From the Science Desk: Virus Snuffing Out Sea Stars Identified

"Identifying what virus is to blame is particularly difficult because a drop of seawater contains about 10 million viruses."

That's what scientists had to sort through in order to find the virus that's responsible for sea star wasting syndrome, the awful infection that's been causing sea stars (that's starfish) to lose limbs and in extreme cases, simply dissolve, along the West Coast of the North America for a few years.

But now that we've identified the culprit, how do we stop it? Or do we stop it? Many of the sea stars the virus affects are alpha predators within their specific ecosystem. That is, they're in the highest reaches of the food chain and help keep the population of prey animals under control.

Yet some say the virus may be nature's way of culling a population of sea stars that's become too large for sustainability, so we let it work itself out.

Read the PBS/News Hour story: "Scientists solve mystery of West Coast starfish plague"

Or be a lazy sod and watch this video:

September Heaved a Sigh

The following sentence is the abstract from an article on MSN.com:

"Wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, a survey revealed Tuesday."

Are you able to read that sentence and not feel the bottom drop out of your stomach? If so, we envy you.

This is the part where we would link to the MSN piece, but in digging around, we found the survey was done by the London Zoo, so here's the BBC piece on the findings, if for no other reason than the BBC is ostensibly closer to the source.

Is there hope? There is no hope. There is hope. Is there hope? Mm. We've already pulled all the petals off the daisy. Time to pick another one.

Let's take a breath and recalibrate our brains with a bold idea from evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, who recently told Smithsonian Magazine that "people haven’t been thinking big enough -- even conservationists."

What then, does Mr. Wilson propose? Half of the world should be returned to wildlife. Oh you sweet, 85-year-old dreamer of golden dreams. If only, Mr. Wilson. It's a wonderful thought.

Read the interview here.

Now, here's your reward:

photo © Brian W. Schaller / License: CC BY-NA-SA 3.0

This frog lives in the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. She gives zero fucks about your social media presence.

bewbs!

Historians and cultural critics agree: This thing we, usually incorrectly, call the internet is built on a shameful pile of subjects that will one day signify and symbolize all that was wrong with Western Civilization.

So with that out of the way, let us be clear, breasts are terrific. There is no shame in boobs. All mammals have them and most humans wouldn't be alive without them.

To show how deep humanity's obsession appreciation for boobs goes, regard this Wikipedia article on hills around the world that happen to look like breasts, at least from certain angles. Yep. In what is now the primary fact-checking resource in most nations, resides an article about hills that look like boobs.

The "Breasts of Aphrodite" at Mykonos, Greece
photo by Ross Berteig

Take that, Pliny the Elder!

["I already hate this job." -- New summer intern Alice]

The Smallest of All Living Crocodilians

Curvier's dwarf caiman, aka the musky caiman, only reach about 4.5 feet in length on average. All caimans are known as alligatorid crocodylians, which is really fun to say out loud.

Cuvier's dwarf caiman, (Paleosuchus palpebrosus) in Prague sea aquarium “Sea world”, Czech Republic
Photo: Karel Jakubec

[Dept. of corrections: The correct unit of measure has been added to the figure "4.5" after initially being published without any indication of how long the Curvier's caiman grows beyond a meaningless figure. We deeply regret this error and will send both the writer and editor on a shopping trip to Costco on a Satruday afternoon as punishment.]

Your Dead Are Safe Until Winter

The corpse-eating fly, thought to be extinct, and possibly apocryphal, is alive ... and hungry.

Oh Honey, We're Ridiculous

As the solstice approaches and each day we eagerly rise and pad down to the TMI corporate p-patch to see if the artichoke is still alive, we try to encourage all Typing Monkey staffers to take a moment and let the amazing wonder of the natural world grab hold.

That's not difficult, since most of them are drunk and/or high most of the time, but if that makes them more suggestible to the precise beauty of those pale-green spiders that climb nimbly over the stones in the fake river-bed, so be it.

