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☆ To Knock an Elephant Off Balance, Bring Out a Giant Blindfold
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“The bigger you are, the harder you fall,” said John Hutchinson, an expert on large animal locomotion at the Royal Veterinary College in Britain. “If an elephant falls, it’s in big trouble.”But scientists knew little about how elephants maintain their stability as they lumber across the landscape. A new study, published in Biology Letters on Wednesday in Britain, suggests that visual feedback helps elephants time their strides. “Our elephants were going slowly, very slowly, a really slow walk,” said Dr. Hutchinson, a co-author of the study. Otherwise, I would never have done the experiment.”Studies have shown that visual feedback helps humans fine-tune their steps.

Persons: ”, John Hutchinson, it’s, Hutchinson Organizations: Royal Veterinary College, Hollywood Locations: Britain

☆ We Asked Readers to Spend the Summer Watching Birds. Here’s What Happened.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One Saturday morning in June, Amy Simmons spotted some sparrows flitting around a coastal marsh in Maine. She and her two companions, all dedicated bird-watchers, quickly identified one of the foraging birds as a Nelson’s sparrow, a small, round bird with a yellow stripe over its eye. The stripe over this sparrow’s eye had a more saturated, orange tint, and its breast was speckled with black and white. It was a saltmarsh sparrow, a species threatened by sea level rise. Without significant conservation action, climate change could render the species extinct by the middle of this century, some scientists predict.

Persons: Amy Simmons, ”, Simmons, Ms Organizations: National Audubon Society, Cornell, of Ornithology Locations: Maine

☆ Bird Flu Raced Through South America. Antarctica Could Be Next.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last fall, the virus, known as H5N1, finally arrived in South America. It raced quickly down the Pacific coast and killed wild birds and marine mammals in staggering numbers. “The negative impact of this virus on Antarctic wildlife could be immense — likely worse than that on South American wildlife,” the report warns. More than 100 million birds breed in Antarctica and on the islands nearby, and many marine mammals swim in the surrounding waters. Some of those species, including the distinctive emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal, crowd together in large colonies.

Persons: OFFLU, ”, Ralph Vanstreels, Davis Organizations: University of California Locations: Europe, Africa, Asia, United States, South America, Peru, Chile, Antarctica, Australia, American

☆ For Migrating Birds, It’s the Flight of Their Lives
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +17 min

Simone NoronhaFor Migrating Birds, It’s the Flight of Their Lives Leer en españolAmerica’s birds are in trouble. If migrating birds lose their winter refuges, the consequences will ripple across the hemisphere. MissouriMissouri provides breeding habitats for many grassland bird species, which have been faring especially poorly in recent decades. “This is a classic Pacific Northwest to west Mexico species,” Mr. Jiang said. The birds breed at marshes and wetlands across the Western United States and Canada.

Persons: Simone Noronha, “, ”, Viviana Ruiz, Gutierrez, Jeremy Radachowsky, Ken Rosenberg, Deb Hahn, Hahn, Anna Lello, Smith, Sarah Kendrick, Nick Bayly, That’s, Andrew Stillman, Archie Jiang, Mr, Jiang, Dr, Stillman, Camila Gómez, ” Dr, Ruiz Organizations: Center, Avian, Cornell, of Ornithology, Wildlife Conservation Society, Partners, New, New York Metro Area, UNITED STATES, BERMUDA BAHAMAS MEXICO Maya, PERU Moderate, Forest, Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Southern Wings, The, Central, Mesoamerican Alliance for People, Forests Initiative, Forests Initiative . Missouri, CANADA UNITED STATES, BERMUDA CUBA MEXICO VENEZUELA COSTA RICA BRAZIL, U.S . Fish, Wildlife Service, Missouri Department of Conservation, Colorado Colorado, CANADA, ARGENTINA CANADA Colo, U.S, Bird Conservancy, Rockies, , Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, UNITED STATES Calif, Western Locations: North America, United States, Canada, Costa Rican, Caribbean, U.S, eBird, New York, BERMUDA BAHAMAS MEXICO, BRAZIL, PERU, CHILE, ARGENTINA, PERU Moderate CHILE, Forest BRAZIL, CHILE ARGENTINA, Forest BRAZIL PERU, New York City, Bahamas, The New York, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Central America, Central American, Forests Initiative ., Forests Initiative . Missouri Missouri, South America, BERMUDA MEXICO VENEZUELA COSTA RICA, Missouri, BERMUDA MEXICO VENEZUELA COSTA RICA BRAZIL, BERMUDA CUBA MEXICO VENEZUELA COSTA RICA, BERMUDA CUBA MEXICO VENEZUELA COSTA RICA BRAZIL PERU, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, Central, South, SELVA, Colombia, Costa Rica, Plains, UNITED STATES MEXICO ECUADOR, Colorado, UNITED STATES Colo, MEXICO ECUADOR BRAZIL, Northern Mexico, Texas, California, West Coast, Alaska, Pacific, MEXICO, URUGUAY ARGENTINA Alaska, Salt, CHILE URUGUAY ARGENTINA Alaska, BRAZIL PERU BOLIVIA, URUGUAY ARGENTINA, Sierra Nevada, Chile, Western United States

