Water wars loom as the US runs dry

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Olympics: Wrestlers vow to fight Olympic removal

PARIS: Wrestlers around the world on Wednesday vowed to fight to save the ancient sport's Olympic status, after the International Olympic Committee voted to drop it for the 2020 Games.

Japan and Turkey -- whose cities Tokyo and Istanbul are bidding to host the Games in seven years' time -- led the calls for the world body to reconsider, as an online petition was organised urging a rethink and gained thousands of supporters.

The president of the Turkish wrestling federation, Hamza Yerlikaya, called the decision, taken at the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Tuesday, "unfair" and a "mistake" that they would seek to overturn.

"To have the 2020 Olympics in Istanbul without wrestling is unthinkable," said Yerlikaya, himself a double Olympic gold medallist, three-time world champion and eight-time European champion in Greco-Roman wrestling.

"We won't allow it," he added.

In Japan, Yerlikaya's counterpart Tomiaki Fukuda said on his federation's website that he was "dissatisfied and baffled", echoing the views of the sport's world governing body, which called the decision "an aberration".

Wrestling will remain on the programme for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro but faces a fight against seven other sports for inclusion at the Games four years later. A final decision is to be made when all IOC members meet in September.

Members are seen as unlikely to vote against the executive board, however, raising the prospect that one of the few sports that survived from the original Olympics in ancient Greece into the modern era will disappear.

Wrestling first appeared in 708 BC and has only ever been left out of the Olympic programme once before in 1900.

The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) has vowed to fight the decision, while multiple medallists Russia and Iran have also said they hoped the IOC would backtrack.

"This issue will definitely be a big blow to the country's sport, as it is one of our country's most popular sports," the head of Iran's national Olympic commitee, Mohammad Aliabadi was quoted as saying in Iranian media, "I will certainly pursue the case."

IOC president Jacques Rogge meanwhile insisted on Wednesday that the vote -- by secret ballot -- was fair and said he understood the angry response from those involved in the sport.

A meeting was planned between the committee and the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA), to discuss the matter, he told a news conference in Lausanne.

Wrestlers have been left dismayed by the decision, with Japan's undisputed queen of the ring, Saori Yoshida, saying: "I am so devastated that I don't know what to do."

Yoshida, a 55kg-class freestyle wrestler who is the face of Tokyo's campaign for the right to host the 2020 Games, has won a record 13 straight Olympic and world championship gold medals over 10 years.

In India, Sushil Kumar, who won a bronze in Beijing and a silver in London last year, said: "I still can't get over the news that we won't be at the Olympics.

"All sportsmen look towards the Olympics as the pinnacle of excellence, everyone wants to take part in them. Now what do we do? Give up wrestling? I hope the IOC will reconsider this decision."

An online petition at change.org entitled "The International Olympic Committee: Save Wrestling as an Olympic sport #SaveOlympicWrestling" has also been mounted, urging the US Senate to take up the matter.

By late afternoon on Wednesday, it had more than 21,000 signatures.

On Twitter, one user, @WrestlersLoveUs, wrote: "Ancient Olympic wrestlers used to sometimes fight to the death. IOC better understand we're ready to do that again. #SaveOlympicWrestling."

-AFP/fl

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Microsoft closing in on 'write once, run anywhere,' says CFO

For years, write once, run anywhere has been the dream of many developers and -- whether or not they knew it -- customers who have wanted to share the same apps across different screens.

Microsoft is getting closer to making that dream a reality, Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein told attendees of the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference during a Q&A session on February 13.

Klein was asked about Microsoft's plans to address the
tablet and phone market with device form factors ranging from 4 inches to 13 inches and beyond.

"We've done a lot of the hard work in the developer platform," Klein said. "We are well set up to respond to demand as we see it" with different-size form factors, he said.

Klein's response echoed that of Windows CFO Tami Reller, with whom I spoke recently. Reller also made a point of saying that Windows 8 was designed from the outset to run on smaller and bigger screens at different resolutions, and that it's the underlying app platform/app model that enables this.

