During the few minutes of darkness while the Moon completely blots out the Sun, the temperature drops dramatically and it becomes eerily quiet. There are some small studies and plenty of anecdotal evidence to indicate that birds head back to their nests to roost, goats come down from the mountains, and nocturnal animals prepare for a night’s foraging.

Members of Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe, a voluntary organisation made up mostly of amateur wildlife enthusiasts, will be setting up camp in the Mana Pools National Park in northern Zimbabwe for two days either side of the eclipse.

The park is directly in the path of the total solar eclipse, which will be the first of the 21st century. Astronomers predict that the park will be plunged into darkness for a full three minutes when the Moon passes over the face of the Sun at 1518 local time. Meteorologists will record temperature, light levels and wind changes during the eclipse.

Uneasy feeling

Small teams of researchers will track mammals and birds – including elephants and lions – to record their normal behaviour at sunrise, sunset and mid-afternoon. Teams will record what they find and see every five minutes for up to two-and-a-half hours at a time. They will compare behaviour during the eclipse with the animals’ activity on days before and after the event.

“We have anecdotal records dating back to 1200,” says Shirley Cormack, president of Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe, but there have been very few large-scale studies. “We are following up the anecdotal reports and trying to give them a statistical backdrop,” she says.

The observers will also be joined by Richard Estes, an expert in African animals’ behaviour and an associate at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Boston, and Paul Murdin of Britain’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

Murdin predicts that insects will be strongly affected, as they are highly sensitive to temperature. “One feels uneasy during an eclipse,” he says. “The temperature falls, there’s a chill, insects will suddenly become very quiet. In terms of human reactions, as well as seeing the spectacle in the sky, there are many physiological effects. I would expect sensitive animals such as elephants to notice these things too.”

Estes thinks the mammals most likely to be affected by the sudden nightfall of the eclipse are bats, bushbabies, hippos, warthogs and baboons.

Up to 30 per cent of elderly budgies die of cancer. Chemotherapy often works
in humans, dogs and cats, but surgery, amputation or even euthanasia are usually
the only options for pet birds such as cockatoos, parrots and cockatiels, says
veterinary scientist Lucio Filippich of the University of Queensland,
Brisbane.

So Filippich decided to undertake what he claims is the world’s first
controlled trial of an anti-cancer drug in birds. Together with colleagues at
the university and Australia’s Commonwealth

Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Filippich treated
sulphur-crested cockatoos with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin, establishing
doses that can safely be given to birds.

“Chemotherapy drugs have been used in birds before,” he explains, “But they
have been on an individual basis, as opposed to a controlled trial.”

Research has so far been restricted to healthy animals, but the team hopes to
start working with sick birds in the near future and an avian cancer clinic is
planned for the university’s small animal teaching hospital by early 2000.

Kate Bodley, a vet at Melbourne Zoo, added: “Some pet birds can be worth a
lot of money. In such cases, owners may be willing to use this.”

Army physiotherapist Rod Pope, working with colleagues at the University of
Sydney and Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, has monitored more than 2600
army recruits over a year in randomised, controlled trials. Some of the recruits
stretched particular leg muscles before exercise; others did not. Yet there were
no differences in injury rates between the two groups—and not just because
too few recruits in either group became injured to register a significant
effect. “We were able to rule out even a quite small effect of stretching,” says
Pope.

“This has not been properly researched before,” he explains. “Stretching was
assumed to work in preventing injury, but there was no evidence to suggest it
»ĺľ±»ĺ.”

The work has been accepted for publication by Medicine and Science in
Sports and Exercise, the journal of the American College of Sports
Medicine. “We are telling the army to no longer stretch,” says Pope. “But it’s a
long tradition and tradition dies hard.”

Despite this advice, Pope stresses that it is important to stretch muscles
which are tight and could restrict the normal range of movement. He also
suspects that stretching after exercise could be beneficial—although this
has not been fully investigated. “There is no evidence that points unequivocally
one way or the other,” says Robert Price of Deakin University in Melbourne.

Researchers believe that stings from the small, transparent jellyfish can
cause Irukandji syndrome, which can lead to severe hypertension, abnormal
heartbeat and fluid build-up on the lungs. Such symptoms have been recorded
throughout the tropical Pacific, and in some years, many hundreds of people in
northern Queensland develop these symptoms in the summer.

But studying the jellyfish has been almost impossible. “The problem is to
catch them,” says Ken Winkel, director of the Venom Research Unit at Melbourne
University. “Being thumbnail-sized and transparent, they are hard to spot.”

Now a team of scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, Surf
Life Saving Australia and Reef Biosearch in Port Douglas, Queensland, will spend
the next three months in the waters off northern Queensland, including areas of
the Great Barrier Reef, collecting samples. The goal is then to extract venom
and show that the jellyfish do indeed cause Irukandji syndrome. Hopefully, it
will also be possible to develop an antidote to the venom.

Some of the best proof so far of the association between Carukia barnesi and
Irukandji has come from the unorthodox tests by a Queensland doctor. In 1962, he
deliberately let the jellyfish sting himself and his son. Both ended up in
hospital with symptoms. żěè¶ĚĘÓƵs are keen to find out if Carukia barnesi is
dangerous at all stages of development.

One of the puzzles about the jellyfish is why the intensity of symptoms
varies so much in its victims. Some experience tremendous pain, nausea and
vomiting; for others, a sting can result in heart failure. The scientists are
keen to learn whether the range of reactions is due to stings from different
species of the jellyfish, or is related to the site of the sting or individual
reactions.

“We think there may be several species of jellyfish causing this illness,”
says Winkel, adding that last year a patient was admitted to a Victoria
hospital, in the far south of Australia, with Irukandji-like symptoms. She had
been swimming locally, but had not been to the tropical Pacific.

“The jellyfish we think causes Irukandji has not been identified down here,”
says Winkel, who suggests that the report from the Victoria hospital may point
to a different jellyfish also being responsible for Irukandji. Or it might even
indicate that Carukia barnesi is expanding its territory, possibly in response
to global warming and warmer ocean temperatures.