LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 (TheWrap.com) ? Conan O’Brien and CBS plan on having a “Super Fun Night” together.
The network has picked up the pilot for “Super Fun Night,” which will be produced by the late-night host. The half-hour, multi-camera comedy will track the efforts of three geeky female friends as they embark on a “funcomfortable” journey to have “SUPER FUN” every Friday night.
Australian “Bridesmaids” actress Rebel Wilson will write and star in the pilot.
O’Brien will share the executive-producer credit with “Conan” executive producer Jeff Ross and David Kissinger; Wilson will co-executive produce. O’Brien’s production company Conaco and Warner Bros. Television are producing.
A new method tries to tell whether prejudice plays into voting choices
By Gary Stix
?|
January 26, 2012?|
Image: The Obama-Biden Transition Project
The color of a candidate?s skin failed to sway voters to depress the lever for either Obama or McCain in the 2008 election, immediate analyses of that contest seemed to suggest. Some pundits hailed it as the first postracial election.
But a closer look after the election has revealed a much more nuanced picture of that historic faceoff. It turns out that as many as a fifth of the voters cared about race more than other considerations like gender, endorsements by a local newspaper or a candidate?s political party.
A study by political scientist Brian F. Schaffner at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the December issue of Political Psychology showed that concerns about race may have meant that Obama procured 3 percent less of the vote than he would have if he were white?enough to decide an election in a close race. ?It?s pretty clear that if Obama were white he would have done better than he did,? Schaffner says.
His finding echoes the results of similar probings by other researchers into the 2008 statistics. Schaffner?s work stands out, though, because of the care that he took in trying to figure out whether a voter was trying to mask biases about the hyper-sensitive issue of race. The researcher devised what he calls an ?unobtrusive observational measure? to try to elicit a voter?s real opinions.
Schaffner deployed a simple ranking method to get beyond what political scientists call ?social desirability bias:? voters? attempts to cover up opinions that they know might be repellent to others. After the election, Schaffner asked 934 respondents, 825 of whom voted, to rank the importance of six items from most to least helpful in making a decision.
Whites who placed race higher on the list, which included a candidate?s gender, occupation, political party and other factors, were less likely to vote for Obama, The definition of? ?higher? encompassed any ranking from first to fourth on the list, allowing the survey to detect the importance of race even if respondents didn?t rank that category first and may have wanted to hide their views.
These findings held up even after taking into account a measure of political conservatism, specifically, opposition to affirmative action. A white respondent who opposed affirmative action but put race last instead of fourth on the list was 25 percent more likely to vote for Obama. In the 2012 election, Schaffner wants to use the same method to examine, not only race, but this year?s added hot-button issue of Mitt Romney?s religion.
A well-known political blog, The Monkey Cage, raised the question of whether trying to deduce voters? recondite opinions was really needed. John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University, noted that other studies had produced similar results even when asking respondents more directly about their racial prejudices. Schaffner defends his methodology, citing evidence from exit polls that indicates that social desirability bias really matters. ?If people are obscuring answers, that?s going to make it much more difficult to detect what the effect is of those answers,? he says.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) ? Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is defending rival Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on attacks from each other on their wealth.
Santorum says Romney is, in his words, “a wealthy guy because he worked hard.” He is also defending Gingrich by saying Gingrich’s work advising companies after leaving government is not the worst thing in the world.
Santorum says Romney’s and Gingrich’s attacks on each other distract from bigger issues and that they should focus on policy differences.
Gingrich says he believe his wealth should be a non-issue but says he must defend himself from attacks.
A woman from Tanzania’s Hadzabe tribe studies a social-networking chart.
By Alan Boyle
Hunter-gatherers exhibit many of the “friending” habits familiar to Facebook users, suggesting that the patterns for social networking were set early in the history of our species.
At least that’s the conclusion from a group of researchers who mapped the connections among members of the Hadza ethnic group in Tanzania’s Lake Eyasi region. The results were published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.
“The astonishing thing is that ancient human social networks so very much resemble what we see today,” senior author Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist at Harvard Medical School, said in a university news release. Researchers from Harvard, the University of California at San Diego and Cambridge University worked together to document the Hadza’s social networks.
“From the time we were around campfires and had words floating through the air, to today when we have digital packets floating through the ether, we’ve made networks of basically the same kind,” Christakis said.
Another co-author of the study, UCSD’s James Fowler, said the results suggest that the structure of today’s social networks go back to a time before the invention of agriculture, tens of thousands of years ago.
For decades, social scientists have puzzled over the origins of cooperative and altruistic behavior that benefits the group at the expense of the individual. That seems to run counter to a basic “tooth and claw” view of evolution, in which each individual fights for survival, or at least the survival of its gene pool. One of the leading hypotheses is that a system to reward cooperation and punish non-cooperators (“free riders”) grew out of a sense of genetic kinship between related individuals. But how far back did such a system arise?
Harvard Medical School researcher Coren Apicella discusses the Hadza social network.
