ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 588
January 14, 2016
Scientists Find Most Powerful Known Supernova
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An artist's impression of what ASASSN-15lh would look like from a planet 10,000 light-years from the event. Beijing Planetarium/Jin Ma
Details have been released of the most powerful supernova ever recorded. Astronomers hope the study of ASASSN-15lh will advance our understanding of super-luminous supernovae (SLSNs), astonishing explosions that manage to exceed even regular supernovae in the quantity of energy released in a single enormous burst.
Man Flu Might Actually Be Real After All
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Sorry guys, but women are just better at fending off colds than you. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
To most, “man flu” is thought of as a pejorative, a way of teasing men who are complaining perhaps a little too much about the cold or influenza virus they’ve picked up. However, a new piece of research suggests that man flu may be an actual condition that men suffer from.
January 13, 2016
City Swans May Tolerate Humans Due To Gene Variant
Animals that live in the city are usually less wary of humans than their rural counterparts. Most people think the boldness comes from experience: since the majority of humans are rather harmless, the critters learn to go about their business without fear. But the truth turns out to be far more interesting, at least for Australian swans. Turns out the city birds are genetically different from their country counterparts.
Australian researchers looked at two groups of swans. One population lived on a pond in the center of Melbourne. The second hung out just 30 kilometers away in a more bucolic setting, surrounded by far fewer humans. The researchers measured what they call each bird’s “flight initiation distance”: basically, how close could a human get before the swan would fly away?
“We found that the flight initiation distance for the swans at the urban environment was only 13 meters, and on average at the non-urban environment it was 96 meters. So that’s like an 83 meter difference, a really big difference in how wary these swans are at the two habitats.” Victoria University ecologist Wouter van Dongen.
The researchers also took blood samples from some of the swans to analyze their DNA. And almost 90 percent of urban swans had the same variant of a gene for dopamine transport, while just 60 percent of rural birds had that version. And those swans were less wary of humans than were swans with the rarer genotypes.
Dopamine influences a lot of brain function, so the gene variation could be behind the difference in swan attitudes. The study is in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. [Wouter F.D. van Dongen et al, Variation at the DRD4 locus is associated with wariness and local site selection in urban black swans]
Since swans can easily fly wherever they want, the researchers think that the bolder birds don’t mind setting up shop in the city, while the more timid swans prefer the quieter country life. And that’s something that wildlife managers should keep in mind.
With release programs, often you breed up a small population of whatever animal and then you release them into the wild…and so one potential application of our research is to select individuals that are better able to cope with human disturbance, those that are less wary of humans, and release them into those areas that are more likely to experience human disturbance.
—Jason Goldman
(The above text is a transcript of this podcast)
Water-Ice Found On Comet 67P’s Surface
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Shown is one of the regions of water-ice. Nature & Filacchione
For the first time, scientists have found water-ice on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. While we already knew water vapor existed in the coma (cloud) surrounding the comet, this is the first detection that has been made on the ground.
The nucleus (cores) of comets like 67P are known to have water as a major constituent, but a common theme among all comets is a lack of water-ice on the surface. Only on one other comet – Temple 1 – has such a feature been hinted at before.
Conservationists Want To Release Carp Herpes Virus In Australia To Curb Invasive Fish
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The carp are now thought to make up around 80 percent of all fish biomass in the Murray-Darling river basin. Fernando Cortes/Shutterstock
Australia doesn’t have the best history when it comes to invasive species. One such animal is the European carp, which has spread throughout much of Australia’s waterways. Now, in an unlikely alliance, both conservationists and fishermen are calling for approval to be granted for a “koi herpes virus” to be released. Highly specific to the European carp, the virus affects the skin and kidneys, disrupting the fish’s water balance.
“Lost City” To Be Excavated In Honduran Rainforest
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The dense jungle of La Mosquitia is rumored to contain a mythical ancient city. worradirek/Shutterstock
Ever since the first Spanish conquistadores began exploring the mysterious jungles of Central and South America in the late 15th century, fables and legends about enchanting cities like El Dorado have captivated the imaginations of kings, explorers, tourists, and archaeologists.
Green Pea Galaxies Could Explain Post-Big Bang Universe
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This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the compact green pea galaxy J0925. Ivana Orlitová/Astronomical Institute/Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague)
Astronomers have long been questioning how galaxies could have ionized all the gas present in the universe after the Big Bang, leading to the universe we see today, and struggled to match the strength of the emission from galaxies with how quickly reionization happened. But a citizen science discovery has led them to work out the possible culprit for cosmic reionization.
Zoo Names Newborn Penguin “Bowie”
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Meet Bowie the penguin. He probably isn't as gifted a singer as the real deal. Cincinnati Zoo via Twitter
The world is still mourning the loss of one of the planet’s most influential musicians, David Bowie. His name will certainly live on in his music, but thanks to a zoo in the United States, his name will persist in a slightly different way. Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio has just seen the birth of a 57-gram (2-ounce) baby penguin, and it has decided to name it “Bowie,” according to TIME magazine.
Theme Park Reveals Space-Themed Virtual Reality Rollercoaster
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Alton Towers/Merlin Entertainments Group
Commercial space tourism seems to be dragging its heels after the initial excitement. No doubt it’s coming within the next couple of decades, but while we patiently save up for the $250,000 (£175,000) ticket, this new space-themed rollercoaster-VR hybrid could be the next best thing.
Unknown Toolmakers Colonized An Indonesian Island Long Before Modern Humans Got There
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Stone artifacts that were found lying scattered on the gravelly surface near Talepu. Erick Setiabudi
Stone tools discovered on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, date back to at least 118,000 years – suggesting that an archaic human species first colonized the island many millennia before our own species arrived. Exactly who they were, though, remains a mystery. The findings are published in Nature this week.
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