Whales give dolphins a lift

In 2010, the journal Aquatic Mammals (DOI: 10.1578/AM.36.2.2010.121) reported about interactions between dolphins and whales. Abstract

Two Unusual Interactions Between a Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Hawaiian Waters

Mark H. Deakos, Brian K. Branstetter, Lori Mazzuca, Dagmar Fertl, and Joseph R. Mobley, Jr.

When two species share a common habitat, interspecific interactions can take many forms. Understanding the dynamics of these interactions can provide insight into the behavior and ecology of those species involved. Two separate, unusual interactions are described in which a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) lifted a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) completely out of the water. Both incidents occurred in Hawaiian waters. Based on reports of object play by hump-back whales, and the apparent initiation and cooperation of each dolphin being lifted, object (i.e., the dolphin) play by the whale and social play by the dolphin seem to be the most plausible explanations for the interaction. Aggressive and epimeletic behavior by the humpback were also considered.

Recently (10 January 2012), the American Museum of Natural History released photos of such an interaction



Was this a case of inter-species play or had one species 'domesticated' the other?

Water from thin air

The winner of the James Dyson Award was announced on 8 November 2011. From James Dyson Award website

The James Dyson Award is open to product design, industrial design and engineering university level students (or graduates within 4 years of graduation) who have studied in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.

The award is £10,000 for the student or student team (up to four members) winner, £10,000 for their university department and the James Dyson Award trophy and Certificate.

This year, the award was won by Edward Linacre, a Swinburne University of Technology graduate, for his Airdrop invention, in which

Moisture is harvested out of the air to irrigate crops by an efficient system that produces large amounts of condensation. A turbine intake drives air underground through a network of piping that rapidly cools the air to the temperature of the soil where it reaches 100% humidity and produces water. The water is then stored in an underground tank and pumped through to the roots of crops via sub surface drip irrigation hosing.

Read more.

See also


In his own words


Amazing ingenuity from Australia - an innovative and practical solution to a major problem that is also cheap to implement. Congratulations to Mr Linacre.

2011 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2011 winners, announced on 29 September 2011 at Harvard University were

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE: Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study 'No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."
REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Ludwig Huber

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.
REFERENCE: US patent application 2010/0308995 A1. Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Makoto Imai, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami

MEDICINE PRIZE: Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.
REFERENCE: "Inhibitory spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.
REFERENCE: "The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults," Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A. Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 183-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, David Darby

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
REFERENCE: "Is a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Karl Halvor Teigen

LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.
REFERENCE: "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination." http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Colleague Deborah Wilkes accepted the prize on behalf of Professor Perry.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, 1983, pp. 79-80
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz

PHYSICS PRIZE: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
REFERENCE: "Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: The winners accepted via recorded video.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

PEACE PRIZE: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.
REFERENCE: VIDEO and OFFICIAL CITY INFO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Arturas Zuokas

PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE: John Senders of the University of Toronto, CANADA, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33. VIDEO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: John Senders

Compare to 2010 and 2009, which I've previously written.

The mathematics and peace prizes were particularly interesting. Sigh. Or was just a sigh?

A planet made of diamond

A team of international researchers led by Australia has found a planet made of diamond. Media release from Swinburne University of Technology

A planet made of diamond

Date posted: 26 Aug 2011
A planet made of diamond

A once-massive star that’s been transformed into a small planet made of diamond: that’s what astronomers think they’ve found in our Milky Way.

The discovery, reported today in Science, was made by an international research team led by Professor Matthew Bailes, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and the ‘Dynamic Universe’ theme leader in a new wide-field astronomy initiative, the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO).

The researchers, from Australia, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, first detected an unusual star called a pulsar using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope and followed up their discovery with the Lovell radio telescope in the UK and one of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.

Pulsars are small spinning stars about 20 km in diameter—the size of a small city—that emit a beam of radio waves. As the star spins and the radio beam sweeps repeatedly over Earth, radio telescopes detect a regular pattern of radio pulses.

