Feeding Frenzy Research Articles

Follow the termites: Feeding frenzy in India for Africa-bound falcons

Follow the termites: Feeding frenzy in India for Africa-bound falcons

Wrack N’ Roll: The Ecological Role of Beach Wrack

Beach wrack is the stinky weed that gets washed up on the beach after a big storm. This weed is made up of old marine plants such as seaweeds and seagrasses, and it gets washed up onto beaches all over the world. Although it can be ugly and smell like rotten eggs, it is very important for the health of our beaches. Lots of tiny animals make their homes in beach wrack, while others feed on it or use it as a hunting ground for their favorite snacks. This feeding frenzy produces nutrients through animal poop and bones, which get delivered back into the water and help to keep our oceans healthy. Coastal development and beach cleaning upset these natural processes and can impact the ecosystems that make our beaches so great.

The Southern Ocean Ecosystem Affects The Entire World

The Southern Ocean, which flows around the Antarctic continent, is home to vast numbers of unique and remarkable animals, including penguins, albatrosses, petrels, seals, and whales. The ocean bursts into life every spring, fueling a summer feeding and breeding frenzy. During the dark winter months, there is little food and life is very harsh. Human activities such as fishing and pollution are affecting this ecosystem, as is climate change. These ecosystem changes matter beyond the Southern Ocean! Ocean currents carry nutrients and organisms into and out of the Southern Ocean. Many marine mammals and seabirds swim or fly in and out of the Southern Ocean, in search of food and breeding grounds, or to escape the harsh Antarctic winter. These movements and migrations connect the Southern Ocean ecosystem with other marine ecosystems around the world. This means that changes in the Southern Ocean ecosystem can affect ecosystems around the world.

Capitalism's feeding frenzy

Capitalism's feeding frenzy

Cryptographics

Cryptographics is an artwork that reflects on the recent phenomenon of cryp- to art, which involves associating digital artifacts with blockchain, tokenizing artworks with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This practice has recently been the subject of heated debate within art and the humanities, as well as setting off a feeding frenzy by artists, digital content creators, and speculative investors. In Cryptographics, I take an artistic interpretation of this topic, highlighting the way that while tokenization is intended to make unique digital assets more eas- ily traceable, it treats content as inconsequential, raising a number of questions regarding the value of digital artworks. Working with found text fragments from discussions centered on NFTs and crypto art and existing images, the work seeks to negate the representational role of images, reducing them to mere fields of pixels. By obscuring the visual content of the images and text, this work ques- tions what impacts it may have if we are to treat all digital content as commod- ifiable, yet interchangeable.

A feeding frenzy on winged termites by Neotropical birds: A bird's-eye view from the canopy of the Peruvian Amazon

Termites are a protein-rich yet unpredictable and ephemeral food source known to attract a diversity of reptiles, mammals, and birds. Here we provide the first observation of birds feeding on an explosion of winged termites swarming through the canopy in Western Amazonia in Peru. During this observation made from the canopy, at least 11 canopy-dwelling bird species were observed, and this is the first record of all observed species participating in such an event. By understanding the combination of factors that trigger termite swarms and their opportunistic use by canopy birds, we might better predict how the changing environment will affect these events and availability to birds and other wildlife as a valuable protein source.

Whale shark (Rhincodon typus) predatory flexible feeding behaviors on schooling fish

Whale sharks are known to feed primarily on zooplankton all over the world; however, recent findings suggest that they also prey on fish using behaviors that have not been fully described. Here, we provide detailed evidence of whale sharks interacting with schools of anchovy on four occasions in Bahia de Los Angeles, Baja California, Mexico. Three of these were predatory interactions in multi-species feeding frenzies, and one was a non-predatory interaction. In predatory interactions, whale sharks exhibited two types of feeding behaviors: (1) stationary suction-feeding, a previously described behavior for whale sharks, and (2) lunge-feeding, which has not been previously described in whale sharks, but has been observed among other large filter feeders, such as rorqual whales. The whale sharks moved simultaneously around the school of anchovy, lunging simultaneously or one after another into the school, with 66% (N = 17) of these lunges occurring in the same direction. In the non-predatory interaction, whale sharks exhibited “sit-and-wait" behavior. The evidence presented here, along with previous observations, suggests that whale sharks may change their feeding strategy from suction to lunge-feeding when other predators corner schooling fish.

