Diesel Throws Honeybees Off the Trail Diesel pollution snuffs out floral odors interfering with honeybees'ability to find
Honeybees use both visual and olfactory cues to recognize flowersâ that produce nectar in return for insect pollination.
Honeybee Scouts Find Food Diesel alters floral scents The researchers specifically explored whether nitrogen oxides a group of highly reactive gases released by diesel combustion are capable of altering floral odors to an extent that would dampen a bee's ability to recognize desirable flowers.
Honeybee smell recognition The researchers also conditioned a group of honeybees to recognize the synthetic floral odor by repeatedly exposing them to it in conjunction with a nectar reward.
whether the bees extended their proboscis the strawlike mouthpart they use to suck up nectar within 10 seconds of exposure to the odor in the study chambers.
If the bee did not extend its proboscis then it was presumed to have lost the ability to recognize the smell.
The team found that bees were much less likely to extend their proboscis within 10 seconds in the contaminated chamber than the uncontaminated chamber.
since honeybees pollinate about 70 percent of crop foods across the world which accounts for about 35 percent of the global food supply.
Global honeybee populations have declined dramatically within the past decade or so due to a condition called colony collapse disorder
and also plans to study the neurological effects of nitrogen oxide gases on the honeybee brain.
Two New African Bamboos Pandas love themselves some bamboo and the plant makes up most of their diet.
Thousands of miles away in Africa bamboo is also an important food for mountain gorillas. Its existence there though is a bit of a mystery hidden away as it is up African mountains a long way from where most varieties live in Asia.
and the pandas who rely almost exclusively on the plant for food. Emailâ Douglas Mainâ or follow him onâ Twitterâ orâ Google+.
and Lots of Confusion An enduring mantra among nutritionists from both a vegetarian and carnivorous perspective has been to eat more whole grains to reduce the risk of heart disease type 2 diabetes and colon cancer.
Most grain contains inedible chaff (fed to animals) bran (the oil-rich outer layer) germ (the grain seed's nutrient-rich embryo) and the endosperm (the starchy center.
precipitation sunlight temperatures and disease and insect infestations volcanic eruptions and fire. Near the core of a tree rings will be tighter and darker
Accounts of that day which became known as New england's Dark Day include mentions of midday meals by candlelight night birds coming out to sing flowers folding their petals and strange behavior from animals.
As you pick up your turkey at the grocery store this week you might wonder why you never see the birds'eggs for sale.
The larger size of turkey eggs requires more room to nest which takes up too much space in a coop.
Economically meat from a grown turkey bird is much more valuable than an extra large fried egg.
Invasives and other effects Warming has brought already the hemlock wooly adelgid northward devastating hemlock trees Iverson said.
The adelgid is clearly a climate change-related pest limited by temperature he said. As climate change continues to alter habitats sending insects
and fungi into new regions invasive species could have even more dramatic effects on fall trees Neufeld said.
Animals such as cows on the other hand have specialized a stomach with four chambers to aid in the digestion of grass (a process called rumination.
Grazing animals have teeth that are adapted to continually grow replacing the worn tooth surfaces quickly.
#Why Do Camels Have Humps? Contrary to popular belief the camel s humps are not full of water.
Instead these odd protrusions are mounds of fat allowing the gangly beast to travel days through the desert without stopping for a bite to eat.
A camel can carry up to 80 pounds of fat on its back (Baby camels don t get their humps until they start eating solid food.
When a camel consumes the emergency food supply the hump will shrink and fall to one side.
Meantime a camel can drink up to 20 gallons of water at a time if there is any water around.
#Why Do Dogs Eat Grass? Most dog owners have seen probably their canine friend graze on grass at one point or another.
A few theories exist to explain this seemingly odd behavior though no answer is definitive. The most common explanation for grass-eating is that it helps dogs purge their systems.
Like humans dogs can suffer from gastrointestinal issues including upset stomach nausea bloating and illness from pathogenic microbes.
If a dog is experiencing one of these problems you may see it frantically wanting to get out of the house.
Once out it will chow down on any grass available taking large bites and often swallowing the plants whole.
The grass causes gastric irritation that leads to vomiting which helps the dog feel better afterward the theory holds.
