True, that sentence comes with a large asterisk. It is working in states that have followed the essential design of the Affordable Care Act, particularly in Kentucky, Connecticut, Washington and California. The law was written with states' rights and state responsibilities in mind. States that created their own health care exchanges -- and especially those that did this while also expanding Medicaid coverage -- are providing health insurance to tens of thousands of happy customers, in so many cases for the first time.
Those seeking a model for how the law is supposed to operate should look to Kentucky. Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat in a red state, has embraced with evangelical fervor the cause of covering 640,000 uninsured Kentuckians. Check out the website -- yes, a website -- www.governor.ky.gov/healthierky for regular updates on how things are going there.
"We're signing up people at the rate of a thousand a day," Beshear said in a telephone interview. "It just shows the pent-up demand that's out there."
Beshear urges us to keep our eyes on the interests of those the law is intended to serve, our uninsured fellow citizens. "These 640,000 people are not some set of aliens," he says. "They're our friends and neighbors ... some of them are members of our families." As for the troubled national website, Beshear offered this: "If I could give unsolicited advice to the critics, and maybe to the media, it's: Take a deep breath."
Wise counsel. But there can be no denying the system failure that is a profound embarrassment to the Obama administration and threatens to undermine all the good the law could do, since its enemies will use any excuse to discredit it.
Much is inexplicable about how the administration blew the launch. Everyone involved knew that this is President Obama's signature achievement. Everyone knew that the repeal crowd would pounce on any difficulty, let alone a massive set of tech problems so easy to mock in an age when everyone has views as to what an online experience should be like. Everyone knew going in that this was a complicated endeavor. It is very hard to understand how the officials in charge could risk ignoring the red flags they apparently saw before the site went live.
Some explanations, however, are obvious. The federal government was not supposed to be running this many insurance exchanges. You might have expected that Republican governors who cherish the prerogatives of the states would, like Beshear, welcome the chance to prove that this free-market approach to providing insurance coverage could thrive.
Instead, bowing to tea-party obstructionism, most Republican governors took a powder. According to the Commonwealth Fund, only 16 states, plus the District of Columbia, have fully state-run marketplaces. Among the remaining 34 states, 19 are fully in the federally run marketplace, seven states have state-federal partnerships, and another seven are helping manage federally facilitated marketplaces. Utah is running a small-business marketplace, leaving individual plans to the feds.
Needless to say, the federal government wasn't ready for this staggeringly complex task. Consider that individual states didn't have to worry about any other jurisdiction's insurance laws. The feds had to deal with sometimes vast state-to-state regulatory differences. I am told that an estimated 55 contractors and subcontractors had to collaborate on different aspect of the project. Reportedly, they all claim that their part of the enterprise works fine. It's the interaction with the other pieces, they insist, that's problematic.
Let's imagine what a functioning political system would do now. First, we'd fix the site. Beshear and other governors are showing that the law can get the job done. Washington officials should look at the successful state exchanges and simplify the federal exchange as much as possible.
Second, Congress and the White House should use this breakdown as an opportunity to examine how the federal government acquires information technology. Are private contractors delivering what they're paid for?
Is the system biased in favor of certain big contractors with long-standing government relationships? The feds spend roughly $80 billion on IT systems. Are taxpayers getting their money's worth?
But it would be unconscionable to give up on the goal of expanding the ranks of the insured simply because of tech failures. "They're not going to walk away from this," Beshear said of Obama administration officials, "and we're not going to walk away from this." Thus the spirit of a country that sticks with solving a problem, even when things get hard.
DETROIT (AP) — The city of Detroit is going to court in an unusual trial that will determine if it really qualifies to scrub its finances in the largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Detroit filed for Chapter 9 protection in July, flattened by at least $18 billion in debt. But nothing can happen until a judge finds the city is eligible to be in bankruptcy court.
Unions and pension funds claim Detroit flunks the test because it failed to hold "good-faith" negotiations with them earlier this year, a key point in bankruptcy law. The city says it's met its burden.
The trial starting Wednesday is expected to last several days with testimony from emergency manager Kevyn Orr and possibly Gov. Rick Snyder, who authorized the bankruptcy filing in July.
Melissa Rycroft just can't contain her baby joy! Shortly after revealing on Good Morning America that she and husband Tye Strickland are expecting their second child together, the Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars alum took to Twitter to express her excitement over her new little son or daughter-to-be.
"Clearly excited to share our big news!!!" she tweeted, along with a close-up of herself holding a Clear Blue pregnancy test. "A new little Strickland will debut this fall!"
Melissa Rycroft shares a pregnancy test on Twitter after announcing she's expecting her second child Credit: Courtesy of Melissa Rycroft
A few hours later, she shared a picture of her whole family celebrating the news. The photo shows all three Stricklands -- her, her husband, and their daughter Ava, 2 -- wearing funny shirts related to the new baby.
Dad-to-be Tye's shirt has a picture of a stork, along with the words "Look What I Did," while Rycroft's tank reads, "Cookin' up a baby Strickland!" Little Ava, meanwhile, has on a pink top that says, "Promoted to Big Sister!" above a pair of tiny handprints.
"Thank you so much for all the sweet congrats!" Rycroft captioned the funny snapshot. "Clearly, we are very excited to meet the newest addition to the family!"
The former reality TV star, 30, was a contestant on season 13 of The Bachelor in 2009. She got engaged to Jason Mesnick on the finale but was dumped on the reunion special weeks later.
All's well that ends well, though. Rycroft later found love with Strickland, whom she married in December 2009. They welcomed daughter Ava on Feb. 16, 2011.
Early-life exposure of frogs to herbicide increases mortality from fungal disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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Contact: Vickie Chachere vchachere@usf.edu 813-974-6251 University of South Florida (USF Health)
The combination of the herbicide atrazine and a fungal disease is particularly deadly to frogs, shows new research from a University of South Florida laboratory, which has been investigating the global demise of amphibian populations.
USF Biologist Jason Rohr said the new findings show that early-life exposure to atrazine increases frog mortality but only when the frogs were challenged with a chytrid fungus, a pathogen implicated in worldwide amphibian declines. The research is published in the new edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"Understanding how stressors cause enduring health effects is important because these stressors might then be avoided or mitigated during formative developmental stages to prevent lasting increases in disease susceptibility," Rohr said.
