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Snakes poisoned at birth
One source of human Salmonella infection is associated with pet reptiles and these cases are often serious - sometimes causing septicaemia, meningitis or even death, particularly among children and those at risk due to a compromised immune system. A high percentage of snakes carry the food-poisoning bug Salmonella, but until this study we didn't know whether the snakes became infected through eating contaminated food, or by another route. Dr Matthias Schroter of the Institute of Public Health, Northrhine Westphalia in Gera number of said: "This study sheds light into the transmission of Salmonella. Recently there has been an increase in the number of cases of reptile-associated infection with Salmonella. It is important that people who handle snakes regularly or keep them as pets take appropriate precautions against becoming infected. This knowledge will help in the battle against the transmission of this sometimes fatal bug." Source: Blackwell Publishing........ Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source New sensor improves fish counts
A remote sensor system developed by Associate Professor Nicholas Makris of mechanical engineering, along with others at MIT, Northeastern University and the Naval Research Laboratory, allows researchers to track enormous fish populations, or shoals, as well as small schools, over a 10,000-square-kilometer area -- a vast improvement over conventional technology that can survey only about 100 square meters at a time. "We're able to see for the first time what a large group of fish looks like," said Makris, who compared the dramatic improvement to the difference between seeing everything on a television screen and seeing only one pixel. The new sensor system, described in the Feb. 3 issue of Science, could allow government agencies to figure out what's really happening to fish populations, which a number of environmentalists and researchers believe are in rapid decline. "The world's fish stocks are being depleted at a horrible rate," said Makris, who attributed declining populations to overfishing, a problem that has been abetted by inaccurate fish counts. "One of the reasons (for the inaccurate counts) is the darkness in the ocean. You don't know what's going on"......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source How Rats Think
Image courtesy of MIT
In 2001, Matthew A. Wilson, a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, reported that animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while asleep. Like people, rats go through multiple stages of sleep, from slow-wave sleep to REM sleep. Slow-wave sleep, also referred to as non-REM sleep, makes up a large fraction of the normal sleep cycle and occurs earlier than REM sleep. REM sleep, which takes its name from the rapid eye movements that occur during this type of sleep, is associated with dreaming. Wilson found that during slow-wave sleep, animals replayed spatial experiences in the same order they were experienced. His latest results show that, following a spatial experience such as running laps on a track, the awake animal replays the memory so precisely that its recorded brain activity corresponds exactly to the places it has just been. However, to the researchers' surprise, the episode is replayed in time-reverse order, with the most recent locations first, proceeding sequentially back to the beginning of the task......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source February 21, 2006, 8:40 PM CT Rare Kiwi Bird Hatches at U.S. Zoo [Quote:]This North Island brown kiwi hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., this week-only the second of these rare birds to hatch during the zoo’s 116-year history.Kiwi chicks hatch fully feathered with their eyes open and begin foraging for small worms and berries after their first week of life, since they receive no.....
[Quote:] This North Island brown kiwi hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., this week-only the second of these rare birds to hatch during the zoo’s 116-year history. Read more.... February 21, 2006, 8:37 PM CT Is There a Florida Panther?  I did not know that the Florida panther still existed. According to the Washington Post, there are only 80 animals left in the southern part of the state.References: Plan to Protect Florida Panther Reopens Issue of Its Identity. Washington Post. Florida Panther. NPS.gov. Image source: nps.gov Read more.... Listening for the Fish
The researchers have designed a field study that uses acoustic telemetry technology to track continuously the movements and habitat use of red and black grouper in the Dry Tortugas National Park, the 46-square-nautical-mile marine reserve. The groupers will be fitted with transmitters or "pingers" that emit unique acoustic codes underwater approximately every 20 seconds. Passive listening stations or receivers will be placed in a submersed array that can detect the transmitters. Receivers will record an acoustic tag's presence when it is within range, commonly 250-1,000 meters, depending on the oceanographic conditions. And, because the tags each emit unique identification numbers and time stamps, individual receivers could potentially detect up to 4,000 different fish at any given time......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Designing of Animal Exercise
The opening chapter of the Resource Book outlines the scope of the document and addresses the relevance of studying exercise in general as well as the specific question, why study exercise in animals? It explains how suggestions about the use of animals in exercise paradigms contained in the APS Resource Book fit into the context of U.S. animal welfare requirements, including the Animal Welfare Act, the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Animals, and the ILAR Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Specifically, the APS Resource Book is intended to promote an informed dialogue that can help scientists and their IACUCs arrive at satisfactory answers to questions about how to assure the welfare of animals in exercise research protocols. To this end, the APS Resource Book includes 399 reference citations......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source February 19, 2006, 10:23 PM CT Polar Bears
Read more.... Humans Interfering With Wildlife
It's a 180-degree turn in perspective that Dr. Mark Lewis says is critical to our understanding of emerging infectious diseases of both wildlife and humans. And, he says, in the case of at least one ocean-based disease outbreak, biology and math are proving to be powerful allies in helping stem the growing tide of an ocean plague. "With emerging infectious diseases of wildlife today there's almost always some human component," say Dr. Lewis, an NSERC-funded mathematical ecologist in the mathematics and statistics department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Dr. Lewis' lab group has used mathematical mapping tools, often in collaboration with other research groups, to document the spread of pests from the West Nile Virus to the Mountain Pine Beetle in Pacific Northwest forests. Last year, in a landmark paper, he helped document how commercial salmon farms off Canada's British Columbia coast are a breeding ground for sea lice, a parasite that then infects young wild Pacific salmon. The research was the first to document the parasitic impact of commercial salmon farms on wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source February 19, 2006, 6:50 PM CT Comments sought about delisting Bald Eagles  The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reopened the public comment period on its 1999 proposal to remove Bald Eagles from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. Comments must be received by May 17.The national symbol received federal protection in 1940. Unfortunately, the number of nesting pairs declined to only 417 in the lower 48 states by 1963. The last national census of the species in 2000 revealed approximately 6,470 nesting pairs. Today, estimates put the number at more than 7,060 pairs. That increase resulted from individual, corporate, academic, nonprofit, tribal and government efforts on the local, state and national levels. The recovery process included captive-breeding programs, reintroduction, law enforcement efforts, habitat purchase and preservation, and nest-site protection. "The recovery of the Bald Eagle, our national symbol, is also a great national success story," said H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "The actions we take today reemphasize the management efforts that have proven so successful in recovering eagle populations. Should the eagle be delisted, we expect that the public will notice little change in how eagles are managed and protected." You can read more details about the eagle's history in this previous post. The re-opening of the public comments period, the roughdraft of the National Bald Eagle Management Guidelines and the possible definition of the term "disturb" (which wasn't codified in previous documents) will appear in the Federal Register. Comments about the proposed delisting can be sent to baldeagledelisting AT fws.gov or to Michelle Morgan, Chief, Branch of Recovery and Delisting Photo courtesy of U.S. F&WS Read more.... |
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