The Lighter Side of the News

[gwillybj]

The New York Times / Science / Q&A
The Plant Had a Lovely Striation. Then They Got the Pruning Shears.
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY / DEC. 28, 2015

Q. Why do some variegated plants grow back without the original patterning after pruning?

A. Variegation, in the form of the familiar dark and light patterning of leaves in some plants, results from variation in the presence or absence of chloroplasts, the bodies in a cell that use the green pigment chlorophyll to produce sugar through photosynthesis.

A common cause of variegation is that a leaf can have more than one kind of genetic makeup in cells in the same tissue system, making the plant what is called a chimera. The cells with genes that produce active chloroplasts are green, and those without are white or another color.

Variegation can occur through natural mutation or can be the result of selection and propagation of a desired pattern. For example, in one common variegated plant, the snake plant or mother-in-law’s tongue, Sansevieria trifasciata, some cultivated varieties have yellow edges, and others do not.

This kind of variegation results from what happens at the region at the tip of a shoot where most of the cell division and growth takes place, called the apical meristem.

Mutated cells without active chloroplasts give rise to more of the same as the leaf grows. But if the plant is cut back, interfering with the activities of the various layers of the meristem, new shoots will often have cells that give rise to just green cells, rather than the two kinds of cells that produced the attractive striation.

question@nytimes.com
Questions of general interest will be answered, but requests for medical advice cannot be honored and unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.

A version of this article appears in print on December 29, 2015, on page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: An Unkind Cut to Two-Colored Leaves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/science/the-plant-had-a-lovely-striation-then-they-got-the-pruning-shears.html

[gwillybj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/science/some-carnivores-are-better-than-others-at-unlocking-dinner.html

The New York Times / Science
Some Carnivores Are Better Than Others at Unlocking Dinner
James Gorman
ScienceTake
January 25, 2016

[video]

Spotted hyenas are the animals that got Sarah Benson-Amram thinking about how smart carnivores are and in what ways.

Dr. Benson-Amram, a researcher at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, did research for her dissertation on hyenas in the wild under Kay E. Holekamp of Michigan State University.

Hyenas have very complicated social structures and they require intelligence to function in their clans, or groups. But the researchers also tested the animals on a kind of intelligence very different from figuring out who ranks the highest: They put out metal boxes that the animals had to open by sliding a bolt in order to get at meat inside.

Only 15 percent of the hyenas solved the problem in the wild, but in captivity, the animals showed a success rate of 80 percent.

Dr. Benson-Amram and Dr. Holekamp decided to test other carnivores, comparing species and families. They and other researchers presented animals in several different zoos with a metal puzzle box with a treat inside and recorded the animals’ efforts.

They tested 140 animals in 39 species that were part of nine families. They reported their findings on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They compared the success rates of different families with absolute brain size, relative brain size, and the size of the social groups that the species form in the wild.

Just having a bigger brain did not make difference, but the relative size of the brain, compared with the size of the body, was the best indication of which animals were able to solve the problem of opening the box.

Bears did the best, followed by the family that includes raccoons and coatimundis, results that any homeowner who has garbage cans out in the yard might expect. The family that includes weasels and otters came in third.

The researchers expected that result, but they were surprised by another finding. Animals that lived in complex social groups did not do particularly well.

Sadly, for any fan of “Meerkat Manor,” the family Herpestidae, which includes meerkats and mongooses, was the least successful at solving the puzzles.

Dr. Holekamp said that the result did not support an idea called the social brain hypothesis that living in complex social groups leads to increased relative brain size and problem solving ability. But Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford, the anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist who proposed the hypothesis, said it was already known that it did not apply to carnivores.

Dr. Holekamp said the findings add to evidence that intelligence is not one quality, and that different tasks depend on different parts of the brain and different abilities. Keeping track of a social hierarchy is one thing, whereas solving a physical puzzle is something else entirely.


So, how long does it take you to open your lunch box? 

[Rusty Edge]

Herd animals are social, but it doesn't take a lot of planning to stalk a clump of grass. Domestic Sheep and Cattle really aren't that bright.

My guess is that in captivity, the puzzle box is the only problem the hyenas  have to solve, so it becomes an obsession.  In the wild, they have other concerns, like male lions and people. They are probably suspicious of the puzzle box rather than obsessed with it.

