Animals

Why did the world’s biggest ape go extinct?

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The 300-kilogram primate couldn’t adapt when a changing environment forced a dietary shift.

An artist impression of the giant ape from southern China shown face on
Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest ape that ever lived, and might have gone extinct because it could not adapt when its environment changed.Credit: Garcia/Joannes-Boyau (Southern Cross University)

The world’s biggest primate might have gone extinct because it couldn’t reach the most nutritious fruits, according to a study published today in Nature1. The paper also offers clues on why the giant ape’s contemporary, an ancient orangutan, continued to thrive almost 300,000 years ago as the environment changed.

With an estimated height of 3 metres and weighing a hefty 200–300 kilograms, Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest primate to ever roam Earth. Anthropologist Ralph von Koenigswald discovered one of the ape’s massive teeth in a Hong Kong apothecary nearly 90 years ago. Since then, researchers have unearthed four jawbones and roughly 2,000 more teeth in caves scattered across China — but no other parts of a skeleton have been found. The scant fossil evidence has made it notoriously difficult to build an accurate picture of G. blacki, let alone the circumstances that led to its disappearance, says study co-author Kira Westaway, a geochronologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. “We just don’t know much about it,” she says.

To solve the mystery of its extinction, Westaway and her colleagues analysed fossils and sediments from 22 caves in Chongzuo and Bubing Basin in southern China. They used six dating methods to find the exact timeframe of G. blacki’s demise, and reconstructed the giant ape’s environment in the period before it went extinct using a range of techniques — such as pollen analysis and investigating sediment layers under a microscope. The researchers also analysed chemical traces in the enamel of G. blacki’s teeth to investigate how its diet changed over time, and compared these signatures with those seen in the teeth of its close relative Pongo weidenreichi, an extinct orangutan that lived alongside the giant ape.

Their work revealed that G. blacki disappeared between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, slightly later than previously estimated (420,000–330,000 years ago)2. During G. blacki’s heyday some 2.3 million years ago, the landscape was blanketed by dense forests with the odd patch of grassland. When the researchers analysed G. blacki’s teeth from this period, they found several distinct bands of various trace elements. The clearer and more distinct these bands are, the more trace elements the teeth contain, which means that the giant ape was eating a wide variety of foods and drinking plenty of water.

A changing landscape

But from around 700,000 years ago, pollen analysis showed that the landscape began to change, with forests becoming more open as the seasons changed more drastically. By this time, G. blacki’s teeth showed more-blurred bands, a sign that it was forced to consume a less nutritious, more fibrous diet as its favourite forest foods and water sources became scarcer. The researchers also found fewer G. blacki fossils during this period, indicating that populations were dwindling.

A model Gigantopithecus jaw containing a fossil fragment is seen from the side next to a much smaller gorilla jaw
A gorilla’s lower jaw bone (left) and a reconstruction from a fragment of a Gigantopithecus blacki jaw bone (right).Credit: Natural History Museum, London/Science Photo Library

On the other hand, the teeth of the tree-climbing P. weidenreichi continued to show relatively clear banding, suggesting that it adapted to the changing environment with greater ease than its ground-dwelling relative.

Westaway suspects that the orangutan might have climbed trees to grab foods that were out of reach for G. blacki. The fossils also showed that G. blacki grew in size during this time, whereas P. weidenreichi became smaller, making it more nimble than the massive ape, she adds.

Between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago, G. blacki was nowhere to be seen in the fossil record whereas P. weidenreichi was still found to be relatively abundant. The thick forests that once supported the giant ape had become sparse during this time , with open grasslands and ferns dominating the ancient landscape.

The study provides the most precise picture of the circumstances around G. blacki’s extinction to date, says Hervé Bocherens, a palaeobiologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany. But he adds that more fossils need to be found to improve body-mass estimates, which would allow researchers to better understand the giant ape’s dietary needs and what made it more vulnerable to change than other herbivores in the forest.

Westaway and her team are on the hunt for more G. blacki fossils, particularly its thigh bones, which would give researchers a better idea of its size and biology. “There’s still a lot more evidence out there,” says Westaway. “It’s just trying to find the right cave.”

How do some animals become transparent?

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Glass frogs found in South and Central America have the rare ability to turn on and off their nearly transparent appearance.

Some animals camouflage themselves by being ‘transparent’. Recently scientists gleaned insight into how glassfrogs –a species known for this ability – are able to achieve such transparency. 

Glassfrogs live in the American tropics and are nocturnal amphibians that spend their days sleeping upside down on translucent leaves that match the colour of their backs — a common camouflage tactic. Their translucent skin and muscle allow their bones and organs to be visible – hence the name. Recent research has proposed that this adaptation masks the frogs’ outlines on their leafy perches, making them harder for predators to spot. 

