Bizarre ‘Headless Chicken Monster’ Drifts Through Antarctic Deep

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By Mindy Weisberger October 22, 2018

A swimming pink sea cucumber gets its unusual nickname from its resemblance to a plucked, decapitated chicken.(Image: © Australian Antarctic Program)

Meet the real-life “chicken of the sea”: a strange, pinkish-red creature with a body like a plump-breasted and decapitated chicken, earning the creature the name “headless chicken monster.”

In truth, it is neither a chicken nor a monster. It’s the swimming sea cucumber Enypniastes eximia, and scientists recently captured video of this bizarre, hen-mimicking swimmer in the Southern Ocean near eastern Antarctica, where it has never been seen before.

Footage shows the colorful sea cucumber drifting through the water; fins at the top and bottom of its tubby, translucent body almost resemble the stubby wings and legs on plucked, pink poultry ready for the pot. If you squint, you might think you’re looking at the result of an ill-fated tryst between a chicken and Aquaman. [In Photos: Spooky Deep-Sea Creatures]

Not everyone recognizes the gelatinous sea cucumber’s similarity to a chicken, though its appearance is undeniably peculiar. Photos of the crimson creature that were shared around the Live Science newsroom prompted comparisons to “a frilly pillow case,” “a bloody flying squirrel,” “a raw steak with fins” and “what you’d get if you asked a machine learning algorithm to make you a picture of a fish.” [Editor’s note: All of these are wrong; it looks like a floating chicken head.]

The so-called headless chicken monster, previously found only in the Gulf of Mexico, was recently detected by scientists with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), part of the Australian Department of the Environment dedicated to investigating Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. The researchers used new camera technology to detect the swimming sea cucumber at a depth of about 9,800 feet (3 kilometers) below sea level, AAD representatives said in a statement.

On average, E. eximia measures between 2 and 8 inches (6 to 20 centimeters) in length; adults’ colors can range from dark reddish brown to crimson, though juveniles are typically a paler shade of pink, according to a study published in 1990 in the journal Smithsonian Contributions to the Marine Sciences.

While most types of sea cucumbers spend the majority of their time on the sea bed, swimming sea cucumbers like E. eximia land only to feed, researchers reported in the 1990 study.

Cameras designed for the AAD expedition were deployed on fishing lines, according to a YouTube video the agency shared yesterday (Oct. 21). The equipment is durable enough to be tossed over the side of a boat and can operate reliably for extended periods of time in the total darkness and crushing pressures of the deep ocean, AAD program director Dirk Welsford said in the statement.

“Some of the footage we are getting back from the cameras is breathtaking, including species we have never seen in this part of the world,” Welsford said.

In addition to offering glimpses of unusual marine life such asE. eximia, the new camera system reveals the complex interplay of life in Southern Ocean depths, Welsford said. It will help scientists to advise policy makers about conserving vulnerable ecosystems that are threatened by commercial fishing, Welsford explained.

Originally published on Live Science.

Small World: Gallery of Microscopic Beauty

Post 8924

By Stephanie Pappas 

Kangaroo Rat Kidneys

(Image credit: Dr. Lynne Chang, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA )

Keratin filaments in the cytoplasm and nucleus of rat kidney cells help the cells maintain their shape in this Nikon Small World image by Harvard’s Lynne Chang. The annual photograph competition highlights microscopic images, and winners will be announced in October. [Gallery of Last Year’s Winners]

Tiny Trap

(Image credit: Mr. Jose R. Almodovar, Microscopy Center, Biology Department, UPR Mayaguez Campus, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico )

Jose R. Almodovar of the UPR Mayaguez Campus took this photo of a bladderwort bladder for the 2011 Nikon Small World photography contest. Bladderworts are carnivorous plants that trap tiny organisms in their bladders for digestion.

Silver Wattle Anther

(Image credit: Dr. Marta Guervos, Image Processing Unit, Scientific-Technical Facilities, University of Oviedo Asturias, Spain )

Dr. Marta Guervos of the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain zoomed in on the anther of a silver wattle or mimosa tree for the 2011 Nikon Small World photography competition.

Red Velvet

(Image credit: Dr. David Maitland, http://www.davidmaitland.com, Feltwell, UK )

Dr. David Maitland of Feltwell, UK gets very close to a red velvet mite, a tiny arachnid, for his Nikon Small World entry.

Earworms

(Image credit: Dr. Witold Kilarski, EPFL-Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer, Lausanne, Switzerland )

Parasitic filaria worms (in red) inside the lymphatic cells of a mouse’s ear, taken for the 2011 Nikon Small World competition by Dr. Witold Kilarski of the EPFL-Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer in Lausanne, Switzerland. The worms are a parasitic nematode. Some species are known to infect humans.

