A study led by The University of Texas at Austin is providing a glimpse into dinosaur and bird diversity in Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous, just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct.
A figure from the study showing teeth from a megaraptor dinosaur from various view points. The black tooth preserves most of the tooth crow. The tan tooth is missing the crown apex and base. Credits: Davis et al.
The fossils represent the first record of theropods — a dinosaur group that includes both modern birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives — from the Chilean portion of Patagonia. The researchers’ finds include giant megaraptors with large sickle-like claws and birds from the group that also includes today’s modern species.
“The fauna of Patagonia leading up to the mass extinction was really diverse,” said lead author Sarah Davis, who completed this work as part of her doctoral studies with Professor Julia Clarke at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences Department of Geological Sciences. “You’ve got your large theropod carnivores and smaller carnivores as well as these bird groups coexisting alongside other reptiles and small mammals.”
The study was published in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
A time-averaged artist’s interpretation of Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous. The animals pictured include non-avian dinosaurs, birds and other vertebrates that have been discovered in the fossil record of the region. Their specific identifications are as follows: ornithurine birds (flying and walking on the ground), Stegouros (armored dinosaur), Orretherium (mammal), Yaminuechelys (turtle), a megaraptorid (large carnivore), unenlagiines (pair of carnivores), and enantiornithine birds (in foreground). Credits: Mauricio Alvarez and Gabriel Diaz
Since 2017, members of the Clarke lab, including graduate and undergraduate students, have joined scientific collaborators from Chile in Patagonia to collect fossils and build a record of ancient life from the region. Over the years, researchers have found abundant plant and animal fossils from before the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs.
The study focuses specifically on theropods, with the fossils dating from 66 to 75 million years ago.
Non-avian theropod dinosaurs were mostly carnivorous, and include the top predators in the food chain. This study shows that in prehistoric Patagonia, these predators included dinosaurs from two groups — megaraptors and unenlagiines.
Reaching over 25 feet long, megaraptors were among the larger theropod dinosaurs in South America during the Late Cretaceous. The unenlagiines — a group with members that ranged from chicken-sized to over 10 feet tall — were probably covered with feathers, just like their close relative the velociraptor. The unenlagiinae fossils described in the study are the southernmost known instance of this dinosaur group.
The bird fossils were also from two groups — enantiornithines and ornithurines. Although now extinct, enantiornithines were the most diverse and abundant birds millions of years ago. These resembled sparrows — but with beaks lined with teeth. The group ornithurae includes all modern birds living today. The ones living in ancient Patagonia may have resembled a goose or duck, though the fossils are too fragmentary to tell for sure.
The researchers identified the theropods from small fossil fragments; the dinosaurs mostly from teeth and toes, the birds from small bone pieces. Davis said that the enamel glinting on the dinosaur teeth helped with spotting them among the rocky terrain.
Some researchers have suggested that the Southern Hemisphere faced less extreme or more gradual climatic changes than the Northern Hemisphere after the asteroid strike. This may have made Patagonia, and other places in the Southern Hemisphere, a refuge for birds and mammals and other life that survived the extinction. Davis said that this study can aid in investigating this theory by building up a record of ancient life before and after the extinction event.
Study co-author Marcelo Leppe, the director of the Antarctic Institute of Chile, said that these past records are key to understanding life as it exists today.
“We still need to know how life made its way in that apocalyptic scenario and gave rise to our southern environments in South America, New Zealand and Australia,” he said. “Here theropods are still present — no longer as dinosaurs as imposing as megaraptorids — but as the diverse array of birds found in the forests, swamps and marshes of Patagonia, and in Antarctica and Australia.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Agency for Research and Development of Chile, and the Jackson School of Geosciences.
The study’s co-authors include Clarke and researchers at the University of Chile, Major University, the University of Concepción and the Chilean National Museum of Natural History.
The researchers in Patagonia in 2017. Lead author Sarah Davis is in the center of the front row in a blue jacket. The researchers include members from the Jackson School of Geosciences, INACH, the University of Chile, and the University of Concepción. Credits: Sarah Davis
Bibliographic information:
New records of Theropoda from a Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) locality in the Magallanes-Austral Basin, Patagonia, and insights into end Cretaceous theropod diversity, Journal of South American Earth Sciences (30-Dec-2022), DOI:
10.1016/j.jsames.2022.104163
Press release from The University of Texas at Austin
SKA Observatory celebrates start of telescope construction in Australia and South Africa
In ceremonies at both sites in Australia and South Africa, the SKA Observatory celebrated the start of construction of its world-leading radio telescopes and announced €300 million worth of construction contracts.