When Michelle Reininger went to bed on Thursday, June 15, she wasn’t worried about the weather. But in the middle of the night, an emergency alert blared on her phone: a severe thunderstorm warning. Ms. Reininger dressed quickly in the dark. “Everywhere I went, there was a tree across the road or power lines down,” Ms. Reininger said. She and her colleagues, who were also making their way to work, soon discovered that a tree was blocking the main road to the sanctuary.

Persons: Michelle Reininger, Reininger, ” Ms Locations: Chimp Haven

☆ A Half-Million Americans May Have Tick-Linked Meat Allergy, C.D.C. Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Lone star ticks, which scientists believe are the primary culprits of the disease in the United States, can transmit the sugar to people through a bite. Even patients who have the syndrome may not feel sick every time they eat meat. “It’s consistently inconsistent,” Dr. Salzer said. Until August 2021, a single commercial lab did nearly all of this antibody testing in the United States. In one of the new studies, researchers reviewed the results of the antibody tests performed at this lab from 2017 to 2022.

Persons: Salzer, Maya Jerath, Louis, ‘, ’ ”, Jerath, it’s, ”, “ It’s Organizations: Washington University Locations: St, United States

It was showtime at the youth swine exhibition, and the pig barn was bustling. The competitors, ages 3 to 21, were practicing their walks for the show ring and brushing pig bristles into place. As he slipped into one pen, a pig tried to nose its way out, then started nibbling his shoelaces. Bowman prefers not to enter the pens, he said, as he wiped gauze across the animal’s nose. He soon spotted a more appealing subject: a pig sticking its nose out from between the bars of its enclosure.

Persons: Andrew Bowman, Bowman, ” Organizations: showtime, Ohio State University Locations: New Lexington , Ohio, Wuhan, China

☆ ‘They’re Outsmarting Us’: Birds Build Nests From Anti-Bird Spikes
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The crows seemed to use the spikes differently, turning the sharp pins toward the interior of the nest. Although the idea remains unproven, positioning the spikes this way might provide the nests with more structural support, Mr. Hiemstra speculated. It is not entirely clear whether the birds are simply using the spikes because they are available — in the urban wild, they might be easier to come by than thorny branches — or whether they might be even better suited for the job than natural materials are. But the use of artificial nesting materials is common across the avian universe, according to a new review of the scientific literature by Dr. Mainwaring and his colleagues, which was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on Monday. They found reports of tens of thousands of nests — built by 176 different bird species, on every continent except for Antarctica — that contained artificial materials, including plastic bags, cloth straps, fishing line, paper towels, dental floss, rubber bands and cigarette butts.

Persons: Hiemstra, Mainwaring Organizations: Royal Society

☆ Coronavirus Probably Spread Widely in Deer and Perhaps Back to People, U.S.D.A. Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Indeed, the new study confirms prior reports that some coronavirus variants, including Alpha and Gamma, continued to circulate in deer even after they became rare in people. They found multiple versions of the virus in deer, including the Alpha, Gamma, Delta and Omicron variants. Then, the scientists compared the viral samples isolated from deer with those from human patients and mapped the evolutionary relationships between them. They concluded that the virus moved from humans to deer at least 109 times and that deer-to-deer transmission often followed. Many questions remain, including precisely how people are passing the virus to deer, and the role that the animals might play in sustaining the virus in the wild.

Persons: APHIS Organizations: Alpha, Gamma, Plant Health, Service, D.C, Nature Communications, APHIS, Centers for Disease Control, University of Missouri Locations: ., Washington, North Carolina and Massachusetts

☆ ‘The Risk Is Staggering,’ Report Says of Disease From U.S. Animal Industries
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The United States is home to an enormous array of animal industries — including industrial agriculture, fur farming and the exotic pet trade — that pose a significant risk of creating infectious disease outbreaks in humans, according to a new report by experts at Harvard Law School and New York University. Moreover, the nation “has no comprehensive strategy” to mitigate the dangers posed by these practices, many of which operate with little regulation and out of public view, the authors concluded. “The risk is staggering, because our use of animals is staggering,” said Ann Linder, the report’s lead author and an associate director at Harvard’s animal law and policy program. “And we don’t even really understand where that risk is.”Zoonotic diseases, or those that spread from animals to humans, account for roughly 60 percent of all known infectious diseases and 75 percent of new and emerging ones, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the exact origins of the Covid-19 pandemic remain murky, the possibility that the coronavirus might have first jumped into humans at a live animal market in Wuhan, China, prompted calls to shut down these so-called wet markets, especially in Asia.

