Current Events: Endangered Parrot!

Link: http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-parrot-identified-in-australia.html

Author: Tim Wall

A new species of endangered parrot was recently discovered! The western ground parrot split off from the eastern variety (the one familiar to scientists) about two million years ago, according to evidence. Scientists already knew about the western ground parrot's existence, but didn't realize the western and eastern varieties were different enough to be separate species, even considering that the species live on opposite ends of Australia. The scientists looked at DNA preserved in museum collections, and they found that there was more than a 5 percent variation in the DNA. Only 110 of these birds exist currently! They live essentially all in one park, so if a wildfire or some other accident occurs, then two species are wiped out at once. This could be very dangerous for the food chain and the environment of Australia, so it is important that these two species of parrot be kept safe.

I found this article to be very alarming, although also very interesting. I was surprised that scientists didn't know about these two different species before! If they did, it may have helped stop the birds from becoming endangered in the first place. What the article didn't tell me is why the species split in the first place. I would like to find out why this happened, because I think that if scientists knew why this happened they could also ensure the safety of several other endangered species!

Food Inc. Reflection

After watching Food Inc, what are your impressions of how science of food industry, technology of food industry, and society are interrelated?

This movie caused me to go a bit sick in the stomach. Afterward, when I ate a pepperoni pizza, I couldn't stop thinking about how they treated the pigs on the different farms. I think it's terrible, and there should be something that we can do about it, but frankly, we need our food. And the people who make our food aren't really the ones to blame for our obsession with deep-fried meat! We've kind of created a trap that it is impossible to get out of, because if we change the way we make food, then we change the food, and we don't even get the same amount anyway. The whole food industry relies on consumers, which is how society affects the food industry. It is a very tricky business, because if the food industry markets one thing wrong, then the whole thing that has been balanced out so carefully falls apart.

How did the film describe science & technology as a positive or negative impact on society or the environment?
The film described science and technology as more of a negative thing, because it showed how people take science and technology to create a lot more order and machine-made things. Instead of using science and technology to make things more earth-friendly, the food industry has used science and technology to mass-produce more food, to kill off animals in an orderly fashion.

How do our consumer choices affect what is out on the market and therefore, our own species survival? Basically, a total of about 5 companies own the whole food industry. If one of those goes out of business or does something weird to our food, we are in big trouble. If we all decide to stop buying meat from a particular company, we lose a LOT of food.This makes our survival very difficult, because then many people don't have enough food,and people do need their meat!

How are we as humans connected to how the Earth is used? We influence the Earth very directly, in fact. Every time that we pollute, we cause more damage. The Earth is what we made it with machines and factories, with more complicated packaging, with flashy ads and mass-production. We have gotten rid of many species of animals because of how greedy we were, and it is up to us whether the Earth will survive for much longer or not!

When do we say "no" to more high tech devices and go back to what caused the problem in the first place? Why are we only into the "HOW" things work and not the "WHY" things don't? What did this farmer mean? Very often, people don't say no to more high tech devices and just decide to try and figure out more ways of doing things. However, I think that when it originally doesn't work, then it's time to go back and figure out something else, not to try and prove that the first thing is always right by building on it. Often this causes more damage than good.

What is the difference between natural farming and industrial farming? Which is better? Are they both necessary for human survival? Why or why not? Natural farming is much better than industrial farming. Natural farmers actually care for their animals, or better than industrial farmers. Very often, industrial farmers do very cruel things to the animals without caring about them at all. For example, they would feed cows corn even though they can't digest it. This is only because corn is really cheap and easy to grow! Natural farmers, however, normally feed cows what they would eat anyway - grass! One could say that they are both necessary for human survival, but this is only because we need so much food in order to survive and the only way to produce food that fast is by industrial farming. It just seems so cruel to subject the animals to such bad treatment, and I wish it would be possible to know whether I was eating food made from natural farming or from industrial farming.

