Arts, Environment, Nature, Photography

MD Photography: Eurasian Eagle-Owl…

Eurasian eagle-owl, south-west Scotland. Photograph: © Mark Dowe 2013: all rights reserved

ABOUT THE EURASIAN EAGLE-OWL

Eagle Owls occupy a variety of habitats, from coniferous forests to warm deserts. Rocky landscapes are often favoured. Adequate food supply and nesting sites seem to be the most important prerequisites.

Usually most active at dawn and dusk, the Eurasian eagle-owl has a powerful, fast flight, which is somewhat reminiscent of that of a buzzard. Hunting occurs from an open perch or in flight, and the owl may also search rock crevices for roosting birds, take both adult and young birds from nests, or even plunge into water to capture fish. The diet mainly consists of mammals, up to the size of adult hares or even young deer, as well as birds up to the size of herons and buzzards, and occasionally amphibians, reptiles, fish and insects.

The Eurasian eagle-owl usually begins breeding from late winter. The nest might be located on a sheltered cliff ledge, in a cave or crevice, in the old nest of another species (such as storks or large birds of prey), or occasionally in a tree hole or on the ground. The species has always been considered to be monogamous, but some cases of bigamy have been recorded recently. A breeding pair may use the same nest site over several years. Between one and five eggs are laid, and are incubated by the female for 34 to 36 days, during which time the male brings food to the nest. The young owls first leave the nest at around five weeks, but cannot fly until about seven weeks old, and remain dependent on the adults for a further three to four months, not generally starting to disperse until approximately 170 days old. The Eurasian eagle-owl reaches sexually maturity at 1 year, and may live up to 21 years or more in the wild, or to an impressive 60 years in captivity.

The Eurasian eagle-owl has one of the largest ranges of any eagle-owl, being found across much of Europe, through the Middle East, Russia and Asia, and as far east as China, Korea and Japan. Although generally absent from Britain and Ireland, small numbers are now beginning to breed in Britain.

This owl usually inhabits natural rocky areas with cliffs and ravines, as well as quarries and buildings, patches of woodland or scattered trees. It also occurs in open forest, taiga, wooded steppe, semi-desert, and farmland with suitable rocky areas, and can be found at elevations of up to about 2,000 metres in Europe and 4,500 metres in Central Asia and the Himalayas. More recently, this species has started to colonise urban habitats and is now breeding in several towns in Europe.

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Arts, History, Philosophy, Science, Society

Quantum Leaps: ‘Galileo Galilei’…

1564-1642

In both his life and through the imprisonment which he was forced to endure in the years leading up to his death, Galileo more than any other figure personified the optimism and struggle of the scientific revolution. He was responsible for a series of discoveries which would change our understanding of the world, while struggling against a society dominated by religious dogma, bent on suppressing his radical ideas.

Galileo Galilei, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution.

Galileo Galilei, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution.

…A Mathematician

Although he was initially encouraged to study medicine, Galileo’s passion was mathematics, and it was his belief in this subject which underpinned all of his work. One of his most significant contributions was not least his application of mathematics to the science of mechanics, forging the modern approach to experimental and mathematical physics. He would take a problem, break it down into a series of simple parts, experiment on those parts, and then analyse the results until he could describe them in a series of mathematical expressions.

One of the areas in which Galileo had most success with this method was in explaining the rules of motion. In particular, the Italian rejected many of the Aristotelian explanations of physics which had largely endured to his day. One example was Aristotle’s view that heavy objects fall towards earth faster than light ones. Through repeated experiments rolling different weighted balls down a slope (and, legend has it, dropping them from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa!), he found that they actually fell at the same rate. This led to his uniform theory of acceleration for falling bodies, which contended that in a vacuum all objects would accelerate at exactly the same rate towards earth, later proved to be true. Galileo also contradicted Aristotle in another area of motion  by contending that a thrown stone had two forces acting upon it at the same time; one which we now know as ‘momentum’ pushing it horizontally, and another pushing downwards upon it, which we now know as ‘gravity’. Galileo’s work in these areas would prove vital to Isaac Newton’s later discoveries.

…The Pendulum

Galileo’s earliest work involved the study of the pendulum, inspired by observing a lamp swinging in Pisa cathedral. Following further experiments, he concluded that a pendulum would take the same time to swing back and forth regardless of the amplitude of the swing. This would prove vital in the development of the pendulum clock, which Galileo designed and was constructed after his death by his son.

…Through The Telescope

One of the inventions Galileo is often mistakenly credited with today is the invention of the telescope. This is not true; there had been numerous early prototypes that had been mostly developed in Holland before him, and a Dutch optician called Hans Lippershey applied for a patent on his version in 1608. Galileo did, however, develop his own far superior astronomical telescope from just a description of Lippershey’s invention, and quickly employed it to make numerous discoveries. A strong advocate of the Copernican view of planetary motion, Galileo’s initial findings published in the Sidereal Messenger (1610) provided the first real physical evidence to back up this interpretation. As well as discovering craters and mountains in the moon, sunspots and the lunar phases of Venus for the first time, he also noted faint, distant stars which supported the Copernican view of a much larger universe than Ptolemy had ever considered. More importantly, he discovered Jupiter had four moons which rotated around it, directly contradicting the still commonly held view, including that of the Church, that all celestial bodies orbited earth, ‘the centre of the universe.’

