tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30248181314193776162024-03-14T07:56:54.956-07:00obsessionBiologyI aim to convey the beauty of biology. I'm inspired by all the bits I encounter, and I want to share them.
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If anyone tells you that life is anything besides absolutely magical - they couldn't be more wrong. Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-4745625073027114322018-08-30T15:00:00.004-07:002018-08-31T08:06:50.775-07:00PrimitiveThe most contentious point of evolution we observe today is that of
our own species. Many people refuse to accept that early hominids,
'primitive' humans, are primates. Individuals fiercely preach that 'we
as a species didn't used to be monkeys!'<br />
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When the word
primitive is used as an adjective it frequently implies slow, ignorant,
raw, primal, violent, and undeveloped.. This idea of primitive as a
dirty slackjawed individual needs to be undone. To restore dignity to
'primitive' we must take primitive out of the human context, provide a
relevant timescale to understand evolution, and highlight how advanced
early species were.<br />
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A
primitive dolphin was an ancestor to modern day dolphins. We know
dolphins to be intelligent, social, and agile predators. They are
capable of complex emotions, self recognition, and cognitive thought.
An early dolphin would have been a predator, and hunting requires
certain physiological characteristics. You have to be fast enough to
catch your prey, able to communicate to and understand your pod, and able to eat and digest it underwater. Early dolphins could
have possessed the same social structures and been capable of complex
emotions. But, if the early dolphins, this more primitive species, were
directly compared to their later ancestors they would have largely similar, but different set of genes (obviously). They could be more genetically robust in certain physiological characteristics, and less diverse in others.<br />
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Over time, nature will pare down genes that are not selected for, and there will be physiological tradeoffs in terms of expression that allows some characteristics to be more fully expressed at the expense of others. So, modern dolphins may have a larger cerebral cortex, and even smaller vestigal hind limbs, than their primitive counterparts, but they are not inherently more "advanced" - they are simply shaped by the manifest of time, chance, opportunity, and advantage to be the most well suited versions of a dolphin that they can be. All the while, accumulating more random genetic mutations that will continue to keep them at a steady state-of-being in an ever changing environment.<br />
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Living
bottlenose dolphins are descendants, great-great-grandbabies, of
dolphins who were alive hundreds of years ago. A mutation can occur in
any egg or sperm that will result in a baby dolphin that's slightly
different than its parents. Lets say a mutation gives a physiological
advantage to the Baby dolphin - NOT making the dolphin smarter, or
faster, or stronger - but altering a gene that allows certain proteins
to withstand warmer temperatures without becoming denatured. Said baby-dolphin has a selective advantage, and that dolphin will likely have
more offspring that survive to have their own children, due to warming
ocean conditions. The descendants of baby-dolphin will have this
advantageous mutation. Within a few generations, all the
dolphins without this mutation don't have successful offspring because they
can't physiologically survive in the warm ocean conditions.<br />
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Diverging from Dolphins, to all other species, we see additional complexities added to the genome with time. And, we see loss of genetic diversity. Its an ever changing scale that is directly related to the relationship of one species with where it falls in this time, chance, opportunity, and advantage matrix. Each species exploits a given niche, and no one is more or less perfectly suited than it could ever possibly be, save its offspring in a slightly altered matrix.<br />
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We owe a toast to our ancestors, from the first bony fishes, to the first mammals, for falling exactly where they did into each moment, and each phase of genetic change, that allowed the outcomes we so greatly take advantage of today.<br />
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Primitive
does not mean less intelligent. Less present - maybe - but let's refute the
negative connotation. It means earlier in history. It means predecessor - and who is to say that the advances of <i>our</i> predecessors are any less significant in the context of the time. The use of tools. The study of astronomy and the universe, development of the calendar, and mathematics. Each was momentous, early, primitive, and imperative to you and I being suited to succeed in our environment today. We are our great-great-grandchildrens' primitive ancestors. So don't knock the primitive.Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-83215521834502898532016-03-02T10:00:00.001-08:002016-03-02T10:10:35.086-08:00Lets Dance - Part 1 AraneaeI've been very interested in these dancing spider videos that have been surfacing online - the spiders are incredibly colorful and have these intricate, detailed dances. I am so intrigued I've decided to learn more about them and share some info on spiders. We'll break down a little taxonomy - it wont be overwhelming I promise - and then we'll dive into these adorable groovy spiders. I'm sure we'll all learn a thing or two today! <br />
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These little guys are <i><b>Maratus volans, </b></i>a species in the peacock spider genus. When I say little I mean it - <br />
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They're tiny!! These peacock spiders are within the jumping spider family. The jumping spider family is THE largest family of spiders with over 5,000 described species.<br />
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I'm not usually a big arachnid person.. I'm a little scared when I encounter a big spider in my basement... but as a class of animal I think they're fascinating. So lets break down the arachnids just a little before we dive into the dancing peacock spiders!<br />
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Spiders have a hard outside and squishy insides - we've all stepped on a spider before right? Simply put, having a hard outside - an exoskeleton - makes spiders Arthropods. <b>Arthropods</b> are a huge group of animals that have exoskeletons (no bones on the insides, just hard outsides made of chitin and protein), segmented bodies, and jointed limbs. Arthropods include everything from crabs, to shrimp, barnicles, crickets, centepedes, scorpions, and spiders. A HUGE group right?? This huge group is called a Phylum.<br />
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So the huge <b>Phylum Arthropoda</b> gets broken down into more "like" groups. Our next breakdown is a grouping of the horseshoe crabs and other slightly spooky critters like spiders, scorpions and ticks. They all have appendages that appear before the mouth called "chelicerae". These chelicerae (mouth parts) are usually small pincers. This slightly smaller group is called the <b>Chelicerata and we refer to it as a Sub-Phylum</b>. <br />
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Now we get to the good stuff. Our next "like" group is all the chelicerates with eight legs - arachnids! So we've cruised from <b>Phylum Arthropoda; segmented bodies with crunchy outsides</b>, to <b>Subphylum Chelicerata; crunchy critters with mouth appendages</b>, to <b>Class Arachnida; creatures with all of the above who have eight legs</b>. Arachnids are spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, and solifuges. <br />
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We're interested in just the spiders today. So our final stop is the <b>Order Araneae; segmented, crunchy critters with </b><b><b>eight legs and </b>mouthbits - but the mouthbits (chelicerae) must be fangs</b> to be in this group. That's what makes a spider an araneid, is having ALL of these characteristics. If a creature is segmented, crunchy, has eight legs and mouthbits BUT THE MOUTHBITS ARE NOT FANGS then it is not an araneid/spider. Make sense?<br />
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Phylum: Arthropoda</div>
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Subphylum: Chelicerata</div>
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Class: Arachnida</div>
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Order: Araneae = SPIDER!!! </div>
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Spiders are fascinating. There are a ton of different spider groups, but we've done enough taxonomy for now lets dive into the fun stuff! Dancing spiders on the next post!</div>
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Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-11270618004164469452016-02-24T15:21:00.002-08:002018-08-30T15:09:42.011-07:00New Post Coming Soon! Get ready to learn some basic taxonomy, and characteristics of everyones favorite furry friends.... spiders!!<br />
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Just kidding, I know they're not a favorite. But they are very interesting. <br />
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We'll get into some fun tidbits on what makes a spider a spider, and how and why they dance! Till the post is ready enjoy this spider.. with a "hat".<br />
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<br />Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-61607747290757928662013-10-01T17:39:00.000-07:002013-10-02T15:14:44.276-07:00I've been on tortiose time Hello there! It's been far too long since I've posted on here. Today I realized how much I miss sharing my love for cool creatures. I think that I'll start a small bit featuring each of my creatures, so you can get to know me and my pets! <br />
