#meerkat

#meerkat

Climate Change is Making Meerkats SickMeerkats are native to the Kalahari Desert, across several nations in Africa. Tuberculosis is endemic to the species, and only occasionally does an outbreak make a population ill. But that's been changing. As annual temperatures rise in the desert, TB outbreaks in meerkat colonies are on the rise. Scientific American's 60-Second Science explains the ways that higher temperatures can contribute to disease. First, the heat puts stress on the meerkats, who have to spend more time hiding from the heat instead of finding food. They may be suffering from drought and famine as temperatures go higher. A second factor is that meerkat colonies under pressure are more likely to disperse. Males in particular normally disperse to find mates in other colonies, and with deaths in the population, they are more likely to wander off and bring tuberculosis to a new colony. Read more about the rising prevalence of TB in meerkats and how climate change is contributing to outbreaks. -via Digg(Image credit: safaritravelplus) #meerkat #tuberculosis #climatechange

Nearly 1,000 Mysterious Filaments Twist Through the Center of the Milky Way GalaxyA new telescopic image from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory's (SARAO) MeerKAT telescope was processed by astronomers. The resulting photograph was of the complex heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The MeerKat is the most sensitive radio telescope in the world, with 64 antennas spread over a diameter of 5 miles (8 kilometers).Astronomers combined 20 radio recordings that covered an area of the sky and turned them into a 100-megapixel mosaic that depicted the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The resulting image showed new supernova remnants, stellar nurseries, outbursting stars, and Sagittarius A*, the chaotic region around the supermassive black hole that lurks in the Milky Way's core.In addition to sighting different cosmic phenomena, experts have also discovered 1,000 mysterious strands that stretch up to 150 light years long. These mysterious filaments have strong magnetic fields and are found in pairs and clusters. According to astrophysicist Farhad Yusef-Zadeh at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, the mosaic has revealed a bigger picture. “Just examining a few filaments makes it difficult to draw any real conclusion about what they are and where they came from. This is a watershed in furthering our understanding of these structures," he said.Image credit: Ian Heywood/SARAO#astrophysics #galaxy #space #science #MeerKat #telescopes #MilkyWay