Polynesian "express train" backed by genetics

A new study of the history of Polynesians and their ancestors suggest the predecessors to modern Polynesians were perhaps better at leaving their culture than their genes in places they stopped.

(Photo: A wet sail aboard Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hōkūle'a.)

The new work also appears to back up the thought that Polynesians tended to move on when they came across other cultures, and stay when they were the first inhabitants of a new land.

The new genetic study was done on DNA samples from nearly 1,000 Pacific Islanders from 41 Pacific populations. It indicates that the voyaging ancestors of today's Polynesians left Taiwan or an island nearby, passed fairly quickly through Melanesia, and then swept into the vast unpopulated central and eastern Pacific.

The work shows pre-Polynesian genetic links to the present-day inhabitants of the Melanesian islands—which include the Solomons, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago—are comparatively weak.

“The Genetic Structure of Pacific Islanders,” was published in the Public Library of Science's journal, PloS Genetics. The authors are biological anthropologist Jonathan S. Friedlaender of Temple University and an international team of collaborators, including, Françoise R. Friedlaender, Floyd A. Reed, Kenneth K. Kidd, Judith R. Kidd, Geoffrey K. Chambers, Rodney A. Lea, Jun-Hun Loo, George Koki, Jason A. Hodgson, D. Andrew Merriwether, and James L. Weber.

The Polynesian languages, like Samoan, Hawaiian, Tahitian and New Zealand Maori, are part of a larger group of related tongues called Austronesian, which may have their roots among the aboriginal people of Taiwan thousands of years ago.

“The distribution and relations of Pacific language families reflect ancient settlement. Austronesian is a widespread and clearly defined linguistic family with more than 1,000 member languages, which has its greatest diversity, and likely origin, in Taiwan (about) 4,000–5,000 years ago,” the authors write.

About 3,300 years ago, once open-ocean sailing had been developed, these folks moved out from Taiwan, and during a stay in the Bismarck Archipelago, they developed into what became known as the Lapita People, whose best-known artifact is carefully decorated pottery.

But these were a voyaging people, and they soon voyaged again.

“After only a few hundred years, 'Lapita People' from this area had colonized the islands in Remote Oceania as far east as Tonga and Samoa, where Polynesian culture then developed,” the authors wrote.

The Friedlaender paper says that while these voyagers left significant parts of their language and culture in the Melanesian islands at which they stopped, that culture was “grafted” onto existing genetic populations and wasn't associated with wholesale genetic mixing.

“Our study suggests that in the Pacific, and specifically in Near Oceania, there is only a modest association between language and genetic affiliation. Oceanic languages were introduced and dispersed around the islands within the last 3,300 years, but there was apparently only a small infusion of accompanying 'Austronesian' ancestry that has survived,” the paper says.

The Friedlaender work argues strongly for the Express Train theory of the population of the Pacific. A rival theory, the Entangled Bank, suggests that there was so much movement and interaction that it would be impossible to clearly identify the ancestors to Polynesians. Another rival theory, the “Slow Boat to Polynesia,” says the Polynesian people sprang out of long-existing Melanesian populations.

The Express Train, by contrast, argues that the early voyagers moved fairly quickly from what is now Taiwan, through Melanesia and then onward into the rest of the Pacific.

The Friedlaender paper says its genetic results pretty much resolve the issue in favor of the Express Train, although it concedes that more research could more closely link the ancestral home to other islands of Southeast Asia than just Taiwan.

“Polynesians are closely related to Asian/Taiwanese Aboriginal populations, while they are very weakly associated with any Melanesian groups (the closest association there appears to be with New Ireland populations),” the paper says.

See a copy of the paper at genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0040019

For students of Polynesia, there are intriguing links between these studies at the western end of Polynesia and recent studies at the eastern end. There, DNA work on chicken bones found in Chile showed that these South American chickens had came across the Pacific, and were closely related to the chickens of the Polynesians.

Previously, researchers had noted that sweet potatoes, an American crop, had somehow become established throughout Polynesia.

It's indirect evidence that the famed Pacific navigators visited the Americas and perhaps conducted trade. But to date, there's no evidence they stayed. Genetic studies have not to date shown any evidence of Polynesian DNA in the inhabitants of South America.

Polynesians of the voyaging millenia, one might say, were guests who were careful not to wear out their welcome.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Ocean acidification, carbon dioxide damage Hawaiian reefs

Climate change is happening in the air, but big changes associated with greenhouse gases are also taking place in the ocean.

One of them is acidification. New research shows that increased acidity in the oceans, associated with more carbon dioxide in the air, will have dramatic impacts. Lots of forms of life that depend on a slightly alkaline and stable ocean chemistry will suffer.

In a recent report on the subject, a group of Hawai'i, Florida and Bermuda scientists conducted studies that show that coralline algae will have difficulty in a more acid ocean.

Why is that important? Because in many places it is coralline algae, more than actual coral, that binds our Hawaiian reefs together.

