Bubbles away! Watch the launch of the penguins

(c) Paul Nicklen / National Geographic

Preparing to launch from the sea to Antarctic sea ice, an Emperor penguin reaches maximum speed.

By Alan Boyle

You thought "The March of the Penguins" was cool? Check out the launch of the penguins?? an aerodynamic phenomenon that helps these flightless birds take flight.

Emperor penguins can't fly just by flapping their wings, but they can propel themselves fast enough through Antarctic waters to turn themselves into winged rockets. They do it by releasing tiny bubbles of air from their feathers: The air acts as a lubricant, reducing drag as they swim up from the depths like tuxedoed torpedoes. In fact, engineers have used air bubbles in similar ways to speed the movement of torpedoes through the water.

Who knew that penguins have been doing the same sort of thing for eons??University College Cork's John Davenport knew: He and his colleagues studied video footage from the BBC's "Blue Planet" TV series to develop a biochemical model for the penguins' torpedo trick. They were amazed to find that the birds' speed was due to the "coat of air bubbles" streaming from their feathers.

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National Geographic

The penguin images are from the November edition of National Geographic magazine. The electronic versions of the report include an exclusive video and interactive graphic that show penguins rocketing onto the ice.

Before the penguins dive into the water, they ruffle their plumage to trap air within the feathers' structure. A deep dive compresses the air into a smaller volume. When the penguins go into their launch, the decompressing air is released through pores in the feathers ? creating a layer of tiny, lubricating bubbles.

The trick is described for scientists in the Marine Ecology Progress Series, and for the rest of us in November's issue of?National Geographic magazine. The heart of the magazine story is Paul Nicklen's pictures, which have just won him top honors in the Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

"We wanted to change people's perception of penguins as ungainly animals," said Nicklen, who has followed penguins and other polar species for years, and admits he's always had an obsession with Antarctica. "The biologist in me was trying to learn about the science."

And he did learn more about the biological background for the bubble trick: Penguins are preyed upon by leopard seals, which lie in wait beneath the ice to ambush the birds during their ascent from the depths. "The penguins know they're there, and as they're coming up ... it's like someone turns on a tap, and there are millions of microbubbles pouring over their bodies."

The supercharged speed helps the penguins elude their predators and shoot up to safety on the ice, Nicklen said. The masses of bubbles have another defensive effect: They confuse the seals as they try to swim in for the attack. Nicklen himself found out how that feels. When he got too close to the penguins underwater, they released a bubbly barrage.

"It was like I was floating through space, in a sea of bubbles," he said.

The online version of National Geographic's penguin spread will feature a video and interactive graphic showing in detail how the penguins rocket out of the water and onto the ice. Next week, the photographer will unveil an app called "Paul Nicklen: Pole to Pole," with more images. In the meantime, feast your eyes on these images from National Geographic, plus two bonus videos:

(c) Paul Nicklen / National Geographic

An airborne penguin shows why it has a need for speed: to get out of the water, it may have to clear several feet of ice. A fast exit also helps it elude leopard seals, which often lurk at the ice edge.

(c) Paul Nicklen / National Geographic

Life is safer at the colony, where predators are few and company is close.

(c) Paul Nicklen / National Geographic

The danger of ambush by seals is greatest when entering the water, so penguins may linger near an ice hole for hours, waiting for the first bird to dive.

(c) Paul Nicklen / National Geographic

"These penguins have probably never seen a human in the water," says photographer Paul Nicklen, "but it took them only seconds to realize that I posed no danger. They relaxed and allowed me to share their hole in the sea ice." This photo earned Nicklen the Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.

A video from the BBC shows penguins using a coat of air bubbles to speed their swimming through Antarctic waters.

More about penguins:

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Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered via email every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/14562724-watch-the-launch-of-the-penguins?lite

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Diplomacy inbox fills up as U.N. awaits U.S. presidential vote

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - As the United States prepares for a presidential election next month, thorny diplomatic issues like an arms trade treaty, the Palestinians' U.N. aspirations and talks on banning weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East have had to wait.

