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Photo Credit: Elephant Without Borders

Mention the word refugees, and the image that comes to mind is that of humans that have been forced to leave their countries due to war, persecution or natural disaster. Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is facing a different kind of refugee crisis - one caused by the hundreds of thousands of elephants that have fled their homelands to escape ruthless poachers.

This is not the first time the mammals have sought refuge at the Chobe National Park, an 11,700 sq. km (4,500 sq. miles) animal sanctuary located in northern Botswana. But Michel Chase, founder of Elephants Without Borders (EWB), who has been tracking the African elephants for the last twenty years, says this migration is different. In the past, the pachyderms used the sanctuary as a temporary home and always headed back to their respective countries after a few years.

Image Credit: Elephant Without Borders

However, since 2011, as poaching in Namibia, Zambia, and Angola, has escalated to new heights, the homeward migration has stopped. As of November 2016, over 130,000 elephants, roughly a third of the estimated 350,000 African elephant population, have made Botswana their permanent home. Chase says, "Elephants clearly have a cognitive ability to understand where they are threatened and where they are safe and in this case they are seeking refuge and sanctuary in Botswana where they are well protected."

Though EWB is thrilled at being able to provide a safe haven for the mighty animals, the country is struggling to keep up with the voracious eaters, who can plow through up to 600 pounds of vegetation a day. Botswana's most severe drought in 30 years has made things worse. As food sources dwindle, some desperate pachyderms have resorted to eating indigestible tree bark, leading to their untimely deaths. Also, as the watering holes dry out, the parched elephants are being forced to leave the safety of the sanctuary and head to the nearby rivers making them susceptible to unscrupulous poachers.

Image Credit: Elephant Without Borders

Though the situation is not ideal, the smart elephant refugees who can detect the boundary between safe and dangerous areas without physical markers, appear to be making the best of it. George Ittmeyer, who has been studying the African elephants for many years, says their highly evolved spatial memory enables the mammals to select the most efficient path to the river, minimizing the risk of encountering hunters. The elephants also adjust their circadian rhythm so that they rest during the day and search for water at night when there are fewer poachers. Also, since elephants can sense sound frequencies through their feet, they can "hear" warnings sent by other elephants and avoid dangerous areas.

Meanwhile, the Botswana government's plea to neighboring countries to impose measures to stop the carnage has met with some success. Uganda, Namibia, and Gabon have seen elephant populations stabilize or improve as officials realize the income obtained from ecotourism is far greater than from ivory. In July 2016, African Parks, in collaboration with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), moved 250 elephants and 1,500 other animals of various species to the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve in northern Malawi. If all goes according to plan, another 250 will be moved in July 2017, completing one of the most significant translocation initiatives in conservation history.

Photo Credit: Elephant Without Borders

While these efforts will certainly help, what conservationists are most thrilled about is the news that China, which accounts for 70% of the ivory trade, is banning all ivory sales by the end of 2017. With their biggest market gone, poachers will have little incentive to kill the majestic animals. This will hopefully help revive the African elephant population, which has plummeted drastically in the last ten years, and reduce the number of "refugees."

Resources: natgeo.com,usatoday.com,bbc,co.uk

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Mention the word refugees, and the image that comes to mind is that of humans that have been forced to leave their countries due to war, persecution or natural disaster. Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is facing a different kind of refugee crisis - one caused by the hundreds of thousands of elephants that have fled their homelands to escape ruthless poachers.

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Hyundai Unveils Stylish Iron Man-Inspired Robotic Suits

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Hyundai Unveils Stylish Iron Man-Inspired Robotic Suits has 302 reviews and 0 ratings. Reviewer kur0mii wrote: "Wow"

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APSARA drone (Photo Credit: Otherlab.com)

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have tremendous potential to deliver emergency supplies to remote or disaster-struck regions. However, they are expensive to mass produce and often require special pads to launch and land safely. Additionally, the need for the aircraft to maintain enough battery life to return, cuts the delivery distance to half. But these issues may be history, thanks to an affordable and disposable drone that is designed for a one-way journey.

The recently unveiled APSARA (aerial platform supporting autonomous resupply actions) drone prototype is the brainchild of San Francisco-based Otherlab. The R&D firm was commissioned to create the unmanned vehicle by DARPA, the United States military's experimental technology arm as part of the Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems (ICARUS) program. The project aims to develop aircraft that "can make precise deliveries of critical supplies and vaporize into thin air."

