Met Office warning over carbon emissions

The Met Office has warned that unless carbon emissions begin to fall in the next ten years the target of reducing temperature rises of 2C won't be met.

The report from the Met Office says even if emissions peaked in 2020, there would only be a 50 per cent chance of temperature rising more than 2C.

The results from the study were presented at the Copenhagen climate change conference, where it has been agreed that the G8 target of limiting global warming to 2C should be met to prevent temperatures reaching dangerous levels.

The Met Office, in their AVOID study, also said it was 'virtually impossible' to reduce the rise by 1.5C as proposed by some developed countries. AVOID is a research programme funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 'providing key advice to the UK government on avoiding dangerous climate change'.

The research concluded that if peaking was reached in 2018 and shrinking emissions by four per cent per year after, there would be a 50 per cent chance of keeping warming below the target 2C.

But if the peak came in 2020, the decline would then have to be five per cent per year for the same target.

'If you go to 2025 before peaking, it's virtually impossible to stay under two degrees,' Vicky Pope, head of climate science at the Met Office, told the BBC.

'If you reduced everything to zero immediately you'd still get about 1.3C because of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.'

Farming light to power tomorrow's world

A €40

0 billion scheme to provide 15 per cent of Europe's energy via Saharan solar power by 2050 has officially been launched.

Last month industrialist and investors from 14 companies met in Munich to formally found the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII).

The plan is to pool resources and expertise to outfit north Africa with major renewable energy generation plants, making it a future powerhouse for the region and for Europe.

Eventually, the shareholders, including Deutsche Bank and Siemens, will compete commercially with each other, but now they are working together, to try and create the market for the scheme.

The scheme has been developed to this point by the Desertec Foundation, which has been funded by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan and the German Association for the Club of Rome.

'We have one really crucial ally, and that is climate change,' Friedrich Fuhr, co-founder and director of the Desertec Foundation, told inthenews.co.uk.

'We are promoting one of the really rare global solutions that are on the market right now, where we actually can do something about it.'

The DII has more allies than just climate change – there is also widespread European support for the scheme.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Energy Agency (EEA), said: 'Keeping climate change within manageable limits will require us to change fundamentally the way we use resources.

'I am therefore greatly encouraged to see initiatives such as Desertec, which brings together 14 firms in an unprecedented partnership, offering the promise of clean, secure energy and green jobs.'

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) also welcomed the scheme, saying it would 'keep a watching eye on its progress'.

Algons Benzinger, an energy sector press officer for DII-member Siemens, said the project was not a pipedream.

'When we look at it we have the technology to create the power in the desert,' he said. 'I think that it is possible.'

Cost is traditionally a problem faced by new energy initiatives, but Mr Fuhr believes this need not be a barrier once the company builds momentum.

'We can only bring the cost down by mass production, and mass production has to start - the sooner the better,' he said.

'What we want to do is to speed up the process. Afterwards our DII partners will be in competition, because they will be competitors. But in this joint effort we are now all partners because we want to create the market.'

When asked why he decided to play a part in the formation of the DII, Mr Fuhr told inthenews.co.uk it was for his children. 'I wanted to be able to answer their questions [about the effects of climate change], so I needed to do something.'

But the initiative does face certain problems, as New Scientist journalist Fred Pearce pointed out.

'It's now widely known that concentrated solar thermal power projects like Desertec need lots of water,' he told inthenews.co.uk.

'That's tough when you are in the desert. In the US, regulators are already saying that water supplies will limit the harvesting of solar energy in places like the Mojave desert.

'But so far I can see little sign that the Desertec enthusiasts have addressed this issue. It's not necessarily a deal-breaker. There is water under parts of the Sahara. But it is a big gap in current plans.'

Thousands of species 'facing extinction'

An extinction crisis is threatening 17,291 of the world's species, with 70 per cent of plants under threat.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) today released its Red List of threatened species, which warned an extinction crisis was threatening the natural world.