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I've been on tortoise time with my little buddy Koopa the Sulcata tortoise. This photo is the first time I ever saw him! He's my first reptile, I've had him since he was a little nugget, and now hes about a year old! He was bred in captivity and I got him via mail (yes he really came in the mail!!). He - now here I'm making assumptions Koopa could end up being a girl, you cant determine the sex of your Sulcata unless they are incubated at specific temperatures or until they reach sexual maturity - is a quiet, brave little fellow. His favorite activities include eating, napping in warm sunny places, and adventuring for a spot to hide where he can still see whats happening around him. He also likes to climb, he'll climb a mountain of shoes or up a heap of rocks to check out the view. <br />
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Koopa and I have learned much on our journey so far together. He tells me when he doesn't like something in his own turtle-y way. When he was very small he wouldn't eat any of the grasses or food I provided and wasn't growing, and so I caved as a mommy and fed him delicious lettuces from romaine, spinach, kale and beyond. He was a happy baby, and was eating, but then I noticed his growth wasn't right, he began to pyramid (pyramiding is where instead of the shell growing uniformly flat around the edges of each scute, each scute begins to grow upward making each scute look like a little pyramid). Let me define scute as well, when you look at a turtles shell it is made up of a bunch of units, each of these units is a scute. Scutes are the outermost form of armor on a turtles shell. The ribs form the base of the shell on the inside (by the turtles guts), they are fused <i>to each other</i> creating a solid bony box that the head, arms, legs and tail poke out of. The scutes are on the outside of this bony box. An interesting anatomical note is that the shoulder blades of a turtle are INSIDE the ribcage, swing your arms around a little and think about how weird that is - our shoulder blades are on the outside of our ribs. Turtles have accomplished this through many minor changes in their evolutionary development that I will write about in more detail at a later date for those of you who are interested (it's super totally amazingly cool but too detailed for this post). Koopa is now back to a diet he would encounter in his native element. <br />
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This is Koopa reading about his history. Tortoises are some of the longest lived terrestrial animals, some species can live for one to two hundred years. Tortoises are not all giant like the Galapagos Giant Tortoise, Aldabra Tortoises and Suclata Tortoises, some are small like the Desert Tortoise. To be a tortoise - or not to be - is a question of being terrestrial. Turtles are aquatic; pond turtles, snapping turtles, sea turtles. Tortoises are terrestrial; desert tortoises, rainforest tortoises, grassland tortoises. To be a tortoise is to be a specialized terrestrial turtle. Let me clarify further, a tortoise is a turtle. A turtle is NOT a tortoise. From here you may ask, did a turtle become specialized over millions of years to become exclusively terrestrial and create a family of tortoises who are all related to each other? <br />
The answer to that question is no. Tortoises have each converged on an exclusively terrestrial lifestyle from many different independant turtle families. A sulcata is not more closely related to another tortoise because they're both terrestrial - they could be related because they share common ancestors in the same region - but is most likely more closely related to a turtle species in a different habitat in that same region, which could be extant or extinct. The key to surviving is to capitalize on individual mutations that you posses and exploit them in a habitat with less competition for resources. This is what tortoises have done, they acquired traits like armored limbs for burrowing, keen senses of smell and sensitivity to color, and a lengthened intestinal tract for digesting plant matter versus a high protein diet which enabled them to survive in new environments where there are less turtles competing for the same resources.<br />
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I want to note that tortoises <b>did not</b> choose to acquire these traits because they thought they would be good to have to survive in harsh environments, these characters were acquired randomly through genetic mutations in DNA that created many different outcomes. Some proto-tortioses did not get dealt the right genetic hand to succeed in a hot, dry, protein deficient environment and they died - but a few did get the right hand, completely randomly in a random order over huge lengths of time and succeeded.<br />
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Another note is that gigantisism in tortoises is not commonplace, there are factors selecting for gigantisism or else there are a relaxation of factors selecting for small size. Sulcatas are likely giant because once an individual reaches a certain size a lion can not break the shell open with its jaws, so gigantisism has been selected for as a tool for surviving with large predators. Galapagos tortoises are the other example, there was no selection for staying small to avoid getting spotted and eaten by predators, because there are no predators like large birds of prey or giant cats, so selection was relaxed and the species became a giant species. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxQQthwNG-Zm-rGGD224AlQd81c7rDxJZ-iTrabq47mZzwt8X9wPuH-Wnef_ZcKDCCpNbDq2qajqVlPiEabeF3RetGPrk8FuEv4xmKfKm3pyQsC2Ku_k0bZWTG-wEFJtZIhyJKfUKJcBf/s1600/keep-calm-and-love-a-tortoise.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxQQthwNG-Zm-rGGD224AlQd81c7rDxJZ-iTrabq47mZzwt8X9wPuH-Wnef_ZcKDCCpNbDq2qajqVlPiEabeF3RetGPrk8FuEv4xmKfKm3pyQsC2Ku_k0bZWTG-wEFJtZIhyJKfUKJcBf/s200/keep-calm-and-love-a-tortoise.png" width="171" /></a>Sulcata tortoises are native to Africa inhabiting the northern grasslands and southern Sahara Desert. The proper scientific name is <i>Geochelone Sulcata</i> and designates Koopa as a giant land tortoise. Sulcata's are the third largest land tortoise species. He is a vegetarian and eats a high fiber low protein diet of grasses and occasional veggies like squash, pumpkin, and he <i>loves </i>carrots. I give him a carrot and refer to it as a carrot-kong (like the dog toy) he loves the color and ends up rolling it around as he gets little bites out of it. He'll let you pet him if you stroke him very gently, he lets me pet his little tortoise head which melts my heart. He doesn't prefer to be picked up, if you pick him up you really should let him stand on your hand so he has some "ground" under his feet or else he peeeeeeees all over you. He has small/medium size rocks as his substrate, many hiding places, a basking lamp and he gets sunshine every day. He loves when you give him a bath and rub him gently with a soft tooth brush, he even stretches out his neck so you can get his chin. He is my little nugget and I love him to death. This post was a brief, very very brief highlight of a few points in tortoise evolution and an introduction to my experience with tortoise ownership.Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-87060800004133830492012-08-11T16:06:00.000-07:002012-08-11T16:13:41.950-07:00Lizard Lips<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my little sister Lila Jane and I a few years ago playing put-put. Shes adorable. The course has all kinds of castles and pirates, but Lila's favorite are the giant lizards. </div>
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Some adorable photos.. </div>
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And now some science. </div>
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Did you know that lizards don't have lips? </div>
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Nope, no lips. This lucky lizard was getting lots of love from a sweet little mammal, but giving none in return. Why don't lizards have lips? Well, they don't really need lips. But lets start at the beginning.<br />
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Lizards are reptiles, and they have been around for approximately 350 million years. The Mesozoic is known as the Age of Reptiles for good reason. Dinosaurs dominated the terrestrial environment, but the transition from aquatic amphibious individuals to fully terrestrial reptiles required many physiological changes in the preceding era, the Paleozoic. If you want to be on land, but will dry out, it would be most advantageous to have skin that is more thick and keratinized scales to keep your insides moist and protected from harmful UV rays. If you want to have your babies on land, and not in the water, you'll need a system to keep them safe while they develop. Eggs! If you don't want to be hungry, you'll need to have the tools necessary to capture prey. This is where we get into the lip-less neck of the woods.<br />
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Reptiles are ancestrally carnivorous. They capture prey animals, crush, gobble, and swallow. They have no need to manipulate their prey items in a particular manner in their mouth to aid in digestion, like how many mammals need to finely macerate food before ingestion so the stomach can effectively digest the nutrients. Reptiles have never needed to be able to use their mouths in the same way that we do. Which is why they don't have lips like we do.<br />
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Mammals have lips to strip leaves off branches, eat delicate parts of fruits, remove meat from bone, and to blow bubbles. That last part is just us I suppose, but the idea of lips evolving to aid in specific functions for like groups of animals was a mind blowing revelation I had the other day. Lizards don't have lips, neither do turtles, salamanders, frogs, snakes, birds (relatively obvious) or even mammals like rodents. It's interesting to grasp characteristics that unite us with our animal bretherin like vertebrae, and strange to understand how different we are by thinking about one little thing like lips.</div>
