Video captures disco clams producing strobe light show

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

The disco clam is surely the king of party animals. It's the only bivalve known to produce a controlled light show, creating a flashing strobe effect as it rolls up then unfurls a reflective lip.

Now Lindsey Dougherty and colleagues from University of California, Berkeley, are trying to uncover how and why these molluscs produce the display. It's visible whenever the clams are open in a bright area, exposing reflective cells on the edge of their mantle to light. But when Dougherty filmed the animals at night with an infrared camera, she found that they still rolled their reflective lip even though there was no light. "This means that there may be some purpose to the movement of the mantle which isn't seen in other closely related species," she says.

The clams mostly reflect blue light, which would be an advantage in the ocean because it travels much further and deeper than other wavelengths. But the question is how blue wavelengths are significant to organisms that perceive the light show. "Displays are only useful when the intended receiver has the photoreceptors and neural network necessary to process it," says Dougherty.

The researchers are now trying to determine the purpose of the display. Although clams are filter feeders, the light show might help lure additional prey. It could also be a way of warding off predators, although there is no proof that it's distasteful or toxic. It might also be a mating call used by females to attract juvenile males, causing them to settle nearby before they mass spawn. "We think the clams might be hermaphrodites, starting out as small males and maturing into large females, but we have yet to confirm this," says Dougherty.

The research was recently presented at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting in San Francisco.

If you enjoyed this post, watch flashing bacteria blink together or see a cuttlefish mimic its surroundings.

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Elton John has second baby via surrogate

LONDON: British pop star Elton John and his partner David Furnish have become parents for a second time, they confirmed on Wednesday.

The couple told Hello! magazine that they were "overwhelmed with happiness" at the birth of their son Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, who was born in Los Angeles on Friday to a surrogate mother.

"Both of us have longed to have children, but the reality that we now have two sons is almost unbelievable," they said.

The couple's first son Zachary was also born via a surrogacy arrangement in California in 2010.

"The birth of our second son completes our family in a most precious and perfect way," John and Furnish told the magazine.

"It is difficult to fully express how we are feeling at this time; we are just overwhelmed with happiness and excitement."

The "Candle in the Wind" singer, 65, has been in a relationship with 50-year-old film producer Furnish for almost 20 years and they have been in a civil partnership since 2005.

Last week, the couple's spokesman denied reports they had become parents again, but they have often spoken of their desire for Zachary to have a sibling.

The baby shares his middle name, Daniel, with one of John's 1970s hits.

- AFP/fa

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Apple offers installment payments to Chinese customers

Apple is trying to make it easier for customers in China to pay for its products.

The company has posted to its Chinese Web site a new installment plan, allowing customers who pay 300 yuan (about $48) or more for an Apple product to pay in installments. From now until January 23, Apple is offering interest-free payments for up to 12 months. If customers choose 18- or 24-month installments, interest will be assessed at 6.5 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively.

When customers check out on Apple's online store, they'll be given the option to pay in full at that time or choose an installment plan. Upon doing so, they'll be entered into installment plans through the Merchants Bank credit card.

The move appears to be an attempt on Apple's part to appeal to shoppers in China that might not be able to afford its expensive products. For example, the
iPhone 5 starts at RMB 5288 -- about $850. The company's
iPad starts at RMB 3688.

As Bloomberg, which first reported on the installment plan, pointed out in its report, the iPhone 5's starting price is equal to about six weeks' pay for the typical Chinese employee working in a city.

Still, Apple isn't only offering the installment plan to customers in China. In the U.S., for example, Apple will allow customers to finance its products for up to 18 months. Customer purchases that reach $1,999 or more have no interest for a period of 18 months. The no-interest option is available on smaller purchases for a shorter period of time.

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale Crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale Crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp. Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

As the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.

In 35-second video posted online Tuesday night, the NRA criticizes Obama for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at their private Washington, D.C., school while questioning the placement of similar security at other schools.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” the narrator says.

“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” it continues. “Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”

The immediate family members of U.S. presidents – generally considered potential targets – have long received Secret Service protection.

The ad appeared on a new website for a NRA advocacy campaign – “NRA Stand and Fight” — that the gun-rights group appears poised to launch in response to Obama’s package of gun control proposals that will be announced today.