Of the 47,677 species assessed, 17,291 were threatened with extinction. Of those, 21 per cent of all known mammals, 30 per cent of all known amphibians, 12 per cent of all known birds, 28 per cent of reptiles, 37 per cent of freshwater fishes, 70 per cent of plants, 35 per cent of invertebrates assessed were under threat.

The IUCN Red List is the world's most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of plant and animal species.

'The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,' said Jane Smart, director of IUCN's biodiversity conservation group.

'January sees the launch of the international year of biodiversity. The latest analysis of the IUCN Red List shows the 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss will not be met. It's time for governments to start getting serious about saving species and make sure it's high on their agendas for next year, as we're rapidly running out of time.'

Of the world's 5,490 mammals, 79 are extinct or extinct in the wild, with a further 188 critically endangered, 449 endangered and 505 vulnerable.

A further 293 reptiles were added to the list this year, with the list also showing that 1,895 of the planet's 6,285 amphibians are in danger of extinction, making them the most threatened group of species known to date.

Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have contributed 72 per cent of the new data added to the Red List. Dr Ben Collen, research fellow at ZSL's Institute of Zoology, said: 'We must take decisive action to reverse the serious declines we see in wildlife.

'We need to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out the small things that provide us with great benefits such as nutrient cycling and climate regulation.'

Of the 12,151 plants on the IUCN Red List, 8,500 are threatened with extinction, with 114 already extinct or extinct in the wild. There are now 3,120 freshwater fishes on the IUCN Red List, up 510 species from last year.

Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at ZSL, added: 'The commitment to our environment and the next generation must start at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.'

While, Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the IUCN Red List Unit, warned: 'This year's IUCN Red List makes for sobering reading. These results are just the tip of the iceberg. '

And the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has said more must be done to stop the decline in biodiversity.

'The continued and unprecedented loss of species must not be accepted as just a sad reality we can do nothing about. Biodiversity loss is an alarming indicator of the general health of our planet and for the wellbeing of our own species. We must act to halt this decline,' said Mark Wright, conservation science advisor at WWF-UK.

'In 2002, a globally endorsed commitment on the Convention on Biological Diversity promised to deliver a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. We're not even close to meeting this. This failure and the mechanisms to overcome it will need to be the dominant agenda item on next year’s meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.'

T rex young 'hurt each other playing rough'

Young and adolescent tyrannosaurs conducted play fights with each other that often ended in significant damage, palaeontologists said today.

US researchers claim that bite marks found on the skull of a young Tyrannosaurus rex were signs of learning behaviour also found in modern-day crocodiles.

Palaeontologists from Northern Illinois University and the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford said such play fights had left the museum's juvenile T rex found in 2001 with a 'boxer's nose'.

The T rex, christened Jane after a museum donor, showed evidence of a serious bite that punctured the bone of the left upper jaw and snout in four places.

The injuries were not life threatening and healed, leaving scars still visible today.

'Her snout bends slightly to the left,' Joe Peterson, lead author of the study, wrote in the journal Palaios. 'It was probably broken and healed back crooked.'

Mr Peterson and others who worked on the study said only another juvenile tyrannosaur could have been responsible for the rectangular bite marks.

'That leads us to believe she was attacked by a member of the same species that was about the same age,' he said. 'Because the wound had healed, we think this happened when Jane was possibly a few years younger.'

Despite being about 11 or 12 when it died, Jane was still 22ft long and 7ft 6ins tall, making the dinosaur capable of 'pretty serious combat'.

It is the researchers' belief that the wounds inflicted were not over sexual conflict or competition but part of learning behaviour for young dinosaurs.

'Scientist exodus' over drugs row sacking

The government's former drugs tsar has claimed his sacking threatens the government's entire relationship with the scientific community, not just its drugs policy.

Professor David Nutt was sacked as chairman of the advisory council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) after being accused of straying into politics by the home secretary.

