ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 529

How The Month Of Your Birth Can Impact Your Health

Health and Medicine





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Davide Trolli/Shutterstock

Is it really possible to find links between the time of the year you're born and the diseases you are susceptible to? This short video by Tech Insider gives a quick glimpse at research that analyzed whether your birth month had any correlation to certain health problems.

World’s Oldest Tortoise Gets His First Wash In 184 Years

Plants and Animals





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St Helena Government/YouTube

Jonathan the tortoise – Earth’s oldest known living animal – has had his first bath in 184 years.

The historical scrub-up is in preparation for a royal visit (the identity of this royal is apparently a mystery) to the tortoise's stomping grounds on the south Atlantic island of St Helena. He was helped out by Dr. Joe Hollins, a vet on the tiny British outpost island, who used surgical soap, soft brushes, and a loofah to wash off the decades of dirt from his shell.

LSD Could Help Fight Depression By Inhibiting “Mental Time Travel”

The Brain





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LSD has been shown to decrease activity in the brain's default-mode network, which controls our tendency to dwell on the past. agsandrew/Shutterstock

Taking lysergic acid diethylamide – better known as LSD – could help people who suffer from depression to overcome their condition by preventing them from “ruminating” on past experiences. Several studies have shown that low mood is often associated with a tendency to dwell on one’s own history, yet new research indicates that LSD may inhibit the brain network that mediates this type of “mental time travel.”

Humanizing The Heroin Epidemic: A Photo Essay

Health and Medicine





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A nurse treats Johnny at Vancouver’s Crosstown Clinic before he self-injects his medication. © Aaron Goodman, Author provided

For over a year, I’ve been documenting the lives of three long-term drug users – Marie, Cheryl and Johnny – who are participating in Vancouver’s heroin-assisted clinical study and program.

Dogs Labeled “Pit Bull” Stay At Shelters Longer Than Lookalikes

Plants and Animals





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N K/Shutterstock

Sweet mutts with "pit bull" in their description wait at shelters three times as long as differently labeled lookalikes, according to a new PLOS ONE study. Labels might be inadvertently penalizing shelter dogs, and removing them altogether could be a relatively low-cost way to improve the dogs' outcomes. 

Woodpeckers Carry Fungi Around To Help Excavate Holes In Trees

Plants and Animals





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Red-cockaded woodpecker. Eric Spadgenske/USFWS

Red-cockaded woodpeckers, Picoides borealis, are the only birds that excavate cavities in living pine trees. Each woodpecker might spend years excavating its own roost in the live tree – which is a lot harder than making a hole in a dead tree. But by partnering with wood-decaying fungi, these cavity-excavating woodpeckers may have found a way to speed up the construction of their nest. The findings are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B this week.

Most Species That Go Extinct In Modern Times Will Leave No Permanent Trace

Plants and Animals





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Only a tiny fraction of species are ever fossilized, and it seems very few alive today will be recorded. Merlin 74/Shutterstock

We already know that the current fossil record is incredibly incomplete. The conditions needed to preserve the remains of an animal after it dies are so specific that only a fraction of the billions of creatures to have walked this planet will have been turned to stone. But with hundreds, if not thousands of species currently threatened with extinction today, how many of them will be preserved in the fossil record for future researchers to discover?

New Kenyan Fossils Expand The Range Of Australopithecus

Plants and Animals





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Comparative photographs of fossil hominin ulnae. KNM-RK 53525 was discovered at the Kantis Fossil Site. Scale bar = 1 cm. E. Mbua et al., Journal of Human Evolution 2016

Researchers studying fossils uncovered in the outskirts of Nairobi reveal that they belonged to the same species as Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis. This is the first time a fossil from this extinct genus was discovered east of the Rift Valley, suggesting that the range of our Australopithecus ancestors was much bigger than we thought.

Peanut’s “Extinct” Wild Ancestor Found Alive And Well In The Andes’ Foothills

Plants and Animals





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The modern peanut's wild ancestors – Arachis ipaensis (left) and Arachis duranensis (right). Merritt Melancon/University of Georgia.

There’s scarcely a corner of the world that doesn’t like a good peanut in their cuisine. But for years, these legumes have had a mysterious backstory. Now, thanks to the discovery of a “living relic” wild peanut plant, scientists have traced back the biological origins of the humble legume.

Why Are Herbivorous Prairie Dogs So Murderous?

Plants and Animals





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Despite being herbivores, female prairie dogs often kill ground squirrels. Henk Bentlage/Shutterstock

Being a herbivore might sound like a peaceful way to live, but not all vegetarian animals appear to subscribe to the non-violent ethos. A new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B documents the murderous behavior of female prairie dogs in Colorado, which have been observed slaying Wyoming ground squirrels despite being herbivores.