{"id":4035,"date":"2010-09-21T15:18:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=4035"},"modified":"2010-09-21T15:18:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T19:18:54","slug":"from-the-community-street-lamps-traffic-lights-and-nuclear-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2010\/09\/21\/from-the-community-street-lamps-traffic-lights-and-nuclear-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Community: street lamps, traffic lights and nuclear energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Songbirds become disoriented by street lamps, plants adapt to the conditions near Chernobyl, a newly discovered spider spins gigantic webs with the strongest known biological material in the world, traffic light experiment shows promise of reducing emissions and easing traffic congestion and researchers discuss the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an outlet for communicating science to the public. Here are some of the latest stories in ecology for the second to last week in September.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Climate and oceans: <\/strong>In the above video, Rob Dunbar from Stanford University presents data from corals and ice cores to show significant changes in the world\u2019s oceans throughout the last few centuries. For example, Dunbar and colleagues analyzed the cores of coral heads throughout the Galapagos Islands to determine the frequency of devastating events, such as an <\/span>El Ni\u00f1o<\/span>, occurring 200 to 400 years ago. The researchers found that the <\/span>El Ni\u00f1o<\/span> events from 1982 to 1983 and 1997 to 1998 were unique\u2014that is, the researchers did not see evidence of any other mass mortality events before the 1980s in the coral cores. Read more<\/a> at \u201cRob Dunbar: Discovering ancient climates in oceans and ice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Songbirds and street lamps:<\/strong> Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany have discovered that street lamps may have an effect on male songbirds, prompting them to sing earlier in the morning. As Cynthia Graber described in Scientific American<\/em>\u2019s 60-Second Science<\/em>, \u201c\u2026 the males may be weaker because they get less sleep due to the lights. And so females who used to take early singing as a sign of virility may be attracted to weaker males who simply can\u2019t sleep because the lights are on.\u201d Listen<\/a> to the podcast \u201cArtificial Lighting Changing Songbird Lifestyles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShielded\u201d plants:<\/span><\/strong> \u201cIn April 1986, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded and sent radioactive particles flying through the air, infiltrating the surrounding soil,\u201d wrote Sindya N. Bhanoo of The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cDespite the colossal disaster, some plants in the area seem to have adapted well, flourishing in the contaminated soil.\u201d According to Martin Hajduch at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Slovakia in a recent Environmental Science and Technology<\/em> study, the plants may have altered protein levels to serve as a defense mechanism against radiation. Read more<\/a> at \u201cPlants Near Chernobyl Appear to Grow a Shield.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stealthy sea walnuts:<\/strong> Sean Colin from Roger Williams University examined the feeding mechanism of the sea walnut: a continuous intake-output system (see above video). Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science<\/em> wrote that the sea walnut \u201c\u2026creates a current that sucks everything in the surrounding water into its tentacle-ringed mouth. The current it creates flows smoothly at just 2 millimetres per second. Only when it passes over the animal\u2019s mouth does it accelerate and warp, spiralling into a corkscrew motion that goes past the tentacles\u2026 The sea walnut creates its own conveyor belt of food, a streaming buffet made up of a varied selection of dishes.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cThe stealthy sea walnut sucks to succeed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Darwin\u2019s bark spider:<\/strong> Scientists have discovered Caerostris darwini<\/em>, known as Darwin\u2019s bark spider, in the jungles of Madagascar. The spider spins the strongest and largest known web in the world, spanning 30-square-foot areas above streams and rivers. Bradon Keim from Wired Science<\/em> wrote, \u201cThe spiders\u2019 superior gossamer likely evolved in tandem with C. darwini<\/em>\u2019s migration to Madagascar\u2019s rivers, and is twice as elastic as silk from other web-weaving spiders. That elasticity is key to the silk\u2019s toughness, and its molecular underpinnings remain to be studied.\u201d Read more<\/a> at \u201cGigantic Spider Webs Made of Silk Tougher Than Kevlar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, traffic lights<\/a> that adjust to the number of cars could reduce emissions (and minimize congestion), white-nose syndrome<\/a> shows roots in Europe, nuclear<\/a> power plants that could run double their expected lifespan and Matthew Nisbet\u2019s thoughts<\/a> on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an outlet for communicating science to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Songbirds become disoriented by street lamps, plants adapt to the conditions near Chernobyl, a newly discovered spider spins gigantic webs with the strongest known biological material in the world, traffic light experiment shows promise of reducing emissions and easing traffic congestion and researchers discuss the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an outlet for communication science to the public. Here are some of the latest stories in ecology for the second to last week in 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":[101,966,60,967,910,968,969,12,238],"class_list":["post-4035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-birds","tag-chernobyl","tag-climate-change","tag-light","tag-oceans","tag-radiation","tag-songbirds","tag-spiders","tag-white-nose-syndrome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035","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=4035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}