An NRA spokesman said the video is airing on the Sportsman Channel and on the web for now but may appear in other broadcast markets at a later date.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement that the ad was “repugnant and cowardly.”

“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight,” said Carney. “But to go so far as to make the safety of the President’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly.”

In the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Obama administration has met with a cross-section of advocacy groups on all sides of the gun debate to formulate new policy proposals.

The NRA, which met with Vice President Joe Biden last week, has opposed any new legislative gun restrictions, including expanded background checks and limits on the sale of assault-style weapons, instead calling for armed guards at all American schools.

Obama publicly questioned that approach in an interview with “Meet the Press” earlier this month, saying, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”

Still, the White House has been considering a call for increased funding for police officers at public schools and the proposal could be part of a broader Obama gun policy package.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they support adding armed guards at schools across the country.

“The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.  And surely, we can do something about that,” Obama said at a news conference on Monday.

“Responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

ABC News’ Arlette Saenz, Mary Bruce and Jay Shaylor contributed reporting. 

This post was updated at 9:32 am on Jan. 16 to reflect include comment from an NRA spokesman.

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Beijing skylines yields dramatic view of choking city

Fred Pearce, consultant, and Michael Marshall, reporter

(Images: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)

Beijing is choking - as these two pictures vividly demonstrate. Above is the city's skyline yesterday; below is the same view on 4 February 2012. The suffocating smog is not just bad for health, it may also have a more potent effect on climate change than previously thought.

Dense smog shrouded Beijing over the weekend, causing levels of airborne soot, also known as black carbon, to go off the charts. Some reports put levels of one type of tiny airborne soot particle at well over 30 times the World Health Organization's recommended limit in parts of the city, and hospital admissions were up.

But as well as hurting health, soot has an effect on climate change - and a new study suggests this is more potent than we thought. Tami Bond of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues report that its warming effect is almost twice the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimates, which would make soot the second biggest warmer after carbon dioxide (Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1002/jgrd.50171).

The good news is that unlike CO₂, soot stays in the air for only a few days. So action to curb soot from coal fires, diesel exhausts and cooking stoves could be a quick antidote, says Bond. Such a measure would save lives, too. Soot is estimated to kill 2 million people a year, mostly through indoor pollution from cooking stoves.

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Football: LionsXII fall to PKNS

SINGAPORE - After two confidence-boosting wins from their first two Malaysian Super League matches, V. Sundramoorthy's high-flying LionsXII side were brought down to earth on Tuesday night at the Shah Alam Stadium when they fell to their first defeat.

Ironically, PKNS Selangor, the team that defeated them on Tuesday, had entered the match in contrasting fashion - with two losses out of two matches.

But that did not stop PKNS Selangor from stunning the LionsXII and maintaining their 100 per cent home record against the Singapore side.

Last season, PKNS did the double over Sundram's men, beating them in Kuala Lumpur in the MSL as well as in the group stage of the Malaysia Cup.

Tuesday's match seemed headed for a 0-0 draw despite the LionsXII coming close through Fazrul Nawaz, Irwan Shah and Gabriel Quak in the first half which they had also dominated.

Fazrul sent his shot centimetres wide of the post after latching onto a pass by skipper Shahril Ishak. Irwan then missed another scoring opportunity during a goalmouth scramble minutes later, while Quak let himself down by shooting wide with only the keeper to beat after dribbling his way past several PKNS defenders.

In the second half, the two sides switched roles as PKNS attacked more, and had the LionsXII on the backfoot.

In the end, it was Nazrin Syamsul who made the difference when he blasted home the only goal of the game for PKNS.

The LionsXII's misery was further compounded when striker Fazrul was sent off in the dying minutes of the game for a nasty tackle.

The LionsXII's next match is on Saturday against Terengganu at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

- TODAY

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The new MySpace launches with help from Justin Timberlake

The new-look MySpace.

(Credit:
MySpace)

The new MySpace has launched to the public, and Justin Timberlake, the site's co-owner, is helping build some interest in it.

When folks head over to MySpace today, they'll find that they can now register to join the site. Upon doing so, users will be able to freely stream Justin Timberlake's new single featuring Jay Z, "Suit & Tie."