If technology and industry have improved so much that we are getting faster, fatter, bigger, and cheaper, how are science and technology held responsible for improving or ruining human health and survival?
Well since we have about 5 companies that control our survival, we are pretty much cornered. Science and technology could be very helpful, but only if companies use it the right way. If companies could find a way to use science and technology for a way to make things more efficient AND better for animals, then a lot of our problems would be solved, or minimized, anyway.

What economic costs, environmental costs, ethical costs, health costs, and cultural costs did you observe while watching the film? The companies from the movie attempted to find the cheapest way to do things, and this is all right, but the problem is the health of not only the animals, but also the people who eat the animals! As mentioned before, because the cows aren't physically able to digest corn, E. coli breaks out. The companies keep feeding the cows corn, because it's the easiest and cheapest thing to feed them, and then they make a hole in the cow's stomach and take the corn right out. This is one way it affects the health of animals.
Finding the cheapest way to do things also often affects the health of people, too! Because of the E. coli, one kid died from just eating a hamburger in 12 days. This is very bad for our population and there should be something done to prevent this type of thing in the future.

Finally, state your final thoughts about this film and any changes you see happening in the food industry in the future or even your own eating habits.

I am not able to look at food the same way anymore, ever. Whenever I look at the beef in a salad that my mom makes, I can't stop thinking about the cows being killed in the factories and being gutted without any concern for the poor creatures. I think it is necessary that the food industry has someone step up to help them come up with a solution for all those problems. Also, I think that the government should fix up its weak spots so that companies like Monsanto don't end up getting so much power.

Bats Crash When they use Their Eyes!

Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101115-bats-vision-science-animals/

Author: Rachel Kaufman

New research says that being a blind bat has its good sides - in fact, when wild bats use their vision to fly they are more likely to crash! Bats normally navigate by sending out sound waves and listen to echoes bouncing off their prey. They are also able to navigate visually, but the vision gets worse the brighter it gets. Scientists tested this by setting up an obstacle course in Ontario. They used 3 different light conditions - dark, dim, and bright. The results showed that the vision caused them to crash, but the bats still chose to use it in the well-illuminated course.

I thought this article was very interesting because although I knew that bats used their hearing for navigation, I never knew that they were actually able to see. I thought they used their hearing because they had terrible vision or something. This is yet another example of how animals use adaptations to help them survive and find prey. It is also probably what makes bats such great hunters.

Analysis of Owl Prey

Birds = 9.1 %
Shrew = 1 %
Mouse = 19.5 %
Vole = 30.1 %
Rat = 40 %







Questions:
1. Based upon the class data, rank the most frequently consumed prey for the class "owl population".
The most frequently consumed prey for the class "owl population" is the rat, followed by the vole. Next comes the mouse, then the bird, and finally, with only 1 % of the owls' diets, the shrew. The owl population did not consume any insects.
2. A predator expends energy when hunting for food. Which is the more "energy expensive" cuisine, 35 insects at 1 g each or one 35 g vole?
The more "energy expensive" cuisine would be dining on 35 insects, because it would take more time and more energy to capture them whereas it would take less time to catch the vole.
3. Based upon your data, suppose the shrew population seriously declined. Would it affect the areas owl population?
It would not drastically affect the owl population because the shrew only makes up a small part of the owls' diets. However, if the population of, for example, rats declined, then the whole area would be in big trouble because the rats make up so much of the owls' diets and rats are also common prey for other animals.

Current Events #6 - T. rex's big tail - key to survival!

