Life Sciences
gregladen | November 29, 2007Genesis 2 ends with Adam and Eve being naked yet not ashamed. In Genesis 3, the Serpent, who is wiser than average, tricks Eve into partaking of the forbidden fruit of one of god's two magic trees. This results in Adam and Eve recognizing their own nakedness, and compelling them to produce the first clothing. The word "naked" in the original Hebrew is either eromim or arumim. The former means naked (no clothes) and the latter means exposure as in exposing lies. The original Hebrew for the "clothing" that they put together, "chagowr" probably means "belt." The parallel (and probably…
tetrapodzoology | November 29, 2007
That weird little face was, indeed, that of a turtle - but it wasn't that of a matamata Chelus fimbriatus, it was instead that of a softshell turtle (a trionychid), and specifically that of a narrow-headed softshell Chitra indica (though read on). Well done Lars, Johannes and Emile, and particularly Hai-Ren. Chitra has to be one of the most amazing turtles: a big to enormous, long-skulled rubbery animal that hardly ever leaves the water.
Unlike all other turtles, softshells have reduced the bony carapace to such an extent that the margins of their shell are flexible: in some species, the…
cmcclain | November 27, 2007In the Pose A Question post a reader asked...
What are your (research) interests? I personally tend to find some of the more exotic deep sea communities interesting-- hydrothermal vent communities, whale falls, and life at the poles.
The simplest answer to this is the diversity and body size of deep-sea animals. My research often focuses on soft-bottom communities typical of most of the deep sea, but currently is moving toward seamounts. As such, my research often tends toward more general ecological and evolutionary questions that affect all organisms not just those in the deep.
What…
loom | November 27, 2007For my latest "Dissection" column in Wired, I take a look at the tree of life, and the way it changed dramatically thirty years ago this month. To get a sense of what the tree looks like today, I pointed readers to the wonderful interactive tree of life at the European Molecular Biology Lab. But I didn't realize until after I finished the column that when you scroll over the branches of the tree, pictures pop up of species at their tips. Most of the pictures are of assorted chains, blobs, and other microbial portraits. But things get more interesting in the animal kingdom. Iz very nice!
Hat…
grrlscientist | November 26, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Swainson's Hawk, Buteo swainsoni, in flight.
Image: Justawriter [wallpaper size].
People Hurting Birds
An extremely rare lesser spotted eagle, shot earlier this year by dumbass human hunters on the island of Malta, has been saved from death but may never be able to return to the wild. The bird, nicknamed Sigmar after Germany's environmental minister, underwent three operations to repair damage it suffered after being shot, but it may not be enough for the bird to live in the wild again. The bird can feed itself and…
laelaps | November 25, 2007To some, the universe is a place that has been fine-tuned to be "'just right' for life," a place where human beings (or at least organisms that are upright bipeds with binocular vision, large eyes, and grasping hands) are an inevitable consequence of evolution. I've never found such arguments (the anthropic principle and a teleological "march of progress" in evolution, respectively) to be compelling, but there are some who still advocate such arguments. Paul Davies is one such advocate, and he has just published an opinion article in the New York Times called "Taking Science on Faith" in…
laelaps | November 24, 2007
Today in 1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published (and immediately sold out). While Darwin published many other books during his life (including the very popular The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With Observations of Their Habits), On the Origin of Species is by far the most famous and influential, and it is my own shame that my only copy is a small pocket version of it (although I do own 2nd edition copies of The Descent of Man and The Variation of…
clock | November 24, 2007Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party!
It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get creationist clap-trap as they cannot even copy and paste correctly (hence they are better known these days as cdesign proponentsists).
Pondering Pikaia and The Beagle Project Blog were first out of the gate this morning with wonderful posts.
Here is a recent book review of the Origin by someone who knows some biology and another one by someone who does not - both are quite nice and eye-opening.…
tetrapodzoology | November 24, 2007
I'm going away for a little while. I leave you with this nice picture of a male Fallow deer Dama dama, taken from Neil Phillips' collection of UK wildlife photos (and used with his permission)...
All deer are bizarre (I'll elaborate on that cryptic comment at some time), but Fallow deer are especially interesting: they differ from most other Old World deer in retaining spots into adulthood, in having a particularly long tail (for a deer) that is used in an unusual urination display, in having big rump patches, in lacking canines (although every now and again there are freaks: see Chapman…
tetrapodzoology | November 23, 2007
On to more of my thoughts about the TV series The Velvet Claw (part I is here). In the previous article, I discussed the art and animation used in the series, all of which was really quite good and very interesting in often featuring fairly obscure creatures...
