Secret Population of Orangutans Found

Secret Population of Orangutans Found

Secret Population of Orangutans Found - A population of 200 of the world's rarest orangutans was found tucked away in the forests of the island of Borneo, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

All subspecies of Bornean orangutans are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But scientists estimate just 3,000 to 4,500 individuals are left in the subspecies known as Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus, making them the most severely threatened.

Two-thousand of those live in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Batang Ai National Park and Lanjak-Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary, researchers say. The previously unknown population was found by conservationists near the Batang park, in an area covering about 54 square miles (140 square kilometers).

Local communities apparently had been aware of the apes, but no major research projects had been undertaken in the area until February, when conservations with WCS and other groups surveyed the region. They found a total of 995 orangutan nests, including fresh nests that indicated the rare population was recently using the area.

Previously, researchers studying fresh nests left by wild orangutans in Indonesia found they are incredibly complex, made in the crooks of large branches. The orangutans bend and interweave living branches about an inch (3 centimeters) wide to form the nest.

"They are just bent. They can actually stay living and later on you can go back to them and see they are like an archeological artifact of all these strangely bent items," said Roland Ennos of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, when the study was published last year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It's very similar to weaving a basket, they have to break the branches, weave them together and form a nice, strong, rigid structure."

The Sarawak state government is now mulling new protections (including new national parks) for the area where the hidden orangutans were documented. ( LiveScience.com )

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What's the Best Way to Avoid Mosquito Bites?

What's the Best Way to Avoid Mosquito Bites? - As the West Nile outbreak grows, many may be looking for the best ways to avoid mosquito bites.

If you decide to try insect repellents, Consumer Reports recommends repellents with DEET as the active ingredient.

In the company's 2010 rankings, four insect repellents with DEET tied for the top score: Off Deep Woods Sportsman II, Cutter Backwoods Unscented, Off FamilyCare Smooth & Dry and 3M Ultrathon Insect Repellent 8. These repellents were effective in completely protecting against mosquitoes and ticks for at least eight hours, the organization said.

The sprays were tested by applying the product to the testers' arms, and measuring how much time elapsed before the tester was bitten by a mosquito after he had placed his arms in a mosquitoes-filled cage. For the four products that topped ranking, there were no bites after eight hours. Consumer Reports does not recommend using products that combine sunscreen with insect repellent.

"It sounds like it makes sense — you get two for one," said Nicole Sarrubbo, an associate editor at Consumer Reports. But people should use two separate products, Sarrubbo said, because while sunscreens should be applied liberally and often, "you don’t want to do that with bug spray."

People should be cautious about their use of bug spray, to avoid exposure to unnecessary chemicals, she said.

The company also does not recommend using clip-on mosquito-repellent devices. In testing, their protection lasted less than two hours.

Insect repellents should not be applied to infants, and for children, Consumer Reports recommends a repellent with a DEET concentration of no more than 30 percent (the top ranked products have between 15 and 30 percent DEET).

And bug repellents are just be "one of the tools in your toolbox," against mosquitoes, Sarrubbo said.

Other ways to reduce exposure to mosquitoes include: clearing areas with standing water, staying inside during dawn and dust (peak hours for mosquitoes), and limited use of perfumes and scented products that can attract misquotes, Sarrubbo said.

Pass it on: Bug sprays with DEET appear most effective at preventing mosquito bites, according to tests from Consumer Reports. ( LiveScience.com )


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A rare visitor to the Grand Canyon

A rare visitor to the Grand Canyon - Black Bear Photographed at Grand Canyon - A hidden camera caught a rare picture of a large black bear roaming near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon last month. The picture was recently released by park officials.

It's highly uncommon to see bears around this area because there are only a few natural water sources and it offers only marginal habitat, said Greg Holm, wildlife program manager at Grand Canyon National Park.

This black bear was photographed by a camera trap near the South Rim of Grand Canyon on June 14.

Holm told OurAmazingPlanet he thinks the bear may have been driven by thirst. "It's very, very dry this year," he said. "The theory is that that bear or some bears may have been traveling into the park to find new sources of water."

Wildlife biologists use several wildlife camera traps, like the one that snapped a photo of the bear on June 14 near Hermit Road, to gain information about animal populations in the park. Cameras are particularly helpful in studying elusive carnivores, which are typically nocturnal. The devices operate via heat and motion sensors to trigger them to automatically take pictures when there is movement within the camera's range.

This is a "reason for people to be more cautious about bears in the area," Holm said. Use common sense, like not feeding bears or approaching them, he said. While bears generally avoid people, it's always good to remember that uncovered trash, recycle bins, pet food and even bird feeders can act as bear attractants. ( LiveScience.com )


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Dangerous Asian Mosquito Nears The Bay Area

Dangerous Asian Mosquito Nears The Bay Area — Vector control officials here in the Bay Area are taking steps to halt any northern migration of a pest that has begun showing up in Southern California.

"The Asian Tiger Mosquito is a real game changer," said Russ Parman, acting director of the Santa Clara County Vector Control District. "That's because it's a container breeder — which means it will breed in any container — from a saucer with a quarter inch of water, to potted plants, anything that holds water."

Photo caption: FILE: An Asian Tiger mosquito feeds from the blood from a person in an undated photo. (Photo by Jack Leonard/New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board/Getty Images)

That makes the bug hard to corral and kill, which is very important because this little bug can be deadly.

"It's a very efficient vector of some nasty human diseases, one of which is Dengue Fever," said Parman. "And another is Chikungunya, which means 'bent over' in the native tongues."

The Asian Tiger Mosquito is smaller than the typical ones we find in the Bay Area, and it's distinct in that it has a very visible white line down its back.

Parman said that they've been found in large numbers in Southern California, after hitchhiking over from Asia.

None have been found here yet, but Parman said that they are taking precautions to make sure that the nasty bugs aren't allowed to make their new home permanent. ( CBS San Francisco )

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The tarantula, reappraised

Hairy Cannibals - The tarantula, reappraised - Movies have failed miserably at enlightening the public about tarantulas. Case in point: a villain in the first James Bond movie (Dr. No) puts a tarantula in our hero's bed. As Bond wakes to see the stocky black spider crawling on his shoulder he appears to be sweating heavily—presumably because this creature could kill him.

But the tarantula's bite is no more deadly than a bee sting. It was never the spider’s intention to bite Sean Connery, obviously too big to eat. The creature’s small mind was on how to get back to its familiar burrow, and Bond had more to fear from the cigarettes he smoked. (It was 1962.)

Tarantula venom serves to subdue small prey—mainly insects; it actually takes considerable effort to get a tarantula to bite a human being. We know that thanks to the considerable efforts of the late Dr. William J. Baerg, who, while a member of the University of Arkansas entomology department during the 1940s, laboriously persuaded many tarantulas to bite him. The first attack was unbidden and occurred when the doctor tried to position a Trinidadian tarantula (Avicularia velutina: “extremely pugnacious in attitude,” he wrote, “it at first impressed me as probably venomous”) to bite a white rat. The spider went for his finger instead. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, he learned that the sting, though irritating, was basically harmless. More deliberate attempts soon followed with 26 less pugnacious tarantula species. Baerg had to repeatedly prod them to bite. (For comparison’s sake, he also allowed himself to be bitten by the smaller and less scary-looking black widow spider, and got very sick.)

