grrlscientist | December 29, 2006As was earlier noted, the bears in Spain are in on the global warming hoax, and now it appears that even inanimate objects, glaciers, are in on the hoax, too! I wonder what Michael Crichton has to say about this?
A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a "major" reason for the event.
The Ayles Ice Shelf -- all 41 square miles of it -- broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic.
Cited story.
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tags: global warming, glaciers,…
grrlscientist | December 28, 2006
Eastern Dobsonfly, Corydalus cornutus.
Photographed alive after briefly chilling in a refrigerator.
In her warmed-up state, she was more than a little intimidating.
Image: Bev Wigney.
Happy Holidays to everyone.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, amigos bonitos, and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of these images and the creatures and places depicted. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be…
grrlscientist | December 27, 2006
Northern Ribbon Snake, Thamnophis sauritus septentrionalis,
at Mill Pond Conservation Area, near Portland, Ontario.
Image: Bev Wigney.
Happy Holidays to everyone.
I am receiving so many gorgeous nature pictures from you, amigos bonitos, and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of these images and the creatures and places depicted. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
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tags: Northern Ribbon Snake,…
grrlscientist | December 26, 2006Do you believe in curses? Do you believe that a diamond can be cursed? Well, regardless of your opinion, you will be interested in this book, The Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem by Richard Kurin, which reads like part mystery, part historical narrative. This book details the journey of a large blue diamond from a mine in India to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
The Hope Diamond's story begins when the French adventurer and gem dealer, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, purchased a crudely-cut 112-carat blue diamond in India. Or was this celebrated diamond actually…
grrlscientist | December 26, 2006I received several packages in the mail today. The first was the very well-written book by Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995). The other package had two Indian music CDs in it. Thanks! I can hardly wait to learn more about Barack and listen to the CDs (I enjoy so-called "world music").
grrlscientist | December 26, 2006
Fiery Skipper, Hylephila phyleus.
W. 11th St. Park Butterfly Garden, Houston, Texas.
28 October 2006
Image: Biosparite.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
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tags: butterfly, Fiery Skipper, Lepidoptera, zoology
grrlscientist | December 26, 2006A report by the Education Department was just released showing that, as usual, the existing educational inequities are being rewarded and exaggerated with inequities in distribution of education funding;
For example, the report shows Maryland has fewer poor children than Arkansas but gets about 50 percent more federal aid per poor child, $1,522, than does Arkansas, at $1,009.
The gap occurs even though Arkansas dedicates a larger share of its resources to education than does wealthier Maryland, the report says.
But on the other hand, different regions have different educational needs, so…
grrlscientist | December 25, 2006
White-tailed buck, Odocoileus virginianus,
with velvety antlers photographed through the bedroom
window at the photographer's farm in eastern Ontario.
As you can see, they're not into mowing the lawn around
their house!
Image: Bev Wigney.
Happy Holidays to everyone.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, amigos bonitos, and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of these images and the creatures and places depicted. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with…
grrlscientist | December 25, 2006Last night, the neighbors were blasting their very loud stereo until the wee hours, and this morning I woke up to the lovely smell of a dead mouse. There's nothing like spending Christmas day searching for dead mouse bodies in your apartment ..
grrlscientist | December 24, 2006
The nice thing about email is that, like Owl Post, I can receive mail on weekends and holidays. This is a card I just received this evening. This painting is by a drinking pal of mine, artist Carl Buell, who also keeps a blog.
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tags: christmas, holidays
grrlscientist | December 24, 2006
Earth at Night.
This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made…
grrlscientist | December 24, 2006I know this joke is in poor taste, but considering recent events, I think I am the right person to tell it to you. But I am putting it below the fold so you have to work for it before you scold me for having bad taste;
Schizophrenia -- Do You Hear What I Hear?
Multiple Personality Disorder -- We Three Kings Disoriented Are
Dementia -- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas
Narcissistic -- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
Manic -- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Busses and Trucks and Trees and.....
Paranoid -- Santa Claus…
grrlscientist | December 24, 2006
I love playing with this snowglobe .. I especially am amused by the exploding snowman.
grrlscientist | December 23, 2006I wonder how long it takes to plan, set up and test this light show? And what do they do when one light burns out, darkening an entire string of lights?
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tags: christmas light show
grrlscientist | December 23, 2006
Common Green Darner, Anax junius,
dragonfly in the Big Thicket of East Texas on a NABA field trip,
4 March 2004.
Image: Biosparite.
I am receiving so many gorgeous images from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in those images. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
.
tags: dragonfly, common green darner, insect, Odonata, zoology
grrlscientist | December 23, 2006Bears have stopped hibernating in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain, and instead, spend their winters wandering around, expending valuable energy by eating nuts, acorns, berries and chestnuts.
This is interesting because I thought that bear hibernation was a circadian (daylength) event rather than an environmentally-dependent event, but this shows that the trigger for hibernation is more complex that I supposed.
Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is…
grrlscientist | December 23, 2006I have been invited to be a panelist at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) meeting, which is one of the largest biology meetings in North America. It is being held from 3-7 January 2007 in Phoenix, Arizona. This panel will discuss blogs: how to set them up, how to decide what to write about, how to use them for education, public outreach and research purposes. The panel consists of PZ, John and myself -- even though I have been outed several times in the past, this means that my anonymity is officially over at this point, so I guess I'll be unemployed for the rest of my…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2006I have been watching this video several times before I saw this revision of it. Sheesh, I feel like I am on a subway, watching this video.
grrlscientist | December 22, 2006To continue this conversation about the state of science, here is an article that discusses the breakthroughs of 2006, starting with an award given to a mathematician for solving a 100-year-old mathematical mystery;
The work of a reclusive Russian mathematician who solved a 100-year-old mystery has been voted Breakthrough of the Year by Science, one of the world's leading scientific journals.
Grigori Perelman published three articles on the internet more than three years ago claiming to have solved Poincare's conjecture, a mathematical puzzle first identified in 1904 by the French…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2006
Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae incarnata.
A Gulf Fritillary basks in the sun in early afternoon at the West 11th St. Park in Houston on 12 November 2006. It was cool the previous Sunday with temperatures in the 60s, so this butterfly, an ectotherm, was warming its wing muscles in the sun as a response to the low temperature. This butterfly's host plant is native species of Passiflora. The park has lots of P. lutea growing within the open canopy and, therefore, has a large population of Gulf Fritillaries. P. lutea favors lower-light locations.
Image: Biosparite.
I am receiving so…