Researchers had known the northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) had one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the world, with breeding grounds extending from Alaska and extreme northwestern Canada across northeastern Canada and into Europe and Asia. The insect-eating birds apparently leave the Arctic region of the Western Hemisphere for the winter, but it was a mystery as to precisely where they migrated.

Now, using light-sensing tags strapped onto these songbirds, investigators find these birds overwinter in sub-Saharan Africa. Their one- to three-month voyages can reach distances of up to 9,000 miles, covering up to 180 miles per day.

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“This is the only known terrestrial bird that physically links the two radically different ecosystems of the Old World and the Arctic regions of the New World,” said researcher Ryan Norris at the University of Guelph in Canada.

Until recently, details about songbird migration remained unknown because geolocators, which work by measuring light levels (and thus latitude and longitude), were too big or heavy to attach to birds weighing only 25 grams on average. Researchers looped new, 1.2-gram devices onto the legs of the birds to track them.

“It is probably not a big deal for the wheatears to carry this extra weight,” said researcher Heiko Schmaljohann, an ornithologist at the Institute of Avian Research in Germany. The birds actually double their body mass during the migration to store up energy for arduous stretches, “especially in front of barriers like the Atlantic or the Sahara.”

The investigators tagged 46 adult northern wheatears in the summer in the Arctic ? 30 at Eagle Summit in Alaska and 16 at Baffin Island in northeastern Canada ? and let them migrate to wherever they were going.

The songbirds apparently follow two routes across ocean and desert from the Arctic to Africa. In one, birds of northeastern Canada cross a 2,175-mile stretch of the North Atlantic, land in the United Kingdom, travel southward across Europe, and migrate across the Mediterranean and the Sahara to western Africa. [ Album: Earth's Greatest Migrations ]

“The North Atlantic was crossed at about 850 kilometers (530 miles) per night,” Schmaljohann said. It remains unclear whether this voyage across the ocean was non-stop ? “the bird could have made a stopover on Greenland,” he noted. A good tailwind of 30 to 45 mph may have helped, too.

On the other route, birds in Alaska fly 9,000 miles over Siberia and across Arabia to eastern Africa.

“We totally underestimated the birds’ flight capability until now,” Schmaljohann told LiveScience.

“Think of something smaller than a robin but a little larger than a finch raising young in the Arctic tundra and then a few months later foraging for food in Africa for the winter.”

After they migrate, the birds fly back the way they came, for an up-to-18,000-mile round trip, one of the longest migratory journeys of any bird in the world “particularly for a bird this size,” Norris said.

The investigators managed to retrieve four of the geolocators when the songbirds returned to the Arctic. The researchers also analyzed winter-grown feathers from the birds sampled in the Arctic. Chemical signatures in the feathers helped confirm where they’d been.

Franz Bairlein at the Institute of Avian Research in Germany, supervisor of the study, said, “These results will have an influence on the understanding of migration and will surely affect future attempts to model bird migration.”

Considering the distances albatrosses and arctic terns migrate ? about 50,000 miles a year ? “it seems that birds’ migration performance is actually limited by the size of the Earth,” Schmaljohann said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Feb. 15 in the journal Biology Letters.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46390342/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Andrea Comas / Reuters

A sculpture by Spanish artist Eugenio Merino, featuring a figure of Spain’s former dictator Francisco Franco inside a refrigerator, is seen at the ARCO art fair in Madrid Feb. 15, 2012.

By msnbc.com staff

A sculpture of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco set inside a fridge was drawing mixed reviews at a contemporary art fair, which opened Wednesday in Madrid.

The work is by Spanish artist Eugenio Merino, who depicts the general wearing a green uniform and sunglasses with his knees bent inside the fridge, according to a report by AFP. ?The fridge is decorated to resemble a Coca-Cola logo.

Merino said the sculpture ?Always Franco? was designed to symbolize how persistence of the general as a topic of conversation in Spain, despite his death in 1975. He ruled Spain from 1939.

Read more by AFP on France24.com

“It represents the idea that in Spain people are keeping the image of Franco alive. We don’t stop talking about him, debating about him. A fridge is where things are kept alive and fresh,” he told AFP.

The sculpture is made of resin, silicon and human hair. The art fair, known as ARCO, runs?Wednesday-Sunday and features works from 215 art galleries in 29 countries.

“There are people who really like it, others who can’t stand it. Spain is very divided on the topic of the dictatorship,” Merino told AFP.?

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/15/10417665-franco-in-fridge-sculpture-draws-mixed-reviews

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El Dorado Hills Real Estate ? Connie Barnes continues to emphasis the importance of high quality real estate marketing to her clients. This 2 minute video is a short overview of Connie?s plan to sell real estate in El Dorado Hills for the maximum price possible.
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A team of researchers led by McGill neuroscientist Terence Coderre, who is also affiliated with the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, has found the key to understanding how memories of pain are stored in the brain. More importantly, the researchers are also able to suggest how these memories can be erased, making it possible to ease chronic pain.