He has been followed out by ACMD members Dr Les King and Marion Walker, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society representative on the panel, who both resigned in protest at Prof Nutt's dismissal.

Writing in the Times on Monday, Prof Nutt warned the government 'may lose the rest of its scientific advisers', with the ACMD meeting on November 10th to consider its future.

Prof Nutt was a high profile critic of the government's decision to reclassify cannabis as a class B drug, while in January he coined the phrase 'equasy' to highlight the fact that harm from illegal drugs could be equated to harm from other more-established parts of life, in this case horse-riding, which he said caused ten deaths and 100 accidents every year.

But claiming cannabis was less harmful than alcohol or tobacco was the last straw for Mr Johnson, who said he had broken the 'long-established' principle of attacking the government on policy.

'Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views, which I respect but disagree with,' the home secretary said in a letter to the guardian today.

'He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy.'

On Prof Nutt's writings on 'equine addiction syndrome' the home secretary added: 'There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse - there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction.'

But Prof Nutt said his sacking had cast a 'huge shadow over the relationship of science to policy'.

'It seems unlikely that any 'true' scientist will be able to work for this, or future, home secretaries,' he said.

Nasa prepares for new Ares 1-X launch

Nasa is rolling out its new super-slim Ares 1–X rocket, its first new spacecraft for nearly 30 years.

It is hoped the new 100m rocket will make a test flight on October 27th following a Nasa meeting yesterday which decided to launch the shuttle Atlantis STS-129 and the new Ares 1–X before the end of the year.

The Ares project has cost an estimated $445 million (£272 million), but Nasa hopes it will be putting its astronauts into orbit for the next decade.

The test flight for the new craft will see it climb, unmanned, 25 miles into the sky.

The space agency said: 'The flight test, called Ares I-X, will bring Nasa one step closer to its exploration goals – to return to the moon for ambitious exploration of the lunar surface and then to travel to Mars and destinations beyond.'

The Ares is now on its seven-hour long 'roll' towards launch pad 39B in Florida's Kennedy Space Centre. Nasa said the total weight of the rocket, mobile launcher platform, and crawler-transporter is 16 million pounds.

Arctic Ocean 'ice-free summer' in next decade

The Arctic Ocean will be largely ice-free within the next decade, research from the Catlin Arctic Survey and WWF has found.

The two groups say the latest ice thickness record measured 1.8 metres, a 'depth considered too thin to survive next summer's ice melt'.

They claim the data, which was collected by manual drill and observations on part of the Beaufort Sea show the area is comprised almost exclusively of first-year ice; when it traditionally contains older, much thicker ice.

Professor Peter Wadhams, who is one the world's leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region, analysed the findings with the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge. He said: 'With a larger part of the region now first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable.

'The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone.'

He added that the data supports predictions the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, and much of the decrease will be happening within ten years.

'That means you’ll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean,' Prof Wadhams added.

The new technique which was used to collect the data helps researchers refine predictions about the decline of the ice.

At the unveiling of the results in London, Dr. Martin Sommerkorn from WWF International Arctic Programme, said: 'The Arctic sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world.

'Today's findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions, with rich countries committing to reduce emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.'

Guerrillas help scientists locate literacy in brain

A study of former Colombian guerrillas has helped scientists to redefine their understanding a part of the brain involved in literacy.

The study has enabled researchers to see how brain structure changed after a person learnt how to read.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, researchers looked at literacy on the brain structure, saying that literacy is a learnt skill that does not develop without intensive tuition and practice, unlike talking.

The researchers said: 'Understanding how our brain structures change as we learn to read has proved difficult as the majority of people learn to read when they are children, at the same time as learning many other skills.

'Separating the changes caused by reading from those caused by, for example, learning social skills or how to play football, is almost impossible.

'Studying adult learners is also challenging because in most educated societies adult illiteracy is typically the result of learning impairments or poor health.'

Researchers from the UK, Spain and Colombia published their findings in Nature. They studied former guerrillas in Colombia who were re-integrated into mainstream society and learning to read for the first time as adults.

