Smithsonian.com

Thomas Vignaud of Marseille, France took this photograph, labeled Young fish dart by a jellyfish in the sea, in the Mediterranean Sea in September 2007. With it, he won the Natural World Category of Smithsonian magazine’s 5th Annual Photo Contest.

Have you taken an amazing photograph? Hurry up and enter our 7th Annual Photo Contest. The deadline is Tuesday, December 1, 2009, at 2pm Eastern Standard Time (EST).

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2005 U.S. water use, by percent (source: USGS)

The American population is getting more efficient at using our water supply. We used 410 billion gallons of water per day in 2005, according to new estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, and this hasn’t changed much since the USGS first started reporting on the topic in 1950, despite a 30 percent increase in population since then.

It’s where our water goes that made me blink: 49 percent is used in the production of electricity and another 31 percent for irrigation in agriculture. The stuff we drink and wash our clothes in and water our lawns with is only a small percentage. The irrigation number isn’t too shocking as agriculture is a huge industry in this country. But I had no idea we were using so much water to turn on our lights. The USGS explains:

Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators….Cooling-system type is the primary determinant for the amount of consumptive use relative to withdrawals. Once-through (also known as open-loop) cooling refers to cooling systems in which water is withdrawn from a source, circulated through heat exchangers, and then returned to a surface-water body. Large amounts of water are needed for once-through cooling…Recirculation (also known as closed-loop) cooling refers to cooling systems in which water is withdrawn from a source, circulated through heat exchangers, cooled using ponds or towers, and then recirculated. Subsequent water withdrawals for a recirculation system are used to replace water lost to evaporation, blowdown, drift, and leakage. Smaller amounts of water are withdrawn for recirculation cooling than for once-through cooling.

The amount of our water that goes to power generation has increased over the last 20 years. The industry as a whole has become more efficient in its water use (the average amount of water used in the production of a kilowatt-hour of electricity has declined since 1950), but that is because there are more power plants that use recirculation cooling in which the water is used over and over.

Climate change is likely to change our available water supply over the next century. Greater efficiency can only help in the management of this resource, especially if it becomes more scarce. I’ll make no recommendations about how to change our water management, but just looking at the chart above gives me some ideas about where we should target our efforts.

Falkland sheep have no need to worry about wolves these days (courtesy of Flickr user ShimShamB)

When Charles Darwin’s reached the Falkland Islands on his famed voyage, he discovered there a “large wolf-like fox” found nowhere else in the world. “As far as I am aware,” he would later write in The Voyage of the Beagle, “there is no other instance, in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself.” The human population on the island, however, was quickly increasing and the canid’s numbers were dwindling. Darwin predicted the species would soon go the way of the dodo, and he was right. The species went extinct in 1876, killed off for its fur and to protect the sheep population.

Since Darwin’s time, scientists have puzzled over his wolf-like canid, now known as the Falklands wolf. The species was the only native terrestrial mammal found on the island; there were no mice or porcupines or deer. And the islands lie 300 miles from the mainland. Where did the wolf come from and how did it get to the Falklands? Could Native Americans have brought the wolves to the island?

To get a picture of the wolf’s history, scientists isolated DNA from four museum specimens of the Falklands wolf, including one that had been collected by Darwin himself. (Their study appears in Current Biology.) They compared the DNA of their specimens with that of other canids, including several South American species (foxes, the maned wolf, and the bush dog) and members of the Canis genus (which includes the gray wolf and coyotes). With the DNA data, they created a phylogenetic tree that let the scientists see which species were the most closely related to the Falklands wolf and when the Falklands wolf branched off as a new species (that is, when they became isolated on the islands).

The four museum specimens diverged from their closest relatives about 70,000 years ago, which the scientists think is when the species came to the Falkland Islands. That was during the last ice age and long before humans showed up in the area (nixing the Native American theory). The wolves probably floated to the islands on ice or logs or perhaps walked over a glacier. Once on the islands, they would have feasted on penguins, geese and pinnepeds.

The scientists now have a new mystery: The analysis revealed the maned wolf to be the Falklands wolf’s closest relative, but the two species diverged from each other over 6 million years ago, several million years before canids populated South America from the north. There aren’t yet any canid fossils from this time period—something to look for.

