Best of our wild blogs: 15 Aug 10

The Life History of the Sumatran Sunbeam
from Butterflies of Singapore

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher with a skink in its bill
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Australia corals to light up cancer cure fight

Yahoo News 14 Aug 10;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists have discovered a cluster of brilliant shallow-water corals that could help in the search for anti-cancer drugs and to understand global warming, a researcher said Saturday.

This photo, taken on August 3 and released by Australian Department of Environment, shows a cluster of vividly fluorescent coral in daylight found in waters off Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres off the east coast of Australia. Australian scientists have discovered that the brilliant shallow-water corals could provide vibrant illumination for cancer research. (AFP/Australian Dept. of Environment/Anya Salih And David Geny)

The vividly fluorescent cluster was found in waters off Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres (400 miles) east of the Australian mainland, with some displaying rich reds that were difficult to find and in high demand for studies of cancer cells, researcher Anya Salih said.

"The underwater buttresses and caverns are densely inhabited by hundreds of corals, all deeply pigmented by the most intense green, blue and many with red fluorescence," she said.

Salih said she had never seen such an abundance of highly red fluorescent corals, nor such an extraordinarily vibrant site.

"We are using these pigments to light up the workings of living cells and to study what goes wrong in cancer cells," said Salih, from the University of Western Sydney.

The gene producing the particular pigment -- red, green, blue or yellow -- would be attached to a molecule in both healthy and cancerous cells, and would enable scientists to track cell growth and change using a special fluorescent-sensitive laser microscope.

Salih is working with scientists from the University of California to explore how cancer cells differ from normal cells and how effective anti-cancer drugs are. She said red pigments were especially valuable because they allowed researchers to see deeper into tissues.

"These fluorescent molecules are transforming cell science and biomedical research," said Salih.

The corals were discovered by scientists tracking the recovery of coral bleaching linked to global warming at Lord Howe Island, and Salih said they were invaluable not only for her research but for understanding climate change.

"Earlier this year, the coral reefs of Lord Howe Island experienced a sudden mass bleaching event caused by warming of seawater. It's a sign that global warming is beginning to be a threat to coral survival even to the most southern reefs in Australia," she said.

But the fluorescent corals had been much less damaged by the bleaching, lending "support to the hypothesis that fluorescence can provide some level of protection to corals from temperature stresses due to climate change."

"Coral fluorescence is proving to be incredibly important in the biology of coral reefs and their ability to survive stressful conditions," she said.

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Peru battles rabid vampire bats after 500 people bitten

BBC News 13 Aug 10;

Peru's health ministry has sent emergency teams to a remote Amazon region to battle an outbreak of rabies spread by vampire bats.

Four children in the Awajun indigenous tribe died after being bitten by the bloodsucking mammals.

Health workers have given rabies vaccine to more than 500 people who have also been attacked.

Some experts have linked mass vampire bat attacks on people in the Amazon to deforestation.

The rabies outbreak is focused on the community of Urakusa in the north-eastern Peruvian Amazon, close to the border with Ecuador.

The indigenous community appealed for help after being unable to explain the illness that had killed the children.

The health ministry said it had sent three medical teams to treat and vaccinate people who had been bitten.

Most of the affected population had now been vaccinated, it said, although a few had refused treatment.

Vampire bats usually feed on wildlife or livestock, but are sometimes known to turn to humans for food, particularly in areas where their rainforest habitat has been destroyed.

Some local people have suggested this latest outbreak of attacks may be linked to the unusually low temperatures the Peruvian Amazon in recent years.

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