The Initial Public Offers Feeding Frenzy

Trends in the top Initial Public Offers (IPOs) of several popular private companies in India has shown to great effect that the market quotes a higher than usual value for the these private companies due to a frenzy among the public. This phenomenon is hypothesised by tracking various top IPOs which have taken place over the years with respect to popularity and the number of shares that have been issued in the market. Different other theories are also accounted for and have been encompassed along, the reasons for this frenzy widely differs from price offered during the opening bell to media releases.

Feeding frenzy has faded

Feeding frenzy has faded

Evolutionary selection of biofilm-mediated extended phenotypes in Yersinia pestis in response to a fluctuating environment

Yersinia pestis is transmitted from fleas to rodents when the bacterium develops an extensive biofilm in the foregut of a flea, starving it into a feeding frenzy, or, alternatively, during a brief period directly after feeding on a bacteremic host. These two transmission modes are in a trade-off regulated by the amount of biofilm produced by the bacterium. Here by investigating 446 global isolated Y. pestis genomes, including 78 newly sequenced isolates sampled over 40 years from a plague focus in China, we provide evidence for strong selection pressures on the RNA polymerase ω-subunit encoding gene rpoZ. We demonstrate that rpoZ variants have an increased rate of biofilm production in vitro, and that they evolve in the ecosystem during colder and drier periods. Our results support the notion that the bacterium is constantly adapting—through extended phenotype changes in the fleas—in response to climate-driven changes in the niche.

Prejudice for Profit: Escaped Nun Stories and American Catholic Print Culture

Prejudice for ProfitEscaped Nun Stories and American Catholic Print Culture Kara M. French (bio) During the sweltering summer of 1834, a gang of working-class men—brickmakers, sailors, apprentices, and firemen—surrounded the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The crowd, acting on rumor that Sister Mary St. John Harrison "has been secreted or abducted" to Canada against her will, threatened to burn the convent to the ground unless she was released. When Harrison did not come forward, they set fire to the convent and school with "twelve nuns, and fifty-seven female scholars" inside. Newspapers from Maine to Maryland reported how the rioters stole the Mount Benedict ciborium, smashed the sisters' expensive musical instruments, and converted the personal library of Boston's Bishop Fenwick into fuel for a bonfire. As a final act of desecration, the mob "burst open the tomb, and ransacked the coffins" of dead nuns, searching for the bodies of Sister Harrison and the Ursulines' young Protestant pupils, rumored to have been murdered behind the convent walls.1 Tales of illicit sex and abused women rose from the ashes of the Charlestown riot. Just as the Charlestown rioters were being brought to [End Page 503] trial in 1835, ex-novice Rebecca Reed's autobiography, Six Months in a Convent, detailed a life of horrors. According to Reed, the sisters of Mount Benedict heaped slavish devotion on their Mother Superior and were subjected to bizarre and cruel penances. The convent was a place of unmentionable sexual deviance, where confession with the Bishop led to "various improper questions" regarding the novices' sexual habits and where Superior Mary St. George Moffat was inclined to "bestow presents and caress" the sisters who were her "great favorites."2 The burning of the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts was and is a well-known tale, in its own time and in ours. For scholars of the early republic, the burning of the convent represents an object lesson in anti-Catholic prejudice, a perfect storm of religious intolerance, gender trouble, and class conflict. For citizens of the early republic, the event served to confirm their worst fears—either about the nefarious lives of nuns and priests or about the limits of religious toleration. For early republican publishers, it created an opportunity. With the riot at the Ursuline convent in 1834, the relationship between print and protest worked in reverse of what one might expect. Rather than the publication of an explosive text provoking an outbreak of violence, the burning of the convent was an occasion of violence that provoked an outbreak of print. The two anti-Catholic "escaped nun" narratives that became bestsellers in antebellum era, Rebecca Reed's Six Months in a Convent and Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu, would not be published until more than a year after the convent lay in ashes. While the political, social, and gendered implications of the Charles-town riot have been explored, the way the burning of the convent was exploited by publishers for financial gain deserves closer examination. Though Reed's and Monk's narratives have the distinction of being the best-selling and most well-known "escaped nun" tales, the burning of the convent encouraged the flourishing of an anti-Catholic print genre that promised to expose the secret lives of nuns and priests. A feeding frenzy of anti-Catholic literature ensued at every level of the literary marketplace, from cheaply printed dime novels to ornate gift books. These "escaped nun" stories capitalized on the horror the perceived gender and sexual deviance of nuns provoked in the Protestant imagination. Antebellum publishers spent thousands manufacturing lithograph illustrations of novices cutting their hair to take the veil and mass-printed [End Page 504] stories that featured cross-dressing "female Jesuits" and Machiavellian lady superiors.3 Commercial print and the whims of the publishing marketplace not only drove a boom in anti-Catholic publishing but also sparked American Catholics to mount a vigorous defense in print. Given the ubiquity of print in the early republic, it is perhaps not surprising that a religious minority would develop their own print sphere. As the recent outpouring of scholarship on African American print culture has...

