Colorful Monkey New to Science.

Image by Flickr user teresehart via Creative Commons

In the central region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, villagers are familiar with a colorful monkey that is new to science. Locally called a “lesula,” the monkey has a strikingly blond beard, dark limbs, reddish colored tail and back and brilliantly blue buttocks. It also has an eerily human face. DNA tests confirm that it is a genetically distinct species. Since it lives in mostly inaccessible jungle areas, it is not presently at risk to human hunting, but the increasing incursions of bush-meat hunters in the area could mean an uncertain future.

More at New York Times.

Tabbys and Cheetahs Share Same Gene.

Image by Flickr user Ullisan via Creative Commons.

Whether its a tabby domestic cat and cheetahs share a common gene that gives them their respective spotted or striped coat. Actually, there are at least two genes that control whether the feline will have spots or stripes and whether they will be blotched or distinct. This new field of discovery is possible because scientists now have a complete feline genome available. The DNA samples used in the study were of feral domestic cats in California and both wild and captive cheetahs from South Africa and Namibia.

More at New York Times.

“The Dirt: This Week in Nature” curated and written by Robert Raciti.

“The Dirt: This Week in Nature” curated and written by Robert Raciti.

Walk into the Monterey Bay Aquarium and you may find yourself surrounded by a ghostly swarm of luminous, pulsing phantoms. The specters are actually moon jellies — common marine creatures — swimming in darkened, mirrored tanks that give visitors the illusion of strolling through a shadowy ocean. “It’s a marvelous feeling — people love it,” says aquarium biologist Dr. Randy Kochevar, who appears in this week’s NATURE: Oceans in Glass: Behind the Scenes of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Moon jellies, however, are just one species in the aquarium’s dazzling collection of jellyfish — boneless, gelatinous creatures that may be warning us of trouble in the sea.

Jellies live in virtually every part of the ocean and come in a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, and colors. Some, like the aquarium’s box jellies, are no bigger than a thimble. Others, like the Arctic lion’s mane, have umbrella-shaped bells that reach 7 feet across and tentacles that stretch 100 feet or more. Jellies often use their tentacles to sting and snare prey, such as small fish, while drifting with the current. The flower hat jelly, another species on display in Monterey, has even grown a colorful tentacle fringe to help it lure in prey.

Not all jellies rely on their tentacles for food. Some have joined forces with specialized microorganisms that live beneath their bells. These cooperative jellies simply turn upside down and rest on the bottom of shallow seas, letting their guests soak up the rays and produce food. In tropical waters, it’s not uncommon to see thousands of these inverted, sun-loving jellies on the sea floor, creating a scene that looks a bit like a marine flower garden.

In some waters, however, an explosion in jelly populations, or blooms, has scientists worried. They say more jellies may ultimately be a sign of fewer fish — and a less healthy ocean.

One of the first warnings came more than 20 years ago, when researchers studying the Black Sea, which straddles Eastern Europe and Asia, began to notice huge numbers of a jellyfish named Aurelia aurita. They suspected these massive blooms were due to increasing pollution and massive irrigation projects that reduced the amount of fresh water flowing into the Black Sea, making it saltier.

Soon, the scientists found that the jellies were eating up to two thirds of the sea’s zooplankton (microscopic animals), which meant they were competing directly for food with several kinds of commercially important fish, including anchovies. A number of researchers believed this competition was one reason anchovy stocks had begun to dwindle.

Some help arrived in the late 1980s, when engineers increased the amount of fresh water flowing into the Black Sea, making conditions less favorable for the jellies. But the story wasn’t over. Cargo ships apparently carried another kind of jelly — a species typically found in the Atlantic — into the Black Sea, where it also began blooming in huge numbers. Ultimately, the two species began to alternate, with one numerous in some years and the second swarming in others.

As a result, “nearly all of the zooplankton production in the Black Sea appears to have gone from feeding fishes to feeding jellyfish,” concludes marine biologist Claudia Mills of the University of Washington, a leading expert on the organisms. She also believes that the jellyfish may be one reason anchovy populations remain low.

Mills and other scientists have also documented unusual jelly blooms closer to home, in the waters off Alaska and New England. In recent years, the Gulf of Mexico has also been plagued by invasions of a spotted jelly native to the Caribbean. Few people have ever seen them in such numbers — swarms so big that Gulf states have been forced to shut down parts of a shrimp fishery worth tens of millions of dollars.