Transparency is a common form of camouflage among animals that live in water, but rare on land. In vertebrates, attaining transparency is difficult because their circulatory system is full of red blood cells that interact with light. Studies have shown that ice fish and larval eels achieve transparency by not producing haemoglobin and red blood cells. But glassfrogs use an alternative strategy. Resting glassfrogs increase transparency two- to threefold by removing nearly 90 percent of their red blood cells from circulation and packing them within their liver, which contains reflective guanine crystals. Whenever the frogs need to become active again, they bring the red blood cells back into the blood, which gives the frogs the ability to move around — at which point, light absorption from these cells breaks transparency. In most vertebrates, aggregating red blood cells can lead to potentially dangerous blood clots in veins and arteries. But glassfrogs don’t experience clotting. Though it’s unclear how, understanding this could lead to insights into treatments in people for blood clots. 

Dog saves owner by sniffing out her cancer BEFORE she even knew she had it

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Image: Dog saves owner by sniffing out her cancer BEFORE she even knew she had it

Dogs have a long history of being man’s best friend. But the story of a Newburyport Police Department officer and her blind dog from Massachusetts, doesn’t merely prove the bond between owner and pet but also proves that dogs are great at detecting illnesses.

Police officer Megan Tierney was reportedly at home with Dude, her blind border collie/Australian shepherd mix, when he started acting a little strange. According to her, she was lying in bed when Dude suddenly became focused on her chest area, placing a paw on her.

Tierney turned her attention on the spot Dude was touching and noticed a tissue swell. But to her surprise, a trip to the doctor confirmed that she has stage two triple negative invasive ductal breast cancer. And although finding out you have cancer is never an easy thing to swallow, the police officer said, “Dude found the lump, and we were never so happy because it just meant that we could get it where it was, rather than not knowing.”

It is known that dogs have a more heightened sense of smell compared to humans. Dude, being a blind dog, has greatly enhanced this particular sense which helped him detect the illness of his owner. Moreover, canines’ olfactory bulbs have 220 million scent receptors; 195 million more than that of humans.

According to dog-cognition researcher Alexandra Horowitz from Barnard College, dogs can smell odors in parts per trillion. For example, in a million gallons of water, dogs can detect if a teaspoon sugar was mixed into the water. This means their smelling abilities are 100,000 times better than ours. (Related: Dogs can smell lung cancer in humans.)

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One study, conducted by the Pine Street Foundation, reflects Dude’s exceptional skill. The study involved five dogs that were given breath samples of 31 breast cancer patients, 55 lung cancer patients and 83 healthy persons. All dogs were able to pinpoint which samples came from those who were ill, with approximately 90 percent accuracy.

Can dogs really smell cancer?

According to Tammana Khare of Dogs Naturally Magazine, because of the metabolic waste released by cancerous cells, a distinct smell is also released from the human body. This significant smell can be easily traced by dogs even during the earlier stages of cancer.

Other studies suggest that canines also have the ability to smell traces of skin cancer melanoma through skin lesions, and detect prostate cancer with just a urine sample from a person who is suffering from one.

“Not only does their sense of smell make cancer detection possible, but research suggests that dogs can be trained actively to sniff out the cancer, ” the canine expert shared. “In Berlin, a group of researchers trained some dogs to detect the presence of various types of cancer, including ovarian cancer, bowel cancer, as well as bladder cancer, skin cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer,” Khane finished.

Although some remain to be with the whole idea of dogs being able to sniff out cancer and other illnesses, there are already some field experts who see a future where dogs will be directly used in patient care. More importantly, the special dog ability Dude exhibited helped his owner, Tierney, to manage her sickness and prolong her life.

Check out more amazing stories about man’s best friend on NaturalNewsPets.com.

Sources include:

Lifezette.com

PBS.org

 

For all book lovers please visit my friend’s website.
URL: http://www.romancewithbooks.com

Volcanic Rock Discovery Calls Theories About Life’s Origins Into Question

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 Animals, Biology, Deep sea, History & Mars

Charles Darwin, father of evolutionary biology, wrote in 1871 that life first emerged in “warm little ponds”, which he imagined to be small wells of water and chemicals, heated by the sun and surrounded by rocks and air. With these few ingredients and a big dose of randomness, he posited, the basic elements of life clicked together, leading to simple life forms, like bacteria. Their evolution over millions of years eventually led to the sophisticated life forms that now inhabit the planet.

These days, scientists generally agree with the idea that the original recipe for life was pretty simple, but they’re not sure what ingredients were necessary for those early life forms to make the leap into complex forms of life, like animals. Many scientists theorize that, since all complex life — involving cells that have multiple components — now relies on oxygen to breathe, it must have happened at a time when there was plenty of oxygen in the air. But on Thursday, the scientists behind a study soon to be published in Nature report that oxygen in the atmosphere didn’t rise to significant levels until after complex life arose — suggesting that oxygen wasn’t all that important after all.

“This is significant because it provides new evidence that the origination of early animals, which required O2 for their metabolisms, may have gone on in a world with an atmosphere that had relatively low oxygen levels compared to today,” said study co-author Daniel Stolper, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.

Winter sea
Though all present-day life on Earth requires oxygen to survive, the sea and sky were not oxygen-rich when life first emerged.

