Russian Dead Alien Video Surfaces

Video of what appears to be an alien body recently found in Russia following reports of UFOs last month has set off a furor among UFO communities and in the blogosphere.

The Daily Mail reported that "In the frozen wastes of Siberia two walkers claim to have found the body of an alien. On its side with its mouth slightly agape, the slender, badly-damage body lies half-buried in snow close to Irkutsk, Russia. Video of the alien's corpse has become a massive worldwide hit with hundreds of thousands of followers after being posted on the internet. The corpse of the badly-damaged creature which resembles ET is two feet high. Part of the right leg is missing and there are deep holes for eyes and a mouth in a skull-like head."

One of the men who allegedly found the alien was quoted as saying, "We couldn't believe it when we saw it. And what was spooky is that there was no sign of the spaceship. Perhaps that was taken away and the body overlooked."

Having previously investigated (and solved) many videos of unexplained phenomena including UFOs and aliens, I was asked by ABC News to provide an expert analysis of the new video. I highlighted several reasons why the video was suspicious, including the fact that the two men can be heard laughing at one point, and listed telltale signs that the video was staged. I also explained why the alien was unconvincing and described how it could have been fabricated, concluding that "there's probably a butcher shop somewhere missing some pieces."

There's also a plausible reason why no spacecraft is seen: it would have required much more effort to fake. It's one thing to create a two-foot alien body figure, but fashioning a plausible spaceship that carried the poor little alien from his extraterrestrial home to his snowy Siberian tomb would have been far more difficult.

My early analysis of a hoax proved correct. The Siberian alien was created by two Russian teens, Timur Hilall and Kirill Vlasov, who confessed to the hoax after police in Irkutsk, Siberia, investigated. The police also found the “alien” figure hidden in one of the teen’s bedrooms; it was made of several materials, including butcher shop scraps.

This is only the latest of several UFO and alien-related misidentifications and hoaxes over the past six months. In November of last year, a UFO or supposed "mystery missile" was sighted off the coast of Los Angeles. Rumors and myths circulated for weeks about the strange contrail in the sky; it was later determined to have been an ordinary airplane contrail, from United Parcel Service Flight 902.

In January of this year a series of videos showing what appeared to be a UFO hovering over Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock caused a sensation among UFO buffs. Those videos were determined by both skeptics and analysts from the Mutual UFO Network to have been faked.

Then, earlier this month a 1950 FBI memo was claimed to be proof that aliens and saucers were recovered from a 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Once again, skeptical analysis showed that the "smoking gun" evidence was related to a hoax; the FBI memo was real, but it did not refer to Roswell but instead to a UFO hoax in Aztec, New Mexico.

Of course for many people no amount of evidence—whether presented by skeptics or believers—will change their minds about UFOs. For some, it's easier to believe that aliens are among us than it is to believe that they could be fooled.

Why and How Apple Is Collecting Your iPhone Location Data

Apple claims turning Location Services to "Off" will cease all transmission of geodata from a device to Apple. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

iPhone and iPad customers were spooked Wednesday to find out that their devices have recorded a detailed history of their geographical locations for the past year in an unprotected file. But it turns out that Apple already explained its location-collection practices in a detailed letter — almost a year ago.

And even though Apple has provided an explanation, there’s still a problem — the fact that this file containing the data is so easily accessible to anyone, and the fact that this data is stored in such an intricate manner that doesn’t seem to benefit the customer.

“I’m guessing someone screwed up,” said David Navalho, a pHD student specializing in location services on mobile devices with advanced sensors. “It’s basically bad for users. If someone steals the phone they have access to a lot of data.”

The privacy scare stems from a discovery by two data scientists, who revealed Wednesday that iPhones and iPads contain an unencrypted file called “consolidated.db,” which has been tracking and recording your location data in a log accompanied with time stamps for the past 10 months.

Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell in July 2010 sent a 13-page letter (.pdf) explaining its location-data-collection techniques in response to a request from Congressmen Joe Barton and Edward Markey asking for Apple to disclose such practices (.pdf). (Incidentally, Markey authored the “Do Not Track” bill to stop online companies from tracking children.)

Apple doesn’t specifically note the “consolidated.db” file in the letter, but the letter explains how and why Apple keeps such a detailed log of location data from mobile devices.

How is Apple collecting geodata?

According to Apple’s letter, geodata is being tracked and transmitted to Apple only if a customer toggles the Location Services option in the settings menu to “On.” If it’s off, no location-based information will be collected.

If the Location Services setting is flipped on, the iPhone, 3G iPad and, to a more limited extent, the iPod Touch and the Wi-Fi iPad, are transmitting geodata to Apple under different circumstances.

Apple is collecting information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points whenever you request current location information. Sometimes it will also do this automatically when you’re using a location-based service, such as a GPS app.

As for GPS information, Apple is collecting GPS location data only when a customer uses an application requiring GPS capabilities.

Apple claims the collected geodata is stored on the iOS device, then anonymized with a random identification number generated every 24 hours by the iOS device, and finally transmitted over an encrypted Wi-Fi network every 12 hours (or later if there’s no Wi-Fi available) to Apple. That means Apple and its partners can’t use this collected geodata to personally identify a user.

At Apple, the data gets stored in a database “accessible only by Apple,” the letter says.

“When a customer requests current location information, the device encrypts and transmits Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Access Point Information and the device’s GPS coordinates (if available) over a secure Wi-Fi Internet connection to Apple,” Apple wrote in the letter.
Why is Apple collecting geodata?

The purpose of all this, according to Apple, is to maintain a comprehensive location database, which in turn provides quicker and more precise location services.

“Apple must be able to determine quickly and precisely where a device is located,” Apple said in its letter. “To do this, Apple maintains a secure database containing information regarding known locations of cell towers and Wi-Fi access points.”

In older versions of Apple’s mobile OS (1.1.3 to 3.1), Apple relied on Google and Skyhook Wireless to provide location-based services — so Apple left data collection to them. But ever since April 2010, starting with iPhone OS 3.2 and continuing into the current iOS 4 software, Apple has started using its own databases to provide location-based services to iOS devices.

“These databases must be updated continuously to account for, among other things, the ever-changing physical landscape, more innovative uses of mobile technology, and the increasing number of Apple’s users,” Apple said in its letter.

Navalho explained that mobile location services work like this: To get your location, first the iPhone or iPad pulls from Apple’s database containing previously stored information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi spots to quickly triangulate your location, and then finally the GPS chip analyzes how long it takes satellite signals to reach the device in order to pinpoint location.

In short, Apple’s stored location database is intended to assist and quicken location processes on iOS mobile devices.

The problems

However, one problem here is that after this information is sent to Apple, there’s no customer benefit for that geodata to be stored on your iPhone or iPad for any longer, Navalho said.

In other words, after that data is transmitted to Apple “every 12 hours,” Apple’s database should already have the data needed to improve your location services, and there’s no reason for it to stick around on your device — especially after 10 months.

Plus, Apple explicitly said this database is “accessible only to Apple” — but in actuality the database of your approximate locations is accessible to anyone with physical or remote access to your iPhone or iPad. Again, that’s a security issue.

“There’s really no reason for the information to be there,” Navalho said. “I’ll just assume they didn’t erase it and that it’s a security issue, and hopefully they’ll fix it.”

Therefore, the core issue reported Wednesday remains the same: A hacker or thief gaining access to your iPhone or iPad can easily dig into the consolidated.db file and figure out where you live, or other places you’ve frequented. Apple uses rich geodata to assist your location services, but it doesn’t need to be stored on your device permanently.

“What Apple is doing actually puts users very much at risk,” said Sharon Nissim, consumer privacy counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “If one of these devices is stolen, [the thief] could easily discover details about the owner’s movements.”

Europe Starting to Dive Under Africa?

The Mediterranean Sea stretches eastward from the Strait of Gibraltar in a 1994 astronaut photograph.

Photograph courtesy NASA

Richard A. Lovett

for NGN

Europe may be starting to dive under Africa, creating a new subduction zone and potentially increasing the earthquake risk in the western Mediterranean Sea, scientists report.

Subduction zones form where tectonic plates collide, with one plate diving beneath the other and into Earth's mantle. Sometimes these collisions are gradual, but often they occur in big lurches that can trigger quakes.

Because subduction zones are generally on seabeds, earthquakes in these zones can set off tsunamis, like the killer wave that devastated Japan last month.

For millions of years the African plate, which contains part of the Mediterranean seabed, has been moving northward toward the Eurasian Plate at a rate of about an inch every 2.5 years (a centimeter a year).

Now studies of recent earthquakes in the region indicate that a new subduction zone may be forming where the plates are colliding along the coasts of Algeria and northern Sicily

"Formation of a new subduction zone is very rare," said study leader Rinus Wortel, a geophysicist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Europe and Africa Switching Geologic Roles

According to Wortel, the opposite situation existed about 30 million years ago, when the African plate was diving under the Eurasian plate along a sizable subduction zone in the western Mediterranean.

There, the dense rocks of the African seabed were being thrust beneath the European plate.

Over millions of years, Africa moved so far north that none of the plate's seabed was left in the western Mediterranean. All that remained were the rocks of the continent itself, which were lighter than the seabed and wouldn't subduct, Wortel said.