Of course it’s the tarantula's size and disconcerting hairiness that lead us to our prejudice. The biggest of the 932 named tarantula species, the Goliath bird spider of South America, is almost a foot across—an undeniably impressive specimen that can eat small vertebrates. (It is itself eaten, said to taste like shrimp.) At the other end of the scale is one (Aphonopelma paloma) with a body length of 8 mm, about 1/3 of an inch. About one-fifth of all spiders are tarantulas.

There is no record of any human being ever being killed by the sting of a tarantula, large or small. (There may be an unrecorded serious outcome somewhere for a person allergic to stings of any kind, or someone who suffered a bacterial infection from an untreated bite.) In any case the chances of a North American coming fact-to-face with a tarantula, let alone being bitten, are small. Tarantulas live in tropical or semi-tropical regions, and deserts around the world. In the U.S. there are about 40 species, mostly in Southwestern deserts, and none east of the Mississippi. (Some of the arboreal species, from Asia and South America, are faster-moving and pack a more painful bite.)

In late summer in the desert it is possible, though not common, to see males on the move seeking females. But most of the time the North American tarantulas stay out of people’s way, emerging from their burrows after dusk and retreating at dawn. Unfairly maligned by the public, the tarantula has also been looked down on by entomologists. Beside the orb-weavers like the famous Charlotte, tarantulas seem primitive, clumsy, and less than inspired in their silk work. Their name isn’t even their own—it comes from the European wolf spider (Lycosa tarantula), a different hairy creature. When Europeans came across new types of spiders in the Tropics, they designated any large, fuzzy ones as a kind of tarantula. It’s more accurate to call them Therasophids.

The startling hairiness is useful, an excellent adaptation for a creature with terrible eyesight. (Unfair that they have eight eyes, and not one works well.) Tarantulas’ hairs are sensitive to air movement, allowing them to detect something as subtle as the breeze caused by a cricket passing by, and to vibration, alerting them to a potential mate drumming on the ground off in the distance.

Another kind of hair acts as a line of defense, short of biting, for many New World spiders. When threatened these tarantulas use their legs to rake small, barbed hairs off the tops of their bellies. The hair defense is adapted to irritate the nasal passages and eyes of a mouse. Dr. Baerg’s wife Eloise, a good sport, got a temporary rash when she exposed her arm to a cloud of the hairs; other human beings approaching an agitated tarantula report inflamed eyes.

The tarantula does not stalk; it waits to sense something edible passing by. A female may spend her life, up to 30 years, within a couple of feet of her first home. In fact, tarantulas, the terrestrial ones anyway, are among the most sedentary of creatures. If James Bond's chest appeared moist in the spider scene from Dr. No, that's because an off-screen insect wrangler was misting the animal to make it crawl. (Tarantulas are extremely sensitive to water spray and air currents.)

When dinner wanders by, the spider seizes its prey—crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, flies, and roaches—with its short forelegs, known as pedipalps, and then impales it with upraised fangs. The venom at the tip of the fangs stuns or kills the future meal. Up close, or magnified, it is a scary technique.

It takes many hours to deconstruct and dissolve a cricket or, in the case of the large Mexican tarantulas, a crayfish, small frog, lizard, snake, or even a dead fish. It’s not a pretty process. The spiders use limbs close to their mouths to macerate the victim, then drool out enzymes to break it down. The resulting soupy solution of partially digested prey is drawn back through the mouth by the tarantula’s sucking stomach.

Though they don’t create beautiful webs, tarantulas do make silk. They can wrap their prey to eat later, and some kinds of tarantulas use sticky silk to gather up soil and move it around as they remodel their homes.

Silk is also sexy. The male uses a sheet as a sort of pillow for his seminal fluid. He then dips the points of his palpal bulbs—black organs at the end of his pedipalps, into the fluid until the bulbs are filled.

The actual process of insemination is tricky, and can turn tragic. The drama begins when the male approaches the lip of the burrow and announces his desire by drumming his front legs on the ground. If the female is in the mood, she’ll drum back.

When he comes near, she’s likely to charge out of her burrow looking threatening. If she’s not feeling cooperative, she will kill him and eat him.

Otherwise, the male taps her on the back and, if receptive, she rises on her hind legs and spreads her fangs. The male tarantula uses the handy spurs on his forelegs to lock those fangs, and then hoists her up to get access to her genital region—the epigastric furrow. If he doesn’t get a good grip, she may kill him. If he’s skilled enough to manage a secure hold, he still has some legs free to stroke her belly, an act that is said to induce a trance, certainly a desirable state. He then inserts each sperm-laden palpal bulb into the female’s genital opening. The mating process would seem to select for males with upper body strength combined with massage expertise. (Just like humans.)

The act complete, he releases one of her fangs, then the other, and backs off promptly. Sperm can remain in the female’s receptacle until the following summer when she produces the eggs. Fertilization occurs as the eggs are being laid, not internally.

Tarantula lovers can get a little dewy-eyed watching the female care for her egg sac, which contains 500 to 1,000 eggs and is made from her silk. (From egg laying to emergence takes 45 to 65 days.) She rolls it out of the entrance of the burrow to warm in the sun, and either sits over it like a hen on her eggs or keeps one or two feet on the cocoon so she can pull it back inside when something comes near. The maternal protective behavior is not dependable; if she’s disturbed or the sac is not viable the mother spider may extract the young and eat them.

Safely hatched young stay within the birth burrow for several weeks. Baby tarantula mortality is high because the young may eat each other at that point, and their mother will eat them if they stay with her too long.

The spiderlings depart, not by ballooning—sending silken threads out to catch an air current in kite fashion—as the orb weavers do, but on foot, with a slow, dignified gait. If they didn't split up as they dispersed, they’d eat each other.

Sure, they’re cannibals, but there are aspects of tarantula life that inspire sympathy, like molting. As the spider grows it undergoes sequential molts, getting a larger exoskeleton each time. The separation of the old exoskeleton happens when fluid is secreted into the gap between the old and the underlying new body. During the hours of molting the spider’s crucial sensitivity to sounds and motion is suspended, rendering it vulnerable to predators. Before hardening in the air, the new skin can tear and cause the spider to die from loss of blood. The male molts for the last time when he matures but the female continues to molt annually as long as she lives. On the plus side of the ordeal, a lost limb can be regenerated over successive molts.

The tarantulas may be baby-eaters and sibling eaters and husband-killers, but the truly ghastly actor in this story is the Pompilid or Sphecid wasp, a spider's worst enemy. Attacked, the tarantula rears up to show its fangs—in this case a poor strategy. The wasp injects paralyzing poison in the spider’s belly and drags the motionless beast to a hole. There the mother wasp lays an egg on the spider’s abdomen, ensuring fresh meat for her offspring. The hatched larva consumes the living, paralyzed tarantula.

Back to Dr. Baerg, who was willing to risk his life to demonstrate that tarantulas are no threat to humans. He retired from teaching in 1951, publishing The Tarantula in 1958. Somehow the screenwriters for Dr. No, at work a few years later, missed the information in his charming book, and especially his sensible summary: "To anyone who has learned to know this spider, it is as handsome as a goldfinch and fully as interesting.” ( slate.com )

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Let's start thinking on how to save the Earth's endangered microbes

Stand Up For the Little Guys - Let's start thinking on how to save the Earth's endangered microbes

"If the last blue whale choked to death on the last panda, it would be disastrous but not the end of the world. But if we accidentally poisoned the last two species of ammonia oxidizers, that would be another matter. It could be happening now and we wouldn't even know."

