'Tiny' new T-Rex ancestor unearthed in China

This image released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shows University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno adding the toe claw to a well preserved skeleton of the new tyrannosaur Raptorex. The relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex was unearthed in China, researchers said. (AFP/AAAS-HO/Mike Hettwer)

This image released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shows the skull of Raptorex dwarfed by the skull of 'Sue', the famous adult T. rex at the Field Museum in Chicago. The relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex was unearthed in China, researchers said. (AFP/AAAS-HO/Paul Sereno)

This image released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shows the two-fingered forelimb of an adult T. rex and the very similar 8-inch (20.3-cm) forelimb of Raptorex. The relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex was unearthed in China, researchers said. (AFP/AAAS-HO/Mike Hettwer)

A relatively tiny new ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex has been unearthed in China, researchers said Thursday.

The three-meter-long (10-foot) dinosaur dubbed the Raptorex only weighed about 60 kilograms (150 pounds) and was nearly 100 times smaller than the king of the dinosaurs.

But it was nearly identical in structure -- even down to the scrawny arms -- and had all of the traits which made T. Rex such a successful predator, said lead author Paul Sereno, a paleontologist with the University of Chicago.

"It was jaws on legs," Sereno said.

This unexpected new link in the evolution of the mighty predator which once dominated the northern half of the globe has provided researchers with an entirely new picture of how T. Rex evolved.

"Raptorex, the new species, really throws a wrench into the observed pattern," said co-author Stephen Brusatte of the American Museum of Natural History.

"Here we have an animal that's 1/100th of the size of T. Rex -- about my size -- but with all of the signature features -- big head, strong muscles, tiny little arms -- that were thought to be necessary adaptations for a large-body predator."

The Raptorex fossil shows that the skinny arms evolved not in order to help it offset a heavier overall bodyweight, but instead as a tradeoff for agility and speed.

The powerful muscles of the back legs would have helped the T. Rex chase down its prey while the smaller front legs allowed it to remain upright and attack with its deadly jaws.

The Raptorex fossil -- which was estimated to be a juvenile of five to six years old when it died -- is about 125 million years old.

The tyrannosaurus genus did not reach its full size until about 85 million years ago and was wiped out about 65 million years ago in the great extinction which ended the Cretaceous Period.

"What that means is that for most of their evolutionary history, about 80 percent of the time that they were on earth, tyrannosauruses were small animals that lived in the shadow of other types of very large dinosaur predators," Brusatte said in a conference call with reporters.

It's likely that T. Rex was able to grow to its colossal size because other competing predators became extinct, Sereno said.

"We cannot say that this incredibly successful, scalable blueprint for a predator was responsible for their total domination... because we never saw them cohabiting in environments with these other, earlier types of predators," he said.

But once tyrannosauruses were able to expand in body size, "there was no turning back until the asteroid hit because they really had it down pat."

The incredibly well-preserved and nearly complete fossil was almost lost to science after it was unearthed illegally and spirited out of China for sale on the private market.

An American eye surgeon and dinosaur enthusiast purchased the still-embedded fossil and recognized its potential value to science.

Henry Kriegstein contacted Sereno, who agreed to analyze the fossil so long as Kriegstein was willing to return it to China once the work is complete.

"We rapidly achieved that agreement and Raptorex sees the light of day," Sereno said.

"I hope this is a pathway (which can be used again so) that other important specimens that do find their way out of the ground in the dark of night do not get lost to science."

The full name of the new species is Raptorex kriegsteini, in honor Kriegstein and the dinosaur's link to raptors and the T. Rex.

The study was published in the journal Science.

(Agencies)

Coldest place in the solar system? Right nearby

This undated image provided by NASA, taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the crater called Faustini, upper, center, on the south pole of the moon, where temperatures reached 397-degrees below zero. (AP Photo/NASA)

Astronomers have found the coldest spot in our solar system and it may be a little close for comfort. It's on our moon, right nearby. NASA's new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is making the first complete temperature map of the moon. It found that at the moon's south pole, it's colder than far away Pluto. The area is inside craters that are permanently shadowed so they never see sun.