This new "we'll see what customers want" in terms of screen size is a markedly different message from Microsoft officials than just a year ago, when Microsoft execs pooh-poohed the advantage of smaller screen sizes for Windows devices that could act as both creation and consumption platforms.

Klein did note that it's not operating systems that matter in the end; it's more the common experiences -- apps and services like
Xbox Live, Skype, SmartGlass -- that are what really matter to consumers. That said, it's the evolving underlying application programming interfaces (APIs) that will be what enables developers of these apps and services to get closer to cross-platform nirvana.

"We are getting closer and closer every day to write once and run anywhere," Klein said.

Microsoft is forging ahead on attempts to solve this problem, as a recent job post made plain, noting that Microsoft is attempting to unify further its Windows Phone and Windows development platforms and APIs. (The post has since been removed from the company's Careers site because the post was filled.)

"We are looking for a highly motivated and technically strong SDET (software development engineer in test) to help our team bring together the Windows Store and Phone development platforms," the job post read. To make this happen, Microsoft is "bring(ing) much of the WinRT API (application programming interface) surface and the .NET Windows Store profile to the Phone." The ultimate goal: "(T)he code you write for Windows Store apps would just work on the Windows Phone and vice versa."

The "Blue" Windows and Windows Phone updates that Microsoft's Windows client and Phone teams are building are expected to include new APIs and core-level changes that will help increase commonalities between the two platforms, according to my contacts.

In response to questions outside the realm of multi-size-screen support, Klein had nothing new to say about when/whether Microsoft will make Office available on iOS.

When asked about what Microsoft has learned from the Surface launch -- starting back in October when the company made available the Surface RT -- Klein said the company came to understand that users need to touch, see, and play with the Surface. Building awareness alone isn't enough, he acknowledged. Klein also said updates that Microsoft is making to the Surfaces based on user feedback are going to go back into the
Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems and will benefit the entire ecosystem.

This story originally appeared on ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft CFO Klein: We're ready for devices of all sizes."

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Owl Monkeys Shed Light on Evolution of Love

It may not seem like monkey business, but emotional bonds in animals such as primates may have evolved into love as we know it.

Take owl monkeys, tiny tropical tree-dwellers that treat every day like it's Valentine's Day. A male and a female stick together as long as possible, never cheat, and never "divorce" their mates—extremely unusual behavior, even among people. (Also see "Male Monkeys Wash With Urine to Attract Females?")

Sometimes, though, young adult owl monkeys that can't find mates—monkeys that scientists call floaters—pick vicious fights with established pairs, eventually kicking one of them out.

Now, new research shows that the monkeys forced to take on new partners have fewer babies than owl monkeys that haven't been broken up, said Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, a biological anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who led a new study on owl monkey relationships.

The results show how monogamy helps owl monkeys—and may even shed light on how human relationships evolved.

"Call it love, call it friendship, call it marriage—there is something in our biology that leads to this enduring, emotional bond between two individuals that is widespread among human societies," Fernandez-Duque said in a statement.

Trouble in Paradise

Only about five percent of mammals are monogamous, and the phenomenon most often arises when both parents are needed to raise offspring, as in the case of people.

With owl monkeys, fathers take on most of the childcare after a baby is born, relying on the mother only for milk. (See video: "Owl Monkey Fathers Know Best?")

But floaters—which Fernandez-Duque and colleagues first noticed in 2003 in Argentina's Chaco region (map)—can spell trouble in paradise.

Drawing on nearly two decades of observations of 18 owl monkey groups, the team discovered that pairs that stay intact produce 25 percent more babies than monkeys in severed pairs.

The exiled animal from those broken relationships, meanwhile, is usually injured and often dies.

Since the team studied more than 150 animals, "I felt very confident that what he was telling us is a real phenomenon—it's not a flash in the pan," noted Patricia Wright, who was one of the first people to study owl monkeys in the 1980s.

