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New research combines cutting-edge engineering with animal behaviour to explain the origins of efficient swimming in Nature’s underwater acrobats: Seals and Sea Lions.
Seals and sea lions are fast swimming ocean predators that use their flippers to literally fly through the water. But not all seals are the same: some swim with their front flippers while others propel themselves with their back feet.
In Australia, there are fur seals and sea lions that have wing-like front flippers specialised for swimming, while in the Northern Hemisphere, grey and harbor seals have stubby, clawed paws and swim with their feet. But the reasons why these two different ways of swimming evolved has perplexed biologists for generations. Is one style better than the other?
Monash University
Video: vision of seals swimming in zoos with explanations
Graphic:seal species and their flippers
Graphic: Seal flipper anatomy
Image: Leopard seal flipper and 3D models
New research combines cutting-edge engineering with animal behaviour to explain the origins of efficient swimming in Nature’s underwater acrobats: Seals and Sea Lions.
Seals and sea lions are fast swimming ocean predators that use their flippers to literally fly through the water. But not all seals are the same: some swim with their front flippers while others propel themselves with their back feet.
In Australia, we have fur seals and sea lions that have wing-like front flippers specialised for swimming, while in the Northern Hemisphere, grey and harbor seals have stubby, clawed paws and swim with their feet. But the reasons why these two different ways of swimming evolved has perplexed biologists for generations. Is one style better than the other?
Male Fertility of Species may be the Chink in Armor Against Climate Change
Written by AZoCleantechApr 21 2021
A new study reports that male fertility might prove to be a weakness in the fight against climate change. Its suggestion of male fertility loss at high temperatures implies that several species particularly those limited to the tropics may be highly susceptible to climate change.
Image Credit: Monash University.
Around the world, as temperatures increases, species will experience more and more conditions beyond their tolerance limits, which pose a significant threat to species biodiversity and persistence. Gaining insights into how much warming species can withstand, and which species will be at risk more, is one of the huge challenges for biologists at present.
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Pharmaceuticals in waterways pose risk to fish
Fish populations around the world are at risk due to growing levels of pharmaceutical contamination in waterways, according to an international team of researchers from The University of Western Australia, Monash University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and New York University.
The findings, published in Proceeding of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, reveal that water pollution by the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) compromises resilience in fish populations by dramatically reducing differences in the behaviour of individuals.
“For fish populations to thrive in the face of environmental change, members of a group need to behave differently from each other.”
Research uncovers strategy to revert antibiotic-resistance in dangerous superbugs
Jan 18 2021
A major risk of being hospitalized is catching a bacterial infection. Hospitals, especially areas including intensive care units and surgical wards, are teeming with bacteria, some of which are resistant to antibiotics - they are infamously known as ‘superbugs’. Superbug infections are difficult and expensive to treat, and can often lead to dire consequences for the patient.
Now, new research published today in the prestigious journal Nature Microbiology has discovered how to revert antibiotic-resistance in one of the most dangerous superbugs. The strategy involves the use of bacteriophages (also known as ‘phages’).