Saturday November 21, 2009
Countdown to Copenhagen, A Crocodile World, Accent on Crying, Vampire Spiders, Name your Poison
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Countdown to Copenhagen
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In just 2 weeks time, representatives from 193 countries will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the 15th United Nations Conference on Climate Change. The goal of the conference is to establish a global climate agreement, to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But many observers think it's unlikely that the participants will agree on any binding targets for reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Tim Flannery is one of them. He's chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council - a collaboration between the world's top business leaders and leading scientists, who have come together to raise awareness about the importance of the coming conference in Copenhagen. He's also a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and author of the new book, Now or Never: Why we need to act now to achieve a sustainable future. He thinks the consequences of failure in Copenhagen would be disastrous for the world.
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Dr. Flannery's book, Now or NeverDr. Flannery's web pageUN Conference on Climate ChangeCopenhagen Climate CouncilPrevious Quirks interview with Dr. Flannery about The Weather MakersA Crocodile World
Artist's impression of "Dog Croc" by Todd Marshall/National Geographic
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Many millions of years ago, the world was inhabited by a huge diversity of great reptiles. There were huge meat eaters, smaller, and probably nervous herbivores, and even smaller insect eaters. Some lived entirely on land, some were partially aquatic. They occupied the broad range of ecological niches we mammals do today. This sounds like a description of the dinosaurs, but in fact, it also applies to the crocodiles. Dr. Hans Larsson, a paleontologist and Canada Research Chair in Macroevolution at the Redpath Museum at McGill University, is part of a team that has just identified five species of crocodilians that lived about 100 million years ago, and are very different from modern crocs. Some had long legs and galloping stride, some were probably at least partial herbivores, and they were well adapted for living on land, and some were even more fearsome predators than modern crocodiles.
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Paper in ZooKeysRelease from McGill UniversityNews release from National Geographic SocietyCBC NewsDr Larsson's pageAccent on Crying
Copyright Inferis/Tom Adriaenssen, cc-by-sa-2.0
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We know that when a new born baby cries, it is trying to send an alert or signal. But new research led by Dr. Kathleen Wermke, the Director of the Centre for Pre-Speech Development and Developmental Disorders at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, suggests those cries can tell us more. The cry patterns of 30 French new born babies were compared to those of 30 German babies. The recordings indicate that French babies cry with rising tones, while the German babies cry with falling tones. Dr. Wermke believes the difference is because of what the fetus is able to hear in the womb. The German and French language have different tone and melody; this is mimicked by new borns and reflected in their cries.
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Paper in Current BiologyNews release from University of WurzburgNews release from Max Planck SocietyLanguage Log BlogVampire Spiders
Courtesy: Dr. Fiona Cross, University of Canterbury Museum
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Jumping spiders are generally best known for their vision, not sense of smell. But Dr. Simon Pollard, the Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the University of Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, has found one in East Africa that lusts after a particular smell - blood! When choosing a mate, this male jumping spider prefers one that has fed on mosquitoes that have fed on blood. The male spider can pick up a particular scent that a potential mate gives off; a scent that comes only from a diet of blood-filled mosquito.
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Name your Poison
Northern short-tailed shrew, copyright Gilles Gonthier cc-by-2.0
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Dr. Hopi Hoekstra, a professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, has been trying to understand an odd creature. It's the Northern Short-tailed shrew, which is a small and innocuous mammal with one fascinating feature: it's one of the few mammals with a toxic bite. Dr. Hoekstra has found that its poison has evolved from a digestive enzyme that evolution "supercharged" into a poison that it can use to subdue its prey. That was interesting, but what was truly surprising is that Dr. Hoekstra has found a reptile - the Mexican Beaded Lizard - that has essentially evolved the same poison. She thinks this is an interesting tale of convergent evolution that could shed light on the evolution of venomous bites more generally.
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Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein.
Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0
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