In a 2008 study in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science researchers found that while grass consumption didn't often lead to vomiting dogs that seemed ill before eating grass were more likely to vomit than dogs that appeared to act normally beforehand.
Another theory posits that dogs eat grass simply because they want to. In such cases a dog may appear to hunt for a specific type of plant rather than ingesting any grass it can find.
After identifying the correct grass it will calmly nibble on the plant. In this scenario the dog may even be seeking out grass to get additional nutrients it may not have in its normal diet such as fiber minerals or digestive enzymes.
A 2007 case study in the Journal of Veterinary Medical science reported that a switch to a high-fiber diet stopped a miniature poodle from regularly eating grass.
Wolves and other wild canids are known to regularly eat plant matter suggesting dogs'grass-eating behavior is innate and perfectly normal.
Indeed a 2009 dog study in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior found that puppies were more likely to eat grass
if their mothers did while nursing. Follow Joseph Castro on Twitter. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google
#Why Do People Drink Milk? Milk is recognized widely as a nutritious drink for people of all ages it's a good source of protein calcium Vitamin d potassium and other vitamins and minerals.
Despite the health benefits of milk consumption of milk in the United states dropped to its lowest levels in nearly 30 years in 2011 with more than half of adults cutting milk completely out of their diet according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
As all mammals do human infants produce hefty amounts of lactase an enzyme that allows the body to digest lactose without lactase babies can't digest their mothers'nutrient-rich milk.
#Why Do We Still Send Animals into Space? A gray rhesus macaque made history yesterday (Jan 28)
when the primate reportedly flew into space in an Iranian mission. It also became part of a long line of animal astronauts.
But since science has proved time and again that humans can survive the extraterrestrial trip why do countries bother sending monkeys and other living creatures up into space at all these days?
In the case of Iran the demonstration is more of a show said Kenneth Halberg a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who studies aquatic bugs'ability to survive spacelike conditions.
There's nothing new about sending a monkey in space. But sending other animals into space can provide valuable scientific lessons for interplanetary travel
and space greenhouses he said. Animals in Space: 10 Beastly Tales Front-line testers At the beginning of the space race countries sent chimpanzees dogs and rabbits into space as testers.
Scientists believed that if the hapless animals could survive the weightlessness the extreme speeds and the rapid acceleration then humans had shot a fair as well.
But since then more than 500 people have traveled to space and space tourism isn't too far away from becoming mainstream.
So testing the survivability of short-term space travel for humans is not a pressing scientific concern Halberg said.
Photos: The First Space Tourists Of course not all space-based animal experiments have fundamental scientific value said Nathaniel Szewczyk a biologist at the University of Nottingham who has studied 24 generations of nematodes in space.
 At times it's a bit difficult to see the value.  Often you have high-school students that are doing experiments
To that end Halberg studies how a water bug called a tardigrade can withstand spacelike conditions. The water bugs dehydrate
and go into an extreme hibernation with zero metabolism he said thereby withstanding the punishing radiation desiccation and frigid temperatures of space.
Shared genes Animal experiments can also reveal how changes across the life span may translate to other species from earthworms all the way up to humans Szewczyk said.
 For instance nematodes and humans show similar changes in the expression of genes that regulate blood sugar Szewczyk said.
and pollinating insects may be one way for humans to feed themselves on a Mars mission.
But pollinators for instance could be confused by the zero pressure or weightless environment of space. And fruits and vegetables may not have the same life cycle in space Halberg said.
#Why Elk Are Robbing Birds Sonya Auer of the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently won the Elton Prize from The british Ecological Society for her research and writing.
Plants and animals in a given area form an ecological system of interacting species. Impacts on one
Many plants and animals are sensitive to shifts in temperature and precipitation and subsequently relocate to more suitable climates
have hurt spring breeding success for birds. Â This harm results not just from changing temperature but stem indirectly from climate impacts on elk small predators and even the forest the birds inhabit.
As winter temperatures on the plateau increase more precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow.
Less snow means it s easier for big animals like elk to hang around and find food
But elk opting to overwinter in the canyons is not boding well for the local plants and birds.