In previous studies, scientists determined that complex life first emerged around 700 and 800 million years ago, sometime between huge ice ages. The history of oxygen on Earth, meanwhile, is a bit cloudier. Scientists believe there was no oxygen for Earth’s first two billion years, and then, some 2.3 to 2.5 billion years ago, a little bit of oxygen showed up (they can tell because it turned some rocks red with rust-like compounds). But deposits of fossilized charcoal have shown that it wasn’t until at least 400 million years ago that there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere for forest fires to burn. That leaves a 2.1-billion-year period during which there was minimal oxygen — but, strangely, still evidence of life.

At one point in those 2.1 billion years, the geochemists show, the amount of oxygen in the air reached a concentration high enough that it led to the deep seabecoming oxygenated — sometime between 540 and 420 million years ago. They came to this conclusion by looking at rocks formed by undersea volcanoes — in particular, the iron inside them.

Anyone who has encountered rust on a car knows that oxygen and iron react in very obvious ways, and the reaction is no different in the underwater rocks. Seawater flowed through them as they first formed, so the iron in the rocks carries the chemical signature of the water. It soon became clear, from the oxidation of the iron, when the sea became full of oxygen.

More importantly, it also became clear that complex life had existed on the Earth long before the oxygenation of the sea took place.

One of the world’s oldest fossil animals is Dickinsonia, which lived in the oceans 550 million years ago.

This finding complicates matters for researchers trying to figure out when complex life on Earth emerged, especially those who believe that, since all life breathes oxygen, the event was inextricably tied to the oxygenation of the atmosphere. Since that now doesn’t seem to be the case, scientists must think on different theories, like one posited by scientists in Nature in 2017, suggesting that the explosion of complex life coincided not with a rise in oxygen but with the first big boom in algae growth.

The more we learn about the origins of life, both simple and sophisticated, the more puzzling life seems to be. In some ways, it doesn’t seem to be very complex at all. For the most part, scientists pondering the mystery of life’s origins still think along the same lines as Darwin, proposing that the original recipe really wasn’t very complicated at all — and perhaps could have been cooked up someplace other than Earth. Paul Niles, for one, a planetary geologist with NASAinvestigating the possibility that life could have emerged on Mars, said in a statement in October 2017 that sometimes, life “doesn’t need a nice atmosphere or temperate surface, but just rocks, heat, and water.”

Since abundant oxygen now doesn’t seem to be all that necessary for simple life to develop into something more, there’s now an even greater possibility that complexity exists somewhere other than here.

The 25 Most-Read Inverse Science Stories of 2017: Wild, Wonderful & Strange

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This year will be remembered for its immense cultural and social upheavals, both good and unbelievably, Earth-shatteringly bad. But what appears to have remained consistent, at least judging by the science stories that Inverse fans read, interacted with, and shared, is a healthy curiosity about the the weird and wonderful, the science of our own bodies and minds, and scientific discoveries that push the limits of what we currently consider reality. That, and an obsession with whatever Neil deGrasse Tyson has to say about anything.

To celebrate a strange and sensational year in science, here are the 25 science stories that Inverse readers loved the most.

A Hamer individual from Ethiopia who took part in the study. Many alleles associated with light skin originated in Africa, not in Europe.

25. Genetics Researchers Just Disproved a Long-Held Racist Assumption

As racial tensions escalated this year in America and around the world, scientists found hard evidence that many of the assumptions people make about people with dark skin are completely, utterly unfounded. Many people still act as if people born with dark skin are less human, a behavior inherited from Middle-Age Europeans who believed the African people they encountered were not the same species as them. In October, scientists revealed they — and the people who continue to promote those beliefs — were completely wrong, showing that the human genes for dark and light skin all originated in Africa.

Read more about the racist theory debunked by science.

24. Drake Equation Revision Hugely Ups Odds of Intelligent Alien Life

The Drake Equation, written in 1961 for the first meeting of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), is a seven-variable equation that calculates the odds that there are any active civilizations beyond Earth. In 2016, scientists decided it was a bit outdated, and so they updated it to include new data on exoplanets collected in the 50+ years since the equation was written. The new probability that there isn’t any other intelligent life out there is 10 billion trillion — making it extremely likely that there is something else out there.

Read more about your chances of meeting aliens in this lifetime.

23. Science Explains the Marijuana Hangover

The marijuana hangover — replete with headache, fatigue, fogginess, and dehydration, — has long confused pot users, who are more likely to associate the symptoms with alcohol. Scientists chalk the tired feeling up to the restless sleep that ensues when you get too high, and the dehydration you feel is caused by weed shutting down saliva production, which is what also causes the dreaded “dry mouth” while smoking.

Read more about the psychological and physical downside of a pot brownie binge.

22. Humans Have Been Having the Same Nightmare for Thousands of Years

Over the centuries, humans have come up with countless, often absurd, explanations for the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. When it strikes, sleepers find themselves suddenly awake but unable to move, pinned to their bed as if a heavy weight is sitting on their chest. Scientists think the phenomenon has its roots in our brains, which actively paralyze us during REM sleep so that we don’t act out our dreams. If we’re suddenly interrupted during that phase, our brains sometimes “wake up” before our bodies do, leading to the terrifying nightmare-like experience.