The study was conducted by Rohr and Lynn Martin, Associate Professors of USF's Department of Integrative Biology; USF researchers Taegan McMahon and Neal Halstead; and colleagues at the University of Florida, Oakland University, and Archbold Biological Station.
Their experiments showed that a six-day exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine, one of the most common herbicides in the world, increased frog mortality 46 days after the atrazine exposure, but only when frogs were challenged with the chytrid fungus. This increase in mortality was driven by a reduction in the frogs' tolerance of the infection.
Moreover, the researchers found no evidence of recovery from the atrazine exposure and the atrazine-induced increase in disease susceptibility was independent of when the atrazine exposure occurred during tadpole development.
"These findings are important because they suggest that amphibians might need to be exposed only to atrazine briefly as larvae for atrazine to cause persistent increases in their risk of chytri-induced mortality," Rohr said. "Our findings suggest that reducing early-life exposure of amphibians to atrazine could reduce lasting increases in the risk of mortality from a disease associated with worldwide amphibian declines."
Until this study, scientists knew little about how early-life exposure to stressors affected the risk of infectious diseases for amphibians later in life.
"Identifying which, when, and how stressors cause enduring effects on disease risk could facilitate disease prevention in wildlife and humans, an approach that is often more cost-effective and efficient than reactive medicine," Rohr said.
The findings are also the latest chapter in research Rohr and his lab has conducted on the impact of atrazine on amphibians. These findings are consistent with earlier studies that concluded that, while the chemical typically does not directly kill amphibians and fish, there is consistent scientific evidence that it negatively impacts their biology by affecting their growth and immune and endocrine systems.
###
Read the full text of the research article here.
The University of South Florida is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF ranks 50th in the nation for federal expenditures in research and total expenditures in research among all U.S. universities, public or private, according to the National Science Foundation. Serving more than 47,000 students, the USF System has an annual budget of $1.5 billion and an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference.
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Early-life exposure of frogs to herbicide increases mortality from fungal disease
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Vickie Chachere vchachere@usf.edu 813-974-6251 University of South Florida (USF Health)
The combination of the herbicide atrazine and a fungal disease is particularly deadly to frogs, shows new research from a University of South Florida laboratory, which has been investigating the global demise of amphibian populations.
USF Biologist Jason Rohr said the new findings show that early-life exposure to atrazine increases frog mortality but only when the frogs were challenged with a chytrid fungus, a pathogen implicated in worldwide amphibian declines. The research is published in the new edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"Understanding how stressors cause enduring health effects is important because these stressors might then be avoided or mitigated during formative developmental stages to prevent lasting increases in disease susceptibility," Rohr said.
The study was conducted by Rohr and Lynn Martin, Associate Professors of USF's Department of Integrative Biology; USF researchers Taegan McMahon and Neal Halstead; and colleagues at the University of Florida, Oakland University, and Archbold Biological Station.
Their experiments showed that a six-day exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine, one of the most common herbicides in the world, increased frog mortality 46 days after the atrazine exposure, but only when frogs were challenged with the chytrid fungus. This increase in mortality was driven by a reduction in the frogs' tolerance of the infection.
Moreover, the researchers found no evidence of recovery from the atrazine exposure and the atrazine-induced increase in disease susceptibility was independent of when the atrazine exposure occurred during tadpole development.
"These findings are important because they suggest that amphibians might need to be exposed only to atrazine briefly as larvae for atrazine to cause persistent increases in their risk of chytri-induced mortality," Rohr said. "Our findings suggest that reducing early-life exposure of amphibians to atrazine could reduce lasting increases in the risk of mortality from a disease associated with worldwide amphibian declines."
Until this study, scientists knew little about how early-life exposure to stressors affected the risk of infectious diseases for amphibians later in life.
"Identifying which, when, and how stressors cause enduring effects on disease risk could facilitate disease prevention in wildlife and humans, an approach that is often more cost-effective and efficient than reactive medicine," Rohr said.
The findings are also the latest chapter in research Rohr and his lab has conducted on the impact of atrazine on amphibians. These findings are consistent with earlier studies that concluded that, while the chemical typically does not directly kill amphibians and fish, there is consistent scientific evidence that it negatively impacts their biology by affecting their growth and immune and endocrine systems.
###
Read the full text of the research article here.
The University of South Florida is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF ranks 50th in the nation for federal expenditures in research and total expenditures in research among all U.S. universities, public or private, according to the National Science Foundation. Serving more than 47,000 students, the USF System has an annual budget of $1.5 billion and an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference.
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Share
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the year looks busy for Carrie Underwood, and she couldn't be happier.
The six-time Grammy-winning singer will host the Country Music Association Awards for the sixth time. You can see her singing the opening on NBC's "Sunday Night Football." And for one night in December, she'll star in a live television version of "The Sound of Music."
The 30-year-old star told the Associated Press on the red carpet Tuesday night at the TJ Martell Foundation gala, where she was one of the night's honorees, that she is nervous doing something she's never done before. But then she realized, "None of us have. This is a live show on TV. So this is definitely a challenge for all of us."
She said the live singing and acting was like "going to a Broadway show, but you're in your living room."
"The Sound of Music" airs Dec. 5 on NBC with Underwood playing Maria alongside "True Blood" vampire Stephen Moyer. He portrays Captain von Trapp. Broadway veterans — and Tony winners — Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle round out the cast as Mother Abbess, Elsa and Max.
While the Nashville, Tenn.-based Underwood is no stranger to performing before millions of people on live television — she won the fourth season of "American Idol" — she felt she needed more preparation, so she showed up in New York three weeks early.
"I wanted to be here and have all my lines memorized and everything and be ready for it. It's been really wonderful," Underwood said. "Audra and Laura are incredible. Stephen's great. It's nice to be surrounded by that much talent."
Before doing that show, the multiplatinum-selling artist returns to her hosting duties on the CMAs. She's nominated for three awards, including album of the year and song of the year. While she and co-host Brad Paisley have it down to a science, she doesn't see the experience as old hat.
"You never know what's going to happen with us hosting," Underwood joked.
She added: "I think being nominated — especially when hosting the CMAs — you just never know."
The CMAs take place Nov. 6 in Nashville.
