Globidentosuchus brachyrostris belonged to the caiman
 family. With its spherical teeth they likely specialized in
 shellfish, snails or crabs.



Some 14 species of crocodile lived in South America around 5 million years ago, at least seven of which populated the coastal areas of the Urumaco River in Venezuela at the same time. Paleontologists from the University of Zurich have found evidence of an abundance of closely related crocodiles that remains unparalleled to this day. As they were highly specialized, the crocodiles occupied different econiches. When the watercourses changed due to the Andean uplift, however, all the crocodile species became extinct. 

Nowadays, the most diverse species of crocodile are found in northern South America and Southeast Asia. As many as six species of alligator and four true crocodiles exist, although no more than two or three ever live alongside one another at the same time. It was a different story nine to about five million years ago, however, when a total of 14 different crocodile species existed and at least seven of them occupied the same area at the same time, as an international team headed by paleontologists Marcelo Sánchez and Torsten Scheyer from the University of Zurich is now able to reveal.

The deltas of the Amazonas and the Urumaco, a river on the Gulf of Venezuela that no longer exists, boasted an abundance of extremely diverse, highly specialized species of crocodile that has remained unparalleled ever since.

While studying the wealth of fossil crocodiles from the Miocene in the Urumaco region, the scientists discovered two new crocodile species: the Globidentosuchus brachyrostris, which belonged to the caiman family and had spherical teeth, and Crocodylus falconensis, a crocodile that the researchers assume grew up to well over four meters long. As Sánchez and his team reveal, Venezuela’s fossils include all the families of crocodile species that still exist all over the world today: the Crocodylidae, the so-called true crocodiles; the Alligatoridae, which, besides the true alligators, also include caimans; and the Gavialidae, which are characterized by their extremely long, thin snouts and are only found in Southeast Asia nowadays.

On account of the species’ extremely different jaw shapes, the researchers are convinced that the different crocodilians were highly specialized feeders: With their pointed, slender snouts, the fossil gharials must have preyed on fish. “Gharials occupied the niche in the habitat that was filled by dolphins after they became extinct,” Sánchez said he suspects. With its spherical teeth, however, Globidentosuchus brachyrostris most likely specialized in shellfish, snails or crabs. And giant crocodiles, which grew up to 12 meters long, fed on turtles, giant rodents and smaller crocodiles. “There were no predators back then in South America that could have hunted the three-meter-long turtles or giant rodents. Giant crocodiles occupied this very niche,” explains Scheyer.

The unusual variety of species in the coastal and brackish water regions of Urumaco and Amazonas came to an end around 5 million years ago when all the crocodile species died out. The reason behind their extinction, however, was not temperature or climate changes. Temperatures in the Caribbean remained stable around the Miocene/Pliocene boundary. Instead, it was caused by a tectonic event: “The Andean uplift changed the courses of rivers. As a result, the Amazon River no longer drains into the Caribbean, but the considerably cooler Atlantic Ocean,” explains Sánchez.

"With the destruction of the habitat, an entirely new fauna emerged that we know from the Orinoco and Amazon regions today. In the earlier Urumaco region, however, a very dry climate has prevailed ever since the Urumaco River dried up."

---

Apple exec defends taxes
during Senate questioning


Top executives of American technology giant Apple faced intense questioning from U.S. lawmakers about the company's use of off-shore entities that allow it to shield billions of dollars in global profits from federal taxes.  Apple’s chief executive admitted to no wrongdoing, but urged an overhaul of the U.S. tax code.
 
Apple’s high-tech consumer products are seemingly everywhere, as noted by Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, at a hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Just like millions around the world, I carry an iPhone in my pocket," he said.
 
Levin said Apple’s successful business model involves shielding profits from federal taxes. “Apple has sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance: off-shore corporations that it argues are not for tax purposes resident anywhere in any nation," he said.
 
