grrlscientist | June 14, 2006I like Stephen Hawking, but someone needs to have a little chat with him because today's comments are simply ridiculous. In fact, his comments make me wonder why humans won't do the right thing for a change, by doing what is necessary now to avert disaster on earth, our only home, instead of following Hawking's suggestion to evacuate the planet? It disgusts me to know that some people -- yes, even scientists, who should know better! -- think it is acceptable behavior to abandon earth after we have finished trashing the place, rather than changing our behavior to prevent things from worsening…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2006The 195th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is now available. This carnival highlights the best writing on any topic, so there is a wide variety of essays there for you to read and enjoy.
grrlscientist | June 13, 2006While no one was looking today, congress voted to give itself yet another pay raise, despite record low approval ratings.
So much for the delusion that this country is a meritocracy.
grrlscientist | June 13, 2006
Breathtaking: the rainbow over the Washington-Idaho border.
Image: AP.
This blanket of fire, covering hundreds of square miles, is the rarest phenomenon of them all. It was spotted in the USA on the Washington-Idaho border around midday last Saturday.
To create a rainbow of fire, clouds must be at least 20,000 ft high and the ice crystals within them align horizontally instead of their usual vertical position. The sun also needs to be at least 58 degrees above the horizon.
Dr Jonathan Fox, of the US National Weather Service in Spokane, Washington, said: 'It was even more spectacular than…
grrlscientist | June 13, 2006Everyone knows that the dinosaurs went extinct after a giant meteorite smashed into earth 65 million years ago, creating a huge dent in the planet's surface just off the Yucatan peninsula, but did you know that there was an earlier, even more dramatic, mass extinction event? That apocalyptic event occurred approximately 252 million years ago, at the Permian-Triassic (PT) boundary, and it wiped out nearly 95% of all living species on earth, but unlike the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) mass extinction, the PT mass extinction cause(s) remain mysterious. In his book, Extinction: How Life Nearly Ended…
grrlscientist | June 13, 2006Hey everyone, there's another new blog carnival out there, one that I am most pleased to be part of! The 2nd edition of the Philippine Blog Carnival was just published and it does include a piece by moi, along with some others that you will also find quite interesting. Most essays are in English, but a few are in Tagalog(?) or Filipino(?). I can read this blog carnival reasonably well (and I am sure that long-time reader, Tabor, can also read it), probably because I can read and speak a reasonable amount of Indonesian, which is closely related to Malay and Tagalog and Filipino, so I am not…
grrlscientist | June 12, 2006Gazelles and other large desert-dwelling ungulates can live on very little food and water for long periods of time. How do they do it? This was an evolutionary mystery until recently, when researchers found that desert-dwelling gazelles survive by reducing their breathing frequency, thereby cutting fluid loss and decreasing their metabolic demands during periods of water deprivation. [pictured: Arabian sand gazelle, Gazella subgutturosa. Image: BCEAWS]
According to new research that focused on sand gazelles, Gazella subgutturosa, researchers found that these animals rely on two strategies to…
grrlscientist | June 12, 2006The 31st edition of the Carnival of the Green is now available for your reading pleasure at my new blog sibling's place, A Blog Around the Clock. There are lots of good essays listed there to read.
grrlscientist | June 12, 2006
The elusive and peculiar Okapi, Okapia johnstoni,
a relative of the giraffe that dwells in dense rainforests.
Image: Denver Zoo.
One of my favorite mammals is the little-known relative of the giraffe; the shy and retiring okapi. This peculiar animal, which is approximately the size of a horse, is so rare and elusive that no one really knows how many remain throughout all of its range in Africa.
So imagine the delight of scientists when they recently found evidence that this animal still lives in part of its range where it was thought to be extinct because it had not been seen since 1959.…
grrlscientist | June 12, 2006
Pale Male over Central Park West in NYC, 6 June 2006 (in moult).
Pale male, an unusual light-morph red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, has lived in NYC for 14 years.
Image: Lincoln Karim. You can purchase your own copy of this image here.