Underwood also spoke about recording the opening number this season for "Sunday Night Football." She claims doing it was a no-brainer.
"It's a lot of fun. I grew up watching football. I'm from Oklahoma, it's what we do," she said with a big smile.
The conversation then turned to hockey and her husband Mike Fisher's team, the Nashville Predators.
"They got off to a little bit of rocky start, but definitely getting some momentum. I feel like my husband right now. I know what he feels like now. I feel there's some really great, new young talent," Underwood said.
And what about the team's star center?
"My hubby, he's been out for the past couple of games with a foot fracture thing. But he'll be back on the ice, ASAP. I hope he does, because that's the only way I get to see him, other than iChat."
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Follow John Carucci at —http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci
WASHINGTON (AP) — So how do U.S. eighth-graders do in math and science when compared to their peers around the globe? Turns out it matters which state they live in, according to a study being released Thursday.
Massachusetts was the top performing state, but it still lagged behind some Asian countries in terms of its students' overall score on exams and the number of high achievers.
Mississippi, Alabama and the District of Columbia students scored below the international average on both exams, meaning their scores were on par with Kazakhstan and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
West Virginia, Oklahoma and Tennessee students scored below the international average in math.
Jack Buckley, commissioner of the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, which released the study, called the results a "good-news, bad-news scenario" that probably will bolster both those who say the U.S. is doing fine in global competitiveness as well as those on the other side.
Overall, a majority of states performed above the international average in both subjects.
"Our states really are scattered across the performance levels," Buckley said in a conference call with reporters.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement that the study provides "powerful confirmation that demography need not be destiny when it comes to school performance — state policies matter too."
The study compared every state, the District of Columbia and Defense Department schools against 38 countries and nine additional subnational education systems. Some countries, including China, India, France and Germany, did not participate.
Researchers took eighth-grade test results in math and science from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to predict performance on the international comparative study test known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Nine states participated directly in TIMSS.
NAEP includes the scores of students tested with accommodations; TIMSS does not. Buckley said statistical modeling was used to account for that difference.
South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan were the top scorers in math followed by Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Hampshire.
In science, Massachusetts was behind the top scorer, Singapore. Taiwan was next, followed by Vermont. The top 10 also included South Korea and Japan — and New Hampshire, North Dakota, Maine and Minnesota.
Mark Schneider, vice president at the American Institutes for Research and a former commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics, said one of the most disturbing results from the study is the low numbers of "advanced" achievers in the United States compared with other countries.
Even in high-scoring Massachusetts, where 19 percent of students reached the "advanced benchmark" in math and 24 reached it in science, there were fewer higher achievers than in some other countries. About half the students in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore reached the high benchmark in math and 40 percent of students in Singapore did so.
On the other end, for example, Alabama had a lower percent of "advanced" achievers in math than Romania and Turkey — two countries it overall scored higher than.
"In a world in which we need the best, it's pretty clear many states are empty on the best," Schneider said.
Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said one thing that's hidden in the results of this study is that even in high-achieving states, there are low performers who need to be brought up from the bottom.
"If we as Americans want to get all of our kids achieving at the highest level, in terms of worldwide academic achievement, we have a lot of work and it's not just the low scoring states where it's obvious," Loveless said.
The scores were ranked on a scale of 1,000.
In math, the average state scores ranged from 561 for Massachusetts to 466 for Alabama.
In science, the average state scores ranged from 567 for Massachusetts to 453 for the District of Columbia.
Like it or not, email is still central to the vast majority of workplace communications, so we suppose it was only a matter of time before professional network LinkedIn integrated into your inbox. That time is now. LinkedIn Intro is a new service that brings folks' LinkedIn info accessible directly ...
Everybody knows that this year's NSA revelations are a big deal. The whole debacle's already prompted the president to order reforms and internet companies to fight back. Activists want to push the outrage further. They want us to believe that this scandal is as bad as Watergate.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Warm air at high altitudes this September and October helped shrink the man-made ozone hole near the South Pole ever so slightly, scientists say.
The hole is an area in the atmosphere with low ozone concentrations. It is normally is at its biggest this time of year. NASA says on average it covered 8.1 million square miles this season. That's 6 percent smaller than the average since 1990.
The ozone hole is of concern because high-altitude ozone shields Earth from ultraviolet radiation.
NASA chief atmospheric scientist Paul A. Newman says the main reason for this year's result is local weather. The upper air has been almost 2 degrees warmer than normal in the globe's southernmost region. That has led to fewer polar stratospheric clouds. These clouds are where chlorine and bromine, which come from man-made products, nibble away at ozone.
"It's just like watching the Pac-Man eating cookies, where cookies are ozone. The chlorine atoms are the Pac-Man," Newman said.
James Butler, director of the global monitoring division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Lab, said Wednesday that the new figures are "sort of encouraging news."
"It's not getting worse," Butler said. "That's a good sign."
Butler said it stopped getting worse around the late 1990s. But he added, "We can't say yet that it's a recovery."
Newman and Butler said they can't tell if the ozone hole changes are related to man-made global warming.
While warm upper air helped keep the ozone hole small, the surface of the Southern Hemisphere was also warm last month, with the second-highest average temperature on record for September, NOAA announced Wednesday. Records go back to 1880.
For the entire globe, last month tied 2003 for the fourth hottest September on record, with an average temperature 1.15 degrees higher than the average for the 20th century. September was the 343rd consecutive month that global temperatures have been higher than 20th century average.
This year, after nine months, is on track to be the sixth warmest on record globally, 1.22 degrees hotter than normal.
For the United States, this was the sixth warmest September on record, 2.5 degrees higher than the 20th century average. It was the hottest since 2005. But the nation's average temperature over the first nine months of the year is only the 28th highest on record.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, opens coalition talks with representatives of the Social Democrats in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. Merkel on Wednesday launched coalition negotiations with the main opposition Social Democrats, SPD, that are likely to set the stage for weeks of hard bargaining to form a new government. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, opens coalition talks with representatives of the Social Democrats in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. Merkel on Wednesday launched coalition negotiations with the main opposition Social Democrats, SPD, that are likely to set the stage for weeks of hard bargaining to form a new government. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. allies knew that the Americans were spying on them, but they had no idea how much.
As details of National Security Agency spying programs have become public through former contractor Edward Snowden, citizens, activists and politicians in countries from Latin America to Europe have lined up to express shock and outrage at the scope of what Washington may know about them.