The words of environmental engineer Tom Curtis sum up the seeming disregard for microbial life beautifully. The tree of life is diverse. Many kingdoms make up its three domains, but only two of those kingdoms within the domain Eukaryota, the Plantae and Animalia, appear to merit conservation biologists' attention.

The neglected kingdoms are broadly microbial, and by any measure, be it their biomass or genetic diversity, they comprise the "unseen majority" of life. Are only "macrobes" at risk of extinction? Are only those organisms visible to the naked eye worthy of conservation?

No. Microbes may appear endlessly abundant, everywhere and to an extent interchangeable, but some do face real threats to their existence. The problem is that microbes, for reasons including a lack of descriptive data, are not easily accommodated within the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). That's why I propose a formal Global Strategy for Microbial Conservation.

You only have to look at mainstream conservation journals to see the macrobial bias: Only 2 percent of papers relate to microbes, and even then mostly as threats to larger organisms rather than organisms that must themselves be preserved.

Whereas the chiefly single-celled prokaryotes barely figure in the CBD, fungi at least get a mention in the updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, which is part of the convention: "Parties may choose on a national basis to include other taxa, including algae, lichens and fungi." The implication of subordinate status is clear, even though fungi are the dominant decomposers of plant-derived lignocellulose, the major structural component of all plants, and release nutrients from dead material to the soil, vital for agriculture. Given that fungi supply core ecological functions that are beneficial to humankind, it is perplexing that they are afforded such meager attention and protection.

There is a much overused phrase in microbiology—everything is everywhere, but the environment selects—which suggests that microbial populations are not localized but geographically ubiquitous, and unlikely to be at risk. Some, such as bacteria on leaf surfaces, do appear to be ubiquitous, but many others are not. This is also the case for many pathogens of humans, animals or crops, which have, or had until humans transported them, well-defined distributions. So habitat change in a limited area may threaten them.

The symbiotic microbes present on and inside all larger organisms are notable among those that need specific habitats. A recently discovered anaerobic fungus that is apparently specific to the hindgut of the critically endangered Somali wild ass, for example, is at risk of extinction through habitat loss before it is even formally described. This could also work in reverse—the loss of some symbiotic microbes could increase the extinction risk of their hosts given their mutual interdependence, as has been suggested for some orchids and their mycorrhizal partners. In addition, changes in the microbial ecology of the mammalian digestive tract can harm the health of the host.

Central to our improved understanding of all this is DNA bar-coding, which allows the detection of uncultured and unseen microbes. High-throughput sequencing of environmental samples is now cheap. This is revealing many undescribed taxa and extensive cryptic speciation—groups of microbes that look very similar but are distinct species. Importantly, it is also providing detailed maps of distribution.

It could be argued that protecting the ecosystem will suffice to protect its microbes. This is clearly sensible when resources are scarce. However, many ecosystems are neglected in conservation strategies simply because of the absence of larger organisms, for instance desert soil crusts, glaciers, or unusual geological formations.

One topical example is Lake Vostok, 4 kilometers beneath the Antarctic ice, where a Russian drilling program recently reported breaching the lake surface. The indigenous biota, currently unknown and possibly unique, is at risk of destruction by the introduction of surface life forms. The potential exploration of other deep sea or subsurface ecosystems will raise other "Schrödinger's cat" dilemmas.

Despite huge gaps in our knowledge of the distribution and abundance of microbes, a global strategy should focus on the protection of such microbially dominated habitats. It should include, as a matter of priority, endangered soil habitats and soil types, where the most diverse microbial communities are to be found.

Raising the profile of microbial conservation must come from microbiologists, but the support of the broader conservation movement is needed. Studies of threatened microbes need to be published in mainstream conservation journals. The appointment of microbial ecologists to editorial boards would help.

Finally, all conservation efforts are ultimately funded by the public and here education is needed to counteract negative perceptions, such as that all bacteria are "bad" or all fungi are "poisonous." It should also highlight the beauty and biotechnological usefulness of microbes, as well as their fundamental importance to the wider living world. ( newscientist.com )

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Reptile collector has venomous snakes and lizards confiscated after police find $49,000 of creatures in his mobile home

Reptile collector has venomous snakes and lizards confiscated after police find $49,000 of creatures in his mobile home - Dozens of venomous snakes and lizards found - Police searched his home after collector was bitten by his reptile - As far as collections go, it's enough to make even the boldest person's blood run cold.

An assortment of exotic reptiles worth $49,000 were uncovered by police when they raided the home of a North Carolina man.

Dozens of venomous lizards and snakes were discovered in the Hendersonville home of Walter Kidd, a reptile enthusiast.

Cold-blooded: Dozens of venomous lizards and snakes - like this Black Mamba (pictured) - were discovered in the mobile home of Walter Kidd

Confiscated: Kidd's attorney claimed the reptiles were not a danger because they were kept inside his home (file photo)

Now, the 51-year-old will lose his $49,000 collection after many of the creatures were confiscated.

Police seized the reptiles in August after Kidd was bitten by one of his venomous snakes and was rushed to hospital.

When officers searched his mobile home they discovered it was packed full of snakes in plastic containers.

This week Kidd pleaded guilty to 30 charges of possessing endangered animals and failing to properly label containers of poisonous snakes.

Kidd's attorney claimed the reptiles were not a danger because they were kept inside his home.

The creatures have been taken to the state natural sciences museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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which carries deadly West Nile virus disease living in Kent marshes more than 70 years after vanishing from UK

which carries deadly West Nile virus disease living in Kent marshes more than 70 years after vanishing from UK - Mosquito species may have arrived via international shipping - 663 cases of the virus in the U.S in 2009

A species of mosquito capable of transmitting the deadly West Nile virus to humans has been discovered breeding in Britain for the first time since 1945.

West Nile virus mostly infects birds but can be transmitted from birds to humans by the bites of mosquitoes.

While symptoms usually include fever, skin rash or swollen lymph glands in can prove fatal if it enters the brain.

Blood sucker: The species has been found breeding in the marshes of north Kent and south Essex over the past two years

'It's not clear how long this species of mosquito (Culex modestus) has been in the UK,' said Nick Golding of Britain's Oxford University and the Center for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), who conducted the research.

He added that although the mosquitoes have been found at sites in the marshes of north Kent and south Essex in 2010 and 2011.

'It's something to watch,' he said.

The disease first appeared in the U.S in 1999 after circulating in Israel and Tunisia. There were 663 cases of the virus in America in 2009.

Mr Golding suggested the new population had arrived fairly recently, possibly via international shipping. This is because other insects such as the Asian tiger mosquito have spread in this manner.

'The records are patchy but we have evidence that the furthest north this mosquito lives is the Netherlands, which has strong shipping links with the UK,' he told Mail Online.

'However, this is all speculation at this time.'

He added that the West Nile virus could only spread if the mosquitoes came into contact with infected birds. Although humans can be infected the disease is not transmitted between them.

Disease surveillance experts suspect the Culex modestus species may be behind recent sporadic epidemics outbreaks of West Nile virus in southern Europe.

The virus, which survives in nature in a cycle involving transmission between birds and mosquitoes, is commonly found in Africa, the Middle East, North America and West Asia and can cause neurological disease and death in people.

West Nile virus can cause encephalitis or meningitis if it enters the brain

Miles Nunn, a molecular parasitologist at CEH who reviewed the findings, said that in continental Europe Culex modestus mosquitoes are able to transmit West Nile virus because the virus can reproduce inside them, and then gets passed on when the mosquito feeds on both humans and birds.

