Science News Digest 14th November 2011
In the science news this week, we take a look at a new captive breeding programme to save the spoon-billed sandpipers, research into the effects of alcohol on the brain of a foetus, new thinking on the benefits of the moon on Earth’s rotation and finally… the answer to one of life’s greatest problems. How to get the last splodge of ketchup out of the bottle!
New hope for the spoon-billed sandpiper
13 of one of the world’s most threatened bird species have arrived in the UK this week as part of a new captive breeding programme.
The spoon-billed sandpipers are being relocated to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) reserve in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire after an 8,000km journey from their breeding grounds in Russia's Far East and a 60 day quarantine at Moscow Zoo.
Nigel Jarrett, head of conservation breeding at the WWT, led the team that gathered the eggs from the tundra of Chukotka in north-eastern Russia told the BBC "We had to search an area of 100 square miles…. We were walking about 10 miles a day through melting snow and ice and [at] the first nest we found there was a dead female spoon-billed sandpiper lying next to it."
"That was heart-wrenching, but within a few days of that, we found our first nest with eggs."
The birds are under threat because of the loss of the crucial shoreline feeding sites along their migration route from Russia to the wintering grounds in South and South-East Asia and due to hunting during the summer.
Another expedition is required to collect enough birds to create a viable breeding population of about 10 pairs.
Alongside the captive breeding programme, the trust and its partners are working with local communities in this part of Russia to help conserve these birds and other species that use the same migratory path, according to the BBC.
The goal is to tackle the habitat destruction and subsistence hunting for these birds, and then release the offspring of the captive population back into the wild.
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Alcohol exposure damages the brains of foetuses.
The results of a study that suggests heavy drinking during pregnancy could alter the genetic makeup of unborn babies' brains were presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC this week.
A team led by neuroscientist Jerold Chun at the Scripps Research Institute in California, used mice to study how alcohol affected the brains of the animals as they grew in the womb.
They were specifically looking at the numbers of chromosomes in the foetuses' brain cells before and after exposure to alcohol.
According to the Guardian, while most brain cells in healthy mice carry 40 chromosomes, around a quarter of the neurons in the test subjects showed "aneuploidy", meaning they had a few more or less than usual.
Two weeks into the mice’s pregnancies, when the nervous systems of the foetuses were beginning to form, they were injected with between 3mg and 4.5mg of ethanol for every kilogram of bodyweight – the equivalent of two or three bottles of wine for an average woman.
When analysing the foetuses' brains one day later, they saw a threefold rise in severe aneuploidy, or neurons with more than five extra or missing chromosomes.
However, in a non-laboratory setting, alcohol would not be injected, it would be drunk and broken down by the liver, so more tests are needed to understand the effects of alcohol on developing foetuses further.
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Moon-less simulator puts a new slant on things…
A number of planets that could sustain life and were previously ruled out because of their lack of a large moon to help maintain a more stable rotation have been ruled back in after researchers from NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California simulated how a ‘moonless Earth’ would travel around the Sun over 4 billion years.
According to New Scientist they found that our planet's tilt varied between only 10 and 50 degrees, a much smaller range than implied by an earlier study by a team from the Paris Observatory. There were also long stretches of up to 500 million years when the tilt was particularly stable, keeping between 17 and 32 degrees.
The research presented by the team from the Paris Observatory in France in 1993 showed that without the presence of the moon, the tilt of Earth's rotation axis against perturbations by Jupiter's gravity would wander chaotically between 0 and 85 degrees resulting in huge climate swings.
Although the American team concede that larger changes could still occur on timescales longer than 4 billion years, but because sun-like stars burn out after 10 billion years, this is likely to be irrelevant for life.
With this new simulation, they have come to the conclusion that large moons are not required for a stable tilt and climate. In fact, in some cases, they can even be detrimental, depending on the arrangement of planets in a given system.
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And finally…
The answer to a sticky situation
It can be one of the most frustrating things to happen on a Sunday morning- bacon sandwich in hand, last smidgen of ketchup left in the bottle and you can’t for the life of you get it out of the bottle!
Well science has the answer…
Material scientists from Harvard University have created one of the most slippery materials ever made which could be used to coat the inside of bottles and jars to help consumers get all of the food inside.
Other applications of this include new self-cleaning surfaces that never get dirty because the technology repels both water and oil based liquids, meaning things slide off it easily without leaving any residue.
However, this material is so efficient, that it could pose a new ketchup related nightmare- the sauce coming out of the bottle too quickly…
The team at Harvard were inspired by the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants, which has a highly slippery surface at the top of its flute-shaped leaves so that insects tumble down into the digestive juices contained inside according to the Telegraph.
The plant's leaves have a spongelike texture that are infused with water, which repels the sticky oils such as those produced by insects' feet.
The scientists, put a carefully selected "lubricating film" inside the pores of a spongelike layer of Teflon to produce a smooth and highly slippery surface.
