Have you seen this tree?
While walking around near downtown Ann Arbor, Birgit Otte of U-M’s Department of Astronomy saw the tree pictured here. She had never seen it before and wondered what it was. Her curiosity led her to write to EEB for assistance.

Professor Paul E. Berry replied “This is Tamarisk or Salt cedar, genus Tamarix and likely the species Tamarix ramosissima. It is native to Eurasia and is a serious invasive plant in drier areas of the western U.S., but in our neck of the woods it just stays in place."


Submitted by Birgit Otte, U-M Department of Astronomy, photos: Otte

Diet Coke and Mentos: An explosive combination!

The "Mentos effect" occurs when a Mentos mint, the cult candy associated with dorky 1990s commercials, is dropped into cola, especially diet cola, and usually Diet Coke (although some claim that Diet Pepsi works just as well). The cola immediately fizzes over with geyser-like force, and clips of the reaction, including some choreographed Mentos effect "performance art" have cropped all over sites like YouTube.

But what causes it?

Brian P. Coppola, an Arthur F. Thurnau chemistry professor at the University of Michigan answers this question in this Ann Arbor News article "Frothy mystery: mentos plus diet cola equals drama" by Tracy Davis.

Submitted by Tracy Davis, Ann Arbor, Mich.

An American Robin backyard mystery
This fun fact was prompted by a question from Shirley Spence in Monroe, Mich. who watched this spring as one nest full of robin’s eggs hatched and then two weeks later, to her surprise, new eggs appeared. Because a new nest is built for each brood, she is wondering if the same robin is recycling its nest or if another robin may have come along to take the easy route to residency.

Robert Payne, U-M professor emeritus of zoology and curator emeritus of birds, guesses that the same female laid the eggs because robins are pretty territorial about their nest. Payne says, “Not to worry, dad will look after his young when they leave the nest" so mom can focus on the new hatchlings.

Robin ramblings
Many people consider robin sightings the first real sign of spring but the truth is American Robins spend much of the winter in their usual spring and summer locales. American robins – up to hundreds of thousands of them – can gather in a single winter roost, spending less time in yards where more people notice them. The number of robins present in the northern parts of the range varies each year with the local conditions. Some travel to their more southern ranges for part of the winter.

Females sleep on the nests and males gather in roosts during the summertime. As young robins become independent, they join the males in the roost. Female adults go to the roosts only after they are done nesting. An American Robin lays between three to five eggs per clutch and can produce three successful broods in a year. About 40 percent of nests successfully produce young. A quarter of those fledglings survive until late fall. About half of the robins alive in any year will make it to the next. Fortunate robins can reach the ripe old age of 14.

The cup-shaped nest is built by the female, who weaves together the outer foundation with long coarse grass, twigs, paper, and feathers. She lines the inner bowl with mud, smearing it with her breast and then adding fine grass or other soft material to cushion the eggs. The nest can be located on the ground or high up in trees, but most commonly five to 15 feet above ground in dense bushes, in the crotch of trees, or on window ledges or other human structures. In northern areas the first clutch is generally placed in an evergreen tree or shrub, and the later clutches are laid in a deciduous tree.

Dewey, T. and C. Middlebrook. 2001. "Turdus migratorius" (On-line), Animal DiversityWeb. Accessed July 01, 2008.
Sallabanks, R., R. James. 1999. American Robin (Turdus migratorius). Birds of North America, 462: 1-20.

Submitted by Shirley Spence, Monroe, Mich., bottom photo: Shirley Spence

Special thanks to Shirley who loves the fun facts page!

Organic agriculture can feed the world
Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as low-intensive farming on the same land, according to new findings which refute the long-standing claim that organic farming methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population. Low-intensive farming includes many of the traditional methods of peasant cultures around the world. Modern organic methods help enhance fertility and manage pests through recently established ecological discoveries.

Researchers from the University of Michigan found that in developed countries, yields were almost equal on organic and conventional farms. Catherine Badgley, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Ivette Perfecto, professor of natural resources and environment, are co-authors of the paper along with Michael Jahi Chappell, graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology and several other current and former graduate and undergraduate students from U-M.

In addition to equal or greater yields, the authors found that those yields could be accomplished using existing quantities of organic fertilizers, without putting more farmland into production.