Read more about sleep paralysis, which led to the evolution of the “Night Hag”.

Fossils found in submerged tunnels in Mexico might be the oldest human artifacts found in the Americas.

21. A Stolen Human Skeleton Might Be America’s Oldest

An investigation of the spoils from a plundered underwater cave in Tulum, Mexico, turned up an unlikely guest: the most ancient human skeleton ever found in the Americas. The Chan Hol II skeleton, which was first discovered in February 2012 and was actually stolen shortly after photos of it went public, was recovered by scientists who showed, using carbon dating, that it was 13,000 years old.

Read more about the very first Americans, who were actually in Mexico.

20. Diarrhea Is Evolution’s Immune System Drain-O

Poop will never not be funny for readers. It’ll also never not be interesting to scientists. This June, they discovered that diarrhea serves a critical purpose for animals, having evolved over millennia of evolution. As much as it sucks to get the runs while traveling or after eating an adventurous meal, having to rush to the can is much better than not getting diarrhea. The uncomfortable bowel movement, the scientists reported, is your body’s way of flushing out all of the potentially life-threatening toxins in your gut before they get into the rest of your body.

Read more about the biological reason diarrhea is good for you.

19. 20 Years After the Great Lego Spill, They’re Still Washing Ashore

In 1997, a container ship called the Tokio Express bound for New York was hit by a wave so huge that it knocked an enormous container full of 4.8 million pieces of Lego into the water. While at the time it didn’t seem like the miniature blocks would ever make it to their final destination, in July of this year residents of Cornwall, United Kingdom reported that the pieces are still washing up on the beach, suggesting there’s still a chance they may float to the other side of the Atlantic.

Read more about Lego pieces posing a hazard to barefoot British beach-goers.

18. Reddit Study on Ideal Penis Size Consistent With Dick Science

Despite all the changes that took place this year, our fascination with penis size did not waver. In July, the results of a small Reddit survey on penis size were presented in graph form, showing an upside-down U-shaped curve spanning lengths from four to ten inches. While this survey only incorporated self-reported data from 761 users, the results actually matched up well with what scientists already know about average peen size: like Reddit’s dicks, most dongs are about six and seven inches long and five to six inches around.

Read more about the average penis size and girth, on Reddit and elsewhere.

17. Neuroscience Reveals How the Brain Changes as it Watches Porn

We’re watching porn at record-breaking rates, and all that visual, er, stimulation has scientists wondering what it’s doing to us on an individual and a societal level. So far, we’ve learned that porn acts in many ways like a drug, causing our brains to release the pleasure-tr iggering neurotransmitter dopamine, and it may also activate the amygdala, the part of the brain linked to emotional behavior and motivation. Word’s still out on whether casual porn watching is problematic, but some scientists worry that very frequent porn viewing might be linked to certain psychological issues.

Read more about what all those late-night Pornhub visits do to your brain cells.

16. The Real Story Behind ‘Roanoke’ Is Creepier Than ‘AHS’

The sixth season of American Horror Story, centered on the historical real-life tragedy of the lost American colony at Roanoke, premiered in 2016, but it continued to intrigue Inverse readers well into 2017. Scientists have used lasers, magnometers, and radar to uncover rare objects that survived the 400 years since the colony was founded, but these still haven’t cleared up whether the colonists succumbed to disease, a violent uprising, or something even more sinister.

Read more about American Horror Story and the even more horrific Roanoke legend behind it.

15. China Transmits Data Into Space Using Quantum Entanglement

Around the world, scientists are making huge leaps in the field of quantum teleportation, which could revolutionize quantum computer security. China’s researchers are leading the pack, this year succeeding in transporting a quantum particle 870 miles into space — breaking the former distance record of 62 miles.

Read more about China’s supremacy in the quantum teleportation race.

14. Human Mini-Brains Growing Inside Rat Bodies Are Integrating

We’re living in the age of farmed organs, but scientists are still working out the kinks. These days, they’re growing human mini-organs inside animal bodies using stem cells that can be coerced into turning into livers, hearts, and brains. The brains are proving to be a bit problematic: in November, scientists reported that human brain cells grown inside rats are starting to transfer blood and nerve signals, giving the researchers pause: might these rat-brain hybrids become conscious?

Read more about whether hybrid rat-human brains will ever wake up.

13. Conspiracy Theorists Have a Basic Cognitive Issue, Say Scientists

Conspiracy theories abounded this year, which is perhaps not surprising, as previous studies have shown that increases in such beliefs tend to correlate with rising mistrust in authority structures. In October, scientists discovered what’s different about the way that people with these beliefs actually think: people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories, they explained, see patterns that don’t actually exist, and it’s this “illusory pattern perception” that causes them to believe in bizarre explanations for those imaginary patterns.

Read more about what’s different about the brains of conspiracy theorists.

12. Here’s Scientist Bill Richards’s Playlist for Tripping on Mushrooms

Psychedelic researchers have had a big year, using mind-altering drugs to treat psychological illness and thereby mitigating decades of stigma against them. Studies on the effects of the drugs, however, must be meticulously designed so that they will be considered legitimate, and so Bill Richards, Ph.D., a Johns Hopkins University researcher, used science to create a seven-hour playlist to maximize the experience of a psychedelic trip.

