Prehistoric predators with supersized teeth had beefier arm bones

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Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Combination of colossal canines and forceful forelimbs arose repeatedly over time

The toothiest prehistoric predators also had beefier arm bones, according to results of a study published today in the journal Paleobiology.

Saber-toothed tigers may come to mind, but these extinct cats weren't the only animals with fearsome fangs.

Take the false saber-toothed cats--also known as nimravids--and their catlike cousins, a family of carnivores called the barbourofelids.

These mammal groups lived millions of years before cats came to be, and had knife-like canines along with well-built arm bones, said Julie Meachen, a paleontologist at the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, North Carolina.

This killer combination arose repeatedly in different saber-toothed predators over time, presumably because it gave them an advantage when catching and killing prey, Meachen found.

"This is a nice demonstration that selection usually operates on suites of traits to generate solutions to environmental challenges," said Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, which funds NESCent.

"In this case, the key to being an efficient predator integrated canines and forelimbs across different groups of felids and led to the development of different combinations of these traits," said Twombly. "It was the combination, rather than any single trait, that allowed a diverse group of organisms to thrive as predators."

The long, thin teeth of saber-toothed cats look formidable, but they're fragile compared with those of felines today.

"Cats now have canines that are short and round in cross-section, so they can withstand forces in all directions," Meachen said.

"That comes in handy for hunting--their teeth are better able to withstand the stress and strain of struggling prey without breaking."

In contrast, the elongated canines of saber-toothed cats were flattened side-to-side and were more oval, which made them more vulnerable to fracture.

In previous results published in 2010, Meachen reported that the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis had exceptionally thick arm bones when compared with its feline cousins.

"Thick, robust bones are an indicator of forelimb strength," Meachen said.

The results suggest that these animals may have relied on their forelimbs to help catch and kill their prey without fracturing their fangs.

In studying the fossil skeletons of other saber-toothed predators, Meachen had a hunch that the combination of fragile knife-like canines and beefy arm bones might not have been unique to saber-toothed cats.

Earth was once home to a number of toothy carnivores that no longer roam the wilds.

Nimravids were meat-eaters that flourished for almost 35 million years, from about 42 to 7 million years ago, alongside another group of extinct predators, the barbourofelids, which lived from 17 to 9 million years ago, when they died out.

"If you saw one of these animals you'd probably think it was a cat, but true cats didn't evolve until millions of years later," Meachen said.

The animals left no living descendants, but thanks to fossilized bones scientists know that their upper canines came in a wide range of shapes and sizes.

Some species had canines that were short and round; others were long, flattened and more oval. Some were serrated "like a steak knife," Meachen said.

To find out if saber-toothed predators with longer, thinner teeth and delicate dentition generally had thicker forelimbs, Meachen measured the fossilized arm bones and upper canines of hundreds of museum specimens of extinct cats, nimravids and barbourofelids that once roamed North America.

She also measured the teeth and arm bones of 13 cat species living today--such as the tiger and the clouded leopard--all of which have conical teeth.

When she compared the dimensions of the teeth to those of the arms, she found that each group of animals gradually converged on the same solution--the longer the teeth, the thicker the forelimbs.

The results held up even after taking into account that larger species generally have bigger bones.

She attributes the striking similarities among the species to convergent evolution.

"The same correlated sets of traits arose repeatedly through time," Meachen said.

"It's hard to know which came first--long, fragile canines, or strong, robust forelimbs. It's sort of a chicken-and-egg question."

###


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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 4-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

Combination of colossal canines and forceful forelimbs arose repeatedly over time

The toothiest prehistoric predators also had beefier arm bones, according to results of a study published today in the journal Paleobiology.

Saber-toothed tigers may come to mind, but these extinct cats weren't the only animals with fearsome fangs.

Take the false saber-toothed cats--also known as nimravids--and their catlike cousins, a family of carnivores called the barbourofelids.

These mammal groups lived millions of years before cats came to be, and had knife-like canines along with well-built arm bones, said Julie Meachen, a paleontologist at the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, North Carolina.

This killer combination arose repeatedly in different saber-toothed predators over time, presumably because it gave them an advantage when catching and killing prey, Meachen found.

"This is a nice demonstration that selection usually operates on suites of traits to generate solutions to environmental challenges," said Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, which funds NESCent.

"In this case, the key to being an efficient predator integrated canines and forelimbs across different groups of felids and led to the development of different combinations of these traits," said Twombly. "It was the combination, rather than any single trait, that allowed a diverse group of organisms to thrive as predators."

The long, thin teeth of saber-toothed cats look formidable, but they're fragile compared with those of felines today.

"Cats now have canines that are short and round in cross-section, so they can withstand forces in all directions," Meachen said.

"That comes in handy for hunting--their teeth are better able to withstand the stress and strain of struggling prey without breaking."

