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Should Middle-Schoolers Receive Cash for Science Grades?

That's the plan here in the nation's capital. From today's Washington Post: Beginning in October, 3,000 students at 14 middle schools will be eligible to earn up to 50 points per month and be paid $2 per point for attending class regularly and on time, turning in homework, displaying manners and earning high marks. A maximum of $2.7 million has been set aside for the program, and the money students earn will be deposited every two weeks into bank accounts the system plans to open for them.... In justifying the program, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said the city has spent an inordinate amount on…

Off-Shore Drilling a Winning Message for McCain, But Other Energy Proposals Garner Even More Enthusiasm

Roughly 60% of Independents say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported easing restrictions on off-shore drilling, according to a recent Gallup survey (figure above). But the survey also shows that there's an even stronger positive response when Americans are asked about voting for a candidate who favors establishing tax incentives to reward energy conservation; who favors raising fuel mileage standards; or who favors authorizing a $150 billion dollar investment in the development of renewable energy technology. Yet off-shore drilling remains a winning message for…

American University Ranked "Most Politically Active"

With the election in full swing, the Fall semester is shaping up to be an exciting time here at American University in Washington, DC. In fact, in recently released national rankings, The Princeton Review named AU as the the "most politically active" campus in the country, as #13 in terms of quality of life, and Washington, DC as a "top 5" college town. In its profile on AU, The Princeton Review quotes extensively from students. Their comments include, "This school lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps politics," a club exists "for just about every type of person you can think of," because of…

The lamest punchline in the world

An unsavory fellow named Tommy Pitts is under arrest for child abuse in Oklahoma. Police said Pitts was arrested on 15 counts of first-degree rape, 15 counts of rape by instrumentation, 20 counts of lewd or indecent acts with children under 16 and 20 counts of forcible sodomy. He is on suicide watch, police said. Investigators said the abuse went on for months. Now the lamest punchline in the world: Tommy Pitts is pastor of the Midway Assembly of God Church. I know! You saw it coming from a mile away! Nowadays all you have to do is put some theological title in front of someone's name, and…

Science and art in action: a machine that poos

What you see here is a sample of artificially produced feces. More specifically, it's material produced from an artistic feat of engineering. The creation of a machine that can step for step mimic the digestive process. In other words: you put food in one end... and well, you get sh*t coming out the other. Anyway, called the "Cloaca," this is probably Wim Delvoye's most famous art installation. Created in 2000, it has since gone through at least five different incarnations, each an improvement (in terms of time and efficiency) over the previous. In truth, he's trying to one day get…

Richard Powers on Biography and Memory

I continually write my own biography by my actions, mixing involvement with knowledge, accountable to those moments when both drop away to reveal the act of mixing--something a priori recognizable. This process doe not differ measurably from the way I come to understand others, my time, or past times. Memory, then, is not only a backward retrieval of a vanished event, but also a posting forward, at the remembered instant, to all future moments of corresponding circumstance. We remember forward; we telegraph ourselves to our future selves and to others: "Rescue this; recognize this, or…

Quashed!

The subpeona against Kathleen Seidel has been quashed. ENDORSED ORDER granting MOTION to Quash Subpoena. Text of Order: "Granted. Attorney Clifford Shoemaker is ordered to show cause within 10 days why he should not be sanctioned under Fed R Civ P 11 -- see Fed R Civ P 45(a)(2)(B) which requires that a deposition subpoena be issued from the court in which the deposition is to occur and Fed R Civ P 45 (c)(1) commanding counsel to avoid burdensome subpoenas. A failure to appear will result in notification of Mr Shoemaker's conduct to the Presiding Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia." So…

An Unequivocal Statement about the Causes of Obesity

Now that is pretty clear. This is from Miller and Silverstein in Nature Clinical Practice. It is in reference to childhood obesity: There has been much debate about the cause of the current epidemic of obesity. Most experts agree that the increased prevalence of childhood obesity cannot be blamed on changes in either the environment or genetics alone. Environmental changes (i.e. nutrition and lifestyle) are, however, likely to be primarily responsible for the current epidemic, because it is not possible for the gene pool to change in less than one generation. The authors go on to present…