But the two plates have continued to converge, building up tectonic stresses. Part of this stress was taken up by the buckling of the Eurasian plate into the Alps, Caucasus, and Zagros mountain ranges.

Now, based on the locations and motions of recent earthquakes along the plate borders, Wortel and colleagues think subduction is starting up again—but this time with Europe being thrust under Africa.

The new subduction zone, announced at a recent meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, is an exciting find, Wortel said, because such regions tend to exist for long time periods, geologically speaking.

Earthquake Risk Underestimated in the Med?

Other scientists are intrigued by the possible subduction zone—but they remain cautious.

"I didn't hear the talk, but it's perfectly plausible," Seth Stein, a geophysics professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in an email. For instance, other parts of the Mediterranean region—such as mainland Italy—have seen tectonic changes in the past two million years, he said.

Still, deciphering these changes is a very complex process, said Chris Goldfinger, director of the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

"I'd have to spend a week with the data to have any opinion that was worth anything," he said by email.

Study leader Wortel added that the formation of a subduction zone is a slow process: "These processes happen at the time scale of several million years," he said.

For example, he said, most established subduction zones are marked by giant undersea trenches. A similar trench should eventually form in the Mediterranean—but certainly not overnight.

Wortel does believe that the new data may mean the earthquake risk in the western Mediterranean has been underestimated—and may be increasing. (See related pictures of the aftermath of a magnitude 6 earthquake in Italy in 2009.)

"It is usually not considered to be a region of enormous seismic activity—not of the giant magnitude we experienced in Japan last month," Wortel said.

That may simply be due to historical complacency. "Even though something has not occurred in a hundred years, it does not mean there is no risk."

In fact, he noted, 70,000 people were killed in Messina, Italy, in 1908 when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake produced a tsunami with waves reported at 40 feet (12 meters) high.

And one of the most devastating earthquakes in European history occurred somewhere west of the Strait of Gibraltar in 1755, sending a giant wave into Lisbon, Portugal, and killing—by some estimates—as many as a hundred thousand people.

The Mediterranean Sea stretches eastward from the Strait of Gibraltar in a 1994 astronaut photograph.

Photograph courtesy NASA

Richard A. Lovett

for NGN

Europe may be starting to dive under Africa, creating a new subduction zone and potentially increasing the earthquake risk in the western Mediterranean Sea, scientists report.

Subduction zones form where tectonic plates collide, with one plate diving beneath the other and into Earth's mantle. Sometimes these collisions are gradual, but often they occur in big lurches that can trigger quakes.

Because subduction zones are generally on seabeds, earthquakes in these zones can set off tsunamis, like the killer wave that devastated Japan last month.

For millions of years the African plate, which contains part of the Mediterranean seabed, has been moving northward toward the Eurasian Plate at a rate of about an inch every 2.5 years (a centimeter a year).

Now studies of recent earthquakes in the region indicate that a new subduction zone may be forming where the plates are colliding along the coasts of Algeria and northern Sicily

"Formation of a new subduction zone is very rare," said study leader Rinus Wortel, a geophysicist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Europe and Africa Switching Geologic Roles

According to Wortel, the opposite situation existed about 30 million years ago, when the African plate was diving under the Eurasian plate along a sizable subduction zone in the western Mediterranean.

There, the dense rocks of the African seabed were being thrust beneath the European plate.

Over millions of years, Africa moved so far north that none of the plate's seabed was left in the western Mediterranean. All that remained were the rocks of the continent itself, which were lighter than the seabed and wouldn't subduct, Wortel said.

But the two plates have continued to converge, building up tectonic stresses. Part of this stress was taken up by the buckling of the Eurasian plate into the Alps, Caucasus, and Zagros mountain ranges.

Now, based on the locations and motions of recent earthquakes along the plate borders, Wortel and colleagues think subduction is starting up again—but this time with Europe being thrust under Africa.

The new subduction zone, announced at a recent meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, is an exciting find, Wortel said, because such regions tend to exist for long time periods, geologically speaking.

Earthquake Risk Underestimated in the Med?

Other scientists are intrigued by the possible subduction zone—but they remain cautious.

"I didn't hear the talk, but it's perfectly plausible," Seth Stein, a geophysics professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in an email. For instance, other parts of the Mediterranean region—such as mainland Italy—have seen tectonic changes in the past two million years, he said.

Still, deciphering these changes is a very complex process, said Chris Goldfinger, director of the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

"I'd have to spend a week with the data to have any opinion that was worth anything," he said by email.

Study leader Wortel added that the formation of a subduction zone is a slow process: "These processes happen at the time scale of several million years," he said.

For example, he said, most established subduction zones are marked by giant undersea trenches. A similar trench should eventually form in the Mediterranean—but certainly not overnight.

Wortel does believe that the new data may mean the earthquake risk in the western Mediterranean has been underestimated—and may be increasing. (See related pictures of the aftermath of a magnitude 6 earthquake in Italy in 2009.)

"It is usually not considered to be a region of enormous seismic activity—not of the giant magnitude we experienced in Japan last month," Wortel said.

That may simply be due to historical complacency. "Even though something has not occurred in a hundred years, it does not mean there is no risk."

In fact, he noted, 70,000 people were killed in Messina, Italy, in 1908 when a magnitude 7.1 earthquake produced a tsunami with waves reported at 40 feet (12 meters) high.

And one of the most devastating earthquakes in European history occurred somewhere west of the Strait of Gibraltar in 1755, sending a giant wave into Lisbon, Portugal, and killing—by some estimates—as many as a hundred thousand people.

Why Biggest Stellar Explosions Often Happen in Tiniest Galaxies: Ultraviolet Probe Sheds Light on Mystery

Astronomers using NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer may be closer to knowing why some of the most massive stellar explosions ever observed occur in the tiniest of galaxies.
"It's like finding a sumo wrestler in a little 'Smart Car,'" said Don Neill, a member of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

"The most powerful explosions of massive stars are happening in extremely low-mass galaxies. New data are revealing that the stars that start out massive in these little galaxies stay massive until they explode, while in larger galaxies they are whittled away as they age, and are less massive when they explode," said Neill.

Over the past few years, astronomers using data from the Palomar Transient Factory, a sky survey based at the ground-based Palomar Observatory near San Diego, have discovered a surprising number of exceptionally bright stellar explosions in so-called dwarf galaxies up to 1,000 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy. Stellar explosions, called supernovae, occur when massive stars -- some up to 100 times the mass of our sun -- end their lives.

The Palomar observations may explain a mystery first pointed out by Neil deGrasse Tyson and John Scalo when they were at the University of Austin Texas (Tyson is now the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, N.Y.). They noted that supernovae were occurring where there seemed to be no galaxies at all, and they even proposed that dwarf galaxies were the culprits, as the Palomar data now indicate.

Now, astronomers are using ultraviolet data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer to further examine the dwarf galaxies. Newly formed stars tend to radiate copious amounts of ultraviolet light, so the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, which has scanned much of the sky in ultraviolet light, is the ideal tool for measuring the rate of star birth in galaxies.

The results show that the little galaxies are low in mass, as suspected, and have low rates of star formation. In other words, the petite galaxies are not producing that many huge stars.

"Even in these little galaxies where the explosions are happening, the big guys are rare," said co-author Michael Rich of UCLA, who is a member of the mission team.

In addition, the new study helps explain why massive stars in little galaxies undergo even more powerful explosions than stars of a similar heft in larger galaxies like our Milky Way. The reason is that low-mass galaxies tend to have fewer heavy atoms, such as carbon and oxygen, than their larger counterparts. These small galaxies are younger, and thus their stars have had less time to enrich the environment with heavy atoms.

According to Neill and his collaborators, the lack of heavy atoms in the atmosphere around a massive star causes it to shed less material as it ages. In essence, the massive stars in little galaxies are fatter in their old age than the massive stars in larger galaxies. And the fatter the star, the bigger the blast that will occur when it finally goes supernova. This, according to the astronomers, may explain why super supernovae are occurring in the not-so-super galaxies.

"These stars are like heavyweight champions, breaking all the records," said Neill.

Added Rich, "These dwarf galaxies are especially interesting to astronomers, because they are quite similar to the kinds of galaxies that may have been present in our young universe, shortly after the Big Bang. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer has given us a powerful tool for learning what galaxies were like when the universe was just a child."

Caltech leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the mission and built the science instrument. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission.

Huge Dry Ice Deposit on Mars: NASA Orbiter Reveals Big Changes in Red Planet's Atmosphere

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2011) — NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered the total amount of atmosphere on Mars changes dramatically as the tilt of the planet's axis varies. This process can affect the stability of liquid water, if it exists on the Martian surface, and increase the frequency and severity of Martian dust storms.

Researchers using the orbiter's ground-penetrating radar identified a large, buried deposit of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, at the Red Planet's south pole. The scientists suspect that much of this carbon dioxide enters the planet's atmosphere and swells the atmosphere's mass when Mars' tilt increases. The findings are published in the journal Science.

