Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Nuptial Gifts and Other Romantic Gestures of the Bug World – Entomology Today

Female Laupala cerasina crickets (also known as Hawaiian swordtail crickets) often consume several protein-packed nuptial gifts from males before mating. The final protein capsule containing reproductive material is visible on the male on the left. Both crickets are marked with paint for identification by researchers. (Photo by Biz Turnell)

Adrienne Antonsen

By Adrienne Antonsen

On Valentines Day across the globe, people often offer presents to their loved ones. Many insects are also gift-givers. Known as nuptial gifts, these treats can help attract a partner and improve reproductive success.

In honor of this day of romance, heres a look at recent entomological research on how some insects and other arthropods woo one another with gifts.

Male nursery web spiders of the species Pisaura mirabilis prefer giving larger nuptial gifts to potential partners, but they may feed on the gift before giving it away if they are particularly hungry. (Video via YouTube/Team Candiru)

Nursery web spiders (family Pisauridae) are well known for their mating ritual in which males often present females with a silk-wrapped prey item before beginning copulation. These nuptial gifts lower the likelihood that females will eat the males, increase the length of time females permit copulation, and improve fertilization success.

A recent study investigated what size of gift Pisaura mirabilis males prefer to present to females and whether or not they feed on the prey item before giving it away. To test this, male spiders of variable body condition were presented with either a large or small cricket nymph in an environment with or without female pheromones. The researchers found that, regardless of body condition, males preferred to produce large nuptial gifts over small ones, indicating an energetically costly gift ultimately pays off better than cutting corners with a smaller gift. However, if the males were in poor bodily condition, they were more likely to feed on the gift before offering it to a female. But hey, its the thought that counts, right?

Female Rhamphomyia longicauda flies, known as long-tailed dance flies, inflate their abdomens during courtship to appear more fecund than they may actually be (uninflated at rest at left, inflated in flight at right). Their leg scales also serve as a sexual ornament to attract males. (Photo by Dave Funk)

When it comes to romance, Rhamphomyia longicauda, often known as the long-tailed dance fly, switches things up. Most often in the animal world its the females who do the choosing and the males who do the wooing, but those roles are reversed for dance flies. Females dont hunt, so they rely completely on nuptial gifts provided by males for nutrition. The females fly in groups at dusk and dawn waiting for males to bring food to them. To make themselves appear more desirable, females fill their abdomens with air to advertise their eggs as being more mature than they may truly be, a characteristic that males seek out.

Mating takes place in flight, and males bear the weight of both the nuptial gift and the female while she feeds upon it. So, just how large can a female get without becoming too heavy to hold onto in flight? To test this question, researchers studied a wild population to see whether the wing loading of males (i.e, wing area relative to body mass) was related to the mass of the female dance flies they ultimately mated with. Contrary to their hypothesis that males with higher wing loading would select smaller females, the researchers found the opposite. This indicates that male long-tailed dance flies dont experience the same load-lifting constraints that other dance flies do. When it comes to long-tailed dance flies finding a date, being bigger is better.

Female imported cabbageworm butterflies (Pieris rapae), also known as cabbage white butterflies, depend less on nuptial gifts from males in agricultural environments where nitrogen is abundant. When a female is unreceptive to courtship she will spread her wings and raise her abdomen, as shown here, to prevent the male from attaching and mating with her. (Photo by Wikipedia user Alpsdake, CC BY-SA 3.0)

In imported cabbageworm butterflies (Pieris rapae), also known as cabbage white butterflies, nitrogen plays an important role in mate selection. The nutrient makes up a significant amount of the nuptial gift passed from males to females during copulation, an important source of energy for female butterflies. Nitrogen is also used in wing pigmentation, a cue the butterflies can use to visually assess mate quality. Researchers wondered how variable nitrogen availability, specifically due to anthropogenic influences, might affect cabbage white mating behavior and physiology. To test this, they compared cabbage white butterflies from a non-agricultural population with a population from an agricultural setting where fertilizer has significantly increased nitrogen availability.

Several differences became apparent between the two populations. First, while females from the non-agricultural site typically mated with more than one male, agricultural females tended to mate only once, thus receiving fewer nuptial gifts. The agricultural females were also less choosy when selecting a mate. Second, the toothed structures used to break down nuptial gifts were reduced in agricultural females reproductive tracts, indicating a reduced need for the nutrients. Third, both males and females from the agricultural population had increased wing pigmentation. Altogether these results suggest that changes in nitrogen availability can affect cabbage white reproductive behavior and physiology in a multitude of ways. As the world changes, so do the rules of romance for these butterflies.

