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World’s 1st pregnant turtle fossil found in Alberta
A 75 million-year-old fossilized pregnant turtle is going on display for the first time since it was found in Alberta nine years ago.
Scientists from the University of Calgary and the Royal Tyrrell Museum found the fossil in the badlands of southeastern Alberta in 1999, but the description of the discovery wasn’t published until Wednesday in the British journal Biology Letters.
Paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky said Thursday one of the reasons for the delay was because she wanted to present the fossil alongside a nest of fossilized eggs she and her field assistant subsequently found in 2005.
Both specimens, which belong to an extinct river turtle called Adocus, were found about 85 kilometres south of Medicine Hat in the Manyberries area.
It’s the first time the fossil of a pregnant turtle has been discovered anywhere in the world.
“Although it is relatively rare to find the eggs and babies of extinct animals, it is even rarer to find them inside the body of the mother,” Zelenitsky said.
The remains of at least five crushed eggs can be seen inside the body of the fossil, and a CT scan showed there were more eggs hidden under its shell. The turtle is about 40 centimetres long.
“This particular turtle gives us insight into the evolution of eggs and reproductive traits in living turtles and tortoises,” Zelenitsky said.
The Adocus eggs are thick and hard, while those laid by modern turtles are thinner or soft-shelled, which leads scientists to believe the eggshell may have evolved to protect eggs from drying out or from predators.
The nest, which was laid by a different female, contained 26 eggs, each about four centimetres in diameter.
The fossil will be on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller beginning on Friday.
UBC researcher to investigate one of the world’s most dangerous jobs
Learning more about the lung health risks of working on Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards is the focus of University of British Columbia student Midori Courtice’s upcoming research trip to the South Asian country.
Shipbreaking is the process by which old ships are demolished, and usable components of the vessel are salvaged for other uses. Midori Courtice, an MSc student from the School of Environmental Health, will be gathering information about how workers’ exposure to asbestos may be damaging their lungs.
“Shipbreaking is an important industry in a number of developing countries, including Bangladesh,” says Courtice. “But due to an absence of legislation and training, workers on the shipbreaking yards are exposed to hazardous substances and may lack access to protective equipment. These factors contribute to shipbreaking’s reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous occupations.”
One of the most hazardous materials found in older vessels is asbestos, a mineral fibre that is known to cause cancer. An average 40,000 tonne ship contains 6000 to 8000 kilograms of asbestos. When workers remove asbestos from the ships, they inhale fibres that can, over time, cause serious lung diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.
To assess the impact of asbestos exposure on the health of shipbreakers, Ms. Courtice will travel to the impoverished northwestern districts of Bangladesh, an area that supplies many migrant workers to the shipbreaking yards. Once there, she will gather information from those who have worked as shipbreakers in Chittagong, Bangladesh’s main seaport. She will take chest X-rays of workers, and will gather detailed information from them about their work and medical histories. Once back in Canada, the X-rays will be assessed by a physician with expertise in diagnosing lung abnormalities caused by asbestos exposure.
The UBC research team is working closely with Bangladeshi researchers and agencies to increase their capacity to carry out workplace health research and to inform policy. “We hope to raise awareness about the potential risks associated with asbestos, and ways that people can protect themselves from exposure,” says Ms. Courtice’s supervisor Hugh Davies, Assistant Professor in the School of Environmental Health. The researchers also hope their results will help inform legislators responsible for regulating the ship breaking industry.
The UBC researchers have set up a weblog with more information about the project and photos from past research trips to Bangladesh; it will be updated periodically during Ms. Courtice’s fieldwork season. The weblog can be accessed at http://www.cher.ubc.ca/bangladesh.
Threatened turtle turned up by cottager-funded Ont. lake study
A healthy population of threatened turtles has been found in an eastern Ontario lake as a result of a study partly funded by local cottagers.
“That’s great news,” said Paula Norlock, a biologist with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources after capturing some stinkpot turtles in Lower Beverley Lake last week. “And hopefully, you know, whatever we can find with a healthy population, we can spread to some populations that aren’t doing so well.”
Norlock and her colleagues were sampling plants and animals in the lake as part of the Gananoque River Watershed Project, a multi-year project focusing on Lower Beverley Lake this year that will also be looking at 17 other lakes in the watershed.