The newly found deposit has a volume similar to Lake Superior's nearly 3,000 cubic miles (about 12,000 cubic kilometers). The deposit holds up to 80 percent as much carbon dioxide as today's Martian atmosphere. Collapse pits caused by dry ice sublimation and other clues suggest the deposit is in a dissipating phase, adding gas to the atmosphere each year. Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent carbon dioxide, in contrast to Earth's much thicker atmosphere, which is less than .04 percent carbon dioxide.

"We already knew there is a small perennial cap of carbon-dioxide ice on top of the water ice there, but this buried deposit has about 30 times more dry ice than previously estimated," said Roger Phillips of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Phillips is deputy team leader for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Shallow Radar instrument and lead author of the report.

"We identified the deposit as dry ice by determining the radar signature fit the radio-wave transmission characteristics of frozen carbon dioxide far better than the characteristics of frozen water," said Roberto Seu of Sapienza University of Rome, team leader for the Shallow Radar and a co-author of the new report. Additional evidence came from correlating the deposit to visible sublimation features typical of dry ice.

"When you include this buried deposit, Martian carbon dioxide right now is roughly half frozen and half in the atmosphere, but at other times it can be nearly all frozen or nearly all in the atmosphere," Phillips said.

An occasional increase in the atmosphere would strengthen winds, lofting more dust and leading to more frequent and more intense dust storms. Another result is an expanded area on the planet's surface where liquid water could persist without boiling. Modeling based on known variation in the tilt of Mars' axis suggests several-fold changes in the total mass of the planet's atmosphere can happen on time frames of 100,000 years or less.

The changes in atmospheric density caused by the carbon-dioxide increase also would amplify some effects of the changes caused by the tilt. Researchers plugged the mass of the buried carbon-dioxide deposit into climate models for the period when Mars' tilt and orbital properties maximize the amount of summer sunshine hitting the south pole. They found at such times, global, year-round average air pressure is approximately 75 percent greater than the current level.

"A tilted Mars with a thicker carbon-dioxide atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect that tries to warm the Martian surface, while thicker and longer-lived polar ice caps try to cool it," said co-author Robert Haberle, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Our simulations show the polar caps cool more than the greenhouse warms. Unlike Earth, which has a thick, moist atmosphere that produces a strong greenhouse effect, Mars' atmosphere is too thin and dry to produce as strong a greenhouse effect as Earth's, even when you double its carbon-dioxide content."

The Shallow Radar, one of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's six instruments, was provided by the Italian Space Agency, and its operations are led by the Department of Information Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications at Sapienza University of Rome. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

Jurassic Spider from China Is Largest Fossil Specimen Discovered

With a leg span of more than five inches, a recently named Jurassic period spider from China is the largest fossil specimen discovered, and one that has modern relatives in tropical climates today.

A research team of KU and Capital Normal University (Beijing) researchers said the spider belongs to the living genus Nephila, or golden orb-weavers. An extremely long range for any animal genus, the nephilids are example of living fossils. Nephilids are the largest web-weaving spiders alive today (body length up to 5 cm, leg span 15 cm) and are common to the tropical and subtropical regions today. This suggests that the paleoclimate of Daohugou, China, where the specimen was found, was probably similarly warm and humid during the Jurassic.

Nephila females weave some of the largest orb webs known (up to 1.5 m in diameter) with distinctive gold-colored silk to catch a wide variety of medium-sized to large insects, but occasionally bats and birds as by-catch. Typically, an orb-weaver spider first weaves a non-sticky spiral with space for sticky spirals in between. Unlike most other orb-weaving spiders, Nephila do not remove the non-sticky spirals after weaving the sticky spirals. This results in a 'manuscript paper' effect when the orb is seen in the sunlight, because the sticky spirals reflect the light while the non-sticky spirals do not, thus resembling musical staves.

This fossil finding provides evidence that golden orb-webs were being woven and capturing medium to large insects in Jurassic times, and predation by these spiders would have played an important role in the natural selection of contemporaneous insects.

The research was published in the online edition of Biology Letters. Paul A. Selden, Gulf-Hedberg Distinguished Professor at KU and director of the Paleontological Institute, as well as ChungKun Shih and Dong Ren, professors from Capital Normal University, Beijing, China, authored the research.

Obama CIA connections?

On April 4, 2011, this reporter Alfred Lambremont Webre was defamed publicly as an “idiot” and a “crackpot” by CNN’s “foppish” and “pompous” anchor Piers Stefan O’Meara (whose stage name is “Piers Morgan”) on Piers Morgan Tonight during Mr. Morgan’s interview of the former Minnesota Governor and professional wrestler James George Janos (whose stage name is “Jesse Ventura.”)

At issue was the fact that I had called U.S. President Barack H. Obama a lifelong CIA “asset” during my interview with “Jesse Ventura” on a segment about the Gulf oil spill on his TruTV show Conspiracy Theory. In the CNN interview, “Piers Morgan” first cuts to a scene on the Ninth Ward levee in New Orleans, where I am seen calling Mr. Obama a CIA asset as I stand with “Jesse Ventura” starting at about 30 minutes into this segment of this episode of Gov. Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory:



My statements about Mr. Obama’s background as an asset of the CIA, appearing at approximately 32 minutes into Piers Morgan’s interview with “Jesse Ventura,” were played numerous times over the air by CNN and can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peztNH3Ksww

In the remainder of the CNN segment, “Piers Morgan” then states the epithets of “idiot” and “crackpot” at me for having stated that Mr. Obama is a lifelong CIA “asset.”

In the CNN interview, Gov. Ventura gracelessly distances himself from my remarks about Obama. However, after filming the Conspiracy Theory segment in New Orleans, Michael Braverman, Gov. Ventura’s producer, told an associate of mine “the Governor is very pleased with Alfred Webre’s interview. We hardly had to edit Alfred at all.”

Detailed research showing Obama CIA connections going back three generations

From the moment I heard about them, Piers Morgan’s ad hominem attacks on me as an “idiot” and a “crackpot” seemed out of proportion to what I had actually stated. I was aware of Morgan’s background with the tabloids News of the World (1994–1995) and Daily Mirror (1995–2004), but still his broadsides against my reputation startled me.

At the time that this attack was launched against me by “Piers Morgan” on CNN, I had a contractual relationship with the network. One of CNN’s senior producers had called me “an ideal candidate” to host a CNN program. On January 31, 2011, I had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement with CNN sent to me by its producer Eric Leffler as part of my appearance on a pilot for a new CNN public affairs program featuring my field of expertise, which is exopolitics. I had been recommended for the program by the publisher of UFO Digest and vetted by a senior CNN producer. A satellite uplink was set up with C-TV in Vancouver, BC and I taped a successful pilot with CNN.

As a journalist, I was surprised when friends of mine on Facebook first alerted me to the fact that CNN’s “Piers Morgan” had called me an “idiot” and a “crackpot” for discussing Barack H. Obama’s well known, lifelong connections to the CIA. Piers Morgan’s predecessor, Lawrence Harvey Zeiger (whose stage name is “Larry King”), allowed statements of this nature to be made in situations analogous to reporting about a U.S. president from a third generation CIA family.

My words about Mr. Obama rebroadcast on CNN were chosen carefully. I had corrected Gov. Ventura when he had said “Is Obama a CIA agent?” and I stated clearly “No, President Obama is a CIA asset.”

I based my conclusions and statements on carefully documented research, including a 30-page research document by independent researcher Wayne Madsen that is available to all readers here in PDF format:

http://exopolitics.blogs.com/truth/2011/04/wayne-madsen-the-story-of-obama-all-in-the-company-pdf.html

My operating journalistic hypothesis from my first hearing about Piers Morgan’s verbal fusillade was that I had found myself in the middle of a high stakes and sophisticated “set-up” designed to denigrate my integrity and public image as a leader in multidimensional journalism.

So, I resolved, as a journalist, to get to the bottom of this “setup” and identify as best I could:

• Who exactly is Barack Obama?

Wayne Madsen, The Story of Obama: All in The Company

The opening passages of this 30-page report summarize the relationship of Mr. Obama’s family with the CIA over three generations as follows:

“Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen has discovered CIA files that document the agency’s connections to institutions and individuals figuring prominently in the lives of Barack Obama and his mother, father, grandmother, and stepfather. The first part of his report highlights the connections between Barack Obama, Sr. and the CIA-sponsored operations in Kenya to counter rising Soviet and Chinese influence among student circles and, beyond, to create conditions obstructing the emergence of independent African leaders.

“President Obama’s own work in 1983 for Business International Corporation, a CIA front that conducted seminars with the world’s most powerful leaders and used journalists as agents abroad, dovetails with CIA espionage activities conducted by his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham in 1960s post-coup Indonesia. These activities were undertaken by Obama’s mother on behalf of a number of CIA front operations, including the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Ford Foundation. Dunham met and married Lolo Soetoro, Obama’s stepfather, at the East-West Center in 1965. Soetoro was recalled to Indonesia in 1965 to serve as a senior army officer and assist General Suharto and the CIA in the bloody overthrow of President Sukarno.”

From, Wayne Madsen, The Story of Obama: All in The Company (Part I)

Obama’s grandmother and grandfather had CIA involvement

Mr. Obama’s grandmother and grandfather were both involved with the CIA.