The SKAO’s Director-General, Prof. Philip Diamond, travelled to Western Australia to represent the Observatory at the site of the future SKA-Low telescope. Council Chair Dr Catherine Cesarsky attended the event in South Africa’s Northern Cape province where the SKA-Mid telescope will be located.
In her address, Dr Cesarsky said: “The SKA project has been many years in the making. Today, we gather here to mark another important chapter in this 30-year journey that we’ve been on together. A journey to deliver the world’s largest scientific instrument. After 18 months of intense activities around the world, we are starting construction of the SKA telescopes.”
Over the past 18 months, over 40 contracts worth more than €150 million have been entered into by the observatory. On Monday, major new construction contracts worth over €300 million were announced at the ceremonies.
Minister Ed Husic from Australia and South Africa’s Dr Blade Nzimande announced more than €200 million for Australian and South African companies to deliver some of the extensive infrastructure required for the telescopes.
The SKAO also announced the major contracts – worth €100 million – to manufacture the antennas for both telescopes, bringing the total amount of construction funds allocated so far by the observatory to close to €500 million.
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Representatives of the communities surrounding the telescope sites had pride of place in both ceremonies. In Australia, guests received a traditional Welcome to Country from members of the Wajarri community, the SKA-Low site’s native title holders and Traditional Owners. Across the Indian Ocean, attendees witnessed a special “meerkat” version of the ancient riel dance around a newly-cast SKA dish foundation.
A composite image of the SKA-Low telescope, blending the existing AAVS2.0 prototype station in Western Australia with an artist’s impression of the future SKA-Low stations. Credit: SKAO
SKA-Low telescope artist impressions. Credit: DISR.
An artist’s impression of the future SKA-Mid dishes in South Africa. Credit: SKAO
A composite image of the future SKA-Mid telescope, blending the existing precursor MeerKAT telescope dishes already on site with an artist’s impression of the future SKA-Mid dishes. Credit: SKAO
Composite image of the SKA telescopes, blending real hardware already on site with artist’s impressions. From left: An artist’s impression of the future SKA-Mid dishes blend into the existing precursor MeerKAT telescope dishes in South Africa. From right: An artist’s impression of the future SKA-Low stations blends into the existing AAVS2.0 prototype station in Western Australia. Credit: SKAO
A composite image of the future SKA telescopes, blending what already exists on site with artist’s impressions.
From left: An artist’s impression of the future SKA-Mid dishes blend into the existing precursor MeerKAT telescope dishes in South Africa.
From right: A artist’s impression of the future SKA-Low stations blends into the existing AAVS2.0 prototype station in Australia. Credit: SKAO
The construction commencement ceremonies took place 18 months after the SKAO’s Council approved the building of its two telescopes. Initial procurement concentrated on developing software, contracting professional services firms to help oversee construction, and bulk-buying components such as programmable circuit boards currently in short supply worldwide.
These 40 or so contracts paved the way for construction to start on site. In South Africa, this phase will eventually see 133 SKA dishes added to the existing 64 of the SKA-precursor telescope MeerKAT to form a mid-frequency instrument. Australia will host a low-frequency array of 131,072 antennas shaped like Christmas trees, allowing the two telescopes to cover a wide swath of radio frequencies.
The telescopes require vast infrastructure. Listed company Ventia will put up site-wide power and fibre infrastructure in the SKA-Low telescope’s core and spiral arms and fabricate and commission the central and remote processing facilities. In South Africa, the Power Adenco joint venture will construct gravel access roads, cast dish foundations, lay on power and optical fibre networks, erect security fencing, and more.
Competitive tendering also took place to procure the telescopes’ lead components: the antennas and dishes themselves. On Friday 2 December, the SKAO finalised the two contracts for these critical hardware.
Italian company SIRIO will build the low-frequency antennas for the SKA-Low telescope in Western Australia, with important participation from the UK. In China, one of the Observatory’s long-term partners, CETC54, will manufacture the SKA-Mid telescope’s dish structure. Parts will be produced in several countries, including Italy, Spain, and South Africa.
