grrlscientist | February 16, 2007
Brenthia hexaselena, a species of metalmark moth,
flares its hind wings (HW) and spreads its forewings (FW) to mimic a jumping spider.
In lab trials, spiders caught 6 percent of the metalmark moths presented to them, as opposed to 62 percent of other moth species. What's more, the spiders sometimes made territorial gestures at the metalmarks -- and occasionally backed away.
For most moths, the sight of a jumping spider makes them panic as they try to escape its lethal pounce. But not so for metalmark moths in the genus Brenthia. These moths stand their ground with hind wings flared and…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007This list of 20 amazing facts about voting in America should make you think hard about the "moderinization" of voting machines and how easy it is to steal an election with them.
80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007Normally I do not review books that have been out for longer than a year or so, but while I was in the hospital, I decided to celebrate Columbus Day by reading a book that was sent to me by my blog pal, Tara. This book, Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden (New York: Basic Books, 2004, 2005), turned out to be an interesting biography of a bacterial infection that has baffled doctors for hundreds of years.
In the first part of the book, the author observes that there are two main problems associated with an case history of syphilis: first, syphilis is "the…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007Awhile ago, I linked to an article about acetaldehyde (pictured), which is the toxic ethanol metabolite that gives people a hangover when they drink too much. This week, I read an article in the New Scientist about acetaldehyde. It turns out that acetaldehyde is found in more substances than you probably ever thought possible. Not only is it a metabolite of ethanol breakdown by the liver, but it is also found in tobacco, vehicle exhaust fumes, coffee, and ripe fruits; it is often used to create a fruity flavor in yogurt; and it is produced by certain mouth bacteria.
For many years,…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007
This is one of a series of photos of these animals making the rounds on the internet ..
The odds of seeing an albino moose are astronomical and to see [them] in the upper peninsula of Michigan, near Wisconsin, is even greater than astronomical. To see two of them together is nearly impossible. We wanted to share these photos with as many people as possible because you will probably never have a chance to see this rare sight again. This is a really special treat, so enjoy the shot of a life time.
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007
Snow Moon.
Here's a picture that David took on 2 February 2007 of the full moon, this one known as the Snow Moon because it is the first full moon in February. The photo was taken with a new Pentax K100D DSLR, attached at the prime focus of a Celestron C-8 telescope via an f/6.3 focal reducer, effectively making it a 1270 mm telephoto lens for the camera. Some mild post-processing. Click image for a truly huge view in its own window.
Image: David Warman (email)
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…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007NYC is the first city in the world to sanction its own brand of condom. To introduce them to the public, more than 150,000 of these condoms were handed out free to subway riders across the five boroughs on Valentine's Day.
The condoms' basic black plastic wrapper simply says "NYC condom" on the front, with each letter in a circle, similar to the letters used by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to denote subway lines. (The authority gave the city permission to use the letters, which are the intellectual property of the subway system.)
Distributed by Ansell Healthcare Products of…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007A seed that was discovered in the 1970s in an archaeological site and was found to be 2,000 years old has sprouted, making it the oldest fertile seed known. This seed produced a date palm that was plentiful in Roman times -- a plant that has since disappeared.
"People tell me the tree I'm raising looks like a typical palm you might see in your dentist's waiting room," says Elaine Soloway, who teaches at Kibbutz Ketura's Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and who germinated the 2,000-year-old date seed that was found at Masada. "But that's not true." Soloway says the first leaves that…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007
The book this picture came from said some of the paint jobs cost $15,000 and had to be repeated every 3 months as the cat's hair grows out? It must be nice to have $60,000 a year just to keep your cat painted!
I think I found my new job.
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007The Bush administration has made no secret of its disdain for science, especially science that pertains to global warming, stem-cell research and endangered animals and plants. The chilling effect this has on science, public health and on the public good is documented in Chris Mooney's book, The Republican War on Science (Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2005, 2006), which was recently released in paperback.