Warming Planet Pushing Species Out of Habitats Quicker Than Expected Elk eat plants and they especially like the tender new shoots of trees like maple and locust compared with conifers
So when elk hang around in the canyons all year it s harder for young saplings of these deciduous trees to grow large enough to then produce their own seedlings.
and elk and plants mean for bird species like the Red-faced Warbler? Each spring Red-faced Warblers along with two other related species the Orange-crowned Warbler and Virginia s Warbler build cupped nests of grass tucked into the ground at the base of trees.
There they incubate their eggs and raise their young until they grow big enough to leave the nest.
In the past the three warbler species did not choose the same kind of nest sites. Instead each selected patches dominated by different tree species. Orange-crowned Warblers preferred nesting in clumps of maples Virginia s Warblers liked locusts
and Red-faced Warblers nested under small fir trees. But now that maples and locusts are crowned declining Orange
and Virginia s Warblers have preferred fewer nest sites to choose from and are forced increasingly to nest in sites similar to those of the Red-faced Warbler.
 So why does this matter? Well nest-site choices have consequences for nest survival and subsequent population numbers.
When the birds divvied up their use of the different nest sites in the past predation on their eggs
and nestlings by squirrels and mice was lower. But now that the forest has changed and the birds are nesting in similar sites their nests are being detected more often by predators
which means fewer nests are fledging young. Fewer young can then lead to population declines.
It is not entirely clear why nest predation increases when nest sites become more similar over time.
The forest is changing but there is no indication that predator numbers are going up so that s an unlikely reason.
It makes sense that it might have something to do with predator searching behavior: Focusing on finding just one type of nest might be easier than learning to recognize
and search for lots of different nest types in the same way that finding Waldo is easier
when he wears the same outfit rather than a different colored shirt and pants in each new picture.
 What we do know is that long-term increases in winter temperature are linked via elk migratory behavior
and tree regeneration to the nesting success of birds in the spring and that points to the complexities through
which climate change can have compounding effects on natural systems. Â Understanding those complexities and the population consequences of climate change are critical for trying to come up with means to minimize the impacts on our natural world.
Warmer Spring Brings Troubling Consequences: Op-Ed The views expressed are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher
#Why is Cow's Milk White? Milk is nature's buffet for babies providing all the nutrition a mammalian infant needs for early development outside the womb.
Cow's milk provides a range of nutrients for humans although intolerance to lactose a difficult-to-digest sugar is a common affliction.
Its Ivory Stockpile To combat elephant poaching the United states is preparing to publicly pulverize its 6-ton stockpile of illicit ivory this week
Elephant Images: The Biggest Beasts On land Right now Africa is hemorrhaging elephants Patrick Bergin CEO of the African Wildlife Foundation said in a statement.
The only way to staunch the movement of illegal ivory is to wipe out the demand
and halt their domestic ivory trade until all elephant populations are threatened no longer. After poaching halved Africa's elephant population in the 20th century the international ivory trade was banned in 1989.
Domestic sales however continue in countries like the United states and China. These lucrative legal markets give a cover
Currently it's estimated that more than 30000 African elephants are killed for their ivory tusks annually. Last year a report from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
or CITES found that elephant poaching was at its highest in a decade. The uptick in killings has been tied to an unsustainable demand for ivory especially in Asia.
and poverty in Africa has created a perfect storm with elephants at the center. What the rich person demands the poor poacher provides Bergin said in a statement.
CITES in their 2012 report on the poaching crisis said researchers have not found a link between these one-off sales and the recent rise in elephant killings.
Deer Joins Sheep Flock Even deer get lonely it seems. A young red deer in England has been accepted into a flock of about 100 sheep
and seems quite content living eating and sleeping with his new friends. Members of the National Trust (a British conservation group) discovered the young buck two weeks ago after the sheep had been moved onto a nature preserve northeast of London at Dunwich Heath according to the BBC.
I've never seen deer interact with them Andrew Capell the flock's shepherd told the BBC.
Animals have an uncanny ability to form friendships outside their own species. Polar bears and dogs elephants and sheep even tigers and black bears have found kinship.
The National Trust hopes the deer will rejoin his own herd if it wanders through the area the BBC reports.
But in the meantime it appears the deer and the sheep are getting along famously. Follow Livescience on Twitter@livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+l
#Wild Turkeys Are Back, A Century After Severe Decline In the early 1900s wild turkeys seemed to be on the road toward extinction as unregulated hunting
however the birds have made an incredible recovery reaching levels near those of their precolonial days.
