Maine Lobster Seek Cooler Locale as Waters Warm

(Photo : Pixabay)

Trying to imagine Maine without lobster is like trying to imagine Cape Cod without cod, or Florida without oranges. But the region may lose its iconic crustacean, as scientists have revealed that lobsters are seeking cooler habitat as Gulf of Maine waters warm.

Waters in the Gulf of Maine are heating up faster than 99 percent of the world's oceans, scientists say, according to The Associated Press. Long-established species of commercial fish, like cod, herring and northern shrimp, are departing for colder waters. And species not typically found in the Gulf like black sea bass, blue crabs and new species of squid are taking over.

"These changes are very real, and we're seeing them happen quickly," Malin Pinsky, a biology professor at New Jersey's Rutgers University, who was not involved in the new research, told the AP.

Climate change is certainly warming the rest of the world's oceans, but not nearly as fast as in the Gulf - stretching from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Until 2004, scientists say, Gulf temperatures were increasing by about 0.05 degrees per year since 1982, which was similar to the overall global trend. However, the pace then accelerated to about a half-degree per year - nearly 10 times faster - and scientists aren't sure why.

Scientists speculate that shifts in the Gulf stream or a sort of "perfect storm" of events could explain this phenomenon. But regardless of the cause, the Gulf of Maine's temperature is expected to rise more than 4 degrees by the end of the century, Pinsky said.

Gulf waters are historically chill and have strong currents - mixing waters and increasing available nutrients - making it desirable habitat for lobsters and other marine life. But with things heating up, half of fish stocks studied in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, including many commercial species, have been shifting northward over the past 40 years, according to a 2009 NOAA report.

These changes are not only a threat to lobster and other fish species, but also to Maine's multi-billion dollar industry. National Geographic reports that more than 200,000 tons of lobster is caught annually. The American (Homarus americanus) and European (Homarus gammarus) clawed lobsters are the most heavily harvested, and ones that you're likely to see on your dinner plate. These species, like so many others, prefer colder waters, although some are also tropical lobsters - though these are generally clawless varieties called spiny and slipper lobsters.

Goffin's Cockatoos Learn Tool-Making from Peers

Cockatoos can learn how to make tools from each other, scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen, have found. Image: after watching another bird demonstrate Kiwi manufactures a tool. (Photo : A. Auersperg/ Eurekalert )

Goffin's cockatoos, one of the smartest birds in the world, teach each other carpentry, a new study has found.

These parrot species, according to researchers at the Oxford University, can learn tool-making from each other. The team at Oxford, along with colleagues from the University of Vienna and the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen, conducted a controlled experiment to demonstrate the tool-making abilities of Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffini).

Recently, BBC reported the story of a cockatoo - named Figaro - that was seen using a stick as a tool to reach nuts outside its cage. These birds aren't known to use such tools in the wild. The team in the current study wondered whether other cockatoos could follow Figaro's example and start using wooden tools.

The researchers constructed an elaborate experiment to understand the tool-making behavior in these parrots. They allowed a set of cockatoos to observe Figaro, while other parrots were given false instructions about how to use tools.

Birds in the fake learning group were shown that the food moved towards Figaro without any intervention (scientists achieved this feat by using magnets to move objects).

The team then allowed all birds to gather food. The trick was that to get the food, parrots had to use makeshift wooden tools. The researchers found that birds that observed Figaro could use the sticks to reach the desired goals. However, none of the birds in the other group picked up the skill.

"This is the first controlled evidence for the social transmission of an original tool use event in any bird so far," said Stefan Weber, a student from the University of Vienna, who was involved in the data collection.

What's more, Figaro's students employed their own twist to the technique and increased the efficiency of their labors. Figaro gathers nuts by holding the stick at the end and then raking them towards the cage, using a slightly different angle at each stroke. His students, however, kept the stick on the ground and "propelled the nuts into their reach by a quick ballistic flipping movement."

