Problem pigeon: John McCain, I've got that bald spot on the top of your head targeted for one of my droppings.
Courtesy Josh215Aboout a year ago, the Buzz brought you news that St. Paul city officials were taking steps to reduce (with the ultimate goal of eliminating) the pigeon population in downtown. The thought was, with the Republican National Convention coming, the city didn't want out-of-towners having to watch their step on the sidewalks for messy pigeon droppings.
As a regular pedestrian through downtown, I can attest that the year's worth of efforts haven't made much of a difference. There are plenty of pigeons, and their droppings, still around downtown. Unless we host a massive falcon-hawk-eagle convention in the next week, the GOP is going to have to be on the lookout for pigeon GOOP.
None the less, St. Paul officials are cranking up their efforts to reduce the pigeon population. While earlier efforts focused on building delux nesting sites for the birds, and the confiscation of their eggs after they were laid, they've turned to pigeon birth control methods. Read all about it here in this Star-Tribune interview with the city's animal control officer. That all begs the question, were do you get pigeon condoms?
Tags : 
Aphid in amber: The new species is trapped inside fossilized tree sap.
Courtesy Rothamsted Research Visual Communications UnitA British man purchased an item on eBay that has proven to be a species not seen before. No, it’s not a new species of toast sporting the image of some religious or political icon, but rather a new species of fossil aphid encased in a 40 to 50 million year-old piece of amber.
The purchase took place last year from a seller in Lithuania, and was only made public this week. The lucky buyer was Dr Richard Harrington, vice-president of the UK's Royal Entomological Society. The small chunk of amber was a bargain, too - only £20 (about $36).
I guess this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened. Just two years ago, a previously unknown species of sea urchin was acquired on eBay.
In this recent case, Dr. Harrington sent the fossil to Professor Ole Heie, a fossil aphid expert in Denmark, and was delighted to learn his new acquisition was an unknown extinct species.
Harrington wanted to name the new species Mindarus ebayi in honor of the online auction site. Unfortunately, it seems the scientific community has no sense of humor in regards to frivolous nomenclature, unless it involves a favorite rock musician. So instead, the newly described aphid was named Mindarus harringtoni in Harrington’s honor. Gee, I hope he isn’t too bummed out about that. Go here to see a photo of the buyer with his prized fossil bug.
SOURCES
Rothamsted Research story
Story on NowPublic site
Story on BBC site
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the brainiest of them all?: A yellowbilled magpie involved in some self-reflection.
Courtesy Vicki and Chuck RogersMagpies can recognize their own reflections in a mirror, according to a new study just out in the PloS Biology journal.
The magpie is member of the Corvidae family of birds, a group that includes crows, ravens and jays, and one that’s regarded as highly intelligent.
The research involved placing colored stickers on a magpie’s body in a place not viewable by the bird. When a mirror was provided, the bird was able to see the sticker and attempted to remove it with its beak or claws.
When a black mark matching the magpie’s dark feathers was used, the bird took no notice, confirming the bird wasn’t just investigating what researchers were doing to it. And when the mirror itself was removed even the colored marks were ignored.
The study raises questions about brain development. Before this study, only mammals such as chimpanzees, orangutans - and to some extent dolphins and elephants - have shown signs of self-awareness. But unlike a mammalian brain, a bird’s brain doesn’t possess a neocortex, an area thought necessary for self-recognition.
"After finding this kind of intelligence in apes, many people thought it had developed once in one evolutionary line with humans at the end. The bird studies show it has developed at least twice,” said Dr Helmut Prior, a psychologist from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. He and his colleagues used 5 magpies in the study.
SOURCES and LINKS
Science News website
New Scientist site with video
More about the neocortex
The illustrated Bigfoot: Quit screwing around with this drawing, and look at the article!
Courtesy Jean-noHoly moly, Buzzketeers! I've barely gotten all the crumbs and stank off of the cryptocouch from yesterday, and yet I ask, no, I insist that y'all have a seat once again. Don't mind the crumbs—they're yours.
