Stefan Milosevic grabs Men?s 200m butterfly gold ? Swimming news
Stefan Milosevic of HYACK grabbed gold medal of Men?s 200m butterfly on day one of the 2013 Mel Zajac Jr International at UBC Aquatic Centre on Sunday, May 26.
The 17-year-old Milosevic crushed hopes of his opponents in the 200m race and cemented his place on the finishing end for gold medal. With his impeccable efforts, he dictated terms to his opponents in the 200m discipline and tapped the wall for first position.
Milosevic faced tough challenge from his closest competitor but with his strong determination, he managed to ascend on the finishing end for gold medal. He showed no leniency to his opponents in the 200m discipline and tapped the wall for the title with
the timing of 2 minutes and 05.40 seconds.
Jon McKay of UVIC-PCS, who was 0.32 seconds slower from his former finisher and concluded his race in second place by posting a time of 2 minutes and 05.72 seconds, followed the champion.
The second best finisher was chased by Thomas Jobin of CASC, who was one and a half body length slower from his foregoing finisher and touched the wall with an effort of 2 minutes and 07.27 seconds for bronze medal.
Fourth fastest spot of the event was obtained by Rob Hill of Chena, who stayed 1.08 seconds away from his former finisher and surfaced on the wall with an effort of 2 minutes and 08.35 seconds.
Fifth position of the race was secured by Mathias J Oh of KING-PN, who was 0.09 seconds apart and transpired on the finishing end with the timing of 2 minutes and 08.44 seconds.
Oh was traced by Justin Kiedrzyn of HYACK, who was 0.33 seconds apart and tapped the wall with an effort of 2 minutes and 08.77 seconds for sixth position.
Seventh fastest spot of the race was obtained by Woute Terpstra of VKSC, who remained 0.38 seconds slower and touched the wall with the timing 2 minutes and 09.15 seconds.
Last position of the race was secured by Nicolaa Dekker of RAPID, who as unable to upset any of his challengers and concluded his race in eighth place with the timing of 2 minutes and 12.78 seconds.
Furthermore, Milosevic expressed happiness over his victory in the 200m butterfly discipline. In addition, the winners received awards and accolades for their relentless efforts at the victory ceremony of the tournament after the conclusion of session.
Apple has just quietly launched a budget-friendly new iPod touch: a 16GB model, with a 4-inch Retina display and a price tag of $230.
Replacing the last-gen 3.5-inch version, which hung around Apple's store for a while, the new budget offering loses some of the more advanced features found on the more expensive models?such as the rear camera. It does, however, pack a dual-core Apple A5 processor and the same screen as the four-inch iPhone and iPod Touch. It can also handle FaceTime thanks to a front-facing camera on the front.
Only available in silver, it should be in Apple stores from May 31st for $230. [Apple via Verge via Slash Gear]
When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context
Bilinguals have the remarkable ability to switch from one language to the other. In a new study, Jason Gullifer and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, USA, looked at whether language switching incurs a processing cost. They show that the mind has little difficulty in preventing such mix-ups between languages. When 26 North American Latino people were asked to read aloud an underlined word within a text that mixed English and Spanish, they did not think longer or make more mistakes than when the text was in a single language. Gullifer et al. conclude that voluntary language switching is a natural feature of bilingualism that requires little additional processing time by the mind.
Jason Gullifer
Department of Psychology
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Phone: +1 9782738062
Email: jwg20@psu.edu
Frontiers in Microbiology
Contrasting genomic properties of free-living and particle-attached microbial assemblages within a coastal ecosystem
In terms of environmental and economic impact, the Columbia River is the most important river in the US Pacific Northwest. To characterize the microbial diversity within its estuary, Holly M. Simon and colleagues from Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction and the J. Craig Venter Institute, sequenced total DNA from water in four habitats: the Columbia River's immediate outflow; the river plume that extends into Pacific Ocean; upwelling low-oxygen water off the coast; and the ocean bottom. They show that the Columbia River estuary is a complex region characterized by high turbidity ("cloudiness"), in which bacteria attached to solid particles suspended in the water are crucial for recycling organic matter.
