Happy Halloween

Trick or treat! To me, nothing says Halloween like a good, old fashioned parasite. So scroll down for a preview of next month's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite! Enjoy :)

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Picture credit

Looking for something to do Jan 15-17th?

Registration is now open. Do if you want to go, register! You can even see who else is going.

Yes, one of those people is me. I've given in to the hordes of sci bloggers saying I just have to come. So if you go, you can meet me in person! Now if that's not a reason to go, I don't know what is!

This Month's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite: Taenia solium

It's that time of the year again... the temperature is dropping, pumpkins are being carved, and there's that creepy rustling in the woods as you walk by. All Hallow's Eve fast approaches, and with it come tales of mysterious disappearances, strange sightings, and all kinds of things that go bump in the night.

So what better parasite to talk about than one that is sure to give you the heebie-jeebies? It's a parasite that you could have for years and not even know it, until one day you're in the hospital with seizures, headaches, nausea, vomiting, or even altered mental status.

Of course, I'm talking about Taenia solium, better known as the Pork Tapeworm.

The pork tapeworm begins its lifecycle as a little egg being passed in feces by some person who happens to have an adult in their intestines. Once out of the human host, the egg waits to be ingested by its intermediate host - a pig, hence the name.

Once in the pig's gut, the egg hatches, and a small, larval oncosphere travels through the intestinal wall and migrates to other parts of the body. Oncosoheres aim for striated muscles, but can end up just about anywhere, including the brain, liver, and other tissues. Once settled, the oncoshperes develop into cysticerci, small, encapsulated cycsts that wait.

To become an adult, a cysticercus has to be eaten by a human - this happens when people eat infected pork that hasn't been cooked thoroughly. When the cysticercus reaches our guts, it morphs into an adult tapeworm which attaches to the small intestinal lining and begins to grow. Adult worms can get up to 7 meters long - that's over 21 feet. They go about their lives absorbing our nutrients and producing eggs, of which they can produce hundreds of thousands a day.

Let's be honest - tapeworms are creepy enough when they complete their lifecycle the proper way, ending up in our guts as these long, disgusting leeches stealing our food. But the pork tapeworm can do something much more sinister. If a human ingests the eggs directly, without them going into a pig first, then the cysticerci can develop in our tissues instead. These small cysts can be in our muscles, nervous tissue, or even brain.

In people, the cysticerci can go unnoticed, as they evade our immune systems for much of their lives. However, after a variable amount of time, the cysticerci start to degenerate, and our immune systems find them. When this occurs, our immune system goes into overdrive, causing the clinical symptoms of cysticercosis. Depending on where the cysticerci are, the signs are different - but they're worst when the little bugs have been living in our brains (see image on the R). The huge immune offensive our bodies launch can lead to all kinds of neurological problems, and even death. You can come down with the clinical symptoms up to ten years after you get infected.

Taenia solium is found all over the world, from China and Southeast Asia to Latin America. In Mexico, the prevalence of cysticercosis is thought to be as high as 4%, but in other Latin American countries it's as high as 20%. Rates reach as high as 10% in African countries and 16% in Madagascar. In the USA, 221 people died from cysticercosis from 1990-2002, even though the parasite is thought to be eradicated from US pig stocks.

So while you'll be afraid of ghosts or goblins this Halloween, perhaps you should be fearing your dinner more. While chowing down on some nice pork tenderloin or some delicious pork chops, remember that this parasite just might be lurking in an undercooked portion. And you thought the swine flu was the worst thing you could get from Mexican pigs!

Some recipes for conservation

Remember how I told you all about a wonderful and delicious fish that you can eat guilt-free? Yeah, you remember.

Well, just in case you end up with a nice tasty lionfish and have no idea how to cook it, here's a collection of recipes put together by The Lionfish Hunter himself. Bon appetit!

Weekly Dose of Cute: Bunnies

What's cuter than bunnies? Pygmy bunnies! What's cuter than pygmy bunnies? Baby pygmy bunnies!


