Palaeolithic art featuring birds and humans discovered

An exceptional milestone in European Palaeolithic rock art

Date:  March 11, 2019

Source:  University of Barcelona

It is not very common to find representations of scenes instead of individual figures in Palaeolithic art, but it is even harder for these figures to be birds instead of mammals such as goats, deer or horses. So far, historians have only found three scenes of Palaeolithic art featuring humans and birds in Europe.

Now, an article published in the journal L'Anthropologie tells how University of Barcelona researchers found -in the site of Hort de la Bequera (Margalef de Montsant, Priorat)-, an artistic piece from 12,500 years ago in which humans and birds try to interact in a pictorial scene with exceptional traits: figures seem to star a narration on hunting and motherhood. Regarding the Catalan context in particular, this is an important finding regarding the few pieces of Palaeolithic art in Catalonia and it places this territory within the stream of artistic production of the upper Palaeolithic in the Mediterranean.

The piece they found is a 30-centimeter long limestone which shows two human figures and two birds, which the researchers identified as cranes. Since they found the piece in 2011, they underwent all cleaning, restoration and 3D copying procedures to study it in detail. Those figures were engraved in the stone board with a flint tool so that they created an organized composition compared to the other pieces of the same period.

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Humans v birds: poorly managed urban growth squeezes biodiversity

Melbourne bird survey supports research suggesting native species thrive better if planning includes environmental reserves, rather than backyards

Calla Wahlquist

Thu 31 May 2018 09.12 BST

Last modified on Thu 31 May 2018 22.56 BST

The outskirts of Melbourne are a maze of newly-paved culs-de-sac. Freestanding homes twist in on each other, filling the footprint of their small street blocks.

On the other side of the road, short wooden stakes have been tied with fluorescent tape to mark out the next development.

It is a seemingly never ending process to house Melbourne’s rapidly expanding population, which grew 2.3% to 4.85 million people in 2016-17.

But environmental scientists say that unless planners change the way they provide for this growth it will come at the cost of biodiversity.

A new study published online in the British Ecological Society journal this week found that development models based on a “land sharing” approach, where native species are provided with habitat in the form of the inter-connected backyards and tree-lined streets of a low-density suburb, performed poorly compared to a model of medium-density housing alongside continuous tracts of environmental reserve, known as a “land sparing” model.

A survey of bird species in 28 parcels of land throughout Melbourne’s northern and eastern suburbs, including four reserves, found that half of the native species observed decreased significantly in proportion to the density of human occupation, and 13 species were only found in reserves.

Some species, such as rainbow lorikeets, magpies and red wattlebirds were abundant throughout the suburbs.

But to maximise the diversity of native bird species, the study concluded, large tracts of native vegetation must be included alongside urban areas.

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Humans behind majority of raptor deaths in Ontario, Canada

Date:  March 12, 2018

Source:  University of Guelph

Summary:

Researchers found that a majority of raptor deaths are due to trauma and starvation caused by urban expansion and other types of anthropogenic landscape alterations.

Human encroachment is the leading cause of death among Ontario's at-risk birds of prey, according to a first-ever University of Guelph study.

Among deceased raptors submitted to the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative over a 23-year period, a majority of the wild birds died of trauma and starvation, said pathobiology professor Nicole Nemeth.

"The most common cause of death was from trauma, which often included colliding with a vehicle or flying into stationary objects, such as buildings," said Nemeth. "The second most common cause was emaciation, which often occurs when the landscape changes in a way that hinders them from successfully hunting and finding shelter."

Read on  

Usutu virus is back: Not only in blackbirds but also in humans

Date:  October 13, 2017

Source:  University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna

Summary:

Usutu virus, a flavivirus of African origin, was first detected in Austria in 2001, when it caused a severe bird die-off, mainly of blackbirds. The virus was active in the eastern part of Austria until 2005, killing many blackbirds, but also other songbirds. During 10 subsequent years no Usutu virus associated bird mortality was observed in Austria -- contrary to neighboring Hungary. Last year Usutu virus was identified again in two blackbirds -- and in 2017 already in sixteen songbirds. In another study Usutu virus was demonstrated in seven human blood donations from eastern Austria, suggesting that human infections seem to be more frequent than previously thought. 

