#science news
Hints of an unexpected new particle could be confirmed within days.
If the observations are confirmed, it will be revolutionary. This could mean nothing less than the fall of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM), which has passed every experimental test thrown at it since it was first put together over four decades ago.
Orcas are the assholes of the sea
When Jorge Cervera Hauser went diving with friends in the Sea of Cortez in Baja, California, he was on a mission: to find orcas. Getting in the water with orcas is incredibly rare, Hauser says, and witnessing what they were about to witness, even rarer.
“I’ve been obsessed with orcas for more than seven years now,” says Hauser, CEO of the travel company Pelagic Fleet, “and I always seem to miss them.”
About an hour into the swim, the team spotted a pod of black-and-white whales. (Related: “Exclusive: Mysterious Orcas Filmed Underwater for the First Time”)
“In total, there were around six orcas spread out in groups of two or three. Every time we would jump into the water they would only do a flyby, quickly checking us out,” Hauser recalls. “But around our tenth jump, something changed.”
The orcas noticed a stingray that had come to the surface, possibly to give birth, Hauser says. Instead of zooming by the divers, the orcas began playing with the stingray: circling it, swatting it, and grabbing it to pull it further into the water. (Related: “First Case of Foster Infanticide Observed”)
Hauser says the ray was immediately stunned by the first slap, and was too weak and disoriented to get away from the whales. This behavior went on for about an hour and a half, until the whales killed the ray.
The divers suspected that after smacking around the ray, the whales would eat their prey. But instead, the orcas let the dead animal sink to the bottom of the ocean.
A vaccine for cat-allergy sufferers is on the way
Cat allergy vaccine in development could be game-changer for pet lovers
The Kea, the world’s only alpine parrot, is well known to tear into and eat the fat around the kidneys of living sheep
The kea is a species of large parrot in the family Nestoridae found in the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. About 48 cm long, it is mostly olive-green with a brilliant orange under its wings and has a large, narrow, curved, grey-brown upper beak.
This species of jellyfish cannot die of old age. It achieves this by aging backward after sexual maturity, going through reverse puberty so it can start the cycle again. This cycle can be repeated indefinitely.
3D Map Shows The Milky’s Perplexing Curves
Astronomers have created a new 3D map of the Milky Way galaxy, and in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy, illustrate that the galaxy as a whole has a warped structure, progressively twisting out into a spiral.
This isn’t exactly the biggest surprise. For decades, astronomers have observed a twisting pattern of hydrogen gas out in the far reaches of the galaxy. But since that gas layer extends so far out, it was never really clear whether individual stellar bodies in the galaxy were exhibiting the same kind of warping, and whether there was a consistent warp throughout the Milky Way.
This new 3D map wasn’t even intended to trace the galaxy’s warp. “Most science is serendipitous,” says Richard de Grijs, an astronomer based at Macquarie University in Sydney, and a coauthor of the new study. It was his former graduate student, lead author Xiaodian Chen, now at the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences, who had previously compiled a large collection of observations of over 50,000 stars in the galaxy, particularly in infrared. Chen decided to use observations of the Cepheids—a class of young, bright, pulsating stars—to attempt to outline the shape of the Milky Way.
The Cepheids are particularly useful for any astronomical investigation requiring you to trace distance through outer space. They show period changes in brightness over time, and measuring the cycles in those brightness can basically tell you the distance between two points down to an incredibly accurate scale. And since dust and gas doesn’t absorb much of the light on longer wavelengths, astronomers use infrared to look at those cycles.
And while the warping of the galaxy isn’t a new revelation, Elena D’Onghia, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin who was not involved with the study, thinks it’s interesting how the team took advantage of the Cepheids in creating the new galactic map that can characterize the warp at a rather high accuracy.
D'Onghia does note, however, that the origin of the warp still needs a more detailed explanation, especially since the hydrogen gas still seems to twist more rigorously then the stars do. “It could be due to torques exerted by a large satellite galaxy like the Large Magellanic Cloud, or the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that impacted the Milky Way disk not long ago,” she says. “It could be by torques exerted by the inner disk, as the authors claim. [They] do not really explore the different ways to generate the warp as compared to the data.”
Still, there are some larger astronomical questions the findings ought to help resolve, especially when it comes to dark matter. About 85 percent of the universe is thought to be made of dark matter. We can’t directly observe it, but its presence is implied because it gravitationally affects the movements of other celestial structures whirring around through outer space. “We know we need it to explain the motions of the stars in the Milky Way,” says de Grijs. Understanding the shape of the Milky Way means we can get a better handle on where that dark matter is located in the galaxy.