…Galileo and Copernicus

Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican, in which the Ptolemaic view was ridiculed, attracted the attention of the Catholic Inquisition when it was published in 1632. Threatened with torture, Galileo renounced the Copernican System. His work was placed on the banned ‘Index’ by the Church where it remained until 1835, and he was subject to house arrest for life. But the tide of scientific revolution Galileo had helped instigate proved too powerful to hold back.

After being forced to renounce his heliocentric view of the Earth, Galileo said:

… Nevertheless, it turns!

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Britain, Health, Medical, Research, Science

A breakthrough test to tell if you really need antibiotics…

CRP TEST

A simple three-minute blood test could tell doctor’s whether a patient needs antibiotics.

Not only could this help patients avoid suffering nasty side-effects from taking unnecessary drugs, but it could also tackle one of the greatest threats to modern health – antibiotic resistance. The test tells a doctor whether the patient is suffering from a viral or bacterial infection – that way, they will know whether or not to prescribe antibiotic medication.

Antibiotics are only effective against bacteria – they do not kill viruses. Currently, the type of infection can only be confirmed with a blood test which must be analysed in a laboratory, a process that can take two to three days.

GPs say they often give antibiotics as a full-safe measure, and that patients pressure them for the pills. According to Public Health England (formerly the Health Protection Agency), if patients ask their doctor for an antibiotic, the vast majority will get one.

Over-prescribing of antibiotics has consequences both for the patient and the population. As well as causing side-effects, over-use can lead to bacteria becoming resistant, making antibiotics less effective at fighting infections. The Government’s chief medical officer has described this as ‘one of the greatest threats to modern health.’

Over the past five years alone, the number of antibiotic prescriptions has risen by 10 per cent to 41 million prescriptions at a cost of £170 million to the NHS. A third of all Britons have taken them in the past 12-months.

A simple finger-stick test could solve this ‘catastrophic threat’. The test – which involves taking a drop of blood from the finger – can tell doctors within three minutes whether an illness is caused by a bacterial infection which requires antibiotics, or a virus, which does not.

It measures a substance called C-Reactive Protein (CRP) in the blood. The amount of this protein increases when the body is fighting a bacterial infection, but not when it is fighting a virus, which triggers a different immune response.

So a doctor would know that if the CRP level was shown to be low, antibiotics would not be required.

Studies show that providing ‘proof’ that they are unnecessary to patients who demand antibiotics can significantly reduce the number of prescriptions.

One EU-funded study, presented at the World Association of Family Doctors conference in 2010, looked at how respiratory infections which are generally caused by viruses were treated by 600 GPs in six different countries. It found that antibiotic prescriptions fell by 25 per cent when doctors used the CRP test.

British scientists say the test could be a useful tool for significantly reducing antibiotic prescriptions.

A senior clinical research fellow at Cardiff University who specialises in antibiotic resistance in primary care, said:

… Unfortunately, it is very difficult to accurately determine whether an infection is viral or bacterial.

… Markers such as CRP have evolved to help where there is lingering uncertainty after a clinical assessment or where the patient has strong beliefs that antibiotics are needed.

… (However, not everyone needs the test) … Patients who appear very unwell should be treated with antibiotics or admitted to hospital without the test because they could develop complications.

… But for those patients where there is doubt, or where the GP feels antibiotics are not needed but the patient is putting pressure on to prescribe them, the test can be helpful.

The test is currently only available in laboratories in the UK (it can be carried out privately for around £50) because the NHS does not yet fund it in GP practices. The machine to analyse the test would initially cost £1,000 and then £3 per test.

A spokesman for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society says it is likely to be some time before the test is routinely available on the NHS.

… CRP testing would be a natural extension to the clinical services we offer but it will be two or three years before there is enough evidence for it to be made widely available.

Other concerns about the test are that the results are not always clear – levels of CRP also increase as a result of inflammation caused by other conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis as well as infections.

The test is deemed to be a guide and does not categorically imply that a patient has a bacterial infection if the results are synonymous with having an infection. It gives the doctor a number that has to be interpreted in light of the other symptoms and the patient’s overall risk profile.

For example, a doctor is more likely to treat an elderly person with diabetes with antibiotics than a young healthy person, as the elderly person is more likely to develop complications.

Clinical experts say the best way to reduce antibiotic prescriptions is to educate doctors and patients about common complaints and when antibiotics are necessary.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society warns that to see this test as the panacea would be an extremely dangerous idea. The Society says it needs to work hard to educate patients about when it is appropriate to take antibiotics and by making sure they take them correctly as prescribed by finishing the course.

Public Health England adds:

… CRP may be useful in a small range of infections provided the test is robustly quality controlled.

… But nothing can replace taking a detailed patient history and thorough examination.

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