While they're unbelievably cute, these little guys are more than just adorable - they're the last remaining hope for their local population. Pygmy rabbits were once found throughout the Northwestern United States in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, California, and Nevada. In 1990, declining populations due to habitat loss led to the rabbits being listed as threatened, and further decline placed them on the federal endangered species list in 2003.

Recently, searches for wild populations in the Columbia Basin (Washington area) have come up empty-handed, though the cause behind the sudden disappearance in that area is not well understood. The dire situation led to the initiation of a captive breeding program for these minuscule bunnies by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the last group sighted were scooped up for their protection. Genetic work has shown that the sub-population has lost much of its genetic diversity since the 1990s, leading to inbreeding which has hampered their reproductive rate.

The photos above are from the most recent litter of 26 babies produced by proud parents and zookeepers at the Oregon Zoo. These aren't entirely Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits - they had to be interbred with Idaho pygmy rabbits because the Columbia Basin animals were breeding so poorly in captivity. The program hopes to produce animals that have at least 75 percent of their genetic makeup from the Columbia Basin, which will then be release back into the wild. Release studies in Idaho suggest that once they have enough rabbits, re-release into the Columbia Basin will be successful.

However, these rabbits will never do well unless we protect their dwindling shrub-steppe habitat. To date, WDFW, The Nature Conservancy and one private landowner have acquired lands to be managed for pygmy rabbits. Further protections must take place or these baby bunnies will be out of luck. It just goes to show you that any animal can be threatened with extinction by human activities - even those that breed like, well, rabbits.

H/T Zooborns

Climate Change - what's worse than the heat?

**A post about Climate Change as a part of Blog Action Day 2009**

When people talk about climate change, they, more often than not, talk about global warming. Yes, the effects of increased temperature will be diverse and generally bad for most creatures on Earth, including us. But the most dramatic effect of climate change won't be due to the heat - it will be due to ocean acidification. I might seem biased (being a marine biologist and all), but trust me, the addition of carbon dioxide to the ocean and its subsequent effects will be far worse in the long run than a change in temperature. Not so sure? Let me explain.

I know for most of you it's been a long time since you took a chemistry course, so here's a quick refresher. Acidity of a solution, or its "pH", is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions (H⁺). The lower the pH, the more acidic, and the higher the concentration of H⁺. The effects we associate with acidity - burning through flesh, for example - are due to the fact that H⁺ ions are extremely reactive with other molecules, and tend to incite chemical reactions.

The astute reader might note here that CO₂ doesn't contain H⁺ ions, or hydrogen at all, for that matter. How can it cause seawater to become more acidic?

The key is in how carbon dioxide reacts with water when it is dissolved. Unlike other gasses, CO₂ doesn't stay in its gaseous form when it becomes aqueous, it reacts almost instantly with water to form H₂CO₃. In turn, this compound, called carbonic acid, tends to release its two hydrogen ions in sequence, becoming bicarbonate and carbonate:
H₂O + CO₂ -> H₂CO₃ -> HCO₃^- + H⁺ -> 2H⁺ + CO₃^2-
It's easy to see how adding CO₂ into the equation would drive the production of hydrogen ions. But, in reality, the reaction is more complex than that. Because seawater is a slush of ions, it's in what is called chemical equilibrium, where ions back and forth between the different forms. This gives seawater natural buffering, which means that adding an acid doesn't directly raise its pH. Extensive experiments have shown that adding CO₂ doesn't just make more hydrogen ions and CO₃^2-. How much CO₂ remains as CO₂, HCO₃^- , and CO₃^2- is influenced by a number of other factors, including the water's temperature and alkalinity.

The equilibrium looks much more like this:
H₂O + CO₂ + CO₃^2- <-> HCO₃^-
The majority of carbon dioxide in seawater ends up as HCO₃^-. As more CO₂ is added, it reacts not only with water to produce HCO₃^- + H⁺, but those hydrogen ions, in turn, react with CO₃^2- to create HCO₃^-. The figure to the right shown the overall change in concentration from 1750s to the mid 1990s; during that time, surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, which corresponds to about a 20% increase in the hydrogen ion concentration. If you're really interested in the complex chemistry, check out K. G. Schulz et al's paper that just came out in 2009 - it delves deeply into exactly how this works (and when I say deeply, I mean deeply - good luck if you're not a chemist).

