The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

e2 eZ ee THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020

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HeAltH & scIence

scIence news

The frozen carcass of a horned lark discovered in northeast Si- beria by fossil ivory hunters could help scientists better understand how the ecosystem evolved at the end of the last ice age, new research suggests. Scientists said they extracted DNA from the “exceptionally well-preserved” ancient bird carcass that they determined was roughly 46,000 years o ld, a ccord- ing to an article published last month in the journal Communi- cations Biology. Researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural His- tory studied the female bird after it was found in 2018 in a permafrost tunnel in Siberia’s Belaya Gora area. The discovery offers new information about how the mammoth steppe, a cold and dry biome that covered northern Europe and Asia, divided into three types of biological environments when the ice age ended about 11,700 years ago. The steppe, which was home to now-extinct species including the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, separated into tundra, taiga — coniferous forest — and steppe. “Our results support this theo- ry since the diversification of the horned lark into these sub species seems to have happened about at the same time as the mammoth steppe disappeared,” Love Dalén, a professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural His- tory and a research leader at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, said in a statement. Researchers said the bird car-

cass will also help them better understand how the horned lark evolved. They said they hope to map its genome and compare it with the genomes of all other subspecies of horned larks. For now, genetic analysis suggests the bird was an ancestor of a subspecies of horned lark in Siberia and another subspecies in Mongolia, Nicolas Dussex, a zoologist at Stockholm Universi- ty, said in the statement. Siberia has been the site of several frozen findings, many of which were studied by some of the same scientists who re- searched the horned lark. Last year, the researchers published studies of a 30,000-year- old severed wolf head and a puppy named Dogor that was frozen for 18,000 years. In the broader Arctic, people have uncovered frozen mam- moths, woolly rhinoceroses, horses, bison and wolverines, the researchers wrote in their new study. Paleontologists can use those remains to understand how climate change impacts those species and to study the evolution of a particular animal. Although the scientists wrote that fossil ivory hunters’ methods of excavation can harm scien- tifically valuable animal remains, they said the preserved tissues and organs of frozen car- casses give them better information about gene expression than they can get from skeletal remains. — Marisa Iati

 More at washingtonpost.com/ science

46,000-year-old bird found frozen in Siberia sheds light on the end of the last ice age

scIence scAn

When social science researchers asked children to draw a scientist in the 1960s and 1970s, more than 99 percent of the scientists they drew were men. That percentage has dropped over time, but kids still overwhelming- ly think of scientists as men. “Mis- sion Unstoppable With Miranda Cosgrove,” which airs Saturday mornings on CBS, could help change that. Powered by women in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, the TV series recasts science as women’s work. It a lso shows that science is fun — and how role models turn it into careers. Fields such as zoology, ocean- ography, neuroscience and biomedical engineering come along for the ride. The science lessons are delivered in snackable chunks. In o ne episode, teen correspon- dents interview bat conservation- ist Kristen Lear, who talks about why the winged mammals get a bad rap in the media; check in with Ashley Kimbel, a teen who used a 3-D printer to create a prosthetic foot for an amputee veteran; and chat with Ellen Sto- fan, NASA’s former chief scientist and Mars director of the National Air and Space Museum. Kids also compete to make a Leonardo da Vinci-style wooden bridge held up by only friction and gravity. The show aims to make its

subject matter accessible and fun. It succeeds, packing plenty of information into a half-hour block hosted by Miranda Cosgrove, a TV vet who was once Hollywood’s best-paid child actress. The series is executive-pro- duced b y actress Geena Davis and funded by Lyda Hill Philanthro- pies, which pledged $25 million to inspire girls to pursue STEM careers through its IF/THEN ini- tiative. One memorable part of the show comes at the end when guests share “one last thing” with young viewers and get real about their fears, failures and inspira- tions. The show may be presented by and geared toward women, but it isn’t didactic. The stimulating subject matter helps. Viewers of both genders may get so immersed in its exploration of carnivores, science fiction, mi- crochips and the Mars rover that they don’t realize they’re starting to think differently about scientists — and their own futures. “Mission Unstoppable” airs on CBS on Saturday mornings. Check your local listings for times. — Erin Blakemore

stem And entertAInment

TV series reveals how science, technology, engineering, math can be fun careers for women

mission Unstoppable with miranda cosgrove cBs

l oVe dAlén Scientists extracted DNA from an “exceptionally well-preserved” carcass of an ancient horned lark found in the Siberian permafrost. They say the female bird’s remains were a bout 46,0 00 years old.

