what we interpret to be a habitable environment where water was good enough for us to drink Melissa Rice of the California Institute of technology in Pasadena said after a presentation on imaging results from Curiosity s workhorse Mastcam instrument.
Follow Denise Chow on Twitter@denisechow. Follow Livescience@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.+Original article onâ Livescience v
#Whales Trap Dinner with Mouthful of Swirling Bristles Humpback and bowhead whales create their own food nets from specialized bristles in their mouths to more efficiently nab fishy morsels a new study of baleen whales suggests.
When these whales feed some open their jaws wide to gulp mouthfuls of seawater whereas others swim with half-open mouths (called ramming or skim-feeding).
Both rely on baleen a system of hairy bristles that line their mouths and trap food.
The new study published today (March 13) in The Journal of Experimental Biology shows that the baleen of bowhead whales
and humpback whales is not the passive structure it was thought to be but forms a tangled mesh in water that streams through it as the animals swim.
And how the baleen gets morphed is different depending on the specific whale's feeding style the study found.
Everyone assumed baleen works like a sieve study author Alexander Werth a biologist at Hampden-Sydney College Va. told Livescience.
Whales typically have about 300 plate structures on either side of their mouths perpendicular to the direction that water flows.
The whales'tongues wear away the inner edges of the plates to create a fringe that traps krill and other tasty morsels.
 Baleen biomechanics Werth wanted to compare the biomechanics of the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) with that of the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae.
He placed pieces of baleen from these whales in a giant tank and pumped water
whale swimming speeds. Werth also varied the angle of the baleen between parallel and perpendicular to the flow.
But baleen isn't found in single plates in a whale's mouth it's found in rows
Now the bristles formed a tangled net in the flowing water with most beads being trapped at about 28 to 31 inches/s (70 to 80 cm/s) exactly the speed bowhead whales swim
Humpback whale baleen was shorter and coarser than bowhead baleen and captured fewer beads. Feeding styles The findings reveal how the baleen of bowhead whales
and humpbacks differs biomechanically. Those differences explain the specialized feeding styles of the two types of whales:
Bowheads feed by continuous ram feeding at slower speeds whereas humpbacks feed in intermittent gulps at higher speeds.
The baleen of humpback whales performed best at the same speed as that of bowheads despite the fact that humpbacks typically swim faster than bowheads when feeding.
This is a fascinating study marine ecologist Ari Friedlaender of Duke university who was involved not in the study told Livescience in an email adding he was surprised  that the bowhead whale baleen functioned better at higher flow speeds than the humpback whale baleen.
We think of bowhead whales generally as slow-feeding animals that are basically mowing the lawn and that humpback whales are more energetic
and feed faster Friedlaender said but it appears humpbacks may actually be moving at a similar speed while feeding.
Werth also hopes to explore how pollutants affect the whales'baleen. I'm really worried about
what would happen if the filter gets clogged with oil or debris he said. Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter@tanyalewis314. Follow us@livescience Facebookâ or Google+.
+Original article onâ Livescience. com Â
#What and When to Eat to Build Muscle (Op-Ed) Katherine Tallmadge M. A r. D. is registered a dietitian author of Diet Simple:
195 Mental Tricks Substitutions Habits & Inspirations (Lifeline Press 2011) and a frequent national commentator on nutrition topics.
This article is adapted from one that first appeared in the Washington post. Tallmadge contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
Op-Ed & Insights. One of my 50-something clients recently lost 20 pounds through a combination of a few nutrition eating and behavior modification tricks
Jerry Karnas the Center for Biological Diversity's population campaign director in Miami is all too familiar with these political pitfalls particularly in addressing the impact of population growth on climate change.
Follow Denise Chow on Twitter@denisechow. Follow Livescience@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.+Original article on Livescience. com
#What 11 Billion People Mean for Earth's Animals Editor's note: Â By the end of this century Earth may be home to 11 billion people the United nations has estimated earlier than previously expected.
This wonderland of wildlife east of Africa is home to all of the world's lemurs a diverse group of primates most
Lemurs descend from animals that arrived on the isolated island between 50 million and 60 million years ago.
