AUSTRALIA
Male kalutas die from sex
A tiny marsupial found only in the arid, northwest Pilbara region mates so intensely that an entire generation of males can die off during a single breeding season, researchers said yesterday. Biologists studying kalutas — a mouse-sized marsupial — believe that they die en masse because of sex-driven immune system collapse. Female kalutas mate frequently and with different males during each breeding season. “That means that males also have to mate a lot, and have good quality sperm (and lots of it), to outcompete rival males,” said Genevieve Hayes, who led the University of Western Australia research team. “This intense investment in reproduction, evidenced by their large testes, appears to be fatal for males.” Scientists believe that it is a rare example of male semelparity — a reproduction strategy characterized by “synchronized death,” often before offspring are born. “Males were regularly captured in healthy numbers throughout the study, except immediately after the mating seasons, when no males were captured,” Hayes said. “This, coupled with other research in the field and laboratory, strongly suggests that males die after the mating season.” The researchers said that despite the kalutas’ “extreme mating behavior,” the species appears to be doing well.
JAPAN
Scientists discover dinosaur
Scientists have identified a new species of dinosaur from a nearly complete, 8m-long skeleton that was the largest ever discovered in the country. After analyzing hundreds of bones dating back 72 million years, the team led by Hokkaido University concluded that the skeleton once belonged to a new species of hadrosaurid dinosaur, a herbivorous beast that roamed the Earth in the late Cretaceous period. A partial tail was first found in northern Japan in 2013 and later excavations revealed the entire skeleton. The team named the dinosaur Kamuysaurus japonicus, which means “Japanese dragon god,” the university said in a statement. They believe the dinosaur was nine-year-old adult and would have weighed either 4 tonnes or 5.3 tonnes — depending on whether it walked on two legs or four. The discovery was published in British peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports. “The fact a new dinosaur was discovered in Japan means there was once an independent world of dinosaurs in Japan or in East Asia, and an independent evolution process,” team leader Yoshitsugu Kobayashi said. K. japonicus probably lived in coastal areas, a rare habitat for dinosaurs at that time. The research raises the possibility that some species of dinosaurs “preferred to inhabit areas near the ocean, suggesting the coastline environment was an important factor in the diversification” of the dinosaurs in their early evolution, the university said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was