grrlscientist | May 22, 2007tags: 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 May 2007.
Image: Stringer/Reuters
An Indonesian fisherman captured a coelacanth, Latimeria menadoensis, in the sea off North Sulawesi island near Bunaken National Marine Park in Indonesia. The coelacanth (pronounced SEE-la-kanth) is an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct at the time…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2007tags: 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 jelly and a loaf (or was it two?) of bread and just live on that for one week. (Incidentally, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a real luxury in my life. Even though I am not on food stamps, I have to eat on approximately $2 per day or less, which means I eat vegetarian spaghetti). Anyway, Ryan…
grrlscientist | May 22, 2007tags: 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].
grrlscientist | May 21, 2007tags: 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. However, another group of scientists have recently proposed a different hypothesis; a large space rock exploding over North America.
Collecting layers of sediment from more than 20 sites across North America, James Kennett, from the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB) and his colleagues,…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2007tags: 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 the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, Great Britain. But this probably doesn't sound unusual, until you know that the birds, Carlos and Fernando, are two male Greater Flamingos. Despite both being male, they had resorted to stealing eggs from other pairs as they sought to…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2007tags: 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 discovered living in the cloud forests of southwestern Colombia. Despite its recent discovery, this stunning rare hummingbird that has violet blue plumage and iridescent green on its throat, is already endangered by the environmentally damaging illegal drugs industry. "We were essentially following a…
grrlscientist | May 21, 2007tags: mimic octopus, sea snake, streaming video
This streaming video shows you a mini-octopus imitating a sea snake. [0:50].
grrlscientist | May 20, 2007tags: Harry Potter, humor, satire, streaming video
Okay, for the record, I think this streaming video is silly, but you might enjoy it [2:06]
grrlscientist | May 20, 2007tags: 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]
grrlscientist | May 20, 2007tags: 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, although mysterious because I could only guess how their tracheae functioned while they were alive. Even though insects have a small body size, they need more than a simple, small respiratory system to provide enough oxygen to sustain their lives. Using X-rays to visualize what lies beneath their…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2007tags: 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 you aren't interested in or haven't heard of
The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (JRR…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2007tags: 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 examination of the economic data suggests that the argument is, at the very least, overstated. There is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have caused any significant damage to the wages of American workers.
The number that has been getting the most attention lately was produced by George J.…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2007tags: 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]
grrlscientist | May 19, 2007tags: 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 Hennekeler has spent four years studying Surra, the disease caused by a parasite that lives in mammalian blood. This parasite, Trypanosoma evansi, causes fever, weakness, and lethargy in its victims and can lead to weight loss, anaemia and even death of infected animals. It is thought this parasite…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2007tags: 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 disease.
Researchers published the genome yesterday for the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which spreads disease in tropical and sub-tropical locales worldwide as it feeds on human blood. The mosquito's genome could guide researchers' efforts to develop new insecticides or to create genetically engineered…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2007tags: 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 .. species such as the American bald eagle, peregrine falcon, gray wolf, grizzly bear, humpback whale and many others of our nation's wildlife, fish and plants.
The goal of Endangered Species Day is simple -- to educate people about the importance of protecting endangered species. With over 1,800…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2007tags: 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. They hope this discovery may one day lead to treatments for baldness and abnormal hair growth.
George Cotsarelis and his colleagues from the Department of Dermatology, Kligman Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, found that when skin is wounded, the cells of…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2007tags: 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 image]
My life's passion is the birds of the South Pacific, particularly the Loriinae, which are parrots commonly known as the lories and lorikeets. I study them professionally and I have lived with them and bred them for most of my life. So it was exciting to me when I learned that one of my…
grrlscientist | May 18, 2007tags: 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].
grrlscientist | May 17, 2007tags: 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 the major anti-hunger program in this country designed to help people get enough food to eat. To learn first-hand how difficult it is to live on food stamps, several legislators are participating in "the Food Stamp Challenge" where they attempt to feed themselves on just $3 per day for one week.
"…