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Lizards can smile though. Just no kissing, or blowing bubbles. </div>
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<img alt="" class="rg_hi uh_hi" data-height="170" data-width="297" height="170" id="rg_hi" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8I0InT6-qnUaINCsoWs2JhBarJ0BUaasLpG4p1_YTn-LpqE1aLg" style="height: 170px; width: 297px;" width="297" /></div>
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<br />Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-83063427894908461462012-01-26T20:36:00.000-08:002018-08-30T15:08:59.312-07:00Collections + Cladograms +Evidence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This makes me so happy. Its a cladogram of a collection at the American Museum of Natural History showing the evolution of vertebrates. The transition from aquatic environments to terrestrial is one of my very favorite things to think about, this highlights the story as well as demonstrates how DINOSAURS EVOLVED. Woah, yeah, dinosaurs. Whats even better, is that I'm learning the nitty gritty story behind all this in my classes this quarter.<br />
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The good stuff in evolutionary history starts once we have some solid evidence for life, I like solid evidence. 3.7 billion years ago (give or take a few million) there were plankton alive and doing what plankton do in Precambrian oceans. They were photosynthesizing happily, and then they reached the end of their little lives, died, and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Then they got fossilized, and discovered in modern Isua, Greenland. They aren't the first cells on Earth, but those lucky cells got fossilized and are the oldest fossilized evidence of life today.<br />
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From that point cellular life developed for THREE BILLION YEARS, gradually increasing in complexity to the point of mulitcellularity and sex. Cyanobacteria filled our atmosphere with free oxygen, and diversity radiated on our planet. Bacteria, Archea, and Eukaryotes have since been in competition for resources on Earth, acquiring truly astonishing diversity in every form. Below is <b>amphibian</b> predator <i>Koskinonodon</i>, formerly known as <span class="evdescription"><em>Buettneria perfecta,</em></span> an animal who lived primarily in aquatic habitats but was capable of walking on land. Not a reptile, evolution is cool. <span class="evdescription"><em></em></span><em></em><br />
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I'll post new knowledge and discoveries just as soon as I encounter them. Check back soon!Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-55932570409331638532012-01-25T22:53:00.000-08:002012-07-16T18:52:32.017-07:00Manta Rays Fate Worse Than Sharks<div>
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It's been a while, sorry! I'll post as often as I can with school. This article is devastating, we desperately need to protect the surviving populations. Shark fins and rhinoceros horns, now manta ray gills.. this mindless harvesting of beautiful rare species must stop. </h4>
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<a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/manta-rays-fate-worse-than-shark-120125.html"></a><a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/manta-rays-fate-worse-than-shark-120125.html">http://news.discovery.com/earth/manta-rays-fate-worse-than-shark-120125.html</a></h4>
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Manta Rays Fate Worse Than Sharks</h3>
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January 25, 2012 5:01:06 AM <div class="byline">
Christina Reed)</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60dddaa970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="42-25133062" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60dddaa970c image-full" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60dddaa970c-800wi" title="42-25133062" /></a><br />
As the population of sharks has depleted, fishermen are turning more and more to Manta Rays - animals unfit, in the most Darwinian sense of the word, to handle the pressure.<br />
Manta Rays take 10 years to reach maturity and females give birth to "a single pup every two to three years," ray researcher Mike Bennett of the University of Queensland told <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/01/25/3414390.htm">ABC Science</a>:<br />
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By comparison, a Great White Shark, which is widely considered to be one of the world's most vulnerable marine species, may produce as many pups in one litter as a Manta Ray does over its entire lifetime.</blockquote>
<a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5422970c-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="42-21824868" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5422970c" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5422970c-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="42-21824868" /></a>The worldwide decline in Manta and their cousins the Mobula Rays, is documented in a recent study released by the conservation organizations, Shark Savers and WildAid. The study, <a href="http://www.sharksavers.org/en/blogs/808-the-million-dollar-manta-being-killed-worldwide-for-unproven-health-tonics.html">Manta Ray of Hope: The Global Threat to Manta and Mobula Rays</a>, began by following the trade in gill rakers, the cartilaginous part of the rays that helps them filter feed.<br />
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"We first came across manta and mobula ray gills in Asian markets several years ago and followed the trail to the dried seafood markets of Southern China. It's sad to see these animals follow the same path to extinction as sharks," conservation photographer and lead investigator Paul Hilton said in a statement.<br />
Currently the IUCN Red List of threatened species lists both the Giant Manta Ray (<i>Manta birostris</i>) and the Great White Shark (<i>Carcharodon carcharias</i>) as vulnerable and Smoothtail Devil Rays (<i>Mobula thurstoni</i>) as only in a slightly better situation, that of near-threatened.<br />
The study also valued the life of a Manta Ray at US$1 million, the income one animal makes for local eco-tourism. The market value for gill rakers? An estimated $11 million annually, according to the study. Making the value of the animal alive a much more lucrative investment. The tourism industry for snorkling and scuba diving with rays is estimated at over $100 million per year, globally.<br />
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<a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5591970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="42-27986781" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5591970c image-full" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0168e60e5591970c-800wi" title="42-27986781" /></a><br />
IMAGES:<br />
<i>Vulnerable Giant Manta Ray (</i>Manta birostris<i>) entangled in a fisherman's net, in Yap, Micronesia. (Corbis)</i><br />
<i>Near-threatened Smoothtail Devil Rays (</i>Mobula thurstoni<i> aka </i>Mobula lucasana<i>) slaughtered on a beach in Baja California, Mexico. (Norbert Wu, Corbis) </i><br />
<i>Giant Manta Ray hooked on long line near Cocos Island, Costa Rica - Pacific Ocean. (Jeffrey Rotman, Corbis) </i><br />
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<br /></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-30470043532170897762012-01-10T19:22:00.000-08:002012-07-16T18:53:10.786-07:00New Material Can Scrub Carbon Dioxide Right Out of the Air at Unprecedented Rates<div>
<a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-01/new-material-can-pull-carbon-dioxide-right-out-air-unprecedented-rates">New Material Can Scrub Carbon Dioxide Right Out of the Air at Unprecedented Rate</a>s</div>
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<br /><br />Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-20078383293459098372012-01-09T20:41:00.000-08:002012-01-09T20:40:53.743-08:00'Extinct' Giant Tortoise Found on Remote Island - Discovery News<div><h4>I love this article!!! Museum collections are a personal favorite, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">and by utilizing them researchers have been able to determine that at least one male of a thought extinct species of giant tortoise is ALIVE! That's awesome. They compared genomes of wild giant tortoises with museum specimens and determined that a"lonesome George" C. elephantopis is still alive! </span></h4><h4><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/tortoise-found-genetics-120109.html"><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/tortoise-found-genetics-120109.html">http://news.discovery.com/animals/tortoise-found-genetics-120109.html</a></a></h4> <div class="newsItem"> <table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display:inline">'Extinct' Giant Tortoise Found on Remote Island</h3></td> <td width="12" valign="middle"></td></tr> </tbody></table> <img src="http://news.discovery.com/animals/2012/01/09/tortoise-278.jpg" alt="" class="thumbnailImage"> <h4 class="dateline">January 9, 2012 9:00:00 AM <p class="byline">Jennifer Viegas)</p> </h4> <div class="content"><p>A species of giant tortoise believed extinct for 150 years was actually just moved from its original home and now lives on the volcanic slopes of the northern shore of Isabela Island in the Galapagos archipelago.</p> <p>A genetic analysis, published in the latest <em>Current Biology</em>, found that DNA footprints of the long lost tortoise species, <em>Chelonoidis elephantopus</em>, exist in the genomes of its hybrid offspring. These tortoises turn out to be a mix of <em>C. elephantopus</em> and another giant tortoise from the area, <em>C. becki</em>.</p> <p>While researchers have yet to isolate a purebred <em>C. elephantopus</em> individual, such tortoises must exist, based on the DNA data. The study marks the first time that a species has been rediscovered by way of tracking the genetic footprints left in the genomes of its hybrid offspring.