Mr. Madsen writes, “Meanwhile, Dunham Soetoro’s mother, Madelyn Dunham, who raised young Obama when he returned to Hawaii in 1971 while his mother stayed in Indonesia, was the first female vice president at the Bank of Hawaii in Honolulu. Various CIA front entities used the bank. Madelyn Dunham handled escrow accounts used to make CIA payments to U.S.-supported Asian dictators like Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu, and President Suharto in Indonesia. In effect, the bank was engaged in money laundering for the CIA to covertly prop up its favored leaders in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Mr. Madsen continues, “Obama maintains that his mother and father first met in a Russian-language class at the University of Hawaii in 1959. However, a photograph has emerged of Stanley Armour welcoming Barack Obama, Sr., complete with traditional Hawaiian welcoming leis, from Kenya. Obama, Sr. was the only Kenyan student airlifted to Hawaii as part of the CIA-inspired Airlift Africa project that saw Obama and 279 other students from British eastern and southern African colonies brought to the United States for college degrees prior to their homelands gaining independence from Britain. The students were selected by Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya who would later conduct surveillance for the CIA at pan-African nationalist meetings. Mboya was particularly focused on two African leaders who were seen as too close to the Sino-Soviet bloc, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea.

“In a photograph of Stanley Armour Dunham with Barack Obama, Sr. at welcoming ceremony to Hawaii, the presence of two US Navy personnel indicates the plane may have landed at Hickam Air Force Base, an indication of the U.S. government’s and CIA’s role in the Airlift Africa project.

“The photograph of Armour Dunham with Barack Obama, Sr., indicates that the “furniture salesman” in Hawaii was, in fact, working with a CIA-funded project to rapidly educate aspiring politicians to serve in post-independence African governments to counter Soviet- and Chinese-backed political leaders in the region.

“There is a strong reason to believe that Armour Dunham worked in the 1950s for the CIA in the Middle East. An FBI file on Armour Dunham existed but the bureau claimed it destroyed the file on May 1, 1997. Considering the sour relations between the FBI and CIA during the Cold War, it is likely that Armour Dunham was being monitored by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the same manner as a number of other CIA officials and agents were being surveilled. Similarly, the pre-1968 passport records of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, were destroyed by the State Department.

“There is a photographic clue that the Dunhams may have been assigned by the CIA to Beirut, Lebanon in the early 1950s. A photograph of Obama’s mother and grandparents has emerged that shows Stanley Ann Dunham wearing what may be a school uniform with the insignia of “NdJ,” which stands for the College Notre-Dame de Jamhour, a private Jesuit Catholic French language school in Beirut, Lebanon. Graduates of the school include three former presidents of Lebanon, Amine Gemayel, Bashir Gemayel, and Charles Helou, all of whom maintained close relations with Washington.

“Did Obama’s mother go to a private school in Lebanon in the early 1950s while her father worked for the CIA in Beirut?

“There is also the curious nature of President Obama’s Social Security Number, issued in Connecticut, a state where there is no other evidence of his ever being a resident. Adding to the mystery is a New York City address for a “male” named Stanley Ann Dunham, 235 E. 40th St Apt 8F, New York NY 10016-1747. The address is a few blocks away from the address of the Ford Foundation. Ann Dunham did work briefly in New York for the Ford Foundation.”

From, Wayne Madsen, The Story of Obama: All in The Company (Part III)

Barack Obama and possible MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE programs

Wayne Madsen discusses the possible intersection of the Mr. Obama’s grandparents, the University of Hawaii involvement in the MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE programs, and Barack Obama.

Mr. Madsen continues, “The role of the University of Hawaii in CIA psych-war operations continues to this day. The chief of research for DIA’s Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC) Behavioral Sciences Program, Dr. Susan Brandon, who was reportedly involved in a covert program run by the American Psychological Association (APA), Rand Corporation, and the CIA to employ “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including sleep and sensory deprivation, intense pain, and extreme isolation on prisoners held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and other “black prisons,” received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Hawaii. Brandon also served as assistant director of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Sciences for the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the George W. Bush White House.

“The CIA’s close connections to the University of Hawaii continued to the late 1970s, when the former President of the University of Hawaii from 1969 to 1974, Harlan Cleveland, was a special invited speaker at CIA headquarters on May 10, 1977. Cleveland served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1961 to 1965 and Lyndon Johnson’s ambassador to NATO from 1965 to 1969 before taking up his position at the University of Hawaii.

Advertisement

Mr. Madsen concludes,

“The Family of Obama and the CIA

“There are volumes of written material on the CIA backgrounds of George H. W. Bush and CIA-related activities by his father and children, including former President George W. Bush. Barack Obama, on the other hand, cleverly masked his own CIA connections as well as those of his mother, father, stepfather, and grandmother (there is very little known about Obama’s grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, who was supposedly in the furniture business in Hawaii after serving in Europe during World War II). Presidents and vice presidents do not require security background checks, unlike other members of the federal government, to hold office. That job is left up to the press. In 2008, the press failed miserably in its duty to vet the man who would win the White House. With the ties of Obama’s parents to the University of Hawaii and its links to MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE, a nagging question remains: Is Barack Obama a real-life ‘Manchurian Candidate?’”

From, Wayne Madsen, The Story of Obama: All in The Company (Part II)

Barack Obama was pre-identified in time as U.S. president by secret DARPA time travel program

The notion that President Obama is a lifelong CIA asset is supported by the revelations of crusading lawyer Andrew D. Basiago about a heretofore unknown “quantum access” capability within the US intelligence community provided by time travel technology.

Mr. Basiago has been identified as a “planetary-level whistleblower” by the Web Bot for his account of a secret time-space program, Project Pegasus, launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

According to Mr. Basiago, by 1970, Project Pegasus was teleporting individuals between locations in time-space via “teleporters” based on the later works of Nikola Tesla and also propagating images of past and future events via “chronovisors” first developed by the Vatican scientists Pellegrino Ernetti and Pier Maria Gemelli.

These have been used to provide the U.S. president, intelligence community and military with better information about past and future events by which to engage in better contingency planning for future events.

In numerous TV and radio interviews, Mr. Basiago has described how, among other intelligence findings, Project Pegasus was identifying future American presidents and then approaching them and apprising them of their destinies as President.

He has described how as a child serving in Project Pegasus in the early 1970’s, he was present at lunches held at La Hacienda restaurant in Old Town Albuquerque, NM that were attended by project principals and future American presidents, including George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, shortly after they were informed that Project Pegasus had found via quantum access that they would one day serve as President.

In appearances on talk radio’s Coast to Coast AM with George Noory in 2009 and 2010, Mr. Basiago described at length a 1982 meeting with Barack Obama in Los Angeles in which Mr. Obama also revealed his awareness that he had been briefed on the fact that the US government had detected that he was destined to reach the White House.

We can infer from this meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Basiago in 1982 that at age 20 Mr. Obama had already entered into at least a consultative relationship with the CIA, because at the time, the US government was the only country with a time travel capability and the CIA was known to be collecting the intelligence data about past and future events that Project Pegasus was gathering via its time travel technologies.

I did not discuss this aspect of Mr. Obama’s relationship to the CIA when I was a guest on Conspiracy Theory. It is possible, however, that the research staffs of Mr. Morgan and Gov. Ventura informed them of my published writings on this highly sensitive subject.

It is possible that my publication of Mr. Basiago’s revelation that Mr. Obama and other recent presidents were identified as future presidents by DARPA and briefed on that fact by the CIA may explain why I was “set up” so clumsily on Piers Morgan Tonight.

Obama’s anomalies: Illegal social security number(s)

In the weeks after the attack on my character on CNN on April 4th, as I was ruminating about the attack and considering this and other possible explanations for it, several news stories broke regarding Mr. Obama’s alleged illegal social security number.

For some time now, there have been articles published about the existence of up to 27 illegal social security numbers associated with the name “Barack Obama.”

On March 29, 2011, it was reported that one of the Barack Obama social security numbers, 042-68-4425, was vetted by retired Air Force Col. Gregory Hollister, who checked with the Selective Service using Obama’s social security number and was provided a card with President Obama’s Selective Service information on it, thus establishing that this is the social security number that Barack Obama has been using to establish his identity since he was at least 19 years old.

I checked 042-68-4424, the social security number issued just before the SS# that Mr. Obama is using with a social security data bank (See below). The check revealed that the social security number (042-68-4424) issued just before the social security number that Mr. Obama has used since he was 19 years of age (042-68-4425) was actually issued to a man who died at the age of 18-19 in 1981. It was issued in March - April 1977, when Mr. Obama was in Hawaii, and not residing in Connecticut.

Reference:

http://www.politicalforum.com/other-miscellaneous/176721-social-security-doc-dump-new-details-obamas-never-issued-social-security-numbe.html

Wood, Thomas (Louis)

birth 15 Jul 1962

death Jul 1981

age 18-19

last address of record 6111 Newington, Hartford, CT

last benefit - none specified

issued by - Connecticut (in March - April 1977)

SSN - 042-68-4424

Source: http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

To add to the confusion, Mr. Obama’s actual first employment was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Oahu, Hawaii in 1975, two years before this social security number was issued in 1977.