Since humans arrived about 15 to 20 of these lemur species have gone extinct likely due to habitat loss
whose males grew nearly as large as gorillas. But these die offs happened over the course of hundreds and thousands of years.
As Malagasy populations rise humans threaten the remaining species of lemurs and thousands of other species with extinction at an accelerating rate said University of Illinois primatologist Paul Garber.
Currently 93 lemur species are endangered critically endangered or threatened mostly due to the clearing of the island's forests according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) a global environmental organization.
That's 91 percent of all lemur species for which data is available. Deforestation has sped up in the second half of the 20th century
But it's not just the animals'homes that are vanishing sometimes the animals themselves are taken.
Since the breakdown of civil order following a 2009 coup in the country species such as collared lemurs have been taken from forests to be sold in the illegal pet trade
 The plight of Madagascar's lemurs is just one example of how a rising population of humans is contributing to the sixth-largest mass extinction in the history of the planet most biologists say.
According to the IUCN 20000 species of animals and plants are considered at high risk for extinction meaning there is a good chance they could die out
Some of Earth's most iconic animals like the lemurs are threatened with habitat loss displaced by growing human populations and increased demand for agricultural products.
Some good news is that the richest animal diversity is found in a few places which could make conservation of these vital places easier.
about 60 percent of the country's threatened animals live in these coastal forests according to the Nature Conservancy an international conservation group.
For instance just 1500 golden lion tamarin a magnificent primate covered in red fur are left in the wild the Smithsonian National Zoological Park reports.
and replacing them with big swathes of palm tree monocultures threatening the future existence of orangutans said Lee Hannah a senior fellow in climate change biology at Conservation International a global group devoted to saving endangered
animals and their habitats. There are only about 6000 wild orangutans left and about 1000 are being killed each year primarily from habitat destruction according to the Orangutan Project an environmental group
whose mission is to save the animals. Â The same is happening in Peru where forests are being cleared to make way for palm tree plantations said Clinton Jenkins a conservation scientist at North carolina State university.
Such palm trees are a rich source of palm oil which is used in food products and to make biofuels like biodiesel a fuel with growing demand as a source of cleaner energy.
But several scientists have pointed out that the cost of this fuel destruction of vital rainforests in South america Southeast Asia
or food grown on former grasslands represents a second major threat to animals. It's not just sheer population growth that matters
But in China especially and throughout Southeast asia demand has skyrocketed also for the animals themselves or at least parts of their bodies.
This has driven an epidemic of poaching especially of elephants for ivory and rhinos for rhino horns that appears to be said worsening Hannah.
Tigers lions and other big cats have also increasingly been poached due to demand for various body parts like their iconic fur.
Rhino poaching for example has doubled more than since 2010 in South africa according to the country. And this year rhinos went extinct in the adjacent country of Mozambique according to news reports.
It's hard to imagine that animals like African elephants and rhinos will survive unless countries where they live do more to protect them Hannah said.
Such measures will have to include better protection by game wardens and perhaps more protected areas for wildlife Jenkins said. 7 Iconic Animals Humans Are Driving to Extinction The most effective way to fight poaching would be to decrease demand said Kenyan scientist and conservationist Richard Leakey at a conference
on wildlife crime this May at Rutgers University. One way to do that would be to better educate people in China
and Southeast asia who buy these products most of whom don't know that elephants and rhinos are being driven to the brink of extinction said Leakey who is the son of famed paleontologist and fossil hunters Louis and Mary Leakey.
When Richard Leakey headed the Kenya Wildlife Service in 1989 he came up with the idea to burn 12 tons of elephant tusks to bring public attention to poaching
which had flared up in the late'80s. The ploy worked cutting the value of ivory by a factor of 30
and almost single-handedly suppressing elephant poaching for nearly two decades. Perhaps a similar gambit could work again Leakey said
although he didn't have any concrete suggestions. Â A recent example from China may offer some hope however.
which the animals'fins are hacked off and they are thrown back into the ocean to slowly die.
