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No matter the season, come rain or shine, gin is always in. As a refreshing beverage at a bar by the beach or a soothing...
25/12/2021

No matter the season, come rain or shine, gin is always in. As a refreshing beverage at a bar by the beach or a soothing winter drink by an open fire at home, gin is so versatile it's hard not to find a perfect occasion for it.

Gin in the lab: Using GC for Gin Distillation Analysis
Undeniably, gin has seen a steady increase in popularity across the globe. Scotland in particular has seen a boom in gin sales, with many new distilleries setting up shop and a number of festivals taking place every year to celebrate the drink. But who would have thought gin would also find its way into a lab in the Scottish capital?

Researchers from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have recently used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry research to compare the different infusion methods used when making gin to study the impact these methods have on the product.



Gin Distillation and Infusion

Infusion is a core component of making gin. Although different types of gin may vary in certain characteristics, such as their aging methods, botanical profiles or regulations, the infusion method of using juniper berries in distillation is common to all types of gin. It is the aroma of juniper which creates the signature flavours of the drink on both the nose and palate, making gin ‘gin’. Distillation is therefore an essential process when making gin, playing an important role in adding flavours to the drink.

But what is distillation exactly? Gin distillation is a method of purification which removes unwanted residual parts by heating the liquid until it turns into vapour. This vapour is then collected as gin. When distillers want to add flavour to their gin, they have two options for their distillation method: the steeping method, where botanicals are soaked in the gin’s natural spirit prior to distillation, and the vapour infusion method, where the aroma is carried from the botanicals by the vaporized gin which is heated. The gin then absorbs the flavours as it comes into contact with the botanicals.

Using gas chromatography, the researchers at Heriot-Watt University analyzed the concentrations of 10 terpene flavour compounds in gin distilled using the two different methods to investigate whether there are any differences between the gins.

In their comparison between the two different distillation techniques, the research team found that 9 out of the 10 terpene compounds analyzed were present in higher concentrations in gin distilled by the vapour infusion method. The researchers concluded that this method of analysis using gas chromatography can be applied in further research in distillate comparisons across the different types of gin.

For researchers using gas chromatography for their sample analysis, having a reliable and safe source of gas supply is essential. Our Precision series, specifically designed for gas chromatography applications, offers a dependable, high-performing laboratory-grade gas solution. The Precision series, stackable and modular in design, includes both nitrogen and hydrogen gas generators. Precision also offers a zero air gas generator model, specifically engineered for flame support gas for gas chromatography instruments.

What makes this habitat different?Cliffs make great nest spots for seabirds because predators can't get to them. Seabird...
23/12/2021

What makes this habitat different?
Cliffs make great nest spots for seabirds because predators can't get to them. Seabirds can fly onto ledges where they're safe from foxes and rats that might try and eat their eggs or chicks.
Many seabirds such as the razorbill (which wins in the coolest name category!) only come to land to breed on cliffs, the rest of the time they live on open water.
On clifftops you can find special, hardy plants like thrift with its pink-purple flowers like mini pom-poms, or roseroot, with its distinctive star-shaped leaf pattern.
Beaches are important feeding sites for birds like sanderlings, turnstones and oystercatchers. When the tide goes out, wet sand is exposed. It’s full of tasty critters like lugworms which are perfect for these shorebirds to pluck out. Yummy!

What lives there?
There's so much to see, hear, touch and smell on a visit to the coast. There's no escaping the smell of fish at a seabird nesting colony, and the racket created by thousands of shrieking birds is something else.

Looking out to sea you could see seals, whales, dolphins, or even a basking shark at the right spot. But if all else fails, there's always the sensory delights evoked by a walk on a beach. Imagine sand between your toes, waves washing towards you and maybe fish and chips (sustainable of course!)...

Our coasts are internationally important for breeding seabirds. Gannets are the biggest and perhaps most spectacular - they're the size of a goose and striking in black and white - and can be seen diving headfirst into the sea after fish. Guillemots and razorbills often crowd cliff faces, and everybody loves to see puffins.