"He had the goods on the animals. I was really excited about that," said Wright, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York.

Wright said she was personally pleased that the study reinforced findings that owl monkeys stay true to one another unless forced to separate.

"I knew that these little monkeys didn't fool around," she said.

Chemistry of Love

Why monkeys that are broken up have fewer babies is unknown, though Fernandez-Duque suspects there's an emotional component. (See more pictures of all-star animal dads.)

Just as a man and a woman need time to get to know each other and form a deep connection, so do owl monkeys. So when a marauding monkey enters into a new relationship, there's a delay in mating—usually about a year, Fernandez-Duque  said.

In fact, pair bonding in monogamous animals, such as owl monkeys, may be "sort of evolutionary antecedent to love in humans," said Larry Young, a behavioral neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta and author of the new book The Chemistry Between Us: Love Sex and the Science of Attraction.

Young, who studies the brain chemistry of love and emotion, does most of his research on monogamous prairie voles.

Though human love is a rich emotion reflective of our advanced brains, he said, "the foundation of that emotion is very similar to the neuromechanisms that are causing the bond between these two prairie voles."

For instance, experiments have shown that if a vole loses its partner, the "widowed" animal shows depressive symptoms—measured by a lack of willingness to escape a dangerous situation.

According to Young, our brains are in the love seat, so to speak: The organs "have evolved the mechanism to produce an emotional attachment," he said.

That attachment is spurred by oxytocin—produced during intimate contact in both people and animals—and dopamine, which is responsible for feelings of exhilaration and happiness.

So, many splendored as it is, love, he said, "is really the result of a cocktail of chemicals."

The owl monkey study was published January 23 in the journal PLoS ONE.

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Charred Human Remains Found in Burned Cabin

Investigators have located charred human remains in the burned-out cabin where they believe suspected cop killer and ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner was holed up as the structure burned to the ground, police said.

The human remains were found within the debris of the burned cabin and identification will be attempted through forensic means, the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department said in a news release early this morning.

Dorner barricaded himself in the cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear Tuesday afternoon after engaging in a gunfight with police, killing one officer and injuring another, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.

Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the department, which is the lead agency in the action, said Tuesday night investigators would remain at the site all night.

FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Dorner Manhunt

When Bachman was asked whether police thought Dorner was in the burning cabin, she said, "Right. We believe that the person that barricaded himself inside the cabin engaged in gunfire with our deputies and other law enforcement officers is still inside there, even though the building burned."

Bachman spoke shortly after the Los Angeles Police Department denied earlier reports that a body was found in the cabin, contradicting what law enforcement sources told ABC News and other news organizations.

Police around the cabin told ABC News they saw Dorner enter but never leave the building as it was consumed by flames, creating a billowing column of black smoke seen for miles.

A news conference is scheduled for later today in San Bernardino.

One sheriff's deputy was killed in a shootout with Dorner earlier Tuesday afternoon, believed to be his fourth victim after killing a Riverside police officer and two other people this month, including the daughter of a former police captain, and promising to kill many more in an online manifesto.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

Carjacking Victim Says Christopher Dorner Was Dressed for Damage Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Inside the Shootout Watch Video

Chris Dorner Manhunt: Fugitive Ex-Cop in Shootout With Police Watch Video

Cops said they heard a single gunshot go off from inside the cabin just as they began to see smoke and fire. Later they heard the sound of more gunshots, which was the sound of ammunition being ignited by the heat of the blaze, law enforcement officials said.

Police did not enter the building, but shot tear gas inside.

One of the largest dragnets in recent history, which led police to follow clues across the West and into Mexico, apparently ended just miles from where Dorner's trail went cold last week.

It all began at 12:20 p.m. PT Tuesday, when a maid working at a local resort called 911, saying she and another worker had been tied up and held hostage by Dorner in a cabin, sources said.

