SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
Frustrated Frogs and Radioactive Rabbits
Frogs in Melbourne, Australia, are having trouble hearing each other over city traffic. Some males have developed a squeakier call that carries better but still isn't preferred by females, National Public Radio reported. Not all animals are as acoustically flexible, and the BBC looked at several species—including birds, bats and frogs—that suffer from noise pollution.
In Washington state, contractors are trying to clean up a different kind of pollution: radioactivity left from the nuclear weapons plant at Hanford. The New York Times covered the cleanup plan, which includes mapping piles of radioactive rabbit droppings for later disposal.
Elsewhere, in non-radioactive soil, scientists reported that mustard seedlings can tell whether they're growing next to siblings or strangers—and adjust their growth patterns to compete less with their relatives. Researchers wonder if plant sibling recognition and competition have implications for crop performance.
But any difference in productivity that might come from that quarter won't be enough to solve the world hunger problem. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned that world hunger has been on the rise for a decade and now affects 1 billion people. The economic crisis, as well as a population that is increasing faster than the food supply, are to blame.
In other nutrition news, the world's only known vegetarian spider has been found in Costa Rica and Mexico. The spider eats the leaf tips of acacia shrubs—relatively nutritious plant parts that evolved as food for the ants that also inhabit the shrubs.
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