This is the form of life—a crusty, often pink-colored kind of algae—that acts like the resin binding fibers together in a surfboard skin. It grows up and over chunks of rock, broken coral, and other materials, solidifying them and creating a sturdy barrier, protecting the Islands from the rough seas.

The new research was reported in a December issue of Nature Geoscience, in an article entitled, “Decreased abundance of crustose coralline algae due to ocean acidification.” The authors are Ilsa Kuffner, of the U.S. Geological Survey's Florida Integrated Science Center, Paul Jokiel and Ku'ulei Rodgers of the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology, Fred Mackenzie of the University of Hawai'i Oceanography Department, and Andreas Andersson of UH Oceanography and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

“These findings suggest that at lower pH, these reef-building algae could be much less competitive on future coral reefs,” Kuffner said.

The chemistry of acidification is pretty simple. If you bubble carbon dioxide through water, it becomes more acidic as carbonic acid is formed. If you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans soak up some of it and become more acidic.

The increased acidity of the oceans is already being measured. It's not about models of something that might happen. It's already happening.

The researchers, working at Coconut Island in Kāne'ohe Bay, in a nine-month study ran seawater with with different acidities through six jars. They found that coralline algae settle at lower rates and grow more poorly when the acidity is higher. Also, fleshy (which is to say, soft rather than hard) algae grew more readily.

“The results of our study were visibly obvious and may provide a glimpse into the future,” Kuffner said.

“We saw a 92 percent degrease in the area covered by the crustose coralline algae in the tanks with lower pH compared with tanks at today's ocean pH level. Non-calcifying fleshy algae increased by 52 percent.”

One issue for future research is whether the competition from fleshy algae increases the decline in coralline algae, the authors say. Another issue could be how changes in acidity add to detract from the impacts of increased temperature associated with global warming.

“Predicting changes in community structure resulting from ocean acidification and other stressors (for example high-temperature anomalies) will be important in modelling future rates of carbonate production by coral reefs and associated ecosystems,” the scientists say in their conclusion.

The impact for crustoese coralline algae and for our oceans, they say in a press release associated with the scientific article, is potentially severe.

“They carry out key ecological roles that affect the health and sustainability of coral reef ecosystems.

“Not only do they build reef framework, produce sand, and help cement loose coral fragments into massive reef structures, they also attract reef-building coral larvae by providing a place to settle.

“If these ecosystem services are left undone, coral reefs and associated systems and coastlines could be notably altered as the pH of the oceans slowly declines,” they said.

(We've discussed this before in this blog. See: http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/11/mackenzie-climate-perspective-watch-out.html and http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/10/ocean-acidity-rising-faster-than-feared.html and http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/09/ocean-acidity-from-co2-could-violate.html and our initial take on the issue, http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/09/ocean-acidity-next-big-climate-thing_01.html.)

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Huge advance in hybrid battery technology--more power, longer life

Among the relatively few complaints about electric and hybrid cars is, what do you do with a pile of toxic batteries when they (too quickly) wear out?

(Photos: Test car in the United Kingdom goes 100,000 on new UltraBattery. Credit Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium. Researcher Rosalie Louey prepares battery components. Credit CSIRO.)

Battery performance and battery life have been a big, muddy anchor preventing faster movement in a number of technologies to reduce fossil fuel use.

A team of researchers has now combined known technologies in a unique way that promises to increase the life of batteries by as much as four times.

Turn that number around, and it means a 75 percent reduction in the amount of battery waste.

It's an indication that electricity storage technology is hardly close to a standstill.

The breakthrough was announced by researchers with the Energy Reformed National Research Flagship of Australia's CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, who developed it. Battery construction was by Japan's Furukawa Battery Company, and testing in the United Kingdom was done through the American Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium.

Their UltraBattery is in actual use. It's loaded on a hybrid car, which has now been driven more than 100,000 miles on a test track in the United Kingdom.

The UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor with a lead acid battery to create a battery that, in the words of CSIRO, “lasts longer, costs less and is more powerful than current technologies used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).”

One of the bonuses of the capacitor is that it takes a charge quickly and delivers a charge quickly. The UltraBattery loads the capacity quickly during braking, and employs the capacitor again during heavy acceleration. A lead-acid battery is the kind that's in your car now. They tend to be great for long, slow charging and long, slow discharging, but their performance can be significantly decreased by the kind of sudden demands that capacitors love.

“Previous tests show the UltraBattery has a life cycle that is at least four times longer and produces 50 percent more power than conventional battery systems, It's also about 70 percent cheaper than the batteries currently used in HEVs,” said David Lamb, who heads low emissions transport research with the program.

The program said it also has UltraBattery applications for renewable energy technologies like solar and wind power.

