Plants and Animals

For the first time in the United Kingdom, a rare Amazon cactus, the Selenicereus wittii, is about to bloom in the Cambridge University Botanical Garden (CUBG). The rather unconventional flowering experience of the awning cactus is currently streaming on a webcam, and when it blooms – as expected sometime this weekend – it will show a rare glimpse into the 12-hour blooming period, which usually begins at sunset and is followed by all sunrises.

“I am eager to see and share this very unusual flower. It is very rare to find this tree in our collection and we believe it is the first time that a moonflower has blossomed in the UK,” Alex Summer, Glasshouse Supervisor at CUBJ, said in a press release. The moonflower is native to the Amazon rainforest, where it is usually found wrapped around tree trunks. The current specimen acquired from the Botanical Gardens in Germany in 2015 and now kept in botanical gardens inside a glasshouse for proper condition.

CUBG’s Twitter canopy provides updates on the current progress of the cactus flower, which stands below: The current length of the tree is 19 centimeters (7.5 inches). They hope the tree will start to bloom once it reaches 20 centimeters (7.9 inches). Even for Valentine’s Day, it can be a special surprise, which is this weekend. After the cactus blooms, it will open a white flower that reaches about 27 centimeters (10.5 inches) in length, lasting only 12 hours. As it blooms in the sunset to attract two special pollinators during sunset, it emits a very sweet-smelling scent, attracting two species of hawkmoth with extremely long proboscis (tongue).

The cool thing is you can see this moment as it happened – this is probably if you are going around – probably between sunset and sunrise UK time (GMT / UTC) on Sunday, February 14. There are plenty of ways to check if the flowering process has started. “The team has created a webcam in the hope that they can live stream the flow of flowers to share with other enthusiasts,” CUBG said in its press release.

So, if you are annoyed by the lockdown (who he is), do not feel anything new in a few months and really want to see a rare moonflower bloom for just 12 hours. Tune in to the live stream below, and check out CUBG’s social channels for regular updates on when the blooms may begin so you can have popcorn ready, or shall we say wine?

If this is not enough to observe such a rare moment on earth, check out the first flower that bloomed in space here.

Pigs have an “extraordinary” ability to learn how to play video games – an ability to avoid. Pigs are unlikely to carry any e-sports trophies soon, but their ability to learn this skill has demonstrated their surprisingly high level of intelligence and cognitive flexibility. Their exploits were the subject of a recent study in the journal Psychology Frontiers. The study found that two Yorkshire pigs, Hamlet and Omelet, and two Panepinto micro-pigs, Abney and Ivory, being taught how to play a simple video game. 

The pigs trained to move a joystick with their snouts in front of a computer screen. If they successfully move the pointer toward one of the points using the joystick, they rewarded with a snack. Even after the pigs stopped receiving rewards, they were able to complete tasks using only verbal and tactile signals.

Researchers, who have previously explored the depths of chimpanzee knowledge, described the ability to choose this skill as “significant.” “It’s not a small genetic phenomenon for animals to realize that their behavior is affecting something else. That these pigs can do to any degree. What else are we capable of learning and how should we pause to learn this kind of thing?” Could have impact, “said Dr. Candace Crony, lead study author and professor at Purdue University and director of the Purdue Center for Animal Welfare Science, in a statement.

Plenty of research has proven that pigs are among the most intelligent animals in the animal kingdom. Scientists have even observed locally critically endangered species Visayan warty pigs on only two islands in the Philippines using capturing equipment. Although the pings in this study did not meet the level of mastery expected by chimps or any other inhuman primate, the researchers believe that this could explained by the nature of this experiment designed for experimental and perspective mammals.

The study also raises some racial questions about treating pigs as farm animals. If this study proves that pigs are deeply intelligent animals with some cognitive skills that are comparable to chimpanzees, should we change the way we treat them in agriculture.

“This type of study is important because, like any sensitive animal, how we interact with pigs and the impact of what we do on them is important to them,” Crony said. “Informing management practices and improving the well-being of pigs was a major goal, but really, the uniqueness of pig dryness is a secondary issue that we appreciate beyond any benefit we can get from them,” Crony commented.

A report from an Australian tree that packed spider-like venom last year turned out to be a completely memorable one that you are not always safe in a tree. From the Venus flytraps to the melodramatic body flower, the world of botany is full of murky but interesting characters. Unfortunately, about a quarter of muscles thought to be at risk of extinction due to their highly specific niche.

