[ Watch the Video: How Does Your Brain Process Poetry? ]
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers at the University of Exeter have been bridging the gap between art and science by mapping the different ways in which the brain responds to poetry and prose. The team used state-of-the-art functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to visual how the brain activates certain regions to process various activities.

Before this study, no one had specifically examined the brain’s differing responses to poetry and prose. The results, published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, revealed activity within a “reading network” of brain regions that were activated in response to any written material.

The team also found that emotionally charged writing activated areas of the brain which are known to respond to music. Predominantly on the right side, these regions had previously been shown to give rise to the “shivers down the spine” feeling caused by an emotional response to music.

The researchers found that when study participants read one of their favorite passages of poetry, regions of the brain associated with memory were stimulated more strongly than “reading areas.” This suggests that reading a favorite passage is like a recollection.

When the team specifically compared poetry to prose, they found evidence that poetry activates brain regions associated with introspection – such as the posterior cingulate cortex and medial temporal lobes.

Professor Adam Zeman, a cognitive neurologist from the University of Exeter Medical School, led the interdisciplinary team of researchers from the fields of psychology and English. They recruited 13 volunteers, all faculty members and senior graduate students in English, then scanned their brain activity. These scans were compared when reading literal prose – such as an excerpt from a heating installation manual, evocative passages from novels, easy and difficult sonnets, and their favorite poetry.

According to Zeman, “Some people say it is impossible to reconcile science and art, but new brain imaging technology means we are now seeing a growing body of evidence about how the brain responds to the experience of art. This was a preliminary study, but it is all part of work that is helping us to make psychological, biological, anatomical sense of art.”

[ Watch the Video: North American Turtles Face Shrinking Habitats ]

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As climate change progresses, it threatens to push species out of their current habitats and into unfamiliar territories. According to a new research review in the journal PLOS ONE, turtle populations face an uncertain future and could be stressed or severely threatened by climate change-induced displacement.

In the study, researchers looked at 59 species of North American turtles using data from over 300 published studies on turtle physiology and genetics, fossils, and models showing the reptiles’ response to climate change over the last 320 thousand years. During the time period covered by the review, the planet passed through three significant climate-change cycles.

The research team discovered that the centers of the turtles’ ranges moved an average of 45 miles for each degree of temperature change. While some species were able to locate a wide-ranging suitable habitat, other species’ ranges shrunk considerably.

“By studying how turtles responded to these climate cycles, we can learn about regional differences of the impact of climate change, how climate change differently impacts species, and how climate has influenced evolution,” said study author Michelle Lawing, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.

[ Watch The Video: Hot Turtle Homes ]

The team’s findings are important for estimating future extinction risks that could be caused by climate change, according to study author Dennis Rödder, a curator for herpetology at the Leibniz-Institute for Terrestrial Biodiversity Research in Bonn, Germany.

“This study, which for the first time comprehensively integrates all available information for the majority of all North American turtle species, provides profound evidence of how global warming will affect the genetic architecture of the turtles,” Rödder said.

The research review indicated that the rate of modern climate change is much faster than turtles’ ability to adapt and evolve with the changes. The scientists said they expect the reptiles will have to change their geographic ranges to keep up with the shifting climate. However, habitable regions for the turtles are at a premium.

“In the past, turtles have coped with climate change by shifting their geographic ranges to areas with more compatible climates. However, it is more difficult for modern turtles to do that with today’s managed waterways and agricultural and urban landscapes,” said co-author David Polly, professor of geological sciences at Indiana University.

Over half of Earth’s approximately 330 turtle and tortoise species are in danger of extinction due to illegal trade and habitat loss, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The reptiles are at a much higher extinction risk than numerous other vertebrates, rivaled only by primates. Many of the most threatened turtles and tortoises are found in Asia.

While people may be tempted to take turtles as pets, conservation groups advice against it. Many turtles are stressed by over-handling and require more care than people may think. Some box turtles will wander fruitlessly in search of their original home until they die if removed from their habitat.