The problem is, many organisms, including corals and photosynthetic algae, need CO₃^2- to form the hard shells that they live in. They use dissolved calcium (Ca²⁺) along with the dissolved carbonate (CO₃^2-) to create calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). They cannot use bicarbonate (HCO₃^-). So as the levels of carbonate drop, it becomes harder and harder for organisms to make calcium carbonate.

This is bad news for coral reefs. Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse ecosystem in the marine environment and are crucial for conservation, fisheries, tourism and coastal protection. They make up about 1/6^th of the world's calcium carbonate production, currently producing 900 million tons a year. Scientists predict that the change in seawater chemistry could doom these fragile ecological hot spots, causing the loss of billions of dollars in the fishing industry alone.

But corals aren't the only species that could be affected by reduced carbonate. Small, unicellular amoeba called Foraminifera rely on carbonate. What they lack in size they make up for in impact; foraminifera, or "forams", are one of the most abundant organisms on earth, and create another 1.4 billion tons of calcium carbonate a year, around 25% of the grand total. Similarly, other planktonic creatures are dependent on carbonate, too, like pteropods. Pteropods are small molluscs that are found, in particular, in the southern oceans, where they are a food source for species like krill. As the base of the marine food web in many areas, pteropods are key to the overall health of our oceans, and have been called the "canaries in the coal mine" for ocean health.

It's not just theory that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide relates to a drop in carbonate levels that will hurt these species. Scientists have shown that as carbon dioxide levels rise, the acidity of the ocean is changing, and it is slowing, if not stopping, these organisms from growing. Multiple studies have shown that corals to be inversely affected by increased carbon dioxide and decreased carbonate ions, though the effects do vary. Acidification also harms all kinds of carbonate plankton, larger carbonate organisms like sea urchins, and even certain species of algae. Noise travels further and faster as seawater pH drops, which may impact all kinds of organisms, including fish. But the most devastating loss will likely be in planktonic primary producers like pteropods. A study published in Nature showed that not only do pteropods suffer in reduced carbonate availability, computer modeling suggests that the majority of the southern ocean will become pteropod-uninhabitable by 2100 if we keep emitting carbon dioxide at the rate we do now.

While rising temperatures and melting ice are nothing to sneeze at, completely decimating the base of the marine food web is going to be disastrous. Carbonate-requiring organisms are primary producers which are responsible for the majority of the ocean's estimated 90% contribution to the world's oxygen production - which means the loss of them could have a more devastating impact on atmospheric CO₂ than chopping down all of the world's forests. And that's not even taking into account the loss of biodiversity that will ensue as we take away the bottom of the food chain. The economic losses from decreased fish catch and tourism will be easily in the billions a year.

Climate change is a major issue that our generation and those that follow need to address - but let's remember that it's not just about the heat. Acidification and other affects of carbon output are likely to make an even bigger impact. We need to asses, monitor, and propose solutions for all of the effects of climate change. Now is the time to protect our future - not only on land, but in the water, too.


References
K. G. Schulz, J. Barcelos e Ramos, R. E. Zeebe, & U. Riebesell (2009). CO2 perturbation experiments: similarities and differences between dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity manipulations Biogeosciences, 6, 2145-2153

LANGER, M. (2008). Assessing the Contribution of Foraminiferan Protists to Global Ocean Carbonate Production The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, 55 (3), 163-169 DOI: 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2008.00321.x

Marubini, F., Ferrier-Pagès, C., Furla, P., & Allemand, D. (2008). Coral calcification responds to seawater acidification: a working hypothesis towards a physiological mechanism Coral Reefs, 27 (3), 491-499 DOI: 10.1007/s00338-008-0375-6

Gattuso, J. (1998). Effect of calcium carbonate saturation of seawater on coral calcification Global and Planetary Change, 18 (1-2), 37-46 DOI: 10.1016/S0921-8181(98)00035-6

Riebesell, U., Zondervan, I., Rost, B., Tortell, P., Zeebe, R., & Morel, F. (2000). Reduced calcification of marine plankton in response to increased atmospheric CO2 Nature, 407 (6802), 364-367 DOI: 10.1038/35030078

