8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17,2007
SCIENCE
Deep-sea finds in Philippines Researchers discover possible new species of marine life
BY OLIVER TEVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
This photo released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the National Geographic Society-led Inner Space Speciation Project (ISSP) shows a sample of zooplankton collected with a Tucker Trawl with a 10mm opening wherein one can find jellyfish, a lanternfish, a snipe eel, two orange shrimp, and a pyrosome.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANILA, Philippines Scientists exploring a deep ocean basin in search of species isolated for millions of years found marine life believed to be previously undiscovered, including a tentacled orange worm and an unusual black jellyfish.
Projectleader Dr. Larry Madin said Tuesday that U.S. and Philippine scientists collected about 100 different specimens in a search in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines.
Madin, of the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said the sea is at the heart of the "coral triangle" bordered by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia — a region recognized by scientists as having a high degree of biological diversity.
The deepest part of the Celebs Sea is 16,500 feet. The team was able to explore to a depth of about 9,100 feet using a remotely operated camera.
"This is probably the center where many of the species evolved and spread to other parts of the ocean, so it's going back to the source in many ways." Madin told a group of journalists, government officials, students and U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney and her staff.
The project involved the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and
National Geographic Magazine in cooperation with the Philippine government, which also provided the exploration ship.
The expedition was made up of
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A photo of a deep sea jellyfish (Atolla sp.) collected with the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle), from a depth of at least 1,500 meters, shown at a briefing Tuesday aboard the Philippine research vessel BRP Prisbiroff on Manila Bay in Philippines.
more than two dozen scientists and a group from National Geographic, including Emory Kristof, the underwater photographer who was part of the team that found the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985.
The group returned to Manila on Tuesday after spending about two weeks in the Celebes Sea off Tawi-Tawi, the Philippines southernmost provincial archipelago nearly 700 miles south of Manila.
The U.S. and Philippines scientists collected about 100 different specimen in a search in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines.
Madin said the specimens they collected included several possibly newly discovered species. One was a sea cucumber that is nearly transparent which could swim by bending its elongated body. Another was a black jellyfish found near the sea floor.
The most striking creature found was a spiny orange-colored worm that had 10 tentacles like a squid, Madin said. "We don't know what it is ... it might be something new," he said.
Madin said the Celebes Sea, being surrounded by islands and shallow reefs, is partially isolated now and may have been more isolated millions of years ago, leading scientists to believe that "there may be groups of organisms that have been contained and kept within" the basin since then.
He said it would take "a few more weeks" of research to determine whether the species are newly discovered. He expects to release a report by early next month.
"That makes it an interesting place to go and look to see what we might find," he said.
INTERNATIONAL
China promotes future leaders
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
BEIJING — China's ruling Communist Party offered the media a rare glimpse of two rising political stars Tuesday, giving them a chance to show themselves as self-effacing, businesslike and worthy for promotion to the senior leadership.
A paramilitary police officer stands guard in front of a portrait of the late communist leader Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate on the second day of the 17th Communist Party Congress in Beijing Tuesday.
(Grea Baker/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The public appearances by Li Keqiang and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a major party congress were likely no coincidence, given the secretive party's penchant for carefully stage-managed public events. It came as senior party members held closed-door discussions on appointments to the Politiburo Standing Committee, the inner sanction of power.
The brief encounters were telling, if not revealing. The party congress, held once every five years, sets broad policy goals and apportions senior leadership posts. At the top of this congress's agenda is the promotion of several officials in their 50s to replace 64 year-old President Hu Jintao and other leaders when they step down five years from now.
On the other side of the cavernous building with Shanghai delegates, Xi, looking like the CEO of a major corporation, said the city had yet to live up to Beijing's expectations. "We have yet to achieve everything the center has required of us."
"My main mission at present is to work, but also to learn while working," said Li, animatedly gesturing in a dark gray suit as he answered questions from reporters while meeting with other delegates from Liaoning in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
Li, the 52-year-old party head of the industrial province of Liaoning, and Xi, the 54-year-old party chief in the commercial heart of Shanghai, met separately with rank-and-file congress members, with foreign and state-run Chinese media on hand.
Li and Xi are said to be leading contenders. Li, an associate, of Hu since the two worked together in the Communist Youth League 25 years ago, is said to be Hu's favorite but is facing resistance from other powerful party leaders. Xi, the son of a revolutionary veteran, is a compromise candidate, liked for his competence and a heritage of political reliability.
Their political fates likely will
not be known until Sunday or Monday, when the congress closes and Hu escorts the new leadership for a brief appearance before the media.
Both Li and Xi were careful to make reference to Hu or his policies, while avoiding discussion of personal questions.
Asked about his greatest accomplishments in office, Li gave Beijing the credit. "Liasoning's achievements, I think, have come through the party center's leadership and the hard work of all our province's people toiling together," he said.
GOVERNMENT
Sen. Craig appeals judge's refusal
BY AMY FORLITI ASSOCIATED PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS — Sen. Larry Craig has opened a new round in his legal battle stemming from his airport restroom arrest, appealing a judge's refusal to let him to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct.
The four-page filing did not detail the basis for the appeal, noting only that Craig was appealing Porter's Oct. 4 order. The documents were dated with Friday's date but were received and stamped by the Appeals Court on Monday.
Craig's appeal was filed Monday at the Minnesota Court of Appeals, less than two weeks after Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the plea.
"From the outset, Senator Craig has maintained that he is innocent of any illegal conduct at the Milwaukee airport," Craig's lead attorney, Billy Martin, said in a
Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June
statement. "Like every other citizen, Senator Craig has the constitutional right to make every effort to clear his name."
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which owns and operates the airport, said the guilty plea reflected Craig's conduct in the public restroom.
"The facts in the case speak
there been an "abuse of discretion" by the trial judge before overturning a ruling — in other words, that some aspect of the ruling was decided improperly.
"The facts in the case speak for themselves and we are confident the senator's guilty plea will stand."
It would most likely be well into 2008 before the Court of Appeals rules on the case. The process by which both sides prepare their legal briefs alone usually stretches
PATRICK HOGAN Airports Commission Spokesman
for themselves, and we are confident the senator's guilty plea will stand," spokesman Patrick Hogan said in a statement.
The appeals court must find
Senate Republicans have made it clear they wish
Craig's Senate term ends at the end of 2008.
to more than 100 days, and the Court of Appeals faces a heavy caseload.
Craig would leave office and let them forget the episode that has fueled jokes on late-night television for weeks.
Craig says he is not gay, and in an NBC interview being broadcast Tuesday evening he and his wife Suzanne said their marriage was based on love. Asked by NBC's Matt Lauer whether theirs was a "marriage of convenience" to cover "a gay lifestyle," Mrs. Craig responded, "I would never do that... that's almost like selling your soul for something."
"I love this woman very, very much," Craig said in the interview, taped at their Eagle, Idaho home with his wife by his side. "And the day I found her I fell in love, deeply in love. And that's lasted — we're heading toward our 25th anniversary."
In the same interview, the senator discussed his relationship with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Craig was Senate liaison for Romney's campaign, a post he abandoned when the scandal came to light.
"I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney," Craig said. "And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."