If people do want a pet box turtle, experts recommend getting a captive-bred turtle from a reputable dealer.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A growing body of research from Michigan State University reveals that the region of the brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play a similar role in carnivores. Sharleen Sakai, professor of neuroscience, has studied spotted hyenas, lions, and most recently the raccoon family to find a correlation between the size of the animals’ frontal cortex and their social nature.

The current study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution, examined the digitally recreated brains of three species in the Procyonid family – the raccoon, the coatimundi and the kinkajou. The researchers found that the coatimundi had the largest frontal cortex of the three. This bears out the belief that the frontal cortex regulates social interaction, as the coatimundi is by far the most social of the three animals, often living in bands of 20 or more.

“Most neuroscience research that looks at how brains evolve has focused primarily on primates, so nobody really knows what the frontal cortex in a carnivore does,” said Sakai, professor of psychology. “These findings suggest the frontal cortex is processing social information in carnivores perhaps similar to what we’ve seen in monkeys and humans.”

Sakai, part of the MSU faculty member group who helps to make the university’s brain research portfolio one of the most diverse in the nation, collaborated with Bradley Arsznov, a former MSU doctoral student who’s now an assistant professor of psychology at Minnesota State University.

The current study was based on data collected from 45 adult Procyonid skulls acquired from university museum collections – 17 coatimundis, 14 raccoons and 14 kinkajous. Using computed tomography (CT scans) and sophisticated software, the researchers filled in the areas where the brain would have been.

Analyzing the findings allowed the researchers to discover that the female coatimundi had the largest anterior cerebrum volume consisting mainly of the frontal cortex, which regulates social activity in primates. Sakai said that this makes sense, as the female coatimundi is highly social. The male coatimundi, in contrast, once grown, typically lives on its own or with another male. Coatimundi, also known as the Brazilian aardvark, are native to Central and South America.

The smallest frontal cortex was found in raccoons, which are the most solitary of the three animals. The raccoon also has the largest posterior cerebrum – the area of the brain that contains the sensory area related to forepaw sensation and dexterity. Raccoons are known for their extremely dexterous and sensitive forepaws.

The largest cerebellum and brain stem were found in the rainforest-dwelling kinkajou. This region of the brain regulates motor coordination and is crucial for arboreal animals like the kinkajou.

Sakai said that brain size variations in this small family of carnivores appear to be related to behavioral differences, including social interaction.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Scientists writing in the journal Nature Geoscience say that a similar process to that which allows water to yank oils from ground coffee  in order to make a cup of joe in the morning, could be how the Earth’s core formed.
Stanford University scientists recreated the intense pressures and temperatures inside Earth and found that an iron melt network may have helped grow the Earth’s core. The finding revisits a theory first proposed about 50 years ago that suggested the Earth’s iron-rich core and layered internal structure might have formed in a series of steps that took place over millions of years.
“We know that Earth today has a core and a mantle that are differentiated. With improving technology, we can look at different mechanisms of how this came to be in a new light,” said study leader Wendy Mao, an assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences at Stanford, and of photon sciences at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is operated by the university.
The interior of Earth is divided into layers, with the rocky mantle composed mostly of silicates overlying an iron-rich metallic core. Scientists believe the beginnings of this core were the result of small bodies made up of rock and metals crashing and clumping together shortly after the formation of the sun and the birth of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
One theory says that the heat generated by the collisions and by the radioactive decay of certain isotopes helped warm the Earth. This means the planet would have gotten so hot that its rocks and metals melted, creating a “magma ocean” that would have separated into distinct layers as a result of the metals’ different densities. Iron would have drifted downward towards the planet’s center, while silicates remained on top.
Pockets of molten iron trapped in the mantle layer could tunnel through the surrounding rock to create channels. This network of tunnels could have helped funnel molten iron towards the planet’s center.
Scientists debunked this “percolation” theory when they discovered that the molten ironin the mantle tended to form into isolated spheres that didn’t interact with one another. However, a recent experiment has brought new evidence that percolation could still be a viable mechanism for explaining the formation of Earth’s core.
The experiment confirmed the findings from previous studies that molten iron in the upper mantle tended to form isolated blobs, which would have prevented percolation from happening.
“In order for percolation to be efficient, the molten iron needs to be able to form continuous channels through the solid,” Mao said in a press release.
The scientists found that at the higher pressures and temperatures that would have been present in the early Earth’s lower mantle, the structure of the silicates changed in a way that permitted connections to form between pockets of molten iron, making percolation possible.
“Scientists had said this theory wasn’t possible, but now we’re saying, under certain conditions that we know exist in the planet, it could happen,” Mao said. “So this brings back another possibility for how the core might have formed.”
Although the team’s findings renews the idea of percolation, it doesn’t necessarily mean that other theories are out. The study’s first author, Crystal Shi, a graduate student in Mao’s lab, said that they do not know which mechanism happened first, or if the two happened together.
“At the very beginning, Earth would have still been very hot, and the magma ocean mechanism could have been important. But later as the planet cooled, percolation may have become the dominant mechanism,” Shi said in a press release.