'However, in the UK the mosquitoes biting habits and ability to transmit West Nile virus have yet to be investigated,' he said.

A team from Oxford University and the Health Protection Agency are now conducting more studies to see how widespread the mosquitoes are and whether there is any risk to human health.

The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the European Union, said that as of January 13, 96 confirmed human cases of West Nile virus had been reported in the EU.

More than two-thirds of them were in Greece with others in Hungary, Italy and Romania.

A handful of Culex modestus were collected on the southern coast of Britain and recorded more than 60 years ago, but didn't appear then to be an established population. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died?

What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died? - Perhaps you're a cat lover. Perhaps you abhor the lazy critters. Either way, when you see a cat lounging on an armchair, napping all day but for the occasional stretch or window gaze, "useless" is by no means the last word that comes to mind. Cats, beloved or otherwise, don't radiate the message that they're indispensable, hard-working members of the household, or the world.

But, in fact, they're just playing it cool (as usual). Experts say that if all the world's cats suddenly died, things would quickly go to hell in a handbasket.

Cats, both pets and strays, may fool us into thinking that they depend on our food and trash for survival, but according to Alan Beck, professor of veterinary medicine and director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University, they're expert predators with adaptablehunting behaviors. "They are a significant predator of small animals, and can survive as almost solitary animals when the prey is scarce, while thriving in high density when the prey is abundant," Beck told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

And that's just why we'd miss them. By killing mice and rats in barns and grain storage areas, cats are vital for keeping those pests in check. In India, Beck said, cats are believed to play a significant role in lessening the amount of grain loss caused by consumption or contamination by rodents. In other words, it may be true that humans feed cats, but without cats, humans would have less food in the first place.

So, how dramatically would the rodent population increase if cats suddenly vanished? It just so happens that several scientific studies have been conducted that paint a vivid picture. A 1997 study in Great Britain found that the average house cat brought home more than 11 dead animals (including mice, birds, frogs and more) in the course of six months. That meant the 9 million cats of Britain were collectively killing close to 200 million wild specimens per year — not including all those they did not offer up to their owners. A study in New Zealand in 1979 found that, when cats were nearly eradicated from a small island, the local rat population quickly quadrupled.

And if the rodent population shot up, this would of course trigger a cascade of other ecological effects. On that same island in New Zealand, for instance, ecologists observed that, as rat numbers increased in the absence of cats, the population of seabirds whose eggs rats preyed upon declined. If the approximately 220 million domestic cats in the world all bit the dust, seabird populations would likely fall worldwide, while the populations of non-cat predators that prey on rats would be expected to increase.

"All species have an impact," Beck said.

And let's not forget the emotional toll that a mass cat death would take on us humans: "In this country, cats are much loved by many. While there are more dog-owning households (38 percent) than cat- owning households (34 percent), there are actually more domestic cats than dogs because cat owners own more of them. Cats as pets have always been appreciated for the contact, relatively low maintenance, and pedomorphic (child-like) face and general morphology." ( LiveScience.com )

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Aussie to invest in cattle breeding

Aussie to invest in cattle breeding – Australians are interested in investing their money in Indonesian cattle breeding. They plan to pour the investment in the near future.

Cattle in Pasar Tumpang, Malang, East Java (illustration).

The Minister of Agriculture of Indonesia, Suswono, said, the interest of Australians investing in Indonesia started in 2010. “Seven companies commits to invest their money in this sector,” he said.

He added, Indonesia has offered the investment to Australia since long ago. “The two countries are not only close, but also we know what kind of possible diseases that threat the cattle,” he explained.

He added, the cooperation with local breeders must be conducted. It is important so that the investment can promote local entrepreneur. In the longer term, he hopes the investment will improve the quality and quantity of Indonesian living stock.

Based on the Ministry of Agriculture, there are several regions in Indonesia potential to be a new cattle breeding. They are Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB), Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), and West Papua. ( republika.co.id )

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Rare, once-royal turtle to be tracked in Cambodia

Rare, once-royal turtle to be tracked in Cambodia — One of the world's most endangered turtles has been released into a Cambodian river with a satellite transmitter attached to its shell to track how it will navigate through commercial fishing grounds and other man-made hazards.

The 75-pound (34-kilogram) southern river terrapin — one of only about 200 adults remaining in the wild — waddled into the Sre Ambel river in southwestern Cambodia this past week to the cheers of local residents and conservationists.

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said the female terrapin was given to the group last year instead of being sold to traffickers who have decimated the country's population of turtles and other species to cater to demand for exotic wildlife in China.

The southern river terrapin, once considered the sole property of Cambodia's kings, only survives in the wilds of Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia, the group said in a statement. The population in the Sre Ambel river is estimated at less than 10 nesting females.

In this photo taken Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, provided by The Wildlife Conservation Society, a 75-pound (34-kilogram) southern river terrapin, one of only some 200 adults remaining in the wild, waddles on sand as it is released near the Sre Ambel river in Cambodia. With a satellite transmitter embedded in its shell, one of the world's most endangered turtles was released to track how it will navigate through commercial fishing grounds and other man-made hazards. (AP Photo/ The Wildlife Conservation Society, Eleanor Briggs)

But it said the terrapins there have an excellent chance of recovery because coastal mangrove forests in the region are among the largest and most pristine in Southeast Asia, spanning some 175 square miles (45,000 hectares).

The first-ever satellite monitoring of the species hopes to determine how the turtle will fare among fisherman as well as in areas threatened by sand mining and conversion of mangrove forests into shrimp farms.

A small population of the species was found in 2000 in Sre Ambel after being considered locally extinct for many years.

Following the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1970s which left the country devastated, poor rural dwellers scoured the forests for wildlife, much of which was sold to traders connected to China, where many wild animals — from turtles to tigers — are believed to possess medicinal and sex-enhancing properties.

The turtle project is being run by the Wildlife Conservation Society in cooperation with the Cambodian government and Wildlife Reserves Singapore, a zoological enterprise. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Rare, once-royal turtle to be tracked in Cambodia

Parasite turns honey bees into zombies

Parasite turns honey bees into zombies - A fly parasite is being blamed for an epidemic that has struck the honey bee population around the world. The parasite nests in the stomach of the bees and causes them to walk in circles, sometimes pursuing bright lights, before eventually dying.

The Parasitic Phorid Fly Apocephalus borealis is responsible for the zombie transformation, laying its eggs inside the abdomen of the honey bee.

"When we observed the bees for some time, the ones that were alive, we found that they walked around in circles, often with no sense of direction," said San Francisco State University's Andrew Core lead author on the bee parasite study in the journal Plos One.

Bees usually just sit in one place, sometimes curling up before they die, said Core. But the parasitised bees were still alive, unable to stand up on their legs.

"They kept stretching them out and then falling over," he said. "It really painted a picture of something like a zombie."

A fly parasite may be responsible for wiping out half the world's honey bees

And while the parasite may be causing immense damage to the honey bees population, there is an upside to their discovery, according to the Mirror, "Scientists discovered the parasite by accident but they believe it may help them discover what is causing colony collapse disorder which is devastating honey bees in Europe and America cutting some populations in half."

The parasite is believed to be new and similar to one currently affecting the bumblebee population. Scientists are still figuring out exactly how the parasite works, but an early theory by San Francisco State Professor John Hafernik holds that the parasite changes the bees' "body clocks," which causes their erratic behavior and deaths. ( The Sideshow )

READ MORE - Parasite turns honey bees into zombies

How far does a mosquito fly?

Hungry mosquitoes fly farther than you think - How far does a mosquito fly? Harry Boerema wants to know.