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In their announcements, the science ministers elaborated on the contractual conditions that the SKAO placed on infrastructure providers to include local communities.
In South Africa, the lead infrastructure contractor is required to spend a proportionate amount locally by providing a range of sub-contract opportunities to local SMMEs, on employing, training and transferring skills locally and on other community development initiatives.
In Australia, the aim is to create nearly 100 new roles for the Wajarri Yamaji and locals in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
The Indigenous Land Use Agreement recently signed between the Wajarri Yamaji and the Australian federal and Western Australian governments as well as CSIRO, expanded Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory to enable construction of the SKA telescope there.
The agreement ensures that Wajarri Yamaji cultural heritage will stay protected and that they will receive sustainable and intergenerational benefits in areas such as enterprise and training and education. About 400 km of ground was surveyed to map areas of cultural significance, and the layout of the SKA telescope array was amended to avoid significant Wajarri heritage sites.
In recognition of the agreement, the Wajarri gifted the site the traditional name – Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, meaning “sharing the sky and stars”.
“We want to be good neighbours to all of the local stakeholders where our infrastructure is located,” said Prof. Diamond. “It’s important that we play our part in supporting the local economy as well as the national one, and we’re doing our small part to ensure this is the case. For example, we’ve instructed infrastructure contractors to ensure local businesses are engaged and benefit from those contracts as well.”
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With its large infrastructure and telescope component contracts in place, the SKAO is on track to reach its next milestone: ensuring that the first four SKA-Mid dishes and six SKA-Low stations (of 256 antennas each) work together as a telescope.
The first two antenna stations are due to be completed by May 2023, while the first dish is set to be installed in April 2024, followed by three to four dishes each month.
Procuring mass-produced dishes and antennas represents a step-change for radio astronomy. Instead of bespoke and one-off components, manufacturers can develop new techniques to produce such elements, potentially offering new product lines.
Thanks to the telescopes’ design as interferometers – where the signals of multiple telescopes are combined to act as one giant telescope – the first notable scientific results can be expected before the telescopes are completed at the end of the decade.
The SKA telescopes will be managed from the SKAO’s Global Headquarters at Jodrell Bank near Manchester in the United Kingdom. Scientists will use the two arrays over the course of their expected 50-year lifespan to answer crucial questions about the earliest epochs of the universe, and unravel some of the most profound mysteries in astrophysics.
“The SKA telescopes will truly revolutionise our understanding of the universe,” said Dr Cesarsky. “They will allow us to study its evolution and some of its most mysterious phenomena in unprecedented detail, and that’s really exciting for the scientific community.”
Sin da subito con un ruolo di protagonista nel progetto, dal 2015 al 2018 l’Italia ha guidato i negoziati multilaterali che hanno portato all’istituzione dell’Osservatorio, dell’organizzazione intergovernativa (IGO) per la supervisione della costruzione della più grande rete di radiotelescopi al mondo. Il 24 maggio 2018, l’Italia è stata la prima nazione a siglare il testo del trattato internazionale (Convenzione). Pochi mesi dopo, il 12 marzo 2019, durante una cerimonia ufficiale presso il Ministero dell’istruzione, dell’università e della ricerca (MIUR), i Ministri dei primi sei Paesi ad aver aderito hanno ufficialmente firmato il Trattato internazionale dando vita all’Osservatorio SKA (SKAO).
L’intero programma di sviluppo del progetto SKA prevede 12 ambiti tecnologici e l’INAF è attore di rilievo in 5 di questi: antenne a parabola, antenne a dipolo, gestione del telescopio, Central Signal Processor e un programma di sviluppo di strumentazione avanzata sui PAF. Sotto la guida dell’INAF, inoltre, l’Italia contribuisce alla definizione di tutti i casi scientifici del progetto SKA attraverso un’ampia partecipazione agli SKA Science Working Groups (SWG): dalla cosmologia ai test sulla relatività generale tramite lo studio delle pulsar, dall’evoluzione delle galassie allo studio dettagliato della nostra Galassia, dalle onde gravitazionali al magnetismo, passando per l’epoca della reionizzazione. Il personale di 15 strutture INAF e di 14 università italiane è coinvolto in 13 dei 14 SKA SWG: attualmente 6 di questi gruppi (Cosmology, Epoch of Reionization, Gravitational Waves, HI Galaxy Science, Magnetism, Our Galaxy) sono a leadership Italiana, mentre in 9 l’Italia ha ruoli di coordinamento.
