Photo by AP

A sad tale, but true. More than two dozen dolphins died after they beached on the shore of Cornwall, England, according to an article in the Guardian today.

The bodies of 26 dolphins washed up on four different sites on the Percuil river. Some were still alive and guided back to sea. The dolphins' lungs and stomachs were filled with mud, suggesting they may have intentionally swallowed and inhaled the mud.

Veterinarians interviewed by the Guardian compared the incident to a mass suicide. The report didn't identify the species of the dolphins, but from the photo above, they look like the Common dolphin, (Delphinus delphis).

Very disturbing indeed. But what would push a pod of dolphins over the edge? The Royal Navy was using sonar for a live-fire excersice nearby, prompting the Guardian to theorize that the dolphins might have been disturbed by the noise. Fear of a killer whale or infection were also raised as possible causes.

Continue reading "UK dolphins found dead, called 'mass suicide'" »

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 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.

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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" »

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Credit: National Geographic Television

The death of Roy Scheider this week was a real loss to the American theater. All the obituaries about him noted his performance in Jaws and how one of his lines from the movie became one of the greatest movie lines of all time. He sets out in his little work boat to hunt a shark that's been attacking people, and when this enormous shark emerges from the water, dwarfing the boat itself, he looks stunned and says, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

It's great. What a lot people don't realize about Scheider is that he also was Gene Hackman's partner in another all time classic: The French Connection. 

In some ways, Hackman steals the show in that one as Popeye Doyle, setting an example of fine acting as a ruthless cop. But if you rewatch that movie, you can see Scheider's abilities as an understated straight man.

What has all this got to do with science. Well, Jaws was about sharks, and sharks have been known to kill people alright. So every year the University of Florida does an annual survey of human deaths at the hands of sharks.

Continue reading "We're going to need a bigger boat!" »

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AP Photo 

A leatherback turtle with a tracking device on its back swam the world's record for long distances: 13,000 miles across the Pacific, from Indonesia to the Oregon coast, and then back to Hawaii. It likely swam farther, but the tracking device's battery died.

What prompts such long distances? The desire for food and mates, of course. There's more on the story here.

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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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A study published this week in PLOS biology raises the issue of why chameleons change colors. It isn't just to blend in with their surroundings. It's to communicate.

Special thanks to Brandon Keim, who along with a blog posting on the study found the above You Tube video showing that chameleons have natural rhythm. If you don't have speakers turned on, make sure to wear headphones.

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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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In the battle between squirrels and snakes, don't count out the bushy tailed rodent.

Ground squirrels and rock squirrels in California have developed a number of interesting weapons. When they find a dead snake, for instance, they use its carcass as repellent. They find that chewing up the remains and rubbing their saliva on themselves discourages snake attacks.

Maybe it makes them smell like snake-eaters. Researcher Barbara Clucas, at UC Davis, found this out by observing snakes in the mountains of California, where squirrels have evolved survival tools for battling with snakes.

The California squirrels also will wave their tails to warm them up, sending a warning signal to rattlesnakes, which can “see” in the infrared, says Donald Owings, a UC Davis psychology professor.

They also can assess how dangerous a particular snake is, based on the sound of its rattle and have been known to  kick pebbles and even bite at rattlesnakes to assess their ferocity. There's more on the squirrels use of snake repellent here.

Posted by Dennis O'Brien at 7:37 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.

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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

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Associated Press

How does the monarch butterfly, with its tiny four-inch wing span, manage to migrate thousands of miles every year from Canada and the United States to 70-square miles of pine groves in central Mexico? With a circadian clock that uses the sun as a compass and makes adjustments as the sun moves across the sky to correct its flight path.

In studies published this week in Public Library of Science, Steven Reppert of the University of Massachusetts medical school details much about the monarch's circadian clock for the first time and identifies a new clock gene that links its clock to its compass. If nothing else, it's a beautiful animal.

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Credit: Associated Press

The oldest orangutan living in captivity has died in a Miami Zoo, according to the Associated Press.

Nonja, who was 55, was born on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and had lived in Miami since 1983. She was found dead Saturday morning, according to the spokesman for the Miami Metro Zoo.

A typical life span for Sumatran orangutans is 40 to 50 years. A necropsy is to be performed in the next few days.

Tree-living apes with flashy red manes, orangutans are believed to have distinct cultures that dictate how they build their nests, use tools, eat, show off for each other and even how they say good night.

In a 2003 study in Science, researchers reported that decades of observations of about 250 orangutans scattered across Borneo and Sumatra showed a wide range of cultural differences in their behavior, down to whether they sleep in a kind of bunk bed or under a thatched roof.

Jane Goodall first reported that chimpanzees used tools 30 years ago, and numerous studies have shown cultural traits among chimps, humans' closest genetic relative.

But the study by Carel van Schaik, a biological anthropology professor at Duke University, was the first to show culturally transmitted behavior -- conduct learned from others and passed on to individuals -- among orangutans, who are less social than chimps and live in smaller, more isolated groups.

Continue reading "Oldest orangutan dies" »

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Whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, can be distinguished from one another by star-like constellations of specks and stripes on their skin.

In fact, when biologists in Australia wanted to identify them  from digital photographs, they enlisted the help of a Maryland astronomer. Zaven Arzoumanian, a NASA astronomer from Greenbelt, helped adapt pattern-recognition software used by the Hubble space telescope to the purpose of identifying whales.

Continue reading "Whale watching and star gazing not so different after all" »

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Credit: AP

Reseachers have found what they say are species of one of the world's biggest rats and one of the tiniest opossums in a remote "Lost World," a mountainous rainforest in the Papua province of Indonesia.

The rat is about five times the size of a typical city rodent, according to Conservation International.

Pictured above -- presumably because it wasn't too hard to hold -- is a 3 pound rat. That's big: the typical adult rat weighs a little more than a half pound.

The creatures were discovered by Indonesian scientists and researchers from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Continue reading "Lost World Discovery: Giant Rats" »

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