Photo of the Day: Exhausted starfish

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Globe and Mail:

High tide waves wash over some of the thousands of starfish that have been washed up on the beach at Budleigh Salterton in Devon, England. Over the last few days hundreds of thousands of starfish have been washed up on the beach, which marine experts believe is due to them become susceptible to high tides and storms after becoming exhausted spawning.

Quite amazing, really. But I suppose we'd all feel that way after such prolific spawning.

The Beer Guzzling Tree Shrew ?

In the rain forest of Malaysia, scientists have found a small mammal, closely related to primates, whose major source of food is a type of beer.

It's believed to be the only animal other than humans that chronically consumes alcohol. But this animal never appears drunk, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This little critter, the pentail tree shrew, is about 4 inches long; it weighs just a few ounces.

"It looks like a mix between a squirrel and a mouse," says Frank Weins, a biologist from Bayreuth University in Germany, who lived in western Malaysia studying these tiny mammals.

"They have this very strange naked tail. The tip looks like a bird feather."

With big eyes that face forward, and tiny grasping fingers and toes, the tree shrew is an evolutionary cousin of primates. They're nocturnal and spend most nights out in the jungle drinking nectar.

"They walk up and down the cluster of flowers and lick off nectar from the different flower buds," Weins says.

But they have one favorite food source: the bertam palm, whose flowers have a very strong and distinctive smell. "They smell like a brewery," Weins says.

In fact, the flower buds function as brewing chambers — they have been invaded by previously unknown species of yeast, which ferment the nectar into frothy alcohol.

"The maximum alcohol concentration that we recorded was 3.8 percent," Weins says. "That's in the range of a beer."

And the tree shrews spend several hours each night drinking this palm beer. Weins calculates that the tree shrew is imbibing what would be the human equivalent of nine glasses of wine an evening. However, the pentail tree shrew shows no signs of being drunk.

"They move normally on the palms when they go for the nectar," Weins says. "There's no sign of motor incoordination or other odd behaviors. They just move as efficiently as they would on any other tree."

Weins says there are no pentail tree shrews in captivity, so it hasn't been possible to do lab tests to detect intoxication.

But with jungle predators always lurking, Weins says, it would be very risky for a little mammal in the wild to be tipsy or drunk.

And that leads Weins to believe that the tree shrew probably has a specially evolved metabolism that detoxifies the alcohol quickly, keeping the alcohol concentration in the brain very low.

As a result, the tree shrew is able to detoxify alcohol more efficiently than its primate cousins: humans.

Naughty By Nature !

The conquest of nature and the destruction of Papua New Guinea's rainforests

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the BBC:

High-resolution satellite images have revealed the "rapid deforestation" of Papua New Guinea's biodiversity rich rainforests over the past 30 years.

An international team of researchers estimates that the current rate of loss could result in more than half of the
nation's tree cover being lost by 2021.

They added that the main threats came from commercial logging and burning.

Existing conservation measures were failing to protect the world's third largest rainforest, the team concluded.

Commercial logging and burning. In other words, human beings and their seemingly bottomless reservoir of greed.

As much as individual liberty, the conquest of nature -- the effort to impose our will on it, not (as the ancients prescribed) to live harmoniously with it (and within its limits) -- very much defines the modern project as set in motion by the likes of Machiavelli (see his famous discussion of fortune/nature, and how to oppose it, in Chap. 25 of The Prince), and, however postmodern we have become, we are still very much the heirs to that tradition.

But this conquest -- so powerfully articulated by Locke in Chap. 5 of his Second Treatise, "Of Property" -- was meant to serve the development of civilization, both individual and social progress, and, to that end, it has been enormously successful. (Who among us genuinely wants to return to pre-modern "nature"?)

The conquest continues, and much of it is conducted more responsibly than ever before (consider the rise of "green" politics in recent years, as well as much greater environmental stewardship in the private sector), but, obviously, some of it is continues to be both destructive (of the natural environment) and self-destructive (of our planet and ourselves).