Probably the most impressive of these indifferent trees are the pitcher plant, Nepenthes and Sarracenia whose slippery rims make it easy for curious animals to read in their jug-shaped bells. Inside, they immersed in a pool of liquid that may look majestic, but you do not want to spend too much time here. Tissue-dissolved, enzyme-rich baths arranged for fall victims who cannot get out, and they are broken down into easily digestible pulp for plant feeding.

Like many carnivorous plants, pots developed to accept this type of extensive prey in response to their nutrient-poor environment. Other plants have nutrients in the surrounding soil but more dry and forgiving water plants need to be innovative. Fortunately, liquefying, vertebrate or electronic synthesis can made effective for people who lack vital elements. With their alluring nectar and slippery nets, the prey is just a false move to get from the one-way train to the town of Smoothie.

The various menus of the pitcher caught the eye of Amanda Semenuk, a wildlife photographer and winner of the Science Unveiling Photo Contest from Golf University in Canada, whose Twitter bio described her as “curious about what #carnivorousplants have been eating lately.” We caught up with him to learn more about these nasty plants.

What first drew you to photographing pitcher plants?

I made my first trip to the Algonquin Wildlife Research Station in 2018 for a field ecology course and immediately drawn to the local ecology – many of the park’s plants and animals are not found back in the golf course. Led by Dr. Alex Smith, now an advisor to my MSc, he has shared his enthusiasm for the carnivorous plant of Algonquin, mainly Sunday and of course the North Picture plant. We took samples from these trees as a class to see which plants take the most pests. I fascinated by their extensive adaptations to capture prey, as well as their ability to live in fascinated, nutrient-poor areas. Every summer since then, my camera roll has filled with these brilliant carnivorous plants.

What have been the strangest things you have seen pitchers feeding on?

Like opening a kind of goodie bag to look for in the pitcher trees, you never know what you are going to look for inside. Of course, the most striking creature we have ever found is the juvenile spotted salamander that we now know captured by dozens every summer. In addition to these, I have seen dragonflies, bees and lots of insects and ants that prey on plants.

What does the inside of a pitcher plant look like?

It is easy to see the prey floating on top of the kale liquid, but when you look deeper into the kale plant, you are amazed at the types and amounts of the type of rotten prey you can find. Pitcher plants are rather unique because it actually relies on tiny germs in pitcher liquids to help plants “digest” their food. Using Turkey Beast, I have now researched the content of several hundred pages. I find mostly small wings and parts of the exoskeleton of insects, both of which are hard for plants to digest. Late-rotten salamanders smell horrible and rot in a few days and a few weeks. You have to admit, “Life is like a search for a callus tree, you never know what you want to do, you will find the next one,” adding a certain je ne sais quoi to that Forrest Gump scene.

The dog’s nose is incredible. From bombs and illicit substances to cancer and other deadly diseases, there is evidence that dogs can sniff out more than just treated under the table, and how they can used in sedation therapy can have a huge impact on health. Now, dogs can also help fight COVID-19 with their relentless efforts to be everyone’s best friend.

According to a new review paper, multiple studies have suggested that dogs may better test for the Cavid-19 than the current PCR test. Fragrance detection dogs can easily placed in a hospital for rapid testing with minimal effort, accelerating the global tracking rate of COVID-19 across ongoing epidemics. The review published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

“Dogs ‘show’ the world with their noses rather than their eyes. Dogs are able to perceive a wide range of particles of extremely small density – a fraction of a quadrillion for humans, partly because of the shape of the head (e.g., with the exception of a few breeds, dogs have more noses)), says author Professor Tommy Dickey.

The current diagnostic test involves aggressive nasal swabs – or in some countries even anal swabs – that will then sent for PCR testing. It takes established labs for testing and an efficient logistics system for processing many samples at once, so a more efficient system would welcomed by many.

Extensive in four peer-reviewed articles, the review summarizes all studies available for the legitimacy of sniffing dogs against COVID-19. Dogs have an incredibly strong sense of smell, so respectable that it can detect transient organic compounds (VOCs) in a fraction of the density of humans. Not knowing exactly how dogs smell, their noses are able to detect cancer and other diseases with high accuracy due to compounds secreted in bodily fluids or the blood of infected patients.

The first study, conducted by Grandjean et al, included eight trained sniffer dogs related to cancer and explosives 198 samples from the armpits of hospital patients used mixed with control samples. Interestingly, the success rate of the dogs was between 83-100%, and some even identified samples that the researchers considered negative but later hospitalized.

