AQUAVET

AQUAVET 2024 is now history

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00797-z

Do elephants have names for each other? Machine learning and careful observation suggest that some of the animals’ calls are specific to individuals, similar to a person’s name.

https://www.futurity.org/schizophrenia-bartonella-pathogens-3230342/

Bacteria may play a role in mental illness People with schizophrenia are more likely to have DNA from bacteria associated with "cat scratch fever" in their blood, a study finds.

This is stellar – don’t you think? 

Any day is a good day when you get to see an old friend. 

New England = lobsters and clams (cohogs - Venus mercenaria or Mercenaria mercenaria).
So it a special place for a rather glandular clam belly (clam guts).
It may be an acquired taste.

Hummers
Birds are amazing

Scientists reveal how hummingbirds always avoid bumping into flowers The clever birds create a '3D body map' to hover near a flower with surgical precision, report experts at University of California, Los Angeles.

The 47th year of AQUAVET begins tomorrow in Bristol, RI.

I so wish I could have gone!

https://www.popsci.com/environment/mantis-shrimp-fight/

Bullet-fast mantis shrimp punches caught by super-speed cameras Ocean oddity mantis shrimp show up ready to fight with a built-in shield.

Beach Littering

The beach was littered with dead critters. At first I thought they were salps, but after I saw a more complete "wind sailor" (Velella velella), I looked more carefully at the clear ones and saw they were the same thing. A cousin to the Man-0-war.

This is worrisome

This is sure worrisome.

https://www.popsci.com/environment/how-to-age-an-octopushow-old-octopus/

Why counting octopus 'rings' is crucial New guidelines offer scientists and fisheries a way to tell the age of an octopus.

OIC

Toothed whales traded chewing for echolocation to evolve ‘Chewing muscles were no longer needed.'

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lyme-disease-sweat-protection-ticks-bacteria

A protein found in sweat may protect people from Lyme disease The protein stopped Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacterium that is transmitted by ticks, from growing in dishes or infecting mice.

Ultrasound

Humans can't hear these frogs screaming The sounds are inaudible to the human ear, and may be a way to thwart off hungry predators.

Microbiomes - microbiota
You know I find all this so fascinating.

Researchers carry out first peer-reviewed study of f***l microbiota transplants in dolphins Scientists have successfully carried out pioneering f***l microbiota transplantations on Navy bottlenose dolphins that showed signs of gastrointestinal disease.

Right time and place.
I was riding my bike and heard a blow as I came to the canal into Mission Bay. There is was - a gray whale swimming around.

Sounds of the ocean

Playing thriving reef sounds on underwater speakers ‘could save damaged corals’ Coral larvae more likely to settle on degraded reefs bathed in marine soundscapes, Caribbean study shows

Bamboo navigation

Incredible Wasabi
(why I talked about it when I did the food safety lectures)

Why Scientists Are Mixing Wasabi and Ancient Papyrus Vapors from the delicious food have a surprising effect.

Water Sports

We’ve been doing this for a long time.

Great apes tease each other just like humans do, says new study | CNN Babies playfully tease others as young as eight months of age. Since language is not required for this behavior, similar kinds of playful teasing might be present in non-human animals. Now cognitive biologists and primatologists from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA, US), the Max Planc...

https://apnews.com/article/sea-otters-crabs-erosion-california-3e48a74972319bbdbc1333e3f5437637

Hungry sea otters are helping save California's marshlands from erosion A new study shows the return of sea otters and their voracious appetites has helped rescue a section of California marshland.

https://www.popsci.com/environment/can-clownfish-count/

Can clownfish count? These feisty anemone-dwellers might alter their behavior based on the number of white stripes on other clownfish.

https://www.scidev.net/global/news/seaweed-could-survive-nuclear-war-avert-famine/

Seaweed ‘could survive nuclear war, avert famine’ Seaweed has the potential to be a viable food source in a cataclysmic event such as nuclear war, scientists claim.

This is a problem

Water-guzzling ‘hot drought’ in the West is unprecedented in at least 5 centuries, study suggests | CNN Periods of extreme drought and heat have increased in severity and frequency due to human-caused climate change, according to a study.

You know how facinated I am with biofilms and microbiomes....well, here is an example of how they behavr.

Deadly foodborne bacteria found to hide from sanitizers The bacteria is the third leading cause of death among foodborne illnesses in the U.S.

Well....this is sure interesting.

Mice without immune cells show no SARS-CoV-2 symptoms | Cornell Chronicle The inflammatory response from adaptive immune cells – such as B and T lymphocytes – clears the body of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but at the same time, it also causes the characteristic symptoms of COVID-19, a new study finds.