Month: November 2016

It’s hard to tell some animal species apart. Is that a jaguar glaring balefully at you from the shadows, or a leopard? A lizard slithering on the ground, or a salamander? Fear not—we’ve got you covered. Here are some (almost) fool-proof methods for distinguishing between seven pairs of critters.

1. MOTHS VS. BUTTERFLIES

This one might seem like a no-brainer. Most people think of butterflies as colorful garden visitors, whereas those drab moths only emerge at night to bonk against your porch light. But not so fast.

Moths and butterflies belong to the scientific order Lepidoptera—and it’s a huge, spectacularly diverse group, with tons of species that defy your expectations. Some moths fly during the day, hovering at flowers and drinking nectar. Moths can be spectacularly colorful, like this Madagascar sunset moth. And there are plenty of dull-colored butterflies, such as the brown-grey common ringlet and the grayish Avalon hairstreak.

So how can you tell them apart? One of the best methods is to look at the antennae (those long appendages that stick out from the head). With some exceptions, butterflies have a thickened part at the end of the antennae. Moth antennae, on the other hand, are usually slender or feathery and taper to a point.

2. DOLPHINS VS. PORPOISES

You might have heard people use these words interchangeably, but dolphins and porpoises are very different. First off, there are way more dolphins than porpoises. The ocean dolphin family Delphinidae contains approximately 32 species, including bottlenose dolphins (like Flipper) and killer whales (like Shamu). But there are only about seven species in the porpoise family Phocoenidae. And there may soon be just six—one species, the panda-like vaquita, is nearly extinct.

In general, porpoises and dolphins have different body shapes. Porpoises tend to have rounded faces, chunky bodies, and triangular dorsal (back) fins. Many dolphins, on the other hand, have pointy faces, slender bodies, and curved dorsal fins. But there are exceptions—Risso’s dolphins, for example, have blunt heads.

Another distinguishing feature is tooth shape. Porpoise teeth are spade-shaped and dolphin teeth are cone-shaped. But that’s pretty hard to see unless you stick your head in their mouths.

3. SHEEP VS. GOATS

Domestic sheep and goats are both cloven-hoofed, four-legged critters with soft muzzles and really strange eyes. Here’s an easy way to tell them apart: look at the tail. Goats usually hold their tails up, whereas sheep tails hang down.

They also have different eating habits. Sheep, like cows, are grazers—they move across a pasture like fluffy vacuum cleaners, scarfing down vegetation close to the ground. Goats, on the other hand, are browsers. They pick and choose their bites from plants that are a little higher up. They’ll even climb trees for choice morsels.

4. LIZARDS VS. SALAMANDERS

Lizards and salamanders look a lot alike. They have long bodies and tails, and they generally crawl around on four legs. But looks can be deceiving. Lizards and salamanders are only distantly related; in fact, lizards are closer cousins to humans than they are to salamanders.

Lizards are reptiles, like snakes and turtles. Salamanders, on the other hand, are amphibians, like frogs. Look closely and you’ll see major differences: lizards have claws on their feet, but salamanders don’t (although there are one or two exceptions). Salamanders also lack scales; their skin is often smooth, moist, and slimy. Many species lack internal lungs, so their skin functions as an inside-out lung.

5. HEDGEHOGS VS. PORCUPINES

Let’s start with the basics: hedgehogs and porcupines are spiny. Those spines are made of special hardened hairs with hollow centers. But that’s about all these critters have in common. They aren’t closely related, and they evolved spines separately. And here’s the strange part: there are two groups of porcupine species—New World and Old World types—and they each evolved spines on their own. It’s just a useful evolutionary strategy!

Hedgehogs’ closest relatives resemble spineless hedgehogs; they’re mammals called gymnures and moonrats. Porcupines, however, belong to the order Rodentia—they are rodents. They may not look very rodent-y, but check out their big front teeth.

Porcupines use those chisel-like teeth to eat vegetation. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, have pointy teeth and snouts, and they’re omnivores, chowing down on frogs, insects, fruit, and more.

Hedgehog species inhabit parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but they’re not found in North and South America—so if you see a spiky animal in the New World, it’s a porcupine.