To investigate that question, researchers spent two months interviewing more than 200 adult members of the Hadza group who still live in a traditional, nomadic, pre-agricultural setting. To chart the social connections, the researchers asked the adults to identify the individuals they’d like to live with in their next encampment. They also looked into gift-giving connections by giving their experimental subjects three straws of honey ? one of the Hadza’s best-loved treats ? and asking them to assign them secretly to anyone else in the camp. That exercise produced a complex web of 1,263 “campmate ties” and 426 “gift ties.”
Separately, the researchers gave the Hadza additional honey straws that they could either keep for themselves or donate for group distribution. That was used as a measure of cooperation vs. non-cooperation.
When the researchers analyzed all the linkages, they found that cooperators tended to group themselves together into one set of social clusters, while non-cooperators were in separate clusters. Even when other factors were taken into account, such as connections between kin and geographical proximity, the cooperation vs. non-cooperation distinction was significant. That finding suggested that even in pre-agricultural societies, social networking strengthened the connections between people inclined toward different kinds of behavior.
“If you can get cooperators to cluster together in social space, cooperation can evolve,” said Coren Apicella, a postdoctoral researcher specializing in health-care policy at Harvard Medical School and the Nature paper’s first author. “Social networks allow this to happen.”
The researchers said the dynamics of the Hadza social networks ? including the kinds of ties that bind a group’s most popular members and the reciprocal connections within the group?? were indistinguishable from previously gathered data about social networks in modern communities.
“We turned the data over lots of different ways,” Fowler said in the news release. “We looked at over a dozen measures that social network analysts use to compare networks, and pretty much, the Hadza are like us.”
Beyond the Facebook angle, the rise of relationships between cooperative individuals has larger implications for the study of human evolution. “This suggests that social networks may have co-evolved with the widespread cooperation in humans that we observe today,” the researchers wrote.
Update for 2:15 p.m. ET: In a Nature commentary, University of British Columbia anthropologist Joseph Henrich said that the study provided a “glimpse into the social dynamics of one of the few remaining populations of nomadic hunter-gatherers” ? and pointed up the parallels between modern-day social networking and the kind of society in which our distant ancestors lived.
One of the more interesting findings was that non-cooperators preferred to associate with other non-cooperators, rather than with the givers in the Hadza group, Henrich told me. That could be because people tend to make those they associate with more similar to themselves ? sort of like a curmudgeonly married couple. Or it could be because non-cooperative types avoid the cooperators in the first place ? sort of like the high-school kids who shun the goody-goodies and form their own clique of bad boys and girls.
Henrich said the cooperation vs. non-cooperation distinction was surprisingly strong. “In fact, the gift-network results indicate that this extends to friends of friends: if your friend’s friend is highly cooperative, you are likely to cooperate more, too.”
He said the findings support the principle of homophily in social relations: “People tend to pick people like themselves.” But does the cooperation connection apply to modern-day social networks as well? If you’re a giving person, do you tend to friend other givers online? “We don’t know,” Henrich told me. That’s a topic for further research.
More social-network science:
In addition to Apicella, Christakis and Fowler, authors of “Social Networks and Cooperation in Hunter-Gatherers” include Cambridge University’s Frank Marlowe.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com’s science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by “liking” the log’s Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log’s Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out “The Case for Pluto,” my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
PARIS?? The former head of a French company at the center of a breast implant scandal affecting tens of thousands of women worldwide has been arrested in southeast France.
Jean-Claude Mas, who founded and ran the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, was detained Thursday as part of a judicial investigation in the southeastern city of Marseille into manslaughter and involuntary injuries, an official close to the investigation said.
So far no specific defendant has been named. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, because the case is in the hands of judicial investigators.
Investigating judge Annaick Le Goff opened the probe after a woman filed a lawsuit in the wake of the 2010 death from cancer of her daughter who had received a suspect implant.
As many as 3,000 other complaints by other alleged victims have been taken into account.
The implants have been removed from the marketplace in several countries in and beyond Europe amid fears they could rupture and leak silicone into the body.
“This is a comfort for the victims,” said Laurent Gaudon, whose clients accuse PIP and surgeons who used its implants of fraud.
“It’s the feeling that justice is advancing and they have not been forgotten. It’s the assurance that the guilty are at last going to be held accountable,” Gaudon added.
Philippe Courtois, who represents a group of 1,300 people with PIP implants, said it was vital Mas was not allowed to flee justice.
“A degree of provisionary detention is desirable,” he said.
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Mas, who sold some 300,000 implants around the world, has acknowledged that he had used unapproved silicone but dismissed fears that it constituted a health risk.
Video: A divide on faulty breast implants (on this page)
Mas is also on Interpol’s most-wanted list, but the international police agency said its “red notice” was issued in June at the request of Costa Rica, where he faces a drunken driving charge.
Mas, 72, was detained shortly before dawn during a search of a residence in the Mediterranean coastal town of Six Fours Les Plages, a police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
A secretary at the office of Mas’ defense lawyer Yves Haddad said the lawyer ? who was with Mas during police questioning ? was not immediately available for comment.