They found that for those participants who had learnt to read, the density of grey matter (where the 'processing' is done) was higher in several areas of the left hemisphere of the brain. Reading also increased the strength of the 'white matter' connections between the different processing regions.

The findings are likely to prove useful for researchers trying to understand the causes of dyslexia, as studies of dyslexics have shown regions of reduced grey and white matter in regions that grow after learning to read.

The new study suggests that some of the differences seen in dyslexia may be a consequence of reading difficulties rather than a cause.

Fossil discovery of new flying reptile

A new type of flying reptile which lived more than 160 million years ago has been discovered by researchers in China.

Darwinopterus, which has been named after Charles Darwin, provides the first clear evidence of modular evolution, experts have said.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers said they found 20 new fossils in the north-east region of China, which show both primitive and more advanced signs of being flying reptiles.

Scientists have said this latest discovery could be the missing link in the evolutionary chain, after the fossils were found in 160 million year-old rocks.

The researchers believe Darwinopterus is a hawk-like reptile with a head and neck just like advanced pterosaurs, but the rest of the skeleton is similar to more primitive forms.

An international group of researchers from the University of Leicester, and the Geological Institute, Beijing identified the reptile.

'Darwinopterus came as quite a shock to us,' said David Unwin part of the research team and based at the University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies.

'We had always expected a gap-filler with typically intermediate features such as a moderately elongate tail – neither long nor short – but the strange thing about Darwinopterus is that it has a head and neck just like that of advanced pterosaurs, while the rest of the skeleton, including a very long tail, is identical to that of primitive forms.'

Jaw joint created using stem cells

Scientists have created part of a jaw joint using human adult stem cells, which could help doctors to create skeletal reconstructions.

The researchers say it is the first time bones have been created in this way, and it is hoped the discovery could be used to treat joint and bone disorders.

The research by Columbia University appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Bioengineer Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic said that although missing bone can be replaced by titanium, 'there is no better substitute for lost tissue than living tissue.

'Although titanium is better than nothing—you need something to help bear loads—real bones also have bone marrow inside that has many important metabolic functions.'

The bone which has been created in the lab is known as the temporomandibular joint (TMJ).

The researchers said the option to engineer anatomically pieces of human bone in this way could potentially transform the ability to carry out reconstruction work, for instance following serious injury or cancer treatment.

Bioengineer David Kaplan at Tufts University's Department of Biomedical Engineering, who had no role in these findings, called the work 'fantastic', while Professor Anthony Hollander, a tissue engineering expert from the University of Bristol, told the BBC: 'One of the major problems facing scientists in this field is how to engineer a piece of bone with the right dimensions - that is critical for some of these bone defects.

'This is a lovely piece of tissue engineering which has produced bone with a high degree of accuracy in terms of shape.'

Nobel Chemistry prize awarded for ribosome research

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their work in advancing studies on the structure of ribsomes.

Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath were awarded the prestigious prize on Wednesday.

This year's chemistry prize was awarded for studies into 'one of life's core processes: the ribosome's translation of DNA information into life'.

Ribosomes produce proteins, which in turn control the chemistry in all living organisms. As ribosomes are crucial to life, they are also a major target for new antibiotics, scientists claim.

The three recipients of the prize were recognised for their work in showing what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level.

All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

A statement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said: 'Inside every cell in all organisms, there are DNA molecules.

'They contain the blueprints for how a human being, a plant or a bacterium, looks and functions. But the DNA molecule is passive. If there was nothing else, there would be no life.

'An understanding of the ribosome's innermost workings is important for a scientific understanding of life.'

The 3D models developed by this year's three Laureates all show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome.

These models are now being used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, which in turn have a direct impact on saving lives, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences declared.

Nasa discover enormous ring around Saturn

Nasa says they have discovered an enormous ring around Saturn, which they say is 'by far the largest of the planet's many rings'.