Powdered booze

Yes! Dutch students have found a loophole that they argue should allow alcohol to be sold to minors: Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors. The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gram packets that cost â¬1-1.5 ($1.35-$2). Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content. "We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters. Van Elderen…

Best site ever: Peep experiments

Hat-tip: Shelley. This site is awesome!!! They did all these experiments with Peeps like what it takes to dissolve a peep or what happens to a peep in a vacuum. I am so going to do some of this stuff when I get home. My favorite: the peep fear response (from being put in a test chamber...read: microwave). It is the opinion of the authors that these data clearly demonstrate an adaptive fear response to stressful stimuli in the peep species. This response likely evolved in order to intimidate potential predators through the awesome size and prowess achieved in a frightened peep. Peeps may…

Friday Poem (1214)

I Am The People, The Mob I am the people-the mob-the crowd-the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I…

Rapture Insanity Watch

I keep waiting for the padded ambulance to roll up and men in white coats to leap out, shoot these bozos with a trank gun, wrap them up in a straight jacket, and go howling off to the nearest sanitarium, but no…instead, they get invitations to appear on cable news and babble about the apocalypse. And it's not just the airhead news media… …Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From…, Rosenberg claimed that he had been…

Beating on Behe

Behe's latest piece of dreck (The Edge of Evolution) has appeared and it has already recieved quite the beatdown from Michael Ruse, Mark Chu-Carroll, PZ Myers, and Nick Matzke, with Nick's post being fairly damning regarding Behe's "ability" to do basic research (see here as well). I've a copy sitting on my desk here but am not terrible keen to crack it open, particular as there appears to be nothing new in the book beyond what was said eleven years ago in Darwin's Black Box - ID, a "new science for a new century" that is still trapped in the old century, it appears. Whether I bother to read…

On "professional creationists"

Mike hits one out of the park: It took me a while to realize that the 'professional creationists' were not intellectually honest either. I am not referring to those who follow them, or those who are simply not very [knowledgeable] about evolution. .... Everyone can be misinformed, ignorant, or simply have not thought things through correctly. What I will not tolerate is willful ignorance. Creationist leaders and spokesmen are willfully ignorant. How many times do they have to be told what scientists mean by a theory? How many times will they misstate the basics of evolutionary theory, such as…

Poor Ken Ham

Back in March, I noted that creationism was a profitable business ... at least for Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who had a salary of $121,764 for 2004. Now Jim Lippard is reporting that Ham has taken a pay-cut and only made $60,000 in 2005. Poor, poor Ken ... must be rough surviving in a state where the median household income is $37,270. Update (12/30): Jim left this comment which is worth putting up front-and-center: Actually, as I've now pointed out at my blog and in comments at Pharyngula, I made an embarrassing mistake by failing to notice a technical reason for the apparent (and…

Good cetacean news

  With the recent bad news about the vaquita and the Yantzee river dolphin, it is good to have some positive news to report about cetaceans. This press release, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, reports that four elusive Arnoux's Beaked Whales (Berardius arnuxii) have been spotted. As the release notes: The Arnoux's Beaked Whales is one of the least known species of the Beaked Whales family (Ziphidae), itself poorly known in general. Arnoux's is one of the biggest species amongst beaked whales. The ones observed were probably 9 metre long. These deep-sea…

Academic activism

David H. Price writes: In San Jose, on Saturday evening, November 18, 2006, the rank and file members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) attending the Association's business meeting approved resolutions condemning the occupation of Iraq and the use of torture. ... The first resolution condemns the American occupation of Iraq; calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, the payment of reparations, and it asks that all individuals committing war crimes against Iraqis be prosecuted. This statement passed with little debate or dissent. The second resolution condemns not only the…

When I'm looking for sophisticated, literate ideas about cosmology, I always turn to Kirk Cameron