For months, U.N. officials and diplomats have complained privately that discussions at the United Nations aimed at resolving a range of problems have been delayed until after the November 6 election in which President Barack Obama, a Democrat, faces off against Republican contender Mitt Romney.

Some analysts and political pundits suggest U.S. hegemony is waning. But the decision by U.N. member states to put important negotiations on hold shows the power and influence of the United States at the United Nations. Such deference to a national election is unusual.

The stalemate at the U.N. Security Council over the conflict in Syria has not featured prominently in the U.S. campaign, but might emerge as an issue in the final Obama-Romney debate on October 22, which will focus on foreign policy.

Some analysts and diplomats say Obama's caution on Syria is partly driven by election concerns, but others say Washington has abandoned the U.N. track because of Damascus ally Russia's repeated vetoes of U.S. initiatives before the council.

A perennial touchy issue in U.S. politics is gun control, a topic that came up in Tuesday's presidential debate. U.N. delegates and gun control activists said talks on a global treaty to regulate the $60 billion arms trade collapsed because the Obama administration feared a political attack from Romney if it supported the pact.

The treaty negotiations at U.N. headquarters broke off without any agreement in July after the United States, Russia and a few other major arms producers, said it had problems with the draft treaty and asked for more time.

Washington wanted to "bump (the issue) down the road until after the election," in the words of a European diplomat.

David Bosco of American University in Washington said: "The administration clearly feared that the treaty would become a major election issue for gun rights organizations and, with a few other countries, worked to ensure that it would not move anywhere until after the election."

Frank Jannuzi of Amnesty International echoed Bosco's views.

Gun control is controversial in the United States, where the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. The powerful National Rifle Association strongly opposes the arms trade treaty and has endorsed Romney. Arms control advocates say they hope Obama will eventually back the treaty if he is re-elected.

The United States denies that it wanted to delay the arms treaty negotiations, insisting it had genuine problems with the draft treaty under discussion.

"While we sought to conclude ... negotiations with a treaty, more time is a reasonable request for such a complex and critical issue," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at the time.

Despite their obvious frustration, delegations accepted the hold-up and treaty talks are expected to resume in March. They have no choice but to acquiesce, envoys say, since a treaty without the support of the world's top arms producer would not carry much weight.

PALESTINIANS LOOK FOR U.N. UPGRADE

The United States did not have to tell the Palestinians to postpone their plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly to vote on upgraded U.N. observer status for the Palestinian Authority, which Washington opposes.

The Palestinians made that decision on their own, U.N. envoys said, because they did not want their desire to achieve implicit U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood to play into the U.S. presidential campaign, forcing Obama to take a harsher stance against the Palestinians than he might otherwise take.

The president of the General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic of Serbia, said this month that the Palestinian push to become a "non-member state" like the Vatican would be debated by the 193-nation assembly in mid-November. He said the timing was due to "electoral and political calendars.

Having failed last year to win recognition of full statehood at the United Nations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would seek a less-ambitious U.N. status upgrade that implicitly recognizes Palestinian statehood.

The Obama administration has made clear it does not want the Palestinians to pursue a U.N. upgrade at all. The United States and Israel also have suggested that funding for the Palestinian Authority and the U.N. could suffer.

If the Palestinians decide to put the issue to a vote, U.N. diplomats predict they will succeed with a strong majority.

There are other issues that are on hold, diplomats say. One is a planned conference on ridding the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, an idea that Israel is resisting due to fears that it will become a forum for bashing the Jewish state.

Israel neither denies or confirms having atomic weapons, but is widely believed to have the region's only nuclear arsenal.

The conference was due to take place this year. But diplomats said it was delayed until after the U.S. vote, partly to see whether the United States would remain committed to the idea.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/diplomacy-inbox-fills-u-n-awaits-u-presidential-013405413.html

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Steve Wagenheim's Home Business Blog ? Blog Archive ? List ...

In this installment of List Building Tips, I want to discuss novelty pages. I know this isn?t something that a lot of marketers think about, but believe it or not, novelty pages can actually build you quite a nice list if done correctly.