"It's sort of like a faint glow and that's your only source of heat," said David Paige, a University of California, Los Angeles, scientist who is part of the NASA team. "Right here in our own backyard are definitely the coldest things we've seen in real measurements."

Temperatures there were measured at 397 degrees below zero. That's just 62 degrees higher than the lowest temperature possible.

Pluto is at least a degree warmer even though it is about 40 times farther away from the sun.

The coldest temperatures on the moon were usually in craters that were within bigger craters, hiding farther from the sun, Paige said. Three craters where the cold temperatures were noted were Faustini, Shoemaker and Haworth. And some of the coldest places are so remote and unexplored they don't even have names yet, he said.

Soon, the moon's south pole will slightly warm up with the change of seasons and the north pole will get chillier, he said.

That ultra-cold temperature is important because it can trap volatile chemicals, such as water and methane, said NASA probe project scientist Richard Vondrak. Trapped volatiles would give any future astronauts resources to mine and could help scientists understand more about the origin of the early solar system, he said.

The moon probe, only a week into its science mission, has also found lots of indications of hydrogen, which could indicate trapped ice below the moon's surface, Vondrak said.

While NASA has been to the moon with astronauts and explored it many times decades ago, this is the first close-up look in about a decade and is focusing on the tantalizing south pole, where there is the best chance for hidden ice.

"It's unexplored," Paige said. "Nobody's seen what it's like in these areas before at this resolution."

And the closer, NASA's instruments look at the craters, the more nuanced they look.

"The moon is not just a billiard ball with dimples," Paige told The Associated Press. "It's got interesting cracks and crevices."

(Agencies)

Maldives aims for action behind words on climate change

Local village official Mohamed Usman points to a boat anchored off shore where the beach stood a few months earlier before rapid coastal erosion at the north-central island village of Thulhaadhoo in the Indian Ocean atoll nation of the Maldives. (AFP/File/Amal Jayasinghe)

White sand and crystal clear water that laps around the Maldives draw thousands to the islands every year, but in the waves lie the seeds of the country's possible destruction.

The archipelago is on the frontline of climate change in a way that few other countries can claim and its unfortunate position has made it a vocal campaigner and, it hopes, a role-model in the battle against global warming.

In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100 would be enough to make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable.

Over 80 percent of the country's land, composed of coral islands scattered some 850 kilometres (550 miles) across the equator, is less than one metre (3.3 feet) above mean sea level.

Ahead of a climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, where the world's powers hope to agree a new pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the country is preparing to make a loud case for hasty action.

"The best we can do is to tell the world that what is happening to us can happen to you tomorrow," says Maldives Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam. "The big countries must see their future reflected through us."

The government of the nation of 1,192 low-lying coral islets has even been thinking aloud about buying a "homeland" in Australia or in neighbouring India or Sri Lanka for its 330,000-strong population.

Mohamed Nasheed, a young, former journalist elected as president last year, hopes this will not be necessary.

"Our core point is that there is hope. We can reverse the situation. I think it is very important for people to realise that we are not fighting a losing battle," he told reporters at his sea-front office in the capital Male, in an interview earlier this month.

Seeking to set an example, Nasheed has set goals to turn the Maldives into the first nation to be carbon neutral by 2020.

The 200 inhabited islands in the Maldives want to switch over to solar and wind-driven generators and authorities hope to drastically reduce the number of motorcycles that choke Male's narrow streets.

While details of the plan remain vague, officials are keen to showcase their new eco credentials.

Nasheed says he wants luxury tourist resorts to take the lead and he is offering tax concessions for renewable energy schemes.