According to researchers, another Barack Obama social security number is associated with a man born in 1890 who acquired the social security number in Connecticut and died in Hawaii in 1980.

Such a false social security number would have been necessary for the 20-year-old Barack Obama, were he not a “natural born” American, to one day serve as President.

Bad News for Obama: 1890 Social Security Number Traced to Dead Man in Hawaii!!!

April 12, 2011

1890 Social Security Number traced to John Paul Ludwig

“This news is breaking: This is bad news for Obama.

“This is what we know so far. We get more info on Jean Paul Ludwig, who was born in 1890, had Connecticut SSN obtained in 1976 and died in Hawaii around 1981. There are two Social Security numbers for him and records show him dying in two different states: California and Hawaii around 1981.

“The reason this is important is… there is a similar fact pattern to Obama. Barack Obama is residing today in the White House, using Connecticut Social Security number 042-68-4425, issued in Connecticut on and around March 1977 to an elderly individual named John Paul Ludwig, who was born in 1890, who is presumed dead and whose death was either never reported to the Social Security Administration or reported and deleted from the database by someone.

“Obama’s maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham worked as a part-timer or volunteer in the Probate Office in the Honolulu Hawaii Courthouse. Thus, she would have access to the estate files of anyone who died there. Thus, if the elderly man originally from Connecticut died intestate in Hawaii with no known relatives, Grandma Dunham would have known this person is a prime candidate to steal the SSN of Ludwig since there would be no known surviving family worrying about the death benefit from the SSA and that the benefit was not likely applied for and thus the SSA did not know he died. Thus, the SSN remained active for the deceased person and Obama could “adopt” it as his own. This is a clear case of identity theft at the federal level.

“This is what we know about Ludwig:

“In 1924, Jean Paul Ludwig worked for Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, in Washington DC.

“On the ship manifest of Leviathan, he listed Senator Reed in Washington, DC as his employer, in answer to where he intended to live in the US.

“Jean Paul Ludwig had been in the United States for three years in 1924, but he was listed on the immigration manifest and referred to as an alien in the column headings.

“Listed under States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival, New York, Aug 12, 1924:

“Jean Paul Ludwig, Date of Arrival: Aug 12, 1924, Port of Departure:

Cherbourg, France, Line #: 0008

“Line #8: By Whom was Passage Paid: Emp. Mr. Reed; Whether in possession of $50: Yes; Whether ever before in US: Yes; If Yes-Period of Years: 3; Where: PA

“Whether going to join relative or friend: Employer Senator Reed, Washington, DC

“Length of time alien intends to remain in the US: Always

“Height: 5’5”, Complexion Dk., Hair Br., Eyes Br., Marks of ID: None

“Place of Birth: France, Ammersville.

“www.ellisisland.org

“First Name: Jean P.

Last Name: Ludwig

Ethnicity: France

Last Place of Residence: Washington, D.C.

Date of Arrival: Aug 12, 1924

Age at Arrival: 34 Gender: M Marital Status: S

Ship of Travel: Leviathan

Port of Departure: Cherbourg, France

Manifest Line Number: 0008



“U.S. Social Security Death Index

Name: Jean Ludwig

Birth Date: 17 February 1890

Zip Code of Last Residence: 96816 (Honolulu, HI)

Death Date: June 1981

Estimated Age at Death: 91

The above two examples of social security numbers associated with Mr. Obama are clear prima facie evidence of felony fraud by Mr. Obama and persons unknown.

Clearly, the issue of felony fraud surrounding Barack Obama’s social security numbers made my statements that Obama was a “CIA asset” even less worthy of Piers Morgan calling me an “idiot” and “crackpot” and of Gov. Jesse Ventura throwing me – an honored guest on his program – unceremoniously under the bus on national television.

What is CNN’s Piers Morgan hiding with his over-the-top attacks on this reporter?

The above is sound journalistic evidence of a close relationship between the CIA and three generations of the Obama family, as well as possible illegal activity relating to Barack Obama’s constitutional qualifications to be President of the United States.

So, as a journalist who was defamed by CNN’s Piers Morgan for no ostensible reason, I must ask, what is CNN’s Piers Morgan hiding with his over-the-top attacks on me?

Moreover, why did supposed “conspiracy theorist” and populist “voice of the people” “Jesse Ventura” so readily throw me under the bus live on CNN for my statement on his show, which he lauded at the time, that Barack Obama is a CIA asset?

Do we have the makings of a CIA Mockingbird “mainstream media conspiracy” to prevent the asking of questions about the identity and qualifications of Barack Obama to be President of the United States?

There is prima facie evidence that Barack Obama has engaged in felony fraud regarding his social security numbers. It is possible that the purpose of this fraud was circumvention of the “natural born citizen” qualification to be President under the United States Constitution or even the fabrication in Barack Obama of a “Manchurian candidate” president by U.S. intelligence agencies or other centers of power.

As my next step, I will be contacting CNN to request equal time on Piers Morgan Tonight or an equivalent program to present the facts that Barack Obama and his family have been CIA assets for three generations.

Last Supper was a day earlier, scientist claims

AFP/File – "The last supper of Tongerlo" by Leonardo da Vinci is pictured during the exhibition "The …

– Mon Apr 18, 12:31 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – Christians have long celebrated Jesus Christ's Last Supper on Maundy Thursday but new research released Monday claims to show it took place on the Wednesday before the crucifixion.

Professor Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, believes it is all due to a calendar mix-up -- and asserts his findings strengthen the case for finally introducing a fixed date for Easter.

Humphreys uses a combination of biblical, historical and astronomical research to try to pinpoint the precise nature and timing of Jesus's final meal with his disciples before his death.

Researchers have long been puzzled by an apparent inconsistency in the Bible.

While Matthew, Mark and Luke all say the Last Supper coincided with the start of the Jewish festival of Passover, John claims it took place before Passover.

Humphreys has concluded in a new book, "The Mystery Of The Last Supper", that Jesus -- along with Matthew, Mark and Luke -- may have been using a different calendar to John.

"Whatever you think about the Bible, the fact is that Jewish people would never mistake the Passover meal for another meal, so for the Gospels to contradict themselves in this regard is really hard to understand," Humphreys said.

"Many biblical scholars say that, for this reason, you can't trust the Gospels at all. But if we use science and the Gospels hand in hand, we can actually prove that there was no contradiction."

In Humphreys' theory, Jesus went by an old-fashioned Jewish calendar rather than the official lunar calendar which was in widespread use at the time of his death and is still in use today.

This would put the Passover meal -- and the Last Supper -- on the Wednesday, explaining how such a large number of events took place between the meal and the crucifixion.

It would follow that Jesus' arrest, interrogation and separate trials did not all take place in the space of one night but in fact occurred over a longer period.

Humphreys believes a date could therefore be ascribed to Easter in our modern solar calendar, and working on the basis that the crucifixion took place on April 3, Easter Day would be on April 5.

Nazi warplane lying off UK coast is intact

Reuters/Port of London/handout

A World War II era German bomber is seen using high-tech sonar equipment on the sea floor off southeast England. More photos »

LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.

The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.

It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.

The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.

Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.

Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.

"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.

"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."

Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.

"The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo," said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.

Two of the crew members died on impact, while two others, including the pilot, were taken prisoner and survived the war.

"The fact that it was almost entirely made of aluminum and produced in one piece may have contributed to its preservation," Garside told Reuters.

The plane is still vulnerable to the area's notorious shifting sands and has become the target of recreational divers hoping to salvage souvenirs.

The RAF museum has launched an appeal to raise funds for the lifting operation.

(Editing by Steve Addison)

Something New from Science@NASA: The ScienceCast

NASA Telescope Ferrets out Planet-Hunting Targets

Astronomers have come up with a new way of identifying close, faint stars with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. The technique should help in the hunt for planets that lie beyond our solar system, because nearby, hard-to-see stars could very well be home to the easiest-to-see alien planets.
The glare of bright, shining stars has frustrated most efforts at visualizing distant worlds. So far, only a handful of distant planets, or exoplanets, have been directly imaged. Small, newborn stars are less blinding, making the planets easier to see, but the fact that these stars are dim means they are hard to find in the first place. Fortunately, the young stars emit more ultraviolet light than their older counterparts, which makes them conspicuous to the ultraviolet-detecting Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

"We've discovered a new technique of using ultraviolet light to search for young, low-mass stars near the Earth," said David Rodriguez, a graduate student of astronomy at UCLA, and lead author of a recent study. "These young stars make excellent targets for future direct imaging of exoplanets."

Tantrum-Throwing Baby Stars

Young stars, like human children, tend to be a bit unruly -- they spout a greater proportion of energetic X-rays and ultraviolet light than more mature stars. In some cases, X-ray surveys can pick out these youngsters due to the "racket" they cause. However, many smaller, less "noisy" baby stars perfect for exoplanet imaging studies have gone undetected except in the most detailed X-ray surveys. To date, such surveys have covered only a small percentage of the sky.

Rodriguez and his team figured the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, which has scanned about three-quarters of the sky in ultraviolet light, could fill this gap. Astronomers compared readings from the telescope with optical and infrared data to look for the telltale signature of rambunctious junior stars. Follow-up observations of 24 candidates identified in this manner determined that 17 of the stars showed clear signs of youth, validating the team's approach.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer can readily select young, low-mass stars that are too faint to turn up in all-sky X-ray surveys, which makes the telescope an incredibly useful tool," Rodriguez said.