Some folks in Georgia claim to have a Bigfoot body in their darn freezer! A bold claim, my southern friends, a bold claim, but they will supposedly be flying to California on Friday to hold a press conference with "Searching for Bigfoot Inc."
Word on the street says that these folks are lining up DNA tests, and that a molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist and assorted other scientists will be examining the body over the next few months at "an undisclosed location," and carefully documenting their findings before public release.
I'd normally recommend Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo.com for this sort of thing (he's usually the guy to turn to for reasonable responses to kind of crazy claims), but the site has been all crazy itself today. Maybe because people are so into Bigfoot. So click on the "Word on the street" link above. There might still be a goofy looking photo.
Here are some details that have been released so far:
"*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and
five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are
eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th."
I'm inclined to think this is fake, but, hey, if nothing else, it's a delightfully elaborate prank, and I'm all about that.
Let's hear it for maggots!
in Life Science, Diversity of Organisms, Scientific Inquiry, and Human Organism
Researchers at Swansea University, in the UK, are developing an antibiotic that can fight the MRSA superbug. And they're using superbugs to do it. OK, not superbugs. They're using the secretions from the maggots of the common green bottle fly.
A cage match I'm not sure I want to see: Maggots secrete a compound that can fight superbugs, including 12 strains of MRSA, E. coli, and C. difficile.
Courtesy National Institutes of Health
Super gross? Sure. And you won't see an ad for this antibiotic (Seraticin) on TV anytime soon. It takes some 20 maggots to make a single drop of the drug. So scientists have to fully identify it, figure out a way to synthesize it in the lab, test it on human cells, and put it through a clinical trial.
In the meantime, using live maggots on infected wounds is a time-tested way of beating infections. Dr. Alun Morgan, of ZooBiotic Ltd, told the BBC,
"Maggots are great little multitaskers. They produce enzymes that clean wounds, they make a wound more alkaline which may slow bacterial growth and finally they produce a range of antibacterial chemicals that stop the bacteria growing."
How effective are maggots? The University of Manchester has been doing research on diabetic patients with MRSA-contaminated foot ulcers. The patients treated with maggots were mostly cured within three weeks. Patients who got more conventional treatment needed 28 weeks.
So give maggots a big shout out. And then check these other stories:
"NHS 'needs to use more maggots'"
Prescription insects
Fun with beetles
Bud-weis-er: Tree shrews of Malayia have been found to go on two-hour benders each night, drinking "palm beer" from the fermented nectar of palm trees in the rain forests. And they don't even have a hangover the next morning.
Courtesy S. KarthikeyanWhere are the places that you find high amounts of alcohol consumption? College campuses, sea ports that host sailor shore leaves, NFL stadium parking lots. Now add the Malaysian rain forest to that mix.
It seems that the tiny pen-tailed tree shrew can drink any and all of its larger mammalian cohorts under the table. In fact, life is just one long happy hour for this little creature.
The shrews have a steady diet of “palm beer,” a fermented concoction that occurs in the nectar of flowers of the Bertram palm. Scientists have measured the alcohol content to the “palm beer” to be 3.8 percent, about the same level as most brewed beers.
Through their research, scientists have found the shrews spend about two hours a night guzzling their “palm beer.” And by testing hair samples of the critters, they’ve discovered the beer is their primary food source and that their alcohol consumption is at a rate that would likely kill other mammals.
But don’t set up an intervention and head the pen-tailed shrews off to a 12-step program just yet. Over their 55 million years of existence, they’ve developed a tolerance to alcohol that allows them to have normal functionality despite their heavy beer intake. After all, a drunk shrew is going to be pretty easy pickings for a larger predator. It appears that the shrews have developed a fast-paced metabolism to be able to handle their beer intake with little effect.
So keep this in mind if you’re hosting a kegger any time soon. The more pen-tailed tree shrews you invite, the more beer you’re going to need to have on hand.
A yeti: preparing a powerful spell.