Botswana is one of the few countries where populations of lions and other large animals may be relatively stable he added.
Solutions To prevent the expected rise in human population from wiping out animal populations more of the biologically important areas need to be protected most scientists agree.
These forests are home to 21 primates not found anywhere else such as the wooly spider monkey according to the group.
and range of wildlife but one extreme example is Ecuador's Yasuni National park. The sprawling reserve contains 150 amphibian
and 121 reptile species making it the most diverse or second most diverse place for each group of animals worldwide according to a 2010 PLOS ONE study.
Another primary way to conserve animals in the face of growing populations is to simply make people aware of the decline of various species. Recent analyses have shown that 80 percent of people in China have some ivory
But most of these people don't realize you have to kill an elephant to get its ivory
Dereck and Beverly Joubert have made more than 25 films about large wildlife like lions usually with a message about the importance of conservation.
In their latest film Game of Lions to debut Dec 1 on Nat Geo Wild they show just how hard it is for male lions to survive only one in eight survive to adulthood giving people a reason to not want to shoot them as trophies Dereck said.
If materials such as rubber or palm oil could be manufactured in cities for example there would be less incentive to cut down pristine forests like the ones in Borneo where orangutans live for agriculture Weissburg said.
Ultimately however saving animals will require more public awareness and action said Mark Costello a researcher at New zealand's University of Auckland.
Beetles scorpions and other insects may not be found on most restaurant menus at least in the Western world
which the group outlined the potential of edible insects to help alleviate food insecurity in the present and future.
Although eating insects may sound like a strange prospect to some people such broad-minded thinking may be necessary at a time
Feeding the growing population will likely require a number of different strategies from creating new crop varieties and reducing food waste to yes eating insects with efforts from governments farmers the private sector and consumers themselves.
Extreme weather events such as heavy rains and flooding as well as drastic changes in weather in a short period will also pose challenges for crop production said Walter Falcon deputy director of the Center on Food security and the Environment
Falcon pointed out that while U s. agriculture was affected by drought in 2012 the most extensive drought
or prevent them from planting altogether in certain areas that are flooded said Falcon who owns a farm in Iowa that was hit by the drought.
Using corn to produce ethanol has caused corn prices to increase Falcon said. In the midst of last year's drought corn prices rose 50 percent to $8 a bushel.
Corn is kind of a linchpin commodity Falcon said. Most experts don't think the United states will increase the amount of corn that goes to ethanol in the near future
but over the course of the century that could change Falcon said. Improving trade cooperation To continue to feed a growing population in light of the food shortages that are likely to occur with climate change global crop production in the future will have to be much more coordinated than it is said today Jason Clay an expert in natural resources management at the World
Infographic) Falcon agreed. Currently certain restrictions on trade exist that may prove problematic in the future such as
The idea that each country should be self-sufficient in food production is not the answer Falcon said.
In a world of lots of climate variation there is a lot of work to be done in getting trade flows straightened out Falcon said.
For example better storage facilities on farms in Africa and even putting harvested crops in plastic storage bags would reduce the amount of food that falls victim to pests there Hanson said.
And don't forget the insects. Beetles wasps grasshoppers and other insects are very efficient at converting the food they eat into body mass take up very little space
and emit fewer greenhouse gases than livestock according to the U n.'s FAO report. Although eating insects comes with an ick factor for many Westerners bugs are a part of the diet of about 2 billion people worldwide according to the report.
Grow differently Farmers could also focus on growing crops that provide the most calories while using the fewest resources said Clay of the WWF.
Although they're called fainting goats the animals don't actually fall unconscious. They're just paralyzed for a few moments.
The animals stay that way for 10 to 15 seconds at which point they rise
While the condition produces dramatic effects in the animals the neurological disorder doesn't hurt a domestic goat's health in the long run according to the IFGA.
This might be acai berry noni fruit dragon fruit rambutan or pomegranate. These might be healthful
Measuring Insect Indecision (Op-Ed) This article was published originally atâ The Conversation. Â The publication contributed the article to Livescience'sâ Expert Voices:
But are nonhuman animals ever uncertain? When we feel uncertainty instead of risking the consequences of a bad
Studies with primates and rats however suggest that some of our closely related animal cousins can also avoid decisions based on their own uncertainty.
