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a blog about the intersection of science, art, and culture by Jessica Palmer, PhD
Jessica Palmer has a PhD in Molecular Biology and has been blogging about the intersection of art and biology since 2006.
read the first BioE post.
The contents of this blog are the personal opinions of the author, independent of any organizations with which she is affiliated, and should not be construed as professional advice.
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Category: Biology • Blogosphere • Ephemera • Frivolity • Photography
Posted on: December 5, 2009 8:06 PM, by Jessica Palmer
The smallest orchid in the world (above) - only 2 mm across! (Thanks for the heads-up, Laura!)
Cassette-tape skeletons at Designboom.
Via Wired Science: Mini microbe portraits from the Micropolitan Museum
Dude - there are spiny, venomous catfish? Who knew?
Finally, an interview I did recently with Ava at Paw-Talk.
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Comments
That's fucking tiny!
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | December 5, 2009 9:26 PM
About the catfish venom, thing; I used to work for a seafood company and one of the things done by the fisherman when they were injured by a yellow catfish dorsal spine (just the dorsal spines, not the pectoral ones) (Pylodictis olivaris) was to scrape some of the mucus from the belly and rub it on the wound. I don't know why, but they said it made it burn less.
Granted, it's anecdotal, but it would be interesting to look into any neutralizing components present in the other secretions.
Posted by: Jared | December 5, 2009 9:51 PM
Interesting anecdote. Venomous animals always co-evolve various mechanisms of resistance to the toxins in their own venoms. For example, the voltage-gated sodium channels of pufferfish have evolved amino acid mutations that render them resistant to blockade by tetrodotoxin (the lethal toxin in pufferfish venom).
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | December 6, 2009 1:07 PM