Back to 1969 - a year in the rainforest (thread 69)

All clicked here too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040901207.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

"Scientists Try to Count Fish in Sea

With numbers shrinking industry-wide, scientists' counting formulas are all the more crucial. But often, politics is part of the equation as well.


With nets and divers, sonar and surveys, scientists around the world grapple with one of Earth's great unknowables: how many fish in the sea.

Fish counts are the science behind regulations from Virginia's Northern Neck to the South Pacific, dictating a charter boat's take and an island nation's diet. But this is a science so inexact that some call it an art. And when the counting ends, the fighting often has just begun.

That's what happened this winter when Maryland tried to open the Choptank River to commercial yellow perch netters for the first time in nearly two decades. Counts had documented a 530 percent increase in the Eastern Shore river since 1988, Piavis said.

But sport anglers disputed those findings in raucous public hearings, questioning how the fish could be so plentiful when they have trouble catching their limit of five. The department withdrew the proposal."

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060410_bees_fly.html

"Why Bees Fly With Landing Gear Down
By Sara Goudarzi
LiveScience Staff Writer


Unlike landing gears that are retracted during a jet's flight, some bees leave them down as they buzz along.

Orchid bees swing their hind legs forward to reach top speed, a new study finds. The legs also generate lift, which keeps the bees balanced and helps prevent rolling.

"The hind legs resemble airplane wings, which probably explains why they also generate lift," said Stacey Combes of the University of California, Berkeley.

It was just earlier this year that other researchers figure out how bees fly. In order to examine their flight mechanism more closely, Combes and colleagues encouraged the bees to fly in an outdoor wind tunnel by enticing them with aromatic oils.

They found that as speeds got higher, the bees extended their hind legs to maintain a stable position. But at the highest speeds, even those with fully extended legs reached their limit and lost their balance. This instability came from the rolling force on their legs.

"They roll all the way to the side or often upside down, and crash to the ground," Combes said.

Bee speed is limited not by muscle power or how high they can flap their wings, but on how they balance themselves during unstable conditions, the researchers found.

The dangling legs help them keep their balance, similar to when a spinning figure skater extends her arms, Combes explained.

Understanding the mechanism of bee flight could help engineers design small flying machines for search and rescue missions or surveillance.

The study was presented last week at the Annual Meeting for the Society for Experimental Biology."

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060410_MM_ground_brown.html

Why the Ground is Brown
By Corey Binns
Special to LiveScience


From space, Earth looks blue and green. But put your nose to the ground, and you'll probably see just brown.

Where does the brown ground come from? Green plants, a new study reveals.

As plants wilt and die, their leaves and limbs drop off, bringing carbon that they've stored for a living to the soil.

Dirty job

Tiny microbes in the earth rip the dead plants apart with specialized enzymes, which break the chemical bonds in the plant material, cutting meals into the perfect size for microbes.

The hungry microbes process a large amount of the carbon in the soil, even incorporating some of the element into their own cells.

As busy as they are, microbes can't get all the work done.

"They're not quite a hundred percent efficient," said Steven Allison, an ecologist at the University of California, Irvine. "There's carbon that doesn't get eaten by a microbe and there's carbon in their biomass. Then they die. That carbon then goes into the soil. It's a cycle, there's always carbon left over. This small bit of inefficiency accumulates over time."

The microbes' abundant leftovers, called humic materials, have piled up over thousands of years. The hoard of microbes' carbon scraps gives earth its dirty brown color. Carbon absorbs most colors in sunlight's spectrum, reflecting back only brown light.

What about ...

The ground isn't brown all around the world, however. Some deserts appear sandy white. Hawaii's soils, rich in iron, have a reddish tint. Dig down beneath some brown dirt and you'll find other colors below.

"If there isn't so much carbon in the ground, soils appear yellow, red, and gray. They take on the color of the minerals that make up the soils," Allison told LiveScience.