Bitcoin, Virtual Currencies, and the Struggle of Law and Regulation to Keep Pace

At less than a decade old, Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have had a major societal impact, and proven to be a unique payment systems challenge for law enforcement, financial regulatory authorities worldwide, and the investment community. Rapid introduction and diffusion of technological changes throughout society, such as the blockchain that serves as Bitcoin’s crypto-foundation, continue to outpace the ability of law and regulation to keep pace. During 2017 alone, the market price of Bitcoin rose 1,735 percent, from about $970 to $14,292, causing an investor feeding frenzy. As of March 31, 2, a total of 1,595 cryptocurrencies are reported, having an approximate market capitalization of $266.97 billion at that date. A brief history of the fast moving adoption of blockchain-based technology is provided, along with a look at the efforts of regulators to keep up with the staggering worldwide growth in the usage of virtual currencies. In the United States, enforcement actions for violations of law involving virtual currencies are brought primarily by: The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and The Department of The Treasury through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). This Article contributes to the literature and our understanding of the constant struggle of law and regulation to keep pace with rapid technological developments.

Feeding frenzy for cancer cells.

Cancer cells rewire metabolism to scavenge nutrients and waste products

Luther Vermitteln: Reformationsgeschichte zwischen Historisierung und Aktualisierung ed. by Benjamin Hasselhorn

Reviewed by: Luther Vermitteln: Reformationsgeschichte zwischen Historisierung und Aktualisierung ed. by Benjamin Hasselhorn H. George Anderson Luther Vermitteln: Reformationsgeschichte zwischen Historisierung und Aktualisierung. Edited by Benjamin Hasselhorn. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2016. 250 pp. The director of a church museum in Recklinghausen asked a tour group of school children to guess when the first evangelical congregation in that area was founded. When one girl finally piped up with the right answer—150 years ago—she was asked why. "Because that was when Martin Luther King started the Reformation" (37). Here is one of the knotty issues faced by planners of Reformation 2017 in Germany. Despite public opinion ranking Luther as the fourth most famous figure in their history, few German youth see him as relevant to their own times. When a sample of students who had completed eight years of religious instruction were asked if Luther had any influence in their lives, only one in eight said yes (86–105). This book is a collection of papers—all in German—presented at a conference in 2015. It gives a behind-the-scenes account of problems facing planners of the 500th anniversary observance. The government had used the anniversary to present Germany as an open and hospitable country and had anticipated a flood of tourists. Was it possible to avoid the carnival atmosphere of a tourist bonanza? Merchants were already putting "Here I Stand" on red ties, the Luther rose on mousepads and cake molds, and "Hallo Luther" on coasters and Frisbees. Even official tours through the Wartburg castle ended, inevitably, in its gift shop (175). It was threatening to become the contemporary equivalent of the indulgence traffic (12). Given this mercantile feeding frenzy, how could the real Luther be transmitted from generation to generation, as this book's title suggests? Several articles survey previous interpretations of the Reformer in museums (117–135), textbooks (37–63), movies (193– 207), and television (208–228). Current efforts include three special exhibitions, described in "Luther and the Princes" in Torgau (148– 163), "Luther! 95 treasures—95 People" in Wittenberg (184–189), and "Luther and the Germans" at the Wartburg (173–183). Luther is also online (106–108), in the movies (229–234), and on TV (235–240). All these activities circle around one theme: freedom. The Wittenberg exhibit labels the stages of Luther's life as "anxiety, search, understanding, and liberation" (188). The movie "Katharina" depicts [End Page 470] her life as a "path of liberation" (234). A six-part television series, "The Luther-Code," traces how Luther was a catalyst for "an age of freedom and individuality" (238). Even the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) study document for the anniversary is titled "Justification and Freedom" (68). A group of faculty members from the University of Saarland challenge this trend in an article on religious education ("Rechtfertigung Lehren," 64–87). They argue that Luther's insistence on simul justus et peccator has been obscured by those who substitute "acceptance" for justification. They fault the EKD study on "Justification and Freedom" as sounding more like the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" than Luther. When one neglects the peccator side of Luther's formula, they argue, justification is made a basic human condition rather than a "miracle of renewal." If the struggle with sin is overlooked, individuals are denied the chance for deeper self-awareness, not just of their unworthiness under the judgment of the world—coram mundo—according to the values and norms of the achievement society, but also coram deo. They offer two examples from religious education curricula (82–86) showing that justification in its fullest sense can be relevant, even helpful to students in their daily lives. Can the enormous effort that has gone into the planning of Reformation 2017 deepen the spiritual life of a rising generation? It is going to be a heavy lift. One of this book's authors writes that, as he sat on a train leaving Wittenberg, a woman sitting across from him asked her child, "Do you know who did something important there?—pointing to the city church. The youngster answered, "Luther used to work there. He saw to it that people wouldn't have to pay taxes...