There's one really important thing I haven't yet mentioned about The Velvet Claw: the fact that both the book and the TV series was written by David Macdonald, director of the Wildlife Conservation Research University at Oxford University and very well known for his many, many publications on biology, ecology and conservation […
tetrapodzoology | November 21, 2007
Those of us interested in the same subject often tend to have experienced the same sort of things. If you share my interests (as you probably do, given that you're here), you've probably watched a lot of Attenborough on TV. You've probably been to at least one of the bigger natural history museums of your country, probably more than once. You've probably spent more time than is considered usual looking at weird reptiles, or bat-eared foxes, or tapirs, or giraffes, or bats, or rhinos, at the zoo. You probably caught and kept weird insects and pond animals as a child. You've probably picked up…
evolvingthoughts | November 21, 2007
This is the fourth of a series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Wilson and Wilson (W&W) then continue on to employ some recent work on individuals as groups, and the "major transitions" literature.
Ed Wilson is well known for his idea of "superorganisms", in which eusocial hives or colonies of insects (his speciality) are treated evolutionarily as single organisms, resolving a problem Darwin had with these species' evolution. In other words, an ant colony is a fitness bearer. Here, W&W appeal to Lynn Margulis' theory of the eukaryotic cell as a symbiosis between prokaryotic cells to…
laelaps | November 20, 2007The new issue December issue of National Geographic, a Dracorex peering at me from the cover, arrived in the mailbox today, and I can't say that I was a big fan of the dinosaur feature that I blogged about a few days ago. While the main body of the article, an essay by John Updike, is alright, the thing that first grabbed my attention was the mention that perhaps Spinosaurus was "buffalo-backed," the elongated neural spines along its back supported masses of fat or muscle rather than a sail. Some pencil sketches illustrate the differing hypotheses, although I have to say that the "hump"…
laelaps | November 20, 2007Sexual dimorphism in organisms is nothing new; it has long been known that in certain species one sex is often larger, flashier, or somehow markedly different than the other. In some species like the Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus), the mail carries a brightly colored train that is used to advertise to prospective female mates, while in the deep-sea anglerfish Suborder Ceratioidea the males are absolutely minuscule when compared to the females, fusing to the bodies of the larger sex and ultimately becoming little more than a sperm supply. Such differences are contrasted with the almost non-…
grrlscientist | November 19, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Black-necked weaver, Ploceus nigricollis.
Image: Basia Kruszewska, author of India Ink. [Wallpaper size]
Birds in Research
A native Hawaiian bird has surprised researchers with its ability to survive malaria, apparently thanks to a number of resistant populations that have spread throughout the Hawaiian forest. The discovery hints that genes for natural resistance to the avian disease may lurk inside the genomes of many of Hawaii's endangered birds. Two years ago, researchers reported that one species, the amakihi,…
tetrapodzoology | November 18, 2007
Now, I've described quite a few isolated dinosaur bones in my time. And I've been involved in some pretty hectic media whirlwindy events ('Angloposeidon', aka 'Europe's largest sauropod', was huge news: see here, as was Eotyrannus). But I've never been associated with any PR exercise that was as well orchestrated and successful as the event that surrounded Xenoposeidon. I have lots of thoughts about what an outstanding success the entire media campaign was, but for those you'll have to check SV-POW!
After all that, does it seem at all anticlimactic to return to frogs? No, it does not: right…
laelaps | November 18, 2007
Usually when I get back from trips to the AMNH I unleash all the best photographs I took during the day in one post. This time, however, I think I'm going to parcel them out one by one in the Picture of the Day slot so they each get due consideration. This shot, however, is one of my favorites; the skull of an Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in the Hall of Primates. It was disturbing to look at the skeletons and stuffed mounts of animals so like us put on display, the lemurs looking unnaturally fierce with cartoonish snarls and the great apes being merely shadows of the living animals they once…
tsmith | November 18, 2007Last month, I wrote an update on the strange cancer affecting Tasmanian devils--a tumor cell that's taken on a life of its own, and is spreading through the population as the animals fight. Now, via PZ comes something you can do to help--donate and help to save this species:
Help the Tasmanian devil with 6 top funding priorities:
1. Investigating the tumour and its chromosomes, looking for clues to resistance
2.Keeping some area or areas of Tasmania free from the disease i.e. wild management
3.Maintaining backup captive populations of devils in Tasmania as 'insurance'
4.…
pharyngula | November 16, 2007
We had a seminar from Marco Restani of St Cloud State University yesterday — he's a wildlife biologist who talked about Tasmanian Devils. Just a little tip: don't ever invite wildlife biologists or conservation ecologists to give talks. They are the most depressing people in the world, and they really make it hard to hide away from the ugly realities. This talk was no exception: the Tasmanian Devil is in big trouble, and is facing at least two major threats, each of which may be sufficient to wipe them out. And just looke at that guy! He's adorable! How can you let them go extinct?
The first…
chaoticutopia | November 15, 2007Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to bite off more than you could chew? Apparently, such behavior is appropriate among some species. Even so, it isn’t necessarily healthy, as this case shows:
A fish whose eyes are bigger than its stomach meets an untimely demise.
Dead fish floating on the surface of the water isn’t really an unusual sight, but when McPherson 'Dorson’ Wright ran across this one in the Cayman Islands, he was quite puzzled.
Mr. Wright said that normally one expects 'big fish to eat down the small fish", but the hungry little fish broke that rule in a big way.
The…