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There’s no place like home, pigeons show their human families

By LISA SPEAR

Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Throughout history, pigeons, bred by humans to live on rooftops or backyard lofts, have flown hundreds of miles to find their way home.

People have raised pigeons to race them, like thoroughbreds, paying thousands of dollars for a bird. Some say these creatures are able to use the Earth’s gravitational pull to find their way back to where they belong. Others say they use the direction of the sun or the smell of the air to navigate.

Whatever the reason for their keen sense of direction, pigeons have formed a strong bond with the humans who keep them, and in some cases have become part of the family.

“They are actually very loving,” says Heather Truelove, who lives in Belchertown with her twin 11-year-old daughters and their 11 pigeons.

“You think of pigeons as being sky rats in cities, but they are very responsive and they seem to enjoy being touched and talked to.”

As she talks she is cradling one of her birds, who lives in a 7-foot high by 3-foot wide loft in the backyard. The pigeon looks as if it is roosting on her stomach as she leans back, relaxing on her back porch, stroking the bird’s back feathers. If properly cared for, this pigeon will live well into its teen years. 

One of her daughters, Skylar Park, is curled up next to her in a hammock chair with the hood of her sweater pulled over her head. A pigeon is inside snuggled next to her cheek. A third bird is loitering on her sister Kaitlyn Park’s shoulder.

 “They are soft and cuddly,” Skylar says.

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Human and avian running on uneven ground

Date: September 29, 2016

Source: Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Humans and birds adapt their movement when running on uneven ground. "And even though their adaptation mechanisms and strategies developed completely independently, they do so in very similar ways," says Dr Roy Müller from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany). Together with colleagues he has published a review article in the current issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface in which they analyse human and avian locomotion on uneven ground.

An experience anybody who goes running in the forest has surely had: Running on uneven grounds or cross-country, you suddenly step on a rock or a root crossing your way or you come across a small hollow. You step into an empty space or on an obstacle, either way disrupting your running rhythm. "Yet, even at a rather fast pace, situations like these usually do not make us lose our balance," says kinesiologist Dr Roy Müller from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany). The reason: Bipedal runners -- and humans count among them -- have various adaptation strategies stabilizing movement in their fast locomotion.

Together with his colleague Dr Yvonne Blum and the British researcher Dr Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery, Dr Müller has published a review article in the current issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface in which they analyse human and avian locomotion on uneven ground.

Read on 

Crowds of crows spread C. jejuni: Are humans vulnerable?

Date: June 4, 2016

Source: American Society for Microbiology

Crows are smart, highly social animals that congregate in flocks of tens of thousands. Such large, highly concentrated populations can easily spread disease -- not only amongst their own species, but quite possibly to humans, either via livestock, or directly. On the campus of the University of California, Davis, during winter, approximately half of the 6,000 American crows that congregated at the study site carried Campylobacter jejuni, which is the leading cause of gastroenteritis in humans in industrialized countries, which could contribute to the spread of disease. The research is published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The investigators posited that the crows' daily wanderings contributed to C. jejuni's spread. To track the crows, they trapped a small number of individuals and attached tiny GPS devices to diminutive backpacks. They affixed these to the birds with harnesses that looped around each wing to attach at the breast. The additional weight represented less than one twentieth that of the crows.

The crows' favored destinations were areas with easy access to food, such as a dairy barn, and a primate research center. "This movement pattern, coupled with high infection rates, suggests that crows could play an important role in transmission from wild birds to domestic animals and, ultimately, to humans," said first author Conor Taff, PhD.

Crows are also strong flyers, and able to spread contamination far from the roost.

Crows' social behavior also probably contributes to the pathogen's spread. Their communal winter roosts can pack thousands of crows into a few trees each night, said Taff, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, who conducted some of the research while he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis. And crowds of crows, opportunistic omnivores, forage together, defecating where they eat. "These things together probably explain why crows have such high prevalence of infection compared to other wild birds," said Taff.

