
The media hype over shark attacks reached insane levels this year. This led conservationists like Richard Branson, Shark Attack Survivors for Shark Conservation and The Pew Charitable Trusts to support efforts to restore and conserve the world’s shark populations—warning against turning an uptick in attacks into "an excuse to kill more sharks." After all, humans kill far more sharks every year—at least 100 million more—than sharks kill people.
And get this: According to Mashable, more people have died from selfies than shark attacks this year. Earlier this month, a park in Colorado had to close because too many people were getting dangerously close to bears to take selfies. And this was no isolated incident. Wildlife authorities in the Lake Tahoe area, Yellowstone National Park and other recreation areas have repeatedly cautioned visitors against getting too close to bears, bison and other large animals.
My first #bearselfie of 2015 & hopefully not last! #alaska #bristolbay #katmai http://t.co/ty2BoVzPG3— Louisa Chu (@Louisa Chu)1435881596.0
The #BisonSelfie is really a thing and it’s terrifying. http://t.co/zynqrY7AgQ http://t.co/SWkNrAq2Ip— KPAX Missoula News (@KPAX Missoula News)1440020114.0
The latest death by selfie happened when a 66-year-old Japanese tourist died, and his travel companion was injured, after falling down stairs while attempting to take a selfie at the Taj Mahal. "The man's death raises the selfie toll this year to 12," says Mashable. "To put that in perspective, in 2015 there have so far been eight deaths caused by shark attacks."
This seems like a joke right? Sadly, it's not. "Other deaths have been caused by distracted photo-takers falling off cliffs, crashing their cars, being hit by trains, and even shooting themselves while posing with guns," said Science Alert. "It's not clear if the number of daredevil selfies is increasing, but more and more tourists are making headlines because of their dangerous attempts at a memorable photo," says Mashable.
This has left many prominent places no choice but to ban selfies or—at least selfie sticks in the case of Disney. Pamplona banned selfies at its famed running of the bulls last year. The Tour de France is concerned about selfies endangering people, too.
Nearly died talking #TDFselfie🚲💨 http://t.co/xect1YjZIP— Zoe (@Zoe)1404665283.0
Australia has issues with dare devils taking selfies too. They can't get people to stop taking pictures on this rock that is on the verge of crumbling into the ocean.
#weddingcakerock #GorillaSquad http://t.co/rSYidPSkB3— 松下 巽 (@松下 巽)1423449247.0
And it's been such a problem in Russia that the government launched a campaign to warn people about the dangers of selfies.
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By Aaron W Hunter
A chance discovery of a beautifully preserved fossil in the desert landscape of Morocco has solved one of the great mysteries of biology and paleontology: how starfish evolved their arms.
The Pompeii of palaeontology. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<h2></h2><p>Although starfish might appear very robust animals, they are typically made up of lots of hard parts attached by ligaments and soft tissue which, upon death, quickly degrade. This means we rely on places like the Fezouata formations to provide snapshots of their evolution.</p><p>The starfish fossil record is patchy, especially at the critical time when many of these animal groups first appeared. Sorting out how each of the various types of ancient starfish relate to each other is like putting a puzzle together when many of the parts are missing.</p><h2>The Oldest Starfish</h2><p><em><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/216101v1.full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cantabrigiaster</a></em> is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. It was discovered in 2003, but it has taken over 17 years to work out its true significance.</p><p>What makes <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> unique is that it lacks almost all the characteristics we find in brittle stars and starfish.</p><p>Starfish and brittle stars belong to the family Asterozoa. Their ancestors, the Somasteroids were especially fragile - before <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> we only had a handful of specimens. The celebrated Moroccan paleontologist Mohamed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.06.041" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ben Moula</a> and his local team was instrumental in discovering <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018216302334?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">these amazing fossils</a> near the town of Zagora, in Morocco.</p><h2>The Breakthrough</h2><p>Our breakthrough moment came when I compared the arms of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> with those of modern sea lilles, filter feeders with long feathery arms that tend to be attached to the sea floor by a stem or stalk.</p><p>The striking similarity between these modern filter feeders and the ancient starfish led our team from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University to create a new analysis. We applied a biological model to the features of all the current early Asterozoa fossils in existence, along with a sample of their closest relatives.</p>Cantabrigiaster is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<p>Our results demonstrate <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> is the most primitive of all the Asterozoa, and most likely evolved from ancient animals called crinoids that lived 250 million years before dinosaurs. The five arms of starfish are a relic left over from these ancestors. In the case of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em>, and its starfish descendants, it evolved by flipping upside-down so its arms are face down on the sediment to feed.</p><p>Although we sampled a relatively small numbers of those ancestors, one of the unexpected outcomes was it provided an idea of how they could be related to each other. Paleontologists studying echinoderms are often lost in detail as all the different groups are so radically different from each other, so it is hard to tell which evolved first.</p>President Joe Biden officially took office Wednesday, and immediately set to work reversing some of former President Donald Trump's environmental policies.
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