Trump Administration Seeks to Lift Protections for Lesser Prairie Chicken in Texas Court

The Trump administration has taken steps to revoke federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a vibrant grouse unfortunate enough to inhabit the southern and central grasslands, which have long been targeted for agricultural and energy development.

In a court filing on Wednesday, officials stated that the Fish and Wildlife Service mistakenly made a decision during the Biden era to classify these birds as endangered.

This move exemplifies the ongoing efforts of the White House to dilute or eliminate environmental regulations that hinder Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

Furthermore, it marks yet another development in the ongoing struggle for the species, a battle that has persisted for 30 years.

Known for their unique courtship rituals of stomping, tail feather flicking, and “flapping,” the lesser prairie chicken’s population has plummeted from hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to only about 30,000 due primarily to habitat loss.

“President Trump will always advocate for the elimination of burdensome regulations affecting the American agriculture sector, particularly as numerous ranchers voluntarily engage in protecting lesser prairie chicken habitats,” stated White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

The filing, submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, aims to reevaluate the bird’s status by November 30, 2026.

While the species currently lacks protection under the Endangered Species Act, the filing asserted that “there are at least 16 different conservation initiatives and programs administered by state, federal, and private entities.”

Despite this, conservationists foresaw that the service would be under no obligation to reevaluate the species on its own timeline and would likely need to take legal action to prompt a review.

“The Trump administration is once again yielding to the fossil fuel industry, ignoring sound science and common sense while jeopardizing at-risk species,” stated Jason Rylander, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“A political decision to remove protections for endangered species is one that would not hold up in court,” he added, noting his group’s involvement in the issue.

Back in 1998, federal wildlife officials acknowledged that fewer grassland chickens warranted conservation efforts but initially prioritized other species. This led to the bird being tangled in a legal battle, fluctuating in and out of protected status.

In 2022, protections for the lesser prairie chicken were reinstated under President Biden, which split the species into two distinct populations: the southern population (encompassing eastern New Mexico and eastern Texas) and the northern population (covering central Kansas, western Oklahoma, central Texas, and the northeastern Panhandle).

The oil and ranch sectors faced lawsuits in 2023, similar to those filed in Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Currently, the Trump administration contends that the Fish and Wildlife Service mischaracterized the species as a cohesive group and is “precisely contaminating” the validity of this assessment.

The major global authority on species, the United Nations List for Nature Conservation, classifies the lesser prairie chicken as vulnerable, similar to the U.S. endangered list.

Rylander from the Center for Biological Diversity stated his intention to challenge federal motions in the days ahead. The struggle over the lesser prairie chicken continues as scientists warn about unprecedented levels of biodiversity loss in human history.

Temperate grasslands are recognized as among the most endangered ecosystems globally.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Researchers develop chicken nuggets cultured in the biggest laboratory ever, complete with synthetic veins

A significant breakthrough has been made in the field of cultured meat, with scientists successfully growing nugget-sized chicken using a new method that enables the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to artificial tissues.

In the past, lab-produced tissues were limited to cell spheres less than a millimeter thick, making it challenging to replicate the texture of real muscle. However, a team of Japanese researchers has now managed to grow a chicken measuring 2.7 inches wide and 0.7 inches thick using a new lab tool, marking a major step forward in this technology. Biotechnology trends.

The development of bioreactors that mimic the circulation system has played a crucial role in this breakthrough, with 50 hollow fibers distributing nutrients and oxygen into the meat to allow cells to grow in a specific direction.

This lab-grown chicken, although not made from food-grade ingredients and not yet tasted by scientists, showcases the potential of this technology for various applications beyond food production.

As the technology advances, challenges such as replicating the texture and flavor of traditional meat and improving oxygen delivery for larger pieces still need to be addressed. Automation of the process and the use of food-grade ingredients are crucial steps towards making lab-grown meat commercially viable.

Consumer attitudes towards cultured meat vary, with some expressing concerns about its safety and perceived unnaturalness. Despite these challenges, cultured meat is already available in some markets and holds promise for a more sustainable future.

The future of cultured meat holds potential for significant advancements in food production, regenerative medicine, drug testing, and biohybrid robotics, paving the way for a more sustainable and innovative future.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Artificial capillaries could improve texture of lab-grown chicken

The machine delivers nutrient-rich liquids to artificial chicken fibers

Takeuchi, University of Tokyo

Thick-sized chicken fillets are grown in the lab using small tubes, mimicking the capillaries found in real muscles. Researchers say this gives the product a texture of Chue.

When growing thick pieces of cultured meat, one major problem is that the central cells are dead and broken because they don’t get enough oxygen or nutrients. Takeuchi Kami At the University of Tokyo.

“This leads to necrosis and makes it difficult to grow meat with texture and taste,” he says. “Our goal was to solve this by creating a way that evenly delivers cells throughout the tissue, as blood vessels do within the body. “What if we could use hollow fibers to create artificial capillaries?”