Some local links:

Cars that inflate:

raisingislands.blogspot.com/2008/01/cheap-nimble-inflatable-car.html

Fuzzy logic and batteries:

raisingislands.blogspot.com/2008/01/using-fuzzy-logic-to-get-miles-out-of.html

Cars that run on air:

raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/12/air-cars-in-our-future-probably-but-not.html

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Mercury's Hawaiian connection, and is it volcanic?

We'll soon know lots more about Mercury than we once did, thanks to a voyaging spacecraft called MESSENGER.

(Photo: An image from the MESSENGER spacecraft during a flyby Jan. 14, 2008, showing Mercury at the edge of night and day. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.)

We already know that Mercury is hot, except where it's not. On the sunny side, it can reach 800 degrees

Fahrenheit, while on the night side, that can drop more than a thousand degrees.

That it's a small planet, just a third wider in diameter than our Moon.

That it spins very slowly compared to Earth. From one Mercury noon to the next takes half an Earth year.

And that, like the Moon, it gets pounded by space rocks. Since it has no atmosphere, meteorites blast to the surface without burning up as many do in Earth's atmosphere. Images of the planet make it look remarkably battered and Moon-like.

But Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is so close to Old Sol that's it's difficult to study thoroughly without being blinded by the brightness alongside. The last time researchers had a good look was during the Mariner 10 spacecraft mission in 1991. The new mission is the Mercury surface, space environment, geochemistry and ranging effort, whose first and sometimes second letters have been cobbled together into the word messenger.

University of Hawai'i researcher Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, with the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, is a member of the MESSENGER team.

“If Mercury were a puzzle, we would only have half the pieces, which makes it difficult to put geologic processes into a global perspective. MESSENGER will fill in a lot of those missing puzzle pieces this month,” Gillis-Davis said.

His role is to use an array of sensors on the craft to study the planet's origin and its geologic evolution, to determine whether volcanic activity has played a role and to compare its geology to that of the other rocky planets, like Earth.

After the first flyby this week, the spacecraft will swing past the planet again in October 2008 and September 2009, and will enter orbit in March 2011.

Learn more on the web at messenger.jhuapl.edu/

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

A cheap, nimble, inflatable(!) car

Take this car to the beach. It floats.

In the continuing evolution of the automobile, you'll keep hearing about air cars.

On that theme, add the idea of an inflatable car to the odd concept of a compressed air-powered car (currently licensed by India's Tata Motors; a report on that car can be found in the December 2007 archives in this blog).

The inflatable vehicle is the brainchild of a bunch of innovative San Francisco engineers at XP Vehicles. Their sparse website is www.xpcarteam.com.

And is this thing perfect for Hawai'i? Light, long-range, low environmental impact, and of course an inflatable car is unlikely to become a rust bucket.

In this case, the proposed vehicle (if it gets developed, actually driving one will be a year or two, or maybe three, down the road) is an electric car. Initial marketing is aimed at Asia, not the U.S., and currently it seems that the firm does not plan to seek federal government safety approvals.

There aren't a lot of real good images of what this car would look like. There reportedly would be several models. But the XP folks have several really interesting design and marketing ideas.

One of them is a price for a car that drives at freeway speeds that's between $3,000 and $10,000, depending on the model.

Another is a car that's shipped in two cardboard boxes. You put it together with a savvy friend in a couple of hours.

You could order it direct, or through a local dealer.

Getting it street legal is a local issue. Says the company: “Your local dealer is responsible for assembling and certifying the vehicle for your region. If you order a flat-pack vehicle that you assemble, then you are responsible for local certifications.”

It would be powered by batteries, a fuel cell or a combination. It's light in weight and the company on its website suggests, intriguingly, that the electric car could have a 2,500-mile range.

There are suggestions you could drive your inflatable car off a small cliff without injury, that it would float in a flood, and so forth. These apparently are accidental benefits of the design.

“The nature of the inflatable construction, on those that use it, offers secondary advantages which are not part of the intended use but which could possibly provide additional safety in such circumstances,” the company website says.

The car will have all the regular features inside a normal car, with storage space, a place to dock your iPod and GPS, sport seats and wheels, xenon or LED headlights, a “flotation package,” and a completely interchangeable body. Tired of the red model? Switch to sky blue. No problem.

Will anyone ever actually be able to buy one of these? That's not clear. But it's another intriguing idea that turns standard auto design on its ear.

The XP Team has launched the design in part to qualify for the automotive X Prize (see auto.xprize.org). This is a $10 million prize for a clean, efficient, functional car that will meet the needs of the consumer.

In an announcement Jan. 10, 2008, X Prize said: “The Automotive X PRIZE, which was created to help break the world’s addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change, is an independent and technology-neutral competition, open to teams from around the world who can design, build and bring to market 100 MPG equivalent vehicles that people want to buy, and that meet market needs for price, size, capability, safety and performance.”

More than 50 teams have already indicated they plan to enter. Those that qualify will build their cars and participate in a cross-country race in 2009 to 2010 to prove their concepts.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate