COUNCIL CHRONICLE – The deer hunting season started with a big problem in the United States. A lot of animals, in several states, have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. The cases are more frequent in Minnesota than in other states. It seems that the deer population might be facing an outbreak.

Last year, more than 11 cases were confirmed. Now, there are seven new cases investigated in Minnesota. These were discovered in hunted deer. However, from a sample of 700 hunted deer, only 7 cases were reported, which means that there is a 1 percent rate of infections.

In order to make sure that the chronic wasting disease hasn’t spread too much, the DNR is also testing hunted deer from other regions. The first results showed no sign of disease in the deer tested in Meeker and Crow Wing counties.

Deer are suffering from chronic wasting disease in more states than just Minnesota. Michigan, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Montana also reported deer with chronic wasting disease. Hunters are starting to be worried by this issue. This might also start causing problems in the hunting industry.

Chronic Wasting Disease

This condition is a transmissible disease which affects white-tailed deer, elk, reindeer, moose, and mule deer. It usually develops in adult animals, and it is progressive. Besides that, it is also fatal for the animal. Some of the first symptoms include difficulties in movement, weight loss, nervousness, tremors, and a lowering of the head.

There are no cases of chronic wasting disease reported in humans. Nonetheless, the CDC warns people against eating the meat of an animal that was infected with this condition because this might be risky. People are advised to test the meat if it was taken from a deer in an area affected by this disease. When people are field testing the animals, they should wear rubber gloves, wash the instruments, and wear eye protection. Also, it is important not the handle the brain or the spinal tissues of the infected animal, to avoid spreading the disease.

Image Source: PublicDomainPictures 

Most of the time, animals have a special way of warning other members of their groups if danger is approaching. Usually, they alarm other by issuing special calls or screams, but a certain species called crested pigeons do it without using their vocal skills. Instead, the warning signal is produced by their feathers as they fly.

Crested pigeons produce high-pitched sounds when they fly

Crested pigeons have a bigger feather which produces a special kind of high-pitched call when air frictions with it. Whenever they feel threatened by a predator and they start flapping their wings more rapidly, this call becomes more alert. At first, researchers thought this is only the result of a regular flight.

However, they noticed an interesting behavior in other crested pigeons. They observed them while a specimen got chased by a predator and, upon hearing the alarm, all the other pigeons in the group flew away. Therefore, they perceived the signal and hid from danger.

The first one to suggest that birds could send alarms by non-vocal means was Charles Darwin. However, it was hard to prove it. The fact that crested pigeons flew noisily was not a mystery and, finally, researchers observed that other pigeons did pay attention to these sounds.

The loud call alarms other pigeons that danger approaches

For the study, researchers shot high-speed videos which then they could slow down, and identified two feathers which produced high and low sounds, respectively. As soon as the birds started flapping faster, the sounds went even higher in pitch. Then, they removed the feather responsible for the high call, and recorded the resulting sound.

When the other crested pigeons heard the high-pitched sound made by the respective feather, the birds fled. When they heard the sound made without the feather, they just looked cautiously around. Therefore, this mechanism of loud flying has a clear purpose, and is truly effective in helping other specimens in the group escape danger.

The study has been published in the journal Current Biology.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

COUNCIL CHRONICLE – A team of scientists reported that they have spotted and rediscovered an extremely rare species of salamander, one which hasn’t been seen in more than four decades.

The species is known as the Bolitoglossa Jacksoni or Jackson’s Climbing Salamander and was first discovered back in 1975, in Guatemala. Paul Elias, the first one to spot it, named it after Jeremy Jackson, his colleague. Also, the salamander’s appellation of “the golden wonder” is based on its beauty.

Nonetheless, the species hasn’t been seen since its 1970s discovery, even though efforts have been made in that direction. In 2014, an expedition set out with this specific target, and together with both Elias and Jackson, but failed to find any new specimens.

The Extremely Rare Salamander Reappearance Was an “Incredible and Unexpected” Event

GWC or the Global Wildfire Conservation members are the ones to have found the salamander. They did so through the organization’s Search for Lost Initiatives program. Jackson’s Climbing salamander is part of a list of elusive and incredibly rare species named the “25 Most Wanted Lost Species”.

Many of the species haven’t been seen in decades, for example, the Scarlet Harlequin frog or the Fernandina Galapagos tortoise, or Wellington’s Solitary coral. The list itself is just the incredibly short version of a catalog of around 1,200 plant and animal species that are considered missing.