The Emergence of a New Area of Legal Practice: Corporate Social Responsibility

An evolving challenge that faces lawyers is the need to more securely integrate the litigation and policy dimensions of CSR lawyering-for lawyers to merge their reactive and proactive inclinations. ‘‘Most lawyers no doubt welcome the trend [towards extension of formal legal liabilities with new forms of ‘moral liability’], but it is worth asking whether the net result will be improved social and environmental performance on the part of targeted industries and companies, or whether it will be little more than a feeding frenzy for the legal profession.

Nutrition, vitamin D, and health outcomes in hemodialysis: time for a feeding frenzy?

The role of nutrition and nutritional supplementation in dialysis recently has been reinvigorated, with small clinical trials exploring surrogate outcomes and larger epidemiologic studies generating treatment hypotheses requiring further study. The present review focuses on major aspects of nutrition and outcomes in hemodialysis patients: protein and calorie intake and nutritional vitamin D supplementation. Building on data from small studies, two large, quasi-experimental cohort studies showed significant mortality benefits associated with oral nutritional supplements provided during dialysis, suggesting potential options for ameliorating the protein-energy wasting that is common in dialysis patients and associated with poor outcomes. Multiple cohort studies suggest, both in the general population and in dialysis, that higher 25(OH) vitamin D levels are associated with improved outcomes; however, no major mortality trials exist in dialysis, and the smaller, surrogate studies conducted to date have been disappointing, showing no consistent benefits in surrogate outcomes including inflammation and anemia, despite appropriate responses of vitamin D levels to repletion. Nutritional interventions are attractive options for improving outcomes in dialysis patients. Nutritional protein supplements have considerable promise, but require further study, preferably in a large, generalizable pragmatic trial. Small nutritional vitamin D supplementation trials in dialysis have had disappointing results. In the absence of new data, there appears to be no role for routine assessment or repletion of 25(OH) vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency in dialysis.