Boerema lives near a drainage project, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep (3-foot) basin in the northern rural landscape to head off floodwaters and protect towns and villages from disaster.

The project threatens to inflict hordes of mosquitoes on people living around the water retention area, so scientists set out to calculate how to keep the boundaries of the ditch far enough from human habitation to protect residents from pest infestation.

The question they needed to find out: How far does a common European human-biting mosquito fly?

What they found surprised them: A hungry female looking for a “host” will fly at least three times farther than previously thought, said Piet Verdonschot, who conducted the research.

IN this on Oct. 6, 2011 photo, project manager John Tukker is seen near the drainage project in Roderwolde, northern Netherlands, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep bowl in the northern rural landscape to head off flood waters and protect towns and villages from disaster. (AP)

The 1,700 hectare (4,200-acre) basin, begun in 2003, is designed to collect heavy rainwater that will slowly be channeled to the North Sea. But frequent wet-dry cycles will be perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Buzzing pests are nothing new for Boerema, a retired professor of architectural history who has lived for 36 years in his quiet cottage set amid dairy farms.

“I don’t mind them to a certain extent. But not in surplus,” he says. “I’m a nature lover, and mosquitoes are part of nature — although not the most likable ones.”

Not everyone took the prospect of living on water’s edge with such equanimity, and local complaints led authorities to commission the mosquito research, said project manager John Tukker.

At the outset, Verdonschot believed mosquitoes stay within 50 meters (165 feet) of their breeding ground. The biggest nuisance for humans often originates in flower pots, buckets of collected rainwater or any kind of water left stagnant in the back garden or barnyard.

“The assumption in the literature is that people who suffer bites have bred their own specimens in their own gardens,” he said.

Hundreds of mosquito species exist around the world — 36 in the Netherlands alone — but Verdonschot concentrated on the two species most common in the Dutch climate: the culex pipiens, which prefers birds to people but will still keep you awake at night during the summer, and the Culizeta annulata, larger, more aggressive insects active year-round. Neither normally carries dangerous diseases.

Verdonschot, an aquatic ecologist working for the private environmental research institute Alterra, hatched 40,000 mosquitoes in large tents in a grassy field. The tents were surrounded by concentric circles of traps set at 50 meters, 100 meters and 150 meters. Around the edges of the field were ditches with tall reeds and wild grasses on the banks.

The traps drew mosquitoes into smoke from dry ice then instantly froze them. At the end of each day researchers collected the corpses and counted them one by one, using tweezers under a microscope.

Verdonschot expected most mosquitoes to be caught in the closest traps. Instead, about 80 percent were found in the farthest, meaning most flew at least 150 meters from the tent where they were hatched.

Verdonschot then refined his experiment, placing evergreen shrubs within the inner circle of traps. The numbers caught in the closest ring of traps shot up by one-third. The bushes offered both shelter from predators and moisture evaporating from the leaves.

That discovery led Tukker, working in the north, to create small raised islands of vegetation in the middle of the retention area, which becomes a swamp after a heavy rain. Those islands deflect mosquitoes from nearby farms.

The experiments produced a few other surprises, too.

Mosquitoes are mostly quiet during the day, preferring to concentrate on the edge of a body of water. When females hunt for blood — necessary for reproduction — they move for about an hour at dusk or at dawn, staying close to the ground.

“They move differently than we thought, they move farther than we thought,” Verdonschot said.

Verdonschot believes his team’s research adds to scientific knowledge about mosquitoes. Tomes have been written about mosquito bites and the effects on human health, but little research has been done on their habits, he said.

Verdonschot’s simple experiments this summer have value for others building catchment areas around Europe and for housing developers.

“The whole northwestern European climate is becoming more dynamic because of climate change, because of wetter summers. And all this urban infrastructure has to be protected from water excess,” he said.

Boerema also has a mosquito trap in the hedge around his cottage, helping to keep track of the mosquito population during wet and dry periods. He is anxious to see the water storage project completed, recalling that he was ordered to evacuate his home during a 1998 flood.

“I think it will ease the danger,” he said, even though he’s likely to have more mosquitoes.

“We’ve always been bitten. I don’t react very much, but my wife hates them — but not to the extent that we find it unbearable to live here.” ( arabnews.com )

READ MORE - How far does a mosquito fly?

The critical problem with new experiments in using genetically engineered insects to fight malaria and dengue

GM Mosquitoes Bite - The critical problem with new experiments in using genetically engineered insects to fight malaria and dengue - In the Cayman Islands, genetically modified mosquitoes are on the prowl. The insects are all male, and they’ve been engineered so that all their offspring die before reaching adulthood. By having sex with local females, they could father a new generation that perishes prematurely, before it gets the chance to spread diseases like dengue fever.

These GM insects, engineered by Luke Alphey at the University of Oxford, are part of a growing number of initiatives designed to fight disease by pitting mosquitoes against mosquitoes. Alphey’s tactic of breeding mosquitoes that beget unfit larvae is just one approach. Some groups are trying to make the insects more resistant to the disease-causing parasites they carry. Others have loaded them with life-shortening bacteria that outcompete those parasites. While some scientists warn of the unintended consequences of releasing such insects into the wild, others acknowledge that we need innovative new strategies for tackling mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever, which affect hundreds of millions of people every year. (Figures for mosquito-borne illness are notoriously unreliable, but the World Health Organization estimates that each year there are 247 million cases of malaria, causing 881,000 deaths, and 50 million instances of dengue.)

But all of these recent attempts to turn mosquitoes into malaria- and dengue-killing machines have something in common: The modified mosquitoes need to have lots of sex to spread their altered genes through the wild population. They must live long enough to become sexually active, and they have to compete successfully for mates with their wild peers. And that is a problem, because we still know surprisingly little about the behavior and ecology of mosquitoes, especially the males. How far do they travel? What separates the Casanovas from the sexual failures. What affects their odds of survival in the wild? How should you breed the growing mosquitoes to make them sexier? Big question marks hang over these seemingly straightforward questions.

Are genetically modified mosquitos the future of malaria-prevention?

Heather Ferguson from the University of Glasgow studies mosquito ecology. She views the knowledge gap in this field as a significant obstacle that stands in the way of the GM-mosquito initiatives. History tells us how dismally such initiatives can fare if they are not constructed on solid ecological foundations. In the 1970s and 1980s, several groups tried to control the mosquito population by releasing sterile males that would engage females in fruitless sex. The vast majority of the experiments failed.

Their poor performance is often blamed on the fact that the males were sterilized with damaging doses of radiation. But they had many other disadvantages. Lab-bred mosquitoes are frequently reared in large, dense groups, which produces smaller, less competitive individuals. The artificial lights of a lab could also entrain their body clocks to the wrong daily rhythms, driving them to search for mates at the wrong time of the day. And in several cases, the modified males ignored the wild mosquitoes and preferred to mate with their lab-reared kin instead. These problems went unnoticed in lab tests, where the modified mosquitoes were compared with unaltered ones that had been raised in the same conditions. They seemed to be perfectly competitive, but they proved to be feeble challengers to their wild peers.

Given that we ended up with puny, frail mosquitoes that looked for the wrong mates at the wrong times of the day, it is no wonder that most of these early experiments in modifying mosquitoes failed. Compare this example to the case of the citrus-eating medfly, a pest that scientists also tried to control by releasing sterile males in the early 2000s. Just like mosquitoes, mass-reared medflies initially lost out to their wild peers. But scientists realized they could improve the medflies’ reproductive chances by feeding them lots of protein, which gives them energy for mating hunts, or ginger root oil, which produces a female-attracting scent. These simple measures had a big impact on the programs, which have successfully controlled medfly outbreaks in North and South America.