Silicone more rupture-prone
Authorities worldwide have been scrambling to strike a proper public response to the scandal ? notably concerning who will pay to remove the implants ? made with cheap, industrial-grade silicone instead of medical-grade gel ? or if the implants need to invariably come out.
European governments have taken different positions: German, Czech and French authorities say the implants should be removed, while Britain says there is not enough evidence of health risks to suggest they should be taken out in all cases.
On Wednesday, health authorities in Brazil said the government will fine private health plans that refuse to pay for the removal and replacement of faulty breast implants sold by PIP and a Dutch company.
A lawyer for Mas said in a statement earlier this month that his client, who ran PIP until it was closed in March 2010, would not speak publicly on the case.
The scandal has put pressure on French health authorities for allegedly not doing enough to vet the quality of a product used by untold thousands of women both in France and abroad.
France’s Health Safety Agency has said the suspect implants ? just one type of implants made by PIP ? appear to be more rupture-prone than other types. Investigators say PIP sought to save money by using industrial silicone, whose potential health risks are not yet clear.
PIP’s website said the company had exported to more than 60 countries and was one of the world’s leading implant makers. The silicone-gel implants in question are not sold in the United States.
According to estimates by national authorities, over 42,000 women in Britain received the implants, more than 30,000 in France, 9,000 in Australia and 4,000 in Italy. Nearly 25,000 of the implants were sold in Brazil.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
In this undated photo released by the Italian Navy Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, the Costa Concordia cruise ship grounded off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, is seen at night. A large platform carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but officials from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were seen on the bow of the Concordia and in the waters nearby making preparations to remove the fuel, while the search for missing passengers continues. (AP Photo/Italian Navy GOS handout)
In this undated photo released by the Italian Navy Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, the Costa Concordia cruise ship grounded off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, is seen at night. A large platform carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but officials from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were seen on the bow of the Concordia and in the waters nearby making preparations to remove the fuel, while the search for missing passengers continues. (AP Photo/Italian Navy GOS handout)
The grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia lays on its side off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. A barge carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but teams from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were working on the bow of the Concordia on Tuesday and divers were to make underwater inspections to identify the precise locations of the fuel tanks. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
In this undated photo released by the Italian Navy Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, a support team hold the line that allow scuba divers to find their way back from their search in the Costa Concordia cruise ship grounded off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy. A large platform carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but officials from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were seen on the bow of the Concordia and in the waters nearby making preparations to remove the fuel, while the search for missing passengers continues. (AP Photo/Italian Navy GOS)
In this undated photo released by the Italian Navy Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, ropes float from a flooded corridor of the Costa Concordia cruise ship grounded off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy. A large platform carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but officials from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were seen on the bow of the Concordia and in the waters nearby making preparations to remove the fuel, while the search for missing passengers continues. (AP Photo/Italian Navy GOS)
In this undated photo released by the Italian Navy Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, a scuba diver makes his way into a flooded cabin of the Costa Concordia cruise ship grounded off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy. A large platform carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea. Actual pumping of the oil isn’t expected to begin until Saturday, but officials from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were seen on the bow of the Concordia and in the waters nearby making preparations to remove the fuel, while the search for missing passengers continues. (AP Photo/Italian Navy GOS)
ROME (AP) ? Search efforts aboard the capsized Costa Concordia resumed Wednesday, even as the official overseeing the operation acknowledged for the first time it would take a miracle to find any more survivors from the ship’s Jan. 13 grounding.
Franco Gabrielli, head of Italy’s national civil protection agency, told reporters that rescuers would keep searching the ship, which is half-submerged off the Tuscan island of Giglio, until every reachable area is inspected.
“Finding someone alive today belongs in the realm of miracles,” Gabrielli said. “But since none of us, at least inside, wants to give up on that possibility, we will continue.”
And operations did continue Wednesday as crews set off more explosions on the submerged third floor deck to allow easier access for divers. On Tuesday, the body of a woman was found on the deck.
Rescuers have found 16 bodies, with 17 people still unaccounted for. The last time anyone was found alive was on Jan. 15, when a senior crew member was discovered less than 36 hours after the grounding.
The Concordia ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13 after the captain, Francesco Schettino, veered from his approved course and gashed the ship’s hull on a reef, forcing the panicked evacuation of 4,200 passengers and crew.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of Costa Crociere SpA, Pier Luigi Foschi, insisted that Schettino didn’t have approval to change the ship’s routing and was going far too fast ? 16 knots ? to be so close to shore.
But he defended the practice of so-called “tourist navigation,” whereby enormous cruise ships steer close to shore to give passengers a look at the sites. He said it was part of the “cruise product” that passengers demand and that cruise lines are forced to offer to stay competitive.
“It’s something that enriches the cruise product,” Foschi told a parliamentary committee. “There are many components of the cruise product, and we have to do them like everyone else because we are in a global competition.”
Costa is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise company.
Foschi stressed that such deviations from charted routes are supposed to follow strict protocols that ensure safety: ports are informed, the company is informed, and certainly no ship of the Concordia’s size would be charging 200-300 yards (meters) off shore at 16 knots.
