Seals and Walruses Found Dead in Alaska with Mysterious Sores and Hair Loss: Scientists Baffled

According to the Alaska Dispatch, since mid-July, more than 60 dead and 75 diseased seals have been found with skin lesions and hair loss in the Arctic and Bering Strait regions of Alaska. In addition, scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported several diseased and dead walruses in their fall survey this year, and the walruses were also found with skin sores and patchy hair loss.

Scientific studies have indicated that a virus is not responsible for the disease impacting these animals, but scientists have been unable to isolate a single cause. Tissue samples from the affected animals have been screened for a variety of pathogens, but all of the results so far have been negative.

NOAA declared mysterious seal deaths "an unusual mortality event"
The seal deaths have been declared "an unusual mortality event" by theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , a status that provides additional resources to investigate the cause. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering making a similar declaration for the Pacific walrus.

Seal tissue samples will be tested
Tissue samples will be examined for various factors including signs of immune system diseases, fungi, toxins, contaminants related to sea ice change, and radiation. Some of the seals and walruses have undersized lymph nodes, possibly a sign of weakened immune systems. The results of these tests will not be available for several weeks.

Concerns that the seal deaths may be linked to Fukushima radiation 
Local communities have been concerned that the marine mammals deaths may be due to a causal relationship linked to the Fukushima nuclear plant's damage.

Scientists at the Institute of Marine Sciences at UAF believe it's unlikely that Fukushima was the cause of the seals' deaths, given that levels of detected radiation are relatively low around Alaska. Water tests have not shown evidence of elevated radiation in U.S. Pacific waters since the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan. If there is a link to Fukushima, the researchers will find it, as they will be testing for radionuclide Cs-134 and Cs-137.

The disease hasn't spread to polar bears or humans, may have spread to other arctic seals
It is not known whether the disease can be transmitted to humans or other animals. Polar bears, which prey on ringed seals, have not shown symptoms of the disease. Humans have also not shown symptoms of the disease. Similar symptoms have been reported in ringed seals in Russia and Canada. It is not yet determined if the causes are related. However, the timing and overall location of the disease suggests the possibility of transmission between the Alaskan and Russian populations, or at least a shared exposure to an environmental cause.

The public are encouraged to report sightings of diseased or dead animals.NOAA’s Alaska regional fisheries website has more in-depth information about this disease outbreak in ringed seals and walruses.

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Study of Wild Horses Suggests More Range Helps Endangered Species Survive Global Warming

Asian wild horses, or Przewalski's horses, are considered to be the only surviving wild horses -- that is, horses that have never been successfully domesticated (American mustangs, for example, are domesticated horses that have once again become feral). Przewalski's horses went extinct in the wild during the 1960's, but were successfully reintroduced by selectively breeding wild horses surviving in zoos and preserves before releasing the horses back into the wild.

The model program to re-establish the wild horse suffered a serious blow in the winter of 2009/2010, as an extended drought followed by extreme snowfall limited the food available for grazing. Mongolian herders in the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area lost an average of 67% of their stock. Such weather conditions, referred to locally as "dzud," occur periodically and were not necessarily related to global climate change.

However, scientists Petra Kaczensky and Chris Walzer of the University of Veterinary Medicine of Vienna have used statistics on the geographical ranges of wild horses and wild asses to demonstrate that restricted ranges can "easily result in local population crashes such as the one seen for the Przewalski's horses." From the press release Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket -- or All Your Horses on One Pasture:

The severe effect of this localized catastrophic event was largely due to the small size and limited range of the present-day Przewalski’s horse population. A large and continuous population would be much more robust as it could counteract local population lows or extinctions via re-colonization. The dzud winter of 2009/2010 is a textbook example of how vulnerable small and spatially confined populations are in an environment prone to fluctuations and catastrophes.

The findings suggest that programs to protect endangered species, especially in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events related to global climate change, must adopt strategies to open wider ranges to allow species to migrate away from threats and into more habitable locations, as well as to introduce populations to diverse ranges.

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Animal Tickle Tests Shed Light on the Origins of Laughter

Tickling a Pygmy Owl

It is perhaps the most curious of involuntary bodily responses, that is, to giggle and guffaw with reckless abandon when our feet, armpits, and ribs are touched in just the right way. To be tickled seems conjure equal parts ecstasy and turmoil, though it manifests itself as the purest expression of unsolicited joy -- laughter. On its face, this bemusing phenomenon might seem a uniquely human tendency, yet for the last several years real scientists have been discovering tickle-induced chuckling all throughout the Animal Kingdom and are beginning to better understand the origins of laughter.
According to the BBC, researchers in the UK have essentially invented for themselves what might be the greatest job in the world: ticklin' for science. Their focus has been on how gorillas at a local wildlife park vocalize in response to some well-placed fingertip rub downs in order to learn more about how laughter may have evolved in humans. What they found were more similarities than differences, says Dr. Marina Davila-Ross of the University of Portsmouth.

