miocene Lower Siwalik deposits of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Siwalik deposits were laid down from the Middle Miocene to the Late Pleistocene in the sedimentary basin formed across northern India by uplift in the Himalayas (i.e they were formed by material eroded from the rising mountains). The deposits run across northern India from river Indus in the west to the Brahmputra gorge in the east.

Parmar and Jigmet collected about 200 kg of sediment from Dehari near Jammu and first broke the rocks manually into small pieces, then dried them in an oven to remove all moisture. The samples were then soaked in kerosene oil for 3-4 hours, then water for about two hours. This breaks up the sediment as first oil then water enter the sediment, as the oil is hydrophobic (does not mix with water), so the water pushes the oil out. Because the two fluids have very different physical properties this results in agitation in even the smallest pores in the rock, causing the rock to disintegrate and exposing small fossils that can be recovered by sieving.

This procedure recovered numerous small specimens, including teeth and bones from Fish, Crocodiles, Snakes and small Mammals, as well as Mollusc shells and plant remains. The Frog remains comprised of four almost complete ilia (bones from the pelvis) attributed to an unknown Discoglossine (Painted) Frog; the remains are not considered sufficient to assign the specimens to genus or species level.

Ilia of Discoglossinae indet. (A, G, K) lateral views; (B, I) medial views; (C) dorsal view; (D) ventral view. (E, F, G, H, J, L) are line drawings of (A, B, G, I, K). Scale bar same for figures (A-F); (G-J); (K-L). Parmar & Jigmet (2014).

See also...

Albanerpetontids, Frogs and Lizards from the Late Cretaceous of northeast Spain.         During the Late Cretaceous high sea levels split Europe up into a series of islands, each with its own...

The enigmatic Pleistocene Amphibians of Okinawa Island.                                                         In the late 1960s and early 1970s a series of anthropological excavations were carried out at Minatogawa Fissure on southern Okinawa Island, producing a number of Late Pleistocene Human...

Frogs and Toads from the Early Eocene of Gujarat State, India.                                     The Cambay Shale formation from the Vastan Lignite Mine to the northeast of Surat in Gujarat State, India, has produced a diverse and significant Vertebrate...

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Asteroid 2015 XX169 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2015 XX169 passed by the Earth at a distance of 3 231 000 km (8.41 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 2.16% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 3.00 pm GMT on Monday 14 December 2015. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented only a minor threat. 2015 XX169 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 6-20 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 6-20 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to explode in an airburst (an explosion caused by superheating from friction with the Earth's atmosphere, which is greater than that caused by simply falling, due to the orbital momentum of the asteroid) in the atmosphere between 38 and 22 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

 The calculated orbit of 2015 XX169. JPL Small Body Database.

2015 XX169 was discovered on 9 December 2015 (three days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Survey at the Steward Observatory on Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2015 XX169 implies that the asteroid was the 4248th object (object X169) discovered in the first half of December 2015 (period 2015 X).

2015 XX169 has a 364 day orbital period, with an elliptical orbit tilted at an angle of 3.10° to the plain of the Solar System which takes in to 0.82 AU from the Sun (82% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) and out to 1.18 AU (18% further away from the Sun than the Earth). This means that close encounters between the asteroid and Earth are fairly common, with the last thought to have happened in December 2014 and the next predicted in December 2016 . Although it does cross the Earth's orbit and is briefly further from the Sun on each cycle, 2015 XX169 spends most of its time closer to the Sun than we are, and is therefore classified as an Aten Group Asteroid. 

See also...

Asteroid 2015 XA169 passes the Earth. Asteroid 2015 XA169 passed by the Earth at a distance of 2 848 000 km (7.41 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 1.90% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 3.00 pm GMT on Saturday 12...

Asteroid 2015 XV261 passes the Earth.  Asteroid 2015 XV261 passed by the Earth at a distance of 2 609 000 km (6.78 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 1.75% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 3.05 am GMT on Tuesday 8 December...

Asteroid 2015 SV2 passes the Earth.      Asteroid 2015 SV2 passed by the Earth at a distance of 14 800 000 km (38.5 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 9.89% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), at about 3.45 pm GMT on Saturday 5 December...

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