On western coasts, you might be lucky enough to see choughs - glossy, black crows with bright orange beaks and legs.

Exploring the contents of a rockpool, or picking up shells and seaweed are brilliant ways to get to know nature.

Why are they in trouble?
Too much fishing
Fishing is the thing humans do that has the biggest effect on sealife around the UK and the world. By taking more fish than the sea can produce, the number of fish in our oceans is going down. This has powerful knock-on impacts for all the other animals that rely on the sea for food.

Climate change
As the planet gets warmer through climate change, animals that are used to living in cold water - like tiny sand eels - have to travel further north to survive. This means the coastal animals that feed on them such as puffins are stuck with less food.

Pollution
If oil spills get on seabirds feathers it can stop them from being able to swim or fly and they can starve to death. Dropping litter can also damage the sea, plastic can take 20-1000 years to decompose!

See it for yourself!
Bustling colonies of seabirds, beautiful beaches and lagoons packed with waders and wildfowl guarantee a memorable visit to our coastal reserves. You can also experience the thrill of seeing long-distance migrant birds dropping in to rest and feed on their epic journeys.

10 facts you didn't know about NatureWith the 150th Anniversary of Nature on the horizon in November 2019, our archivist...
23/12/2021

10 facts you didn't know about Nature

With the 150th Anniversary of Nature on the horizon in November 2019, our archivist and in-house-historian, Alysoun Sanders, has been exploring our archive and discovered some interesting, fun and significant highlights that you may not have know about one of the oldest scientific journals in the world!

1) Nature was initially published at a loss. Science historian Roy Macleod has estimated that the four pages given over to advertisements would have accounted for only half the annual costs of producing the magazine and that there were in fact probably less than 200 subscribers in Nature's first year.

2) There have only been 8 Chief Editors of Nature, 4 of whom have been knighted:

Sir Norman Lockyer 1869-1919 (Knighted 1897)
Sir Richard Gregory 1919-1938 (Knighted 1919)
A J V Gale, L J F Brimble joint editors 1938-1961
L J F Brimble 1961-1965
Sir John Maddox 1966-1973 1980 – 1995 (Knighted 1994)
David Davies 1973-1980
Sir Philip Campbell 1995 - 2018 (Knighted 2015)
Magdalena Skipper 2018 - present

3) In 1873, Nature reported the death of a wasp. The wasp was the pet of Sir John Lubbock, a regular contributor to Nature (including a book review in the first issue) and who also wrote 39 books for Macmillan, including On the Origin & Metamorphoses of Insects in 1874, part of the Macmillan Nature series, where said wasp’s adventures may also appear!



Death of a Wasp

4) The first woman to be published by Nature was Elizabeth Brown, Astronomer (1830-1899). She specialised in solar observation, particularly sunspots and solar eclipses. Elizabeth was involved in organising the formation of the British Astronomical Association (1890) which accepted women members from the start. Her first article ‘The Recent Aurora’ was published on 5th October 1882.

5) Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson, author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and also of mathematical books published by Macmillan, had 3 contributions in Nature:

To Find the Day of the Week for any Given Date (8 March 1887)
Brief Method of Dividing a Given Number by 9 or 11 (28 Sept 1897)
Abridged Long Division (21 Dec 1897)

6) In 1961, about 2,500 communications of new research results were published in Nature from 65 different countries from Argentina to Yugoslavia. This figure includes only research communications and does not include main articles, general reports, books reviews and so forth.

7) The 5,000th issue of Nature was published on 28th August 1965.

8) Mary Berners-Lee (mother of Tim), said to be the "grandmother of the web", answered an advertisement in Nature that read "Mathematicians wanted to work on a digital computer". She spent 2 days researching what a digital computer was then applied for, and succeeded in getting the job.

9) The Nature podcast was launched in 2007 and in 2013 celebrated broadcast of the 300th podcast with on average 40-50,000 downloads per week.