Levin said U.S. corporations hold more than $1 trillion in off-shore profits and harm the nation in the process. “They off-load Apple’s tax burden onto other taxpayers, particularly onto working families and small businesses.  The lost tax revenue feeds a budget deficit," he said.
 
Sen. John McCain, a Republican, sounded equally dismayed. “It is completely outrageous that Apple has not only dodged full payment of U.S. taxes, but has managed to evade paying taxes around the world through its convoluted and pernicious strategy," he said.
 
Apple’s chief executive, Timothy Cook, defended his company’s practices. “We pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar.  We not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws.  We do not depend on tax gimmicks," he said.
 
But Cook urged an overhaul of America’s astonishingly complex tax code, even if doing so would incur a higher tax burden for Apple.
 
“We recommend a dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code.  This reform should be revenue neutral, eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, lower corporate tax rates, and implement a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows the free flow of capital back to the United States," he said.
 
Some Republican senators objected to the congressional grilling of Apple over its compliance with a tax code crafted on Capitol Hill.
 
Sen. Rand Paul said, “I am offended by a $4 trillion government bullying, berating and badgering one of America’s greatest success stories.  If anyone should be on trial here, it should be Congress.”
 
That brought a sharp reply from Sen. Levin. “Apple is a great company.  But no company should be able to determine how much it is going to pay in taxes, how many profits they are going to keep off-shore," he said.
 
The United States has one of the world’s highest corporate tax rates at 35 percent.  But loopholes and special deductions allow many large firms to pay a significantly lower share of profits.  Most tax reform proposals call for lowering corporate tax rates while eliminating loopholes, yielding a simpler and fairer tax code for all commercial entities.


U.S. immigration bill gets
final OK from committee


The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a massive immigration reform bill, voting to send it to the entire Senate for debate.

Tuesday evening's vote was 13 to five. It came after one of the bill's eight sponsors, Patrick Leahy, withdrew an amendment that would have given same-sex couples the same legal protections in immigration questions as heterosexual couples.

Several conservative Republicans said they would pull their support for the immigration bill if this were included.

The committee approved other amendments, including one by Republican Orrin Hatch, raising the number of visas available to highly-skilled foreign workers.

The bill's core purpose is to give 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States the chance to become legal residents if they meet the bill's conditions.

President Barack Obama has called immigration reform one of his top priorities. He congratulated the Judiciary Committee for its vote, saying it is consistent with common sense reform.

He said no one got everything he wanted in the bill, but said the Senate owes it to the American people to get the best possible result.


Bird flu outbreak costly,
Chinese ministry reports


Scientists and economists say the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China has cost that country's poultry industry $6.5 billion, as consumers shun chicken and health officials make gains in controlling the deadly virus.

The cost data, provided by China's agriculture ministry, was reported Tuesday at the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

At the conference, United Nations experts warned health authorities worldwide to be on the lookout for the virus, which is known to have infected 130 people in China since first appearing in March.  Chinese authorities say 36 of the victims have died.

A top World Health Organization official, Keiji Fukuda, told the gathering the immediate outbreak has been controlled, but it is unlikely the virus has simply disappeared.  He repeated findings showing the virus in its present form crossed from birds to humans at live markets in China where chickens and other poultry are slaughtered and sold.

Authorities say there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission in the outbreak.

China's official Xinhua news agency said emergency virus control procedures were lifted last week in eastern provinces and major cities, including Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shandong, where most of the infections occurred.


Liberace and his boyfriend
central characters in new film


The relationship between the flamboyant pianist Liberace and his young lover dazzled at the Cannes film festival on Tuesday and threw the spotlight on gay rights at the movie industry's largest annual gathering.
 
Director Steven Soderbergh said he struggled five years ago to secure funding for "Behind the Candelabra" because some financiers thought the film would only appeal to a gay audience and, at a cost of $25 million, would be a financial risk.
 
Eventually he received financing from Time Warner's HBO cable channel and made the film with Michael Douglas playing Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson with whom the pianist had a secret five-year affair.
 
