Chris Remien a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis uses math to better understand how biological markers relate to the diets of animals
The food and water animals consume leave chemical signatures (biomarkers) in their tissues; however metabolism sometimes alters these signatures.
We would catch tadpoles put them in our backyard pond and watch them turn into frogs.
Spending time outside has led to a fascination with the natural world that continues to this day.
We have used stable isotopes to quantify African elephant diet over time as it relates to rainfall history
which is useful information for elephant conservation. Typically after rainfall grasses become more abundant and constitute a greater portion of an elephant's diet.
Using carbon isotopes in hair we can see exactly how much grass these animals are eating
and how their diet changes with changes in rainfall. Similarly we have used carbon isotopes in fossil soils to determine the fraction of woody cover sites that bear hominin fossils a problem that has implications for the history of our species
. Because woody plants and grasses have very different carbon isotope ratios there is a strong relationship between carbon isotope ratios of soil
Anything from Modest Mouse to Johnny cash to classical depending on the mood of the day. Editor's Note:
or animals that have been created with gene-splicing techniques or genetic engineering. According to the Worldwatch Institute corn accounts for 31 percent of all genetically modified crops.
and is depicted wearing feathers and shells and holding an atlatl (spear-thrower) features associated with Teotihuacan writes researcher John Montgomery in his book Tikal:
An Illustrated History of the Mayan Capital (Hippocrene Books 2001. The numerous cities found throughout the Maya world each had their own individual wonders that made them unique.
According to the stories the forefather gods Tepew and Q ukumatz oebrought forth the earth from a watery void and endowed it with animals
and could be depicted as a serpent or two-headed reptile. Other Maya deities included the sun god K inich Ajaw the rain and storm god Chaak and the lightning deity K awiil among many others.
Krampus dragging bad children to the underworld pine trees kissing Santa lighting a cigar off a Christmas tree anthropomorphic mice decorating trees and cats tossing snowballs.
OK people still love pictures of animals acting like humans but how does one explain the Christmas cards that show a dead bird lying on its back with the words May yours be a joyful Christmas above?
There really isn't much more known about why dead birds are shown on several cards Grossman wrote in an email.
Another time another sensibility. Follow Megan Gannon onâ Twitterâ andâ Google+.+Â Follow us@livescienceâ Facebook &â Google+.
Researchers tested a high dose of garcinia cambogia extract on obese male rats. The good news? The rats lost weight!
The bad news? Extremely high doses seemed to cause testicular atrophy and toxicity. Yikes! If you do decide to hop on the latest bandwagon
And as researchers saw in the 2005 study on rats there may be consequences to taking large doses. Until we have more research to draw from we can't know what is truly safe.
For vegetarians printed meat somewhat circumvents concerns about harmful or destructive use of animals for food.
Live animals are used only to provide cells from which cell lines can be grown (though the blood of unborn cows is needed to culture most cells.
Ethical vegans may still object at the use of nonhuman animals for human purposes; while non-destructive it is still exploitative.
if there is no animal slaughter involved. While we typically oeeat with our eyes and printed meat could be made in familiar shapes
I want to climb with the lemurs. I'm fascinated with the primates in Madagascar and would love to get up there
and join their troop for a few days. This article originally appeared as The Adventures of a Professional Tree-Climber in the magazine Sierra.
#The Wackiest Moms of the Animal kingdom Mom mother madre mutter mama mum whatever you call her everyone has one.
While Mother's day celebrates human mothers there are a lot of other moms in the animal kingdom worth a shout out.
Here's a look at some of the wackiest animal mothers. 1. Kangaroo adopters The roo riding around in a kangaroo's pouch may not be her own.
Female kangaroos sometimes adopt baby kangaroos though it might be accidental. Such an accidental adoption doesn't happen often
but when it does a mother kangaroo will care for a changeling roo for the rest of its pouch life
and nurse it for several months afterward during the young-at-foot stage when the juvenile kangaroo permanently exits the pouch.
A Pouchful of Cute While there have been a few cases of marsupials fostering babies in captivity such cases are less common in the wild.