For the newly discovered pulsar, known as PSR J1719-1438, the astronomers noticed that the arrival times of the pulses were systematically modulated. They concluded that this was due to the gravitational pull of a small companion planet, orbiting the pulsar in a binary system.

The pulsar and its planet are part of the Milky Way’s plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (the Snake). The system is about an eighth of the way towards the Galactic Centre from the Earth.

The modulations in the radio pulses tell astronomers several things about the planet.

First, it orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes, and the distance between the two objects is 600,000 km—a little less than the radius of our Sun.

Second, the companion must be small, less than 60,000 km (that’s about five times the Earth’s diameter). The planet is so close to the pulsar that, if it were any bigger, it would be ripped apart by the pulsar’s gravity.

But despite its small size, the planet has slightly more mass than Jupiter.

"This high density of the planet provides a clue to its origin," said Professor Bailes.

Read more.

The pulsar at the centre of the below image is orbited by an object that is about the mass of Jupiter and composed primarily of carbon; effectively a massive diamond. The orbit, represented by the dashed line, would easily fit inside our Sun, represented by the yellow surface. The blue lines represent the radio signal from the pulsar, which spins around 175 times every second.

Explanatory video from Professor Bailes


In the episode called Utopia from Doctor Who (2007), set 100 trillion years into the future before the universe is about to end, Martha Jones asked a child named Creet "What do you think it's going to be like in Utopia?" who replied "My Mum used to say the sky was made of diamonds."

Perhaps the diamond planet might be nicknamed Lucy.

Light travels at the speed of light.

Hong Kong researchers have published in the prestigious Physical Review Letters from the American Physical Society that the photon precursor cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Abstract

Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 243602 (2011)
Optical Precursor of a Single Photon

Shanchao Zhang, J. F. Chen, Chang Liu, M. M. T. Loy, G. K. L. Wong, and Shengwang Du*
Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

Received 31 March 2011; published 16 June 2011

We report the direct observation of optical precursors of heralded single photons with step- and square-modulated wave packets passing through cold atoms. Using electromagnetically induced transparency and the slow-light effect, we separate the single-photon precursor, which always travels at the speed of light in vacuum, from its delayed main wave packet. In the two-level superluminal medium, our result suggests that the causality holds for a single photon.

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.243602
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.243602
PACS: 42.50.Gy, 32.80.Qk, 42.50.Dv

*dusw@ust.hk

The press release from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology of 19 July 2011 was titled "HKUST Professors Prove Single Photons Do Not Exceed the Speed of Light". Excerpt

A group of physicists at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) led by Prof Shengwang Du reported the direct observation of optical precursor of a single photon and proved that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum. HKUST's study reaffirms Einstein's theory that nothing travels faster than light and closes a decade-long debate about the speed of a single photon.

Prof Shengwang Du, Assistant Professor in HKUST's Department of Physics, and his research team have published their study in Physical Review Letters recently. Co-authors include three postgraduate students Shanchao Zhang, Jiefei Chen and Chang Liu, Chair Professors Michael M T Loy and George K L Wong. This is the fifth time in the last two years that Prof Du's team published their optics research in Physical Review Letters, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in physics, and the second time their papers were selected as editors' suggestion for reading. This research was also highlighted as a Physics Synopsis by American Physical Society with a title "Single photons obey the speed limits."

Prof Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM waves. Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light. HKUST's team is the first to experimentally show that optical precursors exist at the single-photon level, and that they are the fastest part of the single-photon wave packet even in a so called 'superluminal' medium.

Read more.  This was also reported by AFP via France 24, which made a rather assertive conclusion

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

Read more. Surely a single experiment proving that light (photon as a light particle) cannot travel faster than light would not rule out faster than light travel by other types of particles. In any case, there are other time travel theories that are not predicated on travelling at faster than the speed of light.

Airbus 2050 - the future of flying

Airbus has revealed its concept plane of the future. Press release below

Airbus presents a panoramic view of 2050

Intelligent cabin interiors replace class system for a bespoke flying experience

14 June 2011 Press Release

Leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus, in advance of the Paris Airshow “Le Bourget”, today invited the passengers of 2050 to discover its Concept Cabin - a whole new flying experience inspired by nature.

