dr. dolittle

In honor of the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week", check out these shark cams. National Aquarium Reef Shark Cam: Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream SHARK FIN CAM: Video taken from a camera strapped to the dorsal fin of a shark: Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream If you have…

Cartoon image from www.teenwritersblog.com Physiologist Laurie Goodyear (Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, MA) and her colleagues recently published a study in the American Journal of Physiology that shows how overexpressing a protein can increase exercise capacity. The protein of…

The cause of "angel wing", a deformity found in waterfowl such as ducks, geese and swans has been uncovered. Sadly, it is often caused by well-intended people feeding birds foods that are too high in proteins or carbohydrates (bread, crackers and popcorn anyone?). Not surprisingly, this condition…

  Image from CNN.com Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite found in cat poop that can make both people and cats ill. It can infect any warm-blooded animal, including reportedly 60 million Americans. People infected with T. gondii typically have flu-like symptoms. Dr. David J Bzik in the Department of…

Like Aesop's fable, rats have another reason to be envious of elephants. Elephants also have significantly more genes that can detect different smells (i.e. olfactory receptor genes) than other super-sniffers like rats and dogs. In fact, compared to 13 other species, African elephants have 1,948…

This newly discovered feathered dinosaur, Changyuraptor yangi, was built like a modern airplane. Illustration by S. ABRAMOWICZ, DINOSAUR INSTITUTE, NHM. Photo of fossil by: Luis Chiappe Dinosaur Institute, NHM as published in the USA Today The discovery of  this non-avian dinosaur, …

Brandy Velten (doctoral student) and Dr. Kenneth Welch (Comparative Physiologist) from the University of Toronto wanted to know whether birds with very different speeds at which they flaps their wings (i.e. wingbeat frequencies) had correspondingly varying types of myosin proteins in their muscles…

Image from the American Physiological Society's website.http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Conferences/APS-Conferences/2014-Conferences/… Phew!! I just submitted my abstract for the Comparative Physiology meeting that will be held this October. Judging from the preliminary program, it is going to be an…

Have you had a chance to see this video from Discovery News showing the flashy 'disco clam'? A graduate student at UC Berkeley, Lindsey Dougherty, unraveled the mystery of this party-like effect. The clams actually have tiny silica spheres (340 nanometers in diameter) on the inside of their lips…

A recent article published in the American Journal of Physiology reviewed how the brain regulates feeding behaviors. Humans are not the only species to eat food in spurts we like to call meals. Research suggests that this behavior may actually aid survival as it reduces exposure time to the…

Image of a tick stealing a meal from: www2.outdoorchannel.com Ticks are blood-sucking arthropods that can act as vectors for various diseases in both animals and humans. A recent article published in Frontiers in Zoology summarizes findings that suggest ticks may also be considered venomous…

Bone-house wasps protect their young by building walls made of ant carcasses. Image from: Merten Ehmig A new species of spider wasp that protect their young with walls made of ant carcasses has been discovered in the forests of China. Dr. Michael Staab from the University of Freiburg discovered…

New research suggests that kangaroos use their tails as a 5th "leg":

Image of C. elegans from http://www.easternct.edu/~adams/C.eleganslanding.html New research published in PLOS Genetics shows that starving C. elegans (Caenorhabditis elegans) during the late larval stage of development when the worms are undergoing tissue growth and formation halts cellular…

  Image of Biwa salmon from the Lake Biwa Museum (http://www.lbm.go.jp/english/exhibits/aquarium.html) It is not surprising that Biwa salmon (image above), a subspecies of Oncorhyncus masou, do not adapt to seawater very well after having been landlocked in Lake Biwa, Japan for the last 500,000…

Shivering is one mechanism by which heat is produced in the body. Heat production is called thermogenesis. Another mechanism is through nonshivering thermogenesis regulated by brown fat (i.e. adipose). This second type of heating mechanism kicks in when we need extra heat production such as a…

Infrared image of a koala (from S. Griffiths) New research sheds light why koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) spend so much time hugging trees. As shown in the infrared image above, the trees stay cool on hot days. Since koalas do not sweat, hugging trees is another method to keep their cool in…

Image of a big-eared bat from Scientific American The New Guinea big-eared bat (Pharotis imogene; specimen pictured above) was thought to be extinct for the past 120 years. The bat is now considered critically endangered or possibly extinct as this specimen is the only known member of the genus…

Image of a zebrafish larva from (NHGRI Press Photos). Calcium is very important for the normal development, growth and survival of most vertebrates. Therefore, regulation of calcium intake and disposal is well-controlled. Mammals obtain most of their calcium from the diet, whereas fish obtain…

Image of cricket chips called "chirps" from Six Foods. (http://www.sixfoods.com/#product) Crickets are the first insect to now be farmed for human consumption in the United States. I'll admit the thought of snacking on cricket flour-based chips is not exactly appetizing. But the process of…

While we are on the topic of cute animal stories, here is a family portrait with a newborn baby macaque at the Trentham Monkey Forest in Staffordshire, United Kingdom.  

Check out the unique bond between this bear, lion and tiger (i.e. BLT) at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary in Locust Grove, Ga: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Freshwater fish are in a constant battle with their environment when it comes to maintaining their electrolyte balance as they are continuously losing ions to the surrounding water. Therefore, they have to actively absorb ions such as sodium, calcium and chloride from the water (see figure below).…

Just in case you have not seen this viral YouTube video of the family cat saving a boy from a vicious dog attack, I have embedded it below. I think this kitty deserves a nice fresh fish for dinner...every day. An article was posted today in NBCNews featuring the heroics of other house cats. Here…

I have heard of some animals using sugars as antifreeze (check out the prior blog on wood frogs that freeze and survive!), but never lipids. Image from http://thebuggeek.com/tag/eurosta-solidaginis/ Researchers have discovered that larva of the Goldenrod gall fly (Eurosta solidaginis) shown…

Scientists in the jungles of southern India have discovered 14 new species of "dancing frogs" many of which are unfortunately already endangered. DNA analyses have shown that these new species are members of an ancient genus that has been around since the time of the dinosaurs, Micrixalus. There…

Here is a neat video that I watched at the David Bruce Undergraduate Poster session at the Experimental Biology conference last week. It describes the amazing physiology of the avian lung and was created by an undergraduate student researcher, Peter Luu for the Physiology Video Contest sponsored by…

Additional highlights from the Comparative Physiology posters presented at the 2014 Experimental Biology conference in San Diego, CA: TA White, G Evans, GC Verzosa, T Pirtskhalava, T Tchkonia, JD Miller, JL Kirkland, and NK LeBrasseur. "Aging and cellular senescence and disease: The influence of…

Day 4 of the meeting turned out to be pretty exciting for a comparative physiologist as well. The first session that I went to was called "RNASEQ approaches to understanding extreme physiological adaptations." Considering the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section business and dinner…

Day 3 of the Experimental Biology meeting was arguably one of the most exciting for comparative physiology. Here are the highlights from Monday: Morning Seminars: Birgitte McDonald from Aarhus University, Denmark presented, "Deep-diving sea lions exhibit extreme bradycardia in long-duration dives…