To reproduce, male insects will often transfer their genetic material to females via a protein capsule known as a spermatophore. Sometimes, however, these capsules may contain only nutrients and no genetic material. These are called microspermatophores and serve as nuptial gifts. Males of the cricket species Laupala cerasina, also known as the Hawaiian swordtail cricket, typically present females with anywhere from one to nine of these nuptial gifts before transferring the final capsule that contains their genetic material. (See a male and female L. cerasina pair in the image at the top of this article.) This process can take several hours. Why do these crickets go to all this effort of producing capsules without any reproductive material inside? As it turns out, the nuptial gifts improve the amount of genetic material successfully transferred from the final spermatophore to the female.

Researchers wanted to find out if the number of nuptial gifts a male Hawaiian swordtail cricket presents to a female affects the number of future offspring that are sired. To test this, the researchers paired a female cricket with two males: one that mated earlier in the day with a different female and one that did not. Males that had mated earlier transferred fewer microspermatophores to the female during the second mating. Using DNA sequencing, it was then possible to directly compare both the number and paternity of the offspring produced. As it turned out, females had a higher number and higher proportion of offspring with the males that offered a greater number of nuptial gifts. So, these crickets better not be stingy with their gifts when its time for love!

Take a cue from these creatures and get your gifts in order for the love bugs in your life this Valentines Day.

Adrienne Antonsen is a graduate student in entomology at North Dakota State University. Email: adrienne.antonsen@ndsu.edu

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Nuptial Gifts and Other Romantic Gestures of the Bug World - Entomology Today

Physiology

This Marsupial Dies After Marathon Mating. Now It’s Got Bigger Worries – WIRED

What if I told you that in Australia, a mouselike marsupial called antechinus breeds so manically during its three-week mating season that the males bleed internally and go blind, until every male lies dead? And what if I told you that this isnt the reason the species is facing an existential threat?

Reporting today in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, biologists from University of New England in Australia and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology present troubling evidence that antechinus might be ill-prepared for a warmer world. The researchers set out to look at something called phenotypic plasticity in the yellow-footed antechinus, one of the creatures 15 known species. Think of your phenotype as your bodys hardware, or physiology: your height and skin color and metabolism. This is in part coded by your genotype, the genetic software that powers the hardware. Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a species to respond to environmental stressorslike temperature swingsby altering their physiology without mucking with all the underlying genetics.

For the antechinus, the researchers were interested in the plasticity of its metabolism. This is highly influenced by temperature: An adult antechinus metabolism shifts to expend less energy when its cold during the winter and there isnt much insect prey for it to hunt. When its warm, an antechinus can afford to expend a lot of energy because prey is plentiful.

The researchers, though, were more interested in how temperature affects antechinus babiesthat is, how being raised in cold or warm environments might affect how their metabolism works once they become adults. So they reared two groups of babies, one in colder temperatures and one in warmer temperatures. They then flipped the thermostat, exposing the individuals reared in the cold to warm temperatures and the warm-reared ones to the cold.

As the researchers expected, when the temperature switched from warm to cold the animals decreased their activity levels, which the scientists were recording using infrared sensors that logged movements. This is perfectly natural for wild animals, since in winter they have fewer insects to hunt and need to conserve their energy to keep from starving. In fact, in the dead of winter, antechinus can slip into a state called torpor, drastically lowering their body temperature and metabolic rates.

In the lab, the researchers also found that when turning up the heat on animals that had been reared in the cold, the animals increased their activity levels, just like they would in the wild as warmer spring temperatures bring more insects to hunt.

So far so gooduntil the researchers also looked at the metabolic rates, instead of just the activity levels, of the animals as they experienced temperature shifts. A metabolic rate is the measure of how much energy the animal needs to maintain function at rest. For a mammal like antechinus, that rate can change significantly when outdoor temperatures go up or down. Unlike a reptile, a mammal like antechinus has to constantly maintain its own body temperature, either spending energy to cool or warm itself.

This time, the researchers found that when the antechinus raised in the warm group shifted to the cold, they increased their metabolic rate only slightly. But those raised in the cold group that shifted to the warmth decreased their metabolic rate significantly. The discrepancy suggests that the babies brought up in cold conditions have more plastic phenotypes when it comes to adjusting to temperature changes.

So we hypothesize that perhaps these results reveal that antechinus that are raised in cold conditions have more flexibility in their physiology than those that are raised in warm conditions, says physiological ecologist Clare Stawski of University of New England in Australia and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, lead author on the new paper. Which might show you that in the future when it's much warmer, and more consistently warm, that the antechinus might not be as flexible to changes in the climate.

