It is not known precisely how marine mammals are able to maintain muscle function during active swimming in breath-hold dives, when ventilation stops and heart rate falls. Examination of muscle biochemistry and histochemistry can provide information on the relative importance of different metabolic pathways, the contractile potential of the muscle fibres, the oxygen storage capacity of the musc...

Persistent organic pollutants including organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and PCDDs/DFs were determined in the blubber of Caspian seals, which died during an outbreak of canine distemper virus in 2000 and 2001. DDTs were the predominant contaminants that ranged from 3.1 to 560 microg/g lipid. A negative correlation was observed between concentration of contaminants and blubber thickness. During ...

Ringed seals (Pusa hispida) are semi-aquatic marine mammals with a circumpolar Arctic distribution. In this study, we investigate the amphibious hearing capabilities of ringed seals to provide auditory profiles for this species across the full range of hearing. Using psychophysical methods with two trained ringed seals, detection thresholds for narrowband signals were measured under quiet, care...

Signaling theory provides the framework to address three main research questions: (1) How accurately do consumers notice and recollect TPA seals on retail Web sites? (2) How familiar are consumers with major TPA seals? and (3) How accurately do consumers understand the assurances represented by the TPA seals? Results of this study of three major TPA seals (TRUSTe, BBBOnLine Reliability, and Ver...

Marine mammals have lost the ability to express S-cone opsin, and possess only one type of M/L-cone in addition to numerous rods. As they are cone monochromats they should be color blind. However, early behavioral experiments with fur seals and sea lions indicated discrimination ability between many shades of grey and blue or green. On the other hand, most recent training experiments with harbo...

The seals are the important component of the aircraft engine to prevent leakage of gas or oil. Because the contact and friction problems have a great influence on the performance of the seals, the concept and theory of tribology is already widely applied in research and design processes of advanced seals. This report selected three kinds of representative seals which are co...

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs) were determined in Baikal seals (Pusa sibirica) collected from Lake Baikal to reveal their contamination status, accumulation features and temporal trends. Organohalogen compounds analyzed were detected in all the blubber samples of Baikal seals. DDTs were the most abundant co...

Waste cooking oil (WCO) is being generated large scale all over the world; hence it has devised serious problems of its waste management. Organised collection of WCO <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #...

During their long migrations through the Pacific, northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, never haul out on land and they rarely spend more than a few minutes at a time at the surface. They are almost constantly making repetitive, deep dives, raising the question of when do they rest? One type of dive, the drift dive, characterized by a time-depth profile with a phase of lower than av...