Stories tagged animals
An elephant trunk has no bone but 40,000 muscles
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Pipe down: What's causing all this noise we're hearing down here under the water?
Courtesy Whit Welles“Hey, quiet down up there. We can’t hear a thing down here.”
No, it’s not the lament of some landlord who’s rented out the upper level apartment to a rock-and-roll loving tenant. It’s a case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court right now pitting whales off the coast of California against the U.S. Navy.
Justices heard oral arguments yesterday on the case. Environmentalists are challenging the Navy’s claim to perform training exercises along the California coast which use extensive and strong sonar transmissions. The sound waves of those sonar blasts can harm whales and other marine mammals, petitioners contend, with sounds that can be up to 2,000 times louder than a jet engine. Some scientists feel that sounds that loud can cause whales to lose hearing loss, bleed on the brain and possibly lead to mass strandings on beaches.
Decision spot: The U.S. Supreme Court is the site of a pending decision pitting U.S. Navy sonar training exercises against the health of marine mammals like whales.
Courtesy Thor CarlsonThe Navy says that strong sonar level is critical to be able to detect submarines that can elude weaker modes of sonar.
Based on justices’ questions and reactions, however, it appears that court is leaning toward siding with the Navy and national security concerns.
Here’s a full report on yesterday’s court session. Justices were pretty upfront in stating their lack of expertise in mammal biology and national defense matters.
So if you had to decide on this conflict, where would you come down on this question? Does the health and a comfort of whales trump national security? Is loud sonar just an unfortunate byproduct of keeping our national interests safe? Share your thoughts here with other Buzz readers.
Local chump provides opportunity for skunk-related science
in Life Science, Diversity of Organisms, Flow of Matter and Energy, and Human Organism
Look, everybody!: A cat!
Courtesy justinleifIn a delightful reverse-Pepe Le Pew scenario, a Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, woman recently mistook a skunk for a cat and was blasted with skunk juice.
Supposedly the woman had mistaken the wild animal for her neighbor’s cat, and was petting it (or attempting to pet it?) when it sprayed her. The skunk then ran into the woman’s home. Police spent hours at the scene (seriously) although there has been no confirmation as to whether or not they were able to retrieve the skunk.
So… first of all: wow. I hope this woman wasn’t extraordinarily elderly, or suffering from some condition that prevents her from distinguishing cats from skunks, because then that would make me a bad person for making fun of her. And I’m surely doing that in my head right now.
Cats, after all, belong to the order felidae, skunks to caniformia. (Skunks technically aren’t mustelids any more—how about that?) Also unlike cats, skunks are characterized by short, powerful legs, long front claws for digging, and a unique black and white striped pattern. And, of course, their pungent anal scent glands, which brink us back to ol’ ma’am skunk.
Close enough to pet the animal, the lady was well inside what we in the skunk business like to call “the danger zone.” Muscles located around their scent producing glands, after all, allow skunks to accurately spray at ranges up to 15 feet. Her close proximity likely means that the woman received a full dose of spray, something around 3 ml. Skunks carry enough scent for about 5 sprays before they need to spend more than a week “recharging.”
If the spray catches you directly in the eyes, it can cause severe burning and eye watering, or even 10 – 15 minutes of blindness in some cases. Most of the time, however, the smell will be your main concern. As this site details, skunk spray is mainly composed of seven volatile molecules. The stinkiest three of them are called “thiols,” compounds that contain a sulfur and hydrogen group. Thiols are known for their powerful repellent odor and, uh-oh, they bond strongly to the proteins in our skin. The remaining four molecules in skunk spray aren’t as stinky initially, but they can be converted to thiols when they interact with water. This is why hair sprayed by a skunk can stink for months after the incident when it becomes damp. This is also why I hate my roommate’s golden retriever.
To deodorize these thiols, one must convert them into compounds that have little odor. Thiols can be changed into less stinky sulfonic acids by oxidizing them with baking soda or hydrogen peroxide, but this, unfortunately, can leave you looking a little fried.