Paradoxically, the turbidity blocks sunlight in these estuarine waters and makes it difficult for photosynthetic algae to grow there, yet light-dependent bacteria dominate these waters. These bacteria are known as photoheterotrophs because they use both organic substrates and light energy for growth and survival. They employ a protein that is related to light-sensitive pigments in mammalian eyes to generate energy from light, which helps them survive when nutrients are scarce. Habitat diversity, in the form of local variation in size and type of suspended particles, maintains the considerable bacterial biodiversity in the estuary of the Columbia River.
Holly M. Simon
Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction and Division of Environmental & Biomolecular Systems
Oregon Health and Science University, USA
Email: simonh@ebs.ogi.edu
Frontiers in Neuroscience
Age-related similarities and differences in brain activity underlying reversal learning
Memories are constantly updated because surroundings are not static. One way that researchers have investigated memory updating is with "reversal learning" tasks in which participants learn as association (e.g., Mary is angry) and then update their response when contingencies change (e.g., Mary is no longer angry). Kaoru Nasiro at the Center for Vial Longevity at the University of Texas, Dallas and colleagues from the University of Southern California, USA, examined brain activity in younger (19-35 years) and older (61-78 years) adults while they were engaged in two types of reversal learning tasks in an fMRI scanner; one involved emotion and the other did not (e.g., who is angry? vs. who wears eye-glasses?).
During emotional reversal learning, both groups showed similar activity in the amygdala, a region critical for emotional memory, and the frontopolar/orbitofrontal cortex, which updates old emotional memory. During neutral reversal learning however, older adults showed greater activity in regions that control attention than did younger adults. The results suggest that brain mechanisms underlying emotional memory updating is little affected by age.
Kaoru Nashiro
Center for Vital Longevity
University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Email: kxn130030@utdallas.edu
Also of interest, Frontiers research not under embargo:
Frontiers in Psychology
Music training, cognition, and personality
Two key personality traits openness-to-experience and conscientiousness predict better than IQ who will take music lessons and continue for longer periods, according to a new study. A team of researchers, led by Glenn Schellenberg at the University of Toronto Mississaug, also found that when personality traits and demographic factors are considered, the link between cognitive ability and music training disappears. In separate groups of 167 10-12-year-olds and 118 university undergraduates, the researchers looked at how individual differences in cognitive ability and personality predict who takes up music lessons and for how long. They found that pre-existing differences in personality could explain why musically trained children have substantially higher IQs and perform better in school than other children.
E. Glenn Schellenberg
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada
Email: g.schellenberg@utoronto.ca
Also of interest, Frontiers research not under embargo:
Frontiers in Neuroscience
The role of the primary auditory cortex in the neural mechanism of auditory verbal hallucinations
How can healthy people who hear voices help those with schizophrenia? In a recently pubished study, Kristiina Kompus and colleagues analyzed data from a functional magnetic reasonance imaging (fMRI) study, to show that those with schizophrenia have a reduced ability to regulate the primary auditory cortex using cognitive control compared to those who hear voices but are otherwise healthy.
Kristiina Kompus
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology
University of Bergen, Norway
Email: kristiina.kompus@psybp.uib.no
###
For copies of embargoed papers, please contact: Gozde Zorlu, Communications Officer: tel: +41 (0) 21 693 9203. Interview requests should be directed to the corresponding author and appropriate contact details are provided above.
For online articles, please cite "Frontiers in xxx" followed by the name of the field as the publisher and include a link to the paper; URLs are listed.
About Frontiers
Frontiers, a partner of Nature Publishing Group, is a scholarly open access publisher and research networking platform. Based in Switzerland, and formed by scientists in 2007, it is one of the largest and fastest growing publishers and its mission is to empower all academic communities to drive research publishing and communication into the 21st century with open science tools.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations, such as, the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
[ | E-mail | 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.
When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context
Bilinguals have the remarkable ability to switch from one language to the other. In a new study, Jason Gullifer and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, USA, looked at whether language switching incurs a processing cost. They show that the mind has little difficulty in preventing such mix-ups between languages. When 26 North American Latino people were asked to read aloud an underlined word within a text that mixed English and Spanish, they did not think longer or make more mistakes than when the text was in a single language. Gullifer et al. conclude that voluntary language switching is a natural feature of bilingualism that requires little additional processing time by the mind.
