It might be a bit tenuous to base a post on something I saw in a cheesy 80's monster movie (complete with a synthesizer- and drum machine-driven montage), but the film Monster Squad got me thinking about science education. In an early scene, two monster-obsessed young boys are called into the main office, their principal extolling the virtues of science over adolescent interest in fantastic creatures. The principal, of course, comes off as a nerd and the overall impression is that science is utterly boring. While creatures of myth and legend can be pretty interesting, nature provides an array of creatures that are even more disgusting and (if I can liberally use the term) monstrous than anything in fiction. Fungi of the genus Cordyceps are a good example of organisms that seems too bizarre to actually be real;
As Amanda recently said, the life history of Cordyceps is somewhat reminiscent of that of a famous movie creature (watch out for all that blood & gore, now);
Not grossed out yet? You might want to put down whatever your munching on if you're going to press play on this clip of mating leopard slugs from Life in the Undergrowth;
Mammals might pale in comparison to such creatures in terms of pure weirdness, but I still think the pangolin is pretty bizarre, too;
Three examples can't do justice to the diversity of life, though, and it's a shame that many students (even at the college level) don't get a good grasp of how wonderful life on earth is. The other day, for instance, I attended one of the first biology lectures of the semester. I tried to stay awake as the professor continually mangled the word "foraminifera" (pronouncing it "formanifera"), and when he came to a slide on biodiveristy the usual players showed up. There was a gorilla, an octopus, a shark*, etc., but it was all very cut-and-dry. The time spent on creatures like radiolarians consisted mainly of a quick rundown of identifying characteristics, and it was essentially the same for the other groups covered. If studying and preserving life on earth is something we should be getting excited about, perhaps some teachers could move beyond "'A' is for 'Apple,' 'Z' is for 'Zebra,'" discussions of natural history.
*Whenever I see this particular image I can't help but notice that the generic shark in question is a blue shark painted to look like a great white shark. It's of no major importance other than demonstrating how much of a geek I am.
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It was interesting to see the pangolin walking bipedally.
Possibly, I should've eaten breakfast before I started reading blogs. Now, I don't have much of an appetite.... I couldn't decide if the last video was going to be gross and I didn't have the stomach for more so I skipped it.
That fungus is amazing. I wonder, what is the molecular basis for the species specificity?
Elisabeth; I tried to warn you! Sorry I ruined your appetite, though, and I don't blame you. I was eating spaghetti the first time I saw the slugs video and I just had to stop. The last video isn't gross though, and you should definitely watch it (trust me).
The fungus is pretty neat, although I'm not sure why it's so species specific. I'll have to look it up and write something up about it (if I can understand what the technical papers say, that is).
If the fungus were able to infect many different species of insect successfully, it would grow explosively, burn through all the insects in an area, and die out.
It induces the infected insects to leave their hive and climb to appropriate dispersal heights for the same reason. Consider ants - why would the fungus 'want' to leave an area with so many suitable hosts nearby? Because rapid host-to-host transmission expends the available supply faster than the fungus can spread.
As it stands, each type of fungus specializes in a particular species of insect. Transmission is enough to keep the fungus going, but not enough to deplete the prey population, and there is a great diversity of insect and fungus life.
If one insect species begins to dominate, its fungus spreads and brings its population back into balance. If one type of fungus becomes too effective at spreading within its prey species in a local area, other species of insects exploit the open niche and the fungus is at a disadvantage.
Unlimited growth is just as lethal as insufficient growth.