I in Morocco have calculated that hairs that reflect infrared light may contribute significant insulating power to the exceptionally warm winter coats of polar bears and other animals.
Biophotonics expert Priscilla Simonis a researcher at the University of Namur and lead author of the Optics Express paper was intrigued by the ability of polar bears to insulate their bodies to temperatures of 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 F
when outside temperatures are a frigid-40 C(-40 F). The feat was given especially impressive that the bears have a layer of fur that is only 5 centimeters thick.
Why is the polar bear fur much more efficient than what we can develop for our housing?
This is particularly useful to animals such as mammals and birds that live in snowy areas Simonis says as it provides them with both warmth and camouflage against the white snow.
#Lingonberries halt effects of high-fat dietlingonberries almost completely prevented weight gain in mice fed a high-fat diet a study at Lund University in Sweden has found--whereas the'super berry'aã
§ai led to increased weight gain. The Scandinavian berries also produced lower blood sugar levels and cholesterol.
Some of the mice were fed a low-fat diet while the majority of the animals were fed a diet high in fat.
They were divided then into groups where all except a control group were fed a type of berry--lingonberry bilberry raspberry crowberry blackberry prune blackcurrant or aã§ai berry.
When the mice were compared after three months it could be observed that the lingonberry group had by far the best results.
The mice that had eaten lingonberries had not put on more weight than the mice that had eaten a low-fat diet
--and their blood sugar and insulin readings were similar to those of the'low-fat'mice.
The aã§ai berries on the other hand came last although they had actually been included in the study for the opposite reason--the researchers wanted to see how well the Nordic berries would do in comparison with the Brazilian'super berry'.
In our study the aã§ai berries led to weight gain and higher levels of fat in the liver said Karin Berger diabetes researcher at Lund University.
She believes that aã§ai berries are used primarily as an energy supplement in their homeland Brazil.
and Europe that aã§ai has been marketed as a'super berry'with many health benefits including weight loss.
Up to 20%of our mice's diet was lingonberries. It isn't realistic for humans to eat such a high proportion.
However the goal is not to produce such dramatic effects as in the'high-fat'mice
Tracking an alien invader of conker trees using people poweran army of citizen scientists has helped the professionals understand how a tiny'alien'moth is attacking the UK's conker (horse-chestnut trees
No bigger than a grain of rice the horse-chestnut leaf-mining moth has spread rapidly through England and Wales since its arrival in London in 2002.
Investigating the data further the scientific team concluded that it takes just three years from the first sighting of the moth in a particular location to maximum levels of damage to the horse-chestnut trees being recorded.
Continuously recording cameras trained on nests showed that coyotes were the primary predators of the ground-level nests--another surprise.
Several decades ago we didn't have coyotes here; we had lost completely those predator species that bring some ecological balance.
#Wolf predation of cattle affects calf weight in Montanaa recent study by University of Montana faculty
and graduate students found that wolf predation of cattle contributes to lower weight gain in calves on western Montana ranches.
This leads to an economic loss at sale several times higher than the direct reimbursement ranchers receive for a cow killed by wolves.
The study found that wolves living on the landscape with cattle have no effect on herd weight
but once a ranch has confirmed a wolf kill average calf weight decreases relative to if that ranch had experienced not a wolf depredation.
Ranchers have been saying for years that wolves cause weight loss in cattle but nobody ever had done any research on the topic said Derek Kellenberg a co-author on the study and UM associate professor and chair of the Department of economics.
Kellenberg worked with UM Associate professor Mark Hebblewhite from the Wildlife Biology Program and graduate students Joseph Ramler and Carolyn Sime.
The study quantifies the economic impact of weight loss after a confirmed wolf kill for an average ranch consisting of 264 head of calves.
while the economic impact of lower herd weights caused by wolf depredation is not insignificant to ranchers other ranch-specific husbandry practices
and climatological and environmental variables such as annual precipitation average temperature and snowfall explain a much larger proportion of variance in calf weight over the years than do wolf affects.
and ranchers as they work on issues related to wolf management. This study helps quantify some of the indirect costs that have not previously been accounted for he said.
