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Radioactive signature help reveal the whale shark's age

Nick Carne
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 06 Apr 2020 23:01 UTC
Whale Shark
© WAYNE OSBORN
Australian researcher Mark Meekan swimming with a whale shark.
Scientists say they now know how old whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) can get, thanks in no small part to the radioactive legacy of the arms race.

Fallout from nuclear tests in the 1950s and 60s left clearly recognisable timelines in the vertebrae of the world's largest fish, they report in a paper in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

This allowed them to establish that one of the specimens they studied was 50 years old at death - the first time, they say, that such an age has been unambiguously verified.

The project brought together researchers from the US, Iceland and Australia, with support from others in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The key was determining how much time the timelines represent.

Like all sharks and rays, Rhincodon typus lacks an otolith - the bony structure used to assess the age of other fish.

Its vertebrae do feature distinct bands that increase in number with age, in much the same way as rings of a tree trunk, but this has been of minimal value because it wasn't clear until now how often a new band formed.
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Cloud Lightning

More than 150 wild birds in Iraq killed by lightning strike

Zhelwan Z. Wali
Rudaw
Fri, 03 Apr 2020 18:36 UTC
More than 150 wild birds die in lightning strike
A large number of birds died in a lightning strike in the Kurdistan Region's Halgurd-Sakran National Park on Friday, officials have confirmed.

"At this time of the year, these [birds] migrate from the hot to cold places. While flying towards the Caspian sea in Iran, a lightning strike hit them," Mohammed Abdulla, an employee at the Halgurd-Sakran National Park, told Rudaw English. "We have so far managed to discover around 150 of them."

"There are many others that we have not yet been able to discover as their bodies have dispersed across the mountain," he added.

Sulaiman Tameer, head of the Kurdistan Organization for Animal Rights Protection categorized the birds as common cranes, a medium-sized species most commonly found in Europe.
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Biohazard

Thailand hit by African Horse Sickness, killing over 100 horses


Reuters
Thu, 02 Apr 2020 22:29 UTC
African Horse Sickness

Diseased horse
More than 100 horses have died from African Horse Sickness (AHS) in Thailand, government data showed, in the Southeast Asian country's first instance of the illness that only affects animals.

"This disease has just occurred in Thailand. We've never had it in the past," director-general of the Department of Livestock Development, Sorawit Thanito, said on Thursday.

The government has quarantined sick horses to limit the spread of the disease, Sorawit said.

At least 131 horses have died across four provinces, latest government data showed.

Comment: This comes alongside the African Swine Fever outbreaks and rising bird flu cases, as well as numerous strange outbreaks of various kinds amongst humans.

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Question

About 100 starlings found dead on road in Switzerland


Indonewyork.com
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 12:06 UTC
starlings
At the end of February over 100 starlings in the Thurgau village of Triboltingen are suddenly on the main road. The Tagblatt media reports the birds injuries.

"A third was moving its wings, the rest of the birds were dead," said an eyewitness, according to a report in the newspaper media. On a relatively small area on the street and the adjacent Meadow around 120 starlings were found. The hunting and fishing management in Frauenfeld, the news Agency Keystone-SDA confirmed on inquiry of the incident.

An examination of several of the starlings at the centre for fish and wildlife medicine at the University of Bern, showed lung injuries, and skull trauma . "Such violations indicate a collision back," said Livio Rey, spokesman of the Swiss ornithological Institute in Sempach LU, opposite Keystone-SDA. The injury came about during the impact after the crash of the birds, he said this was unlikely. "It looks more likely that they are colliding in flight with something."
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Blue Planet

With India on lockdown, endangered sea turtles on course to lay SIXTY MILLION eggs this year

Elias Marat
The Mind Unleashed
Sat, 28 Mar 2020 05:10 UTC
Olive Ridley sea turtles
While the coronavirus may have sparked one of the biggest crises seen by the planet in modern times, the global pandemic has had some positive effects on the environment.

In India, along the coast of the eastern state Odisha, over 475,000 endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles have come ashore to a roughly 3.75-mile (6-km.) Rushikulya beach to dig their nests and lay eggs.

However, restrictions in place due to the CoViD-19 threat has allowed for hundreds of thousands of endangered turtles to be protected from any human presence — especially the presence of tourists — resulting in what may be their most successful mass nesting in years.

According to the forest service, well over 250,000 mother turtles have taken part in the daytime nesting activity within the past week alone, reports Down to Earth.
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Heart - Black

Frightened mobs in Peru burn hundreds of bats with torches as coronavirus hysteria grows

Elias Marat
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 26 Mar 2020 06:28 UTC
Scared Bat
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to grow, misinformation in the form of fake news, rumors, and gossip have continued to feed mass hysteria and panic over the deadly disease.

In Peru, this has resulted in locals attempting to fight CoViD-19 by attacking communities of bats despite the fact that the novel virus still hasn't been decisively proven to have originated from the winged creature.