Image Credit: Otherlab

The drones, which measure about a meter in size, are made almost entirely of cardboard and bound together with packing tape. Designed to be launched from other aircraft and glide, the drones have no propellers - just a GPS autopilot, small servos for navigation and a disposable battery. When dropped from a cargo plane, APSARA drones can travel up to 150 kilometers and land within 10-meters of the designated destination. The developers say to get to the maximum distance, the drones should be dropped from an altitude of 35,000 feet or higher. Though the aircraft can currently carry loads of only 2.2 pounds, Otherlab researchers are confident they will be able to increase the payload ten-fold, to 22 pounds, in future models. Since the drones are designed for single-use, a crash landing is not just acceptable, but preferred, given that it speeds up the cardboard frame's disintegration process - as long as it doesn't affect the precious cargo, of course!

The best thing is APSARA's straightforward assembly process that takes only about 30 minutes. Mikell Taylor, the project team lead at Otherlab, says, "It's like the Ikea of drones: It comes as a flat-pack thing with a bunch of sheets of cardboard that's been laser cut and scored, and you can fold it up when you're ready to go."

Photo Credit: Otherlab

However, though the cardboard frame meets DARPA's requirement to "vanish," the small electronics fitted on the aircraft are not biodegradable. To change that, Otherlab hopes to borrow some of the technology developed for DARPA's Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR) project. VAPR funded research to build "green" self-destructing electronics to prevent high-tech military equipment from falling into enemy hands. Future APSARA drones may also be crafted from mycelium, a mushroom-based product that has a similar texture to cardboard but decomposes at a much faster rate.

Though the cost of these single-use aircraft has not been revealed, Taylor promises they will be "very, very cheap." If that's the case the incredible drones will make delivery of medicines, blood, vaccines, batteries, communication devices, and other emergency supplies to unreachable areas a cinch!

Resources: recode.net, trendhunter.com, newatlas.com, spectrum.ieee.org

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Biodegradable Cardboard Drones Designed To Crash And "Die" After Single Use

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Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have tremendous potential to deliver emergency supplies to remote or disaster-struck regions. However, they are expensive to mass produce and often require special pads to launch and land safely. Additionally, the need for the aircraft to maintain enough battery life to return, cuts the delivery distance to half.

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Mako shark (Photo Credit: Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation)

A male mako shark is being dubbed the "Energizer Bunny" after traveling a distance of half the globe, or 13,000 miles (just over 21,000 km), in less than two years. According to researchers at the Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), it is the longest track recorded in the Atlantic Ocean by a tagged mako shark.

The scientists began monitoring the shark, named Hell's Bay, in May 2015. In the first year, he traveled north along the east coast of the US before returning to the tagging site off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland. In 2016, the shark made several round-trip journeys throughout the Atlantic, traveling east past Nova Scotia and as far south as Bermuda. This year, the shark appears to be repeating the travel pattern but is staying closer to the coast.

Photo Credit: Debate.org

The researchers say Hell's Bay's jaunts over the past two years have allowed them to identify clear seasonal patterns. The mako shark spends the winter and early spring far offshore and the rest of the year on or near the continental shelf.

While Hell's Bay certainly deserves an award for the impressive mileage, Mahmood Shivji, the Director of GHRI, says one of the reasons it was able to do so is because he is still alive. In December 2016, the non-profit reported that a female shark, tagged about the same time as Hell's Bay, had become a victim of a commercial long-line fishing boat. Before her unfortunate death, the shark managed to cover an impressive 8,500 miles over the 557 days the team had been tracking her. And, she is not alone. A recent GHRI study found that 22% of the tagged makos had been captured or killed by commercial or recreation fishermen.

Mako sharks, one of the fastest sharks in the ocean, can swim at speeds of 45 miles per hour while in pursuit of prey. Their rapid pace allows them to attack humans without warning, which is why the sharks are so feared and often killed.

Mako Shark (Photo Credit: Patrick Doll (Own Work CC-BY-SA- 3.0) via Wikpedia

Unfortunately, the situation is as dire for other members of the shark family as well. Experts estimate that between 70-100 million sharks are killed by humans each year. Given their low reproduction rate, this does not bode well for the species, many are whom are already on the endangered list. Hopefully, information gleaned from sharks like Hell's Bay will enable researchers to educate the public on ways to protect these majestic animals for future generations.

Resources: phys.org, sharks-world.com

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Speedy Quick Mako Shark Swims A Record-Breaking 13,000 Miles In Less Than Two Years

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A mako shark is being dubbed the "Energizer Bunny" after traveling a distance of half the globe, or 13,000 miles (just over 21,000 km), in less than two years. According to researchers at the Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), it is the longest track recorded in the Atlantic Ocean by a tagged mako shark.