In trying to find new specimens of the extremely rare salamander, the GWC managed to name its habitat, the Cuchumatanes Mountain range a natural reserve. This was achieved in collaboration with the Rainforest Trust, and resulted in the Finca San Isidro Amphibian reserve.

A guard at this reserve is the one to have spotted the third ever discovered Jackson’s Climbing salamander, which is also a young specimen. Specialists later confirmed its belonging to the species’.

“This rediscovery can only be a good omen for the future of the Search for Lost Species campaign. It’s a sign that if we get out there and work at it, many of these species can be found and saved,” declared Don Church, who is the GWC president.

Jackson’s Climbing Salamander rediscovered in Guatemala 42 years after last sighting! https://t.co/fkSFkBXqDS Photo: Carlos Vasquez Almazan pic.twitter.com/SF78lVw3e2

— Amphibians.org (@amphibiansorg) October 30, 2017

Image Source: Maxpixel

COUNCIL CHRONICLE – Shrews, these tiny grey mammals seem to be better adapted for surviving the colder seasons and passing over the warm months than initially believed. Namely, the species can shrink its body size, including that of its head, in accordance with the season and its demands.

Anyone observing shrews can easily notice that they are larger in the summer than in the winter. As some believed that the smaller specimens might die during the cold months, a team of researchers decided to investigate this theory.

Adult Shrews Are Double in Size During the Summer

The research team conducted its study in Germany, where they used live traps to capture specimens of this tiny mammal. They captured Sorex araneus or common shrews, measured them, released them, and then repeated this action.

Some 100 specimens were captured in the spring, had their size measured and their brains and skeletons analyzed through X-rays and computer imaging. They were then released and recaptured several times the following year. Of the 100 captured, 37 shrews were caught more than once.

These helped reveal that the same specimen can decrease in size during the winter and increase in the summer.

“We don’t know why for sure why this happens. We hypothesize that they have developed these shrinkings to face the winter months when they have less food,” states Javier Lázaro, part of the study and the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

The team of researchers was also rather surprised to note that the skeleton, skull, and brain of the shrews shrunk as well. Specialists are still unsure how this might be affecting their intelligence.

In general, the team noted that, during the winter, a common shrew weighs around 6 grams while an adult summer one has about 14 to 15 grams. This is an advantageous adaptation for a species that can’t leave its environment but has few winter food sources.

It is a fascinating change, which could have broad implication as these mammals can regenerate their bone tissue in a still unknown mechanism, claim the researchers.

Current study findings are available in a paper in the journal Current Biology.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – According to a new study, normal flowers attract bees with a special trick ‘imbedded’ in their petals, which have a series of nanoscale ridges on their surface that generate what scientists are calling the “blue halo”.

The results of this latest research indicate that even the simplest flowers may be more complex than they seem at a first glance, as the “blue halo” is an elaborate optical illusion.

“The exciting thing is that it is a new optical trick – we didn’t know that flowers could use disorder to generate a specific color, and that is quite clever,” says the study co-author, Professor Beverley Glover.

Flowers Attract Bees Thanks to the Light, and Not Their Smell

This newest research is based on a previous study which determined that the petals of some flower species have tiny ridges on them. These were noted to be capable of diffracting light and also of bending it. In turn, this gives the flower itself a sort of iridescent sheen.

Now, a team of University of Cambridge specialists took these results one step further as they took a closer look at the tiny ridges and bumps. Using several microscopy techniques, the team examined and analyzed the petals of 12 different species of the flowering plant family tree and how these scattered and diffracted light.

This helped show that each species of flower presented a different ridge “architecture”. While some of them showed variations on the spacing of these ridges, others had fluctuating heights.

However, all the flowers were noted to have two elements in common. All of them had a weak iridescent sheen around their petals, and in all the cases, the ridges were observed to be scattering blue and ultraviolet light.

This creates an optical illusion that the team is calling a “blue halo” and which can be seen even with the naked human eye in darkly pigmented flowers, says the team.

The Blue Halo, Another Reason Why Flowers Attract Bees

To test the effects of this optical illusion, the study team created a series of “fake flowers”. One had a smooth surface, and the other had ridges that produced either a blue halo or an iridescent sheen.

Then, bees were released on them and faced with black squares with a sweet or bitter tasting solution.