BY HANNAH KNOWLES

T he monkeys — just six of
them — arrived in the 1930s as
tourist attractions, confined to
an island in a Central Florida
river.
The problem: They could
swim.
The furry, p ink-faced creatures
native to Asia soon spread and
multiplied in what is now Silver
Springs State Park, capturing the
hearts of visitors who traveled
the lush river in glass-bottom
boats — a nd confounding conser-
vationists who want to rein them
in.
They’re adorable but undeni-
ably invasive. Experts worry their
growing ranks will hurt other
species. And to top it off, many of
the monkeys carry a form of
herpes virus.
The debate about whether and
how to control the 4,000-acre
park’s rhesus macaques has reig-
nited in recent weeks after a
spate of far-flung monkey sight-
ings brought alarm and blaring
headlines: “They’re here!” one
news station declared after the
animals showed up north of
Jacksonville. But park officials
are no longer trying to tamp
down the macaque population.
It’s a testament, researchers
say, to the messy problem of
managing an invasive species
that has become a tourist high-
light complete with its own ur-
ban legend. (The monkeys did
not escape from the set of a
Ta rzan movie.)
“People feel really emotionally
connected to these animals,” said
Jane Anderson, an assistant pro-
fessor of research at the Caesar
Kleberg Wildlife Research Insti-
tute who has studied the mon-
keys’ growth over the years. “A nd
that makes it much harder to
convey that we need to imple-
ment population management
than [for] an animal that’s less
cute and cuddly.”
Rhesus macaques have been
known to wreak havoc on new
habitats. In Puerto Rico, studies
note, their introduction in the
1960s destroyed seabird popula-
tions as the monkeys devoured
eggs. In the early 2000s, the
island territory’s Agriculture De-
partment found that commercial
farms were losing millions of
dollars because of macaques and
another monkey species.
Anderson estimates 550 to 600
macaques are now living in
northern Central Florida and
frets that more growth could
bring serious consequences for
area birds such as quails.

The macaque population along Florida’s Silver River had ballooned to nearly 400 by 1984, according to a paper by Ander- son and colleagues. About a thou- sand of the area’s monkeys were trapped and sold for biomedical research over the next several decades, they write, as people grew concerned they might be plundering birds’ nests and could pass their virus on to humans. The macaques’ herpes B has only been transmitted to people in the lab — b ut in the rare cases that humans get the virus, it can be deadly. The trapping and selling drew its own backlash, however, from animal rights groups and others. “It is a tragedy that wild monkeys are torn from their families and forest homes and sold to research and testing laborato- ries,” one animal rights organiza- tion’s spokesman said in 2013, calling on officials to catch and sterilize instead, as the Ocala Star-Banner reported. But sterilization is expensive, researchers say, and budgets are tight. Steven Johnson, an aca- demic who advocates cutting the monkey population, acknowl- edges there is no easy solution now that the macaques have made themselves at home. “What do you do with the monkeys?” t he University of Flor- ida associate professor told The Washington Post. “If you bring them out alive, something has to be done with them.” Other less lovable invasive Florida species, such as the Bur- mese python, are far easier to cull without raising a public outcry,