The new halo is about twenty times the diameter of the planet in height, and it would take about one billion Earths stacked together to fill the ring.

Nasa say the new belt lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27 degrees from the main ring plane. One of Saturn's farthest moons, Phoebe, circles within the newfound ring, and is likely the source of its material.

'This is one supersized ring,' said Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

'If you could see the ring, it would span the width of two full moons' worth of sky, one on either side of Saturn.'

The ring was spotted using the telescope Spitzer's infrared eyes were able to spot the glow of the band's cool dust. The telescope, launched in 2003, is currently 107 million kilometers (66 million miles) from Earth in orbit around the sun.

Ms Verbiscer, Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, College Park and Michael Skrutskie, of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, are authors of a paper about the discovery to be published online tomorrow by the journal Nature.

Nasa said the discovery could help to solve an age-old riddle of one of Saturn's moons, lapetus, which has one bright side and one dark, called Cassini Regoio. The new ring could explain how Cassini Regio came to be,

'Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus,' said Mr Hamilton. 'This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship.'

Ms Verbiscer and her colleagues used Spitzer's longer-wavelength infrared camera, called the multiband imaging photometer, to scan through a patch of sky far from Saturn and a bit inside Phoebe's orbit.

Nasa said: 'The astronomers had a hunch that Phoebe might be circling around in a belt of dust kicked up from its minor collisions with comets -- a process similar to that around stars with dusty disks of planetary debris.

'Sure enough, when the scientists took a first look at their Spitzer data, a band of dust jumped out.'

Nobel Prize for Physics 2009 awarded

The Nobel Prize for Physics 2009 has been awarded to the inventor of optical fibres and the two physicists behind the development of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD).

Physicist Charles Kuen Kao, was responsible for the development of optical fibres while working at the Standard Telephones and Cables laboratories in Harlow, England.

Mr Kao realised that light loss could be kept down to acceptable levels by removing impurities in the fine threads of glass that can transmit light.

Since his development, three million kilometres of optical fibre has been laid in the UK, bringing broadband internet connection to homes and offices. In recognition of this, the judges awarded him half of this year's prize.

Professor Sir Peter Knight, senior principal at Imperial College London, said: 'I am delighted that Kao has been recognised in this way. Kao was the first to understand the impurities in glass and how to get rid of them.

'He had already spotted the communications opportunities, and therefore the great distances light could travel, while others were still thinking in metres.

'He was a revolutionary and his work is a fine example of how fundamental research can have a massive impact on our everyday lives.'

The second half of the 2009 prize has gone to two physicists, Willard Sterling Boyle and George Smith, from Bell Labs in New Jersey, US, for developing the CCD.

CCD is capable of turning light into electric signals, thereby eliminating the need for film as images can be captured on the device, making the digital camera possible.

Dr Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive at the Institute of Physics (IOP), said: 'Ours is the age of information and images and no two things better symbolise this than the internet and digital cameras.

'From kilobytes to gigabytes, and now to petabytes and exabytes, information has never been so free-flowing or, with the development of CCD, so instantly visual.

'These incredible inventors who have been responsible for transforming the world in which we live very much deserve their prize.'

Nobel prize goes to chromosome scientists

Three scientists have been jointly awarded the Nobel prize for medicine for discovering how the body protects the chromosomes housing vital genetic code.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute today said the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 would be jointly awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for the discovery of 'how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase'.

In a statement from the assembly, which is made up of 50 professors, said the three scientists were awarded the prize because they had 'solved a major problem in biology: how the chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation'.

The Laureates found the solution to this problem was to be found in the ends of the chromosomes - the telomeres - and an enzyme that forms them - telomerase.

Ms Blackburn and Mr Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation.

Ms Greider and Ms Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA.

These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

The judges of the prize said: 'These discoveries had a major impact within the scientific community.