Personalised zones replace traditional cabin classes to offer tailored levels of experience. While taking a hop between destinations, according to Airbus, passengers in 2050 could join an interactive conference; enjoy a game of virtual golf; read the kids back home a bedtime story; and recharge in a ‘vitalising seat’ whilst watching the planet spread out beneath their feet.

This latest instalment of The Future by Airbus – a vision of aviation in 2050 – follows last year’s unveiling of the revolutionary Airbus Concept Plane, packed with technologies to reduce fuel burn, emissions, waste and noise. The Airbus Concept Cabin now gives further insight into some of the innovations and technologies that will shape future passenger experiences on board.

The aircraft’s bionic structure mimics the efficiency of bird bone which is optimised to provide strength where needed, and allows for an intelligent cabin wall membrane which controls air temperature and can become transparent to give passengers open panoramic views.

The Concept Cabin has an integrated ‘neural network’ creating an intelligent interface between passenger and plane. It can identify and respond to passenger needs and enables bespoke features such as morphing seats which change to your body shape.

New personalised zones replace the traditional cabin classes in the Airbus Concept Cabin to offer new tailored levels of experience. The “vitalising zone” is all about wellbeing and relaxation allowing you to proactively recharge your batteries with vitamin and antioxidant enriched air, mood lighting, aromatherapy and acupressure treatments whilst taking in the infinite view of the world around you.

There are no limits to the kinds of social scenarios in the centre zone of the concept cabin – the “interactive zone”. The virtual pop up projections in this area can transform you to whichever social scene you want to be in, from holographic gaming to virtual changing rooms for active shoppers.

The “smart tech zone” is tailored towards the more functional oriented passenger with a chameleon style offering, to meet individual needs ranging from a simple to a complete luxury service, but all allowing you to continue life as if on the ground. By offering different levels of experience within each zone, airlines would be able to achieve price differentials and give more people access to the benefits of air travel with minimal environmental impact.

Showcasing the innovative interior design, Charles Champion, Airbus Executive Vice President Engineering, said: “Our research shows that passengers of 2050 will expect a seamless travel experience while also caring for the environment. The Airbus Concept Cabin is designed with that in mind, and shows that the journey can be as much a voyage of discovery as the destination. Whichever flight experience is chosen, the passenger of 2050 will step out of the Airbus Concept Cabin feeling revitalised and enriched.”

More than 90 percent of Airbus’ annual research & development investment of over €2 billion has environmental benefits for current and future aircraft. For example, due to advances in technologies the concept cabin will be 100% recyclable. It will have self-cleaning materials made from sustainable plant fibres which reduce waste and maintenance and will harvest passenger body heat to power cabin features.

Such technologies are already being developed and, while they may not be seen in the exact same manner as in the Airbus Concept Plane and Cabin, some of them could feature in future Airbus aircraft programmes.

Visitors to Le Bourget International Airshow in Paris will also be able to experience the Airbus’ Future of Flight film, a 360 planetarium movie – a vision of the transformations in air transport between now and the middle of the century which not only focuses on aircraft designs and innovations, but also addresses passenger expectations. The movie will be part of the planetarium’s programme at the Musee de l’Air et de l’Espace from 20 – 26 June.

To find out more about the Airbus Concept Cabin and The Future by Airbus visit: www.thefuturebyairbus.com

Also some video reporting

Aviation Week


ITN News

UK Telegraph


The transparent membrane is perhaps the most interesting. From www.thefuturebyairbus.com

The cabin's bionic structure will be coated with a biopolymer membrane, which controls the amount of natural light, humidity and temperature, providing opacity or transparency on command and eliminating the need for windows. This smarter structure will make the aircraft lighter and more fuel-efficient while giving passengers 360 degree views of the skies. This will offer unparalleled, unobstructed views of the wonders of the five continents - where you will be able see the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower through the transparent floor of the aircraft.