6. CROCODILES VS. ALLIGATORS

Alligators and crocodiles have a similar appearance, so it’s not surprising that they’re related: They belong to the order Crocodilia. One major difference is their salt tolerance. Crocodiles have special glands that help them excrete excess salt, so they’re comfortable in saltwater habitats such as coastal mangrove swamps. In alligators, those salt glands aren’t as well-developed, so gators are more likely to be found in freshwater.

Another difference is the shape of their heads. Crocodiles have longer V-shaped jaws, and alligator snouts are rounded and U-shaped. But there are exceptions; for example, the mugger crocodile of India and the surrounding region has a rounded snout like an alligator. Note that there are a couple of other members in the order Crocodilia that have EXTREMELY narrow snouts—the weird-looking false gharial and the even weirder-looking gharial.

Here’s another identification tip: take a look at the teeth. In crocodiles, the fourth tooth on the lower jaw sticks out, overlapping with the upper jaw and making the mouth look like a jigsaw puzzle gone horribly wrong.

7. LEOPARDS VS. JAGUARS

They’re both big cats, and they’re both speckled. But if you see a jaguar or leopard in the wild, it’s easy to figure out the species, because they live on separate continents. Leopards inhabit parts of Africa and Asia, and jaguars are found in South and Central America, as well as occasionally the southwestern United States.

Here are a few other ways to distinguish them. Both cats have clusters of dark spots on their fur, but jaguars have smaller spots inside each cluster. Leopards are also smaller and more slender than jaguars, and their tails are longer. You probably won’t need any of these tips, though, because these animals are notoriously secretive and hard to find.

Mike Bowling had spent nearly 20 years working on a Ford automobile assembly line in Cincinnati, Ohio, never once thinking about inventing toys. During the 1983 holiday season, he bought his daughter a handcrafted doll that she took everywhere and doted on like it was her baby sister. Soon, inventing a toy—one that could be produced with the same efficiency as the cars rolling out of the factory—was all he could think about.

Well over a decade before Beanie Babies caused pandemonium, Bowling issued tiny, pellet-stuffed creatures of his own dubbed Pound Puppies. With droopy ears and wide, expressive eyes, they came in cardboard “crates” and with adoption papers. Despite a total lack of experience in the highly competitive world of kid products, Bowling took his idea and turned it into a brand that would go on to gross hundreds of millions in sales and make TIME magazine’s list of the world’s top 100 toys.

 
Because he knew virtually nothing about toy development, Bowling first contacted an intellectual property lawyer, who told him that registering trademarks and filing for patents would help protect his ideas. He went to one designer to have his Pound Puppies template sketched out and another to fabricate the cardboard box that doubled as a carrier.

Armed with a plan and mock-ups, Bowling was swiftly turned down by 14 different companies. One executive huffed that the Puppies were the ugliest things he’d ever seen.

Bowling’s persistence eventually landed him an audience with Irwin Toy, a distributor based in Canada that was still reeling from a partnership with Atari that had recently gone south; the video game craze, which was about to be reignited by Nintendo, had collapsed in a heap and left vendors with piles of unsold cartridges. Eager for a low-risk opportunity, they licensed the Pound Puppies and released them in Canada in 1984.

They were an immediate hit. As Bowling had predicted, children who wanted to nurture something adorable and parents who weren’t inclined to scoop dog poop found a perfect compromise in his plush animals, which came complete with a mock care guide. Walking and exercise were stressed; caregivers were advised that their chosen puppy had “had all the shots they need to stay healthy.” A bath was also recommended. Fortunately, the animals were machine-washable.

By December 1985, Tonka—like Irwin, a company that had been scorched by an ill-fated partnership with a video game company named Sega—was convinced Bowling was on to something, and brought the plush animals to the U.S. The Puppies were selling out across the country, creating a frenzy that had been rivaled in recent memory only by the Cabbage Patch Kids. In 1985, more than 2.5 million puppies were sold at the inflated retail price of $30. If kids wanted stickers and a personalized dog tag, Tonka would mail them both for an extra $3.50.

Like any respectable ‘80s toy craze, Pound Puppies were also awarded their own animated series, which premiered on ABC in the fall of 1986. At the “Wagga Wagga Pound,” a cast of endearing dogs awaited their turn for adoption. Nancy Cartwright, who would soon after become the voice of Bart Simpson, played Bright Eyes. Another one of the dogs was named Whopper, a strange choice considering the Puppies were usually found as a promotional item at Hardee’s. He was a golden retriever who wore a diaper.

