Video: The fishing cat

Took today off, so you get a video about one of my all-time favorite cat species! I’m also trying a slightly new thing with these, where I’m throwing in some of what Wikipedia has to say about the organism in question:

The fishing cat has a deep yellowish-grey fur with black lines and spots. Two stripes are on the cheeks, and two above the eyes running to the neck with broken lines on the forehead. It has two rows of spots around the throat. The spots on the shoulder are longitudinal, and those on the sides, limbs and tail are roundish.[4] The background colour of its fur varies between individuals from yellowish tawny to ashy grey, and the size of the stripes from narrow to broad. The fur on the belly is lighter than on the back and sides. The short and rounded ears are set low on the head, and the back of the ears bear a white spot. The tail is short, less than half the length of head and body, and with a few black rings at the end.[10] As an aquatic adaptation, the fur is layered. A short, dense layer provides a water barrier and thermal insulation, while another layer of protruding long guard hairs provides its pattern and glossy sheen.[11]

[…]

The fishing cat is broadly but discontinuously distributed in South and Southeast Asia.[1] It is strongly associated with wetlands, inhabiting swamps and marshy areas around oxbow lakes, reed beds, tidal creeks and mangrove forests; it seems less abundant around smaller, fast-moving watercourses. Most records are from lowland areas.[2]

New research shows how mines harm salmon populations

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We need to go far, fast.

I’ve been encountering that sentiment, on climate change, for about as long as I’ve been paying attention to the issue. Looking back, I’m surprised it wasn’t a phrase that frustrated me more. It perfectly conveys the need for reckless urgency in the face of this growing crisis, and yet the same communities that adored phrases like that also tended to think I was being alarmist for suggesting that people get in the habit of storing food. For my entire life, people have been talking about what a big crisis this is, but so many of them seem to think that going far, fast means everybody acting as if they’re alone. I hope by now it’s clear to all of you that we can’t change the world through individual people choosing to buy better products or to live sustainably on the periphery of an unsustainable society. There’s simply too much to do.

This is probably going to end up being one of those topics that I talk about more as time goes on. It’s encouraging to know that there are bacteria that can eat plastic and things like that, but the sheer volume of toxic material that we’ve pumped into this world is reaching a crisis point even without the rising temperature. All the conservation and renewable energy in the world won’t save us if we cause a mass extinction anyway by poisoning the world.

We need to go far, fast, and in this case that includes a massive, global cleanup of mining sites, and a revolution in how we go about the process of resources extraction.

A new paper published in Science Advances synthesizes the impact of metal and coal mines on salmon and trout in northwestern North America, and highlights the need for more complete and transparent science to inform mining policy.

It is the first comprehensive effort by an interdisciplinary group of experts that explicitly links mining policy to current understanding of watershed ecology and salmonid biology.

“Our paper is not for or against mining, but it does describe current environmental challenges and gaps in the application of science to mining governance. We believe it will provide critically needed scientific clarity for this controversial topic,” said lead author Chris Sergeant, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and a research scientist at the University of Montana.

For the study, experts integrated and reviewed information on hydrology, river ecology, aquatic toxicology, biology and mining policy. Their robust assessment maps more than 3,600 mines throughout Montana, Washington, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska. The size of the mines ranges from family-run placer sites to massive open-pit projects.

The study shows that, despite impact assessments intended to evaluate risk and inform mitigation, mines continue to harm salmonid-bearing watersheds through contaminants, stream channel burial and streamflow alteration. Silt suffocates eggs, and embryos may not survive contaminated groundwater. Heavy metals compromise a salmon’s sense of smell, which affects their ability to react to predators and find their way back from the ocean to spawn.

“Not all mines pose the same level of risk, but our review revealed that harm from mining can be severe and long-lasting. The extent of mining pressures on these watersheds underscores the importance of accurately assessing risk to water, fish and communities,” said Sergeant.

The paper also describes how some mining policies do not account for the breadth and length of mining impacts on the environment, or the increasing effects of climate change.

“The crux of the issue is that salmon use so much of the watershed during their life cycle. They move throughout watersheds, whereas the impact assessments of mining projects tend to be very locally focused, and they don’t sufficiently consider all of the compounding and downstream effects of mining,” said salmon biologist and CFOS faculty member Megan McPhee.

She explained that some impact assessments don’t fully assess the infrastructure required to operate a mine, such as roads, electricity generation and water removal.

