Dolphins are capable sea chefs

Dolphins are capable sea chefs

Australian scientists said, Dolphins are the chefs of the seas, having been seen going through precise and elaborate preparations to rid cuttlefish of ink and bone to produce a soft meal of calamari.



A wild female Indo pacific bottlenose dolphin was observed going through the same series of complicated steps to prepare cuttlefish prey for eating in the Spencer Gulf, in South Australia state.

The research team, writing in the science journal PLoS One, said they repeatedly observed a female dolphin herding cuttlefish out of algal weed and onto a clear, sandy patch of seafloor.

The dolphin, identified using circular body scars, then pinned the cuttlefish with its snout while standing on its head, before killing it instantly with a rapid downward thrust and "loud click" audible to divers as the hard cuttlebone broke. The dolphin then lifted the body up and beat it with her nose to drain the toxic black ink that cuttlefish squirt into the water to defend themselves when attacked. Next the prey was taken back to the seafloor, where the dolphin scraped it along the sand to strip out the cuttlebone, making the cuttlefish soft for eating. Norman and study co-author Tom Tregenza, from the University of Exeter, said the behaviour exhibited between 2003 and 2007 was unlikely to be a rarity.

"In addition to our observations, individual bottlenose dolphins feeding at these cuttlefish spawning grounds have been observed by divers in the area to perform the same behavioural sequence," they said in the study.

"The feeding behaviour reported here is specifically adapted to a single prey type and represents impressive behavioural flexibility for a non-primate animal."

A separate 2005 study provided the first sign dolphins may be capable of group learning and using tools, with a mother seen teaching her daughters to break off sea sponges and wear them as protection while scouring the seafloor in Western Australia.

Other researchers have observed dolphins removing the spines from flathead fish prey and breaking metre-long Golden Trevally fish into smaller pieces for eating.

friends

Surrounded by friends? It's all in your genes

Are you a social butterfly or do you prefer being at the edge of a group of friends? Either way, your genes and evolution may play a major role, US researchers reported. While it may come as no surprise that genes may help explain why some people have many friends and others have few, the researchers said, their findings go just a little farther than that.

"Some of the things we find are frankly bizarre," said Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University in Massachusetts, who helped conduct the study.

Christakis said in a telephone interview: "We find that how interconnected your friends are depends on your genes. Some people have four friends who know each other and some people have four friends who don't know each other. Whether Dick and Harry know each other depends on Tom's genes."

Christakis and colleague James Fowler of the University of California San Diego are best known for their studies that show obesity, smoking and happiness spread in networks.
For this study, they and Christopher Dawes of UCSD used national data that compared more than 1,000 identical and fraternal twins. Because twins share an environment, these studies are good for showing the impact that genes have on various things, because identical twins share all their genes while fraternal twine share just half.

"We found there appears to be a genetic tendency to introduce your friends to each other," Christakis said.

There could be good, evolutionary reasons for this. People in the middle of a social network could be privy to useful gossip, such as the location of food or good investment choices.

But they would also be at risk of catching germs from all sides in which case the advantage would lie in more cautious social behavior, they wrote in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It may be that natural selection is acting on not just things like whether or not we can resist the common cold, but also who it is that we are going to come into contact with," Fowler said in a statement.

Methane discovery

Methane discovery hints at living Martian microbes

US scientists said, Plumes of methane in the atmosphere of Mars provide evidence of the possible existence of microbes living below the Martian surface that produce the gas as some do on Earth.

The methane likely was produced either by water reacting with hot rock below the surface or by living microorganisms as a waste product. The evidence does not suggest the methane was brought to Mars by an object like a comet.

Scientists have been eager to determine whether Mars, the fourth planet from the sun and Earth's neighbor, had conditions in the past or present to support life. The new observations, made by using telescopes in Hawaii, did not directly detect life but found tantalizing evidence suggesting it was possible. If methane is coming from microbes, they likely live far below the frigid surface at depths warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water is considered one
of the essential ingredients for life. Water is known to exist on Mars. Robot rovers have sampled ice from the surface.

The scientists found substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 and called it the first definitive detection of the gas on the Red
Planet.

Methane is composed of four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom, and is the main component of natural gas. On Earth, methane is known as swamp gas and made by decaying plants or found in the burps, belches and other emissions of animals from termites to cattle and people.

Bacteria have been found on Earth that use hydrogen as energy and can turn carbon dioxide into methane.

The researchers wrote: "These communities thrive at 2-3 km (1.2 to 1.8 miles) depth in the Witwatersrand Basin of South Africa and have been isolated from the surface (and photosynthesis) for millions of years."

Their observations indicate an association between methane and both warmer temperatures and water, suggesting summer temperatures start some process, biological or geological. Its thin atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with some nitrogen, carbon monoxide, trace amounts of oxygen and water vapor.

Britain cracks down on neglectful parents

Britain cracks down on neglectful parents

Under a new law welfare system parents in Britain who refuse to pay child maintenance could have their passports and driving licenses confiscated without a court order.

The Welfare also seeks to nudge single parents and people with health problems into employment and to make the long-term unemployed work for their state benefits.

Work and pensions minister James Purnell said, "For those who choose not to support their own kids, we will not stand by and do nothing. If a parent refuses to pay up then we will stop them traveling abroad or even using their car."

The government has dubbed the changes the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for 60 years but it has also come under criticism for tabling the reforms at a time of soaring unemployment and slumping economic activity.