Cool, Red and in the Neighborhood

Astronomers call the low-mass stars in question "M-class" stars. Also known as red dwarfs, these stars glow a relatively cool crimson color compared to the hotter oranges and yellows of stars like our sun, and the whites and blues of the most scorching stars. With data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, astronomers could reap a bounty of these red dwarfs still in their cosmic youth, under 100 million years old.

In many ways, these stars represent a best-case scenario for the direct imaging of exoplanets. They are close and in clear lines-of-sight, which generally makes viewing easier. Their low mass means they are dimmer than heavier stars, so their light is less likely to mask the feeble light of a planet. And because they are young stars, their planets are freshly formed, and thus warmer and brighter than older planetary bodies.

The Better to See Planets With

So far, only a handful of the more than 500 exoplanets on record have actually been "seen" by our ground- and space-based telescopes. The vast majority of foreign worlds have instead turned up via indirect means. One common technique, for instance, relies on detecting the slight gravitational "wobbles" exoplanets impart to their host stars. Another technique, the "transit method," registers the tiny dip in a star's light as an exoplanet crosses in front of it relative to our vantage point. NASA's Kepler mission, in just its first four months of operations, has already come up with a list of more than 1,200 candidate exoplanets using the transit method.

At a very basic level, directly imaging an exoplanet is worthwhile because, after all, "seeing is believing," Rodriguez said. But catching a glimpse of an exoplanet also opens up novel scientific avenues.

Direct imaging is well suited for seeing big planets circling host stars at considerable distances, comparable to Uranus and Neptune in our solar system. Observing such arrangements is useful for testing concepts of solar system evolution, Rodriguez said. Plus, gleaning details about the atmospheres of imaged exoplanets is less difficult than indirectly investigating worlds that transit their stars.

As for actually imaging clouds or surface features of exoplanets, however, that will have to wait. Current images of exoplanets, while full of information, resemble fuzzy dots. But as technology advances, ever more information about our close-by planetary brethren will emerge.

Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission could also reveal stars that would make good candidates for imaging planets. Its all-sky maps will allow scientists to pick out nearby, young stars surrounded by warm disks of planetary debris that glow with infrared light. Such stars are similar to the ones where planets have already been successfully imaged.

The new study was published in the February issue of The Astrophysical Journal and includes co-authors Mike Bessell (Australian National University), Ben Zuckerman (UCLA), and Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology).

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission.

Additional information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer are online at http://www.galex.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/galex .

More information on NASA's planet-hunting efforts is online at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

'Naked' Penguins Baffle Experts

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Washington, and other groups are grappling with a wildlife mystery: Why are some penguin chicks losing their feathers?

The appearance of "naked" penguins -- afflicted with what is known as feather-loss disorder -- in penguin colonies on both sides of the South Atlantic in recent years has scientists puzzled as to what could be causing the condition.

A study on the disorder appears in a recent edition of the journal Waterbirds. The authors of the paper are: Olivia J. Kane, Jeffrey R. Smith, and P. Dee Boersma of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Washington; Nola J. Parsons and Vanessa Strauss of the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds; and Pablo Garcia-Borboroglu and Cecilia Villanueva of Centro Nacional Patagónico.

"Feather-loss disorders are uncommon in most bird species, and we need to conduct further study to determine the cause of the disorder and if this is in fact spreading to other penguin species," said Boersma, who has conducted studies on Magellanic penguins for more than three decades.

The feather-loss disorder first emerged in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006, when researchers for the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) first observed the disorder in African (or black-footed) penguins in a rehabilitation center. During that year, approximately 59 percent of the penguin chicks at the facility lost their feathers, followed by 97 percent of the chicks at the facility in 2007, and 20 percent of the chicks in 2008. Chicks with feather-loss disorder, it was discovered, took longer to grow to a size deemed suitable for release into the wild. The chicks eventually began growing new feathers.

One the other side of the South Atlantic, researchers from WCS and the University of Washington observed feather-loss disorder in the chicks of wild Magellanic penguins (closely related to African penguins) for the first time in 2007 in four different study sites along Argentina's coastline. Researchers also noted that while feathered chicks sought out shade in the hot midday sun, featherless chicks remained in the sun's glare. Several of the chicks with feather-loss disorder died during the study.

In both instances, penguin chicks with feather-loss disorder grew more slowly than feathered chicks. Featherless chicks were also smaller in size and weight than feathered chicks; both disparities were due to the increased energy spent in thermoregulation in the absence of an insulating coat of feathers and/or down. So far, the possible causes include pathogens, thyroid disorders, nutrient imbalances, or genetics.

"The recent emergence of feather-loss disorder in wild bird populations suggests that the disorder is something new," said Mariana Varese, Acting Director of WCS's Latin America and Caribbean Program. "More study of this malady can help identify the root cause, which in turn will help illuminate possible solutions."

"We need to learn how to stop the spread of feather-loss disorder, as penguins already have problems with oil pollution and climate variation," said Boersma. "It's important to keep disease from being added to the list of threats they face."

Newly Merged Black Hole Eagerly Shreds Stars

— A galaxy's core is a busy place, crowded with stars swarming around an enormous black hole. When galaxies collide, it gets even messier as the two black holes spiral toward each other, merging to make an even bigger gravitational monster.

Once it is created, the monster goes on a rampage. The merger kicks the black hole into surrounding stars. There it finds a hearty meal, shredding and swallowing stars at a rapid clip. According to new research by Nick Stone and Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), upcoming sky surveys might offer astronomers a way to catch a gorging black hole "in the act."

Before the merger, as the two black holes whirl around each other, they stir the galactic center like the blade of a blender. Their strong gravity warps space, sending out ripples known as gravitational waves. When the black holes merge, they emit gravitational waves more strongly in one direction. That inequality kicks the black hole in the opposite direction like a rocket engine.

"That kick is very important. It can shove the black hole toward stars that otherwise would have been at a safe distance," said Stone.

"Essentially, the black hole can go from starving to enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet," he added.

When tidal forces rip a star apart, its remains will spiral around the black hole, smashing and rubbing together, heating up enough to shine in the ultraviolet or X-rays. The black hole will glow as brightly as an exploding star, or supernova, before gradually fading in a distinctive way.

Importantly, a wandering, supermassive black hole is expected to swallow many more stars than a black hole in an undisrupted galactic center. A stationary black hole disrupts one star every 100,000 years. In the best-case scenario, a wandering black hole could disrupt a star every decade. This would give astronomers a much better opportunity of spotting these events, particularly with new survey facilities like Pan-STARRS and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

Catching the signal from a disrupted star is a good start. However, astronomers really want to combine that information with gravitational wave data from the black hole merger. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a future mission designed to detect and study gravitational waves, could provide that data.

Gravitational wave measurements yield very accurate distances (to better than one part in a hundred, or 1 percent). However, they don't provide precise sky coordinates. A star's tidal disruption will let astronomers pinpoint the galaxy containing the recently merged black-hole binary.

By correlating the galaxy's redshift (a change in its light that's caused by the expanding universe) with an accurate distance, astronomers can infer the equation of state of dark energy. In other words, they can learn more about the force that's accelerating cosmic expansion, and which dominates the cosmic mass/energy budget today.

"Instead of 'standard candles' like supernovae, the black hole binary would be a 'standard siren.' Using it, we could create the most accurate cosmic 'ruler' possible," stated Loeb.

Finding a merged black hole also would allow theorists to explore a new regime of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

"We could test general relativity in the regime of strong gravity with unprecedented precision," said Loeb.

Their work was published in the March 2011 issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Army: Manning Snuck ‘Data-Mining’ Software Onto Secret Network

Accused WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning installed and used unauthorized “data-mining software” on his SIPRnet workstation during the time he allegedly siphoned hundreds of thousands of documents off that classified network, the Army said Friday in response to inquiries from Threat Level.

Manning’s use of unauthorized software was the basis of two allegations filed against him this year in his pending court martial, but the charge sheet listing those allegations was silent on the nature of that software.

On Friday, an Army spokeswoman clarified the charges. “The allegations … refer to data-mining software,” spokeswoman Shaunteh Kelly wrote in an e-mail. “Identifying at this point the specific software program used may potentially compromise the ongoing criminal investigation.”

She added that the two allegations relate to “the same data-mining software used on two different dates.”

Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, did not respond to telephone and e-mail inquiries.

Manning allegedly installed the software twice on Army computers connected to SIPRnet, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network that’s been identified as the original source of WikiLeaks’ large-scale U.S. releases. Those releases included 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and 500,000 classified field reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning allegedly installed the code the first time between Feb. 11, 2010 and April 3, 2010. The second time was around May 4, the day he was demoted from Specialist to Private First Class and given a new job assignment following an altercation with another soldier.

If Manning installed data-mining software on his SIPRnet workstation, that could potentially strengthen the government’s case against the alleged leaker. Two of the 22 allegations against Manning are for exceeding authorized computer access in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act –- the federal anti-hacking statute.