Watch brain cells in a dish learn to play Pong in real time
Human and mouse neurons in a dish learned to play the video game Pong, researchers report October 12 in the journal Neuron. The experiments are evidence that even brain cells in a dish can exhibit inherent intelligence, modifying their behavior over time.
“From worms to flies to humans, neurons are the starting block for generalized intelligence,” says first author Brett Kagan (@ANeuroExplorer), chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia. “So, the question was, can we interact with neurons in a way to harness that inherent intelligence?”
To start, the researchers connected the neurons to a computer in such a way where the neurons received feedback on whether their in-game paddle was hitting the ball. They monitored the neuron’s activity and responses to this feedback using electric probes that recorded “spikes” on a grid.
The spikes got stronger the more a neuron moved its paddle and hit the ball. When neurons missed, their playstyle was critiqued by a software programcreated by Cortical Labs. This demonstrated that the neurons could adapt activity to a changing environment, in a goal-oriented way, in real time.
Watch the video to see the brain cells in a dish learning to play Pong in real time. Picture by Eric Perlin
“We chose Pong due to its simplicity and familiarity, but, also, it was one of the first games used in machine learning, so we wanted to recognize that,” says Kagan, who worked with collaborators from 10 other institutions on the project.
“An unpredictable stimulus was applied to the cells, and the system as a whole would reorganize its activity to better play the game and to minimize having a random response,” he says. “You can also think that just playing the game, hitting the ball and getting predictable stimulation, is inherently creating more predictable environments.”
The theory behind this learning is rooted in the free-energy principle. Simply put, the brain adapts to its environment by changing either its world view or its actions to better fit the world around it.
Pong wasn’t the only game the research team tested. “You know when the Google Chrome browser crashes and you get that dinosaur that you can make jump over obstacles (Project Bolan). We’ve done that and we’ve seen some nice preliminary results, but we still have more work to do building new environments for custom purposes,” says Kagan.
Future directions of this work have potential in disease modeling, drug discoveries, and expanding the current understanding of how the brain works and how intelligence arises.
“This is the start of a new frontier in understanding intelligence,” Kagan says. “It touches on the fundamental aspects of not only what it means to be human but what it means to be alive and intelligent at all, to process information and be sentient in an ever changing, dynamic world.”
Valviloculus pleristaminis: a new flower from 100 million years ago brings fresh holiday beauty to 2020
Valviloculus pleristaminis. Credits: George Poinar Jr., OSU
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University researchers have identified a spectacular new genus and species of flower from the mid-Cretaceous period, a male specimen whose sunburst-like reach for the heavens was frozen in time by Burmese amber.
“This isn’t quite a Christmas flower but it is a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed 100 million years ago,” said George Poinar Jr., professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science.
“The male flower is tiny, about 2 millimeters across, but it has some 50 stamens arranged like a spiral, with anthers pointing toward the sky,” said Poinar, an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn more about the biology and ecology of the distant past.
A stamen consists of an anther – the pollen-producing head – and a filament, the stalk that connects the anther to the flower.
“Despite being so small, the detail still remaining is amazing,” Poinar said. “Our specimen was probably part of a cluster on the plant that contained many similar flowers, some possibly female.”
The new discovery has an egg-shaped, hollow floral cup – the part of the flower from which the stamens emanate; an outer layer consisting of six petal-like components known as tepals; and two-chamber anthers, with pollen sacs that split open via laterally hinged valves.
Valviloculus pleristaminis. Credits: George Poinar Jr., OSU
Poinar and collaborators at OSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture named the new flower Valviloculus pleristaminis. Valva is the Latin term for the leaf on a folding door, loculus means compartment, plerus refers to many, and staminis reflects the flower’s dozens of male sex organs.
The flower became encased in amber on the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana and rafted on a continental plate some 4,000 miles across the ocean from Australia to Southeast Asia, Poinar said.