Roosters are funny-looking creatures. They have a red bit that sticks out from the top of their heads—the comb—and another that dangles beneath their chin—the wattle. And then they perform this little dance called “tidbitting” (see first part of video below), in which they make sounds (food calls) and move their head up and down, picking up and dropping a bit of food.

Why does a rooster have a wattle?

Research has shown that when hens are choosing a mate they prefer roosters that have larger, brighter combs and ones that frequently perform the tidbitting behavior. This makes sense because the characteristics of the comb have been shown to correlate with how healthy the male is, and tidbitting behavior provides the hen with nutritionally important food items and shows the male’s status. But the presence of the wattles has long been a puzzle because they haven’t been shown to serve a similar purpose.

Carolynn Smith (a friend and former colleague) and her current colleagues at Macquarie University in Australia set out to discover the purpose behind the wattle by studying red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), which are the wild brethren of the chickens we eat (their study appears in the journal Animal Behaviour). Cutting off the wattles of roosters and seeing how the behavior of hens changed wasn’t an option. Instead, Smith created four animated roosters. The animated roosters (see second part of the video below) all acted the same, performing the tidbitting routine over and over, and they all looked the same, except for their wattles. One had a normal wattle, one was missing his, a third had a wattle that didn’t move, and the fourth had an extra floppy wattle.

A test chicken would be placed inside a test pen with two “audience hens,” a couple of buddies intended to make the test hen more comfortable in the less familiar surroundings (fowl are social creatures). One of the videos was then played for the test chicken and her response was recorded: How quickly did she respond to the animated rooster? How quickly did she start searching for food (the normal response to a male tidbitting)? And how long did she search for food?

The test hens responded more quickly to the tidbitting males that had the normal or stationary wattles, less quickly to the one with the extra floppy wattle (the wattle moved so much that it swung up the side of the rooster’s head and appeared much smaller than it was) and slowest to the male lacking wattles. After the hen’s attention was gained, though, she reacted about the same to each of the four animated chickens. Smith suggests that the wattle helps a rooster gain a hen’s attention when he is tidbitting, rather like a human guy wearing flashy clothes while doing his best dance moves to try and pick up chicks.

Photos and video courtesy of Carolynn Smith.

You may recognize Felicia Day as Dr. Horrible’s red-haired obsession (or maybe from that appliance commercial). And if you’ve been reading this blog, you probably have heard of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which was responsible for last month’s discovery of a massive ring around Saturn. Add the two together and you get the latest video about colliding galaxies from IRrelevant astronomy. If you find this one funny, and if you are geeky enough to recognize names like Sean Astin and George Takei, you’ll probably spend the rest of the day giggling as you watch earlier episodes from the series. They can be found intermingled with more traditional educational videos on the telescope’s YouTube site. Enjoy!

weed chainsaw massacre (courtesy of flickr user 19melissa68)

Here’s a shocker: Horror films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre don’t get the chainsaw spatter right, according to the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

The reason for the study is sad—a woman was reported missing in 2005, and the police found evidence that she had been killed and dismembered in her basement (a few dabs of fresh paint on the walls, small pieces of bone, a receipt for an electric chainsaw). The investigators, possibly having watched a few too many horror films, didn’t think that there was enough blood and tissue spatter in the small room if a human body had been dismembered there by someone wielding a small chainsaw. And there was the question of whether or not the chainsaw itself was powerful enough to accomplish the job without getting stuck in flesh and bone.

A University of South Dakota pathologist got involved. He obtained the same kind of chainsaw indicated in the receipt and a 200-pound female pig, deceased, and created a room the approximate size of the basement using white sheets. He let the pig rest for two days to simulate the time between when the woman had been reported missing and when the chainsaw was purchased. And then he started hacking away.

The chainsaw was certainly powerful enough to cut through the tissue and bone. And the pathologist discovered that if the blade was held parallel to the floor there was very little spatter, similar to what was found at the crime scene. (Vertical positioning of the blade or use of a freshly killed pig increased the amount of spatter on the sheets.) The researcher concluded:

These experiments have shown that a human body may be easily dismembered with a chainsaw, even a smaller electric-powered model….Despite popular beliefs fueled by crime scene shows on television and recent Chainsaw Massacre movies, postmortem dismemberment does not necessarily produce a large amount of blood spatter at a dismemberment scene….With a horizontally oriented chainsaw, therefore, the majority of the tissue and blood will be found on the ground beneath the saw. If the chainsaw discharge chute, however, is not directed towards the ground, then a large volume of blood and tissue, and subsequent spatter, could be expected some distance from the saw.

