Possible Good News For Bats

Possible Good News For Bats

This spring, a possible cure for White-nose Syndrome was found by researchers at Georgia State University.

The disease is caused by a fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that infects bats while they hibernate. The lowered metabolism of hibernation results in a compromised immune system that makes them susceptible to disease. They end up burning fat twice as fast as healthy bats as they try to fight off the infection. This leaves them without enough fat stores to make it through the winter, and they effectively “starve” to death.

Biologists discovered that the bacteria Rhodococcus rhodochrousin, common in soils across North America, produces volatile compounds when grown on cobalt that are able to stop the White-nose Syndrome fungus from growing. Some 150 bats have been cured during initial trials so far, and while it’s early days yet, this offers hope for the future of bats in North America. To date, White-nose Syndrome has caused the death of some 6 million bats of 11 species, including some listed as endangered.

Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus, shown with the powdered white skin characteristic of the disease), once common, have suffered around 94% mortality in the eastern half of the country. The fungus is thought to have originated in Europe, where it has been found in bats there that are healthy and apparently immune. photo by Marvin Moriarty/USFWS

(via: Peterson Field Guides)

Seeing Without Eyes

The octopus has a unique ability. It can change the color, pattern and even texture of its skin not only for purposes of camouflage but also as a means of communication. The most intelligent, most mobile and largest of all mollusks, these cephalopods use their almost humanlike eyes to send signals to pigmented organs in their skin called chromatophores, which expand and contract to alter their appearance.

A new study by UCSB scientists has found that the skin of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) can sense light even without input from the central nervous system. The animal does so by using the same family of light-sensitive proteins called opsins found in its eyes — a process not previously described for cephalopods. The researchers’ findings appear in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

“Octopus skin doesn’t sense light in the same amount of detail as the animal does when it uses its eyes and brain,” said lead author Desmond Ramirez, a doctoral student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB). “But it can sense an increase or change in light. Its skin is not detecting contrast and edge but rather brightness.”

As part of the experiment, Ramirez shone white light on the tissue, which caused the chromatophores to expand and change color. When the light was turned off, the chromatophores relaxed and the skin returned to its original hue. This process, Ramirez noted, suggests that light sensors are connected to the chromatophores and that this enables a response without input from the brain or eyes. He and his co-author, Todd Oakley, an EEMB professor, dubbed the process Light-Activated Chromatophore Expansion (LACE).

In order to record the skin’s sensitivity across the spectrum, Ramirez exposed octopus skin to different wavelengths of light from violet to orange and found that chromatophore response time was quickest under blue light. Molecular experiments to determine which proteins were expressed in the skin followed. Ramirez found rhodopsin — usually produced in the eye — in the sensory neurons on the tissue’s surface.

According to Oakley, this new research suggests an evolutionary adaptation. “We’ve discovered new components of this really complex behavior of octopus camouflage,” said Oakley, who calls cephalopods the rock stars of the invertebrate world.

“It looks like the existing cellular mechanism for light detection in octopus eyes, which has been around for quite some time, has been co-opted for light sensing in the animal’s skin and used for LACE,” he explained. “So instead of completely inventing new things, LACE puts parts together in new ways and combinations.”

Octopuses are not the only marine mollusks whose skin can sense light, but scientists don’t know yet whether the skin of those other animals contains the light-sensitive opsins. If they do, Ramirez wants to understand how these two groups are related.“Do they all come from the same ancestral source or did they evolve multiple times?” he asked. “What kind of behaviors do the different groups share and what kind of behaviors does the skin sensing light underlie?”

Ramirez and Oakley are conducting new experiments that will seek to answer those questions and more.

Stopping by the window on a clear 3-am-snack-run

…The moon is lovely; sky dark and deep, But I have promises to keep. And -wait- why am I not asleep? Why the fuck am I not asleep???

So there is a dating sim about Angler Fishes (with accurate science!) called Benthic Love. It seems like a thing you would enjoy.

Oh my god

OH MY GOD

PLAY THIS GAME EVERYONE

Woodpecker in slow motion.

What you all think about this? I think it brilliant. The cat can fulfill his desire to hunt and get some food.