The fibers used by Takeuchi and his colleagues were inspired by similar hollow tubes used in the medical industry, such as kidney dialysis. To create lab-grown meat, the team essentially wanted to create an artificial circulation system. “Dialysis fibers are used to filter waste from the blood,” Takeuchi says. “Our fibers are designed to feed live cells.”

First, researchers 3D printed small frames to hold and grow cultured meat, and installed over 1,000 hollow fibers using robotic tools. This sequence was then embedded in a gel containing living cells.

“We created a ‘meat growth device’ using a hollow fiber array,” Takeuchi says. “We placed collagen gel around the cells and fibers of live chickens. Then we poured nutrient-rich liquid into the hollow fibers, allowing them to flow through capillaries. For several days the cells were aligned with the muscle tissue and formed a thick, steak-like structure.”

The resulting cultured chicken weighed 11 grams and was 2 cm thick. Takeuchi says that the texture was improved as the tissues had a one-way alignment of muscle fibers. “We also discovered that the heart of meat is healthy and healthy, unlike the way the centre dies.”

While meat was not considered suitable for human taste testing, mechanical analysis showed good bite and flavor markers, Takeuchi says.

Manipulating hollow fibers could potentially allow you to simulate different meat fillets, he says. “Changing the spacing, direction, or flow patterns of the fibers may allow us to mimic a variety of textures, including softer, chewy meats.”

Johannes Le Cartre While an impressive study at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he says the process is difficult to implement on an industrial scale. “[The] The Holy Grail across this sector is expanding new technology,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

What makes the “headless chicken monster” a deep-sea ninja that survives on poop?

Sea cucumbers are related to sea urchins and starfish. They typically rest on the ocean floor and are not very active, similar to plants. However, in the deep sea, sea cucumbers exhibit different behaviors.

Resembling the twirling skirts of flamenco dancers, the Spanish Dancers are transparent ruby-red creatures that gracefully swim and float with the ocean currents in the deep sea, wearing their webbed cloaks. Also known as the “Remarkable Dreamer” (Enypniastes excimia).

They also have a more grotesque alias: the headless chicken monster. It looks like a plucked chicken carcass tossed into the sea and can grow up to 25cm (9 inches) long. The part that resembles a neck after decapitation is actually its mouth, surrounded by feeding tentacles. When it settles on the ocean floor, it uses its tentacles to scoop sediment into its mouth.


Like other sea cucumbers, they feed on marine snow, which is a shower of organic debris sinking from the ocean surface. It includes dead plankton and their feces bound together by a sticky microbial glue.

This swimming sea cucumber was discovered in the 1870s by scientists on a Royal Navy battleship during the famous ocean expedition known as the Challenger. They inhabit all oceans, including near Antarctica, at depths ranging from 500 meters (1,600 feet) to at least 6,000 meters (about 19,600 feet).

Due to their high water content, they are fragile, and collecting specimens often damages them. To observe them live, scientists rely on remote-controlled deep-diving robots with video cameras to get a clear picture of their appearance this century.

Thanks to their hydrated bodies, they have neutral buoyancy, enabling them to swim without much effort. This is a vital survival strategy in the deep sea where food is scarce.

Through their see-through bodies, you can see their coiled digestive tract filled with pale sediment. Before propelling into the water column, they expel their cleaned sediment waste, similar to dropping ballast sandbags from a hot air balloon.

By mixing and aerating the ocean floor, they contribute to the ecosystem like earthworms do on land. They can also illuminate their bodies, which helps them navigate in the dark.

When threatened, their skin glows and flakes off, acting as a warning signal to predators. Lab studies showed that they can quickly regenerate their skin and retain their glowing ability.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

1.5 Billion Pixel Masterpiece Captures The Running Chicken Nebula

The Running Chicken Nebula is made up of several clouds, all of which can be seen in this expansive image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) hosted at ESO’s Paranal Site. His 1.5 billion pixel image spans an area of ​​the sky the size of about 25 full moons. The cloud, marked by a wispy pink plume, is filled with gas and dust and lit by young, hot stars within it. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ Team. Acknowledgment: CASU

of ESO has released a detailed image of the Running Chicken Nebula, located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Centauri. This 1.5 billion pixel image of his captured by VST highlights young stars and regions such as IC 2948 and IC 2944, providing a cosmic treat for the eyes.

Many holiday traditions include a feast of turkey, buckwheat, latkes, or pan de pascua, but this year the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is bringing you the holiday chicken. The so-called Running Chicken Nebula, home to the birth of young stars, is revealed in stunning detail in this 1.5 billion pixel image captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Site in Chile. It has become.

This vast stellar nursery is located in the constellation Centaurus, about 6,500 light-years from Earth. Young stars in this nebula emit intense radiation that makes the surrounding hydrogen gas glow pink.