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How birds learn through imitation

Long-term goal: Guide research into how people might re-learn skills after brain injury

Date:January 14, 2016

Precise changes in brain circuitry occur as young zebra finches go from listening to their fathers' courtship songs to knowing the songs themselves, according to a study led by neuroscientists at NYU Langone Medical Center and published online in aScience cover report on January 14.

The study reveals how birds learn songs through observation and practice, and the authors hope the work will guide future research into how patients with brain injuries might reacquire the ability to learn skilled behaviors like speech.

"While we have known for decades that adolescent songbirds only learn their songs if exposed to a tutor, we believe our study is the first to detail changes in nerve networks that make this mastery possible in maturing brains," says senior study investigator Michael Long, PhD.

"Our results show that finch song learning reflects a 'dance' inside the brain's vocal control center between nerve cells that capture information as the bird listens and those that direct muscle movement as it sings," says Long, an assistant professor of neuroscience at NYU Langone.

In the current study, led by Daniela Vallentin, PhD, and Georg Kosche in the NYU Neuroscience Institute, the research team found that early in adolescence, just listening to a father's song turns on the same brain cell networks that the young bird will use later to sing the song once learned.

A second result revolves around a set of nerve cells in the brain -- inhibitory interneurons -- which dampen the activity of surrounding nerves to sculpt sensory input into function. Researchers found that interneurons suppress the impact of each note in a father's song as soon as it is learned, "locking" it into the younger bird's memory piece by piece.

Read on ....

Humans, sparrows make sense of sounds in similar ways: Complex set of cognitive skills

Date:

January 5, 2015

Source:

Duke University

Summary:

The song of the swamp sparrow -- a grey-breasted bird found in wetlands throughout much of North America -- is a simple melodious trill. But according to a new study swamp sparrows are capable of processing the notes that make up their simple songs in more sophisticated ways than previously realized -- an ability that may help researchers better understand the perceptual building blocks that enable language in humans.

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Humans kill more birds than cats do

Friday, July 11, 2014

I am writing in response to the July 2 letter written by Michael Patterson of the Southern Maryland Audubon Society. While I understand his concern about the decreasing population of some species of birds, I think his blame is misplaced and his solution is unfeasible.

Cats are predatory animals, but they should not be held singly responsible for the decline of other species. Mr. Patterson himself acknowledged this by citing the considerable deer population that eats through the foliage, but he neglected to mention many other possible causes of bird decline.

In many ways, humans are to blame for the deaths of many birds. According to a Science News article from this year, Oklahoma State University researchers found that nearly a billion birds die every year from crashing into buildings in the United States. Skyscrapers only accounted for a marginal number of these deaths, while residences three stories or fewer, which may be particularly relevant to Mr. Patterson’s concern about low-nesting birds, made up nearly half of the birds killed in this manner.

Many millions more birds die from a combination of human factors such as crashing into cars, flying into wind turbines and being targeted by hunters.

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Humans Wiped Out Giant New Zealand Bird

MAR 19, 2014 03:59 PM ET // BY TIM WALL

 

Nine species of giant, flightless birds, known as moas, suddenly went extinct within two centuries of humans’ first arrival to New Zealand. Coincidence? No, a team of geneticists, biologists and archeologists recently wrote. The scientists found evidence that moas thrived before Polynesians colonized the islands in the 13th century.

The scientists analyzed genetic remains from 281 individual birds from four species of moa. The researchers looked for signs of dwindling moa populations in the 4,000 years before humans arrived. When animal populations shrink dramatically, their genetic diversity also decreases. Instead, the moa had a healthy variety of DNA, which suggested strong populations.

For example, the 3.6 meter (12 ft.) tall South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) had an estimated population of 9,200 individuals that may have been growing. Although another species, the 1.5 to 1.8 meter (4.9–5.9 ft.) tall eastern moa (Euryapteryx crassus), showed signs of a major historical die-off, that reduction in numbers likely occurred more than 17,900 years ago, thousands of years before humans arrived. Euryapteryx crassus had recovered and seemed to be thriving in the eastern lowland forests of New Zealand by the time humans arrived.