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A newly developing story details yet another event that will be suspended due to the government shutdown, which is now heading into its second week.
Every fall the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department (CVFD) rounds up a herd of ponies living across the channel on Assateague Island. As a nationally registered wildlife refuge, however, Assateague Island is closed to the public, therefore putting a severe damper on the annual festivities. The volunteer fire department, which under normal circumstances tends to these herds, shared on its Facebook page in no uncertain terms why they were canceling the round up. Originally, this event was scheduled to take place this weekend, October 11-13, 2013.
“Fall Round Up has been cancelled due to the childish, idiotic actions of our government. We will let everyone know when we reschedule,” reads a recent post on the volunteer fire department’s Facebook wall.
Later the same day the fire company offered a brief update:
“Rest assured that this shutdown will NOT, and I mean NOT interfere with the health and well being of our beloved ponies. Yes, we have cancelled the round up but if any issue or issues come up at all with any of them until we can do the round up, it will be taken care of!!”
The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, and indeed the city itself, rely heavily on access to these ponies. Each year the department sponsors the Pony Penning, an event where the Ponies are auctioned off to benefit the fire department. This tradition originated in the 1920s when the fire company first began. More than a way for the CVFD to raise money, Pony Penning also brings in tourists from all over the world who want to experience this one-of-a-kind event. This Penning and the subsequent Pony Swim (how the Ponies get to the island) were made famous by the 1947 novel by Marguerite Henry, “Misty of Chincoteague.”
The ponies, guided across the channel during low tide by self-proclaimed “Salt Water Cowboys,” are then checked by veterinarians, allowed to rest, and then led to a corral at the town’s carnival grounds for the next day’s auction. Pony Penning and the Pony Swim aren’t just ways to earn the fire department some extra money; the herds must be kept below 150 so they can be allowed to graze on the national wildlife refuge.
The ponies are vital to the entire town. The community’s largest events are centered on the ponies and, like many other beach towns, Chincoteague heavily relies on tourism dollars. Without access to Assateague Island, some of the town’s busiest weekends could fall flat.
“We put it on our website, and people make plans for this,” said Denise Bowden, the fire department’s president, in an interview with the Associated Press. “For the public to not be able to access Assateague at this critical time when we’re having a beautiful fall, it’s going to hurt. It’s definitely going to hurt.”
The effects of the government shutdown continue to trickle down into many aspects of ordinary American life. For instance, tour guides with the National Park Service have had to find other things to do to keep themselves preoccupied during this furlough. As well, government funded science has been ground to a halt while Democrats and Republicans debate on a new proposed budget.

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

It’s long been understood that cats and other pets can reduce stress in their human caretakers. Yet, there has been little understanding of how our affections toward our feline companions affect them.

That is until now.

A new study says that slow petting and stroking that is so beneficial to humans could be absolutely nerve-wracking to the animals on the receiving end. Researchers from Austria, Brazil and the UK say they were surprised to find that cats that avoid being touched were healthier than those who allowed this interaction. In fact, this study also suggests other commonly understood behaviors of cats may be incorrect, such as their desire to live solitary lives without feline companionship. The results of this study have been published in the journal Physiology and Behavior and were presented during a conference held in Portugal, Spain last month.