The Soneva Fushi resort, half an hour by sea plane from Male, is setting up the first major solar energy project in the Maldives next month. The resort hopes to harness a tenth of its electricity from the sun.

Soneva Fushi which has 60 villas with daily rates that run into thousands of dollars is tapping deep sea water to work air conditioner chillers.

"We have demonstrated that luxury and minimal environmental impact are compatible," environment manager at Soneva, Enka Hofmeister, told AFP during a recent visit.

In Male, however, the challenges for a country that wants to be an environmental trailblazer can be seen in the traffic-clogged streets of a city where 130,000 live in one square mile (2.5 square kilometre).

During monsoon rains, sewers are overwhelmed and the streets flood; pollution is thick from the thousands of motorcycles and hundreds of cars that buzz up and down its narrow paved streets.

"Dealing with the transport sector will be a challenge for us," acknowledged Aslam, who is also the minister in charge of transport.

"We have moved to a motorised culture in the past two decades and it will be difficult to get back on bikes."

Aslam and Nasheed agree that their green initiatives are unlikely to have an impact on slowing global warming and saving the Maldives, but they hope their moves could demonstrate the seriousness of the problem.

"We might be very small, insignificant and with very few people, but we feel climate change is not just an environmental issue," Nasheed said. "What we are doing (by example) is advocacy, to get our desperate message across."

In December 2004, the country had a brief taster of how it felt to be under water when the Asian tsunami struck, leaving a trail a destruction. Several islands have since been abandoned because they are considered unsafe.

It is hoped here that the Copenhagen meeting, where ministers aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that drive global warming, will help avert a much slower but more significant submersion.

(Agencies)

Arctic ice melts to third-smallest area on record

The Arctic's sea ice pack thawed to its third-lowest summer level on record, up slightly from the seasonal melt of the past two years but continuing an overall decline symptomatic of climate change, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

The range of ocean remaining frozen over the northern polar region reached its minimum extent for 2009 on September 12, when it covered 1.97 million square miles (5.1 million square km), and now appears to be growing again as the Arctic starts its annual cool-down, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported.

That level falls 20 percent below the 30-year average minimum ice cover for the Arctic summer since satellites began measuring it in 1979, and 24 percent less than the 1979-2000 average, the Colorado-based government agency said.

This summer's minimum represents a loss about about two-thirds of the sea ice measured at the height of Arctic winter in March. By comparison, the Arctic ice shelf typically shrank by a little more than half each summer during the 1980s and 1990s, ice scientist Walt Meier said.

The lowest point on record was reached in September 2007, and the 2009 minimum ranks as the third smallest behind last year's level. But scientists said they do not consider the slight upward fluctuation again this summer to be a recovery.

The difference was attributed to relatively cooler temperatures this summer compared with the two previous years. Winds also tended to disperse the ice pack over a larger region, scientists said.

"The long-term decline in summer extent is expected to continue in future years," the report said.

The U.S. government findings were in line with measurements reported separately by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway, which reported this summer's minimum ice extent at just under 5 million square km (1.93 million square miles).

Scientists regard the Arctic and its sea ice as among the most sensitive barometers of global warming because even small temperature changes make a huge difference.

"If you go from a degree below freezing to 2 degrees above freezing, that's a completely different environment in the polar region," Meier said. "You're going from ice skating to swimming. Whereas if you're on a tropical beach and it's 3 degrees warmer, you probably wouldn't even notice it."

World leaders will meet at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday to discuss a climate treaty due to be agreed on in December.

MARITIME IMPLICATIONS

The shrinking polar cap poses a loss of crucial habitat for polar bears and has implications for maritime shipping, opening up new routes to navigation.

Once again this year, the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic Ocean along the coast of Siberia opened, enabling two German ships to navigate the passage with Russian icebreaker escorts.

Russian vessels have traversed the passage many times over the years, but the maritime fleets of other nations are showing more interest in the route as the summer thaw expands.