The new generation of GM-mosquito researchers learned from the failed experiments of the ‘70s and ‘80s and is trying to assess the competitiveness of its modified insects in the wild. Alphey’s group found that the ones released in the Cayman Islands fathered about10 percent of the local eggs within a few weeks. They were about half as successful as wild mosquitoes, which sounds poor, but is actually better than a lot of other modified insects, including the successful sterile medflies. The team has suggested that it could compensate for the males’ shortcomings by simply releasing more of them.

Even if that works, it would still be better to make the GM mosquitoes as competitive as possible from the outset. The longer these programs run, the greater the odds that female mosquitoes will simply evolve to avoid the GM males. Again, there is historical precedent. In the 1970s, Japan tried to control the melon fly by releasing large numbers of sterile males. These efforts continued for many years before the females gained the ability to recognise and avoid the interlopers. The message is clear: We cannot afford a guerrilla war with disease-carrying insects. We need shock-and-awe tactics that have a big impact in a short period of time. And to achieve that, we need to plug the gap in our knowledge of mosquito ecology.

Unfortunately, Ferguson says, “A lot of the knowledge gaps that hindered previous attempts still remain.” In a recent review, she noted, “We have made substantially more headway in understanding the reproductive biology of species with no direct public health or economic importance, such as Drosophila, fur seals and blue tits, than we have done for this vector that kills millions.”

This crucial ecological research on mosquitoes is trapped in a financial no-man’s land. Organizations that fund basic research into issues like how insects behave assume that biomedical agencies will foot the bill, while these agencies are more likely to prioritize research with more obvious and immediate clinical impact. But the necessary ecological studies would not be expensive. Ferguson estimates that it would take just $500,000 to fund 10 students in the field, an act that “could easily quadruple our knowledge of this area within a few years.”

For example, in 2008, her student Kija Mg’Habi worked in an isolated, malarious part of Tanzania and discovered that among Anopheles gambiae (a species that carries malaria), the medium-sized males get the most sex. You might expect the biggest males to outcompete their smaller rivals, but they were actually six times less successful. This is exactly the type of information you need if you want your modified mosquitoes to outcompete their natural brethren.

Now, several scientists are trying to learn more about mosquitoes by setting up “semi-field studies.” These large outdoor spaces, enclosed by nets, are like mosquito aviaries. They should allow scientists like Ferguson to study large numbers of mosquitoes, both normal and modified, under natural but controllable conditions. These studies will not only be useful as testing grounds for GM strains; they should also start to provide some long-missing information about our mosquito adversaries. It may not be as sexy as modifying genes, but ecology is tantamount to knowing your enemy, and that surely is a cornerstone of victory ( slate.com )

READ MORE - The critical problem with new experiments in using genetically engineered insects to fight malaria and dengue

Hungry mosquitoes fly farther than you think

Hungry mosquitoes fly farther than you think — How far does a mosquito fly? Harry Boerema wants to know.

Boerema lives near a drainage project, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep (3-foot) basin in the northern rural landscape to head off flood waters and protect towns and villages from disaster.

The project threatens to inflict hordes of mosquitoes on people living around the water retention area, so scientists set out to calculate how to keep the boundaries of the ditch far enough from human habitation to protect residents from pest infestation.

The question they needed to find out: How far does a common European human-biting mosquito fly?

What they found surprised them: A hungry female looking for a "host" will fly at least 150 meters (yards), three times farther than previously thought, said Piet Verdonschot, who conducted the research.

Harry Boerema pointing to an antique map of the area surrounding his farm Thursday Oct. 6, 2011, lives on the edge of a drainage project, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep (3-foot) bowl in the northern rural landscape to head off flood waters and protect towns and villages from disaster.The project, begun in 2003, threatens to inflict hordes of mosquitoes on people bordering the 1,700 hectare (4,200-acre) water retention area, where heavy rainwater will collect and slowly be channeled to the North Sea. The frequent wet-dry cycles will be perfect breeding grounds. (AP Photo/Arthur Max)

The 1,700 hectare (4,200-acre) basin, begun in 2003, is designed to collect heavy rainwater that will slowly be channeled to the North Sea. But frequent wet-dry cycles will be perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Buzzing pests are nothing new for Boerema, a retired professor of architectural history who has lived for 36 years in his quiet cottage set amid dairy farms.

"I don't mind them to a certain extent. But not in surplus," he says. "I'm a nature lover, and mosquitoes are part of nature — although not the most likable ones."

Not everyone took the prospect of living on water's edge with such equanimity, and local complaints led authorities to commission the mosquito research, said project manager John Tukker.

At the outset, Verdonschot believed mosquitoes stay within about 50 meters (yards) of their breeding ground. The biggest nuisance for humans often originates in flower pots, buckets of collected rainwater or any kind of water left stagnant in the back garden or barnyard.

"The assumption in the literature is that people who suffer bites have bred their own specimens in their own gardens," he said.

Hundreds of mosquito species exist around the world — 36 in the Netherlands alone — but Verdonschot concentrated on the two species most common in the Dutch climate: the culex pipiens, which prefers birds to people but will still keep you awake at night during the summer, and the Culiseta annulata, larger, more aggressive insects active year-round. Neither normally carries dangerous diseases.

Verdonschot, an aquatic ecologist working for the private environmental research institute Alterra, hatched 40,000 mosquitoes in large tents in a grassy field. The tents were surrounded by concentric circles of traps set at 50 meters, 100 meters and 150 meters. Around the edges of the field were ditches with tall reeds and wild grasses on the banks.

The traps drew mosquitoes into smoke from dry ice then instantly froze them. At the end of each day researchers collected the corpses and counted them one-by-one, using tweezers under a microscope.

Verdonschot expected most mosquitoes to be caught in the closest traps. Instead, about 80 percent were found in the farthest, meaning most flew at least 150 meters from the tent where they were hatched.

Verdonschot then refined his experiment, placing evergreen shrubs within the inner circle of traps. The numbers caught in the closest ring of traps shot up by one-third. The bushes offered both shelter from predators and moisture evaporating from the leaves.

That discovery led Tukker, working in the north, to create small raised islands of vegetation in the middle of the retention area, which becomes a swamp after a heavy rain. Those islands deflect mosquitoes from nearby farms.

The experiments produced a few other surprises, too.

Mosquitoes are mostly quiet during the day, preferring to concentrate on the edge of a body of water. When females hunt for blood — necessary for reproduction — they move for about an hour at dusk or at dawn, staying close to the ground.

"They move differently than we thought, they move farther than we thought," Verdonschot said.

Verdonschot believes his team's research adds to scientific knowledge about mosquitoes. Tomes have been written about mosquito bites and the effects on human health, but little research has been done on their habits, he said.

Verdonschot's simple experiments this summer have value for others building catchment areas around Europe and for housing developers.

"The whole northwestern European climate is becoming more dynamic because of climate change, because of wetter summers. And all this urban infrastructure has to be protected from water excess," he said.

Boerema also has a mosquito trap in the hedge around his cottage, helping to keep track of the mosquito population during wet and dry periods. He is anxious to see the water storage project completed, recalling that he was ordered to evacuate his home during a 1998 flood.

"I think it will ease the danger," he said, even though he's likely to have more mosquitoes.