The maid told police she was able to escape, but Dorner had stolen one of their cars, which was identified as a purple Nissan.

The San Bernardino Sheriff's Office and state Fish and Wildlife wardens spotted the stolen vehicle and engaged in a shootout with Dorner.

Officials say Dorner crashed the stolen vehicle and fled on foot only to commandeer Rick Heltebrake's white pickup truck on a nearby road a short time later.

"[Dorner] said, 'I don't want to hurt you, just get out and start walking up the road and take your dog with you.' He was calm. I was calm. I would say I was in fear for my life, there was no panic, he told me what to do and I did it," Heltebrake said.

"He was dressed in all camouflage, had a big assault sniper-type rifle. He had a vest on like a ballistic vest," Heltebrake added.

The white pickup truck bought Dorner extra time because police were still looking for the purple Nissan, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Lt. Patrick Foy told "Good Morning America" today.

"We were looking for a purple color Nissan and all of a sudden this white pickup starts coming by in the opposite direction. That's not the suspect's vehicle that we had been looking for," Foy said.

A warden with the Fish and Wildlife department noticed Dorner driving and the pursuit picked up again, Foy said.

"Ultimately, the officer who was driving that vehicle stopped and pulled out his patrol rifle and engaged probably 15 to 20 shots as Dorner was driving away," Foy said.

Dorner then ran on foot to the cabin in which he barricaded himself and got in a shootout with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and other officers who arrived.

The two deputies were wounded in the firefight and airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said. The second deputy was in surgery and was expected to survive, police said.

Police sealed all the roads into the area, preventing cars from entering the area and searching all of those on the way out. All schools were briefly placed on lockdown.

Believing that Dorner might have been watching reports of the standoff, authorities asked media not to broadcast images of police officers' surrounding the cabin, but sent him a message.

"If he's watching this, the message is: Enough is enough," Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andy Smith told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. "It's time to turn yourself in. It's time to stop the bloodshed. It's time to let this event and let this incident be over."

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Today on New Scientist: 12 February 2013

Exploring oscillation proves a moving experience

From the animating pigs' hearts to diving into an acoustic pod, an exhibition exploring the world of oscillation is full of surprises

Gene therapy cures diabetic dogs

Diabetic beagles haven't needed an insulin injection for four years following treatment with two genes that work together to regulate glucose

Withering heights: Why animals are shrinking

It might sound incredible, but many animals are shrinking - and they will become ever tinier in the centuries to come

Suspicious quake gives away North Korea's third nuke

The magnitude-4.9 earthquake was probably due to a 10-kiloton underground nuclear bomb; the next step is to monitor for signs of radioactive gas

Latest Landsat in 40-year mission blasts off

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission, the newest addition to NASA's 40-year mission monitoring Earth from space, blasted into orbit yesterday

Robotic tormenter depresses lab rats

A new robotic rat induces stress and depression in lab animals, creating models of psychological disorders for testing new drugs

Curiosity's first drilling hints at Martian mining

The NASA rover has sampled beneath the Martian surface, perhaps laying the groundwork for future craft to build on or even mine the Red Planet

Algorithm learns how to revive lost languages

An automated system that reconstructs ancient languages could help recover the sound of words not spoken for thousands of years

Arctic sunshine cranks up threat from greenhouse gases

Soil microbes break down organic matter in permafrost more rapidly when exposed to ultraviolet light, so sunshine could speed up carbon dioxide release

Trading places with us makes robots better teammates

It's good when co-workers understand each other - especially if one of them is a robot. Read how a mechanical arm learned the mind of Celeste Biever

Wind power is now cheaper than coal in some countries

Steady technological improvements and uncertainty over the future of fossil fuels are making wind power truly competitive

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Football: Mourinho confident of Champions League glory

MADRID: A typically self-assured Jose Mourinho is confident that he will lead a third club to glory in the Champions League, but the Real Madrid coach is wary of the threat presented by Manchester United.