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/turtle-power-110503.html">NEWS: Turtle Power to the Rescue</a></strong></p> <p>"This work also underscores the importance of museum collections in facilitating new discoveries," co-author Ryan Garrick told Discovery News. "Here, we were able to extract DNA from tortoise bones that were collected many decades ago, and use this DNA to characterize the gene pool of purebred <em>C. elephantopus</em>."</p> <p>Garrick is a former Yale postdoctoral researcher who is now an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi.</p> <div style="float:right; width:278px; padding:0 0 5px 10px; text-align:left"> <a style="text-decoration:none" href="http://news.discovery.com/videos/earth-aldabra-giant-tortoise.html"><img height="155" alt="birds" src="http://news.discovery.com/videos/2010/tortoise-vid.jpg" width="278" border="0"><br> <strong>VIDEO: Meet Alex the Aldabra Giant Tortoise</strong></a> </div> <p>He and his colleagues visited Volcano Wolf on the northern tip of Isabela Island and took blood samples from more than 1600 tortoises. The scientists then compared them to a genetic database of living and extinct tortoise species. </p> <p>The matching process detected the genetic signatures of "extinct" <em>C. elephantopus</em> in 84 of the Volcano Wolf tortoises, meaning one of their parents was a purebred member of the missing species.</p> <p>In 30 cases, breeding took place within the last 15 years. Since the lifespan of the tortoises can exceed 100 years, there's a high probability that many purebreds are still alive.</p> <p>The Galapagos tortoises are famous for their influence on Charles Darwin's ideas about evolution by natural selection. It's no wonder they captured his attention: individuals can weigh nearly 900 pounds and grow to almost 6 feet in length.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/extinct-species/extinct-species.html">SCIENCE CHANNEL: 10 Extinct Species</a></strong></p> <p>The tortoise's size and slow moves also led to its downfall. Garrick explained that "populations were heavily decimated by buccaneers in the late 1600s and 1700s, and then by whalers, fur sealers, merchantmen and the crews of naval vessels."</p> <p>"Largely owing to the exploitation of tortoises for oil and as a source of food aboard ships, <em>C. elephantopus</em> from Floreana Island (its original home) was reported to be extinct soon after Charles Darwin's historic voyage to the Galapagos in 1835," he added. "Indeed, it has been estimated that up to 200,000 tortoises were eliminated from the archipelago within only two centuries of intensive harvesting."</p> <p>Co-author Gisella Caccone, a senior research scientist in Yale's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, told Discovery News she hopes to now find actual <em>C. elephantopus</em> individuals and restore them to their island of origin.</p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p>"We plan to go back to Volcano Wolf in December 2012 and attempt to find all the individuals of mixed ancestry (we have them all tagged with PIT transmitters), and if we are lucky also the pure ones," she said. </p> <p>The work is important, she continued, "as these animals are keystone species playing a crucial role in maintaining the ecological integrity of the island communities."</p> <p>It remains unclear how the tortoises wound up on Isabela Island, but Caccone and her colleagues suspect that humans transported them as food. Whalers may have also thrown them overboard or simply left them on the shore of this other island.</p> <p>Garrick said he's hopeful that other "extinct" species might be rediscovered using the same genetic methods used to detect the missing giant tortoise. </p> <p>There's already hope that the giant tortoise <em>C. abingdoni</em> from Pinta Island, now represented by the single known purebred individual "Lonesome George," is alive and well elsewhere. </p></div> </div> </div><div></div><div><br><br><br></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-36599655596698488062012-01-03T22:09:00.001-08:002012-01-03T22:09:19.239-08:00Antarctic Hot Springs Yields Ghostly New Species - Discovery News<div><h4>Ahhhhh my true love deep sea biology!!</h4><h4><a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/antarctic-deep-sea-vent-creatures-010312.html"><a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/antarctic-deep-sea-vent-creatures-010312.html">http://news.discovery.com/earth/antarctic-deep-sea-vent-creatures-010312.html</a></a></h4> <div class="newsItem"> <table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display:inline">Antarctic Hot Springs Yields Ghostly New Species</h3></td> <td width="12" valign="middle"></td></tr> </tbody></table> <img src="http://news.discovery.com/earth/2012/01/03/octopus278.jpg" alt="" class="thumbnailImage"> <h4 class="dateline">January 3, 2012 2:00:00 PM <p class="byline">Eric Niiler</p> </h4> <div class="content"><p>The discovery of new deep-sea hot springs off Antarctica may rewrite theories of how marine creatures populate the world's oceans.</p> <p>Scientists say the underwater plumes -- located between the southern tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula -- are chock-full of new species, including a pale, ghostly-looking octopus, a predatory seven-legged sea star and a hairy-chested "yeti" crab.</p> <p>Experts say the strangest thing is what they didn't find -- tube worms, shrimp and mussels that have been found at the world's other deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities.</p> <p><strong></strong><strong></strong></p> <p>"It wasn't just one creature, virtually everything we saw was new to science," said Alex Rogers, professor zoology at the University of Oxford and lead author of the new report.</p> <p>"It was a remarkable experience. You're not quite sure if these things are mineral or biological structures. That's a very unusual feeling to see all this stuff for the first time and saying I don't understand what's going on here."</p> <p>Rogers and his colleagues at the University of Southampton described their findings in <a href="http://www.plos.org/media/press/2012/plbi-10-01-rogers.pdf">today's PLOS Biology</a>.</p> <p>The discoveries came during a January and February 2010 expedition to the region and were made using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) called <em>Isis</em>.</p> <p>Rogers said it took nearly two years to get the findings published because there were so many undescribed species that his team had to send samples out to experts around the world for identification.</p> <p>He recalled watching a small video screen on board the British oceanographic vessel <em>James Cook</em> as the ROV camera descended 2,600 meters (8,530 feet) down to the seafloor.</p> <div style="float: right; width: 278px; text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;"></div> <p>"The robot camera captured images of smoking plumes of hydrogen sulfide and minerals billowing up from fissures in the undersea ridge up to 382 degrees Celsius (720 degrees Fahrenheit) and surrounded by vast living mats of barnacles, anemones, crabs and other critters."</p> <p>"It's probably the most exciting scientific cruise I've ever taken part in," Rogers said from his office in England.</p> <p>"The wonderful thing was that the discoveries just kept coming right through the trip. Seeing the images for the first time was absolutely breathtaking, just stunning."</p> <p>But beyond the giddy excitement of finding new animals, marine biologists say that the mix of deep-sea fauna at these vents will stir debate about how these creatures got there.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/hybrid-shark-australia-climate-change-120103.html">NEWS: First Hybrid Shark Found </a></strong></p> <p>"The Rogers paper fills in a piece of the bio-geographic puzzle for global vent faunas and raises new questions about evolutionary alliances and pathways to hydrothermal vents," said Cindy Van Dover, director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, and a leading expert in undersea hot springs biology, in an email to Discovery News.</p> <p>"Their discovery of dense populations of crabs related to the yeti crab is especially intriguing. This family of crabs was discovered in 2005 at hot springs in the southeastern Pacific -- there must be an evolutionary link between the two regions."</p> <p>That means that the creatures living at underwater hot springs must be able to colonize other vents, even though the plumes often are short-lived, lasting only a few decades before the seafloor shifts and the hot springs disappear.</p> <p>Another big question is whether the extremely cold water that circles Antarctica helps or hinders dispersal of the larvae of the strange life that thrive at the vents.</p> <p>"Depending on the group of deep-sea organisms, the Southern Ocean can be an ecological dead end or a jumping-off point for colonizing other parts of the world," said Rich Aronson, head of the department of biological sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology who studies Antarctic undersea life.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/deepest-hydrothermal-vent-ever-found-offers-alien-life-model.html">NEWS: Deepest Hydrothermal Vent Offers Alien Life Model</a></strong></p> <p>"This paper is a start to figuring out if one or the other scenario is the rule for vent faunas."</p> <p>While most Antarctic marine animals lay eggs that include an embryonic sac, the creatures found at the new hot springs do not. That's one key to figuring out how they get from one vent to another, according to James McClintock, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.</p> <p>"This would suggest that getting from one vent community to another is important, and having a small swimming feeding larvae is something that is being selected for," McClintock said.</p> <p>The first deep-sea hot springs were discovered in 1977 on the Galapagos Rift west of Ecuador by researchers at Oregon State University. Since then, they've been found in the Indian, Pacific and North Atlantic. But this is the first discovery in polar waters.</p> <p>McClintock says he expects there are more hidden places out there for scientists like him who are trying to understand the world's animal and plant life.