"We've always been bitten. I don't react very much, but my wife hates them — but not to the extent that we find it unbearable to live here." ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Hungry mosquitoes fly farther than you think

Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes - These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill — their own children.

Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.

The results, and other work elsewhere, could herald an age in which genetically modified insects will be used to help control agricultural pests and insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

But the research is arousing concern about possible unintended effects on public health and the environment, because once genetically modified insects are released, they cannot be recalled.

Authorities in the Florida Keys, which in 2009 experienced its first cases of dengue fever in decades, hope to conduct an open-air test of the modified mosquitoes as early as December, pending approval from the Agriculture Department.

“It’s a more ecologically friendly way to control mosquitoes than spraying insecticides,” said Coleen Fitzsimmons, a spokeswoman for the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.

The Agriculture Department, meanwhile, is looking at using genetic engineering to help control farm pests like the Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, and the cotton-munching pink bollworm, according to an environmental impact statement it published in 2008. Millions of genetically engineered bollworms have been released over cotton fields in Yuma County, Ariz.

A female Aedes aegypti, the species that is the main transmitter of the dengue fever virus.

Yet even supporters of the research worry it could provoke a public reaction similar to the one that has limited the acceptance of genetically modified crops. In particular, critics say that Oxitec, the British biotechnology company that developed the dengue-fighting mosquito, has rushed into field testing without sufficient review and public consultation, sometimes in countries with weak regulations.

“Even if the harms don’t materialize, this will undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the research enterprise,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of international health law at Georgetown University.

The first release, which was discussed in a scientific paper published online on Sunday by the journal Nature Biotechnology, took place in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean in 2009 and caught the international scientific community by surprise. Oxitec has subsequently released the modified mosquitoes in Malaysia and Brazil.

Luke Alphey, the chief scientist at Oxitec, said the company had left the review and community outreach to authorities in the host countries.

“They know much better how to communicate with people in those communities than we do coming in from the U.K.” he said.

Dr. Alphey was a zoology researcher at Oxford before co-founding Oxitec in 2002. The company has raised about $24 million from investors, including Oxford, he said. A major backer is East Hill Advisors, which is run by the New England businessman Landon T. Clay, former chief executive of Eaton Vance, an investment management firm.

Oxitec says its approach is an extension of a technique used successfully for decades to suppress or even eradicate pests, which involves the release of millions of sterile insects that mate with wild ones, producing no offspring.

But the technique has not been successfully used for mosquitoes, in part because the radiation usually used to sterilize the insects also injures them, making it difficult for them to compete for mates against wild counterparts.

Oxitec has created Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the species that is the main transmitter of the dengue and yellow fever viruses, containing a gene that will kill them unless they are given tetracycline, a common antibiotic.

In the lab, with tetracycline provided, the mosquitoes can be bred for generations and multiplied. Males are then released into the wild, where tetracycline is not available. They live long enough to mate but their progeny will die before adulthood.

The study published on Sunday looked at how successfully the lab-reared, genetically modified insects could mate. About 19,000 engineered mosquitoes were released over four weeks in 2009 in a 25-acre area on Grand Cayman island.

Based on data from traps, the genetically engineered males accounted for 16 percent of the overall male population in the test zone, and the lethal gene was found in almost 10 percent of larvae. Those figures suggest the genetically engineered males were about half as successful in mating as wild ones, a rate sufficient to suppress the population.

Oxitec has already said a larger trial on Grand Cayman island in 2010 reduced the population of the targeted mosquito by 80 percent for three months. That work has not yet been published.

Dr. Alphey said the technique was safe because only males were released, while only females bite people and spread the disease, adding that it should have little environmental impact. “It’s exquisitely targeted to the specific organism you are trying to take out,” he said.

The company is focusing on dengue fever rather than malaria because a single mosquito species is responsible for most of its spread, while many species carry malaria. Also, unlike for malaria, there are no drugs to treat dengue, and bed nets do not help prevent the disease because the mosquito bites during the day.

There are 50 million to 100 million cases of dengue each year, with an estimated 25,000 deaths. The disease causes severe flulike symptoms and occasionally, hemorrhagic fever.

The Oxitec technique, however, is not foolproof.

Alfred M. Handler, a geneticist at the Agriculture Department in Gainesville, Fla., said the mosquitoes, while being bred for generations in the lab, can evolve resistance to the lethal gene and might then be released inadvertently.

Todd Shelly, an entomologist for the Agriculture Department in Hawaii, said in a commentary published on Sunday by Nature Biotechnology that 3.5 percent of the insects in a lab test survived to adulthood despite presumably carrying the lethal gene.

Also, the sorting of male and female mosquitoes, which is done by hand, can result in up to 0.5 percent of the released insects being female, the commentary said. If millions of mosquitoes were released, even that small percentage of females could lead to a temporary increase in disease spread.

Oxitec and a molecular biologist, Anthony A. James of the University of California, Irvine, say they have developed a solution — a genetic modification that makes female mosquitoes, but not males, unable to fly. The grounded females cannot mate or bite people, and separating males from females before release would be easier.

In a test in large cages in Mexico, however, male mosquitoes carrying this gene did not mate very successfully, said Stephanie James, director of science at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, which oversaw the project.

In Arizona, pink bollworms sterilized by radiation have already helped suppress the population of that pest. To monitor how well the program is working, the sterile bugs are fed a red dye. That way, researchers can tell if a trapped insect is sterile or wild.

But the dye does not always show up, leading to false alarms that wild bollworms are on the loose. Giving the sterilized bugs a coral gene that makes them glow with red fluorescence is a better way to identify them, said Bruce Tabashnik, an entomologist at the University of Arizona. He is an author of a report on the field trial published in the journal PLoS One in September.

Experts assembled by the World Health Organization are preparing guidelines on how field tests of genetically modified insects should be conducted. Proponents hope the field will not face the same opposition as biotechnology crops.

“You don’t eat insects,” said Dr. James of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. “This is being done for a good cause.” ( nytimes.com )

READ MORE - Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes

Strange Form of Life Discovered in Ocean's Blackest Depths

Strange Form of Life Discovered in Ocean's Blackest Depths - Scientists plumbing the depths of the Mariana Trench -- the deepest part of the ocean on the planet -- have identified gigantic amoebas lurking miles and miles beneath the waters.

The creatures are called xenophyophores, and scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego spotted them in the cold, crushing depths 6.6 miles beneath the white caps.

"They are fascinating giants that are highly adapted to extreme conditions but at the same time are very fragile and poorly studied,” said Lisa Levin, a deep-sea biologist and director of the Scripps Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation.

Scripps scientists said xenophyophores are among the largest individual cells in existence, often growing longer than four inches. Recent studies indicate that by trapping particles from the water, xenophyophores can concentrate high levels of lead, uranium and mercury and are thus likely highly resistant to large doses of heavy metals. They also are well suited to a life of darkness, low temperature and high pressure in the deep sea.

A one-celled organism called a xenophyophore. This deep-sea-dwelling creature was found in the Galapagos in 2002; Scripps Institute researchers found similar ones dwelling at depths well past 6 miles.

“The identification of these gigantic cells in one of the deepest marine environments on the planet opens up a whole new habitat for further study of biodiversity … and extreme environment adaptation,” Levin said.

To reach the bottom of the ocean requires special equipment. Levin worked with Eric Berkenpas and Graham Wilhelm -- Remote Imaging engineers from the National Geographic Society -- to build and launch “dropcams."

