When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray
It’s an interesting article, but I have to think that they spent WAY more time on the headline than they did on a story about Moray Eels hunting on land.
Category: Biology
Some People Cannot Resist Posting Kittens
For me, it’s farts:
A woman on TikTok has left people in stitches with her story about a time she ripped a fart in a spin class that led to a total evacuation of all people on the premises.
………
“This one time I went to a spin class after a heavy night of drinking and 4am kebabs…”
Then it happened.
“…And I farted a fart that smelled so bad that a girl threw up and they had to evacuate the gym because they thought they had a sewage problem.”
She was apparently glad to finally get it off her chest.
“I was too embarassed to tell them it was just me. So now, eight years later, I’m telling you guys.”
@maximevdd Tell me your greatest fart stories. Can you beat that? #fyp #gym #gymproblems #fart #spinclass #hangover #embarrassing #ohno #fartsfordays #drunk
How is this woman still single? Not mocking her. Women who find farts funny are rare and should be treasured.
Also, it beats my story of Prednisone fueled farts, when I let one site slip out silently that violated the chemical weapons convention at the same time that my my dad loudly farted while we were in the car, and he took the blame from the rest of the family for 15 minutes until I fessed up.
Peter Parker, Eat Your Heart Out
The US army is looking at using spider silk generated from genetically modified silkworms:
Spider silk is one of nature’s toughest substances, similar in strength to the Kevlar plastic found in bulletproof vests but much more flexible. Kraig Biocraft, a company out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, genetically altered silkworms to produce a fiber that’s similar to pure spider silk. Today, they announced an Army contract to test this so-called Dragon Silk for possible use in body armor.
There’s a reason that silk from worms is cheap but you can’t buy pajamas made from spider fabric: spiders are territorial and cannibalistic, which makes farming them for fabric production almost exorbitant.
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The technology behind Dragon Silk is based in part on the work of Malcolm J. Fraser, Donald L. Jarvis, and their colleagues. As they explain in this paper, they introduce specific pieces of spider DNA into silkworm eggs, creating an entirely new type of silkworm that can spin spider silk.
………
Rice doesn’t anticipate that Dragon Silk will be a direct replacement for Kevlar, which has a strength of 3 gigapascals. [425,000 psi] Spider silk has a strength of 2 gigapascals, [290,000 psi] only about two-thirds as strong.
“But Kevlar has an elasticity of 3 percent,” says Rice. “If you have a Kevlar fiber, it’s not going to move at all. Our fibers have a 30 to 40 percent elasticity before they break.”
FWIW, the additional deformation that spider silk can take means that it is absorbing a lot more energy than the Kevlar. (The very crude sketch depicts energy as the area under the various curves)
I am not sure of how spider silk could be used in a structural context, but given my experience with the material, it’s relatively low modulus would indicate that any design would be driven by stiffness issues rather than strength issues, which would make it rather similar to handle to fiberglass.
I am Unreasonably Stoked About This
I don’t know why, but the taxonomic resurrection of the species Brontosaurus has me pleased to a completely unreasonably degree:
The brontosaurus, loved by kids the world over but cruelly snubbed by paleontologists for more than a century, is back. British and Portuguese fossil boffins have concluded the dinosaur existed as a separate genus after all.
It was back in 1879 that paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh named a collection of bones a brontosaurus, or Thunder Lizard, and described a massive herbivore with a long neck and tail that wandered across the plains of what is now America.
But within a couple of decades the existence of the Thunder Lizard was called into question, and the scientific community decided that the stumbled-upon brontosaurus was just an adolescent apatosaurus. There then followed a 100-year campaign to expunge the word brontosaurus from textbooks, but the name proved just too popular.
Now a study looking at the largest range of fossils of the genus has shown that the brontosaurus was a distinct genus. While the dino does have strong similarities to the apatosaurus, there are enough differences to separate the two, the study’s authors concluded.
Our research would not have been possible at this level of detail 15 or more years ago”, explains Emanuel Tschopp, a Swiss national who led the research from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, “in fact, until very recently, the claim that Brontosaurus was the same as Apatosaurus was completely reasonable, based on the knowledge we had.”
The initial argument for the non-existence of the brontosaurus was down to its sacrum bones, which link the tail to the base of the spine. The first Thunder Lizard found had five of these, compared to the apatosaurus’ three, but it was assumed that the brontosaurus bones were young and would have merged together to form these three bones.