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This Marsupial Dies After Marathon Mating. Now It's Got Bigger Worries - WIRED

Physiology

What Is VO2 Max? What To Know, According To An Exercise Physiologist – Women’s Health

You know that awkward feeling when someone references a TV show or person you don't know but you smile and nod along because you want to seem in the loop? Yeah, that totally human experience happens in fitness too. Especially around relatively obscure terms like VO2 max, which you may have overheard in a locker room or name dropped by a trainer recentlyit's become a bit of a buzzword as of late. But what is VO2 max, you ask?

Basically, its the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use during exercise at your 100-percent intensity, says Stacy Sims, PhD, exercise physiologist, and author of Roar: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life.

Its often considered the best measurement of someones cardiorespiratory fitness, and Sims notes that its a reflection of how fast your body can regenerate ATP (an energy-carrying molecule burned off as fuel during exercise) in your cells.

That's kind of heady, to be honest, so another way to think about VO2 max is that it's like your PR when it comes to consuming oxygen. In theory, the more O2 you can take in, the more energy you can expend for a longer period of time. It's why athletes are hyper-focused on increasing their own in an effort to optimize their performance.

Even if you're not a fitness pro, though, you can still benefit from training to boost your VO2 max for similar reasonsbigger, better gains! Keep reading for everything you need to know about VO2 max like how to figure out your own, how to improve it, and what's a good benchmark to aim for in the first place.

There's no "perfect score" for VO2 max. Sims says a desirable number really depends on your sport or main fitness activity. "When we look at elite values, top-end cross-country women sit around 65 to 70 ml/kg/min; runners are about 60 to 65ml/kg/min; cyclists are around 55 to 60 ml/kg/min."

Generally speaking, though, this VO2 max chart notes where optimal scores should fall depending on your age:

Jewelyn Butron

Testing VO2 max is where things get a little tricky. The gold standard is direct measurement in a lab setting, says Sims. This is known as a Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET), and it involves wearing a mask and heart rate monitor thats hooked up to a treadmill or stationary bike. The mask is connected to a machine that measures the amount of oxygen you inhale, and the amount of carbon dioxide you exhale. During the test, you continue upping the intensity of your bike or tread until your oxygen consumption value reaches a steady state, even as exercise intensity increases, explains Sims. Thats your max. The final measurement is recorded in mL/kg/min. If you're really interested in finding your true VO2 max, see if any gyms or fitness studios near you offer the service.

This, of course, is not realistic for most people, which is why an easier (albeit not as precise) way to get an approximation of you VO2 max is by investing in a fitness tracker or smartwatch that'll estimate it for you based on your heart rate and exercise intensity after collecting your data for a period of time. For the average active adult, this is the best option. Some, like the FitBit Ionic, refer to VO2 max as your "cardio fitness score," while others, like the Apple Watch, list it simply as VO2 maxyou can find yours in the Apple Health app when you click through to all health data, fyi.

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Your cardio fitness level isn't the only thing that plays a role. Sims notes that there are actually a number of internal and external factors that can have a major impact on your VO2 max:

If you have the ability to track your VO2 max regularly, it can be one way to determine your fitness level and improvement. The best way to give it a boost is through high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which helps work you body at high levels for a period of time, in order to help build up your aerobic capacity, says Sims.

Try this four-move HIIT workout video to start improving yours:

That said, while VO2 max is used in scientific research and with elite athletes, Sims doesn't recommend getting too hung up on it as a go-to performance or training marker. Instead, focus on challenging your body little by little in cardio workouts to get fitter and faster.

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What Is VO2 Max? What To Know, According To An Exercise Physiologist - Women's Health

Physiology

Orcutt: The other ‘lungs of the planet’ – Roanoke Times

Orcutt is Professor Emeritus of Plant Physiology from Virginia Tech. He lives in Montgomery County

Alexander von Humboldt, an environmentalist credited with the early prediction of climate change, wrote President Thomas Jefferson in 1804: The wants and restless activity of large communities of men gradually dispoil the face of the Earth. This was after his exploration, in 1799 of the Aragua Valley in Venezuela, where rainforests were being removed and replaced with indigo by local farmers. He noted it was having detrimental effects on the local natural ecosystems and climate. According to Andrea Wulf, Alexander von Humboldts biographer, It was one of the first Western observations of human-caused climate change.

Although the rainforests are considered the Lungs of the Planet, and rightfully so, little public attention is given to an equally important group of plants called phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton are microscopic, single-celled/colonial photosynthetic plants that live suspended in the water of all aquatic ecosystems. They are important because through photosynthesis they remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air producing food and oxygen (O2) for plant and animal life in aquatic habitats as well as on land. Phytoplankton represent the bottom of the food chain and are ultimately a food source for all animals in oceans, lakes and rivers including the fin and shellfish we eat.