But politicians are also using the threat to their citizens' privacy to drum up their numbers at the polls — or to distract attention from their own domestic problems. Some have even downplayed the matter to keep good relations with Washington.
After a Paris newspaper reported the NSA had swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, the French government called the U.S. ambassador in for an explanation and put the issue of personal data protection on the agenda of the European Union summit that opens Thursday.
But the official French position —that friendly nations should not spy on each another — can't be taken literally, a former French foreign minister says.
"The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous. And it's a bit of a game to discover the eavesdropping among intelligence services, even though the services — especially the Americans and the French — work together quite efficiently."
The French government, which until this week had been largely silent in the face of widespread U.S. snooping on its territory, may have had other reasons to speak out. The furor over the NSA managed to draw media attention away from France's controversial expulsion of a Roma family at a time when French President Francois Hollande's popularity is at a historic low. Just 23 percent of French approve of the job he is doing, according to a poll released last weekend.
In Germany, opposition politicians, the media and privacy activists have been vocal in their outrage over reported widescale U.S. eavesdropping — but not Chancellor Angela Merkel. She has worked hard to contain the damage to U.S.-German relations and refrained from saying anything bad about the Americans.
The German leader has expressed surprise at the scope of U.S. data collection efforts but also said her country was "dependent" on cooperation with the American spy agencies. It was thanks to "tips from American sources," she said, that security services were able to foil an Islamic terror plot in 2007 that targeted U.S. soldiers and citizens in Germany with an explosive equivalent to 900 pounds of TNT.
Still, to fend off criticism by the opposition and the media, Merkel raised the electronic eavesdropping issue when President Barack Obama visited Germany in June, demanded answers from the U.S. government, and backed calls for greater data protection at a European level.
Few countries have responded as angrily to U.S. spying than Brazil. President Dilma Rousseff took the extremely rare diplomatic step of canceling a visit to Washington where she had been scheduled to receive a full state dinner this week.
Analysts say the anger is genuine, though also politically profitable for Rousseff, who faces an increasingly competitive re-election campaign next year. Her strong stance against the United States can only help her standing with the more left-wing elements of her ruling Workers Party.
David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia, said since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., it was "well known by Brazilian governments" that the Americans had stepped up spying efforts.
"But what the government did not know was that Dilma's office had been hacked as well, and this is what caused the outrage," Fleischer said.
Information the NSA collected in Mexico appears to have largely focused on drug fighting policies or government personnel trends. But the U.S. agency also allegedly spied on the emails of two Mexican presidents, Enrique Pena Nieto, the incumbent, and Felipe Calderon, the former head of state.
The Mexican government has reacted cautiously to those revelations, calling the targeting of the presidents "unacceptable" and "illegitimate" yet its statements haven't been accompanied by any real action. Pena Nieto has demanded an investigation but hasn't cancelled any visits or contacts, a strategy that Mexico's opposition and some analysts see as weak and submissive.
"Other countries, like Brazil, have had responses that are much more resounding than our country," said Sen. Gabriela Cuevas of Mexico's conservative National Action Party.
In part, this is because of Mexico's much-closer economic and political ties to the United States, which the Mexican government apparently does not want to endanger.
"It is true that we depend a lot more on the United States; Brazil is further away," Mexican columnist Guadalupe Loaeza wrote Tuesday.
Beyond politics, the NSA espionage has been greeted with relative equanimity in Mexico, whose people are long used to the government's extremely close intelligence cooperation with the United States in the war against the drug cartels.
"The country we should really be spying on now is New Zealand, to see if we can get enough information so the national team can win a qualifying berth at the World Cup," Loaeza wrote, referring to the Nov. 13 game between the two rivals.
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Hinnant reported from Paris. AP writers Frank Jordans in Berlin, Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City also contributed.
No one likes a price hike, especially mid-contract. Neither does UK regulator Ofcom it seems, which is setting out new policy clarification for mobile, broadband and landline suppliers. The guidance is to prevent different "interpretations" of existing policy, and will ensure customers can leave ...
Though David Beckham has officially retired from soccer, it seems like his daughter, Harper Beckham, is looking to fill his famous cleats. The 2-year-old tot took to the soccer field on Oct. 19 in Los Angeles for her first training as David, 38, and wife Victoria Beckham, 39, cheered her on from the sidelines.
Harper's brothers, Brooklyn, 14, Romeo, 10, and Cruz, 8, also attended the camp and supported their little sis from close by.
Fashion icon Victoria Beckham shocked many by wearing a casual T-shirt and jeans for a day at the field, and traded her signature stoic pose for a grin when Harper ran over to the sidelines for a hug.
Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Council of Europe, speaks to The Associated Press in an interview at the start of his two-day visit to Athens, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Greek lawmakers are to vote late Tuesday on a proposal to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Council of Europe, speaks to The Associated Press in an interview at the start of his two-day visit to Athens, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Greek lawmakers are to vote late Tuesday on a proposal to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Pedestrians walk past graffiti that reads "crush the fascists" in Athens' Syntagma square on Friday Oct. 11, 2013. Anti-fascist messages in public spaces around Athens increased after lawmakers and members of the extreme right party Golden Dawn were jailed pending trial on charges of running a criminal organization following the slaying of a left-wing rapper last month. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek lawmakers voted late Tuesday to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group.
The proposal was backed by the conservative-led governing coalition, the main opposition and a small leftwing party — and was voted 235-0 in the 300 seat assembly.
It allows an indefinite funding freeze for parties whose leadership is charged with involvement in a criminal group, or terrorism.
Golden Dawn is under a criminal investigation sparked by last month's fatal stabbing of a Greek rap singer, an attack blamed on a party volunteer. Its leader and two lawmakers have been jailed in pre-trial custody as alleged members of a criminal organization, and another six lawmakers have been stripped of immunity from prosecution to face similar charges.
None of the party leadership has been charged with any direct connection to the killing.
Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights agency, praised the crackdown, but said care must be taken to ensure fair trials.
"I would like to commend the Greek government for having taken action immediately, and very strong action. I think it's very important to differentiate between political work and criminal acts," Jagland told The Associated Press in an interview at the start of a two-day visit to Athens to discuss combating extremism and hate speech.