Fine, M., & Tchernov, D. (2007). Scleractinian Coral Species Survive and Recover from Decalcification Science, 315 (5820), 1811-1811 DOI: 10.1126/science.1137094

Kuffner, I., Andersson, A., Jokiel, P., Rodgers, K., & Mackenzie, F. (2007). Decreased abundance of crustose coralline algae due to ocean acidification Nature Geoscience, 1 (2), 114-117 DOI: 10.1038/ngeo100

Orr, J., Fabry, V., Aumont, O., Bopp, L., Doney, S., Feely, R., Gnanadesikan, A., Gruber, N., Ishida, A., Joos, F., Key, R., Lindsay, K., Maier-Reimer, E., Matear, R., Monfray, P., Mouchet, A., Najjar, R., Plattner, G., Rodgers, K., Sabine, C., Sarmiento, J., Schlitzer, R., Slater, R., Totterdell, I., Weirig, M., Yamanaka, Y., & Yool, A. (2005). Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms Nature, 437 (7059), 681-686 DOI: 10.1038/nature04095

Weekly Dose of Cute: Teacup Pigs

Ok, I really tried not to post about this. But come on - they're just so cute. I want ten of them.
And to really make you squeal, some video:



(it's all your fault, Rick. Ever since you posted this on your facebook I couldn't stop thinking about them!)

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

Every year, Blog Action Day seeks unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. This year, 2009, Blog Action Day is focused on Climate Change - like I could even think of resisting! All you bloggers out there, it doesn't matter what you write about - politics, medicine, music or whatever - you can join Blog Action Day and be a part of the global discussion, too. It's in just three days, so register at their website and get involved!

Women to stop liking Sean Connery?

Boyish good looks -
the next generation of sexy?

Men like Mike Rowe on the outs?

I couldn't help but notice that a new study has come out about the behavioral effects of hormonal contraception. It's all over the science news sites. With titles ranging from the conservative "Pill May Change Attraction" to the bolder "Taking the pill for past 40 years 'has put women off masculine men'"and "The pill 'gives women a taste for boyish men like Zac Efron'," this new publication has swept the media outlets by storm. This idea that birth control might have behavioral side effects isn't new, even I've mentioned this before, as a side note on another study's findings. But the strong tone and conclusions in this review paper seem to have caught the media's attention, causing Grizzly Adams impersonators everywhere to fear that they're soon to be cast out of their lovers' bedrooms in favor of DiCaprio-esque alternatives.

Calm down, manly men. It's just like how the media always starts raving about how scientists have found a "missing link" every time there's a new fossil species identified - mention sex or relationships in a paper, and it's bound to get noticed. And just like the constant "missing link" hype, the whirlwhind response to this paper is unfounded and ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong - I love a good paper about behavior and hormones. But a non-systematic review paper has a lot of holes in it, and this one is no exception.

In the paper, the authors state that "there is emerging evidence that the use of the pill by women can disrupt: (i) the variation in mate preferences across their menstrual cycle; (ii) their attractiveness to men; and (iii) their ability to compete with normally cycling women for access to mates" and that there are "consequences of pill-induced choice of otherwise less-preferred partners for relationship satisfaction, durability and, ultimately, reproductive outcomes."

Let me start by explaining the paper's premise. It's somewhat established scientifically that certain traits that women find attractive - like "manliness" - can vary over the menstrual cycle. When a woman is most fertile, she's more strongly attracted to more masculine men. There's some suggestion that this is because while she may not be able to marry the sexiest, most genetically spectacular man alive, she can sleep with him behind her mate's back when she's highly fertile and get a genetically fantastic kid while still keeping the loser hubby around to take care of him. In turn, scientists have shown that women are sexiest to men when they're most fertile - the theory being that if men sleep with a woman when she is most likely to get pregnant, then they're most likely to pass on their genes. All of these shifts in attractiveness are completely unconscious, so we don't know that we're changing how we see each other over a monthly cycle.

The Culprit?