Just like Wonder Woman's invisible plane. Not for the faint-hearted or those with a fear of heights.

Dolphin gang murdering porpoises

Marine Mammal Science (DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2011.00474.x) has reported that a gang of dolphins were witnessed killing porpoises. Abstract

“Porpicide” in California: Killing of harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) by coastal bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

Mark P. Cotter, Daniela Maldini, Thomas A. Jefferson
Article first published online: 2 MAY 2011, Society for Marine Mammalogy

Between 2007 and 2009, we witnessed three aggressive interactions between harbor porpoises and bottlenose dolphins in Monterey Bay, California. This is the first time such aggression has been documented in the Pacific, and the first time a harbor porpoise was collected immediately after witnessing its death, inflicted by bottlenose dolphins. Of the bottlenose dolphins present, 92% were males either confirmed (61%) or putative (31%). Since 2005, 44 harbor porpoise deaths inflicted by bottlenose dolphins were documented in California. Aberrant behavior was rejected as a cause of aggression, based on widespread documentation of similar behaviors in other populations of free-ranging bottlenose dolphins. The evidence for interspecies territoriality as a form of competition for prey was weak: there is little dietary overlap and there are differences in bottlenose dolphin and harbor porpoise distribution patterns in California. Object-oriented play was plausible as a form of practice to maintain intraspecific infanticidal skills or a form of play to maintain fighting skills between male associates. Contributing factors could be high-testosterone levels, as attacks occurred at the height of the breeding season, and/or a skewed operational sex ratio. Ultimately, we need more information about bottlenose dolphin social structure at the time of the aggression.

Contributing factors as cited might be speculative, hence the need for further study.  Dolphin therapy might be another option.

See also reporting by New Scientist and io9.

The penguin huddle. How to stay warm, along with a wave.

The Public Library of Science's international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication PLoS ONE has reported that Emperor penguins behave collectively to stay warm.  In a huddle. Abstract

Daniel P. Zitterbart^1,2*, Barbara Wienecke³, James P. Butler^4,5, Ben Fabry¹

1 Department of Physics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany, 2 Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Bremerhaven, Germany, 3 Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Australia, 4 Molecular Integrative Physiological Sciences Program, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 5 Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

For Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), huddling is the key to survival during the Antarctic winter. Penguins in a huddle are packed so tightly that individual movements become impossible, reminiscent of a jamming transition in compacted colloids. It is crucial, however, that the huddle structure is continuously reorganized to give each penguin a chance to spend sufficient time inside the huddle, compared with time spent on the periphery. Here we show that Emperor penguins move collectively in a highly coordinated manner to ensure mobility while at the same time keeping the huddle packed. Every 30–60 seconds, all penguins make small steps that travel as a wave through the entire huddle. Over time, these small movements lead to large-scale reorganization of the huddle. Our data show that the dynamics of penguin huddling is governed by intermittency and approach to kinetic arrest in striking analogy with inert non-equilibrium systems, including soft glasses and colloids.


Editor: Matjaz Perc, University of Maribor, Slovenia
Received: March 22, 2011; Accepted: April 21, 2011; Published: June 1, 2011

Zitterbart DP, Wienecke B, Butler JP, Fabry B, 2011 Coordinated Movements Prevent Jamming in an Emperor Penguin Huddle. PLoS ONE 6(6):e20260.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020260

There is an art, or rather a science, to keeping warm in a huddle. The more the merrier.

See also BBC News report (with an excellent time-lapse video)

Einstein's general theory of relativity and the space-time vortex around the Earth

Scientists have confirmed that Albert Einstein was right. From Stanford University's Stanford Report of 4 May 2011

Stanford and NASA researchers have confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, concluding one of the space agency's longest-running projects.

Known as Gravity Probe B, the experiment used four ultra-precise gyroscopes housed in a satellite to measure two aspects of Einstein's theory about gravity. The first is the geodetic effect, or the warping of space and time around a gravitational body. The second is frame-dragging, which is the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates.

After 52 years of conceiving, building, testing and waiting, the science satellite has determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, Gravity Probe B's gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit.  But in confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin as they were pulled by Earth's gravity.

