Liz Devitt
As seen in:
Nature,
Slate,
Science Magazine,
Mongabay,
Sierra Magazine,
Trellis,
RealClear Science,
Bay Nature Magazine,
Science News for Students,
Ensia
and
Veterinarian-turned-science writer. my beat is wherever there are stories to share about medicine, health, animals and the environment. Tanguera, too.
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Articles by Liz Devitt
The Other COVID Nurses
This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an online magazine about nature and sustainability powered by the California Academy of Sciences. Under the glare of surgical lights, the exposed muscle of an opossum’s right forearm gleams. The limb lies at an awkward angle above the elbow, telltale evidence of a broken humerus. The rest of the opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is almost completely covered by a neat mosaic of blue and green surgical drapes.
The Other Covid Nurses
The Other Covid Nurses Caring for sick and injured wildlife has always been challenging, but during the pandemic, for many rehabilitators, it has become a grueling, 24/7 labor of love. Zak Mertz, director of the Cape Cod branch of the New England Wildlife Rescue Center, holds an injured swan in a cranberry bog in Carver, Massachusetts. Liz Devitt Images by Lauren Owens Lambert UNDER THE GLARE of surgical lights, the exposed muscle of an opossum’s right forearm gleams.
Drones might one day capture a dolphin’s breath in midair
If you’ve ever had trouble catching your breath, try catching a dolphin’s. The plume produced when these “whales” come up for air could reveal signs of how healthy they are. But capturing samples of the spray from agile, skittish wild dolphins is challenging. To make the task easier, a team of engineers has turned to the dolphin’s chuff. This is the forceful exhale that sends water, air and mucus hurtling skyward from the animal’s blowhole. Their first step: getting good data on the fluid’s flow.
Seals: Catching a ‘corkscrew’ killer
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — For seven years, scientists in Scotland puzzled over peculiar wounds found on more than 100 dead seals. A single, clean cut spiraled around each seal’s body. Strikes from ship propellers usually leave deep, parallel lines. Shark bites make jagged tears. And the neat, spiral wounds couldn’t have come from another animal. At least, that’s what everyone had thought. Until now. New video shows the seal killer is indeed alive — and another marine mammal.
Artificial chicken grown from cells gets a taste test-but who will regulate it?
The quest for artificial meat inches forward—the company Memphis Meats announced today it has developed chicken and duck meat from cultured cells of each bird, producing “clean poultry.” The firm provided few details, although participants at a tasting reportedly said the chicken tasted like, well, chicken. Below is a repost of a story originally published 23 August 2016 on some of the regulatory challenges and questions facing Memphis Meats and other companies pursuing artificial meats.
Gilead under pressure to produce stand-alone version of new HIV drug
In 2001, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new HIV medication called tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF). Patient advocates hailed the decision, noting that it represented the first novel antiviral agent to get the green light after the FDA turned down a similar drug two years earlier. But a lot changes in a decade. For one thing, the maker of TDF, Gilead Sciences of Foster City, California, has a newer, better formulation of tenofovir, called tenofovir alafenamide (TAF).
Cool Jobs: Linking animal health to human health
Getting a cold is never fun. For mountain gorillas, sniffles can turn into a serious illness. And sometimes people can start that sneeze-fest in great apes and other animals. Wildlife veterinarian Kirsten Gilardi worries about human viruses that can cause colds and other ailments in gorillas. She co-directs the Gorilla Doctors program. It is based at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). Along with teams of other veterinarians, Gilardi protects the health of endangered great apes in Africa.
Who Will Regulate Lab-Grown Meat? | RealClearScience
The quest for artificial meat inches forward—the company Memphis Meats announced today it has developed chicken and duck meat from cultured cells of each bird, producing “clean poultry.” The firm provided few details, although participants at a tasting reportedly said the chicken tasted like, well, chicken. Below is a repost of a story originally published 23 August 2016 on some of the regulatory challenges and questions facing Memphis Meats and other companies pursuing artificial meats.
Can aquaculture save wild fish populations?
When the world is staring down a population that’s pushing quickly toward nine billion people, aquaculture offers an efficient way to produce high-protein food for the hungry masses. But there’s a catch: While fish are feeding the multitudes of people, there may not be enough left for other fish to eat. As the farming of fish, shrimp and mollusks expands, the old adage about “plenty of fish in the sea” may no longer ring true.
