ecology
laelaps | March 18, 2010
A photograph and line drawing (left side) of the fossil dolphin Astadelphis gastaldii. The crescent-shaped line in the line drawing represents the bite of a large shark, with the red portions representing damage done directly to the bone. From Bianucci et al, 2010.
Shark attacks are events of speed and violence. When they have locked on to a prey item sharks seem to come out of nowhere, and though they can be quite gentle with their jaws (as on occasions when they are unsure about whether something is food or not) their ranks of serrated teeth can inflict a devastating amount of damage.…
awild | March 18, 2010
Harmonia axyridis, the Asian Multicolored Lady Beetle
If I had to pick the most annoying insect in Illinois it'd be Harmonia axyridis. This lady beetle was introduced to our continent as a control agent for aphids but became a pest in its own right. It consumes not just aphids but all manner of other insects, including beneficials like native lady beetles. Swarms of them descend into our houses in the fall. They get just about everywhere. They have a noxious odor. And they bite.
A study out in PLoS One byLombaert et al has determined that our local beetles here in eastern North America are…
razib | March 15, 2010The Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Cova Gran (Catalunya, Spain) and the extinction of Neanderthals in the Iberian Peninsula:
The excavations carried out in Cova Gran de Santa Linya (Southeastern PrePyrenees, Catalunya, Spain) have unearthed a new archaeological sequence attributable to the Middle Palaeoloithic/Upper Palaeolithic (MP/UP) transition. This article presents data on the stratigraphy, archaeology, and 14C AMS dates of three Early Upper Palaeolithic and four Late Middle Palaeolithic levels excavated in Cova Gran. All these archaeological levels fall within the 34-32 ka…
grrlscientist | March 14, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
laelaps | March 10, 2010
A muskox (Ovibos moschatus), photographed in Alaska. From Flickr user drurydrama.
Of all the mass extinctions that have occurred during earth's history, among the most hotly debated is the one which wiped out mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, and the other peculiar members of the Pleistocene megafauna around 12,000 years ago. It was not the most severe mass extinction, not by a long shot, but unlike the end-Cretaceous catastrophe 65 million years ago there is no single "smoking gun" that can account for the pattern of extinction. Instead the Pleistocene mass extinction…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
laelaps | March 5, 2010
A jaguar (Panthera onca). From Flickr user Prosper 973.
One year ago this week Macho B was euthanized. He had been captured in mid-February of 2009, the only known jaguar living inside the United States, but after he was caught and fitted with a radio collar his health quickly deteriorated. When he nearly stopped moving he was recaptured, taken to the Phoenix zoo, and put to sleep when it was discovered that he was suffering from irreparable kidney failure.
At first it seemed as if his capture was a lucky accident, but a later investigation by the Fish and Wildlife Service found that the…
clock | March 4, 2010From the NC Museum of Life Sciences:
Program Type: Science Talk
Date: Mar. 9, 7 pm - Mar. 9, 8 pm
Location: Museum of Natural Sciences - Auditorium
Fee: $6 General Public, $4 Members, $3 Students
The Ecological and Economic Importance of Sharks, Threats They Face, and How You Can Help
Lecture, slide show & video presentation by marine biologist David Shiffman
David Shiffman and friendShiffman graduated with distinction in Biology from Duke and is now a Masters in Marine Biology candidate at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on the feeding behavior and…
grrlscientist | February 28, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
tsmith | February 22, 2010Guest post by Zainab Khan
In most western countries, germs have become synonymous with the idea of something bad that needs to be killed as quickly as possible. However, people have long been questioning the validity of these ideas; a few decades ago it was hypothesized that not enough exposure to germ can and does cause insufficient development of an individuals immune system. New studies have recently shown that this idea of getting rid of all germs, and keeping children exposure to them at an absolute minimum, may possibly cause more harm then good; over cleanliness is suspected to be…
grrlscientist | February 21, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
clock | February 13, 2010Last night, braving horrible traffic on the way there, and snow on the way back, I made my way to the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences for the Darwin Day shark lecture co-organized by NESCent and the sneak preview of the Megalodon exhibit which officially opens today.
I have to say that the trip was very much worth making - the exhibit is excellent! I like the way the exhibit is making good use of the space - so many exhibits feel cluttered and an all-out assault on all of one's senses. Upon entering the room, it looks quite sparse. Yet, once I started going around I saw how much it actually…
clock | February 12, 2010A new forum at World Science is up. As always, listen to the podcast first, then ask questions in the forum:
This week, India rejected what would have been the country's first a genetically modified food crop, a transgenic eggplant.
The company that developed it, an Indian subsidiary of Monsanto, claims the crop would reduce pesticide use and boost yields. But the Indian government has decided to do independent assessments of the crop's potential impacts on consumer health and the environment.
What does this mean for the future of GM crops in India and elsewhere? And does this technology have…
grrlscientist | February 7, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
clock | February 3, 2010Yes, years after I left the lab, I published a scientific paper. How did that happen?
Back in 2000, I published a paper on the way circadian clock controls the time of day when the eggs are laid in Japanese quail. Several years later, I wrote a blog post about that paper, trying to explain in lay terms what I did, why I did it, what I found, and how it fits into the broader context of this line of research. The paper was a physiology paper, and my blog post also focused on the physiological aspects of it.
But then, I wrote (back in March 2006 - eons ago in Web-time) an additional blog post…
laelaps | February 3, 2010
A restoration of Titanoboa (foreground) in its natural setting. (By Jason Bourque, image from Wikipedia.)
When I was growing up I used to spend hours poring over the Time/Life series of nature books in my little library, absolutely enthralled by images of strange creatures from all over the world, but one photograph was particularly arresting. A grainy black-and-white double-page spread showed an anaconda that had wrapped its crushing coils around a caiman and a tree, slowly squeezing the life out of the crocodylian. Without any frame of reference for size it was easy to envision the two…
edyong | February 1, 2010The streams of Trinidad and Tobago are home to the most unexpected of landscape gardeners. They're guppies - tiny and beautifully coloured fish, just an inch or so long. Without tools or plans, they shape the environment around them, tweaking everything from the numbers of different species to the nutrients in the water.
The guppies are quick to adapt to different environments and particularly to which predators are around. The number and types of predators affect the guppies' lifespan, how big they get and when they become sexually mature. This, in turn, affects what they eat, and that…
grrlscientist | January 31, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
edyong | January 30, 2010This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Look into the oceans past the sharks, seals and fish and you will find the tiny phytoplankton. These small organisms form the basis of life in the seas but if their populations get to big, they can also choke the life from it by forming large and suffocating algal blooms.
The waters of San Francisco Bay have never had big problems with these blooms and if anything, scientists worried that the waters didn't have enough phytoplankton. All that changed in 1999, when the phytoplankton population started…