Brown Pelican. Photo by ALAN SCHMIERER / Flickr in the Public Domain
Thanks to Cool Green Science:
Five Endangered Species Recoveries You’ve Never Heard Of
by Christine Peterson
More than 40 species have been officially recovered by the Endangered Species Act. Some, like bald eagles and peregrine falcons, have received a lot of publicity.
Here are five lesser known – but no less interesting – stories of recovery. Continue reading
This wild hog from Hawaii was raised at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo. Feral pigs in the wild tend to eat anything containing a calorie â from rows of corn to sea turtle eggs, to baby deer and goats. Rae Ellen Bichell/NPR
We appreciate the excellent science produced by employees of the federal government of the USA, both the theoretical and applied problems they tackle depending on their specialty. Thanks to those who deal with creatures like this, who have in common with their feline counterparts in some locations the misfortune of bumping up against human interests. Figuring them out and accommodating them humanely seems a worthy scientific cause:
Scientists Get Down And Dirty With DNA To Track Wild Pigs
by Rae Ellen Bichell
In the foothills of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, a gravel road leads to a 10-foot-tall fence. Type in a key code, and a gate scrapes open. Undo a chain to get behind another. Everything here is made of metal, because the residents of this facility are experts at invasion and destruction. Continue reading
Biologist Shaun Clements counts down the seconds before emptying a vial of synthetic DNA into a stream near Alsea, Oregon. Jes Burns/Oregon Public Broadcasting/EarthFix
Thanks to the salt, at National Public Radio (USA):
Can New DNA Science Help Keep Our Fish Safe?
by Jes Burns
Biologist Shaun Clements stands in the winter mist in a coastal Oregon forest, holding a small vial of clear liquid. Continue reading
By using gene knockout techniques, the researchers made some raider ants display asocial behavior. Credit Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times
We had a long run of links since 2011 to her wondrous science reporting, and then we had not seen her since this past September; suddenly she has come back on our radar, unexpectedly but predictably awesome:
Whether personally or professionally, Daniel Kronauer of Rockefeller University is the sort of biologist who leaves no stone unturned. Passionate about ants and other insects since kindergarten, Dr. Kronauer says he still loves flipping over rocks “just to see what’s crawling around underneath.”. Continue reading
A chemosynthetic clam living in sea grass. Researchers are not sure how lobsters dig them up. Credit Nicholas Higgs
Thanks to the Science section of the New York Times for this article, The Freaky Food Chain Behind Your Lobster Dinner, by Steph Yin:
If you’ve ever ordered a lobster tail from Red Lobster, there’s a good chance some of your meal can be traced back to swamp gas.
Let me explain.
Red Lobster is a major purchaser of Caribbean spiny lobster, a species that lives in coral reefs in the western Atlantic Ocean. In the 1980s, lobster fishers started constructing artificial reefs in sea grass beds throughout the Caribbean to attract these lobsters. Continue reading
Luciano Lozano/Getty Images
We find the title A Brighter Outlook Could Translate To A Longer Life, by Katherine Hobson at National Public Radio (USA), typical of what we hope to find in the various media we scan to share in these pages–namely that for all the misfortune out there, we may be able to nudge outcomes in a better direction:
…Optimism could conceivably lead to improved health outcomes through several mechanisms, says Eric Kim, an author of the study and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. First, people who are more optimistic also tend to have healthier behaviors when it comes to diet, exercise and tobacco use. But the study shows that the relationship persists even when those behaviors are controlled for, suggesting something else is also going on. Continue reading
Thanks to Anthropocene’s Brandon Keim for this story about a health care revolution for wildlife:
…Researchers led by University of Florida biologist David Duffy raise that possibility in a new Global Change Biology article about “precision wildlife medicine,” an approach that would draw upon innovations in human disease treatment. Continue reading
Central Park, New York City. Credit: Anthony Quintano via Flickr.
