Biology (Macroscopic ):
Snake in your yard? Call the snake rescuers.
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Posted on May 1, 2008 2:07 PM • 10 Comments •
And so do you.
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Posted on April 4, 2008 12:45 PM • 21 Comments •
Conflicts between predators like cougars and coyotes and human companions like pets and small children are becoming more common as people move into areas that used to be wildlife habitat. The Seattle Times has a great story this morning about biologists in Washington who are studying cougars to learn if cougars and people can coexist. The biologists think most of...
Posted on March 16, 2008 11:42 AM • 0 Comments •
Your canopy is disappearing, you're likely to freeze. NASA's Earth Observatory reports that over 1,110 acres of forest were illegally logged, during the past four years, in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico. Monarch butterflies travel here from all over the United States and Canada. Images from the Ikonos satellite tell us though, that future migrating butterflies are...
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Posted on March 11, 2008 10:04 AM • 5 Comments •
You can get a jump on the Darwin Day festivities. Once again the Alliance for Science is sponsoring an essay contest for Darwin Day. If you download their suggestions for good essay writing, you can get your essay done over winter break and have a good crack at winning on those cash prizes! The Alliance for Science is pleased to...
Posted on December 20, 2007 9:29 AM • 0 Comments •
If we suspected a virgin birth, how could we prove it?
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Posted on December 3, 2007 9:00 AM • 13 Comments •
Sexual attraction is all in your brain. At least if you're a nematode....
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Posted on November 19, 2007 12:20 PM • 2 Comments •
A reader from the UK sent me these lovely photos that he took of a jellyfish and asked for my help in identifying it. Unfortunately, while I'm pretty good with bacteria, plants, and tropical fish, my taxonomy skills don't go much farther unless I have a sample of DNA. These photos were taken at La-Manga off the coast of southern...
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Posted on September 13, 2007 11:34 AM • 4 Comments •
Charles Darwin was so fascinated by beetles he paid people to help him build his collection. The Coleopterists Society and the Smithsonian Institute want to help kids explore the wonders of beetles, too. They're providing grants for kids, in grades 7-12 to work on beetle biology. Applications are due by November 15, 2007....
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Posted on August 23, 2007 3:00 PM • 1 Comments •
Some maggots have gotten good press lately because of their helpful ability to clean out wounds by consuming dead tissue. Screwworms however; also known as Cochliomyia hominivorax, will never be welcomed in an operating room or anywhere else. USDA Agricultural Research Service These are the creatures of nightmares. During part of their lives, they live and travel as flies, and...
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Posted on August 8, 2007 2:53 PM • 0 Comments •
What do malaria, sleeping sickness, yellow fever, and dengue virus have in common? Sure, they're all tropical diseases, but there's something else. All of these diseases have some kind of insect vector. image from the Public Health Library tags: tropical disease, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, insect control, malaria...
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Posted on August 2, 2007 9:27 AM • 3 Comments •
tags: crows, intelligence, birds We don't have the sorts of wild kingdom experiences in Seattle, that they have in Alaska, but we do see nature taking its course, from time to time, right out on our city streets. This morning, while walking the dog, I heard a gawdawful noise coming from around the corner. Naturally, the dog and I had...
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Posted on May 10, 2007 4:46 PM • 1 Comments •
The best place for biology words.
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Posted on February 9, 2007 11:58 AM • 3 Comments •
In the effort to help us define a few basic concepts, PZ started out by giving us a nice simple definition of a gene, but as he, rightly noted: I tell you right now that if I asked a half dozen different biologists to help me out with this, they'd rip into it and add a thousand qualifiers, and it...
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Posted on January 21, 2007 3:44 PM • 7 Comments •
And a mutation that makes males flies fight like a girl
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Posted on January 21, 2007 1:41 PM • 0 Comments •
It's true. Chimeras are out and walking among us. These aren't quite the chimeras that RPM is obsessed with, but they're certainly bothersome to some. From Genome Technology Online, we have a report that James Derr, at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, wants to sequence the genome from a real buffalo, but those buffalo are hard to find. To...
Posted on January 9, 2007 12:28 PM • 3 Comments •
Her name is Flora and she is a single parent. Born in Miami, Flora moved to Chester, UK, as a toddler. Now, she's almost 8 years old and starting a family, all on her own. Literally....
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Posted on December 21, 2006 2:43 PM • 3 Comments •