Can Coronavirus Infect Non-Human Animals?
A new study suggests that many endangered and threatened species, particularly primates, could be susceptible to the novel coronavirus.
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Urban Animal Adaptations, the Musical
Adaptations! How do animals adapt to live in human cities? Which animal sings the best? Watch them audition for survival and try an experiment with ping pong balls and tongs! This video is brought to you by our very good friend Sophia Shrand, creator and star of the educational science comedy series Science with Sophie. In this episode, we learn how different animal adaptations help them survive and thrive in city environments. We also learn how many different animals Sophie can portray (a lot). Finally, the experiment is fun for…
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New Ways to Reduce Antibiotics in Food Animals by 2030
By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore In a new study, researchers in the United States and Europe propose three measures—capping antibiotic use in farm animals, imposing a fee for veterinary use of antibiotics, and limiting meat intake—that, together, can reduce the use of antibiotics in food animals by up to 80 percent by 2030. Antibiotic resistance results from antibiotics overuse Overuse of antibiotics, particularly in animals for food, is the main cause of the spread of resistance whereby antibiotics lose their effectiveness, and infections become untreatable, leading to what many scientists call…
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Swimming with the Sea Lions
Max Goldberg continues his tale of photographing whales, sea lions, and other wildlife in Cabo Hardly anyone got any sleep the night before our fourth day on the National Geographic trip to the coast of Mexico, because we were too excited about the next day’s activities. Before we went to bed, we were briefed on what we were going to do: swim with sea lions. We woke up, had breakfast, and got in the boats for a little tour around the sea lion colony. The first thing I noticed was…
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Osprey: Bird of Many Names
By Steven Spence guān guān jū jiū ‘Fair, fair,’ cry the ospreys 关 关 雎 鸠 zài hé zhī zhōu On the island in the river. 在 河 之 洲 (Opening lines of the famous Chinese poem 关雎 Guān jū [1]) A Bird of Many Names Depending on where you live, the bird pictured here may be called an osprey, a fish hawk, a river hawk, a sea hawk, or even a fish eagle! To avoid such confusion, scientists use one name, usually derived from Latin, to describe each species.…
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Six Extinctions in Six Minutes: Shelf Life Video
Six (Mass) Extinctions in 440 Million Years All things must pass. But the idea that a species could go extinct is a relatively new one, first proposed by anatomist Georges Cuvier in a presentation in Paris in 1796 in a lecture on the extinction of the mastodon, then thought by some to still be roaming the ill-explored western reaches of North America. –American Museum of Natural History Shelf Life is a collection of videos for curious minds—opening doors, pulling out drawers, and taking the lids off some of…
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Strengthening the Endangered Species Act
By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore Have you ever heard of the Ōlulu plant? What about the vernal pool tadpole shrimp or Fender’s blue butterfly? These are the lesser known species among the almost 1,600 currently listed in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that require long-term intervention strategies to ensure their survival. Despite numerous success stories, it is becoming more difficult to recover species. The ESA is beset by persistent and pervasive threats to species, pressures from climate change, uneven distribution of funding among species, and a rapidly growing list of species…
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Hotspots of Bat-Human Virus Transmission
By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore Since the turn of the century, we’ve already been gripped by three major outbreaks of new diseases—SARS in China, MERS in the Middle East, and Ebola in Africa—that have had devastating social and economic effects. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we could predict where the next emerging infectious disease is likely to occur? Now, we are a step closer. Scientists have mapped high-risk regions, termed hotspots, for the transmission of viruses from bats to humans, based on several driving factors including bushmeat hunting and population density. “We…
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How Snakes Lost their Legs
By Kate Stone Long ago, snakes lost their legs. Now, a fresh clue as to how and why has been found deep in an ancient snake’s inner ear. Leglessness is not what makes a snake a snake. As this article explains, it is the flexible, unhinged jaw that distinguishes a snake from a legless lizard. And yet, developing legs only to lose them may seem like evolution in reverse. A 90 million-year-old snake skull is giving researchers vital clues about how snakes lost their legs as they evolved. Comparisons between…
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Citizen Science Informs Bird Feeder Dilemma
By Jonathan Trinastic @jptrinastic If you enjoy turkey this Thanksgiving, take a moment to think not about the bird on your plate but rather the birds outside your home. With increasing urbanization taking away more natural habitat, local wildlife is having difficulty finding food. Bird feeders have become a popular way for homeowners to help local wildlife and contribute to conservation efforts. But are these feeders, borne of good intentions, actually helping or hurting wild birds? A recent study has enlisted the help of Canadian citizens to find out. Feeding the…
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