Sonar Tests to Go on With Steps to Protect Whales

The Navy has adopted a new plan for training in Hawaii waters that it says will allow it to accelerate some exercises and hold them more frequently while continuing to limit the effects of its sonar on marine mammals.

The Navy created the training plan after completing environmental studies to ensure the plan complies with federal law. It is conducting similar studies for training ranges off California, the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.

Environmentalists say active sonar can hurt or kill whales and other marine mammals. The Navy says it takes steps to protect marine mammals from its sonar.

The plan adopted Thursday leaves in place key elements of Navy training.

The Navy will continue to hold a series of undersea warfare exercises that train sailors to use sonar, or bounced sound waves, to find submarines. Rim of the Pacific international maritime drills, which the Navy hosts off Hawaii every two years, will also be allowed to continue.

B.J. Penn, Navy assistant secretary for installations and environment, said the plan allows the Navy to provide sailors with the skills they need to be effective in combat.

“The Navy must train its deploying forces in the most realistic manner possible,” he said in a statement.

Sailors will be expected to use two varieties of active sonar, mid-frequency and high-frequency, for the same number of hours as they currently do.

The Navy said it would shield marine mammal from harm by adhering to a list of 29 protection measures it adopted last year. Those include posting specially trained lookouts on ships and shutting down active sonar when a marine mammal comes within 200 yards of the sonar source.

Bird Family Tree Gets Re-Write

A five-year project has revolutionized scientific thought on the evolution of birds and the results are so surprising that now even the textbooks will have to be rewritten, a study said Thursday.

“With this study, we learned two major things,” said Sushma Reddy, lead author and a fellow at The Field Museum in Chicago, Ill.

“First, appearances can be deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Second, much of bird classification and conventional wisdom on the evolutionary relationships of birds is wrong.”

The results of the largest ever study of bird genetics are so widespread that the names of dozens of birds will now have to be changed, says the study to be published in Science magazine.

The Early Bird Assembling the Tree-of-Life Research Project has been researching the evolution of all major living groups of birds and has already examined 32 kilobases of DNA data in 19 places of some 169 bird species.

A kilobase in molecular biology is a unit of length for DNA fragments representing 1,000 base pairs of DNA.

Among new discoveries the team found that birds repeatedly adapted to new environments. For example, flamingos and grebes did not evolve from other water birds, while birds that now live on land such as cuckoos did not evolve from other land birds.

Other findings were that, contrary to current thought, daytime hummingbirds evolved from nocturnal nightjars, falcons are not related to hawks and eagles and fast flying ocean birds are not related to pelicans and other water birds.

“We now have a robust evolutionary tree from which to study the evolution of birds and all their interesting features that have fascinated so many scientists and amateurs for centuries,” Reddy said.

“Birds exhibit substantial diversity, and using this ‘family tree’ we can begin to understand how this diversity originated as well as how different bird groups are interrelated.”

Related Links:

Discovery News blog: Born Animal

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The Nature Conservancy

Calif. Plants Squeezed by Climate Change

The ranges of up to two-thirds of the 2,387 plant species found only in California may shrink by more than 80 percent under predicted climate change.

An 80 percent reduction in habitat in 100 years is the threshold for classification as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which maintains the well-known Red List of Threatened Species.

“This is the first time that anyone has made the attempt to look at so many species, and I think it’s kind of a wake-up call that we can expect some pretty dramatic changes,” said plant ecologist Philip Rundel of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not a part of the study.

“It’s very clear that we’re going to lose a lot of species to global warming, and when you get to species that are narrowly restricted like so many in California, the problem is worse,” added Peter Raven, President of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

To make the predictions, a team led by David Ackerly at the University of California, Berkeley, combined regional models for predicting climate change with known information about the current range of California plants to predict what regions would have a matching climate in the future.

In general, plants will retreat northward or to higher elevations as climate warms, the researchers reported online in the journal PLoS ONE.

“We found several places we’re calling ‘climate change refugia,’” said the study’s first author, Scott Loarie of Duke University in Durham, N.C.

“These are places where a large diversity of these species might persist. What’s important about these refugia is that they include the plants that are really going to be threatened,” he added. “It’s important that these areas are set aside, but also whether these plants can get to them.”

More Bird Species Means Fewer West Nile Cases

Here’s proof that biodiversity is good for your health: Having more bird species present in a given area reduces the incidence of West Nile virus infection in humans.

That’s the finding of a new study analyzing every U.S. county east of the Mississippi River where human cases of West Nile virus infection have been documented, and comparing each with a neighboring county where human West Nile cases have not been reported.

Applying statistical analysis while controlling for socioeconomic factors and how urbanized each county is, John Swaddle and Stavros Calos at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., found that bird diversity and other factors related to the bird population could explain 50 percent of the variation in West Nile cases.

“We were surprised by how high it was,” Swaddle said.

Bird diversity alone can explain about 20 to 25 percent of the variation, he said. The study was published online yesterday in the journal PLoS ONE.

Birds are the hosts for the West Nile virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. When the density of infected birds is high enough, the likelihood that a human will be bitten by an infected mosquito increases.