Cow Cells

(Image credit: Dr. Torsten Wittmann, University of California, San Francisco)

The University of San Francisco’s Dr. Torsten Wittmann captured this shot of bovine pulmonary artery cells stained so that actin, mitochondria and DNA appear in yellow and blue.

For more photos, and to vote on your favorite, visit www.nikonsmallworld.com.

Saved by the Whale! Humpbacks Play Hero When Orcas Attack

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By Mindy Weisberger August 03, 2016

A humpback whale protects a Weddell seal from an attacking killer whale.(Image: © Robert L. Pitman)

The photo is extraordinary. In waters near the Antarctic peninsula, an enormous humpback whale floats on its back, cradling a Weddell seal on its chest and elevating it above the ocean surface. Only moments earlier, the seal was perilously close to becoming dinner for a group of hungry killer whales.

Biologist Robert Pitman snapped the image while on a research expedition in 2009 — but it wasn’t the first time he had observed this unusual protective behavior.

Just one week earlier, Pitman, a researcher with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in the NOAA Fisheries Service in California, saw a pair of humpbacks aggressively confronting killer whales that were circling a lone seal on an isolated ice floe. The humpbacks plowed between the killer whales and the trapped seal, vocalizing and churning the water with their flippers, and shielding the seal until the orcas gave up and swam away. [Daring Duos: Unlikely Animal Friends]

Pitman wrote about both encounters in an article published in the November 2009 issue of the magazine Natural History, but that was only the beginning of a much longer and more in-depth investigation. In a new study, Pitman explores dozens of examples presenting humpback whales as unlikely marine vigilantes, ganging up on predatory killer whales that try to attack other species.

His research analyzed 115 interactions that took place between humpbacks and killer whales, observed by more than 54 individuals — scientists and non-scientists — in ocean locations around the world and spanning 62 years, from 1951 through 2012.

The study found that large and powerful humpback whales, the only whales known to attack orcas, will band together and sometimes travel great distances to interrupt and terminate a killer whale attack, regardless of what type of animal the orca is attacking.

Humpbacks to the rescue

Adult humpbacks usually don’t have much to fear from killer whales. Observers’ accounts suggested that when killer whales approached humpbacks, they were targeting the more vulnerable calves or juveniles as prey, the study authors wrote.

But humpbacks frequently turned the tables on their would-be attackers. Observers also described numerous reports of humpbacks — alone and in groups — making the first move, approaching killer whales that were already pursuing other prey. Sometimes the orcas’ victims were humpback mothers with young calves. But belligerent humpbacks also appeared when orcas pursued other whale species, or even seals and sea lions. The humpbacks would slap their tail flukes and flippers in the water, and make loud “bellowing” sounds to drive the orcas away.

Humpbacks’ whale-deterring moves typically lasted for at least one hour and could extend for as long as seven hours, the authors wrote. And according to observers, the whales’ intervention often allowed the orcas’ prey to escape.

One account in the study described a killer whale attacking a gray whale mother and calf, when “out of nowhere, a humpback whale came trumpeting in.” Four more humpbacks shortly followed, which the observer found odd because no humpbacks had been sighted in the area before then. Their timely arrival allowed both calf and mother to flee to safety, the researchers said. [Real-Life ‘Zootopia’: Mongooses and Warthogs Are Unlikely Pals]

Heeding distress calls

The sounds made by attacking orcas may be what draw humpbacks to the scene — even when they’re nearly a mile away, the authors suggested. Killer whales are silent and stealthy when stalking their prey, but become highly vocal once they attack. Humpbacks could recognize this sound from orca attacks on their own young, and respond even when they don’t know what species the killer whale is targeting.

But why would humpbacks put themselves at risk to protect animals that aren’t even their close relatives? They aren’t known to mingle with seals and other whales under normal circumstances, Pitman told Live Science in an email.

“Sometimes different species will collect in an area of abundant prey,” he said. “But usually there are no direct interactions.”

The protection the humpbacks’ behavior offers to other species is probably very welcome — but is likely unintended, the study authors said.

“A simple behavioral rule like ‘interfere with attacking killer whales’ may prevent a related calf from being killed,” Pitman explained, “and it may also help out other species at times.”

Since the risk to a healthy adult humpback from a killer whale is low, the benefit of possibly saving a humpback calf could outweigh the high-energy cost of putting themselves in harm’s way — even if the animal they’re saving isn’t always a humpback, Pitman said. [Whale Album: Giants of the Deep]

Friends and allies?

There is indeed a great deal yet to be learned about the motivations of these hero humpbacks, but is the idea of animal altruism really so unusual? Animals of the same species that live in groups are known to band together to drive off a threat, to collaborate in complex construction projects, to hunt for food or to attack rivals.