Thanks to Anthropocene:
Looking for the next miracle drug? Try searching city soils
Many drugs are based on molecules produced by bacteria. Previously, the search for such drugs has mostly focused on “pristine” environments in far-flung locales. But a new study shows that many useful molecules could already be, quite literally, at our feet. Continue reading
Various species of ants engage in some kind of agriculture. Here, a leaf-cutter ant gathers food for its fungus farm. Mark Bowler/Science Source
Thanks to National Public Radio (USA):
Who Invented Agriculture First? It Sure Wasn’t Humans
Ants in Fiji farm plants and fertilize them with their poop. And they’ve been doing this for 3 million years, much longer than humans, who began experimenting with farming about 12,000 years ago. Continue reading
A whale shark in the Persian Gulf. Steffen Sanvig Bach
This is the future of marine ecosystem science (thanks as always to Ed Yong and the Atlantic’s ongoing commitment to compelling coverage of environmental issues):
The World’s Biggest Fish in a Bucket of Water
Scientists used DNA floating in just 30 liters of seawater to count the endangered whale shark across two oceans.
ED YONG
If you lean over the side of a boat and scoop up some water with a jug, you have just taken a census of the ocean. That water contains traces of the animals that swim below your boat—flecks of skin and scales, fragments of mucus and waste, tiny cells released from their bodies. All of these specks contain DNA. And by sequencing that DNA gathered from the environment—which is known as environmental DNA, or eDNA—scientists can work out exactly what’s living in a patch of water, without ever having to find, spot, or identify a single creature.
And that helps, even when the creature in question is 18 meters long. Continue reading
Fender’s Blue (Icaricia icarioides fenderi) is an endangered subspecies of butterfly found only in the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon. Fender’s Blue butterflies are completely dependent upon the threatened plant species, Kincaid’s lupine (Lupinus sulphureus kincaidii). Photo © Matthew Benotsch/TNC
Feed your inner biophilia with education to sharpen your senses:
Unlock a New Way of Seeing the World as a Master Naturalist
BY LISA FELDKAMP
Becoming a Master Naturalist is easier than you think. You don’t have to enroll in years of coursework or explore the world a la Darwin. In fact, there may well be a comprehensive naturalist class near you. Continue reading
Matthew Jacobs
The Atlantic’s science writers are back in the saddle, leading the way with the best stories recently:
Why Do These Plants Have Metallic Blue Leaves?
Ooh, shiny
ED YONG
Roses are red but violets aren’t blue. They’re mostly violet. The peacock begonia, however, is blue—and not just a boring matte shade, but a shiny metallic one. Its leaves are typically dark green in color, but if you look at them from the right angle, they take on a metallic blue sheen. “It’s like green silk, shot through with a deep royal blue,” says Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol.
And she thinks she knows why. Continue reading
A view of the Milford Dam. After the removal of two large dams downriver, the Milford Dam is now the first barrier fish face when ascending the Penobscot River. Credit Murray Carpenter
We are thrilled to read about the rivers getting their groove back:
Taking Down Dams and Letting the Fish Flow
By
BANGOR, Me. — Joseph Zydlewski, a research biologist with the Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the United States Geological Survey, drifted in a boat on the Penobscot River, listening to a crackling radio receiver. The staccato clicks told him that one of the shad that his team had outfitted with a transmitter was swimming somewhere below.
Shad, alewives, blueback herring and other migratory fish once were plentiful on the Penobscot. “Seven thousand shad and one hundred barrels of alewives were taken at one haul of the seine,” in May 1827, according to one historian. Continue reading
Monkey see, monkey smash. T. Falótico
Ed Yong’s recent story about this cleverest of creatures:
Rock-Smashing Monkeys Unintentionally Make Sharp Stone Tools
What this says—and doesn’t say—about the evolution of human technology
In 2014, Michael Haslam wedged between two boulders in northeast Brazil and filmed some monkeys. Oblivious to the voyeur, the monkeys—bearded capuchins—began smashing stones together. They lifted small cobbles into the air and brought these down upon a rock face, like a hammer upon an anvil. In the process, the hammer stones would often shatter.