I assume honey badgers are the African equivalent to the wolverine, and would belong in the weasel-otter group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c36UNSoJenI

[gwillybj]

Bumble Bees Born with Ability to Buzz for Pollen
Apr 18, 2016 02:46 PM ET // by Discovery News


THINKSTOCK

Bumble bees are born with the ability to vibrate flowers and buzz pollen loose, and they get better at it over time.

Those were the key findings from a study (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10905-016-9553-5) published in the Journal of Insect Behavior by scientists from the University of Stirling.

(VIDEO: Why Are All The Bees Dying? http://news.discovery.com/videos/why-are-all-the-bees-dying.htm)

The process examined in the the study is called buzz pollination, the buzzing itself known as sonication. Bumble bees basically just grab onto the pollen-producing anther of the flower with their mandibles and then vibrate their muscles to shake loose the pollen. (Other types of bee, including carpenters, do it, although honey bees can't.)

Led by evolutionary biologist Mario Vallejo-Marin, researchers from the university observed bumble bees interacting for the first time with flowers that would only release their pollen with a good shake.

Having never done it before, the bees vibrated the flowers instinctively.

(Are Bumblebees Getting Alzheimer's? http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/are-bumblebees-getting-alzheimers-150609.htm)

What’s more, they got better at this innate behavior with practice.

“Over time and with practice, bees are able to tune down their vibrations, removing pollen while potentially saving energy,” Vallejo-Marin said in a press release.

“Initially bees tend to vibrate on the flower petals,” he explained, “but after two or three visits they focus their efforts exclusively on the part of the flower where pollen is produced.”

(Pollen Turns Bumble Bees Into Jumbo Jets http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/pollen-turns-bumble-bees-into-jumbo-jets-150804.htm)

While bumble bees’ nectar-collecting smarts are well understood, this changing of their vibration while in search of pollen is new, say the researchers. It also proves, they add, that bee buzzes made during flight and pollen collecting are distinct from each other acoustically.

“Gaining this insight into how bumblebee pollination behavior is innate, and yet perfected through learning, is essential to comprehend the complexity of pollination services provided by bees,” said Vallejo-Marin.

“Only by studying how bees achieve these specialised behaviors,” he added, “can we can really understand the consequences of declining bee populations for natural and agricultural systems.”

Speaking of pollen collection, revisit this Australian blue-banded bee, in case you missed it at the end of last year. It was documented banging its head on flowers at up to 350 timer per second. Here it is in action: (video on site)

http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/bumble-bees-born-with-ability-to-buzz-for-pollen-160418.htm

[Unorthodox]

Cool. 

[Rusty Edge]

Headbanger bees. I wonder what kind of music they listen to.

[Dio]

Ahh. The wonders of nature appear to operate upon the perception of events on Earth again.

[gwillybj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/science/birds-bees-honeyguides-africa.html

In Africa, Birds and Humans Form a Unique Honey Hunting Party
By NATALIE ANGIER JULY 22, 2016


Orlando Yassene, a Yao honey-hunter, holding a male greater honeyguide that was temporarily captured for research in the Niassa National Reserve in Mozambique. Credit Claire Spottiswoode

Their word is their bond, and they do what they say — even if the “word” on one side is a loud trill and grunt, and, on the other, the excited twitterings of a bird.

Researchers have long known that among certain traditional cultures of Africa, people forage for wild honey with the help of honeyguides — woodpecker-like birds that show tribesmen where the best beehives are hidden, high up in trees. In return for revealing the location of natural honey pots, the birds are rewarded with the leftover beeswax, which they eagerly devour.

Now scientists have determined that humans and their honeyguides communicate with each other through an extraordinary exchange of sounds and gestures, which are used only for honey hunting and serve to convey enthusiasm, trustworthiness and a commitment to the dangerous business of separating bees from their hives.

The findings cast fresh light on one of only a few known examples of cooperation between humans and free-living wild animals, a partnership that may well predate the love affair between people and their domesticated dogs by hundreds of thousands of years.

Claire N. Spottiswoode, a behavioral ecologist at Cambridge University, and her colleagues reported in the journal Science that honeyguides advertise their scout readiness to the Yao people of northern Mozambique by flying up close while emitting a loud chattering cry.

For their part, the Yao seek to recruit and retain honeyguides with a distinctive vocalization, a firmly trilled “brrr” followed by a grunted “hmm.” In a series of careful experiments, the researchers then showed that honeyguides take the meaning of the familiar ahoy seriously.

