{"id":4016,"date":"2010-09-16T17:06:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T21:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=4016"},"modified":"2010-09-16T17:06:31","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T21:06:31","slug":"from-the-community-space-bacteria-chimeras-and-sea-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2010\/09\/16\/from-the-community-space-bacteria-chimeras-and-sea-turtles\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Community: space bacteria, chimeras and sea turtles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citizen scientist notices thousands of birds trapped in the lights of this year\u2019s 9\/11 memorial in New York City, endangered turtles get a second chance in Florida, flu viruses last longer in cool, dry environments, a blogger sets up a serendipitous research collaboration and the Potomac River shows signs of improvement due to aquatic conservation efforts. Here is research in ecology from mid-September.<\/span><\/p>\n

NYC bird confusion:<\/strong> John Rowden, citizen science director at the Audubon Society\u2019s New York City chapter<\/a>, determined what exactly was floating in the Tribute Light at Ground Zero in New York City on September 11, 2010: confused birds (see above video). According to Rowden, and as reported in Wired Science<\/em>, \u201c\u2026 10,000 birds entered the beams, becoming confused and circling until the Municipal Art Society, working with New York City Audubon, shut the lights for 20 minutes, allowing the birds to leave. That happened five times over the course of the night.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201c9\/11 Memorial Lights Trap Thousands of Birds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Turtle rescue:<\/strong> Wildlife officials have deemed the mass relocation of endangered Kemp\u2019s ridley sea turtle eggs from the oil-slicked Gulf of Mexico to NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center\u2014and the eventual release of the turtles into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral, Florida\u2014to be a success. \u201cA total of 278 sea turtle nests were trucked to the space center from the Gulf Coast from the end of June until mid-August,\u201d reported Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press. \u201cThey expected to move about 700 nests, but the shipments ended after the Gulf of Mexico was deemed safe for the sea turtle hatchlings.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cTurtle egg rescue at space center billed success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some like it cold:<\/strong> In a pair of studies published early this month, scientists have found that flu viruses live longer in dry, cooler conditions compared with a warm, humid environment. In one of the studies, published in Environmental Science & Technology<\/em>, examined the length of time avian influenza remained infectious on various surfaces at room temperature versus the temperature of a refrigerator. The virus lasted about one day in the warm setting, but \u201cthe virus remained infectious through day four on feces, and through the end of the study \u2014 13 days \u2014 on glass, metal and soil\u201d when kept in a cooler, dryer environment. Read more<\/a> at \u201cDry air might boost flu transmission.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Serendipitous chimeras:<\/strong> Science blogger Ed Yong from Not Exactly Rocket Science<\/em> described his role in sparking a research collaboration on chimeric<\/a> chickens spurred from one of his posts<\/a>. Yong lists the email exchanges between a biologist and a farmer that eventually developed into a research opportunity. \u201cI love this,\u201d wrote Yong. \u201cScience can spring from the most serendipitous of circumstances and I\u2019m proud to have played\u00a0 a trivial role as a conduit in this instance. Indeed, this story is laced with serendipity, right from its beginning.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cIn which I set up a collaboration between a biologist, a farmer and a chimeric chicken.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Space colonists:<\/strong> \u201cMicrobes currently are used in mining to help recover metals such as gold, copper and uranium. Now researchers suggest bacteria could be enlisted for \u201cbio-mining\u201d in space<\/a>, to extract oxygen, nutrients and minerals from extraterrestrial bodies such as the moon and Mars<\/a> for use by future colonists there,\u201d wrote Charles Choi in a recent Scientific American<\/em><\/span> article. Researchers tested cyanobacteria on loose surface rock from Mars and the Moon and found that the bacteria<\/span> Anabaena cylindrical <\/em>could grow rapidly and extract calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, nickel, sodium, zinc and copper from the rocks. Read more<\/a> at \u201cSpace Colonists Could Use Bacteria to Mine Minerals on Mars and the Moon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, the archer fish\u2019s mammal-like vision<\/a>, how far science has come in 30 years<\/a>, genetically altering photosynthesis<\/a>, massive fish kill<\/a> in Louisiana, Southern Fried Science<\/em> ended<\/a> its week-long Ocean of Pseudoscience segment and the Potomac River shows improvement<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizen scientist notices thousands of birds trapped in the lights of this year\u2019s 9\/11 memorial in New York City, endangered turtles get a second chance in Florida, flu viruses last longer in cool, dry environments, a blogger sets up a serendipitous research collaboration and the Potomac River shows signs of improvement due to aquatic conservation efforts. Here is research in ecology from mid-September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[638,101,958,341,959,307,543,960],"class_list":["post-4016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-bacteria","tag-birds","tag-chimera","tag-collaboration","tag-cyanobacteria","tag-flu","tag-genes","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}