And even different species that would typically never interact can form close bonds when introduced at a young age — such as a leopard and golden retriever that were raised together in South Africa.

But do animals in the wild experience compassion or concern for other species that go beyond the need to protect themselves and their young? Animals can’t tell scientists about their intentions. And while it may be tempting to interpret their behavior through a human lens, there is still much that eludes easy explanation, according to the researchers.

“I think we need to consider the possibility that altruism can be unintentional and arise out of self-interest, as we suggest for the humpbacks,” Pitman said.

He said that current understanding of whale behavior is also hampered simply because whales are scarce. Whaling throughout the 20th century drastically reduced their numbers, and many populations that were nearly eliminated are only recently beginning to rebound.Advertisement

“As their populations continue to recover, and we learn more about how they interact with each other and their environment, we could be in for some surprises,” he added.

The findings were published online July 20 in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

Original article on Live Science.

In Photos: The Wonders of the Deep Sea

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By Live Science Staff

Brittle star

(Image credit: Ben Thuy)

Ancient fossils now reveal that the deep sea may be the origin of many lineages of sea creatures found closer to the surface, such as a number of sea stars, sea urchins and snails, researchers say.

Shown here, A close-up look of a deep-sea brittle star. [Read full story]

Brittle star

(Image credit: Ben Thuy)

Recent brittle star (Hemieuryale pustulata) from the deep sea, sitting on a hydrozoan colony. This type of brittle star still lives in present-day deep-sea habitats.

Deep-sea habitats

(Image credit: Ben Thuy)

Recent brittle star (Ophiochondrus stelliger) from the deep sea. Close relatives of this brittle star, which still lives in present-day deep-sea habitats, were found in the deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg.

Fossil sea urchin

(Image credit: Andreas Kroh)

With the help of amateur paleontologist Gero Moosleitner, Ben Thuy, an invertebrate paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History of Luxembourg, and other scientists have discovered fossils of 180-million-year-old deep-sea animals in the Austrian Alps. These now shed light on the surprising history of deep-sea life.

Here, a fossil sea urchin in the family Aspidodiadematidae from deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg, Austria. Close relatives of this sea urchin still live in the present-day deep sea. [Read full story]

Sea Lilies

(Image credit: Karl Stanley, Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration)

Living isocrinid sea lilies and feather stars in the deep sea. Like their relatives in the Early Jurassic, these animals play a major role in present-day deep-sea ecosystems.

Sea stars

(Image credit: Karl Stanley, Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration.)

Living sea stars in the deep sea extending their arms into the water column to catch floating prey, much like their relatives in the Lower Jurassic deep sea.

Fossil snail

(Image credit: Dave Pawson, Smithsonian Institution/Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.)

Living sea urchin (Family Aspidodiamdematidae) from the deep sea. Members of this sea urchin family were discovered in Lower Jurassic deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg, Austria, and are the oldest of their kin.

Sea lily

(Image credit: Karl Stanley, Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration.)

Living sea lily in the deep sea. Close relatives of this type of sea lily were discovered in the Early Jurassic deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg.

Extended arms

(Image credit: Karl Stanley, Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration.)

Living sea stars in the deep sea extending their arms into the water column to catch floating prey, much like their relatives in the Lower Jurassic deep sea.

Fossil snail

(Image credit: Steffen Kiel )

Fossil snail found in the Lower Jurassic deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg. Close relatives of this type of snail still live in the modern deep sea.

Deep-Sea discoveries

(Image credit: Gero Moosleitner from Salzburg)

Here, the place in the Austrian Alps where the deep-sea fossils were discovered.

“The slopes of the gorge we got fossils from were quite steep, which made work a bit difficult, but it was also quite fun,” Thuy told Live Science. “We dug up the rock, put it in a sieve, and washed [the rocks] in the brook downslope to get fossils. It was a bit like panning for gold.” [Read full story]

Scientists just sampled the most pristine air on Earth. Here’s what they found.

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By Kathryn Moore – Colorado State University, Jun Uetake – Colorado State University, Thomas Hill – Colorado State University 2 days ago

 

(Image: © Shutterstock)

The Southern Ocean is a vast band of open water that encircles the entire planet between Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere landmasses. It is the cloudiest place on Earth, and the amount of sunlight that reflects off or passes through those clouds plays a surprisingly important role in global climate. It affects weather patterns, ocean currents, Antarctic sea ice cover, sea surface temperature and even rainfall in the tropics.

But due to how remote the Southern Ocean is, there have been very few actual studies of the clouds there. Because of this lack of data, computer models that simulate present and future climates overpredict how much sunlight reaches the ocean surface compared to what satellites actually observe. The main reason for this inaccuracy is due to how the models simulate clouds, but nobody knew exactly why the clouds were off. For the models to run correctly, researchers needed to understand how the clouds were being formed.