10) Nature is mentioned in H G Wells classic story The First Men in the Moon published by Macmillan in 1904. Referring to the main character Cavor and his proposal for Cavorite (to cut off the gravitational attraction of the earth), "If he made it, it would go down to posterity as Cavorite or Cavorine, and he would be made an FRS and his portrait given away as a scientific worthy with Nature, and things like that." p.24-25.

A Trip to a Remote Island in California to Hunt for Big Black Sea BassIt’s an unusually calm morning for Captain Jim Smi...
21/12/2021

A Trip to a Remote Island in California to Hunt for Big Black Sea Bass

It’s an unusually calm morning for Captain Jim Smith, owner of Ventura Dive & Sport, and lifelong seaman. He’s on board the Raptor, ferrying a boatload of divers and snorkeling enthusiasts over to the Channel Islands, an archipelago of islands that are anchored just off the Southern Californian coast, in the stunningly remote Channel Islands National Park.


On this trip, in particular, Smith is hoping to spot giant black sea bass, a gargantuan underwater creature that grows over seven feet long and can weigh more than a hefty 700 pounds. Unsurprisingly, it’s a fish that sits atop the food chain, and the species is an important part of the marine ecosystem.

Up until the 1970s, black sea bass were a common sighting in Southern California, but due to overfishing their population drastically declined. As a result, fishing for giant black sea bass of any kind was banned in California in 1982.

AVALON, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 17, 1960: Two men and a woman stand on a dock next to a 322-pound giant black sea bass caught at the Tuna Club.

In the Channel Island region, thanks to the protected waters of the national park, there is a promising uptick in population numbers – a recent survey found around 50 individuals in the Catalina Island vicinity alone.

The sea bass, which can live to 75 years, are as “rare as giant sea bass”, says Douglas McCauley, a marine biologist at UC Santa Barbara, who takes regular trips to the Channel Islands to document sea bass.

The fish can be distinguished from one another by their unique spot patterns on the flank, almost like a barcode. And McCauley’s photos — and indeed anyone else’s - now have a permanent home, on a newly-created database named Spotting Giant Sea Bass. The website, launched and run by the Aquarium of the Pacific in July, is a collaborative community effort to find out more about these enigmatic creatures. Scientists hope to be able to answer how the population is changing over time, how far giant sea bass move, where they spawn, and how they thrive in marine protected areas. With more than 1 million dives logged annually across the Golden State’s coastline, researchers hope a collaborative effort to document this species will aid with its recovery.

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Gerard Soury

Giant Black Sea Bass, Channel Islands, California, USA.

For Smith, his trips out to the islands are both a personal passion and an opportunity to educate others.

“It’s extremely difficult to spot one of these creatures,” he says, “and so when you do, there’s this amazing energy in the boat, it’s so exciting to catch sight of one.”

The fish spawn from April through October, congregating around the Channel Islands. But during the winter months, it remains a mystery as to where they go.

Scientists monitoring the species are hoping that question will soon be answered, however, after a research team at Cal State Northridge recently tagged six sea bass to monitor their movements.

Meanwhile, they’re becoming somewhat of a tourist attraction.

“One of the main things people want to see when they come out with us during September and October is giant sea bass,” Smith explains. “If you’re lucky enough to be on a dive and one swims past you... it really is the most incredible experience.”

Lemurs Can Sing with Rhyth Indri indri are a critically endangered species of lemur found in the forests of Madagascar....
21/12/2021

Lemurs Can Sing with Rhyth


Indri indri are a critically endangered species of lemur found in the forests of Madagascar. The largest of the lemur species at 24-28 inches long, the indri is covered in black and white fur. Active during the day, these animals climb trees and feed on a variety of leaves, fruit, flowers, and other vegetation native to Madagascar’s landscape.

Dr. Andrea Ravignani, a Dutch cognitive biologist, and a team of researchers tracked the lineage of humans and indris back to their last common ancestor– who walked the earth more than 77 million years ago. It turns out, our two species have more in common than we think… especially when it comes to singing.

In a study published in Current Biology, Dr. Ravignani and his colleagues explore the evolutionary origins of musical rhythm.

