The effect of coal-fired power plant (CFPP) operations on food transfer Polonium-210 (210Po) in coastal ecosystem

A coal-fired power plant (CFPP) is an option to cover a requirement of supply electrical energy, but in the process of operating, it can release several radionuclides. One of the radionuclides is 210Po which is one of the most radiotoxic natural radionuclides. 210Po radionuclides can move into the food web in marine ecosystems. The transfer of 210Po to marine ecosystems can be determined using a method of impact radiation doses on components of marine ecosystems such as plankton, coral, fish, molluscs, and crustacea. The results show that external and internal doses of 210Po were still below the screening level determined by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thus does not have an impact on the marine organism ecosystem.

Observations on the Parental Care of the Yellow–bellied Elaenia (Elaenia flavogaster subpagana)

We observed three nests of Yellow-bellied Elaenia Elaenia flavogaster subpagana in La Selva, Costa Rica. One nest had a single nestling, which was observed for 21 h in order to document incubation, breeding and feeding behaviors. We quantified number of visits per h to the nestling, as well as food transfer events and fecal sac removal, and confirmed that two parents fed the nestling. Adults visited the nest 4.9 ± 0.6/h/nestling on average. We observed 18 feeding events between adults, and five food transfer episodes of the incoming adult to the incubating adult, and then to the nestling. Food items brought to the nest included Diptera, Coleoptera, Phasmatodea, Hymenoptera, Araneae and berries.

Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools

A key feature of human prosociality is direct transfers , the most active form of sharing in which donors voluntarily hand over resources in their possession . Direct transfers buffer hunter-gatherers against foraging shortfalls. The emergence and elaboration of this behaviour thus likely played a key role in human evolution by promoting cooperative interdependence and ensuring that humans' growing energetic needs (e.g. for increasing brain size) were more reliably met. According to the strong prosociality hypothesis , among great apes only humans exhibit sufficiently strong prosocial motivations to directly transfer food. The versatile prosociality hypothesis suggests instead that while other apes may make transfers in constrained settings, only humans share flexibly across food and non-food contexts. In controlled experiments, chimpanzees typically transfer objects but not food, supporting both hypotheses. In this paper, we show in two experiments that bonobos directly transfer food but not non-food items. These findings show that, in some contexts, bonobos exhibit a human-like motivation for direct food transfer. However, humans share across a far wider range of contexts, lending support to the versatile prosociality hypothesis. Our species' unusual prosocial flexibility is likely built on a prosocial foundation we share through common descent with the other apes.