Soderbergh said it was a coincidence that the film was being released during a global debate on gay rights and same sex marriage but acknowledged that it was very timely.
 
France last month became the 14th country to legalize gay marriage, a move also taken in the United States by Washington, D.C., and 12 states. Liberace, a huge celebrity during his lifetime, publicly denied his homosexuality at a time when being gay was widely considered taboo.
 
"In making the film, the socio-political aspect of it was not really in my mind but I was focused on . . .  trying to make this relationship as believable and realistic as we could," Soderbergh told a news conference, flanked by Douglas and Damon.
 
"When this issue comes up, of equal rights for gays, I am hoping 50 years from now we will look back on this and wonder why this was even a debate and why it took so long."
 
Douglas and Damon said they were both keen to work with Soderbergh who has announced his plan to retire from filmmaking after this movie.
 
They were both also impressed by the script based on Thorson's autobiography, "Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace," that was released in 1988, a year after the entertainer's death at age 67 from an AIDS-related disease.
 
In the film, Thorson, a naive 18-year-old farm boy from Wisconsin, meets 58-year-old Liberace in Las Vegas in 1977 and moves in with him, joining his glamorous lifestyle of champagne, jewel-encrusted cars and spectacular wardrobe.
 
An unrecognizable Debbie Reynolds plays Liberace's beloved mother Frances, with her trademark button nose hidden under a prosthetic one, while a wrinkle-free, taut-faced Rob Lowe, is a plastic surgeon who operates on both Liberace and Thorson.
 
The relationship starts to unravel as Thorson becomes addicted to drugs, hawking jewelry given to him by his lover to fund his habit, and the sexually voracious Liberace's interest moves on to other, younger men.
 
The two actors made light of their love scenes, with Douglas joking about asking Damon what flavor lip balm he preferred and Damon saying he could swap stories with Sharon Stone, Glenn Close and Demi Moore after sharing a bed with Douglas.
 
Douglas, whose performance as the primped, toupeed pianist was lauded by critics, said he met Liberace once, in a Rolls Royce convertible while in Palm Springs with his father, the movie star Kirk Douglas.
 
He became emotional, voice breaking and tears in his eyes, when asked how he became involved in the film that Soderbergh first raised with him 13 years ago.
 
"It was right after my cancer and this beautiful gift was handed to me and I am eternally grateful ... to everybody for waiting for me," said Douglas who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2010 and needed chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
 
"Behind the Candelabra" will premiere on HBO in the United States Sunday and open in foreign theaters from June 7.
 
The film is one of 20 movies in the main competition at Cannes vying for the Palme d'Or award for best picture that is presented on Sunday.
 
Soderbergh, 50, who won the Palme d'Or in 1989 with "Sex, Lies and Videotapes," said this was his last movie for a while.
 
"I am absolutely taking a break. I don't know how extended it is going to be but I can't say if this were the last movie I make that I would be unhappy," he said. "It's been a nice run."


Humans hurting water systems,
meeting of scientists says


Scientists say a new geologic epoch has begun whereby humans are causing major damage to global water systems. They warn of a planetary transformation comparable to the retreat of the glaciers more than 11,000 years ago. Scientists are meeting in Bonn, Germany to discuss what can be done about it.

While some still debate the extent to which humans have affected the environment, scientists meeting in Bonn have little doubt. In fact, there’s a name for the informal geologic epoch they say human activity has caused: the Anthropocene. Scientists are now debating whether it should be officially included in the Geological Time Scale.

“For nearly a decade the Global Water Systems Project has been coordinating and supporting the broad research to study the complex water systems with interactions between natural and human components. And what we found is human activity plays a very central role in inducing and influencing the changes in the global water systems,” said Anik Bhaduri, executive officer of the Global Water Systems Project based in Bonn.

The project takes a global view of human effects on water systems, rather than simply studying very local environments. He called that a game changer in environmental research.