Johnson said. And so, since 2012, efforts to thin Silver River’s monkeys have stopped. Instead of trying to manage the population, officials warn tourists to keep their dis- tance. “We tell people not to approach them, not to feed them, because we want people to stay safe,” said Craig Littauer, a park services specialist. He empha- sized that the monkeys are just one of a host of local wild animals, from black bears to bobcats, that can act unpredict- ably. It wasn’t always illegal to feed the macaques. That policy came in 2018, as state authorities warned the monkey population was spilling beyond the park, which sits just a 20-minute drive from the city of Ocala. Monkey attacks — including one captured in a viral video — had raised concerns about ag- gression toward visitors. A study published in a journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had also fueled wor- ries about herpes B, describing a “public health concern” while concluding that up to 30 percent of Silver Springs State Park’s macaques shed the virus in their saliva, urine and feces. People can get herpes B from an infected monkey via a scratch, bite or contact with the monkey’s eyes, nose and mouth, according to the CDC. The virus brings symptoms much like those of the flu, but they can escalate to brain damage or death in humans if they remain untreated. Experts caution that such hu-

man cases are rare. There is one recorded case o f the virus spread- ing person-to-person. Carli Segelson, a spokeswom- an for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commis- sion, told The Post in an email at the time of the new monkey feeding ban that the commission “supports active management” but did not give specifics. While she said the macaques have “bitten or scratched multi- ple people in Florida,” a uthorities have yet to record an instance of the monkeys passing their herpes B to humans in the wild. The commission is “working with our partners to explore possible options to remove the threat of free-roaming monkeys in Florida,” Segelson wrote back in 2018. But researchers s ay t here has been no movement since, and Segelson referred questions about monkey removals to the state’s Department of Environ- mental Protection. The primates appear alluring as ever to park patrons. “First thing everyone asks about is the monkeys,” Nick Boz- man, who transports tourists on the river, told the Ocala Star-Ban- ner recently. “They are good for my business.” He knows there are costs, too. “They are not supposed to be here,” he told the paper. “It’s a double-edged sword.” [email protected]

Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.

 More at washingtonpost.com/ animals

Florida’s herpes-infected monkeys

Officials struggle over

how to control species

with dangerous virus

JoHn rAoux/AssocIAted Press A rhesus macaque in Silver Springs, Fla. Experts worry the growing ranks of the invasive species will hurt native animals. And many of the monkeys carry a herpes virus that could be deadly to humans.

BY MICHAEL H. PARSONS AND JASON MUNSHI-SOUTH

For centuries, rats have thrived
in cities because of human behav-
ior. In response, humans have
blamed the rats and developed
techniques for poisoning them.
We research urban rat popula-
tions and recognize that rats
spread disease. But they are fasci-
nating creatures that think, feel
and show a high level of intelli-
gence. Public concerns about rat
poison harming wildlife are grow-
ing — a trend that we believe
could eventually lead to rodenti-
cide bans in many parts of the
world. Without poison as an op-
tion, humans will need other rat
control methods.
Rats’ many negative traits are
well known. They are among the
most detrimental invasive ani-
mals in cities. Urban rats are like
disease sponges, congregating in
the foulest reaches, where they
pick up harmful pathogens. They
carry the antibiotic-resistant
MRSA (methicillin-resistant
staphylococcus pseudintermedi-
us). Inside the rat gut, MRSA can
interact with other diseases like
ingredients in a mixing bowl, cre-
ating newer bugs that can be
transported from septic systems
into homes.
But common approaches to
managing rats often fail to ad-
dress the most important factor
contributing to infestations: hu-
mans and the prolific quantities
of food that they waste. The more
research we do on rats in New
York and worldwide, the more we
realize that rat behaviors contrib-
ute less to infestations than do
humans.
On Jan. 4, M alibu, Calif.,
banned rodenticides because of
their harmful effects on nontarget
wildlife, such as mountain lions.
This came after the California
Assembly passed a bill to ban
rodenticides statewide; the mea-
sure died in the state Senate, but
could reappear this year.
If curbs on use of rat poison

start to spread, communities will need other ways to manage infestations. Rats cost the world’s economy billions of dollars yearly, mostly from contaminating food in warehouses, restaurants and home kitchens. The costs of ill- nesses vectored by rats are un- known because medical p roviders treat many sicknesses without knowing what caused them. As human populations become in- creasingly clustered in cities, these effects could increase. Meanwhile, climate change is shortening winter seasons that limit rat reproduction. Globaliza- tion, climate change and inability to use rodenticides could result in a “perfect storm” of vulnerability to rodents on a scale humans have not experienced since the Middle

