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Who are the denialists? (Part IV)

It's time to talk about the anti-vaccine (or anti-vax) denialists. Considering the Autism Omnibus trial is underway to decide whether or not parents of autistic children can benefit from the vaccine-compensation program, a fund designed to compensate those who have had reactions to vaccines and shield vaccine makers from the civil suits which drove them out of the country in the early 1980s. I think it's topical and necessary to set the record straight about vaccines, their risks, and many benefits. To do this though, we'll have to talk about the history of and resistance to vaccination…

Hairy-tailed bats: a tale of furry tails, red coats, cold tolerance, migration and sleeping out in the open (vesper bats part VIII)

Now that all the fuss about modern-day sauropod dinosaurs has died down, we can get back to the serious business of vesper bats (incidentally, I do plan to cover the mokele-mbembe - in serious fashion - at some point in history). For previous parts in the vesper bats series, please look at the links below. A group of about 17 species of American bats (occurring from Alberta down to Chile and Argentina) are known collectively as the hairy-tailed bats or hoary bats (Lasiurus*) (together with the Silver-haired bat Lasionycterus noctivagans, they're also sometimes known as tree bats). Most…

Return.... to the world of sheep

My plan at the moment (in terms of blog-related writing) is to do nothing other than complete all those nearly-finished articles that I've been promising to do over the last weeks... or months... We begin with the second post on sheep, thereby completing what I started in the first sheep post (the first post is required reading before you launch into this one). As discussed back then, sheep are generally divided into three genetic groups: the Asian argaliforms, the mouflon-like moufloniforms, and the mostly American pachyceriforms. I covered the argaliforms last time and, of the…

Further temnospondyl adventures: it's mostly about the dissorophoids (or some of them anyway)

First of all, here are some temnospondyls. This composite image was compiled by repositioning the reconstructions provided by DeFauw (1989): looks neat, doesn't it? So, I recently returned from the 69th Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting, this year held in Bristol, UK: in other words, OUTSIDE OF NORTH AMERICA for the first time ever. It was combined with another meeting I normally attend, SVPCA (Symposium on Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy), but I think that people sometimes forgot about this. The meeting was enormous and the sheer quantity of talks and posters, and…

Birds in the News 76 (v3n3)

A male Superb Bird of Paradise, Lophorina superba (seen from front) performing a courtship display for a female (brown) in Papua New Guinea, from "Jungles," in the "Planet Earth" series. Image: Fred Olivier/Discovery Channel and BBC. Birds in Science Red-breasted nuthatches, Sitta canadensis, appear to have learned the language of black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapillus. Nuthatches interpret the type of chickadee alarm and can identify what sort of predator poses a threat. Nuthatches have learned to tell if the chickadees are threatened by pygmy owls, which pose a serious threat to…

Fukushima Update: Radioactive Fish, Conflicts of Interest, and Filtered Vents

On March 11th, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex suffered damage from an earthquake and ensuing tsunami that caused multiple nuclear reactor core meltdowns and melt-throughs, explosions, and major releases of radioactive material into the air and the sea. In addition to the reactor meltdowns and melt-throughs spent fuel storage tanks were also damaged and probably contributed to the release. It took about a year for the plant to reach a condition that was stable enough that we stopped checking it every day to see if new bad things were happening. Heroic efforts were…

Comments of the Week #51: From the vacuum of space to the hierarchy problem

“Many have argued that a vacuum does not exist, others claim it exists only with difficulty in spite of the repugnance of nature; I know of no one who claims it easily exists without any resistance from nature." -Evangelista Torricelli The Universe is here, within us, out there in the great abyss beyond, and in our abstract imaginings, as the theoretical, observational and experimental all get their moments to shine here at Starts With A Bang. This week saw the dawn of a new month and articles across a wide variety of topics, including: Humans in the vacuum of space (for Ask Ethan), Spock…

Ancient Sex Scandals: Did We Get It On With Neandertals?