After the monkeys had gone, Haslam picked up some of these broken fragments—and was amazed. Many had sharp edges, and looked remarkably like human tools. Continue reading
Replicas of gannet skulls from the collection at the Smithsonian Institution allowed researchers to measure the forces a bird’s skill experiences during a dive. (Photo by Sunny Jung/Virginia Tech)
The title may seem silly, but I can’t help that a whole family of birds are alternatingly called boobies or gannets – most of us have heard of the Blue-footed Booby, but there are several other species, all of which hunt for fish by diving, head first, at extremely high speeds from many meters above the water. For a human entering water at fifty miles an hour, a neck injury would be a certainty, and even organ damage could occur, but boobies/gannets accomplish the dives plenty of times during a day’s hunting, with no apparent problem. It seems that their physiology, as well as the way they contract their muscles during the plunge, save them from harm. From the Smithsonian Insider:
New research from Virginia Tech, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences helps explain how the birds manage these high-speed dives.
“We were interested in what happens when objects plunge into water, so we looked for examples in nature; the gannets are incredible,” said Sunny Jung, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics in the College of Engineering and an expert in fluid biomechanics; he has also studied dogs’ unusual drinking technique and how shrimp use microscopic bubbles to hunt.
The rare patch of black feathers is evidence that the bird is leucistic, not albino. Photo: Brad R. Lewis
Hummingbirds are frequent visitors to this site, including the Anna’s hummingbird. All hummingbirds are known as tiny winged gems flitting from flower to flower or feeder to feeder, so the individual pictured above is especially startling. The term “leucistic” is new to us, and we thank Audubon.org for bringing this to our attention.
Rare White Hummingbird Steals the Spotlight at California Garden
In the Australian Gardens at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum, a dozen Anna’s Hummingbirds dart between golden banksia flowers and various pink and white blooming shrubs. Their feathers are bright, iridescent shades of emerald, pink and gray. The grove is awash with color.
Except for one strange bird that’s sitting in a cypress tree, watching the flurry of feeding and fluttering. It’s an Anna’s Hummingbird—and it’s almost entirely white. Continue reading
Frank Craighead, left, with a goshawk, and John Craighead, right, with a peregrine falcon, in the late nineteen-thirties.
It is rare that we link to remembrances or obituaries in these pages, but the rare occasions are typically when it was someone(s) who we did not know about and realize we should have. This seems to me to be one of those cases where I can recommend the short read about two superstars of the best variety. It starts with a melancholy air, but gets bright and is worth reading to the end:
REMEMBERING THE CRAIGHEADS, PIONEERS OF WILDLIFE BIOLOGY
At dawn on Sunday, September 18th, a blanket of clouds hung over the tawny grass mountainsides around Missoula, Montana. The cottonwoods had begun to turn yellow. Continue reading
Image: Brigitta van Tussenbroek
We try to learn something new each day, and when we do, we pass it along here. Thanks to Conservation magazine for this one:
THE NEW UNDERWATER WORLD OF POLLINATION
Even at this relatively late stage in Earth’s exploration, it’s still possible to discover phenomena that are widespread, ecologically important, and—frankly—beautiful. Continue reading
Superb science journalism:
Six Scientists, 1,000 Miles, One
Prize: The Arctic BumblebeeA team of researchers scours the wilds of northern Alaska for Bombus polaris, a big bee that has adapted to the cold and that can teach them more about the effects of climate change.
By
DALTON HIGHWAY, Alaska — “To bees, time is honey.”
— Bernd Heinrich, “Bumblebee Economics”
Hollis and Bren Woodard capturing bees next to the Alaskan pipeline. Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times
One hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, by the side of a dusty road, two women in anti-mosquito head nets peer at a queen bumblebee buzzing furiously in a plastic tube.
“I think it’s the biggest bumblebee I’ve caught in my life!” Kristal Watrous says. Continue reading
We humans are part of a very tiny slice of history, whereas in Western Australia we can have a glimpse at a big slice of history. It is humbling, and at the same time inspiring. As good science journalism should be. We are not too proud to admit that these had completely escaped our attention until just now:
The natural wonder that holds the key to the origins of life – and warns of its destruction
Stromatolite-building bacteria once ruled the Earth, then changed its climate so much they nearly became extinct. Michael Slezak visits the world’s largest surviving colony in Hamelin pool, Western Australia
Just shy of the westernmost tip of the Australian continent lies a pool that provides an unparalleled window into the origins of life on Earth. In its warm, briny waters a biological process takes place that began just as the continents were starting to form.
It is this very process that made the abundance of life on the planet possible and studying it today promises insights into how life began as well as what the Earth was like 3.7bn years ago. Continue reading
Organikos 