Something to consider when writing or filming your next scary movie.

The Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille was the first to find this cluster of stars, in 1751 while on an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). The Kappa Crucis Cluster (NGC 4755), which resides near the Southern Cross, received the nickname the “Jewel Box” during the next century, when astronomer John Herschel viewed it through his telescope and saw the stars were different colors—pale blue and orange. He wrote: “The stars which compose it, seen in a telescope of diameter large enough to enable the colours to be distinguished, have the effect of a casket of variously coloured precious stones.”

We now know that the cluster is about 6,400 light-years away from Earth and around 16 million years old. The stars in the Jewel Box all formed from the same cloud of dust and gas, are about the same age and have similar chemical compositions. The image above was taken recently with MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Scientists use clusters like this one to study the evolution of stars. (Image credit: ESO. Click here to find additional images of the cluster, including one from the Hubble Space Telescope.)

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H1N1 (swine) flu is in the news again (courtesy of flickr user Dr Craig)

Around the country, people are lining up to be vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. Surprising Science has spent the last three days discussing the history and science of vaccines (see A Brief History and How Vaccines Work, Success Stories, and A History of Vaccine Backlash). Today we answer some of the more common questions about the swine flu vaccine.

Who should get the H1N1 flu vaccine?

There is currently not enough vaccine for everyone who wants it. Vaccines take time to produce and this one has been rolling off the line for just a few weeks. As of Tuesday there were about 22.4 million doses available around the United States. The goal is to have 250 million doses by the end of flu season next spring. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended that certain groups get vaccinated first:
•    pregnant women
•    people who live with or care for children under six months of age
•    young people age six months to 24 years
•    people 25 to 64 who are at higher risk for flu complications due to a health condition or compromised immune system
•    health care and emergency medical service personnel

Why are these groups first?

Pregnant women and young people seem to be especially vulnerable to the H1N1 virus. Babies under six months of age cannot be vaccinated, so it is important to limit their exposure to the virus by vaccinating people who care for them. People with certain health conditions or who have a compromised immune system have a higher risk of having serious flu complications if they get the flu. And medical personnel are the people most likely to come in contact with the virus.

What if I’m not in one of these groups?

Wait your turn. There will be enough vaccine eventually. And if you get the H1N1 flu, it won’t be fun but also probably won’t do you long-term harm. In the meantime, the CDC recommends taking everyday preventative actions like hand washing and avoiding contact with sick people. (And if you get sick, please stay home.)

Is the vaccine safe?

The H1N1 vaccine is made the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine. The manufacturers just tweaked the recipe with the new virus. The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in September. People with allergies to chicken eggs, however, should not be vaccinated as eggs are used to make the vaccine.

I got a seasonal flu vaccine last month. Why won’t that work against H1N1?

For the same reason that your flu vaccine from last year doesn’t protect you from this year’s seasonal flu: There are many different types of flu virus, and they mutate over time. When you are exposed to one type, your body’s immune system learns to protect you from that type only. The others are too different to register with your immune system as the same virus.

I’ve heard that in other countries the vaccine contains squalene. What is it and why is it in their vaccine and not ours? And what about thimerosal?

Squalene is a type of naturally-occurring oil found in plants and animals (including humans). Squalene is a component of some adjuvants of vaccines. Adjuvants help a vaccine’s effectiveness by boosting the immune response. Some countries have added the squalene-containing adjuvant to their vaccine mix for H1N1 because it causes a lower dose of vaccine to be effective; that is, it will allow people to get more doses out of the same batch of vaccine. The World Health Organization has found no evidence of any adverse events in vaccines containing the squalene adjuvant.

The United States government chose not to use any adjuvants in the H1N1 mix in this country. However, some formulations of the vaccine do contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has been used in vaccines for decades. Getting mercury injected into your body may sound a little scary. But concerns about safety of thimerosal are unfounded. Some parents worry that thimerosal may cause autism in young children, but there is no evidence of this. Several studies in recent years have examined the possibility, but no association has ever been found.

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