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Why are these rhinos radioactive?
Scientists at the Limpopo rhino orphanage in South Africa have injected radioactive material into the horns of live rhinos to prevent them from being poached.
This is part of the Rhisotope project being undertaken in the region after previous attempts to prevent rhino poaching for illicit trade have failed.
Rhino horns grow back after being cut, but poachers opt to kill the animal instead of sedating them. Estimates suggest 499 rhinos were killed in South Africa last year, mostly in state-run parks.
Previous attempts at preventing poaching, including poisoning the horns, have failed. Image credit: Frans vans Heerden/ Pexels.
As part of the Rhisotope project, researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand drilled holes in the animal’s horns and placed two small radioactive chips inside. This is supposed to have a dual effect.
Rhinos are poached since the horns are used in traditional medicine. Instead, the radioactive horn will become potentially poisonous for human use. Additionally, radioactive content is high enough to set off nuclear detectors at international borders.
The material is expected to remain in the rhino horns for at least five years, which researchers say is cheaper than dehorning animals every 18 months.
What do you think of this as a research idea |
Thank dinosaur wipeout for grape wine
When an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, it did not just wipe out the dinosaurs. It also gave other animals (including us) and plants a new lease of life.
Researchers at the Negaunee Integrative Research Center at the Field Museum in Chicago have found that modern-day grapes benefitted from the sudden disappearance of dinosaurs.
Just like animal tissue, fruit flesh decays and does not become fossilized. Seeds, on the other hand, do and have provided paleontologists with clues about what plant life existed millions of years ago.
The oldest grape fossils have been found in India and date back to 66 million years ago, about the time the famous asteroid hit. However, these records have been limited to Asian regions, so researchers wanted to trace back the history of grapes in the Americas.
With dinosaurs around, grape would have perhaps vanished from the Earth quite easily. Image credit: Pixabay.
In 2022, researchers found evidence of grape seeds in the Colombian Andes, but the discovery also chanced upon something bigger.
The team found that until the sudden disappearance of dinosaurs, the forests grew quite openly. The giant creatures knocked down trees and species grew more or less equally.
But after the asteroid hit, trees in the tropics grew taller, and canopies and denser forests made it difficult for shorter trees to get sufficient sunlight. This is where climbers like grapes thrived and were eventually discovered by humans.
Interestingly, grapes went extinct in Central and South America and are at risk of extinction in the rest of the world due to climate change, too.
To know what other favorite food items may be missing in the future, read this post.
Hippos can fly
Researchers at the Royal Veterinary College at Hertfordshire in the UK study evolutionary biomechanics and were keen to learn about hippos' capabilities.
Hippos are somewhere between elephants and rhinos when it comes to athleticism in heavy land animals, but scientific literature is lacking. The animals can be dangerous, they are active mostly at night and spend most of their time in the water.
Been there, done that. Image credit: Juan Riofrio/ Pexels.
So, the team sent a student to the Flamingo Land resort in North Yorkshire where hippos are free to run around. Armed with a camera, the student brought back tons of footage of the heavy animals running between their stable and watering hole.
Analyzing the footage frame-by-frame, the researchers found that irrespective of the movement speed, hippos trot. This means that for 15 percent of the time, all four feet of the heavy animal are in the air. Moreover, hippos can be airborne in a moment’s rush when chasing other hippos.
The research findings were published in PeerJ.
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Until next time,
Ameya
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