Truncatellina obesa

Artificial <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/does-the-human-brain-outperform-artificial-intelligence/">intelligence</a> (AI) is all around us, helping us live our daily lives. It involves numerous technologies and algorithms that are used to train systems to emulate human intelligence by perceiving, learning, reasoning, planning and solving problems. As the systems learn, they become more able to perform intellectual tasks by themselves, and appear to assume the human quality of intelligence.



For example, our choices of streaming music, films, and news are soon learned by the internet algorithms, which then suggestions what we might like to view or listen to next. Our social media streams are also filtered according to AI learning principles that have been used to get to know us better. Sound complicated? Well, researchers from the <a href="https://uiowa.edu/">University of Iowa</a> recently set out to demystify the way in which AI works, by testing how simple pigeons learn, and comparing this to the way in which AI learning takes place.&nbsp;



The researchers identified two types of learning: declarative and associative. Declarative learning is based on exercising reason according to a set of rules or strategies – a so-called higher order of learning that is typical in humans. In contrast, associative learning centers on recognizing and making connections between objects or patterns, such as in “sky-blue” and “water-wet.” It is considered a lower-order way of thinking. Numerous animal species use associative learning, but only a few – dolphins, chimpanzees and humans among them – are capable of declarative learning.



In order to tease out the way in which pigeons learn, the researchers set a “diabolically difficult” task for them. They gave the pigeons complex categorization tests that higher-level thinking, such as using logic or reasoning, would not aid in solving. Instead, the pigeons, had to use trial and error to memorize enough of the scenarios in the test in order to find the correct solution.&nbsp;



Each test pigeon was shown a stimulus and had to decide, by pecking a button on the right or on the left, to which category that stimulus belonged. They had to consider variables such as line width, line angle, concentric rings, and sectioned rings, in matching stimuli and solutions. A correct answer yielded a tasty pellet; an incorrect response yielded nothing. What made the test so demanding was its arbitrariness: no rules or logic would help the pigeons decipher the&nbsp;solutions.



“These stimuli are special. They don’t look like one another, and they’re never repeated,” says study co-author <a href="https://psychology.uiowa.edu/people/edward-wasserman">Ed Wasserman</a>. “You have to memorize the individual stimuli or regions from where the stimuli occur in order to do the&nbsp;task,” said Wasserman, who has&nbsp;<a href="https://comparative-cognition.lab.uiowa.edu/">studied pigeon intelligence for five decades</a>.



Each of the four test pigeons began by correctly answering about half the time. But over hundreds of tests, the birds eventually upped their score to an average of 68 percent&nbsp;correct. They had clearly learned how to respond to the tasks using an associative learning process.



The researchers equate the pigeons’ repetitive, trial-and-error approach to the learning that takes place by machines. Computers employ the same basic methodology, the researchers contend, and are “taught” how to identify the patterns and objects easily recognized by humans. Granted, computers, because of their enormous memory and storage power, far surpass anything the pigeon brain can&nbsp;conjure. However, the basic process of making associations is the same between the test-taking pigeons and the latest AI&nbsp;advances.



“You hear all the time about the wonders of AI, all the amazing things that it can do,” says&nbsp;Wasserman. “It can beat the pants off people playing chess, or at any video game, for that matter. It can beat us at all kinds of things. How does it do it? Is it smart? No, it’s using the same system or an equivalent system to what the pigeon is using&nbsp;here.”



“The pigeons are like AI masters,” Wasserman says. “They’re using a biological algorithm, the one that nature has given them, whereas the computer is using an artificial algorithm that humans gave&nbsp;them.”



The common denominator is that AI and pigeons both employ associative learning, and it is that base-level thinking that allowed the pigeons to ultimately score successfully. If people were to take the same test, Wasserman says, they’d score poorly and would probably give&nbsp;up because they are more used to using declarative learning in order to solve problems.



“The goal was to see to what extent a simple associative mechanism was capable of solving a task that would trouble us because people rely so heavily on rules or strategies,” Wasserman adds. “In this case, those rules would get in the way of learning. The pigeon never goes through that process. It doesn’t have that high-level thinking process. But it doesn’t get in the way of their learning. In fact, in some ways it facilitates&nbsp;it.”



Wasserman sees a paradox in how associative learning is&nbsp;viewed. “People are wowed by AI doing amazing things, using a learning algorithm much like the pigeon,” he says, “yet when people talk about associative learning in humans and animals, it is discounted as rigid and&nbsp;unsophisticated.”