Ceva Animal Health sponsored the study, which has found that petting could be an incredibly stressful event for cats. Health care professionals have often hailed animals like cats as great stress relievers and, while this may be true, this action could be harmful to the receiver. In fact, it had been accepted that a greater source of stress for cats was living in a large group within cramped quarters. The international group of researchers now says cats are quite comfortable living in groups this way. More often, it’s their interaction with humans which causes them stress. After analyzing stress hormone levels, the researchers say cats that lived alone were more often stressed than those cats that lived in groups.

“We chose stable households to look into this question and were quite surprised by the results,” explained professor Daniel Mills, professor of veterinary behavioral medicine at the University of Lincoln, UK.

“Despite typically living on their own in the wild, we have known for some time that cats come together when resources like food are concentrated in a single area, for example when people feed strays. However, it might be that they do this out of need and it is still stressful for them, because they are not a naturally social species,” he added.

Cat owners have long argued that cats do not enjoy living in large groups and note that multiple cats often don’t get along with one another. According to Mills, cats that live in groups might not be “best friends,” but they are able to structure themselves in a sort of hierarchy in their environment with little stress.

Any cat owner would readily admit, of course, that there are some cats who do appreciate being stroked by their humans and even beg for this interaction. Mills says his research shows younger cats that live on their own are most likely to be stressed because they have no place in a community. Furthermore, these cats are more likely to be stressed because those cats that do not enjoy being touched have nowhere to hide themselves. Cats that live in houses with other cats tend to have lower stress levels, especially when one cat enjoys being stroked and another does not. In these instances, the cats that doesn’t mind the human interaction can be comfortable in this position while the cat that prefers to be left alone can find somewhere in the house to hide itself.

In a closing note, Mills says cat owners who force their love on their cats are doing the most harm.

“It seems that those cats on whom the owner imposes him or herself are the ones we need to be most concerned about. The results also reinforce the importance of ensuring that you give all individuals control over their environment, so if you have several cats you should give them the choice of sharing or having their own special areas to eat, drink and go to the toilet.”

[ Watch the Video: Science Isn’t Safe From Government Shutdown ]

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Now entering its second week, the government shutdown has forced an awkward “define the relationship” conversation between those who write the paychecks and those who receive them. Without a clear decision on a new national budget, money to operate government services has become tight, meaning politicians have been left to define which government services are “essential” and which are not.

The government understandably believes those agencies which protect life and property to be the most essential, and is therefore allowing them to continue working. Most of the rest, however, must go home without pay and in some cases even those who remain at their desks are working without the promise of a prompt paycheck.

Shutting down the government isn’t as easy as slapping a large, red button and grinding things to a screeching halt. The larger government undertakings — the museums, the parks, the regulators — have had their doors shuttered, resulting in a ‘trickle down’ effect which has impacted those who work with or rely on these agencies. One of the more often mentioned services affected by the shutdown is the winery permit office, meaning anyone looking to open a winery in these dark days must let their aspirations ferment, as it were, a little while longer.

Other research and STEM workers have also been forced to stay home and put their work on hold for an undetermined period, including stink bug counters, telescope operators, museum directors and weather service employees. The latter belong in the group of government employees who must work without promise of a timely paycheck. In fact, let’s start here.

“PLEASE PAY US”

The powers that be have decided that issuing weather forecasts is an important part of protecting life and property, but only just so. While National Weather Service (NWS) employees have been allowed to continue studying radar and weather maps and turning this data into forecasts, they’ve had their paychecks put on hold. The government has promised to give them back pay for the time they logged during the shutdown, but with no end in sight and no real deadline in place, these workers could just as easily work another month without pay as they could another day.

There are nearly 4,000 of these employees in the US, and a few of them stationed in Anchorage, Alaska have passive-aggressively asked Democrats and Republicans to hurry up already and approve a budget. Tucked away in a 5 AM forecast from October 4 was an acrostic which spelled “Please Pay Us.”

An alternate forecast was also issued at the same time, but the cryptic message remains on the website and will continue to live there, though it will also be moved further into the backlog every time they issue new forecasts.