Estimates indicate that phytoplankton produce 50-85% of the earths O2.

In other words, roughly three out of four breaths you take, the O2 in each breath, is produced by phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton are important in reducing global warming by removing CO2 from the air during photosynthesis. One group of phytoplankton, called diatoms, has been estimated to remove 23 petragrams of CO2 from the air per year (1 petragram = 1.1 x 109 tons). Compare this with the rainforests at 18 petragrams, savannahs at 17, and cultivated plants at 8.

The role of diatoms and other phytoplankton in the survival of our planet is essential, but populations appear to be in decline. Since 1950, phytoplankton, in the major oceans, declined 40% and satellite imagery confirms that diatoms declined 1% per year between 1998-2012.

So, what may be causing phytoplankton to be declining?

Oceans readily absorb CO2 from the air and are an important repository for atmospheric CO2 but more CO2 in the air/oceans causes an increased acidity in the oceans due to the formation of carbonic acid which is likely having a negative effect on the growth of phytoplankton, coral and shellfish.

With continued warming of the oceans the solubility of CO2 and O2 declines and the ability of the oceans to remove/retain these gases from the atmosphere may also have negative consequences for the growth of phytoplankton and other life in the oceans.

Phytoplankton not only require CO2, light and O2 for growth but also require other nutrients. Such nutrients are obtained by oceanic mixing due to wind, currents and seasonal turnover of nutrients from lower depths of the ocean to the upper layers where light is available for photosynthesis. Seasonal turnover of water normally results in more dense cold water near the surface moving to the bottom of the ocean and less dense warmer water at the bottom migrating to the top bringing nutrients and organic matter that accumulated on the bottom. With global warming, the top layers of the oceans are warmer now with apparently less turn over occurring and less nutrients being brought to the surface where light is available for photosynthesis and growth of phytoplankton.

This all suggests that increased global warming, from rising CO2 levels, is causing elevated ocean temperatures, increased acidity, reduced nutrient levels and consequently, declining phytoplankton populations.

In addition, toxic materials from plastics, oil spills, pesticides, fertilizers and industrial, human and animal waste all contribute to pollution of streams, rivers, and lakes that ultimately flow into the oceans creating additional problems for the growth of animal and plant life.

Overcoming the problem of climate change will require a desire and willingness from individuals, industry and governments of the world to save our living planet. It will take a herculean effort not unlike the unselfish sacrifices made, for the greater good, by our parents and grandparents during World War II. Not to do so is a catastrophic failure of humankind and morally wrong. A statement made by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl in September 2019 at the UN, resonates so clearly now: All you can talk about is money and fairytales of economic growth.

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Orcutt: The other 'lungs of the planet' - Roanoke Times

Physiology

Cannabis Production Minor to Launch at Western Illinois University in Fall 2020 – Herald Pubs

MACOMB, IL According to Forbes, the cannabis industry is among the fastest-growing job markets in America. According to Leaflys 2019 Cannabis Jobs Count, cannabis directly employs more than 211,000 full-time workers in the U.S. And now Western Illinois University students interested in careers in what Leafly calls Americas hidden job boom will have the opportunity through a new Cannabis Production minor set to debut at WIU in Fall 2020.Westerns Faculty Senate approved the new minor at its meeting Feb. 4. Offered through WIUs School of Agriculture, the majority of courses for the 18-19 credit hour minor will be offered through the school, with additional coursework offered through the Department of Biological Sciences.A new course within the program, Cannabis Biology and Production, as well as the minor itself, will assist with developing employees for the new Illinois industry in cannabis production, said School of Agriculture Director Andy Baker.Were excited to be a part of this flourishing industry and providing in-demand, and new, academic opportunities for our students, said WIU Interim President Martin Abraham. Because of our many years of work in alternative crops, and the outstanding expertise of our faculty at Western, we are in a unique position to be at the forefront of cannabis studies.Shelby Henning, horticulture professor in the School of Agriculture, will lead the biology/production course, which includes cannabis anatomy, physiology, breeding, propagation methods, management techniques, post-harvest processing, commercial production, crop rotations and product applications.The U.S. Farm Bill of 2014 legalized industrial hemp for research by state agriculture departments and universities. School of Agriculture Professor Win Phippen, who leads our alternative crops program, has been conducting research on hemp for several years, and most recently, added a cannabis component to his research, noted Baker. This new course and minor are perfect complements to our comprehensive agriculture degree program.Other courses available in the minor, which already exist through the School of Agriculture and Department of Biological Sciences include crop sciences, introduction to horticulture, introduction to plant biology, genetics in biology and agriculture, pest management, plant structure, plant physiology, greenhouse and nursery management, plant breeding, crop improvement and hydroponic plant production.For more information, contact the School of Agriculture at (309) 298-1080 or AJ-Baker@wiu.edu.