This year, the Amundsen's Channel through the Northwest Passage also opened briefly, as it did in 2008, but the deeper Parry's Channel did not. Both opened in 2007.

Scientists have voiced concern for years about the alarming decline in the size of the Arctic ice cap, which functions as a giant air conditioner for the planet's climate system as it reflects sunlight back into space.

As a greater portion of the ice melts, larger expanses of darker sea water are exposed, absorbing more sunlight and adding to the global warming effect attributed to rising levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by human activity.

Scientists also have measured a thinning of the frozen seas, as older, thicker ice more resilient to warming temperatures gives way to younger, thinner layers that melt more easily in summer.

Scientists monitor Antarctic sea ice as well, but the Arctic is considered a more critical gauge of climate change because more of the northern sea ice remains frozen through the summer, playing a bigger role in cooling the planet.

(Agencies)

45 candidates short-listed for space training

Forty-five of China's top aviators launched their long journey toward space Thursday when they were short-listed for training at the nation's space academy.

China's first female would-be astronauts are among the group.

The prospective space travellers will compete to be named among the five men and two women who will be trained as China's second batch of astronauts, the People's Liberation Army General Armament Department said Thursday.

"They have all displayed excellent mastery of flight skills and boast great psychological qualities," an officer with the General Armament Department said.

China's first batch of 14 astronauts, all men, were selected in 1995.

Among them, Yang Liwei, who is now 44, made history in 2003 when he was the first Chinese national to voyage aboard the Shenzhou V spacecraft beyond the planet's atmosphere.

So far, six people from that first batch have made it into space.

The 45 candidates hoping to be selected for space training have an average age of 30 - the youngest is 27 and the oldest, 34.

All 30 male candidates are fighter pilots and the 15 females are transport pilots. They all serve in the PLA Air Force.

The 45 pilots will undergo more screening - including physiological and psychological checks - before seven are picked to begin training.

The fact that China is looking for female astronauts came as no surprise to experts.

"Women are believed to be better suited to long-term missions in space," said Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology.

He said overseas studies have shown that zero gravity may have less impact on women. Women are also believed to be better at handling the loneliness of space, he said.

Worldwide, more than 50 women have visited space.

China's next batch of astronauts should be ready for liftoff in four to five years.

China plans to launch the Shenzhou VIII and Shenzhou IX spacecraft in 2011.

China's first automobile wind tunnel starts operation

SHANGHAI, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- China's first automobile wind tunnel began operation at Tongji University in Shanghai Saturday, indicating a major breakthrough in automobile development and production.

Costing 490 million yuan (72 million U.S. dollars), the Shanghai vehicle wind tunnel center will provide testing services for manufacturers of cars, buses, sport utility vehicles, trucks and train models, said Chen Xiaolong, vice president of Tongji University.

It will also facilitate the research and development of new energy vehicles, high-speed trains and big airplanes, he said.

The wind tunnel center offers a platform to design more energy-efficient and beautiful cars ourselves, said Yang Zhigang, the center director.

The center is equipped up-to-date technology for noise control, ground simulation and measuring precision of aerodynamic forces, he said. "It will strengthen China's competitiveness in automobile market."

More than 10 automobile wind tunnels have been built in the world.

"I had two dreams when I came back to China from Germany nine years ago," said Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang. "One is to design our own new energy cars; the other is to build China's first automobile wind tunnel."

"Now both dreams have come true," he said.

Previously, Chinese automobile manufacturers had to pay millions of euros to do wind tunnel testing in foreign countries.

China Science & Technology Museum opens in Beijing

A boy plays a game in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

People look dinosaur fossils in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

Children experience the shooting theory in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday. (Xinhua/Li Wen)

Visitors experience an air bicycle in the new China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 20, 2009. The Hi-tech and newly-built museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday.(Xinhua/Li Wen)

The Hi-tech and newly-built China Science and Technology Museum covering an area of 48,000 square meters was opened to the public on Sunday.