LOOKING UP AND SEEING NOTHING

Another skyward-looking group, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), has also closed their doors as a part of the government shutdown. They’ve now stowed their radio telescopes and will keep them on ice to preserve them for as long as the shutdown lasts. Though a skeleton crew of maintenance workers will remain at telescope sites in New Mexico, Virginia and the Pacific Islands to protect sensitive instruments, astronomers and researchers are furloughed during this showdown.

In fact, the NRAO was supposed to be shutdown along with other government programs on October 1, but because they had some spare cash leftover from the 2013 fiscal year they were able to stay open just a few days more. Three days later, however, the reality of the shutdown hit and they were told to pack up their telescopes and go home.

NRAO Director Anthony Beasley told Science that the 90 or so employees who look after the telescopes can stay in place, but only until November. If a budget bill isn’t approved by this point, the NRAO not only risks losing data, they also risk losing very expensive very large array (VLA) telescopes.

One astronomer who uses the data gathered from these telescopes has even gone so far to say he and his colleagues could lose a year’s worth of data if the shutdown goes on long enough.

WHAT’S ANOTHER COUPLE MONTHS?

While these VLA telescopes wait to scour the heavens once more, a millions-of-years-old dinosaur fossil must wait to be assembled and viewed. It’s likely Wankel T.Rex, one of the most complete fossils ever unearthed, is accustomed to long waits. For the past several years the fossil has spent time at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. This summer the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to move the fossil from Montana to the National Museum of History in DC on October 16.

Moving a fossilized skeleton of such monstrous proportions is no easy task, of course, and with the uncertainty surrounding federal employees’ jobs combined with the threat of impending winter weather, the Corps of Engineers has decided to postpone the delivery until April. Wankel T.Rex will live in Washington for the next 50 years in the museum’s new dinosaur hall.

THE SHUTDOWN STINKS

What really stinks about the shutdown is the potential of being overrun by our insect overlords. The brown marmorated stink bug, understandably, has no natural predator in the US and can wreak havoc on crops in mid-Atlantic states. What’s more, when the temperatures drop, as they’re soon expected to do, the stink bugs try to move inside, causing malodorous infestations among homeowners.

In September the USDA began asking homeowners from all over to look for stinkbugs on the side of their houses, count them, and submit the numbers to a website set up specifically to source the study. Yet when politicians failed to agree on a budget bill last week, the lead researcher responsible for the Great Stink Bug Count was furloughed, their research suspended.

THE THINGS MOTHERS DO FOR THEIR KIDS

Finally, while the shutdown has forced the government and members of the science world to sit down and discuss their relationship, it’s also caused some to strike out on their own and find their own kind of love.

Should the government stalemate continue through this week, funds for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, could run dry. This would leave nine million babies and their mothers without supplemental money to buy dinner. It may also be the driving factor behind a notable increase in the number of women who have signed up for dating sites like SeekingArrangement.com and WhatsYourPrice.com – essentially dating sites for ‘sugar daddies.’

According to Jennifer Gwynn, the public relations manager for SeekingArrangement.com, the only link she can make between a typically slow period for signups and this sudden increase is the government shutdown.

“For us to peak at the end of the month in September, and this week in general, it makes no sense for us to have a growth like this. Half of the new members are single moms, so we’re thinking that it’s tied directly to the government shutdown, since programs like WIC … that help more than 9 million moms, have been stalled. It would make no sense for growth otherwise,” said Gwynn in an interview with NPR.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Humans aren’t the only ones who should be concerned about obesity, according to new research claiming that overweight pet dogs have a shorter life expectancy than their ideal-weight counterparts.

Experts from the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition reviewed data on a variety of popular dog breeds from throughout the US, and found that those who are overweight in middle age suffer a life expectancy reduction of up to 10 months versus ideal weight canines.

The study looked at the body condition of 10 different breeds of both male and female dogs, all of which had been neutered or spayed and were between the ages of 6.5 years and 8.5 years. There were an average of 546 dogs per breed, and data was collected by veterinarians from Banfield Pet Hospital locations nationwide.

“We saw that overweight dogs tend to have a shorter life expectancy. This was particularly pronounced in five breeds – Labrador, Shih Tzu, American Cocker Spaniel, Golden Retriever and Beagle,” lead scientist Carina Salt of the Waltham Center explained in a statement.