Golden Dawn says the prosecution of its members is politically motivated.
The fatal stabbing last month led to increasing calls for the party to be banned outright. But Jagland cautioned that could backfire, with similar cases elsewhere in Europe leading to parties re-emerging under different names, or going underground where they are harder to monitor and regulate.
"What is very important is to go after people that are doing crimes, and not mixing up that with politics," said Jagland, who also heads the committee which awards the Nobel Peace Prize.
He didn't comment directly on the party funding bill, saying this was "up to the Greek government," but noted that such a move would not contravene European human rights laws.
"It is actually in most European countries unlawful to do hate speech, incitement to violence, open racism and also denial of the Holocaust," he said.
During a meeting with Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias, the Council of Europe head also offered the support of the organization's legal experts in seeking ways to deal with the Golden Dawn issue.
Jagland was also to meet Wednesday with Greece's prime minister and the ministers for justice and foreign affairs.
Formerly a fringe party, Golden Dawn's popularity soared in recent years as the country sank into a financial depression and unemployment spiraled. Running on an anti-immigrant campaign, it won 18 seats in Parliament and nearly 7 percent of the vote in 2012 elections.
Party members and supporters have long been blamed for violent attacks, mostly against dark-skinned immigrants but also against left-wing political opponents and gays. Golden Dawn denies any involvement.
"This legal amendment belongs in the trash — it's illegal and unconstitutional," Golden Dawn spokesman and parliament member Ilias Kasidiaris said before the vote.
"They have made this attack on us based on false testimony ... We are the only political party that doesn't play ball with the corrupt system. That is why they are after us."
____
Associated Press writer Nicholas Paphitis and Derek Gatopoulos contributed.
Holocaust survivor George Horner, front left, performs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, top, on stage at Symphony Hall Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist made his orchestral debut with Ma, where they played music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi concentration camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Holocaust survivor George Horner, front left, performs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, top, on stage at Symphony Hall Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist made his orchestral debut with Ma, where they played music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi concentration camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, right, greets Holocaust survivor George Horner in a rehearsal room at Symphony Hall Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist will make his orchestral debut with Ma Tuesday night, where they will play music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi prison camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, left, and Holocaust survivor George Horner, right, hold flowers as they bow after performing together on stage at Symphony Hall Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist made his orchestral debut with Ma, where they played music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi concentration camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, left, rehearses with Holocaust survivor George Horner at Symphony Hall Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist will make his orchestral debut with Ma Tuesday night, where they will play music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi prison camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, right, greets Holocaust survivor George Horner in a rehearsal room at Symphony Hall Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 22, 2013, in Boston. The 90-year-old pianist will make his orchestral debut with Ma Tuesday night, where they will play music composed 70 years ago at the Nazi prison camp where Horner was imprisoned. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
BOSTON (AP) — A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor made his orchestral debut with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Tuesday to benefit a foundation dedicated to preserving the work of artists and musicians killed by the Nazis.
Ma and George Horner received floral bouquets and a standing ovation from their audience of about 1,000 people in Boston's Symphony Hall. They appeared to enjoy their evening, chatting briefly between numbers and walking off the stage hand-in-hand after taking a bow together.
Before the performance, Ma and Horner met and embraced ahead of a brief rehearsal. Ma thanked Horner for helping the Terezin Music Foundation, named for the town of Terezin, site of an unusual Jewish ghetto in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Even amid death and hard labor, Nazi soldiers there allowed prisoners to stage performances.
They played music composed 70 years ago when Horner was incarcerated.
"It's an extraordinary link to the past," said concert organizer Mark Ludwig, who leads the foundation.
Horner played piano and accordion in the Terezin cabarets, including tunes written by fellow inmate Karel Svenk. On Tuesday, Horner played two of Svenk's works solo — a march and a lullaby — and then teamed up with Ma for a third piece called "How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?"
Svenk did not survive the genocide. But his musical legacy has, due in part to a chance meeting of Ludwig, a scholar of Terezin composers, and Horner, who never forgot the songs that were written and played in captivity.
Still, Ludwig found it hard to ask Horner to perform pieces laden with such difficult memories.
"To ask somebody who ... played this in the camps, that's asking a lot," said Ludwig.
Yet Horner, a retired doctor who lives near Philadelphia, readily agreed to what he described as a "noble" mission. It didn't hurt that he would be sharing the stage with Ma — even if he thought Ludwig was joking at first.
"I told him, 'Do you want me to swallow that one?'" Horner recalled with a laugh. "I couldn't believe it because it's a fantastic thing for me."
Ma said before the performance that he hoped it will inspire people to a better future.
"I grew up with the words, 'never again,'" said Ma, who was born 10 years after the end of World War II revealed the scope of the Holocaust. "It is kind of inconceivable that there are people who say the Holocaust didn't exist. George Horner is a living contradiction of what those people are saying."
He said Horner was able to survive "because he had music, because he had friends, because the power of music could fill in the empty spaces."
"To me George Horner is a huge hero, and is a huge inspiration," Ma said. "He is a witness to a window, and to a slice of history, that we never want to see again, and yet we keep seeing versions of that all over the world. I hope we are inspired by that and we keep that memory forever."
Horner was 21 when he was freed by Allied soldiers in 1945 after being imprisoned at Terezin, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His parents and sister perished in the camps.
And though his back still bears the scars of a Nazi beating, he remains spry and seems much younger than his 90 years.
When Horner found out about the duet with Ma, Ludwig said, "He was so excited, to me he sounded like a teenager."
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson contributed to this report from Newtown Square, Pa.
Leonardo Santos won the second season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) in Brazil, and now he wants revenge.
The Nova Uniao fighter will drop to the lightweight division after his third-round submission victory over welterweight William Macario at TUF: Brazil 2 finale on June 8 in Fortaleza, Brazil, and he's eyeing a rematch with former Pride lightweight champion Takanori Gomi.
Santos, one of the best lightweight fighters in the history of jiu-jitsu, made his MMA debut in 2002 when he accepted to take on Gomi on short notice. Gomi, who was the current Shooto world welterweight champion at that time, won the bout via majority decision.