Read the U-M News Service press release
Read an article online at foodfirst.org by M. Jahi Chappell

Picture this: You vs. the chimp

Think chimps are chumps when it comes to serious mental powers like short-term memory? Think again. A new study says that young chimpanzees can significantly outperform you at some short-term memory tasks. Scientists even have the video to prove it. Read on, then watch that video.

Rules of the Game

First, researchers in Japan taught six chimps--three 5-year-olds and their mothers--to recognize and order the numbers 1 through 9. Then they taught them to play a memory game. In the game, the numbers would appear randomly on a video
screen. The object was to touch them in order: 1, 2, 3, etc. But there was a catch. As soon as the chimps pressed 1, the rest of the numbers disappeared, covered over by white boxes. So they had to remember where they had seen the numbers and touch the white boxes that covered them.

Remarkable Results

Not only could the chimps do this just as accurately as college students, they could do it faster, too. So the scientists devised another test, to see who could remember and order five numbers that flashed on a screen for justfractions of a second. Result? Another chimp win. Lead researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa says that chimps seem to
have something akin to "photographic memory," at least for short-term tests. Don't believe it? Well, then, we've got a way for you to test yourself against the chimp and see who comes up champ. Just click the link below for a video test.

Test yourself against the chimp here

by Steve Sampson, KnowledgeNews.net, used with permission

Some buzz on bees

• In the course of her lifetime, a worker bee will produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey.
  
• To make one pound of honey, workers in a hive fly 55,000 miles and tap two million flowers.
  
• In a single collecting trip, a worker will visit between 50 and 100 flowers. She will return to the hive carrying over half her weight in pollen and nectar.
  
• A productive hive can make and store up to two pounds of honey a day. Thirty-five pounds of honey provides enough energy for a small colony to survive the winter.
  
• Theoretically, the energy in one ounce of honey would provide one bee with enough energy to fly around the world.
  
• Bees do not create honey; they are actually improving upon a plant product, nectar. The honey we eat is nectar that bees have repeatedly regurgitated and dehydrated.
  
  Source: Nova Online The Buzz About Bees

  
  Submitted by Diana Hirsch
  

A puma by any other name
The pumas have returned, flanking the entrance to the U-M Exhibit Museum of Natural History in new bronze glory, an event recently celebrated at the museum. In their honor, we share with you some puma facts.

Pumas can jump as high as a two-story building! This is approximately 20 feet. They often take refuge by jumping high up into trees when being chased by their enemy, the wolf.
 

Pumas cannot roar, but instead screech, whistle and hiss.
 

Because this cat has been discovered in many countries, pumas are catalogued in the dictionary with the most names of any mammal in the United States. It is also called American lion, catamount, cougar, deer tiger, Mexican lion, mountain lion, painter and panther. The name mountain lion originated from Spanish explorers who called the large cat leon (lion) and gato monte (cat of the mountain). Puma, the name used by most scientists, is the name given by the Inca Indians. The South American Indian word for this regal feline cuguacuarana was shortened to cuguar. All names are considered correct.  

A puma can weigh up to 225 pounds and grow to a length of six feet not including its two- to three-foot long tail. While they can kill prey that is seven times their body weight, these cats feed on small mammals, including possum, white-tailed deer and porcupine--quills and all.

---

What do you see in these wasp faces
Elizabeth Tibbetts, a U-M professor and researcher, studies the behavior of paper wasps. “Animals are communicating with each other all the time,” she said.

She looks at what the spots on wasps’ faces “say” to each other. Tibbetts found that the size and shape of the spots can tell other wasps how strong or wimpy that wasp is. She found that other kinds of paper wasps get to know each other by looking at the different patterns on their faces, much like people know each other by how their faces look.

Sometimes she finds spots that look like things we might recognize. So, what do you see in these wasp faces?