To discover what is actually happening in clouds over the Southern Ocean, a small army of atmospheric scientists, including us, went to find out how and when clouds form in this remote part of the world. What we found was surprising — unlike the Northern Hemisphere oceans, the air we sampled over the Southern Ocean contained almost no particles from land. This means the clouds might be different from those above other oceans, and we can use this knowledge to help improve the climate models.

 

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Scientists just sampled the most pristine air on Earth. Here’s what they found.

By Kathryn Moore – Colorado State University, Jun Uetake – Colorado State University, Thomas Hill – Colorado State University 2 days ago

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(Image: © Shutterstock)

The Southern Ocean is a vast band of open water that encircles the entire planet between Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere landmasses. It is the cloudiest place on Earth, and the amount of sunlight that reflects off or passes through those clouds plays a surprisingly important role in global climate. It affects weather patterns, ocean currents, Antarctic sea ice cover, sea surface temperature and even rainfall in the tropics.

But due to how remote the Southern Ocean is, there have been very few actual studies of the clouds there. Because of this lack of data, computer models that simulate present and future climates overpredict how much sunlight reaches the ocean surface compared to what satellites actually observe. The main reason for this inaccuracy is due to how the models simulate clouds, but nobody knew exactly why the clouds were off. For the models to run correctly, researchers needed to understand how the clouds were being formed.

To discover what is actually happening in clouds over the Southern Ocean, a small army of atmospheric scientists, including us, went to find out how and when clouds form in this remote part of the world. What we found was surprising — unlike the Northern Hemisphere oceans, the air we sampled over the Southern Ocean contained almost no particles from land. This means the clouds might be different from those above other oceans, and we can use this knowledge to help improve the climate models.

PLAY SOUND

Ice clouds and liquid clouds

Clouds are made of tiny water droplets or ice crystals, or often a mixture of the two. These form on small particles in the air. The type of particle plays a big role in determining whether a liquid droplet or ice crystal forms. These particles can be natural — like sea spray, pollen, dust or even bacteria — or from human sources like cars, stoves, power plants and so on.

To the untrained eye, an ice cloud and a liquid cloud look much the same, but they have very different properties. Ice clouds reflect less sunlight, precipitate more and don’t last as long as liquid clouds. It matters to the weather — and to climate models — what kinds of clouds are around.

Climate models tend to predict too many ice clouds over the Southern Ocean and not enough liquid clouds when compared to satellite readings. But satellite measurements around the poles are hard to make and less accurate than other regions, so we wanted to collect direct evidence of how many liquid clouds are actually present and determine why there were more than the models predict.

This was the mystery: Why are there more liquid clouds than the models think there are? To solve it, we needed to know what kinds of particles are floating around in the atmosphere around Antarctica.

Before we went down there, we had a few clues.

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Comments (1)

(Image: © Shutterstock)

The Southern Ocean is a vast band of open water that encircles the entire planet between Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere landmasses. It is the cloudiest place on Earth, and the amount of sunlight that reflects off or passes through those clouds plays a surprisingly important role in global climate. It affects weather patterns, ocean currents, Antarctic sea ice cover, sea surface temperature and even rainfall in the tropics.

But due to how remote the Southern Ocean is, there have been very few actual studies of the clouds there. Because of this lack of data, computer models that simulate present and future climates overpredict how much sunlight reaches the ocean surface compared to what satellites actually observe. The main reason for this inaccuracy is due to how the models simulate clouds, but nobody knew exactly why the clouds were off. For the models to run correctly, researchers needed to understand how the clouds were being formed.

To discover what is actually happening in clouds over the Southern Ocean, a small army of atmospheric scientists, including us, went to find out how and when clouds form in this remote part of the world. What we found was surprising — unlike the Northern Hemisphere oceans, the air we sampled over the Southern Ocean contained almost no particles from land. This means the clouds might be different from those above other oceans, and we can use this knowledge to help improve the climate models.

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Ice clouds and liquid clouds

Clouds are made of tiny water droplets or ice crystals, or often a mixture of the two. These form on small particles in the air. The type of particle plays a big role in determining whether a liquid droplet or ice crystal forms. These particles can be natural — like sea spray, pollen, dust or even bacteria — or from human sources like cars, stoves, power plants and so on.

To the untrained eye, an ice cloud and a liquid cloud look much the same, but they have very different properties. Ice clouds reflect less sunlight, precipitate more and don’t last as long as liquid clouds. It matters to the weather — and to climate models — what kinds of clouds are around.

