Even the Wildlife Isn’t Real

This interesting story (Wildlife filmmaker Chris Palmer shows that animals are often set up to succeed) just came out in the Washington Post in response to environmental film maker Chris Palmer’s new scandalous (you can tell this word has various degrees of seriousness for the average reader) tell-all about the fakery that goes on in capturing the natural side of wildlife.

I was a little distraught to find out my own idol, David Attenborough (I will forever observe interesting moments of animal behavior in nature with an astute British man’s voice narrating the action in my head) has even indulged in staging a moment of coital bliss between a pair of scorpions in a studio. However, one would have to be a bit thick (and I mean this in the nicest way possible) to realize the scene in Blue Planet where they show deep sea fish and plankton zipping about involves souped-up sound effects. First of all, the nature of sound in the sea means we hear ocean audible in a very distorted manner, but I hardly think minute little ctenophores sound like 80’s influenced sci-fi spaceships.

But perhaps the most horrifying part of the article is this little clip:

“The lemmings that plunge to their deaths in the 1958 Disney documentary “White Wilderness” were hurled ingloriously to their doom by members of the crew, as a Canadian documentary revealed.”

I will not be able to watch an animal documentary for a bit yet without thinking there may perhaps be an over-worked wildlife cinematographer roughing up the baby seals before the next take so they look nice for the camera…

And on the same type of note, the photo featured above was taken by wildlife photographer José Luis Rodriguez, recently stripped of his National History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year title. Tiger Woods ain’t got nothing on being a wildlife documentarian….

Repost from Wired.com: Sea Creatures Hint at Recent Trans-Antarctic Seaway

The discovery of nearly identical sea creatures on either side of a now solid Antarctic ice sheet — 1,500 miles wide and over a mile thick — points to an open ocean passage there as recently as 125,000 years ago.

A schematic of a seaway created by the partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (on left).

The new evidence adds to geologic clues indicating the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has collapsed at least once in the last million years, and could do so again in a warmer climate. The complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise global sea level by 11 to 16 feet.

“The West Antarctic Ice Sheet can be considered the Achilles heel of Antarctica,” biologist David Barnes of the West Antarctic Survey, lead author of the study, said in a press release. “Our research provides compelling evidence that a seaway stretching across West Antarctica could have opened up only if the ice sheet has collapsed in the past.”

As part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life, scientists were looking at the distribution of different species of bryozoans, small filter-feeders that are attached to the sea floor as adults (top image). They found that the populations of bryozoans were remarkably similar in two different seas separated by the ice sheet, the Weddell and the Ross.

“Because the larvae of these animals sink and this stage of their life is short — and the adult form anchors itself to the sea bed — it’s very unlikely that they would have dispersed the long distances carried by ocean currents,” Barnes said. “Our conclusion is that the colonization of both these regions is a signal that both seas were connected by a trans-Antarctic sea way in the recent past.”

“This biological evidence is one of the novel ways that we can look for clues that help us reconstruct Antarctica’s ice sheet history,” Barnes said. The study appears in Global Biological Change.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is already considered to be highly vulnerable to climate change, but estimates of when it might collapse vary from a few hundred to a few thousand years.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/antarctic-passage/#ixzz0yH1cDspW

NHPR peers at Great Bay under the Microscope

New Hampshire Public Radio’s show “The Exchange” recently featured the Great Bay area and discussion concerning it’s current state and ecological health.

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Full disclosure – I admittingly have a great deal of personal interest in this topic considering: a) I’m from NH and have always loved the coast and its associated regions b) I’m a marine and freshwater biologist/ecologist by training, and c) I worked for the NH Coastal Program, part of NH Dept. of Environmental Services as an intern for six months.

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Great Bay is a large tidal estuary with many significant rivers serving as tributaries. The region is home to a significant variety of wildlife and yields a variety of important ecological habitats.

(To learn more, check out links and information at the SaveGreatBay blog)

Last year the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) released a report about the health of the local region using several environmental indicators. The basic gist of the report was that the system is in decline in part due to increases in things like pollutants and excess nutrients making their way into the estuaries, often by way of stormwater runoff. (Read the report here)

This feature on “The Exchange” examines the intrinsic value of a region like Great Bay, how it’s being impacted, and what can be done to address the damage.

Access the audio of the program featuring NHPR’s environmental reporter Amy Quinton, Ted Diers, director of the NH Coastal Program (part of the NH Dept. of Environmental Services), and Judith Spang, Democratic state representative from Durham.

You’ll hear about some interesting solutions to storm water runoff from pervious pavement to oyster restoration (to see a successful oyster project currently helping to clean Boston’s water, click here).

So check it out and perhaps weigh in with your own thoughts.

Also, perhaps peruse Prep’s recently released Piscataqua Region management and conservation plan.

I Like My Frogs… Small

A teeny new species of frog was discovered inside a Bornean (from Borneo) pitcher plant. So not only did the discovering scientist find something novel and undescribed, he found it petite. Nothing piques the public’s interest like micro-sized animals. Unfortunately this frog, who grows to the mere pittance of a half inch in length,is not currently the smallest frog species known to us. That distinction belongs to the Cuban Eleutherodactylus iberia, which can comfortably sit on a dime.

With big discoveries this small, just imagine what we could be missing…

Read more here:

• Micro Frog Found in Search for World’s Lost Amphibians (treehugger.com)

I Will Never Complain About Traffic Again – Wait, That’s Not True…

Beijing currently has cars stuck on stretches of highway for the ninth day in a row.