The birds were twice as likely to offer sustained help to Yao foragers who walked along while playing recordings of the proper brrr-hmm signal than they were to participants with recordings of normal Yao words or the sounds of other animals.


Orlando Yassene harvesting honeycombs from a wild bees’ nest in the Niassa National Reserve in Mozambique. Credit Claire Spottiswoode

“The fact that the honeyguides were responding more to the specialized sound implies they recognize the specific information content in the signal,” Dr. Spottiswoode said. “It’s not simply a cue to human presence. It’s a signal that the person will be a good collaborator.”

John N. Thompson, a distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said: “I think it’s an absolutely terrific paper. This is one of those ‘just-so’ natural history stories we’ve known for years, and now we’ve got some hard-won data to show it really is so.”

The report describes in detail the trans-species collusion to enjoy the fruits of bee labor. Bees transform gathered nectar and pollen into honey for food and wax for honeycomb housing. As honey is among the most energy-rich foods in nature, it is not surprising that bees guard it with their lives.

African bees are particularly aggressive and will swarm any intruder that so much as jiggles an adjoining branch. Even our closest relatives are loath to disturb a beehive.

“Chimpanzees want to eat honey at least as much as humans do,” Brian M. Wood, a biological anthropologist at Yale University, said. “But they don’t possess the technologies that have allowed us to tap into that resource.”

The Yao know what to do to subdue bee defenses. They wedge a bundle of dry wood wrapped in palm fronds onto a long pole, set the bundle on fire, hoist it up and rest it against a beehive in a tree. When most of the bees have been smoked out, the Yao chop down the tree, tolerate the stings of any bees that remain and scoop out the liquid gold within.

Much harder for the Yao is finding the hives. That’s where the honeyguides come in. Not only can they easily flit from tree to towering tree; they have unusually large olfactory bulbs, and they are good at smelling wax, which makes up a good part of their diet.

“It’s decidedly odd to eat wax, but if you’ve got the metabolism to break it down, it’s a good source of calories,” Dr. Spottiswoode said.

The birds can nibble on waxy plants, waxy insects, the waxy detritus in an abandoned bee nest. Or they can summon human honey hunters to crack open a felled and toasted hive, remove the honey and leave the fresh waxy infrastructure to them.

The birds can recruit helpers with a chatter, or be recruited with a trill-grunt. They can show their human companions the right trees with more chatters or a flick of their white-tipped tails. When assisted by honeyguides, Yao hunters found beehives 54 percent of the time, compared with just 17 percent when unaided.

Researchers have identified a couple of other examples of human-wild animal cooperation: fishermen in Brazil who work with bottlenose dolphins to maximize the number of mullets swept into nets or snatched up by dolphin mouths, and orcas that helped whalers finish off harpooned baleen giants by pulling down the cables and drowning the whales, all for the reward from the humans of a massive whale tongue.

But for the clarity of reciprocity, nothing can match the relationship between honeyguide and honey hunter. “Honeyguides provide the information and get the wax,” Dr. Spottiswoode said. “Humans provide the skills and get the honey.”

How the alliance began remains mysterious, but it is thought to be quite ancient.

“It appears to depend on humans using fire and hand-axes,” Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University, said. Those talents date back to the lower Paleolithic, “so the relationship could be more than a million years old.”

The bird might even have played a role in the emergence of fully modern humans and their energetically demanding brains. Honey is a vital resource for many subsistence cultures, Dr. Wrangham said, “sometimes supplying 80 percent of calories in a month.”

It is beloved by all who depend on it. Among the Hadza of Tanzania, Dr. Wood said, “it’s the top choice of what people claim they would like to eat — the sweet, delicious meal they’ll go for when given the chance.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2016, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: African Tribesmen Can Talk Birds Into Helping Them Find Honey.

© 2016 The New York Times Company

[gwillybj]

https://weather.com/science/nature/news/venomous-snake-talamancan-palm-pitviper-costa-rica-discovered-new-species

Researchers Discover New Species of Venomous Snake in Costa Rica
Published: Jul 20 2016 12:00 AM EDT
By Ada Carr weather.com


Native to Costa Rica, the Talmancan Palm-Pitviper was recently discovered after being mistakenly classified for more than 100 years. (University of Central Florida)

Finding a venomous snake isn’t what most would consider a cause for celebration, but the discovery of a new species in Costa Rica has solved a century-long case of mistaken identity.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Central Florida discovered the green and black Talamancan Palm-Pitviper, which dwells in some of the most remote regions of Costa Rica, according to a release. Because its coloring is very similar to its close relative, the Black-Speckled Palm-Pitviper, the Talamancan Palm-Pitviper went unrecognized for more than 100 years. While the two species are almost identical, their genetics are different.