Climate models tend to predict too many ice clouds over the Southern Ocean and not enough liquid clouds when compared to satellite readings. But satellite measurements around the poles are hard to make and less accurate than other regions, so we wanted to collect direct evidence of how many liquid clouds are actually present and determine why there were more than the models predict.

This was the mystery: Why are there more liquid clouds than the models think there are? To solve it, we needed to know what kinds of particles are floating around in the atmosphere around Antarctica.

Before we went down there, we had a few clues.

Previous modeling studies have suggested that the ice–forming particles found over the Southern Ocean may be very different from those found in the Northern Hemisphere. Dust is a great ice cloud seeder, but due to the lack of dusty land sources in the Southern Hemisphere, some scientists have hypothesized that other types of particles might be driving ice cloud formation over the Southern Ocean.

Since most models are based on data from the Northern Hemisphere, if the particles in the atmosphere were somehow different in the Southern Hemisphere, that might explain the errors.

Bacterial maps

It’s hard to directly measure the composition of particles over the Southern Ocean — there simply aren’t very many particles around. So, to help us track down what is inside the clouds, we used an indirect approach: the bacteria in the air.

The atmosphere is full of microorganisms that are carried hundreds to thousands of kilometers on air currents before returning to Earth. These bacteria are like airborne license plates, they are unique and tell you where the car — or air — came from. Since scientists know where most bacteria live, it’s possible to look at the microbes in an air sample and determine where that air came from. And once you know that, you can predict where the particles in the air came from as well – the same place the bacteria usually live.

In order to sample airborne bacteria in this remote ocean region, one of us headed out on the Australian Marine National Facility’s R/V Investigator for a six-week expedition. The weather was unruly and the waves were often white-capped, but for one to two days at a time, we sucked air from the bow of the ship through a filter that caught the airborne particles and bacteria. We then froze the filters to keep the bacterial DNA intact.

Ocean bacteria alone

In most ocean regions around the world, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where there is a lot of land, the air contains both marine and terrestrial particles. That’s what we expected to find down south.

With the frozen filters safely back at our lab in Colorado, we extracted DNA from the bacteria and sequenced it to determine what species we had caught. Much to our surprise, the bacteria were essentially all marine species that live in the Southern Ocean. We found almost no land-based bacteria.

If the bacteria were from the ocean, then so were the cloud-forming particles. This was the answer we were looking for.

Ice nucleating particles are very rare in seawater and marine particles are very good at forming liquid clouds. With mostly marine-based particles in the air, we’d expect the clouds to mostly be made of liquid droplets, which is what we observed. Since most models treat clouds in this region the same way they do clouds in the dustier Northern Hemisphere, it’s no wonder the models were off.

Going forward

Now that we know the summertime Southern Ocean clouds are being formed from purely marine particles, we need to figure out if the same is true in other seasons and at higher altitudes. The larger project, which involved planes as well as ships, has given atmospheric scientists a much better idea of the clouds both close to the ocean surface and high up in the atmosphere. The climate modelers among us are already incorporating these new data into their models and will hopefully have results to share soon.

Discovering that the airborne particles over the Southern Ocean are mostly coming from the ocean is a remarkable finding. It not only improves global climate models, it also means we confirmed the Southern Ocean is one of the most environmentally pristine regions on Earth — a place that has probably changed very little due to human activities. Our work will hopefully improve climate models, but has also given researchers a baseline for what a truly pristine marine environment looks like.

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]

• 16 Times Antarctica revealed its awesomeness in 2019
• Images of melt: Earth’s vanishing ice
• The reality of climate change: 10 myths busted

Thanks to this ingenious trick with boiling water you can do this for your car

POst 8905

Thanks to this ingenious trick with boiling water you can do this for your car

Thanks to this ingenious trick with boiling water you can do this for your car

Body shops and garages don’t want you to know about this amazing trick with boiling water

A car accident is an awful ordeal for all parties involved. First of all, it can be really scary, even if it’s just a small collision. You never know what could happen or if the person in the other car is hurt. And then there are the financial consequences…

Damage to your car can cost you quite a bit of money.

Expensive

Besides scary and potentially traumatic, car accidents are also expensive. Getting a considerable dent removed from your car can easily cost you a few hundred bucks. Most people have no idea what an appropriate price for this service is, which means body shops and garages can cut you a bad deal very easily. You come to get a dent removed, but somehow they find all kinds of other issues with your car that need to be resolved and it all starts to add up. That’s not what you asked for… Life’s expensive enough as it is! Luckily, we’ve found a trick that will help you get rid of that ugly dent in your car and it won’t cost you a dime!

Boiling water

It’s very easy to repair a dent by yourself! All you need is a kettle with hot water and a toilet plunger. So, how do you do it? We’ll explain!

