It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, February 07, 2025
Physicians committee research policy director speaks at hearing on taxpayer funded animal cruelty
Nonprofit asked lawmakers to end federal support for animal research and reinvest savings into human-based models
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Research Policy Director Elizabeth Baker from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national medical ethics and health advocacy group of 17,000 physicians, spoke today, Feb. 6, at a Congressional hearing focused on ending federally funded animal cruelty in research.
The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) announced the hearing in a news release on Monday, with plans to evaluate current animal cruelty funded by the federal government and explore opportunities to prioritize technological alternatives that increase relevance to humans.
“To truly Make America Healthy Again, we need to make science human again.” Baker said.
“For generations, billions of federal dollars have paid scientists to conduct acts on dogs, cats, monkeys, rabbits and other animals that would shock the conscience of most Americans,” she continued.
Highlighting one particularly cruel NIH-funded study, Baker testified that “dogs have been subjected to multiple major surgeries, have devices stabbed into their hearts, and been forced to run on treadmills until they die. Despite 34 years of this work and hundreds of dead dogs, there has been no benefit to patients.”
Increasingly, it is recognized across research fields that animals are not good surrogates for humans especially when much better human-based models exist. The vast majority of Americans agree. Over 80% of more than 2,000 respondents polled in September 2024 in a Physicians Committee/Morning Consult survey agreed that animal-based research should be phased out in support of methods that do not use animals.
At the hearing, Baker asked U.S. lawmakers to end federal support for wasteful and ineffective animal research and reinvest part of the savings into human-based research approaches.
“Ending federally funded animal experiments is long overdue,” she said. “Both Congress and the Administration must take action to ensure that government funding and requests for animal experiments are stopped, and that instead, funding is reinvested into more effective human-based approaches.”
Baker presented the Subcommittee policy changes that can easily be made to curb cruel animal research and testing, including denying funding for National Primate Research Centers that house, breed, and experiment on monkeys, ending foreign research funded by NIH which operates without oversight, and prohibiting research – especially in human nutrition – where objectives can easily be met without using animals. Further, Baker called for the support of efforts already underway at NIH and other federal agencies to accelerate human-based research and testing.
Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in education and research.
Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Peter Singer. Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 229-243 [revised edition]. As I write this, in ...
* In TOM REGAN & PETER SINGER (eds.), Animal Rights and Human Obligations. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1989, pp. 148-. 162. Page 2. men are; dogs, on the other ...
That's an important step forward, and a sign that over the next forty years we may see even bigger changes in the ways we treat animals. Peter Singer. February ...
In Practical Ethics, Peter Singer argues that ethics is not "an ideal system which is all very noble in theory but no good in practice." 1 Singer identifies ..
Beasts of. Burden. Capitalism · Animals. Communism as on ent ons. s a een ree. Page 2. Beasts of Burden: Capitalism - Animals -. Communism. Published October ...
Nov 18, 2005 ... Beasts of Burden forces to rethink the whole "primitivist" debate. ... Gilles Dauvé- Letter on animal liberation.pdf (316.85 KB). primitivism ..
New technology lights way for accelerating coral reef restoration
Improved prey feeding sparks rise in coral resilience, study finds
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have developed a novel tool designed to protect and conserve coral reefs by providing them with an abundance of feeding opportunities.
The device, dubbed the Underwater Zooplankton Enhancement Light Array (UZELA), is an autonomous, programmable underwater light that works to draw in nearby zooplankton, microscopic organisms that coral feed on.
After testing the submersible on two species of coral native to Hawaii over six months, researchers found that UZELA could greatly enhance local zooplankton density and increase the feeding rates of both healthy and bleached coral. Importantly, providing coral with greater amounts of food makes them stronger and more likely to be resilient against certain environmental threats, like heat stress or ocean acidification.
This result is impressive, especially at a time when rising ocean temperatures are forcing entire coral reefs to the cusp of collapse, said Andrea Grottoli, lead author of the study and a professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University.
“Coral reefs house one-third of all marine species, yet occupy less than 1% of the ocean,” she said. “They are disproportionately responsible for ocean health and we’re at risk of losing them.”
Millions of humans rely on coral reefs, as they support fishing industries and protect coastline communities from dangers like erosion and floods. Unfortunately, many climate models project that at Earth’s current rate of warming, these vital coral reefs may be completely devastated by 2050, jeopardizing the complex ecosystems they sustain.
Although the technology in this study is only a short-term solution to the environmental threats that coral reefs face, the device will likely be very beneficial to coral restoration efforts, said Grottoli. “Think of it as a band-aid for about a couple decades,” she said. “It can protect some corals in some places, sometimes.”