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By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



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Pigeons solve problems like intelligent machines

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us, helping us live...

While investigating how well commercial <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bumblebees-increasingly-stressed-over-the-past-century/">bumblebees</a> (Bombus impatiens) pollinate early spring crops, a team of scientists led by <a href="https://www.cornell.edu/">Cornell University</a> has made a surprising and worrisome discovery: a series of dead wild bumblebee queens in the hives (an average of ten dead queens in each nest box). According to the experts, the brightly-colored hives play a significant role in attracting the queens, which are afterwards killed by worker bees from those hives.



Bumblebee queens frequently engage in a behavior called “usurpation,” in which a queen who has yet to establish her own nest takes over by force another queen’s nest. However, as commercial hives have many more workers than natural nests, these usurping wild queens are often killed by workers upon entry. Fortunately, the scientists found that an existing technology called an “excluder,” which narrows the nest box doorway, is fully effective at keeping the resident queen in and the usurpers out.



The researchers placed commercial bumblebee colonies in early spring on apple orchards in eight sites around the Fingers Lakes area of New York. The colonies were set up side by side, half of them with excluders on their doorways, and half without. After marking each hive’s original queens, the experts checked the nests every few days during a period of two weeks. The investigation revealed that nests without excluders included more dead usurpers, one of them containing a staggering 19 dead queens.



These findings add yet another item on the list of human practices which contribute to the decline of wild bee populations. Although wild eastern bumblebee populations are fortunately not a species of conservation concern, the scientists did find dead queens of other species too - such as the rapidly declining Bombus perplexus (known as the “confusing bumblebee”) - inside commercial hives.



“If you are a commercial grower, and you want to manage bumblebees, especially if you are bringing them in early in the season, you may actually be reducing your overall pollination services by investing in these commercial bumblebee colonies, unless you are taking some risk-mitigation strategies like putting in a queen excluder,”&nbsp;concluded senior author Heather Grab, an expert in Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell.



The study is published in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14353">Journal of Applied Ecology</a>.&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Bumblebee queens lured to their death by colorful hives

While investigating how well commercial bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) pollinate early...

Scientists have long wondered how microbes growing in the deepest parts of the oceans can survive with no sunlight. Now, a team of researchers led by <a href="https://www.monash.edu/">Monash University</a> in Australia has shown that a distinct process called “chemosynthesis” (growth using inorganic compounds) fuels these microbes. More specifically, two common gases – hydrogen and carbon monoxide – serve as fuel for the trillions of microbes living in the depths of the <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/how-the-ocean-and-climate-influence-each-other/">oceans</a> from the tropics to the poles.



Until recently, most scientists believed that ocean microbial life is also driven by photosynthesis (growth by using light energy). "But what about those regions so deep that light can’t penetrate or so nutrient-poor that algae can’t thrive? We showed in this study that instead chemosynthesis is dominant in these regions,” said study senior author Chris Greening, an expert in Microbiology at Monash. 



“Hydrogen and carbon monoxide in fact “fed” microbes in all regions we’ve looked at: from urban bays to around tropical islands to hundreds of meters below the surface. Some can even be found beneath Antarctica’s ice shelves.”



The researchers combined chemical measurements during ocean voyages with lab-based characterization of microbial cultures, as well as metagenomic sequencing (a method providing the genetic blueprints of all the microbes present in a specific region in the ocean).&nbsp;



“We found the genes that enable hydrogen consumption across eight distantly related types of microbes, known as phyla, and this survival strategy becomes more common the deeper they live,” reported lead author Racheal Lappan, a research fellow in Microbiology at Monash.



The study was inspired by previous work on soil bacteria which revealed that most of these terrestrial microorganisms can thrive by consuming hydrogen and carbon monoxide from the atmosphere.&nbsp;



“The surface layers of the world’s oceans generally contain high levels of dissolved hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases due to various geological and biological processes. So it made sense that oceanic bacteria used the same gases as their terrestrial cousins,” Lappan explained.



The findings provide novel insights into how life on Earth evolved. “The first life probably emerged in deep-sea vents using hydrogen, not sunlight, as the energy source. It’s incredible that, 3.7 billion years later, so many microbes in the oceans are still using this high-energy gas and we’ve completely overlooked this until now,” Greening concluded.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01322-0">Nature Microbiology</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



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How can deep ocean microbes survive without sunlight?

Scientists have long wondered how microbes growing in the deepest...