Still some animals such as sea lions have been known to adopt in the wild. 2. Cuckoo sneak When it comes to rearing young female cuckoo birds farm the task out to others.
Cuckoo moms lay their eggs in the nests of other birds which raise them unwittingly.
Often the other birds are a smaller species and the cuckoo chick hatches first grows faster
and kicks the other chicks out of the nest. The other chicks die and the cheeky cuckoo receives all of the adoptive mother's attention. 3. Bloodsucking ants Count Dracula isn't the only creature with a taste for bodily fluids:
The tiny endangered Adetomyrma ant from Madagascar drinks the fluids of its own young. After the queen ant gives birth to her larvae she
and the other worker ants gnaw holes in the larvae and suck out the circulatory system fluid known as haemolymph (the insect equivalent of blood).
Luckily the baby ants survive this so-called nondestructive cannibalism but it can't be very pleasant.
It's not clear why the behavior exists but transferring fluids may be a form of social behavior in the ants scientists say. 4. Monkey baby killers Some animals head off motherhood before it starts to spare their babies undue hardship after they're born.
When a male gelada baboon takes over a breeding group from a previous male he usually kills any babies of the former union.
To prevent the bloodshed pregnant female geladas will often spontaneously have a miscarriage. The phenomenon was discovered first in 1959 in mice by biologist Hilda Bruce
and is known as the Bruce effect. It has since been reported in other rodent species but was known not to exist outside the lab until scientists observed it in geladas. 5. Spider cannibals The female Stegodyphus spider is the ultimate selfless mother.
She watches over her egg cocoon until her babies hatch at which point she starts regurgitating most of her meals to feed her offspring.
Once the babies are about a month old mommy spider rolls onto her back letting her babies climb aboard.
There they inject venom and digestive enzymes into their mother to kill her and subsequently feast on the remains.
Before leaving the nest some of the ravenous babies cannibalize each other. 7. Bonobo wing-moms Unlike human males bonobo males hang out with mom
when they're trying to find a mate. For low-to mid-ranking bonobos one of humans'closest relatives in the primate world have more opportunities to mate
when their mothers are nearby. Mother bonobos expose their sons to females in her social circle
and scare off rival males. The moms aren't just being helicopter parents they stand to pass on their genes
if their efforts result in grandkids researchers say. 8. Frog taxi service The strawberry poison arrow frog pulls out all the stops
when it comes to caring for her little ones. She will lay up to five eggs
and once the tadpoles hatch she ferries each one on her back from the rain forest floor up to trees as tall as 100 feet (30 meters).
Up in the trees mama frog seeks out safe water pool nurseries in the leaves for each baby.
Mama frog then feeds her hatchlings some of her own unfertilized eggs over the next six to eight weeks of their development into frogs.
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because there may be other causes like cracks in the wood or insects. But the majority of sounds that occur during cavitations (tiny air bubbles that pop out in the water) are due to these bubbles.
#Tiger Tracker: Tales from a Conservation Biologist Elephants really really hate camera flashes. When conservation biologist Firoz Ahmed installs camera traps in Kaziranga National park in northeastern India's Assam state he
and his colleagues must return every day to check on the reinforced metal boxes. Often the cameras have been torn down and trampled.
Because the traps are installed in pairs to capture each side of a passing tiger Ahmed has photographic evidence.
We've got kung-fu elephants. They just come and kick our camera traps Ahmed said.
That's why we go every day to put the camera in position again. Some camera traps are touched not
and some are told every day Ahmed Ouramazingplanet. Even a heavy steel box weighing 30 pounds (12 kilograms) isn't elephant-proof
because tusks can poke inside a camera lens opening Ahmed said. We have to have equipment that can sustain an elephant trampling for an hour he said.
See images of Ahmed's work. Ahmed is a full-time tiger tracker and staff biologist for Aaranyak a nonprofit organization dedicated to wildlife conservation.
He also studies turtles and other reptiles. One of his primary work sites is Kaziranga National park. The area's rich biodiversity has earned it recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
but northeast India is also home to 40 million people representing 220 ethnic communities and tribes.