Hormonal birth controls change the hormones in a woman's cycle. They convince her body that she's pregnant, thus preventing her from going through ovulation-induced changes into that 'high fertility' state. Logically following, this change in hormones might shift how she views men and how men view her, because she's never entering that body phase where all this change in attraction occurs.

Then, the paper's authors conclude, it's likely that the women taking the pill are shifting society's opinion of men, steering towards less masculinity. They're changing the rules, making feminine men more attractive and thus more likely to mate, which they say could have drastic consequences. Since manly men are supposed to contain the 'better' genes, a shift in mate choice could have reproductive repercussions. As one of the co-authors, Dr Virpi Lumma, is quoted as saying: "The ultimate outstanding evolutionary question concerns whether the use of oral contraceptives when making mating decisions can have long-term consequences on the ability of couples to reproduce."

Even on the small scale, they warn that birth control might be dooming relationships, because women are likely to be off birth control before a relationship, then meet someone, and go on it. Beforehand, the women had 'high fertility' attractions, but after, their tastes change. Even if it's not dooming the masses, it could be a major contributing factor to the rising divorce rate and general relationship woes.

It sounds very logical, but there are gaping holes that the journalists and even the study authors completely ignore.

Firstly, it's important to point out that this is a non-systemic review. A non-systemic review is one that doesn't describe the methods used to choose the papers which are included in it. The authors say that 75% of the studies performed in the past decade support their conclusions. But how did they choose the 72 studies included in their review? How exhaustive was their search? Without explaining these methods, it's entirely possible that the review is biased, focusing on research which supports the writers' preformed conclusion.

Small, non-random samples aren't fit
mathematically to be expanded to populations

But even assuming that the choices were comprehensive when it comes to the literature, there are flaws in those, too. Most of these studies have incredibly low, non-random sample sizes (i.e. <100 college students who want extra credit in their psych class). When talking about large-scale changes which affect populations, such small sizes that aren't randomly selected are poor choices. After all, would you say that the overall political views of the country are the same as the population of one town in Texas? The larger the extrapolation of the data, the larger and more random the sampled set needs to be to be statistically relevant.

Furthermore, when comparing women who are on the pill to those who are not, the treatment group the women are in isn't double blind or random. The two groups are self selected - aka women who are on the pill already versus those that aren't. There is no control, no group that takes a placebo or, at least, goes from not taking the pill to taking it (with one exception - kind of. I'll explain in a minute). No clinical studies into side effects - like those done on various pharmaceuticals - would be tolerated without these kinds of controls.

It goes back to the underlying scientific question of the chicken or the egg. It's possible that taking birth control affects one's mate preferences. It's also possible that those with certain mate preferences are more interested in taking birth control, particularly those interested in the pill over other contraceptive methods like condoms. The studies examined in this review lack the power and structure to determine the difference. After all, studies have shown that there are differences in contraceptive use between political, religious, and age groups. Is it not entirely likely that underlying factor might stimulate a woman to be attracted to 'boyish' men and take birth control, like her religious preferences? The only study covered in the review which did, at least, compare women before and after taking the pill, did not randomly select women for each group. The women elected to take the pill or not, which means it does not rule out all of these issues.

Furthermore, among their logical conclusions, the authors suggest that taking the pill after starting a relationship may affect relationship satisfaction because a woman might change her mind about what she finds attractive. Call me a scientist, but can I have some data? This one ought to be easy to look at! Why speculate so broadly without any kind of data to back it up?

The authors do note that their conclusions are 'speculative,' but it seems the mainstream media has overlooked this portion of the paper. The majority of their conclusions are evolutionary speculations, not scientifically supported theories. And there is danger in trying to see everything from an evolutionary perspective. Evolution is a complex combination of selection, random change, and genetic shifts.

Don't panic, Jackie.
Your rugged good looks won't
keep women from wanting you

Not everything in the world has a concrete, easy to understand and logical reason for why it came out that way. There are jumps and changes that are under little to no selection at all, and the evolutionary 'reasons' for even those traits that are under natural or sexual selection can be hard to decipher.

