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There are approximately 1,200 species of bats
worldwide. Of that total, only six are known to roost with heads
pointed upwards. These are all quite rare, and little was known
about why they roosted head-up. It was thought that they clung
on by suction and they were called Sucker-Footed Bats, but it
has recently been discovered that a species of bat in
Madagascar,
Myzopoda aurita,
uses wet adhesion to attach itself to surfaces,
secreting a fluid, possibly sweat, that enables the pads on the
bats’ wrists and ankles to attach to surfaces.
Myzopoda literally means ’sucker-foot’. You can’t
change Latin names so it’s stuck with it. The bat is a small
creature about two inches long and weighing one-third of an
ounce. They roost on the slick surface of broad, fan-like leaves
located high off the ground in an indigenous tree called
Travellers Palm.
 A
new approach to Water Desalination could lead to small portable
units for disaster areas or remote locations. The new approach,
called ion concentration polarisation works at a microscopic
scale, using fabrication methods developed for microfluidics
devises—similar to the manufacture of microchips, but using
materials such as silicone.
Each individual device would only process
minute amounts of water, but a large number of them—the
researchers envisage an array with 1600 units fabricated on an
8” diameter wafer—could produce about 15 litres of water an
hour, enough to provide drinking water for several people. The
whole unit could be self-contained and driven by gravity– salt
water would be poured in at the top, and fresh water and
concentrated brine collected from two outlets at the bottom.
The researchers so far have tested a single
unit using salt water and the unit removed more than 99% of the
salt and other contaminants clearly demonstrating that it can be
done at the unit chip level. While the amount of electricity
required by this method is slightly more than the present
large-scale methods such as reverse osmosis, there is no other
method that can produce small-scale desalination with anywhere
near this level of efficiency. If properly engineered the
proposed system would only use about as much power as a
conventional light bulb.
A large Box Crab was netted at great depth
while fishing for Turbot by Matthew Keast on fishing vessel
Harvest Reaper based in Newlyn, when 80 miles west of the Scilly
Isles.
This large Crab is one of only a handful of
specimens caught since records began in 1900. In the genus
Calappa it is not reported which of the 41 species in this genus
this crab is, but it can be seen alive at the Blue Reef Aquarium
at NewquaY.
There were 12 reported sightings of
Bottlenose Dolphins during April, three of these sightings were
on the 6th in St Ives Bay, seen in the morning, afternoon and
evening so the same pod spent all day in the area. A pod was
seen off Newquay on 23rd, 25th and 26th. Single Bottlenose were
seen off Botallack, Porthgwarra and Gamper Bay on different
days, and 2 were seen off Porthcurno on the 27th. The south
coast pod of 12 or more was seen in The Carrick Roads on the
9th. Pods of dolphins reported off St. Ives on the 1st and 2nd
of the month were probably also Bottlenose. A pod of 35 or more
Common Dolphins were seen off The Manacles on the 8th and a
large pod of 80 to 100 was seen off Gwennap Head on the 13th. A
pod of 50 dolphins reported off The Minack on the same day were
probably also Common Dolphins.
Three reports of Harbour Porpoises were in
the area around Porthgwarra Gwennap Head and The Runnelstone on
different days. Grey Seals were seen off Gillan, Falmouth area
and Gamper Bay, Lands End area. The first Basking Shark of the
year was seen off The Minack on the 13th. There was also the Box
Crab mentioned above.
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