In contrast, the elongated canines of saber-toothed cats were flattened side-to-side and were more oval, which made them more vulnerable to fracture.

In previous results published in 2010, Meachen reported that the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis had exceptionally thick arm bones when compared with its feline cousins.

"Thick, robust bones are an indicator of forelimb strength," Meachen said.

The results suggest that these animals may have relied on their forelimbs to help catch and kill their prey without fracturing their fangs.

In studying the fossil skeletons of other saber-toothed predators, Meachen had a hunch that the combination of fragile knife-like canines and beefy arm bones might not have been unique to saber-toothed cats.

Earth was once home to a number of toothy carnivores that no longer roam the wilds.

Nimravids were meat-eaters that flourished for almost 35 million years, from about 42 to 7 million years ago, alongside another group of extinct predators, the barbourofelids, which lived from 17 to 9 million years ago, when they died out.

"If you saw one of these animals you'd probably think it was a cat, but true cats didn't evolve until millions of years later," Meachen said.

The animals left no living descendants, but thanks to fossilized bones scientists know that their upper canines came in a wide range of shapes and sizes.

Some species had canines that were short and round; others were long, flattened and more oval. Some were serrated "like a steak knife," Meachen said.

To find out if saber-toothed predators with longer, thinner teeth and delicate dentition generally had thicker forelimbs, Meachen measured the fossilized arm bones and upper canines of hundreds of museum specimens of extinct cats, nimravids and barbourofelids that once roamed North America.

She also measured the teeth and arm bones of 13 cat species living today--such as the tiger and the clouded leopard--all of which have conical teeth.

When she compared the dimensions of the teeth to those of the arms, she found that each group of animals gradually converged on the same solution--the longer the teeth, the thicker the forelimbs.

The results held up even after taking into account that larger species generally have bigger bones.

She attributes the striking similarities among the species to convergent evolution.

"The same correlated sets of traits arose repeatedly through time," Meachen said.

"It's hard to know which came first--long, fragile canines, or strong, robust forelimbs. It's sort of a chicken-and-egg question."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nsf-ppw010412.php

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Brandi Glanville has "drunken" Las Vegas wedding

Brandi Glanville welcomes 2012 by tying the knot in Las Vegas

(CBS) There's nothing like a good Las Vegas wedding story, and now Brandi Glanville now has one. Pictures: Celebrity weddings and engagements
Pictures: Hollywood's short-lived marriages

The "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star wed her good friend, Mixed Martial Arts manager Darin Harvey, over the weekend in Sin City.

Glanville, 39, tweeted the news, writing, "Yes, I'm married get over it!" She added, "After some beer and strippers he is now my husband! No joke!"

But surprise, surprise -- it doesn't seem like the marriage will last long. Harvey described the nuptials as a "drunken BFF thing" that they will soon get annulled.

On Monday, Glanville responded to criticism over her impromptu wedding, tweeting, "My gals & BFF of many yrs @darinharvey was SO much fun & we got carried away by getting married! I didn't realize what we did wuld affect Others so seriously! in my head I was just having fun w/ my best friend who I adore & has been there for me during all my tuff times!"

The former model was married to actor Eddie Cibrian for nine years before he ran off with LeAnn Rimes. Glanville and Cibrian have two children together.


Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/X78_Q3YY5Vo/

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Anglicans have new US home in Catholic church

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI named a married former Episcopal bishop Sunday to head the first U.S. organizational structure for disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians who want to join the Roman Catholic Church.

The Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a father of three and Catholic convert, will lead the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the equivalent of a diocese, that will be based in Houston, Texas, but will operate nationally.

The Vatican created the first such ordinariate in Britain last year. Other ordinariates are being considered in Australia and Canada.

Steenson stepped down in 2007 as the Episcopal Bishop of Rio Grande, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after the Episcopal Church elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Steenson had said he was "deeply troubled" about the direction of the U.S. denomination and he described the Catholic Church as the "true home of Anglicanism."

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. Anglican body in the United States.

Benedict in 2009 issued an unprecedented invitation for Anglicans to become Catholic in groups or as parishes, at a time when traditional Anglicans in several countries were increasingly upset by the ordination of women and gay bishops. Formerly, Anglican converts to Catholicism were accepted on a case-by-case basis.

The pope's decision created tensions with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the world Anglican Communion, who like his predecessors had been in talks with Vatican officials to bring Anglicans and Catholics closer together.

The 77-million-member Anglican fellowship has its roots in the Church of England, which split from the Holy See in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.

At the time of the pope's announcement, Anglicans were already fracturing over Robinson's election and other issues. Williams had little advance notice of the Vatican announcement. Still, after meeting privately with the pope soon after, the archbishop of Canterbury said he was convinced that there was no "dawn raid" on his church by the Holy See.