“Another thing is that most mines, after closure, have to be mitigated in perpetuity. That’s a problem because most corporations aren’t structured that way. Also, most mitigation strategies don’t take into account environmental change, including permafrost melting, and climate change-induced flooding,” said McPhee.

If you haven’t studied the ecological role played by salmon and other anadromous fish, you might not appreciate how much they matter. Entire forest ecosystems are shaped around this near-miraculous delivery of an abundance of high-quality food from the ocean. These fish spend their lives eating and growing at sea, and then they carry all those nutrients back up the river, where they lay a mind-boggling amount of eggs, and in the case of salmon, die. It is not an exaggeration to say that without these fish, a number of ecosystems around the world would look radically different.

And in case it needs saying, the problem of mine waste is not limited to this study’s geographic region.

Going far, fast is reckless. There’s no way around that. Honestly, the crises we’re facing today are in part because we ignored that rule for so long. We have to be reckless now, too. We have to be willing to try modes of life that we’re not sure will work. We have to be willing to do things that have never been done. We have to be willing to take the risk of failure, because if we continue to be paralyzed by fear of the new, we will be consumed by the devil we know.

I think we can have a future with a better standard of living that most people have today, while also leaving this planet a better place to live. While a lot of that will come from re-using materials, and building things to last, it seems likely that there will still be a need for mining. The upside of needing to do this cleanup work is that it will almost certainly teach us how to make mining something that’s more or less environmentally friendly.

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Housekeeping

Back in the beginning of June, I had gotten a thousand words or so written on a post about the recent spike in transphobia in the United States. I promised that post because I felt fairly confident that I’d have it done in a week or so. So far I’m at around a little under 6,000 words, and it’s no so much an essay as it is a literary amoeba that keeps extending new psuedopodia as new, terrible things happen to feed it. I’m not even clear on what my point is, beyond wanting people to be safe, which feels like it ought to be the bare minimum. At this point the fact that I still haven’t finished it is becoming a problem in my brain, so as odd as it may sound, I have to remove the deadline if I want to get it done any time soon.

I feel like I’ve been talking about ADHD a fair amount on this blog recently. It’s a predictable result of maintaining a commitment to daily posting, if I want this blog to be more than just recycled content. I only really came to believe I have the disorder in the last couple years, and since medical treatment remains out of reach, I’ve been in the process of trying to figure out how to manage a brain the often refuses to cooperate. One lesson I should have learned a while ago is that I need to stop promising the results of work that isn’t already done.

That post will be up when it’s finished, and unfortunately I see no indication that it will be less relevant in July or August than it was in June. The tragic reality is that without some very uncharacteristic behavior from the leadership of the Democratic Party, it looks like we’re in for a long period of conservative, theocratic, minoritarian rule in the United States. If the implications of that don’t chill you to the bone, then you either haven’t been paying attention, or you’re one of the bad guys. Neither of those are good things.

I’m generally inclined to believe that people are products of our experiences. To me that means that saying someone is “good” or “bad” tends to obscure a more complicated reality. That said, bigotry is similar to violent crime – we can discuss the philosophical implications after the harm has been stopped, and the people inflicting the harm no longer have the power to do so. The important thing right now is defending those who are under attack, and as with oppressive regimes of the past, that may will involve doing things that could make you a target, either of the government, or of the fascist movement that is currently being emboldened.

That’s not an easy call to make. I would never pretend it is, especially seeing as how I up and left the country.

But I think it’s important to understand what seems to be happening, and to think about what that means for us, and for the other people in our lives. A lot of people are justifiably frightened, angry, and grieving right now, all while continuing the never-ending struggle to make ends meet.

To quote my new favorite movie, “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”

Video: True Facts about the beaver

So I got lots of writing done today, but most of it was for a fantasy novel that’s not going to be available for at least a year (though maybe some stuff sooner for patrons?). Long story short, I’m wiped, so I’m going to lean on Ze Frank again, to continue my ongoing campaign for a human-beaver partnership.

There are a couple of things in that video I never knew, including the fact that beavers apparently build dams because one of their common ancestors hated a very particular kind of noise made by flowing water, to the point where the entire species seems to structure its life around putting sticks on the noisy water to make it stop.

Dinosaur fight!

I’ll probably have something more substantive up later today, but I wanted to share this picture I saw on twitter.