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Bacterial fibers critical to human, avian infection

Date:

February 6, 2014

Source:

Arizona State University

Summary:

Researchers targeted a specific group of threadlike fibers known as E. coli common pilus, which adorn bacterial cell surfaces. In the first study of its kind, they analyzed the way these structures contribute to avian pathogenic E. coli's ability to cause infection and form dense cell aggregates known as biofilms.

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Bird Flu Vaccine Successful on First Human Test

Scientists have successfully tested a bird flu vaccine on humans for the first time. This, coupled with the quick vaccine production process, is a milestone in fighting the deadly virus.

The mortality rate of the bird flu is around 30 percent of the infected patients. China had recorded 45 fatalities and 137 infections of the bird flu H7N9 since October. According to the World Health Organization, the H7N9 doesn’t show any signs of human transmission but this does not mean that the virus cannot go through changes in its inherent qualities to allow infection through human contact.

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Owlets Sleep Like Human Babies

Rock-a-bye owlet, in the treetop …

Baby owls and baby mammals, including humans, sleep in an analogous manner, spending a similar amount of time in an awakelike phase called REM (rapid-eye movement), in which dreams are thought to occur, at least during adulthood, new research suggests.

In both owls and humans, REM sleep decreases with increasing age. Baby humans spend about 50 percent of their snooze time in this REM phase, whereas that figure decreases to less than 25 percent in adults, according to a statement from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. (Applying the REM term to owls, whose eyes are fixed in their heads, may seem a stretch, but researchers use the phrase anyway.)

In the new study, published in July in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, the researchers attached electroencephalograms (EEGs) and movement data loggers to 66 young barn owls to record how much time the animals spent in REM sleep and how much they moved while snoozing. They later removed the EEGs, which measure brain waves, and found that the birds mated normally and didn't appear to have suffered any negative effects from the devices, the statement noted.

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Bird Brain? Birds and Humans Have Similar Brain Wiring

July 17, 2013 — You may have more in common with a pigeon than you realise, according to research. It shows that humans and birds have brains that are wired in a similar way.

A researcher from Imperial College London and his colleagues have developed for the first time a map of a typical bird brain, showing how different regions are connected together to process information. By comparing it to brain diagrams for different mammals such as humans, the team discovered that areas important for high-level cognition such as long-term memory and problem solving are wired up to other regions of the brain in a similar way. This is despite the fact that both mammal and bird brains have been evolving down separate paths over hundreds of millions of years.

The team suggest that evolution has discovered a common blueprint for high-level cognition in brain development.

Birds have been shown in previous studies to possess a range of skills such as a capacity for complex social reasoning, an ability to problem solve and some have even demonstrated the capability to craft and use tools.

Professor Murray Shanahan, author of the study from the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, says: "Birds have been evolving separately from mammals for around 300 million years, so it is hardly surprising that under a microscope the brain of a bird looks quite different from a mammal. Yet, birds have been shown to be remarkably intelligent in a similar way to mammals such as humans and monkeys. Our study demonstrates that by looking at brains that are least like our own, yet still capable of generating intelligent behaviour, we can determine the basic principles governing the way brains work."

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Avian Virus May Be Harmful to Cancer Cells

Apr. 8, 2013 — A study at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has identified a chicken-killing virus as a promising treatment for prostate cancer in humans.

Researchers have discovered that a genetically engineered Newcastle disease virus, which harms chickens but not humans, kills prostate cancer cells of all kinds, including hormone-resistant cancer cells. The work of Dr. Elankumaran Subbiah, associate professor of virology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, along with Dr. Siba Samal, associate dean and chairman of the University of Maryland's Department of Veterinary Medicine, and Shobana Raghunath, a graduate student in Subbiah's laboratory, appears in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology.