The rest of the studies varied in methods, but two of them provided 94% and> 95.5percentage sensitivity, and the latter is ongoing.

More detailed testing needed for sniffer dogs, the results vary among dogs, but COVID-19 provides a promising avenue for diagnostics. Studies have continued to analyze their effectiveness, and while large studies are ongoing, it may be that in the near future dogs in busy areas have deployed for large-scale testing.

Ancient DNA has recovered from a 1.2 million-year-old mammoth – the oldest DNA recovered by the longest route. Not only is this incredible feat pushing the limits of what is scientifically capable, but the project has also revealed a new generation in the extended family. The international study, led by the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, published today in the journal Nature.

Genetic material taken from the teeth of three mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost in the 19 1970s. Two of these specimens are more than 1 million years old and predict the existence of woolly mammoths, while the third represents about 700,000 years old and one of the oldest woolly mammoths.

“This is the oldest DNA recovery so far,” said Professor Love Dalén, author of the study at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, at a news conference on Tuesday. The second of the specimens is an ancient steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii), a direct ancestor of the wool mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), but the oldest specimen belongs to an unknown genetic lineage before the mammoth, now known as the Krestovka mammoth. It now looks like a Colombian mammoth ((Mammuthus columbi) that lived in North America in the last American era. Researchers have estimated that the oldest mammoth is 1.2 million years old as it must have been 1.34 million years old.

No matter what you guess, it is significantly older than the previous record holder of old sequenced DNA, found from a horse preserved per 780,000-560,000 years ago in the Canadian Permafrost. “A good analogy is thinking about a puzzle. We have many, many small puzzle pieces and we are trying to reconstruct the puzzle. The smaller the piece you have, the harder it is to reconstruct the whole puzzle, “explained Dr. Tom van der Valk, lead study author at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm.

To make matters worse, many of the puzzles they come across are not even mammoths but it related to bacteria or fungi that have contaminated the specimens. Fortunately, they have a few puzzles that help them put the puzzle together. Looking at the front cover of the puzzle box for clues, the researchers found a remarkably high genome of woolly mammoths and current elephant relatives.

Now that the study has shown what is achievable, the team believes that it is theoretically possible to recover DNA older than mammoths. Can Yet, a treasure trove of natural history can be found from this vast period, not just a few chapters defined in our own human story. “It is possible that, in the future, there will be methods to recover DNA from 1 million-year-old human non-permafrost samples,” said Professor Dalén.

“Another option is to look for Homo erectus in permafrost. No such find has found to date, but it would be quite possible for anyone to find human remains in permafrost in this age. It easier said than done, because we got DNA from mammoths.”

Everyone likes bees. They are beautiful, smart, well dressed and do an important job. Well, according to a new study on the mathematical skills of bees, three out of four are not bad. There has been a lot of research on whether bees have tiny mathematical talents and there is a lot of evidence for that; Honeybees considered to the first insects to understand the concept of zero, and they can make complex additions and subtractions.

Not so, according to a new study published by B in the Proceedings of the Royal Society that B bees cheated when they told us they were good at math. Instead of working with numbers to solve a problem, they took a shortcut and used visual clues instead – which means they may not be book smart but they are street smart played well, bee.

A team of international researchers worked on the mathematical problems of honeybees that commonly used to test the numerical abilities of animals. The work of the bees is largely solved, but without the need for numbers. Instead, it appears to estimate the approximate amount they use using simple visual signals. However, it really shows how good animals are to find the best solution to the problem and how different that solution can be from us, the researchers said.

So how do you test a bee’s crazy math skills?

The beekeepers trained to identify placards of various sizes. For some bees, the sugar-water prize placed on the largest sized placard, for others it placed on the smaller sized placard. Once they found out, the bees were able to find very few or the largest number of placards to find their sweet prize. 

To determine if bees use non-numeric clues – bypassing the complex cognitive task of using numbers using visual cues – they repeated the experiment. However, this time instead of a larger number of sizes, they used the same number of sizes but differed in two sets, in visual aspects such as edge length and spatial frequency. None of the placards in these experiments had sweet treats, only untreated water. If the bees used numbers, they should have flown equally on each placard in search of a reward. Instead, bees flew placards with the maximum number of variables (attractive marginal sizes) trained to look for sugar on the maximum number of placards, and vice versa. This indicates that they used visual cues of shapes in the first task, not their number.