“This is the first reported research of its kind looking specifically at a large number of pet dogs. The findings therefore provide important insights into the risks of being overweight for dogs in the general population,” she added. “Being overweight in middle age can have long-term consequences and, depending on breed, mean a reduction in life span of between one and ten months.”

The study was a collaborative effort between Salt’s team at the Waltham Center and Banfield Pet Hospital, and is one part of a wider body of ongoing collaborative research aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of pet obesity. The findings were presented at the Waltham International Nutritional Sciences Symposium (WINSS), which was held this week in Portland, Oregon.

According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, more than half of pet canines in the US are overweight – a condition which has been linked to diabetes, arthritis and high blood pressure as well as kidney and respiratory diseases.

While reducing their size will help, Stacey Stowe of the New York Times said that lowering a dog’s caloric intake is not enough. In a September 25 article, Stowe said that an increasing number of pet owners have been taking their dogs to the gyms or pet spas and enrolling them in fitness programs.

“Exercise is vital to a pet and to any weight-loss program, said Cesar Millan, the dog trainer. Basically, anything ‘that makes a dog a dog is good exercise,’ Mr. Millan said,” the New York Times writer wrote. “That means walking, running, swimming, herding, jumping in agility training, search-and-rescue work.”

“The optimal amount and intensity of exercise depends on the age, breed and health of the dog; some are so overweight that short walks are the only option. And shorten exercise and increase access to water in hot weather,” Stowe added. “Find out from your veterinarian how many calories your dog should consume every day… and don’t let pets appeal to your guilt to get you into overfeeding them.”

[ Watch the Video: Literary Fiction Enhances Social Skills ]
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Skills essential to understanding other people’s mental states and processing complex social relationships can be strengthened by reading literary fiction, according to a paper appearing in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.
PhD candidate David Comer Kidd and psychology professor Emanuele Castano, both of The New School for Social Research, conducted five experiments to measure the impact of reading literary fiction on study participant’s Theory of Mind (ToM) – the ability to attribute various mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.) to both oneself and others.
The researchers selected texts using three different categories of writing – literary fiction, popular fiction and nonfiction. Excerpts of National Book Award finalists and winners of the 2012 PEN/O. Henry Prize for short fiction were chosen to represent literary fiction works. Popular fiction samples came from Amazon.com bestsellers or anthology of recent popular fiction, and non-fiction works were pulled from the pages of Smithsonian Magazine.
“After participants read texts from one of the three genres, Kidd and Castano tested their ToM capabilities using several well-established measures,” the institution said in a statement. “One of these measures is the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test, which asks participants to look at black-and-white photographs of actors’ eyes and indicate the emotion expressed by that actor. Another one is the Yoni test, which includes both affective trials and cognitive ones.”
Kidd and Castano explained that they used multiple types of experiments to make sure that the effects of their findings were not limited to one kind of assessment. Throughout the five different types of tests, the authors reported that participants who had been assigned to read works of literary fiction improved significantly more on ToM tests than the members of the other two groups, whose performances on the tests were nearly identical.
The study indicates that the literary quality of the fiction is essential to fostering ToM. While the literary texts used in the experiments had very different types of content and subject matter, each of them produced “similarly high” ToM results.
According to the researchers, the first experiment showed that “reading literary fiction, relative to nonfiction improves performance on an affective ToM task,” while the remaining four experiments demonstrated that the effect is unique to literary fiction, not popular fiction or nonfiction. The reason for literary fiction’s impact on ToM, Kidd and Castano said, derives from the intellectual engagement and creative thought that it requires of the reader.
“Features of the modern literary novel set it apart from most bestselling thrillers or romances. Through the use of … stylistic devices, literary fiction defamiliarizes its readers,” they explained. “Just as in real life, the worlds of literary fiction are replete with complicated individuals whose inner lives are rarely easily discerned but warrant exploration. … We see this research as a step towards better understanding the interplay between a specific cultural artifact, literary fiction, and affective and cognitive processes.”

