Britain’s seaside towns are at war with their seagulls, urging visitors not to feed the birds in an effort to stop them snatching titbits like potato chips from tourists’ hands.
Warning signs deck promenade railings from Scarborough to Broadstairs and beyond but now research from the University of Exeter has suggested an easy way for holidaymakers to deter the gulls – just stare at them.
The research showed that with a human staring at them, herring gulls took 21 seconds longer to approach a bag of chips then when left apparently unobserved.
“Gulls are often seen as aggressive and willing to take food from humans, so it was interesting to find that most wouldn’t even come near during our tests,” said lead author Madeleine Goumas, of the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.
The researchers tried to test 74 gulls but most flew away or would not approach. Just 27 approached the food and 19 completed the “looking at” and “looking away” tests.
“Of those that did approach, most took longer when they were being watched,” Goumas said. “Some wouldn’t even touch the food at all, although others didn’t seem to notice that a human was staring at them.”
Trust the damned gulls to be fussy eaters when a bag of chips was offered; try half a dozen oysters and see how many fly away without a nibble then!
Craig (“Baron Frankenstein”) Venter, famous for creating the first cell with a synthetic genome, claims that he is about to create an artificial life-form from scratch, another significant “first”.
“We think we’re close, but we’ve not submitted a paper yet,” he said at the Global Grand Challenges summit in London.
Venter announced in 2010 that he had brought to life an almost completely synthetic version of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides, by transplanting it into the vacant shell of another bacterium. Venter’s latest creation, which he calls the “Hail Mary Genome,” will be made entirely with genetic material he & his institute colleagues, Clyde Hutchison & Hamilton Smith, consider necessary for life.
The team is using computer simulations to understand more fully what is needed to create a simple, self-replicating cell. “Once we have a basic “chassis”, we can add anything else to it,” he says.
Venter’s quest to engineer algae to produce oil is also going well. “We’ve been able to increase photosynthesis by 300%, meaning that we get three times as much energy per photon as from natural algae,” he says. He also announced that his program to scour the oceans for new microscopic life has so far turned up 80 million genes new to biology.
I think I can already hear the villagers at the lab door with torches & pitchforks.
“Dont’ be such an alarmist. What harm can 1 little self-replicationg organism do? I think we should change its name to “Tribble”, that sounds friendly…..”
In January last year, researchers stopped work that would create bird flu viruses that are easily transmissible in mammals. The moratorium came after 2 scientific papers described mutations in the H5N1 avian influenza virus – the (induced) mutations made the virus spread among ferrets via airborne droplets. The scientists “chose” to stop work until they could explain its benefits & safety to the public, & because there was nobody stupid enough to fund the research. The halt was supposed to last 60 days, but has lasted for a year due to the “complicated” & “ethical” issues surrounding the research (& because no government funding was forthcoming until the dipsticks who want to do the research could at least show some sort of benefits & “research-safety” analysis).
Now, the same group of 40 loons has declared, in a letter published online by both Nature & Science magazines, that the “goals of the moratorium have been met” & that work on the viruses may resume in countries with appropriate policies in place. The United States is not among those countries.
The researchers say they are “confident” that imposing multiple safety measures can prevent an accidental or malicious release of the virus. “There can never be zero risk,” said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin–Madison & the University of Tokyo, “but scientists can minimize the risks.” Meanwhile, the virus continues to mutate in nature, & some of the mutations identified in the laboratory studies have been found in naturally occurring H5N1 viruses (although there have been questions asked about the possibility of these mutations bearing some relationship to accidental releases of the laboratory induced version). With resumption of the work, researchers say they can monitor which strains are developing dangerous mutations, identify new mutations & test vaccines & antiviral drugs.
“We believe this research is important to pandemic preparedness,” Kawaoka said (& let’s face it, the research does increase the risk of the pandemic significantly).
The original research found that up to 9 separate mutations could transform the H5N1 virus from one that affects birds to one that infects mammals. Kawaoka’s group made similar discoveries using a hybrid of the avian influenza virus & a flu virus that infects people. An US government advisory committee originally deemed both findings too dangerous to publish because of the fear that terrorist groups or rogue governments could use the information to develop biological weapons. The panel later reversed the decision & both papers were published last summer (once it was clear that the “war against terror” had been won).
Although the United States is still working out its guidelines for the research, China, Canada & countries in the European Union have already decided to go ahead, reasoning (“reasoning” you notice, no “logic” nor even “caution” involved here) that the “potential benefits” outweigh the risks (of millions of deaths).
The United States is just weeks away from having its own guidelines for avian influenza research, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. “We’re in the process of saying what we will fund or not fund.” The framework emerged from a meeting in December & public comment (which unsurprisingly ran along the lines of “Oh God no…. What’s the matter with you people, we’re all going to die…..”) on the proposal that ended on 10th January. Final revisions & approval are under way, Fauci says.
So 40 ambitious scientists & a bunch of politicians who believe in the Magic Fairy in the clouds, have decided that there will not be any accidents & that there are huge benefits in learning how to deal with a pandemic which didn’t exist until they decided to risk creating it.
What is wrong with these people?
It’s OK, “the potential benefits outweigh the risks.”
staring at them, herring gulls took 21 seconds longer to approach a bag of chips then when left apparently unobserved.
ThursdayAgain 
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