grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: cheetahs, evolution
Researchers studied 47 litters of cheetah cubs over nine years. Nearly half contained cubs from multiple fathers.
Image: Sarah Durant [larger]
DNA technology has revealed that female cheetahs, Acinonyx jubatus, often produce litters that are comprised of cubs sired by multiple fathers. This research, recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, studied cheetahs found on that part of the Seregeti in the African nation, Tanzania.
"If the cubs are genetically more variable it may allow them to adapt and evolve to different circumstances," Dada…
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: Corroboree Frogs, Image of the Day
Baby Corroboree Frogs walk across the gloved palm of reptile keeper Stuart Kozlowski at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. Around 130 of the endangered frogs are housed in a purpose built quarantine facility at the zoo to keep a safe population for genetic diversity.
Image: Ian Waldie/Getty Images.
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: humor, politics, sexuality
I know that many of you have heard Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell and others speak of the "Homosexual Agenda," but no one has ever seen a copy of it. Well, I have finally obtained a copy directly from the Head Homosexual. It follows below:
6:00 am Gym
8:00 am Breakfast (oatmeal and egg whites)
9:00 am Hair appointment
10:00 am Shopping
12:00 pm Brunch
2:00 pm
Assume complete control of the U.S. Federal, State and Local Governments as well as all other national governments
Recruit all straight youngsters to our debauched lifestyle
Destroy all healthy…
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: blog carnivals, education
The 121st week of the Carnival Of Education is now available. As the school year winds down, there are fewer submissions than usual, but still enough to keep you busy. They also included a submission from me, so I am happy.
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: cat, pets, vacuum, streaming video
Okay, this is truly strange .. have you ever met a housecat that tolerates even being in the same room with a vacuum? Well, this cat not only remains in the same room but she even allows her owner to vacuum her! [1:19].
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: blog carnivals, best writing
I was just made aware that the 244th issue of the Carnival of the Vanities is available and has been out for approximately one week now. This blog carnival links to the best blog writing available on the internet, regardless of topic, and they saw fit to include a piece that I wrote, so this makes me happy, of course!
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007Okay everyone, SEED magazine, my mothership (well, of sorts), is having a science writing contest that you all should know about. The best news about this contest is that first prize is $2500 and second prize is $1000. What do you have to do to win this tidy sum of cash?
You have to write the best 1200-word essay (yep, just like in school) on the following questions:
What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century? How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?…
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: Darwin, Darwin Correspondence Project, evolution, biology
I have mentioned this before when the project was first underway, but all of Darwin's letters are now catalogued online for everyone to read. For those of you who don't know, Darwin was a prolific correspondent, regularly writing to nearly 2000 people during his lifetime. Among his correspondents were geologist Charles Lyell, the botanists Asa Gray and Joseph Dalton Hooker, the zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley and the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, as well as well-known thinkers and public figures, as well as ordinary men and…
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: blog carnivals, medicine
The May edition of the new blog carnival, All Things Medical, has just been published. It's rather large, so there is plenty there to read. They also include several pieces that I wrote.
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: Bill Maher, French dissing, politics, streaming video
This hilarious streaming video of Bill Maher discusses the bad habit that American conservatives have for dissing anything that is "French" -- especially their health care system, which is the best in the industrialized world, which means that America should steal it from them [3:47].
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: Harry Potter, books, postage stamps
Has this ever happened before, where a book cover is made into a postage stamp? Well, it might have happened in Britain at some point (and it apparently has already happened in France not too long ago), but I'll bet it has never happened before in America. Anyway, to the right is a photo of the seven Harry Potter postage stamps that are set to be released on 17 July, four days before the last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released. Each stamp depicts a cover from one of the British editions of the seven Harry Potter…
grrlscientist | May 29, 2007tags: Ashcroft, Gonzales, politics, streaming video
This streaming video satirizes the Godfather by comparing it to the Ashcroft-Gonzales situation [1:03].
grrlscientist | May 28, 2007tags: limbless lizard, reptiles, snakes, India
A new species of limbless lizard was discovered in a forested region about 1,000 km southeast of New Delhi, India. The 18-cm (7-inch) lizard resembles a small snake.
Image: Sushil Kumar Dutta.
A new species of limbless lizard was discovered in eastern India, an Indian zoologist revealed today. The newly found 18-centimetre-long lizard (pictured above) resembles a small, scaly snake and it prefers to live in a cool retreat with soft soil.
"The lizard is new to science and is an important discovery. It is not found anywhere else in the world…
grrlscientist | May 28, 2007tags: Harry Potter, Natural History Museum, books, contests
As an evolutionary biologist who has held a postdoctoral fellowship in a Natural History Museum, I cannot think of a better place in the world for a reading and signing of the last book in the Harry Potter series than the Natural History Museum in London. At least for me!
1,700 lucky fans in Britain and Ireland will win a signed a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first 500 randomly selected winners will also be invited to attend the midnight reading. All winners will receive a copy of the book, and the event will…
grrlscientist | May 28, 2007tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Pied Avocets, which returned to nest in Britain in 1948, now nest widely around the south-east coastline.
Image: BBC News.
Birds in Science
Palaeontologists fired a broadside over a fossil which is the cornerstone evidence to back the theory that birds descended from dinosaurs. The row focuses on Sinosauropteryx, a fossil found in 1994 by a farmer in Liaoning province, northeastern China, a treasure trove of the Early Cretaceous period some 130 million years ago. About the size of a turkey, the long-tailed meat-eating…
grrlscientist | May 28, 2007tags: Simpsons, liberals, streaming video
This streaming outtake from a Simpson's episode about FOX news is amusing [1:13].
grrlscientist | May 27, 2007This is Memorial Day weekend in America, a time when we supposedly remember all of America's war dead. NYC celebrates Memorial Weekend by embedding it firmly in the middle of its annual "Fleet Week." So during this week, NYC is crawling with military people, mainly Navy and Marines. Basically, NYC is a huge celebration of hedonism, filled with drinking games, push-ups, scantily-clad women and hot, steamy sex. And I am sitting in the middle of all this chaos, using the free wifi connection at my watering hole.
So tell me what you are doing, dear readers.
grrlscientist | May 27, 2007tags: nonfat dairy cow, marge
To meet the demands of the health-conscious consumer, how about developing cows that produce skim milk? Well, scientists have identified a cow that does this, and they hope to establish herds of the animals to meet the increased health demands from the public. The cows, which carry a particular genetic mutation, were bred from a single female, named Marge, who was discovered by researchers when they screened milk from millions of cattle in New Zealand.
"Marge looks like an ordinary Friesian cow but has three key differences. She produces a normal level of protein…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2007"Wow! are you really reading that book, or is it just for show?"
I blinked and looked hard at a woman who, like me, was sitting at the bar. She sat several bar stools away, and was looking quizzically at my copy of Catch-22. This book had recently arrived in the mail, thanks to a devoted reader of mine who decided I needed to read it.
"No, it's not for show, I am really reading it," I replied uncertainly, wondering if she was making fun of me somehow.
The man sitting next to me looked interested in the book and asked me what I thought of it. I told him that I had just started the book, I…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2007tags: albino moose
Like a spectre floating out of the woods, a rare albino moose was spotted recently by Kurt Nikkinen in northern Norway, approximately 30 kilometers east of Karasjok in Finnmark County. Nikkinen was on his way home after a fishing trip when he saw the animal. He had a video camera in his car and managed to film the moose from his car as it ran along the road. At one point, he was only about 20 meters from the moose.
"It was a great experience to see and film it. It is not the kind of thing you experience more than once in a lifetime," Nikkinen said.
There had been rumors…