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Journalism of Courage
Dramatic reverse evolution among fish species: study
Scientists have discovered a process of 8220;reverse evolution8221; among tiny fish species living in Lake Washington, a finding that is being linked to a pollution-control effort in the United States. The study published in the latest online edition of Current Biology showed that evolutionary process was taking place in relative warp-speed reverse in the case of the threespine stickleback fish, which live in Lake Washington, the largest of three major lakes in the Seattle area. Thanks to a 140 million cleanup effort in the mid-1960s, the lake8217;s transparency has reached a depth of 10 ft. Lacking the cover of darkness they once enjoyed, over the past 40 years about half of the sticklebacks have evolved to become fully armoured, with bony plates protecting their bodies from head to tail. The researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre found that while in the late 1960s, only 6 percent of sticklebacks were completely plated, today 49 percent are fully plated and 35 percent are partially plated, with about half of their bodies shielded in bony armour. LAT-WP
Now hair is another reason to quit smoking
If an increased risk of respiratory illness, cancer and heart disease are not reason enough for many smokers to consider quitting, than perhaps a message focused on hair instead of health may do the trick. Scientists have long speculated cigarette smoke may accelerate hair loss and premature graying. The association was largely attributed to toxins in smoke that can harm hair follicles and damage hormones.
According to epidemiological studies, that appears to be the case. A report in the journal BMJ looked at more than 600 men and women, half of them smokers. After controlling for variables, the researchers found a 8220;significant8221; and 8220;consistent8221; link between smoking and early graying. Last year, another team studied the link in a group of 740 men in Taiwan, aged 40 to 91 years, notable because Asian men generally have low rates of hereditary baldness. After controlling for age and family histories, the researchers found a greater rate of hair loss among the smokers, a risk that grew with increasing smoking. One question is whether the link is a result of tobacco toxins directly affecting the scalp, or of smoking8217;s causing severe disease that speeds ageing. NYT
A new study in Science shows, surface tension enables certain birds to eat. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the feeding mechanism of phalaropes, small shorebirds with long, thin beaks. Like many birds they feed by pecking, but phalaropes peck at water, capturing droplets which can contain tiny crustaceans or other bits of prey. Since the beak is facing straight down, the question is how these droplets defy gravity to get into the mouth. After studying video of the birds and building a mechanical model of a beak, the researchers8212;Manu Prakash and John W.M. Bush, along with David Quere of ESPCI, a school of industrial physics and chemistry in Paris8212;figured that by opening and closing their beaks quickly like a pair of chopsticks, the birds take advantage of the surface tension of the droplets to move them upward, step by step, to the mouth.
