New snake species discovered

Biologists have discovered a new species of stiletto snake living in western Liberia and south-eastern Guinea.

While conducting field surveys among the region’s forests, herpetologists identified three unique stiletto snake specimens.

The research team named the new species Atractaspis branchi, or Branch’s stiletto snake — in honour of William Roy Branch, an accomplished African herpetologist.

The discovery, detailed in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution, offers additional evidence of the region’s rich biodiversity.

Stiletto snakes are sometimes called side-stabbing snakes because a single sideways-pointing fang allows them to strike and inject their prey with venom from the side. The unusual snakes can even perform a sideways strike with a closed mouth.

Sometimes called mole vipers or burrowing asps, most stiletto snakes aren’t venomous enough to hurt humans, but a few species produce venom toxic enough to cause tissue necrosis.

Vermont town elects goat mayor

A Vermont town is hailing the election of its unusual new mayor: a three-year-old Nubian goat named Lincoln.

Town Manager Joe Gunther said he decided to hold an election for an animal mayor of Fair Haven, which does not have a human mayor, as a means of raising money to replace a school playground.

Residents were given the chance to nominate their pets for the mayoral office in exchange for a $5 donation toward the playground cause. Lincoln bested the second-place finisher, a dog named Sammie, by only two votes.

Gunther said Lincoln will be sworn into office at a Select Board meeting. He said she will serve a one-year term with duties including marching in the Memorial Day parade.

“Fair Haven Fridays, the occasional show-up, spring fling, all the major functions,” Gunther told.

He said the election turned into an educational opportunity for the town’s children.

“Originally, we did it as a fundraiser to replace the playground behind the school, but it really turned into a small civics lesson for the children.

Woolly mammoth nuclei comes alive inside mouse cells

Scientists extracted cell nuclei from the bone marrow and muscle of a well-preserved, 28,000-year-old mammoth recovered from the Siberian permafrost in 2011. In the lab, researchers implanted the nuclei inside mouse oocytes, ovary cells, that can divide to form egg cells.

A handful of the mouse oocytes hosted biological activity, the biochemical reactions that precede cell division. The observations also suggested the injection of mammoth nuclei triggered DNA repair machinery in mouse oocytes.

Researchers described the activity in the journal Scientific Reports.

The breakthrough marks a ‘significant step toward bringing mammoths back from the dead,’ Kei Miyamoto, a member of the research team at Kindai University, told.

However, none of the mouse cells implanted with mammoth nuclei performed cell division, a key step in reanimating the long-extinct mammoth.

“We want to move our study forward to the stage of cell division,” said Miyamoto. “We still have a long way to go.”

Miyamoto and his colleagues are working with researchers in Russia to bring mammoths back to life using cloning technology called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 30th, 2019