This week, Science published two papers about the genetics of Neandertals from a team of scientists based at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. The first (which is the only one anyone seems to really care about) gives a draft version of the entire Neandertal genome - a whopping 4 billion base pairs of DNA. They use this information to look for genomic regions that may have been affected by positive selection in ancestral modern humans that led to their separation from Neandertals, and found some very interesting ones that include genes involved in metabolism and in…

Maiacetus, the good mother whale

The extinct whale Dorudon, from the new PLoS One paper. When the English anatomist William H. Flower proposed that whales had evolved from terrestrial ungulates in 1883 he cast doubt upon the notion that the direct ancestors of early whales chiefly used their limbs for swimming. If they did, Flower reasoned, whales would not have evolved their distinctive method of aquatic locomotion, typified by vertical oscillations of their fluked tails. Instead Flower suggested that the stock that gave rise to whales would have had broad, flat tails that paved the way for cetacean locomotion as we know…

Scars in an upside down tree

Energy may be the topic du jour but it's been the 800 lb. gorilla in the room for, oh, a couple of centuries. In a sense it's responsible for one of the greatest occupational health catastrophes of the 20th century, and a new report from CDC demonstrates once again it's still with us and killing working people. I'm talking about asbestos-related disease. Asbestos and the asbestos industry is a creature par excellance of the age of energy in the 19th century. Its primary uses were for insulating steam pipes and boilers, where heat loss was measured in dollars of coal energy down the drain. I'…

How do we know how many people die from the flu each year?

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure There have been questions in the comments about where the CDC estimate of 36,000 to 40,000 influenza related deaths a year comes from. It's a figure I've used a number of times here to say generally that regular old seasonal influenza may be a mild disease for some but not for many others. Even if you don't die of flu, it can be a miserable illness and lay you low for several weeks of acute illness and months of fatigue and malaise. Now the 36,000 deaths number is taking on a life of its own, so it's time to explain exactly what it is and what it…

Scars in an upside down tree

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure Energy may be the topic du jour but it's been the 800 lb. gorilla in the room for, oh, a couple of centuries. In a sense it's responsible for one of the greatest occupational health catastrophes of the 20th century, and a new report from CDC demonstrates once again it's still with us and killing working people. I'm talking about asbestos-related disease. Asbestos and the asbestos industry is a creature par excellance of the age of energy in the 19th century. Its primary uses were for insulating steam pipes and boilers, where heat loss was measured in…

Gannets, most awesome of seabirds

Seabirds are undeniably cool. They often look neat, they often have very cool names (witness such examples as Macronectes, Oceanodroma and Cerorhinca), and their biology is often amazing. They include some of the largest and longest-lived of birds, the most numerous (there might be over 50 million Wilson's storm-petrels Oceanites oceanicus in the world), and the most wide-ranging. While crossing the English Channel recently, I kept a look out above-deck for, well, whatever. And I was rewarded with excellent views of Northern gannet Morus bassanus [adjacent pic from wikipedia]. Together with…

The surprising and hitherto undocumented late survival of non-dinosaurian dinosauromorphs

It isn't every day that your friends make the cover of Science magazine. Belated congrats to my friend Randy Irmis and his colleagues Sterling Nesbitt, Kevin Padian and others for their neat work on the dinosauromorph assemblage of Hayden Quarry, New Mexico (Irmis et al. 2007). Exciting stuff. Why? Well... At Hayden Quarry, Norian-aged sediments of the Chinle Formation preserve temnospondyls, drepanosaurids, aetosaurs and diverse other crurotarsans, and dinosauromorphs. The big deal is this: despite the Late Triassic date of the assemblage, Irmis et al. (2007) have been able to demonstrate…

The 1975 US National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council Report

This is a super-el-cheapo post, brought to you by simple reproduction of http://wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/nas-1975.html. Well, I did it with R. W. Wood: Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse and I happen to have a reason for bringing this out again. The 1975 US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Report UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE: A program for action Review by W M Connolley This little-read report appears to serve as a useful summary of the state of opinion at the time (aside: I was prompted to read this by someone who thought the report supported the ice-age-was-…

Comments of the Week #16: From the Distant Universe to our Analemma

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." -F. Scott Fitzgerald The moment of Solstice has passed, and we've officially entered Summer (in the north) here at Starts With A Bang. Of course, that doesn't mean anything is different; just warmer days and different celestial sights visible throughout the night than during other times of year. While I ponder getting my first big light bucket for enjoying the night sky directly, there's still…

Comments of the Week #8: Planes, Stars, Elements and more!