Ages. Research s hows that to address this problem effectively, people must start by understanding the ecology of wild rodents. Rats adapt to human food sources and reproduce at remarkable rates. If enough food is present, a single Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) can give birth to up to 12 pups in a litter. And each w ell-fed p up could give birth to 12 pups of its own in as few as six weeks. We believe the key to controlling rats is appreciating a key point: Because rats have short life spans of one to two years and reproduce often, they adapt quickly to changing environments. In our view, until people change their behavior, they may fail at controlling rat numbers. Current mechanisms for rat control are more reactive than

proactive. Urban hygiene has become big business for extermina- tors, but does little to control rat populations. A typical approach is to take action once rodent populations are high enough that their pres- ence cannot be ignored. But rats are mostly nocturnal, small and elusive, so they typically are no- ticed only after their numbers are already high. This reactive approach makes any control measures — e xcluding rats from buildings and feeding sites, setting poison baits, intro- ducing predators, asphyxiating them with dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) or treating them with immuno-contraceptives — com- parable to putting a bandage on a cancer. In our lab, we study the scents that rats prefer. As nocturnal animals, rats have poor vision and rely on olfaction to identify poten- tial mates, habitats and food sources. Rats’ dietary habits are predict- able. In Brooklyn, they eat pizza, bagels and beer. In Paris, they consume croissants, butter and cheese. Whatever local tastes people prefer, rats eat. Interrupt the continuous food supply and the rat population will drop. Many city dwellers eat when they are busy, stuck in traffic or otherwise on the run. They drop wastes, such as grease-soaked napkins and hot dog buns, onto streets, playgrounds and subway tracks. Even highly conscientious people may hastily toss uneaten food and wrappers onto the top of an overflowing rubbish bin when they are stressed for time. People who are working and caring for families do not take time to think about what unseen rats are doing. But our research convinces us that society can learn to stop feeding rats inadver- tently. Pest management profes- sionals, academics, policymakers and citizens can all help advance this goal, because people can radi- cally change the ways in which

they handle and dispose of food. We believe that giving people incentives to create sanitary environments is an effective and so- cially progressive s trategy. H ere is one example: Because so much of the rat problem in New York is driven by curbside garbage sitting outdoors overnight, we suggest hiring unemployed or homeless individuals as evening sentinels. They would move garbage bags from the curbside into guarded common areas and then return them to the curb for early morn- ing collections. Some cities c ould establish citi- zen rat patrols that would train residents to identify and notify property o wners when they detect that rats are present. The typical indicators are barely noticeable openings appearing around buildings, or dark grease stains o n sidewalks, parks or undeveloped lots. This approach eliminates the social stigma often associated with rats by showing people how to take proactive steps before an infestation develops. Rats cause expensive problems, but they also are surprisingly en- gaging animals that exhibit hu- manlike qualities, such as re- morse and empathy. Scientists have trained them to drive tiny cars. As evidence that rats are thinking, feeling beings accumu- lates, we expect that it could m ake many communities more reluc- tant to poison them. In o ur view, s ince rats are deep- ly rooted i n human society, people need to understand how their own actions encourage rat behavior. We want to encourage brain- storming about this issue and help identify the most promising ways to manage urban rat problems effectively and humanely. [email protected]

Michael H. Parsons is visiting research scholar and Jason Munshi- south is associate professor of biological sciences, at Fordham university. this report was originally published on theconversation.com.

Altering human behavior key to better rat control

Rats adapt to human

food sources and

reproduce at

remarkable rates.

The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

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