 
As with any retail phenomenon, toy pundits predicted a short shelf life for the Puppies. And while they did eventually fade, it took several years and more than $300 million in sales before kids moved on to other obsessions. Their expected successor, a line of saggy plush dogs dubbed Wrinkles produced by Canadian toy company Ganz, failed to break through.

In 2011, Bowling sold the Pound Puppies IP to Hasbro for an undisclosed sum. Having long since retired from the Ford assembly line, he continues to brainstorm new toy ideas, including a line of plastic mermaids dubbed Splashlings. While they may catch on, it will be difficult to match the success Bowling had in marketing the idea of an imaginary dog adoption. In 2016, the inventor estimated more than 200 million Pound Puppies have been sold—nearly three times as many as there are actual dogs in the United States.

The United States may be experiencing some turmoil over its recent presidential election, but in Canada, political discussions of a different source are happening in the halls of government. Namely, is Parliament too dignified for the word fart? On November 15, members of Canada’s Parliament began debating whether or not its members should reference flatulence on the floor, as Mashable dutifully reports.

During a discussion of carbon taxes, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel got colorful, asking, “Why does the government treat Alberta like a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge?”

In response, Green Party MP Elizabeth May of British Columbia decided to spell out just how offensive her word choice was. “I hate to interrupt my friend in her speech, but I heard her say a word that I know is distinctly unparliamentary, and I think she may want to withdraw it,” she declared. “The word was f-a-r-t.” Later, she explained that “the reason I feel it is important to make something of the member’s choice of words is that she then accused people opposite her for reacting. In that context, decorum and respect are important in this place.”

Another Conservative MP from Alberta told her to sit down, and eventually someone broke out the rule book on Parliamentary language. The discussion later moved on to more serious matters, leaving the issue of the f-word unresolved. How will we ever know how to refer to flatulence in the halls of government now?

Because Canada is a beautiful place, the entire discussion has been transcribed by the independent, volunteer-run openparliament.ca, and can be viewed in its entirety here.

[h/t Mashable]

We’ve all got hidden potential within us. Some of it is apparently hidden very, very deep: scientists have used bacteria found in the human body to create two powerful new antibiotics. They described their work in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

The search for new antibiotics has become something of an arms race between researchers and the bacteria they’re trying to kill. The more antibiotics we use, the faster bacteria become resistant to our drugs, and the more pernicious their infections become. If we don’t come up with some new solutions soon, we’ll be facing a world awash with dangerous superbugs and no cures.

So drug researchers at The Rockefeller University have started thinking outside the box. Rather than building new pharmaceuticals from the ground up, they’ve been looking for them, well, in the ground, investigating natural materials like soil and sand in the hopes of finding a new bacteria-slaying tool.

One team of researchers at the university has set their sights ever so slightly higher, tapping not only the dirt but the bacteria-covered organisms that walk it. And by organisms, we mean people. Our bodies are crawling with bacteria, inside and out. Who knows what those little critters can do?

To find out, scientists from the Laboratory of Genetically Encoded Small Molecules decided to conduct a thorough search of the human microbiome (the collective term for the microscopic ecosystems sharing our bodies). They tapped into public microbiome databases, searching for gene clusters that could make molecules called non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs). NRPs have a lot of different skills. Some produce toxins, while others produce pigment. Others kill bacteria.

The search yielded 30 different NRP-making gene clusters, which the team then recreated in the lab. They set their newly grown clusters to work and coaxed them into producing 25 different chemical compounds. The team then pitted those compounds against various human pathogens to see if any could win. Two compounds, both derived from microbes in the genus Rhodococcus, succeeded. The researchers dubbed these new antibiotic contenders humimycins (from “human,” “microbiome,” and “mycin,” a common suffix for antibiotics).

The new humimycins were especially tough on Staphylococcus and Streptococcus bacteria (commonly known as staph and strep)—two pathogens known for overcoming and growing resistant to other drugs. Not only did the humimycins work on their own, but they also proved to be pretty good at breaking down the bacteria’s drug resistance so that other antibiotics could get in there and finish them off. 