Oh, wait, no — I meant Stephen Hawking. I understand that physics is actually a fairly rigorous discipline, almost as daunting as molecular biology, so I suspect that a childhood spent on a hackneyed sitcom and an adulthood spent peddling dumb-ass theology is probably not adequate preparation for grasping it. But at least Kirk Cameron tries. Professor Hawking is heralded as 'the genius of Britain,' yet he believes in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything and that life sprang from non-life. Why should anyone believe Mr. Hawking's writings if he cannot provide evidence…

Will someone please think of the children

Sometimes I despair: [E]ight lifelike lion statues across from what soon will be Arizona's largest cineplex apparently are a bit too lifelike for some tastes. Guarding the entrances of a children's water fountain park at a high-profile West Valley retail project, the concrete beasts are depicted raising their rumps in the air, each with a terror-stricken ram trapped under its body in what some perceive as a sexually suggestive pose.  And as work crews point out, the lions' tails are swished to the side, leaving their, er, pride in plain view. Glendale Councilwoman Joyce Clark hasn't seen…

Saturday Football Blogging

ASU (#18) are playing the Cal Golden Bears (#20) at Berkeley. The first half has just ended and the Devils are down 42-14. After a good opening scoring drive, ASU have just collapsed, with the only ray of sunshine being the running effort of (third-string RB) Ryan Torain, a JC transfer from Kansas. Rudy Carpenter has thrown two interceptions to Daymeion Hughes (one for a touchdown), and has not been on form. A punt was returned for a touchdown. Worst of all there is a whole half left to go. At this rate, watching Notre Dame being beaten by Michigan State later this evening will be the…

Wrongheaded and Boneheaded Leadership

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA): "In light of the rantings that went on for 30 minutes by two colleagues from the other side, I'd like to state for the record that America is not tired of fighting terrorism; America is tired of the wrongheaded and boneheaded leadership of the Republican party that has sent six and a half billion a month to Iraq while the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. That led this country to attack Saddam Hussein, when we were attacked by Osama bin Laden. Who captured a man who did not attack the country and let loose a man that did. Americans are tired of boneheaded…

Winter (the Dolphin) Swims with Prosthetic Flipper

Winter is the first beneficiary of the controversial MMDA (Marine Mammals with Disabilities Act) of 1977 A two year-old bottlenose dolphin has received an artificial flipper after losing hers in a crab trap out at sea. Winter was only three months-old when she was rescued off the Florida coast by a benevolent fisherman who found her thrashing around in the trap's line. She nearly died of her injuries and exhaustion. Rumor has it that Winter recently auditioned to be Def Leopard's replacement drummer. She survived, luckily, but had to have her tail fin amputated, before being placed at the…

Possible New Species Discovered in Celebes Sea

The AP just reported that project leader Dr. Larry Madin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Phillipine scientists returned from two weeks in the Celebes Sea, located off the Phillippines southernmost archipelago, this Tuesday with some potential new deep sea discoveries. Among the more interesting finds were a strange black jellyfish, a transparent sea cucumber and a spiny orange worm that had 10 squid-like tentacles. "I'll have to try a bite of each one with Old Bay before we determine whether they are truly new species or not" Dr. Madin joked. Adding, "you think I'm kidding,…

TOPP: Tagging of Pacific Pelagics

Ever wonder where sea creatures have been or where they're headed? Thanks to marvelous modern technology and an ambitious team of prestigious scientific organizations, now you can watch in almost real-time! Since 2002, Tagging of Pacific Pelagic (TOPPS) research project has tagged over 2,000 animals with tiny microprocessors and sophisticated remote sensing systems to track exactly where, when and how deep they're traveling through the ocean. Movements of twelve tagged salmon sharks over the last 60 days. The results are fantastic maps showing up-to-the-minute movements of mako sharks…

Another conversion story

Richard Muller used to be a doubter — he didn't think global warming was a concern, and he didn't think people were responsible for it. Now he has changed his mind, and he explains why. Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the…