"I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds." -Mike Tyson It's been another busy but fun week over at the main Starts With A Bang blog, where we've gone and looked at: A Flight Without Stars (for Ask Ethan), Building your own iron-rich star (for our Weekend Diversion), A Most Unusual Elliptical, M105 (for Messier Monday), Happy Earth Day from the Universe, Striking Cosmic Gold, and the need for science to inform your politics (for Throwback Thursday). And, as always, you've come through here on our forum with some outstanding…

Comments of the Week #41: From the dark struggle to cosmic Christmas lights

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” -John Steinbeck Here we are: the final Comments of the Week of 2014 here at Starts With A Bang, a year that's seen a tremendous number of changes, achievements, struggles and triumphs. This past week has perhaps been a microcosm for the entire year, with articles on cosmology, a new Monday series, a guest post and more. If you missed anything, here's what we've covered: Dark matter vs. dark…

"Earthing" Is a Bunch of Crap

A little while back, I was put in touch with a Wall Street Journal writer who was looking into a new-ish health fad called "earthing," which involves people sleeping on special grounded mats and that sort of thing. The basis of this particular bit of quackery is the notion that spending time indoors, out of contact with the ground, allows us to pick up a net positive charge relative to the Earth, and this has negative health consequences. Walking barefoot on the ground, or sleeping on a pad that is electrically connected to ground via your house's wiring, allows you to replace your lost…

The ACORN Lawsuit: Correcting the More Egregious Misstatements and Misunderstandings.

Predictably enough, the news that ACORN filed a lawsuit challenging Congress' decision to bar ACORN and it's "affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations" from receiving federal funds has attracted a bit of attention, both in the traditional media and on blogs. Predictably enough, there's a great deal that's being said about the suit that either distorts the facts or just plain gets things wrong. Predictably enough, I'm unable to sit idly by when someone is wrong on the internet, so I'm going to try to identify and correct some of the more egregious errors that have been popping up.…

"Adam," "Eve," and why they never got married.

In a recent Panda's Thumb comment thread, Pam asked (among other things) about our human species genetic Adam and Eve: I have been reading for the last few years now, that there is a consensus among the majority, that humans have been genetically traced to a two human ancestory: A genetic "Adam and Eve". This is a relatively common misconception, and a very understandable one. There have been published studies that have looked at the most recent common mitochondrial DNA ancestor of all humans, and other studies that have looked at the most recent common Y-chromosome ancestor of all…

Shannon Babb, 2006 Intel ISEF Winner

In 2006, Shannon Babb won both first prize at the Intel Science Talent Search (STS) and the prestigious Seaborg Award at Intel Intel ISEF for her work tracking water quality around her home in Utah. The Seaborg Award allowed her to travel to the 2006 Nobel Prizes in Stockholm, Sweden. Shannon is currently a freshman in Watershed Sciences at Utah State University. We spoke with her last week about her Intel ISEF experiences. Q: What are you currently working on at Utah State? A: I'm researching paleoclimate indicators and paleocurrents in the Neoproterozoic Era, so I'm working with about 1-…

Anotherweek of GW News, June 10, 2012

Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Another Week in the Planetary Crisis Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is notWisdomJune 10, 2012 Chuckles, Rio+20, GOE, COP18+, Bonn, WOD, WED, Barnosky Elmendorf, Dyings, Yes Men, Trade, Woodie, Psyche, Cook Fukushima Note, Fukushima News, Nuclear Policy Melting Arctic, Jet Streams, Plankton, Methane, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling,…

Chiropractic poll needs adjustment

I wouldn't let one of those quacks get near my neck, let alone any other body part, but apparently Connecticut chiropractors are fighting hard to suppress the information about risk of serious injury from cervical manipulation. And it's poll time! Chiropractic Warning: Should chiropractors be required to tell their patients about the remote risk of a stroke from cervical manipulation? Yes (505 responses) 28% No (1155 responses) 63% Depends (163 responses) 9% Nice spin in the question, too. It's only a "remote risk" of paralysis, stroke, and death from an ineffectual 'treatment'. Maybe…