"I’m not one of those guys that talks trash and calls out fighters in the media," Santos told the fans during a Q&A in Rio de Janeiro last Saturday. "I’m an employee in the UFC and I will fight whoever they tell me to, but I like the idea of making my UFC debut against Gomi. It was really hard to make my MMA debut in Japan and it would be interesting to see this fight in Brazil. I would grow a lot with the fans supporting me to get another win in my debut."
Santos returned to jiu-jitsu competition right after hiss loss to Gomi, winning three more world titles and submitting Georges St-Pierre with a flying armbar at ADCC 2005. The Nova Uniao product only returned to MMA in 2006, and has won 12 of his 14 bouts since, with nine stoppages.
Santos made into the TUF: Brazil 2 house with a win over Luciano Contini. During the show, he defeated Juliano Wandalen and Thiago Santos via decision, but lost to Santiago Ponzinibbio in the semifinal. However, Ponzinibio broke his hand and was forced out of the final. At UFC on Fuel TV 10, Santos replaced Ponzinibbio and won the title with his submission win over Macario.
"Since we got to the TUF house until the finale, I had six months of full training and stress," he said. "After that I recovered my injuries and helped my training partners. Now I’m back to the hard training to debut in the first semester of 2014 in the lightweight division. I’ll start my camp in Canada and will finish it here at Nova Uniao. I want to show that I won’t stop after TUF and I can also win in the UFC."
"The Fireball Kid" hasn’t fought since his split decision loss to Diego Sanchez last March in Japan. The loss snapped Gomi’s two-fight win streak, with victories over Mac Danzig and Eiji Mitsuoka, and dropped his UFC record do 3-4.
Istanbul (AFP) - Serena Williams crushed one of the few women to have beaten her in the last 15 months as she began her defence of the WTA Championships in Istanbul with a speedily impressive win on Tuesday.
The world number one from the United States took little more than an hour and allowed only four games to Angelique Kerber, who beat her in Cincinnati last year but who was now outplayed almost from the moment she dropped serve in her opening service game.
As usual it was Williams' superbly produced serve and withering power off the ground which overwhelmed her opponent, and the 6-3, 6-1 success suggested she is as far ahead of the field as she has ever been.
Only briefly, when Kerber earned a break back point in the third game, did the German have a glimpse of getting back into it, and Williams soon denied her that with fierce straight drives on the backhand and the forehand.
Williams' composure was oceanic, and possibly disconcerting. "Tennis is tranquil for me to get out there," she said before the match. "It helps me relax and it makes me calm because I don't have to worry about all the other stuff going on."
That apparently referred to business affairs which will presumably take a back seat while she chases the record of Grand Slam titles during 2014.
Her main rival, Victoria Azarenka, looked care-worn and uncertain by comparison. She was far from consistent and might easily have lost the first set in a 7-6 (7/4) survival against Sara Errani, the sixth seeded Italian.
The world number two from Belarussia found it hard to force the pace on the slowish surface, lost three of her first four service games, and trailed 2-5.
It confirmed the impression given by her disappointing performances in Beijing and Tokyo that she has not been in the best of health, but she improved after squeezing through the first set tie-break.
"I was a little rusty at the beginning. I think it's a little bit expected after a break, and, you know, playing right away against a top player always makes it a little bit difficult because you don't have that room, adaptation. So I had to make that adaptation kind of during the match.
"But I think, you know, overall was important to take that first set. It was a big turnaround point and to stay in the moment, to really just try to find a way how to, you know, how to win points, how to win games," she said.
She was helped by Errani, whose ground strokes had been well-controlled and disguised for the first half of the match, beginning to lose some rhythm and confidence.
That was partly due to Azarenka improving her length whilst retaining her weight of shot, and from the third game onwards in the second set she at last got on top.
However she may need to improve if she is to win a group which includes Li Na, the Chinese player whom she only narrowly beat in the final of the Australian Open at the start of the year.
Microsoft officially launched its Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets on Tuesday morning, stealing a few hours of the spotlight before Apple is expected to announce refreshed versions of the iPad later on Tuesday.
Microsoft kicked off with midnight launch parties at several Microsoft Stores, where customers could win several "challenges" and win a chance to be flown to Florida for a special Pitbull concert. Photos from the Westchester, N.Y. launch and the Dadeland Mall in Miami indicate that at least a few people showed up.
The Microsoft Surface 2 costs $449, and will be available in 32GB and 64GB configurations. Surface Pro 2 will come in 64GB and 128GB configurations with 4GB of RAM as well as 256GB and 512GB configurations with 8GB of RAM, with prices starting at $899. Some of the orders for the higher-end Surface Pro 2 options have been pushed back until December, although Microsoft has said that it may have some in stock at physical stores.
The thinner, backlit Touch Cover will cost $120, while the new Type Cover will sell for $130.
Over time, Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 could end up being the face of modular computing, with a docking station and so-called Power Cover debuting next year. But Microsoft has had to weather the embarrassment of writing down its first-generation Surface tablets to the tune of over $900 million, as demand for the pricey tablets fizzled. Microsoft then instituted a series of discounts to try to move its inventory, with limited success.
Same song, different verse
Unfortunately, early reviews of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 were middling. As with the first generation, the Surface hardware was almost uniformly praised, with reviewers generally panning the lack of Windows RT/Surface 2 apps within the Microsoft Store. PCWorld conducted its own hands-on of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablet. Look for our own review within the next few days.
Below is a sampling of the Web's Surface reviews:
Engadget: Surface 2 review score: none. Engadget praised the tablet's battery life from going from "impressively long to ridiculously long" but noted the discrepancy between its emphasis on productivity and the lack of available apps. Although a "top-notch" product, "recommending the Surface becomes harder when there are other Windows tablets that cost less and run full Windows".
Surface Pro 2 review score: none. "When it came time to hand down a verdict on the first Surface Pro, we ultimately decided that, nice as it was, it felt compromised as both a laptop and a tablet," the site concluded. Buy a convertible ultrabook instead, the site recommended.
The Verge: Surface 2 review score: 7.1 out of 10. The Verge concluded that the Surface 2 marginally improves on the existing hardware, but was unimpressed by the battery life and the lack of available applications.
Surface Pro 2 review score: 7.8 out of 10. Again, too much was left unchanged from the previous generation, The Verge found, with not enough redemption from within the upgraded hardware.