“For anyone who knows that zone, that ship with those characteristics shouldn’t have been there,” he said.
Schettino is under house arrest, facing accusations of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all passengers were evacuated.
On Wednesday, his lawyer filed a motion challenging the house arrest, saying Schettino wasn’t a flight risk and asserting that there was no risk that he would repeat the crime since no cruise line would hire him, the ANSA news agency reported.
Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christa Stratton cstratton@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
Boulder, Colo., USA – New GSA Bulletin postings discuss how subsurface data can be used to understand the form and origin of giant submarine landslides, give new clues to the tectonic history of the Eastern Cordillera, present an alternative theory on how the mountains along the Atlantic margin of northeastern Brazil formed long after the opening of the South Atlantic, integrate several kinds of geological dating for Upper Cretaceous rocks from the Pacific Coast of North America, and more.
Highlights are provided below. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of GSA Bulletin articles by contacting Christa Stratton at the address above. Abstracts for the complete issue of GSA Bulletin are available at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA Bulletin in articles published. Contact Christa Stratton for additional information or assistance.
Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
The initiation of submarine slope failure and the emplacement of mass transport complexes in salt-related minibasins: A 3D seismic reflection case study from the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson, Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP, England, UK. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30554.1.
In this study, Jackson shows how subsurface data can be used to understand the form and origin of giant submarine landslides. He demonstrates that giant landslides can be triggered by the subsurface movement of salt. Giant blocks, which are several tens of meters in width, length, and height, can be contained in the deposits associated with submarine landsliding.
Discriminating rapid exhumation from syndepositional volcanism using detrital zircon double dating: Implications for the tectonic history of the Eastern Cordillera, Colombia Joel E. Saylor et al., Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30534.1.
Uranium-lead (U-Pb) radiometric ages of zircon grains record their crystallization. Where volcanism is synchronous with deposition of sedimentary strata, zircon U-Pb ages approximate the age of their host strata. Zircon (U-Th)/He radiometric ages record the time at which they were cooled by being unearthed, often during mountain building. In zircons from sedimentary strata, these ages relate to the timing of mountain building in the sediment source region. Difficulty arises where volcanism occurs at the same time as rapid unearthing. Saylor et al. solve this problem by obtaining both U-Pb and (U-Th)/He ages from the same zircon grains. Zircon grains whose crystallization and cooling age are similar are of volcanic origin, while those with a large difference between these two ages were cooled as a result of exhumation during mountain building. The Colombian Andes resulted from an eastward-moving wave of mountain building that affected northern South America starting about 65 million years ago. Zircon grains from about 55-million-years-old sedimentary strata with about 55-million-year-old radiometric ages are of volcanic origin while the most rapid cooling due to mountain building occurred at about 35? million years ago. This suggests a change from a volcanism-dominated mountain range to one dominated by mountain building.
Episodic burial and exhumation in NE Brazil after opening of the South Atlantic P. Japsen et al., Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), ster Voldgade 10, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30515.1.
Mountains along passive continental margins such as southwestern Africa, southeastern Australia, and western India are commonly regarded as remnants from continental breakup. In contrast, Japsen et al. show that the mountains along the Atlantic margin of northeastern Brazil formed long after the opening of the South Atlantic. Their synthesis of geological data, landscape analysis, and paleothermal and paleoburial data reveals a four-stage history: (1) Following Early Cretaceous breakup, about 110 million years ago, the margin underwent burial beneath a thick sedimentary cover. (2) Uplift and erosion which began around 80 million years ago led to almost complete removal of these deposits. (3) The resulting large-scale, low-relief Eocene erosion surface (peneplain) was deeply weathered and finally buried under a thick sedimentary cover about 25 million years ago (Early Miocene). (4) The formation of the present-day mountains began about 17 million years ago when uplift and erosion produced a new, lower-level peneplain by river incision below the uplifted and re-exposed, Eocene peneplain. Similar chronologies of uplift and erosion in Africa and the Andes suggest the controlling processes are global. Japsen et al. suggest that both vertical movements and lateral changes in plate motion have a common cause, which is lateral resistance to plate motion.
Integration of macrofossil biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy for the Pacific Coast Upper Cretaceous (CampanianMaastrichtian) of North America and implications for correlation with the Western Interior and Tethys Peter D. Ward et al., Department of Earth and Space Sciences, The University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30077.1.
This work, by Ward et al., integrates several kinds of geological dating for Upper Cretaceous (100 to 65 million years ago) rocks from the Pacific Coast of North America. The work greatly increases the resolution for dating fossils in these strata, and shows that many species of important fossils (ammonites) existed both along the Pacific Coast as well as in central North America in the Cretaceous period.
Evidence for middle Eocene and younger emergence in Central Panama: Implications for Isthmus closure Camilo Montes et al., Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancn Republic of Panam. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30528.1.
