Laboratory Equipment

Scientist of the Week: Ervan Garrison

Every Thursday, Laboratory Equipment features a Scientist of the Week, chosen from the science industry’s latest headlines. This week’s scientist is Ervan Garrison from the Univ. of Georgia. He and a team discovered a 36,000-year-old whale fossil.

The original article on this work is here: www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/12/divers-find-36000-year-old-whale-fossil

He speaks about the work here: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/scientist-week-ervan-garrison

Have a question for Ervan Garrison? Let us know and we’ll pass it on!

Underwater Noise Harms Whale Communication

According to a NOAA-led paper published today in the journal Conservation Biology, high levels of background noise, mainly due to ships, have reduced the ability of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales to communicate with each other by about two-thirds.

From 2007 until 2010, scientists from Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center and Marine Acoustics Inc. used an array of acoustic recorders to monitor noise levels, measure levels of sound associated with vessels and to record distinctive sounds made by multiple species of endangered baleen whales, including “up-calls” made by right whales to maintain contact with each other.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/underwater-noise-harms-whale-communication

New Sensory Organ Found in Whales

Scientists at the Univ. of British Columbia and the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a sensory organ in rorqual whales that coordinates its signature lunge-feeding behavior – and may help explain their enormous size.

Rorquals are a subgroup of baleen whales – including blue, fin, minke and humpback whales. They are characterized by a special, accordion-like blubber layer that goes from the snout to the navel. The blubber expands up to several times its resting length to allow the whales to engulf large quantities of prey-laden water, which is then expelled through the baleen to filter krill and fish.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-New-Sensory-Organ-Found-in-Whales-052412.aspx

App Seeks to Protect Whales from Ships

Even at a sturdy 70 tons, the North Atlantic right whale is no match for the huge ships that cross its path carrying cargo, passengers and the threat of lethal collisions. Now, a new app for the iPad or iPhone aims to help mariners avoid the rare whales so they don’t strike them.

The Whale Alert app takes information from underwater microphones to locate the whales in real time, which helps ships in New England waters avoid the species’ estimated 550 remaining whales.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-App-Seeks-to-Protect-Whales-from-Ships-041012.aspx

Researchers Make Perfume Sans Whale Vomit

Univ. of British Columbia researchers have identified a gene in balsam fir trees that could facilitate cheaper and more sustainable production of plant-based fixatives and scents used in the fragrance industry and reduce the need for ambergris, a substance harvested from whale vomit.

When sperm whales consume sharp objects, such as seashells and fish bones, their gut produces a sticky substance to protect their digestive organs. They then regurgitate the mixture – much like cats throwing up fur balls – and the vomit, reacting with seawater, turns into rock-like objects that wash ashore. These are collected and refined for their fixative properties. Called ambergris, the scented compound is added to high-end perfumes to help the fragrance stay on the skin longer.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Researchers-Make-Perfume-Sans-Whale-Vomit-040612.aspx

Whales’ Signals Reveal Retreat from Oil Rig

A technique that monitors whales through the sounds they emit has answered a key issue raised by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago this month.

The sound-monitoring technique revealed that sperm whales retreated from the immediate area around the spill caused by the explosion. “There’s obvious evidence of relocation,” says team member Azmy Ackleh, professor and head of mathematics at the Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette. The discovery is important because it provides information about a species almost hunted to extinction for its valuable oil in the 19th century.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Whales-Retreated-En-Masse-from-the-Deepwater-Horizon-Site-040612.aspx

Fossil Documents Whales Becoming Aquatic

Decorative stone is often used in buildings for its strength and durability but is not often thought of as a hiding place for fossils. If not for an observant Italian stonecutter, a recently discovered fossil whale specimen from Egypt might have become part of the edifice of some new skyscraper rather than the focus of a scientific study. This fossil skull and partial rib cage, described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, show transitional features of a new species of early whale and hint at how it became a fossil in the first place.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Fossil-Documents-Whales-Becoming-Aquatic-110811.aspx

rhamphotheca:

A baby Sperm Whale learns to swim alone while its mother hunts deep below.

(via: National Geo)

rhamphotheca:

Narwhals:  The Joust

The joust serves to establish and confirm the Narwhals’ social and sexual hierarchy, and once a clear winner emerges, mating can begin. Gestation lasts 15 months, before a single calf is born, weighing 180 lbs at a length of five feet. The calf will remain with its mother for 20 months, and will reach sexual maturity at 8-9 years of age, while females mature sexually quicker, at 4-7 years.

(read more: Brainz.org)

rhamphotheca:

Prehistoric Hyper-carnivorous Whale?!

by Sid Perkins, Science News

What would you get if you crossed a whale with a shark? Maybe something like Leviathan melvillei, a long-extinct, hypercarnivorous whale with teeth longer than any T. rex ever had. 

L. melvillei — a newly described sperm whale named to honor Herman Melville, author of the whaling novel Moby-Dick — lived between 12 million and 13 million years ago, says Olivier Lambert, a vertebrate paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. The aptly named leviathan is known only from remains of a jawbone and skull, which is about 75 percent complete, Lambert and his colleagues note in the July 1 (2010) Nature.

By comparing those fossils, which were found in southern Peru in November 2008, with more complete remains of other species, the researchers estimate that Leviathan measured between 44 and 57 feet in length, slightly smaller than adult male sperm whales of today.  The longest of Leviathan’s teeth measure about 14 inches including the root, more than 40 percent longer than those of today’s sperm whales. And, Lambert notes, the longest tooth of Sue, one of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex specimens yet found, measures only 10.6 inches from root to tip…

(read more: Wired Science)   (image: C. Letenneur (MNHN))

amnhnyc:

The blue whale gets dressed up for a special event.

Photo by Rod

amnhnyc:

On Sept. 7, 2011, a special team from the Museum’s Exhibition Department vacuumed and brushed the famous blue whale model hanging in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. 

At 21,000 pounds, the Museum’s blue whale is the largest model of the planet’s largest known animal. Though blue whales can weigh over 300,000 pounds, scientists still know remarkably little about the species because these whales spend much of their time in deep or remote waters.

Photo by Rod

scipsy:

Cetacean Comparison Chart (via)

Two transient orcas in Hood Canal, Washington.