Killer Crustacean in British Isles

Researchers have a new fear of a crustacean nicknamed "killer shrimp" invading the British Isles making light work of various native species in the waters by shredding them without eating them.

This crustacean is from western Asia and has made its way to the ocean waters of the British Isles, possibly through human influence (i.e. possible transport from fisherman). More specifically, this crustacean's home is in the Black and Caspian Seas and in the last twenty years has made its way over to central and western Europe through various waterways like the Danube and the Rhine.

Barely bigger than an inch long, this amphipod has violent and vicious killing behavior using powerful mouthparts to literally shred its prey. In addition, their killer, aggressive behavior only increases when the number of prey increases.

This predator is well adapted by having the ability to reach maturity quickly, reproduces all year round, lays 200 eggs at a time, has a wide range of food, and can survive all kinds of ocean chemistry changes in temperature, salt and oxygen. Even more impressive is the ability to survive out of water for six days!

In some places, the population size has reached as many as 4, 000 in one square meter of ocean water. The biggest concern among scientists include how to control this predator from reducing the populations of other invertebrates and fish in valuable fisheries.

What are some possible solutions to either eliminate or control the spread of this killer species? Be specific!

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/10/killer-shrimp-invading-england/

Life Outside of Earth?

This picture resembles bacteria that we have here on Earth called Titanospirillium velox. However, this image reveals bacteria that was taken from a meteorite! In the March edition of Journal of Cosmology, a new study was published by NASA scientist Dr. Richard Hoover that revealed fossil evidence of microorganisms found in meteorites. This study focuses on a rare class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites which are meteorites that contain chemical components believed to have come from the origin of the solar system. In other words, these meteorites are believed to be the most primitive.

Dr. Hoover's discovery of fossil evidence of microorganisms that are commonly found here on Earth suggest life must be found in other places than the Earth in our Universe. Other microorganisms he stated were, "strange" and unidentifiable. When presented to other expert scientists, no one has been able to identify some of these microscopic organisms.

Dr. Marais of the Ames Research Center is quite cautious, as well as other scientists, noting these kinds of claims have been made before. Over 5,000 scientists have been invited by this Journal to review, scrutinize, evaluate and research these new findings (which has never been done on this large of a scale before).

If you were a scientist invited to investigate this claim, what would be your next step? Is this a new discovery of life outside our planet? How might you go about verifying if this claim is really true or accurate?