The birds are now found in virtually all parts of their former territory and some new places where they hadn't been said previously wildlife biologist Thomas Hughes of the National Wild Turkey Federation an organization that has reintroduced the animals into the wild.
They can be found in 49 U s. states with the only exception being said Alaska Hughes.
In Maine for example the birds have been known to damage strawberry and blueberry crops. They have also been found rummaging in the fodder of dairy cattle
loud noises and dogs are effective at keeping the birds away he added. Furthermore the birds are blamed often for damage that they have not caused.
Animals that are active at night like deer and raccoons are more likely than wild turkeys to destroy most crops according to work by researchers at Purdue University.
One 2005 study for example found that less than 0. 1 percent of the crop damage in Indiana is caused by wild turkeys.
But when the turkeys show up in the morning often in the same areas that have been damaged they get wrongly blamed said Duane Diefenbach a wildlife researcher at Pennsylvania State university.
Since then the bird has made slowly its way back. While populations continue to grow and spread in some areas particularly the Midwest populations in some Northeastern states appear to have leveled off according to Diefenbach and Sullivan.
In the Southeast the traditional stronghold of the iconic animal populations have declined in some areas Hughes said.
Rhinos and elephants for example are shot often near watering holes where they predictably return to drink and the poaching of elephants and rhinos is at an all-time high in many areas.
Poaching has pushed already rhinos to extinction in Vietnam for example. Black market Horns: Images from a Rhino Bust Andrew Lemieux a scientist at The netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law enforcement has outfitted rangers in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National park with GPS-enabled cameras that allow them to cheaply document signs of crimes
like poaching setting animal snares or harvesting of firewood. The project which began earlier this year will help rangers know where to go to best prevent these illicit activities he said during his presentation.'
'Hot products'Animals like parrots are also desirable to poachers in the same way certain hot products like cellphones
and jewels are desirable to thieves. These products can be described by the acronym CRAVED which stands for concealable removable available valuable enjoyable and disposable Clarke said.
Most parrots poached from the Peruvian Amazon for example meet these criteria and are plucked opportunistically from the forest by villagers looking for supplemental income said Stephen Pires a Florida International University researcher.
First he advocated building more fences around large reserves a suggestion that was met with some resistance by at least one ecologist at the conference who questioned Leakey after his talk about the fence's ability to stop elephants.
Leakey noted that electrified fences were quite capable of stopping the large animals. In places where they've been installed he added sheep herders have come to rely on fences to protect their flock from predators inside the parks meaning they can help both people
and animals he said. Fenced reserves have helped South africa prevent more poaching than many of its neighbors Leakey added (athough even in South africa rhino poaching is at a record high.
While this takes funding he said the problem is not lack of money per se but a lack of political will.
By making it harder to enter and exit reserves fences increase both the risks and difficulties involved in poaching both widely accepted tenets of crime prevention Clarke said.
One of the main reasons that poaching of elephants and rhinos has shot up in the past few years is due to growing demand in China for ivory
and medicinal products (although rhino horns are made of the same material in finger nails and have no curative properties they are desired for their supposed healing powers in traditional Chinese medicine).
or visiting traditional pharmacies have no idea these animals are dying out. 10 Species You Can Kiss Goodbye Increasing awareness would likely reduce demand for these products.
and almost single-handedly suppressing elephant poaching for nearly two decades Clarke said. Perhaps it's time to do something similar he said.
Many dry and wet dog pet foods also contain rice wheat and other plants not to mention added vitamins and minerals.
and gravy style of canned pet food that caused rapid kidney failure and death in hundreds and possibly thousands of animals.
#Will poisoned Mice Solve Guam's Snake Problem? In a desperate bid to reduce Guam's population of poisonous brown tree snakes officials with the U s. Department of agriculture believe they've hit on a foolproof plan:
airdropping dead mice onto the Pacific island. It gets weirder: Before the airdrop the dead mice will have stuffed their bodies with Tylenol (acetaminophen)
which is toxic to the snakes according to the Guardian. Wait it gets weirder still. Each mouse will be fitted with a tiny parachute
so they'll be more likely to get snagged in trees where the snakes live.
