First Animals to Live Without Oxygen Discovered

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2010) — Deep under the Mediterranean Sea, small animals have been discovered that live their entire lives without oxygen and surrounded by 'poisonous' sulphides. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology report the existence of multicellular organisms (new members of the group Loricifera), showing that they are alive, metabolically active, and apparently reproducing in spite of a complete absence of oxygen.

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Researchers have discovered small animals that live their entire lives without oxygen and surrounded by 'poisonous' sulphides, deep under the Mediterranean Sea. (Credit: Danovaro et al. / BMC Biology)

Roberto Danovaro, from the Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy, worked with a team of researchers to retrieve sediment samples from a deep hypersaline anoxic basin (DHABs) of the Mediterranean Sea and studied them for signs of life. "These extreme environments," said Danovaro, "have been thought to be exclusively inhabited by viruses, Bacteria and Archaea. The bodies of multicellular animals have previously been discovered, but were thought to have sunk there from upper, oxygenated, waters. Our results indicate that the animals we recovered were alive. Some, in fact, also contained eggs."

Electronmicroscopy shows that instead of aerobic mitochondria, these animals possess organelles resembling the hydrogenosomes found previously in unicellular organisms (protozoans) that inhabit anaerobic environments.

The implications of this finding may reach far beyond the darker parts of the Mediterranean Sea floor, according to Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In one of two commentaries accompanying this piece of research, she said, "The finding by Danovaro et al. offers the tantalizing promise of metazoan life in other anoxic settings, for example in the subsurface ocean beneath hydrothermal vents or subduction zones or in other anoxic basins."

In the second commentary Marek Mentel and William Martin, from Comenius and Dusseldorf Universities look at the incidence of anaerobic mitochondria and hydrogenosomes in other organisms and focus on the evolutionary significance of the new findings. "The discovery of metazoan life in a permanently anoxic and sulfidic environment provides a glimpse of what a good part of Earth's past ecology might have been like in 'Canfield oceans', before the rise of deep marine oxygen levels and the appearance of the first large animals in the fossil record roughly 550-600 million years ago."

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The Early Word: New Start Treaty Signed

The Early Word: New Start Treaty Signed
By JANIE LORBER

President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signed a new arms reduction treaty this morning that will significantly reduce the countries’ nuclear arsenals, a key step in achieving Mr. Obama’s ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

Under the agreement, which will be posted online later today, the two countries must cut back to no more than 800 total launchers and slash their weapons stores by 30 percent — though they can still deploy 1,550 warheads each, on top of thousands of others not covered by the pact.

That leaves the two nations — which together hold more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons — a lot of muscle, but it is still a significant reduction from 1991 when they held more than 19,000 strategic warheads combined, notes The Times’s Peter Baker.

At the signing ceremony this morning, along side Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, Mr. Obama said the treaty was not only an important step toward disarmament, but also a milestone in “resetting” the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

“Our relationship had started to drift, making it difficult to cooperate on issues of common interest to our people,” he said. “Together, we have stopped the drift, and proven the benefits of cooperation. Today is an important milestone for nuclear security and non-proliferation, and for U.S.-Russia relations.”

Mr. Obama added that the two nations would continue to work to address nuclear proliferation in other nations in advance of the United Nations nuclear security summit in Washington next week. For one, the efforts to sanction Iran would likely be a topic in today’s bilateral meeting, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters this morning.

Now the public relations challenge begins as Mr. Obama tries to win over those who think the treaty does not go far enough and, at the same time, the hawks who think it leaves the U.S. looking weak to potential enemies. Getting the 67 votes necessary for ratification could be tough moving into the polarizing election season.

Officials will begin briefing senators on the particulars of the agreement and Brian McKeon, who works with the National Security Council in the vice president’s office and is running the administration’s ratification effort, will post a description of his initial steps on the White House blog today, Mr. Gibbs said.

Tonight, Mr. Obama will host a dinner for Central and Eastern European heads of state from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence.

Assessing the Meltdown: The panel charged by Congress to investigate the causes of the financial crisis begins its second of three days of hearings on the problems at Citigroup, Fannie Mae and the subprime mortgage market. Former Citigroup chief executive officer, Charles Prince, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, then chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee, are scheduled to testify today before the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

A review of the Federal Reserve’s oversight of the company released Wednesday, painted a troubling picture both before and after its former chairman, Alan Greenspan left the Fed and again after Citigroup received three taxpayer-financed bailouts, The Times’s Sewell Chan reports.

Lights Up, Plane’s Down: A Qatari diplomat is being held after attempting to light a cigarette in a commercial airline lavatory. He claimed diplomatic immunity, which marshals took as a threat, so the plane was grounded in Denver Wednesday night. Officials said the incident is not comparable to the Christmas Day underwear bomber scare, The Times’s Matt Wald and Charlie Savage report.

Health Care Threats: A man arrested in connection with threats against Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her role in the overhaul of the health care system will be arraigned in San Francisco today, reports The Times’s David Herszenhorn.

Stupak Could Go: Fierce criticism over Representative Bart Stupak’s crucial compromise on the health care bill is fueling questions over whether he will run for a 10th term. But, Mr. Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who voted for the bill after negotiating tougher language restricting federal funding of abortion, told the Detroit Free Press that he is not ready to quit.

Six States for Abortion Block: Lawmakers in at least six states are pushing legislation that would block abortion coverage in plans offered through their state-run exchanges.That would likely affect most individual and small-group plans in a state, starting when the exchanges launch in 2014, reports The Wall Street Journal.