The findings appear online in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Read more.  See also NASA Science News, and reporting from NPR, New York Times, The Guardian and AFP (via The Age).

Now for quantum gravity.

The secret of royal jelly

Queen bees are created when designated larvae are fed royal jelly by worker bees. Until now, the exact active ingredient was not known. Masaki Kamakura of Biotechnology Research Center, Toyama Prefectural University has found that the active ingredient is royalactin. The study was a challenge as royal jelly itself degrades very quickly. Abstract from Nature

The honeybee (Apis mellifera) forms two female castes: the queen and the worker. This dimorphism depends not on genetic differences, but on ingestion of royal jelly, although the mechanism through which royal jelly regulates caste differentiation has long remained unknown. Here I show that a 57-kDa protein in royal jelly, previously designated as royalactin, induces the differentiation of honeybee larvae into queens. Royalactin increased body size and ovary development and shortened developmental time in honeybees. Surprisingly, it also showed similar effects in the fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster). Mechanistic studies revealed that royalactin activated p70 S6 kinase, which was responsible for the increase of body size, increased the activity of mitogen-activated protein kinase, which was involved in the decreased developmental time, and increased the titre of juvenile hormone, an essential hormone for ovary development. Knockdown of epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr) expression in the fat body of honeybees and fruitflies resulted in a defect of all phenotypes induced by royalactin, showing that Egfr mediates these actions. These findings indicate that a specific factor in royal jelly, royalactin, drives queen development through an Egfr-mediated signalling pathway.

See also Nature's The Great Beyond and New Scientist.

Royal Jelly is also used a health supplement, although it may induce allergies in some people.  Identification of the active ingredient could result in it being synthesized rather than being harvested from hives.

For those of us who have studied undergraduate biology, biochemistry or genetics, Drosophila melanogaster is still the ubiquitous object of study.

Jumping peacock spider

(photo from ABC)

The peacock spider (Maratus volans) is native to the east coast of Australia. Dr Jurgen Otto captured the unique peacock-like display of the male spider, which was featured in ABC's Catalyst program last month.



In detail (see after the 3.00 minute mark).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgAbyYDFeg
See also Dr Otto's flickr (excellent photos) and Spiders of Australia website.

Yes, spiders can be very attractive.

Whale songs trend across Pacific

Australian researchers have found that male humpback whales in the same population group sing the same song but that any changes to the tune spreads to other pods. Abstract from Current Biology

Highlights

- Humpback whale songs have repeatedly moved east across the South Pacific
- The songs moved across the region in a series of cultural waves
- The waves frequently caused complete “cultural revolution” of the song
- The scale, rate, and repetition of these cultural changes are unparalleled

Summary

Cultural transmission, the social learning of information or behaviors from conspecifics, is believed to occur in a number of groups of animals, including primates, cetaceans, and birds. Cultural traits can be passed vertically (from parents to offspring), obliquely (from the previous generation via a nonparent model to younger individuals), or horizontally (between unrelated individuals from similar age classes or within generations). Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have a highly stereotyped, repetitive, and progressively evolving vocal sexual display or “song” that functions in sexual selection (through mate attraction and/or male social sorting). All males within a population conform to the current version of the display (song type), and similarities may exist among the songs of populations within an ocean basin. Here we present a striking pattern of horizontal transmission: multiple song types spread rapidly and repeatedly in a unidirectional manner, like cultural ripples, eastward through the populations in the western and central South Pacific over an 11-year period. This is the first documentation of a repeated, dynamic cultural change occurring across multiple populations at such a large geographic scale.

Media release from the University of Queensland

Humpback whales spread songs across the Pacific

Researchers at The University of Queensland have found that male humpback whales ‘change their tune' every year during their migration across the Pacific.

A study on whale song published today in the US journal, Current Biology, reveals a striking pattern of cultural change over a large distance, with the rate, scale and repetition unmatched in non-human culture.

