Curio Cabinet

No more jumping through hoops for these pachyderms. Washington state recently passed a bill banning the use of exotic animals in traveling shows, including circuses. Along with lions, tigers, monkeys, and bears, elephants are expected to benefit greatly from the legislation. Because they’re smaller and more docile than their African cousins, Asian elephants have long been used (and, unfortunately, often abused) in European and American circuses. In their native habitat, however, Asian elephants have traditionally been revered by people and are even symbols of royalty in some countries. Still, they’re extremely endangered in the wild, with only around 30,000 to 50,000 wild individuals left.
 
Asian elephants are native to South and Southeast Asia, where they're the largest mammals on the continent. They usually stand between 6 and 12 feet tall, and males can weigh up to 13,000 pounds. Asian elephants are versatile, able to live in dense tropical forests or on open grasslands. For females, survival depends on cooperation with herd members. Females and young males live in herds of around seven individuals, with the oldest female acting as the leader, or matriarch. The matriarch is responsible for leading the herd to areas with enough food to sustain them. She also leads them on their yearly migration during the dry season, using her age and experience to ensure that they find water. Herd living allows female Asian elephants to protect themselves and their calves from tigers, their only wild predators. As for male Asian elephants, they leave their herds when they reach around eight years of age, and live mostly solitary lives, only interacting with other elephants during mating season, which coincides with the rainy season from around June to October.
 
Asian elephants might be smaller than African elephants, but both species share a common ancestor, though that ancestor didn’t look much like either modern species. Moeritherium lived in northern Africa around 37 to 50 million years ago, and looked more like a pig, hippo, or tapir than an elephant. Yet, all species in the family Elephantidae, including the extinct wooly mammoth, are distantly related to it. When some elephant ancestors made their way to Asia around six million years ago, Asian and African elephants officially diverged, and began to become their own species. They still have plenty in common, though, including their endangered status. Humans are the greatest threat facing both species. Habitat loss and poaching could drive Asian elephants to extinction in just a few years if nothing is done. Size just isn’t enough to protect against people.

 
[Image description: A close-up photo of a male Asian elephant with its mouth open.] Credit & copyright: LadyofHats, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work, has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

Chewing gum? Did you bring enough to share with everyone? Most chewing gums can only freshen your breath, but a new antiviral gum developed by researchers at the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania can fight the influenza virus and the herpes simplex virus (HSV). Influenza claims up to 650,000 lives per year, and while HSV isn't as deadly, the infection never goes away. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 3.8 billion people under 50 are infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), while around 520 million people between the ages of 15 and 49 are infected with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). HSV-1 is responsible for most cases of oral herpes, while HSV-2 is responsible for most cases of genital herpes. HSV-1 doesn't claim as many lives as influenza, but it's still the leading cause of infectious blindness in Western countries. Both influenza and HSV infections can go unnoticed or misdiagnosed, and in the case of HSV, many people can be asymptomatic for long periods of time.
 
Managing the spread of these diseases is a seemingly sisyphean task, but the antiviral gum from the University of Pennsylvania might make that uphill climb a little easier. The special ingredient in the gum is lablab beans, which are full of an antiviral trap protein (FRIL) that ensnares viruses in the human body and stops them from replicating. Studies show that chewing on the gum can lower viral loads by 95 percent, significantly reducing the likelihood of transmission. Delivering the treatment via gum isn’t just a cute gimmick, either. Prolonged chewing releases the FRIL from the bean gum consistently over time, increasing its effectiveness. The question remains, though, should the flavor be spearmint or something fruity?

 
[Image description: A piece of chewed gum in a foil wrapper.] Credit & copyright: ToTheDemosToTheStars, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Social distancing? These birds have never heard of it! The annual spring migration of sandhill cranes in Nebraska had researchers concerned about the possibility of a bird flu super-spreader event, but those fears were thankfully put to rest. This year, a record-breaking 736,000 sandhill cranes gathered in central Nebraska. Conservationists and bird-lovers would normally hail this as a joyous occasion, but this year is a little different. That’s because the H5N1 virus, also known as bird flu, killed 1,500 of the cranes earlier this year in Indiana. It was only natural to be concerned about the much larger Nebraska gathering, which accounts for around 80 percent of the total sandhill crane population in North America. In such a large group, just a few sick birds would have been enough to cause devastation. Unfortunately, the danger for this year hasn’t completely passed. Sandhill crane migration begins in February and continues through April, so there could still be some late comers who might be carrying the virus.
 
That would be especially bad news since sandhill cranes have a hard time recovering from population dips. The cranes can begin breeding at age two, but many of them wait until they are at least seven years old. The cranes mate for life, continuing to breed for upwards of 20 years, but chicks take a while to become independent. Hatchlings stick close to their parents and only strike out on their own after seven months. Once they mature, sandhill cranes are some of the largest birds in North America, measuring over 47 inches long with a wingspan of nearly 78 inches. If only they could use that impressive wingspan to keep at wing’s length from one another.

 
[Image description: A sandhill crane, with white feathers and some red on its head, flies over a snowy landscape.] Credit & copyright: National Park Service, Jacob W. Frank. NPGallery Digital Asset Management System, Asset ID: 06545f00-50a9-41bd-9195-f8663386cb17. Public domain: Full Granting Rights.

How big can something be before it’s no longer useful? That’s the question that many in the tech industry are asking in reference to computer chips. As modern computers demand more and more processing power, standard silicon, closed-circuit chips are having to get bigger and bigger to handle the extra workload. The fear is that, at some point, chips will grow too big and bulky for modern electronics, which tend to be small, lightweight, and portable. Enter the California tech firm, Lightmatter. Their new, photonic computer chips, which were described in two papers in the scientific journal Nature, use not just electricity, but also light to process information. Because the chips utilize photons rather than electrons, they are able to process more, and at much faster speeds, than traditional chips, while remaining fairly small. Studies have shown that the chips are strong enough to power several modern AI systems, which require an immense amount of processing strength. In fact, the chips are capable of performing 65.5 trillion adaptive block floating-point 16-bit (ABFP) operations per second. If that's not enough, photonic chips also use far less energy than normal electron-based ones, consuming just 78 watts of electrical power and 1.6 watts of optical power. That’s a breakthrough in the realm of photonic processing, but only time will tell if photonic chips turn out to be the future of computing. Other technologies, like quantum computing and carbon-nanotube chips, are also being investigated as solutions to our modern processing problems. Phones and laptops might get even lighter in the future, especially if they’re running on light!
 

[Image description: A burst of light with white rays.] Credit & copyright: Limonc, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work has released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.