The image shows a Canada Goose in the foreground, as though the photo was taken from just over its shoulder. You can see a bit of its body, in the bottom right corner, and its neck snaking in from the righthand side. Its head and neck are black, and its cheeks are white. Its bill is slightly open. In front of the goose is a small stretch of rippled green water, and then a log. There's a Green Heron standing on the log, one big yellow foot facing the goose, the other apparently facing the first foot, with the heel/

For those who can’t see it, The image shows a Canada Goose in the foreground, as though the photo was taken from just over its shoulder. You can see a bit of its body, in the bottom right corner, and its neck snaking in from the righthand side. Its head and neck are black, and its cheeks are white. Its bill is slightly open. In front of the goose is a small stretch of rippled green water, and then a log. There’s a Green Heron standing on the log, one big yellow foot facing the goose, the other apparently facing the first foot, with the heel sticking awkwardly out to the side. Its folded wings are blue with some white edging, its belly is gray, and its long, fuzzy, purple neck is fully extended towards the goose. There are a couple white lines running along its throat. Its head is a similar blue to its wings, with the sharp, blue-black beak open to reveal a pink mouth. Its eyes are bright yellow with black pupils, and staring ferociously.

This post has a cat picture!

Today was lovely, and I had to wait outside for a delivery, so I decided to bring His Holiness out with me. I chatted with neighbors and read about swamps, and he explored the village and had some salad. We live in a cul-de-sac sort of arrangement (it was literally the only flat we could get – the rental market in Dublin is not OK), which means that our singularly un-athletic cat only has two ways to get out, and has shown little interest in either of them. That means we get to let him explore a bit, and eat grass to his heart’s content.

Our recent trip the the vet confirmed that his hips became a bit deformed in his childhood on the street, and that he needs to lose a couple kilos. We’ve been regulating his food intake for a while, since it became clear early on that his fondest ambition is to become Orb. Apparently it hasn’t been enough, so we’ve scaled back a little more, and I’m trying to let him out more so he’ll get exercise. We’ve tried string, laser pointers, and all the other stuff, and he’s just too lazy to actually put in the effort.

But put him outside? The amount of tail twitching alone probably burns a calorie or two. He’s got his favorite clump of grass, but he samples all around the village. I was worried initially that he might eat something unhealthy, but he’s shown no interest at all in anything but grass. The dude just wants his salad.

He’s shown a great deal of interest in birds, but this area is filled with more athletic cats than he, so while I do monitor him, I’m not particularly worried that he’ll catch one. He’s a great companion, but a mighty hunter he is not.

The image shows a British Shorthair cat with stripey shoulders and head, white legs and neck, and a white muzzle. His white fur looks velvety soft (it is), and his white paws have a little dirt on them. He is lounging on grass dappled by sun and shade

Taking a break between circuits of the village

 

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The health benefits of… plastic pollution?

Oh boy, that’s a fun headline, isn’t it?

A couple weeks ago, I talked about the minor misery of how every bit of good news we get these days seems to be some form of, “well, it’s not as bad as we thought”. This isn’t one of those stories. From everything I can tell, plastic pollution is still a huge problem, both for the biosphere, and for ourselves. As I’ve said before, we don’t just need to deal with climate change and habitat destruction, we also have a global cleanup project ahead of us that will likely be the effort of multiple generations at least. Mine waste, landfills, electronic waste, runoff, and the list just goes on and on.

That said, another major theme of this blog is the importance of finding ways to work with nature, and to get nature to work with us. The biosphere is changing in response to everything we’ve done over the last few hundred years, with bacteria evolving to eat substances that never existed before we made them. Things like that are likely to be useful when dealing with plastics, and it turns out that evolution in response to plastic pollution might actually have some beneficial results:

Scientists estimate between 5 and 13 million metric tons of plastic pollution enter the oceans each year, ranging from large floating debris to microplastics onto which microbes can form entire ecosystems. Plastic debris is rich in biomass, and therefore could be a good candidate for antibiotic production, which tends to occur in highly competitive natural environments.

To explore the potential of the plastisphere to be a source of novel antibiotics, the researchers modified the Tiny Earth citizen science approach (developed by Dr. Jo Handelsman) to marine conditions. The researchers incubated high and low density polyethylene plastic (the type commonly seen in grocery bags) in water near Scripps Pier in La Jolla, Calif. for 90 days.

