In the eye of the panda
Pandas may be black and white all over, but new research suggests their sight is in colour. A recent study out of the Georgia Institute of Technology, found that pandas have the ability to discriminate between colours and various shades of gray, though the study did not establish whether pandas could differentiate between colours. Yang Yang and Lun Lun, two giant pandas at Zoo Atlanta, were presented with three plastic pipes, two hanging under a gray sheet of paper and one hanging under a coloured paper. The panda would get a treat if it pushed the pipe under the coloured paper, but not if it pushed the pipe under the gray paper. It was found that the pandas’ performances in identifying and choosing the colour were in most cases above chance. The researchers propose that colour vision can be useful when foraging for bamboo as the panda would be able to distinguish between green, healthy bamboo and a brown, dying plant.
Source: Learning and Behavior
-Mayce Al-Sukhni
Embrace the breast, not the bottle
Speaking at the All-Ireland Conference to mark the finale of National Breastfeeding Week in Ireland, internationally renowned breastfeeding specialist and Toronto-based doctor Jack Newman voiced an opinion shared by many of his colleagues. For the medical community, public attitudes surrounding the “bottle-feeding model” have posed a major obstacle to increasing numbers of breastfed babies. Catherine Murphy of the Health Service Executive, an Irish public health program, suggested that myths are sustained because “how-to” childcare knowledge is passed down from “mother to daughter, sister to sister, [and] friend to friend,” regardless of the value of the information. In this way, proposed Newman, the “model” becomes embedded in the cultural psyche. Breastfed babies are protected from respiratory and ear infections, eczema and gastroenteritis, while mothers who breastfeed lower their risks of developing breast and ovarian cancer as well as osteoporosis. Ireland, however, has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world.
Source: Medindia.com
-Abigail Slinger
Pint-sized powerhouses
Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants of the ocean, are known to produce a large amount of energy, yet an estimate of this amount has only recently been identified. Researchers have calculated that phytoplankton annually produce 63 terawatts of energy, about five times the annual power consumption of human civilization around the world. They further found that the marine biosphere, whose food chain is based on phytoplankton, invest about one percent of their chemical energy potential into mechanical energy, manifested by the swimming motions of creatures like whales or shrimp. These phytoplankton-driven motions act to stir the waters and circulate deep cold waters to the surface of the ocean. This, in turn, works to maintain climate control. Despite their size, phytoplankton are enormously important in the machinery of the ocean and serve as good indicators of when this machinery is disrupted.
Source: Journal of Marine Research
-M.A.