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Photo Credit: Skippingrockslab.com

It is a well-known fact that plastic bottles, which take hundreds of years to decompose, are harmful to our environment. However, efforts by environmentalists to encourage consumers to switch to alternatives, like water fountains or reusable bottles, have not been very effective. The U.S. alone utilizes over 50 million plastic bottles annually, 80% of which end up in landfills.

To try to combat that, Rodrigo García González, Pierre Paslier, and Guillaume Couche from the Imperial College London have been working on an innovative solution - water encased inside an edible container made using seaweed. All the customer has to do to quench his/her thirst is poke a hole in the surface layer or, better still, pop the entire blob into the mouth.

Photo Credit: Skippingrockslab.com

The creators, who have been working on the Ooho bubble since 2014, use a simple two-step culinary process called spherification to create the ingenious container. They begin by immersing a frozen ball of water or juice into a calcium chloride solution. This helps form a gelatinous layer around the liquid. The ball is then soaked in a solution made from brown algae extract. This creates a second layer, helping reinforce the structure so that the water or juice does not leak. In addition to saving our environment, the biodegradable packaging costs just two cents each, making it cheaper to manufacture than plastic.

After three years of perfecting the design, the inventors, who recently raised over $1 million USD from a crowdfunding campaign, are ready to bring the Ooho bubble to market. However, there are a few challenges that still need to be overcome before it becomes a serious contender to plastic bottles.

Photo Credit: Skippingrockslab.com

In addition to getting accustomed to the texture of the tasteless covering, each edible container contains just a gulp of water, requiring consumers to drink multiple bubbles to quench their thirst. There is also the issue of finding an eco-friendly packaging to transport the bubbles so that they remain clean and do not burst. Finally, popping an Ooho bubble into the mouth is not the most elegant way to drink water or juice given that the liquid can splatter. Hopefully, the creators will find ways to combat the issues so that we can reduce, or perhaps even eliminate, plastic bottles.

Resources: fastcompany.com. theverge.com

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Ooho Edible Water Bubble Aims To Eliminate Plastic Bottles

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It is a well-known fact that plastic bottles, which take hundreds of years to decompose, are harmful to our environment. However, efforts by environmentalists to encourage consumers to switch to alternatives, like water fountains or reusable bottles, have not been very effective. The U.S.

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Image Credit: NIAID (Mosquito-Carried Diseases) [CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons]

Given that more than 65% of infectious diseases that affect humans originate from other animals, the most logical way to stop them would be to locate the source. However, studying wildlife for clues about the origin of the next epidemic is like looking for a needle in a haystack. As a result, scientists and health officials are forced to combat illnesses like the recent Zika Virus, after they spread.

Now, tech giant Microsoft has come up with a groundbreaking idea. What if we could use mosquitoes, who are responsible for the spread of most viruses, as "early warning systems?" This would give researchers the opportunity to nip the problem in the bud and prevent viral outbreaks.

Grenada: Satellite view shows most places appear as possible hotspots (green) (Photo Credit: Microsoft)

Project Premonition will begin by deploying autonomous drones to rural areas to identify mosquito hotspots. According to Microsoft, the current method of locating mosquito-infested zones using satellite imagery does not yield precise results. In an experiment conducted on the island nation of Grenada, the traditional satellite technique identified almost the entire island as being infested with the insects. [image above]. However, the drone, which can get closer to the surface, was clearly able to pinpoint pools of waters and unsealed containers and structures [image below], where mosquitoes thrive.

Once the areas have been accurately mapped, traps will be set to collect insect specimens. However, given that there are over 3,600 species of mosquitoes, each carrying different types of viruses depending on the animals they target, capturing them randomly would be of little use.

Grenada: Drone view allow standing water and structures to be directly observed (Photo Credit: Microsoft)

To identify the specific species that the scientists are seeking, Project Premonition has created a mosquito trap with 64 smart cells that monitor the insects as they fly inside. If the mosquito's wing movements match that of a species they're interested in studying, the cell door closes. Every time an insect is captured, the smart net also collects relevant environmental data such as time, temperature, and light levels. The weatherproof trap, which can last for over 20 hours in hot and humid climates, is designed to learn from its mistakes, to become increasingly efficient at catching the required species.

The trapped insects will then be brought to the Project Premonition lab for a detailed DNA analysis of the blood they have extracted from victims. According to Microsoft scientists, the few microliters contain vital information about the type of animal the species targets as well as the existence of any viruses, both known and new, that it may be capable of transmitting. Microsoft will utilize its massive computing power and specially developed algorithms to sort through the data rapidly and try to detect pathogens early. This, the company believes, will allow scientists and healthcare workers to stop viruses before they spread.