Even though the squares got rearranged, the bees learned and were able to go straight to the sweet solution squares. They were also better at it when the squares had a blue halo, even more so than when they had the iridescent sheen.

Scientists believe that flowers may have adapted the petal ridges as an independent part of their evolution. This might have appeared as a way of attracting pollinators, especially as these are very good at seeing UV and blue light.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – The 54 million years old remains of a sea turtle hatchling are bringing to light new elements about one of this species most important evolutionary traits. It helps show that the colors of a modern sea turtle’s shell are actually a million years old inheritance passed on down the generations.

Sea Turtle Baby Remains Take Us Back to the Eocene

Back in 2008, explorations in the Für formation in Jutland, Denmark revealed that a very well-preserved Tasbacka Danica or a species of sea turtle known to have lived during the Eocene period, around 56 million to 34 million years ago.

The specimen was determined to be a sea turtle baby and is just 3 inches long. Johan Lindgren, a paleontologist part of Lund University also discovered what appeared to be soft tissue residues on what must have been the hatchling’s left shoulder. Five small samples were then taken for biomolecular analysis.

A series of “high-resolution analytical technique” helped reveal the presence of eumelanin, proteinaceous molecules, and heme in the samples. These are the components of pigment, protein, and blood.

“The data not only support the preservation of multiple proteins but also suggest that coloration was used for physiology as far back as the Eocene, in the same manner as it is today,” states Mary Schweitzer.

She is study co-author and biological studies professor at North Carolina State University.

The test results led the researchers to believe that this sea turtle baby and its Eocene relatives had the same dark coloration typical of most of their present-day counterparts.

Having dark colored shells helps sea turtles avoid seagulls and other aerial predators. It also alows them to absorb the heat from sunlight, which is used in regulating their body temperature.

A higher corporal temperature was also linked to a faster growth in sea turtles, which also reduce the period in which they are vulnerable on the ocean surface.

The study paper was released in the journal Scientific Reports.

Image Source: Pixabay 

COUNCIL CHRONICLE – Research has long since indicated that dolphins are complex, intelligent creatures, with almost the same being said about whales as well. However, a recent study suggests that both these Cetaceans might have actually been slighted as dolphins and whales appear to be living in human-like, complex societies.

This latest study paper on the matter, released in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, is the result of a collaboration between American and British researchers. They come from Stanford University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Manchester, and the University of British Columbia.

The Complex Societies of These Cetaceans Linked to The Size of Their Brains

The study team declares to have initially set out to try and demonstrate that dolphins really are as intelligent as they are being presented. To do so, they monitored and studied more than 90 different dolphin, porpoise, and whale species.

According to their report, this revealed that Cetaceans (which is the collective name given to water-dwelling mammals) live and are organized in very human-like societies.

Namely, dolphins, as well as whales, seem to be very co-operative and to adapt their behavior to the group’s needs. For example, the researchers claim to have found overwhelming evidence that suggests that these mammals can go and help search for the lost offspring of their group.

This also pointed out that they might be capable of complex alliance relationships as well as cooperative hunting. They might even allegedly be able to teach other members of the group how to hunt, for example.

The studied mammals also presented signs of social play, vocal communication, and even alloparenting, a rare thing in the animal kingdom.

A closer look at these results linked their presence to encephalization. This is the name given to the evolutionary growth of the brain and the larger brain size linked to it.

“That means the apparent co-evolution of brains, social structure and behavioral richness of marine mammals provides a unique and striking parallel to the large brains and hyper-sociality of humans and other primates on land,” states Susanne Shultz, one of the researchers involved in the report.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – Scientists have been wondering just how much power a wind turbine located far offshore could actually produce. Because of this, a team of researchers set out and established that wind farms located in the North Atlantic might actually be capable of powering the entire planet.

Stanford’s Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Global Ecology researchers are behind this new theoretical study.

The research team’s initially pondering revolved around the idea of building a wind farm offshore. They were wondering what such a plant’s maximum potential would actually be. Then, they extended this hypothesis and wondered whether this could actually power the entire globe.

The scientists compared the efficiency of a wind turbine on land versus one offshore. In doing so, they established that the speed of the wind over the open ocean is some 70 percent higher than that on land. One of the reasons behind this, according to the researchers, is the unobstructed flow of the winds.

