Nucleotide sequence data from the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene were used to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships among mouse opossum species of the genus Thylamys. Based on approximately 1000 bp in five of the six species of the genus and including different localities for some of the species, we concluded that T. macrura from the subtropical forests of eastern Paraguay is the most primit...

" Science autonomy " refers to exploration robotics technolo-3 gies involving onboard science analysis of collected data. These techniques 4 enable a rover to make adaptive decisions about which measurements to col-5 lect and transmit. Science autonomy can compensate for limited communi-6 cations bandwidth by ensuring that planetary scientists receive those images 7 and spectra that best meet m...

The Atacama Desert of northern Chile is one of the driest regions on Earth, with areas that exclude plants and where soils have extremely low microbial biomass. However, in the driest parts of the desert there are microorganisms that colonize the interior of halite nodules in fossil continental evaporites, where they are sustained by condensation of atmospheric water triggered by the salt subst...

We have recently discovered a variety of unrelated phototrophic microorganisms (two microalgae and one cyanobacteria) in specialized terrestrial habitats at The Coastal Range of the Atacama Desert. Interestingly, morphological and molecular evidence suggest that these three species are all recent colonists that came from aquatic habitats. The first case is Cyanidiales inhabiting coastal caves. ...

Although it has been assumed that the satyrine butterfly Palmaris gustavi (Staudinger, 1898) should be present in northern Chile, no reliable reports of its observation and capture have been provided. Here, we report the presence of P. gustavi in several localities of northern Chile stretching from the altiplanic regions of Putre to those of San Pedro de Atacama, 550 km to the south. We also re...

The Atacama B-mode Seach (ABS) is a new experiment to probe the inflationary epoch in the early universe by measurng the patterns of polarization anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at large angular scales. The polarization of the CMB observed on the celestial sphere can be described with a tensor field. Gravitational waves from inflation, if it occurred, lead to a pseudoscalar ...

Abstract Minimizing environmental pollution from Tailings Storage Facilities (TSFs) is one of the key goals mining sector. While much attention given to risks potential catastrophic failures large TSFs, there also a need assess due noncatastrophic but more frequent releases contaminants. In response this need, article proposes method for prioritizing TSFs in terms flood exposure, based on maps ...