While this paper is good discussion fodder, it's conclusions and theories should be taken with a very large grain of salt. The science in it is very interesting, however, it's hardly conclusive, and as journalists and reporters of science we need to be more careful in how we talk about science to the public. I'm fairly certain that rugged, manly men still can make women swoon, and that we're not all genetically doomed from birth control (I'm even more positive of this while looking for images for this post, and flipping through pages and pages of Hugh Jackman).

Now, the potential genetic doom of the fish and aquatic creatures who are getting dosed with high levels of these hormones from untreated sewage runoff, that's a different story... for a different day.

Alexandra Alvergne, & Virpi Lummaa (2009). Does the contraceptive pill alter mate choice in humans? Trends in Ecology and Evolution : 10.1016/j.tree.2009.08.003

Manoa Falls

Facebook won't let me show off this stunning vertical panoramic I took at Manoa Falls (doesn't like the image size), so I'm putting it up here:


The falls are simply gorgeous. Just letting you all know. See the rest of the hike photos over on my facebook page.

Some important links

Ok y'all, it's been a busy week on the blogosphere, and there are some links you GOTTA hit up.

Carnival of the Blue #23 is up over at Cephalopodcast. It's a great mix of ocean blogging that you're sure to enjoy!

Similarly, Scientia Pro Publica #13 is up at Living the Scientist Life. Be sure to flip through the best science blogging of the past two weeks!

Also, though I'm a bit late, don't forget about the Carnival of Evolution #16, hosted this month by Pleitropy.

And last but not least, it's finally over - The Great Darwin Beard Challenge as ended, but they need to decide on a winner! Be sure to vote!

Check out the Nature Blog Network!

I'm sure that many of you, while looking for fantastic, outdoorsy, nature blogging, have stumbled across Nature Blog Network. If you haven't, it's definitely worth checking out. Nature Blog Network is a list of over 950 blogs that you can peruse for free. They rank them according to a metric like pageviews, so you can see which ones everyone else likes, too. Blog topics range from birds, bugs, plants, herps, hiking, oceans, to ecosystems, and every other natural topic.

Every month, they also feature one of the nature blogs on their site, as a way for people to get to know the various nature bloggers. It's a neat feature that gives you some insight into bloggers you know and more about those you don't. You might want to check out the interview with this month's featured blogger - me. I'm honored to be picked!

Weekly Dose of Cute: Capybara

Last week, we saw the bravest rodent in the world. But these ones are the largest, and they are adorable!
Photo by NIGEL TREBLIN/AFP/Getty Images
Meet the Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). When I say big, I mean huge. Capybaras can get over 4 ft long and weigh in at 140 lbs! And they live in large, social groups led by a dominant male, similar to many ranging grazing mammals. They're semi-aquatic herbivorous mammals found throughout South America wherever there is water and forest. They can stay underwater for up to 5 minutes and are fantastic swimmers. They've even been known to sleep underwater, keeping their noses just above the water!

Despite being considered a "favorite food" of the big cats and reptiles that live in South America and being hunted by humans for their meat and fur, Capybara populations are stable. In some areas they are even farmed to protect wild populations. Random tid bit: to the Catholic church, they are designated as "fish" so they can be eaten during lent. Who knew? Even still, they are doing well, and their survival is due to their most rodent-like trait: they breed like rabbits! And they produce up to eight of these adorable pups in ever litter.

The Ig Nobels are out! And the winners are....

If you haven't heard, the 2009 Ig Nobels have been given. The Ig Nobels are one of my favorite yearly treats. They are given to research that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."

The prizes "celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."

And the winners are...

