Royal Society Open Science

From glowing cats to wombats, fluorescent mammals are much more common than you'd think

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Wednesday, October 4, 2023
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But no one knew how common it was among mammals until now.

Key Points: 
  • But no one knew how common it was among mammals until now.
  • Our research, published in Royal Society Open Science today, found this glow – known as fluorescence – is extremely common.
  • Then, we tested if the fluorescence we observed in museum specimens was natural and not caused by preservation methods.

Nightclub lights

    • Nightclub visitors will be familiar with white clothes, or perhaps their gin and tonic, glowing blue under UV light.
    • These chemicals then emit visible light, which is lower-energy electromagnetic radiation.
    • In the case of gin and tonic, this is due to the presence of the quinine molecule in the tonic water.

How often do mammals glow?

    • Our team came together because we were curious about fluorescence in mammals.
    • We wanted to know if the glow reported recently for various species was really fluorescence, and how widespread this phenomenon was.
    • We started with the platypus to see if we could replicate the previously reported fluorescence.

Mammals in dazzling lights

    • Fluorescence is clearly common and widely distributed among mammals.
    • Nocturnal mammals were indeed more fluorescent, while aquatic species were less fluorescent than those that burrowed, lived in trees, or on land.
    • Based on our results, we think fluorescence is very common in mammals.
    • Linette Umbrello receives funding from the Australian Biological Resources Study and is a Research Associate at the Western Australian Museum.

First near-complete sauropod dinosaur skull found in Australia hints at ancient links between continents

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Wednesday, April 12, 2023
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In May and June of 2018, Australia’s first near-complete skull of a sauropod – a group of long-tailed, long-necked, small-headed dinosaurs – was found on a sheep station northwest of Winton in Queensland.

Key Points: 
  • In May and June of 2018, Australia’s first near-complete skull of a sauropod – a group of long-tailed, long-necked, small-headed dinosaurs – was found on a sheep station northwest of Winton in Queensland.
  • I was part of the dig team from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum that made the discovery, and subsequently had the privilege of leading the team that studied the skull.

A good skull is hard to find

    • The sauropod dinosaurs have been a source of lifelong fascination for me, and finding a sauropod skull was one of my childhood dreams.
    • This makes sense when you consider the processes that act on an organism’s body after it dies, which palaeontologists call taphonomy.
    • The bones of the skull were found around two metres beneath the surface, scattered over an area of about nine square metres.

Modern technology recreates an ancient animal

    • Inside one bone in the snout (which we also had scanned at the Australian Synchrotron), we found replacement teeth.
    • The skull could then be reassembled in a virtual space with no risk of damage to the fossils themselves.
    • The teeth in the new sauropod skull were very similar to those found at other sites in the Winton area.

Meet Diamantinasaurus matildae

    • Our skull belongs to the species Diamantinasaurus matildae.
    • Diamantinasaurus occupies a low branch on the family tree of a group of sauropods called titanosaurs.
    • Only two replacement teeth are present in each tooth socket, implying that Diamantinasaurus replaced its teeth relatively slowly.

Family resemblances

    • The most similar skull was that of Sarmientosaurus musacchioi, which lived in southern South America.
    • Diamantinasaurus and Sarmientosaurus lived at around the same time (about 95 million years ago), and at around the same latitude (50°S).
    • We had previously hypothesised that these two sauropods were close relatives, albeit on the basis of limited evidence.

Study by RIT scientists indicates SARS-CoV-2 variants are still transmissible between species

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Friday, December 2, 2022
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ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Scientists believe bats first transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in December 2019, and while the virus has since evolved into several variants such as delta and omicron, a new study indicates the virus is still highly transmissible between mammals. Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology developed computer simulations that show the coronaviruses use their spike proteins to attach themselves to the host cells in both bats and humans in much the same way.

Key Points: 
  • Scientists believe bats first transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in December 2019, and while the virus has since evolved into several variants such as delta and omicron, a new study by scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates the virus is still highly transmissible between mammals.
  • ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Scientists believe bats first transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to humans in December 2019, and while the virus has since evolved into several variants such as delta and omicron, a new study indicates the virus is still highly transmissible between mammals.
  • The scientists used a computer simulation method called molecular dynamics to put proteins in a solvated simulation and then watch them move.
  • Babbitt said this approach allows scientists to study questions that cannot be answered in a traditional laboratory.