Adventure Ausrama Blog

Genetics: Scientists work on whales instead of cattle. Work on cattle genetics has shown the way to determine the sex of whales using a sample taken from blow holes. Specimens are composed of water and mucous membrane material.  They are collected from the sea by people in dingies, canoes and kayaks. The process involves scooping with a six-metre long carbon-fibre pole. A team of researchers has enjoyed the chance to get away from working with cattle. They have also done a genetic study of koalas. Improving cattle and meat are their priorities, however.  A few hundred samples are to be taken.  This compares to a half a million already collected from cattle. While blow hole samples are used for whales, hair is taken from cattle. Researchers have identified favourable traits for cattle from DNA. The real problem is getting these into cattle. Farmers are the ones who breed animals, not researchers. It is no surprise to find the more direct work on whales a welcom...

Many animals have not been seen for a long time. Indeed, it is not known whether they have become extinct. Some, of course, live in places not usually visited by humans. Recently a beaked whale was washed up on a beach Australia. It is rare and lives deep in the sea. The actual species cannot be verified by manual examination of the body, Part of the body will be sent to the Australian Science Museum in Sydney for DNA tests and X-ray scans to determine the correct species. Not much is known about beaked whales because they live so far down in the sea. Only stranded and beached specimens have been found. They do come to the surface to breath but do not linger there for very long. Many scientists have never seen a live beaked whale. A beaching of this kind is very rare indeed. Parts of the body will be thoroughly examined to shed more light on how the mammal lives.  We will never know everything about fellow animals.  The more we know the better. ✴ Sci...

Japan plans to resume whaling in the Antarctic next year. It will modify its "scientific" research system to fit in to what the International Court of Juctice (ICJ) wants, although the court stated that scientific whaling per se was illiegal and would always be illegal. Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) says it will take the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) to the ICJ to stop it harassing Japanese whaling ships when they carry out future legal scientific whale hunting in the Antarctic, in short the resumption of killing of whales for food. Just why Japan is so pig-headed about continuing to wastefully kill whales says something about Japanese culture - they are arrogant.  Japanese consumers want whaling despite not actually buying whale meat. This nation has tonnes of whale meat in storage because it doesn't sell, despite being highly subsidized. I am about to get personal about this issue. Those readers easily offended should stop ...

Who would have thought that ear wax would add to scientific knowledge. A wax ear plug from a dead 12 years old whale has shed more light on its life. Traditional research involved blubber, faeces and blood. Lipids, keratin and waxes built up by two layers a year. This was used to tell the age of the whale. When sliced ultrafine, 24 separate rings were identified. Closer analysis was done and various industrial chemicals and pesticides were found. Some of the chemicals persisted in the wax despite being banned world wide ten years before. There is no doubt that these chemicals were stored in the females fat and passed onto the young. Mercury was high at two periods in the whale"s life. Testosterone level rose when the whale reached maturity at ten years of age. The high chemical rate is believed to have an indirect effect on the high cortisol level, the stress hormone. However, a 12 year old male would have been driven to compete with other males for females and form so...

A fossil find in Victoria, Australia, throws light on the origin of baleen whales. The artifact is 25 million years old. It is the 45 cm long skull of Mammalodon colliveri . Information about it has remained open since its discovery in 1932. Though it had teeth it spent its time sucking mud in the search for prey on the seafloor. A short, blunt snout made this possible. This type of feeding led to the filter method of modern whales. The baleen whale was only three meters long, a far cry from the monsters that followed. Its ancestors though were also very large. Other fossils have been found in Torquay , Victoria, notably Janjucetus hunderi which was unique to the area. This region is believed to be the cradle of tiny whales. Some form of isolation must have occurred for this to happen. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australi...

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