• Fill a kettle with water and boil it.
• As soon as the water is boiling, you take the kettle out to your car and pour the water onto the dent and the surrounding area. Do be careful because the water is very hot, of course!
• Now it’s time to use the toilet plunger. Put the plunger around the dent and carefully pull it towards you. Slowly and carefully repeat this step a couple of times, making your way towards the dent.
• After a few minutes of careful work, the dent will be completely gone! It’s just as if there never was any dent in the first place.

Take a look at the video below to see the very easy trick in action!

Small World: Gallery of Microscopic Beauty

Post 8901

By Stephanie Pappas August 16, 2011

Kangaroo Rat Kidneys

(Image credit: Dr. Lynne Chang, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA )

Keratin filaments in the cytoplasm and nucleus of rat kidney cells help the cells maintain their shape in this Nikon Small World image by Harvard’s Lynne Chang. The annual photograph competition highlights microscopic images, and winners will be announced in October. [Gallery of Last Year’s Winners]

Tiny Trap

(Image credit: Mr. Jose R. Almodovar, Microscopy Center, Biology Department, UPR Mayaguez Campus, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico )

Jose R. Almodovar of the UPR Mayaguez Campus took this photo of a bladderwort bladder for the 2011 Nikon Small World photography contest. Bladderworts are carnivorous plants that trap tiny organisms in their bladders for digestion.

Silver Wattle Anther

(Image credit: Dr. Marta Guervos, Image Processing Unit, Scientific-Technical Facilities, University of Oviedo Asturias, Spain )

Dr. Marta Guervos of the University of Oviedo in Asturias, Spain zoomed in on the anther of a silver wattle or mimosa tree for the 2011 Nikon Small World photography competition.

Red Velvet

(Image credit: Dr. David Maitland, http://www.davidmaitland.com, Feltwell, UK )

Dr. David Maitland of Feltwell, UK gets very close to a red velvet mite, a tiny arachnid, for his Nikon Small World entry.

Earworms

(Image credit: Dr. Witold Kilarski, EPFL-Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer, Lausanne, Switzerland )

Parasitic filaria worms (in red) inside the lymphatic cells of a mouse’s ear, taken for the 2011 Nikon Small World competition by Dr. Witold Kilarski of the EPFL-Laboratory of Lymphatic and Cancer in Lausanne, Switzerland. The worms are a parasitic nematode. Some species are known to infect humans.

Cow Cells

(Image credit: Dr. Torsten Wittmann, University of California, San Francisco)

The University of San Francisco’s Dr. Torsten Wittmann captured this shot of bovine pulmonary artery cells stained so that actin, mitochondria and DNA appear in yellow and blue.
Small Worlds

(Image credit: Nikon Small World Competition)

The Nikon International Small World Competition awards photographers for their renderings of the beauty and complexity of teensy things through the light microscope. The resulting photomicrographs must not only awe but also contribute significantly to various scientific disciplines. From alien-looking insects and worms to cells that would make stunning decorations, the 2011 award-winning photographs are both stunning and informative. Take a stroll into the world of the small.

Tiny Monster

(Image credit: Dr. Igor Siwanowicz Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology Martinsried, Germany )

First place in the 2011 Nikon Small World photograph competition went to this photograph of an itsy-bitsy green lacewing larva. The bug landed on photographer Igor Siwanowicz and bit him; Siwanowicz retaliated by turning the insect into art.

Itsy-Bitsy Ocean-Dweller

(Image credit: Dr. Jan Michels Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel Kiel, Germany )

The marine copepod Temora longicornis takes on subtle hues in this 9th-place-winning photograph.

Hello, Flea

(Image credit: Joan Röhl Institute for Biochemistry and Biology Potsdam, Germany )

Don’t be bashful, little flea — you’ve won 10th place in the 2011 Nikon Small World contest. This is a freshwater water flea, Daphnia magna.

Ant Attack!

(Image credit: Dr. Jan Michels Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel Kiel, Germany )

Eeeek! A fluorescing ant head/horror movie monster took 11th place in the Nikon Small World contest.

Quaking Lace

(Image credit: Benjamin Blonder, David Elliott University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona, USA )

The delicate veins of a quaking aspen leaf, magnified four times, took 18th place in the 2011 Nikon contest.

 

Scientists create a pattern so complicated it’s impossible to duplicate

Post 8900

By Diane Lincoln – Live Science Contributor 2 days ago

(Image: © Shutterstock)

Scientists just created a pattern that, according to researchers, is impossible to duplicate or forge, a feat that could quash counterfeiters.