The willful and irresponsible human conquest of the world's third-largest rainforest is both destructive and self-destructive. It is bad enough, in and of itself, that such a significant and intrinsically valuable component of our biosphere is being destroyed. What makes it worse is that rainforests -- and there aren't that many of them -- are incredibly valuable both to our planet and to ourselves. Consider what plants and animals have yet to be discovered. Consider what we can still learn from rainforests, what contributions they can still make to what we would like to call civilization. And yet we are destroying at a rapid pace, and all for short-term financial profit.

What ignorant beasts we truly are.

**********

Machiavelli: "And I liken her [fortune] to one of those violent rivers which, then they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and the buildings, lift earth from this part, drop in another; each person flees before them, everyone yields to their impetus without being able to hinder them in any regard. And although they are like this, it is not as if men, when times are quiet, could not provide for them with dikes and dams so that when they rise later, either they go by a canal or their impetus is neither so wanton nor so damaging. It happens similarly with fortune, which demonstrates her power where virtue has not been put in order to resist her and therefore turns her impetus where she knows the dams and dikes have not been made to contain her."

Locke: "From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others... And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive, without any difficulty, how labour could at first begin a title of property in the common things of Nature, and how the spending it upon our uses bounded it."

Note that, for Machiavelli, the conquest of nature is virtue. For Locke, it is what defines civilization.

What we know now is that it may also destroy both civilization and nature itself.

To war or not to war

By Carol Gee

"Pheromones Identified that Trigger Aggression between Male Mice." This is the headline just in from the NIH News. The National Institutes of Health are in the business of basic research. I would call the findings just announced as very basic (emphasis mine). To quote:

A family of proteins commonly found in mouse urine is able to trigger fighting between male mice, a study in the Dec. 6, 2007, issue of Nature has found. The study, which is the first to identify protein pheromones responsible for the aggression response in mice, was funded in part by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health. Pheromones are chemical cues that are released into the air, secreted from glands, or excreted in urine and picked up by animals of the same species, initiating various social and reproductive behaviors.

"Although the pheromones identified in this research are not produced by humans, the regions of the brain that are tied to behavior are the same for mice and people. Consequently, this research may one day contribute to our understanding of the neural pathways that play a role in human behavior," says James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIDCD. "Much is known about how pheromones work in the insect world, but we know very little about how these chemicals can influence behavior in mammals and other vertebrates."

. . . [Stowers] "a bar code of individuality for each mouse. And we don't know whether the proteins are actually coding for aggression per se, or whether they're serving as a general cue of individuality for a male."

If the latter is the case, it could help explain why, unlike the males, female mice don't show aggression when with a male. In addition to investigating this question further, the team plans to explore how receptor neurons sift through all of the cues in the environment to detect the relevant cues to influence behavior and how those sensory neurons are connected to the rest of the brain. They also hope to learn more about the neural pathway itself — whether one pathway in the brain is dedicated to one behavior, or whether there are general pathways that can lead to a range of behaviors, which may be modulated by a specific pheromone.

. . . The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.

I am a elder female mouse, non-aggressive, though my readers at the opposite end of the political spectrum might disagree. Since I was in high school I have been fascinated with why men go to war. I read cheap novels and short stories about dogfights in the sky. I also read "From Here to Eternity," by James Jones (1951); "The Naked and the Dead," by Norman Mailer (1948), and "The Cruel Sea," by Nicholas Monsarrat (1951). And I remain fascinated; so far I have written 446 S/SW posts containing the word "war".

The question about human pheromones is very pertinent here, according to Science News Online and, of course, Wikipedia. As a mental health practitioner, over the years it became much more clear to me how much of human behavior is deeply entrenched in biology. That awareness makes me feel both discouraged and encouraged about the discovery of aggression pheromones in male mice.

Discouragement arises at the possibility that humans may be hard-wired with aggression proclivities. Today's news from the Middle East would certainly argue for that position. However, unless built-in aggression is nature's form of population control in the face of limited natural resources, I just cannot allow myself to believe that we are destined to be at war forever on this teeny little planet.