The researchers isolated 5 antibiotic producing bacteria from ocean plastic, including strains of Bacillus, Phaeobacter and Vibrio. They tested the bacterial isolates against a variety of Gram positive and negative targets, finding the isolates to be effective against commonly used bacteria as well as 2 antibiotic resistant strains.

“Considering the current antibiotic crisis and the rise of superbugs, it is essential to look for alternative sources of novel antibiotics,” said study lead author Andrea Price of National University. “We hope to expand this project and further characterize the microbes and the antibiotics they produce.”

This is still preliminary research, but it makes sense to use environments that never existed before to find antibiotics that nothing can resist yet. Obviously this in no way changes the urgent need for environmental cleanup, but it’s a good reminder to pay attention as we’re doing it, and learn as much as possible from the process.

We’ve inherited an absolute shit-show of a world. We live in the proverbial “interesting times”, but it’s worth remembering sometimes that can throw something good our way.

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Oh yeah? You’re a cuttlefish fan? How many visual processing systems do they use to camouflage themselves?

The answer is two. Probably? Possibly?

Ok, so maybe it’s not a fair question. Apparently the most accepted answer is that they relied on a small handful of variations, without much room for judgement or finesse. The problem is, as the press release notes, cuttlefish seemed to have a lot more going on than would be needed for an “easy” answer like that.

A new study by City, University of London and others suggests that the European cuttlefish (sepia officinalis) may combine two distinct neural systems that process specific visual features from its local environment, and visual cues relating to its overall background environment, in order to create the body patterns it uses to camouflage itself on the sea floor.

This is in contrast to previous research suggesting that the cognitive (brain) processes involved are much simpler, in that the cuttlefish adopts one of only three major types of body patterns to visually merge with its background. However, that does not explain why the animal possesses about 30 different body pattern components it could use to achieve this.

I am by no means an expert on evolution, but in general, if I see some part of an organism that’s taking up energy without any apparent purpose, I assume that there is a purpose that I just don’t know about. That’s part of why I’m predisposed to believe the more complex system – it seems like a simpler answer overall.

The  study explored whether the cuttlefish uses a cognitive process that is triggered by specific, visual features in its environment and which warrants the number of body pattern components it possesses.

Like their cephalopod relatives the octopus and the squid, cuttlefish are masters at blending in with their environments, which is largely attributable to the way their brains are able to control how pigments in special cells called chromatophores on their skin are displayed across their bodies.

In the study, 15 European cuttlefish were independently acclimated to a small water tank in which they were randomly exposed to either a uniform, grey background, or one of seven backgrounds with detailed, patterned features (e.g., small black squares, small white squares, white stripes).  The animals’ camouflage responses to these visual cues were photographed with a camera, and then analysed to see which of the 30 body pattern components appeared activated across the sample of test subjects.

So 15 isn’t exactly a huge sample size, but as the researchers note, this is a preliminary study. Based on these results, the next step would be to get funding for a more rigorous investigation. This isn’t enough to give us a clear answer, but it does seem to create a compelling outline.

The analysis included a statistical technique called ‘principal component analysis’ (PCA) which searches for clusters of responses in the observed data and attempts to largely explain it with a reduced set of key characteristics of the data.

The results of the PCA found that a few key characteristics did not explain most of the variability in the experimental data, but which would have been expected if the cuttlefish were employing a cognitive system which was expressing only three body patterns. Instead, the findings were more in line with a system whereby the whole range of the animals’ body pattern components could be activated, but selectively and in limited numbers, in response to the patterned feature they had been visually exposed to in the water tank.

Whilst the study findings are preliminary, they are in line with a model in which European cuttlefish do employ a cognitive system that processes specific visual features of the environment,  and which is used in combination with a system which responds to the visual background overall. Furthermore, a model in which the visual feature system is implemented in a hierarchical fashion (i.e., when needed, to fine tune a basic response to the overall background), in order for the animal to create the myriad camouflage responses used on the sea floor.

Honestly, I hope I hear more about this soon. One of the novels I’ve got on the back burner would benefit a lot from a better understanding of how cuttlefish do what they do. Another reason I want to believe the more complex answer is that it would fit that story much better. I also think it helps explain why some cuttlefish are able to write poetry. On that note, I’ll leave you with an explanation of the current understanding from a few years ago:

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