Key: (remember, there’s no right or wrong, here are some ideas, from left to right)

1. Dinosaur 2. Turtle 3. Bat 4. Elephant 5. Pelvis
6. Batman 7. Dog kissing a bear cub 8. A hat reflected in the water 9. Spaceship 10. Question mark











Submitted by Professor Elizabeth Tibbetts and Gail Kuhnlein, photos: Elizabeth Tibbetts

---

Northern American ground squirrels have lowest known mammal hibernating temperature and more arctic animals of Alaska

Many arctic ground squirrels, known as Siksriks, live in northern Alaska. They are the largest and most northern of the North American ground squirrels. Their body temperatures dip below freezing—the lowest known temperature for mammals—when they hibernate.

Toolik Lake Research Station (where Professor George Kling’s lab team works on the northern slope of the Brooks Range in arctic Alaska) is named for "Tuulliq" which in the Inupiaq language refers to the yellow-billed loon, the largest and rarest of all the loons. Two yellow-billed loons nest on lake at the research station most years.

Over 180 species of birds have been spotted in the north slope and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) regions. Caribou, arctic foxes, wolves, barren ground grizzlies, and the occasional polar bear or musk oxen also frequent the region.

Submitted by Heather Adams, Ph.D. student, photos: Heather Adams

---

Some wonders of Brazil
There are over 40 types of common fruits in Brazil. The names of just a few are monkey pod, fruit for wolves, bully tree and armadillo fruit! Who knew eating fruit could be so much fun?

Although Brazil is known for its biodiversity-rich Amazon Rainforest, the highly threatened and heavily deforested Atlantic Rainforest holds what may be the record for tree biodiversity.

In the Una Region in the state of Bahia, over 450 tree species were found within one hectare! That's more tree species than are found in all of Germany, and more than three times as many as are found in the U.S. state of Vermont, all in an area about the size of two football fields.

[A hectare is a metric measurement equal to 10,000 square meters or 2.47 acres. This is the prinicipal unit of land measurement in most of the world.]

 

The bridge pictured [above right] through the rainforest is about 30 feet up in the air.


Submitted by Michael Jahi Chappell, Ph.D. student, photo (right): M. Jahi Chappell

---

Mighty mite
The fastest animal is the trap-jaw ant. Its jaw movement has been clocked at 78 to 145 miles per hour - an action researchers say is the fastest self-powered predatory strike in the animal kingdom.

The average strike lasts just 0.13 milliseconds – that’s 2,300 times faster than the blink of an eye!

As far as extreme animal movement goes, this ant is in league with the great white shark and the spotted hyena.

See video here.

MSNBC story on trap-jaw ants.

Submitted by Professor L. Lacey Knowles, photo copyright Alex Wild, used with permission

---

Which is more evolved: human or chimp?
Put a human and a chimpanzee side by side, and it seems obvious which one has changed the most since the two split off from a common ancestor millions of years ago. The obvious physical differences, along with human speech, language and brainpower, have led many people to believe that natural selection has acted in a positive manner on more genes in humans than in chimps.

New research by University of Michigan Professor Jianzhi (George) Zhang challenges that human-centered view.

When the U-M team of geneticists compared corresponding sections of the human and chimp genomes they discovered more evidence of adaptation in chimps than in humans! Following their announcement, headlines read "Chimps are ahead of humans in great evolutionary race” and “Chimps have the jump on us in evolution.” Looking more closely at the science behind the headlines explains much more than these headlines can.
 

Read more about their surprising findings here: Understanding Evolution feature.

U-M News Service press release.

Press release by Nancy Ross-Flanigan. Photo: John Mitani

---

Explore the Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web

A virtual museum of natural history, evolution and conservation biology

The Animal Diversity Web (ADW) is a multimedia natural history database at the University of Michigan. Unique in its global coverage of animal groups, ADW is one of the largest and most actively used natural history databases worldwide. The audience ranges from academics to schoolchildren, writers and natural resource planners, and more.

ADW's companion site BioKIDS provides animal information for elementary schoolchildren in the Great Lakes region.

ADW has information on more than 3,300 animal species, families, orders, and other groups, 16,000 images and 784 sound files. ADW continues to grow so be sure to check back regularly.

In April 2007, about 6.3 million pages were viewed from the ADW site. The site has been online since 1995, in the early days of the World Wide Web. It serves more than 200,000 pages of content every day. 15 percent of visitors are from outside the United States.

Over 3,100 students from 32 North American colleges and universities have contributed their research and writings to the ADW.

Submitted by George Hammond, logo: John Megahan

---