"I was amazed about the way apes responded to being tickled - the apes seem to behave in the same way humans and children behave when they are being tickled," she told the BBC. "Based on the study, we can now say laughter is at least 30 million to 60 million years old."

This latest study with gorillas is just part of a surprisingly well-researched look into animals being tickled. In fact, when not eliciting laughter from a variety of species big and small in the lab themselves, scientists have discovered a wealth of animal-tickling videos on the internet with which to aid their studies. With that in mind, Davila-Ross believes science has honed in on laughter as an evolutionary advantageous 'positive expression' that helped social species better communicate with one another.

"A direct comparison across a range of species will give us some interesting insights into the evolution and co-evolution of play vocalisations and positive animal emotion," says the researcher.

Now, for some more videos of animals being tickled -- for your deeply analytical, science-minded enjoyment, of course.

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Climate Scientists Email Revealed

Thank heavens that so-called 'ClimateGate 2.0' fizzed out faster than Herman Cain's presidential campaign. Dealing with obnoxious, fact-free allegations from overheated climate skeptics is a green blogger's nightmare. I suppose our work is made easier by the stark baselessness of the charges 'revealed' by the emails–six independent inquires (six!) have now cleared the scientists involved of wrongdoing.

But the fact remains: We don't know who the instigator was in the first place. Who's the hacker who sought to frame climate science? It's increasingly looking like the perpetrator who stole the emails (an illegal act in England) indeed has an activist agenda.

The New York Times reports:

In November, just before another major international climate conference opened, this time in Durban, South Africa, another round of e-mails between the scientists were distributed online. Like those released in 2009, they were part of a trove taken from a computer server at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England; as before, the e-mail hijacker alerted the public to the e-mails in comments posted on various blogs. But November’s leaker left additional clues behind as well. Not much — an encrypted file and a note ending in what seemed to be a taunt — but enough to revive fervent speculation about what sort of person might be behind the stunt.

The note, somewhat cryptic, seemed to suggest that efforts to fight global warming siphoned money from worthy causes like fighting poverty. “Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes,” it said. Then the note’s author seemed to dangle a challenge for hackers and programmers, saying that even though he was releasing 5,000 e-mails, “The rest, some 220,000, are encrypted for various reasons.”

“We are not planning to publicly release the pass phrase,” the note added coyly. The stunt was enough to jump-start a police investigation that had long seemed dormant.

Little is yet known, but the clues seem to indicate that it's the work of an activist anti-climate activist (duh). Read the whole Times piece for some fun he-said-she-said speculation as to who the perp might be (fun for climate wonks, anyways), none of which is really illuminating at all. That we know so little about the case two years after the initial breach lends the Climate Gate nonsense undue validity (we focused on the content of the emails rather than the actual crime; their theft).

It's high time to get a serious investigation underway.

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Self-Cleaning Clothes May Make Your Washing Machine History

Even thing as simple as washing your clothes can create a huge impact on our environment. The power that washing machines and dryers use produce carbon dioxide that we know is harmful to the environment. On top of this detergents used when washing clothes contain chemicals which may remain behind within waste water as it is washed through our water system. But, now  China has gifted the world with a new fabric which scientists say cleans itself.
Mingce Long and Deyong Wu say their fabric uses a coating made from a compound of titanium dioxide, .....Their report describes cotton fabric coated with nanoparticles made from a compound of titanium dioxide and nitrogen. They show that fabric coated with the material removes an orange dye stain when exposed to sunlight. Further dispersing nanoparticles composed of silver and iodine accelerates the discoloration process. The coating remains intact after washing and drying.

Self cleaning cloth's sample

Sorry, but this sounds a bit gross. Far be it for us to argue with science, but hanging your T-shirt in the sunlight to give it a clean is all too reminiscent of seeing laundry "airing" on hangers outside halls of residences inhabited by stoned students who can't be bothered to pause Call of Duty: Black Ops and go down to the communal laundrette.
But on the plus side, self-cleaning clothes would be better for the environment and in a week when the Durban climate change conference agreed on a "save the planet" strategy, it may be that Long and Wu's invention is one small but significant step for man. In self-cleaning clothes, of course.

