Environmental News

From this week's Science:

https://www.science.org/content/article/flood-chinese-graduate-students-stem-was-boon-u-s-students

Excerpt: “What’s really cool about this study is that it documents, for the first time, how the Chinese government, in growing higher education at home, also contributed in a significant way to the growth of U.S. graduate education, especially at the master’s level in STEM,”

It may be unlikely that people wish to discuss foreign countries' educational policies here. But if so, the gaokao exam is quite e thing.

 

Some species of cuckoos are nest parasites including these:

How parasitic cuckoos lay host-matching eggs while remaining a single species

It means they lay eggs in other birds' nests. Eggs hatch and substitute parents do the baby feeding to no benefit of their own. Different bird species eggshells have different color patterns. European cuckoos lay color-matched eggs to that species. Wow moment for me.

Mrs. Cuckoo could see that other bird from a distance and 'know' it, fair enough. But that isn't egg coloration. Or, could visit the nest with authentic eggs there. Either way, decorating eggs prior to laying seems rather amazing.

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European cuckoos are modeled into eponymous clocks to announce the hour. It's my understanding that they got this role for being (and calling) common and widespread in Euro forests. Sneaky parents though.

 

A few pharmacies have O2 cans on shelf in Kunming. Commonly sold at tourist destinations above 3000.

Wow, Taktsang you should post some pictures.

 

This video

https://www.pnas.org/post/multimedia/combating-misinformation

is you tube not readily accessible here. If anyone views it please comment

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter

 

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Having spent much time in Death Valley CA, I notice that a plant there has been found to photosynthesize remarkably well at 47 oC; well beyond other species' capability. This is in sparkly media where photosynthesis rarely appears.

Requested a copy from authors in Current Biology, and maybe more to say here later. As higher temperatures are our future, what this outlier does may impact the Human Enterprise. Quite a sparkly thing to say.

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'Tis the season to visit Death Valley CA, for those not interested in nor prepared for its summer face. Do go, but please don't disrupt the novel ecology.

 

Iceland mosquitoes are not a species particularly good at vectoring human diseases, but this is novel. For 'minimal' mosquito species, a month or 2 above 5 oC suffices. Hunker down for winter.

Y'all know they mostly eat algae in standing water, right? Blood is a special boost for egg laying. In Iceland, much of that is 'blood of the lambs' recently sheared. Or tourists whose shearing is an ongoing matter.

 

Competent mosquito disease vectors extract blood from more than one vertebrate target. This allow sloppy transfer of something present in blood of #1 to #2. For many diseases that sloppiness is enough; for HIV/AIDS for example it is not.

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I live in a place with several mosquito species and individuals sneak into my home. I kill all those, but not without noticing abdomen color. Red there means they'd already fed on #1. That red I have never seen.