Birds in Science
Researchers found that female songbirds alter the size of eggs and possibly the sex of their chicks according to how they perceive their mate's quality. The researchers played back attractive ("sexy") songs and less attractive control songs of male canaries to female domesticated canaries, Serinus canaria. When the females started egg-…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2006
On this bright, sunny Sunday, the latest edition of the Carnival of the Godless was published for your reading pleasure, hosted by The Atheist Mama. I was especially interested to read the essay about a forbidden five-letter word.
tags: blog carnival
grrlscientist | June 11, 2006What would happen if the starship Enterprise encountered the Death Star? Watch to find out... This video is especially for my pals who enjoy Star Wars and Star Trek: The Next Generation [7:04]
(below the fold)
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tags: streaming video, satire, parody, humor, Star Trek, Star Wars
grrlscientist | June 10, 2006
Yes, this is made entirely of legos. Legos have taken on a life of their own, it seems.
Recently, the editors of PC Magazine published their list of the "Top 10 Strangest (or Coolest...) Lego Creations". This particular creation [larger image] was made by Nathan Sawaya and used over 10,000 lego pieces and required more than 3 months to make this "Han Solo in Carbonite" masterpiece.
This website has photos of the top ten strangest Lego creations, including amazing items such as functional air conditioners (even though I live in NYC, I have never owned an air conditioner, so this is…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2006This week's question from the mothership is a fantasy-type of question.
Question: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
There are several avenues of research that appeal to me, all of which are "cutting edge" fields that of course, are quite exciting.
First, I would love to study avian influenza viruses, which I think are utterly fascinating. I would be especially interested to research the evolution of lethality in these viruses and identifying which molecular changes are…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006If you are a soccer (football) fan in NYC, the least crowded bar in all of Manhattan will be Bourbon Street on 407 Amsterdam. This pub will open tomorrow at 9am to watch the England - Paraguay game and on Monday noon, you can watch the USA lose to play the Czech Republic.
(I'll probably be here tomorrow, but who knows if I'll show up Monday).
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006There are fewer than 100 identical quadruplets in the world.
A 26-year-old Indian woman has given birth to rare identical quadruplets and the girls are healthy after their first six weeks of life, an Indian news agency reported Friday.
Shruthi Vivekanandan, a software programmer from the southern city of Madras, delivered Aditi, Aakriti, Akshathi and Aapthi on April 25, Press Trust of India said.
I dare you to say their names -- fast -- three times! Just imagine the parents trying to call out to one of them ..
The babies were born 10 weeks early and weighed between 1.8 pounds and 2.2…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006Okay, my peeps, I have made an amazing discovery! I found a pub with free wifi AND affordable beer! I can sit on a sidewalk in Manhattan (well, until my battery konks out or I run out of money -- it's a race), watching horse racing on the pub TV, watching people and cars on the streets -- all while I drink beeeeer and write essays and musings for my blog. This is as close to heaven as I will ever get, to be sure (shaddup, PZ! I'm allowed!).
OMG, there is a HUMAN SKULL on the window sill above the doors (I'm sure it's all fakey and stuff) and they are playing Nirvana on the jukebox! Excuse me…
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006Has anyone seen the cover of today's New York Post? Apparently, the NYPost was giving away today's issue on the streets because no one would buy it (and no, I am not posting the cover picture here; it's disgusting. Funny, but disgusting).
grrlscientist | June 9, 2006I just wanted to welcome my new SiBlings to ScienceBlogs -- there are 43 of us now! Some of the truly amazing additions to our stable of superstars include some of my favorites, The Loom, Effect Measure, and Scientific Activist. Hopefully, my regular readers will wander over to say hello to them (but please wander back, of course. I don't want to be forgotten in all the excitement). We also have a new front page that was launched today at noon (EST) that you should check out. It was designed in response to reader feedback (well, and some feedback from us, too).
I also wanted to let you all…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2006
Mother and child, deep in conversation.
Models of newly described miniature sauropod, Europasaurus holgeri, adult with juvenile
(Europasaurus; "reptile from Europe", after "Europe" and the Greek, sauros for "lizard";
holgeri after Holger Ludtke, who discovered the first bones).
Image courtesy of Freilichtmuseum Munchehagen (Munchehagen Dinosaur Museum).
At first, it was not especially remarkable when self-taught paleontologist, Holger Luedtke, found some small sauropod bones in a German quarry in 1998. However, scientists realized quite recently that the group of at least 10 diminutive…