Okay, so what exactly is a novelty page? Well, it can be just about anything that isn?t made strictly for the business of, um, doing business.

For example, you could put up a page of nothing but jokes but related to the niche that you?re in. Then, at the bottom of the page, you could have a little message that reads something like this.

?Want to get some more great jokes about (fill in the niche) delivered straight to your email box? Fill in your name and email below and I?ll send them to you along with some great offers that I think you?ll be interested in.?

Make it clear to the prospect that they may be receiving emails promoting products that you feel will be of benefit to them. You don?t want to be accused of sending information that the prospect didn?t ask for. As long as you?re up front with everything, there should be no problems.

Another thing you can do is setup a page where the prospects go on a treasure hunt. They click on various links in order to find their way to the prize. Yes, this does take a bit of work to setup but it?s a lot of fun and can really go viral, especially if you make the prize something worth going after.

Then, what you do, in order to get people to sign up to your list, is let them know that by doing so, they?ll get important hints delivered directly to their email that will help them find the treasure. Of course, also let them know that you might also be sending them an occasional sales pitch. And of course if you want to sweeten the deal, let them know that they?ll also get some kind of free e-course or e-book. Use your imagination.

Why do these novelty pages work? It?s really very simple. They?re not all about work. They?re a break from the daily grind of having to run a business or worry about whatever ailment is bothering you. In short, they?re entertainment. And people LOVE to be entertained. If it?s done in an interesting way AND you actually give them something to shoot for, not only can these pages get lots of opt ins, but they can also go viral like mad if done correctly.

You want to make sure that you map everything out FIRST before you put up one page. If the system isn?t complete BEFORE you put it online for the public, your prospects are going to be disappointed by the experience and they WON?T come back. This isn?t like building a web site that you can do a piece at a time. Everything has to be in place right from the start. In the case of the treasure hunt game, this is absolutely critical.

Other ideas include puzzles, surveys, video pages and so on. Anything that?s not the usual opt in or sales page and is more entertainment than business will work.

Try one. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want more great list building tips? Check out my review of Paul Myers? Profit Plan VI at Profit Plan VI and pick up 162 ways to build a large and responsive list.

Source: http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/list-building-tips-novelty-pages.html

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Conservation scientists look beyond greenbelts to connect wildlife sanctuaries

Friday, October 19, 2012

We live in a human-dominated world. For many of our fellow creatures, this means a fragmented world, as human conduits to friends, family, and resources sever corridors that link the natural world. Our expanding web of highways, cities, and intensive agriculture traps many animals and plants in islands and cul-de-sacs of habitat, held back by barriers of geography or architecture from reaching mates, food, and wider resources.

A team of researchers, managers, and ecological risk assessors review the current state-of-the-art in landscape connectivity planning, offering models, case studies, and advice for coping with the uncertainty inherent in dynamic, real-world conditions in the Ecological Society of America's 16th volume of Issues in Ecology.

Connectivity doesn't always mean corridors

"The shortest path is not always the best path," said author Sadie Ryan, an ecologist at the State University of New York in Syracuse. "Connectivity is not always just a straight line of greenway that you can identify from an airplane." Connections can be conduits, or more complex extensions of habitat, looking more like a web than a greenbelt. Coastal inhabitants need the depth of the reach of tides as well as the horizontal reach of coastline habitat. Birds may be able to hop from preserve to pea-patch to backyard oasis, depending on their range and flexibility.

The need to move is most obvious for migratory animals and the large animals that need big tracts of territory. Most of us are aware of large and charismatic animals like deer, bear, or coyotes. But plants, and smaller, less itinerant animals, also benefit from connections to wider spaces.

"Landscape connectivity is as diverse as the animals that live in it," said lead author Deborah Rudnick, an environmental scientist with Integral Consulting Inc, in Seattle, WA.

On the ground, managers need to address the biology of their focal species, understanding behavior, genetics, adaptation, and habitat. They have to scale up observational and experimental data to predict interactions with other wildlife and physical features of the landscape, layering on the possibility of climate changing, waterways shifting, and human life encroaching. "It's a massive amount of info to keep in your head simultaneously. I want people to step away from this review with a sense of that complexity," said Rudnick.

