Military Looks to Scaly-Footed Snail for Future Troop Armor
Undersea chimneys, nicknamed “black smokers,” belch out superheated water from below the Earth’s crust. The waters surrounding the smokers are teeming with toxic compounds – sulfur and other compounds make this water incredibly acidic. Located in the deeper, benthic layers of the ocean (around 2100 m), these environments are completely devoid of sunlight – but not of life.
Despite this being one of the harshest and cruelest of oceanic environments, life has an uncanny way of prevailing against all odds. Take the Crysomalion squamiferum, a species of underwater scaly-footed snail that was just discovered in 2001. Its three-layered shell has different materials that form the toughest covering ever discovered. Even the military has turned its eager eyes towards replicating a combat version for humans. The exterior of this gastropod is so tough that it can withstand pressures of up to 300 atmospheres (equivalent to 4,400 pounds per inch), searing temperatures of 752º F, and the piercing claws of predatory crabs.
Haimin Yao of MIT discovered the secrets behind the snail’s sturdy shell by studying its cross-sections and simulating various predatory attacks that the shell would normally withstand. Made of iron sulphide compounds, the outer layer is the thinnest yet toughest layer. When “attacked” by a diamond tipped probe (simulating a crab attacking with its claw), it cracked – which is all part of the master plan. The cracks were tiny and jagged, effectively dissipating the energy from the attack and preventing larger cracks from forming. The iron in the shell would also erode the crab’s claw, so if it continues to attack these scaly snails, it may find its main mode of attack rendered ineffective.
The middle layer of the shell is thicker than the outer shell, but has a spongy consistency. Like a football helmet, it helps to absorb the force from the crab’s attacks. The inner layer is made of calcium carbonate, a common compound found in most seafaring animal shells. However, in this particular environment, an uncovered calcium carbonate shell would quickly erode away. The outer and middle layers protect the vulnerable snail, and also provide additional structural support, preventing the shell from bending. Again, the crab is foiled. With each layer supporting the other, they can’t be peeled away individually.
Source: Science Blogs
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Earthquake Swarms Rock Yellowstone
Along with being one of the largest national parks in America, beneath the seemingly placid, geyser-ridden ground of Yellowstone National Park pulses a gigantic supervolcano. When Yellowstone erupts, it will do so with 1000 times the power of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. In the two weeks following the January 12th Haitian Earthquake, seismologists have reported at least 250 Yellowstone-area earthquake swarms – the phenomenon of many earthquakes occurring in a brief period of time. The individual quakes register from 0.5-3.1 on the Richter scale and are growing more intense every day.
Fortunately, scientists assure us that there’s no need to worry – yet. In 1985, a total of 3000 earthquake swarms were reported in the span of just a few months. Other earthquake swarms of 500+ quakes each have been recorded in December 2008. More than 70 swarms have been reported between the years of 1983 and 2008. Dr. Robert Smith of University of Utah states that the earthquakes are occurring 8-10 km below the surface, which is still above the magma reservoir. That means the earthquakes are tectonic, rather than from magma becoming irritated and wanting to rise to the surface. If you’d like to hear what an earthquake swarm sounds like, click here. This recording condenses the first 28 hours of activity into a 7 minute file. It sounds vaguely like hail falling on the roof of a car.
Yellowstone is a giant, but for now it slumbers, to the great relief of all us wary Lilliputians.
Sources: Science Blogs, Time, National Geographic
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Dinosaur Footsteps Create Death Pits
If you ask me, I’d rather be behind a giant, slavering dinosaur than in front of it. But apparently, following in its footsteps can be just as fatal.
They’re called “dinosaur death pits,” large depressions in the ground created by the wanderings of the sauropod Mamenchisaurus, and dozens of fossils belonging to more diminutive dinosaurs have been found at the bottom of them. These death pits have been found in northwestern China, near the Xinjiang region. The depressions are about 3.5-6.5 feet deep and contain the remnants of small dinosaurs that likely got trapped there once the depressions filled with sucking mud and volcanic ash, a Jurassic period version of quicksand.
160 million years ago, the area that is now the Gobi Desert was a marshy wetland. In the late Jurassic, volcanoes erupted, spewing hot ash into the air and onto the ground. This ash hardened into a semi-solid surface over depressions in the ground, covering any quicksand like mud. Whenever the Mamenchisaurus took a stroll, it punched deep holes into the ground which were quickly refilled with brackish mud, much like how our footsteps disappear in beach sand. Smaller animals would have walked right over this seemingly stable land and fallen into the pit, becoming stuck and struggling to get out. This, of course, was followed by larger predators who, targeting the flailing dinos as easy prey, wandered into the death trap to begin their feasts, becoming just as stuck as their would-be victims.
The remains of Guanlong, an ancestor of the T-rex with a mohawk-like head adornment, and of the Limusaurus, an herbivore with hands that possibly link dinosaur limbs to bird wings, have been found in these pits. As the victims of the death pit grew in numbers, eventually these carcasses would provide stable enough footing that an animal could simply climb right out of the pit, using the remains as macabre staircase.
“It’s very likely that other kinds of animals would have entered these pits but were able to get out,” stated David Eberth, a geologist involved in the project. “We picture quadrupeds being able to get out of these pits because they essentially had a natural four-wheel-drive to pull themselves out.”
The remains found in these death pits belonged to small raptors that were common in the Jurassic period, but rarities in the paleological world. Multiple individuals of the same species were found in the pits, and this allows paleontologists to construct an idea of how these dinosaurs grew and aged.
“Previously,” states Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of Vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian, “we had known very little about dinosaurs and other land vertebrates from this particular time interval anywhere.”
Source: National Geographic
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Alcohol Created Civilization
Ah, alcohol. Is there any other liquid that does so much for human kind (discounting water, of course)? A single draft of beer can turn enemies into friends, friends into lovers. Beer also, apparently, could be the impetus for civilization as we know it.
Patrick McGovern is an archaeologist and knows more about alcohol than your average Joe. He’s one of the leading experts on the study of ancient alcoholic brews and has found that mankind had been brewing beer as far back as 9000 years ago.
Ancient beer brewing is not like the process you’re used to today. It involved an unsavory mix of teeth and saliva. Wild rice was rigorously chewed, turning the starchy substance into a malt sugar. This solution would then be added to a mixture of honey, wild grapes and hawthorn fruits to produce a liquid which most would tentatively call “beer.”
His earliest sample of ancient beer was found in a Neolithic village at the Jiahu site in China, which dates back to about 7000 BC. McGovern examined the clay shards and found that they had traces of Tartaric acid, a compound in ancient brews.
The pottery sheds in China and other regions of the world such as Africa and Mexico have led McGovern to theorize that alcohol played a pivotal role in the development of early civilization.
“The main motivation for settling down and domesticating crops was probably to make an alcoholic beverage of some kind,” McGovern stated. “People wanted to be closer to their plants so this leads to settlement.”
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Lauren Admire is having a manic Monday.