More than half the funding for the study, which will cost a projected $139,000 in 2008, is covered by private donations from more than a dozen local groups, including the Lower Beverley Lake Association, which represents the owners of 450 cottages around Lower Beverley Lake.
The remaining $57,000 is being covered by a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Species at Risk Fund, said the Algonquin to Adirondacks Conservation Association, which is managing the study.
Jenny Aitken, one of the project co-ordinators, said the cottagers have shown a keen interest in the study, and many want to share with her their own initiatives to protect the lake, such as setting up buffer zones between the lake and their property or avoiding the use of fertilizers that could wash into the lake and affect its ecosystems.
Info for management plan
The information from the study will be used by the cottagers to come up with their own lake management plan.
Lily Faust, president of the Lower Beverley Lake Association, said residents want to know what impact they are having on the lake.
“We have people that have been coming up to this lake ever since they were born — I mean their parents and grandparents came up here — so they have such loyalty to this lake and really care about it.”
So far, the study has found the lake is a home to a handful of species that are considered threatened with extinction in Canada, including the stinkpot turtle, a small, green reptile that rarely leaves the water and releases a foul odour when disturbed. Other species of special concern that have been found by the study include map turtles, grass pickerel and pugnose minnows.
Ministry biologists capture the creatures in nets, weigh and measure them, and in some cases, scrape off scale samples before throwing them back in the water.
The study is also looking at plants in the area, and has found patches of invasive plants such as Eurasian millfoil and purple loosestrife.
This leg of the study will wrap up at the end of this month.
Pressure drop causing wind turbine bat deaths, say Calgary researchers
Hundreds of bats found dead each year around wind turbines have suffered internal trauma from a sudden drop in air pressure at the turbine blades, according to new research to be published this week.
A University of Calgary research team looking for reasons behind the fatalities at the Summerview Wind Farm in Pincher Creek, Alta., said their findings, to be published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, may finally answer the question of why bats appear particularly vulnerable to turbines.
University of Calgary graduate student Erin Baerwald said in a statement that while bats can detect turbines through their sonar-like echolocation ability, the same ability offers no protection from pressure drops.
“An atmospheric-pressure drop at wind-turbine blades is an undetectable — and potentially unforeseeable — hazard for bats, thus partially explaining the large number of bat fatalities at these specific structures,” she said.
The condition, known as barotrauma, affects bats more than birds because bat lungs are balloon-like and can over-expand, bursting surrounding capillaries. Bird lungs are more rigid and tube-like and better able to withstand sudden changes in air pressure.
The spinning of a wind turbine’s blade tends to increase air pressure as the wind comes to the blades, and then lower it dramatically in the blade’s wake. Modern wind turbines can turn at speeds of 55 to 80 metres per second, resulting in a pressure drop in the range of five to 10 kilopascals, the researchers note.
The group looked at 188 bats killed at turbines in southwestern Alberta and found 87 had no external injuries.
Of the 75 recently killed bats on which they were able to conduct more detailed post-mortem tests, 69 had internal hemorrhaging but only 32 had external injuries. Detailed dissections of some of the bats revealed a host of internal traumas, from air-filled bubbles visible on the lung surface to lesions on the lungs consistent with barotrauma.
The study was funded by industry, government and conservation organizations to address the question of why bats in particular were dying, which has been one of the most perplexing issues around the establishment of wind farms across North America.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association says Canada’s current installed capacity is 1,876 megawatts, although wind farms tend to run at about 32 per cent of listed capacity. Alberta leads all provinces with an installed capacity of 523.97 MW in 2008.
Wireworms eating through P.E.I. potatoes
A handful of potato growers along P.E.I.’s south shore are battling a tiny worm that could wipe out their crops.
The number of wireworms found in Island potatoes has been increasing over the past few years.
”[The afflicted potatoes] have little holes in them, and they grow scabs over the holes quite often,” grower Rit van Nieuwenhuyzen of Vernon River told CBC News Friday.
At first, van Nieuwenhuyzen didn’t know what was attacking the potatoes in some of his family’s fields, but he has recently become all too familiar with the wireworm, as he has watched it eat through hundreds of acres of spuds.
“A lot of it is you just don’t know what to expect,” he said. “You plant, you do everything right, you have good seed, and at the end of it, your potatoes are full of worms. And this is by far our biggest problem.”