Veterinary medicine: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, UK, for showing that cows with names give more milk than cows that are nameless. Hear that, Bessie?
Reference:Bertenshaw, C., & Rowlinson, P. (2009). Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human–Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 22 (1), 59-69 DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473

Biology: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
Reference: Taguchi, F. (2001). Microbial treatment of kitchen refuse with enzyme-producing thermophilic bacteria from Giant Panda feces. Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, 92 (6) DOI: 10.1016/S1389-1723(01)80326-1

Medicine: Donald L Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, US, for investigating if knuckle-cracking causes arthritis of the fingers by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand every day for more than 60 years. Now that is dedication to a study! It doesn't, by the way.
Reference: Donald L. Unger (1998). Does knuckle cracking lead to arthritis of the fingers? Arthritis & Rheumatism Arthritis & Rheumatism, 41 (5), 949-950

Economics: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks have received the Ig Nobel in Economics for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa - and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

Physics: Katherine K Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, Daniel E Lieberman of Harvard University and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas were given the Ig Nobel in Physics for analytically determining why pregnant women do not tip over... most of the time.
Reference:Whitcome, K., Shapiro, L., & Lieberman, D. (2007). Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins Nature, 450 (7172), 1075-1078 DOI: 10.1038/nature06342

Chemistry: Javier Morales and his associates from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico have received the Ig Nobel in Chemistry for creating diamond film from tequila. One diamond film, two diamond films, three diamond films... FLOOR!
Reference: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, & Victor M. Castaño (2008). Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila - arXiv: 0806.1485v1

Literature: The Ig Nobel in Literature goes to Ireland's police service for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country - Prawo Jazdy - whose name in Polish means "Driving Licence".

Public Health: Elena N Bodnar and her team from Chicago have won the Ig Nobel in Public Health for inventing a bra that can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks - one for the wearer and one to be given to a needy bystander. Take that, bioterrorists!
Reference: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”

Mathematics: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, has received the Ig Nobel prize in Math for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers by having his bank print notes with denominations ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion dollars. Now you'll never need change!
Reference: Zimbabwe's Casino Economy — Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, Gideon Gono, ZPH Publishers, Harare, 2008, ISBN 978-079-743-679-4.

And, last but not least:

Peace: The Ig Nobel Peace Prize goes to Stephan Bolliger and his team from the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle. In case you were wondering, both can fracture your skull.
Reference: Bolliger, S., Ross, S., Oesterhelweg, L., Thali, M., & Kneubuehl, B. (2009). Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull? Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 16 (3), 138-142 DOI: 10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013

I can't wait to see who will walk away with the prizes next year. Perhaps these guys have a shot at the Physics prize:
Kent, R., Forman, J., & Bostrom, O. (2009). Is There Really a “Cushion Effect”?: A Biomechanical Investigation of Crash Injury Mechanisms in the Obese Obesity DOI: 10.1038/oby.2009.315

Ooo! A shiny award! FOR ME!

We all love it when our work is appreciated, and as a grad student, that doesn't happen nearly enough. On the plus side, the wonderful bloggers at Mauka to Makai have noticed my little blog and have given me a Kreativ Blogging Award!

They put me in the ranks of Deep Sea News, Malaria, Bedbugs Sea Lice and Sunsets, and Living the Scientific Life - which, while I hardly deserve, certainly boosts my ego for the day. So, THANKS!

Be sure to check out all of the blogs they awarded!

When Good Genes Go Bad

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center is holding a contest - $750 towards attending SciOnline 2010 for two bloggers who write exceptional evolutionary blog posts in 2009. Living in Hawaii, it's tough to afford the round trip to North Carolina all by me onesies, so here's my attempt at getting the funds!

UPDATE: I WON! Thanks, NESCent!! See you all at SciOnline 2010!

When Good Genes Go Bad

We tend to think of evolution as a directional process, whether its from simplicity to complexity or 'less fit' to 'more fit.' Even the classic images of evolution, like the evolution of man, reveal our inherent bias. But that is not always the case; species all over exhibit a variety of traits which damage their reproductive fitness despite the best-laid plans of genes and evolution.

You see, times are always changing, and what might be good for you one day could be disastrous the next (just imagine if the flock of seagulls haircut was genetic, and you can see what I mean). The big problem is that even if a trait was once adaptive or even just neutral, it can later become maladaptive as pressures shift. And that, unfortunately, is what has happened to the Hawaii Akepa.

Akepa (Loxops coccineus) are one of native species of Hawaiian honeycreeper that lives in the upper elevations of Hawaii's forests. They're stunning birds, with the males turning bright red when they reach adulthood and females remaining a pretty green. For centuries, they've used their specialized, crossed bills to eat caterpillars and other bugs and drink nectar from the native Koa and Ohi'a trees.

