Platypus (Ornitorhynchus anatinus)

If you are a male duck-billed platypus, all that matters is what the other guys do. Strategies to handle the competition are far more variable then previously thought.

In a new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy, Philip Bethge and colleagues from the University of Tasmanias’ Department of Zoology report, that duck-billed platypuses use a variety of measures to avoid encounters with their peers, including the complex behavior of temporarily following the lunar cycle. This is even more true in the mating season when males try to bully their fellows in order to monopolize females.

Bethge and fellow Zoologists Sarah Munks, Helen Otley and Stewart Nicol observed platypuses at Lake Lea, a subalpine lake in the remote Tasmanian Highlands. They equipped the animals with data-loggers recording their foraging activity for up to six weeks.

Results show that platypuses are continuously foraging for up to 30 hour. Previous research shows that they constantly dive during this time with each dive lasting for approximately 30 seconds. Although most animals including dominant males were – as expected – active at nights, at least a third of them foraged during the day or in a very irregular manner. This was observed in particular in young male individuals.

“It seems that inferior males try to avoid encounters with their dominant conspecifics at all costs”, reports Bethge. “This is a wonderful example of time sharing in the animal kingdom: platypuses, and in particular male platypuses, seem to work in shifts – mainly to be on their own while hunting for prey.”

Bethge P, Munks S, Otley H, Nicol S (2009) Activity Patterns and Sharing Of Time and Space of Platypuses, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, in a Subalpine Tasmanian Lake. Journal of Mammalogy, 90(6): 1350-1356 (PDF)

Swineflu Virus (c) CDC

Fear of swine flu is running rampant in Germany as the number of reported cases — and deaths — continues to grow. Doctors’ offices are inundated by people wanting to get the vaccine, which is in short supply. But health professionals are divided over how dangerous the virus really is.

Death from swine flu comes unexpectedly, as was the case with six-year-old Kharra Skye Davis from Hot Springs, Arkansas, who spent 20 hours fighting for her life, and with Kyree James Gamble, 5, from Littlestown, Pennsylvania. Both were healthy children, and both lost their lives before they had truly begun.

In the case of Kharra, who died in September, the cause of death was respiratory failure. The little girl had attended a birthday party, and by that evening she had a fever of 40.5 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit). Kharra quickly developed pneumonia, and by the next day … More

Al Gore

In a SPIEGEL interview, former US vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, 61, discusses Barack Obama’s environmental policies, the endless push by lobbyists to derail reforms and his hopes for a global deal at the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Vice President, you write in your new book, “Our Choice,” (to be published in German translation on Nov. 23 as “Wir Haben Die Wahl”) that we have at our fingertips all of the tools that we need to solve the climate crisis. The only missing ingredient would be collective will. What makes it so hard for governments to implement change even though most people know what needs to be done?

Gore: As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions. Neuroscientists point out that we are inherently better able to respond quickly to the kinds of threats that our evolutionary ancestors survived — like other humans with weapons, snakes and spiders or fire. Also, there is a real-time lag between the causes of the climate crisis and its full manifestation. That makes it seem less urgent to many people… More

Three young German architects are designing structures made completely out of living trees, including a pavilion for concerts in downtown Stuttgart. But designing the ultimate treehouse turns out to be trickier than one might expect.

Living-tree-bridge (c) F. Ludwig

Ferdinand Ludwig grows trees on trees. That’s what he does. And he has grafted together — trunk to top, top to trunk — seven young willow trees.

At the moment a scaffold supports the young architect’s unusual tree tower. The roots of individual trees protrude sideways and into containers of soil. But soon the roots will be cut off. And “at that point,” the young architect says, “the trees will finally have merged into a single organism.”

Ludwig calls this technique “plant addition.” … More

Anyone who considers creation sacred should make sure they never talk to a cattle breeder. In-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and embryo transfer are the terms of their trade. And now another word from the lexicon of reproductive medicine has joined the breeder’s jargon: cloning. The European Union’s agricultural ministers … More

Russian nuclear power plant

Nuclear power is back in vogue in Russia, with 26 new reactors scheduled for construction by 2030. German industrial giant Siemens has grabbed a piece of the pie. But safety and financial concerns threaten to overshadow the country’s atomic ambitions.

Olga Kurochkina can hardly hide her delight at making her German guests squirm. She has just served them caviar and pirogies and is now triumphantly waving a document in their faces. “Our students recently debated whether Germany needs nuclear energy,” says Kurochkina, a teacher at an elite Moscow high school. “The arguments, of course, favor electricity from nuclear energy.”

Kurochkina insists that there are “significant disadvantages” to all other energy sources. Wind turbines? “They produce infrasound, which causes depression.” Solar cells? “They cause local cooling of the air.”