UQ PhD student Ellen Garland said 11 different humpback whale song types were identified, which typically started in the eastern Australian population and spread in a step-wise fashion across the region to French Polynesia.

“I noticed that the songs moved quite rapidly through the six populations, usually taking two years to spread all the way across the region,” she said.

“This can compare to the game of Chinese whispers, except the song appears to be transmitted with little changes unlike a human sentence in the game.”

Ms Garland said songs had spread across whale populations suggesting acoustic contact or male dispersal between populations in the region.

“The reason we believe the song tends to travel east is because the eastern Australian population is the largest in the region and has a greater influence than the smaller Oceania ones,” she said.

Previous research has revealed that only male humpback whales sing and that song is a behaviour used in courtship and mating.

Ms Garland said all of the males in a population sang a similar song, but it was continually changing and evolving over time.

“Song can undergo evolutionary change, which occurs over a long period of time, or revolutionary change, where the males start singing a completely new song,” she said.

“We believe the song is continually changing because the males wish to be novel or slightly different to the male singing next to them.

“The way whales change their song can be compared to how humans follow fashion trends – someone starts a new trend and before you know it everyone starts wearing the same thing.”

The study is the first documentation of a repeated, dynamic cultural change occurring across multiple humpback whale populations across a large geographical scale.

It was undertaken in collaboration with the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium and investigated song similarity over an 11-year period within the South Pacific region focusing on the populations of eastern Australia, New Caledonia, Tonga, American Samoa, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia.

Media: Ellen Garland, 0406 965 475 or e.garland@uq.edu.au; or Erin Pearl (UQ Communications) 07 5460 1229 or e.pearl@uq.edu.au

See also reporting by

- ABC (Australia)
- Sydney Morning Herald
- BBC
- PhysOrg.com™ (this is worth a read)


Australian whales. Music trendsetters.

Some species aren't worth saving according to scientists

A new tool has been developed by Australian scientists to enable prioritisation in the attempt to save species at risk of extinction. When these species fall below a population threshold, they may not be worth saving. Abstract from Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is arguably the most popular measure of relative species threat, but its threat categories can be ambiguous (eg “Endangered” versus “Vulnerable”) and subjective, have weak quantification, and do not convey the threat status of species in relation to a minimum viable population target. We propose a heuristic measure that describes a “species' ability to forestall extinction”, or the SAFE index. We compared the abilities of the SAFE index with those of another numerically explicit metric – percentage range loss – to predict IUCN threat categories using binary and ordinal logistic regression. Generalized linear models showed that the SAFE index was a better predictor of IUCN threat categories than was percentage range loss. We therefore advocate use of the SAFE index, possibly in conjunction with IUCN threat categories, because the former indicates the “distance from extinction” of a species, while implicitly incorporating population viability as a variable.

Media release from University of Adelaide

Scientists have new measure for species threat

According to the authors of the SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction) index, conservationists with limited resources may want to channel their efforts on saving the tiger, a species that is at the 'tipping point' and could have reasonable chance of survival. Photo by Juliane Riedl. Full Image (175.46K)

Thursday, 7 April 2011

A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction.

The index, developed by a team of Australian researchers from the University of Adelaide and James Cook University, is called SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction).

The SAFE index builds on previous studies into the minimum population sizes needed by species to survive in the wild. It measures how close species are to their minimum viable population size.

"SAFE is a leap forward in how we measure relative threat risk among species," says co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw, Director of Ecological Modelling at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.

"The idea is fairly simple - it's the distance a population is (in terms of abundance) from its minimum viable population size. While we provide a formula for working this out, it's more than just a formula - we've shown that SAFE is the best predictor yet of the vulnerability of mammal species to extinction."

Professor Bradshaw says SAFE is designed to be an adjunct to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, not a replacement.

"Our index shows that not all Critically Endangered species are equal. A combined approach - using the IUCN Red List threat categories together with the SAFE index - is more informative than the IUCN categories alone, and provides a good method for gauging the relative 'safety' of a species from extinction," he says.

