How Antechinuses Do It - Animal Sex

The Tasman Peninsula dusky antechinus is under threat. 
                                  Credit: courtesy of Gary Cranitch, Queensland Museum

The antechinus is a small, shrewlike marsupial indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. These animals are best known for their odd practice of having sex until it kills them, but what else does their mating behavior entail?

There are currently 15 known antechinus species (animals in the Antechinus genus) living in the forests and woodlands of Australia and New Guinea, five of which were discovered since 2012, said Andrew Baker, a mammal ecologist at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and leader of the group that made the discoveries.


"It wouldn't surprise me if there were one or two more [Antechinus species] we haven't discovered yet," Baker told Live Science.
Generally speaking, antechinuses are loners that stick to themselves until the breeding season nears.


Antechinuses breed during the Australian winter, when their food — small vertebrates and invertebrates — is scarce. This timing ensures their babies will be born in the spring, when food is bountiful.

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Interestingly, males stop producing sperm before the mating season begins.

It's not clear how sexually mature males and females find mates, but Baker suspects scent, and pheromones, are involved. And as with many other species, males likely roam longer and wider in search of sex, he said.


Baker also suspects that male-male fighting is probably common among antechinuses. "They have surging testosterone levels that tend to make them very aggressive," Baker said.

Antechinuses don't bother wasting time with wooing mates or engaging in courtship rituals. Instead, they prefer to get down to business immediately.


In fact, a male has no issue with resorting to ambush mating, during which he will catch hold of a female from behind and mate with her while grabbing the scruff of her neck with his forepaws and biting her neck.

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It's not uncommon to find females with tufts of fur around the neck area missing, Baker said, adding that females are fine with the rough ambush as long as they have an opportunity to mate with other males afterward.


Both male and female antechinuses are promiscuous, and will try to mate with numerous partners throughout the breeding period. However, to increase their chances of fathering offspring, males will mate with females for as long as possible.


Scientists have documented antechinus copulation events lasting for 10, 12 and even 14 hours. "That's intermittent thrusting between just one male and one female," Baker said. When not thrusting, the male will guard the female, keeping her from getting away (and looking for other mates) and other males from getting to her.


Anetchinuses will mate continuously for the entire breeding period, which lasts, on average, about two weeks. This activity takes a toll on the male's body.


The sustained high levels of testosterone stop the production of cortisol from being turned off, allowing males to burn more sugar, Baker said. "It frees them from the need to feed as often, but the downside is that cortisol in sustained levels is poisonous," he said.


Over time, the males will start to behave erratically, bleed internally, lose fur, develop sores and ulcers that don't heal, become blind, and develop high parasite loads as their immune system shuts down. "They are like a blank slate for every parasite and disease going around," Baker said.


It's rare for a male to survive the breeding period.

Females, on the other hand, may die of exhaustion after weaning their litter, which have multiple paternities. Less than 50 percent of females make it to their second breeding season, and only a very small percentage make it to their third, Baker said.
Source: livescience.com

Ancient Aeroplanes That Incas and Other Pre-Columbian People Left Behind

Incas and other pre-Columbian people left behind some extremely puzzling trinkets. Some of the strangest are probably the so-called Ancient Aeroplanes, which are small, golden figures that closely resemble modern jet planes.

 Originally thought to be zoomorphic (meant to resemble animals), the statues were soon found to have features that look very much like fighter planes’ wings, stabilizing tails, and even landing gears.

They were aerodynamic enough that when ancient astronaut believers (allegedly) made model planes with their proportions and fitted them with propellers and (again, allegedly) jet engines, they flew perfectly.