Rhythm in other animals has been a topic of discussion for scientists because findings could provide insight into our own musical evolution. Lemurs are not the first animals thought to have rhythm– there have been findings in other organisms like parakeets, Snowball the cockatoo, and Ronan the California sea lion.

“Only a few primate species sing, so they are precious resources in our search for the evolutionary origins of human musicality,” said Dr. Aniruddh Patel of Tufts University.

Scientists from Madagascar and the University of Turin recorded the songs of 39 lemurs from 20 indri groups over a period of 12 years. Pouring over the songs, the researchers found the presence of rhythmic features also found in human songs.

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Cavan Images

An Indri lemur, the first nonhuman mammal discovered to have rhythm.

The study found both a 1:1 rhythm, where intervals between sounds are the same length, and a 1:2 rhythm, where the second interval is twice as long as the first one, present in the lemur’s songs. They also noticed the presence of “ritardando,” a musical feature categorized by a gradual decrease in tempo, suggesting lemurs have a sense of beat.

“When you’re listening to a musical piece and dancing to it, you’re basically processing this very complex stream of sounds, extracting some regularities from it, and then predicting what’s coming next,” Dr. Ravignani said. “If an indri had some sort of metronome in its head going ‘tac, tac, tac,’ then they would likely produce what we see. It’s so close to human music — it’s quite astonishing.”

This marks the first time categorical rhythm has been found in a nonhuman mammal. It’s unknown whether human and indris’ shared ear for music is the result of a common ancestor or convergent evolution. Researchers suspect it’s a combination of the two.

Home Nature
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Perry Gunawan / EyeEm

Using DNA to Reunite an Orphaned Elephant with her Mother
By: Tatum Lenberg
After villagers found a tiny elephant wandering alone, scientists began the search for her mother using DNA matching technology.

September 13, 2021



In September 2017, villagers found a 2–3-month-old elephant wandering around alone and dehydrated in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Experts predict the elephant was discovered within a day or two of being separated from her family or she wouldn’t have survived.

The villagers brought the baby elephant to a pen outside a local wildlife headquarters in Boromo. Rehabilitating an orphaned elephant is a major undertaking, but the organization saw promising signs — the elephant calf remained physically healthy and didn’t seem depressed.

The local community rallied around the baby elephant. Children at a nearby school named her Nania, or “will.” They played with her every day. Locals pooled their resources to buy her milk, and a neighborhood drugstore donated infant formula.

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tr3gi

Elephant calves drink up to 20 pints of milk a day.

After reaching out to the International Fund for Animal Welfare for help, Nania’s new residence was completed in February 2019, including a stable and large pasture in Deux Balés.

Nania flourished with her caregivers, who acted as surrogate parents playing with her for 6-8 hours a day. After being weaned off milk, Nania was ready to start the process of being reintegrated into a wild elephant group.

Helping a lone elephant rejoin the wild is no simple task — will they be able to find food for themselves, avoid danger, and eventually have offspring of their own?

Getting wild herds to adopt elephants is actually a process the animals do naturally. About 20% of herds include nonrelatives who act like family. As long as a herd is receptive to them, elephants can integrate into other families that aren’t their own biologically.

Nania’s caretakers were hopeful that Nania might have the opportunity to reintegrate into not just any herd of elephants, but her own family.

A team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare began collecting dung samples from the 40 wild elephant tribes that pass through the area. By 2020, scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle were analyzing the elephant dung for DNA in a lab.

Then one day, the lab found a surprising result: the DNA was a match. One of the sampled elephants was not just a family member of Nania, but almost surely her mother.

Forest elephants travel in much smaller herds.

Not only did they find her mother, but through the DNA, the scientists discovered that Nania is a forest elephant. Forest elephants are endangered, which makes the importance of saving Nania that much greater.

For now, the wild elephants have migrated out of Deux Balés for the rainy season, but they will be back in October. The hope is by then Nania, a little bit bigger, stronger, and older, will be ready to join the herd.

“What you really hope for is that there’s some connection that’s remembered when she finds the right herd,” Katie Moore, deputy vice president for animal rescue, said. “And that it just happens.”

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