Read more about how to listen to music during a mushroom trip like a psychedelic scientist.

11. The Crazy Flat Earthers’ Theory That Trees Don’t Exist Isn’t Completely Crazy

The Flat Earth Movement drew criticism from Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and pretty much every other rational mind out there, but one of their bizarre theories actually kind of made sense. Kind of. Some Flat Earthers believe that what we call trees are actually just the tiny remnants of a world where trees were as wide as mountains and were so tall they scraped the sky. In the “no forests” theory, the present-day world represents the sad, small remains of what the Earth once was — which, as Inverse argued, is not altogether untrue.

Read more about the flat-Earther “no forest” theory and its somewhat compelling argument.

10. Indonesia Sea Monster Has Been Identified (It’s Not a Giant Squid)

In May, our appetite for the grotesque was satiated when news broke about a “sea monster” that had washed up on the shore of Indonesia’s Maluku Islands. This 50-foot-long blob of flesh was so badly decomposed that it was unidentifiable, and the giant bones that pierced through it only deepened its mystery. But about a week after it washed up, experts finally determined that it was the corpse of a type of baleen whale, misshapen because of the hot gases that bloated up inside it during decomposition.

Read more about the huge, dead sea animals mistaken for sea monsters.

9. Genetic Analysis Shows Early Humans Avoided Inbreeding, Incest

This year marked the penultimate season of Game of Thrones, which was as rife with incestuous themes as any other season. A study published in October echoed those themes, suggesting that our ancient human ancestors were a lot less genetically reckless than the inhabitants of Westeros. In the Science study, archaeologists showed evidence that humans buried together in Russia 34,000 years ago were no closer than second cousins, suggesting that even these humans knew not to bone their closest relations.

Read more about why incest is best left to the characters on Game of Thrones.

8. Scientists Discover Super-Massive Black Holes Just Outside Our Own Galaxy

We’re comfortable making movies about black holes because they’ve long seemed so far removed from real life, but a study published in January suggested that they’re a lot closer to us than we think. In an announcement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists reported that they’d found evidence of two super-massive black holes in two of the Milky Way’s neighboring galaxies, 39 million and 176 million light years away from us.

Read more about your friendly neighborhood super-massive black holes.

7. Long-Term Marijuana Use Changes Brain at the Cellular Level, say Scientists

Weed smokers have long noticed, anecdotally, that long-term marijuana use tends to change people’s behavior, but it wasn’t until October of this year that scientists started to notice the cellular changes underlying those behavioral shifts. Using rats that were administered daily doses of marijuana, researchers publishing in JNeurosci showed that the GABA neurons in the brain were unable to properly regulate the amount of dopamine swimming around, causing abnormally drawn-out good feelings of reward — which is the mechanism that’s thought to lead to addiction.

Read more about marijuana’s long-term effects on your brain.

6. Upper Body Strength Is Biggest Factor in Male Attractiveness

Scientists behind a controversial study, published in December, used the results of a questionably designed experiment to argue that women, by and large, find strong-looking men attractive because those men look like they can fight. The ability to fight, in turn, is said to be appealing because ancient women needed men to protect them, and some vestige of that preference remains today. The researchers’ explanation, however, didn’t take into account the fact that perhaps the women involved in the study were not necessarily hard-wired to find those men attractive and rather were subject to a number of other influences, including their own personal choice.

Read more about why male attractiveness isn’t all about being swole.

5. Neil deGrasse Tyson Slams Flat Earth Theory With a Single Picture

Astrophysicist and notorious know-it-all Neil deGrasse Tyson could not resist sharing his thoughts on the rising Flat Earth conspiracy theorist movement, tweeting a sick eclipse-related riddle in November that was guaranteed to stump even the staunchest “globalist” truther.

Read more about Neil deGrasse Tyson’s admittedly clever addition to the flat Earth debate.

4. What Never Leaving Your Hometown Does to Your Brain

Written in 2015, this scientific investigation on the psychological effect of staying in one’s hometown remains a perpetual Inverse Science favorite. It’s not surprising, considering that migration rates among American youth are at a historic low and that more and more people are choosing to put down roots in the states where they were born.

Read more about the psychological effect of never leaving home.

3. Nanoparticle Scientists Warn Tattooed Folks: Ink Doesn’t Stay Put

A report from nanoparticle scientists in September, published in Scientific Reports, cast doubt on the permanence of ink tattoos, revealing that tiny particles from certain kinds of inks actually swim away from the skin and wind up in the lymph nodes. In particular, they found elevated levels of titanium dioxide, a white compound that’s often added to other pigments, in the lymph nodes of the four cadavers they used in their small study. It’s not clear yet whether the escaped compounds pose any danger to people with tattoos, but it’s certainly something scientists must consider.

Read more about the troubling impermanence of seemingly “permament” tattoos.