The Spanish champions know that progress in Europe will define their season, as they prepare to come up against United in the first leg of their last-16 tie at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday.

Mourinho believes he will add to his triumphs with Porto in 2004 and Inter Milan in 2010, although he is not promising to do it this year.

"Real Madrid want to win a tenth European Cup and I want to win my third," said the Portuguese coach.

"I don't know if it will happen this year but I will keep fighting until I do it. I have confidence in my work.

"It wouldn't be a failure if we didn't win it this year. There are great clubs and great players out there that have never won it."

While Madrid are struggling domestically and currently sit 16 points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona, United are flying high in the Premier League, where they are 12 points clear of Manchester City at the top.

It promises to be a tough tie for the hosts, but one that brings back happy memories for Mourinho, who led Porto to victory against United en route to lifting the trophy in 2004.

"Its always a privilege to play Manchester United," he said.

"I remember every detail of my first game against them nine years ago, and I hope the expectation for this game has a relation with the quality of the match," he said.

Asked to give details of his starting line-up on Wednesday and how his team will play Mourinho was very guarded.

Mourinho, who saw his team thump Sevilla 4-1 in La Liga on Saturday night with an outstanding Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick, was not giving anything away when asked what his line-up for the game might be.

"They (United) want to know how we will play the same as you," he added.

"I'm not going to give away how we will play, our opponents are strong and very experienced in these situations and I don't want to help them."

The former Chelsea manager gave no indication as to whether injury doubt Xabi Alonso will play, but he did admit that Pepe is in line to feature.

"I won't name my team. Pepe is in the squad and available, he has worked hard to get back from injury and he may play," he said, before moving to play down suggestions that he will replace Alex Ferguson as United manager when the Scot finally leaves the Old Trafford hotseat.

"Normally, to coach again in England would be my next step, but I don't think I can substitute Sir Alex at Manchester because we will finish our career at the same time, him at 90 and me at 70," he added to much laughter.

- AFP/de

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Intel confirms it's building an Internet TV service and box

Erik Huggers, head of Intel Media, speaks at the AllThingsD media conference.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Shara Tibken/CNET)

A lot has been written about Intel's TV push, but the company has largely remained silent -- until today.

Erik Huggers, the head of Intel Media, joined Walt Mossberg onstage at AllThingsD's media conference to confirm that Intel will be introducing an Internet-based TV service and box this year.

Intel will be providing the hardware and services directly to consumers, and the box will come with a camera that can detect who is in front of the TV. Huggers declined to provide many details -- including the service's name and programming partners -- but he said the service will allow users to watch live TV, on demand, and other offerings.

"For the first time, we will deliver ... a new consumer electronics product that people will buy from Intel through a new brand," Huggers said.

He said the set-top box will be be powered by an Intel chip (obviously) and noted that Intel is working with the entire television industry to figure out to to distribute live television, "catch-up TV," on-demand, and other services via the Internet.

"Ultimately we think there's an all-in-one solution," Huggers said.

While Intel hopes to revolutionize the TV industry, the service will resemble current cable offerings in some key ways. For one, don't count on saving money with Intel's new offering. Huggers noted Intel's push isn't a value play and won't cut a user's television bill in half.

In addition, users won't be able to pick and choose certain channels but will likely subscribe to bundles curated by Intel's team.

"What consumers want is choice, control, and convenience," Huggers said. "If bundles are bundled right, there's real value in that. ... I don't believe the industry is ready for pure a la carte."

Intel in late 2010 pitched Smart TV devices as a key new area for its processors, but it shut down its digital home group a year later.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

Intel's history in the TV industry has been rocky. It was early to push Google TVs and other smart TVs, with its processors powering a Sony Google TV and a Logitech Google TV set top box. However, such products flopped, and Intel shuttered its TV business in late 2011 after failing to gain much traction.