A Boston Report Card: As Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts prepares for a surprisingly tough reelection contest this fall, Boston’s mayor, Thomas Menino is hardly giving him rave reviews. Mayor Menino told State House News that Governor Patrick “carried a grade of “C” for the first three years of his term before stepping his game up to a “B+” level the last four months.” Mayor Menino also said that State Representative Michael Capuano, the Democrat who lost the special election primary race to Attorney General Martha Coakley, would be most likely to face Senator Scott Brown in 2012.

Tax Day, For Half: Nearly half of U.S. households will not have to pay income tax come April 15 because their incomes are either too low or because credits and other deductions leave them with no liability, Yahoo News reports.

Hello Bayh: Senator Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat who announced his retirement in February, is likely to make a re-run for governor, reports Talking Points Memo. It’s a familiar post. In 1988 he became the nation’s youngest ever governor.

Specter Forgets: Senator Arlen Specter momentarily forgot what party he’s courting while speaking at Pennsylvania State University Wednesday. He thanked the school’s College Republicans for their endorsement. Perhaps a line from the 2004 speech?

Jobless Claims Rise: The number of workers filing jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week increasing by 18,000 to 460,000, reports the Wall Street Journal.

SCOTUS Talks: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will participate in a panel discussion about women on the high court at Georgetown Law School at 3:30 p.m. today.

Executive Pay Talks: Ken Feinberg, who oversees executive compensation at companies that received bailout money, will speak at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business at 4 p.m.

Obama and Medvedev Sign Nuclear Arms Reduction Pact

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Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signing the treaty in Prague on Thursday.

PRAGUE — With flourish and fanfare, President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signed a nuclear arms control treaty on Thursday and opened what they hoped would be a new era in the tumultuous relationship between two former cold war adversaries.

Meeting here in the heart of a once-divided Europe, the two leaders put aside the acrimony that has characterized Russian-American ties in recent years as they agreed to bring down their arsenals and restore an inspection regime that expired in December. Along the way, they sidestepped unresolved disputes over missile defense and other issues.

“When the United States and Russia are not able to work together on big issues, it is not good for either of our nations, nor is it good for the world,” Mr. Obama said as his words echoed through a majestic, gilded hall in Prague Castle. “Together we have stopped the drift, and proven the benefits of cooperation. Today is an important milestone for nuclear security and nonproliferation, and for U.S.-Russia relations.”

Mr. Medvedev called the treaty signing “a truly historic event” that will “open a new page” in Russian-American relations. “What matters most is this is a win-win situation,” he said. “No one stands to lose from this agreement. I believe this is a typical feature of our cooperation. Both parties have won.”

The Russian president signaled general support for the American-led drive to impose new sanctions on Iran, saying that Tehran’s nuclear program has flouted the international community. “We cannot turn a blind eye to this,” Mr. Medvedev said, while adding that sanctions “should be smart” and avoid hardship for the Iranian people.

Mr. Obama said he expected “to be able to secure strong, tough sanctions” on Iran during the spring.

The apparently warm relationship between the presidents was on display as they entered the hall to trumpet music. They whispered and smiled with each other in English as they sat side by side signing copies of the so-called New Start treaty, then traded compliments during a follow-up exchange with reporters.

Mr. Obama called the Russian a “friend and partner” and said, “Without his personal efforts and strong leadership, we would not be here today.” For his part, Mr. Medvedev said the two had developed a “very good personal relationship and a very good personal chemistry, as they say.”

While the treaty will mandate only modest reductions in the actual arsenals maintained by the two countries, it caps a turnaround in relations with Moscow that sank to rock bottom in August 2008 during the war between Russia and its tiny southern neighbor, Georgia. When he arrived in office, Mr. Obama made restoring the relationship a priority, a goal that coincided with his vision expressed here a year ago of eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Even as the two presidents hailed the treaty, however, they found no common ground on American plans to build an antimissile shield in Europe to counter any Iranian threat. Mr. Obama refused Russian demands to include limits on missile defense in the treaty, nearly scuttling the agreement. In the days leading up to the ceremony here, Russian officials alternately claimed the agreement would bind the program or complained that it did not and threatened to withdraw if it went forward.

The treaty, if ratified by lawmakers in both countries, would require each country to deploy no more than 1,550 strategic warheads, down from 2,200 allowed in the Treaty of Moscow signed by President George W. Bush in 2002. Each would be limited to 800 total land-, air- and sea-based launchers — 700 of which can be deployed at any given time — down from 1,600 permitted under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start.

Because of counting rules and unilateral reductions over the years, neither country would have to actually eliminate large numbers of weapons to meet the new limits. Moreover, the treaty does not apply to whole categories of weapons, including thousands of strategic warheads held in reserve and tactical warheads, some of which are still stationed in Europe.

But the treaty would re-establish an inspection regime that lapsed along with Start last December and bring the two countries back into a legal framework after years of tension. Moreover, both sides hope to use it as a foundation for a new round of negotiations that could lead to much deeper reductions that will cover weapons like stored or tactical warheads.

The first task for Mr. Obama after returning to Washington will be persuading the Senate to ratify the new treaty, and advisers planned to head to Capitol Hill on Thursday, even before his return, to brief Senate staff members.

Ratification requires a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators, meaning the president needs at least eight Republicans. The White House is counting on the support of Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and one of his party’s most respected voices on international affairs, to clear the way.

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