animals
edyong | November 4, 2008
With current technology, could we clone a mammoth? Cloning techniques have made significant progress in recent years and at least one well-preserved specimen has been found. But the same freezing process that preserves the bodies of many extinct mammals would also be the undoing of cloning endeavours. Ice destroys cells, puncturing their membranes, bursting them and exposing their contents. Upon thawing, the dead cells would be useless as a basis for cloning.
Until now, the destructive power of ice seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, dashing the prospect of "resurrecting" frozen extinct…
edyong | November 3, 2008Mammals like ourselves pass our genes 'vertically' from parent to child. But bacteria aren't quite so limited; they have mastered the art of gene-swapping and regularly transfer DNA 'horizontally' from one cell to another. This "horizontal gene transfer" has been largely viewed as a trademark of single-celled organisms, with few examples among animals and plants. That is, until now.
A group of American researchers have discovered a group of genetic sequences that have clearly jumped around the genomes of several mammals, one reptile and one amphibian. It's the most dramatic example yet that…
grrlscientist | November 2, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
edyong | October 31, 2008So as I said, I will be posting wildlife pictures from my recent Australian adventure on a weekly basis. We begin with that most obvious of Australian critters - the koala. Unfortunately, we never managed to see one of these in the wild so these photos come from the Healesville Sanctuary and the Featherdale Wildlife Park, both superb collections of native species in generous enclosures.
Sleepy koala
Bearded koala
They may seen cuddly, but you don't climb trees without claws like these
Surprising things that koalas apparently do...
zooillogix | October 30, 2008I'm trying to keep my ZooBorns plugs to a minimum, but thought readers might enjoy this series on animals eating, shredding, and staring confusedly at Halloween pumpkins on my other website.
edyong | October 29, 2008Our amphibians are not doing well. Populations of frogs, toads, salamanders and newts the world over are falling dramatically. Their moist, permeable skins and their need for water to reproduce make them vulnerable to a multitude of threats including drought brought on by climate change, a deadly fungus, and other infectious diseases. Now, we can point an accusatory finger at another culprit - a chemical called atrazine that is second most commonly used pesticide in the United States, and perhaps the world.
Jason Rohr and colleagues from the University of Florida found that atrazine exposes…
grrlscientist | October 26, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
edyong | October 25, 2008
Animals often show a keen intelligence and many species, from octopuses to crows, can perform problem-solving tasks. But humans are thought to go one step further. We can reflect on our own thoughts and we have knowledge about our knowledge. We can not only solve problems, but we know in advance if we can (or are likely to).
In technical terms, this ability is known as 'metacognition'. It's what students do when they predict how well they will do in an exam when they see the questions. It's what builders do when they work out how long a job will take them to finish. But can animals do…
edyong | October 21, 2008
Fighting malaria with mosquitoes seems like an bizarrely ironic strategy but it's exactly what many scientists are trying to do. Malaria kills one to three million people every year, most of whom are children. Many strategies for controlling it naturally focus on ways of killing the mosquitoes that spread it, stopping them from biting humans, or getting rid of their breeding grounds.
But the mosquitoes themselves are not the real problem. They are merely carriers for the true cause of malaria - a parasite called Plasmodium. It suits neither mosquitoes nor humans to be infected with…
edyong | October 20, 2008
Moving robots are becoming more and more advanced, from Honda's astronaut-like Asimo to the dancing Robo Sapien, a perennial favourite of Christmas stockings. But these advances are still fairly superficial. Most robots still move using pre-defined programmes and making a single robot switch between very different movements, such as walking or swimming, is very difficult. Each movement type would require significant programming effort.
Robotics engineers are now looking to nature for inspiration. Animals, of course, are capable of a multitude of different styles of movement. They have…
grrlscientist | October 19, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
zooillogix | October 17, 2008If Zooillogix had a child, one might have assumed that it would be a hyperactive know-it-all with a weird sense of humor that just made other people uncomfortable. Who would have guessed that it would be a bouncing bundle of innocently adorable joy!!!
Please check out the newest Bleiman creation - ZooBorns - that just went live today!
Come see baby red pandas in abundance at ZooBorns!
edyong | October 17, 2008
In the Ivory Coast, a small stream called Audrenisrou winds its way through the lowland rainforest of the Tai National Park. On the floodplain of this stream, at a site called Nuolo, lie several stones that seem unassuming at first glance. But to the trained eye, they are a window to the past.
Their shape is different to other stones that have been worn away by natural erosion. They have been flaked in systematic ways and many are flattened and sharp. Clearly, they were shaped by hand for a purpose - they are tools. Their creators were not humans, but close relatives who lived in these…
edyong | October 16, 2008Looking at Britain's overcrowded prisons, Wembley stadium or the continual dithering over solid climate change policies, it would seem that many of us are really quite bad at planning for the future. Even so, most of us can still do it (even though some may do it very badly). This abilty isn't there from birth; children only develop a sense of a future at the age of two and they can only plan for it from four or five. But eventually, everyone picks up the skill and up till recently, scientists believed that we were the only species that did.
Many animals show behaviour that could be…
edyong | October 13, 2008
Many animals use poisonous secretions to protect themselves from predators. But poisons are complex chemicals and can take a lot of energy to make. Why invest in them, when you can steal someone else's?
Poison thieves are well-known in the animal kingdom. Many species of brightly coloured poison arrow frogs acquire their poisons from beetles, while some sea slugs make a living by hunting for jellyfish, transporting their stinging cells into their own limbs. Now, another species joins this guild of thieves - the tiger keelback snake, Rhabdophis tigrinis (image right, by Deborah…
grrlscientist | October 12, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird…
grrlscientist | October 5, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
grrlscientist | October 4, 2008tags: Hebridean Black-faced Sheep, Scotland, Image of the Day
Hebridean Black-faced Sheep near Arnol (Isle of Lewis, Scotland)
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008 [larger view].
edyong | October 4, 2008
Sniffing brings molecules in the air around us into our nose, where they are detected and manifested in our brains as smells. But try the same trick underwater and you would rapidly choke or drown. Nonetheless, smell is a tremendously important sense for most mammals and at least two species have found a way to safely sniff in water.
The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is one of them and it has one of nature's most unusual noses. Its snout ends in a ring of 22 fleshy tentacles that are loaded with touch sensors. With this nasal star, the mole rapidly touches and assesses its world…
grrlscientist | October 3, 2008tags: Gray Seal, Halichoerus grypus, Wildlife of Scotland, Image of the Day
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008 [larger view].
Gray Seal, Halichoerus grypus, at the ferry dock in Uig (Isle of Skye, Scotland).
The translation of the scientific name for this species is "hook-nosed sea pig".