Analyzing the data collected by robotic nets (Photo Credit: Microsoft)

Though the technology is still in its early stages, the results of Project Premonition's inaugural tests, in collaboration with the Harris County Public Health Division in summer 2016, are encouraging. The 87 experiments conducted using the robotic traps captured over 20GB data about mosquito behavior, including information about ones carrying the Zika virus. Who would have thought that pesky mosquitoes would become our allies in the fight against diseases?

Resources: microsoft.com. geekwire.com

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Microsoft's Project Premonition Recruits Mosquitoes To Help Prevent Disease Outbreaks

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Given that more than 65% of infectious diseases that affect humans originate from other animals, the most logical way to stop them would be to locate the source. However, studying wildlife for clues about the origin of the next epidemic is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

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Photo Credit: Project Jonah via Facebook

New Zealand is no stranger to beached whales. Every year, rescuers help refloat many disoriented mammals that get stuck in the coastal waters or sand during low tide. However, last week's simultaneous stranding of two pods, totaling over 650 pilot whales, in the shallow muddy waters of Golden Bay at the northwest tip of South Island is almost unprecedented. Local marine experts say it is the largest known whale stranding since 1985, when 450 of the mammals were found beached in Auckland, and the third largest on record.

The chain of events began on February 9, when locals woke up to the news that over 400 whales were beached at the base of Farewell Spit, a narrow sand spit at the northern end of Golden Bay. Unfortunately, by the time rescuers arrived, almost 300 whales had perished. More than 500 volunteers worked tirelessly to keep the remaining mammals cool until high-tide. At 3:30 PM local time, the Department of Conservation (DOC) announced that the whales had been successfully nudged back into the ocean.

Photo Credit: Project Jonah via Facebook

But before the weary volunteers could recover, came more distressing news. Late on Friday, February 10, a new group of almost 200 pilot whales was discovered stranded along the same 5-kilometer stretch of coastline. Andrew Lamason, the Operations Manager at the DOC, says they are confident it was a new pod because they had tagged all the refloated whales from the first group and none of the whales in the new group had tags.

Unfortunately, nothing could be done to help the stranded whales at night. The mammals get agitated in the dark and can hurt or even kill a human with a mere flick of their fin or tail. The whales also carry diseases so volunteers need to avoid contact with their blowhole exhalent or body fluids, which is hard to do when visibility is poor.

Photo Credit: Project Jonah via Facebook

Early Saturday, hundreds of locals returned to the beach, bracing for the worst. To their surprise and delight, all but 17 of the stranded whales were gone! DOC spokesman Herb Christophers says they were probably able to "self-rescue" when the tide came in during the night. The rescuers took care of the remaining 17 mammals until the tide returned and allowed them to join the pod waiting about a mile offshore. As of 1:15 PM local time, the whales appeared to be safe in the deeper waters. However, experts continue to keep a watchful eye to ensure they do not return.

Meanwhile, DOC officials are trying to deal with the over 300 whale carcasses that lie scattered on the beach. To release the gas created by the bacteria in the whales' stomachs, marine mammal experts clad in protective gear have begun poking holes in the bodies. This will prevent the whales from exploding or drifting out to sea as they decompose. The officials are also considering building a fence around the area so that the whales don't float into bays and attract sharks along the coastal areas.

Image Credit: Geocaching.com

Thanks to its unique shape and shallow waters that affects the echolocation of mammals making their way around, whale strandings are not unusual near Farewell Spit. However, experts are confounded at the unusually large number in the most recent incidents. Christophers speculates that a lost whale's distress call may have caused the entire pod to rush to the rescue. However, DOC ranger Mike Ogle has a different theory. After noticing some shark bites on one of the whales, he believes they may have been trying to escape dangerous prey. The DOC hopes to find some answers by analyzing biopsy samples taken from the dead whales.

Resources: radionz.co.nz, theverge.com, npr.com, the guardian.co.uk, channelnewsasia.com, projectjonah

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New Zealand Experiences Biggest Whale Stranding In Decades

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New Zealand is no stranger to beached whales. Every year, rescuers help refloat many disoriented mammals that get stuck in the coastal waters or sand during low tide. However, last week's simultaneous stranding of two pods, totaling over 650 pilot whales, in the shallow muddy waters of Golden Bay at the northwest tip of South Island is almost unprecedented.