To make matters worse, Agriculture Canada is phasing out phorate, the one insecticide that has been effective against the pest. It will be prohibited as of 2012 because it is toxic to birds and fish.
Researchers at Agriculture Canada are looking at other ways of controlling wireworms. Dr. Christine Noronha is planting alternate crops the worms don’t like, including brown mustard, in the years fields aren’t growing potatoes. The plan is to starve the pests.
“We have three big fields, which are over 20-acre (8.1-hectare) fields that we are doing it in,” said Noronha.
“We know that there is a problem in those fields. And my hope is that it will break the cycle so that they’re not laying any eggs.”
Noronha said it will take a few years before researchers know whether or not the cycle has been broken and whether they have a solution to offer farmers.
Ottawa scientists seek insect ally against ‘dog-strangling vine’
A researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa is looking hard for an insect that could potentially control a destructive European weed invading the Ottawa area.
Dog-strangling vine or pale swallowwort is native to Russia. It is harmless to dogs but does kill the plants around it by changing the acidity of the soil.
Carleton University biologist Naomi Cappuccino suspects the vine was introduced to the Ottawa area by botanists who found the plant interesting. Unfortunately, there are no organisms native to the region that eat the plant, so its spread has been hard to control.
It is now pushing into Gatineau Park, across the Ottawa River, and has been spotted as far away as Kingston.
Cappucino and her students have been searching for the past five years for a European insect that could do the job.
She said a root-feeding beetle from Russia and two leaf-chewing caterpillars look promising, but scientists must do about five more years of research to ensure the insects won’t also harm North American plants.
Cappucino said a similar approach was successful at controlling purple loosestrife, another invasive plant that was a big problem 15 years ago, before two beetles that feed on loosestrife were introduced.
“If you go walking through the greenbelt areas west of town you’ll notice places where there used to be huge purple strands of purple loosestrife,” she said. “And now you’ve just got these little ratty, bitten plants that are all just eaten down to the ground.”
In the meantime, local gardeners are dealing with dog-strangling vine by pulling it out of the ground by its roots.
Profile of Clara Westwell-Roper
Could it be in the genes?
As a bright young scientist, Clara Westwell-Roper descends from a line of independent thinkers who are perpetually curious, ask “Why?” – and seek to find the answers. She finds inspiration from her grandfather who was an amateur cosmologist; from her mother, a philosophy professor at Capilano College, and her father, a software engineer in the private sector. Dinner conversations at home are often interesting and spirited with questions and discussions.
Clara developed a love for science in grade six and enthusiastically participated in her first science fair. The next year she received an honourable mention at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. Science fairs “provided an opportunity to ask questions based on theoretical knowledge of science, test theories and learn about the natural world in an experimental setting” she said.
In grade 10, she attended physics and genetics summer camp run by Genome BC’s Education Specialist Dr. Catherine Anderson. This camp facilitated hands-on research which helped her develop a basic knowledge of molecular techniques and provided another opportunity to fuel her curiosity about cell biology. Among other awards, she received a $5000 Genome Canada scholarship for her grade 12 project which focused on the role of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase in macrophage nitric oxide production.
Fast forward to 2008. Finishing her BSc (Hons) in Microbiology and Immunology, Clara has just been accepted into the combined MD/PhD program at UBC. This highly competitive and unique seven-year program integrates coursework and research training in the basic sciences and clinical
disciplines. Clara will be doing graduate-level work with Dr. Bruce Verchere at
the Child and Family Research Institute focusing on the role of innate immunity in diabetes development. “I want to be able to help patients understand why they are experiencing a given set of symptoms – to feel more in control and to benefit from an approach which integrates basic science with diagnostics and treatment,” says Clara.
Experienced science students, such as Clara, often have a great appreciation
for mentorship as it is difficult for a bright high school student to find a lab where they can create experiments and stretch their knowledge. She emphasizes the important role of academic support from instructors, supervisors, coworkers, and peers. As a member of the Board of Directors
of the Science Fair Foundation of BC, Clara established the BC Science Fair Alumni Mentorship Program to help motivated high school students access resources to pursue questions that interest them.