That will also reduce the risk that the dead mice will poison other animals. The brown tree snake a native of Australia Papua new guinea
and the Solomon islands hitched a ride to Guam on military transport ships shortly after WORLD WAR II. Though poisonous the invasive specie's venom isn't lethal to humans.
But the snakes have wreaked havoc on the ecosystem of Guam decimating the island's native bird population.
Within a few years of the invasive species arrival 10 of Guam's 12 native bird species had been wiped out.
And as a result of the plunging bird population Guam is now overrun with up to 40 times more spiders than nearby Pacific islands.
Additionally the brown tree snakes which can reach 10 feet (3 meters) in length have the unfortunate habit of climbing onto electric poles
and causing widespread power outages according to the Associated press. Controlling invasive animal populations has always been a tricky problem.
When rats were introduced accidentally to Hawaii the rodents quickly became pests since they had no natural predators.
So sugar-cane plantation owners brought over a group of mongooses to control the rat population. But nobody knew that the mongoose generally hunts during the day
and rats are primarily nocturnal according to the New york times. So while the rat population continued to soar the mongooses proceeded to destroy Hawaii's native bird and turtle populations.
And Florida's attempts at controlling another invasive snake the Burmese python have met with limited success. The state recently sponsored a much-ballyhooed Python Roundup with rewards offered for the biggest snake
and the most snakes caught. Their total haul? Just 68 snakes out of several thousand according to ABC News. The poison-mouse trick has been used before in Guam:
In 2010 the USDA airdropped mice at military installations on the island according to CNN. com. That program's effectiveness led to the current airdrop program
which will be limited to Guam's Andersen Air force Base. Contact Marc Lallanilla at mlallanilla@techmedianetwork. com. Follow him on Twitter@Marclallanilla. Follow Livescience on Twitter@livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+l
#With IPCC Report, Climate Change Is settled Science (Op-Ed) Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies.
This article was adapted from one that first appeared in U s. News & World Report. Nesbit contributed the article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
Op-Ed & Insights. The debate is over. On Friday an international panel of hundreds of scientists will issue its fifth (and perhaps final) comprehensive scientific assessment of
what scientists now know about climate change. Its central conclusion will be certain and unequivocal human beings are altering the climate with impacts starting to occur now.
but not if it's killed by a severe fire or insect outbreak in 2030.
The lowland Mayan forests of northern Guatemala teem with wildlife toucans macaws howler monkeys and even the fabled jaguar.
#Wolves in Yellowstone Help Grizzly bears Fatten up The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone national park has unexpected an upside:
It's helping to fatten up the bears new research suggests. The wolves have kept the park's population of elks (prey for wolves) in check
which in turn limits how many berry-producing shrubs the elks consume. As a result the bears have more tasty berries to eat finds a study published today (July 29) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
The study points to the need for an ecologically effective number of wolves said co-author Robert Beschta a researcher at Oregon State university in a statement.
As we learn more about the cascading effects they have on ecosystems the issue may be more than having just enough individual wolves
so they can survive as a species. In some situations we may wish to consider the numbers necessary to help control overbrowsing allow tree
and shrub recovery and restore ecosystem health. Wolves were removed first from Yellowstone national park in the 1920s after
which the elk population soared. The huge herds of elk heavily browsed aspen and willow in the park and reduced the berry-producing shrubs.
Past studies showed the reintroduction of wolves in 1995 has led to willow and aspen populations rebounding.
Photos: The Wonders of Yellowstone national park The reintroduction seemed to have a beneficial effect on bears.
Now Beschta and colleagues have found the amount of fruit in grizzly bear scat doubled in August in recent years
which means the bears were eating more of it. The grizzlies love to graze on the park's many wild berry species such as serviceberry chokecherry buffaloberry twinberry and huckleberry.
Wild fruit is typically an important part of grizzly bear diet especially in late summer when they are trying to gain weight as rapidly as possible before winter hibernation said study co-author William Ripple a forest ecosystems researcher at Oregon State university in a statement.
Berries are one part of a diverse food source that aids bear survival and reproduction and at certain times of the year can be more than half their diet in many places in North america.
Because bears have made up for the decline in berries by eating more elk in the last 50 years the berry bounty may also help offset the decline in elk.
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