Wednesday Links

I'm recovering from two days of Human Microbiome Project meetings. But that's no excuse to not have any links! Science: Letting Go World's biggest beaver dam can be seen from space: This woodland construction is the world's biggest beaver dam, which at 2,790ft is more than twice the length of the Hoover dam and can be seen from space Boozing Treeshrews: Heavyweight drinkers in small packages Other: With China's help Arizona law can work PowerPoint isn't evil if you learn how to use it. What's the "We" Jazz, Thomas Friedman? Closing main doors to the Supreme Court sends troubling message The…

More Swine Flu/Homeopathy Snark

Courtesy of Skepchick: If you are "more at risk" to have a deadly infectious virus, like you just got back from a pig-licking tour of Mexico* where you were repeatedly sneezed on, then you should see a real medical professional. Homeopaths do not necessarily have medical degrees and all they can do is give you sugar water and then maybe contract swine flu from you and then you can die in one another's arms, just like Romeo and Juliet only stupider, which is really saying something.... In the meantime, feel free to self-treat your deadly, human race-ending disease with a variety of other…

Carnivalia

Here's the most recent carnivalia for you to enjoy; All Things Eco blog carnival, number 24. Okay, I admit it, there is one story there that has particularly piqued my interest based on its title alone; "Dumpster Diving for Charity." Festival of Frugality, Veteran's Day Edition. This is all about frugal living -- something that the current economic situation demands from all of us. And no, by frugality, I do not mean reducing the number of pedicures you get from once per week to once every two weeks. Review Bloggers carnival, 30th edition. This is a collection of reviews of just about…

Helsinki Park

tags: park, Seurasaari, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day Park in Helsinki, Finland. Photographed as I walked through Helsinki, Finland, from Seurasaari. Image: GrrlScientist, 4 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) I really like this image, and the bridge, too. It's very Monet-esque, don't you think? Here's a closer look at that bridge. I am not sure what those pipes house, does anyone else have a guess? There's power lines (above) so clearly, it isn't that; Park Bridge in Helsinki, Finland. Photographed as I walked through Helsinki, Finland, from Seurasaari. Image: GrrlScientist…

Best Science Books 2010: The Charlotte Observer

Another list for your reading, gift giving and collection development pleasure The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, From Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond by John Powell The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time by Sean Carroll I'm always looking for recommendations and notifications of book lists as they appear in various media outlets…

Dave and Janet showed theirs, so I'll show mine

Dave says that your drinking container reveals your philosophical side. Janet, being a teacher, only uses mugs that she gets as free gifts. At Geospiza, I use the communal mugs that I find in the cupboard. Most of these mugs seem to come from now-defunct biotech companies who handed them out at meetings. One of my all time favorites, though, is a really cool mug that I got from Betty Kutter with a picture of phage T4 and a map of its genome. The pictures are getting worn away, but I still like the mug. At home, I drink out of these: " One of these mugs was a gift. I made the…

Moonlighting

"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on the Dark Side of the Moon..." The Astrowright has been doing some lunatic slow blogging on an interesting problem: The Nearside of the Moon from Ron Hodges - NASA medialibrary The Farside from apod One of these is not like the other... Jason discusses how we came to be thinking about these things in Part I: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on the Dark Side of the Moon I: The Lunar Farside Highlands Problem It is an interesting problem. The dichotomy is not superficial From GRAIL press release 2011 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on the Dark Side of the Moon II…

Clock Quotes

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us with a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with a Bonaparte at their head and disposing of all the treasure of the earth, our own excepted, could not by force make a track on the Blue Ridge or take a drink from the Ohio in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come…

My picks from ScienceDaily

'Voter-Verifiable' Voting System Ensures Accuracy And Privacy: Approximately two-thirds of Americans voting in the November Presidential election will cast their votes on paper ballots. How can voters be assured their votes are counted and kept private? Victorian Manchester Home To First Youth Gangs: A historian at the University of Liverpool has uncovered extensive archive material detailing the activities of the 'scuttlers' - one of Britain's earliest youth cults. Youth From Poor Neighborhoods 4 Times More Likely To Attempt Suicide: Youth in their late teens who live in poor neighbourhoods…

Clock Quotes

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us with a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with a Bonaparte at their head and disposing of all the treasure of the earth, our own excepted, could not by force make a track on the Blue Ridge or take a drink from the Ohio in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come…

