Paris zoo welcomes rare birth of endangered Orangutan

PARIS: A baby Bornean orangutan has been born in a downtown Paris zoo - the first to be born there since 2005. 
The zoo of the Jardin des Plantes says that Java, a female, who was born on October 17. Java is the fifth orangutan at the Jardin des Plantes. Her father, Banggi, was born in 2006 in Spain and Java is his first baby. The zoo said orangutans have experienced sharp population declines in recent years and lost 80 per cent of their habitat.

Delhi Is Ready To Fight Choking Air Pollution; Here's A List Of Norms To Be Followed From Nov 1

The Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority announced on Saturday fresh anti-pollution measures in Delhi-NCR from November 1 under the Graded Response Action Plan.

These include a halt in construction activities for 10 days, shutting down of coal and biomass-based industries over the November 4-10 period and an advisory asking people to limit their exposure to the air.

 These norms were formed as a result of forecast of adverse weather conditions beginning from Nov 1st and its potential to increase the pollution level.

Air pollution is the ‘new tobacco’, warns WHO head

Air pollution is the “new tobacco”, the head of the WHO has warned, saying the simple act of breathing is killing 7 million people a year and harming billions more.

Over 90% of the world’s population suffers toxic air and research is increasingly revealing the profound impacts on the health of people, especially children.

A clean and healthy environment is the single most important precondition for ensuring good health. By cleaning up the air we breathe, we can prevent or at least reduce some of the greatest health risks.

Meteorologist expects severe drought and heavy rain events to worsen globally

A University of Oklahoma meteorologist, Elinor R. Martin, expects severe drought and long-lasting rainfall events to worsen in the future.
The Caribbean and Central America will have more extreme droughts and the north and northeast of North America can expect more extreme heavy rain events. 
Around the world, some places will see droughts and heavy rain events become more intense, longer lasting and more frequent.
Martin points to a changing climate as the reason these events will worsen and defines droughts and rain events by using a standardized rainfall index to compare events between regions and seasons.

Mystery of how black widow spiders create steel-strength silk webs

 

Black widow spiders and their relatives, native to temperate climates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America, produce an array of silks with exceptional materials properties.

Scientists have long known the primary sequence of amino acids that make up some spider silk proteins and understood the structure of the fibers and webs. Previous research theorized that spider silk proteins await the spinning process as nano-size amphiphilic spherical micelles (clusters of water-soluble and non-soluble molecules) before being funneled through the spider's spinning apparatus to form silk fibers. However, when scientists attempted to replicate this process, they were unable to create synthetic materials with the strengths and properties of native spider silk fibers.

The research team was able to more closely see inside the protein gland where the silk fibers originate, revealing a much more complex, hierarchical protein assembly. Thus "modified micelles theory" concludes that spider silk proteins do not start out as simple spherical micelles, as previously thought, but instead as complex, compound micelles. This unique structure is potentially required to create the black widow spider's impressive fibers.

The black widow spider silks are spun from hierarchical nano-assemblies (200 to 500 nanometers in diameter) of proteins stored in the spider's abdomen, rather than from a random solution of individual proteins or from simple spherical particles. If duplicated, the practical applications for a material like this are essentially limitless and could include high-performance textiles for a military, first responders and athletes; building materials for cable bridges and other construction; environmentally friendly replacements for plastics; and biomedical applications.

New human cell structure discovered

The cells in a tissue are surrounded by a net-like structure called the extracellular matrix. To attach itself to the matrix the cells have receptor molecules on their surfaces, which control the assembly of large protein complexes inside them.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now discovered a new type of adhesion complex with a unique molecular composition that sets it apart from those already known about. The discovery has been made in collaboration with researchers in the UK.

The newly discovered adhesion complex can provide answers to an as-yet unanswered question of how the cell can remain attached to the matrix during cell division. The previously known adhesion complexes dissolve during the process to allow the cell to divide. But not this new type.

The researchers also show that the newly discovered structures control the ability of daughter cells to occupy the right place after cell division. This memory function was interrupted when the researchers blocked the adhesion complex.

The study was done on human cell lines mainly using confocal microscopy and mass spectrometry. Further research is now needed to examine the new adhesion complex in living organisms.

Crowd-sourced data wins protection for endangered tricolored blackbird

               In 2015 the species was again under consideration for protection under the California Endangered Species Act. This time, however, partners at California Audubon were armed with new information, thanks largely to the work of Dr. Orin Robinson a Cornell Lab of Ornithology Postdoctoral Fellow in Conservation Science who has been studying Tricolored Blackbirds for the past two years.

              Robinson's work combined data in eBird, a citizen-science project logging millions of bird sightings, with survey data from partners at UC Davis to develop new trend estimates for the state's Tricolored Blackbird population. By combining these data sets, Robinson developed a statistically reliable population model showing Tricolored Blackbirds declined more than 33 percent during just the past 10 years.

             Robinson's research was the key piece of evidence cited by the State of California to approve state Endangered Species Act protections for Tricolored Blackbirds this past April.

In the absence of bees, flies are responsible for pollination in the Arctic region

A researcher found that relatives of the ubiquitous housefly had a central role. These members of the Muscidae family are important pollinators, whose abundance impacts the seed production of northern plants. Flowering in the Arctic occurs in the few weeks after the snow has melted. The subsequent profusion of flowers causes intensive competition for the pollination services provided by insects.

The abundant mountain avens with its attractive flowers hoards most of the pollinator visits, which leaves the pollination of rare and less attractive flowers particularly inadequate. At the height of mountain avens' blooming time, even their own seed production suffers from the competition for pollinators within the species itself.

In the Arctic pollinator communities were found to be dominated by a few plant and insect species, resulting in insufficient pollinator numbers at the height of flowering. This is probably due to a decrease in pollinators. The number of Muscidae, the most important pollinators, has been in decline for the past twenty years. Additionally, plants and pollinators react differently to the warming climate, shifting their occurrence to different stages of the growing season.

Global changes in habitats result in declining biodiversity, which disrupts ecosystems and their ability to produce ecosystem services. For example, the decline in insect populations, pollinators, in particular, may have significant effects on food production and, thus, the entire human race. Arctic communities are not the only pollinator communities dominated by a handful of species. Agricultural environments with their crops and western honey bees comprise a structurally similar community.

As climate change and other human-induced environmental changes intensify, insect-pollinated plants and their pollinator communities must adapt to new conditions in both the Arctic and southern regions.

New species of ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds identified

             Dr. John Nudds, from the University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the team have been re-examining one of the only 12 known specimens by carrying out the first ever synchrotron examination, a form of 3D X-ray analysis, of an Archaeopteryx. 
The team says that this individual Archaeopteryx fossil, known as 'specimen number eight', is physically much closer to a modern bird than it is to a reptile. Therefore, it is evolutionary distinctive and different enough to be described as a new species -Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi.
             Archaeopteryx was first described as the 'missing link' between reptiles and birds in 1861 and is now regarded as the link between dinosaurs and birds. Only 12 specimens have ever been found and all are from the late Jurassic of Bavaria, now Germany, dating back approximately 150 million years.
            Lead author, Dr. Martin Kundrát, from the University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik, Slovakia, said: "This is the first time that numerous bones and teeth of Archaeopteryx were viewed from all aspects including exposure of their inner structure. The use of synchrotron microtomography was the only way to study the specimen as it is heavily compressed with many fragmented bones partly or completely hidden in limestone."