The jellies are so thick that “the weight stops even a 90-foot boat cold,” one shrimper told the magazine One Earth. “It’s like crashing into a brick wall. You can’t go forward. You can’t back up, because the nets get tangled in propellers. And the nets are too heavy with jellyfish to even pull them up.” Some scientists even joke that, the way things are going, people will need to start eating jellies instead of fish or shrimp.

On a more serious note, researchers contend that the causes of jelly blooms are often mysterious, although overfishing, pollution, and climate cycles are probably playing a role. In part, the mystery is due to a lack of understanding of basic jellyfish biology. Scientists don’t know exactly how many species live, breed, and survive. At the Monterey aquarium, researchers are solving some of these riddles by raising jellies for display in a specialized “jelly farm.” The tanks allow scientists to fiddle with everything from water temperatures to food supplies to find the perfect conditions the creatures need to thrive. Eventually, they say, such studies could reveal what these ghostly, pulsing organisms are telling us about the health of the ocean.

In 1997, “Under Antarctic Ice” filmmaker Norbert Wu journeyed to Antarctica for the first time on a special grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. government’s leading funder of scientific research on the frozen continent. But the United States isn’t alone in conducting research in Antarctica. Currently, 17 other nations — from Russia and China to Brazil and Uruguay — also operate Antarctic research centers. And each year, thousands of scientists (and even a few filmmakers) get to visit these remarkable laboratories, and conduct studies focused on everything from the world’s climate to the land mass locked beneath the ice.

Antarctica has long been a magnet for scientists due to its size, location, weather, and isolation from the rest of world. It is among the most pristine places on earth, making it a perfect spot to study how pollutants travel through the atmosphere. Sadly, polar researchers have found that even deadly toxins, such as mercury, can travel vast distances and end up in Antarctic snow, plants, and animals. And in the 1980s, they realized that chlorine compounds routinely used in aerosol sprays, air conditioners and other products were carried to Antarctic skies, where they ate a hole in the protective ozone layer, letting in dangerous ultraviolet light. Such studies led directly to an international agreement to reduce the use of ozone-eating compounds.

Today, Antarctica is a key outpost for global warming studies. Cores taken from its thick ice sheet hold tiny air bubbles that have allowed scientists to track the historical buildup of the global warming gas carbon dioxide, formed by burning fossil fuels. In essence, the cores are time capsules that reach back thousands of years, to a time when there was less carbon dioxide in our skies. And the continent’s massive sea ice sheets may act as an early warning system for warming’s arrival: Some scientists say the recent collapse of several major sheets signals the beginning of a potentially dangerous warming period. Water locked in polar ice, for instance, could be released, helping raise sea levels and flood coastal cities.

Antarctica is also among the darkest places on earth, with its inky winters lasting nearly half the year, making it ideal for astronomers. They have built state-of-the-art telescopes that sweep the skies for celestial objects created at the birth of our universe. Antarctica’s location at the bottom of the globe also means it sits at a perfect place to study Earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields, making it a haven for astrophysicists. And in the future, the polar ice may help provide a kind of shield for a deep-buried instrument designed to spot neutrinos, mysterious high-energy particles produced by the exploding stars and other objects. Scientists want to bury the instrument, dubbed “Ice Cube,” so that the ice helps sift out unwanted atomic particles. The ice also holds amazing meteorites, including some that started life as rocks on the surface of Mars.

Marine biologists love Antarctica because its seas are filled with remarkable but poorly understood creatures, from fish and crustaceans that make their own anti-freeze to whales and seals that travel thousands of miles in search of food. And on land, researchers are amazed by the ability of some plants and animals to survive the harsh conditions. There is even a huge underground lake locked thousands of feet beneath the ice, called Lake Vostock, that scientists believe may hold specially adapted life forms found nowhere else on earth. They are trying to design a special probe that could drill and melt its way into the lake and collect water samples without contaminating it with bacteria or pollutants from the outside world.

Scientists also value Antarctica because it is a land without borders. Under an international treaty, Antarctica is open to all, and scientific findings are shared. Many projects are multinational, and a visit to any base is often an experience in multiculturalism, with scientists from around the world sharing common quarters.

Of course, getting there isn’t easy. While many of the bases are perched on the continent’s edge, and can be reached by icebreaking ships in the right season, others are inland, sometimes right at the South Pole itself. In places, travel can require special aircraft equipped with skis, helicopters, and rugged snow buggies that crawl across the ice on tank treads. While traffic may be sparse, the drivers still have to be careful, because you never know when a crevasse may appear before your vehicle and threaten to swallow it whole. And even minor breakdowns can be life-threatening if you aren’t prepared for the weather.

