Taiwan scientist develops earthquake alarm

The scientist Wu Yi-min, seen here in April 2009, has developed an earthquake alarm that could give people a crucial 15-second warning in case of a tremor, one of his team said Wednesday. (AFP/File/Sam Yeh)

A Taiwanese scientist has developed an earthquake alarm that could give people a crucial 15-second warning in case of a tremor, one of his team said Wednesday.

The gadget, about one-third of the size of a laptop, can be linked to computers and also be used to halt lifts in buildings when quakes strike.

The system relies on seismic waves, which move vertically as well as horizontally. The device detects and analyses these vertical waves, which travel faster and are less violent than horizontal waves.

"The device has been put to a series of tests," said an assistant to Wu Yih-min, a professor at National Taiwan University's Department of Geosciences.

The few seconds extra would give people precious time to seek shelter in the case of potentially fatal quakes, according to Wu's team.

Wu expects the device to retail for around 300 US dollars once the prototype has completed a series of tests in the coming two years.

Taiwan, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, is regularly shaken by earthquakes. A 7.6-magnitude quake killed about 2,400 people in September 1999.

(Agencies)

China picks first female astronaut candidates

China's military-backed space program has selected 45 astronaut candidates, including its first women hopefuls, for a training program less than a year after the country completed its first spacewalk.

The 30 male and 15 female candidates are part of a program to pick five men and two women astronauts to participate in three more manned missions planned before 2012. The missions are to prepare for the rendezvous and docking tasks required for constructing a space station, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

In 2003, China become the first Asian country to put its own astronauts into space. It followed last year with its first spacewalk, putting the country closer to building a space station and landing a man on the moon.

Like previous astronauts, all 45 candidates are air force pilots between the ages of 27 and 34, the report said. They will undergo a series of rigorous psychological and physical tests as part of the selection process.

China announced last year that it would send scientists on future manned missions as demands for technical expertise rises.

China has said it wants to launch a manned mission by 2020 to experiment with technologies that will enable astronauts to take care of spacecraft for longer periods of time.

The Chinese program is backed by the country's secretive military. While Beijing says it is committed to a peaceful program, analysts point to numerous potential applications for its technology, such as when it used a land-based missile to blast apart an old satellite in 2007, the first such test ever conducted by a nation.

(Agencies)

China Focus: China selects female astronaut candidates

BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The preliminary selection for candidates of China's second batch of astronauts has finished, with candidates including 30 men and 15 women who are all airforce pilots, authorities said Thursday.

Among them, five men and two women would be final candidates to join the space program. And "it is the first time women have been up for selection in China's space development cause," authorities said.

The 45 candidates, between the ages of 27 and 34, will undergo another round of tests, including physiological and psychological checks, an air force official said.

He said the male candidates are all fighter plane pilots and the female candidates are aero-transport pilots. All serve in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force and at least hold a college degree.

Many of them have conducted important flight missions such as rescue tasks for the massive Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008 in southwestern Sichuan Province, and various military drills.

The authorities said they "all master excellent flight skills and boast great psychological quality."

The preliminary selection, conducted by the PLA Air Force, started in May. Applicants had undergone medical and psychological examinations as well as checks on family background and other "comprehensive assessments".

China has sent six astronauts into space since 2003 when it sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei in home-grown spacecraft Shenzhou-5. It was followed by a two-man mission that carried Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng in 2005.

The trio of Shenzhou-7 astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng orbited the earth for three days in September last year.

Zhai became the first Chinese to walk in outer space on Sept. 27, 2008. His spacewalk lasted about 20 minutes and was believed to help pave the way for the country's next space mission -- the space docking in 2011 and a manned space station in 2020.

Scientists urge leaders to step up fight against climate change

NAIROBI, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Forty of the world's leading climate scientists have signed an open letter demanding global leaders take bolder action against climate change.

The joint statement --initiated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and endorsed by recognized climate luminaries such as Sir John Houghton, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- calls for industrialized countries to make a commitment at the upcoming UN climate summit in Copenhagen to cut carbon emissions by at least 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020.