Duskywing

Horace's Duskywing, Erynnis horatius. There is a possibility this could be a Juvenal's Duskywing, Erynnis juvenalis, This is probably a Horace's Duskywing from the appearance of the inner wings. The best field mark, being on the outer hindwing, is invisible in this photo. I like the spread-winged skippers. Aransas NWR. Image: Biosparite. This is another "Get Well Soon" nature picture from one of my readers that I am sharing with all of you! 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…

Messrs Silk, Licker and Ball Carve Some Runes

We interrupt this transmission for a puerile message from Medieval Bergen. It was found carved with runes on a stick at the Hanseatic docks. ion silkifuþ a mek en guþormr fuþcllæikir ræist mik en : ion fuþkula ræþr m(e)k (N B434) “John Silkencunt owns me and Guttorm Cuntlicker carved me and John Cuntball reads me” Philologists are not certain as to whether fuþkula, “cuntball”, means clitoris, or a well-padded mons veneris, or “cunt cavern”. All the three mentioned men are historical figures known from other sources, but apparently they are usually referred to there as John Silk, Guttorm…

The Art of Deflowering a Book

Here's a paraphrase from memory of an instruction sheet that came with the main Swedish encyclopaedia back in the 90s. I treat all new books this way to keep their spines from cracking. And they just can't have enough of me. 1. Put book on table, spine down. Fold down left cover, smoothen inner edge, fold down right cover, smoothen inner edge. 2. Fold down 15-20 pages to the left, flatten firmly with finger along inner edge. 3. Fold down 15-20 pages to the right, flatten firmly with finger along inner edge. 4. Repeat steps 2-3 until the book is spread out flat in front of you and open at the…

The Mines of Gladhammar

The mines of Gladhammar near Västervik in SE Sweden were worked at least from the 16th century to the 19th century, producing iron, copper and cobalt. Now they pose a big environmental problem because of heavy metals leaching out of the spoil heaps into a nearby lake. A project is afoot to do something about the site, removing all the spoil (!) to a safer location, and so my colleagues from the Kalmar County Museum have been called in to do some early industrial archaeology prior to the cleanup. Here's a fascinating short film they've shot from a basket lowered with a crane into one of the…

Why is aircraft CO2 majick?

A post from Eli about offsetting CO2 emissions from flights raises once again an issue in my mind, which I don't think I've whined about here (do remind me if I have): why is aircraft CO2 special, and requires offsetting, whereas heating your house, driving to work, and all the other things you do to emit CO2, don't. Is it because people who fly clearly have too much money and so can afford to bung in a bit more for guilt-geld? Is it because a lot of people fly on business (which includes scientists) and so can get the indulgences free with the flights from their employers? Or is it because…

SB out(r)age update

ScienceBlogs say they've upgraded their Rackspace package in a hyper-whizzy way, which is supposed to have fixed all the problems with IP blocking. If you're still having trouble, err, and can't read this message, err... ahem, or perhaps you have a friend, yes that's right, or maybe you can read this from work or not from home, anyway, please mail the failing IP to webmaster@scienceblogs.com. Apologies for all the inconvenience. When/if I ever work out exactly what was going wrong, I'll let you know. [Update: I'm pleased to say that I at least can now read / write SB from home.] Refs * My…

Earth like exoplanet story telling

As more and more exoplanets (at first) and earth-like exoplanets (eventually) have been discovered, the way thy are described to us has become increasingly sophisticated. Below are embeds of diverse video descriptions that have been very quickly developed and distributed given the freshness of this latest scientific discovery. Note that the practice of very clearly stating that a particular depiction of something that no human has ever seen, or will ever see, as being an artist's reconstruction has largely fallen by the wayside. Exoplanets are no longer physical features of the universe…

The birth and history of Unix

...A door had slammed shut for Thompson and Ritchie in March of 1969, when their employer, the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., withdrew from a collaborative project with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and General Electric to create an interactive time-sharing system called Multics, which stood for "Multiplexed Information and Computing Service." Time-sharing, a technique that lets multiple people use a single computer simultaneously, had been invented only a decade earlier. Multics was to combine time-sharing with other technological advances of the era, allowing users to…

Let's Shoot Bits of Peter Higgs into the LHC!