</p> <p>"The scientific community has gotten used to seeing the same assemblage of organisms at each of the vents," McClintock said. "Here you have a whole different suite of organisms. I would definitely say that the book is not written."</p></div> </div> </div><div></div><div><br><br><br></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-90913157955239363432011-12-23T20:10:00.000-08:002011-12-23T22:55:48.683-08:00Holy frijole.. H5N1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-95no9009ex8/TvVQPfB6RLI/AAAAAAAAAFk/Bpfg4HzzO6g/s1600/Picture+18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-95no9009ex8/TvVQPfB6RLI/AAAAAAAAAFk/Bpfg4HzzO6g/s320/Picture+18.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We all remember the H1N1 virus from a few years ago right? Well there's a new virus in town, H5N1, that top virologists have been studying. H5N1 is a strain of influenza that's deadly in birds. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U9Fn1AiTi7c/TvVQQMpBYRI/AAAAAAAAAFs/QEn8cBp7uls/s1600/Picture+21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U9Fn1AiTi7c/TvVQQMpBYRI/AAAAAAAAAFs/QEn8cBp7uls/s320/Picture+21.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">H5N1 has been coaxed by researcher </span>Ron Fouchier from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands and his team <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">to leap between species, </span>from birds to ferrets. This research was completed in state of the art facilitates with rigorous bio safety controls --people in anti-contaminate space suits etc. That's good to know.. but while the risk of being infected in this controlled setting is less than 1%, it is not zero.. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This research having been completed is controversial, scientists mutated strains of a deadly influenza that are transmissible between mammals-- we're mammals. The research specifically demonstrated that with the induced mutations H5N1 was not only transmissible between mammals in close contact, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">but was also an airborne infectious agent. That's f*cking scary. If one ferret sneezes while the hatch is open, and one researcher becomes infected..</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These scientists did this research to test if the H5N1 virus had the potential to acquire random genetic changes that could possibly make it transmissible to humans. Now we are armed with the knowledge that this deadly flu very well has the potential to <i>jump species</i> and <i>potentially infect humans</i>. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What has been ignored, or at least under-reported, is that there are <b>600</b> documented cases of H5N1 infection in humans with a <b>60%</b> mortality rate. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When construction began on a skate park near my house a few years ago a mass grave of nearly 100 individuals was discovered. They all died during the bird flu epidemic of 1918, which had a 2.5% mortality rate... </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I think this is <b><i>scary</i></b>. Check out the article below for more info and do some more googling of your own if you're interested. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.livescience.com/17623-deadly-h5n1-virus-recipe-debate.html">http://www.livescience.com/17623-deadly-h5n1-virus-recipe-debate.html </a></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-10828697474902847992011-12-22T14:04:00.000-08:002011-12-22T14:03:40.494-08:00Pigeons Are Brilliant in Math - Discovery News<div><h4><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/pigeons-math-animals-111222.html"><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/pigeons-math-animals-111222.html">http://news.discovery.com/animals/pigeons-math-animals-111222.html</a></a></h4> <div class="newsItem"> <table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display:inline">Pigeons Are Brilliant in Math</h3></td> <td width="12" valign="middle"></td></tr> </tbody></table> <img src="http://news.discovery.com/animals/2011/12/22/pigeons-math-278.jpg" alt="" class="thumbnailImage"> <h4 class="dateline">December 22, 2011 12:00:00 PM <p class="byline">Jennifer Viegas</p> </h4> <div class="content"><p>Pigeons may be ubiquitous, but they're also brainy, according to a new study that found these birds are on par with primates when it comes to numerical competence.</p> <p>The study, published in the latest issue of the journal <em>Science</em>, discovered that pigeons can discriminate against different amounts of number-like objects, order pairs, and learn abstract mathematical rules. Aside from humans, only rhesus monkeys have exhibited equivalent skills.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/primates-satisfaction-sex-anatomy-110309.html">NEWS: Chimps Have Better Sex Than Humans</a></strong></p> <p>Could pigeons then be the Einsteins of the bird world?</p> <p>"It would be fair to say that, even among birds, pigeons are not thought to be the sharpest crayon in the box," lead author Damian Scarf told Discovery News. "I think that this ability may be widespread among birds. There is already clear evidence that it is widespread among primates."</p> <p>Scarf, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago, and colleagues Harlene Hayne and Michael Colombo began the study by first teaching pigeons how to order the numbers 1, 2 and 3. </p> <p>To do this, they presented the pigeons with three images containing one, two, or three objects. All three images appeared at once on a touch screen and the pigeons pecked the screen to make a response. If they correctly accomplished the task -- pecking the images in ascending order -- they received a wheat snack.</p> <div style="float: right; width: 278px; padding: 0pt 0pt 5px 10px; text-align: left;"> <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://news.discovery.com/videos/news-birds-keep-the-beat.html"><img alt="chimp"" src="http://news.discovery.com/videos/2009/birds-beat.jpg" border="0" width="278" height="155"><br> <strong>WATCH VIDEO: Birds Keep The Beat</strong></a> </div> <p>"We took steps to ensure things like volume could not control responding in training and testing," he said. "For example, during training and testing, the higher numerosity did not always have the largest surface area/volume and thus the pigeons could not respond based on this stimulus dimension."</p> <p>The images also came in different colors and shapes, so the pigeons weren't somehow linking those qualities to quantity.</p> <p>Next, the researchers upped the ante, to see whether or not pigeons had just learned to order 1, 2, and 3, or if they'd learned a more abstract rule. Scarf and his team presented the pigeons with pairs of images containing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 objects. The pigeons again had to pair the items in ascending order. For example, if a pigeon saw 8 and 5, it had to peck the objects representing 5 first.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/brainy-birds-city-urban-110427.html">NEWS: Brainy Birds Live the High Life in Cities</a></strong></p> <p>"Remarkably, the pigeons were able to respond to these novel pairs correctly," Scarf said. "In addition, their performance was indistinguishable from that of two rhesus monkeys that had been previously trained on this task."</p> <p>For a while, scientists have suspected that birds were math whizzes. Prior studies, however, usually focused on very socialized individuals like Alex, an African grey parrot that belonged to Irene Pepperberg, an adjunct professor of psychology at Brandeis University and a lecturer at Harvard.</p> <p>Alex, who died suddenly in 2007, could count and talk and had the intelligence of a 5-year-old human and the emotional maturity of a 2-year-old, according to Pepperberg.</p> <p>Parrots are often just given credit for mimicking humans when they talk, but Pepperberg told Discovery News that Alex created new word labels for objects by combining words he already knew. </p><p>For example, he called a juicy red apple that appears to have brought to mind bananas and cherries a "banerry."</p> <p>In terms of math, one of Alex's greatest feats was that he understood a numerical concept akin to zero, which is an abstract notion that people don't typically understand until age three or four.</p> <p>Now scientists are facing a parrot/pigeon/primate puzzle. Why is it that birds and primates seem to share math skills? </p><p>One explanation could be that the last common ancestor of these two groups possessed amazing numerical competence, but that would mean many other animals have it too, and studies haven't found clear evidence for such abilities yet. </p><p>Another possibility is that math skills somehow evolved independently in birds and primates.</p> <p>"At this point in time, I have no inkling as to which hypothesis is correct," Scarf said. "To answer this question, many distantly related animals would have to be tested."</p><p><br></p></div></div></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-77940773349827075082011-12-21T19:47:00.001-08:002011-12-21T19:47:01.293-08:00Camera Trap Images Tell Anti-Poaching Success Story - Discovery News<div><h4><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/camera-trap-images-111221.html"><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/camera-trap-images-111221.html">http://news.discovery.com/animals/camera-trap-images-111221.html</a></a></h4> <div class="newsItem"> <table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display:inline">Camera Trap Images Tell Anti-Poaching Success Story</h3></td> <td width="12" valign="middle"></td></tr> </tbody></table> <h4 class="dateline">December 21, 2011 12:56:28 PM <p class="byline">Jennifer Viegas</p> </h4> <div class="content"><p><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438a4069e970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="1. IMAG0028 (small)" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438a4069e970c" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438a4069e970c-640wi" title="1. IMAG0028 (small)"></a></p> <p><em><span style="font-size: 8pt;">Photo: A tigress drinks with her cubs from a watering hole inside Thailand's Western Forest Complex; Credit for all images: DNP-Government of Thailand/WCS Thailand Program</span></em></p> <p>Camera trap photo stills and video footage suggest that anti-poaching efforts in the forests of Thailand are paying off, according to the <a href="http://www.wcs.org/" target="_blank" title="Wildlife Conservation Society">Wildlife Conservation Society</a>.