High school student discovers skeleton of baby dinosaur
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
22-Oct-2013
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Contact: Andrew Farke, Ph.D. afarke@webb.org 909-229-1563 Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology
Claremont, CA A chance find by a high school student led to the youngest, smallest and most complete fossil skeleton yet known from the iconic tube-crested dinosaur Parasaurolophus. The discovery, announced today by the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools, shows that the prehistoric plant-eater sprouted its strange headgear before it celebrated its first birthday. Three-dimensional scans of nearly the entire fossil are freely available online, making this the most digitally-accessible dinosaur to date.
The fossil skeleton was discovered in 2009 by high school student Kevin Terris, within Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Incredibly, the specimen was missed by two professional paleontologists, who walked within several feet of the exposed bones days prior to the discovery. "At first I was interested in seeing what the initial piece of bone sticking out of the rock was," commented Terris. "When we exposed the skull, I was ecstatic!" Excavation and subsequent cleaning of the fossil, nicknamed "Joe" after a long-time supporter of the Alf Museum whose family funded preparation of the fossil, revealed nearly the entire skeleton of a baby dinosaur measuring only six feet long when it died.
Detailed study of the skeleton of "Joe" identified it as the most complete specimen yet known for Parasaurolophus (pronounced PAIR-uh-SORE-AH-luf-us), a duck-billed (hadrosaurid) dinosaur that lived throughout western North America around 75 million years ago. The herbivore is notable for a long and hollow bony tube on the top of its skull, which scientists speculate was used like a trumpet to blast sound for communication, as well as a billboard for visual display. Although partial skulls and skeletons of full-grown Parasaurolophus have been known for over 90 years, scientists previously knew little about how Parasaurolophus grew up.
Intriguingly, the new fossil shows that baby Parasaurolophus had a low bump on top of its head, which only later morphed into the curved tube of adults. "Our baby Parasaurolophus is barely one-quarter of adult size, but it had already started growing its crest," stated lead project scientist Andrew Farke, who is Augustyn Family Curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. "This is surprising, because related dinosaurs didn't sprout their ornamentation until they were at least half-grown. Parasaurolophus had to get an early start in order to form its unique headgear."
A sample of bone from the leg helped estimate the animal's age at death. "Dinosaurs have yearly growth rings in their bone tissue, like trees. But we didn't see even one ring. That means it grew to a quarter of adult size in less than a year," commented co-author Sarah Werning of Stony Brook University. Although "Joe" was only six feet long and a year old, it would have grown to 25 feet in length as an adult.
The fossil skeleton has yielded a world of previously unknown information about Parasaurolophus and its relatives. Medical scans documented the internal anatomy of the animal's skull, allowing a reconstruction of its vocal capabilities. "If adult Parasaurolophus had 'woofers,' the babies had 'tweeters.' The short and small crest of baby 'Joe' shows that it may have had a much higher pitch to its call than did adults," stated Andrew Farke. "Along with the visual differences, this might have helped animals living in the same area to figure out who was the big boss."
Because of the broad importance of the fossil, researchers have made 3D digital scans of the entire fossil freely available on-line (links via http://www.dinosaurjoe.com). Although portions of other dinosaur fossils have been scanned and distributed in this way before, this the first time that virtually an entire skeleton has been posted. This will allow scientists and the public alike unparalleled access to this fossil.
The study describing the new fossil was published today in the open access scientific journal PeerJ (meaning that anyone can read and download the article for free, and without restrictions). Additionally, the specimen is now on exhibit at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California. Researchers who co-authored the study include Andrew Farke (Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont, California), Sarah Werning (University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, and Stony Brook University, New York), and high school students Derek Chok, Annisa Herrero, and Brandon Scolieri (The Webb Schools, Claremont, California). The fossil was collected under a permit from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Bureau of Land Management, Utah.
DISCOVERY BRIEF:
The fossil, nicknamed "Joe", was found by a high school student in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.
"Joe" is a baby Parasaurolophus, the most complete skeleton yet known from this herbivorous tube-crested dinosaur that lived 75 million years ago.
"Joe" was less than six feet long and under a year old when it died, and would have grown to an adult measuring nearly 25 feet long.
"Joe" shows that Parasaurolophus formed its unusual headgear by expanding some of its skull bones earlier and for a longer period of time than its close relatives.
The skeleton of "Joe" is the most complete digitally-accessible dinosaur to date, with 3D models and scans of virtually every aspect of its anatomy freely available for download.
High school students were involved in the collection, study, and publication of this rare find, through the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools in Claremont, California.
###
The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology is the only nationally accredited museum located on a secondary school campusThe Webb Schools. The vision for the museum was born on a camping trip in 1936 led by the late Raymond Alf, a Webb biology teacher with a penchant for searching for fossils. Today the museum holds over 140,000 specimens, with exhibits divided into the "Hall of Life," which traces the history of earth from the first cells through human civilization, and the "Hall of Footprints," which holds the most diverse display of fossilized animal tracks in the United States. Donald Lofgren is Director of the Alf Museum.
The Webb Schools is a unique boarding and day secondary school located in Claremont, California. It began in 1922 with the founding of Webb School of California for boys. In 1981, Vivian Webb School for girls was established, instituting the schools' special coordinate, two-schools-on-one-campus structure. Webb is well known for the success of its alumni across many fields of endeavor, as well as for its rigorous academic program, devotion to discovery learning and unbounded thinking, and for consistently producing a placement record to colleges and universities with few rivals. Taylor Stockdale is Head of Schools.
Media Contact:
Andrew Farke, Ph.D.
Augustyn Family Curator of Paleontology
Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology
at The Webb Schools
1175 West Baseline Road
Claremont, CA 91711
Phone: 1-909-482-5244 (office)
1-909-229-1563 (cell)
Email: afarke@webb.org
Additional Media Contact:
Vivian Pradetto
Marketing Coordinator
The Webb Schools
1175 West Baseline Road
Claremont, CA 91711
Phone: 1-909-482-5230 (office)
1-951-313-0577 (cell)
Email: vpradetto@webb.org
Citation:
Farke, A. A., D. J. Chok, A. Herrero, B. Scolieri, and S. Werning. 2013. Ontogeny in the tube-crested dinosaur Parasaurolophus (Hadrosauridae) and heterochrony in hadrosaurids. PeerJ 1:e182. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.182
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High school student discovers skeleton of baby dinosaur
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
22-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Andrew Farke, Ph.D. afarke@webb.org 909-229-1563 Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology
Claremont, CA A chance find by a high school student led to the youngest, smallest and most complete fossil skeleton yet known from the iconic tube-crested dinosaur Parasaurolophus. The discovery, announced today by the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools, shows that the prehistoric plant-eater sprouted its strange headgear before it celebrated its first birthday. Three-dimensional scans of nearly the entire fossil are freely available online, making this the most digitally-accessible dinosaur to date.
