animals
omnibrain | April 24, 2007We all know the basic characteristics of a happy dog (well at least pizza guys and mail men know),
Ears close to the head, tense posture, and tail straight out from the body means "don't mess with me." Ears perked up, wriggly body and vigorously wagging tail means "I am sooo happy to see you!"
An article in todays NYT highlights a brand new discovery in doggy linguistics,
When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.
I might even read the…
voltagegate | April 21, 2007Over 40 bloggers will be stepping outside for National Wildlife Week, April 21 - 29, field guides, binoculars and seines in hand and pack to catalogue all the species they can find in a local area of their choosing.
Early tomorrow morning, I'll be heading out to our campus' arboretum, a small, manageable riparian forest. I'll probably be tackling another area in Western Pennsylvania later in the week. The first post from me should be up be tomorrow afternoon.
We have spent the past month refining the process at our forum. Use the following links to access any information you may need. Also,…
voltagegate | April 20, 2007From Planet Earth, the great struggle on the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetan fox vs. pika:
voltagegate | April 17, 2007Maniola jurtina
Another study was published recently in Ecology that sought to tease out and analyze environmental factors (the other regarded deforestation and albedo), this time with a concentration on species diversity, specifically different native butterfly populations in Britain.
The butterflies were split into two main groups:
...habitat specialists, occupying one or a few localized habitats; [and] habitat generalists, occupying widespread and/or many habitats...
The researchers studied three factors affecting butterfly diversity: the direct and indirect (trophic cascade) effects of…
voltagegate | April 16, 2007No, really. It is. Deep Sea News has the scoop, complete with a nifty marine diversity graph.
voltagegate | April 7, 2007The ESA blog posted a thoughtful contribution about the philosophy of and a possible solution to "diagnosing" the ecology of endangered species, the author presenting his own work with the endangered Marbled Murrelet as an example:
It's a simple question that I often get asked about an endangered species: "What caused it to decline?" but I find it to be one of the hardest to answer without giving a hand-waiving response. Determining causes of decline for a species based on data-driven conclusions rather than informed opinion is challenging because it first requires figuring out which…
voltagegate | April 6, 2007From "Land of the Falling Lakes", Nature's look at the Croatia's amazing Plitvice Lakes National Park, land of the bizarre, sightless olm, sometimes called the "human fish":
voltagegate | April 6, 2007Bev has compiled a link list of useful webpages - keys of all kinds - for identifying all kinds of animals. The list should be immediately useful for our upcoming Blogger Bioblitz, but it's a good page to bookmark for future reference too. Thanks Bev!
voltagegate | April 2, 2007Tomorrow's NOVA is all about cuttlefish!
Kings of Camouflage, eh? It brings me back to freshmen zoology. My prof showed this incredible video of how cuttlefish communicate, both through color changes and signaling. That video was largely responsible for my decision to change my major: from English to biology.
I never found out what the video was, though I would love a copy. Anyone have any ideas?
voltagegate | March 20, 2007Researchers from the University of Montana are using bee hives as a sort of early warning system for chemicals and pathogens by analyzing the change in frequency of "collective buzzing" when exposed to contaminants:
"We found bees respond within 30 seconds or less to the presence of a toxic chemical," said Research Professor Jerry Bromenshenk. "The military is interested in that for countering terrorism. But the real surprise was that the sounds bees produce can actually tell what chemical is hitting them."
The insects also make different sounds when attacked by honeybee maladies such as…
voltagegate | March 19, 2007I have been waiting about six months to see this. Here's just a sample:
Planet Earth starts this coming Sunday, March 25 at 8 p.m. on Discovery (if you hadn't seen the huge ad at the top of the page).
omnibrain | January 27, 2007Ok.. so perhaps it's not a total museum dedicated to homosexual animals - but it looks like a pretty good sized exhibit. Unless you're in Norway you might be missing the exhibit though. Anyone want to sneak some photos for us?
From male killer whales that ride the dorsal fin of another male to female bonobos that rub their genitals together, the animal kingdom tolerates all kinds of lifestyles.
A first-ever museum display, "Against Nature?," which opened last month at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum in Norway, presents 51 species of animals exhibiting homosexuality.
Here'…
omnibrain | January 25, 2007From the Improbable Research blog and Reuters:
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China -- and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog, state media reported on Wednesday.
The bizarre sequence events began when the boy arrived at a village home in the eastern province of Jiangsu in the summer with his father who was delivering bottles of gas, the Nanjing Morning Post reported.
A villager was quoted as saying the little boy bent over the henhouse window, screaming…
omnibrain | January 22, 2007Normally I'm all for ripping PETA a new one, but there are all sorts of problems with this ad, which (among others) has appeared in Time Square and in the NYT.
It seems that the Center for Consumer Freedom, who is sponsoring the ads and bills itself as a grass roots organization, is actually a front for big tobacco and the fast food companies.
From Wikipedia:
The group defines its mission as fighting against "a growing cabal of food cops, health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know what's best for you, [who] are pushing against our…
omnibrain | January 9, 2007Ohh boy...here we go. From the New Scientist Blog:
An ongoing US experiment to turn "homosexual" rams straight by altering their hormone levels has sparked the ire of both gay activists and animal rights groups. The work is reportedly being carried out at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.
I can imagine what groups like Love in action are going to do when they get their hands on this. From wikipedia (this article also highlights other groups like this):
Love in Action, or LIA, was founded in 1973 by John Evans and the…
omnibrain | January 5, 2007This is a pretty darn cool study :)
To investigate, the researchers recruited 28 pooches and their owners. In each experimental session, the dog's owner or another familiar person positioned the dog about a meter away from a computer monitor hidden behind a screen. Then, the researchers played a recording of either the owner or a stranger saying the dog's name five times through speakers in the monitor. Finally, the researchers removed the screen to reveal a still image of either the owner's face or the face of a stranger. Video cameras recorded the dogs' reactions.
When the owner's voice…