Jason Gullifer
Department of Psychology
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Phone: +1 9782738062
Email: jwg20@psu.edu
Frontiers in Microbiology
Contrasting genomic properties of free-living and particle-attached microbial assemblages within a coastal ecosystem
In terms of environmental and economic impact, the Columbia River is the most important river in the US Pacific Northwest. To characterize the microbial diversity within its estuary, Holly M. Simon and colleagues from Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction and the J. Craig Venter Institute, sequenced total DNA from water in four habitats: the Columbia River's immediate outflow; the river plume that extends into Pacific Ocean; upwelling low-oxygen water off the coast; and the ocean bottom. They show that the Columbia River estuary is a complex region characterized by high turbidity ("cloudiness"), in which bacteria attached to solid particles suspended in the water are crucial for recycling organic matter.
Paradoxically, the turbidity blocks sunlight in these estuarine waters and makes it difficult for photosynthetic algae to grow there, yet light-dependent bacteria dominate these waters. These bacteria are known as photoheterotrophs because they use both organic substrates and light energy for growth and survival. They employ a protein that is related to light-sensitive pigments in mammalian eyes to generate energy from light, which helps them survive when nutrients are scarce. Habitat diversity, in the form of local variation in size and type of suspended particles, maintains the considerable bacterial biodiversity in the estuary of the Columbia River.
Holly M. Simon
Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction and Division of Environmental & Biomolecular Systems
Oregon Health and Science University, USA
Email: simonh@ebs.ogi.edu
Frontiers in Neuroscience
Age-related similarities and differences in brain activity underlying reversal learning
Memories are constantly updated because surroundings are not static. One way that researchers have investigated memory updating is with "reversal learning" tasks in which participants learn as association (e.g., Mary is angry) and then update their response when contingencies change (e.g., Mary is no longer angry). Kaoru Nasiro at the Center for Vial Longevity at the University of Texas, Dallas and colleagues from the University of Southern California, USA, examined brain activity in younger (19-35 years) and older (61-78 years) adults while they were engaged in two types of reversal learning tasks in an fMRI scanner; one involved emotion and the other did not (e.g., who is angry? vs. who wears eye-glasses?).
During emotional reversal learning, both groups showed similar activity in the amygdala, a region critical for emotional memory, and the frontopolar/orbitofrontal cortex, which updates old emotional memory. During neutral reversal learning however, older adults showed greater activity in regions that control attention than did younger adults. The results suggest that brain mechanisms underlying emotional memory updating is little affected by age.
Kaoru Nashiro
Center for Vital Longevity
University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Email: kxn130030@utdallas.edu
Also of interest, Frontiers research not under embargo:
Frontiers in Psychology
Music training, cognition, and personality
Two key personality traits openness-to-experience and conscientiousness predict better than IQ who will take music lessons and continue for longer periods, according to a new study. A team of researchers, led by Glenn Schellenberg at the University of Toronto Mississaug, also found that when personality traits and demographic factors are considered, the link between cognitive ability and music training disappears. In separate groups of 167 10-12-year-olds and 118 university undergraduates, the researchers looked at how individual differences in cognitive ability and personality predict who takes up music lessons and for how long. They found that pre-existing differences in personality could explain why musically trained children have substantially higher IQs and perform better in school than other children.
E. Glenn Schellenberg
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada
Email: g.schellenberg@utoronto.ca
Also of interest, Frontiers research not under embargo:
Frontiers in Neuroscience
The role of the primary auditory cortex in the neural mechanism of auditory verbal hallucinations
How can healthy people who hear voices help those with schizophrenia? In a recently pubished study, Kristiina Kompus and colleagues analyzed data from a functional magnetic reasonance imaging (fMRI) study, to show that those with schizophrenia have a reduced ability to regulate the primary auditory cortex using cognitive control compared to those who hear voices but are otherwise healthy.