Still, most scientists relish the opportunity to work in Antarctica. A hardy few even stay throughout the winter, spending months in near-total darkness, cut off from supply flights. The scientific rewards, they say, are well worth the sacrifice.

The man behind the incredible images in NATURE’s Under Antarctic Ice is Norbert Wu, an independent photographer and filmmaker who has photographed in nearly every conceivable locale, ranging from the freezing waters of the Arctic and Antarctic to the coral reefs and jungles of the tropics. Wu’s work has appeared in thousands of books and films, and been shown in museums. He holds electrical and mechanical engineering degrees from Stanford University, and did doctoral work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In 1997, 1999, and 2000, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Wu Artists and Writers grants to document wildlife and research in Antarctica — journeys that ultimately resulted in “Under Antarctic Ice.” In 2000, he was awarded the U.S. Antarctica Service Medal “for his contributions to exploration and science.”

NATURE recently touched based with Wu at his studio near Monterey, CA.

You’ve photographed and filmed all over the world — what made you pursue such an ambitious project in Antarctica?

The man behind the incredible images in NATURE’s “Under Antarctic Ice” is Norbert Wu, an independent photographer and filmmaker who has photographed in nearly every conceivable locale, ranging from the freezing waters of the Arctic and Antarctic to the coral reefs and jungles of the tropics. Wu’s work has appeared in thousands of books and films, and been shown in museums. He holds electrical and mechanical engineering degrees from Stanford University, and did doctoral work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In 1997, 1999, and 2000, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Wu Artists and Writers grants to document wildlife and research in Antarctica — journeys that ultimately resulted in “Under Antarctic Ice.” In 2000, he was awarded the U.S. Antarctica Service Medal “for his contributions to exploration and science.”

NATURE recently touched based with Wu at his studio near Monterey, CA.

You’ve photographed and filmed all over the world — what made you pursue such an ambitious project in Antarctica?

In 1997, I first went down to McMurdo Station in the Ross Sea, the southernmost marine environment in the world, to shoot still photographs. Scientists had thought that Antarctica’s water, like the Arctic’s, supported little diversity of life. But the southern seas are proving to be full of surprises. While the topside life is minimal, the marine life is dynamic, colorful, and extensive. I shot 500 rolls of film, and those photos proved to be tremendously popular. My experience led me to propose a documentary on Antarctica’s marine world to Nature. Fred Kaufman, NATURE’s executive producer, asked me to shoot the documentary in high definition (HD) video, so viewers could “truly experience the otherworldliness of Antarctica.” So I returned to McMurdo in 1999 and 2000 with a film team.

Isn’t Antarctic diving dangerous?

Diving in freezing water — water temperatures were 28.8 degrees Fahrenheit — can be tricky. But its not as harsh on the gear as you might think. There were days where we had topside conditions of negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the saliva in my mask immediately turned to ice (you spit in the mask before diving to prevent fogging during the dive). My drysuit froze up so I could barely move. But since water can only get so cold before it freezes, the underwater environment is relatively warm and at least predictable.

As a teammate, Dr. Dale Stokes, once put it: “There’s this large, active, colorful community under the ice, and then you come up through a hole into a raging blizzard.” We did have a few problems with the gear, but none of them substantial. Also, diving from sea ice was heaven for me, since I detest boats. Sometimes doing a dive was as simple as loading one of our tracked vehicles, driving to a heated hut over a hole in the ice, and jumping in the water.

Was Antarctica the toughest place you’ve ever worked?

I wouldn’t say the toughest. Typically, when people hear we are diving in ice, they can’t believe it. But in Antarctica you have a base and lots of support. The dive huts protect you from the cold, and at the end of the day, you usually have a warm bed and a meal. Tropical locations often present more problems. You’ve got humidity and insects. Every environment has its own set of obstacles.

It took you two years to shoot the film. Why?

If I had done this film in only one season, we might not have seen certain things. There are some sights that don’t change much from year to year, but some do. You might not be able to get out to the ice edge to see orcas, for instance, or find a grounded iceberg. If we’d had only one year, we wouldn’t have gotten any penguin diving sequences. Also, because of limitations down there you can only spend 45 minutes under water before you get out. So you can’t spend hours in the water to film animal behavior. Then, there’s the weather. You have to be prepared to change your plans at a moment’s notice. So you need time and a backup plan.

What made you choose the HDTV format?