Manning exceeded his authorized access to SIPRnet, the charge sheet says, when he obtained and leaked classified U.S. State Department cables to an unauthorized third party. According to a former federal prosecutor, the data-mining software could aggravate the unauthorized access crime by showing premeditation to obtain the documents.

“Generally, people who engage in unauthorized access — many of them anyway — are thrill seekers who do it without any specific plan in mind,” said Scott Christie, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in computer crime and is now a partner at the private firm McCarter & English.

“But to upload a data-mining suite of software suggests you have a plan in mind, you’re sophisticated enough to use the software and to configure it to find what you want, and that you have given this plan a great deal of attention.”

Christie said that prosecutors wouldn’t have to show definitive evidence that the software was used to obtain or sort the purloined documents; just the fact that it was installed on Manning’s computer during the time the documents were taken would allow prosecutors to draw reasonable inferences that it was used to commit the crime.

The charges also suggest that the United States has recovered evidence from Manning’s machines, despite Manning’s apparent confidence that no investigator would be able to uncover forensic evidence against him.

Manning was arrested in May 2010 after telling former hacker Adrian Lamo in online chats that he had leaked two Army videos to WikiLeaks, as well as 260,000 U.S. State Department cables and hundreds of thousands of documents on the Iraq war. Lamo provided the chat logs to U.S. investigators.

Manning never mentioned installing software on SIPRnet. But he did say that his classified computer hard drives had been “zerofilled” — securely wiped — as part of the Army’s withdrawal from Iraq. “[E]vidence was destroyed,” he wrote, “by the system itself.”

It’s still unclear exactly what the software was — “data-mining” is a fairly broad term, and the Army declined to be more specific. But data-mining programs generally sort and index files on a computer or network, allowing users to do keyword searches across all file formats — Word documents, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, media files, etc.

Such a program on a SIPRnet machine might have been useful to Manning as an alternative search tool rather than “the official one that might be monitored,” said computer security expert Chris Wysopal, CTO at VeraCode.

Wysopal added that the tools are designed to make sophisticated queries and that in order to customize the program, if needed, someone would have to possess a certain level of skill.

“You’d have to understand the query language they use to build up different rules,” he said. “I don’t think it would be that difficult, but you probably need to have somewhat of a programming mindset. I don’t know if Manning would have that, or if he would need someone to help him do that.”

Manning is currently being held at the U.S. Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. Last July he was charged with two crimes consisting of 12 counts. In March, the Army dismissed these charges and filed a new charge sheet. Manning now faces three charges consisting of 22 counts, including a capital offense. The Army, however, has said it would not seek the death penalty.

Military’s Newest Recruit: C-3P0

The Pentagon has spent decades and gazillions of dollars trying to build the perfect translation device. Now, its far-out research arm is looking at a new direction: a robot that can interpret all sorts of languages — and think for itself. That’s right: The Defense Department wants to build a real-life version of C-3P0.

Thursday, Darpa announced its new Broad Operational Language Translation, or BOLT, research initiative — the latest in a long, long line of military interpretation gadgets and algorithms. The United States tends to fight its wars in places where it doesn’t really speak the language. Training up troops in critical languages like Arabic would be difficult, time-consuming and not entirely practical on a large scale.

Enter BOLT, which Darpa has asked Congress to fund at $15 million this year. Once developed, BOLT would act something like C-3P0 from the Star Wars movies, performing a variety of difficult translation feats for troops in hostile territory.

It would go well beyond the array of handheld phrase-translation machines currently in use. BOLT would use language as well as visual and tactile inputs so that it can “hypothesize and perform automated reasoning in the acquired language.” The end result, Darpa’s announcement says, will be a robot with visual and tactile sensors that can recognize 250 different objects “and understand the consequences (pre-state and post-state) of 100 actions, so that it can execute complex commands.”

The bot should be able to conduct both human-to-machine and human-to-human translation. On the human-to-machine end, Darpa wants BOLT to be able to understand human speech in English and one Arabic dialect, such that it can take “complex commands to control a desk-top application” like e-mail or Microsoft Excel.

For person-to-person translation, BOLT is intended to enable ”multiturn, bilingual human-human conversation” between English and Arabic with a success rate of 90 percent. The translation would be ”genre-independent,” meaning translation of language (either Mandarin or an Arabic dialect) regardless of whether it’s in a text message or just plain conversation.

The U.S. military has tried out all sorts of translation gizmos on the battlefield. But devices like the Phraselator and the Voice Response Translator are limited on the battlefield. They can’t translate just any words you’d like to say, though. Instead, they spit out a few key phrases and words in local languages likely to be useful on the battlefield. The blunt phrase exchanges can’t produce the kind of complex communication that the Defense Department would like soldiers to be able to engage in. They can also be downright awkward sometimes.

That’s why Darpa’s currently putting money into more sophisticated devices like BOLT and another Threepio-like translator. The agency asked Congress to fund its Robotic Automatic Translation of Speech (RATS) program increased to $21 billion this year, up from $9 million in 2010. RATS is supposed to be able to pull speech out of “noisy or degraded signals”and identify the language spoken. It’s also intended to sniff out not just the language spoken, but the person behind it by using voice recognition technology to check the person against a most-wanted list.

Whatever comes of Darpa’s attempt to turn BOLT into a military C-3P0, let’s just hope they don’t give it the continuously-piqued accent of Anthony Daniels, the dude who played the protocol droid in the movies. It’s annoying enough in English, it might be worse to hear it in Arabic.

When African Animals Hit the Hay: Fossil Teeth Show Who Ate What and When as Grasses Emerged

Fossil teeth of African animals show that during the past 10 million years, different plant-eating critters began grazing on grass at different times as many switched from a salad-bar diet of tree leaves and shrubs, says a University of Utah study.

Fossils & Ruins

The first animals to hit the hay -- technically warm-season grasses known as C4 plants -- were zebras' ancestors, starting 9.9 million years ago. Next, some but not all rhinos made the switch, beginning 9.6 million years ago. Grass-grazing spread 7.4 million years ago to the ancestors of elephants. Hippos began grazing on grass more slowly. And giraffes, with heads in the trees, never left the salad bar.

The study -- by a Utah-led international team of researchers -- is being published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It constructed a 7-million-year record of dietary change -- from 10 million to 3 million years ago -- by analyzing carbon isotope ratios in 452 fossilized teeth from nine animal families living at three sites in Kenya also occupied by ape-like human ancestors.

"This record is the first to illustrate the dietary response among herbivore families to the appearance of warm-season grasses in East Africa" at least 10 million years ago, says the study's first author, Kevin Uno, a doctoral student in geology at the University of Utah. "Grass is now the main food for many herbivores there."

He adds: "The results paint a picture of differential dietary response to changes in climate and landscape from 10 million to 3 million years ago, a period that includes the appearance of hominids that eventually gave rise to humans."

The findings "demonstrate that different animals respond differently to ecological change," says geochemist Thure Cerling, the study's senior author and a distinguished professor of geology and geophysics, and biology at the University of Utah.

"This has implications for the future of our planet as climate and ecology change as a result of human activities -- not only climate change, but land-use change such as agriculture and desertification," he adds. "And it is not always possible to predict how different parts of the ecosystem will respond to any of these changes."

Uno and Cerling did the study with John Harris of the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles; paleontologist Meave Leakey of Kenya's Turkana Basin Institute based at Stony Brook University in New York; and Japanese scientists Yutaka Kunimatsu and Masato Nakatsukasa of Kyoto University, and Hideo Nakaya of Kagoshima University.

You are What You Eat: True 10 Million Years Ago

You are what you eat -- and the same was true for African animals that lived millions of years ago. Their diets were recorded by carbon isotope ratios in the enamel of their now-fossilized teeth. The ratios reveal whether an animal ate plants that used so-called C3 or C4 photosynthesis to convert sunlight to energy.

C3 plants include trees, shrubs and cool-season grasses. Most C4 plants are warm-season grasses and sedges commonly found in the tropics. Today in East Africa, nearly all grasses are C4 grasses. And, for the record, modern hays often mix C3 and C4 plants.

Dietary carbon is incorporated into tooth enamel, letting researchers determine whether long-dead animals grazed on C4 grasses or browsed on C3 trees and shrubs.

Global or regional changes in climate have the potential to transform a forest into grassland or vice versa. When this happens over large areas, animals must change their diets or deal with the consequences, which in extreme cases might mean moving to a new habitat or eventually going extinct.

The diet record of East African herbivores from 10 million to 3 million years ago shows dramatic change occurred at different rates and times. The change was a shift from eating C3 plants -- trees, shrubs and cool-season grasses -- to eating warm-season, tropical C4 grasses, which first appeared in East Africa 10 million to 15 million years ago.

The animals' switch to grasses began after warm-season grasses first appeared in East Africa, but long before grasslands began to spread rapidly in the region. Previous evidence indicates East Africa was dominated by C3 ecosystems (trees, shrubs and cool-season grasses) during the Middle and Late Miocene Epoch about 16 million to 5 million years ago, but that mosaic landscapes with C4 grasslands were present.

Cerling's previous research found no evidence of widespread grasslands earlier than 4.2 million years ago. "A major shift toward arid environments in the region began about 2.7 million years ago," Uno says. "And only during the past 1 million years did grasslands become as dominant as they are today in East Africa."