Courtesy teotwawkiIt’s time again, Buzzketeers—get on the cryptocouch. Go on and sit down. Just as you are is fine. I understand that some of you may be a little crusty and gross, and that’s fine; you were probably just planning on getting a little internet on by yourself this morning, and maybe you let your crust build up, your funk get funkier, and didn’t expect to have to set yourself down on a cryptocouch with other Buzzketeers.
Don’t sweat it. The cryptocouch is big enough for all of us, with room to spare for buffer zones, and it’s upholstered such that I can just hose it off later. And that may be necessary, if your orifices aren’t up for some serious cryptozoology this early in the day.
And now you’re on the cryptocouch, despite your reservations. How did I ever convince you to do that? Hey, it’s only to be expected—my Yeti magic is particularly strong today. Usually my Yeti magic is fueled by groundless faith, but today, oh today, my Yeti magic is burning the high-octane gas of scientific uncertainty.
Uncertainty may not sound very good to some of y’all, but when science gets up in your grill as often as it does with cryptozoology, you take what you can get. And today, instead of scientists thrusting and grinding statements like “That’s bear hair,” or “That’s a sick coyote” in our faces, it says, “hello, this is different.” That is, so-called Yeti hair collected in India has recently been identified as “inconclusive.”
Let’s slow down and use our words.
Scientists at Oxford Brookes University, lead by “ape expert” Ian Redmond, have recently spent some time examining a couple of mysterious hairs from the Garo Hills of northeast India. The hairs were collected after a local forester reported seeing the region’s Yeti/Bigfoot thinger (specifically, the “Mande Barung”) in the area three days in a row.
The hairs have been compared to samples collected by Sir Edmund Hilary, a mountaineer and explorer, who did some Yeti-searching in Nepal in the 60’s. And that’s cool, except Sir Edmund’s specimens have generally been agreed to be from a kind of antelope, something that Hilary himself was probably aware of.
The Oxford Brookes researchers, then, began examining the new hairs “fully expecting them to come from a known animal.” The hairs, each less than two inches long, however, now appear to have come from an unknown animal. The scientists say that, under a microscope, the hairs look slightly human, slightly like an orangutan, and slightly like Hilary’s samples (so, slightly like antelope hair). But they don’t look exactly like hair from a known animal, especially none that are known to live in the Garo Hills. So, even if the hairs don’t come from a Yeti (or whatever)m they may be evidence of a slightly more mundane new species. Which is pretty neat.
The next step that will be taken with the hairs is their submission to that colossal buzz-kill we call genetic testing. The hairs, which still have follicle attached, will be sent to two separate laboratories in Oxford and Cardiff for DNA analysis. Even if the results don’t identify the hairs as belonging to a specific species, they should at least show what their original owner was related to (like a primate, or, say, a type of antelope).
How about that? Powerful stuff, huh? So cast your Yeti spells while the news is still hot, because who knows what the DNA tests will bring us.
Now get off the couch. I have to sleep there, and you’re making it all grimy.
Song sung blue: Blue whales, the largest creatures on Earth, have a voices that are getting deeper and deeper. Only males make sounds, and it's thought that they're lowering their voices to better attract females.
Courtesy NOAAWatch out Barry White, you’ve got some serious competition in the low-octave vocal range.
Researchers are finding that the songs of male blue whales are getting much lower, by as much as 30 percent, over the past 40 years. (Through this link you'll be able to hear some actual blue whale sounds, sped up fast enough so our ears can actually hear them.) Most blue whale vocalizations are so low that human ears can’t hear them. And the frequency drop is being witnessed in blue whale pods around the globe.
Male blue whales are the lone vocalizers of the species, and it’s thought their rumblings are designed to attract mates – again pretty much like Barry White.
So why would the pitches of their sounds decrease so much in a relatively short period of time?
One theory is that a deeper voice comes from a larger, more desirable male. As blue whale populations are on the rebound, there is more competition between males to attract females to mate with, ergo, leading the males to drop their vocalizations to even deeper tones.