The key to these patterns lies in a two-step verification system that incorporates both micropatterns and the same principles used in whispering galleries, according to the researchers, from the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

In a traditional whispering gallery, two large, concave dishes are placed at opposite ends of a long hallway. A whisper into one of these plastic dishes can be heard clearly by someone standing in the other one down the hall. Entire rooms can also be whispering galleries, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. There is also an unintended whispering gallery in the lower concourse of Grand Central Station in New York City. All of these spaces have a few things in common. They are all rounded and their surfaces project sound to unexpected places. For the new impossible-to-duplicate patterns, the researchers used light waves reflected inside of a microscopic chamber, instead of sound waves in a gigantic room.

The anti-counterfeit micropatterns created by the Tsukuba researchers are designed to be used for authentication purposes. Security measures such as these often embed physical functions into the product during the manufacturing process. In this case, researchers were able to embed a phenomenon produced by light waves into a microscopic image.

 

To create the patterned microscopic image, described May 6 in the journal Materials Horizons, the researchers embedded a light-wave fingerprint under a teensy, 1-millimeter-wide drawing of Mona Lisa, which is about one-tenth the size of a key on your keyboard. That tiny image contains millions of evenly spaced pixels per square centimeter.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba create millimeter-size chips with unique color patterns that cannot be forged. (Image credit: University of Tsukuba)

Within each of the millions of pixels is what the researchers are calling a whispering gallery mode (WGM) fingerprint, a unique color signature created in a microscopic, rounded cavity with reflective surfaces. Each of these reflective cavities has a unique shape. Shapes can vary from elliptical, spherical, oblate-spherical, to hemispherical, but they are always rounded and always have a reflective surface that will facilitate the whisper chamber effect.

Like human fingerprints, no two of these cavities are identical. Into each uniquely-shaped cavity, the Tsukuba researchers placed a microscopic droplet of fluorescent dye that is chemically sensitive to light. Once the dye was in place, the researchers shined visible and ultraviolet (UV) light onto the dye, in a random, unpredictable manner. The light waves reflected inside each cavity, similar to the way sound reflects in a whisper gallery, which caused the dye molecules to react. The variety of cavity shapes combined with the exposure of unique patterns of light applied to the fluorescent dye, result in a unique color signature within each pixel.

“This creates a complex color pattern that cannot be counterfeited,” senior study author Yohei Yamamoto said in a statement from the university.

The final step taken by the researchers was to cover the entire array of millions of WGM fingerprints with another material. This is the material they used to paint the tiny, visible image of Mona Lisa.

In the future, such patterns containing WGM fingerprints might be used to draw your picture on your credit cards and drivers’ license. Governments and businesses could utilize patterns, created through this process, to combat counterfeiting of almost anything that is currently susceptible to these crimes. They can be used to ensure privacy and prevent countless types of fraud, the researchers said. Someday, this technology may be used to authenticate priceless artworks, like the actual Mona Lisa on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Its uses are only limited by the boundaries of human imagination.

Originally published on Live Science.

The monstrous ‘blobs’ near Earth’s core may be even bigger than we thought

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By Brandon Specktor – Senior Writer 10 hours ago

The mysterious ‘blobs’ near Earth’s core just got a little bigger.

Earthquakes (stars) send seismic waves rippling through the planet. Seismometers (blue triangles) detect them on the other side. Thirty years of seismic data revealed where those seismic waves slowed down (purple and orange splotches), pointing to mysterious inner-Earth structures called ultralow-velocity zones.

(Image: © Doyeon Kim/University of Maryland)

Deep within Earth, where the solid mantle meets the molten outer core, strange continent-size blobs of hot rock jut out for hundreds of miles in every direction. These underground mountains go by many names: “thermo-chemical piles,” “large low-shear velocity provinces” (LLSVPs), or sometimes just “the blobs.”

Geologists don’t know much about where these blobs came from or what they are, but they do know that they’re gargantuan. The two biggest blobs, which sit deep below the Pacific Ocean and Africa, account for nearly 10% of the entire mantle’s mass, one 2016 study found — and, if they sat on Earth’s surface, the duo would each extend about 100 times higher than Mount Everest. However, new research suggests, even those lofty analogies may be underestimating just how big the blobs really are.

In a study published June 12 in the journal Science, researchers analyzed the seismic waves generated by earthquakes over nearly 30 years. They found several massive, never before-detected features along the edges of the Pacific blob.

“The structures we located are … thousands of kilometers across in scale,” lead study author Doyeon Kim, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, told Live Science in an email. According to Kim, that’s an order of magnitude larger than typical features found along the blob’s edge.

A map of trembling Earth

Because the blobs live deep, deep in Earth’s interior, geologists can only begin to understand their shape and size by looking at the seismic waves (sound waves generated by earthquakes) that travel through them. These hot, dense regions can slow incoming waves by up to 30% relative to the surrounding mantle; the hottest, slowest regions are known as ultralow-velocity zones (ULVZs), and they typically occur near the edges of the blobs, Kim said.

