Are These the Best Ads Raising Awareness of Climate Change?

Climate change is a hot topic for world leaders. While the scientific community has finally come to the general consensus that anthropogenic climate change is really happening, some governments and corporations have been a little slow on the uptake, with some (arguably those with a vested interest in keeping the vast machinery of consumerism running just the way they want it to) denying outright that we humans are responsible for the global shifts in climate that we are now witnessing.

The following ads have been created by a number of concerned organisations, and are amongst the most effective images out there for raising awareness of climate change.  Enjoy and share. Oh, and switch off, turn down, recycle, and walk.

Thank Bats for Bed Bugs? Insect Pests May Have Originated as Bat Parasites

Bats may have introduced bed bugs to humans when we shared caves together, a new paper suggests.

Enitled "Host Association Drives Genetic Divergence in the Bed Bug, Cimex lectularius" and authored by Warren Booth et al., the paper describes recent genetic research which shows that there are two distinct strains of bed bug Cimex lectularius in Europe. It concludes that the divergence in DNA may have been driven by host specification.

The split in bed bug populations would have happened when bed bugs feeding on bats found a new host: humans. One lineage probably co-evolved with humans, and the other with bats, suggesting a surprising, previously unknown origin for these troublesome pests of human residences.

As the paper states: "In conjunction with the expansion of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia, it has been speculated that bed bugs extended their host range from bats to humans in their shared cave domiciles throughout Eurasia."

The absence of interbreeding between the two populations of bed bugs is signified by a lack of gene flow in the nuclear and mitochondrial data, and laboratory testing has shown that offsrping from the two populations when interbred are less fertile that offsrping from their seperate 'purebred' populations. These points add credence to the conclusion that the two populations are indeed distinct.

Published in the journal Molecular Ecology, the study suggests that bats and humans probably shared cave dwellings at some point in our shared history, and that the two strains of C. lectularius had a common ancestor. The bed bug, a member if the Cimicidae true bugs that evolved to be highly specialised blood-feeders, made a good model for studying host-specific parasite genetic differentiation because of its limited mobility arising from flightlessness.



By Jon Fern

Picture credit: Brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus via The Guardian

Is That Real? The Pink Fairy Armadillo

Welcome to a series of short posts in which NatureWire takes at look at some of the lesser-known animals of the world. These are the kinds of creatures you might ask 'Is that real?' if you ever saw them.

First up is this strange-looking specimen. Yes, it's real! Say hello to the pink fairy armadillo. These animals are small, growing up to just 10 cm, and live in burrows which they leave only at night when they forage for ants. They're great at burrowing, and prefer very dry, sandy soil.

They're lonesome creatures, and live mostly soiltary lives on the warm plains of Argentina. The young look like the adults, except that their shells don't harden fully until adulthood. Also known as the Pichiciego, the pink fairy armadillo is endangered in the wild by cattle ranching and argricultural practices, as well as domestic cats and dogs.

Very little is known about this species, since its nocturnal habits and subterannean habitat make it difficult to observe in the wild. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has classified the pink fairy as data deficient (DD). Unfortunately, because the species has so little data pertaining to it, the extent to which it is endangered is difficult to guage, meaning that it could even be facing extinction.

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

Oceans of Infinity: The Universe is Awash with Water

Water is a precious resource here on Earth. Although the surface of our planet is 71% water, only a tiny fraction of that is available for human needs, such as drinking, food production, and sanitation. In fact, a massive 97.5% of Earth’s total stock of water is saline, leaving only 2.5% freshwater, and 70% of that freshwater is locked frozen in the polar ice caps.¹ From Earth’s perspective, water is scarce.