Influenza Outlook
in Life Science, Cells, Diversity of Organisms, Interdependence of Life, Biological Populations Change Over Time, and Human Organism
Flu vaccine: This is CDC Clinic Chief Nurse Lee Ann Jean-Louis extracting Influenza Virus Vaccine, Fluzone® from a 5 ml. vial.
Courtesy CDC/Jim Gathany
Did you know back in February scientist and medical professionals selected the influenza virus strains for the upcoming flu season? Now that it is July the pharmaceutical companies are well into manufacturing, purification and testing the vaccine. Meanwhile, it is winter and flu season in the southern hemisphere and the virus is busy mutating. The big question on everyone’s mind is will it mutate so much that the northern hemisphere vaccine will be ineffective?
I agree with Dr. Steven Salzberg remarks in his recent Nature commentary…
"The current system, in which most of the world’s vaccine supply is grown in chicken eggs, is an antiquated, inefficient method requiring six months or more to ramp up production, which in turn means that the vaccine strains must be chosen far in advance of each flu season. More crucially it sometimes prevents the use of the optimal strain, as it did in 2007."
Influenza (the flu) is a serious disease
Each year in the United States, on average:
- 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
- More than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and;
- About 36,000 people die from flu.
Some vaccine problems in the past
In recent years the match between the vaccine viruses and those identified during the flu season has usually been good. In 16 of the last 20 U.S. influenza seasons, including the 2007-08 season, the viruses in the influenza vaccine have been well matched to the predominant circulating viruses. Since 1988, there has only been one season (1997-98) when there was very low cross-reaction between the viruses in the vaccine and the predominate circulating virus and three seasons (1992-93, 2003-04, and 2007-08) when there was low cross-reaction (CDC). So after last year’s miscalculation the committee picked three new strains for the vaccine this year. One is a current southern hemisphere vaccine virus which they expect will still be present next year. In addition, they predict a second new Type A strain, known as H1N1/Brisbane/59, to also hit, along with a newer Type B/Florida strain.
Dr. Salzberg feels last year’s miscalculation was a failure…
"The harm was thus twofold; people fell ill and their trust in the vaccine system was undermined. This failure could have been predicted, if not prevented, through a more open system of vaccine design, a stronger culture of sharing in the influenza research community and a serious commitment to new technologies for production. The habits of the vaccine community must change for the sake of public health."
He goes on to suggest…
"The process of choosing flu-vaccine strains needs to be much more open. Other scientists, such as those in evolutionary biology with expertise in sequence analysis, could meaningfully contribute to the selection. At present, external scientists cannot review the data that went into the decision, nor can they suggest other types of data that might improve it."
Even with all of these miscalculations, I still feel getting the vaccine is worth the risk. But that doesn’t mean the process shouldn’t be improved. So once again I will be vaccinated and I will make sure my family is too—but what can we do as citizens to improve this process? What will you do?
Ta-ta tuatara?
in Diversity of Organisms, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, and Biological Populations Change Over Time
Going, going, gone?: Will global warming doom the tuatara?
Courtesy Andrew_mrt1976
The tuatara looks like a lizard, but it ain’t. It actually split off from the lizard family tree some 200 million years ago, frolicked with the dinosaurs, and is considered a “living fossil.”
How much longer it will go on living is a matter of some debate. Restricted to a few small islands off New Zealand, the tuatara has long been classified as a vulnerable species. But some researchers feel it faces a new threat: global warming.
Many reptile reproductive systems are tuned to temperature. If the weather is warm, a male hatches. If the climate is cold, the egg produces a female. Some researchers fear that warming temperatures will lead to nothing but male tuataras within 75 years, ending the species’ 200-million-year run.
Most of the article is hidden behind a subscription wall, so I don’t know if the researchers ever get around to explaining how the tuatara survived the much, much warmer temperatures of the Mesozoic, and the much, much cooler temperatures of the Ice Ages, without going extinct then, too. But I’m sure it’s a beautiful explanation, though.
Science Buzz and all related activities
Add a new comment