How have improved camera traps our knowledge of tiger populations? Firoz Ahmed: The stripes of a tiger can never lie.
The pugmarks footprints can lie. The same individual tiger can have different pugmarks. In some places where there were no tigers people made pugmarks out of their own plaster casts.
Personnel were expected to locate tiger tracks and obtain plaster casts or tracings of the pugmarks.)Now they cannot do that
because they have to show tigers from their own camera traps. Iconic Cats: All 9 Subspecies of Tiger OAP:
Do tigers try to avoid the cameras? FA: They recognize the cameras. When we resampled an area we had less population density
and we believe it is recognized because they the camera traps. Initially what we used had a very bad focusing flash
and they figured it out. We're not using those anymore. They are very cunning
and they know their habitat very well. When we put up a camera they come and look at it
and they remember that place. They think I know there is a camera here and I don't like it.
When we go out and monitor our cameras we see signs of a tiger moving around then we see them go around the camera behind the camera
and come out on the road again. So we shift the camera to prevent that. After a week we shift it 50 meters 165 feet on one side and 100 meters 325 feet on the other side.
You snapped a well-known tiger photograph in Kaziranga in 2010. How did you get the shot?
because in Kaziranga you don't see a tiger. The tiger can see you but you don't see a tiger.
This tiger we saw it from a distance and we went close to him and took this photograph.
Then he realized that there was somebody around and he sped off. OAP: How do you navigate through the forest?
FA: We put cameras mostly on the roads and paths because the tigers don't like to go through the grass.
In the grassland they can't go through the grass on their own. The holes that the elephants and the rhinos and the buffalos make that becomes the highway
and then the other animals follow. We also carry a laptop into the forest and
I use Google earth quite a lot because nobody goes there. We know the GPS location to go
because we know there are nice wetlands with herbivores on the other side. We know that
if we put a camera trap there we will get tigers. We always put a camera trap in a place where there is a maximum likelihood of getting a tiger.
So this place has rhinos more than 2000 of them and we always pray in the morning I don't want to see a rhino.
OAP: What are some of the threats faced by tigers in India? FA: This is a human-dominated place.
In some places the population is from 13 to 300 people per square kilometer 0. 4 square mile
and there is pressure on the resources because of that. These forests have been opened in a number of places.
What should people in the United states know about tigers in India? FA: They should know that the tigers are very important.
They should know they are disappearing from large tracts of forest in India and other range countries and try to help as much s they can.
and volunteer and help local villagers understand the importance of tigers in the area. They can do home-stay instead of staying in big lodge
In the last two weeks we lost four rhinos to poachers and in the last six months we lost about 20 rhinos to poachers.
We killed only two poachers. The area is not remote it is in the middle of the state
or they get their animals. The Assam Forest Department is allowed to kill them. Kaziranga has about 2200 Asiatic one-horned rhinos India's biggest conservation success story.
We also got poachers. They killed a rhino on Jan 14 2011 and we thought maybe we got them on camera
and we did. So we made this poster because we had a very good profile picture
Lycopene is a potent scavenger of gene-damaging free radicals. But don't expect to get it from a supplement.
#Too much Deer Pee Changing Northern Forests The booming deer population in the northern United states is bad for the animal's beloved hemlocks a new study finds.
During Michigan winters white-tailed deer converge on stands of young hemlocks for protection from winter chill and predators.
The same deer return every year to their favorite clumps of the bushy evergreens called deeryards.
The high concentration of deer in a small space saturates the soils with nitrogen from pee according to a study published online in the journal Ecology.
While deer pee can be a valuable source of nitrogen a rare and necessary nutrient for plants some deeryards are now too rich for the hemlocks to grow.
Herbivores like deer interact with the ecosystem in two ways. One is by eating plants
but deer overpopulation is a factor he added. With the reduced hemlock cover available for deer the booming white-tailed deer population means more deer crowd into the remaining forest.
The researchers found more than 100 deer per square mile (2. 6 square kilometers) in popular deeryards.