Smart Money: How Engineers are Transforming Traditional M&A

What’s Ahead–From TWA’s Editor-in-Chief We live in an era where the energy industry has valiantly weathered the downturn associated with the oil price collapse of 2014, largely avoiding a wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and restructuring despite a global crude slump. But with the oil price forward strip continuing to suggest tough times ahead, the inevitable wave of M&A that pundits have been predicting will undoubtedly manifest itself at some point. Banks will be busy, and if you have ever been interested in a career in investment banking, now may be the time to test the waters. Forecasting the Inevitable Exploration and production (E&P) companies have enjoyed unparalleled access to capital this year. In the first half of this year, the energy capital markets have seen 27 and 34 disclosed debt and equity offerings across the E&P sector raising USD 15 and USD 13 billion in total proceeds, respectively. That, in combination with lower operating expenses (thanks in large part to service costs that are down to razor-thin margins) and concerted efforts to upgrade portfolios have allowed companies to continue funding operations in this difficult environment. But as the industry braces itself for the potential of further downside risk in the second half of 2015, some companies will be faced with the last-ditch effort of restructuring via bankruptcy. Much like in nature, the strong companies will be on the prowl for opportunistic deals to gobble up weak competitors. The feeding frenzy could be epic, with more than USD 35 billion in available “dry powder” dedicated to energy investments (up to USD 100 billion including leverage), ready to pounce on any weakness. That weakness may be exacerbated by reduced borrowing bases as, unlike the fall in oil prices 6 years ago, commercial banks are likely to respond differently this time around given increased regulatory scrutiny and the fact that energy is the only “problem child” in their portfolios. Having added more than USD 260 billion of debt over the last 3 years, oil and gas companies will experience substantial pressure related to their credit facilities should depressed commodity prices persist. Not all will survive. The Role of an Investment Bank Much like the realtor who helps you sell your home, the role of an investment banker is to put your asset out there in the best light possible and clearly articulate its ultimate potential. That is where banks differentiate themselves and, as shale plays mature, engineering analysis is becoming indispensable to balance aggressive sales stories with technically sound work. The most useful banking engineers do not necessarily create economic models, but instead provide qualified and informed guidance that generates the inputs for such models. From large-scale data analysis for type curve derivation to well spacing assumptions (think original oil in place estimates and recovery factors), optimal completion designs, and even ideas on driving down costs and debottlenecking infrastructure, a competent engineer can be a competitive advantage for a bank (as the author of the Discover a Career section explains). Some progressive banks, like Jefferies, were quick to appreciate the advantages of having in-house technical staff, but virtually every bank has now picked up on this benefit (HR Discussion has a great historical account of this trend). As the sector once again foreshadows a renewed need for technical analysis in the current climate, an insatiable demand for talented engineers has resulted.

Rape and the Foundation of Nations in J. M. Coetzee’s <i>Disgrace</i>

When J. M. Coetzee's last South African novel, Disgrace, was published in 1999 (he emigrated to Australia two years later), it drew some very sharp responses. Max du Preez wrote in Star (21 Jan. 2000): [The] message of Disgrace, crudely put, is that black South Africans are revengeful of whites; that whites are not welcome in Africa unless they pay for it every day; that black and white attitudes and lifestyles are incompatible (cited in Kannemeyer 528). Athol Fugard was notoriously quoted in London Sunday Times as believing that novel was about the rape of white woman as gesture to all of evil we did in past, an idea that he dismissed as a load of bullshit (cited in Attridge 164). One could go on, but what quickly became evident in critical feeding frenzy that soon followed was that Coetzee's utilization of stark realism - new mode for him, tried out in his major fiction only once before, in parts of Age of Iron (1990) - as well as his invocation of trope as sensationally shocking and topical as farm rape, and his evident concern with racial retribution, had made it very difficult for most readers to see beyond features of politics and plot in novel.

Talking science with journalists

The media attention bestowed on scientists is like a hundred-year flood—rare but potentially overwhelming for the unprepared.

Unique Sequence of Events Triggers Manta Ray Feeding Frenzy in the Southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Manta rays are classified as Vulnerable to Extinction on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species. In Australia, a key aggregation site for reef manta rays is Lady Elliot Island (LEI) on the Great Barrier Reef, ~7 km from the shelf edge. Here, we investigate the environmental processes that triggered the largest manta ray feeding aggregation yet observed in Australia, in early 2013. We use MODIS sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a concentration and photic depth data, together with in situ data, to show that anomalous river discharges led to high chlorophyll (anomalies: 10–15 mg∙m−3) and turbid (photic depth anomalies: −15 m) river plumes extending out to LEI, and that these became entrained offshore around the periphery of an active cyclonic eddy. Eddy dynamics led to cold bottom intrusions along the shelf edge (6 °C temperature decrease), and at LEI (5 °C temperature decrease). Strongest SST gradients (>1 °C∙km−1) were at the convergent frontal zone between the shelf and eddy-influenced waters, directly overlying LEI. Here, the front intensified on the spring ebb tide to attract and shape the aggregation pattern of foraging manta rays. Future research could focus on mapping the probability and persistence of these ecologically significant frontal zones via remote sensing to aid the management and conservation of marine species.