Of the 95 mammal species considered in the team's analysis, more than one in five are close to extinction, and more than half of them are at 'tipping points' that could take their populations to the point of no return.

"For example, our studies show that practitioners of conservation triage may want to prioritise resources on the Sumatran rhinoceros instead of the Javan rhinoceros. Both species are Critically Endangered, but the Sumatran rhino is more likely to be brought back from the brink of extinction based on its SAFE index," Professor Bradshaw says.

"Alternatively, conservationists with limited resources may want to channel their efforts on saving the tiger, a species that is at the 'tipping point' and could have reasonable chance of survival."

The SAFE index is detailed in a new paper published this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Environment (http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/100177). It is co-authored by Reuben Clements (James Cook University), Professor Corey Bradshaw and Professor Barry Brook (The University of Adelaide) and Professor Bill Laurance (James Cook University).

Canadian Digital Journal (Kimberley Pollock) has a good well-sourced write-up. According to the SAFE index, the ten species most at risk of extinction are

1. Javan rhinoceros (Indonesia)
2. Kouprey (Cambodia)
3. African wild ass (Eritrea and Ethiopia)
4. Iberian lynx (Spain)
5. Northern hairy-nosed wombat (Australia)
6. Sumatran rhinoceros (Malaysia and Indonesia)
7. Ethiopian wolf (Ethiopia)
8. Addax (Sahara Desert)
9. Dibbler (Australia)
10. Riverine rabbit (South Africa)

Australia's ABC interviewed Professor Corey Bradshaw, focusing on the northern hairy-nosed wombat (article, radio interview transcript, audio).

While the SAFE index provides a rational approach, this is not always going to be the case. If tigers and pandas fell below the viable population for saving, there is no doubt that extra effort including cloning would be made to save them.  Today, species like the dodo or Tasmanian tiger would certainly attract considerable effort for saving.

Ewe are smarter than ewe think

The Public Library of Science's international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication PLoS ONE has reported that sheep are actually far more intelligent than their reputation holds. Abstract

A. Jennifer Morton, Laura Avanzo
Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Two new large animal models of Huntington's disease (HD) have been developed recently, an old world monkey (macaque) and a sheep. Macaques, with their large brains and complex repertoire of behaviors are the ‘gold-standard’ laboratory animals for testing cognitive function, but there are many practical and ethical issues that must be resolved before HD macaques can be used for pre-clinical research. By contrast, despite their comparable brain size, sheep do not enjoy a reputation for intelligence, and are not used for pre-clinical cognitive testing. Given that cognitive decline is a major therapeutic target in HD, the feasibility of testing cognitive function in sheep must be explored if they are to be considered seriously as models of HD. Here we tested the ability of sheep to perform tests of executive function (discrimination learning, reversal learning and attentional set-shifting). Significantly, we found that not only could sheep perform discrimination learning and reversals, but they could also perform the intradimensional (ID) and extradimensional (ED) set-shifting tasks that are sensitive tests of cognitive dysfunction in humans. Their performance on the ID/ED shifts mirrored that seen in humans and macaques, with significantly more errors to reach criterion in the ED than the ID shift. Thus, sheep can perform ‘executive’ cognitive tasks that are an important part of the primate behavioral repertoire, but which have never been shown previously to exist in any other large animal. Sheep have great potential, not only for use as a large animal model of HD, but also for studying cognitive function and the evolution of complex behaviours in normal animals.

Citation: Morton AJ, Avanzo L (2011) Executive Decision-Making in the Domestic Sheep. PLoS One 6(1): e15752. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015752

Editor: Georges Chapouthier, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France

Received: October 13, 2010; Accepted: November 21, 2010; Published: January 31, 2011

So due to ethical issues with testing on macaques, it was acceptable to test on sheep and the studies inadvertently revealed that sheep have a higher brain function than first thought.

Perhaps it would worth undertaking comparative studies with pigs and dogs. Despite claims of pigs being more intelligent than dogs, they are still bred for food. Raising the status of sheep is unlikely to save their chops.

See also New Scientist.