Kristiina Kompus
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology
University of Bergen, Norway
Email: kristiina.kompus@psybp.uib.no
###
For copies of embargoed papers, please contact: Gozde Zorlu, Communications Officer: tel: +41 (0) 21 693 9203. Interview requests should be directed to the corresponding author and appropriate contact details are provided above.
For online articles, please cite "Frontiers in xxx" followed by the name of the field as the publisher and include a link to the paper; URLs are listed.
About Frontiers
Frontiers, a partner of Nature Publishing Group, is a scholarly open access publisher and research networking platform. Based in Switzerland, and formed by scientists in 2007, it is one of the largest and fastest growing publishers and its mission is to empower all academic communities to drive research publishing and communication into the 21st century with open science tools.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations, such as, the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
[ | 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.
Affordable Solar has teamed up with Sunnova Energy Corp. to lease solar panels to residents in New Mexico.
The business will compete directly with utility electricity by providing solar energy for less than the cost of monthly electricity bills.
For example, Affordable Solar would lease a 4.5-kilowatt residential solar system, typical for a 3 bedroom home, that would cost $79 a month with no upfront cost. Without a lease, that same system would cost a resident $18,000. Currently, 75% of Americans have access to solar energy through a solar lease, the company reports.
From the article:?
?Now New Mexicans can lock in their cost of electricity, paying for tomorrow's electricity at yesterday's prices.?
Building your perfect business may be challenging and at the onset, chaotic. Being in control of so many things and at the same time, your thoughts about where you are headed is a lot easier when you keep in mind several necessary things that will help you stay focused and on track.
?
Get busy and relax. While the two may not sound like they belong together, what works for one person doesn?t necessarily work for another. Concentrating fully on one task in particular, completing it and getting it out of your way keeps business worries at bay. At the same time, if you tend to be the type that gets anxious and/or nervous, if demands have you stressed to the point where you can?t concentrate, relaxation is probably the best choice. Give yourself a holiday, even if only for one day.
Don?t pay attention to the opinions of others. Always think about where the opinion came from. Most business owners know when they are doing their best. Listen to others who have experience in your field but don?t feel you have to take into consideration the comments of those who probably have no idea what is in your best interest. Seek knowledge from those who have it and learn to navigate around any pitfalls that could arise from the negative messages of others.
Be original. Though imitation is a form of flattery, when it?s your business that?s involved, being different and being the best at what you?re doing it more important. Take some time to discover which options are available to you that can make your product or service stand out from the rest. The most famous businesses didn?t become that way by being carbon copies of all of the others that were out there. Being afraid to take big steps in your business is normal. If there?s something you?re not sure of or don?t have knowledge of, consider outsourcing certain tasks to a virtual team with experience.
Scrap the small stuff. Business owners tend to worry away at the smallest things that in the long run will have absolutely no effect on their business. If you are one of these, take a note of what is it that is bothering you and put it away until later. You aren?t looking for perfection, you are looking at the big picture and what will work best for both you and your customers. In the same vein, if it has already happened, then it?s over. Once again, take a note and if you have made a mistake, ensure that it doesn?t happen again. Sometimes you just have to be able to let things go.
Don?t limit yourself. Most of the time when we think we can?t do something, it isn?t that we can?t do it, it?s more likely that we just can?t believe we could ever climb that high. Putting boundaries on your business will slow your growth and keep you from expanding. Listen to that inner voice that tells you what you really can accomplish.
An important part of managing any business means keeping in mind that knowledge means power. A business owner who is not learning about new technology or business practises becomes stagnant. But more importantly, it means learning about yourself and the way you think. Learning to trust yourself is the most important step you need to take, ahead of all of the others.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.? -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Every time she bounces on the bed, I see stitches," she says in Glamour's June issue. "Being a parent is a Jedi mind f---. It's also the raddest thing ever."
BOSTON (AP) ? Three college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested and accused Wednesday of removing a backpack containing fireworks emptied of gunpowder from Tsarnaev's dorm room three days after the attack to try to keep him from getting into trouble.
In court papers, the FBI said one of them threw the backpack in the garbage ? it was later found in a landfill by law enforcement officers ? after they concluded from news reports that Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.
Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by concealing and destroying evidence. A third man, Robel Phillipos, was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to Tsarnaev's room.