As Mooney argues in this well-written book, disregard for scientists and the scientific method has been carefully nurtured by the modern conservative movement, which is a movement anchored in…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007The Valentine's Day/Darwin Day edition of Tangled Bank is now available for your reading pleasure. Curiously, they did not link to the dozen or so stories I did send to them, but instead, chose to link to the latest edition of Birds in the News, a link I had not submitted for consideration. Hrm.
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tags: blog carnival, tangled bank, nature
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007
River kingfisher, Alcedo atthis.
Orphaned image. Contact me to receive proper credit.
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…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007
Madagascar blind snake, Xenotyphlops mocquardi.
A rare blind snake has been rediscovered in Madagascar a century after its last sighting. The snake, which looks like a long, skinny pink worm, was only known from two other specimens, both discovered in 1905.
"They're really rare because they're subterranean," said blind-snake expert Van Wallach of Harvard University who described the new specimen. "You can't just go out anytime you want and collect these things. You can dig forever and never find them."
Scientists captured the snake, called Xenotyphlops mocquardi, alive in 2005 during an…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007Villagers in southwestern China are puzzled by a county government's decision to paint an entire barren mountainside green.
Workers who began spraying Laoshou mountain in August told villagers that they were doing so on orders of the county government but were not told why, media reports said Wednesday.
Some villagers guessed that officials of the surrounding county, Fumin, whose office building faces the mountain, were trying to change the area's feng shui -- the ancient Chinese belief of harmonizing one's physical environment for maximum health and financial benefit.
Others speculated that…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2007
The film captured the squid, Taningia danae, in action: 1 The squid swims towards the bait; 2 It spreads its arms wide; 3 It swims around the bait, twisting its body; 4 It grabs the bait with its eight arms.
Japanese scientists have discovered that large deep-sea squids produce flashes of bioluminescent light on their tentacles as they attack their prey. These light flashes are thought to disorient their prey, making it easier for the squid to grab their potential victim with their eight tentacles.
Writing in a Royal Society journal, the paper's authors say that squid are far from the…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007
Stones excavated from a forest in the Ivory Coast.
They are 4,300 years old and have use patterns consistent with what is seen in modern chimpanzee sites.
People like to believe they are somehow more special than animals, that we are set apart from other animals in some mysterious way. For quite awhile, the differences between humans and other animals were listed as the use of a language and tool use, as well as culture. Well, it turns out that chimpanzees have been using tools for quite some time, according to a recently published paper.
Archaeologists have found ancient chimpanzee stone…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007
Citheronia splendens sinaloe,
a member of the family Saturnidae, a species on limited range in the SW USA and extending down into Mexico. This was photographed at Tierra de los Suenos in southeast Arizona. The photographer set up a sheet with moth lights behind and to the side of the main building.
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 remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007
Helix Nebula,
photographed by the Spitzer Space Telescope Nasa/JPL-Caltech/K. Su (University of Arizona)
The Helix Nebula is a cloud of gas with the dead star appearing as a red dot in the middle of the nebula, like a red pupil in a green monster's eye. What created this nebula?
This has surprised astronomers, because when the star died and expelled its outer layers, the dust in this system should have been blown away.
A favored explanation is that the dust is being freshly churned up by comets smashing into each other in the outer fringes of the white dwarf's system.
The dead white dwarf…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007I stumbled across this video spoof and thought you would enjoy it too.
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tags: streaming video, politics, humor, satire
grrlscientist | February 12, 2007
Western honeybee, Apis mellifera.
Image: William Connolley.
When I was in graduate school, I nearly decided to study social bees for my dissertation work, but in the end, I decided to pursue my greatest passion, birds. However, despite this, bees have long been a favorite animal of mine, and if I had my own place to live, I would be keeping social and semi-social bees of various species, particularly native species.
But it looks like the nation's bees are not doing very well: something is killing them. The domesticated western honeybee, which does much of the pollintation of crops, has…