Recent news from The Financial Times, about an agreement on how to proceed with global cooperation to mitigate threatening climate change, is very encouraging. I feel relieved because I believe that information is power. And I feel more encouraged when I remember that one of our most endearing human qualities is to respond to "our better angels" within. Have a good weekend.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Kangaroos and climate change -- a farting perspective

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A curious item I came across yesterday:

Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen percent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep," said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland state government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 percent," he told AFP.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

Sounds good, no?

Well, no. Not really.

It may be true that flatulent methane emissions from cows and sheep account for a disturbingly high percentage of overall greenhouse gas emissions in farming-heavy countries like Australia and New Zealand (and presumably in much of the developing world), but the main cause of the climate crisis is human action (or "forcing"), not animal farting. These animals, after all, were emitting greenhouse gases long before the crisis began, and I'm not so sure that a phenomenon that is largely a result of excessive human interference with natural processes should be dealt with by further human interference with natural processes. The priority should be to deal with human forcing, not with what animals are doing naturally. This just sounds like more human meddling with nature.

Which isn't to say that all human meddling with nature is bad, of course. We all meddle with nature whether we like it or not. I meddle with nature every time I turn on a light or get into my car. In a sense, being human means, and even requires, such meddling. And, in this case, there may be a good reason to look into what can be done about the stomach bacteria of cows and sheep and other such animals. These are not "natural" animals, after all. Humans are raising them and otherwise controlling their natures. Humans are feeding them, and deciding what to feed them, and that feed may not be what they would feed upon in nature.

But if a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by adding certain bacteria to certain animals, then let that be a positive consequence of such meddling, not the primary reason for it. The reason I say this is that the focus needs to be on what humans are doing, not on what animals are doing, and I fear that it will be too easy for humans to continue to meddle with nature in response to the climate crisis than to address their own actions and to change what they are doing to make the climate crisis what it is.

Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions should be celebrated, and, ideally, any and all legitimate efforts to do so, including this one, should complement each other, united for a single purpose, but there is simply no excuse for not dealing first and foremost with what we humans have done to cause this crisis and are still doing to exacerbate it. In the end, we will have only ourselves to blame, not the flatulent farm animals that are only doing what nature is directing them to do.

CALIFORNIA INVADED BY GIANT SQUID ! ! !

MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) - Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds is invading central California waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a study published Tuesday.

An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid—or Dosidicus gigas—can change its eating habits to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors, according to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

"Having a new, voracious predator set up shop here in California may be yet another thing for fishermen to compete with," said the study's co-author, Stanford University researcher Louis Zeidberg. "That said, if a squid saw a human they would jet the other way."

The jumbo squid used to be found only in the Pacific Ocean's warmest stretches near the equator. In the last 16 years, it has expanded its territory throughout California waters, and squid have even been found in the icy waters off Alaska, Zeidberg said.

Zeidberg's co-author, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute senior scientist Bruce Robison, first spotted the jumbo squid here in 1997, when one swam past the lens of a camera mounted on a submersible thousands of feet below the ocean's surface.

More were observed through 1999, but the squid weren't seen again locally until the fall of 2002. Since their return, scientists have noted a corresponding drop in the population of Pacific hake, a whitefish the squid feeds on that is often used in fish sticks, Zeidberg said.

"As they've come and gone, the hake have dropped off," Zeidberg said. "We're just beginning to figure out how the pieces fit together, but this is most likely going to shake things up."

Before the 1970s, the giant squid were typically found in the Eastern Pacific, and in coastal waters spanning from Peru to Costa Rica. But as the populations of its natural predators—like large tuna, sharks and swordfish—declined because of fishing, the squids moved northward and started eating different species that thrive in colder waters.

Local marine mammals needn't worry about the squid's arrival since they're higher up on the food chain, but lanternfish, krill, anchovies and rockfish are all fair game, Zeidberg said.

A fishermen's organization said Tuesday they were monitoring the squid's impact on commercial fisheries.

"In years of high upwellings, when the ocean is just bountiful, it probably wouldn't do anything," Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "But in bad years it could be a problem to have a new predator competing at the top of the food chain."

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