In a study by Montes et al., new geologic mapping and analytical data from central Panama greatly restrict the width and depth of the Central American Seaway, and challenge the widely accepted notion that closure of this seaway triggered northern hemisphere glaciation in late Pliocene times (about three million years ago). Geologic mapping revealed the presence of an angular unconformitya geologic feature that separates strata of different ages, orientations, and affinitiesalong the southeastern flank of the San Blas Range, Panama. This angular unconformity separates nearly undeformed shallow marine strata above, from strongly folded and faulted rocks below, indicating a period of deformation and erosion followed by a period of sedimentation. Fossils above the angular unconformity date the time of deformation and erosion as prior to late Eocene times (about 37 million years ago). Similarly, analytical data from apatite and zircon crystals below the angular unconformity suggest that cooling related to deformation and erosion took place about 45 million years ago. Early Miocene (about 21 million years ago) fluvial strata in the Panama Canal Basin contain zircon crystals that match those found in the San Blas Range Range, further suggesting that the San Blas Range remained above sea level from about late Eocene to early Miocene times.
Neogene block-rotation in central Iran: Evidence from paleomagnetic data Massimo Mattei et al. (Francesca Cifelli, corresponding), Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Largo San Leonardo Murialdo 1, 00146 Roma, Universit Roma TRE, Italy. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/G30479.1.
Central Iran is a mosaic of different tectonic blocks once separated by ocean basins that closed as a result of the convergence between the Arabia and Eurasia plates. Shortening related to the Arabia-Eurasia convergence in the Tertiary period has been taken up mainly in the Zagros, Alborz, and Kopeh Dag fold-and-thrust belts of Iran, whereas the intervening, fault-bounded crustal blocks of central Iran (Yazd, Tabas and Lut blocks) show little internal deformation. Central Iran is separated from the Alborz belt by northeast-southwest left-lateral strike-slip and thrust faults, whereas northsouth right-lateral strike-slip faults define the boundary between the Tabas and Lut blocks within central Iran. Structural and seismological data from Mattei et al. suggest that northeast-southwest left-lateral and northsouth right-lateral faults can accommodate the north/northeast-south/southwest Arabia Eurasia convergence if they are allowed to rotate clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. Paleomagnetic results from OligoceneMiocene sedimentary units confirm this model. In fact, counterclockwise rotations of 20? have been measured in Central Iran, south of the Great-Kavir fault, characterized by the presence of north-south to north-northwestsouth-southeast right-lateral strike-slip faults. These data show that part of the shortening related to Arabia-Eurasia convergence has been accommodated in Central Iran by vertical axis rotations of fault-bounded crustal blocks.
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christa Stratton cstratton@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
Boulder, Colo., USA – New GSA Bulletin postings discuss how subsurface data can be used to understand the form and origin of giant submarine landslides, give new clues to the tectonic history of the Eastern Cordillera, present an alternative theory on how the mountains along the Atlantic margin of northeastern Brazil formed long after the opening of the South Atlantic, integrate several kinds of geological dating for Upper Cretaceous rocks from the Pacific Coast of North America, and more.
Highlights are provided below. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of GSA Bulletin articles by contacting Christa Stratton at the address above. Abstracts for the complete issue of GSA Bulletin are available at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA Bulletin in articles published. Contact Christa Stratton for additional information or assistance.
Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
The initiation of submarine slope failure and the emplacement of mass transport complexes in salt-related minibasins: A 3D seismic reflection case study from the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson, Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP, England, UK. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30554.1.
In this study, Jackson shows how subsurface data can be used to understand the form and origin of giant submarine landslides. He demonstrates that giant landslides can be triggered by the subsurface movement of salt. Giant blocks, which are several tens of meters in width, length, and height, can be contained in the deposits associated with submarine landsliding.
Discriminating rapid exhumation from syndepositional volcanism using detrital zircon double dating: Implications for the tectonic history of the Eastern Cordillera, Colombia Joel E. Saylor et al., Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30534.1.
Uranium-lead (U-Pb) radiometric ages of zircon grains record their crystallization. Where volcanism is synchronous with deposition of sedimentary strata, zircon U-Pb ages approximate the age of their host strata. Zircon (U-Th)/He radiometric ages record the time at which they were cooled by being unearthed, often during mountain building. In zircons from sedimentary strata, these ages relate to the timing of mountain building in the sediment source region. Difficulty arises where volcanism occurs at the same time as rapid unearthing. Saylor et al. solve this problem by obtaining both U-Pb and (U-Th)/He ages from the same zircon grains. Zircon grains whose crystallization and cooling age are similar are of volcanic origin, while those with a large difference between these two ages were cooled as a result of exhumation during mountain building. The Colombian Andes resulted from an eastward-moving wave of mountain building that affected northern South America starting about 65 million years ago. Zircon grains from about 55-million-years-old sedimentary strata with about 55-million-year-old radiometric ages are of volcanic origin while the most rapid cooling due to mountain building occurred at about 35? million years ago. This suggests a change from a volcanism-dominated mountain range to one dominated by mountain building.
Episodic burial and exhumation in NE Brazil after opening of the South Atlantic P. Japsen et al., Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), ster Voldgade 10, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30515.1.
