Hubble finds new fourth moon around Pluto
WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- NASA says the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered and photographed another moon orbiting Pluto, bringing the total of the dwarf planet's companions to four.
The tiny new moon, with an estimated diameter of just 8 to 12 miles, has been temporarily designated P4 and joins the moons Charon, the largest at 648 miles across, and Nix and Hydra, both about 20 to 70 miles wide.
The new moon was discovered as Hubble searched for rings around Pluto, which has a diameter of 1,441 miles, a NASA release said Wednesday.
"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led the observing program.
The ring survey was part of preparations for NASA's New Horizons mission, with a space probe scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015.
The mission will bring new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system, NASA said.
The new P4 moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra which Hubble discovered in 2005.
"This surprising observation is a powerful reminder of Hubble's ability as a general purpose astronomical observatory to make astounding, unintended discoveries," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory, while Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
New treatment could improve biofuel yields
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 20 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they've found a key for unlocking energy potential from non-edible biomass materials such as corn leaves and stalks, or switch grass.
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory working with other researchers say a potential pretreatment method can make plant cellulose five times more digestible by enzymes that convert it into ethanol, a useful biofuel.
While biomass is an attractive renewable energy source, the fermentable sugars that are extracted and converted live within a cellulose network in plant cells that's tightly packed and held together with strong hydrogen bonds, making it difficult for enzymes to get at, researchers say.
Currently, ethanol can only be extracted in usable quantities if the biomass is pretreated with costly, potentially toxic chemicals in an energy-intensive process, a DOE release said Wednesday.
Los Alamos researcher S. Gnanakaran and colleagues examined how cellulose changes structurally into an intermediate form that can be enzymatically attacked when pretreated with ammonia.
"Our modeling showed, and the experimental evidence confirmed, that the pretreatment reduced the strength of hydrogen bonds in the cellulosic network," Gnanakaran said.
This significantly reduced the tightness of the cellulose network and left it more open to conversion into sugar by enzymes, he said.
"This work helps address some of the potential cost barriers related to using biomass for biofuels," Gnanakaran said.
Hybrid chicken may aid Ugandan villagers
PHOENIX, July 20 (UPI) -- A highly productive kind of chicken may lift Ugandan villagers from economic poverty and nutritional stress in the country's poorest areas, a researcher says.
Arizona State University researcher Jagdev Sharma has been investigating the advantages of a more productive species of chicken knows as the Kuroiler, an ASU release Wednesday said.
It has already proved successful in other regions of the world, he said.
"The success of the Kuroiler chicken in India, where it was first introduced, makes us hopeful for similar improvements in rural Africa, particularly in Uganda, where our initial results show the Kuroiler significantly outperforming native chickens," Sharma said.
Kuroilers are hybrid chickens genetically selected to provide both increased meat and eggs while surviving and thriving on agricultural and household waste, requiring no additional feed.
This makes them well-suited to resource-poor village environment, Sharma said.
He is hoping to duplicate the Indian success story with Kuroilers in Africa thanks to collaboration between ASU and the government of Uganda, the release said.
Texas find changes thinking on fossil
DALLAS, July 20 (UPI) -- A rare fossil find suggests a prehistoric crocodile thought to have originated in Europe was in fact a native of the area that is now Texas, researchers say.
The scientific change of mind about the geographic origins of the genus known as Terminonaris is based on the identification of a well-preserved, narrow fossil snout that was discovered along the shoreline of a lake near Dallas, they said.
The 96 million-year-old Texas fossil is the oldest prehistoric crocodile of its kind in the world, said Southern Methodist University paleontologist Thomas L. Adams, who identified the reptile.
"With the recognition of Terminonaris here in Texas, this actually changes a lot about what we thought we knew about this group," Adams said.
Of the six other known Terminonaris fossil specimens, five are from North America and one is from Europe.
The European specimen, from Germany, was previously thought to be the oldest.
"Now we know the group had a wider distribution range, and that it's much older," Adams said.
"This is the first occurrence of Terminonaris in Texas. It's also the oldest occurrence of Terminonaris in the world, and it's also the southernmost occurrence of Terminonaris anywhere."
Based on the age of the European fossil, scientists had concluded Terminonaris originated in Europe and then traversed the Atlantic and dispersed throughout North America.
"Now we know Terminonaris most likely originated here in Texas and dispersed northward," Adams said.