Most humans do not fall ill with West Nile virus, even if bitten by an infected mosquito; those over 50 are at greater risk of experiencing severe symptoms.

Part of the reason that increased diversity reduces West Nile cases, Swaddle said, is that some birds are better carriers for the virus than others.

The American robin, for instance, appears to be a good host for the disease.

Search Goes on for Elusive Woodpecker

For the last three years, researchers in camouflage and waders have slogged through the east Arkansas woods hoping to spot a rare bird that so far seems unwilling to be seen.

Some scientists still believe the ivory-billed woodpecker exists in the Big Woods, but they haven’t been able to capture a sharp image of its remarkable 30-inch wing span and glossy black and white feathers on film or video camera.

To date, searchers have investigated about 83,000 of the 550,000-acre woods that swallow up the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is where kayaker Gene Sparling spotted the bird Feb. 11, 2004, and Cornell University experts said they made subsequent sightings.

Engineer David Luneau caught a blurry image of what some believe is the “Lord God bird,” the third-largest woodpecker in the world, on video in 2004. Others challenge the claim that the ivory bill survived decades of clearing forests for farming, timber, roads and towns.

“Since early 2005, none of our group nor anyone from the public that we are aware of has made a definitive absolute sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker that we can document with a photograph or a sound recording,” said Ron Rohrbaugh, project director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

According to researchers, it became known as the “Lord God bird” because people, upon seeing it, would exclaim, “Lord God, look at that bird!”

The Big Woods is a hot, humid place — tupelo, cypress and oak bottomland filled with mosquitoes, poisonous cottonmouths and thigh-high swamp water. The swamp is so thick with vegetation that scientists concentrate their work on the months when leaves are off the trees — and the temperatures are bearable. They target areas where they have reports of credible sightings.

Wildlife biologist Allan Mueller said he saw an ivory-billed woodpecker during a search in May 2007. But it happened so quickly he missed getting the bird on camera.

“We were hearing calls, we were hearing the double-knocks, which is a distinctive way that the ivory-bill woodpeckers have of knocking on a tree,” he said. “It’s just two very quick knocks on a tree. Bam. Bam.”

To the untrained eye, the ivory bill can be mistaken for a pileated woodpecker. Past research suggests the ivory bill ranges as much as six miles from its roost while searching for succulent beetle larvae, its favorite food.

Apes Plan for the Future

What goes on in an ape’s mind might be more similar to our own way of thinking than previously realized, suggests a new study that found chimpanzees and orangutans plan for their futures.

Since this skill also entails forethought involving self-control and mental time travel, the findings point to a complex “inner mental world” possessed by apes, including gorillas, which were studied in trials before the official research began.

“When humans shut their eyes, a new vivid world takes hold,” co-author Mathias Osvath told Discovery News.

“This mental world with its first-person perspective has been suggested to be unique to humans,” added Osvath of Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden. “It is arguably impossible to plan like the apes do without having an inner world of some sort. (Our results) strongly imply a consciousness that many think is restricted to the human domain.”

For the study, published in Animal Cognition, he and colleague Helena Osvath first showed two female chimps, Linda and Maria Magdalena, along with a male orangutan named Naong, how to sip a yummy fruit soup using a straw-like hose.

The researchers next presented their furry test subjects with a favorite fruit — a grape — and the hose, which the animals could save and use to sip soup later. The apes exercised self-control by foregoing the immediate grape reward. They instead chose the hose and patiently waited for the bigger food payoff.

To control for associative learning, a process whereby someone just blindly links one thing to another, the researchers again offered fruit to the apes, as well as one functional tool and three non-functional ones.

The scientists also conducted a similar test, where they again presented the sippy hose, but tried to distract the animals with a blue plastic car, a small teddy bear, a colorful screwdriver handle, a brown bootlace, a yellow plastic toy spade, a picture of a banana, and other items potentially coveted by apes.

The chimps and the orangutan aced the tests, choosing the hose 11 out of 12 trials. In fact, one of the few glitches during the entire study occurred when Linda’s playing infant grabbed the hose and hid it.

“In our study, we show that the value of the hose is not intrinsic, meaning it is not worth anything in itself, as it would have if it were associatively learned,” said Osvath.

Mutant Mosquitoes May Combat Malaria

In a cramped, humid laboratory in London, mosquitoes swarming in stacked, net-covered cages are being scrutinized for keys to controlling malaria.

Scientists have genetically modified hundreds of them, hoping to stop them from spreading the killer disease.

Faced with a losing battle against malaria, scientists are increasingly exploring new avenues that might have seemed far-fetched just a few years ago.

“We don’t have things we can rely on,” said Andrea Crisanti, the malaria expert in charge of genetically modifying mosquitoes at London’s Imperial College. “It’s time to try something else.”

Malaria kills nearly three million people worldwide every year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Millions of bed nets have been handed out, and villages across the continent have been doused with insecticide. But those measures haven’t put a significant dent in malaria cases.

After a string of failed initiatives, the United Nations recently announced a campaign to provide bed nets to anyone who needs them by 2010.