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Cannabis Production Minor to Launch at Western Illinois University in Fall 2020 - Herald Pubs

Physiology

A rare disease among children is discovered in a 66-million-year-old dinosaur tumor – WLS

A rare disease that still affects humans today has been found in the fossilized remains of a duck-billed dinosaur that roamed the Earth at least 66 million years ago.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University noticed unusual cavities in two tail segments of the hadrosaur, which were unearthed at the Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada.

They compared the vertebrae with the skeletons of two humans who were known to have a benign tumor called LCH (Langerhans cell histiocytosis), a rare and sometimes painful disease that affects children, mainly boys.

Diagnosing diseases in skeletal remains and fossils is complicated as in some cases different diseases leave similar marks on bones. LCH, however, has a distinctive appearance that fit to the lesions found in the hadrosaur, said Dr. Hila May, head of the Biohistory and Evolutionary Medicine Laboratory, at TAUs Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

The researchers used advanced, high-resolution CT scans to analyze the dinosaur tail fossils.

New technologies,such as the micro CT scanning, enabled us to examine the structure of the lesion and reconstruct the overgrowth as well as the blood vessels that fed it, May told CNN.

The micro and macro analyses confirmed that it was, in fact, LCH. This is the first time this disease has been identified in a dinosaur, May said.

In humans, LCH is sometimes described as a rare form of cancer but May said that there are different opinions among experts as to whether it is definitively a cancer or not because in some cases its passes spontaneously.

Most of the LCH-related tumors, which can be very painful, suddenly appear in the bones of children aged 2-10 years. Thankfully, these tumors disappear without intervention in many cases, she said.

Hadrosaurs would have stood about 10 meters high and weighed several tons. They roamed in large herds 66 to 80 million years ago, the study, which published this week in the journal Scientific Reports said.

Like us, dinosaurs got sick but evidence of disease and infection in the fossil record a field known as paleopathology has been scant.

However, there is evidence that tyrannosaurids, like the T-Rex, suffered from gout and that iguanodons may have had osteoarthritis. Cancer has proved more difficult for paleopathologists to diagnose but there is evidence that dinosaurs would have suffered from the disease, the study said.

Studying disease in fossils, independent of the species, is a complicated task. And it is even more complicated when dealing with those of animals that are extinct as we do not have a living reference, May explained.

The authors said the finding could help further evolutionary medicine a new field of research that investigates the development and behavior of diseases over time.

Given that many of the diseases we suffer from come from animals, such as coronovirus, HIV and tuberculosis, May said understanding how they manifest themselves in different species and survive evolution can help find new and effective ways to treat them.

When we know that a disease is independent of species or time, it means the mechanism that encourages its development is not specific to human behavior and environment, rather [its] a basic problem in an organisms physiology, May said.

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A rare disease among children is discovered in a 66-million-year-old dinosaur tumor - WLS

Physiology

Going with the flow: searching for the optimum current speeds in RAS – The Fish Site

One of the early findings is that the increased growth caused by higher water speeds occurs in muscles, rather than the other organs. However, the researchers also argue that it's crucial to keep an eye on any impairments in fish welfare that might be caused by strong currents.

The aim of the new project was to find the optimum water speeds, or currents, for smolt in recirculation systems.

The researchers divided 80g post-smolt salmon which have recently adapted to marine life into groups that would swim for three months in water flowing at four different speeds.

They wanted to test to see what happens to salmon physiology at different water speeds and whether or not there are any upper speed limits. Water speed is measured as body length per second.

The speeds that were tested were 0.5 body length/sec (low), 1 (medium), 1.8 (high) and 2.5 (very high).

2.5 body lengths per second is the highest speed that has been tested on salmon smolt to date. In commercial recirculation systems less than one body length per second is normal.

We tested this very high water speed because we were interested in the physiological response of the fish, says fish health researcher Gerrit Timmerhaus at Nofima.

He believes that it is not realistic to introduce water speeds that are much higher than the present day standard in existing recirculation systems because this requires special equipment and powerful pumps suitable for achieving such high speeds. He also doubts if it would pay off, even if it did result in increased growth.

