Hedwig Pöllöläinen
grrlscientist
Posts by this author
tags: coelacanth, Latimeria menadoensis, fish, living fossil, Indonesia
Indonesian fisherman, Yustinus Lahama, holds up a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct at the time of the dinosaurs, in a quarantine pool after he caught it in the sea off North Sulawesi province 19…
tags: food stamps, poverty, fish, hunger, politics
Congresscritter Tim Ryan has his own blog and, if you recall, he has been participating in the "Food Stamp Challenge" where he tries to eat on no more than $3 per day for one week. His solution to this problem was to purchase peanut butter and…
tags: humor, class warfare, streaming video
This is a bit of British-style humor to get you started on your work day, starring David Letterman. [1:58].
tags: bolide, mammals, mass extinction, North America, Younger Dryas
Why did huge numbers of large mammals in North America suddenly die out approximately 13,000 years ago? Over the years, there have been plenty of hypotheses proposed, ranging from overhunting and disease to death by freezing.…
tags: ornithology, birds, flamingo, gay
An orphaned Greater Flamingo chick is carefully placed into a used eggshell in preparation to hatch a second time -- in its foster parents' nest.
A pair of flamingos have become proud foster parents after they took an abandoned chick under their wings at…
tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
"Black-throated green warbler", Dendroica virens.
[song]
Image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Pamela Wells.
[larger]
Birds in Science
According to ornithologists, the Gorgeted Puffleg has been…
tags: mimic octopus, sea snake, streaming video
This streaming video shows you a mini-octopus imitating a sea snake. [0:50].
tags: Harry Potter, humor, satire, streaming video
Okay, for the record, I think this streaming video is silly, but you might enjoy it [2:06]
tags: humor, satire, An Inconvenient Truth, streaming video
According to the latest streaming news on global warming, children are the greatest enemies of our environment [1:19]
tags: beetle, insects, physiology, respiration
An X-ray of a yellow mealworm beetle showing the system of white tubes, or tracheae, running through its body.
When I worked with and dissected insects as a graduate student, I always found their breathing apparatus to be fascinating and beautiful,…
tags: blogosphere, 100 books, meme
I ran across this book meme at The Library Diva -- a blog pal of mine whom I met through Craigslist -- and thought it was interesting.
Look at the list of books below:
Bold the ones you've read
Italicize the ones you want to read
Leave unaltered the ones that…
tags: immigrants, employment, labor, politics
As Congress debates an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, several economists and news media pundits have sounded the alarm, contending that immigrants are causing harm to Americans in the competition for jobs. But are they?
[A] more careful…
tags: physics, Large Hadron Collider, Higgs field, streaming video
Will the Large Hadron Collider finally find the elusive God particle? Watch this streaming BBC video to find out! [7:38]
tags: Trypanosoma evansi, parasite, wasting disease, Tabanus, Australia, conservation
A PhD student from James Cook University in Australia hopes her research will help protect Australian wildlife from an exotic wasting disease that could devastate kangaroos and other endemic marsupials.
Kirsty Van…
tags: mosquito, DNA, Aedes
After recently mapping all the DNA, or genome, of the mosquito that spreads yellow and dengue fever, scientists were surprised to find it is more complex than the genome of the mosquito that carries malaria. Scientists plan to use this information to help them battle…
tags: endangered species day, conservation
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution supporting the establishment of Endangered Species Day on 18 May. Endangered Species Day is a national celebration of America's commitment to protecting and recovering our nation's endangered species ..…
tags: hair, baldness, hair regeneration, wound healing, Wnt protein
A group of American scientists have discovered how to make the skin of laboratory mice grow new hair follicles, complete with hair, by using a protein that stimulates follicle generating genes in skin cells under wound conditions.…
tags: parrot, Lories, Lorikeet, Loriinae, Loriidae, Rimatara Lorikeet, Kuhl's Lory, Vini kuhlii, conservation, ornithology, South Pacific Islands
Endangered Rimatara lorikeet or Kuhl's lory, Vini kuhlii, feeding on nectar.
Image: G McCormack, Cook Islands Natural Heritage Trust (CINHT). [larger…
tags: cell, molecular biology, cell biology, streaming video
This streaming video shows a small number of the millions of amazing things that are happening within cells and also between cells millions of times every day [3:09].
tags: hunger, poverty, food stamps
Apparently, our congresscritters are having difficulty feeding themselves on what the average person gets for food stamps. Basically, food stamp benefits provide 26 million Americans with roughly $1 per meal, or $3 for an entire day's worth of food. Food stamps is…
tags: politics, Democrat, Republican, satisfaction, Gallup poll
How satisfied are you with the state of your country? That apparently depends upon whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. According to today's newly released Gallup poll, a sudden drop was reported in its regular "satisfaction"…
tags: Antarctica, Weddell Sea, new species, ANDEEP, zoology
The scientists said an "astonishingly diverse" collection of isopods had been discovered. This young male isopod represents one of 674 isopod species found.
Image: W. Brokeland. [larger image]
According to a paper that was recently…
tags: blog carnival, birds
The 49th edition of I and the Bird is now available. This blog carnival focuses on recent blog essays about birds and, as usual, there's plenty there to read, including a piece that I sent along to them.
tags: NASA, lunar exploration, space, streaming video
This streaming video makes NASA's lunar exploration look like a world premier of a really cool movie. Too bad they don't have the vision and leadership that is required to make a really cool movie .. and too bad putting a few dozen white tanks…
tags: medicine, heart attack, angina, health
Do you think life is unfair? According to a new study, people who think they have been treated unfairly are more likely to suffer a heart attack or chest pain.
One of the largest and longest studies of its kind analyzed medical data from 6,081 British…
tags: ferret, black-footed ferret, endangered species
Today, I received an email from Jenna Bowles, who is the head of distribution for The Futures Channel. They produce "micro-documentaries" that feature industries and professions that are both innovative and inspiring. One of their newly launched…
tags: health care, medicine, health insurance
America has the best health care in the world? Think again. This should come as no surprise to anyone, but according to two different studies that were published recently, Americans have the poorest health care among all the richest nations on earth.…
tags: turtle, Cantor's giant softshell turtle, Pelochelys cantorii, endangered species, herpetology, reptiles
This photo released by Conservation International, shows two rare Cantor's giant
softshell turtles, Pelochelys cantorii, thought to be on the brink of extinction.
Conservation…
tags: superduperfriends, parody, humor, streaming video
This streaming political parody of the Challenge of the Superfriends is something I think you will enjoy watching [1:04].
tags: hummingbird, Gorgeted Puffleg, Eriocnemis Isabellaea, endangered species, ornithology, birds
A new species of hummingbird, the Gorgeted Puffleg, Eriocnemis Isabellaea, has been discovered in the Serrania del Pinche mountains of southwest Colombia.
[much larger image]
According to…