“Dropcams are versatile autonomous underwater cameras containing an HD camera and lighting inside of a glass bubble,” Berkenpas explained.

By wrapping high-resolution cameras in a thick-walled glass sphere, scientists were able to drop cameras capable of withstanding the extreme pressure of all that ocean. At a depth of 6.6 miles, the water above can cause more than eight tons per square inch of pressure.

Life is surprisingly abundant at these extreme depths, despite the cold and pressure. According to Dhugal Lindsay of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the Dropcam movie also depicts the deepest jellyfish observed to date.( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - Strange Form of Life Discovered in Ocean's Blackest Depths

Fame of killer bull named 'Mouse' spreads in Spain

Fame of killer bull named 'Mouse' spreads in Spain — With more than 3,000 fans cheering, a hulking, black-and-white fighting bull named "Mouse" chased one daredevil runner after another, trying to flip them airborne and skewer them as he did a month ago in a fatal goring that enshrined his reputation as Spain's most feared and famous beast.

Mouse was greeted in the southeastern farm town of Sueca like a rock star: Everyone stood up at 2 a.m. Sunday in the bull ring's grandstands as he charged across the sand after loudspeakers introduced him with the eerie strains of the soundtrack to "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," the 1960s spaghetti western film starring a young Clint Eastwood.

The 550-kilogram (1,213-pound) bull didn't claim any more victims this time, but tried his hardest to gore runners. And he captured intense media coverage in what could be his last appearance before retirement amid the controversy he has generated about Spain's summertime tradition of bull versus human runs, a pastime that plays out in rings, narrow streets and plazas across the nation.

After running with Mouse, a breathless Julian Herroja said the bull is so dangerous that "if you make a mistake, he won't. You'll be a victim for sure."

In this Sept. 9, 2011 photo, a reveler runs away from a bull with flaming horns during a festivity in Sueca,near Valencia, Spain. The fiesta is a prelude to en event featuring a hulking black and white bull whose name is 'Raton' (Mouse), a 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) beast, who has killed two people in the arena and injured five others over the years at pueblo (village) parties. Mouse is released in a ring and amateur daredevils provoke him so he'll chase them around to the cheers of thousands. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

More than 30 journalists were on hand to cover the event in Sueca, population 28,000, near the beach destination of Valencia. Though Mouse will make one more appearance before the end of his season this year, he will run around the ring without runners.

Mouse's owner now fends off as many as 60 cell phone calls daily from reporters. Facebook pages dedicated to him include comments from some people praising him for taking revenge against humans in a country where slews of bulls are slain every year in bullfights by matadors.

But Gregorio de Jesus is angry that Mouse has been nicknamed "Killer Bull," saying he gets blame for doing what comes naturally: Defending himself against perceived threats.

"We go to entertain people so they'll have fun, but unfortunately they are fighting bulls, and there is always a percentage of risk," said de Jesus, 42, a former bull fighter who raises 70 specially bred bulls and 300 cows.

The hype about Mouse has grown so much in Spain that de Jesus is forced to deny reports that the 11-year-old Mouse has killed as many as five runners during his career. But in addition to the 29-year-old victim Aug. 14 in the town of Xativa, he killed a 56-year-old man in 2006 and has seriously injured five more people over the years.

Mouse got his name because no one ever expected him to turn into such a raging bull, de Jesus said. As a calf, he was tormented by several youths who broke into his pen and exhausted him almost to death. Then he was nearly fatally gored by another bull at de Jesus' ranch.

Critics and bull run aficionados alike agree that security is lax at many small town bull runs, meaning almost anyone can participate — even if they're drunk, have taken drugs or aren't physically fit enough to sprint away from enraged bulls. Sueca's mayor beefed up security Sunday, and the extra contingent of police took away some suspected drunks during Mouse's run.

After the bull's last deadly goring, Valencia's regional government announced plans to study how police can be given more authority to detain runners who shouldn't be in the ring, while stressing that the overall number of bull run injuries in the region where they run dropped to 486 in 2010 from 676 in 2008.

Hector Benet, an insurance agent for the bull run industry, said the number of deaths each year in the region averages four, with dozens of serious injuries annually. While bulls in the runs aren't killed or bloodied like their counterparts in bullfights, animal rights groups say the events are a form of animal torture, with bulls terrified by the hundreds of people who taunt the animals by yelling at them, poking them with long sticks and tossing sand from the plaza at them.

"Mouse is the proof that the bull runs are barbaric and medieval," said Leonardo Anselmi of PROU, the animal rights group whose signature-collecting campaign led to a bullfighting ban in Catalonia, which neighbors Valencia. "It's excessive and cruel violence. The culprits are the politicians who allow the bull runs."

But after Catalonia banned bullfighting, politicians there put in protections for other bull-related traditions, including "correbous" — when metal rods with flaming balls of wax or fireworks are attached to bulls' horns before they are let loose to run around bull rings or plazas and chase people.

It's all part of Spain's centuries-old fascination with bulls, with animals used in public as a test of bravery and part of the national identity. Spaniards also run with bulls in northern Pamplona every year, spear them to death from horseback in a town called Tordesillas and cordon off town squares to let children dodge feisty calves bred to become top-fighter bulls.

Sueca's mayor, Salvador Campillo, was torn on whether to let Mouse perform in his small city after this year's fatal goring by the bull. In the end, he decided to go ahead because he's a bull run fan.

"Raton is a bull that gives a great show, he never stops," Campillo said with a smile.

The town's annual end of summer party also features an international paella cooking competition in place since 1961. The contest attracted chefs this year from top restaurants from Spain and France, plus one from Chicago.

Campillo said de Jesus told him that the Sueca event would be Mouse's last real run before retirement, but de Jesus insisted he won't decide until next year whether Mouse will be put to pasture to breed "some little Mouses" with a chance of inheriting the bull's agility, aggression, intelligence and speed.

Mouse's eventual retirement will probably prove lucrative for his owner, Campillo said, because cow owners who want mating privileges with the bull may have to pay as much as euro3,000 ($4,145) for each use of his services. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Fame of killer bull named 'Mouse' spreads in Spain

Mysterious 55ft ‘sea monster’ washes up in China

Mysterious 55ft ‘sea monster’ washes up in China - You’d need a big portion of chips to go with this.

A gigantic sea beast measuring 55ft has been discovered washed up on a beach in Guangdong, China.

It was found wrapped in fishing lines, leading locals to suspect that fishermen cut it free from their nets because it was too big to haul in.

Sea-ing is believing: Locals gather around the monstrous corpse

The creature is too badly decomposed to be positively identified by sight, but it’s thought to have weighed around 4.5tons.

Despite the carcass’s extraordinary smell, it’s proved to be quite a big draw for people living in the area.

Three marine biology experts — Scott Baker of Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute, Bill Perrin, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Bob Brownell, from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Fisheries Service – were all shown photographs of the creature by Live Science.

Coasting along: This map shows the area where the monster was washed up

Their conclusion is that, based on its throat grooves, the creature is a whale.

Mr Baker told the journal: ‘Judging from the reported size of 55 ft, it’s maybe a fin whale. From the photo, however, it does not really look to be 55 ft, and so might be a smaller balaenopterid, like one of the “Bryde's” whales.’

He added: ‘We all hope somebody collects the bones and a tissue sample for genetic analysis as recovery of whale carcasses is rare along the coast of China.'

Theory: Some marine experts believe the carcass could be that of a fin whale, pictured here ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Mysterious 55ft ‘sea monster’ washes up in China