Combining these new compounds with existing drugs could be the secret to shutting infection down, lead researcher Sean Brady said in a statement. “It’s like taking a hose and pinching it in two spots,” he said. Even if neither kink can stop the flow of water on its own, “eventually, no more water comes through.” 

There are plenty of Swedish workplace policies for Americans to be jealous of: a 30-hour workweek, 480 days of paid parental leave (divided between both parents), and additional pregnancy benefits. Now, workers can add “relief from the scourge of mansplaining” to that list. For a short time, employees who feel like they’ve fallen victim to an unwanted, condescending lesson can call a dedicated hotline.

The temporary hotline was set up by Unionen, the country’s largest workers union, as part of a week-long campaign to raise awareness of how certain language and tones of voice can be harmful in workplace interactions. So, for the next week, victims of mansplaining can call and receive tips for dealing with that self-aggrandizing jerk at work from gender experts, authors, academics, and other qualified listeners of both genders.

“Sweden is well advanced when it comes to gender equality but much remains to be done,” Jennie Zetterström, a Unionen representative, told CNN. “We want to start a discussion which we hope will be the first step in changing the way we treat each other.”

The hotline covers mansplaining as well as other instances of sexism in the workplace. Callers have already phoned in seeking advice on how to deal with feeling ignored or undervalued at work. Male workers have also called to ask if they’ve been perpetrators of any harmful behavior.

“A common question has been: ‘How do I know I’ve been doing this?'” one of the phone operators, Christina Knight, told CNN. “I always tell them: Ask questions first. Start with a dialogue, instead of a monologue about something you assume a woman doesn’t know or wants to know.”

[h/t CNN]

Even in the technology-intensive world of medicine, there’s a lot to be said for simplicity. A new study [PDF] from the World Health Organization (WHO), which monitored 340 locations in five countries for five years, finds that bed nets treated with pesticide continue to stop malaria transmission, even as mosquitoes develop pesticide resistance. The report was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH).

Mosquito nets have literally been around for ages; the Greek historian Herodotus noted their use in Egypt as early as the 5th century BCE. For all that time, they were pretty effective—certainly effective enough that people kept using them—but that efficacy got a boost in the mid-20th century when we started spraying them with pesticide. The year 2000 saw the introduction of the long-lasting insecticidal net (LLIN), an inexpensive bed net made with insecticide-treated fabric that drove down the number of malaria cases even further.

But heavy insecticide use has its costs. Pesticides are similar to antibiotics, in that they can’t kill every single one of the species they’re meant to destroy. The survivors reproduce, creating new generations that are able to resist the treatment. And the more we use, the faster they can adapt. We’re now facing a crisis of antibiotic resistance, and pesticide resistance is not far behind. Mosquitoes in 60 countries have already developed a resistance to the pesticides used in LLINs.

 
Consequently, researchers at the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme were concerned that the rise of pesticide-resistant mosquitoes would create a decrease in LLIN effectiveness. They spent five years surveying LLIN use and pesticide resistance in 340 sites in malaria-heavy Benin, Cameroon, India, Kenya, and Sudan.

The results were surprisingly positive. People who used LLINs around their beds at night were significantly less likely than others to become infected. From 2000 to 2015, the WHO estimates, interventions like LLINs prevented around 663 million new malaria infections in sub-Saharan Africa. And of those potential cases, 69 percent were prevented by LLINs.

Co-author Tessa Knox of the WHO notes that the potency of LLINs comes not from the pesticide or the net alone, but from their combined power. “A resistant mosquito may not die immediately after landing on a net, but it could continue to absorb insecticide as it seeks a way to get through and bite a person beneath the net,” she said in a statement. “This may eventually kill the mosquito and stop onward transmission of malaria parasites.”

Encouraging though these findings may be, experts caution that there’s still a lot more work to do as pesticide resistance continues to spread.

Stephen Higgs is president of the ASTMH. “This study provides encouraging news that we have not yet run out of time in battling insecticide resistance,” he said in the statement. “However, we must take advantage of the time we now have to invest in research and generate new tools that will allow us to finally defeat this complex and challenging disease.”

A handful of those new tools are already in the works. Some researchers are exploring chicken feathers as a natural mosquito repellent, while others are developing high-tech pills that could deliver a week’s worth of malaria medication with one swallow.