Geologists have been debating just when this chunk of land – known as the West Burma Block – broke away from Gondwana. Some believe it was 200 million years ago; others claim it was more like 500 million years ago.
Numerous angiosperm flowers have been discovered in Burmese amber, the majority of which have been described by Poinar and a colleague at Oregon State, Kenton Chambers, who also collaborated on this research.
Angiosperms are vascular plants with stems, roots and leaves, with eggs that are fertilized and develop inside the flower.
Since angiosperms only evolved and diversified about 100 million years ago, the West Burma Block could not have broken off from Gondwana before then, Poinar said, which is much later than dates that have been suggested by geologists.
Joining Poinar and Chambers, a botany and plant pathology researcher in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, on the paper were Oregon State’s Urszula Iwaniec and the USDA’s Fernando Vega. Iwaniec is a researcher in the Skeletal Biology Laboratory in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and Vega works in the Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland.
About the OSU College of Science: As one of the largest academic units at OSU, the College of Science has seven departments and 12 pre-professional programs. It provides the basic science courses essential to the education of every OSU student, builds future leaders in science, and its faculty are international leaders in scientific research.
The spotted-thighed frog is easily identified by the distinct spots on its thighs. Credits: UniSA/Christine Taylor
Indiscriminate feeding by an alien population of the carnivorous spotted-thighed frog – could severely affect the native biodiversity of southern Australia according to a new study by the University of South Australia.
The invasive amphibian – Litoria cyclorhyncha – which has hitchhiked across the Nullarbor from Western Australia – has now established a community of 1000-plus in Streaky Bay, South Australia, with sightings also confirmed on the Eyre Peninsula and at the Adelaide airport.
This is the first study of the spotted-thighed frog’s diet in its invaded range with the findings providing important biological information about the impact of the alien species on natural ecosystems.
Ecology experts, UniSA’s Associate Professor Gunnar Keppel and Christine Taylor, say the potential of the spotted-thighed frog spreading to other parts of Australia is very concerning given its destructive eating patterns.
“This frog is an indiscriminate eating machine that will devour just about anything it can fit into its mouth,” Taylor says.
“We’re talking about a relatively large, predatory tree frog that, as a species is alien to South Australia, and it could have devastating impact on invaded habitats.
“As it eats away at local species, it’s impacting the natural ecosystem, which can displace or destroy local food webs, outcompete native birds, reptiles and mammals for resources, and potentially change natural biodiversity.”
Published in the Australian Journal of Zoology, the study examined the stomach contents of 76 spotted-thighed frogs across three habitats – an artificial wetland, seminatural bushland and an urban setting.
The carnivorous spotted-thighed frog will indiscriminately devour just about anything it can fit into its mouth. Credits: UniSA/Christine Taylor
On average, each frog had at least six prey items in its stomach, with prey estimated to include 200 different species, 60 per cent of which were beetles, spiders and insects. Native geckos, young frogs and mice were also identified as prey.
Introduced species can have terrible outcomes for Australia, if not understood well. The infamous introduction of the cane toad in the 1930s as a mechanism to control sugar cane beetles, is just one example. The failure of that initiative continues to ravage Australia’s ecology, with the cane toad now listed as a threatening pest under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Assoc Prof Keppel says it is important that people understand how detrimental introduced species can be for whole environments. He warns that if the spread of the spotted-thighed frog is not kept under control they could dominate many ecosystems in south-east Australia, at the expense of the local flora and fauna.
“The spotted-thighed frog is obviously very mobile. Already it’s managed to travel more than 2000 kilometres and set up a colony in Streaky Bay. But its considerable tolerance of salinity and potential ability to withstand high temperatures could lead to further geographic spread, and if not controlled, it could extend further eastward into the Murray-Darling Basin,” Assoc Prof Keppel says.
“It’s vital that we continue to protect Australia’s biodiversity. Preventing further dispersal of the spotted-thighed frog is a high conservation priority.
“The state government should consider managing the invasive population of spotted-thighed frogs at Streaky Bay. This should include education programs to inform people about what to do if they find a frog, as well as the feasibility of exterminating the population in South Australia.
“Importantly, if you do see one of these critters in your travels – leave it be. We don’t want it hitchhiking any further.”
The spotted-thighed frog is native to southwestern Australia. Credits: Christine Taylor
Press release from the University of South Australia