But even before 4.2 million years ago, "there was enough C4 grass around for a whole bunch of animals to make a living off of it," he adds.

The first herbivores to eat C4 grasses had longer teeth that took more time for abrasive grasses to wear down. The increased availability of C4 grasses meant there was a new food source available for any herbivore to try if they could digest the gritty grasses, which have more cellulose and lower nutritional quality than most C3 plants.

"If you lived in a town that only ate beef for dinner and the frozen fish stick guy came through selling TV dinners at half price (because everyone ate beef), wouldn't you at least try fish for dinner?" Uno asks. "That example is a bit anthropomorphized, but I see C4 grasses as new resources that may not have been as much in demand as C3 cool-season grasses, trees and shrubs. This could be because some animals had a hard time digesting C4 grasses."

A History of East African Plant Eating

The new study showed this dietary history for East African plant-eating animals:

* Ancient equids, from which the zebra evolved, were the first herbivores to develop a diet primarily of C4 grass. Between 9.9 million years ago and 7.4 million years ago, they made a rapid transition, geologically speaking, from eating trees and shrubs to eating almost exclusively C4 grasses.
* Relatives of the rhino also adopted primarily C4 grass diets before most other families, as far back as 9.6 million years ago. However, some kept browsing on trees and shrubs or had mixed diets of those plants plus C4 grasses. Thus, different rhino species were not necessarily competing for the same food -- as is true with modern rhinos.
* Two elephant ancestral lines, elephantids and gomphotheres, did not begin their switch to C4 grass until about 7.4 million years ago, but once they did, they remained grazers until very recently, probably in the last million years or so. Today, African and Asian elephants eat mostly C3 trees and shrubs.
* Suids, ancestors of bushpigs and warthogs, were slow to eat C4 grass. Few ate it more than 9 million years ago, and only from 6.5 million to 4.2 million years ago did suids have a diet that either was a mix of C3 leaves and C4 grasses or dominated by grasses. Modern suids occupy many ecosystems, so they have diets with both kinds of plants.
* The common hippo today eats mostly C4 grass, but 9.9 million years ago, its ancestors were only eating C3 trees and shrubs. The change was gradual.
* Bovids -- which today include gazelles, wildebeest and cape buffalo -- were eating C4 grass by 9.6 million years ago, but some species maintained C3 diets, some ate C4 grasses and others ate both.
* Now-extinct deinotheriids, which had two tusks in the lower jaw and were relatives of elephants, show no sign of C4 grass in their diet throughout their history.
* Giraffids, which gave rise to the modern giraffe, relied only on C3 plants throughout the record, in part because their long necks are designed to get to leaves in trees, not grass at their hooves.

Formaldehyde: Poison Could Have Set the Stage for the Origins of Life

Formaldehyde, a poison and a common molecule throughout the universe, is likely the source of the solar system's organic carbon solids -- abundant in both comets and asteroids. Scientists have long speculated about the how organic, or carbon-containing, material became a part of the solar system's fabric. New research from Carnegie's George Cody, along with Conel Alexander and Larry Nittler, shows that these complex organic solids were likely made from formaldehyde in the primitive solar system.

Their work is published online April 4 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We may owe our existence on this planet to interstellar formaldehyde," Cody said. "And what's ironic about it is that formaldehyde is poisonous to life on Earth."

During the early period of the inner solar system's formation, much of the organic carbon that wasn't trapped in primitive bodies was lost to space, along with much of the water. Prior to this study numerous competing ideas emerged to explain the existence of primitive organic solids. Cody, of the Geophysical Laboratory, along with Alexander and Nittler, of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, and the team decided to study primitive solar system objects using advanced methods. What they discovered clearly pointed to a polymer formed from formaldehyde.

They tested their conclusion with experiments to reproduce the type of organic matter found in carbonaceous chondrites, a type of organic-rich meteorite, starting with formaldehyde. They found that their formaldehyde-synthesized organic material was not only similar to that found in carbonaceous chondrites, but also similar to organic material found in a comet named 81P/Wild 2, pieces of which were collected in space by NASA's Stardust mission, as well as in interplanetary dust particles, or particles from space that likely originated from comets and asteroids.

Their results make sense, because formaldehyde is relatively abundant throughout the galaxy and the polymerization process would have been possible under conditions of the primitive solar system.

"Establishing the likely origin of the principal source of organic carbon in primitive solar system bodies is extremely satisfying," Cody said.

Ancient Enzymes: Protein Adaptation Shows That Life on Early Earth Lived in a Hot, Acidic Environment

A new study reveals that a group of ancient enzymes adapted to substantial changes in ocean temperature and acidity during the last four billion years, providing evidence that life on Early Earth evolved from a much hotter, more acidic environment to the cooler, less acidic global environment that exists today.

The study found that a group of ancient enzymes known as thioredoxin were chemically stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than their modern counterparts. The enzymes, which were several billion years old, also showed increased activity at lower pH levels -- which correspond to greater acidity.

"This study shows that a group of ubiquitous proteins operated in a hot, acidic environment during early life, which supports the view that the environment progressively cooled and became more alkaline between four billion and 500 million years ago," said Eric Gaucher, an associate professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The study, which was published April 3 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, was conducted by an international team of researchers from Georgia Tech, Columbia University and the Universidad de Granada in Spain.

Major funding for this study was provided by two grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Georgia Tech, a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Columbia University, and a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to the Universidad de Granada.

Using a technique called ancestral sequence reconstruction, Gaucher and Georgia Tech biology graduate student Zi-Ming Zhao reconstructed seven ancient thioredoxin enzymes from the three domains of life -- archaea, bacteria and eukaryote -- that date back between one and four billion years old.

To resurrect these enzymes, which are found in nearly all known modern organisms and are essential for life in mammals, the researchers first constructed a family tree of the more than 200 thioredoxin sequences available from the three domains of life. Then they reconstructed the sequences of the ancestral thioredoxin enzymes using statistical methods based on maximum likelihood. Finally, they synthesized the genes that encoded these sequences, expressed the ancient proteins in the cells of modern Escherichia coli bacteria and then purified the proteins.

"By resurrecting proteins, we are able to gather valuable information about the adaptation of extinct forms of life to climatic, ecological and physiological alterations that cannot be uncovered through fossil record examinations," said Gaucher.

The reconstructed enzymes from the Precambrian period -- which ended about 542 million years ago -- were used to examine how environmental conditions, including pH and temperature, affected the evolution of the enzymes and their chemical mechanisms.

"Given the ancient origin of the reconstructed thioredoxin enzymes, with some of them predating the buildup of atmospheric oxygen, we thought their catalytic chemistry would be simple, but we found that thioredoxin enzymes use a complex mixture of chemical mechanisms that increases their efficiency over the simpler compounds that were available in early geochemistry," said Julio Fernández, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences professor at Columbia University.

Fernández led a team that included Columbia University postdoctoral researchers Raul Perez-Jimenez, Jorge Alegre-Cebollada and Sergi Garcia-Manyes, and graduate student Pallav Kosuri in using an assay based on single molecule force spectroscopy to measure the activity level of the thioredoxin enzymes under different pH levels.

For their experiments, the researchers used an atomic force microscope to pick up and stretch an engineered protein in a solution containing thioredoxin. They first applied a constant force to the protein, causing it to rapidly unfold and expose its disulfide bonds to the thioredoxin enzymes. The rate at which a thioredoxin enzyme snipped the disulfide bonds determined the enzyme's level of efficiency.

The study results showed that the three oldest thioredoxin enzymes -- those thought to have inhabited Earth 4.2 to 3.5 billion years ago -- were able to operate in lower pH environments than the modern thioredoxin enzymes.

"Our analysis indicates that ancient thioredoxin enzymes were well adapted to function under acidic conditions and that they maintained their high level of activity as they evolved in more alkaline environments," said Fernández.

To measure the temperature range in which the enzymes operated, professor Jose Sanchez-Ruiz and graduate student Alvaro Inglés-Prieto from the Departamento de Química-Física at the Universidad de Granada in Spain used a technique called differential scanning calorimetry. This method measures the stability of enzymes by heating the enzymes at a constant rate and measuring the heat change associated with their unfolding.

The researchers found that the ancient proteins were stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius higher than the modern thioredoxins. The experiments showed that the enzymes exhibited higher temperature stability the older they were. The results provide evidence that ancestral thioredoxins adapted to the cooling trend of ancient oceans, as inferred from geological records.

"Our results confirm that life has the remarkable ability to adapt to a wide range of historical environmental conditions; and by extension, life will undoubtedly adapt to future environmental changes, albeit at some cost to many species," said Gaucher.

This study also showed that the experimental resurrection of ancient proteins together with the sensitivity of single-molecule techniques can be a powerful tool for understanding the origin and evolution of life on Earth.

The researchers are currently using this strategy to assess other enzymes to get a clearer picture of what life was like on Early Earth. They are also applying these tools to the field of biotechnology, where enzymes play important roles in many industrial processes.

"The functions and characteristics we observed in the ancestral enzymes show that our techniques can be implemented to generate improved enzymes for a wide range of applications," added Perez-Jimenez.