Environmentalism and Wildlife Conservation Discussion

For sea turtles, there's no place like magnetic home: "Adult sea turtles find their way back to the beaches where they hatched by seeking out unique magnetic signatures along the coast, according to new evidence."

Plan to save monarch butterflies backfires: "It started with the best of intentions. When evidence emerged that monarch butterflies were losing the milkweed they depend on due to the spread of herbicide-resistant crops in the United States, people across the country took action, planting milkweed in their own gardens. But a new paper shows that well-meaning gardeners might actually be endangering the butterflies’ iconic migration to Mexico. That’s because people have been planting the wrong species of milkweed, thereby increasing the odds of monarchs becoming infected with a crippling parasite."

Nearly half the systems crucial to stability of planet compromised: "Almost half of the processes that are crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become dangerously compromised by human activity. That is the view of an international team of 18 researchers who provide new evidence of significant changes in four of the nine systems which regulate the resilience of the Earth."

New planetary dashboard shows 'great acceleration' in human activity since 1950: "Human activity, predominantly the global economic system, is now the prime driver of change in the Earth System (the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes), according to a set of 24 global indicators, or 'planetary dashboard.'"

Secrets of the animals that dive deep in the ocean

Basically, we know some things, but there's still more we need to understand.

Sewage sludge could contain millions of dollars worth of gold: "If the holy grail of medieval alchemists was turning lead into gold, how much more magical would it be to draw gold from, well, poop? It turns out that a ton of sludge, the goo left behind when treating sewage, could contain several hundred dollars’ worth of metals—potentially enough to generate millions of dollars worth of gold, silver, and other minerals each year for a city of a million people.

Metals have long been known to concentrate in sewage, which mixes toilet water with effluent from industrial manufacturing, storm runoff, and anything else flushed down the drain. It’s a headache for sewage utilities that must cope with toxic metals lacing wastewater headed for streams or sludge that might otherwise be spread on farm fields.

But what if those metals had value? In a new study, scientists at Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, quantified the different metals in sewage sludge and estimated what it all might be worth. They took sludge samples gathered from around the country and measured the metal content using a mass spectrometer that can discern different elements as they are ionized in a superhot plasma. The upshot: There's as much as $13 million worth of metals in the sludge produced every year by a million-person city, including $2.6 million in gold and silver, they report online this week in Environmental Science & Technology."

Scientists Discover Two New Pollutants In Fracking Waste: "The primary waste product created by oil and gas drilling contains two types of potentially hazardous contaminants that have never before been associated with the industry, research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology on Wednesday revealed.

Duke University geochemistry professor Avner Vengosh and his team of scientists found that wastewater produced by both conventional and unconventional oil drillers contains high volumes of ammonium and iodide — chemicals that, when dissolved in water or mixed with other pollutants, can encourage the formation of toxins like carcinogenic disinfection byproducts and have negative impacts on aquatic life."

... You mean that Solid Gold Poop is even more Truth in Television that it already is?

At this time the extraction costs would exceed the payoff by far, unfortunately.

A similar case on a much larger scale for comparison: many highways constructed between the 50's-80's in the northwest regions of the USA were made using gravel taken from mine tailings. Even then the mine owners knew there has a significant quantity of gold/precious metals to be had from them but with prices as they were it would take far more money and effort to extract than it was worth. Fast forward today and we have stretches of "million-dollar-a-mile" highway that use the "streets paved with gold" idiom a little more literally than most would imagine

Empty seas? Scientists warn of an industrialized ocean

It's kinda long.

The deep-diving insect that conquered the sea

On sea lion and elephant seal lice.

Tropical paradise inspires virtual ecology lab: "A paradise on Earth could soon become the first ecosystem in the world to be replicated in digital form in pain­staking detail, from the genes of its plants and animals to the geography of its landscape.

An international team is preparing to create a digital avatar of the Pacific island of Moorea, which lies off the coast of Tahiti and is part of French Polynesia. Moorea is already one of the most studied islands in the world; the team plans to turn those data into a virtual lab that would allow scientists to test and generate hypotheses about the impact of human activities."

Waiting to be discovered for more than 100 years—new species of bush crickets: "Museums of Natural History are an important source of evidences of existing variety and diversity of animal species. Many species lie on shelf, waiting for years and years to be discovered. A new study published in the open access journal ZooKeys reveals 4 new genera and 4 new species of bush crickets discovered in museum collections to prove the value of these institutions.

One of the four new bush crickets, Arostratum oblitum, has in fact been waiting for over 100 years to be discovered and described. This curious fact also inspired the name of the new species to be 'oblitum', which means 'forgotten' translated from Latin."

Warming climate likely will change the composition of northern forests, study shows: "Visitors to northern forests in coming decades probably will see a very different set of trees as the climate warms, a new study shows. The study used a unique long-term outdoor experiment to examine the effects of climate change on trees in the boreal forest along the U.S.-Canadian border."