A court appearance for the three was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Their lawyers refused to comment ahead of the hearing.
Three people were killed and more than 260 injured on April 15 when two bombs exploded near the finish line. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with police days later. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, was captured and lies in a prison hospital.
Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev, who are from Kazakhstan, have been held in jail for more than a week on allegations that they violated their student visas by not regularly going to class at UMass. All three men charged Wednesday began attending UMass with Tsarnaev at the same time in 2011, according to the FBI.
The three were not accused of any involvement in the bombing itself. But in a footnote in the court papers, the FBI said that about a month before the bombing, Tsarnaev told Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev that he knew how to make a bomb.
Investigators have not said whether the pressure cooker bombs used in the attacks were made with gunpowder extracted from fireworks.
If convicted, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov could get up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Phillipos faces a maximum of eight years behind bars and a $250,000 fine.
Authorities allege that on the night of April 18, after the FBI released surveillance-camera photos of the bombing suspects and the three men suspected their friend was one of them, they went to Tsarnaev's dorm room.
Before Tsarnaev's roommate let them in, Kadyrbayev showed Tazhayakov a text message from Tsarnaev that read: "I'm about to leave if you need something in my room take it," according to the FBI.
When Tazhayakov learned of the message, "he believed he would never see Tsarnaev alive again," the FBI said in the affidavit.
It was not clear from the court papers whether authorities believe that was an instruction from Tsarnaev to his friends to destroy evidence.
Once inside Tsarnaev's room, the men noticed a backpack containing fireworks, which had been opened and emptied of powder, the FBI said.
The FBI said that Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in the bombings and decided to remove the backpack from the room "in order to help his friend Tsarnaev avoid trouble."
Kadyrbayev also decided to remove Tsarnaev's laptop "because he did not want Tsarnaev's roommate to think he was stealing or behaving suspiciously by just taking the backpack," the FBI said in court papers.
After the three men returned to Kadyrbayev's and Tazhayakov's apartment with the backpack and computer, they watched news reports featuring photographs of Tsarnaev.
The FBI affidavit said Kadyrbayev told authorities the three men then "collectively decided to throw the backpack and fireworks into the trash because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble."
Kadyrbayev said he placed the backpack and fireworks along with trash from the apartment into a large trash bag and threw it into a garbage bin near the men's apartment.
When the backpack was later found in a landfill last week, inside it was a UMass-Dartmouth homework assignment sheet from a class Tsarnaev was taking, the FBI said.
Meanwhile, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relatives will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said. The body of Tsarnaev, 26, has been at the medical examiner's office in Massachusetts since he died after a gunfight with authorities more than a week ago.
Amato DeLuca, an attorney for his widow, Katherine Russell, said Tuesday that his client had just learned that the medical examiner was ready to release Tsarnaev's body and that she wants it released to his side of the family.
Tsarnaev's parents are still in Russia, but he has other relatives in the U.S.
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Providence; Rodrique Ngowi in Boston; Lynn Berry in Moscow; Arsen Mollyaev in Makhachkala, Russia; and Eric Tucker, Alicia A. Caldwell, Eileen Sullivan and AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier in Washington.
Advanced Medical is at present recruited SLP Speech Pathologist Travel Quick Placement in Carrollton, TX on Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:01:07 GMT. Advanced Medical is looking to fill the position of a speech language pathologist in one of our highly respected facilities. Experience working in an facility is required from any applicant applying for the SLP job. The fundamental responsibilities of all speech therapists include evaluating the patient’s disorders, whether mental or physical, keeping diligent records of the patient’s progress, as...
Location:Carrollton, Texas
Description:Advanced Medical is at present recruited SLP Speech Pathologist Travel Quick Placement in Carrollton, TX right now, this occupation will be depute in Texas. For detail informations about this occupation opportunity kindly read the description below. Advanced Medical is looking to fill the position of a speech language pathologist in one of our highly resp! ected facilities. Experience working in an facility is required from any applicant applying for the SLP job. The fundamental responsibilities of all speech therapists include evaluating the patient’s disorders, whether mental or physical, keeping diligent records of the patient’s progress, as well as the patient’s and the patient’s families concerns and collaborating with physicians and other health care professionals to develop an individualized treatment plan for each patient. We are searching for a resourceful speech language pathologist who will utilize their independent skills in conjunction with new techniques, to create customized treatment plans for all of our patients. This SLP position also requires a working knowledge of insurance plans, including but not limited to Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance companies. In addition, the ideal speech therapist candidate will have the experience and familiarity in working on and completing computerized doc! umentation. - . If you were eligible to this occu! pation, please deliver us your resume, with salary requirements and a resume to Advanced Medical.