One of the findings in the trial was that weak currents resulted in a low condition factor ie a long, narrow body shape while strong currents resulted in relatively broad fish, which denotes good condition.

Even through producers want a high percentage of muscle and rapid growth, the researchers do not know how this actual type of salmon would manage during the growth phase in the sea, and whether or not a poor condition factor would be compensated for in the salmon by muscle growth at a later stage. One finding in a previous trial conducted at Nofima showed that strong currents result in increased resistance to diseases in the sea.

The Health and Welfare of Atlantic Salmon course

It is vital that fish farm operatives who are responsible for farmed fish are trained in their health andwelfare. This will help to ensure that fish are free from disease and suffering whilst at the same timepromote good productivity and comply with legislation.

Salmon swimming in strong currents swim in shoals and the researchers think that this is a sign that they are optimising their use of energy. The skin damage recorded included scale loss and hemorrhagic patches, and not damage that was directly harmful to health in itself.

Based on this research and previous research conducted at Nofima, I believe that it is optimal for fish to swim at speeds somewhere between 1 and 1.8 body lengths per second. Anything below 1 means that their growth potential is not utilised and they do not build up resistance to disease, and at speeds above 1.8 we risk making compromises with the health of the barrier tissue of the fish, says Timmerhaus.

This research, which represents a step towards acquiring more knowledge about salmon yields and welfare in closed-containment systems, was conducted at the Norwegian Centre for Research-based Innovation, CtrlAQUA SFI, in Sunndalsra.

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Going with the flow: searching for the optimum current speeds in RAS - The Fish Site

Physiology

How the Hell Did This Live Frog Get Inside a Green Pepper? An Investigation – VICE

What pops into your head when you hear the prompt: what is the greatest mystery?

Maybe the Dyatlov Pass incident? The Flannan Isles lighthouse? How I continue to be employed?

Those are all damn good mysteries, my friends, but they would not be the greatest. The greatest mystery of all time is how a goddamn frog was found alive in a whole pepper.

The new GOAT mystery comes to us from Saguenay, Quebec, courtesy of Nicole Gagnon and Grard Blackburn. Over the weekend, Gagnon was preparing a meal that included the lovely tastes of bell pepper. When she sliced open the green pepper that she had recently bought from her local grocery store and looked inside, nothing made sense anymore.

Grard! she exclaimed in French. Theres a frog in the pepper!

Here is a very well-made graphic to illustrate the mystery. Photos via Pixabay

Sure enough, there was a little green tree frog in the pepper, just kinda chilling.

The couple put the lil guy in a terrarium and reported it to Quebecs Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ). Speaking to the CBC, Gagnon acknowledged her role in bringing this mystery to the masses.

Its like the Caramilk secret. How the frog ended up in the pepper, I have no idea, Gagnon told CBC.

MAPAQ would eventually kill the frog to run tests on it, because if there is anything bureaucracies hate its fun mysteries.

Gagnons son Jonathan Blackburn confirmed that the pepper was whole when his mother cut into it. He said the pepper cost $1.99 and was believed to have come into Canada from Honduras. As for the mystery, it stumped him as well.

Blackburn told VICE he didnt know how the frog got inside, but posited, Maybe an insect carried an egg inside. Thats my only idea. The pepper was whole.

You can watch a very charming CBC video of Nicole and Grard speaking about what happened (in French).

Inspired by Blackburns theory, Ive racked my brain for how a frog could end up inside a pepper. Alive. Heres the best I could come up with.

Well, for starters, we can go the immaculate conception route. That this pepper was empty and then, poof, some sort of greater power impregnated this pepper with a frog to, uh, teach us some sort of lesson. We must then assume that this frog is in some way connected to our lord and saviour. Remember that the Judeo-Christian god used frogs to prove their existenceIm talking about the second plague, yall. However, this would mean that an almighty decided to finally, once and for all, prove his existence in Saguenay, Quebec, and I refuse to accept that.

If you watched the video above and saw Nicole and Grard, Im sure you would join me in refusing to believe that this couple are A) lying and B) lying about finding a freakin frog in a fully formed bell pepper.

If anything they just didnt notice it. That brings us to our next explanation.

This is brought to us by our good friends over at Motherboardthe smart folks of VICE. It makes sense but it is not fun at all, so boooooooooooooooooo.

Ok enough of that nerd shit, lets get magical. Now, what kind of people would have the expertise to transport a live frog into a fully formed bell pepper? Thats right, magicians! Those dudes are always making stuff appear inside other stuff.

