grrlscientist | March 11, 2007According to a recently leaked memorandum, the Bush Administration is once again up to their dirty tricks; they are trying to gag government scientists by demanding they not to talk about polar bears, sea ice and climate change during official overseas trips.
Despite all this clumsy politicking, the Department of the Interior is currently considering whether to list polar bears as endangered and a decision is expected by January 2008.
A leaked e-mail from regional director Richard Hannon, from the Fish and Wildlife Service to his staff warned that any future overseas trips involving or…
grrlscientist | March 11, 2007This streaming video shows how much difference one word can make to this nation.
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tags: streaming video, humor, politics
grrlscientist | March 10, 2007
Sphingid moth, October 2006-- can anyone name the species?
The photographer writes; This hawk moth appeared in my breezeway last month. Fortunately I blew it off its perch, which caused it to open its wings to expose the cinnamon coloration otherwise hidden. I don't have a species name yet. I did send a photo of the moth previously with its wings closed and commented it showed a serrated rear wing margin.
Image: Biosparite.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to…
grrlscientist | March 10, 2007These streaming videos show how monarch butterflies mate. I know at least one of you will appreciate this.
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grrlscientist | March 9, 2007
Scientists believe they have figured out how and why the human pubic louse, right, and the gorilla louse, left, diverged 3.3 million years ago.
Unlike most other primates, which play host to only one species of louse, humans provide a home to three species of lice. Even more interesting, the closest relative of the human pubic louse is the gorilla louse.
Each of these three species of human louse occupy a different niche on the human body. The head louse, Pediculus humanus, lives among the fine hairs on the scalp as its name implies. Its cousin, the body louse, doesn't live on the body,…
grrlscientist | March 9, 2007
Sunrise behind Sylvain's house.
Image: Sylvain Duford.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either preserve these species or to destroy them in search of short-term monetary gains. But if we decide to destroy these other life forms, the least we can do is…
grrlscientist | March 9, 2007So far, I have 13 submissions for the upcoming issue of Tangled Bank, so obviously I am seeking more. I know you all are having fun with PZ's birthday, but don't forget about our blog carnival!
grrlscientist | March 9, 2007Scooter Libby is a "straight arrow" -- who also happens to be a convicted felon.
tags: streaming video, Scooter Libby, politics
grrlscientist | March 9, 2007This streaming video (below the fold) boldly declares that you ain't no monkey's great grandson, by Ron Zimmerman.
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tags: streaming video, evolution, creationism
grrlscientist | March 9, 2007
These are the birthday wishes for PZ, indexed in the order I received them;
Dan Rhoades made a cephalopod cartoon
GrrlScientist sends a scientific paper
Sean Carrol read PZ's horrorscope
John Wilkins published a song
Richard Dawkins wrote a poem
Afarensis with the state invertebrate of Missouri
Bora made a cephalopod collage last year
Martin Rundkvist presents an ancient molluscan warlord
Arunn Narasimhan makes you search for the message written in invisible ink
Sandra Porter asks why this fish looks surprised
John Lynch posted a tentacular birthday wish
Jim Anderson wrote a villanelle for…
grrlscientist | March 8, 2007The 44th edition of I and the Bird is now available for your reading pleasure! Besides contributing a piece of my own, I also sent in a link written by one of my birding pals in Seattle who doesn't (yet) have a blog of his own; How to Identify the Peterson First Edition.
grrlscientist | March 8, 2007GrrlScientist Note: Tomorrow is PZ's birthday so I thought I would share this paper with him and all of you, just as a reminder of the time when he ranted about his family cat's bad behavior. I think Midnight's bad manners are the result of PZ's beard. Don't believe me? Here's proof!
Feline Reactions to Bearded Men
by Catherine Maloney, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut; Sarah J. Lichtblau, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois; Nadya Karpook, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; Carolyn Chou, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Anthony Arena-…
grrlscientist | March 8, 2007Have you noticed how you tend to remember things better after you've figured them out for yourself rather than listening to someone else's explanation? Well, this phenomenon is typical for toddlers, too.
According to a study published today, toddlers have an easier time learning new words when they figure out the meanings themselves.
"There are two ways to learn as a child: you either learn because you figured it out yourself, or you learn because somebody told you, and lots of our school-based education is engaged in people telling us things," said Justin Halberda, assistant professor of…
grrlscientist | March 8, 2007
Eclipsed Moon and Stars.
This dramatic image features a dark red Moon during a total lunar eclipse -- celestial shadow play enjoyed by many denizens of planet Earth last Saturday. Recorded near Wildon, Austria, the picture is a composite of two exposures; a relatively short exposure to feature the lunar surface and a longer exposure to capture background stars in the constellation Leo. Completely immersed in Earth's cone-shaped shadow during the total eclipse phase, the lunar surface is still illuminated by sunlight, reddened and refracted into the dark shadow region by a dusty atmosphere.…
grrlscientist | March 8, 2007A colossal squid, a 33-foot-long adult male weighing half a ton, was captured recently in the Antarctic Ocean. Because International law requires that anything caught in Antarctic waters must be taken onboard and documented to guard against overfishing, the captain had no choice: haul it aboard.
What captain John Bennett and his crew pulled in that day turned out to be the largest colossal squid ever recovered -- cause for considerable excitement aboard his ship, the San Aspiring, and around the world.
Including Bennett's catch--and a 20-foot female he found floating dead in 2003--only a…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2007tags: large-billed reed-warbler, birds
Large-billed Reed-warbler, Acrocephalus orinus: the world's most mysterious bird.
Image: Philip Round/The Wetland Trust.
More elusive than even the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a large-billed reed-warbler has been rediscovered at a wastewater treatment plant outside of Bangkok, Thailand, Birdlife International announced today. The bird has eluded birders and ornithologists for more than 130 years.
Because the bird had not been seen since its discovery in 1867 in the Sutlej Valley of India, little is known about the mysterious large-billed reed-warbler.…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2007
A hover fly on a daisy.
Image: Sylvain Duford.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either preserve these species or to destroy them in search of short-term monetary gains. But if we decide to destroy these other life forms, the least we can do is to know…