On Wednesday, the Peruvian government issued a statement warning residents to stop killing bats after authorities were forced to intervene when roughly half a thousand of the flying mammals came under attack by gangs of peasants hoping to exterminate what they believed were carriers of the disease, reports Peruvian network América Noticias.

Roughly 300 of the creatures were killed in the arson attacks that took place in the small village of Culden, which lies in the Cajamarca region, after mobs attacked the caves where the bat communities dwelled, Peru's National Service of Wild Forests and Fauna (SERFOR) announced.
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Doberman

Cat and dog adoptions surge as shelters find creative ways to reach out amid pandemic

Elias Marat
The Mind Unleashed
Sat, 28 Mar 2020 10:44 UTC
Shelter puppy
The coronavirus pandemic has rippled through society, disrupting and transforming lives in myriad, unpredictable ways.

However, amid the crisis people have gone out on a limb not only to help each other but also to help homeless pets find temporary housing as animal shelters feel the impact of lockdown orders throughout the country.

Organizations like the Asheville Humane Society in North Carolina have had to suspend volunteer care jobs, forcing them to find alternatives to their traditional methods of finding foster parents for homeless cats and dogs.

However, after launching an online appeal to recruit temporary foster families, the humane organization found that their community was more than willing to step up and help take care of foster pets in need.
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Doberman

Elderly woman dies in attack by 3 dogs in New South Wales, Australia


The Sydney Morning Herald
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 11:31 UTC
One of the Bullmastiff crosses that attacked and killed an elderly woman at a Jervis Bay beach is pictured with young children

One of the Bullmastiff crosses that attacked and killed an elderly woman at a Jervis Bay beach is pictured with young children
The owner of three dogs who mauled a 91-year-old woman to death and injured four other people on the NSW South Coast has spoken of his shock, saying he "never thought in my wildest dreams" the animals would attack.

Adam Newbold sobbed as he told Nine News he had owned the dogs for seven years, referring to one of the animals as his "best mate". Mr Newbold said the dogs appeared to have "busted out the bottom of the fence" on Sunday.

The incident occurred at Collingwood Beach at Vincentia on Sunday morning, with the five people suffering cuts and bite marks.

The elderly woman died at the scene while the other four people were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

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Book 2

Swarms of bats dropping dead in Israel


Sputnik
Fri, 27 Mar 2020 13:28 UTC
Bat at night
© CC0
Some studies earlier suggested that the new coronavirus had been caused by bats, and although this theory has not been confirmed, Israeli media has suggested that that the recent mysterious deaths of the nocturnal creatures could have come as a punishment for the onset of global disease or as a sign of something even more dreadful.

Swarms of dead bats with no physical signs of trauma were spotted across Israel, raising questions and fears about the end-of-days omen.

The photos of the dead creatures lying in Gan Leumi Park in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan were first shared by Adi Moskowitz on Facebook, who asked for an explanation to the mysterious phenomenon. Similar photos and videos were published by some other users in neighbouring cities, according to Breaking Israel News, which was suspicious of the death plague among bats and even linked it to a biblical prophecy about the end of humanity as it is.
"I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the sky And the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble, And I will destroy mankind From the face of the earth — declares Hashem", says Zephaniah 1:3, which was used by Breaking Israel News website to explain the mysterious development.
Several social media users and experts have suggested that the reason for the happening could have either been unusually cold weekends, or recently installed 5G technologies nearby, but these theories have remained unconfirmed.

Comment: And in other recent bat-news:

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Info

Squids can edit their own genes


The University of Chicago
Mon, 23 Mar 2020 18:33 UTC
Giant Axon in Squid
© Vallecillo-Viejo et al, Nucl. Acids Res., 2020.
Top, schematic of squid anatomy showing the location of the “giant axon,” an unusually large neural projection that partly controls the squid’s jet propulsion system, used for very fast movement, attacks and escapes. Below, schematic of a neuron, showing the location of the nucleus where all RNA editing was previously thought to occur, and the axon, where local RNA editing was identified in squid.
Woods Hole, Mass. - Revealing yet another super-power in the skillful squid, scientists have discovered that squid massively edit their own genetic instructions not only within the nucleus of their neurons, but also within the axon — the long, slender neural projections that transmit electrical impulses to other neurons. This is the first time that edits to genetic information have been observed outside of the nucleus of an animal cell.

The study, led by Isabel C. Vallecillo-Viejo and Joshua Rosenthal at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, is published this week in Nucleic Acids Research.

The discovery provides another jolt to the central dogma of molecular biology, which states that genetic information is passed faithfully from DNA to messenger RNA to the synthesis of proteins. In 2015, Rosenthal and colleagues discovered that squid "edit" their messenger RNA instructions to an extraordinary degree - orders of magnitude more than humans do — allowing them to fine-tune the type of proteins that will be produced in the nervous system.
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