The team also found that UZELA, which can be powered for half a year on a single battery, could optimize a coral’s feeding time by operating for just one hour after dusk.
Understandably, artificial lights can disrupt the behavior of other marine animals, so researchers could choose not to use the device year-round. That said, the study emphasizes that corralling zooplankton with this human-made tool doesn’t seem to harm the environment or interrupt the flow of other zooplankton in the surrounding area.
“If you imagine zooplankton in a column floating above coral, instead of being naturally dispersed, UZELA is just pulling them down, but it’s not taking away from the coral beside it,” said Grottoli. “We show that if you put the coral close to the light, they benefit from that concentrated zooplankton, and feeding rates go up 10- to 50-fold.”
This number is equivalent to an 18-68% increase in the amount of metabolic demand that can be met by zooplankton alone, meaning that increased feeding helps supplement a large part of the coral’s diet, which successfully leads to an increase in coral survivorship and persistence.
“The real intent of this project is to inject new technology and energy into coral restoration success,” Grottoli said. “It’s something that can be deployed strategically for high-value reefs, or projects that have already had a lot of investment in them.”
Widely adaptable to various marine environments, UZELA can also easily be serviced by divers once placed in optimal underwater locations.
Notably, while the current generation of UZELAs are handmade, the team is working with an Ohio-based engineering company to redesign the technology to make it more manufacturable. Grottoli expects these more enhanced versions will be available within the next one to three years.
“We are not mitigating climate change fast enough to save coral, and UZELA is not going to instantly save coral reefs,” she said. “But it is an exciting solution that will buy us time as we work toward a more sustainable environment.”
Other co-authors include Shannon Dixon and Ann Marie Hulver from Ohio State as well as Claire Bardin, Claire Lewis, Christopher Suchocki and Rob Toonen from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.
The study was supported by the University of Hawai’i Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Underwater Zooplankton Enhancement Light Array (UZELA): A technology solution to enhance zooplankton abundance and coral feeding in bleached and non-bleached corals
Article Publication Date
6-Feb-2025
Whale song has structure similar to human language
Humpback whale song is a striking example of a complex, culturally transmitted behavior, but up to now, there was little evidence it has language-like structure. Human language, which is also culturally transmitted, has recurring parts whose frequency of use follows a particular pattern. In humans, these properties help learning and may come about because they help language be passed from one generation to the next. This work innovatively applies methods inspired by how babies discover words in speech to humpback whale recordings, uncovering the same statistical structures found in all human languages. It reveals previously undetected structure in whale song, illustrating a deep commonality between two unrelated species united by the fact that their communication systems are culturally transmitted.
Whale song has language-like structure
Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species. However, research published today in Science has uncovered the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language in humpback whale song.
Humpback whale song is a striking example of a complex, culturally transmitted behavior, but up to now, there was little evidence it has language-like structure. Human language, which is also culturally transmitted, has recurring parts whose frequency of use follows a particular pattern. In humans, these properties help learning and may come about because they help language be passed from one generation to the next. This work innovatively applies methods inspired by how babies discover words in speech to humpback whale recordings, uncovering the same statistical structures found in all human languages. This work reveals previously undetected structure in whale song, illustrating a deep commonality between two unrelated species united by the fact that their communication systems are culturally transmitted.
Led by Professor Inbal Arnon of the Hebrew University, Dr Ellen Garland of the University of St Andrews, and Professor Simon Kirby of the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with Dr Claire Garrigue (IRD New Caledonia), Dr Jenny Allen (Griffith University), and Dr Emma Carroll (University of Auckland), this work represents a unique collaboration between linguists, developmental scientists, marine biologists and behavioural ecologists.
Humpback whale song is one of the most striking examples of a socially learned, culturally transmitted behaviour in a nonhuman animal. Whale song exhibits systematic structure, however, until now, there was little evidence that this structure was like that of human language. One of the big challenges in studying non-human communication is finding out what the relevant parts of the system are. The authors’ breakthrough was to use insights from how babies discover words in speech, and apply them to eight years of humpback whale song data collected in New Caledonia. The authors found that whale song showed the same key statistical properties present in all known human languages. They detected recurring parts whose frequency closely followed a particular skewed distribution, not previously found in any other non-human animal. This work reveals a deeply unexpected commonality between two unrelated species - humans and humpback whales - united by the fact that their communication system is culturally transmitted. This points to the crucial role of learning and transmission in the emergence of structure within such systems. Once thought of as the hallmark of human uniqueness, foundational aspects of human language may be shared across evolutionary distant species.