Supermassive black holes

Some lessons about supermassive black holes from the BBC. The immense gravity of a supermassive black hole is so destructive, that it distorts space-time to breaking point.

Pale Blue Dot

Dr Carl Sagan would have turned 76 today but died very much prematurely from myelodysplasia on 20 December 1996.



Dr Sagan is best known for his work on astronomy and his television series Cosmos which was shown world-wide during the 1980s.

Although he did not have the same effect in astronomy as Johannes Kepler, Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe or Galileo Galilei (and they were fighting against conventional religious thinking at the time), Dr Sagan brought an understanding of astronomy and science to a lot of people. He was a major proponent of the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project.

"the earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena"

2010 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2010 winners, announced on 30 September 2010 at Harvard University were

ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin, Diane Gendron

MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
REFERENCE: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception," Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42.
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
REFERENCE: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention," Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest, New Zealand Medical Journal. vol. 122, no, 1298, July 3, 2009, pp. 31-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lianne Parkin

PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Richard Stephens

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor, Applied Microbiology, vol. 15, no. 4, July 1967, pp. 899–906. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547091/?tool=pubmed>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Manuel S. Barbeito was unable to travel, due to health reasons. A representative read his acceptance speech for him.

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.
<http://www.boemre.gov/tarprojects/377.htm>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, and Stephen Masutani

MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
REFERENCE: "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time," Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 10, e7595.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Gareth Jones

Compare to 2009 - I wrote about it then.

It is so tempting to read some of the research references.

Earth ambassador was nonsense

Two days ago I wrote about reported plans by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOS) to consider the appointment of an ambassador as a point of contact for visiting intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms.

While I politely questioned the logic cited as the reason, I should have expressed greater skepticism.

AFP has now reported, quoting UNOOS, that the story was utter nonsense.

L'Unoosa, dont le siège est à Vienne, réplique ainsi à un article publié par le quotidien britannique Sunday Times: "L'article du Sunday Times est une absurdité", a déclaré l'agence onusienne dans un communiqué.

"La mission du Bureau pour les affaires spatiales est définie par l'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies et il n'y a pas de projet de modifier la mission actuelle", a ajouté l'Unoosa.

It will be interesting to see how The Sunday Times (UK) that reported on the original story responds.

And now, science reporting by formula

Back in March, I wrote about (television) news by formula including Charlie Brooker's mock television news reporting by formula.

Martin Robbins, writing in The Guardian, has revealed the formula used in scientific reporting. Excerpt

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of "scare quotes" to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.

In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research "challenges".

If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims.

This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like "the scientists say" to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist.

In this paragraph I will state in which journal the research will be published. I won't provide a link because either a) the concept of adding links to web pages is alien to the editors, b) I can't be bothered, or c) the journal inexplicably set the embargo on the press release to expire before the paper was actually published.

"Basically, this is a brief soundbite," the scientist will say, from a department and university that I will give brief credit to. "The existing science is a bit dodgy, whereas my conclusion seems bang on" she or he will continue.

I will then briefly state how many years the scientist spent leading the study, to reinforce the fact that this is a serious study and worthy of being published by the BBC the website.

Read more. Robbins also reveals the purpose of subheadings and the comments following the article are definitely worth reading.

According to The Guardian, "Martin Robbins is a Berkshire-based researcher and science writer. He edits The Lay Scientist, a community blog about science, pseudoscience and evidence-based politic."

So not even the BBC is infallible. Just as well I usually check for original media releases from research organisations.

Earth ambassador to greet extra terrestrials

The Daily Telegraph (UK) and Sunday Times (UK, reprinted in The Australian) reported that the United Nations may appoint an ambassador as a point of contact for visiting intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms.

Ms Mazlan Othman, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOS) based in Vienna is expected to discuss details of the proposed new role at a meeting of the Royal Society in early October. This would then be subject to debate at the United Nations General Assembly.

Apparently, the proposal was prompted by the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, increasing the likelihood of discovering extraterrestrial life.

Interesting logic, considering that those hundreds of planets have always been there despite not being previously detected by humans.