Some scientists think creating mutant mosquitoes resistant to the disease might work better.

“We still have a malaria burden that is increasing,” said Yeya Toure, a tropical disease expert at the World Health Organization.

“Under such circumstances, we have to investigate whether genetically modified mosquitoes could make a difference,” said Toure, who is not involved in the Imperial College research.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has found the work so promising it has invested nearly $38 million into genetic strategies to stop mosquitoes from transmitting diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

“This is one of those high-tech, high risk innovations that would fundamentally change the struggle between humans and mosquitoes,” said Dr. Regina Rabinovich, director of infectious diseases development at the Gates Foundation.

Mosquitoes bred to be immune to malaria could break the disease’s transmission cycle. “That is the nirvana of malaria control,” said Rabinovich. “It would potentially transform what the field looks like.”

In 2005, Crisanti proved it was possible to create a genetically modified mosquito by inserting a gene that glowed fluorescent green in males.

Among other possibilities, he and his team are now planning to create sterile male mosquitoes to mate with wild female mosquitoes, thus stunting population growth. They are also trying to engineer a malaria-resistant mosquito.

Last year, American researchers created mosquitoes resistant to a type of malaria that infects mice. Others are altering the DNA of the mosquitoes that spread dengue.

But not everyone thinks these super mosquitoes are such a good idea. Some scientists think there are too many genetic puzzles to be solved for modified mosquitoes to work.

The malaria-causing parasite, which mosquitoes then transmit to humans, is simply too good at evading anything scientists might devise to protect the mosquito, argued to Jo Lines, a malaria expert at London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Female Chimps Keep Sex Lives Secret

Female chimpanzees are hungry for sex with as many males as possible, and keep their mouths shut about it to boost their chances of luring the top chimps, a British university said Wednesday.

Scientists at the University of St Andrews studied the copulation calls — sounds sometimes made during mating — of female chimpanzees in Uganda to find out more about what they mean.

The team concluded that that female chimps sometimes keep quiet during sex so their female rivals don’t know what they’ve been up to.

Evolutionary psychologists Simon Townsend and Klaus Zuberbuhler studied chimp behavior in Uganda’s Budongo Forest over 16 months.

The team established that female chimpanzees hid their sexual activity when high-ranking females were nearby, perhaps in a bid to reduce competition for good quality males.

This could prevent higher-ranking female chimpanzees from turning on them.

They also found the females produced more copulation calls when high-ranking males were around, presumably to attract them.

The scientists believe that having sex with several males causes confusion among the male chimpanzees as to which one sired the offspring.

The males are therefore less likely to kill any babies that might be theirs.

The study found no evidence that males were competing to have sex with females after they produced copulation calls, and no link between a female’s fertility and her use of the calls.

Roaming Polar Bears Spotted in Iceland

A polar bear has been discovered on Iceland, which is hundreds of miles from the threatened species’ natural habitat, a local photographer said Tuesday.

“The bear is in the north of Iceland near the town of Saudarkrokkur,” Rax Axelsson, a photographer with Iceland’s newspaper of reference, Morgunbladid, said.

“The bear is living off of eggs and birds” and does not appear to be hungry, he added.

The bear was discovered by 12-year-old Karen Heljateynsdottir not far from her farm as she was out walking her dog on Monday.

“She saw something white and thought it was a plastic bag, and then she realized it was a polar bear. She ran home and she said she has never run so fast in her life,” Axelsson said.

Polar bears are rare sightings on Iceland, since they have to swim hundreds of miles through icy waters to reach the island from their natural Arctic habitats.

The bear discovered on Monday, the second spotted on the island in the past two weeks, could lend credence to warnings from experts that climate change is creating a more perilous environment for the majestic Arctic animals.

A warming climate means the ice — where the bears usually hunt their favorite prey, the seals — is receding and literally melting under their paws, forcing them to swim ever greater distances.

‘Talking’ Robofish to Swim in Puget Sound

Marine creatures have communicated with each other for millions of years. Now swimming robots can too.

Three robofish, each 20 inches long and weighing just over six pounds, have been equipped with acoustic transmitters to communicate wirelessly with each other while underwater.

The robofish, created by University of Washington researcher Kristi Morgansen, could eventually monitor the migrations of large mammals and the diffusion of environmental pollutants.

“When the robofish are underwater we can’t communicate with them.” said Morgansen. “They have to be very independent.”

Actual fish can communicate (albeit primitively) using an organ known as the lateral line, which runs down each side of the body and detects movement and vibration in the water via waves of physical pressure, or sound waves.

The robofish, which swim like regular fish by using a flapping tail instead of a rotating propeller, communicate by using acoustic modems, pinging sound waves to each other.

More familiar forms of above-water communications, like radio waves, don’t work well under water. In freshwater, a radio signal can only travel about 10 feet. In saltwater, radio signals travel even shorter distances.

Trailing a long wire can create radio waves that travel farther, but they are only practical on large submarines.

Besides the acoustic modems, the robofish are also equipped with pressure sensors (to monitor depth) and a 3D compass, all powered by nickel-metal hydride rechargeable batteries.