But as more and more specimens were found, this theory started to look a little off. That was reinforced by other fossil evidence, so the new study turned to statistics to find out what was going on.
“The differences we found between Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were at least as numerous as the ones between other closely related genera, and much more than what you normally find between species,” explained Roger Benson, a co-author from the University of Oxford.
I have no clue why I am so giddy over this news, but I am incredibly happy about this.
Never Underestimate the Benefits of Some Good Beaver
It looks like one the consequences of the California drought is that the state will be aggressively reintroducing beavers to mitigate problems from the current lack of rainfall:
Californians are crossing their fingers for more rain after three punishing years of drought have left streams, rivers and wetland parched.
One animal has the potential to restore these dry landscapes.
With their industrial buck teeth and flat tails, beavers and their dams offer a defense against drought, a solution to reversing the effects of climate change. The rodents are known as ecosystem engineers. And they once populated most of California (and the Bay Area) until fur traders nearly wiped them out in the 19th century,
“This state has lost more of its wetlands than all other states, and beavers can rebuild those wetlands,” said Rick Lanman of the Institute for Historical Ecology in Los Altos. “Knowing that it is native should help guide restoration efforts.”
Beaver dams bestow benefits to the environment that we humans can’t easily copy. They turn land into a sponge for water. Their gnawing and nesting promotes richer soil and slows down water, improving imperiled fish habitat. Their dams raise water tables, nourishing shrubbery alongside streams that stabilize eroding banks and add habitat for birds and deer. They also help the endangered California Red-legged frog.
After beavers move to a new area, at night, they drag a tree across a shallow stream to start a dam. They carry rocks and mud with their paws and branches with their big incisors. Water in these beaver ponds would otherwise flow away. So it’s no surprise that thirsty western states are turning to the furry critters with open arms.
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Government agencies are hosting a workshop series in a few western states and writing a guide on how to use beavers for restoration. California Fish and Wildlife is starting to embrace the beaver, a shift beaver advocates applaud.
“Our effort now is to show its many sides, sides that have always existed,” said Kevin Shaffer, a fisheries manager for state Fish and Wildlife. “We are investigating how beaver promote habitat and water conservation through their habitat manipulation. We are also creating public and scientific information about the beaver, its ecological role and current regulations and laws affecting its management and conservation.”
In addition to being highly effective, they work without pay.
It’s a win-win.
If Not an Explanation, At Least It Gives Us Some Context
It turns out that Robin Williams was suffering from early stage Parkinson’s Disease:
Patients with Parkinson’s disease often suffer from depression, medical experts said Thursday, after Robin Williams’ widow revealed that the comedian was in “early stages” of the neurological disease at the time of his apparent suicide.
The same biochemical changes in the brain that cause the hallmark physical symptoms of Parkinson’s — tremors, slowed movement, rigidity, balance loss — can also affect mood, said Dr. Jeff Bronstein, a neurologist in the Movement Disorder Program at UCLA.
“Obviously getting the diagnosis can make people depressed,” he said. “But we also know that there’s a much higher incidence of depression even before the disease is recognized. We think it’s one of the early symptoms.”
I don’t think that anyone can truly understand what was going on in his head, but the fact his limbic system was being short circuited from a lack of dopamine was certainly a major contributing factor.
I Honestly Do Not Know if this is Cute or Terrifying
But a 2 m tall penguin weighing 115 kg could play outside linebacker in the NFL:
A penguin species that lived millions of years ago would have dwarfed today’s biggest living penguins and stood as tall as most humans, according to analysis of fossils by a team of researchers from the La Plata Museum in Argentina.
Palaeeudyptes klekowskii has already been dubbed the “colossus penguin”, and is the most complete fossil ever uncovered from the Antarctic. The unearthed bones are 37m years old and include the longest recorded fused ankle-foot bone as well as parts of a wing bone.
From those bones, researchers estimated the species would have stood 2m tall from toe to beak tip, and weighed as much as 115kg. Standing normally, beak down, the penguin would have be around 1.6m tall, the team reported in the journal Geobios.
By comparison, the tallest and heaviest living species, the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), stands 1.1m high and weighs just under 50kg.
This is like Ted “The Mad Stork” Hendricks in a tuxedo.
Unreal.
My Hunch Seems to Have Been Vindicated
I have always felt that the Black Death in Europe was from something significantly different from the Bubonic Plague as we know it now, if just because the speed of the spread was astonishingly fast (something more than 20 miles a day in Britain).