And young hemlocks have a tough time recovering from the deer nibbling and browsing. In the eastern United states an invasive sap-sucking bug called the adelgid is also killing off hemlocks.
The Upper Midwest represents one of the last strongholds of hemlocks Murray said. Email Becky Oskin or follow her@beckyoskin. Follow usâ@OAPLANET Facebookâ & Google+.
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#Top Foods Children Choke On For kids the food most likely to go down the wrong pipe
and animals may change their migration or breeding times. Longer growing seasons may mean increased forest growth
some birds produce additional clutches of eggs; and many insects (including pests such as bark beetles in the West
or gypsy moths in the East) reproduce more quickly and often. Tracking and understanding those changes requires data a great deal of data deally spread over time and distance.
 Data from satellites in space offer us important clues about how plants are responding to spring summer and autumn conditions
Of course there is no cholesterol in margarine as cholesterol is produced only by living animals. There is no cholesterol in pretzels either.
#Tree-Killing Insects Adapting to Warmer Cities Bizarre-looking bugs known as scale insects may be tiny but they can take down an oak tree.
Considered pests the creatures tend to flock to cities where they weaken and in some cases kill trees by sucking out their sap.
A new study shows that scale insects are found in big numbers in populous regions because they have adapted to the heat of urban areas.
The pests threaten to become a bigger problem as climate change drives temperatures up researchers warn.
We now have a better understanding of why trees in urban areas are infested by so many of these pests study researcher Steve Frank an assistant professor of entomology at North carolina State university said in a statement.
And if climate change causes temperatures to rise in forests as we expect we may see scale insects becoming a much bigger problem for ecosystem health.
Frank and his colleagues analyzed the Raleigh N c. populations of the oak lecanium scale insect (Parthenolecanium quercifex)
The team then collected scale insect egg sacs from both hot and cool zones and incubated them in hot and cool greenhouses.
In the hot greenhouse the egg sacs from the warmest urban zones produced almost four times as many insects as the egg sacs from cooler urban zones.
and the fertility rates among the insects from both hot and cold zones of the city but they did not find any significant differences.
The scientists concluded that the bugs have adapted locally in response to urban warming. The scale insects in the hotter urban zones appear to have adapted
or acclimated to the higher temperatures in urban environments study researcher Emily Meineke a doctoral student at NC State said in the statement.
Rising numbers of scale insects in cities could spell trouble for city trees which can provide some environmental benefits like cooling through shade and carbon sequestration.
And if global temperatures continue to rise scale insects could spread outside cities and infest more rural trees the researchers warn.
Apparently in humans'earlier evolutionary stages plenty of wild greens lean animals which grazed on high omega-3 grasses
And no longer do our animals graze on high-omega-3 grasses but on grains instead. This changes the fatty acid composition of the meat to our detriment.
#Understanding Your Dog's Training, One Treat at a time (Op-Ed) Mary Burch is certified a applied animal behaviorist receiving her Ph d. at Florida State university in 1982 s a board-certified behavior analyst
and is director of the American Kennel Club's (AKC) Canine Good Citizen program. She contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
In my experience as an animal behaviorist many dog owners have approached me with questions specifically relating to their pets'fears.
Charlie is petrified of our vacuum cleaner or Max won't walk down the sidewalk if the garbage truck is approaching.
and better understanding of the historic theories of Pavlov otherwise known as classical conditioning can be the difference in comprehending your dog's behavior
 Understanding conditioning and your dog's behavior Modern theories of behavior began with the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov who was awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his work.
In the course of studying digestion in dogs Pavlov observed that dogs would salivate before he placed food in their mouths.
To test the theory that dogs were associating the sound of the door opening with getting food he introduced the sound of a metronome just before feeding the dogs.
Before long the sound of the metronome without food present caused the dogs to salivate. Salivation is a reflex
Pavlov's theories explain why your dog might drool on your clean kitchen floor as soon as his food dish is rattled
What does this have to do with my dog? Classical conditioning relates to your dog in two ways:
positive and negative events. On the negative side if your puppy experiences pain and associates the pain with a particular object your pup may develop a fear of that object.