To learn more I got in touch with Edwin Broomfield and Daniel Kranstz, two illusionists who do animal-based illusions in their show Unleashed. The duo told me that they could totally make a frog disappear and then reappear in a pepper, and, in fact, they have a similar trick they do already with a lemon and a dollar bill. Krantz briefly outlined how the trick was done (it involves a fake thumb!) and it does seem possiblebut because Im not an asshole Im not going to ruin their trick for you. Kranstz said some adjustments would have to be made but with some sleight of frog they could totally pull it off.

All that in mind, though, while we may have a method here we do not have a motive. Unless the couple somehow angered an illusionist who has remarkably convoluted revenge plots, I dont believe this is the answer.

The frog got in there when the pepper was forming and it, uhh, just existed in there as the pepper closed around it, and it survived in the womb on the sweet green meat and moisture that would collect in there. Im no bell pepper expert but I did watch a pretty darn good time-lapse bell pepper growing several times. In the video, I noticed that at the beginning of the growth of the pepper, there seems to exist a small hole in the bottom that doesnt fully close for a bit. This hole certainly seems large enough for an enterprising young frog to climb into.

A hole the frog may have been able to crawl throughor not, I dont know. This is above my pay grade. Photo via YouTube screenshot

So, it turns out Im pretty dang dumb when it comes to pepper physiology.

Professor Barry Micallef, a plant physiologist at the University of Guelph, thinks the pepper may have cracked early on in its life and a frog or a tadpole grew up inside. If it was a young enough pepper a crack could have healed over after, he said.

Micallef said that for his theory to work the pepper must have been grown in a field, not in a greenhouse, and that early early on in its growth cycle it was hit with heavy rain.

It may have cracked with the rain, said Micallef. Peppers are prone to cracking and splitting because theyre thin-walled and hollow inside unlike most fruit. So what I think happened is either a frog or tadpole got into the pepper and then it developed inside.

Micallef said that peppers typically take 20 to 25 days to fully mature and, because theyre hollow, could have stored water inside after the rain.

The length of time for a tadpole to metamorphosize can vary significantly, from weeks to years, depending on the species of frog. All that said, maybe if the tadpole were at the end of its developmental cycle all the conditions for a frog to develop inside a pepper could have been present.

It might have just been like a little cocoon in there, a good enough environment that this little tadpole might have developed, said Micallef. If it wanted food after it could have always eaten the pepper.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, while frogs are typically carnivores that shy away from vegetation, tadpoles exist on a vegetarian diet. Furthermore, the pepper is from Honduras, which means it likely grew in a field. So two points for Micallef here!

Honestly, Micallef might have blown this case wide open.

It turns out Im just as bad at frog physiology as I am pepper physiology.

The day after speaking to Micallef I awoke to find an email that shattered the comfortable reality I had created surrounding the frog and pepper question. Patrick Moldowan, the Director at Large at the Canadian Herpetological Society, first told me that the amphibian in question, based on the white lip stripe, horizontal pupil, and body proportions, looks like a green tree frog that is strangely coloured possibly due to a stress response.

Then he pulled the rug out from under me.

It almost certainly did not come to be a sizeable adult frog by developing as a tadpole, Moldowan wrote. For example, the egg development time, process of metamorphosis, and post-maturity growth (to reach adult size) are well beyond the time it takes a green pepper to grow.

At the end of the email, Moldowan seemed to throw his hat in with the nerds over at Motherboard. Booooooooo!

As to how it got into the pepper, thats a complete mystery, he said. Maybe it crawled in through a rupture in the pepper skin/wall?

Me trying to solve this. Screenshot from 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'

If my theorizing has taught me anything its that we shouldnt trust my theories when it comes to science, but go with me here.

So maybe the pepper was at the furthest stage of its growth where it could still fuse back and fell to the ground during a large rainfall near a stream or a body of water that was flooding. It had a small crack or hole that was open when it was on the ground and a frog snuck in to take refuge from the torrents. But during the frogs time in there, the pepper shifted, making the hole not big enough for the frog to get out and, over time, the hole sealed up completely. The pepper was picked, transported to Canada, sold, and cut into by Nicole Gagnonwith the frog (which would eventually be murdered by the government) inside.

I reached out to the Canadian Herpetological Society and, guess what? It may actually be possible.

I would think its not outside the realm of possibility for a frog to survive a few weeks inside a pepper, considering its probably pretty humid in there, so it wouldn't dry out, said Dr. Amanda Bennett, the secretary of the Canadian Herpetological Society. It would be quite cool given refrigeration, so its metabolism would be slowed down by the low temperature. Ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) in general can survive longer without feeding than endotherms (warm-blooded animals).

Hell yeah, score one for Mack.

At the end of the day though...