These included tree-dwelling carnivorous mammals who may have posed a threat to hoatzin nestlings which are raised in open nests.
In Africa by contrast similar tree-dwelling carnivorous mammals are shown to have existed much later. Digestion specialist and climbing artistthe present-day Hoatzin exhibits a special mode of digestion.
Similar to the rumen of a cow--a digestive knack that has not been mastered by any other bird.
and the production of glucose by the intestine the researchers subjected rats and mice to diets enriched with fermentable fibers or with propionate or butyrate.
They then observed a strong induction of the expression of genes and enzymes responsible for the synthesis of glucose in the intestine.
Mice fed a fat -and sugar-rich diet but supplemented with fibers became less fat than control mice
and were protected also against the development of diabetes thanks to significantly increased sensitivity to insulin.
The researchers repeated the experiment with mice whose intestine's ability to produce glucose had been suppressed by genetic engineering.
these mice became fat and developed diabetes like those fed a fiber-free diet. It is therefore the production of glucose by the intestine from propionate and butyrate that is behind the positive effects of fermentable fibers on the organism.
They used a protocol similar to the one in Pavlov's dog experiments (where a dog is conditioned to associate a bell with being fed) using vanilla (the locusts'favourite) and lemon odours.
diet genetics and the microbiology of the cow's rumen. We think that animal genetics may well influence their gut microbiology.
Cows have a rumen as well a stomach he adds. As a result their digestive system is far more complex and hard to understand than ours he notes.
De Haas describes the project approach of gathering rumen samples and looking at the interaction with methane production is a novel one.
Over time it could improve practice with beef as well as milk herds and with other ruminants such as sheep deer and goats.
#War elephant myths debunked by DNATHROUGH DNA analysis Illinois researchers have disproved years of rumors and hearsay surrounding the ancient Battle of Raphia the only known battle between Asian and African elephants.
What everyone thinks about war elephants is said wrong Alfred Roca a Professor of Animal Sciences
and member of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who led the research published in the Journal of Heredity.
According to historical records Antiochus's ancestor traded vast areas of land for 500 Asian elephants whereas Ptolemy established trading posts for war elephants in what is now Eritrea a country with the northernmost population of elephants
In the Battle of Raphia Ptolemy had 73 African war elephants and Antiochus had 102 Asian war elephants according to Polybius a Greek historian who described the battle at least 70 years later.
A few of Ptolemy's elephants ventured too close with those of the enemy and now the men in the towers on the back of these beasts made a gallant fight of it striking with their pikes at close quarters
and wounding each other while the elephants themselves fought still better putting forth their whole strength
and meeting forehead to forehead said Polybius in The Histories. Ptolemy's elephants however declined the combat as is the habit of African elephants;
for unable to stand the smell and the trumpeting of the Asian elephants and terrified
I suppose also by their great size and strength they at once turn tail and take to flight before they get near them.
and scientists and that is why Asian elephants were given the name Elephas maximus said Neal Benjamin an Illinois veterinary student who studies elephant taxonomy and ancient literature with Roca.
and it became clearer that African elephants were mostly larger than Asian elephants At this point speculation began about why the African elephants in the Polybius account might have been smaller.
In 1948 Sir William Gowers reasoned that Ptolemy must have fought with forest elephants that fled from larger Asian elephants as Polybius described.
Did Ptolemy employ African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) or African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in the Battle or Raphia?
Using three different markers we established that the Eritrean elephants are actually savanna elephants said Adam Brandt a doctoral candidate in Roca's laboratory and first author of the paper.
Their DNA was very similar to neighboring populations of East African savanna elephants but with very low genetic diversity
The markers also revealed that these Eritrean elephants have no genetic ties to forest or Asian elephants as other authorities have suggested.
For MITOCHONDRIAL DNA (mtdna) the genetic information is passed from mother to offspring and is transmitted not by males.