The findings are detailed in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Naturalist"

Am I stifling the discussions?

[IMG]imgsrv.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?[/IMG]

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/LOCAL/204100302/1078/rss

"Hurdles for manatees

Manatees saved Stan Meeks' life, so he's repaying the favor.

The Vietnam War veteran credits watching over manatees with helping him recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. Meeks volunteers at Manatee Springs State Park as what he describes as a "sheep dog" for the sea cows, monitoring the animals and educating speeding boaters or others who could do them harm.

"We are the only predator to manatees, and how much do we accommodate them?" he said. "They don't stand a chance."

While state officials are lauding increases in manatee numbers and discussing reducing protections, Meeks and other manatee advocates see serious challenges ahead. Those challenges include plans that could mean less water and more boaters in the regional waterways where manatees migrate."

Hi all, all clicked..........

sumac,
You have linked some interesting stuff - thanks.

You and your 293 friends have supported 2,325,325.9 square feet!

Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 106,872.8 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 293 friends have supported: (106,872.8)

American Prairie habitat supported: 50,515.7 square feet.
You have supported: (12,173.3)
Your 293 friends have supported: (38,342.4)

Rainforest habitat supported: 2,167,937.4 square feet.
You have supported: (169,690.6)
Your 293 friends have supported: (1,998,246.8)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2325325.9 square feet is equal to 53.38 acres

I had frost yesterday, and a hummingbird today.

Early in the a.m., with all but two of my windows still closed by blinds and drapes, a hummingbird appeared at the window next to me, while I was on the computer. As if to say "Hi, I'm here."

I had changed their liquid food yesterday because I had not seen any around and I thought that it might be time to refresh it.

This "visit" is often what happens. They turn up, hovering at a window or windowed-door. Generally, I have been late in putting up the feeder and I have interpreted this presence as their way of suggesting that I get off my butt and get up their grub.

This morning, after visiting me at my window, he or she went to the feeder on the front porch. Hope the solution was to her or his liking.

I have read that the younguns' return to the same spot where they were born and raised. Hope that this is so, as I so enjoy watching the young ones chase each other around in their territorial efforts and mock fights.

Fascinating discussion and comparison of limb/organ regeneration, and the theoretical regeneration through stem cells.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/health/11regen.html?th&emc=th

April 11, 2006

"Regrow Your Own

By NICHOLAS WADE

Stem cell therapy has long captured the limelight as a way to the goal of regenerative medicine, that of repairing the body with its own natural systems. But a few scientists, working in a relatively obscure field, believe another path to regenerative medicine may be as likely to succeed. The less illustrious approach is promising, in their view, because it is the solution that nature itself has developed for repairing damaged limbs or organs in a wide variety of animals.

Many species, notably amphibians and certain fish, can regenerate a wide variety of their body parts. The salamander can regenerate its limbs, its tail, its upper and lower jaws, the lens and the retina of its eye, and its intestine. The zebra fish will regrow fins, scales, spinal cord and part of its heart.

Mammals, too, can renew damaged parts of their body. All can regenerate the liver. Deer regrow their antlers, some at the rate of 2 centimeters a day, said to be the fastest rate of organ growth in animals. In many of these cases, regeneration begins when the mature cells at the site of a wound start to revert to an immature state. The clump of immature cells, known as a blastema, then regrows the missing part, perhaps by tapping into the embryogenesis program that first formed the animal.

.....But the capacity for regeneration exists in such a wide variety of species that it is unlikely to have evolved independently in each, regeneration researchers believe.

Rather, they say, the machinery for regeneration must be a basic part of animal genetic equipment, but the genes have for some reason fallen into disuse in many species.

In support of this notion, people are not wholly lacking in regenerative powers. "

They aren't used just for advance warning of flooding potential.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11stream.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

April 11, 2006

"Experts See Peril in Reduced Monitoring of Nation's Streams and Rivers

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

When Michael Griffin thinks about the stream gauge on the Licking River at Catawba, Ky., he says he has an uncomfortable sense that history may repeat itself.