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers attempting to define populations of a medium-sized and poorly understood baleen whale say that saving the whales often means knowing – sometimes on a genetic level – one group of whales from another. A group of scientists from Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, NOAA, and other groups are working to define separate groups and subspecies of the Bryde’s whale, which are sometimes targeted by Japan’s scientific whaling program, found in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans.

The team was able to discriminate among different Bryde’s whales (pronounced BREW-dus) by generating genetic information that was akin to a bar code. The research team was able to confirm the existence of two subspecies: one is larger in size and lives in offshore waters, the other is smaller and frequents more coastal marine habitats. The results of this study are published in the Journal of Heredity.

“Very little is known about Bryde’s whales in terms of where populations are distributed, the extent of their range, or even relationships among them at the population, sub-species and species levels,” said Columbia University researcher Francine Kershaw. “Our genetic research will help define these groups and identify populations in need of additional protection.”

“The ability to delineate different populations and subspecies of Bryde’s whales—particularly ones threatened by low numbers and genetic diversity—will help management authorities prevent the loss of unique and distinct genetic lineages and distinct populations,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Ocean Giants Program.

The Bryde’s whale grows to about 50 foot in length and inhabits tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The species, named after Norwegian whaler and entrepreneur Johan Bryde, encounters such threats as scientific whaling, ship strikes, fisheries bycatch, hydrocarbon exploration, and development in coastal waters.

Marine managers face a conservation dilemma because of a lack of knowledge about the Bryde’s whale, specifically how many species and populations there are. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the species “Data Deficient.” In addition, the International Whaling Commission grants Japan an annual take of Bryde’s whales in the northwest Pacific Ocean through the provisions of special scientific permit. Japan was allowed 34 Bryde’s whales in the 2012/2013 season.

The research team conducted an analysis of Bryde’s whale populations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans to fill in these knowledge gaps by examining new genetic samples from 56 individual whales from the waters of Oman, Maldives, and Bangladesh. Published data sets from Java, the coast of Japan, and the northwest Pacific were also used in the study.

Using mitochondrial DNA material, the researchers examined nine diagnostic characters from each of the samples. The majority of samples were harmlessly collected skin samples obtained from living whales using small biopsy darts launched from crossbows. A small percentage of samples were collected from beached whales and individuals killed in ship strikes.

The material gathered from skin samples were examined with a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify specific regions of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on through maternal lines of a population. The team performed a statistical analysis on the data to measure how genetically different individuals were.

The genetic analysis confirmed the existence of two subspecies or types of Bryde’s whales. One type is coastal and one is offshore, which underlines the need to designate both subspecies as separate conservation units, with specific management needs for each type.

In addition, the findings revealed significant population structure for each subspecies between regions. The analysis revealed that the larger offshore Bryde’s whale populations in Maldives, Java, and the Northwest Pacific were genetically distinct from one another. According to the researchers, each population should be considered a separate conservation unit.