2. Surgeons Remove Over 28 Pounds of Feces From a Constipated Man

It was hard for readers to resist the horrific photo of an enormous colon, clogged with nearly 29 pounds of feces, cradled like a small animal in the arms of a surgeon. It belonged to a 22-year-old Chinese man in Shanghai who, suffering from an ailment called Hirschsprung’s disease, was unable to expel the majority of waste in his body for his entire life. He’s fine now, thanks to a team of surgeons who removed 30 inches of his swollen colon during a 3-hour operation.

Read more about what happens to a body when it never gets to poop.

1. Scientists Have Found the ‘Holy Grail’ of Physics, Metallic Hydrogen

Kicking off the year, in January, was a monumental announcement by Harvard physicist Isaac Silvera, Ph.D., who claimed to have created metallic hydrogen — a theoretical state of matter that scientists never thought would be possible. Silvera reported in Science that he had forced elemental hydrogen into that state using immense amounts of pressure and extremely cold temperatures, noting that, if produced in large enough amounts, metallic hydrogen could be used as a form of fuel for deep space travel. Other scientists in the narrow field, however, did not mince words when the time came to publicly criticize Silvera’s work.

People Mistakenly Think These Animals Feel No Pain or Emotions

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common fish owner mistakes

Story at-a-glance

  • Fish are still widely regarded as ornamental and throwaway pets, but they are deserving of ethical treatment, veterinary care, enrichment and stimulation
  • There is a large gap between people’s perception of fish intelligence and the scientific reality, which is that fish have perception and cognitive abilities that rival, or exceed, that of other vertebrates
  • Common fish owner mistakes include overfeeding, overcrowding and mismatching fish species

Aquatic animals, including fish, are the most popular pets in the U.S. if you calculate popularity based on the number of owned pets.1 Sadly, many spend their days silently circling mundane fish bowls that are undersized or improperly prepared.

Many also start out unhealthy and disease-prone because of overbreeding and selective breeding to create a certain aesthetic feature like long fins, bubble eyes or a round belly.2

Despite advances in many areas of animal welfare, fish are still widely regarded as ornamental and throwaway pets. But these creatures are far more complex than many people realize and are deserving not only of basic ethical treatment but also far more, including veterinary care, enrichment and stimulation.

Would You Seek Veterinary Care for Your Fish?

A commentary published in Clinician’s Brief brought up some important points about the ramifications of viewing ornamental fish as just that — mere “decorations” for your office or child’s bedroom.3 For starters, many fish owners do not seek veterinary care for their fish because they don’t know it’s available — or that they should.

In fact, when asked about fish conditions, some veterinarians, lacking in appropriate treatment options or know-how, may refer clients to pet stores, who may in turn give out inaccurate information in response.

As a result, “concern for the welfare of pet fish may not extend past their perceived economic value.” As noted by Clinician’s Brief, more research is needed into ornamental fish and there should be more education available for retailers, hobbyists and even veterinarians in the realm of fish medicine. In addition:4

“Pharmaceutical companies have not kept pace with advances for fish as for other companion species, and a proliferation of inexpensive over-the-counter treatments, how-to articles and general misinformation leads to sick fish often being treated (or mistreated) with chemicals and even invasive home surgeries without a proper diagnosis.

Protracted and unnecessary suffering often results. Prejudices and misconceptions may suggest that fish-welfare issues are grossly underreported.”

Why It’s Important to Consider the Needs of Your Fish

Many are surprised to learn that fish have “needs” beyond water and daily food, and that’s precisely the point. The fact that fish can feel pain, show emotions and “talk” using a wide range of communicatory methods is not widely known, though it should be — especially by those who choose to have fish as pets.

As reported in the journal Animal Cognition, there is a large gap between people’s perception of fish intelligence and the scientific reality, which is that fish have perception and cognitive abilities that rival, or exceed, that of other vertebrates.5 Fish, for instance:6

  • Perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously (a trait that was once believed to exist only among humans)
  • Recall the location of objects using “feature cues” (which humans figure out how to do around age 6)
  • Have excellent long-term memories
  • “Cooperate with one another and show signs of Machiavellian intelligence such as cooperation and reconciliation”
  • Use tools

Culum Brown, Ph.D., associate professor at Macquarie University in Australia, who authored the Animal Cognition review, said in an interview with the Huffington Post:7

“The big issue here is that people don’t treat fish the same way as they do other animals. It’s complicated, but it boils down to the fact that most people just don’t understand them and can’t relate to them. If you don’t have that connection, you are less likely to feel any empathy …

Fish are similar to humans in so many ways. This is the message we need to get across … My mission in life is to make people think about fish as something other than food.”

10 Common Fish Owner Mistakes

Many fish owners do strive to take good care of their pets, but misinformation may lead to sick or stressed-out animals. Here are some top mistakes, compiled by PetMD, that many fish owners make:8

1.Overfeeding

This may lead to excess waste, which in turn can interfere with water quality. A general guide is to feed fish the amount of food they consume in three minutes. Remove any excess with a net.

Scavengers like crabs can also help to clean up uneaten food. Be aware that not all fish feed the same way; some fish do better with two smaller feedings a day while others like to nibble plants.