"It's a really interesting phenomenon," said team leader and UCF biologist Christopher Parkinson in the release. "It shows some of the complexities we deal with when cataloging biodiversity and underscores the importance of maintaining natural-history collections.”

Evidence of the species was first discovered in 2001 during a genetic analysis of the palm-pitvipers. Parkinson and his graduate students noticed unusual genetic differences between the snakes. Study author Tiffany Doan turned to several museums across the country to generate the morphological data used for the project. The institutions gave Doan and her team access to thousands of reptile specimens from decades of research, which allowed them to compare the suspected snakes’ morphology to that of others.

"It took about 15 years to get enough tissue samples because of the rarity of the new species to be able to confirm from a genetic perspective that it is a new species,” Parkinson told FOX 35 Orlando.

According to the study, the researchers were able to determine the Talamancan Palm-Pitviper is different from the Black-Speckled Palm-Pitviper due to distinct differences in the scale pattern around the animals’ eyes and tails.

"We want to conserve that land because we don't know everything that's there, and for venomous snakes there's actually potentially a medical benefit because new drugs have been found or some new drugs have been found from venom,” Parkinson told FOX 35.

Snake venom is a good source for protein discovery and drug development. Researchers don’t know much about this new species’ venom, but the Black Speckled Palm-Pitviper was recently shown to possess an important toxin, nigroviridtoxin, according to the release. It is similar to a neurotoxin found in some rattlesnakes, but unseen in a non-rattlesnake before now.

The small area of land the snakes live on is being deforested, FOX 35 Orlando also said.

“This discovery highlights the necessity for strong conservation initiatives," said Parkinson. Many undisturbed areas around the world are being developed before scientists get a chance to document their flora and fauna. "There's no telling what other species are yet to be found and how they might benefit mankind."

The relatively slender Talamancan Palm-Pitvipers are found in trees, which provide great camouflage thanks to their green and black spots. A large snake may reach about 30 inches, but most are less than 24 inches. Researchers believe their habitat includes only 62 miles of area in the north of the Cordillera de Talamancan of Costa Rica.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, I can't say I share their enthusiasm for a new kind of pit-viper, one that dwells in trees above.

[Spacy]

Ya, but look at those scales.  Immagine the set of boots those would make!

[Buster's Uncle]

Those would be some gaudy boots, by my lights...

[Spacy]

If you are wearing snake skin boots, gaudy is the least of your issues.

[Buster's Uncle]

I already gots me too many issues, m'man...

[gwillybj]

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-36955080

Norway Party Proposes 'Slug Hour' to Tackle Invasive Pests
By News from Elsewhere...
...as found by BBC Monitoring
2 August 2016



The Spanish slug - Arion vulgaris - is an unwelcome sight in many European gardens - NIBIO/ARILD ANDERSEN

A Norwegian political party wants people to set aside one hour twice a year and spend it destroying an invasive species of slug.

Inspired by the annual Earth Hour, when people are encouraged to switch off their lights, the Socialist Left Party thinks a similar approach could combat the much-reviled Spanish slug, the VG newspaper reports. The party has also called for a funding boost for efforts to combat invasive species, and says it hopes the Conservative-led coalition government will be inspired to implement the ideas.

Party secretary Kari Elisabeth Kaski tells the paper that she thinks Norwegians would be happy to give up time for some slug hunting. "We have seen how well it has worked with Earth Hour... Norwegians are happy to volunteer," she says, adding that a "coordinated and concerted effort" is needed to tackle the creatures. She points to a municipality in southern Norway which offered people cash in exchange for collecting slugs in 2012, seeing an enthusiastic response from locals.

The Spanish slug - sometimes referred to as the "killer slug" - is now found across Europe, and was first spotted in Norway in 1988. It gobbles everything from green plants to decaying animal remains. While an array of slug-beating ideas fill the internet and probably won't appeal to people of a squeamish nature, a scientist at the University of Denmark warned last year that the only real way to get rid of them is to collect them in a plastic bag, tie the top and chuck them in the bin.

yuck