Life Sciences
tetrapodzoology | January 4, 2008
Overall I'm pretty pleased with the attention that the first caecilian article received (it's here): it was in the Sb top five most active articles for most of today (Jan 4th), and elicited a decent amount of response. Thanks as always to everyone who commented and especially to those who added snippets of information - in particular Lars Dietz, David Marjanović, and of course Sordes for that invaluable fact about pugs and what happens when you shake them too hard. Anyway, last time we got as far as tentacles, protrusible eyes and the dual jaw-closing mechanism - but what about all the…
tetrapodzoology | January 3, 2008
Did I mention that 2008 is the Year of the Frog? Well, believe it or don't, another major conservation effort directed at the world's amphibians kicks off in January 2008, and in an effort to bring all you wonderful Tet Zoo readers up to speed on amphibian diversity before it launches, we need to get through ALL of the world's amphibian groups first. But that's not as bad as it sounds. Besides anurans - which we've nearly covered in entirety - there are only two other groups, and here we look in detail at one of them.
With apologies to those who already have privileged knowledge.... if I…
gregladen | January 3, 2008
New research published in Science on the origins of multicellular life reveals an interesting pattern. The Cambrian Explosion may have been samosamo.
What is evolution about? Why are there different species, rather than just one (or a few) highly variable species? Is there a close correspondence between the ecological "spaces" that organisms can fit and the adaptations ... represented by morphology, for instance ... of the species that do exist? Can you imagine a different world where instead of having 10,000 species of birds there is only one bird that is highly adaptable in its…
laelaps | January 3, 2008Sometimes I feel like I'm watching scientists concerned with the end-Cretaceous extinction (the one that killed off all those nifty non-avian dinosaurs and other animals) engage in a more formal version of the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" Sketch. Some that favor the impact of a comet or meteor of being the "smoking gun" accuse their opponents of being grumpy old uniformitarian fundamentalists, while some that favor a more gradual extinction that was mostly over by time the extraterrestrial body hit the earth say that the other side is made up a bunch of catastrophists that wouldn't know a…
hrynyshyn | January 3, 2008Should the U.S. Navy be above the law when it comes to saving the whales? So asks Marc Kaufman of the Washington Post. Good question. One with much broader implications as we head into a future that will almost certainly include mandatory limits on all sorts of now-common but environmentally deleterious practices.
The proximate issue is whether the Navy can exempt itself from the provisions of the Endangered Species Act and, more specifically, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, in order to carry out its national security duties. The Navy wants to use active sonar (echolocation to a toothed…
clock | January 2, 2008Fresh Fossil Evidence Of Eye Forerunner Uncovered:
Ancient armoured fish fossils from Australia present some of the first definite fossil evidence of a forerunner to the human eye, a scientist from The Australian National University says.
Parents Show Bias In Sibling Rivalry, Says Study:
Most parents would hotly deny favouring one child over another but new research suggests they may have little choice in the matter.
Lack Of Deep Sleep May Increase Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes:
Suppression of slow-wave sleep in healthy young adults significantly decreases their ability to regulate blood-sugar…
laelaps | January 2, 2008 Throughout most of the world humans have exterminated carnivores in order to keep their places of habitation safe, and while large carnivores still exist in patches we have a sort of "You keep to your side, I'll keep to my side," sort of attitude towards them. The problem, however, is that we keep expanding our towns and villages out into areas where large carnivores live, some areas experiencing an increased level of conflict. Leopards eat stray dogs in the slums of Mumbai, wolves kill dogs left outside in Alaska, black bears raid trash cans in New Jersey suburbs, and even polar bears are…
grrlscientist | January 1, 2008tags: subway art, coelacanth, AMNH, American Musuem of Natural History, NYCLife, NYC
Latimeria species, the legendary coelacanth, a living fossil,
as portrayed in tiles on the walls of the NYC uptown subway stop
(A-B-C) at 81st and Central Park West. (ISO, no zoom, no flash).
Image: GrrlScientist 2007 [wallpaper size].
This is my favorite of all the tile art pieces that can be seen at the AMNH stop on the uptown A-B-C subway lines.
Read more about the AMNH tile artworks and see the AMNH tile artworks photographic archives -- with all the animals identified.
grrlscientist | December 31, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Gull with Reflection.