"This means that although watching Figaro was necessary for their success they did not imitate his exact motor activities. Successful observers seemed to attend to the result of Figaro's interaction with the tool but developed their own strategies for reaching the same result, rather than copying his actions. This is typical of what psychologists would call emulation learning," explained Dr Alice Auersperg who led the study at the Goffin Lab at the University of Vienna.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A related study had earlier shown that Goffin's cockatoos display self control, a trait that was considered to be uniquely human. Birds belonging to the family Corvidae that include crows, ravens and rooks are known to possess higher intelligence.

Severed Snake Heads Still Deliver Dangerous Bite

(Photo : Flickr: Michael Allen Smith)

Venomous snakes are scary when they're alive, and now reports say they can still deliver a dangerous bite even after they're dead.

A chef in China preparing cobra soup, a rare delicacy, suffered a fatal snake bite from one of the decapitated heads he chopped up for the meal, the UK Daily Mirror reported.

While this story may seem strange, "It means snakes have the capability of biting and injecting venom even after the head has been severed," snake expert Yang Hong-Chang told the Mirror.

"Snakes in general are well known for retaining reflexes after death," Steven Beaupré, a biology professor at the University of Arkansas, told Live Science.

And snakes aren't the only ones with this unique - and in this case deadly - quality. It's displayed in many ectothermic, or cold-blooded, vertebrae as well, including species of reptiles and amphibians.

For venomous snakes, like the notorious cobras and rattlesnakes, biting is one of the reflexes that can be activated in the brain even hours after the animal dies, Beaupré told Live Science. But the bite reflex is stronger in these types of snakes because they use their bite differently compared to some carnivores. Usually snakes will aim for a quick-fire attack that requires a single, lethal lunge rather than sinking their teeth in like many meat-eaters do.

In fact, rattlesnakes have been known to inject venom into prey in less than two-tenths of a second, according to Beaupré.

Unfortunately for the Chinese chef, it appears that he was the unlucky victim - though not the first - of this type of quick-bite reflex.

"Just because the animals has been decapitated, that doesn't mean the nerves have stopped functioning," Beaupré explained.

Ions, or electrically charged particles that remain in nerve cells fuel this reflex. So when the nerves are stimulated, even after death, the snake can still react via an electrical impulse that stimulates the mouth muscles.

So, if you're cooking up some cobra soup, or happen to heroically sever the head of an attacking  snake, still beware of its vicious bite.

Meet the Coywolf: Nature's Next Top Dog?

(Photo : Mech et. al./doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088861.g002)

Even while pure grey wolf populations continue to recover in North America, the top dog has been, and may continue to be, the coywolf. A hybrid of coyote, wolf, and even wild dog, this species appears to be one of the most successful predators in the United States, despite the fact it is one of the least protected animals.

Wild grey wolves were all but wiped out by overhunting in the United States in the early 1920s, allowing coyote populations to explode in once-suppressed regions and spill over into new territory. Now coyotes can be found in nearly every territory wolves once roamed.

Coyotes are not the only top predators in these regions. There's a larger and more dangerous top-dog too. The coywolf, or Eastern coyote, is a larger coyote with wolf-like features that can be found in land north of Great Lakes.

Past field studies have found that despite their dominant coyote features, coywolves behave like the apex predators that once inhabited the region - hunting in packs and having a complex social structure. The Western coyote, on the other hand, is primarily a loner except during mating and birthing seasons.

Just last month, the renowned science journalist Moises Velasquez-Manoff wrote in New York Times Magazine that it is largely thought that the coywolf is roughly one-quarter wolf and two-thirds coyote, with the rest being dog -  a "canis soup" of mixed genes that Bradley White, a scientist at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, believes is the direct result of desperate and packless grey wolves breeding into coyote populations in the wake of their decline.

"The result has been a creature with enough strength to hunt the abundant woodland deer," Velasquez-Manoff wrote, "as much as 40 percent larger than the Western coyote, with powerful wolflike jaws."

