The Battalion 3S Monday • March 1 A&M researchers study Antarctic core samples By Jill Reed Science writer Texas A&M researchers in the Ocean Drilling Program are studying Antarctic core samples to learn about the history of Earth’s environment and to learn how to predict fu ture global climate changes. Dr. Peter Barker, a researcher with the Ocean Drilling Program, is a co-chief for a two- month leg of the ongoing climate study expe ditions. “We want to determine the history of the West Antarctic ice sheet for the last six to ten million years,” Barker said. Barker said it is important to understand the Antarctic ice sheet, which is a major component of Earth’s climate system. “When we prove the method works, the next step will be to look at the East Antarctic margin in the same way,” Barker said. The East Antarctic ice sheet is larger and over 30 million years older than the west sheet, he said. Barker said this leg of the expedition will help resolve arguments about ice sheet stability. “We need to understand the long-term his tory of the ice sheet and what caused it to grow, so we can know the short-term stability of the ice sheet for the next 50 years or so.” Geologists use nine-and-a-half-meter-long core samples to answer questions about changes in the global environment, crust move ment and deformation, fluids and petrochemi cals in the crust and evolution and extinction of ocean life. “We need data from several locations to deter mine the frill history, but this drilling leg will give us the proper method to do this,” Barker said. Sediment layers containing animal remains represent the periods of time when the Earth’s climate was hospitable. Past deep-water core sample studies have determined that a huge meteorite crashed into the Earth 65 million years ago and the floor of the Atlantic is widening while the floor of the Pacific is shrinking. Ocean-drilling research also has found that the Mediterranean Sea once dried up and later refilled “We want to determine the history of the West Antarctic ice sheet for the last six to ten million years.” Dr. Peter Barker Ocean Drilling Program and the Great Barrier Reef, off Northeastern Aus tralia is less than one million years old. Crews aboard the drilling vessel work twelve- hour shifts seven days a week drilling and ana lyzing core samples taken from up to 850 feet be low sea level. Each core sample represents up to ten mil lion years of Earth’s history. Aaron Woods, a spokesperson for the Ocean Drilling Program, said Texas A&M is responsible for about half of the $47 million appropriation funded by the National Science Foundation and other international interests. Woods said A&M handles many facets of the program including ship operations, engineering and drilling operations, administration, publi cation of data and results, computer systems and core sample storage and curation. Baboon pair bonds early relathi human marriage, researchers! By Brian Vastag Special to The Battalion Female baboons who align them selves with male “friends” to protect their young are leading researchers toward possible prehistoric origins of marriage. “Marriage is far, far more than sim ply a mating relationship,” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Ryne Palombit, who studies pair bonds, the animal equivalent of marriage. “It has very important social aspects.” Throughout history, social reasons for marriage include forming al liances, sustaining culture and shar ing food. Traditionally, researchers have focused on food sharing as the primary motivation for pair bonds, but Palombit believes his African ba boon studies suggest another reason. Pair bonds may have evolved, both in animals and in early humans, to pro tect infants from murder. Forty percent of baboon babies studied by Palombit on the grasslands of Botswana were killed by a single dominant male. This male kills to mo nopolize his mating opportunities. After an infant is killed, its moth er stops lactating and her regular menstrual cycle resumes. Within a few months, she is ready to mate again. Invariably, the dominant male mates with her. Through this killing and mating, the dominant male ef fectively replaces another baboon’s offspring with his own, giving his genes improved chances for survival. Primate infanticide, first reported by Sarah Hrdy at the University of Cal ifornia at Davis, intrigued Palombit so much that he has made several trips to study it. After watching the chacma baboons, a subspecies of savannah baboons, Palombit observed males and females forming apparently non- sexual “friendships,” or pair bonds. The pairs spent much more time to gether when infants were present, supporting the idea that male friends protected the infants. Palombit want ed to test this idea. He and his colleagues considered waiting for infanticide attacks to see how the male friends responded. But when infanticides proved too diffi cult to observe, they decided to sim ulate infanticide. Using hidden speakers playing recordings of male attack cries and female distress screams, the researchers ran a series of tests. They found that the male friends responded more aggressive ly to the simulated attacks than oth er male baboons: More support for the theory that friendships serve to protect the young. Our early human ancestors may have been infanticidai as well, Palombit said. Chimpanzees, which share over 98 percent of our DNA, are occasionally infanticidai and ba boons live in a savannah environ ment much like that of early early humans. These two factors support speculation that our ancestors were infanticidai, and that pair bonds — and later marriage — evolved for in fant protection, Palombit said. Though it is easy to envision a past where males and females bond ed to save the children, it is tough to find evidence. “It is difficult to know if people were infanticidai in the past,” Palom bit said, "since there are no fossils of p re historic wedding rj dred- thousand-year-oli certificates.” Another problenn is that no one knovvst baboons protect thein paternity tests, whichP run on Ins next tre’d promise to help explai male friends fathered^ they are protecting,thf, protecting their lineage] evolutionary commons they are not the father? searchers will need otk I ee( ronk, a Texas A& I ogy professor, said then answer for the originsoljs “What works for one J not work foi another.'.' l Palombit’s work wir mates like gibbons, who ily groups much likeos. ports Cronk’s statemt form pair bonds with sure of infanticide: the reasons for pairing. People probably de : riage for many reasonsa are multipleevolutionan: bonds,” said Palombit need to be open to then He added that addin: on baboons, including: paternity tests, will com to a better understand. :| and human pairbond? Palombit presented: at the annual meeting can Association for tls ment of Science last: chacma baboon study fished in the journal \nthr( jpologv later this I 6c -Attuebingen Are ottering a reciprocal exchange; program that allows TAJVflJ students with 4 semesters of college CJerman to spend the 1998-99 academic year in Germany! liNf GKJMLAi lOINAf. MJSjbsT IJNCiS: Wednesday 3/4 4 :UU-3:OUpiri Friday 3/6 10:00-11 :OOam Tuesday 3/10 4:00-5 :OOpux Room 154 Bizzell Hat I West Requirements: 3.0 GPR.U.S. Citizen, and Junior status at time of exchange- Let's Talk £ngl]sh5 econc, language For information call or visit 1:00 to 5:00 Monday-F r iday 707 Texas Ave. Suite 210 Bldg. 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