Persons: “, ”, Ann Linder Organizations: Harvard Law School, New York University, Centers for Disease Control Locations: States, Wuhan, China, Asia

☆ Through Pandemics and Wildfires, Can Air Sensors Keep Offices Safe?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When wildfire smoke began blanketing New York City in June, employees at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architecture and design firm in Lower Manhattan, had a panoramic view of the unfolding crisis. From their desks, nearly 30 stories off the ground, they watched as the sky transformed from hazy, slate blue in the morning to dirty, dishwater gray at noon. But inside the office, cool air rippled from the vents running along the ceiling, and large screens reassured employees: “Indoor Air Quality is Very Good.”The assessment was based on the readings of indoor air-quality sensors that were tracking the real-time levels of pollutants, including the fine particulate matter that makes wildfire smoke so hazardous. The sensors had been installed during the pandemic, but now they were proving their worth in the midst of a new air-quality emergency. “We can say definitively to everybody that works here that ‘You’re safe to come into the office,’” said Chris Cooper, a design partner at the firm.

Persons: ”, Charles Harris, ’ ”, Chris Cooper Organizations: Skidmore, Owings, Merrill, “ Locations: York City, Lower Manhattan

☆ The New War on Bad Air
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In January 1912, in the depths of a New York City winter, an unusual new apartment complex opened on the Upper East Side. The East River Homes were designed to help poor families fend off tuberculosis, a fearsome, airborne disease, by turning dark, airless tenements inside out. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened onto balconies where ailing residents could sleep. One of the paramount lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is that fresh air matters. Although officials were initially reluctant to acknowledge that the coronavirus was airborne, it soon became clear that the virus spread easily through the air indoors.

Persons: ”, Henry Shively Organizations: Homes Locations: New York City

☆ For These Bird Flu Researchers, Work Is a Day at the Very ‘Icky’ Beach
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a glorious day for field work on the shores of the Delaware Bay. “Here’s one,” said Pamela McKenzie, a researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, pointing a gloved finger at one tiny white splotch and then another. “There’s one, there’s one, there’s one.”For the next two hours, Dr. McKenzie and her colleagues crept along the shore, scooping up avian excrement. Shorebirds winging their way north alight on local beaches to rest and refuel, excreting virus along the way. And every year for the last four decades, scientists from St. Jude have flown into town to pick up after them.

Persons: ”, Pamela McKenzie, Jude Children’s, McKenzie, Jude Organizations: Jude Children’s Research, St Locations: Delaware, Memphis, New Jersey

☆ How a High-Tech Egg Could Help the Endangered California Condor
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For two months this spring, a pair of California condor parents carefully tended to a single, enormous egg. They took turns sitting on the egg to keep it warm, and they routinely rotated the egg, a behavior believed to promote proper chick development. The plastic shell, made with a 3-D printer, was stuffed with sensors designed to surreptitiously monitor conditions inside the condors’ nest. For weeks, the dummy egg tracked the nest temperature, logged the birds’ egg-turning behaviors and recorded the ambient sound. This strategy has several advantages, prompting some pairs to lay a second egg, enabling the zoo to monitor embryo development and protecting the fragile embryos from condor rowdiness.

☆ Who’s a Good Boy? Ask These Westminster Judges.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a cold February day more than two decades ago, Ted Eubank, a dog breeder from Texas, stepped into the ring at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show for the first time. The crowd around the ring was 10 people deep, he recalled recently. In the years since, Mr. Eubank has become a seasoned Westminster competitor; his Cavaliers, including one indomitable champion named Rocky, have been named the best of their breed several times. But on Monday, Mr. Eubank will be a rookie again when he makes his debut as a Westminster judge. He expects to feel a familiar flutter when he steps into the ring.

☆ From Alpacas to Yaks, Mammal DNA Yields Its Secrets
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A team of Zoonomia researchers has now used a small piece of that taxidermied tissue to learn more about the celebrity sled dog and his canine contemporaries. What can we say about his genome?”Balto, they found, was genetically “healthier” than modern purebred dogs, with more inherited genetic variation and fewer potentially harmful mutations. That finding likely stems from the fact that sled dogs are typically bred for physical performance and may be a mixture of breeds. Balto also had an assortment of genetic variants that were not present in wolves and were rare or missing in modern purebred dogs, the researchers found. Many variants were in genes involved in tissue development and may have affected a variety of traits important for sled dogs, such as skin thickness and joint formation.

☆ Polly Wants a Video Chat
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The United States is home to more than 20 million pet parrots, highly intelligent creatures that need social connection and mental stimulation. A team of scientists wondered whether technology might help provide them. So they enrolled 18 parrots and their owners in an unusual experiment: Would the birds connect over video calls?

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