Important mechanism involved in production of mosquito eggs identified: "Female mosquitoes rely on a blood-meal as a source of nutrients required for reproduction. If the mechanisms that govern mosquitoes' egg production are better understood, novel approaches to controlling the reproduction and population of mosquitoes can be devised. A team of scientists has made a research breakthrough in understanding, at the molecular level, one such mechanism related to the mosquito reproductive process. This mechanism includes small regulatory RNA molecules known as microRNAs."

India’s wild tiger population has increased 30% since 2010: "India’s tiger population has risen from 1,706 individuals to 2,226 over the past four years, officials reported yesterday. With estimates last year that the global wild population is teetering just over 3,000 individuals, an increase like this crucial for the survival of this beleaguered species.

This four-year increase is part of an even longer-term upwards trend - the population was at 1,411 individuals in 2007, which represents an increase of 60 percent over the past seven years.

'While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India,' Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar told journalists in New Delhi yesterday. 'This is great news.'"

RE mosquitoes article: Here's to hoping that positive results from this research would lead to effective ways to permanently eradicate/devastate our local mosquito population so that we no longer have to worry about dozens of the damn vermin infesting our houses with every time we open a door to the outside for longer than 2 seconds.

Endangered chimpanzees may experience drastic habitat loss within 5 years: "Dramatic habitat loss by 2020 threatens the population of the planet's most endangered chimp subspecies, according to new research. The work suggests that climate change could do more harm to chimpanzee populations than previously realized."

Commercial bees threaten wild bees, say researchers: "New measures are needed to stop diseases carried by commercial bees spilling over into the wild, says a University of Exeter team.

Evidence suggests bees bred in captivity can carry diseases that could be a risk to native species.

Bees are used commercially to pollinate crops such as peppers and oilseed rape.

Species of bees used for this purpose, or in commercial hives, are known to suffer from parasite infections and more than 20 viruses."

Cougars living near humans kill more deer: "People seldom see cougars, America’s largest wild feline, because of the cats’ secretive ways. But their skittishness comes at a cost, says a team of researchers who tracked the movements of 30 cougars in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains between 2008 and 2013. The researchers fitted the cats with GPS and radio collars, then used a special software program to identify 208 sites to which the cougars (Puma concolor) returned over the course of several days—a sign that they likely had made a kill. In urban areas with between two and nine houses per hectare, female cougars killed 36% more deer than female cats in rural areas and spent less time feeding on each carcass, the scientists report online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B."

Chimps And Gorillas Desperately Need Ebola Vaccine Too – Virus Has Wiped Out A Third Of Them: "There is a side to the Ebola crisis that, perhaps understandably, has received little media attention: the threat it poses to our nearest cousins, the great apes of Africa. At this moment in time Ebola is the single greatest threat to the survival of gorillas and chimpanzees.

The virus is even more deadly for other great apes as it is for humans, with mortality rates approximately 95% for gorillas and 77% for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Current estimates suggest a third of the world’s gorillas and chimpanzees have died from Ebola since the 1990s.

As with humans, these deaths tend to come in epidemics. In 1995, an outbreak is reported to have killed more than 90% of the gorillas in Minkébé Park in northern Gabon. In 2002-2003 a single outbreak of ZEBOV (the Zaire strain of Ebola) in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed an estimated 5,000 Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). It’s hard to accurately count such elusive creatures but the WWF estimates there are up to 100,000 left in the wild – so a single Ebola outbreak wiped out a considerable chunk of the world’s gorilla population."

Orangutans take the low road: "The soulful Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is a consummate acrobat, swinging with ease through the canopy of its rainforest home. As logging invades the endangered Indonesian primate’s habitat, scientists fear orangutans, whose name means “man of the forest,” will increasingly be cut off from the food, family, and shelter they need to survive. The orange apes may occasionally shamble across the forest floor to grab a snack, scientists thought, but for the most part they depend on trees to get around. Now, new research from Wehea Forest in Borneo suggests orangutans may be more willing to hit the pavement than scientists realized. Researchers installed motion-triggered cameras in three regions of the Wehea Forest in Borneo—one ancient and untouched, one previously logged and recovering, and one now being logged. Nighttime photographs of orangutan movements over 2.5 years (see above) revealed that the shaggy apes frequently hike through pristine and regrowing forests, cleared areas, and even along deserted logging roads."

Caterpillar makes magical cocoon

Mainly out of resin.

I've never seen anyone explain what role humans play or played in the ecosystem. If other intelligent animals have a clearly identifiable niche then it follows that humans must naturally have one too. What is it or was it? Did it change over time? What makes our place in nature post-Ice Age different from before then? Did we really not have any place in any ecosystem after the agricultural revolution? These are important questions

I'm guessing we were basically chimpanzees in terms of role in the ecosystem way back when. Then we gradually became more sapient and decided toughing it out in the random crap other animals were subjected was bullshit, and human history could be seen as an increasingly bigger fuck you to being subject to aforementioned random bullshit.