One might think Clara has a very full schedule but when not in the lab, she enjoys many different activities including running, snowshoeing, reading 19th century English literature, playing the piano, and volunteering with St. John Ambulance Brigade. “I spend a lot of time working with programs to help students identify goals which they are passionate about – both inside and outside the classroom,” says Clara. “We are fortunate here in BC to have world-class research facilities and excellent outreach programs, particularly in
science and technology-related disciplines. To be able to share a bit of what we are learning about how the world works with those outside the research environment is so important to our growth as a community, to our appreciation and understanding of everyday life.”
from Genome BC’s newsletter Signals
Women under-represented in IT profession
Female role-models needed in industry, groups say
Derek Sankey
Vancouver Sun – page E7 – July 26, 2008
When Nadia Harris looked around her graduating class completing their degrees in computer science at Ryerson University in Toronto, there were about 16 men for every woman.
It’s typical of the lack of women who enter the information technology field, not to mention rise through the ranks to land a spot on the executive team, so it prompted her to take action.
“Women are making that transition [to IT], but it’s not a noticeable number, which is why it’s important that a group of women get together and move to make an impact to show people there is this problem,” says Harris, who completed her degree with a minor in finance at the end of June.
She formed the campus group Women in IT with like-minded female students and found herself in the role of vice-president of external relations, inviting prominent women in IT to speak to the group, which hosts several events throughout the year.
“I felt I was making a bigger contribution … by uniting with other women and taking a form of action … rather than standing on the sidelines and telling people about it,” says Harris.
It’s a small group of about a dozen female students, given the lack of women colleagues, but they attracted women from companies such as IBM and ExxonMobil Corp. who represent scarce role models for others to look up to.
A Catalyst Canada study confirmed what many women executives in IT already know; there is some progress in increasing women’s numbers at the top, but it’s very slow and there’s a long way to go.
“We need to make sure we keep women in the pipeline so that when women are making that choice to stay home or work—all of those choices that come into play when starting to raise a family—that’s where we need to focus on providing that flexibility and support,” says Andrea Goertz, vice-president of enterprise services for Telus Corp. in Calgary.
“It’s great to have strong female role models, but I don’t think it’s the only way women can be successful.” To that end, Telus launched an internal women’s network, which has “definitely opened up the lines of communication,” she says.
Heather Ross, chief information officer for TD Bank Financial Group in Toronto, says young women heading into university often think of IT as “techies” in a basement, but it’s clear there are many myths to be shattered.
“We also need architects and business analysts and people who can translate the value of technology into various business areas, which opens the door to a broader constituency of candidates to work in a technology field,” says Ross, who is also part of the Judy Project.
The Judy Project was established by Judy Elders of IBM about six years ago and is a national network of women in senior executive IT positions who share best practices, discuss challenges unique to women in this field and also perform outreach functions to encourage other women to pursue the field.
Mind Matters: Get Moving
Like many high achievers, science trainees (and their mentors) walk a tightrope, deftly balancing too much work, too few resources, and too few hours in the day. This sets the stage for chronic stress, which may cause a number of health problems, including muscle aches, digestive problems, and heart disease. Excessive stress on the job also has psychological costs; in the long term, it may lead to anxiety and depression, and on a day-to-day basis, it negatively affects thinking, emotions, and judgment, impairing an individual’s ability to work at his or her personal best. According to the nonprofit American Institute of Stress, the health and lost productivity costs due to stress, across all sectors, exceed $300 billion annually.
For the full article at Science Careers click here.
Tooling Up: Review Your Career
An article from Science Careers dealing with reviewing your career from time to time to assess where it is going and gaining a bit more of control of it can be found here.
Bacteria can thwart E. coli
University of Alberta researcher’s discovery could put raw hamburgers on the menu
Vancouver Sun – page A7 – July 25, 2008
by Keith Gerein
EDMONTON—Ever wonder why you can enjoy a blood-rare steak, but a hamburger has to be cooked all the way through?
The reason, says University of Alberta researcher Lynn McMullen, is that harmful bacteria, such as E. coli, mostly live on the surface of meat. Grill a steak on the outside, and you kill whatever was living on the surface. But when steak gets turned into hamburger, whatever pathogens were on the outside get mixed into the inside—and if it’s not cooked all the way through, you’re risking worse than a bellyache: E. coli can cause severe cramps and diarrhea. The symptoms are worse in children and older people, and especially in people who have another illness. For years, McMullen and her team of agricultural scientists have been studying the behaviour of E. coli, and now believe they have found a way to thwart the bacteria that can provide extra protection for consumers.