Like other native species, they took a hit when people arrived. Habitats were leveled for farming, invasive plants overtook native trees creating less food and habitat, and invasive birds began to take what little was left. However, they dodged a bullet that is devastating some of their closest kin by living too high up for the introduced mosquitoes and avian malaria to attack their blood. Sure, the loss of their habitat due to farming was tough, but we've started fixing that, so they're primed to re-expand back into their native range.

That is, they would be primed to, but they aren't. Scientists were confused. Despite the relatively long breeding season they have in which to produce young, which lasts from early spring until winter, the akepa just don't have the reproductive rate they need to bounce back. So scientists looked to see if the females were producing young - and they were. The females are pumping out baby birds like it's their job, so the issue isn't that they don't have enough young akepa. Despite the female's efforts, the akepa population's growth rate is still dangerously low. Scientists wanted to know why. What's going wrong?

Well, it all starts with these invasive Japanese White-Eyes I've mentioned before. They're up in the akepa's forests, eating their food, and putting stress on breeding mothers. The competition doesn't help, and its lowering the overall fitness of the breeding birds, hampering their survival rates. But the white-eyes aren't entirely to blame: they breed later in the year, so the competition is only really bad during the later half of the breeding season, which still leaves an entire early breeding season to make babies - and the akepa do. There are plenty of baby Akepa in the earlier part of the year which survive into adulthood, but the population numbers still aren't growing. It's not just competition with the invasive species - something else, scientists realized, is going wrong.

Blame evolution. You see, the akepa have evolved a trait which is dooming their population.

Once upon a time, before the white-eyes moved in, the akepa populations were booming. There were a lot of males fighting for a good number of females, and it worked out that the bigger, healthier males managed to get laid far more often than smaller ones. It also worked out that those mothers who nested earlier got more food and had bigger, healthier babies. Somehow, a genetic switch was turned on, and the akepa started biasing their young's sex, in a process called Sex Allocation.

It's a phenomenon you've probably heard about in context with deer. Female deer, when healthy and well fed, are more likely to have males. The theory goes that because in deer society only the best males reproduce, to produce a weak male is a waste of reproductive effort. Girls, on the other hand, are always welcome in a top male's harem, so small, weaker girls still can still pass on genes.

Something similar occurs in akepa. The females who produced males earlier in the breeding season were rewarded with strong, dominant boys that had lots of kids because, in general, males are able to have more offspring than females (the whole sperm versus egg thing). Somehow, through the magic of natural selection and genetics, it became the rule. Breed early, have a boy, breed later, have a girl.

It's a battle over resources, and the white-eyes are winning. Photos c/o AAAS

Then the white-eyes made the Hawaiian forests their home. They breed later in the year, and consequently, compete far more voraciously for food and nesting sites with the akepa during the later half of the breeding season. During that time, akepa that breed have trouble getting a good nest site and enough food to feed their young, meaning that few of the later-breeding akepa chicks survive. Since competition is lower in the early season, the chicks born then do just fine. The problem is, they're almost all males.

From 1987, when white-eyes were few and far between, to 2005, after a major explosion in the white-eye populations, the sex ratio of male to female akepa shifted from close to 50-50 males-females (57% female) to only 13% female. In the early years, from 1987-1999, 32 female chicks and 24 male chicks survived to adulthood. From 2000-2006, 27 male chicks made it, but only four female chicks did. FOUR females.

What was once an adaptive strategy - producing mostly males earlier in the breeding season - has become dangerously maladaptive. And, unfortunately, there's no evidence to suggest that evolution is coming to their rescue and dismantling the seasonal variation in sex allocation. The now-endangered species appears to have little hope unless serious management practices dramatically increase the survival rates of akepa chicks in the later months of their breeding season. In the akepa, good genes have gone bad, and the species is likely to go extinct from it.

Leonard A. Freed, Rebecca L. Cann, & Karl Diller (2009). Sexual dimorphism and the evolution of seasonal variation in sex allocation in the Hawaii akepa Evolutionary Ecology Research, 11, 731-757