Numerous cultures came to value Ivory tusks as quality material in art and manufacturing. People have also linked certain health advantages to its organic composition. Unfortunately, such a market trend proved to be detrimental to the well-being of different populations of animals such as hippopotamus, mammoth, narwhal or walrus. However, the ivory trade affected African and Asian elephants most by far. Researchers observed that the smart animals adapted their daily routine to escape from the greedy hands of poachers.

Researchers Tracked Elephant and Poacher Activity in Real Time

Usually, elephants like many other types of herds are extremely strict when it comes to their routine. They used to look for food in broad daylight and use the benefit of bright light to migrate. For rest times, they take advantage of the cover of darkness to sleep a few hours while still standing on their feet.

However, researchers started noticing sudden shifts in elephants’ behavior. This event coincided with the rise of global trade in ivory. This perpetual hunt for their tusk led them to praise nocturnal behavior better. Therefore, the giant mammals are now traveling under the protection of the night. During daytime, they rest in hiding places.

Festus Ihwagi is yet to publish his study. Nonetheless, he announced some pretty insightful findings. The researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands tracked down 50 members of a herd through GPS devices for ten years starting with 2002.

The study covered the entire period of the poaching crisis. He collaborated with NGO Save the Elephants and Kenya Wildlife Service which helped him monitor every move of 28 females and 32 males around the Laikipia-Samburu environment.

Researchers kept track of when exactly elephants migrated the most in 24 hours. Another set of data was withdrawn from the Illegal Killing of Elephant database and regarded poachers’ highly active hours during the day and night.

The Ivory Trade Led Elephants to Turn into Nocturnal Mammals

This is how they found out that poachers still preferred to start their illegal activities during the day. On the other hand, GPS trackers signaled how elephants started to increase their nocturnal migration. This way, elephants showed that they fear humans more than any other predators.

Their adapted behavior might save elephants from poachers, but they face greater threats at night. Lions and hyenas have excellent night time vision that makes it easy for them to hunt young calves as they are not hiding at night any longer. In the past decade, the ivory trade reduced the elephant populations from 415,000 members to only 111,000.
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Google made it a habit of creating unique doodles with its logo inspired by worldwide events and celebrations. However, soon afterward users were hooked on the smart mechanisms and visuals behind this tradition. Therefore, the company took advantage of this earned momentum to promote personalities and other noteworthy concepts. The latest doodle celebrated the 100th birthday of a pioneering chemist. This is about Sir John Cornforth.

Cornforth Didn’t Allow His Deafness to Impair His Academical Career

Sir John ‘Warcup’ Cornforth was an Australian-British scientist who broke new ground in the field of chemistry. Thanks to his life achievements, Google created a doodle to celebrate him as part of the long line of prominent characters and events that pertain to the history of the world.

The most noteworthy detail regarding Cornforth’s personal life is losing his hearing incrementally. At the age of 20, he was completely deaf. While some people would have given up their dreams at this point, Cornforth proved that his love for science was greater than the hurtful challenges of life.

Therefore, he didn’t give up on his higher education. As he wasn’t able to hear the lectures anymore at his University of Sydney, he withdrew to his chamber to study the textbooks on his own. Eventually, he managed to graduate in 1937 as the first of his class.

Cornforth Became a Pioneering Chemist When He Started Experimenting in the Field of Enzymes

Cornforth received a medal for academic excellence. Afterwards, he moved to England together with his wife where they both received scholarships to continue their studies at Oxford.

During the World War II, Cornforth focused on purifying and concentrating penicillin which was a vital drug for treating soldiers of the British Army. However, his most significant work that elevated him to the level of a pioneering chemist was within the field of enzymes.

Cornforth started experiments at Shell’s Milstead Laboratory of Chemical Enzymology. He eventually managed to replace hydrogen atoms with enzymes that trigger a change in compounds. His work brought him the Nobel Prize in 1975 and aided subsequent scientists in developing cholesterol-lowering medicine that helped millions of patients.
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When Lou Tomosoki was but a boy at Marshall High School in Oregon, people weren’t welcoming a special astronomical event with such intensity as in today’s world. Therefore, he and his friend didn’t find it dangerous to witness a partial solar eclipse in 1962 without protection. It happened that they looked up in the sky to see how the sun became a black abyss with a silver halo. Unfortunately, this experience left him with a partial blindness.

Lou Tomosoki and His Friend Paid Their Unprotected Glance at the Eclipse with Partial Blindness

Lou Tomosoki recounted how he had seen flashes of light within seconds after he gazed at the partial solar eclipse. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware that the sun was still powerful enough to inflict permanent damages. As a consequence, both he and his friend became the victims of the 1962 eclipse. Tomosoki can’t see well with his right eye while his friend lost accuracy in his left one.

The 70-year-old Oregon City local claimed that his teachers instructed them on what to do when the phenomenon appears to seize this opportunity. The main focus was to avoid looking directly at the eclipse. Instead, adults told them to gaze through a pinhole projector box. This way, they would only see a projection of the stellar event.

Even During an Eclipse, Sun Rays Can Still Damage the Retina

Lou Tomosoki was just another victim of the sun. His condition is called solar retinopathy. This happens when people look directly at the sun. In this time, the powerful rays are damaging the retina. It appears as a blind spot in the center of the eye and causes partial blindness.

The thing that makes solar eclipses dangerous is that people believe that the moon makes the sun rays less powerful during the day. Therefore, they would look at the eclipse without protection. However, the reality is that the sun is as powerful as ever. Therefore, it can still impair eyesight and even the sensors of a smartphone camera.
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