Protecting Marine Protected Areas
Unlike protected lands, marine protected areas can’t be staked with signposts?—?and, without clear boundaries, mariners can easily drift into areas where they don’t belong. But there might be a technological fix for that dilemma. Worldwide, there are more than 13,500 MPAs, according to the Marine Conservation Institute, a non-profit organization based in Seattle.
Protecting Marine Protected Areas
When a large swath of the Ross Sea in Antarctica earned marine protected area (MPA) status late last year, becoming the world’s largest MPA, it was hailed as an ocean conservation victory. Officially designating the territory as protected may only be the beginning of protecting it, though. Unlike protected lands, these waters can’t be staked with signposts — and without clear boundaries, mariners can easily drift into areas where they don’t belong.
Contest aims to reduce toll of aquaculture on wild fish | Ensia
When the world is staring down a population that’s pushing quickly toward 9 billion people, aquaculture offers an efficient way to produce high-protein food for the hungry masses. But there’s a catch: While fish are feeding the multitudes of people, there may not be enough left for other fish to eat. As the farming of fish, shrimp and mollusks expands, the old adage about “plenty of fish in the sea” may no longer ring true.
Restoring seagrass under siege
You need a boogie board and a wetsuit to garden with Katharyn Boyer, a biology professor at San Francisco State University in California. They come in handy along the shorelines of the San Francisco Bay where Boyer and her colleagues are replanting eelgrass. For more than a decade, she’s experimented with methods to replenish these underwater plants that create key habitats and buffer zones for coastal ecosystems.
Sea Otter Adoptees Born in Elkhorn Slough
It’s low tide at Moss Landing and the mudflats add a sulfur scent to the salty air. Cormorants, gulls, pelicans, and a smattering of shorebirds ignore our small motorboat puttering through the calm waters of Elkhorn Slough, an estuary that winds east through farm fields. To my left, a sea otter rolls onto his back, slurping the length of a red, fat innkeeper worm like a strand of spaghetti.
The lionfish invasion: A call to arms?
A battle is brewing in southeastern U.S. waters, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea: it’s the lionfish against all comers. With voracious appetites and virtually no predators, these invasive fish are damaging reefs and fisheries. Oblivious to their enemy status, the lionfish are winning this war — for now. The quest to remove this unwelcome guest is spawning inventions that range from underwater robots to fish traps armed with special recognition software.
Why Cities Like Austin and Portland Are So Enamored of the Word Weird
About 15 years ago, an independent bookseller in Texas went to battle against the specter of mega-bookstore invasion. His weapon of choice was something a purveyor of books knew best: a word. And the word was weird. KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD was coined by the librarian Red Wassenich while on the phone with a local radio station. But the phrase was adopted when Steve Bercu, owner of the Austin, Texas, bookstore Book People, needed a slogan to rally objection to a planned Borders store a few blocks away.
Artificial chicken grown from cells gets a taste test-but who will regulate it?
The quest for artificial meat inches forward—the company Memphis Meats announced today it has developed chicken and duck meat from cultured cells of each bird, producing “clean poultry.” The firm provided few details, although participants at a tasting reportedly said the chicken tasted like, well, chicken. Below is a repost of a story originally published 23 August 2016 on some of the regulatory challenges and questions facing Memphis Meats and other companies pursuing artificial meats.
Seals: Catching a ‘corkscrew’ killer
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — For seven years, scientists in Scotland puzzled over peculiar wounds found on more than 100 dead seals. A single, clean cut spiraled around each seal’s body. Strikes from ship propellers usually leave deep, parallel lines. Shark bites make jagged tears. And the neat, spiral wounds couldn’t have come from another animal. At least, that’s what everyone had thought. Until now. New video shows the seal killer is indeed alive — and another marine mammal.
Researchers less willing to share study details, according to journal’s survey
Researchers are increasingly reluctant to share the background details of their studies with other scientists according to new results from a survey of authors who published papers in the Annals of Internal Medicine in the last five years. This downward trend in researchers’ willingness to disclose such information is, unfortunately, at odds with the current surge in efforts to facilitate access to the types of study specifics that are vital to reproducing results.
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