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Fireworks can startle birds so badly they become disoriented (courtesy of flickr user SJ Photography)

On January 1st of this year, we awoke to reports of thousands of birds dead in Arkansas. The cause was not immediately known, and some people started to freak out, even saying that the event was a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Of course, within days scientists had an answer–the birds were likely startled by fireworks and, unable to see in the night, they ran into houses and signs and other objects and died from the trauma.

It turns out that birds are easily startled by fireworks. A study in the November/December issue of Behavioral Ecology used weather radar to track birds disturbed by New Year’s Eve fireworks for three years in the Netherlands. They found that thousands of birds took to the skies shortly after midnight and didn’t settle down again until 45 minutes later.

The scientists estimated that hundreds of thousands of birds, including several species of migratory waterfowl, were disturbed by the fireworks each year in the Netherlands alone. “The unexpected loud noises and bright lights fireworks produce are probably a source of disturbance for many species of domestic and wild animals,” the scientists wrote.

Most of the time, birds won’t die from the fireworks displays, as they did in Arkansas, the researchers note. But they still suffer from disrupted sleep, interrupted feeding and the energetic costs of flight and resettlement.

So, if you wake up on Sunday morning to more reports of dead birds, don’t think it’s Armageddon, but have a thought for the effects of our pretty displays on the wildlife around us.

A white rhino in Kruger National Park, South Africa (courtesy of flickr user Sheree Zielke)

Is your office rather empty this week? Looking for something to read to fill the time? How about some great science and nature stories from Smithsonian? Here are my ten favorites from the past year:

Tracking the Elusive Lynx (February): Follow U.S. Forest Service biologist John Squires as he tracks the rare and maddeningly elusive “ghost cat” high in the Garnet Mountains of Montana.

Nothing Can Stop the Zebra (March): A 150-mile fence in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana appeared to threaten Africa’s zebras, but nearly a decade later, researchers breathe a sigh of relief.

Something New Under the Sun (April): Scientists are using a host of satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to probe deep beneath the surface of our nearest star to calculate its profound effect on Earth.

A Triumph in the War Against Cancer (May): Oncologist Brian Druker developed a new treatment for a deadly blood cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia, which has transformed cancer medicine.

Swimming With Whale Sharks (June): In this excerpt from Juliet Eilperin’s book Demon Fish, wildlife researchers and tourists head to a tiny Mexican village to learn about the mystery of the largest fish in the sea.

The Beer Archaeologist (August): By analyzing ancient pottery, and collaborating with the brewmasters at Dogfish Head in Delaware, Patrick McGovern is resurrecting the libations that fueled civilization.

The Jaguar Freeway (October): Sharon Guynup travels deep into the Amazon to explore a bold plan for wildlife corridors that would connect populations of jaguars from Mexico to Argentina and could mean the big cat’s salvation.

A Buddhist Monk Saves One of the World’s Rarest Birds (October): High in the Himalayas, the Tibetan bunting is getting help from a very special friend.

Defending the Rhino (November): A rumor that rhino horn had miraculously cured a VIP in Vietnam of terminal liver cancer caused demand, and the price, for the horns to soar. Now police and conservationists in South Africa are pitting technology against increasingly sophisticated poachers.

The Sperm Whale’s Deadly Call (December): Scientists studying the leviathan in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez have discovered that the massive mammal uses elaborate buzzes, clicks and squeaks that spell doom for the animal’s prey.

Cats and earthquakes were popular subjects this year. (image courtesy of flickr user 37prime)

It’s that time of year when journalists and bloggers put together their reviews of the past 12 months. But the list below is unlike any other. You may have noticed that Surprising Science tends to cover science a bit differently than other blogs and publications do. Combine that with a diverse (and, of course, fabulous) readership, and you’ve got an interesting list of most-read stories for the year. (If you’re looking for a more traditional 2011 retrospective, we recommend the lists from Discover, Scientific American and Science.)

#10 Earthquake in Washington, D.C.: On August 23, the Smithsonian offices, along with a good portion of the Northeast, shook due to a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Mineral, Virginia. In a weird coincidence, I had been researching earthquakes in unexpected places when the quake took place, and so people in my office jokingly blamed me for the incident.

#9 14 Fun Facts About Chickens: Following the earthquake and Hurricane Irene, we took a break from natural disasters with weird chicken facts. My favorite? That a female bird can eject the sperm of a rooster if she decides she doesn’t want his chicks.

#8 The Science Behind the Japanese Earthquake: On the morning of March 11, we woke up to news of a powerful earthquake off the coast of Japan. That shaking, however, would soon be overshadowed by the devastating tsunami and nuclear disaster that followed.

#7 Examining Telecommuting the Scientific Way: Unfortunately this post did not have the result I’d hoped, and I’m still not allowed to telecommute. (But if anyone has been successful in using these arguments, please let us know in the comments below.)