“The results of our study show that animals can solve tasks in incredibly clever and effective and unexpected ways,” said lead author Dr HaDi MaBouDi from the University of Sheffield. “This does not mean that bees or other non-verbal animals do not understand numbers,” he noted, “but it does suggest that animals often use non-numerical features to solve mathematical problems if such information is available.”

Still do not miss our future bee overlords. Researchers say that bee brain numbers have been able to differentiate numerical values ​​using visual cues instead of unnecessarily complex cognitive processing. This simple way of solving problems can used to develop smart AI that can perform tasks much more efficiently than humans can.

It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. Alternatively, perhaps more mathematical lessons bees want to avoid. Instead of being lazy and taking, a shortcut they avoided overtaking and outsmarted us above all.

Some remarkable drone footage released from Florida as the Riviera gathered in the water of the beach to see about 170 Manatees. As if this rare sight was not spectacular enough, they also spotted a small pod of dolphins so that as soon as they got on the show they shook among the manatees quite the footage is unusual because manatees rarely seen, especially not in the presence of dolphins because.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that there are about 7500 manatees left in the wild. They have teamed up several times for a swinger’s team for the seawater equivalent, combining “mating balls” that have created some reach by manatees combining perennial fighter boats seen blocking traffic. Interactions between manatees not heard, but their small population can explain the rarity of these manatee festivals that very few animals were present in the wild (although the somersaulting Dolphin would make a great headline).

In an interview with the Guardian, Mike Heithaus, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University of Arts, Sciences and Education, said: . “The more unique part is that a lot of manatees can be seen from the drones and it’s always great to see dolphins swimming through them.” 

Basing Manatis and their acrobatic companions caught on camera by outdoor adventure agency Sue through Canoe. Rare in the current era, where manatees threatened by shipwrecks and diseases, conservation efforts could be a glimpse of what would happen if environmentally responsible practices were able to increase the number of manatees in wild areas.

“If we had succeeded in rebuilding the manatee population where we live, we would have seen it more often,” Heithaus said. “A glimpse of what we can do with the oceans if we work really hard to restore what they used to do to the oceans. The threat is still there, and the population is where it never was before.”

A disappointing news story earlier this year details the possible fines for the person responsible for the “Trump” etching behind the endangered Florida manatee. As both endangered and slow-moving (easily accessible) animals, Florida manatees are receiving special protection due to their vulnerability. These majestic giants protected under the 1973 U.S. Marine Mammals Protection Act, 1978 U.S. Endangered Species Act, and 1978 Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act, and interference with them will result in heavy fines of up to $100,000.

DNA not always passed on from one parent to another through reproduction. In some cases, genetic material can pass from one organism to another through a process called horizontal genome transfer. For example, if you transplant two separate plants together, it is possible for DNA to be mix and exchanged for this individual survival.

Although this process has slowly understood for centuries, scientists have not always been sure how the whole genome travels from another cell. In a recent study published in the journal Science Advances last month, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam say they have found a way for plants to mutate their entire genomes by transmitting horizontal genes.

Unusually, the process involves changes in the cell wall, after which the genetic transfer occurs by the cells transporting the whole organelles to neighboring cells. The organelles in question are plastids, a group of tiny organelles that contain chloroplasts, the “engine” of plant cells responsible for photosynthesis. Like mitochondria found in eukaryotic cells, chloroplasts also contain genetic material.

For this new study, the researchers used live-imaging of cells to show how a gene for antibiotic resistance could pass through cell-to-cell travel in the smallest distinct form of plastid between two grafted tobacco plants. Dr Alexander Hertle said in a statement, “We have been able to observe that the genome migration from cell to cell with high frequency occurs on both sides at this site.”

“The cell walls form a protrusion by forming a junction between two partners. The size of the pores created by them allows the entire plastid to move. Therefore, the genome does not move freely, but from cell to cell,” Dr. Hertle said. The choice of gene for antibiotic resistance was no coincidence; Horizontal gene transfer thought to be one of the main drivers of antibiotic resistance.

However, this process of horizontal gene transfer does not occur only in plant-and-plant or bacteria-or-bacteria. Scientists have documented a whole range where the peer-to-peer gene switches between different branches of life. A 2015 study found that the genomes of dozens of animals (including primates, worms and insects) all taken from bacteria and fungi by horizontal gene transfer. Even today, surprisingly, scientists have previously estimated that more than 100 of our genes were “stolen” from other organisms, such as bacteria or viruses, by transmitting horizontal genes.

Although there are plenty of bizarre examples of this process, it is uncertain how cell-to-cell travel of whole organelles (a process is seen in new research) occurs in life forms other than grafted tobacco plants. Nevertheless, the study sheds some light on a process that had a profound effect on the story of life on Earth.