Dr Ellen Garland from the University of St Andrews said: “Revealing this hidden language-like structure in whale song was unexpected, but it strongly suggests this cultural behaviour holds crucial insight into the evolution of complex communication across the animal kingdom.”
“Whale song is not a language; it lacks semantic meaning. It may be more reminiscent of human music, which also has this statistical structure, but lacks the expressive meaning found in language.”
“Whether the units we detected using the infant-inspired method are salient to the whales themselves remains an open question.”
Prof Inbal Arnon from the Hebrew University said:
“Using insights and methods from how babies learn language allowed us to discover previously undetected structure in whale song”
“This work shows how learning and cultural transmission can shape the structure of communication systems: we may find similar statistical structure wherever complex sequential behaviour is transmitted culturally.”
“It raises the intriguing possibility that humpback whales, like human babies, may learn their song by tracking transitional probabilities between sound elements, and using dips in those probabilities as a cue to segment the song”
Prof Simon Kirby from the University of Edinburgh said:
“It suggests that our understanding of the evolution of language can benefit not only from looking at our closest primate relatives, but also at cases of convergent evolution elsewhere in nature.”
“Looking beyond the way language is used to express meaning, we should consider how language is learned and transmitted culturally over multiple generations.”
“These findings challenge long held assumptions about the uniqueness of human language, uncovering deep commonalities between evolutionarily distant species.”
Killer whales are the only natural predator of baleen whales — those that have “baleen” in their mouths to sieve their plankton diet from the water. More solitary than toothed whales, baleen whales face predatory attacks from killer whales, especially mother and calf pairs. When attacked, some species fight back, while others choose flight.
But whale species also produce loud underwater songs. What stops killer whales from homing in on their calls and attacking them?
New research from the University of Washington finds some baleen whale species call at such deep frequencies that they’re completely undetectable by killer whales, which cannot hear sounds below 100 hertz. These tend to be the whale species that flee in the face of attack. These deep singers in the “flight” club include blue, fin, sei, Bryde’s and minke whales.
Meanwhile, their higher-frequency singing brethren that fight back when attacked also tend to be slower-moving and more maneuverable. The “fight” club includes right, bowhead, gray and humpback whales.
To conduct the study Trevor Branch, professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the UW, conducted a review of aquarium experiments on killer whales’ hearing ranges, reviewed the source frequency and source level of populations of all baleen whales, and combined these with knowledge of how sounds move through the ocean to predict which whale populations can be easily heard by killer whales. It turns out the calls of flight species generally can’t be heard more than 1 kilometer away by killer whales, unlike the calls of fight species.
The fight or flight hypothesis is not new, but research into acoustics is shedding new insights into adaptations of baleen whales. Could this so-called acoustic crypsis, where whales that call at such deep frequencies that they are acoustically invisible to killer whales, have developed as a defense mechanism from attack?
Killer whales are found in all the world’s oceans, and killer whales’ prey ranges from small fish to the largest whales on Earth. The fight species of baleen whales usually migrate and calve closer to the coast in shallow water, a haven of sorts that provides easier defense against killer whale attacks — especially for group defense in aggregations. Combined with their slow-swimming and more navigable bodies, their communication with other whales is often at higher frequencies easily heard by killer whales — above 1,500 hertz. In contrast, flight species have streamlined and slender bodies adapted for speed, and typically disperse across wider open-ocean regions for mating and calving, where they are able to flee in all directions.
These behaviors also have implications for feeding and mating. Denser congregations in shallow coastal areas leave less food for fight species, in comparison to the open ocean favored by flight species. However, the opposite is true for finding a mate — it’s easier when you’re all in a similar location, versus spread out over long distances.
Singing is a fundamental part of mate attraction and selection for whales. Males of the flight species sing in a way that maximizes the number of females that hear them, producing simple and repeated songs to attract a potential mate, and singing over prolonged periods to allow females to track them down.
“But these super-loud songs could expose them and their mates to killer whale attack. And this is where acoustic crypsis comes in: singing at low frequencies that are impossible, or very difficult, for killer whales to hear,” Branch said.
The research shows that under the sea there is a sound landscape governed by fear, with some whale species choosing to sing their songs to their prospective Valentines at deep levels to avoid attacks; while other whale species compete to sing the most varied and interesting songs, and fight back when attacked. The fight vs. flight differences appear to drive all aspects of the lives of baleen whales, from where they are found, to their communication, to where and when they breed and feed.
“It just never occurred to me that some whales sing low to avoid killer whales, but the more I looked at this, the more I realized that every aspect of their behavior is influenced by the fear of predation,” Branch said.