White Marlin Mishap

For years, environmentalists have been worried about the overfishing of white marlin. However, studies have shown white marlin populations to be low, but not perilously so. A recent petition to put the white marlin on the endangered species list was even turned down. It turns out that a significant portion of the "population" of white marlin is not white marlin at all, but a newly identified species called a roundscale spearfish, which bears a stunningly close resemblance to their whiter, more marliny brethren. These elderly gentlemen might not be so smiley if they knew that they were…

The Exploratorium Joins the Blogosphere

Mary K. Miller of San Francisco's The Exporatorium has launched a new blog called The Accidental Scientist. The blog is focused on introducing readers to the ways in which scientists investigate and understand the natural world. Mary is a science writer, producer, and Web cast host at The Exploratorium. She's also director of their Osher Fellows program, which brings scientists, academics, and others to The Exploratorium to collaborate on projects and share ideas. I had the chance to visit The Exploratorium as an Osher Fellow in the spring and I will be back out there for two weeks at the…

Drudge Plays Games with DC Weather and Climate Change

Irony can be an effective persuasion tool. As pictured on the Drudge Report this morning with the headline: HEARING ON 'WARMING OF PLANET' CANCELED BECAUSE OF ICE STORM. The headline links to a Drudge posted press release, likely sent his way by staffers in the James Inhofe "Big Oil" wing of the GOP. HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM HEARING NOTICE Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to…

WHERE DOES THE PUBLIC STAND ON A LIKELY BUSH VETO OF THE STEM CELL BILL?

In the Senate, stem cell proponents figure that they have 66 to 67 votes lined up in support of the funding bill passed today in the House. As I previously noted, a number of options are on the table to overcome an anticipated Bush veto of the bill, but where does public opinion stand on the matter? Back in the summer, when Bush vetoed a similar version of the bill, only 32% of the public in a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll favored the action. Asked slightly differently by Gallup, only 36% said they approved of the decision. More recently, in a poll released Jan. 4 by the Civil Society…

INDIANA JONES IV SLATED FOR MAY 2008: Spielberg to Direct, Reports Variety; Spider Man Scribe to Pen Script; Questions About Harrison Ford's Age Linger

Time out for a bit of soft journalism....Variety reports that after an eighteen year wait, Indiana Jones 4 is going into production and will be released in May 2008. After years of languishing in development, the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is finally moving ahead, as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford look to reconnect with their blockbuster roots. For Spielberg in particular, the project marks a return to the kind of pure entertainment fare on which he built his career before his interests turned to more social-minded fare like "Schindler's List," "…

Cancer and Evolution--The Beat Goes On

In January, Scientific American ran an article by me about the evolutionary roots of cancer, which you can read here (and about which I blogged here). Now, via Respectful Ignorance Respectful Insolence [d'oh!], I've discovered a new review on said subject in the March issue of the journal Nature Reviews Cancer. The review, "Darwinian medicine: a case for cancer," is by Mel Greaves, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London. If you can get hold of the paper, it's definitely worth a read. Greaves covers a lot of ground, including some facets of the cancer-evolution story I didn't have room…

I guess fish don't count

I do experiments on fish. I've killed tens of thousands of embryos, but, you know, I take care to minimize pain, and do it for a purpose that can't be achieved any other way; I also have to answer to committees that enforce ethical conduct in animal care and use. No such rules apply if you are a Christian priest. Well, yesterday's sermon was a big hit! We had a mass execution of 200 feeder fish that I pulled out of a fish tank and then threw all over the floor. The kids were in shock and then started to pic them up and put them back into the fish tank. Obviously, most of them died in the…

Leechfest 2006: "We are Always the Bait"

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, I need more stories about leeches. I want to find out what scientists are learning about how leeches evolved. And I know that's not all you want. You want to watch a leech video. And you want a podcast about leech evolution. Well, you're in luck. Here's the story, which I wrote for tomorrow's New York Times. It's a profile of Mark Siddall, hirundologist extraordinaire at the American Museum of Natural History. His motto: We are always the bait. The story inspired the video team at the Times to film Siddall, who explains why we really shouldn't…