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/elephants-intelligence-test-110307.html">NEWS: Elephants Outwit Humans During Intelligence Test</a></strong></p> <p>The cameras, set up at several locations across Thailand's <a href="http://www.westernforest.org/en/Default.htm" target="_blank" title="Western Forest Complex">Western Forest Complex</a> over the last year, have captured tigers, <a href="http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AsianElephants/default.cfm" target="_blank" title="Asian elephants">Asian elephants</a>, <a href="http://www.ultimateungulate.com/artiodactyla/bos_frontalis.html" target="_blank" title="gaurs">gaurs</a>, sun bears, and many other species in off guard moments. Video footage shows a tigress and her cubs feeding on an animal carcass, leopards marking their territory with scent, wild pigs nursing their young, and even Asian elephants mating.</p> <p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fzarUPdgz9w" width="560"></iframe></p> <p>"The video represents a huge payoff for the government of Thailand, which has invested considerable resources in protecting wildlife and preventing illegal hunters from plundering the country's natural heritage," Joe Walston, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's <a href="http://www.wcs.org/where-we-work/asia.aspx" target="_blank" title="Asia Program">Asia Program</a>, was quoted as saying in a WCS press release. "We thank the government of Thailand for collaborating with WCS and others to put in place best practices in law enforcement and monitoring tigers and prey in Western Forest Complex."</p> <p><strong><a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/arctic-trap-camera-111027.html">DISCOVERY NEWS: Camera Traps Catch Animals in the Act</a></strong></p> <p>The evidence indicates tiger and prey populations have stabilized in this Thai forest region, which is larger than the state of Connecticut and consists of 17 contiguous protected areas. Recent estimates have found that the area is home to as many as 175 tigers. It also contains one of the largest and most important elephant populations in Southeast Asia, according to the WCS.</p> <p>Thailand is really emerging as a conservation leader. Enforcement staff from China, Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Indonesia all go to Thailand for training, so hopefully the successes at the Western Forest Complex can inspire ecosystem victories in other Asian countries.</p> <p>Here are more stills from the camera trap video footage:</p> <p><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197d5e970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="2. Wildlfe CameraTrap02 (small)" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197d5e970b" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197d5e970b-640wi" title="2. Wildlfe CameraTrap02 (small)"></a><br><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>Photo: A Malayan tapir pauses as it trips the infra-red beam of a camera trap in Thailand</em></span></p> <p><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197ebf970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="3. Wildlfe CameraTrap01(small)" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197ebf970b" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675f197ebf970b-640wi" title="3. Wildlfe CameraTrap01(small)"></a><br><em><span style="font-size: 8pt;">Photo: An Asian elephant calf peeks out from the middle of a herd of adults.</span></em></p></div></div></div><div><br></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-14413587595510013502011-12-20T18:37:00.000-08:002011-12-20T18:37:27.059-08:00SEX and proliferation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5CF5SU3ZPEQtA5_pn9SYIdVZnIN8KGunxV2miDDR9nkrcoKUpbK-nErI96PkeUCuSJU0LfOlHcmIDcYa6D-uXQfnrk5ahNO3BxPArJVk3PokM2HqeCKDDIQ2fTY9KAu8P4DnK5ZSj-Ts/s1600/Picture+17.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5CF5SU3ZPEQtA5_pn9SYIdVZnIN8KGunxV2miDDR9nkrcoKUpbK-nErI96PkeUCuSJU0LfOlHcmIDcYa6D-uXQfnrk5ahNO3BxPArJVk3PokM2HqeCKDDIQ2fTY9KAu8P4DnK5ZSj-Ts/s320/Picture+17.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">ex</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">is a very intriguing subject. Sex has become an advantageous means of procreation; combining two genomes so that the offspring has the best possible combination of alleles that will be beneficial for their survival and reproduction. Darwin introduced descent with modification, and modern science has revealed DNA to be the physical means of heredity. Armed with this knowledge, one might suspect sex to be the shiznit of strategies, and I believe it is one of the best certainly. But species have existed and remain in existence today who do not participate in this activity.. how is that possible?</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">A-sexual species produce genetically identical copies of themselves, clones, and if they have all the alleles in their DNA that they need to perform physical processes they're set. Archaea bacteria are a great example, the little guys survive in 150 degree + hot springs and chug along doing what there doing like they have for millions of years.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hermaphrodites have the ability to produce both types of gametes needed for fertilization, sperm and eggs, fish are often hermaphroditic. They are born as males and develop testes, store the sperm, and if the environment is right for reproduction they will devote their energy to forming ovaries and eggs, which they then self fertilize.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">So these strategies, each fascinating and unique, have been developed to propagate ones genes in the big scheme of evolution. I love evolution, sex is pretty interesting, and this article below is awesome. It discusses each of the means of procreation in the context of Darwin's theories combined with advances in modern science, check it out!</span></span></div><h1 class="articleTitle" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Clones, hermaphrodites and pregnancies: nature's oddities offer evolutionary lessons on reproduction</span></h1><h1 class="articleTitle" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">J.C. Avise</span><span style="font-size: small;">. Article first published online: 11 OCT 2011</span><span style="font-size: small;">. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00869.x.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span style="font-size: small;">2011 The Author. Journal of Zoology. 2011 The Zoological Society of London</span></span></h1><div face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Abstract:</div><div face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I love the term ‘natural history’ because it encapsulates the sentiment that nature's operations have evolutionary etiologies. Charles Darwin was a natural historian <i>par excellence</i> and his elucidation of natural selection, artificial selection, and sexual selection fundamentally changed how scientists interpret the origins of biological features previously ascribed to sentient craftsmanship by supernatural agents. Darwin's insights on evolutionary forces grew from his exceptional knowledge of natural history, yet two key topics steeped in natural history – sex and reproductive genetics – remained poorly understood (and probably even shunned) in Darwin's Victorian era. That situation changed dramatically in the latter half of the 20th century with societal awakenings about sexuality that also happened to coincide with the introduction of molecular parentage analyses that unveiled a plethora of formerly hidden ‘sexcapades’ throughout the biological world. Here I summarize some of the evolutionary revelations that have emerged from selection theory as applied to genetic and phylogenetic information on clonality, hermaphroditism, and pregnancy, three procreative phenomena that are relatively rare in vertebrate animals and thus offer alternative evolutionary perspectives on standard reproductive modes. Collectively, these three peculiarities of nature illustrate how the abnormal in biology can enlighten evolutionary thought about the norm.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">READ MORE! CLICK THE LINK BELOW!</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00869.x/full">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00869.x/full </a></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-63506636286395888662011-12-16T22:32:00.001-08:002011-12-17T19:47:51.072-08:00Florida Reef Restoration Successful - Discovery News<div><div class="newsItem"><table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display: inline;">Florida Reef Restoration Successful</h3></td> <td valign="middle" width="12"><br /></td></tr> </tbody></table> <h4 class="dateline">December 16, 2011 2:36:06 PM <p class="byline">Tim Wall</p></h4><div class="content"><p><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0162fde39e8a970d-pi"><img alt="Reef restore" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef0162fde39e8a970d image-full" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0162fde39e8a970d-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); width: 368px; height: 276px;" title="Reef restore" border="0" /></a><br />Nine years after a boat mangled a coral reef near Key West, Florida, the reef is back and thriving thanks to efforts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA).</p> <p>The 35-foot long boat Lagniappe II plowed into a reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in August 2002. The boat's owner paid $56,671.27 in a negotiated settlement to partially cover the costs he had incurred for the American public. The money partly covered the restoration of the 376 square-feet of living coral he damaged.