“I’m not going to say just yet that what we’re doing is killing the (E. coli), but we know we can stop it from growing,” said McMullen, who led the team with University of Alberta colleague Michael Ganzle. “It’s a matter of reducing the risks for the consumer.”
At modern meat-processing plants, carcasses are currently exposed to a number of sanitation steps—they’re hit with hot blasts of steam, washed with a lactic acid wash and “blast-chilled.” While this process does a good job of eliminating pathogens, it’s not perfect, because dangerous strains of E. coli can still get through in some cases.
And all those sanitary steps can wipe out useful bacteria, including one strain of lactic acid bacteria—typically found in cheese and yogurt—that can compete with E. coli growth.
McMullen has been playing with this type of bacteria for close to two decades, trying it out on different meat products. Recently, she and her team isolated one kind that stops E. coli dead in its tracks.
By adding this bacteria to meat after it has gone through its sanitation steps, McMullen said, it will control any E. coli that managed to survive. “Bacteria compete with each other. So when we take away the good ones, we may be giving E. coli a chance to grow better,” she said. “I’m saying let’s put the good ones back in and see if we can control E. coli.”
The friendly bacteria could be added to a treated carcass, to a cut of meat or to a product ready to be packaged, she said. “With ground beef, I’d want to do it while it was grinding.”
McMullen’s discovery is still a long way off from hitting the marketplace. The team will investigate how best to apply the friendly bacteria, how much might be needed, and what other effects could be produced. McMullen thinks it might help to reduce spoilage, which is also caused by bacterial growth. Regulatory approval is also expected to take time, but if everything goes well, consumers could soon be able to enjoy a rare hamburger without fear.
Math gender gap bridged
Girls and boys are now doing equally well on math tests
Vancouver Sun – page A6 – July 25, 2008
by Tom Spears
Girls and boys are now performing equally on standardized high school math tests across North America, ending a “gender gap” that lasted for decades, new research says.
An American math expert says the results should put to rest all the theories that girls’ brains can’t do math. The gap, she says, has closed for good.
The main study focuses on more than seven million U.S. high school students, who periodically write math tests that are standardized across the country. It also looked at SAT tests given to university applicants.
Janet Hyde, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reports the scores between boys and girls have finally become so close that the difference isn’t statistically significant.
“The gender gap has been narrowing over time,” she said. “I did another study in 1990 that showed pretty small differences, but nothing like this.”
Her analysis is published today in Science, a major international research journal.
“There are all these people out writing books about the male brain and the female brain being different, [saying] that girls’ brains can’t do math,” she said in an interview. “Which is just ridiculous because the data show that they can.”
The gap probably arose in times when boys more often expected to do jobs requiring math, such as science and engineering work, she says. It’s known that for many years, boys took more math courses in high school while girls dropped math.
That has changed.
“Girls in the U.S. now take calculus in high school at the same rate as boys do, and they take chemistry at the same rate as boys.”
They still take fewer physics courses.
“What you need in order to do well on these [standardized] tests is a lot of courses. People aren’t born knowing how to do calculus. So the narrowing of the course gap has really been quite striking over the last decade … Now it’s more likely that both [sexes] have done four years of math” by the end of high school.
Canada has seen the same changes, she said.
International tests done by an organization called Program for International Student Assessment found the math gender gap in Canada had become “so small that it’s not important,” based on 2003 tests of 26,000 high school students.
At the college level, 48 per cent of Americans graduating with bachelor’s degrees in math are now women. “It could be that we will see some narrowing of gaps as this generation of girls and women passes through the system.” However, she cautions that women still face discrimination, especially in engineering.
Yet at the same time, a Canadian education professor wonders: Does the gender gap matter anyway?
“It’s not really news” that girls and boys are now performing in math at the same level, said Rebecca Coulter, who teaches at the University of Western Ontario’s faculty of education.
A greater problem, she said, is the difference in performance between children in richer and poorer communities, she said.
Teachers have known for a long time that girls can do math, but there remains a problem of children in underprivileged settings who are falling behind in their education, she said.
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