Except for the possibility that there might yet be a skunk in the her house, the Pennsylvania woman may have gotten off pretty light, all things considered. Skunks will only expend spray if they can’t warn another creature off by posturing: they will hiss, stamp their feet, and raise their tails threateningly. These are not generally the actions of a happy cat. It could be that some additional mistakes and oversights were made on the part of the lady, or it could be that the skunk was behaving erratically. If this was the case, it raises another concern: rabies. The CDC states that skunks make up about a third of the reported rabies cases in all species in this country. There haven’t been any reported cases of skunks transmitting rabies to humans in the last couple decades, but it seems to me that this woman has something of the pioneer spirit, and would be a likely candidate for getting bitten by a rabid skunk. But not this time.
And so we salute you, skunk lady, for mistaking a skunk for a cat. I like to think that all of us are a little wiser for it.
Do as we say, or we'll kill your family: Some animal activists are attacking researchers' homes.
Courtesy charmingly_busy
(With the Republican National Convention literally across the street, the Science Museum of Minnesota will be closed starting Friday, August 29. But Science Buzz marches on! To honor our convention guests, I’ll be posting entries focusing on issues where science and politics overlap. Hopefully this will spur some discussion. Or at least tick some people off. Previous entries here, here and here.)
5:30 Saturday morning. The pre-dawn quiet is shattered by firebombs exploding almost simultaneously in different parts of the town. One is set under a car in a driveway, apparently trying to ignite the fuel tank. The others ignite on the porch of a family home, setting it on fire, forcing a husband, wife and their two children to climb out of a second-floor window to escape. All this follows a pattern of death threats, break-ins, harassment and intimidation.
A movie, perhaps? A war-torn foreign country beset by extremists?
Nope. Santa Cruz, California. The target: scientists.
Some groups of activist have long protested the use of animals in experiments. Most of these protests have been peaceful social and political action, and they’ve had results—the care of lab animals has improved, and many cosmetic companies no longer test their products on animals.
But some activists crossed the line into crime and violence, breaking into labs and destroying equipment. And now they have escalated to attacking researchers and their families in their homes. In one instance, masked intruders broke into a professor’s home and disrupted his daughter’s birthday party. Classy.
The scientists being targeted are biomedical researchers, trying to find cures for diseases like cancer and AIDS. If they are successful in shutting down medical research, then as a result millions upon millions of people will die slow, painful, and preventable deaths, thanks to their efforts.
(And it’s not just medical research—in one instance, activists wanted to stop a university from testing the safety of…pet food. That’s right—these lunatics who claim to be advocating on behalf of animals, want to make it harder for companies to ensure the safety of pet food. Brilliant.)
While some groups focus their activity on labs that conduct tests on happy little monkeys or cute fluffy bunnies, others draw no such distinctions. Some have targeted researchers using fruit flies.
Worried that this terrorism might persuade researchers to leave the field, or dissuade young scientists from entering it, the US Congress in 2006 passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to protect researchers. However, there have not yet been any prosecutions under this legislation.
(Meanwhile, in response to the recent attacks, the California state legislature is pushing through its own ordinance. UCLA has gone on the offensive and is suing people involved in intimidating researchers,)
This is not how we do things in this country. If you think an activity should be limited or outlawed, speak up. Petition the government. Elect officials who agree with you. But do not take the law into your own hands, resort to terrorism, or try to blow up little children.
When I was a kid, I used to do stupid kid things. And my saintly Mother in frustration would cry out, “What’s the matter with you? Do you sit on your brains?” I would ask the same question of these losers—except that would imply they had brains to begin with. And that would seem to give them entirely too much credit.
Cow pointing north: Maybe THIS is why you always see animals on weather vanes
Courtesy Leo ReynoldsResearchers in Germany used Google Earth to examine hundreds of aerial images of cattle herds at rest and found that 2 out of 3 cows tended to align their bodies north-south. It seems that no one has really ever noticed this before, which is a little shocking. On the other hand it's nice to know that science still has some basic observations left to be made.