Frogs are famous hoops (for the displeasure of this frog-phobic baby) but new evidence has shown that both hot and dry weather can have the potential for shocking effects on both sides. Published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B Journal, new research has found that some frogs and toads can waste water as they paint a worrying picture for their future on the ever-warming planet.

The study focuses on three species; Coastal Tailed Frog (Ascaphus truei), spadefootTodd (Spea intermontana) and Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla). The three amphibians are unique in their habitats, a. supporting the true cool flow and S. intermontana right in the middle of the desert and p. regilla is something of a wanderer.

Across the board, all three leppers were initially able to maintain their mobility but greatly reduced when they lose about 20 percent of their body weight from the disease. At this point, all three species began expect shorter distances than appropriate wetting. The important thing about not being able fully anticipates was the 30 percent loss for the 2 frogs and the 45 percent loss of desert snow. When dehydrated frogs and toads kept in a warm environment, the negative effect of jumping distance was further evident as the control conditions ranged from 15 to 30 degrees Celsius (59 to 86 Fahrenheit).

It thought that the exchange of ions in cells caused by climate could disrupt the process behind the environment-induced hooping inhibition, which could also affect the transport of nutrients and the removal of waste products in tissues. It can also be that as the blood thickens from dehydration it puts pressure on the heart and makes physical activity seem more tiring.

A hot, limp frog itself is a sad enough figure, though these discoveries carry great weight in the face of the planet Earth’s climate crisis. Not only frogs and toads, but for other “cool blood” animals who depend on stable environmental conditions to maintain a suitable physical condition known as homeostasis. Other animals whose mobility may be similarly impaired in dehydrating situations include insects and reptiles, which are able to move efficiently even when not hunting – to hunt or avoid predatory predictions. Some animals are able to change their behavior to wait the worst in environmentally adverse conditions, but such behavior is rarely conducive to a normal life and can sustain some climate change rates.

“As the temperature rises, the tree frogs, in particular, lower the prey in such a way that it reduces water loss, as if they thought, ‘this will not be good for me,'” Dan Greenberg, a study author at Simon Fraser University in Canada, told The New Scientist. “When we look at water loss and bring it in line with temperature, the way we think about how climate change is going to restructure the earth’s ecosystem in the next century really changes.”

Strange life forms have found locked under an ice shelf about 260 kilometers (161 miles) from the open sea beneath Antarctica. The animals discovered by the British Antarctic Survey in an attempt to collect the original specimen of a poly from the bottom of the ice shelf of the Filchner-Ron ice shelf. While tunneling about 900 meters (2952 feet) into the ice shelf, their drill suddenly hit a boulder. Even more unexpectedly, a camera attached to the drill revealed that a community of animals had latched on top of the rock (pictured below).

The community of marine organisms is stable, such as sponges, but probably includes many different species. As researchers have noticed in their new study published in the Frontiers Journal of Marine Science, the discovery has broken many of the rules of what we know about life on Earth. Previous expeditions have found some small mobile scavengers and predators such as fish, worms and krill in such Antarctic habitats. However, this new discovery is particularly surprising because animals are seamless, which means they are stationary and not mobile. Such stationary animals are usually filter feeders that rely on food in the past flowing above.

Furthermore, they live under complete darkness, with temperatures of –2.2 °C, far away from open water and sunlight. This new study estimates that this community flows 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from the nearest source of photosynthesis and raises questions about how they receive energy and nutrients.

“Our discovery raises many more questions than it answers, such as how did they get there? What do they eat? How long have they been there? How common are these rocks in life? Can we see the same species on the outside Species? In addition, what will happen to this community if the ice shelf collapses? “Asked Dr Huw Griffiths, a biologist and author the British Antarctic Survey.

“This discovery is one of the lucky accidents that pushed ideas and showed us that Antarctic marine life has adapted to an incredibly special and amazingly frozen world,” adds Dr. Griffiths. It is possible that organisms gain their energy in other ways, such as by melting glaciers or by chemotrophic processes from methane sips. For this, the team has to collect samples of these creatures, which is no small feat considering their desperate remote location.

The discovery of ice shelves totally across about one-third of Antarctica’s 5 million square kilometers of continental shelf may indicate that life under ice shelves is more common than ever before, as other recent studies have indicated. In 2019, scientists discovered a colony of bacteria and more complex in life Lake Mercer, a glacier lake found under the West Antarctic ice sheet.