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About 100 million years ago, Triceratops likely engaged in horn-to-horn battles with its kin, according to a new analysis of the scrapes, bruises and healing fractures preserved on fossils of the dinosaurs’ bony headgear.

“Paleontologists have debated the function of the bizarre skulls of horned dinosaurs for years now,” said lead study researcher Andrew Farke, curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in California. “Some speculated that the horns were for showing off to other dinosaurs, and others thought that the horns had to have been used in combat against other horned dinosaurs. Unfortunately, we can’t just go and watch a Triceratops in the wild.”

Past research has also suggested Triceratops’ horns served as a means of communication and species recognition.

The results from Farke’s new study point to combat as one usage.

“We’re not suggesting Triceratops was using its horns only for fighting,” Farke told LiveScience. “I like to think of the horns on these animals as kind of like the Swiss Army knives of the dinosaur world. They were using their horns for a variety of functions.”

Horn patterns

Farke and his colleagues analyzed bone injuries from hundreds of fossils belonging to Triceratops and Centrosaurus.

Both dinosaurs belong to the family Ceratopsidae, but while Triceratops sported two long horns above its brows and a shorter one topping its beak-like snout, Centrosaurus had two smaller brow horns and a longer one on its nose. Both dinosaurs were equipped with a bony frill around their necks.

With such different horn patterns, the researchers assumed that if the dinosaurs were horn-butting with members of their own species the injuries of Triceratops and Centrosaurus should also be different from each other. But if they weren’t poking and butting one another with those horns, the injuries should be relatively similar, perhaps due to random nicks from clumsily running into a tree or head butts from predators, Farke said.

Triceratops combat

The team found the so-called squamosal bone on the skull that forms part of the frill was injured 10 times more frequently in Triceratops compared with Centrosaurus. “The most likely culprit for all of the wounds on Triceratops frills was the horns of other Triceratops,” Farke said. The combat would have been similar to that among modern antelopes and among deer.

Farke’s previous research showed that if Triceratops were engaging in horn-to-horn combat with other Triceratops, the squamosal bone would be an area most frequently injured.

With Centrosaurus showing so few bony injuries, the researchers are unsure if this dinosaur fought with its horns.

“Possibly Centrosaurus wasn’t using its horns for fighting, or if it was doing this, it was concentrating its energies on parts away from the skull, like maybe flank-butting or something like that,” Farke said.

The study, detailed in the Jan. 28 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE, was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Scientists have found evidence of early human existence in Malaysia that dates back to 1.83 million years, which is proof of human mobility coming from Asia and Southeast Asia, and not just out of Africa.

According to a report in New Strait Times, the evidence was obtained from the discovery of artefacts in Bukit Bunuh, Lenggong, Perak, by researchers from Universiti Sains Malaysia’s (USM) Centre for Archaeological Research.

Associate Professor Mokhtar Saidin, the centre’s director, said that the evidence found included stone-made tools such as axes and chopping tools.

The artefacts were found embedded in suevite rock, formed as a result of the impact of meteorite crashing down at Bukit Bunuh.

The suevite rock, reputedly the first found in Southeast Asia, was sent to the Geochronology Japan Laboratory three months ago and carbon dated using the fission track dating method.

Mokhtar said that the results were sent back to USM two weeks ago and it showed the rock was dated to 1.83 million years ago.

He said based on current studies, there was fresh evidence of human mobility coming from Asia and Southeast Asia, and not just out of Africa.

“This discovery may make the rewriting of the ‘out of Africa’ theory necessary,” he said.

Based on world evidence, there was early human existence “out of Africa” in Georgia (1.8 to 1.7 million years ago); Sangiran, Jawa, Indonesia (1.7 to 1.2 million years ago); as well as Longgupo and Yuanmou in China (1.8 to 1.6 million years ago).

He noted that with the new evidence, there was a possibility that the hominids in Java could have migrated from Bukit Bunuh as a result of destruction from the impact of meteorites.

The four square-kilometre site, which was first excavated between 2001 and 2003, revealed a Palaeolithic culture, dated at 40,000 years ago.