According the Wired.Com blog, Autotopia:

“Whatever traffic hell you endured getting to work this morning is nothing compared to what’s happening in Beijing, where a mammoth traffic jam is entering its ninth day with no relief in sight.

Thousands of trucks have jammed National Expressway 110 since Aug. 14, creating a traffic jam stretching 100 kilometers. Authorities attribute the mess to highway construction exacerbated by accidents and breakdowns. Police are trying to keep tempers from flaring in what is the second massive jam to tie up the highway in the past month.”

Wonder if this is a valid excuse for missing work for a couple weeks…

Repost TampaBay.com: Woman Gets Ride on Back of Shark

A woman swimming in the Atlantic off Behune Beach found herself picked up and carried on the back of a shark, news-journalonline.com reports.

“My first thought was ‘I hope this is a manatee,’ ” Judy Fischman told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “Then I saw the black tail. … Then I saw other sharks and I thought, ‘My God, how am I going to escape a whole group of sharks?’ ”

She started punching the animal, “then a wave came. All of a sudden they were gone,” she said. “They probably realized I’m not food and let go. Maybe they thought I was a seal. I had on a black bathing suit.”

AP says Northern Lights Possible

A recent news release from Associated Press indicates residents ranging from Maine to Michigan should keep an eye turned toward the sky this night and next (August 3rd/4rth) for possible Northern Lights. There’s been some recent sun activity (i.e. storms) that means us more southern folks may actually get to enjoy this primarily far northern phenomenon!

See AP press release in the Portsmouth Herald here.

It Flows Like a River…

some science news this week.

First up, rivers on the seafloor. According to the UK Telegraph, apparently researchers have found channels on the sea bed with water of much different density and salinity than surroundings water coursing through them:

If found on land, scientists estimate it would be the world’s sixth largest river in terms of the amount of water flowing through it.

The discovery could help explain how life manages to survive in the deep ocean far out to sea away from the nutrient rich waters that are found close to land, as the rivers carry sediment and nutrients with them.

The scientists, based at the University of Leeds, used a robotic submarine to study for the first time a deep channel that had been found on the sea bed.

They found a river of highly salty water flowing along the deep channel at the bottom of the Black Sea, creating river banks and flood plains much like a river found on land.

Dr Dan Parsons, from the university’s school of earth and environment, said: “The water in the channels is denser than the surrounding seawater because it has higher salinity and is carrying so much sediment.

“It flows down the sea shelf and out into the abyssal plain much like a river on land. The abyssal plains of our oceans are like the deserts of the marine world, but these channels can deliver nutrients and ingredients needed for life out over these deserts.

“This means they could be vitally important, like arteries providing life to the deep ocean.

Re-post from BBC: Bionic Feet for Amputee Cat

I got such a kick out of the video, I thought I’d share:

Original link here

A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet.

The new feet are custom-made implants that “peg” the ankle to the foot. They are bioengineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through the skin.

The operation – a world first – was carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Surrey.

His work is explored in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet.

The cat, named Oscar, was referred to Mr Fitzpatrick by his local vet in Jersey, following the accident last October. Oscar was struck by the combine harvester whilst dozing in the sun.

The prosthetic pegs, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were developed by a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering.

Professor Blunn and his team have worked in partnership with Mr Fitzpatrick to develop these weight-bearing implants, combining engineering mechanics with biology.

Mr Fitzpatrick explained: “The real revolution with Oscar is [that] we have put a piece of metal and a flange into which skin grows into an extremely tight bone.”

“We have managed to get the bone and skin to grow into the implant and we have developed an ‘exoprosthesis’ that allows this implant to work as a see-saw on the bottom of an animal’s limbs to give him effectively normal gait.”

Professor Blunn told BBC News the idea was initially developed for patients with amputations who have a “stump socket”.

“This means they fix their artifical limb with a sock, which fits over the stump. In a lot of cases this is sucessful, but you [often] get rubbing and pressure sores.”

The Itap technology is being tested in humans and has already been used to create a prosthetic for a woman who lost her arm in the July 2005 London bombings.

“The intriguing thing with Oscar was that he had two implants – one in each back leg, and in quite an unusual site,” Professor Blunn told BBC News.

He said that the success of this operation showed the potential of the technology.

“Noel has some brilliant ideas,” he added. “And we’re continuing to work closely with him to develop new technologies.”

The Bionic Vet is on BBC 1 at 2245 BST on Wednesday

Frogs shake it like a polaroid picture…

In yet another late-night bout of animal voyeurism, male red-eyed tree frogs have been discovered to shake their rumps when entering into a show of dominance with another male.

read a National geographic release about the strange behavior here.

An excerpt:

No, they’re not shivering. And no, they’re not getting shocked. These red-eyed tree frogs in Panama have been recorded shaking their behinds to send a message.

This shaking, known as tremulation, is a form of communication between male tree frogs.

The males are tremulating to establish which is the dominant male. They’re claiming territory for their ‘calling area’ where they spend the night calling for a female mate.

Sometimes, the shaking leads to wrestling among males… and maybe even more shaking, until the loser retreats.

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On the other hand, my aimless poking around on the interwebs has led to my discovery of other frog related items including videos of the Surinam toad whose offspring are born out of pockets in the toad’s back. it’s sort of distressing to watch:

And also that Germany and Denmark suffered a strange bout of exploding toads in 2005. Who knew?