 All of this has led to speculation that the Incas may have been in contact with (likely extraterrestrial) people who were able to build advanced jet planes, and who perhaps even possessed the technology themselves.
Well, that, or these wonderful statuettes might just be artistic representations of bees, flying fish, or other winged creatures. As always, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Transit-5BN-3 USA

The US equivalent to a Soviet Union satellite equipped with a nuclear reactor is the radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG. An RTG is a nuclear reactor type electrical generator. The heat released from the radioactive decay of a specified radioactive element in the device is converted into electricity and used for power.
 Thus, RTGs can be considered as a type of battery, and have been used as power sources in satellites, space probes and other unmanned remote facilities (such as a series of lighthouses built by the former Soviet Union inside the Arctic Circle).

 RTGs are used where solar cells are not practical and power usage is longer than that which can be provided by fuel cells. A common application of RTGs is as power sources on spacecraft such as Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Galileo. In addition, RTGs were used to power scientific experiments left on the Moon by the crews of Apollo 12 through 17 (except Apollo 13, as we will see).

 RTGs may pose a risk of radioactive contamination: if the container holding the fuel leaks, the radioactive material may contaminate the environment. For spacecraft, the main concern is that if an accident were to occur during launch or a subsequent passage of a spacecraft close to Earth.

One such incident took place on April 21, 1964, when a Transit-5BN-3 navigation satellite failed to reach orbit when launched. The spacecraft burned up over Madagascar and the plutonium fuel in the RTG was injected into the atmosphere over the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Traces of the Plutonium were detected in the atmosphere as a result.

Cosmos 1402 Russia

RORSAT, meaning Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, is the western term used to describe a series of Soviet Union satellites.
 These satellites were launched between 1967 and 1988, to monitor NATO and merchant vessels using radar.
 They were referred to as Cosmos satellites and carried type BES-5 nuclear reactors fueled by uranium-235.

 For the radar to work efficiently the satellites were placed into low Earth orbit. The plan was for the spacecraft to jettison the reactor into high Earth orbit when the satellites effective life had ended.

However, there were several failures.One such failure was Cosmos 1402. At the end of the satellites intended operational period, the reactor did not separate into high Earth orbit as planned.

 When the satellite reentered the atmosphere on February 7, 1983, the reactor was the last piece to come home to Earth. It landed somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Dwarf Galaxies That Produce More Stars Than Huge Galaxies

Dwarf galaxies are tiny but incredibly potent, showing us on a cosmic scale that size doesn’t matter—it’s how you use it that counts.

 Astronomers have previously performed astronomical surveys to ascertain the rate of star formation in mid- and high-mass galaxies, but not until recently did they study the smallest ones.

 And so they peered eight billion years into the past to determine a relationship between galactic mass and star-forming prowess.After Hubble had glimpsed the miniscule galaxies in infrared, astronomers were surprised to find that the dwarfs produced stars at a much faster rate than their larger, more massive brethren.

 That’s quite shocking, since you’d expect more gas to equal more stars. However, the tiniest galaxies proved the most productive with an ability to double up their cache of stars in only 150 million years. In a normal-sized galaxy, such growth would require between one and three billion years of hard gravitational work.

 Sadly, astronomers don’t know why the dwarfs are so prolific, but they hope to pry their secrets open as they discover similar specimens at different points in their evolution.

Rare Configuration Solves Cosmic Dust Mystery

Carried aboard a pimped-out Boeing 747SP jumbo jet, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, does most of its (her?) work at 12,000 meters (40,000 ft) and above.

Up here, there’s little atmospheric water vapor to distort measurements, and NASA gets a much clearer view of the cosmos. Recently, SOFIA earned its keep by helping astronomers solve a cosmic mystery.

 As you know if you’ve watched any space show ever, stellar material is the basis of humans and everything else in the universe.
But it was unclear how these tiny grains of stardust avoided vaporization at the hands of the supernovae that distribute them throughout the universe.

 Peering deep into the 10,000-year-old Sagittarius A East supernova remnant with its infrared eyes, SOFIA discovered that dense regions of gas around the star cushion cosmic dust particles.

 This prevents their eradication as they rebound from the massive shockwave of the preceding blast.

Even though only 7–20 percent of the dust around the Sagittarius A East managed to survive obliteration, this is still enough to birth around 7,000 Earth-sized bodies.