Some fish scavenge for their food while others hunt, for instance. Consider the use of puzzle feeders and sinking feeders, or live prey, if applicable to your fish species.

2.New Tank Syndrome

Before adding fish to a new tank, bacteria must build up to process the nitrogen compounds in fish waste. Certain additives can be found to assist in this process, as can adding sand or gravel from an established healthy tank.

You should have water samples tested by an aquarium store to be sure you’ve got the right balance.

3.Mismatching Fish Species

Fish have different personalities and not all get along well together. It’s very important to be aware of whether the fish species you choose are known for being aggressive.

Aggressive fish can bully or fight more passive fish, even to the point of death or starvation (in which a fish is too frightened to come out of hiding to eat).

4.Overcrowding

In general, fish need 1 gallon of water per inch of fish. Aggressive fish need double that amount, and be sure to take into account rocks and decorations, which, though important, take up valuable swimming space.

5.Vacation Care

If you leave for vacation, your fish need to be cared for while you’re away, just like other pets. In addition to carefully letting a pet sitter know how much food to feed, be sure to prepare the sitter for what to do in the event of tank issues and how to check water temperature.

6.Temperature Control

You’ll need to install a thermometer to monitor water temperature, which should generally be between 68 and 76 degrees F, depending on the species of fish. Be aware that drafts and sun can change the temperature of the tank, and smaller tanks are more vulnerable to rapid temperature shifts than larger tanks. Be vigilant in monitoring water temperature.

7.Overlooking Disease

If your fish is showing signs of disease, via appearance or changes in habits, transfer him to a quarantine tank and seek veterinary care.

Oftentimes, a new fish added to the tank may be a source of disease. Before new animals are added to an existing tank, a quarantine period of 21 to 28 days is recommended. To help relieve stress during the quarantine, a hiding spot (such as PVC pipe or stacked rocks) should be provided and water quality and temperature should be maintained.

8.Neglect

Successfully caring for an aquarium takes daily care and regular maintenance. Make a point to mark maintenance needs on your calendar or use tools like automatic feeders or water-quality probes to help you stay on track. You can even track the water quality of your aquarium right on your computer via wireless monitoring devices.

9.Being Impatient

Building a healthy and beautiful aquarium doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to research and build the correct mix of fish, plants and ornamental objects, as well as learn how to monitor water quality and conduct maintenance. Acting impulsively may lead to choices that could harm your fish.

10.Using Tap Water

The water from your tap is treated with chlorine that can harm fish. Water for your tank must be treated with chlorine-removing tablets. Also be sure to avoid using soap in your aquarium. Most cleansing can be done with hot water and a small amount of bleach that’s thoroughly rinsed off.

Finally, provide non-toxic items for your fish to explore — plants, rocks, structures, ceramic objects and more — and change them regularly to provide new stimulation. Then, enjoy getting to know each of your fish. Many enjoy interacting with their owners and can learn to recognize you and even perform tricks.

If you decide ornamental fish sound like pets you may be interested in keeping make sure to only purchase captive-bred fish; leave wild fish in the ocean, where they belong.

Source:mercola.com

ELITE SCIENTISTS SIGN DECLARATION STATING ANIMALS HAVE CONSCIOUS AWARENESS, JUST LIKE HUMANS

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4 years ago a declaration was signed by a prominent group of scientists known as The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness following their conclusion that animals have conscious understanding, just as we do and to the same degree. This list includes all mammals and birds, along with many other creatures.

tiger

I know that some of you may be thinking this is self-evident — I mean, haven’t we known this all along? — but the vast majority of people clearly haven’t reached this understanding. The way we are currently treating animals on a mass scale on this planet speaks to this ignorance. Even though it seems like an obvious acknowledgment for scientists to make, the implications of this statement could truly change the world. The fact that animals are sentient beings can no longer be ignored.

The Declaration Stated The Following:

The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategies for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is becoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field.

Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences. Moreover, in humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of consciousness.

The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals.

Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).

Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought.

In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness.

Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.

Other Evidence To Support This Reevaluation

There is a lot of information readily available to us that can fully support this declaration. Take the hugely popular documentary Blackfish, which told the story of the psychological damage suffered by a whale who was kept in captivity for too long and the way he defied and rebelled his captors.

There’s also the story of the pregnant pig that jumped off of a moving truck on her way to the slaughterhouse. And then of course there are the countless animals that are held in captivity to be performers in the circus – their very intelligence makes them ideal for learning so many tricks — even though we all know that elephants and chimpanzees are some of the most sentient animals of all. The infamous KoKo the gorilla, for example, has a vast vocabulary and communicates with us directly.

Other evidence has surfaced that shows how intelligent even ocean dwelling octopi are. In fact they were the only species of their type that were mentioned in this study.

If this declaration were to be taken seriously by government officials and the citizens of the world, we could have a world where no being had to suffer, be forced to do tricks, or held in captivity, all for the sake of human pleasure — the only reason we treat animals in this fashion in the first place.

What Can You Do?

If you agree with the scientists who signed this declaration then you do not need to wait until new laws are passed to help protect animals. You have the power to help change these things right away, and it couldn’t be simpler. Stop supporting these industries that are exploiting animals.