The findings also ought to help the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which is tasked with making observations of approximately one billion astronomical objects (about one percent of the Milky Way galaxy). The new map could give the Gaia project a benchmark with which to compare measurements as they come in.
And let’s not forget that Chen’s catalog of 50,000 is ripe for more thorough analysis to unveil more mysteries of the Milky Way. “There’s a lot more we can do with this and continue to explore what’s in the data,” says de Grijs.
How many people can say they have played rugby with a Beluga whale?
A new project in #Germany is retraining prostitutes to become care workers for elderly people.
The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is using €1m (£0.7m; $1.2m) of local and European Union money to try to get #sex trade workers off the street and into care homes.
Heinz Oberlach, from Germany’s Federal Labour Agency, said that using #prostitutes as care workers is “very logical,” as the nursing home sector is seriously understaffed and has some 6400 vacancies nationwide—despite a national unemployment rate of 12% in Germany. Reasons for the shortage include a recent clampdown on Eastern Europeans working illegally as care workers and the reluctance of Germans to take on the work.
Tiny turtle had 104 PIECES of plastic in its intestines when it washed up on a Florida beach and died.
The devastating discovery was reported by the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, according to a Tuesday Facebook post.
‘This turtle, which would fit in the palm of your hand, had eaten 104 pieces of plastic,’ the post says.
Garbage dumped in the ocean can last centuries, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A plastic bag can last 10 to 20 years and plastic straws as long as 200 before they degrade, reports the administration.
A six-ring plastic drink holder can linger around for 400 years and plastic water bottles 450.
The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, a cooperative project of the City of Boca Raton, the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, Florida Atlantic University, and Friends of Gumbo Limbo, monitors over 800 sea turtle nests each year within a five mile span of beaches.
'We rescue, rehabilitate, and release sick and injured sea turtles,’ says the group on its website. 'We release more than 9,000 stranded sea turtle hatchlings each nesting season.’
The group, during what is described as 'washback’ season reported that 'weak, tiny turtles are washing up along the coastline needing our help.’
The one turtle found with the deadly plastic pieces in its belly, wasn’t alone, according to the group.
Mesmerising imagery of Hurricane Dorian from space!
Supergene turns spider into a ‘macho male’
Biologists from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (@rbins)found in a spider species that ‘macho males’ have an extra set of genes that is lacking in feminized males. The study in Nature Ecology & Evolution explains how individuals of the same species can develop a strikingly different morphology. “We saw that throughout evolution genes may become grouped together and form a 'supergene’. As a result, they are neatly inherited in a single bundle”, says evolutionary biologist Frederik Hendrickx. Having that supergene or not makes the difference between looking very masculine or feminine in the males of this species.
In nature, you sometimes find two drastically different 'types’ within the same species and even within the same sex. For example, a primrose species has specimens with elevated anthers and anthers that are deeper in the stem, or damselfly and butterfly species with individuals having different colour patterns. This is also the case in the sheet-weaving spider Oedothorax gibbosus. There are two distinct types of males: 'flat’ and 'hunched’. The flat males look more like females and mature more quickly, allowing them to be the first to fertilize females. The hunched specimens have a complex head structure with glands and sensory hairs that allow them to seduce already fertilized females: they are 'macho males’.
Evolutionary biologist Frederik Hendrickx (RBINS): “The differences between these two types of males are enormous, at least as large as between two very different species, such as a tiger and a lion. When you mix tigers and lions you obtain an intermediate form – ligers or tigons, with both lion and tiger characteristics - because the genes are mixed up like a deck of cards. But in some species, like this spider, you neatly retain the two separate types. 'How this is possible is a largely unresolved mystery within evolutionary biology. The gibbosusspiders are a great opportunity to figure out how this works genetically.’
Supergene
The researchers screened the genome and found that the hunched males have a package of genes that is missing from the flat males. The package consists of genes that you also find elsewhere in the genome. Natural selection caused those copies to lie neatly next to each other so that offspring receive them as a single package. "The genome appears to be surprisingly dynamic,” says Hendrickx. “The genes responsible for the development of these conspicuous male traits are moved or duplicated and end up grouped together, so that they are inherited as a bundle. This is a huge eye-opener.”
The bundle is called a supergene. The extra piece of genome not only explains the difference between the two types, but also why we find no intermediate forms, no half-half versions. Only the genes necessary for the development of hunched males have grouped together in this supergene. The flat males can perfectly live without them. This explains why the population breaks down into two types: either super-masculine or female-like males.