The stream gauge, one of some 7,400 nationwide, does what its name implies: it measures the level and flow of water in a stream. The data have many uses, most prominently in providing warnings of floods.

In 1994, federal budget cuts led to the loss of a gauge on the Licking River at McKinneysburg. Three years later, a flash flood on the Licking inundated the town of Falmouth, six miles northwest, and killed four people.

The furor over the incident led to more gauges and increased federal financing. But in the past few years, budget pressures have built up once more. And this time, the gauge at Catawba is caught in the squeeze.

"We are on the same river probably within 50 miles of where we were before, and the same danged thing is happening again," said Mr. Griffin, who is the assistant director for hydrologic surveillance at the Kentucky Water Science Center. The center is part of the United States Geological Survey, which runs the nation's stream-gauge network. ...

...River flooding kills about 125 people each year and costs billions of dollars in property damage. "That's more deaths per year than are attributed to tornadoes or hurricanes," said Thomas Graziano, the chief of the hydrologic services division of the National Weather Service. ...

...And while the data from gauges are best known for alerting people to floods, the devices serves many other purposes. The data help determine how often an area might be flooded, and with what intensity; that, in turn, guides engineers and architects in building bridges, roads and communities. It helps determine the 100-year flood measurement that figures into flood insurance policies and construction regulations.

The data from the gauges also help measure the gradual changes in patterns of drought and high water. In Maine, for example, stronger stream flow in February and lower flow in May suggest that the winter ice has begun melting earlier. That can help assess the effect of global warming. But it is also important information for recreational fishermen and kayakers."

Tuesday is science day at The New York Times.

Love your hummingbird story, sumac! Got a lot of reading to catch up on here!

Clicked.

sue, thanks for all the great articles!

The hummingbirds remain during the winter months - although when the snow arrived <and 40 days and 40 nights of rain> the little critters hid out for the duration. Spring is definitely here though - all the trees and shrubs blooming, and during rain lulls, song birds are heard echoing through the forest.

Now all we need is a few days of sunshine, and most, if not all the hummingbirds will return. I'll replenish all the bird feeders soon as the ark floats passed the house again. <sigh>

I did read NG's 1906 Quake article - interesting. Given the fact most of the Penninsula roads and construction built on land fill the past 100 years- another earthquake with the same intensity hitting the bay area...yikes!
Waterworld!

Yup, spring here too, minus the rain though.

sumac, Many great articles again - - I'm impressed.
I have seen the one re regrowth of ones own organs - it is working already - a young girl received a bladder that works. The scientists involved said that more complex organs such as hearts may be grown as soon as five years - but I think it will be much longer than that.

clicked

You and your 293 friends have supported 2,326,918.0 square feet!

Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 107,013.3 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 293 friends have supported: (107,013.3)

American Prairie habitat supported: 50,562.5 square feet.
You have supported: (12,196.7)
Your 293 friends have supported: (38,365.8)

Rainforest habitat supported: 2,169,342.2 square feet.
You have supported: (169,737.4)
Your 293 friends have supported: (1,999,604.8)

~~~~~~~~~~

2326918.0 square feet is equal to 53.42 acres

Hi

That is truly gorgeous, Amigo. I wouldn't have a clue as to where it is. Could be so many different places. Rockies, Grand Tetons?

Thanks, Danon. I post these links and the gist of what is in the article, for more than a couple of reasons. Firstly, I come across them and want to share. Hopefully, it will whet people's appetites to venture further into the article.

But I also hope that it will stimulate some discussion of the particulars. It does not appear to do that. It makes me wonder if I am scaring off potential contributors, or if people are merely scrolling through them in order to post that they clicked.

I realize that some of the articles are not relevant to the rainforest, trees, ecology, nature; etc. But some of them are fascinating, even if they don't require a separate thread.