An extremely low genetic diversity was observed in the smaller coastal form of Bryde’s whale, the lowest ever measured in a baleen whale population. In the 45 whales sampled in Bangladesh and Oman, only a single maternal line or haplotype was detected, leading the researchers to insist that this population must be considered a conservation unit independent from coastal Bryde’s whales found off Japan.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Already known as a menace around the Great Lakes, with a “Tribble-like” capacity to reproduce, zebra mussels are unaffected by a deadly toxin that wipes out other freshwater mussels, according to a new study in the Journal of Proteome Research.
When blue-green algae flourish in freshwater, they release a toxin that stresses and weakens most freshwater mussels, but not zebra mussels. Study researchers said the finding is bad news for biodiversity and for water-related industries that consider the prolific species to be a menace.
According to the scientists, zebra mussels’ ambivalence to the toxins allows them to thrive in their watery ecosystem better than other freshwater mussels – to the point where they overrun their competition.
“Zebra mussels live in large colonies in the Great Lakes in the United States, and they are a huge problem,” said Claudia Wiegand, an associate professor of environmental stress physiology and aquatic toxicology at the University of Southern Denmark. “They need something hard to attach themselves to and often they find a suitable surface on the inside of the pipes carrying water from the Great Lakes into factories and other industries along the lake. Often they sit so close that they block the water intake.”
Endeavors to manage the spread of zebra mussels, prevent them from attaching to pipes or ships and remove those already attached have cost several million dollars.
“In European lakes we see that many zebra mussels attach themselves to other mussel species and suffocate them, so they cannot breathe or eat, and therefore die,” Wiegand said.
The researchers also looked at another mussel, the Unio crassus, or Thick-shelled River Mussel, and assessing its ability to combat toxins. Unios were tested for their reactions to the algae toxin in naturally-occurring concentrations.
“Unio is less able to combat toxins from blue-green algae,” Wiegand said. “This may help explain why they are declining in some places in Europe.”
“We saw that the unio’s ability to combat the toxin was inhibited,” she added. “The enzymes that normally help the mussel secrete substances were blocked and thus the mussels could not get the poison out of their body. It became stressed and this may reduce its viability in the long run.  Conversely we have seen that the zebra mussels intensify their detoxification mechanisms and secret (sic) the toxin without being stressed or affected negatively.”
Zebra mussels are originally from Eastern Europe and the Caspian Sea. However, the mollusks have spread to the rest of Europe and North America over the past two centuries. Unios are also native to Europe, but unlike zebra mussels, their numbers have been in decline.
Zebra mussels were first seen in the Great Lakes in 1988 just north of Detroit. Experts have speculated that the mollusks were unintentionally introduced to the lakes by ocean-going ships passing through the St. Lawrence Seaway. Because adult zebra mussels can survive out of water for weeks if the conditions are right, they may have had refuge on a transatlantic vessel, and then they were released when the ship dropped anchor in freshwater ports along the Great Lakes.
The mollusks have become such a pest that they have been targeted by several federal policies, such as the National Invasive Species Act of 1996.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The degree-day model used by farmers and horticulturists to determine when it is safe to plant crops and ornamental plants could become untrustworthy as a result of global warming, according to research now appearing online in the journal Global Change Biology.

The degree-day model, which has historically helped agricultural workers determine when leaves will arrive, is a measure of how many degrees above or below a mean the temperature has been over a period of time. The model makes sense when the climate is not changing, but the study authors report their research shows the method could become unreliable as temperatures begin departing from their historical norms.

James Clark, a Duke University environment and biology professor, and colleagues from Marine Biological Lab at Woods Hole and the University of Georgia are working on a statistical model that attempts to look at the climate in the way that plants see it. As part of their research, Clark’s team collected data from the Duke Forest in North Carolina and the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts.

“The timing of the first leaves on trees and plants can make or break an agricultural season. Too early, and the leaves might be blasted by the last frost. Too late and they miss out on maximizing the growing season,” the university explained in a statement.

As global warming causes wintertime temperatures to rise, plants could be more vulnerable to poor timing, Clark and his colleagues discovered. One of their findings is that warming has the most impact in the period from mid-February through mid-March – just a handful of few weeks before the buds would be expected to open. Increasing temperatures during those weeks have a greater impact on the plant’s timing than any other time of the year.

In the forests where Clark and his associates did their work, there is a mix of native trees that live in open-topped, temperature-controlled chambers within natural forests. Some plots are unheated, while others were heated to three degrees Celsius or five degrees Celsius higher than the ambient temperature.

“In the case of the Duke plot, that meant that the +5C chamber experienced no below-freezing temperatures in the unusually mild winter of 2012,” the university said. “It was thought that the trees were ‘programmed to experience a certain amount of chilling and then warming,’ Clark said. But in this case, they wouldn’t have met their usual requirement for chilling before experiencing the warming that signals it’s time for spring.”

Nonetheless, the plants budded extremely early, leading the professor to surmise that the dormant season is “more complex than we thought.” Some types of crops and flowers are more sensitive to warmer-than-normal winters, and some will advance their budding to match the earlier season while others are unable to, Clark explained.

“As the climate changes, can we see differences in how species track change through time? Averages don’t work anymore because the plants aren’t seeing the average,” he added. His team’s research, as well as the he heated forest experiments, was funded by the US Department of Energy.