Year of the Tiger

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On Sunday, the Chinese calendar moves from the year of the Ox into the year of the Tiger, meaning both a celebration of, and a threat to this majestic big cat species.

First for some good news: in Sumatra, strategically placed video cameras have captured the first film evidence of the wild Sumatran tiger. A mother and two, year-old cubs can be seen on the tape sniffing the camera as they curiously walk by.

Another recent finding reported in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution looked at the ancestral relationships between the five major big cats: jaguars, leopards, snow leopards, lions and tigers. It was known that these five groups have been evolving separately from little cats for a long time, but it was not known what the genetic relationships were within the big cats.

As it turns out, the tiger and snow leopard are sister species, meaning they split off as a separate group early on. The other three, lions, jaguars, and leopards, have been evolving separately as a group as well.

What this means is the tiger is more ancient and unique than we thought. Which is kind of a shame…considering the already devastating thirst in Asian countries for tiger body parts. Skins are sold as luxury items for homes or clothing. Teeth are revered as jewellery, and tiger penises are dried and ground up for men to take, so they can be more virile.

But personally, I can't think of anything more unluxurious, or an act more ugly, or more impotent than poaching or farming these awesome creatures. Let's hope celebrating the year of the tiger can shed some light on this problem rather than exacerbating it.

~Rheanna Sand

Snow and "Global Warming"

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Massive snowfall always leads to three things. Nationwide cancellation of air travel, spontaneous snow ball fighting, and inevitably, the drudging up of the old question: "whatever happened to global warming?"

Climate change deniers love snow. It's like Christmas in February. Because it gives them a chance to take the "global warming" misnomer literally, and put the onus on scientists to explain the fluffy white flakes out of existence. Luckily for scientists, such an onus is unnecessary. Because despite what the wingnuts may believe, increased snowfall is exactly what is to be expected if climate change is really taking effect... At least for a while.

Because aside from the fact that no single weather event can be blamed solely on climate change, extreme weather on either end of the spectrum is only going to get more frequent as our planet warms. This is because warmer global temperatures overall result in higher ocean temperatures. Hotter oceans lead to increased evaporation. And more evaporation leads to higher levels of moisture in the air, which lead to—you guessed it—increased precipitation.

And until the planet has heated to the point that it never drops below zero degrees Celsius—at which point snow will become a distant memory—these events can all be expected to cause extremely heavy snowfall in the winter.

The scientists are explaining all of this, of course. And patiently too, I might add. But that won't stop them from having to do it again the next time it snows in New York. Which will probably be in about five minutes.

- Brit Trogen

The Abyss

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The ocean scares me...just a little. There is so much stuff about it we just don't know and so many deadly creatures from man-o-wars to Great White sharks.

But all of the creatures that you think of in the ocean - sharks, coral, whales, dolphins - they all exist in the upper reaches of the big blue seas. There exists an entire world, an entire universe at the depths of the ocean that we know nothing about.

No light, incredible pressure, frigid temperatures in some places, boiling in others - all of the elements we consider essential for life are not wanted or needed at the depths of the ocean. Species that live 4000 meters down survive by something called chemosynthesis - where they get energy from chemicals, not sunlight, to make organic molecules. Bacteria we know nothing about live down there and fuel the entire ecosystem starting at hydrothermal vents that spew boiling water and sulfur into the ocean.



The fish that live down there are so ugly you wish you didn't know they existed. They have useless eyes but mouths that will eat anything. Giant squid and oysters inhabit the deepest reaches of the oceans. And some crazy creatures like the recently filmed oarfish. Most organisms are shrimp-like creatures that feast on all the dead fish that slowly float to the bottom.

Our planet is over 65% water and life evolved in the oceans - which means that the most biodiversity on the planet exists in the watery realm. But, so little of our time has focused on the deep blue that we can't even pretend to understand the effects of fishing, whaling and climate change without first looking more than just a few meters beyond our snorkel gear.

--Torah Kachur

Man Off The Moon

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George W. Bush's boy-like vision of putting more astronauts on the moon by 2020 was crushed this week with an announcement from the Obama administration that the Constellation program is being canceled.

The program was to use existing technology to put humans back in moon boots and, presumably, make moon-landing conspiracy theorists shut the hell up, once and for all. But, apparently, spending billions of dollars and thousands of hours to do something you've already done is "faux pas" for well-functioning government agencies like NASA.

So, when looking at funding requests last week, the Obama administration examined the over-budget, behind schedule, lacking in innovation project, and cut it. Not without criticism, of course: the cut will mean lost jobs at Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center, and Republican representatives are not shy to use this as political fodder, calling it the "death march for the future of US space flight."