The Running Chicken Nebula is actually made up of several regions, all of which can be seen in this vast image spanning an area of ​​the sky the size of about 25 full moons.[1] The brightest region in the nebula is called IC 2948, where some people can see the head of a chicken, while others can see the back end. The wispy pastel outlines are fantastic plumes of gas and dust. His IC 2944 is characterized by a bright vertical, almost columnar structure towards the center of the image. The brightest sparkle in this particular area is lambda centauria star visible to the naked eye that is much closer to us than the nebula itself.

The Running Chicken Nebula is made up of several clouds, the most prominent of which are labeled in this expansive image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) hosted at ESO’s Paranal Site. The bright star, named Lambda Centauri, is actually much closer than the nebula itself and can be seen with the naked eye. The cloud, marked by a faint pink plume, is filled with gas and dust and lit by young, hot stars within it. In total, this image spans an area of ​​about 25 full moons in the sky, one of which is shown to scale for reference. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ Team. Acknowledgment: CASU

But IC 2948 and IC 2944 themselves are full of young stars. And while they may be bright, they are definitely not cheerful. They tear through the environment like chickens, spewing massive amounts of radiation. Some regions of the nebula, known as Bok globules, can withstand the intense assault of ultraviolet radiation that spreads through this region. If you zoom in on the image, you may see small, dark pockets of dense dust and gas scattered throughout the nebula.

Other areas pictured here include gums 39 and 40 in the upper right and gum 41 in the lower right. In addition to the nebula, the sky is filled with countless orange, white, and blue stars like fireworks. Overall, this image is a wonder that cannot be explained. Zooming in and moving around the screen can be a feast for the eyes.

This 3D animation of the Running Chicken Nebula imagines what it would be like to fly near a swirling cloud of gas and dust. This video is based on real images from the VLT Survey Telescope hosted on his Paranal site in ESO. However, the 3D positions of the stars shown here are for reference only. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ Team. Acknowledgment: CASU

This image is a large mosaic made of hundreds of individual frames carefully stitched together. Individual images are taken through filters that pass different colors of light and combined into the final result shown here.Observations were made with a wide-field camera omega cam in VSTis a telescope owned by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and hosted by ESO at the Paranal site in Chile’s Atacama Desert, perfect for mapping the southern sky in visible light. The data used to create this mosaic were acquired as part of his VST photometric Hα survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), a project aimed at better understanding the life cycle of stars.

This diagram shows the location of the Running Chicken Nebula (IC2944) in the large constellation south of the constellation Centaurus (Centaurus). This map shows most of the stars visible to the naked eye under good conditions, and the location of the nebula itself is marked with a red circle. Although the star cluster associated with this nebula, IC 2948, is easily seen with small telescopes, the nebula is very faint and was only discovered in photographs in the early 20th century. Credits: ESO, IAU, Sky & Telescope

Note

  1. This image spans 270 light years from edge to edge. It takes the average chicken almost 21 billion years to run through it. That’s a long time since our universe has existed.

Access full size 3.9 GB image here.

Source: scitechdaily.com

The Chicken Nebula’s Best Image Ever Captured by OmegaCAM

astronomer using omega cam meter is on ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) captured 1.5 billion pixel image A vast stellar nursery called the Running Chicken Nebula.



The Running Chicken Nebula is made up of several clouds, all of which can be seen in this OmegaCAM/VST image. Image credit: ESO / VPHAS+ Team / CASU.

of running chicken nebulaThe star, also known as IC 2944, is located in the constellation Centaurus, about 6,500 light-years from Earth.

ESO astronomers said in a statement: “The Running Chicken Nebula is actually made up of several regions, all of which can be seen in this vast image, spanning an area of ​​the sky roughly the size of 25 full moons. ” he said.

“The brightest region in the nebula is IC 2948There, some people see the chicken’s head, and others see the butt. ”

“The wispy pastel outlines are fantastic plumes of gas and dust.”

“IC 2944 is characterized by a bright, vertical, almost column-like structure toward the center of the image.”

“The brightest glow in this particular area is lambda centauri, a star visible to the naked eye that is much closer to us than the nebula itself. ”

But IC 2948 and IC 2944 themselves are full of young stars. And while they may be bright, they are definitely not cheerful.

“They cut through their environment in the same way as chickens, exhaling enormous amounts of radiation,” the astronomers said.

“Some regions of the nebula, known as the Bok globules, can withstand the intense assault of ultraviolet radiation that spreads through this region.”

“If you zoom in on the image, you may see small, dark, dense pockets of dust and gas scattered throughout the nebula.”

“Other areas depicted here include: gum 39 and gum 40, there is gum 41 in the bottom right. ”

“Besides the nebula, there are countless orange, white, and blue stars in the sky, like fireworks.”

“Overall, this image is a wonder that cannot be explained. It’s a feast for the eyes as you zoom in and pan around.”

“This image is a large mosaic made of hundreds of individual frames carefully stitched together.”

“Individual images were taken through filters that let different colors of light through and combined into the final result presented here.”

“The data used to create this mosaic was acquired as part of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), a project aimed at better understanding the life cycle of stars. .”

Source: www.sci.news