The new material, known as a Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surface, or SLIPS for short, boasts a rare trait called "omniphobicity", which means it can repel both water and oily materials.
New hope for the spoon-billed sandpiper
13 of one of the world’s most threatened bird species have arrived in the UK this week as part of a new captive breeding programme.
The spoon-billed sandpipers are being relocated to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) reserve in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire after an 8,000km journey from their breeding grounds in Russia's Far East and a 60 day quarantine at Moscow Zoo.
Nigel Jarrett, head of conservation breeding at the WWT, led the team that gathered the eggs from the tundra of Chukotka in north-eastern Russia told the BBC "We had to search an area of 100 square miles…. We were walking about 10 miles a day through melting snow and ice and [at] the first nest we found there was a dead female spoon-billed sandpiper lying next to it."
"That was heart-wrenching, but within a few days of that, we found our first nest with eggs."
The birds are under threat because of the loss of the crucial shoreline feeding sites along their migration route from Russia to the wintering grounds in South and South-East Asia and due to hunting during the summer.
Another expedition is required to collect enough birds to create a viable breeding population of about 10 pairs.
Alongside the captive breeding programme, the trust and its partners are working with local communities in this part of Russia to help conserve these birds and other species that use the same migratory path, according to the BBC.
The goal is to tackle the habitat destruction and subsistence hunting for these birds, and then release the offspring of the captive population back into the wild.
-------------------------------------
Alcohol exposure damages the brains of foetuses.
The results of a study that suggests heavy drinking during pregnancy could alter the genetic makeup of unborn babies' brains were presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC this week.
A team led by neuroscientist Jerold Chun at the Scripps Research Institute in California, used mice to study how alcohol affected the brains of the animals as they grew in the womb.
They were specifically looking at the numbers of chromosomes in the foetuses' brain cells before and after exposure to alcohol.
According to the Guardian, while most brain cells in healthy mice carry 40 chromosomes, around a quarter of the neurons in the test subjects showed "aneuploidy", meaning they had a few more or less than usual.
Two weeks into the mice’s pregnancies, when the nervous systems of the foetuses were beginning to form, they were injected with between 3mg and 4.5mg of ethanol for every kilogram of bodyweight – the equivalent of two or three bottles of wine for an average woman.
When analysing the foetuses' brains one day later, they saw a threefold rise in severe aneuploidy, or neurons with more than five extra or missing chromosomes.
However, in a non-laboratory setting, alcohol would not be injected, it would be drunk and broken down by the liver, so more tests are needed to understand the effects of alcohol on developing foetuses further.
------------------------------------------
Moon-less simulator puts a new slant on things…
A number of planets that could sustain life and were previously ruled out because of their lack of a large moon to help maintain a more stable rotation have been ruled back in after researchers from NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California simulated how a ‘moonless Earth’ would travel around the Sun over 4 billion years.
According to New Scientist they found that our planet's tilt varied between only 10 and 50 degrees, a much smaller range than implied by an earlier study by a team from the Paris Observatory. There were also long stretches of up to 500 million years when the tilt was particularly stable, keeping between 17 and 32 degrees.
The research presented by the team from the Paris Observatory in France in 1993 showed that without the presence of the moon, the tilt of Earth's rotation axis against perturbations by Jupiter's gravity would wander chaotically between 0 and 85 degrees resulting in huge climate swings.
Although the American team concede that larger changes could still occur on timescales longer than 4 billion years, but because sun-like stars burn out after 10 billion years, this is likely to be irrelevant for life.
With this new simulation, they have come to the conclusion that large moons are not required for a stable tilt and climate. In fact, in some cases, they can even be detrimental, depending on the arrangement of planets in a given system.
---------------------------------
And finally…
The answer to a sticky situation
It can be one of the most frustrating things to happen on a Sunday morning- bacon sandwich in hand, last smidgen of ketchup left in the bottle and you can’t for the life of you get it out of the bottle!
Well science has the answer…
Material scientists from Harvard University have created one of the most slippery materials ever made which could be used to coat the inside of bottles and jars to help consumers get all of the food inside.
Other applications of this include new self-cleaning surfaces that never get dirty because the technology repels both water and oil based liquids, meaning things slide off it easily without leaving any residue.
However, this material is so efficient, that it could pose a new ketchup related nightmare- the sauce coming out of the bottle too quickly…
The team at Harvard were inspired by the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants, which has a highly slippery surface at the top of its flute-shaped leaves so that insects tumble down into the digestive juices contained inside according to the Telegraph.
The plant's leaves have a spongelike texture that are infused with water, which repels the sticky oils such as those produced by insects' feet.
The scientists, put a carefully selected "lubricating film" inside the pores of a spongelike layer of Teflon to produce a smooth and highly slippery surface.
The new material, known as a Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surface, or SLIPS for short, boasts a rare trait called "omniphobicity", which means it can repel both water and oily materials.
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