Huggers, meanwhile, joined Intel that same year following stints at the BBC and Microsoft. During his time at the BBC, he was on the executive board and served as director of BBC future media and technology, overseeing the company's online push and other initiatives. And during his time at Microsoft, Huggers worked in various digital media areas.

While Intel stopped pushing its processors for use in smart TVs, the company clearly didn't give up on the market entirely. Huggers noted that Intel has been building its media business for about a year.

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What Killed Dinosaurs: New Ideas About the Wipeout

New insights about the asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs suggest it may have just been the final blow, and that the reptiles were already suffering from a finicky climate prompted by volcanic eruptions long before the meteorite struck.

"The [asteroid] impact was the coup de grace," Paul Renne, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.

The research, detailed in the February 8 issue of the journal Science, adds to the ongoing scientific debate over what exactly killed off the dinosaurs.

That debate, which once revolved around the question of whether the culprit was an asteroid or volcano-induced climate changes, has evolved to consider the possibility that perhaps multiple environmental factors were involved.

Renne and his team recently determined the most precise date yet for the asteroid strike, which occurred in the Yucatan peninsula in what is now Mexico.

Using a high-precision dating technique on tektites—pebble-sized rocks formed during meteorite impacts—from Haiti that were created during the event, the team concluded that the impact occurred 66,038,000 years ago—slightly later than previously thought.

When error limits are taken into account, the new date is the same as the date of the extinction, the team says, making the events simultaneous.

Renne said the new findings, should lay to rest any remaining doubts about whether an asteroid was a factor in the dinosaurs' demise.

"We have shown that these events are synchronous to within a gnat's eyebrow," he said, "and therefore the impact clearly played a major role in extinctions."

That is not to say, however, that the asteroid—which carved out the so-called Chicxulub crater—was the sole cause of the dinosaurs' extinction.

Evidence now suggests massive volcanic eruptions in India that predated the asteroid strike also played a part, triggering climate changes that were already killing off some dinosaur groups.

For example, "nobody has ever found a non-avian dinosaur fossil exactly at the impact layer," Renne said in an email. "Hence, strictly speaking, the non-avian dinosaurs"—those dinosaurs unrelated to birds—"may have already gone extinct by the time of the impact."

Death From the Skies

The idea that volcanism was responsible for the dinosaurs' demise actually predates the impact theory, and it fits well with what is known about Earth's other mass extinction events.

"Many of the other mass extinctions have been found to co-occur with large-scale volcanic eruptions," said Heiko Pälike, a paleoceanographer at the University of Bremen in Germany.

But in the 1980s, father-son team Luis and Walter Alvarez, a physicist and planetary scientists, respectively, presented a bold new theory.

After discovering that a layer of clay that's found throughout the world and that coincided with the end of the Cretaceous period is enriched in iridium—an element rare on Earth but common in space rocks—they proposed that a meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs.

"As the impact theory took hold, especially with the more physical scientists ... the volcanists lost ground," Renne explained.

The impact theory gained further momentum in the 1990's, when scientists discovered a 110-mile (180-kilometer) wide impact crater in the Yucatan peninsula that dated to the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods—the so-called KT boundary—when the dinosaurs disappeared.

The crater's size indicated that whatever created it was roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter.

An asteroid of that size striking the Earth would have had devastating consequences, including destructive pressure waves, global wildfires, tsunamis, and a "rain" of molten rock reentering the atmosphere.

Additionally, "much additional particulate matter would have stayed afloat in the atmosphere for weeks, months, perhaps years, blocking incoming solar radiation and thus killing plant life and causing catastrophic drops in temperatures," explained Hans-Dieter Sues, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Hybrid Theory for Dinosaur Extinction

The once-abandoned volcanism theory has seen a revival of sorts in recent years, however, as a result of fresh insights about a period of sustained ancient volcanic activity in India and the discovery that dinosaur diversity may have already been declining before the asteroid strike.

The debate now is "whether the Chicxulub impact was the 'smoking gun,' as many researchers claim," Sues said, "or one of several causative factors, kind of like 'Murder on the Orient Express.'"