At first I was a bit skeptical. As a kid I'd heard that you could tell if it was going to rain depending on whether cows were laying down or not, which is a silly tale for sure...so maybe this was a similar situation? How would cows sense the Earth's magnetic field anyways? Actually, lots of animals can sense the earth's magnetic field:
- Bacteria - Small strings of magnetite in bacteria, called magnetosomes, have actually been shown to rotate to align with the Earth's magnetic field.
- Birds - One group of researchers found chemicals called cryptochromes in the eyes of some birds. These chemicals change in the presence of a magnetic field and may help the birds see the north-south axis as they fly.
- Sharks - Sharks have receptors in their brains that help them perceive the magnetic field. When sharks swim in tanks they normally swim around the edges, but move randomly when the normal magnetic field is disturbed in some fashion.
Most of this research is still under-way and new discoveries may give us different explanations about how animals sense the Earth's magnetic field. Yet, it is certain that all varieties of creatures, cows included, seem to be able to sense the Earth's weak yet significant magnetic field.
What about you? Can you feel North?
There has been much hype lately about the ethics of chromosomal testing during the Bejing Olympics. Rather than sending a man to compete as a woman (as the Germans did in the Berlin games),
An ostrich going for the gold
Courtesy swh they should have entered an ostrich or perhaps a rhino. Check out the link above to read about high performing animals that would give our athletes a run (or swim) for their money.
Check it out, readers, a unicorn (deer thing) has been found in the country we call Italy.
Get some maidens over there and capture it! Or Tom Cruise! (I don't really remember how that movie went.)
Anyway, sorry, but I've already called dibs on the horn. I need it for my magic spells.
Cuttlefish eye: The highly developed organ can take in information during its embryonic stage.
Courtesy sophmattgunnerCuttlefish embryos peering out from inside their eggs are able to identify their prey, and remember them after they’ve hatched, according to a research team at the University of Caen Basse-Normandy, France that has documented the remarkable feat.
Cuttlefish are cephalopods related to squid and octopus, and their eyes are considered some of the most developed in the animal kingdom.
The research team led by Ludovic Dickel harvested wild cuttlefish eggs and placed them inside a series of tanks containing sea water. Cuttlefish eggs are translucent but enclosed in a black ink in their early stages. But this protective cover clears eventually as the eggs develop. Some of the eggs were set up in plain view of crabs, a favorite prey of adult cuttlefish. The crabs were partitioned in glass compartments with varying degrees of clarity, and the embryos could neither smell nor hear them, only see them. Other eggs were placed in tanks without any exposure to crabs.
Cuttlefish on the prowl
Courtesy richard lingAfter hatching, the infant cuttlefish were removed immediately away from the crabs before the hatchlings had a chance to see them, and allowed to develop in isolation. After seven days, they were set free inside tanks containing both crab and shrimp, another favorite cuttlefish food.
Remarkably the cuttlefish that had been exposed as embryos to the crabs preferred to eat them. And those with the clearest view of the crabs, had the greatest taste for them. Those with no prior view of the crabs preferred the shrimp.
Other animals have been known to pick up chemical and audio cues during the embryonic stage, but this is the first evidence of visual learning by embryos. The study’s results appear in the journal Animal Behaviour.
Jane Goodall, the internationally-known chimp researcher, will be making a pair of public appreances at the University of Minnesota on Saturday. Here's a link to the details. Both events are free and open to the public.
So cute. So shnuggly. So lethal.: Jax, the mighty hunter, eyes some tasty birdies from his window perch.
Courtesy Gene
As spring approaches (no, really, it is coming! You've got to believe!), house cats everywhere are sniffing at the fresh air coming in under the door, and are just itching to get outside. However, a politician in Boulder, Colorado is trying to pass a law that would require pet owners to keep their cats inside. It may sound funny – or like an unnecessary government intrusion into citizens’ lives—but outdoor cats are a big problem for wildlife. According to the American Bird Conservancy There are some 77 million house cats in America, and a similar number of feral cats. Each year, they kill hundreds of millions of birds, and perhaps a billion small mammals. Many of the prey species are threatened or endangered.
If you own a cat, keep it inside! Or invest in an enclosure so it can enjoy the outdoors without menacing the local wildlife.
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