After all, it doesn't matter that you've risen later than intended and are watching fast-talking dames on Turner Classic Movies via the break room television while you eat leftovers for breakfast. What matters is that you saw a hummingbird pause by the window and be-damned if the emerald beauty didn't seem like he stopped to look back at you.

With all that in mind, take a look at this list from Wikipedia of the crop plants that bees pollinate. (Bats get a few nods too in the non-bee items.)

Bees of the honey, bumble, solitary, and stingless variety all come into play, and if we could, we'd high-five them or send them a thank-you note because we eat most of the items on that list.

Oh, and the word for what those bees are doing? Entomophily.

[Image courtesy of PD Photo]

The Elder Moss, Pink Slugs and Cannibal Snails

A University of Alberta biologist has grown fresh moss from a 400-year-old specimen found after Arctic ice melted away. We repeat: Moss, buried under polar ice for centuries, was ground up and placed in fresh soil. Seven out of 24 samples grew green and new moss.

Yes, the polar ice is melting and that’s horrible. We are not here to diminish the wailing of the klaxons that herald the end of humanity’s “dominion” over this planet.

Having recently read H.P. Lovecraft’s excellent novella At the Mountains of Madness, and then this article from the Edmonton Journal about Catherine La Farge’s resuscitation of dormant moss, the immediate, and we feel, appropriate, question is: What else is under the ice caps?

We don’t doubt the tenacity of moss. Cockroaches and rats have nothing on moss, lichens and fungus, in terms of survival skill. No animal will ever best a plant in that department, until the skies rain ammonia. Then we’re all done for.

But if moss can creep out from beneath the thaw, it’s only a matter of time before somebody accidentally wakes up a shoggoth.

La Farge herself says: “’Now we have to think there may be populations of land plants that survived that freezing. It makes you wonder what’s under the big ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic and alpine glaciers.’”

She goes on to call glacial ice an “`Unrecognized genetic reservoir ... We really have not examined all the biological systems that exist in the world; we don’t know it all.’"

While we’re on the topic of slimy things that lurk in dark, little-explored corners of the globe, we direct your attention to New South Wales, Australia.

From the misty heights of Mount Kaputar, a rainforest peak and National Park amidst New South Wales’ generally dry landscape, comes news of new species of invertebrates once only rumored to exist.

One of the confirmed new creatures is a retina-frying pink slug that feeds on moss and mold while the world sleeps. It’s a pretty thing with the kind of coloring we’d expect to come from Laffy Taffy.

The other big discovery at Kaputar is a snail that feeds on other snails, particularly snails that follow a strict vegetarian diet. And if bumper stickers have taught us anything, it’s that vegetarians taste better. Good work, cannibal snail.

[Incantations of ancient thank-yous to Edmonton Journal, The Age, and Pahko]

From the Math & Science Desk

Twenty days without a peep from anyone at The Typing Monkey and now this, two links to the hard work of others. But oh! What links!

First up is a piece from The Economist, discussing a mathematical rules of war. The formula: (T_n = T₁n^-b) results in what mathemiticians call a "progressive curve." Basically, we get better at killing each other as conflicts between tribes/nations/neighbors escalate. And like most math we learn, nobody's quite sure what to do with the knowledge. It's a predictor of aggression, but we aren't very good at using it to stop war.

Now go to The Boston Globe for Leon Neyfakh's article about famed social biologist/ant researcher E.O. Wilson's enthusiasm for a new theory on the nature of altruism. Yes, it bugs us that they keep insisting altruism is a "human" trait because, since when? However, "group selection" as Wilson calls it, knocks the accepted "kin theory" of altruism over because he's found little to support kin selection and that group selection simply makes more sense.

Wilson's always been an interesting scientist to read and read about. He's nearly alone in his confidence about group selection. Perhaps, as the article says, in a few decades we'll look back at his assertions and realize how right he was.

[Thank you Arts & Letters Daily]