In their study, Kim and his colleagues created a new map of ULVZs below the Pacific Ocean using an algorithm called “the Sequencer,” which was originally developed to find patterns in stellar radiation. With this algorithm, the team analyzed 7,000 seismograms, or measures of seismic waves, collected between 1990 and 2018, created by hundreds of earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 or greater. The earthquakes occurred in Asia and Oceania, the researchers wrote; but as their seismic waves shuddered across the globe, they passed clearly through the Pacific Ocean mantle blob before reaching seismometers in the United States.

A map of inner Earth showing the new ultralow-velocity zones (yellow outline) mapped through 30 years of seismic data. (Image credit: Doyeon Kim/University of Maryland)

The algorithm revealed enormous sections of ULVZs never detected before, including a blobby region below the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, which measured more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across. The Sequencer also showed that a segment of the blob deep below the Hawaiian Islands is considerably larger than previously thought.

“By looking at thousands of core-mantle boundary [seismograms] at once, instead of focusing on a few at a time, we have gotten a totally new perspective,” Kim said in a statement.

The enormous size of these structures suggests that blobs along the core-mantle boundary — and particularly the hottest, densest ULVZs — are probably more widespread than previous research indicates. What’s more, Kim added, the fact that these large zones lurk near known volcanic hotspots could also reveal some clues about their impact on Earth’s geology.

It’s possible, for example, that ULVZs deep down in the mantle could feed into the large “plumes” of hot rock in the upper mantle that create volcanic hot spots on the surface, Kim said. Those mantle plumes might “suck on” the melty material collected in ULVZs and pull it upward, which could explain why the largest ULVZs are located deep under volcanic island chains like the Hawaiian and Marquesas islands.

That’s just one theory, Kim said; even with algorithms designed to pierce the void of space, the mysteries near the center of the Earth remain just as murky as ever.

“In short, everything is unsure at the moment,” Kim said, “but this is what makes our field of study so exciting.”

• The 11 biggest volcanic eruptions in history
• The world’s weirdest geological formations
• 7 ways Earth changes in the blink of an eye

Originally published on Live Science.

 

In Photos: The World’s Most Efficient Pollinators

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By Tia Ghose July 09, 2015

Bumblebees are vanishing from their traditional range, largely because of climate change, according to a new study that published July 9 in the journal Science. Though populations are disappearing from the hottest regions they inhabit, they are not spreading north to make up for lost ground, the study found. And unlike honeybees, which are declining in part because of widespread use of certain types of insecticides, land use and pesticide use didn’t seem to play a big role in the bumblebee disappearance from southern locales. (Read the full story on the pollinators’ decline)

Pollinators at risk

Bumblebees evolved about 35 million years ago in cooler climates. The buzzing insects are the superstars of the pollinator world, working harder, longer and on a broader variety of species than other bee species. Here, a red-bellied bumblebee cozies up to a lupine. Its body is covered in pollen, which it will spread to other flowers, thereby helping the lupine plant complete its reproductive cycle. (Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr.)

In the new study, researchers found that bumblebee populations have disappeared from its historic southern edges but have not colonized northern areas that have warmed. The trend tracked with human-caused climate change, but was not caused by exposure to pesticides or land-use practices. (Credit: Ann Sanderson, Sheila Coila.)

Collapsing population

The reason for the decline in hotter areas is clear: the bumblebees did not evolve to tolerate extreme heat, and simply die off during hot weather. Here, a red-tailed bumblebee dines on garden plants in the United Kingdom. (Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr.)

Moving on up

The study also found that bees are moving up mountainsides, residing at higher altitudes than they previously had. Once again, global warming may be the culprit here, as temperatures drop as elevation increases.  (Credit: Ann Sanderson, Sheila Coila.)

Diverse group

Here, a red-tailed bumblebee from Denmark dips its nose into a flower. Bumblebees aren’t the only pollinators in the insect world; about 20,000 other bee species also play a critical role. But many of those bees pollinate just two or three plants, or are active for just a few weeks of the growing season, researchers said. (Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr.)

Nectar sipping

Here, a buff-tailed bumblebee is sipping nectar from a catmint flower in Nottingham, United Kingdom. The buff-tailed bumblebee will then move on to other flowers, spreading the plants pollen as it goes. (Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr.)

Resilient holdouts

The buff-tailed bumblebes, like the one shown here, is one species of bee that is doing just fine despite global warming. The hardy, weedy species, called the dandelion of the bumblebee world, seems to be able to adapt to new areas fairly quickly because it lives in large colonies. That, in turn, may help the bees quickly establish new populations in new habitats, researchers speculate. (Credit: Jeremy T. Kerr.)