California Gull, Larus californicus, with reflection -- Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island Causeway, April 2005.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [really large view]
People Hurting Birds
The bald eagle injured when it flew into a utility line in Plumsted last week has died. Don Bonica of Toms River Avian Care in New Jersey had taken the bird in with hopes of rehabilitating it, but the attempt was unsuccessful, he said. "When I went out to take care of it this morning, it was dead," Bonica said. The bird…
laelaps | December 30, 2007
Revered and reviled, the wolf embodies the concept of the "noble savage," a sort of respectable wildness that is both admired and feared. Presently many populations of wolves in North America continue on at the indulgence of our own species, humans essentially exterminating as many wolves as they could in America, and the tenuous position of modern wolves in the United States relies on understanding and the death of the "Big Bad Wolf" mythos. Scott Ian Barry, a photographer and wolf enthusiast who is intimately familiar with the natural history of these animals, has released a new book to…
tetrapodzoology | December 29, 2007
It's hardly a secret that I've had a bit of a thing going for frogs and toads - anurans - during the latter part of 2007 (the anuran series has so far consisted of part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, and part VII). While the whole exercise was a good excuse to learn a lot about one of the most fascinating, charismatic and bizarre tetrapod groups, the main reason for going down this road in the first place is the major conservation effort that's going to get underway next year.. or, tomorrow, if you're reading this on New Year's Eve. 2008 is, you see, the YEAR OF THE FROG: it…
laelaps | December 29, 2007
The Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) is one of the most most endangered big cats, and while there are many laws and programs that seek to protect the animals poaching is still a problem. Earlier this year NPR featured a short report on this problem, but it's not only scientists that are concerned about the disappearance of these cats and other animals. Photographers and a growing number of wildlife sound technicians are also heading out into the the places where rare species are still hanging on, and yesterday NPR featured another report featuring big cat conservation expert Alan Rabinowitz,…
gregladen | December 28, 2007Beethoven Home court advantage matters when it comes to food and reproduction. So, where does a big male ape sit? Wherever he wants to....
... and if you are an adult male chimp, this means in the same part of the forest that you used to hang out with mom, when you were still more or less attached to her metaphorical apron strings.
The next issue of Current Biology will have a paper by Carson Murray, Ian Gilby, Sandeep Mane and Anne Pusey on adult male ranging patterns. The conclusion of the research is that adult males essentially inherit their mother's habits of space use.
The study is…
jstemwedel | December 28, 2007With only a few days left in 2007 (and having temporarily fled my children for a cat-free location, so as to give my immune system a chance to recover from cat allergens), this Friday I offer the sprog blogging year in review:
January:
Sunrise, sunset (Jan. 5), in which the sprogs think about the reason for time-zones.
A child's garden of empiricism (Jan. 12), in which the winter cold turns the Free-Ride family to thoughts of experiments we might do in the garden.
What's for dinner (Jan. 19), an appreciation of alliums and of the various plant parts we eat.
Just Gimme Some Truth (Jan. 26),…
laelaps | December 27, 2007
The famous footage of "Benjamin," a Thylacine that died in captivity due to neglect on September 7, 1936. It was the last known living member of its species.
Convergent evolution can be a tricky thing, and one of the most celebrated examples of it (at least among creationists) is the case of the extinct marsupial predator the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus, also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf). Indeed, when compared to the skull of a wolf (a placental predator), the differences between the skulls of the predators are so slight that anyone but an expert would easily…
laelaps | December 27, 2007Ecological conservation has never been more important than it is right now, but perhaps "conservation" is the wrong term for the movement. To use the word "conservation" implies that something remains to be conserved, that there are still parts of the world that can truly be called Wild, but as Stephen M. Meyer points out in his to-the-point book The End of the Wild we have already lost the fight to save the great wildernesses of this planet. At this point, it's more about damage control;
Since the invention of the first stone tool, humanity has pounded the wild into a shape that fits its…
pharyngula | December 27, 2007Scarcely do I mention Ann Coulter and my challenge to her fans, than one such fan shows up in the comments. You will not be surprised that this person didn't even try to meet the challenge, which is to cite some specific paragraph in Coulter's drecky book, Godless, that they considered to be making a solid scientific point. Here's all he could cough up.
For all of you that buy into the evolution answer for where we come from, I have the following question; How is it that science cannot demonstrate or replicate species change yet we have so many species. Please dont mention finches either.…
gregladen | December 27, 2007 TatianaThe killing of one visitor and maiming of two others by Tatiana, a Tiger, in the S.F. Zoo raises questions that go far beyond one cat and three victims. One might ask: Should there even be zoos?
We do not yet know what happened in the San Francisco Zoo yesterday, but some details are starting to emerge. It looks like Tatiana leaped out of her enclosure. If that proves to be true, we should not be too surprised. Cats have amazing, and I believe under investigated muscular ability. The 1.2 foot long cats we are cat sitting for routinely leap 600% of their length to achieve such…
clock | December 27, 2007Lots of good stuff in PLoS Biology this week:
Cognitive Dimensions of Predator Responses to Imperfect Mimicry:
Many palatable animals, for example hoverflies, deter predators by mimicking well-defended insects such as wasps. However, for human observers, these flies often seem to be little better than caricatures of wasps--their visual appearance and behaviour are easily distinguishable from those which they are attempting to mimic. This imperfect mimicry baffles evolutionary biologists, because one might expect natural selection to do a more thorough job. Here we discuss two types of…
loom | December 26, 2007Last week I wrote about a new study that identified a fossil mammal as the closest relative to whales, helping to shed light on how whales moved from land to sea. The mammal, Indohyus, was a small four-legged creature that probably spent a fair amount of time in water and ate vegetation. The authors of the new study proposed that the ancestors of whales originally lived this way. Gradually, the whale lineage became more adapted to life in water and shifted to eating meat, as exemplified by early whales like Ambulocetus, which was something like a furry alligator.
In the comment thread,…