Mountains along passive continental margins such as southwestern Africa, southeastern Australia, and western India are commonly regarded as remnants from continental breakup. In contrast, Japsen et al. show that the mountains along the Atlantic margin of northeastern Brazil formed long after the opening of the South Atlantic. Their synthesis of geological data, landscape analysis, and paleothermal and paleoburial data reveals a four-stage history: (1) Following Early Cretaceous breakup, about 110 million years ago, the margin underwent burial beneath a thick sedimentary cover. (2) Uplift and erosion which began around 80 million years ago led to almost complete removal of these deposits. (3) The resulting large-scale, low-relief Eocene erosion surface (peneplain) was deeply weathered and finally buried under a thick sedimentary cover about 25 million years ago (Early Miocene). (4) The formation of the present-day mountains began about 17 million years ago when uplift and erosion produced a new, lower-level peneplain by river incision below the uplifted and re-exposed, Eocene peneplain. Similar chronologies of uplift and erosion in Africa and the Andes suggest the controlling processes are global. Japsen et al. suggest that both vertical movements and lateral changes in plate motion have a common cause, which is lateral resistance to plate motion.
Integration of macrofossil biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy for the Pacific Coast Upper Cretaceous (CampanianMaastrichtian) of North America and implications for correlation with the Western Interior and Tethys Peter D. Ward et al., Department of Earth and Space Sciences, The University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30077.1.
This work, by Ward et al., integrates several kinds of geological dating for Upper Cretaceous (100 to 65 million years ago) rocks from the Pacific Coast of North America. The work greatly increases the resolution for dating fossils in these strata, and shows that many species of important fossils (ammonites) existed both along the Pacific Coast as well as in central North America in the Cretaceous period.
Evidence for middle Eocene and younger emergence in Central Panama: Implications for Isthmus closure Camilo Montes et al., Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 0843-03092, Balboa, Ancn Republic of Panam. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30528.1.
In a study by Montes et al., new geologic mapping and analytical data from central Panama greatly restrict the width and depth of the Central American Seaway, and challenge the widely accepted notion that closure of this seaway triggered northern hemisphere glaciation in late Pliocene times (about three million years ago). Geologic mapping revealed the presence of an angular unconformitya geologic feature that separates strata of different ages, orientations, and affinitiesalong the southeastern flank of the San Blas Range, Panama. This angular unconformity separates nearly undeformed shallow marine strata above, from strongly folded and faulted rocks below, indicating a period of deformation and erosion followed by a period of sedimentation. Fossils above the angular unconformity date the time of deformation and erosion as prior to late Eocene times (about 37 million years ago). Similarly, analytical data from apatite and zircon crystals below the angular unconformity suggest that cooling related to deformation and erosion took place about 45 million years ago. Early Miocene (about 21 million years ago) fluvial strata in the Panama Canal Basin contain zircon crystals that match those found in the San Blas Range Range, further suggesting that the San Blas Range remained above sea level from about late Eocene to early Miocene times.
Neogene block-rotation in central Iran: Evidence from paleomagnetic data Massimo Mattei et al. (Francesca Cifelli, corresponding), Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Largo San Leonardo Murialdo 1, 00146 Roma, Universit Roma TRE, Italy. Posted online 13 Jan. 2012; doi: 10.1130/G30479.1.
Central Iran is a mosaic of different tectonic blocks once separated by ocean basins that closed as a result of the convergence between the Arabia and Eurasia plates. Shortening related to the Arabia-Eurasia convergence in the Tertiary period has been taken up mainly in the Zagros, Alborz, and Kopeh Dag fold-and-thrust belts of Iran, whereas the intervening, fault-bounded crustal blocks of central Iran (Yazd, Tabas and Lut blocks) show little internal deformation. Central Iran is separated from the Alborz belt by northeast-southwest left-lateral strike-slip and thrust faults, whereas northsouth right-lateral strike-slip faults define the boundary between the Tabas and Lut blocks within central Iran. Structural and seismological data from Mattei et al. suggest that northeast-southwest left-lateral and northsouth right-lateral faults can accommodate the north/northeast-south/southwest Arabia Eurasia convergence if they are allowed to rotate clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. Paleomagnetic results from OligoceneMiocene sedimentary units confirm this model. In fact, counterclockwise rotations of 20? have been measured in Central Iran, south of the Great-Kavir fault, characterized by the presence of north-south to north-northwestsouth-southeast right-lateral strike-slip faults. These data show that part of the shortening related to Arabia-Eurasia convergence has been accommodated in Central Iran by vertical axis rotations of fault-bounded crustal blocks.
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The "official" update document for the HTC Rezound is now live on Verizon's website, which usually means an OTA update is nigh. According to the page, the Rezound should soon be seeing software Version 2.01.605.11 and baseband version 0.95.00.1118r, so unfortunately this is not the Ice Cream Sandwich ROM that was leaked a week or so ago. If anything, it looks like a maintenance release to get some bugs ironed out, which nobody should be complaining about. The changelog in handy bullet-point form:
Updated signal strength meter to 5 bar Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI).