No perfect solutions

Opening corridors can sometimes aid the flow of invasive species and disease, as well as the species at the heart of conservation planning. All management plans involve trade-offs?whether that means obtaining the best versus the most available land, or favoring a single endangered species at the possible expense of others in its ecological community.

Some planners prefer to focus on preserving ecosystem services, rather than specific species, in an effort to preserve an ecological community more holistically. But there is no perfect solution. Unpredictable future conditions are unavoidable complications to conservation efforts, and climate change in particular could throw a ringer into the best laid plans.

"We are no longer living in a world where we can preserve perfect habitat," said Ryan.

Climate change means wildlife will move?unpredictably

Climate change, and wildlife's response to climate change, is not a linear process. We can't expect all species simply to move to colder climes, nor expect ecological communities to move as complete units, said Ryan and Rudnick. Species have independent capacities to adapt and move, decoupled from the ecological relationships of predator to prey, pollinator to flower, or grazer to grass.

"We're seeing species moving to new territory independently, remixing existing communities and shaking conservation definitions," said Rudnick. "What do we mean by quote-un-quote conserving a community? What does it mean in the face of climate change? You cannot expect a community to stay in the place that it was in the face of major changes in their environmental conditions."

Our models, and management, must adapt to conditions changing in real time. Flexibility is not generally a virtue of government regulations. The timescale of legal decision-making is generally much shorter than we would want in order to provide communities, both ecological and anthropological, time to adjust.

Achieving connections for wildlife requires forging connections with people

Corridors and connections are often in the spaces between preserves, the mixed use spaces occupied by human communities. Bridging barriers for wildlife means bridging the needs of the people living in that landscape. It means working with communities to find solutions that are practical, and possible, said the authors, not just from the perspective of science, but also residents, farmers, and industry. A first step is finding a common language. Ryan said she doesn't talk about 'ecosystem services' in rural Uganda. Those aren't Rutooro words. "We ask, "Is the park beneficial to you?"" and locals might say, "It keeps the rain." They perceive benefit from the park, but don't describe it like a scientist. The same is true of English-speaking communities.

You build your models, said Rudnick. "Then you try to put them in the real world. Community needs?that is, human community needs?add a whole layer of complexity to real life implementation."

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Ecological Society of America: http://www.esa.org

Thanks to Ecological Society of America for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 20 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124644/Conservation_scientists_look_beyond_greenbelts_to_connect_wildlife_sanctuaries

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Researchers unveil 3-D structure of 'molecular machine' that initiates DNA transcription

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2012) ? An team of Rutgers University scientists led by Richard H. Ebright and Eddy Arnold has determined the three-dimensional structure of the transcription initiation complex, the key intermediate in the process by which cells read out genetic information in DNA.

In a paper to be published in Science and released online in Science Express, the Rutgers scientists show how the "molecular machine" responsible for transcription initiation -- a protein complex that consists of the enzyme RNA polymerase and the initiation factor sigma -- recognizes a specific site on DNA preceding a gene, binds to DNA, unwinds the DNA helix, and pre-organizes the unwound DNA to enable subsequent reactions.

"Determining the structure of a functional, specific transcription initiation complex has been a goal of researchers for three decades," said Ebright, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers, a laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The structure determined by the Rutgers researchers is the structure of a transcription initiation complex from a bacterium. The structure provides a foundation for understanding bacterial transcription initiation and transcriptional regulation and provides a starting point for developing new antibacterial agents that function by inhibiting bacterial transcription. Because the transcription machineries in bacteria and higher organisms are structurally and mechanistically related, the structure also provides a framework for understanding transcription and transcriptional regulation in higher organisms, including humans.

The structure defines the interactions that RNA polymerase and sigma make with the DNA site for transcription initiation, known as the "promoter." In particular, the structure defines interactions with a segment of the promoter that RNA polymerase and sigma unwind to form single-stranded DNA (the "transcription bubble") and specific DNA sequences that RNA polymerase and sigma recognize and bind to within this segment of the promoter (the "-10 element," the "discriminator element," and a new DNA sequence identified in this work, the "core recognition element").