'Many scientists speculated that telomere shortening could be the reason for ageing, not only in the individual cells but also in the organism as a whole. But the ageing process has turned out to be complex and it is now thought to depend on several different factors, the telomere being one of them. Research in this area remains intense.'

They added that the discoveries by Ms Blackburn, Ms Greider and Mr Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies.

Fish 'attracted to gingers'

Fish 'go mad for the ginger gene', a team of scientists have concluded.

In a new study published today scientists found fish were more attracted to bright orange fish than grey ones.

Scientists in the journal BMC Biology found a single gene mutation which turns the medaka a drab grey colour makes them significantly less attractive to the more colourful members of the opposite sex.

The medaka is found in southeast Asia and is seen in a range of colours including brown, orange and grey.

Shoji Fukamachi led a team of researchers from the University of Konstanz, Germany and the University of Tokyo, who studied the effects of alterations in a colour-determining gene on mating preferences of the fish.

Mr Fukamachi: 'We observed that the grey medaka were often rejected in favour of their brown or orange rivals. This is the first demonstration of a single gene that can change both secondary sexual characteristics and mating preferences.'

He added that the greys, however, need not be completely despondent at these findings, as the study also showed that they were preferentially selective for each other.

The orange colour gene in the medaka was over-expressed in some fish by the scientists, making them 'super attractive bright orange'.

The scientists said this resulted in induced hyperactivity in similarly engineered members of the opposite sex while other potential mates were ignored almost completely.

'Thus, the present finding of the xanthophore-dependent mate choice enables many ingenious experiments to be designed in this and other fish species. This discovery should further facilitate molecular dissection/manipulation of visual-based mate choice,' Mr Fukamachi concluded.

Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found

Archaeologists have uncovered the largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold in a Lancashire field.

Around 1,500 pieces were recovered, including weapons, coins and ornate crosses.

In total the hoard adds up to 5kg of gold – three times the amount found at the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939.

The first artefacts, which date back to the 7th Century, were found back in July by amateur metal detector Terry Herbert.

Commenting, Leslie Webster, former keeper of the department of prehistory at the British Museum said: 'This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries.'

Mr Herbert, 55, came across the hoard as he searched a field belonging to a friend. The exact location, however, has not been disclosed.

The artefacts went on display at Birmingham City Museum on Thursday.

A coroner's inquest earlier ruled the hoard could be declared treasure, meaning the items now belong to the Crown and therefore Mr Herbert will be eligible for a 'finder's fee' which could be up to half the value of the hoard.

Scientists discover 'mini T-Rex'

Scientists claim to have discovered a 9ft dinosaur which had all the hallmarks of a Tyrannosaurus rex, but lived 60 million years earlier and was almost one 100th the size.

Research published in the journal Science claims a fossil of the newly discovered Raptorex found in China displays the characteristics of the famous predator but at 'punk size' – in other words, in miniature.

University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno said the dinosaur was 'basically our bodyweight. And that's pretty staggering, because there's no other example that I can think of where an animal has been so finely designed at about 100th the size that it would eventually become.'

The small dinosaur is said to display all the hallmarks of its famous descendant, including a large head compared to its torso, tiny arms and lanky feet well-suited for running.

Examinations of its brain cast also appear to indicate enlarged olfactory bulbs - like the T-rex - indicating a highly developed sense of smell.

Mr Sereno said the Raptorex left for its descendants 'a suite of detailed features largely related to getting bigger'.

He also expressed his surprise at the scalability of the tyrannosaur body type, which when sized up 90 million years ago completely dominated the predatory eco-niche in both Asia and North America until the great extinction 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

'On other continents like Africa, you have as many as three large predators living in the same areas that split among them the job of eating meat,' he said.

However in Africa, the allosaurs never went extinct, as they did in North America, possibly presenting an evolutionary opportunity for Raptorex.

'We have no evidence that it was a competitive takeover because we have never found large tyrannosaurs and allosaurs together,' he added.

Leading scientists calls for 40 per cent cut in emissions

A group of leading climate change scientists have called on world leaders to agree to drastically cut carbon emissions.