It has long been known that the central nervous system “remembers” painful experiences, that they leave a memory trace of pain. And when there is new sensory input, the pain memory trace in the brain magnifies the feeling so that even a gentle touch can be excruciating.

“Perhaps the best example of a pain memory trace is found with phantom limb pain,” suggests Coderre. “Patients may have a limb amputated because of gangrene, and because the limb was painful before it was amputated, even though the limb is gone, the patients continue to feel they are suffering from pain in the absent limb. That’s because the brain remembers the pain. In fact, there’s evidence that any pain that lasts more than a few minutes will leave a trace in the nervous system.” It’s this memory of pain, which exists at the neuronal level, that is critical to the development of chronic pain. But until now, it was not known how these pain memories were stored at the level of the neurons.

Recent work has shown that the protein kinase PKMzeta plays a crucial role in building and maintaining memory by strengthening the connections between neurons. Now Coderre and his colleagues have discovered that PKMzeta is also the key to understanding how the memory of pain is stored in the neurons. They were able to show that after painful stimulation, the level of PKMzeta increases persistently in the central nervous system (CNS).

Even more importantly, the researchers found that by blocking the activity of PKMzeta at the neuronal level, they could reverse the hypersensitivity to pain that neurons developed after irritating the skin by applying capsaicin — the active ingredient in hot peppers. Moreover, erasing this pain memory trace was found to reduce both persistent pain and heightened sensitivity to touch.

Coderre and his colleagues believe that building on this study to devise ways to target PKMzeta in pain pathways could have a significant effect for patients with chronic pain. “Many pain medications target pain at the peripheral level, by reducing inflammation, or by activating analgesia systems in the brain to reduce the feeling of pain,” says Coderre. “This is the first time that we can foresee medications that will target an established pain memory trace as a way of reducing pain hypersensitivity. We believe it’s an avenue that may offer new hope to those suffering from chronic pain.”

Other contributing researchers on this study include Andre Laferri?re, Mark H Pitcher, Anne Haldane, Yue Huang, Virginia Cornea, Naresh Kumar, Fernando Cervero (all from the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill) and co-author Todd C Sacktor (State University of New York Downstate Medical Center).

This research was supported by grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and an Astra-Zeneca/AECRP fellowship.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Andre Laferri?re, Mark H Pitcher, Anne Haldane, Yue Huang, Virginia Cornea, Naresh Kumar, Todd C Sacktor, Fernando Cervero, Terence J Coderre. PKM? is essential for spinal plasticity underlying the maintenance of persistent pain. Molecular Pain, 2011; 7 (1): 99 DOI: 10.1186/1744-8069-7-99

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120213154141.htm

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Families looking to adopt a new animal tend to go after puppies or kittens or young adult pets. However, people who are interested in pets that are already potty trained, are calm and pleasant might want to direct their attention toward adult or senior animals.

November might be the month dedicated to adopting a senior pet because it is National Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month, but any time of the year is a great opportunity to look into these loving and deserving animals. Dogs or cats who are fully mature or elderly tend to already be housebroken. This can come in handy for potential owners who are done raising their children and are looking for a constant companion more than another child. It might also be a better option for families with children as adult dogs tend to be more calm and relaxed, and you don’t have to worry about potty training your dog in addition to your kids. However, you should always check with the rescue league you’re getting the dog from to make sure any dog you’re looking at is known to do well with kids as accidents can happen.

Elder dogs also seem to be able to integrate into new family life better than younger pups because they have most likely been around plenty of people in their lifetimes thus far and know a little bit about what living in a home entails.

Although there are many benefits of getting a more mature dog, you will need to take certain considerations when it comes to health. First, you should have the vet at the shelter do a complete physical examination of the dog to check for any underlying medical conditions. Even if nothing serious is found, the vet might suggest you start the aging dog on joint health pet drugs or supplements to keep it limber for longer. Supplements like Dasuquin with glucosamine for dogs might help reduce joint inflammation, but if the dog already shows signs of arthritis or hip dysplasia, the vet might also suggest giving it anti-inflammatory medication like Metacam.

You can also help your aging pup by getting it pet products like Dog Steps with 4 Steps to allow your dog to get up and down from its favorite chair or couch with little strain. A heated bed such as the Bolster Heated Dog Bed or one that offers orthopedic support like the Plush Memory Sleeper might also help keep its body safe and comfortable while it spends its days at its forever home.

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Posted in Pet Health

Source: http://www.1800petmeds.com/news/pet-health/senior-dogs-make-great-pets/

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