Natural history filmmakers like myself are excited about HDTV technology because it has a lot of advantages over film. My biggest problem as an underwater filmmaker has always been the size of the film loads. A typical film load generally lasts for only 12 minutes, which means that I often have to cut short my dives to reload film. But I’m able to shoot 40 minutes per dive with HD cameras. There are other advantages, too. I was able to use zoom lenses, despite the low light levels under the ice. The HD cameras pick up this very dark environment well. “Under Antarctic Ice” represents, to my knowledge, the first time that HDTV technology has been used underwater in Antarctica.

Does the technology have any downsides?

Well, one problem with HD is that your equipment has to be super clean. Any speck of dust or snow has a major effect on the image. We had penguins jumping up in front of us splashing water on the lens, and even the tiniest particles would appear in the picture. With film, particles on the lenses are far less of a problem.

Are you ready to return to Antarctica?

It’s an amazing place, and there are always new places to see. It really is the world’s last wilderness. Everyone who has been down there never forgets the experience. But it’s always nice to leave too.

Beneath Antarctica’s frozen seas lies one of Earth’s most stable and vibrant ecosystems — and one of its most enchanting realms. Visit a fantastic world hidden “Under Antarctic Ice.”

On the surface, it’s the bleakest of lands, with ferocious winds, flightless birds, and enough ice to flood half the planet’s population if it were to melt. But below that frozen mass, a fantastic environment of indescribable beauty teems with life. NATURE takes viewers into the world that is “Under Antarctic Ice.”

This beautiful film was shot in high definition format over a period of two years by renowned underwater photographer Norbert Wu, who has been exploring the waters beneath the Antarctic ice cap for some time.

To prepare for this adventurous exploration, Wu and two oceanographic researchers set up base at the famed frontier outpost of McMurdo Station, within sight of volcanic Mount Erebus. From there, with the help of a dive coordinator at McMurdo, they carefully searched for places where the ice was thin enough to dig access holes and where the environment below was suitable and reasonably safe for a descent. Throughout the film, Wu and his companions find ingenious ways to bring us a world that only a small fraction of humanity will ever witness firsthand.

Online content for Under Antarctic Ice was originally posted Summer of 2002.

Several species of octopus use a neurotoxic venom, produced by their salivary glands, to immobilize their prey. A hunting octopus either spits venom into the water near its prey or uses its strong, beak-like mouth to gouge a tear in the animal’s flesh, then deposits venom into the wound. Octopi, which can grow to be up to 35 feet long, generally target small animals like crabs, but they have been known to kill humans.

In one well-publicized incident, a young Australian diver was playing with a six-inch-long octopus, letting it crawl over his shoulders. The octopus bit him, and the venom it released caused the man to lose consciousness and stop breathing. In less than two hours, he was dead.

Some of the most poisonous creatures in the sea are jellyfish, those gelatinous-looking animals that idly float through the water hoping to bump into food. Their venom, typically a neurotoxin, is carried on their many tentacles in tiny mechanisms called nematocysts. Once the tentacles touch or sense prey nearby, the nematocysts discharge like tiny cannons, each one shooting out a tube that pierces the prey and injects its deadly contents — a dose of venom. The most dangerous jellyfish can carry more than half a million of these venom triggers per square inch.

Sometimes the loveliest creatures to look at are also the most deadly. Cone shells, long favored by shell collectors, also use venom to immobilize their prey. The snails and slugs that live inside these colorful shells lumber over the sea floor looking for edible fish and worms, poking out a fleshy appendage to probe the area around them. When a tasty morsel is detected, the animal shoots a venom-packed, barbed harpoon out through the limb, hooking into and poisoning its prey.

Many shell collectors, entranced by the beautiful shells, have suffered the sting of these harpoons. Several have died as a result. Many people have also suffered the effects of the puffer fish. Called fugu in Japan, its flesh is considered a gourmet delicacy — but one that can kill unless prepared correctly.

Stonefish, too, can be deadly. Some of the ugliest fish in the world, they are also among the world’s most venomous. These warty-looking fish are quiet bottom-dwellers, where their odd appearance lets them virtually disappear into rocky sea floors and coral reefs. They use their venom not to capture prey, but as protection. When a stonefish senses danger, it erects several spines along its back and fins; if a predator touches the stonefish, it gets a nasty dose of venom.

Each spine on a stonefish is said to carry enough venom to kill 1,000 mice. Human encounters usually occur when a person accidentally steps on a stonefish lying camouflaged on the sea floor. The resulting pain, said to be agonizing, lasts for several hours. The venom can also be deadly to humans.