Body size and species richness

• “…when you’re shooting a film like Magic Mike, and you’re doing dance routines for two weeks at a time, you have to peak every day.
• We had a gym in the parking lot, and we’d all be lifting weights on set all day,” explained actor Joe Manganiello, about performing in the film Magic Mike.
• It is not unusual for actors to undergo drastic changes in preparation for a role, including gaining muscle and losing body fat for that shredded look.

So how do they do it?

• Nevertheless, these Hollywood workouts are highly popular with ordinary people, with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Hemsworth’s workouts particularly sought after.
• Actors of all genders are undergoing these body transformations for various roles such as superheroes, athletes, or the portrayal of real-life people.

What are the consequences?

• So, I’d prefer not to die,” said Christian Bale, who has undertaken multiple extreme transformations for roles.
• A concern for the bodybuilding community is the widespread use of drugs, often multiple drugs at a time not obtained through prescription.
• We are not sure exactly why exercise dependence happens, but it could potentially be a form of behavioural addiction.

What about the dieting impacts?

• Both are characterised by restrictive diets, high levels of exercise, potential social isolation, and adherence to a rigid schedule.
• This research showed that people who are experiencing starvation for a period of time will experience devastating impacts in the physical, psychological, behavioural and social aspects of their lives.
• Concerningly, even once a person is renourished, the psychological issues around body size and food can persist.

What are the impacts on the general public?

• So seeing actors doing this seemingly easily with the assistance of their professional teams sets an unrealistic standard.
• These body modifications are definitely a case of “do not try this at home”.
• There are many risks when undertaking dramatic body modifications, most of which are not talked about in public.

• Think of seals entangled in netting or whales permanently attached to discarded fishing tackle, so-called “ghost gear”.
• There are many reports of seabird chicks dying after being entangled in old plastic and fishing nets, for instance.
• Some had mistaken plastic for fish or squid, ingested it and then fed it to their young which then died.

Nest-building birds are adapting

• But in our latest research we instead wanted to investigate how birds have actually adapted to live alongside such materials.
• The breeding success of birds is often tightly linked to nest functionality, and we wanted to understand if human-made materials obtained by nest-building adults could be playing an important role.
• This suggests that such behaviour is widespread among birds, including ducks, birds of prey, gulls, cormorants and many songbirds.

Some birds are doing it intentionally

• Both findings supported the idea that nest materials signal the quality of breeding adults and would imply that human-made materials are being included in nests intentionally – the birds are showing off.
• Although not in a nesting context, some support for these findings comes from the bowerbirds of New Guinea and Australia.
• Many birds, including birds of prey, gulls and pigeons, are urban-adapted and breed successfully in cityscapes where human-made materials are readily available.
• The extent to which birds adapt to polluted environments remains underappreciated because a study like ours is only as good as the available data.

• Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal.
• What secrets would it reveal about the growth and development of an extinct animal?

Tree-dwelling wombat relatives

• Nimbadon is now known from its complete skeleton, including material representing developmental ages ranging from tiny pouch-young to mature adults.
• Its hands and feet had specially adapted opposable thumbs with huge curved claws for climbing, penetrating bark and grasping branches.
• These animals were highly specialised climbers and lived vastly different lifestyles compared to their closest living relatives – the land-dwelling, burrowing wombats.
• Read more:
  Meet the giant wombat relative that scratched out a living in Australia 25 million years ago

Sectioning the bones

• To look inside the fossil bones, we needed to select the right material.
• Long bones, such as the bones of the leg, are known to preserve a good record of growth, so we analysed ten long bones of several different-sized individuals.
• Remarkably, even after millions of years of fossilisation, the microscopic structure of the fossil bones had remained intact.

Seasonal growers

• However, our results indicate that, overall, the limbs of Nimbadon had a much slower, more extenuated growth than kangaroo limbs.
• Based on these alternating cycles of fast and slow growth, Nimbadon may have been affected by seasonal conditions such as food availability.
• However, exactly how long it took for eight growth cycles to develop remains a mystery.

Real-life drop bears

• We have come to think about these strange arboreal marsupials as real versions of the legendary “drop bears” of Australian folklore – mysterious tree-dwelling creatures that would drop down on unsuspecting animals below.
• Sometimes they would end up in forest floor caves, which is where we have been finding their still-articulated skeletons.
• Currently we are looking into wear in the enamel microstructure of Nimbadon’s teeth to determine this legendary drop bear’s diet.

• Since you can’t see all the jellybeans at once, you’re using statistical reasoning to make an informed decision.
• Brain size and statistical skills
  Until now, primates and birds were the only animals to show evidence of statistical reasoning.
• Evidence of statistical reasoning in giraffes suggests relatively large brains are not required to evolve complex statistical skills – at least in vertebrates (animals with backbones).
• Furthermore, the authors propose the ability to make statistical inferences may actually be widespread in the animal kingdom.