The number of unprovoked <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/shark-populations-are-rebounding-in-the-northwest-atlantic/">shark</a> attacks in oceans around the world was at a 10-year low during 2022, with a total of 57. This number is on a par with the attacks recorded during 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic kept tourists and locals off beaches and out of coastal waters. According to the latest annual report of the University of Florida’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/">International Shark Attack File</a> (ISAF), most of the 2022 attacks occurred in the United States and Australia. Of these, five attacks were fatal, down from nine deaths in 2021 and 10 the year before.



The ISAF is the world’s only scientifically documented, comprehensive database of all known shark attacks. It was initiated in 1958 and is housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Currently, the list documents 6,800 shark attack cases during the period from the early 1500s to the present. This annual report focuses particularly on unprovoked shark attacks, defined as “incidents in which a bite on a live human occurs in the shark’s natural&nbsp;habitat with no human provocation of the shark.”



According to the latest statistics, there have been an average of 74 unprovoked bites per year since 2013. Therefore, the bites recorded during 2022 mark a significant decrease. According to scientists, this overall reduction in the number of last year’s bites may reflect the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03173-9">documented global decline</a>&nbsp;of shark populations.&nbsp;



“Generally speaking, the number of sharks in the world’s oceans has decreased, which may have contributed to recent lulls” said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/sharks/">Florida Program for Shark Research</a>. “It’s likely that fatalities are down because some areas have recently implemented rigorous beach safety protocols, especially in Australia.”



Analysis of the geographic distribution of shark attacks in the 2022 Annual Report shows that the U.S. recorded the highest number of shark bites, and that Florida, in particular, had more bites than anywhere else on Earth. However, none of Florida’s 16 unprovoked bites was fatal, but two – likely from bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) – required medical treatment resulting in amputations. Only one of the unprovoked shark attacks in U.S. waters resulted in a fatality, which occurred late in the year when a snorkeler went missing along Keawakapu Beach in Maui, Hawaii.



In contrast, Australia had nine confirmed unprovoked bites, and single bites occurred in New Zealand, Thailand and Brazil. Two fatal attacks occurred on the same day in Egypt’s Red Sea, where shark encounters are considered rare. South Africa, which averages a few bites a year, had two unprovoked attacks in 2022, both of which were fatal and likely caused by great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias).



Although there were fewer bites in the U.S. last year, there were spikes in certain hotspot regions that have caused concern from residents and government officials in these areas. For example, New York had a record eight bites in 2022, compared with a total of only 12 reported unprovoked bites in the State before this time.



In 2016, researchers discovered that juvenile sand tiger sharks (<a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/species-profiles/carcharias-taurus/">Carcharias taurus</a>) had taken up residence in Great South Bay, between Long Island and Fire Island. The sharks continue to use the sheltered bay as a nursery, where they’re better protected from predation than they’d otherwise be in the open ocean. According to Naylor, the majority of bites in Long Island were likely from sand tiger sharks that were drawn into the surf zone by an influx of baitfish.



“The Gulf Stream’s eddies ebb and flow each year. Sometimes they can come very close to shore, bringing nutrients and fish with them. The juvenile sand tigers will follow the fish, which in some cases leads to an uptick in encounters with people,” he said. “But local perceptions of shark bites rarely map to global statistics. If you zoom out, these eddies unpredictably break off from oceanic currents all over the world in haphazard ways.”



For as long as records have been kept, there have been no reported fatalities from sand tiger attacks, but juveniles have often been implicated in non-lethal bites.



“Juveniles tend to be more experimental and will try things that an adult shark wouldn’t,” Naylor said. “If fish are especially dense where people are swimming and visibility is poor, then it is more likely that young sharks, which lack the experience of older animals, will mistake a swimmer’s foot for their intended prey.”



Another noteworthy record in the 2022 Annual Report comes from the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. On January 8, 2022, two attacks occurred less than a mile from each other and both were fatal. It is possible that the attacks were perpetrated by the same individual shark, most likely considered to be a tiger shark (<a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/species-profiles/galeocerdo-cuvier/">Galeocerdo cuvier</a>).&nbsp;



Shark attacks are relatively rare in the Red Sea, but when they do occur, they’re often fatal, Naylor said. This is due primarily to the unique topography of the region. The Red Sea began forming roughly 50 million years ago as the tectonic plates underlying Africa and Arabia began pulling apart, creating a steep gorge between them.



“It’s a very unusual marine system because the seafloor drops so precipitously, as much as 1,000 feet in 100 yards in some places,” noted Naylor.



