polar
dr. dolittle | December 21, 2015I read an interesting article in the Alaska Dispatch News which examined interactions between arctic grizzly bears and polar bears. They found that although polar bears are larger, they tend to leave food sources when grizzly bears are around. This may be because polar bears typically spend a lot of time on sea ice without the need to be aggressive towards competitors. Of concern is that the relatively passive nature of polar bears may be detrimental considering these animals are increasingly spending more time foraging on land during the summer and fall months.
North Slope bone pile in…
dr. dolittle | December 17, 2014Ever wonder what lies beneath the polar ice? Turns out several researchers did as well. This past July a team of scientists led an expedition designed to image life under sea ice. The video below was captured with the Nereid Under Ice (NUI) vehicle and shows brown algae living on the bottom of sea ice as well as larvaceans, which are filter-feeding tunicates. The advantage of the new vehicle is that it can travel very far (the spools of cable are ~40 km long) and allows researchers to create maps and collect samples. Researchers are hoping to explore greater distances in future dives that…
laelaps | October 22, 2007Unfortunately, I didn't get to attend to the annual SVP Meeting in Austin, TX this year, and I can hardly wait to hear about all the interesting talks and papers from those who attended. My curiosity as to the proceedings has been mildly sated, however, by a news report about one of the interesting discoveries announced at the convention; a mid-Triassic (225 Ma) track found near Melbourne, Australia that has been attributed to a theropod dinosaur.
The 14cm-long tracks seem to indicate the presence of a theropod (or, as Zach has pointed out, some as-yet-unknown bipedal crurotarsian) that stood…