However, water may in fact be prevalent throughout the universe. NASA estimates that the Jovian moon of Europa may hold 2 to 3 times the amount of Earth’s water. Venus and Mars are also thought to have once had liquid surface water. It is possible that Mars may still have liquid surface water, although this is currently under debate.²

Since water is widely considered to be a requirement for the existence of life, finding water beyond Earth is of great interest to scientists conducting research in the field of astrobiology, the study of life in space. Finding incontrovertible evidence of extraterrestrial liquid water will bolster the idea that life is widespread throughout the universe.

So far, Earth is the only planet known for sure to have stable surface bodies of liquid water. However, water molecules have been detected in the atmospheres of recently discovered extrasolar planets (planets that orbit stars other than the Sun), and there is evidence that Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, may have liquid oceans beneath its frozen exterior.³ Our own surface water exists as a result of atmospheric pressure and our stable orbit around the Sun. Other planets would probably have to have similar conditions for liquid surface water to be present.

There are a number of ways to confirm the presence of water vapor and ice on (or in the atmosphere of) other astronomical bodies, the most accurate being absorption spectroscopy and geochemistry. Detecting liquid water is a lot harder, though. To ascertain whether an astronomical body has liquid surface (or subsurface) water, scientists use a toolkit of detection technques, making use of data pertaining to habitability, gravitational pull, tidal theory, planetary differentiation and radiometry.⁴

Water vapor is sometimes used as an indicator of surface water, with some scientists inferring the presence of liquid oceans from atmospheric water signatures, while others have conjectured that the presence of subsurface water bodies may also be inferred from this; geysers have recently been detected on Enceladus, for instance, throwing out water vapor that may originate in subsurface oceans.

Some planets and moons, therefore, are likely to hold liquid water. But comets can also carry water, albeit most commonly as water ice.⁵ It is possible that at least some of the water on Earth may have been brought here by collisions with small astronomical bodies such as comets. Dust samples from comet Wild-2 have yielded evidence that liquid water may exist inside some comets. Saturn’s rings also contain large amounts of ice, a percentage of which is ejected there from the geysers on Enceladus.

However, the very existence of water on some planets may be hindering researchers from finding it. A recent paper argues that small, warm planets may commonly develop cloudy atmospheres, which can unfortunately thwart attempts to observe the atmospheres themselves, by scattering light and reducing the ability to measure spectral absorption and thereby identify chemical species.⁶

Given the amount of water sources already discovered within our own solar system, and the rate at which water vapor is being detected in the atmospheres of newly discovered exoplanets,⁷ it is likely that the universe is literally awash with water. Perhaps one day, when we have a self-sustaining space economy, we may be able to make use of off-world water sources. Until then, though, water on Earth is a precious commodity, and one which we must protect and conserve.

By Jon Fern

References

1. Uncredited, 2006. Human Appropriation of the World's Fresh Water Supply. University of Michigan. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html Accessed 24^th September 2014.

2. McEwen, A., et al., 2011. Seasonal Flows on Warm Martian Slopes. Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6043/740.abstract Accessed 24^th September 2014.

3. O’Neill, C., et al., 2010. The role of episodic overturn in generating the surface geology and heat flow on Enceladus. Nature Geoscience. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n2/abs/ngeo731.html Accessed 24^th September 2014.

4. Feltman, R., 2014. Scientists hit new milestone in search for water on planets outside our solar system. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/24/scientists-hit-new-milestone-in-search-for-water-on-planets-outside-our-solar-system/ Accessed 24^th September 2014.

5. Cyr, K., et al., 2014. Distribution and Evolution of Water Ice in the Solar Nebula: Implications for Solar System Body Formation. Icarus. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103598959590 Accessed 24^th September 2014.

6. Fraine, J., et al., 2014. Water vapour absorption in the clear atmosphere of a Neptune-sized exoplanet. Nature. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7519/full/nature13785.html Accessed 24^th September 2014.

7. Clavin, W. et al., 2014. NASA telescopes find clear skies and water vapor on exoplanet. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-322 Accessed 24^th September 2014.

Image credit: "Drinking the Universe" by Melzzeny on deviantART

This article was originally published by Save the Water.