Link: http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/11/15/t_rexs_big_tail_was_its_key_to_speed_and_hunting_prowess.html
Author: Biology News Net

When we hear "T. rex", we think of a huge monstrous dinosaur with a pointlessly big head and big tail. However, extensive research shows that powerful tail muscles made the giant dinosaur one of the fastest moving hunters of its time. The paleontology student researching this, Scott Persons, began his research by comparing the tales of reptiles such as crocodiles and Komodo dragons to the T. rex's tail. He realized that for all of the animals he had been researching, the biggest muscles were attached to upper leg bones. The muscles are called "caudofemoralis muscles" and provide the power stroke which may have been a key thing in the T. rex's quick movements. However, there is a distinctive difference between other reptiles/animal's bones. The tails of both T.rex and modern animals are given their shape and strength by rib bones attached to the vertebrae. Persons found that the ribs in the tail of T. rex are located much higher on the tail. That leaves much more room along the lower end of the tail for the caudofemoralis muscles to bulk-up and expand. Without rib bones to limit the size of the caudofemoralis muscles, they became a robust power-plant enabling T.rex to run.
This article was interesting to me because I haven't really learned about dinosaurs in the past but I wanted to know a little more about them. I think it's really cool how scientists are able to take a skeleton and compare it to things alive today - it really shows how science has advanced over the past few centuries. The article also helped me understand a bit more about how there are animals that are made to fit each environment and thrive in it, such as the T. rex, and there are animals that may not do so well. This is just a simple concept in each ecosystem - natural selection.

Human Footprint Reflection

Sustainability is how we uphold the earth's resources and how we enable the earth's survival. It is very important that humans learn how to sustain the earth's resources because if we run out, there is no other earth we have. I like to think of it as Adore's Chocolate motto - Save the Earth! It's the only planet with chocolate!

What is a human footprint? A human footprint is the trace that every single person leaves behind, the trace of all of the resources we've used and what we each have separately done to both help and hurt the environment. According to the website on the blog post, if everybody lived my lifestyle we would need 2.3 earths. I would really like to change that.
We can help lessen our human footprint by really reminding ourselves to be nice to our environment. When we are in the shower, we can remind ourselves to turn it off as soon as we are done, and not to take half hour showers every day. We can also buy organic foods that do not come from other parts of the earth and are local. This will also help. We can ride the bus or carpool or bike or walk instead of driving a car every day. We can even buy hybrids instead of regular cars!
I think this video is trying to tell everybody who watches it about how even though there are so many people in the world, causing us to feel insignificant, every single little thing we do impacts the earth. Whether it's that we decide to buy the inorganic kind of food or that we leave the tap on every single time we brush our teeth, we are affecting the earth.

Some things that really amazed me from watching the movie were how much of each resource we waste. For example, the amount of showers we take in a lifetime. So many, and yet they could have been achieved in half the amount of time they usually are. Also what amazed me was how much goes into building a single shoe, or a single car, or a single house! It seemed like so much useless junk that, when pieced together, creates our life, what we depend upon.

The Wet-dog Wiggle

Link: http://news.discovery.com/animals/wet-dog-shake-physics.html
Author: Jennifer Vegias

There are many furry animals in the world, and though it may not seem like it, they are very smart. They have learned over time how to dry themselves after swimming or getting wet as efficiently as possible by shaking the water off at a frequency that maximizes the water droplets which fly off. Scientists have compared this process to a salad spinner because a salad spinner strips most droplets off of the lettuce. There is a particular team studying animals’ abilities to shake at optimal frequencies led by Andrew Dickerson. Team member David Hu is part of a lab which studies animals that use surface tension as a way to survive or get from place to place – for example, water striders which walk across water and ants that have the ability to link together to prevent drowning. Andrew Dickerson led many researchers to tape many wet furry mammals shaking themselves dry of all sizes – sizes from mice to tigers. No animals were harmed in the process. In experimenting with these videotapes, scientists have realized that the smaller animals shake off water a lot faster than the bigger animals. For example, a mouse shakes back and forth 27 times per second, but a big animal such as a grizzly bear shakes off water only 4 times per second. Another factor in how water is released more efficiently in their skin is how loose the skin is. By examining the videotapes closely, scientists were able to tell that the skin of a dog can move 90 degrees on either side of the spine. This means that the tighter the skin is, the faster it releases water and the more of the water it releases. It may not seem like a very interesting discovery, but if a dog couldn’t dry itself, it would have to use 25 percent of its daily calories just to get rid of the water. This would create a species that would die out very quickly, because every time the dog would get wet it would get hypothermia and it would die.