Under the pope's plan, Anglicans who become Catholic will be allowed to keep some of their heritage in liturgy and other areas. Married Anglican priests who convert can stay married and be ordained in the Catholic Church, an exception to the Vatican's celibacy rule. Married Anglican bishops, however, cannot retain that position, and will serve the Catholic Church as priests.

More than 100 Anglican clergy have applied to become Catholic priests in the U.S. ordinariate. Church officials said more than 1,400 individuals are seeking to join. The U.S. Episcopal Church has just under 2 million members. Many Anglo-Catholics in the United States had never been part of the Episcopal Church.

Steenson, 59, who has a doctorate from the University of Oxford, has been married since 1974 and has three adult children. His wife also converted to Catholicism. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2009 in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and helped create the education and training program for Anglican priests seeking to join the Catholic Church.

------

AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed from New York.

------

U.S. ordinariate: http://www.usordinariate.org/

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_ANGLICANS?SITE=NCJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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After an RP hiatus, I need a role play partner/s

It's been a few months since I decided to take a break from RP and now my writing itch came back. I would want to start off again with realistic roleplays first. I'm starting to come up with plot and setting ideas but I need a partner/s to get me back on track.

I prefer if you'd send me a PM since there are times that I tend to forget about my posts here.

I would deeply appreciate the ideas that you would want to share. Though there are some no-no's for me. I just want a realistic RP (any time any setting).

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/Y8OX95HANag/viewtopic.php

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Year later, Egypt seeks answers over church bomb (AP)

CAIRO ? Hundreds of Egyptians held protests Saturday outside a Cairo courthouse and in the port city of Alexandria to demand answers over who was behind a bombing outside a church a year ago that killed 21 worshippers.

The attack in Alexandria took place Jan. 1, 2011, striking worshippers leaving a New Year's Eve Mass.

A year later, no suspects are in custody. About 40 people were arrested within days of the attack but were released after Hosni Mubarak's ouster because confessions from some of them were obtained under duress and none were found to have any link to the attack.

One of the accused men died in police custody after a severe beating. His death is also being investigated.

Initially, the government blamed "foreign elements," and the Alexandria governor blamed al-Qaida.

The Interior Ministry said the investigation stalled during the turmoil of the uprising that forced Mubarak out in February and in its aftermath.

Al-Adly and Mubarak are in prison on charges related to the killings of more than 800 people during the uprising.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_church_bombing

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'Octomom' in one-child China stuns public

BEIJING (AP) -- The photo was undeniably cute: a studio portrait of eight babies in identical onesies and perky white cotton hats, sporting an array of expressions from giggly to goofy, baffled to bawling.

Intended as an advertisement for the studio, the photo grabbed a different kind of attention: In a country that limits most couples to one child, many Chinese were amazed to learn that a couple had spent nearly a million yuan ($160,000) and illegally enlisted two surrogate mothers to help have the four boys and four girls.

The incident has highlighted both the use of birth surrogates, a violation of Chinese law, and how wealthy Chinese do as they please, with scant regard for the rules that constrain others. The most common reaction, though, has been simple disbelief.

"Heavens. To have one family with eight kids ... in an era of family planning where most people have just one, the contrast is just too much," said popular Chinese Central Television news anchor Bai Yansong as he introduced a 20-minute special report on the babies last weekend. "It doesn't sound like news. It sounds more like a fairy tale."

Chinese media are calling the mother "babaotai muqin," or "octomom," a reference to the American woman who gave birth to octuplets using in vitro fertilization.

Much remains uncertain about the family from Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong province. According to the Guangzhou Daily, a government newspaper, the biological mother carried two of the babies, while two surrogates gave birth to three each. After the babies were born in September and October last year, 11 nannies were hired to help take care of the children, the report said.

While some suspect a hoax, a media officer with the Guangdong Health Department said the case was real and under investigation. He declined to identify the couple, citing privacy concerns.

The story has captivated the public because it symbolizes a bold defiance of the country's strict family planning rules, said Liang Zhongtang, a demography expert at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"People are very interested in the policy these days and the need for changes to it," he said. "A lot of people think it should have been dropped a long time ago, or relaxed at least."

A 2001 law prohibits Chinese medical institutions and personnel from performing gestational surrogacy services, in which an embryo created from a couple is implanted into another woman who carries the baby to term.

Still, an underground market is thriving as more couples put off marriage and childbirth until later in life, only to find they are unable to conceive. The law forbids only the medical procedures, and agencies connecting couples and surrogates are easy to find online.

The Guangzhou Daily said the octomom couple resorted to in vitro fertilization and surrogates after years of failed attempts to conceive.

A manager for the Guangdong branch of the Daiyunguke surrogacy agency, Liu Jialei, said that this has been the busiest of his company's seven years in business, with more than 600 surrogates matched to families. His customers are Chinese, but the medical procedures are carried out abroad, in Southeast Asia and Japan, to circumvent the law.