Female elephants stay with their natal herd while the males disperse to mate with different populations.
whether there had been forest or Asian elephants in the Eritrean population at one time. In some sense mtdna is the ideal marker
The most convincing evidence is the lack of mtdna from forest elephants in Eritrea. Roca and Brandt hope their findings will aid conservation efforts.
and their closest relatives the East African savanna elephants to provide an influx of genetic diversity.
and one of the things at the top of their list is the elephants. The paper The Elephants of Gash-Barka Eritrea:
Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genetic Patterns was published in the Journal of Heredity and is available online.
The late Jeheskel Shoshani an evolutionary biologist and world-renowned elephant specialist was instrumental in this research.
#Two million years ago, human relative Nutcracker Man lived on tiger nutsan Oxford university study has concluded that our ancient ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2. 4 million-1
. 4 million years ago mainly ate tiger nuts (grass bulbs) supplemented with the odd grasshopper and worm.
An Oxford university study has concluded that our ancient ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2. 4 million-1. 4 million years ago survived mainly on a diet of tiger nuts.
Tiger nuts are edible grass bulbs still eaten in parts of the world today. The study published in the journal PLOS ONE also suggests that these early hominins may have sought additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates like worms and grasshoppers.
Study author Dr Gabriele Macho examined the diet of Paranthropus boisei nicknamed Nutcracker Man because of his big flat molar teeth and powerful jaws through studying modern-day baboons
Dr Macho's study finds that baboons today eat large quantities of C4 tiger nuts
Her finding is grounded in existing data that details the diet of year-old baboons in Amboseli National park in Kenya--a similar environment to that once inhabited by Paranthropus boisei.
Dr Macho's study is based on the assumption that baboons intuitively select food according to their needs.
Dr Macho modified the findings of the previous study on baboons by Stuart Altmann (1998) on how long it took the year-old baboons to dig up tiger nuts
She calculated the likely time taken by hominins suggesting that it would be at least twice that of the yearling baboons once their superior manual dexterity was taken into account.
Tiger nuts which are rich in starches are highly abrasive in an unheated state. Dr Macho suggests that hominins'teeth suffered abrasion and wear and tear due to these starches.
The study finds that baboons'teeth have similar marks giving clues about their pattern of consumption.
In order to digest the tiger nuts and allow the enzymes in the saliva to break down the starches the hominins would need to chew the tiger nuts for a long time.
All this chewing put considerable strain on the jaws and teeth which explains why Nutcracker Man had such a distinctive cranial anatomy.
The Oxford study calculates a hominin could extract sufficient nutrients from a tiger nut-based diet i e. around 10000 kilojoules or 2000 calories a day--or 80%of their required daily calorie intake in two and half to three hours.
This fits comfortably within the foraging time of five to six hours per day typical for a large-bodied primate.
'I believe that the theory--that Nutcracker Man lived on large amounts of tiger nuts-helps settle the debate about what our early human ancestor ate.
'Tiger nuts still sold in health food shops as well as being used widely for grinding down and baking in many countries would be relatively easy to find.
In the case of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem this would be the migratory wildebeest herds
Data were collected from GSM-GPS telemetry devices attached to three species of vultures in Mara-Serengeti ecosystem of East Africa.
and other animals killed by lions or hyenas. You can imagine how difficult it is to protect a species that uses not just multiple parks
#Oceanographer examines pollutants in Antarctic seal milkan oceanographer from the University of Rhode island is analyzing the milk from Antarctic fur seals to determine the type
and quantity of pollutants the seals are accumulating and passing on to their pups. Rainer Lohmann a professor at the URI Graduate school of Oceanography is collaborating with a researcher at the Southwest Fisheries science Center in California to learn about the health and ecology of fur seals that winter in different locations in the South Pacific.
What we're trying to learn is where the pollutants come from and how those pollutants vary by where the seals feed said Lohmann who has conducted studies of marine pollutants around the world.
Fur seals that have given birth have lower pollutant levels than those that have not because they pass their pollutants on to their pups in their milk.
All of the seals the researchers are studying breed on the South Shetland islands of Antarctica but some spend the winter off the coast of Argentina while others winter off Chile.
The two groups are thought to be exposed to different pollutants in the food they eat at their wintering grounds.
According to Lohmann seal milk is about 50 percent fat enabling young seals to grow rapidly.
