Extreme Biology

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by Connor

For years movies like Jurassic Park have fascinated us all. The idea of bringing back a dead or extinct species is fantastic. But the real question still remains: Can it be done? According to scientists it can be done, thanks to a new found mammoth carcass. In today’s world, scientists are trying to clone or reproduce live wooly mammoths. One organization in Japan has been working on this since 2005, and recently a documentary has been shown on this very subject. It’s as real as it’s going to get.

But to clone a Mammoth you must first go through a very rigorous process. First you must get the egg of an elephant (this would be the easiest way). Then you must fertilize the egg by either using a mammoth sperm, or by getting full mammoth DNA. It’s very complicated and if you would like to learn more visit this website.

Here are some facts about mammoths. Mammoths, African, and Asian elephants evolved from the same ancestor. The woolly mammoth was only about 11’ tall, whereas its predecessor, the Columbian mammoth was 13’ tall. Mastodons did not evolve from the same ancestors, but rather branched off immediately after the first elephant-like species died off. To learn more about the mammoths visit this site.

All in all I think it’s pretty cool what they’re doing with these mammoths. I hope that they can someday clone extinct animals, because it could help in studying animals on earth today. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourselves on the subject:  Would you like to have a woolly mammoth in your zoo? Would it be safe?  Would you like to have one as a pet? Would you think it would be dangerous?  From a religious and/or scientific view, is it right to clone dead or extinct animals?

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by Sydni

A simple fungus, that quickly deteriorated the fibers in WWII tents and uniforms, has now been discovered to be very efficient and cost effective in the creation of ethanol, a fuel alternative to gasoline.  Ethanol is created from fermented simple sugars that are found in natural substances such as corn and switchgrass.  Recently ethanol has been criticized by many to be an expensive and inefficient fuel alternative. The fungus, Tricoderma reesei, on an industrial scale, could revolutionize the process of producing ethanol.

T. reesei breaks down human-indigestible planet fibers through enzymes to create monosaccharide, the simplest sugar form, which it uses as food.  When researchers tried to figure out why it was so efficient at processing plant cells, they discovered a way it could help revolutionize the ethanol production process.  The discovery stemmed from mapping the genome of T. reesei.  They found, while there were large quantities of enzymes, there were fewer variations in the types of enzymes produced.  Scientists concluded that the system must be extremely efficient in releasing the proteins which create simple sugar plant fibers.

By adding purified T. reesei enzymes to a mixture of cellulose pulp and other materials, sugar is produced, which can then, with yeast, be fermented into ethanol. “The sequencing of the Trichoderma reesei genome is a major step towards using renewable feedstocks for the production of fuels and chemicals,” said Joel Cherry, director of research activities in second-generation biofuels for Novozymes, a collaborating institution in the study.

“The information contained in its genome will allow us to better understand how this organism degrades cellulose so efficiently and to understand how it produces the required enzymes so prodigiously. Using this information, it may be possible to improve both of these properties, decreasing the cost of converting cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals.”

This fungus can revolutionize the way America produces an earth-friendly fuel alternative, more efficiently and more cost effectively than gasoline.

Do you think it important to find alternative fuel sources for a better future?  Do you think this fungus could be one step toward creating an effective and efficient alternative to gasoline? Why?

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by Grant W

Now, you may know that the earth we live on today is highly polluted. One of the worst forms of pollution that we inflict, whether purposely or because of some accident, is an oil spill. Oil spills can be very dangerous to the populations of the specific ecosystem where the oil was spilled. Luckily, oil spills are able to be cleaned which saves the lives of many animals. However, it is incredibly hard to monitor the health of the ecosystem affected by the oil spill after the clean up has been made. Scientists may have found a way to monitor these ecosystems.

Blood tests that were conducted by many scientists at different universities and other institutions have shown that the pollutants left over from the oil spill, long after the clean up, can be extracted from the blood of yellow-legged seagulls. This study, Monitoring PAH pollution in the marine environment after the Prestige oil-spill by means of seabird blood analysis, has helped to show some of the long term affects that the pollutants from oil spills have on the different animals living in the affected ecosystem after it had been cleaned.

“This study highlights the delayed effects of oil spills that we know very little about,” said Stuart Bearhop, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter in England who was not involved in the study. “It’s very easy to see what happens right after an oil spill: everything dies. But there are probably a lot of later effects we’ve overlooked.”

The seagulls that eat some of the oil from the spills form chemicals in their bodies that are known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs), which are compounds that have been connected with cancer in humans. The PAH levels are tested by capturing live birds, taking a small blood sample from them, and then releasing them into the wild. The tests showed that birds that lived near the Prestige oil spill had twice as much PAH as birds that are unaffected by oil spills.

Below are two graphs that show the levels of PAH in yellow-legged gulls from colonies exposed to oil and some not exposed to oil (graph A) and from gulls that were fed vegetable oil and Prestige oil (graph B). In the groups not exposed to oil (unshaded) it is evident that PAH levels are much lower than when the gull is exposed to oil (shaded). In the supplemented oil study, gulls exposed to oil had PAH levels around 85 total PAHs while gulls unexposed to the oil had around 60-65 PAHs.

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The tests used in this study were only being done to animals that were already dead or they were done by taking a blood sample from a living gull, which does not hurt it. This study could possibly be a huge step forward in learning some of the long-term effects of oil spills so that animals that are in areas where these spills happened can be better watched over and taken care of (Source).

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by Miss Baker

In the video teaser for this Sunday’s PBS Nature special, Crash: A Tale of Two Species, scientists use a rather fun method called cannon netting to catch hundreds of Red Knots.

Why are they so furiously studying this little shorebird? Because its population size has fallen from over 100,000 in the 1980’s to less than 15,000 today. Why the drop? Its very survival depends upon a 350 445-million-year-old species, the Horseshoe Crab. When making the long journey from the southernmost tip of South America, the Red Knots make special stops along the way to rest and refuel. On beaches of the Delaware Bay, horseshoe crabs lay eggs that the birds must feast on if they are to survive their arduous journey.

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But, humans have been collecting the horseshoe crabs to use as fishing bait and for medicinal purposes. Consequently, their numbers have dropped. As any good student of the food chain understands, if the crab population drops, the red knots who depend on them will as well. Because of their dismally low population numbers, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has issued a ban on the fishing industry from hunting the crabs. As you can expect, the fishing industry is not very happy. However, if the ban is lifted, some scientists believe the Red Knot will go extinct by 2010.

Why care? If the amazing inherent beauty of this living creature doesn’t sway you, perhaps money will. There’s plenty of people who appreciate and love to watch shorebirds and they give their hard-earned money to see them. They bring an estimated $35 million dollars to the local economy of South Jersey alone.  I don’t have data from the fishing industry for comparison.  Fishermen use crabs as bait to catch fish.  Perhaps someone can research and find out the expected cost to the fishing industry if they are forced to switch bait.

The Red Knot is nicknamed the “moon bird” because each year it migrates from the bottom of the earth to the top in an 18,000-mile round-trip journey. In a lifetime, it could have flown to the moon. It will be a great loss to our planet if it isn’t saved.

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