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2010 Saw Biggest Jump in Global CO2 Emissions Since the Industrial Revolution

Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions jumped 5.9% last year, according to the Global Carbon Project. Yes, a record amount of CO2--500 million tons more than the year before--was loosed into the atmosphere in 2010. As the New York Times put it, it "was almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution, and the largest percentage increase since 2003."

This, of course, comes right on the heels of lower-than-usual emissions in 2009 (which fell worldwide by 1.4%), which was due to the worldwide economic contraction. A few onlookers ventured murmurs that perhaps the recession would recalibrate the greenhouse gas emissions/economic growth coupling, or at least slow the ever-ascendant global emissions trajectory for a few years.

Alas, it was not to be. With industry again revving back up to pre-recession output, we humanfolk are back to spewing carbon at a breakneck pace all around the world. The record jump, of course, was in part due to global industry leapfrogging the slackened economic growth of 2009 and getting back to business as usual. And business as usual these days is an estimated 3% annual increase in global carbon emissions.

Clearly, this spells trouble. We have not succeeded in slowing the emission of greenhouse gases into earth's atmosphere at all. Europe and Japan have made some laudable efforts to rein in emissions, but without a framework for global cooperation, they register as merely cosmetic. China and India are now among the biggest carbon emitters in the world, and the United States still has been unable and unwilling to tamp down its goliath emissions output.

Though it is unlikely we'll continue to break such dubious records with much regularity going forward--it will be a consistent increase--we should be aware that we're still on track to cause catastrophic levels of warming. Unless, that is, a change is registered in worldwide emissions trajectory. The amount of emissions we're currently generating is placing us squarely into many scientists' 'worst-case' scenarios: Double-digit temperature rises by the end of the century, dangerous sea level rise, record droughts, etc.

In other words, we're well on our way to a much hotter world.

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Climate Changes Faster Than Species Can Adapt, Rattlesnake Study Finds

The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study by Indiana University researchers.

The study, which focuses on North American rattlesnakes, finds that the rate of future change in suitable habitat will be two to three orders of magnitude greater than the average change over the past 300 millennia, a time that included three major glacial cycles and significant variation in climate and temperature.

"We find that, over the next 90 years, at best these species' ranges will change more than 100 times faster than they have during the past 320,000 years," said Michelle Lawing, lead author of the paper and a doctoral candidate in geological sciences and biology at IU Bloomington. "This rate of change is unlike anything these species have experienced, probably since their formation."

The study, "Pleistocene Climate, Phylogeny, and Climate Envelope Models: An Integrative Approach to Better Understand Species' Response to Climate Change," was published by the online science journal PLoS ONE. Co-author is P. David Polly, associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences.

The researchers make use of the fact that species have been responding to climate change throughout their history and their past responses can inform what to expect in the future. They synthesize information from climate cycle models, indicators of climate from the geological record, evolution of rattlesnake species and other data to develop what they call "paleophylogeographic models" for rattlesnake ranges. This enables them to map the expansion and contraction at 4,000-year intervals of the ranges of 11 North American species of the rattlesnake genus Crotalus.

Projecting the models into the future, the researchers calculate the expected changes in range at the lower and upper extremes of warming predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- between 1.1 degree and 6.4 degrees Celsius. They calculate that rattlesnake ranges have moved an average of only 2.3 meters a year over the past 320,000 years and that their tolerances to climate have evolved about 100 to 1000 times slower, indicating that range shifts are the only way that rattlesnakes have coped with climate change in the recent past. With projected climate change in the next 90 years, the ranges would be displaced by a remarkable 430 meters to 2,400 meters a year.

The timber rattlesnake could be displaced from much of its range in the eastern U.S. by climate change projected to take place by 2100

Increasing temperature does not necessarily mean expanded suitable habitats for rattlesnakes. For example, Crotalus horridus, the timber rattlesnake, is now found throughout the Eastern United States. The study finds that, with a temperature increase of 1.1 degree Celsius over the next 90 years, its range would expand slightly into New York, New England and Texas. But with an increase of 6.4 degrees, its range would shrink to a small area on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. C. adamanteus, the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, would be displaced entirely from its current range in the southeastern U.S. with a temperature increase of 6.4 degrees.

The findings suggest snakes wouldn't be able to move fast enough to keep up with the change in suitable habitat. The authors suggest the creation of habitat corridors and managed relocation may be needed to preserve some species.

Rattlesnakes are good indicators of climate change because they are ectotherms, which depend on the environment to regulate their body temperatures. But Lawing and Polly note that many organisms will be affected by climate change, and their study provides a model for examining what may happen with other species. Their future research could address the past and future effects of climate change on other types of snakes and on the biological communities of snakes.

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