A number of prominent people in science and science fiction have had samples of their body tissues launched into space after they died. Thus Gene Roddenberry, thus Timothy Leary, thus Clyde Tombaugh, to name only three. Now, I've come up with a similar honour for particle physicists. Currently, it appears that the matter being shot into particle accelerators -- protons taken from hydrogen nuclei, lead ions -- is just anonymous off-the-shelf stuff from chemical supply firms. This is boring. Instead, all the big old guys and gals in high energy physics should contribute tissue samples, from…

The Return of Ed Conrad

Anyone familiar with the talk.origins newsgroup remembers Ed Conrad. He's a first class kook from Pennsylvania who has been claiming for years to be the victim of a grand scientific conspiracy. He claims to have found human remains in a coal seam that dates long before humans were around, and of course it goes without saying that the Darwinian Establishment wants to shut him up and will stop at nothing to silence him, etc, etc. PZ Myers shows his latest incoherent screed on his blog, aimed at PZ. He's convinced that PZ is part of the conspiracy and that Temple University, his former employer…

Bachmann's Town Hall

I did not go to the Michele Bachmann "town hall" meeting yesterday because of a schedule conflict (I was out of town) but there is some news. Check out the last few posts on Dump Michele Bachmann blog. There is evidence, apparently, that Bachmann supporters were bussed in to pack the room. I've heard from two other private sources, one from inside and one from outside, that there were mostly supporters inside and mostly anti-Bachmann people outside. I expect there to be a couple of good blog posts out about this in the next day or so, and I'll point to them if I find out about them. Add…

Two-Word Lyrics Quiz #7

I was up until almost midnight grading labs, and I have forty-odd grant proposals to read today, so I'm going to be unplugging from the Internet and working on, well, work. For entertainment while I'm paying for my procrastination, here's another two-word lyrics quiz. These two-word phrases each uniquely identify a pop song (I hope). If you know the song from the phrase, leave the answer in the commnets, and add a two-word phrase of your own for other people to guess. The first three are left over from the last round: up drivel town predicts wicked strict unlovable hand NYPD choir stained-…

Monday Night Mystery

Tonight's mystery is a straight-up Name That Bug: From central Florida, the mystery insect One point for picking the order, two points for family, five points for genus, and five points for species. [added in edit- you've got to be first in any one category]. And guess what? We've finally decided what to do with all these hard-earned Myrmecos Points! At the end of every month, I'll tally points from the preceding weeks and the winner will get to choose either: Any 8x10 print from the galleries of www.alexanderwild.com -or, since so many of you are bloggers- A freebie blog entry where the…

Specimen Request: Palaearctic Stenamma needed for molecular work

Stenamma sp., California. This request comes from Michael Branstetter: I am working on a broad-scale phylogeny of the ant genus Stenamma and am in search of fresh specimens from the Old World.  Stenamma is a cryptic genus that is most often collected in forest leaf litter.  The genus is primarily Holarctic in distribution, but also has representatives in the New World tropics.  Producing a phylogeny of the genus will help me in my quest to better understand the genus as a whole and to revise the Mesoamerican species.  In the Old World there are species records from Europe, northern…

SciBlogging: A Roundtable Discussion on Science Blogs

Wednesday, April 29, 6:30 p.m I'll be participating in a panel discussion of science blogging sponsored by the Northwest Science Writers Association: Join local science bloggers, including Alan Boyle from MSNBC.com's Cosmic Log, David Bacon the Quantum Pontiff, Sandra Porter of Biology in a Digital World, Julianne Dalcanton of Cosmic Variance, Eric Steig of Real Climate, and Keith Seinfeld from KPLU, for a lively discussion about the state of the art (or is it science?) of science blogs. If you are a sciblogger or like the idea, join NSWA at the UW Paul G. Allen Center in the Gates Commons (…

Female sharks can apparently fertilize own eggs

AP is reporting: Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo. The joint Northern Ireland-U.S. research, being published Wednesday in the Royal Society's peer-reviewed Biology Letter journal, analyzed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb. The shark was born in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years. The baby was killed within hours of its birth by a stingray in the same…