The Sun/Amy Davis

There's a report published today in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that has a major Awww factor. You read about it and you say "Awww, is't that nice."

Researchers observed chimps in a zoo in England for a year and nine months and noted that when one gets injured, comrades will come and comfort the victim with kisses and hugs. What  they also discovered is that when comforted, a victim tends to exhibit less stress-like behavior, such as self-grooming and scratching.

The Associated Press story notes that the same type of comforting behavior has been occasionally observed in certain types of birds and dogs. There also have been unconfirmed reports of it, on rare occasions, in humans .

There's more on the report here. 

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Are you seeing more snakes?  I don't mean those little brownish-green garter snakes. We're talking big, honkin' five-footers. Black and thick through the middle. Here's someone who's seen 'em:

Continue reading "Black rat snakes prowl city, suburbs" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

 AP

Okay here's a weird one: researchers at Arizona State used a $5.99 marker to darken up male barn swallows and make them look more attractive to females, as pictured above. They found not only did it make them more attractive to females, but it increased their testosterone levels.

They compared 30 colored barn swallows with 33 birds that didn't get the coloring and found that hormone levels were up 36 percent in the birds with the coloring.

The researchers theorize that the colored birds hormone levels went up either because they're mating more or because they sense the pecking order has changed and suddenly they are more dominant. They also note that barn swallows have two things in common with humans. They're monogamous and also promiscuous. 

So I ask you, reader, is the suggestion in the AP story correct, do clothes in fact make the man? 

There's more on the story here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Credit: Associated Press

Here’s yet another fish story: it's about a species of squid that grows up to 46 feet long, dives down 6,500 feet and has never been seen in its natural habitat -- the deep oceans.
Scientists call this behemoth Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. But what does everyone else call it?

The Colossal Squid.

Scientists at New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, are thawing the corpse of one of the largest  ever caught -- a 26 footer -- to examine its anatomy, remove its stomach, beak and other parts and submit tissue sample for DNA analysis, The Associated Press reports. The examination will be broadcast on the Internet and the museum plans to put it on display in an 1,800 gallon tank of formaldehyde.

Naturally, one of the first questions a reporter asks is what would it taste like.

No word on that, but the AP reports that calamari rings made from this monster would be the size of tractor tires. I’m not big on calamari myself, but some people seen to think it’s good.

You can thank your local Chilean sea bass for this example. Fisherman caught it accidentally in 2007 off Antarctica, where they were fishing for Chilean sea bass, which is the market-friendly name for Patagonian toothfish.

The fisherman froze it and eventually it was acquired by the museum.

You can read more about it here

If you want to watch the examination, its being broadcast on the Internet. But be advised, they haven’t started the work yet, so all you can see is a large black hunk of what looks like goo. The examination will eventually be posted here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

AP photo

A big decision in writing a newspaper story is what to "lead" with. The lead is the first sentence and it's supposed to draw readers in. There are a lot of possibilities with this one: a wire story about an aging penguin, missing its feathers, kept by the California Academy of Sciences at an aquarium in San Francisco. The 25-year-old was given a wet suit so it will go into the water.

The word-play possibilities here are enormous, right?  Not only is the penguin an aging alpha male, it's a species known as a Jackass Penguin, a moniker earned  because of the braying sounds they make.

Here are some other quirky things: the suit fastens with Velcro and a major concern was whether his peers would accept the new look. (They did). Since being fitted about six weeks ago, he's apparently gained weight, grown back some feathers and is as fiesty as ever. I'm open to suggestions for a lead here.

 For inspiration you may want to look here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Photo: NBC

Mating is all about biology right? So maybe that justifies writing about this study, which some people may consider  bogus.

Researchers in England say their survey shows suitors can tell a young person’s attitude to sexual relationships by what they look like. The survey of 700 heterosexuals at Durham University also found that young men and women look for complete opposites when it comes to relationships, at least when they're in their 20s.

 Men generally prefer women who they perceive are open to short-term sexual relationships and women are usually interested in men who have potential to be long-term relationship material. Is that a surprise?

Participants were asked to judge the attractiveness and attitudes to sex of the opposite sex from their facial photographs. Caveat here: the photos were all of people in their 20s. I think that skews the results, myself. Your attitudes and your outlook will change as you age. If they don't, you're in trouble.

The judgments people made were compared with the results of attitudes and behaviors of people in the photos, as measured by questionnaires they completed. The hardest thing about this posting was finding a photo to go with it. The image above is a promotional shot from NBC studios from the 1990s promoting a show called the "The Single Guy." I never saw it.

Continue reading "Dating and face value" »

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

A female harbor seal found stranded on an Ocean City beach in January, and released March 3 after treatment at the National Aquarium, has moved more than 600 miles up the East Coast.

"Secca" was equipped with a satellite tracking device, released onto the same beach where she was found, and swam off into the surf. She loafed around in Delaware Bay for a while, then headed north and east. At last check on Monday, she was swimming off the island of Martha's Vineyard, Mass.  You can track her progress here.

