Word: mammals
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...fascinating study published in the current issue of Science helps fill in a bit of the picture, drawing evidence from that research-friendly fellow mammal, the mouse. The authors, a team from State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, wanted to look at whether the ability to learn is affected by changes in brain chemistry that occur at puberty. They devised a task that was relatively complex (at least for a mouse) and required learning how to avoid a moving platform that delivered a very mild shock. (See the top 10 animal stories...
Together with federal officials, the team members discovered evidence that a restaurant called the Hump - really - was secretly serving whale meat, in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. When confronted, the restaurant accepted responsibility for serving whale, and now faces a fine of up to $200,000. As Andre Birotte Jr., a U.S. Attorney on the case, told the New York Times, "Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species." (See "Japan Gets Its First Chance to See The Cove...
...during a performance at Sealand of the Pacific in Vancouver. In 1999, a man who trespassed in SeaWorld after hours and apparently jumped in the whale tank was found dead the next morning, lying across Tilikum's back. Is the big whale a bad seed? At least one marine-mammal expert thinks that yes, that's at least part of the answer...
...strangest thing about these animals isn't their names, though; it's the fact that many of them weren't flat to the ground, like modern crocs, but stood upright and walked on their legs, like modern mammals. "We have an idea of what a crocodile should be and what a mammal should be," says Sereno, "but you have to break down these categories to see what was going on in Africa back then." BoarCroc, for example, was 20 ft. long and had three rows of fangs, like a boar from hell, which made it what Sereno calls a "dinosaur...
...marine-mammal experts agree. For all the "hype on risks to whales from seismic research," the benefits get little attention, says William Lang, a marine-mammal expert and former program director for ocean sciences environmental operations at the NSF. "The risk to people for not pursuing this type of research is simply not part of the story," Lang says. In the past, explosives like dynamite were used to create seismic waves. Improvement of recording devices and computer analysis has further decreased the airgun sound intensity required for geological research. Airguns are "the best existing technology to produce the desired type...