grrlscientist | January 19, 2007tags: Cambodia, wild girl,jungle girl
A Cambodian girl who disappeared while tending buffalo when she was eight years old has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years. A man identified himself as her father after recognizing a scar on her right arm, and plans to have DNA tests done to prove his paternity.
However, it is possible that this woman could instead be lost from one of the Vietnamese tribes that often cross through the jungles into this same region of Cambodia to avoid religious persecution.
Local police said the woman was "half-human and half-animal" and…
grrlscientist | January 19, 2007
Bumble Bee, Bombus species,
on wild geranium at the Eagle River Nature Center in Alaska, 29 June 2002.
Photo was taken using a Kodak DC-4800, some images with a lens adapter and a 7x or 10x (or both) lens, at full camera resolution (2160x1440).
Image: David Lee.
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…
grrlscientist | January 19, 2007Lisa Gherardini was born in May 1479, and is thought to have been the second wife of Del Giocondo, a wealthy silk merchant, with whom she had five children. Giuseppe Pallanti found a death notice in the archives of a church in Florence that referred to "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, deceased July 15, 1542, and buried at Sant'Orsola," the Italian press reported. Lisa was ill and windowed when she died at age 63. Sant'Orsola is near the San Lorenzo basilica. It is now in ruins.
"It was in this convent that Mona Lisa placed her youngest daughter Marietta, who later became a nun. And it…
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007In a city of 8 million people, who found me out of the blue at my watering hole? A hint ...
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007
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I received an early birthday gift of a book yesterday, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and already, I am halfway through it!
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007Even though we will never know for sure, it is estimated that approximately 50 million people died in the 1918 influenza pandemic -- more than died in World War One -- but the reason this virus was so deadly has remained elusive. However, scientists recently discovered that this particular strain of influenza was so lethal because it triggered an uncontrolled immune response in its victims. This hyperstimulated immune system actively attacked the victim's lungs, causing serious damage followed by death within a few days.
"Instead of protecting the individuals that were infected with the high…
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007
Calypso Orchid, Calypso bulbosa.
Photo taken on 26 May 2002 using a Kodak DC-4800, some images with a lens adapter and a 7x or 10x (or both) lens, at full camera resolution (2160x1440). This image was taken at the Eagle River Nature Center in Eagle River, Alaska.
Image: David Lee.
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…
grrlscientist | January 18, 2007
What can you get for $1.2 trillion? Universal health care for uninsured Americans? Hey, as an uninsured American, I'd sure like that! How about universal preschool for all American children? Enough money to fulfill post 9-11 security recommendations? Or how about more money for cancer research? Or immunizations for the world's children that would protect them from childhood diseases? Or better yet, why not fund all of these things? The fact is that we could pay for all these things and still have money left over!
But, no, our country has instead opted to invest all that money -- and more…
grrlscientist | January 17, 2007
This graphic shows how close to the midnight of humanity's annihilation that the minute hand approached in the 60 years since the "Doomsday Clock" has been kept. Individual minutes until midnight are depicted as squares on the y-axis, while each year is on the x-axis. The closest the minute hand ever approached midnight was 1953, when it was 2 minutes until midnight, and 1984, when it was three minutes to midnight. The BAS began keeping this clock in 1947.
Image source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Experts who assess the dangers posed to civilization added climate change to the…
grrlscientist | January 17, 2007
A prairie falcon, Falco mexicanus.
This photo was taken on Christmas Eve in north-central Kansas.
Image: David A. 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 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…
grrlscientist | January 17, 2007For those of you who were looking for a lot of good science writing, you should check out the latest issue of Tangled Bank, issue 71. This blog carnival celebrates the best science writing recently published in the blogosphere.
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tags: blog carnivals, tangled bank,science
grrlscientist | January 17, 2007tags: Napoleon, stomach cancer,poisoning
After careful study, scientists revealed that the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, died from an advanced case of gastric cancer and not arsenic poisoning as had been widely speculated. At the time of his death, an autopsy determined that stomach cancer was the cause of his death. But because arsenic was found in his hair in 1961, this led to speculation that Napolean had been poisoned. Certainly, murder was possible because, if Napoleon had escaped exile on St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, he could have changed the balance of…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007The NY Times poll found that, for the first time in American history, more women are single than married, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.
Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.
Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end,…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007When I mentioned to a bartender friend of mine that Barack Obama was considering a run for the presidency, he replied, "Who's Barack Obama? He'll never win with a name like that!"
Well, as of today, Obama is investigating whether he could make a respectable run at the presidency.
In a video announcement posted on his website, he said Americans wanted to move beyond partisan politics to find common-sense solutions to problems.
"Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions," he said.
"We have to…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007
A couple of grunion on a sandy beach, spawning.
The photographer said, "I like how colorful they turn out to be - honestly, when you're standing there looking at them late at night with flashlights they don't look much more than gray." This photo is one of a series.
Image: Carl Manaster.
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…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007Thanks to my sitemeter trackbacks, I discovered that the English 12 class at UNC is analyzing my blog as part of a class assignment. Needless to say, I think this is really fun! I am curious to know what your opinions are regarding what I am doing with my blog, so feel free to comment here or to email me with your comments.
I promise that I don't bite.
Well, not too hard!
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007I am pleased to see that NY is entering the era of modern medical research. In his first speech to the Legislature, Governor Eliot Spitzer called for passage of a $2 billion 10-year bond initiative for research and development, at least half of which would be set aside to pay for stem cell research. And the project is being tailored as an economic development effort in the hopes of attracting support from upstate Republican lawmakers.
Advocates for stem cell research say that if this initiative is successful, it would put New York at the forefront of the field. They also say that bringing the…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007
A peninsula long thought to be part of Greenland's mainland turned out to be an island when a glacier retreated.
Increasing global temperatures are not simply melting glaciers; they are changing the very geography of coastlines of Greenland and the Arctic. Nunataks -- "lonely mountains" in Inuit -- that were encased in Greenland's ice sheet are being freed of their age-old bonds, exposing a new chain of islands, and a new opportunity for Arctic explorers to write their names on the landscape. But the sudden appearance of islands is a symptom of an ice sheet going into retreat, scientists…
grrlscientist | January 16, 2007Did you know that the first edition of Oekologie was published last Sunday? Well, I didn't, but now I do. Oekologie is a blog carnival devoted to the best ecology and environmental science posts from across the blogosphere, so you will probably find it to be quite interesting.
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tags: blog carnival, Oekologie
grrlscientist | January 15, 2007Scientists at the Imperial College of London are developing a drug based on a natural gut hormone that mimics the body's satiation response. An injectible treatment of pancreatic polypeptide (PP) could be available in five to eight years, but the long-term goal is to produce a form that can be absorbed in the mouth.
There is evidence that some people have more PP than others, and people who become overweight produce less PP than people with a healthy weight. Thus, a vicious circle results, causing appetite to increase, an inability to resist the temptation of food, causing further increases…