The structure shows that a first part of sigma recognizes the -10 element through contacts with single-stranded DNA that entail the unstacking and insertion of DNA bases of the -10 element into pockets. A second part of sigma recognizes the discriminator element through contacts with single-stranded DNA that entail the unstacking and insertion of a DNA base of the discriminator element into a pocket. A third part of sigma contacts the other strand of DNA and pre-organizes it to serve as the template for RNA synthesis. Finally, RNA polymerase recognizes the core recognition element through contacts with single-stranded DNA, unstacking and inserting a DNA base into a pocket.

"This study represents a very significant contribution to our understanding of the workings of this central macromolecular machine of gene expression," said Peter von Hippel, professor of biophysical chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oregon, who was not part of the study. "A particular significance of this work is the very systematic way the researchers built nucleic acid scaffolds bound to various nucleic acid and protein complexes involved in the various steps of initiation and were able to show in detail how the sigma initiation factor interacts with the various individual nucleotide residues involved in the recognition of the important elements of the promoter."

The research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rutgers University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Yu Zhang, Yu Feng, Sujoy Chatterjee, Steve Tuske, Mary X. Ho, Eddy Arnold, and Richard H. Ebright. Structural Basis of Transcription Initiation. Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1126/science.1227786

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/Kv3nbjQumTA/121018141838.htm

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How flick knife thumbs help Japan's rare fighting frogs

Friday, October 19, 2012

Combat-ready spikes which shoot from fingers sounds like the weaponry of a comic book hero, but a Japanese scientist has found exactly this in a rare breed of frog. The discovery, which is published in the Journal of Zoology, reveals how the Otton frog uses spikes which protrude from a false thumb for both combat and mating.

The study, conducted by Dr Noriko Iwai from the University of Tokyo, focused on the Otton frog (Babina subaspera), whose habitat is the Amami islands of Southern Japan. Unlike most other frogs the Otton has an extra digit-like structure, a trait it shares with the five-fingered Hypsiboas rosenbergi frogs of Latin America.

"Why these 'fifth fingers' exist in some species remains an evolutionary mystery, but the extra digit of the Otton is in fact a pseudo-thumb," said Dr Iwai. "The digit encases a sharp spine which can project out of the skin, which fieldwork demonstrates is used for combat and mating."

Dr Iwai has studied the rare frogs since 2004 in order to understand the species' distribution, breeding habits and range; all factors which will contribute to any conservation strategy. Once she began exploring how the Ottons use their pseudo-thumbs Dr Iwai discovered that while both males and females had the spike, it was only used by males.

Males were found to have larger pseudo-thumbs than the females and Dr Iwai believes that the spikes evolved for anchoring to the female, known as amplexus, the Latin for embrace, during mating.

"While the pseudo-thumb may have evolved for mating, it is clear that they're now used for combat," said Dr Iwai. "The males demonstrated a jabbing response with the thumb when they were picked up, and the many scars on the male spines provided evidence of fighting."

The conditions on the Amami islands make combat, and the need for weaponry, a key factor for the frogs' mating success. Individuals fight over places to build nests, while the chances of a male finding a mate each night are rare, thus the ability to fight off competitors may be crucial.

Perhaps unfortunately, the comic book hero image is slightly dented by the frogs' fighting style. Rather than dueling with thumb spikes the males wrestle each other in an embrace, jabbing at each other with the spines. This fighting style helps confirm the theory that the spines were original used for embracing mates.

"More research is needed to look at how the pseudo-thumb evolved and how it came to be used for fighting," concluded Dr Iwai. "The thumbs use as a weapon, and the danger of the frogs harming themselves with it, makes the Otton pseudo-thumb an intriguing contribution to the study of hand morphology."

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Article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2012.00971.x/full

Wiley: http://www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell

Thanks to Wiley for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 18 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124618/How_flick_knife_thumbs_help_Japan_s_rare_fighting_frogs

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