</p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ed7a618970b-pi" style="float: right;"><img alt="Coral monitor" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ed7a618970b" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ed7a618970b-500wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); width: 166px; height: 125px;" title="Coral monitor" /></a>NOAA went to work reattaching 473 corals, then monitored the reef's progress as it regained its health. NOAA researchers used photos and a specialized computer program to study the numbers and types of coral in the damaged area.</p> <p>By 2009, the reattached coral looked just like a nearby area used as a reference. Another year later, and the damaged reef had more coral that the reference area.</p> <p>"The monitoring allowed us to document changes to the restored coral and measure the success of this restoration," said Hatsue Bailey, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary restoration biologist in <a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20111209_floridakeys.html" target="_self">a press release</a>.</p> <p>"With continued use of these methods, as well as additional monitoring, we learn more about habitat changes at this location and improve upon existing restoration strategies," said Bailey.</p> <p>Improving restoration techniques may help NOAA deal with the hundreds of vessel groundings that occur every year in the Florida Keys.</p> <p>The results of the restoration "<a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20111209_floridakeys.html" target="_self"><em>Lagniappe II</em> Coral Reef Restoration Monitoring Report, Monitoring Events 2002 to 2010, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Monroe County, Florida</a>," are publicly available.</p> <p>IMAGES:</p> <p><em>Following a 2002 boat grounding near Key West, restoration biologists assessed the damage and reattached broken corals. (NOAA)</em></p> <p><em>Coral monitoring in 2010 showed that restored corals were thriving eight years after restoration. (NOAA)</em></p></div></div></div><div><br /></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-21933205677285755792011-12-15T16:04:00.000-08:002011-12-17T20:06:50.274-08:00Russian Icebreaker On Race to Rescue Whales - Discovery News<div><h4 style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 180%;">Save the beluga!!!! </span></h4><div class="newsItem"><table class="biglink"><tbody>
<tr><td valign="top"><h3 style="display: inline;">Russian Icebreaker On Race to Rescue Whales</h3></td> <td valign="middle" width="12"><br />
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</tbody></table><h4 class="dateline">December 15, 2011 10:25:58 AM <div class="byline">Kieran Mulvaney</div></h4><div class="content"><a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438566f9e970c-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="800px-Belugaschule_1999-07-02" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438566f9e970c" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef015438566f9e970c-640wi" style="height: 312px; width: 488px;" title="800px-Belugaschule_1999-07-02" /></a><br />
The Arctic can be an unforgiving realm, and even its most adept inhabitants at times struggle with the potentially fatal obstacles it places in front of them.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/BelugaWhale.htm" target="_blank">beluga</a> is a case in point. Like other toothed whales, it uses echolocation, or sonar, to help find its way around; the echolocation of a beluga, however, seems to be particularly finely tuned and adept at finding even the narrowest of cracks and leads in the ice that forms on the sea surface.<br />
Sometimes, however, even that ability is outmatched by the challenges of an Arctic winter. On occasion, ice cover may be so extensive that all the belugas in the area are forced to use the nearest available patch of open water, known as a <a href="http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/polynyas.html" target="_blank">polynya</a>; as a result, that patch of water can seem positively inundated with bobbing white heads and the exhalation of whale breath. In such cases, the best scenario for the belugas is that other leads open up and they can find their way to food and safety; the worst scenario is that even this oasis either freezes over or becomes a magnet for polar bears, which have been known to take advantage of such circumstances to engage in a kind of feeding frenzy, reaching in and hauling trapped belugas on to the ice.<br />
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<a href="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ecdeedf970b-pi" style="float: left;"><img alt="Beluga-09" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ecdeedf970b" src="http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675ecdeedf970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Beluga-09" /></a><b></b><br />
It is uncertain how often this may happen, but given the extent and hostility of the Arctic, it can be assumed to be not infrequent; however, humans are rarely around to see it happen. <a href="http://www.institutofranklin.net/sites/default/files/fckeditor/WKS%20belugas%281%29.pdf" target="_blank">There are some records</a>: In Disko Bay, Greenland, at least 1,000 belugas were trapped in 1915, and up to 3,000 in 1955. In 1984, some 3,000 belugas were trapped in Senyavina Strait, off the Bering Sea in late December. A Russian icebreaker, the <i>Moskva</i>, was able to clear a channel through 12-foot thick ice to free the whales in late February. Roughly 2,000 whales escaped, and slightly more than 500 were taken by Native hunters.<br />
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In 2006, approximately 250 belugas were similarly threatened by encircling ice near Tuktoyaktuk in Canada's Northwest Territories; many found a way to freedom, but when it became clear that the remaining 50 or so almost certainly would not, <a href="http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/12/15/100-beluga-whales-trapped-off-chukotka/" target="_blank">local Inuvialuit killed them for food</a>.<br />
Right now, another <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/14/world/europe/russia-trapped-whales/index.html" target="_blank">100 or so belugas are trapped</a> in far eastern Russia, in the Sinyavinsky Strait off the Bering Sea near the village of Yanrakynnot. According to CNN: "Fishermen reported that the whales were concentrated in two relatively small ice holes, where, for now, they can breathe freely. But the belugas' chance of swimming back to water is slim due to the vast fields of ice over the strait. The whales have little food, and the ice flow is increasing ... They are at risk of rapid exhaustion and, ultimately, death by starvation or suffocation."<br />
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The government of the Chukotka Autonomous Region <a href="http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/12/15/free-boris-over-100-beluga-whales-trapped-in-russian-ice/" target="_self">has asked Moscow to send an icebreaker </a>to the region, to cut a path through which the belugas can swim to liberty. But the nearest icebreaker, the <i>Rubin</i>, is two days' steaming away, having just rescued the crew of a Korean cargo ship that ran aground off Chukotka.<br />
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Will Russian authorities be able to save the whales? Or will the Arctic have the final say? For the belugas, time is running out.<br />
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IMAGES:<br />
<i>Photograph of belugas </i>(Delphinapterus leucas) <i>in open water in Hudson Bay, Canada, by Ansgar Walk, via Wikimedia Commons.</i><br />
<i>Beluga whale adults in a breathing hole amidst the pack ice during Spring migration, Chukchi Sea, off shore from the Arctic coastal village of Barrow, Alaska</i><i>, in 2009</i><i>. (Steven Kazlowski, Corbis)</i></div></div></div><div><br />
</div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-6271446614447425912011-12-14T14:58:00.000-08:002011-12-17T20:03:16.822-08:00Buy a Real Tree For a Green Christmas - Discovery News<div><div class="newsItem"><table class="biglink" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top"> <h3 style="display: inline;">Buy a Real Tree For a Green Christmas</h3></td> <td valign="middle" width="12"><br /></td></tr> </tbody></table> <img src="http://news.discovery.com/earth/2011/12/13/trees-278.jpg" alt="" class="thumbnailImage" /> <h4 class="dateline">December 13, 2011 7:35:00 AM <p class="byline">Tim Wall</p> </h4> <div class="content"><p>Real trees are the Earth and economy-friendly buy, compared to re-used artificials, say forestry officials. The benefits start on the farm.</p> <p>"First of all, any conifer makes great cover in the winter, which is what ground birds like quail are looking for," Jill Sidebottom, Forestry Specialist at <a href="http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/xmas/index.html" target="_blank">North Carolina State University</a>, told Discovery News.</p> <p>"Secondly, it's the ground covers that provide the seed, flowers, and habitat for insects that bring in the wildlife."</p> <p>"The young trees are great because it provides an early successional forest -- habitat along the edges of woods. Talk to any wildlife person and they will tell you that this is what they try to maintain for wildlife, and that's exactly what a Christmas tree farm is," said Sidebottom.</p> <p></p> <p>Tree farms use relatively small amounts of agricultural chemicals compared to other crops. Many farmers use herbicides at low concentrations to suppress grass, but allow cover-crops like nitrogen-fixing clover to survive. <a href="http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/xmas/environment/water-summary.html" target="_blank">One study</a> Sidebottom performed found that stream quality near Christmas tree farms was largely unaffected.</p> <p>Even Christmas tree stumps continue to be giving trees.</p> <div style="float: right; width: 278px; padding: 0pt 0pt 5px 10px; text-align: left;"> <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="http://news.discovery.com/videos/tech-where-does-our-garbage-go.html"><br /><strong><center><br /></center></strong></a> </div> <p>"I've seen many flickers and woodpeckers feeding on insects in old decaying cut stumps," said Sidebottom.