"This potential treatment is available for immediate pre-clinical and clinical trials, but these are typically not done at the university level," Subbiah said. "We are looking for commercial entities that are interested in licensing the technology for human clinical trials and treatment. Newcastle disease virus has yet to be tested as a treatment for prostate cancer in patients."

About one in six men will develop prostate cancer. Patients typically receive hormone treatments or chemotherapy, both of which have adverse side effects. Subbiah hopes that the development of new treatment methodologies will not only better fight prostate cancer, but also lessen the side effects commonly associated with hormone treatments and chemotherapy.

Newcastle disease virus affects domestic and wild bird species, especially chickens, and is one of the most economically important viruses to the poultry industry. Although it can cause mild conjunctivitis and flu-like symptoms in humans who have been in close contact with infected birds, it does not pose a threat to human health.

Scientists first documented the cancer-fighting properties of Newcastle disease virus in the 1950s, but it is only with recent advances in reverse genetics technology that they have turned to the genetically engineered virus as a possible treatment.

"We modified the virus so that it replicates only in the presence of an active prostate-specific antigen and, therefore, is highly specific to prostate cancer. We also tested its efficacy in a tumor model in vitro," Subbiah said. "The recombinant virus efficiently and specifically killed prostate cancer cells, while sparing normal human cells in the laboratory, but it would take time for this to move from the discovery phase to a treatment for prostate cancer patients."

Earlier human clinical trials for other types of cancer with naturally occurring strains of Newcastle disease virus required several injections of the virus in large quantities for success. Subbiah believes that the recombinant virus would be able to eradicate prostate cancer in much lower doses. It would also seek out metastatic prostate cancer cells and remove them. Because it is cancer cell-type specific, "the recombinant virus will be extremely safe and can be injected intravenously or directly into the tumor," Subbiah added.

Subbiah received a $113,000 concept award from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop his prostate cancer treatment under a Congressionally-directed medical research program. He is seeking additional foundation and corporate funds to take his research to the next level.

The researchers have also received a National Institutes of Health exploratory grant to develop the cell type-specific Newcastle disease virus for several other types of cancer cells, including breast, pancreas, brain, prostate, and multiple myeloma. "Although the virus can potentially treat many different types of cancer, we are focusing on these five," Subbiah said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130408142644.htm

Bird mites annoy more than just the birds

As birds leave their nests and head south for the winter, they may leave you and yours some small gifts: bird mites.

There are a number of species of mites that fall under the general name bird mite. Most common among them is the northern fowl mite (Ornithonyssus sylviarum). These mites are blood-sucking parasites and usually are found on the birds or in their nests. Under normal conditions, bird mites go unnoticed by us. However, there are occasions when mites are forced away from their preferred hosts and wander into our homes as accidental invaders.

Bird mites can bite humans but, fortunately for us, don't pose a health threat. They don't transmit any diseases and are, for the most part, merely an annoyance. However, in recent years, bird mites have made the news by actually forcing people from their homes. In one case, an elderly lady in New York was removed from her home in a HazMat suit and taken to a local hospital where she spent two days undergoing treatment for the bites. Other than a moderate rash, the woman suffered little in the way of physical impairment, but that didn't stop her from suing her landlord for the psychological trauma (she won her case, by the way).

Continued:  http://www.sunherald.com/2012/10/11/4239115/bird-mites-annoy-more-than-just.html

Summit Outside: West Nile and birds

West Nile virus is closely linked to birds. When it first appeared in 1999 some rare species of birds died suddenly in a New York zoo. At the same time, several people came down with encephalitis (a disease which affects the brain). It was later found to be West Nile virus, a virus never before seen in the United States. It is called “West Nile” because it was first identified in the West Nile sub-region in the East African nation of Uganda in 1937. Over the next five years, the virus spread across the continental U.S., north into Canada, and southward into the Caribbean Islands and Latin America. WNV is now in Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and in the U.S.

Currently in the U.S., we are experiencing one of the worst epidemics. The disease has been reported in people, birds or mosquitoes in 48 U.S. states.


Continued: http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20120923/NEWS/120929925/1078&ParentProfile=1055