On the radar

The pick of the news in science

Dorsal-fin clue to shark ID

How can you tell one White Shark from another? If you are not too busy fleeing, have a look at the dorsal fin. Michael Scholl, founder of the White Shark Trust, has recorded a database of “finprints” to identify and track individual animals – and researchers at Bristol University are now working on technology to automatically identify and record signature notches and markings.

“We are developing the software for a system that will be able to automatically recognise features of white shark dorsal fins using computer vision technology, and then archive the animal information,” said Dr Tilo Burghardt in a statement.

Human touch to turtle demise

Humans have been linked to the demise of a turtle species in the southwest Pacific – around 3,000 years ago.

A new study offers evidence that meiolaniid horned turtles survived in Vanuatu until early human settlement there.

How the giant turtles died out is unclear, but the Australian researchers reckon that bones found in Vanuatu offer an insight. "The remains are mainly leg bones; shell fragments are scant and there are no cranial or caudal elements, attesting to off-site butchering of the turtles," write the authors in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesthis week.

Sociologist Dr Donna Bobbitt- Zeher, Ohio State University, researcher on a study of only children and social skills. The findings were presented at a US conference.

– (Nature)