But, if we're being serious, we have no place in nature because nothing has a place in nature. Nature is an arbitrary thing we made up. Bees and flowers do their pollinating thing just because it happened to beneficial to both.

Or not. I'm not to big on existential thoughts like that hypocritically being sure of itself, but it probably captures my feelings on the subject.

Researchers identify natural plant compounds that work against insects: "Each year millions of deaths result from diseases transmitted by insects. Insects are also responsible for major economic losses, worth billions of dollars annually, by damaging crops and stored agricultural products.

Many currently available insecticides present environmental and health risks. Further, insects develop resistance to existing insecticides, complicating pest-control strategies. The need to develop novel effective insecticides is therefore urgent.

Enter 'insect-specific growth regulators,' which, as their name suggests, are compounds that regulate the growth of insects. They represent attractive pest-control agents because they pose no health risk to humans and are also environmentally safe."

Baleen whales hear through their bones: "Understanding how baleen whales hear has posed a great mystery to marine mammal researchers. Biologists reveal that the skulls of at least some baleen whales, specifically fin whales in their study, have acoustic properties that capture the energy of low frequencies and direct it to their ear bones."

Where did the missing oil go? New study says some is sitting on the Gulf floor: "Some 6 million to 10 million gallons of oil from the BP oil spill are buried in the sediment on the Gulf floor, about 62 miles southeast of the Mississippi Delta, researchers have discovered."

Food chain wise, we'd more or less be chimps. Near the top but not quite at it, and coulb put up a fight with most above us. Then we developed weapons and the rest is history.

Origin of bed bugs revealed: "Booth and his colleagues have used genetics to unveil the origin of bed bugs. They found that there are two lineages in Europe. They are so diverse, they have almost split into two species.

What's more, their origin lies with bats.

The research, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, provides the first genetic evidence that bats were the ancestral host of the bed bugs that plague human residences today."

Research shows the rats of NYC are infected with at least 18 new viruses: "New research into the health of New York City rats has revealed that they're carrying at least 18 previously unidentified diseases - as well as other known, pretty nasty illnesses.

The study, led by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York, identified pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella and the closest relative to human hepatitis C on record, living in rats. The results are published in the journal mBio."

Scuba diver discovers 10,000-year-old forest underwater: "Remnants of 10,000-year-old forest that once spanned thousands of acres and connected Great Britain with continental Europe have been discovered by British divers.

Dawn Watson was diving in the North Sea off the Norfolk coast in the UK - about 200 km northeast of London - when she made the unexpected discovery.

After being forced off her normal course by rough water, Watson continued swimming, and was eventually in the midst of large oak trees, some with branches measuring eight-metres-long, lying on the sea floor.

“To start with I actually thought it was a piece of wreck,” Watson told the BBC . 'It just looked like a piece of hull. It wasn't until I had a really close look that I realised it was actually solid wood.'

Watson, whose air tank was nearing empty, had to turn around very quickly, and told the BBC she was very lucky to make the find: 'If I’d been three or four metres to the right we’d never have seen it at all.'"

Our seas are in trouble: Extinction risk for 20-25% of well-known marine species: "Overfishing, pollution, climate change and destruction of habitats like coral reefs are all putting our seas in trouble but academics fear the risk is not being taken as seriously as concerns for the loss of animals and plants which live on land, experts say. Using the most comprehensive conservation data available for both marine and non-marine organisms, new research has shown that 20 to 25 per cent of the well-known species living in our seas are now threatened with extinction — the same figure as land living plants and animals."

Meet The Parasitic Worm That Kills Giant Pandas: "Giant pandas aren’t dying like they used to. In the early 1980s, starvation accounted for more than nine out of ten deaths. However, over the past three decades a parasitic gut worm has replaced that as the dominant killer.

New research from Sichuan Agricultural University, published in the journal Parasites and Vectors, provides a better understanding of the ecology of this parasite, and may help preserve the few pandas that remain in the wild.

Baylisascaris schroederi is a species of parasitic roundworm that live as adults in the intestine of giant pandas. In large numbers, they can form a bowel obstruction and lead to more serious diseases. The adult B. schroederi produces eggs which leave the host along with panda faeces. The eggs hatch into larvae inside the intestine and proceed to burrow through various bodily tissues, causing inflammation and scarring in the intestinal wall, liver and lungs.

Bald Eagles Come to the Big Apple: "A pair of Bald Eagles has shacked up and built New York City’s first eagle nest in at least a hundred years.

The newcomers were spotted earlier this month by a tugboat captain, who watched the pair shuttle nest material to the top of an unused dock on a small uninhabited island just off the coast of Staten Island, the southernmost of New York’s five boroughs. (Another pair of eagles, one sub-adult, the other fully grown, was spotted in the same area last spring. They were practicing nest-making, a behavior common among young birds.)"