Renne belongs to the camp that thinks a series of volcanic eruptions in India that produced ancient lava flows known as the Deccan Traps caused dramatic climate variations, including long cold snaps, that may have already been culling the dinosaurs before the asteroid struck.

"It seems clear that volcanism alone, if on a sufficiently massive and rapid scale, can trigger extinctions," Renne said. "Thus my view that the impact was probably the final straw, but not the sole cause."

Unanswered questions

The new hybrid theory still has some major questions it must answer, however, like precisely how much the Indian volcanic eruptions affected the dinosaurs.

"Some people say if you look at the eruption of Mount Pinatubo [in 1991], it cooled the Earth for a short period of time due to the aerosol and the dust that was ejected," Pälike said.

But "others say in the long run volcanoes probably pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and actually warm the planet, at least temporarily."

It's also unclear how the Deccan Traps eruptions were spread out in time. "We know that they started a few million years before the end of the Cretaceous and lasted for several million years after, extending even beyond the [asteroid impact]," Pälike said.

"However, some people have suggested that there were clusters of eruptions that happened within a span of a few tens of thousands of years."

Knowing the timing of the eruptions is important, Pälike added, because if they were happening close to the end of the Cretaceous, it's more likely they played a role in the dinosaurs' extinction than if most of the eruptions happened two million years before.

Pälike thinks that more precise dating of the volcanic ash layers in India could help answer some of the remaining questions: "That's the next step of the puzzle."

Pinning down the cause of the dinosaurs' extinction isn't just of academic interest, said Jonathan Bloch, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.

"It's important for us to understand how ecosystems respond to big perturbations," Bloch said, "whether it's gradual climate change or a catastrophic event. These are all things we have to think about as humans on the planet today."

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Fort Hood Hero Says President 'Betrayed' Victims

Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.

"Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

"Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."

There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.

Tonight's broadcast report also includes dramatic new video, obtained by ABC News, taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, capturing the chaos and terror of the day.

WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath

Munley, since laid off from her job with the base's civilian police force, was shot three times as she and her partner, Sgt. Mark Todd, confronted Hasan, who witnesses said had shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on soldiers being processed for deployment to Afghanistan.

As Munley lay wounded, Todd fired the five bullets credited with bringing Hasan down.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

Despite extensive evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack, the military has denied the victims a Purple Heart and is treating the incident as "workplace violence" instead of "combat related" or terrorism.

READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki

Al-Awlaki has since been killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen, in what was termed a major victory in the U.S. efforts against al Qaeda.

Munley and dozens of other victims have now filed a lawsuit against the military alleging the "workplace violence" designation means the Fort Hood victims are receiving lower priority access to medical care as veterans, and a loss of financial benefits available to those who injuries are classified as "combat related."

READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit

Some of the victims "had to find civilian doctors to get proper medical treatment" and the military has not assigned liaison officers to help them coordinate their recovery, said the group's lawyer, Reed Rubinstein.

"There's a substantial number of very serious, crippling cases of post-traumatic stress disorder exacerbated, frankly, by what the Army and the Defense Department did in this case," said Rubinstein. "We have a couple of cases in which the soldiers' command accused the soldiers of malingering, and would say things to them that Fort Hood really wasn't so bad, it wasn't combat."

A spokesperson for the Army said its policy is not to comment on pending litigation, but that it is "not true" any of the military victims have been neglected and that it has no control over the guidelines of the Veterans Administration.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh told ABC News he was unaware of any specific complaints from the Fort Hood victims, even though he is a named defendant in the lawsuit filed last November which specifically details the plight of many of them.

"If a soldier feels ignored, then we need to know about it on a case by case basis," McHugh told ABC News. "It is not our intent to have two levels of care for people who are wounded by whatever means in uniform."

Some of the victims in the lawsuit believe the Army Secretary and others are purposely ignoring their cases out of political correctness.

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