And due to the pups'smaller size the researchers speculate that the young seals are effected more seriously by the pollutants than are older and larger seals.
The seals can't avoid the pollutants so the best we can hope for is that the concentration of pollutants will decrease in their system over time
#Study of African forest elephants helps guide research efforts in USCONSERVATION of a protected or endangered species requires frequent monitoring
Currently researchers at the University of Missouri are employing genotyping to study movement patterns of African forest elephants in protected and unprotected regions of Gabon to better understand how human occupation of these areas might affect elephants on the African continent.
In Africa protected areas are designed often around sites that support endangered species such as large mammals.
We were tasked with studying elephants outside a protected region in an area that includes humans oil-drilling platforms and disturbances by machinery.
We also studied how the elephants moved between the protected regions and the unprotected regions during wet and dry seasons.
Between 2002 and 2011 the population of Central African forest elephants declined by 62 percent
The largest remaining concentration of this species approximately 53000 individuals is in Gabon where officials have established 13 national parks designated as habitats for elephants.
and how the elephants migrated between them. What the scientists found was interconnected that the region not designated as a national park provides year-round habitat for elephants
and is important to the conservation of the species. We discovered that elephants tend to use the unprotected area as much as they do protected the parks said Eggert.
A resident population exists in the unprotected area even though drilling occurs there and humans are present.
Some of the elephants seem to consider this their home range and instead of moving back and forth between the national parks they inhabit the unprotected area during the rainy and dry seasons.
Eggert's fellow researchers collected samples from elephant droppings in the unprotected area and in the national parks and sent more than 1000 samples back to Eggert
She and her colleagues detected more than 500 elephants in the unprotected area during both the wet
Elephants are considered to be a'keystone'species or a species that is especially important to the health of ecosystems in Africa Eggert said.
and here in the U s. The fact that elephants are surviving in a place where drilling for oil is happening is exciting
and her team conducted with elephants in Africa involves methods used to study species worldwide.
Her lab recently worked with the Missouri Department of Conservation to analyze black bears in Missouri
and Arkansas and also has collaborated on the analysis of otters and hellbenders in Missouri rivers. Her study Using genetic profiles of African forest elephants to infer population structure movements
and habitat use in a conservation and development landscape in Gabon was published in Conservation Biology in collaboration with Jesus Maldonado Alfonso Alonso Rob Fleischer and Francisco Dallmeier with the Smithsonian Institution and colleagues at the University of Groningen the University of Oxford and the Centre
and food resources for a wealth of species including sage-grouse pronghorn and mule deer. Poor livestock grazing management invasive species such as cheatgrass transmission lines energy development and subdivisions are all contributing to the loss of this vital resource.
Temperature decreases have also been noted around the noses of rhesus monkeys in response to negative emotions
and the General Administration of Customs for destroying confiscated ivory--a major development in the effort to protect elephants from the ravages of ivory poaching.
and lead the world by committing not to buying ivory in the future it would have a transformative positive impact on the survival of African elephants We congratulate China's government for showing the world that elephant poaching
and that elephants will once again flourish. On November 14 the U s. destroyed six tons of illegal ivory to raise awareness about the plight of elephants.
In almost all parts of Africa elephant numbers have plummeted due largely to the demand for ivory with an estimated 96 elephants poached each day in 2012.
The ivory burning event comes in the wake of a front-page story in the influential Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly last November about the ivory trade.
and consumption as the main driver of the elephant poaching crisis. In addition the story highlighted the links between'blood ivory'as a source of funds for terrorist organizations and rebel groups in Africa.
WCS is leading global efforts to save Africa's elephants and end the current poaching and ivory trafficking crisis by working in 11 African nations
In September WCS launched its 96 Elephants campaign to amplify and support the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitment to save Africa's elephants by stopping the killing stopping the trafficking
and stopping the demand. The WCS campaign focuses on: securing effective U s. moratorium laws; bolstering elephant protection with additional funding;
and educating the public about the link between ivory consumption and the elephant poaching crisis. In Africa WCS is stopping the killing on the ground in 13 of Central
and Eastern Africa's most important parks--those harboring 26000 elephants and facing the greatest threat--from Nouabalã-Ndoki in Congo to Ruaha in Tanzania and Niassa in Mozambique.
