Der Steppenworm? Two new species differ from the elusive 'Mongolian Death Worm'

Apr. 9, 2013 ? The 'Mongolian Death Worm', called olgoi-khorkhoi by the local population is a legendary animal with an unconfirmed existence that has preoccupied the imagination of the inhabitants and travelers in the region. It is said to inhabit the southern Gobi Desert where it terrorizes travelers with its deadly abilities to project acid that, upon contact, turns anything it touches yellow and corroded.

Two new sub-species of earthworms, Eisenia nordenskioldi mongol and E. n. onon, are reported from the same region. Although neither of them possesses the fatal characteristics of olgoi-khorkhoi, the sibling species exhibit the ability to partly regrow body parts when cut in two. Relatives of the sub-species are found in habitats as diverse as high mountains, deserts and geothermal hot-springs. They demonstrate extreme temperature tolerances and survival ranges thriving in environments from as little as -30?C up to +40?C.

E. nordenskioldi mongol has its name derived from the region of discovery. The name E. n. onon bears more romantic connotations, being inspired by the Onon River in Outer Mongolia, where Genghis Khan was born and grew up. The region is also supposed to be the resting place of this historical figure that inspires stories of great conquests, victories and brutality.

Earthworms as a group organisms have other more tangible, importance from an ecological point of view. Charles Darwin, for example, spent 50 years of his working life studying these humble worms. They are key organisms for monitoring and maintaining soil fertility. Earthworms are also the basis of food-chains as the Early-bird and any fishermen knows.

Whether olgoi-khorkhoi really exists, and whether the two new sub-species of the Siberian E. nordenskioldi species-complex are in any way related to it, is yet to be

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Pensoft Publishers. The original story is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Robert Blakemore. Earthworms newly from Mongolia (Oligochaeta,?Lumbricidae, Eisenia). ZooKeys, 2013; 285 (0): 1 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.285.4502

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/2Kyvm4hF9V4/130409111557.htm

sidney crosby at the drive in alternative minimum tax modeselektor gran torino gloria steinem war of the worlds

Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB MKNSSDCR120GB-DX

This is shaping up to be a banner year for SSD adoption. The Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S3D7 we reviewed recently won accolades for an excellent price/performance ratio, but the Mushkin 120GB Chronos Deluxe ($105 list) aims to challenge Kingston for the title. The Mushkin 120GB Chronos Deluxe offers even higher performance than the V300 at virtually the same price point. That's actually a bit surprising given how much the two drives have in common. They're both 120GB drives that use SandForce's older SF-2281 controller. They both support SATA 3.0 and a maximum 6Gbps transfer rate. Mushkin claims a mean time before failure (MTBF) of two million hours, while the Kingston's V300 is just one million, but these statistics don't map very well to real-world failure rates, regardless.

Despite their common technological heritage, Mushkin and Kingston quote rather different performance figures. Kingston claims sequential read/write speeds of 450MBps, while Mushkin states the Chronos Deluxe should hit 560MBps sequential read and 515MBps sequential write.

Right now, the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB is a bit more expensive than the Kingston drive (it lists as $104.99 at NewEgg, as compared to $102.99 for the Kingston V300). It is, however, also slightly faster. Both of these drives use synchronous rather than asynchronous flash (asynchronous flash is cheaper, but also slower as it relies on an external clock chip). The Mushkin drive uses NAND built on a 25nm process while the V300 uses Toshiba's newest 19nm multi-level cell (MLC) memory.

We compared the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe to the Kingston V300 with a high-end OCZ Vector 256GB tossed in for good measure. The Vector is considerably more expensive than either of the two budget drives; it's included here to illustrate the performance difference between low and high-end SSDs. Our review unit was tested using an Asus P877V-Deluxe motherboard with 8GB of DDR3-1600 and an Intel Core i7-3770K CPU. The P877-V Deluxe offers multiple SATA controllers from Intel and Marvell; the V300 was connected to Intel's 6G SATA port.

The performance figures for AS-SSD and SiSoft Sandra reflect a drive's performance in a particular type of data workload. Sequential read/write tests measure an SSD's capabilities when reading or writing a large block of contiguous data. A single large movie or ISO image will test a drive's sequential performance (assuming that the target drive isn't badly fragmented). In the synthetic AS-SSD test, the OCZ Vector, Chronos Deluxe, and Kingston V300 were all close to each other in sequential read tests, with scores of 509MBps, 471.5MBps, and 466MBps, respectively. The Kingston V300 fell well behind the Chronos Deluxe in sequential write performance (263.28MBps compared to 163MBps), but the OCZ Vector was faster than both drives combined, at 495.72MBps.

The 4K read/write tests ascertain the performance of an SSD or HDD when reading and writing small chunks of data. These small read/writes are vital to the everyday performance of a storage solution. The "64 Threads" test in AS-SSD means that the benchmark program spins off 64 separate 4K read/write tasks. This stretches the controller's ability to manage such workloads, but also provides a more realistic performance metric?an operating system is constantly reading and writing data to multiple services and programs simultaneously. The 4K read/write performance with 64-threads enabled showed a similar pattern to the AS-SSD test. The Chronos Deluxe outpaced the Kingston V300 at 181MBps read/215MBps write, as compared to 116MBps read/153MBps write for the Kingston drive. Again, the OCZ Vector is far faster at 358MBps and 303 MBps, respectively.

The random read/write performance data from SiSoft Sandra is a measure of a drive's sustained performance when reading and writing a contiguous block of information to a randomly chosen location. These metrics are important because they collectively measure the different types of storage tasks an SSD or HDD performs, even if they don't represent user workloads. SiSoft Sandra 2013's random read/write tests again show the OCZ Vector, Kingston V300, and Chronos Deluxe performing similarly in random reads (531MBps, 487MBps and 507MBps respectively), but quite differently in writes. The Chronos Deluxe's 276MBps write speed was much faster than the Kingston V300's 177MBps rate, while the OCZ Vector broke 500MBps in the same test.