Despite all my pseudo-intellectual flailings and help from actual scientists, perhaps well never know. Isnt that the best answer? All great mysteries should never be fully solved. Let us leave the frog and the pepper question for generations to come. Let the smartest among Gen Z and Gen Alpha debate this quandary.

Let us forever wonder how the frog got inside the bell pepper.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

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How the Hell Did This Live Frog Get Inside a Green Pepper? An Investigation - VICE

Physiology

CoralChange: a project to study and protect threatened coral by global change – Mirage News

CoralChange will promote the knowledge on the future of coral populations using demographical models applied to different global change scenarios. Photo: Cristina Linares (UB-IRBio)

Coral reefs build one of the most diverse, fascinating and productive ecosystems in the planet. However, these biological structures are also highly sensitive to the adverse effects of the current climate crisis. Phenomena such as progressive bleaching and massive mortality of coral affect the marine ecosystems of the planet and endanger the future of these communities.

In this context, the UB is leading CoralChange, a project that will assess for the first time- the role of the larval reproduction and ecology in the dynamics and viability on the long term of the threatened coral populations worldwide. To do so, CoralChange counts on the funding from the European Union, and in particular from the Horizon 2020 Marie Skodowska-Curie action fellowship.

The project, managed by the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG), is coordinated by the lecturer Cristina Linares, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

Another participant in the study is the expert Nria Viladrich, from the mentioned Department and IRBio, who will analyse, from 2020 to 2022, the global change-induced transgenerational effects in hexacorallia and octocorals in the Caribean, in collaboration with the team of Jacqueline Padilla-Gamio, assistant professor at the University of Washington (United States).

Protecting corals from the effects of global change

With an innovative perspective, CoralChange will promote the knowledge on the future of coral populations using demographical models applied to different global change scenarios. In this line, researcher Nria Viladrich will work on a series of demographic prediction models with experimental data and field work that will include parameters on the physiological condition, trophic plasticity, reproductive success and larval viability of corals.

The project will also consider other aspects about these organisms, such as the additional energy cost of the coral ability to adjust their physiology that is, acclimation, and keep the biological activity under environmental change conditions.

The CoralChange approach will enable the identification of potential energy costs of adaptive mechanisms regarding the ocean acidification and warming that can damage the early life stages the most vulnerable ones- of corals. This energy cost could cause effects on the viability of the future descendants of the coral populations which are now threatened.

The results of the project will be crucial to develop effective management and conservation strategies to protect coral reefs under different factors of environmental stress, as well as to identify the coral populations and species with more chances to survive under the future conditions in the marine environment.

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CoralChange: a project to study and protect threatened coral by global change - Mirage News

Physiology

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Football Physiology, Coaching job with LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY | 195977 – Times Higher Education (THE)

Contract TypePermanentHoursFull TimeJob TypeAcademicSalary41,526 - 51,034 per annumVacancy TypeAcademic / Research VacanciesClosing Date05/03/2020Documents2913 JD LSL Football Physiology (Coaching).pdf(PDF, 528.13kb)

The School of Sport and Exercise Sciences seeks to strategically develop its world-leading profile of teaching and research excellence by the appointment of leading academics across the core disciplines of Sport and Exercise Sciences. The appointee to this post will be expected to contribute to the academic work of the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences across undergraduate and postgraduate levels within Science and Football through teaching and research.

You will be expected to develop and deliver research-informed/led teaching within the Schools well-established BSc (Hons) Science and Football programme, and contribute to its highly successful curricula at undergraduate, postgraduate and Professional Doctorate level.

You will also be expected to contribute to the supervision and tutorial support of Science and Football and Strength and Conditioning students in the School, including pastoral and academic (research and applied placement based learning) guidance.

The post also requires you to extend and enhance the football physiology research activity within the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences. Specifically to contribute to the Exercise Metabolism Adaptation research group. In this regard, the emphasis of this post is to extend our world-leading research outputs and impact within applied football physiology including strength training theory and its application into coaching, and its translation via the Football Exchange.

For informal discussions regarding the post or the School, please contact Professor Dave Richardson, Director of School, e:d.j.richardson@ljmu.ac.ukor Dr Rebecca Murphy, Subject Head,r.c.murphy@ljmu.ac.uk

The School/ department is committed to promoting equality and diversity, including the Athena SWAN Gender Equality charter for promoting the career of Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) in higher education. We particularly welcome applications from women for this post and all appointments will be made on merit.

Please note all of our vacancies will beclosed to applications at midnight on the advertised closing date, unless otherwise stated.

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Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Football Physiology, Coaching job with LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY | 195977 - Times Higher Education (THE)