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- Dark Fish Exist and Make Up 95% of All Fish
- Flesh-Eating Parasite Could Spread Thanks To Climate Change
- The Woman Who Used Chess To Advance The Power of Women
| Dark Fish Exist and Make Up 95% of All Fish Posted: 24 Jun 2021 05:13 AM PDT
Have you heard of dark matter? Here's now the Encyclopedia Britannica defines it:
So most of the universe is dark matter. Here's the mind-blowing biological equivalent: 95% of all of the biomass of fish lie in the mesopelagic zone of the ocean, thousands of feet below the surface of the water and shrouded in perpetual darkness. Phys.org explains: UWA Professor Carlos Duarte says mesopelagic fish – fish that live between 100 and 1000m below the surface – must therefore constitute 95 per cent of the world's fish biomass. [...] Prof Duarte led a seven-month circumnavigation of the globe in the Spanish research vessel Hesperides, with a team of scientists collecting echo-soundings of mesopelagic fish. He says most mesopelagic species tend to feed near the surface at night, and move to deeper layers in the daytime to avoid birds. They have large eyes to see in the dim light, and also enhanced pressure-sensitivity. "They are able to detect nets from at least five metres and avoid them," he says. Prof. Duarte and his colleagues were able to use acoustic techniques to to reliably detect the fish. -via Kottke | Image: Daniel Mietchen  |
| Flesh-Eating Parasite Could Spread Thanks To Climate Change Posted: 24 Jun 2021 05:13 AM PDT
Laura Gaither immediately removed the tiny black bugs that she felt biting her legs one afternoon at the Panama City Beach, three years ago. The local residents told her that they were probably sand flies. It wasn't only Gaither who was bitten by these bugs; three of her children were bitten too. But since the bite marks only looked like something from ants or mosquitoes, she did not worry, as marks usually subside within a week. She was wrong to assume that, unfortunately. A couple weeks later, Gaither noticed the bites had turned into small open wounds. They worsened over the next couple of weeks, but when she took her children to their pediatrician, "he just chalked it up to eczema," Gaither said. Eventually Gaither took her young daughter, whose condition was the most concerning, to the emergency room at Children's of Alabama, where she was tested for fungal and bacterial infections. The results came back negative, and the anti-fungal and steroid topical creams the doctors prescribed proved ineffective. Meanwhile, the ulcers kept growing larger and more painful. This prompted Gaither to research what kind of disease struck her and her family, and she found out about the skin-disease called leishmaniasis. When she found photos of wounds caused by this disease, she found it similar to what she herself had at the time (Please don't search it if you're currently eating as you're reading this). Unfortunately, the doctors dismissed the possibility of her contracting that disease, and it wasn't until her knee wound worsened that she was able to convince her own physician to conduct a biopsy for leishmaniasis. The results were inconclusive, but fortunately, the wounds on her children were healed, and the ulcers cleared up, months after. This is just one of many stories about people contracting leishmaniasis in the U.S., and scientists say that this is just the beginning. Americans, it turns out, can be exposed to Leishmania parasites without leaving the country. The parasites are currently endemic in Texas and Oklahoma, and new studies suggest that they might be present in other states, including Florida. While reported cases of leishmaniasis contracted in the U.S. are currently negligible, they may soon be on the rise: As climate change pushes rodent and sand fly habitat northward, scientists caution that in the future, an increasing number of U.S. residents could be exposed to different varieties of the flesh-eating parasite. Some strains of Leishmania parasites can be life-threatening. The one currently present in the U.S., Leishmania mexicana, induces milder symptoms and over time, can heal on its own. But if doctors fail to recognize it, or overreact to it, damages caused by wrong therapies and unnecessary toxic systemic medication can cause more harm than the disease itself. Bridget McIlwee, an Illinois-based dermatologist, has treated patients who contracted leishmaniasis in Texas. She wants her colleagues to be more aware of the parasite's expansion into the U.S. "It's a pretty striking difference for a disease that we used to think of as limited to South America now extending as far north as Canada," she said, "potentially within the next several decades." More about this over at Undark. Scary. (Image Credit: CDC/ Wikimedia Commons) |
| The Woman Who Used Chess To Advance The Power of Women Posted: 23 Jun 2021 10:31 PM PDT
Chess is now seen today as a game that you play either casually or competitively. But in early modern Europe, chess was seen as something beyond just a game. In her journal article published at JSTOR, historian Susan Broomhall writes that the game "provided important political training about statecraft, social hierarchies, and warfare." Women with political ambition, such as Anne of Brittany and Margaret of Austria, saw chess as an activity where they could show their political abilities. Along with the figures mentioned before is Catherine de Medici', an Italian noblewoman who became the queen consort of France decades after Anne. Not only did she use chess and other recreational activities to prove her abilities; she also used it to elevate the status of women. Catherine was good at the game. According to one report, Paolo Boi, known as one of the greatest chess players in the sixteenth century, expressed a desire to play against her. But her aim with chess wasn't just proving her strategic skill. She promoted the playing of all kinds of games in the royal court. In a letter to her son Charles IX, she wrote, "I heard it said by the king, your grandfather, that two things were needed to live in peace with the French and have them love their king: to keep them happy and to keep them busy at something." Broomhall writes that another part of her strategy had to do with the status of women within the court. She had appointed noblewomen to a number of prominent positions, prompting some critics to dismiss the powerful women as the queen's "stable of whores." Game playing let women interact with men in a context where their social status outside the game was moot (at least theoretically) and their ability could shine. "The complex intellectual and orderly strategic movements of chess offered a controlled and rational form of courtly play for women in a mixed-sex environment," Broomhall writes. Now that's a strong woman. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons) |
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