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Forensic Vulturology
 American black vulture (Dick Daniels/Wikimedia Commons) |
When a human corpse is left exposed to the elements, understanding nature's
effects may help forensic investigators figure out the time and circumstances of
death. Clues from microbes and insects on the decomposing body are often used,
but up until now forensic scientists knew surprisingly little about the impact
of some much larger scavengers -- vultures. Dr. Michelle Hamilton of Texas State
University San Marcos and her colleagues recently observed how vultures dealt
with a donated human body. The study revealed that vultures can really mess with
the body and the crime scene, potentially throwing off time-of-death estimates
by months.
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The Tarsier Hears
 Philippine tarsier (Plerzelwupp/Wikimedia Commons) |
Tarsiers are a unique primate native to southeast Asia that are similar in
appearance to some lemurs, but in fact represent a wholly different evolutionary
family. These small and uncannily cute little predators have huge eyes for
capturing as much light as possible, but it turns out that their ears are even
more interesting. Dr. Marissa Ramsier, a biological anthropologist at Humboldt
State University in California, and her colleagues have discovered that the
Philippine tarsier can communicate in the high-ultrasonic -- over 90 kHz. This
is well above human hearing, and in fact very few other animals can produce or
hear sound at these frequencies. Dr. Ramsier suspects that this allows the tiny
animals to avoid being overheard by both prey and predators.
Related Links
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Black Hole Burps
 Plasma emissions from a black hole imaged using data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Very Long Baseline Array (VBLA) radio telescope. (University of Alberta/NASA) |
It gobbles everything that comes near it, and then, when the meal is
particularly large, emits a huge belch detectable halfway across the galaxy -- no, not your friend Jeremy at a Superbowl party, but a stellar-mass black hole.
Dr. Gregory Sivakoff, an observational astrophysicist at the University of
Alberta has been studying huge "burps" of high-energy particles emitted by black
holes. These black holes are surrounded by accretion disks of material being
drawn into the black hole, which in turn are fed by drawing off material from
the black hole's companion star. In recent work he linked these "burps" to
extra large "meals" being eaten by the black hole when large lumps of matter in
the accretion disk fall into the black hole.
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Not-So-Dead Vents
 Chimneys at an active hydrothermal vent (Rogers et al./PLoS One/Wkimedia Commons) |
Hot, mineral-rich water from hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean supports thriving oases of life in an otherwise cold, dark barren landscape. When the
vents eventually become inactive, the colonies of tubeworms, clams and other
large creatures they supported disappear.
Dr. Katrina Edwards of the University
of Southern California took a submarine ride to a dead vent in the depths of the
ocean. There, she discovered that the chemical energy spewed out by the vents
continues to support huge populations of microbes long after the venting stops.
The microbes feed on the mineral-rich chimneys and sediments left behind by the
hydrothermal activity. These microbial ecosystems appear to be even more diverse
than the populations at active vents, and could play a huge role in ocean
because there are a lot more dead vents than active ones.
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How to Think Like a Neandertal
 (Oxford University Press) |
What's going on in the mind of a Neandertal? Prof. Thomas Wynn, an
anthropologist, and Prof. Frederick L. Coolidge, a psychologist, both from
the University of Colorado at Colorado Spring, have attempted to answer that
question in their book How to Think Like a Neandertal. Prof.
Coolidge suggests that Neandertals shared many cognitive abilities with humans.
But he thinks archeological evidence suggests that they had important
limitations in their abilities, primarily an inability to innovate and invent
that developed in modern Homo sapiens. This might have been reflected in their
language and communication, in their humour, and in their ability to develop
large social groups, or even trade networks. These limitations might, in fact,
help explain why they disappeared 30,000 years ago. When innovative, talkative,
diplomatic Homo sapiens entered Europe and Western Asia, the Neanderthal's
cognitive limits might have contributed to their decline.
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Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein, Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0
Saturdays at noon, Mondays at 11:00 p.m., Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. (in some markets only)
American black vulture (Dick Daniels/Wikimedia Commons)
Philippine tarsier (Plerzelwupp/Wikimedia Commons)
We're coming to Halifax in early June for our annual Quirks Question Roadshow, and we want to see you there. Stay tuned to this space for details.
Saturdays at noon, Mondays at 11:00 p.m., Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. and Fridays at 5:00 a.m. (ET)
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