  • Don’t buy factory farmed meat and other animal products
  • Reduce your overall consumption of animals products
  • Don’t go to the circus
  • Don’t go to the zoo
  • Don’t buy products that have been tested on animals
  • Spread the word and help raise awareness about these important issues

It is important for us to recognize that we do have a say in what is going on in the world around us, and only until we believe it will we be able to effectively initiate positive change.

Why Most Animals Don’t Have Periods.

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Periods are a necessary part of human reproduction, but most other animals don’t have them. If they don’t need them, why do we?

Why Do Women Have Periods When Most Animals Don’t? (BBC)
“Most women menstruate. But most other female animals don’t bleed outwardly like us. Even among those that give birth to live young as we do, only a handful of species menstruate.
“So menstruation isn’t just inconvenient and unpleasant: it’s also a mystery. Why do we menstruate at all? And if it’s such a good idea, why don’t other animals do it?”
The Evolution of Human Reproduction: A Primatological Perspective (Wiley Online Library)
“Successful reconstruction of any aspect of human evolution ideally requires broad-based comparisons with other primates, as recognition of general principles provides a more reliable foundation for inference. Indeed, in many cases it is necessary to conduct comparisons with other placental mammals to test interpretations.”
The Evolution of Endometrial Cycles and Menstruation (University of Chicago Press Journals)
“According to a recent hypothesis, menstruation evolved to protect the uterus oviducts from sperm-borne pathogens by dislodging infected endometrial tissue and delivering immune cells to the uterine cavity…I propose the alternative hypothesis that the uterine endometrium is shed/resorbed whenever implantation fails because cyclical regression and renewal is energetically less costly than maintaining the endometrium in the metabolically active state required for implantation.”

When Butterflies Shouldn’t Fly Free

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Scientists find that releasing captive-bred monarch butterflies can unwittingly spread disease to healthy populations of the imperiled insect.

 

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/561de4eae4b028dd7ea5bcc2?ir=India&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000042

Domestic pets to be replaced by robotic imposters by 2025?

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Robotic pets could replace the real things in a few decades, according to an Australian based researcher. An increasingly urbanized population could mean real animals remain only for the super-rich, and robotic imitations could become the norm.

The paper was published by Dr Jean-Loup Rault, an animal welfare researcher from the University of Melbourne, who says the market for robotic pets will take off in the next 10 to 15 years, with large tech companies already jockeying for position in the new market.

“Pet robotics has come a long way from the Tamagotchi craze of the mid-90s. In Japan, people are becoming so attached to their robot dogs that they hold funerals for them when the circuits die,” Rault wrote in the paper published in the Frontiers in Veterinary Science journal.

The reasons for the possible shift from real pets to robotic versions are likely to be caused by the increasing urbanization of the planet. Currently, over half those in the Western world own a pet, with rapid growth in Asia, where having a domestic animal is seen as an example of one’s social status. However, with the global population expected to rise to almost 10 billion by 2050, Rault doesn’t see how keeping domesticated pet can remain viable.

“A more realistic future is that pets may become a luxury possession for people who can afford to sustain their cost and fulfill their needs in terms of space, social, and mental needs according to possibly higher ethical standards raised by future societies,” he said.

Dr Rault is predicting a move from real pets to robotic replacements could herald a seismic shift on a par with changes that came in “the industrial revolution.”

“We are possibly witnessing the dawn of a new era, the digital revolution with likely effects on pet ownership, similar to the industrial revolution which replaced animal power for petrol and electrical engines,” the animal welfare researcher wrote.

However, the researcher believes the possible explosion in popularity of virtual pets could be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it would allow the elderly and those with allergies to experience having a ‘pet.’ But if the population gets used to not having to feed or exercise a robotic pet, this could have a detrimental effect on the treatment of domesticated animals.

“If artificial pets can replicate the human benefits obtained from live pets, does that mean that the human–animal emotional bond is solely dependent on ourselves and the image that we project on a live or artificial interactive partner? Does it ethically matter if the benefits of keeping artificial pets outweigh the risks, sparing other live pets’ potential animal welfare issues?”

Dr Rault also cited the example of the Paro robot. This is a robotic baby seal, which has been designed to engender positive responses from those using it. It has even been classed as a medical device in the US, with the designers deliberately using an unfamiliar animal to overcome expectations people may have had from a popular domestic pet.

“Patients using the Paro robot reported that they “know it is not real but still love it,” and talk to it as a living being. Hence, robots can without doubt trigger human emotions.”

The development and advancement of robotic pets could also have unforeseen dangers. Bill Gates has warned that artificial intelligence poses a real threat to mankind, while Professor Stephen Hawking adds that due to the slow evolution of humans, they may not be able to compete and would be superseded by artificial intelligence.

“Are animals what make us humans? Or are we witnessing a leap into what domestication always was: to select animals to be perfect pets, with a need to update the definition of pets as an animal or an artificial device kept for pleasure?” Dr Rault concluded.

watch the video. URL: https://youtu.be/oJq5PQZHU-I