Surprises in Jelly

Ive got an article in todays New York Times about jellyfish and their kinknown as cnidarians. Cnidarians look pretty simple, which helped earn them a reputation as simple and primitive compared to vertebrates like us, as well as insects, squid, and other creatures with heads and tails, eyes, and so on (known as bilaterians). But it turns out that a lot of the genes that map our complex anatomy are lurking in cnidarians, too. Scientists are now pondering what all that genetic complexity does for the cnidarians. Theyre also using these findings to get a better idea of how the major groups of…

More on mathematicians

I have in the past hammered home the point that mathematicians, engineers, lawyers etc have little business critiquing evolutionary biology (see here, for example). Over at Evolutionblog, Jason, himself a mathematician (and responding to the DI lawyer Casey Luskin), hits the nail on the head: There is absolutely nothing in a mathematician's training or professional work that qualifies him to discuss evolution. Unless you are one of the very small percentage of mathematicians who actually work in mathematical biology, evolution is not something that ever arises in your graduate school courses…

I just dont care ...

The DI is crowing that their next update to the "Dissent from Darwinism" list will feature 600 PhD's. They highlight a letter sent by William Hart, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (they omit the visiting piece, I wonder why?). In any case, Hart says: I am a PhD mathematician who has recently (in the last couple of years) examined carefully the claim that the neo-Darwinian synthesis adequately accounts for the variety of life on earth. I have read countless texts on geology, biology (and cosmology) in a multitude of sub-disciplines and…

Can You Really Be Bored "Out of Your Mind"?

What are the effects of prolonged boredom, for example as experienced by 17 months of interplanetary travel? This is the question investigated by a new European Space Agency project in which 12 volunteers will be locked in an isolation tank for 500 days. (In the comments, A.R. points out that this is probably bad reporting by the BBC, as the project actually seems to involve an isolated living space rather than a true isolation tank). An "isolation tank" is a dark, soundproof container of salt water heated to skin temperature which is intended to induce sensory deprivation - an absence of…

Responding to the Discovery Institute at Huffington Post

My response to David Klinghoffer's piece in the Huffington Post has just been published: Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin. They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the Nazis to implement a widespread policy of artificial selection within the Fatherland. However, these claims are as baseless as was the so-called "science" that the Nazis employed. The latest example of this ignorance disguised as revelation was recently published on The Huffington Post by a Senior…

Christianity and the Death Penalty

Image: Atheistcartoons.com Of course, you can always count on World Nut Daily to explain the illogic of celebrating a victim of capital punishment while supporting its practice: The reason capital punishment was necessary, God explained, was because human life was so special. There had to be a blood atonement for the death of an innocent man or woman. There's a much longer and detailed explanation of the absolute requirement for the death penalty in God's economy in Numbers 35. That's where we learn that the land is actually polluted by the unatoned shedding of innocent human blood. There's…

Conclave of Light

Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with my tenderness for the Unarians, a UFO cult-cum-Renaissance science foundation that has been based in El Cajon, California since the 1960s. In 2006 I made something of a pilgrimage to their compound and left with a profound sense of mystified pity, or pitiful mysticism, which was ultimately a kind of admiration for the pastel dreamscape of their cosmology. In any case, I occasionally receive the "Unarius E-Flash," an enlightened e-mail newsletter. In its better moments it makes glowing pronouncements about the Unarius public-access…

Quiggin on junk science

John Quiggin has an interesting post putting the disinformation peddled by folks like Steve Milloy and Iain Murray in a broader context: But at some point, it must be necessary to abandon the case-by-case approach and adopt a summary judgement about people like Milloy and sites like TCS. Nothing they say can be trusted. Even if you can check their factual claims (by no means always the case) it's a safe bet that they've failed to mention relevant information that would undermine their case. So unless you have expert knowledge of the topic in…