In a statement, instigated by the WWF, the experts have called for industrialised countries to make a commitment at the upcoming UN climate summit in Copenhagen, to cut carbon emissions by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The scientists claim the drastic cuts need to be made in order to keep temperatures below 2°C and avoid dangerous climate change.

World leaders are due to meet in December to discuss how best to tackle climate change and to potentially agree on a series of new emission-cutting targets.

Commenting on today's statement, Keith Allott, head of climate change at WWF-UK, said: 'As the UK government rallies the EU to step up to the mark ahead of Copenhagen, it is time for Gordon Brown and other world leaders to turn words into action.

'Industrialised nations need to prove that their pledge to keep the world below 2°C is not mere grandstanding. They must commit to global emissions cuts of at least 40 per cent by 2020; anything less will lead to a weak global agreement and leave the world wide open to the worst impacts of climate change.'

Experts claim a 40 per cent reduction in emissions is the 'very least' needed to provide a better chance at avoiding devastation for those low-lying countries most at risk from the temperature rise.

A number of key meetings regarding climate change are taking place in the coming weeks, including the UN General Assembly in New York and the G20 heads of state meeting in Pittsburgh.

Humpback whale dies in Thames

A humpback whale died in the Thames this weekend, conservationists have confirmed.

The 28ft whale was found dead by the Dartford Bridge on Saturday, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said.

It is the first-ever time that a humpback whale has been found in the Thames, with the last stranding by a humpback in the UK taking place in Port Talbot in 2007.

The whale, a juvenile male, probably died from starvation, experts said.

ZSL said it first received reports of a humpback, Megaptera novaeangliae, in the Thames on Thursday, but no further sightings were reported until it was found dead on Saturday.

Rob Deaville, project manager at UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, said: 'There have only been 12 strandings of humpback whales in the UK in the last 20 years and this is an incredibly unusual event.

'Although it’s obviously a sad outcome in this instance, the post-mortem examination has given us a rare opportunity to examine a truly extraordinary animal at close quarters. Information gathered through examinations like these will hopefully help further our understanding of such animals and also help contribute to improving their conservation status.'

Londoners will remember the last time a whale came into the Thames; in 2006 a young female northern bottlenose whale became disorientated and travelled up the river before dying from convulsions two days later.

Giant rat found in lost world

By Matthew Champion.

A giant rat - possibly the world's largest - is among 40 new species discovered by a BBC documentary team in a remote volcano crater in Papua New Guinea.

The Bosavi woolly rat, which weighs 1.5kg and measures 82cm from nose to tail, showed no fear towards any of the scientists or cameramen, suggesting it had never encountered humans before.

The cat-sized rat was found in the crater of the extinct volcano Mount Bosavi during filming for Lost Land of the Volcano, a three-part series which starts on BBC1 tomorrow night.

Led by climber and naturalist Steve Backshall and including wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan and scientist Dr George McGavin, the team climbed into the 4km wide crater in January, spending three months in the rainforest inside.

The Bosavi woolly rat, named after its silvery grey and dense fur, is believed to be largely vegetarian, nesting underground or in tree hollows.





Team member Dr Kristofer Helgen, a Smithsonian biologist, said: 'This is the one of the world's largest rats. It is a true rat, related to the same kind you find in the city sewers, but a heck of a lot bigger.'

Mr Buchanan added: 'I had a cat and it was about the same size of this rat. This rat was incredibly tame. It just sat next to me nibbling on a piece of leaf. It won't have seen a human being before. This crater of Mount Bosavi really is the lost world.'

Among the 40 other new species the team believes it discovered was the marsupial Bosavi silky cuscus, which also showed no fear of man.





A camouflaged gecko, a fanged frog and a grunting fish are also awaiting official classification as new species.

Lost Land of the Volcano, the first of three one hour-long shows, starts tomorrow at 21:00 BST on BBC1