Three Canids Form A Strange Group

When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands during the voyage of the Beagle in 1835, he saw a wolf-like species, wrote about it in his diaries and correctly commented that it was being hunted in such large numbers that it would soon become extinct. Darwin was baffled by how this animal got on the islands, and it figured heavily in the formation of his ideas on evolution by natural selection.

The wolf was the only terrestrial mammal on the island, but was it brought to the Falklands, less than 300 miles from the mainland of South America, by humans or did it somehow get there by itself?

Scientists have analyzed DNA samples from five Falkland Islands wolves and calculated how long ago those five wolves shared a common ancestor.

"It was at least 70,000 years ago — well before humans came to the New World," Slater said.

"The Falkland Islands wolf clearly precedes any possible human occupation of the New World, which dates back some 12,000 to 13,000 years."

Darwin hypothesized that the Falkland Islands wolf, which became extinct in 1876, may have come to the islands on icebergs. Wayne and Slater think Darwin may be right.

"A large, wolf-size animal could perhaps live on a large iceberg with penguins and sea birds and maybe seals — enough prey to survive the voyage.

The closest relative to the Falkland Islands wolf, the biologists report, is an odd South American dog species called the maned wolf, which looks nothing like the Falklands species.

"The closet living relative of the maned wolf is the bush dog, which is even more different," Slater said. "These three are a strange group." link

Triplicate Girl © DC Comics

Ref.: Evolutionary history of the Falklands wolf. 2009. G. J. Slater. Et al., Current Biology, Volume 19: R937-R938.

"I Found The City Under The Sea" by Jack Kirby

A new study shows that animal communities on the abyssal seafloor are affected in a variety of ways by climate change, some changes occurring within a few weeks.

Available food there is takes the form of bits of organic debris drifting down from the sunlit surface waters, thousands of meters above. It is estimated that less than five percent of the organic matter produced at the surface reaches the abyssal plains. Research shows that the amount of food reaching the deep sea varies dramatically over time.

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Some relevant ocean processes that may be affected by climate change include wind-driven upwelling, the depth of mixing of the surface waters, and the delivery of nutrients to surface waters via dust storms. Climate-driven changes in these processes are likely to lead to altered year-to-year variation in the amount of organic material reaching the seafloor. link

Ref.: Climate, carbon cycling, and deep-ocean ecosystems. K. L. Smith Jr. et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (published online, November 2009).

My Greatest Adventure #15 (May-June 1957). © DC Comics
Story(?) & Art: Jack Kirby

Two Frankenstein Stories by Dick Briefer

Frankenstein Light

Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein ran in Prize Comics from #7 (December 1940) until #68 even getting its own title (Frankenstein Comics) that ran for 17 issues from 1945 to 1947. Starting off as a serious book in line with Mary Shelly’s original version, it eventual switched to a light-hearted version once he got his own book as seen in the 1st story below.

Appropriately for Frankenstein’s monster, he was revived in March 1952 and the book ran until October 1954. This darker version (2nd story below) of the monster anticipated the mood taken in the Hammer Films of the late 50’s and early 60’s starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

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Frankenstein 'Dark'

From Frankenstein #18 (March 1952)
Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein © the current copyright holders

Harry by Jeff Jones

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© Jeff Jones. From Vampirella #85

Murphy Anderson’s “Mystery of the Asteroids”

Planet Comics #47 (March 1947)
Art by Murphy Anderson. © Fiction House

According to a new study by geologists the wealth of some minerals that lie in the rock beneath the Earth's surface may be extraterrestrial in origin.

Geologists have long speculated that four and a half billion years ago, the Earth was a cold mass of rock mixed with iron metal which was melted by the heat generated from the impact of massive planet-sized objects, allowing the iron to separate from the rock and form the Earth's core. Researchers recreated the extreme pressure and temperature of this process, subjecting a similar mixture to temperatures above 2,000 °C, and measured the composition of the resulting rock and iron.

Because the rock became void of the metal in the process, the scientists speculate that the same would have occurred when the Earth was formed, and that some sort of external source – such as a rain of extraterrestrial material – contributed to the presence of some precious metals in Earth's outer rocky portion today.

"The notion of extraterrestrial rain my also explain another mystery, which is how the rock portion of the Earth came to have hydrogen, carbon and phosphorous – the essential components for life, which were likely lost during Earth's violent beginning." link

Ref: Core formation and metal–silicate fractionation of osmium and iridium from gold. 2009. J.M. Brenan and W.F. McDonough. Nature Geoscience, published online October 18.

The Vision by Jack Kirby: "Dinosaurs at Large!"

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Marvel Mystery Comics # 16 (Feb. 1941) © Marvel Comics
Script by Simon and Kirby; Art by Kirby

Ditko: "I Took A Journey Into Fear!"

From Journey Into Mystery #63 (Dec. 1960) © Marvel Comics
Art by Steve Ditko

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