The fossil skeleton was discovered in 2009 by high school student Kevin Terris, within Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Incredibly, the specimen was missed by two professional paleontologists, who walked within several feet of the exposed bones days prior to the discovery. "At first I was interested in seeing what the initial piece of bone sticking out of the rock was," commented Terris. "When we exposed the skull, I was ecstatic!" Excavation and subsequent cleaning of the fossil, nicknamed "Joe" after a long-time supporter of the Alf Museum whose family funded preparation of the fossil, revealed nearly the entire skeleton of a baby dinosaur measuring only six feet long when it died.
Detailed study of the skeleton of "Joe" identified it as the most complete specimen yet known for Parasaurolophus (pronounced PAIR-uh-SORE-AH-luf-us), a duck-billed (hadrosaurid) dinosaur that lived throughout western North America around 75 million years ago. The herbivore is notable for a long and hollow bony tube on the top of its skull, which scientists speculate was used like a trumpet to blast sound for communication, as well as a billboard for visual display. Although partial skulls and skeletons of full-grown Parasaurolophus have been known for over 90 years, scientists previously knew little about how Parasaurolophus grew up.
Intriguingly, the new fossil shows that baby Parasaurolophus had a low bump on top of its head, which only later morphed into the curved tube of adults. "Our baby Parasaurolophus is barely one-quarter of adult size, but it had already started growing its crest," stated lead project scientist Andrew Farke, who is Augustyn Family Curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. "This is surprising, because related dinosaurs didn't sprout their ornamentation until they were at least half-grown. Parasaurolophus had to get an early start in order to form its unique headgear."
A sample of bone from the leg helped estimate the animal's age at death. "Dinosaurs have yearly growth rings in their bone tissue, like trees. But we didn't see even one ring. That means it grew to a quarter of adult size in less than a year," commented co-author Sarah Werning of Stony Brook University. Although "Joe" was only six feet long and a year old, it would have grown to 25 feet in length as an adult.
The fossil skeleton has yielded a world of previously unknown information about Parasaurolophus and its relatives. Medical scans documented the internal anatomy of the animal's skull, allowing a reconstruction of its vocal capabilities. "If adult Parasaurolophus had 'woofers,' the babies had 'tweeters.' The short and small crest of baby 'Joe' shows that it may have had a much higher pitch to its call than did adults," stated Andrew Farke. "Along with the visual differences, this might have helped animals living in the same area to figure out who was the big boss."
Because of the broad importance of the fossil, researchers have made 3D digital scans of the entire fossil freely available on-line (links via http://www.dinosaurjoe.com). Although portions of other dinosaur fossils have been scanned and distributed in this way before, this the first time that virtually an entire skeleton has been posted. This will allow scientists and the public alike unparalleled access to this fossil.
The study describing the new fossil was published today in the open access scientific journal PeerJ (meaning that anyone can read and download the article for free, and without restrictions). Additionally, the specimen is now on exhibit at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California. Researchers who co-authored the study include Andrew Farke (Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont, California), Sarah Werning (University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, and Stony Brook University, New York), and high school students Derek Chok, Annisa Herrero, and Brandon Scolieri (The Webb Schools, Claremont, California). The fossil was collected under a permit from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Bureau of Land Management, Utah.
DISCOVERY BRIEF:
The fossil, nicknamed "Joe", was found by a high school student in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.
"Joe" is a baby Parasaurolophus, the most complete skeleton yet known from this herbivorous tube-crested dinosaur that lived 75 million years ago.
"Joe" was less than six feet long and under a year old when it died, and would have grown to an adult measuring nearly 25 feet long.
"Joe" shows that Parasaurolophus formed its unusual headgear by expanding some of its skull bones earlier and for a longer period of time than its close relatives.
The skeleton of "Joe" is the most complete digitally-accessible dinosaur to date, with 3D models and scans of virtually every aspect of its anatomy freely available for download.
High school students were involved in the collection, study, and publication of this rare find, through the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools in Claremont, California.
###
The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology is the only nationally accredited museum located on a secondary school campusThe Webb Schools. The vision for the museum was born on a camping trip in 1936 led by the late Raymond Alf, a Webb biology teacher with a penchant for searching for fossils. Today the museum holds over 140,000 specimens, with exhibits divided into the "Hall of Life," which traces the history of earth from the first cells through human civilization, and the "Hall of Footprints," which holds the most diverse display of fossilized animal tracks in the United States. Donald Lofgren is Director of the Alf Museum.
The Webb Schools is a unique boarding and day secondary school located in Claremont, California. It began in 1922 with the founding of Webb School of California for boys. In 1981, Vivian Webb School for girls was established, instituting the schools' special coordinate, two-schools-on-one-campus structure. Webb is well known for the success of its alumni across many fields of endeavor, as well as for its rigorous academic program, devotion to discovery learning and unbounded thinking, and for consistently producing a placement record to colleges and universities with few rivals. Taylor Stockdale is Head of Schools.
Media Contact:
Andrew Farke, Ph.D.
Augustyn Family Curator of Paleontology
Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology
at The Webb Schools
1175 West Baseline Road
Claremont, CA 91711
Phone: 1-909-482-5244 (office)
1-909-229-1563 (cell)
Email: afarke@webb.org
Additional Media Contact:
Vivian Pradetto
Marketing Coordinator
The Webb Schools
1175 West Baseline Road
Claremont, CA 91711
Phone: 1-909-482-5230 (office)
1-951-313-0577 (cell)
Email: vpradetto@webb.org
Citation:
Farke, A. A., D. J. Chok, A. Herrero, B. Scolieri, and S. Werning. 2013. Ontogeny in the tube-crested dinosaur Parasaurolophus (Hadrosauridae) and heterochrony in hadrosaurids. PeerJ 1:e182. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.182
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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