Screen Timeout issues while connected to Wifi have been resolved.
Resolved issue with Mobile Hotspot data stalling while multiple users are connected.
Improved audio quality during voice call.
Reduced forced closures related to the People application.
Resolved issue with Task Manager stopping Mail background service.
All very welcome fixes indeed. The Rezound is a hell of a phone as is, and knowing that HTC and Big Red aren't going to let it wither by the wayside is great news for all of us. Security patches and bug fixes are just as important as complete OS updates, so we'll take them every time.
Of course, there's no guarantee that this is coming soon, but in the past we have seen the support page for Verizon phones go live a few days before the OTA begins to push out. There's no reason not to think this will be the same situation, so if I had a Rezound and was interested in accepting a stock update, I'd be preparing for it. Jump in the Rezound forums and discuss!
I just started teaching my spring classes, and on the first day a student asked me if my work as a science journalist had taken me to any cool places. I said that in 1985 I rode a trolley into a tunnel at the Nevada Test Site in which a nuclear bomb would be detonated the next day. In 1991 I stood at the edge of an oil field whose wells, ignited by Iraqi troops during the first Gulf War, shot huge jets of fire into the sky, which was so black with smoke that I could barely see my notebook. In 2002 I sat in a teepee on a Navajo reservation eating peyote with 20 members of the Native American Church. But by far the coolest trip I?ve ever taken, I said, took me to the South Pole.
The Antarctic has received lots of press lately. Just over century ago, on January 17, 1912, Robert Falcon Scott arrived at the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had arrived there more than a month earlier. Scott and his men perished on their return journey, and ironically their failure is commemorated more than Amundsen?s success.
My expedition?compared to those of these rugged explorers, who relied on dogs, ponies and their own muscles for transport?was like a trip to the mall. Together with three other journalists, I flew in a cavernous C-130 military-transport plane from Christchurch, New Zealand, to McMurdo Station, a gritty American base perched on the edge of Ross Island. From the window of our plane, the Antarctic resembled an endless porcelain landscape, through which jagged black mountains protruded. I felt as though I was visiting not just another part of Earth but another planet.
Just a short tramp from McMurdo was Discovery Hut, built by Scott in 1902 during his first expedition to the Antarctic. The inside of the hut, cluttered with crates and cans of food, was eerily well-preserved, as though Scott and his men might burst through the door at any moment. During my 10-day sojourn (which took place in November, when the sun never sets), my colleagues and I were whisked around on snow cats and a helicopter.
Some other memories from the trip: Peering into the smoking maw of Mt. Erebus, an enormous active volcano. Swooping through a canyon in the Dry Valleys so narrow that I kept thinking the helicopter?s blades were going to strike the rock. Standing on an ice floe as a flock of Emperor penguins leaped out of the sea and waddled toward us, eyeing us with curiosity. Climbing straight down beneath the sea ice into a metal tube, through the windows of which I could see Weddell seals gliding through the frigid twilight.
The high point, however, was when a C-130 flew us from McMurdo to the South Pole?s Amundsen-Scott Station, where some 80 people lived and worked in a geodesic dome and other structures. On that day, the Pole was a balmy 44 degrees Celsius below zero (-47 Fahrenheit), almost 90 below (-130 F) with the wind chill. In the photo that accompanies this column, I?m standing next to the sign that marks the Geographic South Pole.
The Pole was also marked by a column, striped like a candy cane, with a mirrored ball mounted on top. Somewhere in my apartment is a hat, which I bought at Amundsen-Scott, bearing an embroidered likeness of that kitschy column. After our plane touched down, my journalistic colleagues and I watched in astonishment as member of the plane?s crew peeled off his jump suit, stripped down to his underwear and dashed around the column; we learned later that this ritual is required for crew members arriving at the Pole for the first time.
The U.S. National Science Foundation now spends more than $300 million a year to support scientific programs in the Antarctic, about $100 million more than when I visited the continent in 1992. This money is well spent, because it is helping us come to grips with riddles about our past and future. Astrophysicists at the South Pole, which has some of the driest, clearest skies on Earth, have sent balloons aloft to measure the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the big bang. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, just constructed at the Pole, could yield clues about the nature of mysterious ?dark matter? thought to pervade the universe.
Biologists probing frozen Antarctic lakes have discovered new species of bacteria, which may provide clues to the origin of life on Earth more than four billion years ago. Geologists pondering ice cores and rocks have deduced that the Antarctic ice sheet, which to my eyes looked eternal, is anything but. During my visit almost 20 years ago, I learned that the sheet has fluctuated dramatically over the past few million years, and some scientists fear that global warming may shrink the ice enough to trigger a catastrophic surge in sea levels world-wide.
The period during which Scott, Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton and others trekked across the Antarctic has been called the ?Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.? We still live in such an age, even if scientists?and journalists?no longer risk their lives in quite the way that those intrepid explorers did.