Wind Farms in the Atlantic and Their Possible Utility

The study’s research duo then looked at the Atlantic Ocean, in particular. In doing so, they found that the wind currents blowing over the area are capable of generating some 70 percent higher speed than those breezing over land.

This is due, in part, to the confluence of strong and unobstructed winds. The ocean in itself is another important factor. Calculations seem to point out that the surface heat flux of the area is more than capable of contributing to the needed kinetic energy. The surface heat flux is basically the radiation released by the ocean waters as they cool down.

Based on their results, the scientists determined that wind farms built in the area would have a higher maximum force than those on land.

“While no commercial-scale deep water wind farms yet exist, our results suggest that such technologies, if they became technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilization-scale power,” say the researchers.

Their computational and mathematical modelings also reached the conclusion that a sizeable wind farm or possibly a group of wind farms could allegedly be capable of supplying the whole world’s energetic needs on its own.

Still, such a wind farm would have to be some 1.2 million square miles big, which still accounts for no more than 3 percent of the entire outspread of the Atlantic Ocean.

Detailed study findings are available in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Image Source: Wikimedia

COUNCIL CHRONICLE – A new study claims to have found out one of the reasons why our human ancestors left Africa, the continent called by many “the cradle of life”. Based on this latest research, the continent’s climate went from wet and teeming with life to very dry some 60,000 years ago.

Genetic research had previously indicated that humanity migrated from Africa into Eurasia somewhere between 70,000 to 55,000 years ago.

“There has always been a question about whether climate change had any influence on when our species left Africa,” states Jessica Tierney, of the University of Arizona.

Drying Land and Climate Change

Research had already suggested that the climate in Africa must have been wetter at the time when humanity was first living there. This would have been a necessary condition, one that would have allowed their crossing the Horn of Africa and also the Middle East to get to Eurasia.

Now, the new study suggests that northeast Africa was a drying land or was already arid as our ancestors left the continent. The researchers established that, more than 70,000 years ago, the Horn of Africa was passing through a “Green Sahara” wet phrase.

Then, some 70,000 years ago, this shifted and started getting drier, becoming even more arid than it is today. Also, the area must have become colder.

The study team determined these facts by studying a core of ocean sediment. This was taken from the Gulf of Aden’s western end in 1965.

By studying it, scientists were able to estimate rainfall and temperature records. They also analyzed sediment layers looking for marine algae.

Based on the data gathered from it, the researchers believe that people were “forced out” of Africa by the climatic changes.

The fact that the climate was drier might have been a “motivating source” for the incoming migration. Detailed study results are available in a paper published in the journal Geology.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – On September 26, 32 scientists representing 12 countries returned from a nine-week voyage to explore the sunken continent of Zealandia, located in the South Pacific, have returned home by after landing in Hobart, Tasmania.

Scientists had confirmed that Zealandia was the seventh known continent only earlier this past year. Since 94 percent of the continent is over a kilometer OR 2/3 of a mileS underwater, little was known about it. The only parts above water are islands like Lord Howe Island and New Zealand itself.

Scientists Returned From First Exploration of Zealandia

Researchers part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) are the organizers of the scientific expedition to this submerged continent. The IODP is an organization composed of researchers from 23 countries. It organizes voyages to study the rocks and sediments on the seafloor to learn about the geological history of the planet.

The explorers traveled on the research vessel “JOIDES Resolution” to survey and sample the sunken continent. Several of them drilled into the seabed at six different sites that were over 1250 meters or 4101 feet deep. They collected sediment cores that showed how the continent’s climate, geography, and vulcanism changed over the last 70 million years.

The scientists also collected 8,000 fossils and identified several hundred species. According to Dr. Gerald Dickens of Rice University in Texas, some of the fossils indicate that Zealandia was not always underwater. Some of them, for

Some of them, for example, came from land plants, while others came from creatures that lived in shallow seas. That suggests that the continent, which is about the size of India, didn’t sink beneath the waves until it separated from Antarctica and Australia some 80 million years ago.

“This expedition offered insights into Earth’s history, ranging from mountain-building in New Zealand to the shifting movements of Earth’s tectonic plates to changes in ocean circulation and global climate,” says the research team.

The researchers have a lot more research planned. They will study their currently gathered samples to learn more about the submerged continent’s climatic history, including how it was affected by climate change. Researchers also plan on studying the evolution and dispersal of plants and animals. At least one more scientific expedition is scheduled for sometime next year.

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