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ScienceShots: February 2009

  • One Aunt Beacons. The Sahara desert may be short on landmarks, but it's a patchwork of odors. Cracks in the soil, bits of wood, and shrubs all release specific scents. Desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis) can use the smells to zero in on their tiny nest entrance, according to a report in the 27 February issue of Frontiers in Zoology. Until now, researchers thought they used only visual cues for this task. Scent cues could come in handy in the hot desert, the scientists say, because the ants' own pheromone trails wouldn't last long enough to show the way home. (Photo: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology/Markus Knaden)
  • Dino Stretch. How to be attractive and eat more? For the dinosaur Miragaia longicollum, the solution was a long neck. Miragaia fed on plants and lived about 150 million years ago in what is now Portugal. Like other stegosaurs, this new species had a small head, long tail, and armored plates along its spine. But at about 1.80 meters long, its neck was much longer than other stegosaurs. Unlike the giraffe, which has elongated vertebrae in its neck, Miragaia added new ones by converting vertebrae in its back into neck bones. The result was a shorter body and a record-breaking 17-vertebrae-neck. The report, published 25 February in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, says that the long neck probably evolved by sexual selection and allowed the Miragaia to browse for more food. (Credit: Alan Lam)
  • Feathers Fowled. In late 2007, hundreds of seabirds washed up in Monterey Bay, California--hypothermic, emaciated, and smelling of linseed oil. Though the scene smacked of an oil spill (see contaminated feather, right, vs. a normal feather, left), researchers report 23 February in PLoS ONE that the culprit was actually a nontoxic alga known as Akashiwo sanguinea. Choppy seas caused the algae to release proteins that slimmed the victims' feathers, making them useless for waterproofing and insulation. Other marine algae are dreaded for their toxic "red tides," but never before has an alga been caught soiling feathers like an oil spill. The authors fear such events could become more common with climate change. (Photo: Raphael Kudela, PLoS ONE)
  • Martian equator Traces. NASA’s probes have been finding evidence for ancient water around the martian equator for years. Now researchers are proposing that the red planet's midsection once hosted a vast ice field. The evidence, described 15 February in Nature Geoscience, consists of microscopic chemical weathering patterns on a rock spied by the Opportunity rover. But there’s a hitch: An ice field that large could exist only at the pole. And that suggests Mars once spun on a significantly different axis. How such a shift might have happened is a mystery. (Image: NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS)
  • Snake Pets' peeve. Americans will shell out for their pets, but will they quit smoking for them? That was the question Michigan researchers posed to over 3000 local dog, cat, and bird owners who either smoked or lived with a smoker. Of the 700 current smokers, nearly 30% said they would be motivated to quit for their pet, the team reports in February online in Tobacco Control. Though the researchers didn't ask how many of these smokers would quit for a family member, nationwide data reveals that in 2008 only 2% of smokers attempted to quit for their childrens' health and 3.2% because of family pressure. (Photo: Pat Doyle/Corbis)
  • Snake Most illuminating. Electronic circuits are approaching their theoretical speed limit, so researchers are betting optics will power the next generation of computers. But the devices need special crystals to reroute light beams at blinding speed, and so far, no one has designed them successfully. The answer might lie in a humble insect called a photonic beetle, whose scales scatter light extremely efficiently. To study them in enough detail, researchers built a microscope mirror lined with silver nanoparticles. Under an infrared laser the nanoparticles focus light so tightly that it penetrates the beetle's complex scales and reveals hidden details (yellow and green areas). In the 5 February issue of Nano Letters, the team says the technology could help unravel the structure of bones and tumor cells, and even identify defects in aircraft components. (Image: John Lupton/University of Utah)
  • Snake Megapython. Forget the rabbits; hide the cattle! Scientists have found fossil evidence of what may have been the largest snake that ever lived. The monster, named Titanoboa and native to South America around 60 million years ago, weighed more than 1100 kilograms and stretched more than 13 meters—twice the size of a modern-day Anaconda. The size limits of cold-blooded creatures like snakes are determined by ground warmth. So, in order to grow to its stupendous length, Titanoboa would have needed an average annual temperature of at least 32˚C, or 5 degrees higher than current levels, researchers report in the 5 February issue of Nature. Back then, it seems, global warming was a healthy thing. (Image: Jason Bourque/University of Florida)

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