In regions like eastern North America, where the continental shelf slopes gradually, large pelagic sharks often forage far from the coast. In the Red Sea, however, they’re mere meters from the shore, Naylor explained. “Open oceans are often pretty bleak, and the pelagic sharks that live in them make their living by opportunism. Whatever potential food source they find, they’ll sample.”



The authors of the report emphasize that the chances of being bitten by a shark remain incredibly low. According to the World Health Organization, drowning is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning">third leading cause of accidental death</a>&nbsp;worldwide, and coastal features like rip tides and strong currents pose a greater risk to beachgoers than do sharks.&nbsp;



Despite this, the ISAF provides recommendations for reducing the risk of a shark bite for those who swim in the oceans. These include removing shiny jewelry before entering the water, not swimming at dawn or dusk, and avoiding areas where there are active fishermen or shoals of fish. For more resources, including the full 2022 report, you can visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/">International Shark Attack File’s website</a>. &nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:bosman@truewan.co.za">Alison Bosman</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



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Shark attacks decreased in 2022, but spiked in local hotspots

The number of unprovoked shark attacks in oceans around the...

Most of the research on skin coloration and patterning in vertebrates has been conducted on laboratory mice. However, since mice don’t share all of the same kinds of color-producing cells (known as chromatophores) with other vertebrates, there are limits to what mice can tell us about coloration in reptiles such as <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/modern-snakes-evolved-from-just-a-few-surviving-species/">snakes</a>, for instance.&nbsp;



Now, by combining techniques such as whole gene sequencing, gene-editing, and electron microscopy, a team of researchers from <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/">McGill University</a> in Canada has examined color variations and patterning in the skin shed by ball pythons (Python regius) bred in captivity. The analysis revealed that a particular gene (tfec) plays a crucial role these snakes’ pigmentation, more specifically in a classic color variant found across vertebrates and distinguished by blotches of white (the so-called “piebald coloration”).



The captive-bred reptile industry is currently booming, with over 4.5 million households in the U.S. alone keeping reptiles. Due to the spectacular color variations produced through captive breeding, a single ball python can now sell for tens of thousands of dollars.



“Ball pythons show incredible variation in skin coloring and patterning, which is part of their appeal for hobbyists, but also makes them really useful for researchers who want to understand the genetic basis of coloration,” said study senior author Rowan Barrett, an expert in Biodiversity Science at McGill.



“The pet trade has created a huge pool of color variation that would not have existed otherwise. This provides a catalogue for us to figure out the many ways that genes produce the amazing diversity of colors, spots, and stripes we see across different animals.”



In order to identify the genes responsible for particular traits, scientists usually examine genetic variants that are present in the animals that have the traits, and absent in those that don’t have them. By using shed skin samples collected from snake breeders, the researchers discovered that piebald snakes carried the same mutation in a gene called tfec.



However, since finding a correlation between a specific gene and a particular trait does not necessarily imply causation, the scientists used the genetic-editing technique CRISPR to modify this gene in a different species of reptile, the brown anole lizard. This intervention revealed that genetically modified lizards do indeed show altered coloration, thus proving that mutations to tfec cause changes to color-producing cells.



“Our research advances knowledge of the genetics of vertebrate coloration generally and particularly of the development of iridescent cells, which haven’t been studied as much as other color pathways,” said study lead author Alan Garcia-Elfring, a PhD student in Biology at McGill.



“It also highlights the potential benefits of working with non-academic communities like ball python breeders to accelerate discoveries in fundamental science. Our job, at this point, is to figure out what other mutations underlie all this variation seen in captivity, and how these mutations interact. It’s an exciting time for both researchers and reptile hobbyists.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.01.004">Current Biology</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Ball pythons shed new light on reptile coloration

Most of the research on skin coloration and patterning in...

Howling is a characteristic form of communication in wolves that helps them send messages across long distances, mark territory boundaries, and identify the position of other wolves. Among <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dog-ancestry-traced-to-two-populations-of-ancient-wolves/">dogs</a> - the wolves’ domestic relatives - the situation is more complicated. While some breeds, such as wolf-like sled dogs, howl frequently, even in “reply” to irrelevant sounds like bells, sirens, or music, other types of dogs never engage in such behavior.



Now, a team of ethologists from the <a href="https://www.elte.hu/en/">Eötvös Loránd University</a> (ELTE) in Hungary has examined the phenomenon of dog howling by testing the reaction of 68 purebred family dogs to recorded wolf howls. To test the effect of a dog's breed, the experts measured its genetic similarity to wolves.