"So a 40 percent reduction in emissions is the very least required to provide a better chance of avoiding devastation for these countries and communities," said Saleemul Huq, one of the signatories, IPCC author and Senior Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

"The scientific evidence now indicates that even a rise in temperature of 2掳C will entail considerable hardships for poor and vulnerable people around the world, especially those living on low-lying islands and coasts," they said in a letter received here Thursday.

The WWF says key meetings that will shape the global climate deal take place in coming weeks, including the UN General Assembly in New York and the G20 Heads of State meeting in Pittsburgh.

Campaigners say it is vital that the politicians attending the meetings take note of such timely advice from the world's scientific community.

"As the UK government rallies the EU to step up to the mark ahead of Copenhagen, it's time for Gordon Brown and other world leaders to turn words into action," said WWF's Head of Climate Change Keith Allott.

Dr. Dave Reay, another of the signatories, IPCC contributor and Senior Lecturer in Carbon Management, Edinburgh University, said: "The scientific evidence of climate change from around the world is providing a clear and urgent call for action.

"If we are to be successful in preventing the worst impacts of climate change then world leaders from the industrialized nations must commit to reducing emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020,"he said.

The meeting in Copenhagen set for December "is hugely important in putting the world on a path that leads us away from dangerous climate change," he added.

At the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, world leaders have the opportunity to agree on a historic global climate deal.

To avoid dangerous climate change, the deal must be based on the most up-to-date scientific understanding of the emissions reductions required, with obligations divided equitably between developed and developing countries.

According to scientists, this means that developed countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020.

More than 120 countries, including the members of the G8, the EU, and key emerging economies such as China, South Africa and Mexico, agree that the rise in global temperature must stay well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Beyond this point climate impacts will be more severe, with the risk of crossing "tipping points" with dangerous and irreversible effects.

Mexican scientists sequence genome for tequila cactus

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Geneticists working in Central Mexico have mapped the genome of the blue agave, a desert plant used to make tequila.

A research team led by June Simpson Williamson said on Thursday that it took them six years to sequence 35,000 genes in Agave tequilana Weber.

The team has identified four or five genes which could be used to manipulate the agave's flowering and maturity process, something that could boost tequila production.

Plants in the agave family die after producing a flowering stem, and slowing the progress toward flowering gives the plants a longer productive life.

Other liquors are made using relatives of the blue agave, but only products of the sequenced plant distilled in the western Mexican state Jalisco can be called tequila.

The project could also help identify other productive processes in the plant, including the production of herbal medicine, Williamson said.

Space station crew grabs new cargo ship from orbit

In this image provided from NASA TV, the unpiloted Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) makes its final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday Sept. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

A brand new Japanese space station cargo ship arrived at its destination Thursday, expertly plucked from orbit by an astronaut who toasted the first-ever event with her crewmates.

Space station resident Nicole Stott used the robot arm at the orbiting complex to grab the 18-ton supply ship as it hovered 30 feet away. The vessel 鈥?the first of its kind 鈥?was launched a week ago from Japan.

It was the first time an unmanned ship was grabbed from orbit like this. The older-style Russian ships actually dock at the space station. So do Europe's freighters.

Mission Control erupted in applause when the robotic snares tightened on the vessel 225 miles above the planet. Stott gave a double thumbs-up.

"It's a real example of international cooperation, with a Japanese vehicle captured by a Canadian arm with American and European astronauts, with a safety guy from Canada, under the command of a Russian," said Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne.

The six space station occupants celebrated by raising specially decorated foil drink bags with straws and sipping the water inside.

"We are so, so happy to have this beautiful vehicle here with us now," Stott told Mission Control. She said the crew was looking forward to finding all the surprises tucked among the 5 tons of contents, after opening the hatch on Friday.

The craft is loaded with food, laptop computers, atmospheric studies and a robotic hand. The hand will supplement the larger Japanese robot arm that's already there.

A few hours after the capture, the astronauts anchored the ship onto the space station. The craft will remain there until the beginning of November, when it will be set free to deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

Japan spent $680 million on the delivery trip. It plans one a year.

NASA will rely more and more on these types of crew-less cargo ships, once the space shuttles are retired in another year or two.

Stott moved into the space station late last month; she flew up aboard Discovery.

(Agencies)

'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)