Chain Reaction
When the evolutionary biologists zoomed into the supergene, they found that one of the genes in the supergene is a copy of the doublesex gene. All animals - including us - have that gene. Doublesex is a transcription factor: it switches other genes on or off. It’s a big on-button for typical male characteristics. “If the doublesex gene is turned off in mice, the males develop something resembling ovaries,” says Hendrickx. The development of male characteristics in gibbosusspiders occurs after a chain reaction: the sex chromosomes activate that doublesex gene, which in turn turns on other genes that provide male traits, both genes that are inside and outside the supergene package. Flat males have no supergene and therefore no extra on-button doublesex. They don’t develop those extra male characteristics: no hump, no extra glands and no hair. “In most species, the development of sexual characteristics depends on much more than the sex chromosomes. It’s a cascade of genes that are switched on or off, and one link more or less can make a big difference.”
Toolbox
Still, flat males do differ markedly from females. They possess male sex organs, produce sperm and can reproduce. That is because there are five more doublesex genes in other places of the genome, which tap into basic male characteristics.
“You could think of the supergene as a toolbox: over the course of evolution, more and more genes have ended up in that toolbox. An extra doublesex gene and other genes for distinct male characteristics were added to the box because they provided a clear advantage. The spiders with the supergene develop extra male characteristics. Those that do not inherit the toolbox only develop the basic male characteristics.”
[: 1. ARABEL-image bank/Gilbert Loos; 2. RBINS]
Listen to the smell of insects! Researchers have translated odours emitted by insects to defend themselves against predators into sounds.
‘We sent the volatiles via an algorithm to a synthesizer and then tested the sounds on volunteers,’ says entomologist Jean-Luc Boevé (@rbins). 'People reacted to the sounds just as strongly or weakly as the predators to the smells.’
[Hear for yourself]
Chemical signals play a crucial role in the insect world, including as a defence weapon. Take the larvae of sawflies. They are often attacked by ants . The larvae try to keep them at bay by emitting a cocktail of chemical substances that the ants cannot tolerate. Many insect species have similar defence tactics. But how do you measure the effect of that smell on the predator?
There are tests in which ants can perceive substances separately or in a mixture, and their response is measured. But that can be difficult: you need to find sometimes rare insect species in the field and/or rear them in the lab.
Enter: sonification. If you know from a prey insect the chemical substances and their concentrations, you can convert them into sounds . ‘Take a small molecule, such as acetic acid, that evaporates very quickly,’ says Boevé. ‘We gave it a high tone, larger molecules a lower one. Other characteristics influenced the duration, the timbre and volume.’
Boevé and informatics engineer Rudi Giot measured how far the volunteers were walking away from the speakers. Some subjects described certain sounds as unpleasant and frightening. Some sounds would indeed fit in the soundtrack of a horror movie . Boevé: 'To our surprise, the tests showed that the humans reacted against the sounds as the ants did against the odours.’
(Photo credit: Karen Huntt / Corbis, TIME.com “Babies Vs. Chimps…”)
Environment, not evolution, might underlie some human-ape differences (ScienceDaily, 15 July 2019)
Apes’ abilities have been unfairly measured, throwing into doubt the assumed belief that human infants are superior to adult chimpanzees, according to a new study (published in Animal Cognition) by leaders in the field of ape cognition.
[Researchers] say it should come as no surprise that apes raised in institutions would not perform well compared with humans raised in western families, especially when tested with western cultural practices, for example, gestures such as pointing…
“Most studies, comparing apes with human children, for instance, have been poorly designed, with different relevant experiences given to each species, testing them at different ages in many cases, and then claiming to have found a difference in social cognition between humans and apes, but the species haven’t been treated similarly before or during the tests.
"These studies suffer from the same type of prejudice that once existed in studies of human intelligence, which started from a biased position of assuming northern Europeans were innately more intelligent than southern Europeans. We argue the same type of bias is apparent in cross-species studies…”
The researchers say it’s vital scientists realise that environmental experiences vary among humans (both between children and adults, and between people with different cultural experiences) and among apes (also from young to old, and between apes with different experiences).
"…To truly understand the abilities of each species, research needs to examine specific individual learning histories within specific ecological circumstances for both humans and for apes.
“We urge researchers to stop using fallacious research designs and reasoning in studies of comparative cognition.” (full article)
Story Article:
University of Portsmouth. “Environment, not evolution, might underlie some human-ape differences.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 July 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190715094847.htm>.
Journal Reference:
David A. Leavens, Kim A. Bard, William D. Hopkins. The mismeasure of ape social cognition. Animal Cognition, 2017; 22 (4): 487 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-017-1119-1