Until now, the new MySpace had been available only to those invited to try it out.

MySpace has gone through a series of reinventions over the years as it watched its star rise in the social-networking sphere and then quickly fall. This latest iteration focuses almost exclusively on music, allowing users to create and access playlists, listen to tracks, and share musical interests with others. In an interview with CNET in October, MySpace COO Chris Vanderhook indicated that the company will no longer try to compete with Facebook -- the "uber social network," he called it -- but will try to fill a void left by competing services, like Spotify or Pandora.

"We think there is a huge gap that we wanted to fulfill," Vanderhook said. "There is no point to compete with Facebook and Twitter."

Users can sign up now for the new MySpace. They can use their Facebook or Twitter credentials to sign in or just login with their old MySpace username and password.

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog on the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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Oprah Describes Intense Armstrong Interview

Oprah Winfrey said today that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong came well prepared for their highly anticipated interview, although he "did not come clean in the manner [she] expected."

Winfrey, who discussed the interview on "CBS This Morning" today, said, "We were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers. I feel that he answered the questions in a way that he was ready. … He certainly had prepared himself for this moment. … He brought it. He really did."

Armstrong had apologized to staffers at the Livestrong Foundation before the Monday interview with Winfrey at a hotel in Austin, Texas, and reportedly admitted to them that he used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied career.

Armstrong also confessed to Winfrey to using the drugs, sources have told ABC News. Winfrey said this morning that the entire interview, for which she had prepared 112 questions, was difficult.

"I would say there were a couple of times where he was emotional," she said. "But that doesn't describe the intensity at times."

As for the cyclist's sense of remorse, Winfrey said that will be for viewers to decide.
"I would rather people make their own decisions about whether he was contrite or not," she said.

The interview will air on the OWN network for two nights, starting at 9 p.m. ET Thursday and continuing Friday.

Meanwhile, the federal government is likely to join a whistle-blower lawsuit against Armstrong, originally filed by his former cycling teammate Floyd Landis, sources told ABC News.

The government is seeking to recoup millions of dollars from Armstrong after years of his denying that he used performance-enhancing drugs, the sources said. The U.S. Postal Service, which is an independent agency of the federal government, was a longtime sponsor of Armstrong's racing career.

George Burns/Harpo Studios, Inc.

Lance Armstrong Doping Confession: Why Now? Watch Video

Cyclist Lance Armstrong Apologizes to Livestrong Staff for Doping Scandal Watch Video

Lance Armstrong Stripped of Tour de France Titles Watch Video

The deadline for the government's potentially joining in the matter was a likely motivation for Armstrong's interview with Winfrey, sources told ABC News.

The lawsuit remains sealed in federal court.

Armstrong is now talking with authorities about possibly paying back some of the Postal Service sponsorship money, a government source told ABC News Monday.

The deadline for the department to join the case is Thursday, the same day Armstrong's much-anticipated interview with Winfrey is set to air.

Armstrong is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up others involved in illegal doping. This could result in a reduction of his lifetime ban, according to a source, if Armstrong provides substantial and meaningful information.

As for the Winfrey interview, it was Armstrong's first since officials stripped him of his world cycling titles in response to doping allegations.

Word of Armstrong's admission comes after a Livestrong official said that Armstrong apologized Monday to the foundation's staff ahead of his interview.

The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.

Armstrong's "sincere and heartfelt apology" generated lots of tears, spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, adding that he "took responsibility" for the trouble he has caused the foundation.

McLane declined to say whether Armstrong's comments included an admission of doping, just that the cyclist wanted the staff to hear from him in person rather than rely on second-hand accounts.

Armstrong then took questions from the staff.

Armstrong's story has never changed. In front of cameras, microphones, fans, sponsors, cancer survivors -- even under oath -- Lance Armstrong hasn't just denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, he has done so in an indignant, even threatening way.

Armstrong, 41, was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport for life by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in October 2012, after allegations that he benefited from years of systematic doping, using banned substances and receiving illicit blood transfusions.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," Pat McQuaid, the president of the International Cycling Union, said at a news conference in Switzerland announcing the decision. "This is a landmark day for cycling."

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