(Photo : Flickr: Eric Kilby/Justin Johnsen (modified)) The North American Grey Wolf (left) compared to the Western coyote (right)

However, what's interesting is that this has never truly been proven. In fact, coyotes and grey wolves famously don't get along, bullying one another out of regions despite the fact that they only share some, and not all, resources.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology back in 2000 revealed that there is a chance that grey wolves and timber wolves from different parts of North America are two separate species entirely. That then lead experts to the theory that the timber wolf is a wolf species that specifically evolved from a coyote-like ancestor, while grey wolves emigrated to North America over the Bering Strait. Such a theory could explain why timber wolves (sometimes called "eastern wolves") can hybridize into the Eastern coyote despite what appears to be a base hatred between grey wolves and North America's smaller canine.

Still, a paper published in Heredity, a Nature publication, back in 2010 revealed that Eastern wolf and coyote populations often boast genetic information specific to timber wolf fathers and coyote mothers. This raised a new set of questions: was the timber wolf actually once a hybridization between coyotes and grey wolves? Does that then mean the coywolf is a hybridized hybrid?

Before things got any more complicated, a team of wildlife researchers set out to determine once-and-for-all if pure male grey wolves (Canis lupus) and female Western coyotes (Canis latrans) can indeed make what looks and even functions like a coywolf on their own.

The results were published in the journal PLOS One earlier this year, and were not exactly as clear as the experts would have liked. Out of nine artificial inseminations over two breeding seasons, only three coyote mothers became pregnant.

"One coyote ate her pups, another produced a resorbed fetus and a dead fetus by C-section, and the third produced seven hybrids, six of which survived," the authors reported.

(Photo : Mech et. al./doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088861.g002) Three lab-born 50/50 coywolves.

What's interesting, however, is that while one out of three is pretty bad odds, the six survivors proved to be pretty successful hunters - displaying a pack mentality even while boasting the adaptable scavenger guile of coyotes.

The authors add, "while our study adds information to the controversy, it does not settle it. Further study is needed to determine whether the putative Canis lycaon ["coywolf"] is indeed a unique species."

What is known, is that there are wolf-like coyotes and coyote-like wolves quickly adapting to the unique environments modern human expansion has created in North America. While large wolves may struggle to adapt to rural and even urban settings, and coyotes struggle to find adequate food supplies in the wake of their exploded populations, the coywolf appears to take the best of both worlds - fitting into a rural environment even while boasting the strength and social network to tackle large and tasty prey.

Naked Mole Rats Defy Aging

(Photo : Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies/The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio)

Everyone wants to know what the secret to a long, healthy life is, and now researchers may have found the answer from an unlikely source. Naked mole rats, it seems, are able to defy aging due to certain cells that enhance protein integrity, according to a new study.

According to research from a team at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, a factor in the cells of naked mole rats protects and alters the activity of the proteasome, which gets rid of damaged and obsolete proteins.

In general, as an organism ages, not only are there more damaged proteins in need of disposal, but the proteasome itself becomes damaged and less efficient in clearing out the damaged proteins.

The cells of naked mole rats also protect proteasome function in human, mouse and yeast cells when challenged with various proteasome poisons, previous studies have shown. These proteasomes usually stop functioning right away, leading to the accumulation of damaged proteins that further impair cell function, contributing to the vicious cycle that leads to cell death.

"I think this factor is part of an overall process or mechanism by which naked mole rats maintain their protein quality," study first author Karl Rodriguez, Ph.D., said in a press release.

This mechanism in naked mole rats shows that enhancing protein quality may be the key to longevity in humans - at least, that was the case for yeast, worms, fruit flies and naked mole rats, according to Rodriguez.

These nearly hairless rodents are native to East Africa, and can live up to 32 years. According to National Geographic, they have a wide geographical distribution and can live below sea level or high on mountainside plains. Though naked mole rats spend most of their time excavating and foraging in their burrows, they occasionally emerge to search for seeds or other plants.

The study, published in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease, says that these rats can live cancer-free and maintain good reproductive potential well into their third decade of life.