PCMark 7 is a different type of test. The test uses real storage workloads created by recording traces of hard drive activity when playing games, loading music or video, or copying files. These traces are used to measure the performance of storage products in comprehensive real-world scenarios. The OCZ Vector scored a 5419 in PCMark 7's storage tests, compared to a 5,164 for the Kingston V300 and 5,244 for the Chronos Deluxe. These figures indicate that every day users won't see much difference between the three devices. If you work with large files or particular types of data transfer, products like the Vector still offer significant advantages.

Overall, the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB is a great option. The Vector is the fastest drive overall, but for bargain-conscious customers, Mushkin has a great product. The Kingston V300 is still a good drive?t won an Editors' Choice award for budget SSDs?but if the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe is any indication, we'll see a quick succession of prime SSDs at consumer-friendly price points over the next few months.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/m8kkWzi9_jE/0,2817,2417518,00.asp

eric church quick silver where have you been rihanna world trade center kirk cousins ovechkin one world trade center

The Big Roundtable Rethinks The Editorial Model For Long-Form Journalism, Hits Its Kickstarter Goal

Michael Shapiro isn't the sort of person I'd expect to circumvent the gatekeepers of traditional journalism. He's a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, and he said he's been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and Sports Illustrated ? in other other words, he seems to be on pretty good terms with those gatekeepers. Yet Shapiro is launching a new journalism startup called The Big Roundtable. The reason? He said that there are a lot of untested assumptions in the journalism world. As a parallel, he pointed to book publishing, where he said it was long believed that "black people don't buy books." There was, in fact, "this whole sub rosa world" of independent black book stores, with its own bestsellers like Iceberg Slim's Pimp: The Story Of My Life. Yet traditional publishers had no idea that world existed until the mainstream success of writers like Terry McMillan in the 1990s.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Np-UpeTHW6E/

the replacements how to hard boil eggs new nfl uniforms derbyshire the matrix oceans 11 ferris state hockey

Obama, family attend Easter services near the White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and his family walked to church on Sunday for Easter services across from the White House.

Wishing "Happy Easter" to onlookers, Obama, his wife Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha, strolled through a park to St. John's Church, where they have attended services before.

Their presence at the nearby Episcopal church had not been announced in advance, and the minister, Rev. Dr. Luis Leon, admonished some gawking and picture-taking churchgoers during the service to return to their seats.

Leon used his sermon to encourage parishoners to look forward and not be stuck in the past, and he added a political edge with criticism of some right-leaning conservative Christians.

"The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back," he said. "For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet, and for ... immigrants to be on their side of the border," he said.

Obama has made immigration reform a goal of his second term, and the themes of women's equality and gay marriage were major issues during his 2012 re-election campaign.

After the service, braving a light rain, the Obama family walked under umbrellas back to the White House.

The Obamas have not joined a church since moving to Washington from Chicago in 2009. They have visited a handful of churches in the city but do not attend regularly.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-family-attend-easter-services-near-white-house-190557018.html

miracle andy whitfield kennedy demi moore roy oswalt kevin martin 2012 senior bowl

Paid Dues Festival Boasts Turned-Up Sets From Macklemore, Kendrick Lamar

Independent hip-hop festival's eclectic lineup includes performances from De La Soul and Talib Kweli.
By Cortney Wills

Macklemore performs at the 2013 Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival
Photo: Imeh Akpanudosen/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704657/macklemore-kendrick-lamar-paid-dues-festival.jhtml

redskins sugar bowl downton abbey season 3 Buckwild 2013 Calendar chris christie sofia vergara

Woman who vanished while hiking Mt. Hood found alive, officials say

Clackamas Co. Sheriff's Office

Mary Owen, 23, was found with some injuries and frostbite.

By KGW.com staff

GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. -- Mary Owen, a 23-year-old woman who disappeared after going hiking alone on Mount Hood, was found alive on Sandy Glacier by a National Guard Helicopter Saturday morning, officials said.

Owen was reportedly taken by helicopter to Legacy Emanuel Hospital with some injuries and frostbite, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.?

Owen was found after a second day of searching by rescue teams from around the area. She was reported missing at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, according to Deputy Bryon O'Neil of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. She had written in an email to a friend Sunday that she planned to go hiking, but had not been heard from since then.?

Read original story at KGW.com

Deputies called Timberline Lodge Thursday and the manager on duty said Owen's vehicle, a white 1998 Toyota 4-Runner was parked in the lot, O'Neil said. Investigators said the vehicle looked like it had been parked there for some time.?

"Ms. Owen's backpack is still in her vehicle so she may be short on supplies," O'Neil said. "She is an experienced hiker who has in the past hiked the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada."?

Anyone who may have seen her since Saturday was asked to call CCSO at (503) 655-8211 or send an email to Sergeant Sean Collinson.?

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a2a7819/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C30A0C175313980Ewoman0Ewho0Evanished0Ewhile0Ehiking0Emt0Ehood0Efound0Ealive0Eofficials0Esay0Dlite/story01.htm

London 2012 Track And Field Jordyn Wieber michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci Rebecca Soni

Access Hollywood section

??Keith Urban performs on 'American Idol'
Keith Urban talks with AccessHollywood.com's Laura Saltman about why the judges didn't save Devin Velez from elimination on "American Idol." Plus, he tells The Dish how nervous he was to perform in front of the other judges.

---

Source: http://www.today.com/id/7358550/ns/today-entertainment/

mark martin cleveland news daytona race the cutting edge fox 8 news indy 500 angelina jolie leg