Back by popular demand: the Venezuelan poodle moth

It is hard to believe that I have been sharing my passion for comparative physiology and its application to human and animal health with you for over 7 years now! In reminiscing over the last 7 years, I thought it would be fun to look back at the most popular posts. So, here goes... The most popular blog post since 2010 featured the adorable Venezuelan poodle moth... ____ Posted August 29, 2012: I was browsing through The Scientist and came across this image of a Venezuelan poodle moth that I could not resist sharing: Image by: Arthur Anker on flickr. What is interesting about this…

Viral defenses are encoded in their genes, but not ours

Photo of sea sponges by Steve Rupp, National Science Foundation via Wikimedia Commons Through the course of evolution vertebrates have apparently lost their gene-encoded viral defense mechanisms. These ancient defenses allow plants and insects to silence the expression of certain genes by using what is known as RNA interference. This natural defense system can be manipulated to create genetically modified crops that resist certain infections. However, a new study by researchers from the University of Leuven in Belgium examined over 40 organisms in search of a specific family of proteins…

Attempts to save Houston's bats

By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Got bugs? Get a bat. As many species of bats are insectivores, they help keep insect populations in check. Hurricane Harvey has been devastating to people, animals and property. So it probably comes as no surprise that there are many volunteers dedicating their time to saving animals displaced by Hurricane Harvey as well. From squirrels, cats and dogs to...you guessed it...bats. It turns out that bats are not very…

Benefits to being furry, but not fat, in a cold environment

Image of a genetically obese mouse (left) from Wikipedia. To deal with cold environments, mammals have several options. They could produce heat by increasing metabolism or shivering or they could conserve heat by constricting blood vessels in their skin or snuggling with a friend or insulating materials. With this in mind, researchers wondered how varying levels of insulation (obesity, fur) in mice affected heat loss and how much energy the animals used to maintain body heat. Their thinking was that more insulation would prevent heat loss and lower energy…

Pigeons can identify words

A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that pigeons can learn to recognize words. That is after the birds were trained over a period of 8 months. According to the study authors "The pigeons’ performance is actually more comparable to that of literate humans than baboons’ performance." To read, we must be about to decode letters and the sounds they make as well as orthographic knowledge to recognize words by sight. Although our lineages split over 300 million years ago, pigeons (like humans and baboons) possess orthographic…

The cost of male pheromones

Video of C. elegans from Wikipedia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/CrawlingCelegans.gif A new study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University examined the costs of reproduction in roundworms, otherwise known as C. elegans. They discovered that male roundworms can send two kinds of pheromones that prime females for reproduction. One type of pheromone they studied sparks the onset of puberty in young female worms while the other prolongs fertility in aging females.  The problem is that these changes come at a cost as it shortens the lifespan of female…

Flight advantages in older hummingbirds

Image of ruby-throated hummingbird by Joe Schneid, Louisville, Kentucky (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons In a new study published in The Auk, scientists report that well-fueled older tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) might be capable of non-stop flights of over 4,000 kilometers, wind conditions permitting. They made this remarkable observation while studying birds from 2010-2014 as the animals made stopovers at a wildlife refuge during their annual migration to South America. In general, older birds not only…

Apparently worms have even better memories than dolphins!

Figure from Journal of Experimental Biology. Researchers Tal Shomrat and Michael Levin at Tufts University have found that planaria worms are able to quickly relearn lost skills after literally losing their heads.  The researchers trained the worms to find food in an environment with bright light and open space, both considered uncomfortable to the creatures. The time it took for worms to adjust to the environment and find food was recorded. Then, the researchers severed their heads and waited for the head and brain to regenerate (see image above). What they discovered was that the worms…

Catnip addicts

I just finished reading an interesting article from The Scientist on what makes catnip so addicting to our feline friends. In our house, we refer to it as "kitty pot" because our cat just can't seem to get enough of the stuff. One sniff and he is rubbing all over the plant and then does a few laps around the house. This is impressive because outside of a catnip "high", he can usually be found doing only one of two things: sleeping or eating...often sleeping with his head in the food bowl just in case dinner magically makes an appearance, again. It turns out that catnip is a member of the…