#6 The Secret Lives of Feral Cats: After a study in which scientists tracked feral kitties, we weighed in on the question of whether it was better to trap the cats, spay/neuter them and release them back into the wild or, as some advocate, euthanize any found. The blog came down on the side of catch and release, but we discovered many readers who have a serious hatred for these felines.

#5 The Curious World of Zombie Science: We examined an interesting trend in science, the study of human zombies, including computer models of the spread of the zombie disease, potential ways zombies could be created and how math could save you from a zombie attack.

#4 The Myth of the Frozen Jeans: Levi’s and the New York Times claimed that freezing your jeans would kill the germs that make them smell. Scientists who study bacteria disagree.

#3 Five Historic Female Mathematicians You Should Know: Our list, a companion to a top ten list of historic female scientists, included the creator of the world’s first computer program and a contemporary of Albert Einstein.

#2 Life Without Left Turns: A study that found that intersections constructed to eliminate dangerous left turns were more efficient than traditional intersections added to my convictions that getting rid of left turns would be a good thing. But not all my readers agreed.

And #1 The Glow-in-The-Dark Kitty: A story about Mayo Clinic researchers who created a fluorescing cat as part of their studies on feline HIV, which they hope would lead to insight on human HIV and AIDS, sparked a debate in the comments about the ethics of the research.

A young echidna in Coles Bay, Australia (courtesy of flickr user ausemade)

Readers of our Evotourism story about Kangaroo Island in Australia may have been puzzled by the mention of an animal called the echidna. What is it?

In Greek mythology, Echidna was half snake and half woman, and she was the mother of all monsters. The animal echidna, with its stocky body covered in defensive spines, doesn’t look much like a monster, but as a type of mammal called a monotreme, it does share features with both snakes and humans. Like reptiles, echidnas lay eggs–just one a year–but they keep that egg and the resulting baby, called a puggle, in a pouch, like many marsupials do. And like all mammals, that baby will lap up milk until it grows old enough to eat solid food.

Also known as “spiny anteaters,” echidnas come in two varieties. The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) lives throughout Australia and New Guinea and is well adapted to a wide range of habitats, including deserts and rain forests. Its long-beaked cousin (Zaglossus bruijni), however, is found only in the tropical rain forests of New Guinea. These rare animals are officially endangered, their numbers brought low because of land clearing and hunting made easier with dogs and guns–the people of New Guinea consider the echidna, roasted over the coals of a fire, a delicacy.

The first western person to encounter an echidna and write about it was William Bligh, infamous captain of the Bounty. In 1792, his ship stopped in Tasmania on its way to Tahiti. On February 7 he wrote:

An animal shot at Adventure Bay. It had a Beak like a Duck – a thick brown coat of Hair, through which the points of numerous Quills of an Inch long projected these very sharp – It was 14 inches long & walked about on 2 legs. Has very small Eyes & five claws on each foot – Its mouth has a small opening at the end of the Bill & had a very small tongue.

The ship’s officer, George Tobin, who shot the poor animal reported: “The animal was roasted and found of a delicate flavour.”

Echidnas are as weird as Bligh reported all those years ago. The animal uses its snout, or “beak,” to unearth termites, ants and worms that it laps up with its long tongue. An echidnas has no teeth, though, so it has to use its tongue to grind its food against the roof of its mouth, turning it into a paste it can swallow.

An echidna isn’t good at running. It has short legs that, in the rear, point backwards to help it dig. An extra-long claw on one toe allows them to clean between their spines. If an echidna encounters a predator or enemy, it won’t run away or fight. Instead, it will curl into a ball, sharp spines pointing out, sometimes wedging itself into a space beneath a rock or burrowing into the soil to escape predators such as dogs and eagles.

The echidna isn’t the world’s only monotreme. Do you know the other?

A composite image of S106, from the Hubble Space Telescope and Japan's Subaru Telescope (Credits: NASA/ESA/the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/NAOJ)

About 2,000 light years away, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus (The Swan), in a rather isolated part of the Milky Way, lies a newly formed star known IRS 4. This star, about 15 times the mass of our Sun, is still so young that it hasn’t yet calmed down; it’s ejecting material at high speed, giving this image its wings. That hydrogen gas, colored blue here, is heated by the star to temperatures of 10,000 degrees Celsius, making them glow. The cloudy, red parts in the image are tiny particles of dust illuminated by the star.

This area of the universe is known as star-forming region S106 and it’s pretty small (well, by universe standards), at only two light years from the edge of one “wing” to the other. The nebula is also home to more than 600 known brown dwarfs, “failed” stars that, because of their size, less than a tenth the mass of our Sun, cannot undergo the nuclear fusion that powers glowing stars.

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