This hyperbolic statement completely ignores the $6 billion funding boost promised to NASA over the next five years. It also ignores the progress made in sending robots off to do our exploration for us, without the risks of radiation, dehydration, muscle atrophy, and cabin fever.

I mean, look how long the Mars rovers lasted - they are both over 2000 Martian days over warranty. And have you seen the new R2 robots from GM? Let's face it...us pitiful humans are on the way out of this space race we started a mere 53 years ago.

~Rheanna Sand

Rise of the 100-Year Olds

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By 2050, the world population of 100-year olds is projected to reach 6 million people, forever changing our conception of what it means to be "middle aged," and making the senior's discount at Denny's a serious liability.

It's actually kind of thrilling if you think about it. There are over 340,000 centenarians living today, and if demographers are correct, they will be one of the fastest growing age groups in coming years, increasing 20 times faster than the general population.

The reasons are simple: medical advances leading to better treatments of heart disease and stroke (the leading causes of death in humans), and improved diet and lifestyle are the primary reasons our life-spans are seeing such a stretch. But there's also been a dramatic shift in attitude among doctors, encouraging them to aggressively treat illnesses in the elderly that they may not have in the past.

But in all of these encouraging facts, one thing stands out. If you're going to live to be 100, Japan is the place to do it. Aside from the fact that the Japanese treat their elderly with special dignity and respect, they have created an incredibly advanced robotics industry to cater to their elderly population — everything from robo-maids to robo-dogs and cats. And they'll be needing it too; by mid-century Japan is expected to have 627,000 centenarians, which is about 1% of their total population.

One hundred years. It really takes the pressure off, doesn't it?

- Brit Trogen

The Silk Road to Biosynthesis

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Mother Nature has thought of everything. Bacteria that can eat oil. Bees that make honey incredibly resistant to any type of infection. And the strongest fiber on the planet - spider's silk.


Spider's silk is five times stronger than steel, lighter than nylon and stretchier than elastic. It's also recyclable, durable and free. All of these properties make it one of the most sought-after biomaterials in the world. So far, all attempts to make it in a chemistry lab have failed miserably while spiders across the globe happily weave their webs.

The quest for spider's silk for human use sounds pretty straightforward - get a whole bunch of spiders and collect their webs everyday. Sounds great, until you try to actually keep spiders at any reasonable density....they have a frequent tendency to eat eachothers heads off. Making spider-keeping kind of unsustainable.

Spiders - 1 : Humans - 0

Another option - get 70 people to climb a bunch of telephone poles in Malaysia for four years, collect golden orb spiders and 'milk' them of their silk. Obviously sound economic practice. All to get 2.6 pounds of silk that was used to make a textile now on display at the American Natural History Museum. There has to be a better way.

How about clone the gene for silk and make transgenic goats secrete spider silk into their milk?

Clearly the next step.

That has also been done, with limited success. The main problem is the unbelievable complexity of the glands that spiders use to make silk. They secrete silk from combinations of 6 different glands as a liquid form, then use another set of organs to apply pressure to rearrange the proteins into a long, continuous fiber.

The uses of man-made spider silk are staggering, if we can ever find a way to harvest it - surgical thread, synthetic bones, millimeter-thick parachutes - anything with nylon, kevlar or steel can be made smaller and stronger.

Nature has evolved something humans have never even dreamed of. At some point, we will start to look at the world around us for natural solutions to our dilemmas.

--Torah Kachur

Meet George Jetson

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Messy people, rejoice! Your salvation is near... The Korea Institute of Science and Technology has revealed what could be the future of home cleaning; a humanoid robot maid with rotating arms and legs, six fingers, and an eternally pleasant disposition.

Or, in other words, Rosie without the attitude. "Mahru-Z" is a 1.3 meter, 55 kg robot assistant capable of tasks surpassing any of its (his? her? It looks like a boy, so I'm going with that) robot predecessors.

He can pick up dirty clothes, put them in the washing machine and turn it on. Put fruit in a bowl and place it on the dinner table. Turn on microwave ovens and toasters (presumably only when there's something inside them.) And pick up numerous other objects like sandwiches and cups, recognizing when a task needs to be done, and performing it by remote control through interaction with a computer server.

What makes Mahru-Z unique from previous robots is his autonomy. He can "see" three dimensional objects with visual sensors, and navigate rooms with total independence. So his greatest potential isn't only in the domestic domain. It's also in situations that are too dangerous for humans, like operating machinery in space, or on the moon.

So when can you buy this Jetson-esque robo-butler? Well unfortunately, they're nowhere near the mass production stage. But really, this is probably for the best. Because truth be told, we all know deep down that Mahru's [bring fruit to table] command is just one glitch away from [bring sharp knife to owner's head].

For now, it's probably best to stick with the Roomba.

- Brit Trogen