But whether a small and relatively simple brained animal such as an insect can do so has not even been considered until now.
It s difficult enough to study cognition in nonspeaking animals. How did we go about testing
whether an insect with a brain the size of a sesame seed could actually monitor uncertainty?
These results are similar to those found with primates. So it seems that bees have the ability to monitor their uncertainty right?
As with other animals this behaviour could be explained by associative mechanisms. Although opting out was not directly rewarding bees could have associated opting out with avoidance of punishment (drinking a bitter solution)
(or any other animal) brain to compute uncertainty as it would be to classify and associate outcomes.
Whether an insect monitors uncertainty or only appears to honey bees are able to selectively avoid making decisions
This means even invertebrates are capable of making complex and adaptive decisions. Our results show that the capacity to respond adaptively to difficult choices is not unique to large brained mammals
and may likely extend throughout the evolutionary tree. Clint J Perry has received funding from the Endeavour Awards Fellowship in Sydney
The continent was once home to a menagerie of giant creatures or megafauna such as marsupial versions of lions rhino-size wombats giant kangaroos and flightless birds but about 90 percent of that megafauna disappeared during this time.
A major relatively brief shift in plant life from grasses to trees occurred during this period as well.
Because the arrival of humans coincided with dramatic changes in the animal and plant life of Australia many scientists have speculated that humans impacted the continent's flora and fauna.
For instance humans may have burned the land perhaps accidentally or to concentrate game animals. This shift in plant life would have driven these plant-dependent herbivores s well as the carnivores that preyed on those herbivores o extinction.
However other scientists have suggested different explanations for these changes. For instance the extinction of many plant-eating megafauna in Australia could have triggered major upsets
when it came to which plants dominated the continent. To shed light on this mystery a team of investigators have reconstructed past changes in vegetation by looking at ancient sediment from the Murray Canyons Group region offshore southern Australia.
Instead this discovery hints that an extinction of megafauna herbivores that normally browsed on C3 plants allowing trees and shrubs to rise in dominance.
what caused the extinction of Australia's megafauna herbivores in the first place. Humans remain one potential culprit for the megafauna extinction they did arrive on the continent about 45000 to 54000 years ago before this shift in the region's plant life
It's a favorite host plant of the zebra swallowtail butterfly whose larvae feed on the leaves.
As a native of the United states it has few pests and doesn't need much care.
Bees and other insects show little interest in the pawpaw flower so hand-pollination is required sometimes.)
and usually infect wild and domestic animals such as goats cattle and sheep. Anthrax outbreaks are fairly common worldwide and mostly affect agricultural workers.
or bone from animals infected with the anthrax bacterium. The most common form of the disease cutaneous anthrax is contracted
and animal hides according to the U s. National Library of Medicine. Those with pulmonary anthrax are at risk of respiratory collapse
Real leather items by contrast use the whole skin of an animal not scraps. The advantages of bonded leather include its lower cost
Another preliminary study this one conducted in rats found coconut oil had some protective benefits for developing fetuses.
Rats that are accosted with bright lights and physically restrained during pregnancy typically give birth to pups with low birth weight and slower development.
However rats in the study that were stressed but also fed supplements of coconut oil had pups that had better development of their motor skills than the offspring of stressed rats that weren't given the supplement according to the paper published in the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience.
For external use Ulbricht said coconut oil appears to be as effective as mineral oil. But more research is needed before conclusions can be made.
and various crossbreeds because these grains also contain protein composites made from prolamins and glutelins.
Unlike pollen which appears only in the warm weather months mold can lurk in your house year-round. 5. Dust Mites are small (hundreds can live in a single gram of dust) eight-legged creatures
that belong to the same family as spiders chiggers and ticks. These culprits are hardy creatures that live well
Favorite hideouts include carpets upholstered furniture bedding clothes soft toys and the fur of pets.
and is saved inside the beehive for eating during times of scarcity. But how do bees make honey?
