OH, FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE! » Research Funding

Save the Gorillas!

Allie — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:46:17 +0000

photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

The United Nations has named 2009 the Year of the Gorilla, in an effort to raise awareness about gorillas and the threats they face.

photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

Gorillas share 98.4 percent of their genes with humans, and have been shown to possess self-awareness, remarkable intelligence and an ability to communicate with signs and symbols as well as use some basic tools. They express emotions such as joy and distress in a way similar to humans.

The main threats to gorillas are habitat loss, poaching, and disease, such as ebola. Already ebola has killed one-third of the world’s gorillas and tens of thousands of chimpanzees. The western lowland gorilla population has declined more than 60 percent over the last 20 to 25 years, which has led to the species being moved from endangered to critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. A large portion of this decline is due to ebola outbreaks and the transmission of the disease from group to group through social contact.

photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

Ebola is reducing once healthy populations to a level where they are no longer resilient to other threats, such as poaching. Between ebola and poaching, it is estimated that the existing world population of gorillas could become extinct in the wild in the next 10 to 20 years.

Ebola in gorillas and other great apes may actually be preventable through vaccination, which has already been proven effective in monkeys. At least six experimental vaccines have protected laboratory monkeys from ebola virus. It takes a significant amount of funding to adapt the current ebola vaccine into one that will be safe and effective for great apes. People may be intimidated by the cost of vaccination, but one year of ebola vaccination could save as many apes as decades of anti-poaching.

“When people look back 100 years from now, most won’t even remember Iraq. One thing they will remember is that we sat by and did nothing while our closest relatives slipped away,” says Peter Walsh of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Antropology in Germany. ”This is a case where one wealthy individual could have an enormous impact. He or she could quite literally save gorillas from ecological extinction.”

photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

…and so, I am asking for your help. On Saturday, April 25 I will be participating in the 5K Run for the Wild, hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, one of the United Nations Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) partner organizations.

The Wildlife Conservation Society saves wildlife and wild places worldwide. By joining the Run for the Wild, my goal is to help assist with the fundraising efforts of the organization and make a difference for the future.

Please donate to protect gorillas on my fundraising page. Every little bit adds up!

photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

March On Beekeepers, March On

Allie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:35:00 +0000

Hundreds of members of the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), dressed in beesuits and carrying smokers, swarmed to the U.K. Parliament to deliver a petition to increase research funding on bee health research today. This year, 2 billion bees, or the equivalent of one in three of Britain’s honeybee colonies, have been lost over the last 2 months, in the worst losses ever seen in the U.K. The losses have been blamed on colony collapse disorder (CCD).

With CCD, bees “vanish”, which is assumed to be the result of sudden early death in the field of large numbers of worker bees. A collapsed colony has a complete absences of adult bees in the colony, with little to no buildup of dead bees. A collapsing colony has an insufficient workforce, mostly made up of young adult bees.

If nothing is done about it, the British honey bee (Apis mellifera) could disappear completely within 10 years, according to the BBKA. “The increased funding we are asking for is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds the government has found for bank bailouts,” said Tim Lovett, the BBKA president. “Bees are probably one of the most economically useful creatures on earth, pollinating a third of all we eat. They provide more than 50 per cent of pollination of wild plants on which birds and mammals depend. We must identify what is killing them, and that means research.”

Even Albert Einstein shared the sentiment, with his quote, “No bees, no food for mankind. The bee is the basis for life on this earth.”

Honey bees and beekeeping have been portrayed quite a bit lately in popular culture. The beekeeper couple on The Amazing Race, Chuck’s beekeeping hobby on Pushing Daisies, and the film Bee Movie, which illustrates the important role bees play in ecology. I personally am looking forward to read A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply by Michael Schacker and Bill McKibben. (Hint: good idea for a Christmas gift).

An article from the Daily Green talks about the efforts of 8 companies and organizations that are truly helping honey bees. Here’s the abbreviated form of the list (ie sans descriptions)

Haagen Dazs (helpthehoneybees.com)
Dundee Brewing (dundeeforthebees.com)
Burt’s Bees (burtsbees.com)
Project Apis m. (projectapism.org)
California Almond Board
California State Beekeepers Association
American Beekeeping Federation
Eastern Apiculture Society

You can help by buying bee t-shirts from the Haagen Dazs initiative.

You can also watch a video of today’s march, here.

Here are some pics from the march:

CSI: Long Island

Allie — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:09:00 +0000

So, on a really cool note, Long Island just received over $500,000 in federal grant money to upgrade police DNA labs. Yes, lab rats like Greggo around LI may now rejoice! The breakdown of the money is $245,794 for Nassau and $280,794 for Suffolk. The money from the Department of Justice must be used to lessen turnaround times to analyze DNA samples and reduce backlogs. Pasquale Buffolino, director of the Nassau County Department of Forensic Genetics, hopes that the money will help the lab to lower the average time it takes to complete a sample analysis. The lab has already brought it down from 90 days to 60 days over the past few years, but the goal is 30 days. The money in Nassau will buy state of the art equipment, such as a machine that will make a miniscule DNA sample easier to analyze. It will also provide the lab with CSI-style upgrades, in the form of a computerized, paperless case record system. Oh yeah!