WCS recruits equips trains and deploys park guards providing aerial and intelligence support and tracking where guards go
and stop trafficking using sniffer dogs apps for customs officials and training for enforcement staff.
and sales of ivory and in Asia WCS assists concerned citizens who wish to educate their countrymen and women through social media about the lethal cost of ivory to Africa's elephants.
Studies in lab mice showed that the resulting vaccine was able to stimulate an immune response against the CD133 proteins without causing side effects such as an autoimmune reaction against normal cells or organs.
A team of researchers led by Benjamin Marsland from Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) has shown in experiments with mice that the lack of fermentable fibers in people's diet paves the way for allergic inflammatory reactions in the lungs.
either put mice on a standard diet with four percent fermentable fibers or gave them low-fiber food with merely 0. 3 percent fermentable fibers.
When the researchers exposed the mice to an extract of house dust mites the mice with the low-fiber food developed a stronger allergic reaction with much more mucus in the lungs than the mice with the standard diet.
Conversely a comparison between mice on a standard diet and mice who received food enriched with fermentable fibers likewise showed that these dietary fibers have a protective influence.
because the share of plant fibers in Western diets is comparable to the low-fiber food of the mice
but also because the examined aspects of the immune system are virtually indistinguishable in mice and humans.
During the Cretaceous new lineages of mammals and birds were beginning to appear along with the flowering plants.
and even delicacies including the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy says Ellis. How part of the animal butchered came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic
and wild animals but also something of the richness variety and range of a non-elite diet.
as a result of the discoveries The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings--scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street
deer and â on overseas U s. military bases â animals including goats and pigs. Strikes also happen at all altitudes;
You might have long grasses that attract mice and a bird that eats mice. You have to know how to manage it.
Turns out it was remained all that from a Brazilian freetail bat from a Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento, a Boeing 737 that departed at dusk.
polar bear-killing emissions released into our carbon-choked friendly skies. That article cites Southwest as the leading U s. airline for carbon footprint awareness,
The public green space will include a playfield, off-leash dog park, two-way cycle track on 7th avenue and a weather-protected walkway between the buildings.
Rob Spiro, the former product lead for Google+and cofounder of social search engine Aardvark (Google acquired it) founded the company.
such as oak, zebra wood, walnut, maple, mahogany and rosewood. The Portland-based company now sells all over the world, from Thailand to Turkey, to Egypt to Estonia.
this time using much stronger kangaroo leather on one and some synthetic leather on the other.
The old way of doing it was getting pot from your dealer down the street who maybe got it from a source that grew it in a relatively unsavory environment like a garage where you're dealing with chemicals, molds, mice.
but deer still roam there. Best Time to Visit: Parks are open throughout the year
the Inuit in far northern North america looked to polar bears to see how thick the walls of their igloos should be.
The bears had configured the snowpack to stay warm. In the deserts of the American Southwest, native people studied how thick the mud walls of prairie dog chambers were to determine the best way to stay cool in that environment.
REFORESTING CITIES Biomimetic principles are already transforming public spaces in the most densely populated areas of the U s.
The sheep that texted wolfsheepdogs have warned always herders of wolf attacks. But now the alert system just got a technological boost.
Jean-Marc Landry and colleagues from the research group Kora developed the system as a way to better control the increasing number of wolf attacks on sheep in Switzerland and France.
A prototype of the collar was tested on twelve sheep that were placed in an enclosure with two muzzled wolf dogs.
As the dogs poised to attack, the sheep s heart rate shot from a resting 60 to 80 beats per minute to 225,
which includes a collar outfitted with wolf repellent, will take place in fall 2012. The wolf repellent will use
either sounds or chemicals to drive the animals away without harming them. According to The Scientist, The final version is due to be tested in France and Switzerland in 2013,
and Norway, another country with wolf problems, has shown already interest in the device. Via The Scientist Photo via tonynetone
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