This article was interesting to me because I thought it was really strange how something as simple as shaking off water can be such an important thing for scientists to explore and how important adaptations can be for animals. I also thought the video was really well made, because it showed the difference between the different animals shaking off the same amount of water, from mice to Chihuahuas to Great Danes to tigers. This video helped me understand more about natural selection because it showed how important it really can be for different animals to have the ability to adapt to new environments and how if they don’t they don’t stand a chance in that world. Another example of this would be the dodos – when I read about the way that they went extinct I was pretty sad, but when you think about it nature just wasn’t on their side. Natural selection decided for humans and against the dodos.

Current Events #4 - Global Extinction Crisis!!

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/26/AR2010102607146.html?tid=wp_featuredstories

Author: Juliet Eilperin

Extinction is becoming more and more of a problem nowadays. One fifth of all vertebrates and almost a third of all rays and sharks are facing the threat of extinction. This is according to a survey that assessed almost 26,000 species across the earth. As well as that, things such as habitat destruction, invasive species, and over-exploitation are growing and are moving about 50 species closer to extinction each year. The senior vice president for science and knowledge at the organization Conservation International, Andrew Rosenberg, says that this is very urgent. According to him, what must be done is “We need to focus on protected areas, both terrestrial and marine. This survey, conducted by 174 researchers from 38 countries, will be used as a meeting topic as representatives around the world will go to meet in Nagoya, Japan. They will debate conservation goals there for the coming decade, so that the extinction rate goes down. However, there is a problem – a third of the habitable land on Earth was transformed into a place for food production. Removing this habitat might create some serious consequences for biodiversity.

This article was interesting to me mainly because of my invasive species presentation. There is actually more to the article talking about how invasive species affects extinction, and this helped me understand a lot of the negative effects of invasive species for my presentation. I thought it was really scary that we’re now in a position that we can’t back out of so easily – if we take away what’s been causing all of these Earth-related problems, then we create biodiversity problems and make it a lot harder for humans as a species to live. Before, when the food industries and the factories and all of these things that create pollution or take up space were only just created, it would have probably been possible to take them out of our life again. However, now it is nearly impossible – so some people are even thinking of it as a matter of the survival of the human race or the survival of the earth.

Brown Penguins ?! 36 million years old!!! Current Events #3

This article involves a giant penguin with differently-colored feathers – an extinct one. A fossil giant penguin was found recently – studies show that the fossil is 36 million years old! The skeleton found includes a pretty big portion of the body with the skull and flipper, but the best find overall are the fossilized feathers. They were so well preserved that scientists were able to examine the feathers and look at the pigmented nubbins (called melanosomes) that give the plumage its color. This penguin, dubbed the Inkayacu Paracasensis, is about twice of today’s emperor penguins weight and stretched almost 1.5 meters while swimming! However, the most interesting discovery from this fossil is that the ancient penguins wore hues of soft grays and reddish browns, as opposed to wearing the formal “tux” that penguins adorn themselves with today. This discovery was made in Peru, and quite recently, too. Scientists all over the world have been studying it in hopes of understanding more about how the penguins had evolved from flying birds to swimming birds – unfortunately with nearly no luck. From the flippers, scientists have worked out that at this point in time, the birds were already built as swimmers, not as fliers.

This was very interesting to me because I had always thought of penguins as black and white swimming birds. I never really thought about how they had to evolve from flying birds to swimming birds and how their color was once different too. Also, one part of the article that was really interesting was the part describing the melanosomes. According to research, the melanosomes in the penguins’ flippers help them withstand the pressure from the water, because water is 800 times denser than air. This helped me understand more about the cycle of how animals become who they are today, and this has a lot to do with adaptations. At some point in time very long ago, these penguins were probably built in a different way. However, because this way was probably not the best way for them to survive, they slowly evolved over millions of years to what they are now.