Chinese media reports say many procedures are also done illegally at hospitals in China.

Many Chinese frown on surrogacy, which is often portrayed as a way for the rich to avoid going through pregnancy.

An opinion piece about the eight babies in the China Daily denounced surrogacy as something done by wealthy women unwilling to disrupt their careers or ruin their figures.

Author Cai Hong, a senior writer for the newspaper, wrote that the practice would inevitably give rise to "a breeder class" of poor women who end up "renting their wombs to wealthy people."

But Therese Hesketh, a University College London professor who has done numerous field studies in China on family planning issues, says that her impression is that Chinese who can afford surrogates tend to seek out attractive university graduates, not the underprivileged.

Chinese media say octomom and her family have gone into hiding. A Chinese Central Television investigative report could only dig up former neighbors who described seeing a pack of nannies taking the babies for strolls and to a toddler center for playtime.

A series of outtakes from the portrait session posted to a blog show the logo for the QQ Baby studio prominently displayed in the background, but staff at the shop in Guangzhou denied knowing anything about the photos.

Only the relatively well-off can afford in vitro fertilization and surrogacy or to live in a villa, as this couple reportedly did.

The rich also find it easier to flout the one-child limit, because they are better able to afford the hefty fines for doing so. Some also acquire foreign citizenship, which exempts them from the birth quotas.

On the popular Sina microblog, one user posted an article about the couple and commented: "If you have money, what does the law mean?"

All the hoopla may be boosting the surrogacy business. At Daiyun.com - an agency whose website is splashed with photos of babies nestled in flowers - a manager said all the attention made it inconvenient for any staff to speak with reporters.

"But one thing is for sure, our business is getting better and better," said the woman, who would only give her surname, Liu. "More and more people come to us for services."

---

Associated Press researchers Zhao Liang and Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

---

Online:

Photos on a Chinese blog: http://bit.ly/uxwW80

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_OCTOMOM?SITE=TXCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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MySpace co-founder: That place was 'a cesspool'

By Rosa Golijan

MySpace

Remember your dear ol' buddy Tom Anderson? I certainly hope you do?? he was the first friend you had on MySpace.

Anderson left MySpace back in 2009 and nowadays he's seeing other social networks ??and sharing his thoughts about them, as well as the site he co-founded so many years ago.

In a recent Google+ post,?Anderson discussed the photo-censoring habits of social networks and the importance of removing offensive photos. He specifically called out TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler for complaining about having a profile photo?? in which he is addressing the camera with a rude hand gesture?? removed from Google+ without any warning?before discussing how MySpace dealt with questionable images:

I would respectfully submit that we, the users of Google+ (and Facebook or Twitter) don't need to see you flipping us off, nor do we need to see you naked, or displaying something else generally considered offensive. When a social network let's that stuff slide, it turns into a cesspool that no one wants to visit ... sorta like MySpace was.?

Ouch! That's a pretty harsh thing for a man to say about his abandoned virtual child. But Anderson had a good justification for the criticism:

It was very difficult [at] MySpace to keep up with the "offensive" photos, and we had decent technology and many warm bodies on the case. (In fact, I'd guess the average person would be shocked how much time and resources we had to put into trying to stop that.)?[...] Things that seem simple are not as soon as you have 10s of millions of users.

This isn't the first time Anderson has said something about MySpace that made us gasp. Previously he pointed out that "like most of you, [he doesn't] like using [MySpace] anymore" after being questioned as to why he has a Facebook profile.

Related stories:

Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/30/9827964-myspace-co-founder-that-place-was-a-cesspool

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Forest fire cuts across vast Chilean national park (AP)

SANTIAGO, Chile ? Chilean President Sebastian Pinera says an out-of-control fire has already burned 32 square miles (8,500 hectares) of a national park in the nation's south, and it has prompted the evacuation of 400 tourists.

The president interrupted a summer vacation to meet with top aides on Friday about how to respond to the conflagration at the Torres del Paine National Park, which receives tens of thousands of foreign visitors each year.

He says "the terrain in the area is extraordinarily rough and that enormously complicates access and work." Gusts as strong as 70 mph (120 kph) also have fanned the fire.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111230/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_chile_forest_fire

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Quick Hello

Hello my name is Chance,

I am nineteen and currently living in Australia however I was born in North Hollywood. I plan to actively participate in the site as much as possible. I like to read and write and my favorite genre would have to be fantasy closely followed by doing alternative universes of animes. Speaking of which I watch most anime and could be called a otaku I guess. I have been role-playing for around eight years and still going fairly strong.

Currently listening to this while writing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM

Looking forward to role playing and just talking with you!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/MPuIxKqBVHc/viewtopic.php

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