Stocks turned mixed Wednesday afternoon, erasing earlier losses, after the Federal Reserve said it will keep interest rates near zero for much longer than it had previously announced. Demand for ultra-safe Treasurys soared, pushing bond yields lower.
The Fed’s monetary policy committee said it is unlikely to raise interest rates before 2014, extending a period of record-low rates by more than a year. Lower interest rates can encourage investment in stocks by reducing traders’ returns from bonds.
The Fed plans to keep interest rates very low in part to make loans more affordable for people and companies. Access to credit is vital for the economic recovery.
The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index both turned slightly positive shortly after the Fed’s 12:30 p.m. Eastern announcement. Both had been solidly negative all morning; the Dow had lost as many as 95 points.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to 1.98 percent from 2.05 percent an hour before the Fed announcement. Bond yields fall when demand for them increases.
Markets had opened mostly lower on fears about Greece’s slow progress in talks with bondholders about reducing the nation’s crushing debt load.
Tech stocks rose, bucking the wider market, after consumer electronics giant Apple Inc. reported a best-ever quarter driven by strong sales of iPhones and iPads.
Apple’s stock jumped 6.2 percent, helping lift the Nasdaq composite index by 16 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,802. The Nasdaq is up 7.6 percent this year, more than twice the gain for the Dow Jones industrial average.
The Dow was down 19 points, or 0.2 percent, at 12,657. The S&P 500 index fell a fraction to 1,313.
The declines follow a two-month surge that lifted the broad S&P 500 index by 13 percent since its recent low on Nov. 25. As fears recede about the European debt crisis, big-time investors such as hedge funds will be drawn back into the market, fueling more gains, said Joe Bell, senior Equity Strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
After such a strong rally, “we could see a … slight pullback or consolidation; but overall we’re bullish,” Bell said.
Later Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will take questions from reporters in his quarterly news conference.
European markets mostly closed lower as Greece’s bondholders held a closed-door meeting to discuss whether they will continue to negotiate with the crisis-stricken nation.
Greece wants the investors, mostly banks and hedge funds, to voluntarily write off about half of its debt. Otherwise, Greece will be unable to obtain needed bailout cash and will default. That could set off a financial crisis similar to the aftermath of Lehman Bros.’ failure in 2008.
Benchmark stock indexes in Italy and London closed a half-percent lower. Borrowing costs for Italy and France increased, a sign of traders’ fears that the debt crisis will spread. Adding to the gloom was a report that Britain’s economy shrank by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
With Apple’s gains Wednesday, the Cupertino, Calif. electronics maker again surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the company with the biggest market value. Apple said late Tuesday that it sold 37 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter, the first period after the death of CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. That was coupled with a big jump in iPad sales to 15.4 million, and a more modest increase in Mac sales.
Apple’s net income leapt 118 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue soared 73 percent. Both results blew the doors off Wall Street’s expectations.
Among the other companies making big moves after announcing earnings:
? US Airways Group Inc. jumped 18 percent and Delta Air Lines Inc. rose 6.6 percent. Both carriers reported earnings that were far better than Wall Street analysts expected. The airlines raised fares during the fourth quarter while keeping costs under control. Delta also cut the number of flights it makes to keep pace with demand.
? WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest health care insurer based on enrollment, fell 4.9 percent. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings dropped 39 percent, far more than analysts had expected. The Indianapolis company’s full-year forecast also fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts. Medical claims, its largest expense, rose nearly 10 percent in the quarter.
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Follow Daniel Wagner at http://www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.
SUNDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) — Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease. All three newly identified areas “contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research,” said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of [...]
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) ? The head of Libya’s transitional government on Sunday suspended delegates from Benghazi, the city that kicked off the movement that toppled ruler Moammar Gadhafi last year. The suspension the latest sign of discord within the body that led the anti-Gadhafi uprising but has struggled to establish an effective government to replace [...]
?lvaro Cogollo started with a love of the forest and went on to become an accomplished field biologist. As scientific director of the Medell?n Botanical Garden, he documents Colombia?s rich flora. ?lvaro Cogollo uses popular music to entice Colombians to love nature Biologist ?lvaro Cogollo draws on Colombia’s native vallenato music to inspire a love [...]
CAIRO (Reuters) ? An Arab League committee on Syria will ask Arab foreign ministers on Sunday to extend a peace mission in the country by one month, an Arab government source said. Hundreds of Syrians have been killed since the monitoring mission began its work in late December and political opponents of President Bashar al-Assad [...]
Microsoft, along with Nike and RealNetworks, believe Washington’s failure to recognize gay marriage has gone on long enough. So they’ve called out the state government, pushing for legislators to pass the two gay marriage bills currently circulating through their chambers. More » Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/L01XLy_huCQ/microsoft-calls-for-washington-to-legalize-gay-marriage tony romo twilight zone sandra dee nfl draft 2012 december 21 2012 [...]
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
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The Antarctic has received lots of press lately. Just over century ago, on January 17, 1912, Robert Falcon Scott arrived at the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had arrived there more than a month earlier. Scott and his men perished on their return journey, and ironically their failure is commemorated more than Amundsen?s success.