Science talk is here one more time. Gather around and take a well deserved hiatus from all the politics of the day. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today's tidbits include curry spices reduce methane production in sheep, ocean acidity may give young fish a death wish, whales shout to overcome noise, black hole blows a big bubble, active immune tolerance makes pregnancy possible, a new form of evolution, and two new species of fish in Gulf. Pull up that beach chair and settle in for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a subject of major concern these days. Researchers report spices reduce methane production in the digestive system of sheep.
...coriander and turmeric - spices traditionally used to flavour curries - can reduce the amount of methane produced by bacteria in a sheep’s stomach by up to 40pc.
Working a bit like an antibiotic, the spices were found to kill the methane-producing 'bad' bacteria in the animal's gut while allowing the 'good' bacteria to flourish.
Chemical analysis carried out during the study suggests the high levels of unsaturated fatty acids found in coriander seeds are likely to be responsible for the large reduction in methane gas.
Researchers exposed young reef living fish to acidity levels approximating what may be seen in a hundred years or so.
In the latest study, the researchers raised clownfish and damselfish in the sort of water conditions expected by 2050 under current CO2 pollution rates, and those that could prevail by the century’s end if those rates don’t change. A control group was raised in current water acidity levels.
In an aquarium, clownfish from the control group instinctively fled from the scents of their natural predators. So did those in the mid-century group. But half the fish raised in end-of-century concentrations swam straight towards the scents. Had predators rather than scientists been waiting, they would have been eaten.
The damselfish exhibited similar reactions.
Whales communicate through sound signals sent to one another.
It appears that right whales increase the amplitude, or the energy in their calls, directly as background noise levels increase without changing the frequency. This suggests that right whales can maintain the signal to noise ratio of their calls in moderate levels of ocean noise.
What will happen when the physical limit to this response is reached as human activity and noise increases?
Remarkable advances in astronomy and imaging are pouring out day by day. A recent image of a black hole blowing a bubble is a fine example of this process.
Black holes are known to release a prodigious amount of energy when they swallow matter. It was thought that most of the energy came out in the form of radiation, predominantly X-rays. However, the new findings show that some black holes can release at least as much energy, and perhaps much more, in the form of collimated jets of fast moving particles. The fast jets slam into the surrounding interstellar gas, heating it and triggering an expansion. The inflating bubble contains a mixture of hot gas and ultra-fast particles at different temperatures. Observations in several energy bands (optical, radio, X-rays) help astronomers calculate the total rate at which the black hole is heating its surroundings.
The miracle of pregnancy has long been a wonder and will continue to be so for time to come. One small part of the puzzle is now answered.
The concept of pregnancy makes no sense—at least not from an immunological point of view. After all, a fetus, carrying half of its father's genome, is biologically distinct from its mother. The fetus is thus made of cells and tissues that are very much not "self"—and not-self is precisely what the immune system is meant to search out and destroy.
Women's bodies manage to ignore this contradiction in the vast majority of cases, making pregnancy possible. Similarly, scientists have generally paid little attention to this phenomenon—called "pregnancy tolerance"—and its biological details.
This tolerance develops with pregnancy as special T-cells begin to function. The response is not innate (that is females are not born with the function but must develop the response).
Why develop your own genes when you can borrow some from another organism in a newly described alternative to traditional evolution?
In previous well documented cases of evolution, traits that increase an animal's ability to survive and reproduce are conferred by favorable genes, which the animal passes on to its offspring. (Researcher) Jaenike's team has chronicled a striking example of a bacteria infecting an animal, giving the animal a reproductive advantage, and being passed from mother to children. This symbiotic relationship between host animal and bacteria gives the host animal a readymade defense against a hazard in its environment and thus has spread through the population by natural selection, the way a favorable gene would.
While the continuing horror of oilpocalypse continues in the Gulf a report of two new species of fish comes to light.
Pancake batfishes are members of the anglerfish family Ogcocephalidae, a group of about 70 species of flat bottom-dwellers that often live in deep, perpetually dark waters. Pancake batfishes have enormous heads and mouths that can thrust forward. This, combined with their ability to cryptically blend in with their surroundings, gives them an advantage for capturing prey. They use their stout, arm-like fins to ‘walk’ awkwardly along the substrate; their movements have been described as grotesque, resembling a walking bat. As most anglerfishes, batfishes have a dorsal fin that is modified into a spine or lure, although their lure excretes a fluid to reel in prey instead of bio-illuminating.
The findings serve to underscore the diversity which may be lost to an environmental catastrophe of the current magnitude.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Rearing salmon in hot water induces vertebral deformities
Cycling carbon through terrestrial ecosystems
Planck captures the universe coming to life
Isolation a threat to Great Barrier Reef fish
Hips are best for determining sex of skeletal remains
Nano-sized light mill drives micro-sized disc
Marine scientists return with rare creatures from the deep
How birds prepare for war
Fish "talk" to each other
Thousands of plant species may be extinct before scientists discover their existence
Newborn stars discovered in dark cosmic cloud
New species "Living fossils" found in Atlantic Pictures, pictures
Flexible organic transistor memory looks promising for future electronics
New measurements make the proton smaller than thought
Early humans adapted to freezing climates more than 800,000 years ago
The computer mouse turns invisible
What secrets are stored in the roots of corn plants?
Researchers crack mechanism of eggshell formation
Origins of multicellularity
Fireflies blink in synch to send a uniform message
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
Eureka Science News
LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
Science Centric
Science Daily
Scientific American
Space Daily
Blogs:
A Few Things Ill Considered Techie and Science News
Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
ScienceBlogs
Space Review
Techonology Review
Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
Science Insider
Scientific Blogging.
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
Daily Kos regular series:
Daily Kos University, a regular series by plf515
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
This Week in Space by nellaselim
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. This week OND by palantir.
Weekend Science by AKMask
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery or the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.
NGC3603, NASA, Public Domain