It is hard to believe, but … More

Daniel Tammet likes the German language. It’s “like a clean room with good sharp corners, tidy and straightforward,” he says, yet at the same time it’s “poetic, transparent and elegant.”

“Take, for example, words like bisschen (a little bit) or Löffelchen (a small spoon),” he adds. “I like this diminutive chen ending.”

Or the word Gras, for grass: “I like that the first letter fits — for me words with ‘G’ are green,” says the young British man, before offering his signature thin smile. It’s a Thursday in Hamburg’s Hotel Wedina, and 30-year-old Tammet has four more days. By Monday, he plans to have learned enough German — after only a week’s training — to appear on the German television talk show “Beckmann” and speak fluently about brain research, autism and his new book. … More

The German Pop Band Kitchen Cowboys present their new CD “Alltagshelden ohne Ruhm”, a tribute to the working hero of everyday life and the perpetual struggle for fame and fortune.

Es gibt zwei Arten von Helden: jene, die durch spektakuläre Taten berühmt werden; und jene, die sich aufrecht durch den Alltag kämpfen. Von diesen „Alltagshelden ohne Ruhm” handelt das neue Album der Hamburger Deutsch-Pop-Band Kitchen Cowboys.

Politisch und poetisch sind die Songs der neuen Kitchen Cowboys-CD. „Nein danke“ etwa ist der Protestsong zur aktuellen Finanzkrise, ein düsterer Aufruf zum Widerstand: „Nur Schafe wandern in der Herde und lassen sich zum Schlachthof führen“, heißt es in dem Song, denn „wer nicht selbst denkt, denkt das Verkehrte“. „Unterm Pflaster“ wiederum ist eine Hommage an den 68er-Slogan „Unterm Pflaster liegt doch der Strand“. „Es liegt bei dir, du hast die Wahl, du schuftest billig oder nimmst Hartz IV“, singen die Cowboys. Doch auch Sonniges hat die Band im Programm: Der Kitchen Cowboy- Sommerhit „Ans Meer“ zum Beispiel feiert den ewigen Sommer, die Liebe und das Lotterleben am Strand.

[gplayer href="../wp-content/uploads/2009/04/03-Ans-Meer-1.mp3" ][/gplayer]

Komponiert wurden die Songs vom Sänger Philip Bethge. Die Texte stammen von Marianne Wellershoff. Ihre Dichtkunst verpacken die in einer Hamburger Hinterhofküche gegründeten Kitchen Cowboys in eigensinnige, sensible und gleichzeitig druckvolle Popmusik. „Ein Stilmix aus Element of Crime und Poems for Laila – eine spannende Mischung aus Pop und Jazz“, urteilte die Zeitschrift „Brigitte“ über die letzte Cowboy-CD „Glaubst du, dass es Liebe ist?“ (2006). Das Hamburger Stadtmagazin „Oxmox“ vergab fünf Sterne. Dieses Mal liefern die Cowboys ihre bislang reifste Leistung ab: Hanseatische Stadtpoesie für Fortgeschrittene.

„Alltagshelden ohne Ruhm“ – die neue CD der Kitchen Cowboys, jetzt kaufen bei Amazon, iTunes, im Plattenladen oder direkt bei den Cowboys.

Klinik für Wiederkäuer, Oberschleißheim

A mysterious illness is causing calves to bleed to death on German farms. Veterinarians are stumped over what is causing the deaths: vaccines, genetically modified feed or perhaps even the first mother’s milk?

What can a cattle farmer do when he sees blood running from his calves like water, when they become lethargic and febrile and, by the next morning, are lying dead on the floor, their coats covered in blood?

“Our calves from last summer looked like they had been beaten,” says farmer Robert Meyboom, who is still shocked and perplexed today. “The animals’ bodies were covered with drops of blood, and their eyes were bloodshot.”

The veterinarian tried everything, he says, including administering vitamins and blood-clotting agents. But nothing worked, and “within two or three days, they were all dead.” … More

A blindfolded man kneels and prays moments before he is beheaded circa 1550.

According to the recipe, the meat was to be cut into small pieces or slices, sprinkled with “myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe” and then soaked in spirits of wine for a few days. Finally, it was to be hung up “in a very dry and shady place.” In the end, the recipe notes, it would be “similar to smoke-cured meat” and would be without “any stench.”

Johann Schröder, a German pharmacologist, wrote these words in the 17th century. But the meat to which he was referring was not cured ham or beef tenderloin. The instructions specifically called for the “cadaver of a reddish man … of around 24 years old,” who had been “dead of a violent death but not an illness” and then laid out “exposed to the moon rays for one day and one night” with, he noted, “a clear sky.” … More