Honey was a 6-month-old cocker spaniel puppy. Hoping that she would someday become a therapy dog Honey's owner took the dog to meet a person in a wheelchair.
Without warning the person quickly moved the chair unaware of how close Honey's paws were to the wheels.
How classical conditioning can benefit dog owners As an example of classical conditioning related to a positive experience
Pairing the dog's favorite treat with the object while it is still a neutral stimulus
and before the dog becomes afraid will result in a dog that has a positive reaction to the stimulus. Dog owners who understand both classical conditioning
and which situations and stimuli are likely to cause fear can use the method to benefit their dogs.
The basic-training series and test are open to all young dogs. By setting up experiences in training classes where puppies meet new people
and other dogs pups soon learn that meeting new friends human or animal is a good thing.
We designed the AKC's Canine Good Citizen program a training series that typically follows the completion of S. T. A r. to reward dogs that have good manners at home and in the community.
Here dogs are exposed to distractions such as loud noises and moving objects. Experienced Canine Good Citizen instructors found across the country can teach dog owners how to use classical conditioning to both address behavioral issues
and prevent them. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.
and the Aquarium of The americas in New orleans to come up with ways to allow the public to see pieces of the forest.
Burrowing animals such as shipworms and zebra mussels can destroy wood underwater making dating impossible. Here underwater trees in the Great lakes may not be subject to shipworms zebra mussels are slowly eating through the wood.
#US Crushes Its Stockpile of Elephant Ivory Six tons of carvings jewelry trinkets and tusks were being reduced to powder Thursday afternoon (Nov 14) as the United states for the first time destroyed its ivory stockpile.
Poachers kill more than 30000 African elephants for their tusks each year according to some estimates. Â See Photos of the Seized Ivory Some argue that the seized ivory should be sold to alleviate the demand for ivory Dan Ashe director of the FWS wrote in a blog post today.
and China the Xaysavang Network facilitates the killing of endangered elephants rhinos and other species for products such as ivory Kerry said in a statement.
but Ashe said on his blog that the FWS hopes it will be used to design memorials to educate the public and build awareness about the plight of elephants.
and wildlife traffickers federal officials had planned to pulverize 6 tons (5. 4 tonnes) of illegal elephant ivory this week
which has imperiled rhinoceroses elephants and great apes. Black market Horns: Images from a Rhino Bust The Colorado ivory crush will be rescheduled
but a spokesman said the agency will not be able to make a decision about when until the Fish and Wildlife Service resumes normal operations.
If we're going to solve this crisis we have to crush the demand driven by organized crime syndicates who are robbing the world of elephants
So we hope this encourages other governments to take bold decisive steps to curb the demand for illegal elephant products.
The international ivory trade was banned in 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
But a CITES report published last year found that elephant poaching has been on the rise
According to some estimates at least 25000 elephants were killed in Africa last year. Traffickers sometimes go to great lengths to circumvent the law and sell ivory on lucrative global markets.
#US to Destroy 6 Tons of Ivory This Week In a first U s. officials are going to destroy their massive stockpile of illegal ivory this week hoping to send a zero-tolerance message to elephant poachers.
and profit from the deaths of these magnificent animals FWS officials said in a fact sheet.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the international ivory trade in 1989.
But a CITES report published last year found thatâ elephant poaching was at its highest level in a decade and rising.
 FWS officials say they are working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to develop a creative and informative use of the crushed ivory with a goal to educate the public about poaching.
The ivory crush was scheduled initially to take place in October but it was postponed due to the government shutdown.
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and animals that interact with one another. For instance historical data being preserved by USA-NPN revealed thatâ ruby-throated hummingbirdsâ are arriving in the eastern United states between 11 and 18 days earlier than they used to depending on latitude.
Global Warming Brings Earlier Spring Flowers Additionally aâ study in the journalâ Ecology in September of last yearâ found that Broad-tailed hummingbirds which migrate northward from Central Americain the spring are becoming decoupled from their nectar resources
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