When a honeybee returns to the hive it passes the nectar to another bee by regurgitating the liquid into the other bee's mouth.
Humans bears badgers and other animals have long been raiding the winter stores of their winged friends to harvest honey.
Gelatin itself is a collection of long stringy animal-based proteins called collagen which bond together in three-stranded helical structures similar to the two-stranded helices of DNA.
and hides of animals processed for their meat (usually cows and pigs). But hooves consist of a different protein keratin
In light of these findings scientists ran studies in mice and on human tissue to see
But the studies on mice or cells have signaled a potential weight loss effect. A 2005 study on mice fed a high-fat diet found raspberry ketone prevented weight gain in the liver
and gains of visceral fat (belly fat) that surrounds organs according to the paper in the journal Life sciences.
Research in mice and on cells growing in lab dishes often inspires more research. But for results that can be trusted doctors look for many human trials of a chemical with many participants.
#What is the'Birds and the Bees'?'The phrase the birds and the bees is a metaphor for explaining the mechanics of reproduction to younger children relying on imagery of bees pollinating
and eggs hatching to substitute for a more technical explanation of sexual intercourse. It is a way of deflecting the inevitable question that every parent dreads:
and it is an alternative to the explanation that the stork delivers babies. It is uncertain as to
It does not necessarily mean that parents are explaining how birds and bees reproduce. The connection between human sexuality and eggs and pollination is vague
Though there are some variations the story typically involves bees pollinating flowers symbolizing male fertilization and the birds laying eggs
In another telling of the story a baby is created when a bee stings a bird. Related:
How Bees Do it There are quite a few allusions to the phrase in literature and song. One of the early references to this bird and bees as a euphemism for reproduction is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1825 poem oework Without Hope:
   All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair    The bees are stirring birds are on the wing   Â
And Winter slumbering in the open air    Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
Another commonly cited use of the phrase is American naturalist John Burroughs 1875 set of essays Birds and Bees Sharp Eyes and other Papers.
Dr. Emma Frances Angell Drake described the birds and bees in a section of the publication The Story of Life which was widely distributed between 1893 and 1930.
In her explanation of reproduction to her young daughters she used images of blue eggs in the robin's nest wind blowing pollen dust from one plant to the other
How Birds Do it A more direct reference can be found in Cole porter's lyrics to the 1928 song Let's Do it.
And that's why birds do it bees do it    Even educated fleas do it    Let's do it let's fall in love The phrase also appeared in a 1939 issue of the Freeport Journal Standard:
he knows about the birds and the bees. In consequence French films are made on a basis of artistic understanding that does not hamper the story.
A more modern reference to the phrase occurred on The Simpsons. The episode includes a scene has 10-year-old Bart Simpson remarking to his friend Milhouse The sun is out birds are singing bees are trying to have sex with them as is my understanding..
Venus on the other hand has a very dense atmosphere that traps solar radiation; the average temperature on Venus is about 864 degrees F (462 degrees C). The exchange of incoming and outgoing radiation that warms the Earth is referred often to as the greenhouse effect because a greenhouse works in much the same way.
Veal production has prompted strong criticism from animal welfare groups. Traditional practices place calves in small (30 by 70 inch) individual crates that prevent much movement;
By depriving the animals of exercise veal producers aim to reduce muscle growth keeping the meat tender.
and slaughter of animals too sick or injured to walk known as downer animals. The administration argued that the Federal Meat Inspection Act preempted California's law
and that only the federal government could regulate the care and handling of downer pigs at federally inspected slaughter plants.
or rhino horn in their jurisdictions. Just as with the King amendment where Congress in an even more sweeping way is trying to nix state anti-cruelty laws in the form of an amendment to the Farm bill this Administration is threatening meaningful animal-welfare lawmaking at the state level.
When you add up the votes in eight state legislatures that passed bans on shark-fin products it was 914 ayes and 87 nays.
This article was adapted from Obama Administration Seeks to Nullify Critical State Animal Cruelty Laws which first appeared as on the HSUS blog A Humane Nation.
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