I would hate anybody to have missed this. The BBC and Astrobiology have reported on the discovery of a 1.5x earth radius extrasolar planet with an average temperature of between 0 and 40 degrees centigrade. The discovery was originally reported in an ESO (European Southern Observatory) press release. The results are published in a Letter to the Editor of Astronomy and Astrophysics¹ that can be downloaded here.

“We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” explains Stéphane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) and lead-author of the paper reporting the result. “Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or fully covered with oceans,” he adds.

“Liquid water is critical to life as we know it,” avows Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University (France). “Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X.“[ESO Outreach]

In 2005 a Neptune sized planet (17 times earth mass) was discovered orbiting Gliese 581. The results were published in a Letter to the Editor of Astronomy and Astrophysics (which can be downloaded here)². [Via ESO Outreach]

In 2003 the same team had discovered a Jupiter sized planet around the same star. [via ESA]

[via The BBC and Astrobiology]

[UPDATE: Space.com reported this yesterday and does a great job of capturing the impact of the discovery]

1. 1. Udry, S., Bonfils, X., Delfosse, X., Forveille, T., Mayor, M., Perrier, C., Bouchy, F., Lovis, C., Pepe, F., Queloz, D., Bertaux, J.-L. (2007) “The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets: XI. An habitable super-Earth in a 3-planet system”, Astronomy and Astrophysics. [Online] Internet: http://obswww.unige.ch/~udry/udry_preprint.pdf (Accessed 25 April 2007)
2. 2. Bonfils, X., Forveille, T., Delfosse, X., Udry, S., Mayor, M., Perrier, C., Bouchy, F., Pepe, F., Queloz, D., Bertaux, J.-L. (2005) “The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets: VI. A Neptune-mass planet around the nearby M dwarf Gl 581″, Astronomy and Astrophysics 443, L15–L18, DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200500193

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Science Daily have reported on new research advancing the thesis that gibbons use the syntax of their songs to communicate vital information about their environments to their conspecifics. Clarke, Reichard and Zuberbühler, commenting on their paper, “The Syntax and Meaning of Wild Gibbon Songs” remark that

This work is a really good indicator that non-human primates are able to use combinations of calls given in other contexts to relay new, and in this case, potentially life-saving information to one another. This type of referential communication is commonplace in human language, but has yet to be widely demonstrated in some of our closest living relatives - the apes. [Clarke, Reichard & Zuberbühler on Science Daily]

The principle reason it has proven difficult to demonstrate referential communication in non-human animals is that human examples of referntial information are most usually explained in terms of the semantics of language. Many theorists are still skeptical that it is possible to deploy fully referential communication without the semantics of fully articulated language. All evolutionists are, therefore, interested in behaviours which could throw light on the evolutionary precursors to- and relatives of- linguistic abilities.

There are not many audio examples of gibbon song to be found easily on the internet. These were the few I could find quickly:

Audio files emedded in Yoichi Inoue’s A preliminary report on wild gray gibbons (Hylobates muelleri) in Danum Valley, northern Borneo.

Captive gibbons on YouTube:

• Gilbert the Gibbon
• Gibbons
• Howling Gibbons

Ref:

Clarke, E., Reichard, U.H., Zuberbühler, K. (2006) ” The Syntax and Meaning of Wild Gibbon Songs “. PLoS ONE. 1 (1) : e73. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000073 [Online] Internet: http://www.plosone.org/ (Accessed: 26 Dec 2006)

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