Interested on this occupation, just click on the Apply button, you will be redirected to the official website
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HONOLULU (AP) ? Authorities are investigating why a baby girl was found abandoned on a Hawaii beach hours after birth.
State Department of Human Services Director Patricia McManaman says the newborn was abandoned immediately after birth.
Police say a woman parked at Sandy Beach in east Honolulu sometime between 11 p.m. Sunday and midnight heard several people screaming. A few minutes later the screaming stopped and the woman heard a baby crying.
She walked toward the ocean and saw an infant on the sand. The woman took the baby to a hospital. Police are investigating the case as endangering the welfare of a minor and child abandonment.
McManaman says the baby was born full term and was found naked. She says the 8-pound newborn is doing well and drinking formula at a hospital.
A close-up of a 1.9-billion-year-old Gunflint chert, which contain tiny fossilized evidence of microbes consuming other microbes in the black zones.
By Stephanie Pappas LiveScience
Kids like to taunt each other with the cry, "Last one there is a rotten egg!" In Earth's case, that might be more true of the first ones there, according to a new study suggesting that millions of years ago, the planet emanated such a stench.
The research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds fossil evidence of microbes?snacking on other microbes, a form of feeding called heterotrophy. Heterotrophs can't make their own organic nutrients, so they have to eat other life forms. This is in contrast with autotrophs (think plants), which can synthesize their own food from sunlight or inorganic chemicals.
Researchers suspected that organisms have been eating other organisms for a very long time ? about 3.5 billion years, said study researcher Martin Brasier, a professor at Oxford University's department of earth sciences. The new study clarifies the process about 1.9 billion years ago. [Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures]
"In this study, for the first time, we identify how it was happening and 'who was eating who,'" Brasier said in a statement. "In fact, we've all experienced modern bacteria feeding this way, as that's where that 'rotten egg' whiff of hydrogen sulfide comes from in a blocked drain."
David Wacey
A three-dimensional reconstruction of tubular Gunflintia microbes being consumed by smaller rod- and sphere-shaped bacteria.
Early Earth may also have been purple, according to a 2007 study that found that ancient microbes may have shone a purplish hue.
Brasier and his colleagues analyzed fossils of a bacterium called Gunflintia. These fossils measured just 3 to 15 microns in diameter; in comparison, the eye of a needle is about 1,230 microns across. Compared with other bacterial fossils, the tubular outer sheath of Gunflintia were more likely to show perforations, a sign that other bacteria had been snacking on them.
Another clue that early Earth was a bacteria-eat-bacteria world was the discovery of iron sulfide replacing some segments of the Gunflintia sheaths. Iron sulfide, the compound that makes up fool's gold, is a waste product of certain heterotrophic bacteria that breathe sulfate. These sulfate-reducing bacteria, which ultimately produce sulfides, date back 3.5 billion years, according to previously researched fossils.
"Whilst the Gunflintiafossils are only about half as old, they confirm that such bacteria were indeed flourishing by 1,900 million years ago," researcher David Wacey, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Western Australia, said in a statement, referring to the fossils from this study. "And that they were also highly particular about what they chose to eat."
The sulfate-breathers may not have been the only ones chowing down. The researchers also found clusters of 1-micron-sized rod and sphere bacteria in the Gunflintia fossils that may have died while in the process of consuming the larger microbes.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter?and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?andGoogle+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Happy Tuesday! Take some time out of your day for these recommended reads: Healthy school programs reduce the risk of smoking later in life — Reuters Tips and tricks to make sure Mom is always in the family photo — Baby Zone A woman who received a womb transplant is now 6-weeks pregnant — CBS [...]
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