grrlscientist | January 29, 2007Some of you, my readers, have sent money to me via Paypal or Amazon. I just wanted to tell you that even though most of these funds have been dedicated to keeping my birds and me housed and fed and me medicated, I did spend a little of it on a gift that I know all of you would want to have given me; a year's subscription to NewScientist and ScienceNews magazines.
When I was gainfully employed, I had subscriptions to both of these magazines and not a week has gone by that I haven't missed reading them since my subscriptions ran out a couple years ago. But thanks to you, my first issue of…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2007
Moon over Chimney Rock Pueblo, Colorado.
The photographer was fortunate to visit on Jan 2, 2007, the date of the full moon rising between the spires of Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, an event associated with the major lunar standstill and the winter solstice. This occurs only every 18.6 years, but it is likely that the ancient Pueblo astronomers used this site that that same purpose in 1076 and 1094 AD.
Image: Dave Rintoul.
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 | January 29, 2007tags: Barbaro, horse racing, thoroughbreds, horses, leg injuries
Goodbye Barbaro, thanks for the memories.
Image source.
Tragic news, everyone: The gallant racehorse, Barbaro, was euthanized today.
I have always had a love/hate relationship with horseracing. I love working with thoroughbreds and I love it when they run. I even worked at a race track for one summer as a groom and exercise girl when I was a teenager. It was bliss. But underneath the joy there lurks a terrible danger, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever prepare you for something as tragic as the sudden loss of a…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2007
Wood Duck drake, Aix sponsa.
Image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Arthur Morris, Birds as Art.
Birds in Science
The ancestors of modern birds are thought to have been small, feathered, dinosaurs, the theropods. One of these small feathered dinosaurs is Microraptor gui, a feathered dromaosaur that lived 125 million years ago in what is now China. According to the evidence, Microraptor gui was one of the earliest gliders. But unlike modern birds, it appears to have utilized four wings, like a biplane, because it had long and asymmetric flight feathers on both its…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2007
tags: spiders, jumping spiders, arachnids, vision research
Female ornate jumping spider, Cosmophasis umbratica.
Some of you know that I am afraid of spiders, but in spite of this phobia, I am nonetheless fascinated by jumping spiders because they have interesting behaviors and a superb visual system. In addition to having excellent vision, it turns out that jumping spiders are particularly sensitive to green and ultraviolet light, according to a new study that was published this past week. Using a variety of light conditions, researchers revealed that these animals evolved their…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2007Below the fold is a video of cellular vesicles "walking" along microtubules inside a cell. I thought that the assembly of the microtubules was especially interesting to watch, particularly since my students often could not understand the dynamics of this process.
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tags: vesicles, microtubules, cell, biology
grrlscientist | January 28, 2007Birdbrained? Who says? Many people either think all birds are stupid or that they carry bird flu. However, a 17 year-old Indian Ring-necked parrot, Psittacula krameri, is showing people how clever birds are. This bird, named AJ, visited Martha Stewart on her program to show her a few tricks, such as playing golf and basketball. The video is below the fold for you to enjoy;
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tags: birds, avian, tricks
grrlscientist | January 28, 2007
Bluebottle jellyfish, Physalia utriculus
Also known as the Portuguese Man O' War.
It is not a true jellyfish.
It appears that jellyfish numbers are increasing in various oceans of the world. This includes a recent increase in giant Nomura's jellyfish in Japan, rafts of jellyfish that swamped Mediterranean shores last summer and now, record numbers of bluebottle jellies on the beaches of Australia -- all of which suggest that their growing numbers are due to warming ocean waters as well as overfishing.
"[Their] numbers are closely tied with environmental changes, and last year was…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2007
A flower -- can anyone identify the species? (I have a guess as to its identity but I might be wrong).
Image: David Harmon.
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…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2007The Personal Development blog carnival is now available. I am not sure how I was included in this carnival, but I am glad that I was!
grrlscientist | January 28, 2007I ran across a quiz that identifies what sort of book reader you are. My own results are below the fold and I hope that you share yours with me too, along with your opinion of the questions they used;
There was one question that bothered me. It was question six; Which set of books have you read ALL of? It turns out that I have read all the books listed except one in all of the answers provided.
What Kind of Reader Are You?
Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
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You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2007Yesterday, I received a rejection letter from the clinic I was trying to set up "after care" with -- so .. not only do I receive rejection letters from every job I've applied for, but now I am receiving rejection letters from shrinks! This means that I have no way to obtain the meds that I am supposed to take, which means I get to go through some really serious withdrawal symptoms or I can set out on a special adventure to the ER obtain a few days of these drugs. Going to a city hospital ER means I get to;
spend 26 hours in the psych ER
be strip-searched
be searched with a metal detector…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2007
The underside of a bracket fungus.
Image: David Harmon.
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 | January 26, 2007This is another streaming video that reveals how 6 feet of DNA is meticulously packed into the nucleus of each of your cells. In addition, it shows how DNA strands are replicated prior to a cell dividing into two.
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tags: streaming video, DNA packing, cell nucleus
grrlscientist | January 26, 2007
A photograph of Comet McNaught, taken by Tony Virgo in southern Australia. The comet is passing close to the Sun, and solar radiation pressure and heat take material off the comet, giving it a big and visible "debris field". It is no longer visible in the Northern Hemisphere.
Image: Tony Virgo.
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…
grrlscientist | January 26, 2007This streaming video, below the fold, was old when I was an undergrad, but it never lost its instructive nor entertainment value in the classroom. As an added bonus, one of my biochemistry professors, who developed knockout mice, was a character in this film. More info on this film;
Directed in 1971 by Robert Alan Weiss for the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University and imprinted with the "free love" aura of the period, this short film continues to be shown in biology class today. It has since spawn a series of similar funny attempts at vulgarizing protein synthesis. Narrated by Paul…
grrlscientist | January 25, 2007Do humans respect viagra enough? Methinks, not: There is an iguana who now is in danger of having his penis amputated after innocently consuming viagra. Yeow! It's a good thing that iguanas have hemipenes instead of one penis.
Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days.
Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed by the news.
Cited story.
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tags: viagra, erection,iguana
grrlscientist | January 25, 2007
Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, eating a starfish.
Image: Drew Weber.
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…
grrlscientist | January 25, 2007tags: cancer, p53,tumor suppressor, gene, oncology
Image modified.
When I was an undergrad, I worked in a lab that studied p53, a gene that acts as a tumor suppressor. At that time, it was thought that most cancers resulted from a defective form of p53 or after p53 had inadvertently been turned off because p53 controls the cycle of cell proliferation, telling the cell when it is appropriate to divide, activating the cell's DNA repair mechanisms and preventing cells with damaged DNA from dividing. At that time, it was thought that cancerous tumors could be treated and possibly cured by…
grrlscientist | January 25, 2007
Image: Photo illustration by John Blackford; original photograph by Cameron Davidson.
A good argument for building UP instead of OUT: It looks like a lot of people will be going to work via water taxis in the future.
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tags: Manhattan, global warming,sea level