“According to our results, breeds which are genetically more similar to wolves (“ancient breeds”), are more prone to reply with their own howls to wolf howl playbacks. On the other hand, breeds more distantly related to wolves (“modern breeds”) typically reacted with barking instead of howls. It seems that although howling is present in most breeds’ repertoire, it lost its functionality due to the changed social environment, thus, modern breeds do not use it in adequate situations,” reported study lead author Fanni Lehoczki, a postdoctoral researcher in Neuroethology at ELTE. “Additionally, we found that breeds which howl more also show more stress-related behaviors in this situation.”



“We assume that more ancient breeds, which are genetically closer to wolves, can process the information encoded in wolf howls better than modern breeds. Thus, ancient breeds of our study might become stressed by intruding on a pack’s territory and use howling for the sake of avoidance, just as wolves do,” added study lead author&nbsp;Tamás Faragó, a postdoctoral fellow in Ethology at the same university.



“Interestingly,&nbsp;this genetic effect on howling occurs only among older dogs (&gt;5 years), for which an experience- or some age-related personality effect can be a plausible explanation. It is possible that - in line with our hypothesis, that howling appearing with a higher level of stress is a fear reaction - older dogs are more fearful, which was already suggested by previous studies, but these speculations require further investigation.”



Besides the breed and age of the dogs, the scientists also tested the effect of other features such as sex or reproductive status. The analysis revealed that, while there was no difference between intact and spayed females, intact dogs behaved differently from neutered ones.&nbsp;



“Neutered males, which are in lack of testosterone, howl more in response to the playbacks. As neutered males are suggested to be more fearful, this result can be in line with our findings about responsiveness and more stressed behavior. Thus, the dog howl may mean ‘I am scared, don't come closer,’” Lehoczki explained.



These findings support the hypothesis that domestication and selective breeding by humans significantly changed dogs’ vocal repertoire, including the perception and production of howls.



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04450-9">Nature Communications Biology</a>.



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By <a href="mailto:andrei.ionescu5891@gmail.com">Andrei Ionescu</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer



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Why do some dogs howl, but others don't?

Howling is a characteristic form of communication in wolves that...

A fungus that can cause deadly <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/covid-disrupts-gut-health-increasing-risk-of-other-infections/">infection</a> in salamanders and newts has a secret weapon that makes it more dangerous, according to a study led by the <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/">University of Exeter</a>. The experts report that a fungus called Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) contains multiple copies of “jumping genes," which can essentially duplicate themselves.&nbsp;



Jumping genes, known by scientists as transposons, are DNA sequences that move from one location on the genome to another. While possessing repeated parts of DNA can be harmful to an organism, the researchers have found a possible evolutionary advantage of jumping genes in Bsal.



The team found different versions of jumping genes repeated multiple times in the genome of Bsal. Furthermore, the transposons appear to have duplicated another group of genes that play a role in the severity of an infection.&nbsp;



“Bsal and related fungal species infect amphibians worldwide, and have been responsible for more than 90 extinctions,” explained study first author Theresa Wacker.&nbsp;



“Bsal infects the skin of salamanders and newts and causes severe wounds. It emerged in Asia, where many newts and salamanders have some tolerance, but it has spread to Europe and is causing European salamander populations to decline."



“Using new sequencing technologies, we found that Bsal has undergone a genome expansion compared to related species - that is to say, it now has a bigger genome with more genes and also more of these ‘jumping gene’ transposons.”



The experts determined that the ability of jumping genes to "copy and paste" themselves has contributed to the expansion of the Bsal genome.



“If you think of an organism’s genome as a blueprint, transposons are like having many identical pages,” said Wacker. “And sometimes, during the process of copying and pasting, other parts of the book are also copied.”



"It appears that this copying and pasting caused by repetitive jumping gene transposons has also amplified some skin-destroying genes. Having more of these skin-destruction genes allow the fungus to destroy the skin of salamanders more quickly, making it more deadly.”



Study senior author Dr. Rhys Farrer noted that this kind of gene repetition is probably more widespread in nature than we currently realize. “If, as appears to be the case, it confers an evolutionary advantage for the pathogen by making it more virulent, it’s not clear why this isn’t much more common.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2212633120">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



Image Credit: Jaime Bosch



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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A fungus has become more deadly thanks to jumping genes

A fungus that can cause deadly infection in salamanders and...

Truncatellina obesa

Taxonomic tree: