Red penguin fossil found in Peru...

Image via WikipediaRed penguin fossil found in Peru... .

It also showed signs of what makes penguins such formidable swimmers - it sports radically modified feathers which are densely packed and stacked on top of each other, forming stiff, narrow flippers, and its body feathers had broad shafts to help streamline the body.



Paleontologist Julia Clarke, lead author of the paper from the University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences, said: "Before this fossil, we had no evidence about the feathers, colours and flipper shapes of ancient penguins.



"We had questions and this was our first chance to start answering them."



The bird's colours were established by examining its melanosomes, or pigment cells, say reports in the journal Science.



By comparing them to a library of existing birds, they found they were more similar to other species than today's penguins - which have giant melanosomes, broader than any other bird.



The researchers say that the melanosomes on living penguins give the feathers a special microstructure, making them more resistant to wear.



This suggests that the evolution to black and white may have been to help cope with the demands of an aquatic lifestyle, with the colouring a secondary factor, although the colour change may have been to help it adapt to new forms of predator, say experts.



Co-author Jakob Vinther, of Yale University, said: "Insights into the colour of extinct organisms can reveal clues to their ecology and behaviour.



"But most of all, I think it is simply just cool to get a look at the colour of a remarkable extinct organism, such as a giant fossil penguin."



The bird was discovered by Peruvian student Ali Altamirano in Peru's Reserva Nacional de Paracas.



When the team noticed scaly soft tissue on an exposed foot, they nicknamed it 'Pedro' after a sleazy or "escamoso" (scaly) character from a Colombian TV show.



It is the latest penguin discovery by Ms Clarke's team in the country, suggesting Penguin's thrived there in the late Eocene period - 36 to 41 million years ago.

Acknowledgements: University of Texas

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• Scientists unearth ancient giant penguin in Peru (bbc.co.uk)
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Ethical and green living - going green could make you mean...

Image via Wikipedia
Ethical and green living - going green could make you green...


How going green may make you mean  - Ethical consumers less likely to be kind and more likely to steal, study finds



• You ask, they answer: Ethical Consumer magazine



A consumer of 'ethical' products such as organic food might be more inclined to cheat and steal, the study found. Photograph: David Sillitoe/Guardian



When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to "green" type.



According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".



Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours," they write. [See footnote

And more...http://www.guardian.co.nz/environment/2010/mar/15/green-consumers-more-likely-steal

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The time for the Zenn - but exactly when...

The founder of a Canadian- made fully 100% electric car(the Zenn)says the Canadian Government is blocking him from selling the cars in Canada, despite the fact they have been sold in the US and Mexico for some time. The Zenn is an acrymon for Zero Emission No Noise.

Has the Canadian Government made a deal with another manufacturer?

Zenn is only a small company in Saint-Jerome, just north of Montreal. The car was founded by a Toronto entrepreneur named Ian Clifford in 2001 - at a time other companies were still obsessed by SUV's.

The Zenn company has developed a model that uses a revolutionary ultra-capacitor, not the usual battery.

The updated model, the so-called 'City Zenn', will have a top speed of 125 kpm, a range of 400 km, and a phenomenal recharge time of only five minutes. The estimated ticket price is only $30,000.

But after a little research I have discovered a fly in the ointment, a problem with the delivery of the ultra-capacitor which was originally promised for 2007, then again in 2008. The capacitor could actually be worth $2 billion annually to Zenn by 2013.

There appears also to be a bureaucratic problem to get Zenn approved for use on the roads, because it is a new class of vehicle, not the typical LSV class.

Read here