“Humans are impacting the global water systems by building dams, through land use changes, and it influences the global water cycle. As a consequence, the global water systems vulnerable to local-scale human-induced traces. And it has wide-scale ramifications at larger, regional and continental and global scales,” he said.

For example, an International Geosphere-Biosphere Program paper says, “On average, humanity has built one large dam every day for the last 130 years.” It adds, “Tens of thousands of large dams now distort natural river flows to which ecosystems and aquatic life adapted” over thousands of years.

The paper also says groundwater and hydrocarbon pumping in low lying coastal areas have caused many river deltas to sink. That leaves coastlines more vulnerable to storms and tsunamis. It also says that humans now move more rock and sediment for various reasons than ice, wind and water combined. The drainage of wetlands for development removes a natural barrier against floods.

Bhaduri said, “The way the global water systems moving we may reach a point where it is kind of irreversible. We may not go back to the equilibrium point. There it comes in the severity of human actions.”

The head of the Global Water Systems Project said that there can be a trade-off as countries try to ensure water security.

“Our global study map shows that human water security has been often achieved in the short run at the expense of the environment. It is true with the developed countries as well as developing countries. We see this kind of a trade-off between human water security and the water needs for ecosystems. And it has long-run social consequences for the socio-ecological systems as a whole. And that’s a global issue of concern.”

Bhaduri added that water security means both water quantity and water quality.

“There are nexus between energy security, water security, food security and environment. And it needs cooperation at the local level – at the policymakers’ levels – between different countries also. Otherwise, we will move at a direction where it will be very costly to come back,” he said.

Project co-chairman Charles Vorosmarty said every year a half trillion dollars worth of “concrete, pipes, pumps and chemicals are thrown at our water problems.” He said that has “produced a technological curtain separating clean water…and the highly stressed natural waters that sit in the background.”

The four-day meeting in Bonn is expected to release a final communiqué outlining what steps need to be taken to mitigate the effects of the Anthropocene epoch. In the long term, the Global Water Systems Project is working on Future Earth, an international collaborative environmental research framework.


Climate shift called cause
of cultural innovations


Rapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, sparked surges in cultural innovation in early modern human populations, according to new research.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications [21 May], was conducted by a team of scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Barcelona.

The scientists studied a marine sediment core off the coast of South Africa and reconstructed terrestrial climate variability over the last 100,000 years.

Dr Martin Ziegler, Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: "We found that South Africa experienced rapid climate transitions toward wetter conditions at times when the Northern Hemisphere experienced extremely cold conditions."

These large Northern Hemisphere cooling events have previously been linked to a change in the Atlantic Ocean circulation that led to a reduced transport of warm water to the high latitudes in the North. In response to this Northern Hemisphere cooling, large parts of the sub-Saharan Africa experienced very dry conditions.

"Our new data however, contrasts with sub-Saharan Africa and demonstrates that the South African climate responded in the opposite direction, with increasing rainfall, that can be associated with a globally occurring southward shift of the tropical monsoon belt."

Ian Hall, Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: "When the timing of these rapidly occurring wet pulses was compared with the archaeological datasets, we found remarkable coincidences.

"The occurrence of several major Middle Stone Age industries fell tightly together with the onset of periods with increased rainfall"

"Similarly, the disappearance of the industries appears to coincide with the transition to drier climatic conditions."

Chris Stringer of London’s Natural History Museum commented "The correspondence between climatic ameliorations and cultural innovations supports the view that population growth fueled cultural changes, through increased human interactions".

The South African archaeological record is important because it shows some of the oldest evidence for modern behavior in early humans. This includes the use of symbols, which has been linked to the development of complex language, and personal adornments made of seashells.

"The quality of the southern African data allowed us to make these correlations between climate and behavioral change, but it will require comparable data from other areas before we can say whether this region was uniquely important in the development of modern human culture" added Stringer.

The new study presents the most convincing evidence so far that abrupt climate change was instrumental in this development.