Jenna Schnuer

The Physiologist Magazine: A Clear Advantage

Peer into any home aquarium and there’s a good chance some zebrafish will dart by, easy to identify thanks to their namesake stripes. But that beginner-friendly aquarium species has, since the early 1960s, also been a favorite fish to watch for some researchers.

Turns out that zebrafish (Danio rerio), originally found in freshwater in India, have a surprising amount in common with humans. 

Read all about it in The Physiologist Magazine. 

 

CNN: T. Rex’s Older and Equally Sizable Relative Discovered in New Mexico

A formerly unknown relative of the most iconic of all dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, has been newly identified, according to a study released Thursday. The revelation adds a new clue that could help paleontologists unravel another step in the evolutionary chain that ended with the massive predatory tyrannosaur, T. rex.

Called Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis, the creature likely roamed Earth up to 7 million years before T. rex emerged. The bones have been dated to 72 million to 73 million years old during the late Campanian-early Maastrichtian Period.

But Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis’ bones were discovered decades before the creature officially got its scientific name.

Read the article on CNN.com.

CNN: Fossil Discovery Causes Monumental Shift in Understanding of Whale Evolutionary History

On the tail of the discovery of a whale fossil that is the largest animal on record, researchers in Egypt announced the unearthing of one of the smallest early whales known to science. The find is also the oldest fully aquatic whale found in Africa, according to a new study.

At an estimated body weight of 412.3 pounds (187 kilograms) and length of 8.2 feet (2.5 meters), the newly documented species is comparable in size to a modern-day bottlenose dolphin.

Read the piece.

CNN: Scientists Identify Which Butterflies are Most at Risk as the Climate Warms

Challenging times are ahead for smaller, lighter-colored butterflies as Earth’s climate continues to warm, a new study has found.

Unlike their relatives with larger wings and darker colors, small butterflies with paler hues — particularly those belonging to the Lycaenidae family — have trouble regulating their body temperatures as the air temperature increases, according to the research.

Read the piece.

The New York Times: 6 Cities on 5 Continents That are Reimagining Urban Life

What we can learn from creative city initiatives, from Sydney to Paris.

What makes a city great? Whether you’re living in Durban, South Africa, or Medellín, Colombia, perhaps no two people living in one place will have the same answer. But ask residents across different cultures and regions about challenges facing their own cities, and common issues will emerge, like the need for more affordable housing, better public transportation and access to resources and services.

Read the piece on the NYT site.

Fortune Well: What happens to your brain when you become a billionaire

Looking back on the last month in business news, there’s been a recurring theme: Billionaires Behaving Badly. No need to name names. Let’s just say that anybody who regularly spends time chatting up the world on Twitter or invests in crypto was tossed into the upside-down in November.

But is it the money that makes some ultra-wealthy types act out or would they have behaved the same way if they were regular folks with normal-person pocket change? 

 

Find out on Fortune.com.

Fortune Well: MS can be mistaken for everyday aches. Here's what you need to know

It’s easy to shrug off a bit of numbness in your hand or losing your footing here and there. Unfortunately, as actor Christina Applegate learned in 2021, those usually not-so-worrisome symptoms can sometimes be a sign of something more serious. Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) during filming of the third—and what was already to be the final season—of the Netflix show Dead to Me.

Though MS was first defined by a neurologist in 1868, the medical community still doesn’t know what causes it. The disease impacts the central nervous system—the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Think of it as the wiring that runs through bodies and drives movement, thought, mood and, basically, everything a person thinks or does throughout their day. Those hits on the nervous system can lead to symptoms both short-term and long-lasting. Each attack on the nervous system leaves behind lesions that, together, tell the story of MS in a person’s body. One isolated symptom doesn’t tell the story of MS. It takes multiple lesions to lead to a diagnosis.

Read the full story on Fortune Well.

 

The New York Times: In Alaska, Slowing Down to Take Things In

 With rain hitting the roof, the temperature outside hovering in the low 50s and a cast iron stove keeping things warm inside the cabin that, on this July weekend, is serving as an art studio and classroom, I feel a nap coming on. Summer days in Alaska. They are not always the bluebird skies promised in travel ads.

But there’s no time for napping on this trip to McCarthy, a bustling summer community of artists, writers, seasonal workers and visitors that sits 60 miles down a gravel road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.

I’m here to expand the techniques I use to observe and record the natural world, to gain a deeper understanding of the animals, plants and geology of the state I’ve called home for eight years. Over the next two days I’ll attend a field-sketching workshop taught by the science illustrator and natural history artist Kristin Link through the Wrangell Mountains Center.

Read the piece on the NYT site.

Popular Science: The infrastructure package boosts an unsung hero of rural transportation: ferries

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act President Biden signed into law on Monday included more than $1.6 billion for a form of transportation that many people don’t think about much: ferries. While some Americans might consider ferries to be mere pleasure cruises, boarded during vacations for voyages to remote destinations, many people around the country rely on them for everyday life. 

That daily use goes far beyond hopping the Staten Island Ferry to get to jobs in Manhattan. People who live in remote locations in Southeast Alaska or down the Aleutian Islands often have no other options, save perhaps flights that are weather dependent and expensive. And if they want to transport their car, ferries are the only way to go.

“Ferries are part of our road system,” says Douglas Olerud, mayor of Haines, Alaska. 

Read the piece.

National Geographic: Lynx Take Epic 2,000-Mile Treks—But Why is a Mystery

One of the Northwest Boreal Lynx Project’s star travelers, nicknamed Hobo, was radio-collared in Alaska’s Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge in March 2017, just over the border from the Yukon. The lynx took off from his home range in June 2017, and, by July 2018 had traveled a whopping 2,174 miles, across mountains and often powerful rivers.

“That was the first one that really took off. We had inklings of this, but we didn’t really know too much about it,” says Knut Kielland, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Arctic Biology. It “was pretty exciting.”

Read the full piece on NationalGeographic.com.

National Geographic Travel: Retracing the Explosive History of a Remote National Park in Alaska

Standing on a beach in late May 2018, surrounded by her team members and gear, Laura Stelson thought, “What have I gotten myself into?”

An archaeologist who started working for Katmai National Park & Preservetwo years earlier, Stelson was about to lead a four-week expedition, retracing historic routes by a National Geographic explorer in the 1910s. The modern-day expedition’s goal was to find and manage evidence of the trips a hundred years ago as well as the populations that had lived in the area before it was forever changed by a massive volcanic explosion. Stelson’s expedition would cover at least 200 hiking miles, using eight different base camps along the way.

Read the rest of the piece on NationalGeographic.com.