Well, a study now indicates that it was likely a variant of Yersinia pestis that was genetically predisposed to go pneumonic, meaning that the transmission would have been far faster than the flea borne variants that we see today:
It was already known as perhaps the bleakest episode in British history.
Now, new research suggests the Black Death was even more lethal than was previously thought.
The findings go further to exonerate rats as being responsible for the outbreak, which swept the country in the middle of the fourteenth century, killing vast swathes of the population.
Instead, the study claims the disease was passed directly from human to human and was, in fact, pneumonic plague – a more virulent and infectious form than bubonic plague, which has historically been blamed.
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The same bacteria – which is almost identical to the strain still found on four continents – is responsible for both bubonic and pneumonic plague, but the experts taking part in the show concluded that the latter, which is spread by the fleas of infected rats, would not have been able to have the devastating impact caused by the Black Death.
Dr Tim Brooks, an expert in infectious diseases from Public Health England who is based at Porton Down – the Wiltshire site used by the government for dealing with biological threats – said: “As an explanation, for the Black Death in its own right, it is simply not good enough. It cannot spread fast enough from one household to the next, to cause the huge number of cases that we saw during the Black Death epidemics.”
Instead, he identified what he considers was a mutation from the bubonic plague, borne on rats, to the pneumonic variant, whereby it spread to the lungs of sufferers, who then passed it on to others, by coughing.
This makes sense, though there are alternate ways for it to spread so quickly, such as it being carried by bird borne parasites.
It is almost certain that it was Y. pestis though.
For F%$#’s Sake, Why?
It appears that France is more evil than I had been believed.
Some scientists in Bordeaux have found a way to block the euphoric effects of marijuana:
Leave it to science to find a way to harsh the mellow of marijuana.
A French research team has discovered a natural chemical brake that can tamp down the effects of THC, the main intoxicant in marijuana. They believe it could lead to ways to protect against memory loss, torpor and other side-effects better known as being stoned.
“We have this built-in negative feedback mechanism, a brake” on cannabis intoxication, said University of Bordeaux neurobiologist Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, principal author of a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The researchers were investigating the role of neurosteroids in addiction. These are a class of hormones produced in the brain, and they have been implicated in regulating mood and cognitive activities.
After getting rats and mice high on the active ingredients of cocaine, morphine, nicotine, alcohol and marijuana, the researchers measured the increase in pregnenolone, a precursor to all steroid hormones that was thought to be otherwise inactive.
Getting mice stoned is not as easy as you think. They tend to Bogart that joint.
But more seriously, marijuana is not physiologically addictive, so why are harshing our buzz?
What the f%$# is wrong with you guys?
A joke in a related vein after the break:
Dr. Calvin Rickson, a scientist from Ohio State University, has invented a bra that keeps women’s breasts from jiggling and prevents the nipples from pushing through the fabric when cold weather sets in.
At a news conference, after announcing the invention, a large group of men took Dr. Rickson outside and beat the sh%$ out of him.
Our Loquacious Neanderthal Progenitors
And yes, Neanderthal genes are in all of us, so they are in part our ancestors.
One of the enduring myths about Homo neanderthalensis (some would argue Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) is that they lacked the vocal structures to have our fluidity of speech.
30 years ago, the model that showed this was debunked because it was shown that it also prevented H neanderthalensis from swallowing.
The theory only barely passed the laugh test for about 5 years, but you still hear it coming up all the time.
One of the reasons for this is that the bone at the base of the tongue, the Hyloid is unattached to the rest of the skeleton, and fragile, so the fissile record is meager.
Well, they have found a Neanderthal hyloid, and it was very similar to ours, and now a group of scientist have modeled the Hyloid, and the surriounding soft tissues, and determined that they were very chatty folk:
An analysis of a Neanderthal’s fossilised hyoid bone – a horseshoe-shaped structure in the neck – suggests the species had the ability to speak.
This has been suspected since the 1989 discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid that looks just like a modern human’s.
But now computer modelling of how it works has shown this bone was also used in a very similar way.
Writing in journal Plos One, scientists say its study is “highly suggestive” of complex speech in Neanderthals.
The hyoid bone is crucial for speaking as it supports the root of the tongue. In non-human primates, it is not placed in the right position to vocalise like humans.
An international team of researchers analysed a fossil Neanderthal throat bone using 3D x-ray imaging and mechanical modelling.
This model allowed the group to see how the hyoid behaved in relation to the other surrounding bones.
Stephen Wroe, from the University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia, said: “We would argue that this is a very significant step forward. It shows that the Kebara 2 hyoid doesn’t just look like those of modern humans – it was used in a very similar way.”