Secca ("dry" in Italian, for her preference for being out of the water while at the aquarium), was injured, emaciated and dehydrated when found. The aquarium staff fattened her up on a diet of herring and capelin, and packed 30 pounds on her by the time she was returned to the sea. She was the 80th wild animal treated and released by the National Aqarium. 

Here's more.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Credit: AP

Score one for the whales.

A federal appeals court has rejected the Bush administration’s decision to exempt the Navy from environmental laws so it can conduct high-intensity sonar training off southern California. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Natural Resources Defense Council, rejecting the Navy's appeal of restrictions prohibiting the high-powered sonar within 12 nautical miles.

The court also set other limits that could affect Navy training exercises to begin this month. The Navy acknowledges that the next two years of drills will significantly disturb or injure 170,000 marine mammals, including permanently injuring more than 450 whales and impairing the hearing of at least 8,000 others.

Continue reading "Save the whales and spare the ammunition" »

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

Children's Hospital Boston

First a fish trivia question - where is this ridiculous phrase used: "He's like an eagle, because like an eagle, he's motivated by FISH."

Now for the science:

Researchers in Boston have created a transparent fish that lets them track the development of its internal organs and watch the growth of cancer and other diseases in real time.

The fish’s brain, heart and digestive tracts are all visible, allowing researchers to study how genetic defects affect the organs from their early stages of development through to adulthood. You can even see its heart beating, researchers say.

Continue reading "Motivated by fish" »

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Police in Los Angeles are investigating an incident where someone has twice targeted the home of a UCLA researcher who uses monkeys in her research on nicotine addiction.

Obviously, it's wrong to threaten someone or try to set their house on fire. But the incident raises the question: when is it right to experiment with animals?

Continue reading "Animals vs. People" »

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Credit: Carl Court/Bloomberg News

Scientists have known for decades that most of the risk for heavy smoking -- at least a pack a day -- is influenced by genetics. But they need sexier names for these genes. Here's one reason why: 

Continue reading "Smoking, the brain and sexier names" »

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Credit: Nature

For years scientists have argued about how birds evolved the ability to fly.

A study by Ken Dial at the University of Montana, published online by the journal Nature this week, doesn't resolve that dispute. But it does shed light on what happens when a bird takes wing: they use relatively uniform wing strokes.

Dial and colleagues recorded flight patterns of chukar partridges, like the ones illustrated above, from when they were hatchlings through to adulthood, using synchronized high-speed digital video cameras. The researchers then digitized 10 points on the birds' bodies and wings and used a computer program to analyze wing shape, body angle, wing beat and other factors.

Continue reading "How do birds fly" »

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Credit: New York University

Fish isolated in dark caves in Mexican waters for nearly a million years, like the two middle fish pictured above, have lost the ability to see.  They evolved into blind fish from the surface fish pictured at the top. What do they need eyes for if everything around them is pitch black 24/7? They've apparently evolved other tools for catching prey and finding mates.

Continue reading "Another amazing fish story" »

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Credit: AP

Imagine a rat 8 feet long that weighed about a ton. Scientists have found fossil remains of one that lived in South America four million years ago. South America was cut off from North America until the isthmus of Panama emerged about three millon years ago, making the continent a kind of treasure trove for fossils of strangely formed extinct animals. A bit like Australia, only closer to home. 

This particular animal, named Josephoartigasia monesi, actually was more closely related to a guinea pig or porcupine. It  was found in a marshy area between Uruguay and Argentina.

Like a lot of fascinating finds, this one stayed locked up in a museum for years until someone pulled it off a shelf and looked closely at it. Now it's front page news, or at least good fodder for a blog. There's more here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Credit: John White/UC Berkeley

Faithful readers of Science Matters know that we strive to bring you the very best in fish tales. Here's one about a fish with the ability to spit up five feet in the air to knock prey off twigs. For more look here

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Two federal agencies are cheering the initial results of efforts to save the nation's rarest native waterfowl - the Laysan teal.

Once common on the Hawaiian Island chain, the ground-nesting Laysan teal (Anas laysanesis) had vanished from all but one island by 1860, victim of the introduction of rats from European ships. They survived only on Laysan Island, a remote speck in the island chain five days from Honolulu by boat.

A type of duck, the Laysan teal is small, with multi-colored brown feathers accented by a white eye-ring and a bluish-green wing patch, orange legs and feet. It is active mostly at night, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and known for its habit of chasing insects across the mud flats on Laysan. The females build their nests in dense vegetation, but the nests, eggs and chicks are vulnerable to rats. The birds were unable to migrate to other islands.

By 1967 only a few hundred of the birds remained on Laysan, home to millions of other birds. The In 2004, the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the US Geological Survey began to trap Laysan teal, and by 2005 had 42 wild, mostly young birds ready to travel.

Continue reading "Of ducks and rats and hope" »

Posted by Frank Roylance at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)