Gigantic Potential Star Nursery

Stars love to live in groups. Large enough groups are called globular clusters and contain up to one million stars.
Such regions exist throughout the universe—there are at least 150 of them in our Milky Way—and all are unfathomably old, giving no clue to their formation.
 But a recent, incredibly rare celestial object has been discovered—a pre-natal globular cluster, full of gas but lacking in stars.

Deep within the Antennae galaxies 50 million light-years away, a giant cloud with the mass of 50 million suns will hopefully birth many stars.
 It’s the first time astronomers have found such an object, and they’ve likened it to a “dinosaur egg that’s about to hatch.”
 Technically, it’s probably already hatched long, long ago, as it’s believed such regions remain star-free for only about one million years.
This discovery is very exciting, as we could get a tiny glimpse into one of the most ancient, mysterious processes in the universe.
 It’s possible that regions like these are responsible for birthing most, if not all, the staggeringly beautiful globular clusters we see today

Kepler 7b Is The Weirdest Planet

Gas giant Kepler 7b is the gift that keeps on giving. First, astronomers marveled at the planet’s incredibly puffy body.
 It’s 1.5 times the size of Jupiter but far less massive, which means it’s about as dense as Styrofoam.

As a matter of fact, it would easily float on any ocean that could accommodate such a gargantuan planet.
Other than its claim to fame as a gassy wisp, astronomers in 2013 managed to map its cloud cover—the first time such a feat has been accomplished outside the solar system.
Through infrared imaging, astronomers measured the planet’s temperature at 800–1,000 degrees Celsius (1,500–1,800 °F).
That’s pretty hot but much cooler than expected—7b lies closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun.
 After three years of observation, it was clear why: High-altitude cloud cover reflects loads of heat away from the planet.
 Even more amazing? One side of the planet is awash in clouds while the other side enjoys clear weather, resulting in what looks like a magnificent planetary comb-over.

A Weird Rocky Planet With Odd Temperature Swings

The celestial body 55 Cancri E gained fame as “the diamond planet,” but astronomers have recently discovered an even more unusual quirk—the planet can spontaneously change its temperature by as much as 300 percent. That’s an unprecedented feat for a rocky exoplanet.

The finicky 55 E is the innermost planet in its family of five and lives quite tumultuously.

 It’s so tightly squeezed in that it completes its orbit in a speedy 18 hours. It’s also tidally locked, with one face permanently turned toward its star. And since temperatures can range from 1,000–2,700 degrees Celsius (1,800–4,800 °F), astronomers now say the planet may be covered in oozing volcanoes.

 That would explain its odd thermal behavior but sadly eliminated the possibility of a giant diamond, because it appears we’ve overestimated its carbon content. 

The volcano hypothesis is supported by evidence in our own solar system: Jovian satellite Io is similarly close to its parent, and tidal forces ripping at the moon’s body have turned it into a giant volcano.

Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies

Galaxies come in many forms, and now we’ve discovered a new type: fluffy and wispy with incredibly few stars.
 At 60,000 light-years wide, some of these approach the size of our own Milky Way, yet hold only 1 percent as many stars.

In a collaboration between Maunakea’s giant Keck telescope and the much smaller but more awesomely named Dragonfly Telephoto Array, astronomers have discovered 47 ultra-diffuse, tissue-dense galaxies (UDGs).

They’re so devoid of stars that any observers gazing at the cosmos would enjoy a boring, mostly empty night sky.

These cosmic outliers are so strange that astronomers aren’t sure how they formed. It’s possible the UDGs are failed galaxies that sputtered out of gas, or even bits that were pulled off of larger galaxies.

Even more puzzling is their survival: They were found in the Coma cluster; a cosmic mosh pit buzzing with gobs of dark matter and galaxies zipping about at great speeds.

 Given the circumstances, it’s entirely possible that they were warped into their current configurations by the gravitational craziness going on around them.