Personally, I think that it is difference in fecundity that led to Neanderthals being supplanted by modern humans, but I am not a paleoanthropologist.
Oh, Crap
Have you heard about MERS?
I don’t mean the fraudulent legal figleaf known as the Mortgage Electronic Registration System that is a plague upon home-owners, I am instead referring an actual plague to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a SARS like infectious disease with a 55% fatality rate centered in Saudi Arabia.
Discussions of this disease have been bouncing around the epidemiology world for a while, there have only been about 80 confirmed cases, but in a couple of months millions of pilgrims will be going to Saudi Arabia as a part of the Hajj:
When the Black Death exploded in Arabia in the 14th century, killing an estimated third of the population, it spread across the Islamic world via infected religious pilgrims. Today, the Middle East is threatened with a new plague, one eponymously if not ominously named the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV, or MERS for short). This novel coronavirus was discovered in Jordan in March 2012, and as of June 26, there have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections, 62 of which have been in Saudi Arabia; 34 of these Saudi patients have died.
Although the numbers — so far — are small, the disease is raising anxiety throughout the region. But officials in Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned.
This fall, millions of devout Muslims will descend upon Mecca, Medina, and Saudi Arabia’s holy sites in one of the largest annual migrations in human history. In 2012, approximately 6 million pilgrims came through Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals associated with umrah, and this number is predicted to rise in 2013. Umrah literally means “to visit a populated place,” and it’s the very proximity that has health officials so worried. In Mecca alone, millions of pilgrims will fulfill the religious obligation of circling the Kaaba. And having a large group of people together in a single, fairly confined space threatens to turn the holiest site in Islam into a massive petri dish.
The disease is still mysterious. Little is understood about how it is transmitted and even less regarding its origins. But we do know that MERS is deadly, with a mortality rate of about 55 percent — a remarkably higher lethality than that posed by its close cousin, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, which in 2003 terrified travelers across the globe but posed a fatality rate of only 9.6 percent. The MERS coronavirus is new to our species, so mild and asymptomatic infections seem to be rare, but the human immune response to infection is itself so extreme that it can prove deadly in some cases.
All this is going on while a Dutch lab is claiming rights to the species genome, which is crippling research on the disease.
This has all the hallmarks of a public health catastrophe.
Hed of the Day
PLAGUE of SEX CRAZED MONSTER GRASSHOPPERS to hit East Coast
From El Reg, of course.
In the Ocean, No One Can Hear You Scream
This critter does have an H.R. Giger thing going on.
H/t Vonners at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
I’m Thinking that T Rex Was a Largely A Scavenger
Some scientist simulated the bite of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and determined that it had one of the strongest ever:
The tyrant lizard, also known as Tyrannosaurus rex, had the strongest bite of any known land animal, new research suggests.
“Our results show that the T. rex had an extremely powerful bite, making it one of the most dangerous predators to have roamed our planet,” study researcher Karl Bates, of the University of Liverpool, said in a statement.
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The new estimate of bite force is higher than past estimates that relied on indent measures in which they pressed down the skull and teeth onto a bone until they got the imprints that matched those on fossils. In the new study, the researchers created a computer model of the dinosaur’s jaw by first digitally scanning skulls from an adult and juvenile T. rex, an allosaurus, an alligator and an adult human. They used these scans to model each animal’s bite.
“We took what we knew about T. rex from its skeleton and built a computer model,” Bates said. “We then asked the computer model to produce a bite so that we could measure the speed and force of it directly.”
The force exerted at one of T. rex’s back teeth would have been between 7,868 and 12,814 pounds-force (35,000 and 57,000 newtons). This force would be akin to having a medium-size elephant sit on you.
There has always been a debate about T. Rex, and whether they were primarily predators or scavengers.
The interesting thing is that, at least amongst today’s mammals, scavengers have stronger jaws, the hyena, for example, despite being less than half the size of a lion, has a stronger bite.
Basically, when you come late to the party, you need jaws that can pulverize bone to get the table scraps.*
So, I’m thinking that this extreme jaw strength, and the associated costs of maintaining that capability to the species, imply that the king of the dinosaurs was frequently dining on someone else’s left-overs.
*Yes, I am aware that the Hyena is actually a highly successful predator, and frequently, when you see them circling when the lions are eating, the hyenas have made the kill, and the lions have taken it over. It still means that they are going to eat what the lions leave after they have had their fill.