</p> <p>The roots left in the ground lock away carbon the tree inhaled and used to build its tissues. The carbon sequestered by the roots helps to ease the carbon footprint of transporting trees.</p> <p>Sidebottom recommends against buying live trees to subsequently plant.</p> <p>"I don't like live trees because you are digging up dirt and carting it around. Talk about fossil fuel use! You are carting away the soil from the field. And so few of these trees actually live," she said.</p> <p>Cut trees can be used after drying out. The needles make for mulch. A tree sunk in a pond creates fish habitat. The non-profit Earth911 can help you <a href="http://search.earth911.com/?what=Christmas+Trees&where=&list_filter=all&max_distance=25&family_id=&latitude=&longitude=&country=&province=&city=" target="_blank">find a tree recycler</a>.</p> <p>Fake trees are usually made out of PVC, other plastics and metals. Those materials don't break down readily in a landfill, and release harmful chemicals during manufacture, Rick Dungey, public relations manager for the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA), told Discovery News.</p> <p>Fake trees have a larger lifetime carbon footprint.</p> <p>"You'd have to look at energy used by the factory and the carbon released in extraction of oil. The metal in the branches also has to be processed. Then they are shipped across the Pacific and used for a short period of time compared to Earth years," said Dungey.</p> <p></p> <p>Dungey acknowledges fake trees can be used for years, but notes that eventually every tree ends up in a dump.</p> <p>"The Earth's gonna be here a lot longer than the 20 years you have that tree," he said.</p> <p>Christmas trees also pump green into the American farm economy.</p> <p>"A real tree is grown by an American farm family," said Dungey.</p> <p>Eighty percent of fake trees are produced in China, according to the <a href="http://www.christmastree.org/facts.cfm" target="_blank">NCTA</a>.</p> <p>"You can have a beautiful fully biodegradable plant grown on a farm versus one produced in a factory overseas," said Dungey.</p> <p>America's nearly 15,000 Christmas tree farms employ over 100,000 workers, according to the NCTA.</p></div></div></div>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-39702832216555003062011-12-14T13:23:00.001-08:002018-08-30T15:07:24.256-07:00Feeling rather small?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEvoDnlk5m70tih238mivgjeof1JrWfmvzs2l9lriH3A5MhMSOebEKNQRXkUqym-jV5TxTr9IfMkNK9Fxn2U81bzUVivowK9prcfxdUG_fO6ouBfeeP8CgEwX4bmmCclg6r9DXO5vpTO7/s1600/Picture+11.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686102569970669010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEvoDnlk5m70tih238mivgjeof1JrWfmvzs2l9lriH3A5MhMSOebEKNQRXkUqym-jV5TxTr9IfMkNK9Fxn2U81bzUVivowK9prcfxdUG_fO6ouBfeeP8CgEwX4bmmCclg6r9DXO5vpTO7/s320/Picture+11.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 222px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
Take this guy, <i>Tornatellides boeningi</i>. They are <span style="font-size: 100%; font-weight: bold;">consumed</span> by white eye birds in Japan, but they <span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">survive</span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-weight: bold;"> </span>digestion. Then they get <span style="font-size: 100%;">pooped out</span> all over Japan and continue to enjoy their snail days peacefully. Passage through the gut may actually be beneficial to the snail, so I think we could all take a lesson from this little guy. <br />
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Cheers to staying humble <i>Tornatellides boeningi, </i>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-73491524298832356062011-12-13T14:40:00.000-08:002011-12-13T16:14:59.044-08:00Beluga Christmas Boogy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKbXqVGBjHVygh9n_eDsCdxv8Esd_phBHdKMpLVpmgwf72Sujx1AN4lrJ7LRNDvYreiy5Vv0amcFC16o887CC0YZAnD2g5oxO8l-9-9AxbVIVeLGIaiz7zkYbecJJ7OmiP59oEMKiqew2/s1600/Picture+4.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKbXqVGBjHVygh9n_eDsCdxv8Esd_phBHdKMpLVpmgwf72Sujx1AN4lrJ7LRNDvYreiy5Vv0amcFC16o887CC0YZAnD2g5oxO8l-9-9AxbVIVeLGIaiz7zkYbecJJ7OmiP59oEMKiqew2/s320/Picture+4.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685747514040635810" border="0" /></a><span style="width: 630px;font-size:100%;" >Beluga whales are interesting and mysterious to me, but when I found a video of one dancing while being serenaded by a mariachi band.. I had to do some googling.<br /><br />I've seen belugas in documentaries, but I've never <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>thought about them before. They inhabit Arctic and sub-Arctic seas near the coasts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia, and primarily eat fish, squid, octopus and crustaceans. Yeah, cool, so whats so interesting?<br /><br />Beluga whales are an incredibly friendly and social bunch! Also known as a "sea canary" they squeak, chirp, whistle and click to communicate with each other. They congregate in groups of two to twenty five, but pods of belugas aggregate in estuaries and can reach up to 10,000. Mother and calf form very close life long bonds, and often will remain in the same pod and migrate to estuaries together. Humans have interacted with belugas since ye old whaling days, taking advantage of their sweet mild manner to capture them and of coarse, hunt them.<br /><br />This strangely adorable whale is a very unique species with only one other living relative in the same family, the narwhal. I want this train of thought let loose because.. well frankly theres a lot of polar pears in santa hats this season and I'm a little sick of it. Save the polar bears, yes. Now expand your mind and think about<span style="font-style: italic;"> saving the beluga </span>while watching the beluga boogy below.<br /></span><br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZS_6-IwMPjM" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="width: 630px;font-size:100%;" ><br />During the winter months pods of belugas stay along the edge of the ice pack, or live under the Arctic ice by finding breathing holes called polynyas. They must surface to breathe, so they will rotate and share a single small opening in the ice until they continue their migration. They are well equipped with echo-location capabilities that may be how they mysteriously navigate from polynyna to air pocket, and survive under the Arctic ice.<br /><br />Around the edge of the ice pack and in polynyas belugas are incredibly vulnerable to predation by killer whales, polar bears, and humans. Polar bears will sit and wait at a polynya and maul each beluga who surfaces to breathe until they make a catch, awesome for the polar bear not the beluga. Well, as the sea ice melts more and more each year polar bears can't use this hunting strategy (wooo go beluga). But what that leaves the beluga population subject to is killer whales...<br /><br />I'd rather take my chances hiding stealthily under the ice and hoping to not get eaten by a few polar bears than be a big white whale in a pod of twenty, in the big blue ocean, with transient orca whales invading my neck of the woods.<br /><br />Then, they spend their summer months in river estuaries absorbing human contaminates, and giving birth to their young.<br /><br />This is a beautiful unique creature that is largely overlooked when thinking about the ecological effects of the receding ice pack and human pollution. This sociable, fun, gentle, intelligent, warm blooded animal captured my heart dancing with the mariachi band, I hope you can fall in love with a beluga too. </span><span style="width: 630px;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br />Beluga whales are "near threatened" by the IUCN redlist, and polar bears are one step up being "vulnerable".</span><br /><img src="file:///Users/ellabendrick-chartier/Desktop/220px-Cetacea_range_map_Beluga.png" alt="" /><span style="width: 630px;font-size:100%;" ><br />Save the polar bear! <span style="font-size:130%;">Save the beluga!</span></span><span style="width: 630px;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span>Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3024818131419377616.post-7062484238567498532011-12-12T23:28:00.001-08:002011-12-13T00:03:45.532-08:00Case of the Panda Ant<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqG360cBlCtlgn2g0DA-ebgN1GtfZXZs-san_ILb2GHkqjuCb7BxNTAEox1bzWNePdG4oAp2hJM_YH_VZoonPoxfvO8jvZAQJhum4dpLHT4_hMOIWu9lO_Mbe6rbYxDLJk6XI3TNCvVmWf/s1600/pandaant.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 246px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqG360cBlCtlgn2g0DA-ebgN1GtfZXZs-san_ILb2GHkqjuCb7BxNTAEox1bzWNePdG4oAp2hJM_YH_VZoonPoxfvO8jvZAQJhum4dpLHT4_hMOIWu9lO_Mbe6rbYxDLJk6XI3TNCvVmWf/s320/pandaant.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685511705001430050" border="0" /></a><br />A panda ant? I just had to find out more about this insect.<br /><br />Surprisingly this charismatic "ant" was difficult to find, and involved translating a lot of spanish text. Alas I discovered this "ant" is actually a wingless wasp from Chile. The specimens collected and cataloged in the <a href="http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org/insectarium/Hymenoptera-Mutillidae-Euspinolia-militaris-img45547.html">Virtual Biodiversity Insectarium</a> were hermaphrodites about 8mm in length from a near coastal region in central Chile.<br /><br /><br /><br />Pretty cute for a wasp.. but its interesting how similar it looks to this Thistledown Velvet Ant, Dasymutilla gloriosa found in Mexico, California, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHZ9o1GAfaTEzR6IHR6YZ6J5uLype4l03ztAS8KK29mLNL4Zs46Hkvd9kgBCF32PPC8CkFIA88L-Msj6E2Hp8olnHXNbw9TwZ4EZ45DLSVMzmK_N1vUl_WwSl8X-DgVTfU-NSdE5B0Jtq/s1600/adultpandaant%253Awasp.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHZ9o1GAfaTEzR6IHR6YZ6J5uLype4l03ztAS8KK29mLNL4Zs46Hkvd9kgBCF32PPC8CkFIA88L-Msj6E2Hp8olnHXNbw9TwZ4EZ45DLSVMzmK_N1vUl_WwSl8X-DgVTfU-NSdE5B0Jtq/s320/adultpandaant%253Awasp.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685519479265748818" border="0" /></a><br />Freaky.Ella http://www.blogger.com/profile/08485045074065966806noreply@blogger.com2