The meteorite crash site was also discovered, the impact of which had caused the stones in its original state at Bukit Bunuh to melt, congeal and subsequently form the suevite rock.

According to USM Vice-Chancellor Tan Sri Prof Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, the discovery was an important one for USM and the country as it would enable researchers to understand the origins of early humans in this region.

He said that the new discovery would also change the understanding of human exploration in this region.

If scientists have their way, geoengineering could well be the future weapon to combat global warming and cool the climate.

This is the conclusion of a the first comprehensive assessment of the climate cooling potential of different geoengineering schemes carried out by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The key findings of the assessment are:

Enhancing carbon sinks could bring CO2 back to its pre-industrial level, but not before 2100 - and only when combined with strong mitigation of CO2 emissions.

Stratospheric aerosol injections and sunshades in space have by far the greatest potential to cool the climate by 2050 - but also carry the greatest risk.

Surprisingly, existing activities that add phosphorous to the ocean may have greater long-term carbon sequestration potential than deliberately adding iron or nitrogen.

On land, sequestering carbon in new forests and as ‘bio-char’ (charcoal added back to the soil) have greater short-term cooling potential than ocean fertilization.

Increasing the reflectivity of urban areas could reduce urban heat islands, but will have minimal global effect.

Other globally ineffective schemes include ocean pipes and stimulating biologically-driven increases in cloud reflectivity.

“The realisation that existing efforts to mitigate the effects of human-induced climate change are proving wholly ineffectual has fuelled a resurgence of interest in geo-engineering,” said lead author Professor Tim Lenton of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences.

“This paper provides the first extensive evaluation of their relative merits in terms of their climate cooling potential and should help inform the prioritisation of future research,” he added.

Geo-engineering is the large-scale engineering of the environment to combat the effects of climate change - in particular to counteract the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

A number of schemes have been suggested including nutrient fertilization of the oceans, cloud seeding, sunshades in space, stratospheric aerosol injections, and ocean pipes.

“We found that some geoengineering options could usefully complement mitigation, and together they could cool the climate, but geoengineering alone cannot solve the climate problem,” said Professor Lenton.

Injections into the stratosphere of sulphate or other manufactured particles have the greatest potential to cool the climate back to pre-industrial temperatures by 2050.

Ecologists have revealed that removing cats, which were considered an invasive species in the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island in Australia, a World Heritage Site, has caused environmental devastation that will cost more than 24 million dollars (Australian) to remedy.

Using population data, plot-scale vegetation analyses and satellite imagery, the ecologists from the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), the University of Tasmania, Blatant Fabrications Pty Ltd and Stellenbosch University found that after cats were eradicated from Macquarie in 2000, the island’s rabbit population increased so much that its vegetation has been devastated.

According to the study’s lead author, Dr Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division, “Satellite images show substantial island-wide rabbit-induced vegetation change. By 2007, impacts on some protected valleys and slopes had become acute.”

“We estimate that nearly 40 percent of the whole island area had changed, with almost 20 percent having moderate to severe change,” she added.

Rabbits were introduced to Macquarie Island in 1878 by sealing gangs.

After reaching large numbers, the rabbits became the main prey of cats, which had been introduced 60 years earlier.

Because the rabbits were causing catastrophic damage to the island’s vegetation, Myxomatosis and the European rabbit flea (which spreads the Myxoma virus) were introduced in 1968.

As a result, rabbit numbers fell from a peak of 130,000 in 1978 to less than 20,000 in the 1980s and vegetation recovered.

However, with fewer rabbits as food, the cats began to eat the island’s native burrowing birds, so a cat eradication programme began in 1985.

Since the last cat was killed in 2000, Myxomatosis failed to keep rabbit numbers in check, and their numbers bounced back and in little over six years, with rabbits substantially altering large areas of the island.

According to Bergstrom, “Increased rabbit herbivory has caused substantial damage at both local and landscape scales including changes from complex vegetation communities, to short, grazed lawns or bare ground.”

“Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007 there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised,” he added.

“The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs. On Macquarie Island, this cost will be around 24 million dollars (Australian),” he further added.