jchosy | August 6, 2009The folks at PNAS have been biting their nails to the quick, anxiously awaiting the release of their groundbreaking news- Mutts are more genetically diverse than purebreds! The article had been under embargo until yesterday, forcing the researchers and journal editors to keep the valuable information under wraps. "I had a really hard time not telling my wife," admitted one of the journal editors, "I almost slipped up two times!"
As a precaution to prevent leaks to the media, the authors of the study have spent the last 10 days sequestered at an undisclosed hotel. Insider reports said they…
zooillogix | August 5, 2009While we usually bring you hard-hitting, fact-based (like pleather is leather-based) news, sometimes we stumble across something that is simply news to us. In this case, it's the existence of what appears to be a cross between a colorful sea slug and a shrew called a Lowland Streaked Tenrec (Hemicentetes semispinosus).
Since these pictures in and of themselves aren't much of a post, please gather round the campfire for a bit more info on tenrecs. As any self-respecting pretend biologist can tell you, tenrecs are a distinct family of mammals that spent the last few million years evolving…
kthompson | August 3, 2009Folks at UCLA have created a list of evolutionary winners and losers. They've based this list on a species' ability to diversify over time. At the top of the winners list are birds (with 9,000 species) and mammals (with 5,400 species). Compare that speciation with big fat losers like crocodiles and alligators. Crocs and gators have been evolving for 250 million years and have exactly 23 species to show for it.
One particular loser highlighted in the article is the tuatara, a native to New Zealand.
It looks like a lizard, but they claim it's more closely related to snakes. Believe what you…
bleimanb | August 1, 2009According to a new study reported on by National Geographic, all of the flipping, flapping, undulating, kicking, tail whipping, swishing and swoshing that sea creatures use to propel themselves in the ocean may account for a large portion of "ocean mixing" and this in turn may make climate change modeling even more complicated a task. Ocean mixing is the mixing up of sea water layers (including their temperatures, salinity, etc.). Previously, it was thought that wind, weather, seismic activity and tides were the main forces behind ocean mixing. But according to this study, published…
zooillogix | July 28, 2009AKA - a boy and his coffee on geek safari
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
bleimanb | July 24, 2009This is a picture from Fukung.net. Is it a close up of my brother, Andrew's, inner thigh? Can any of our readers explain why these crabs are trying to cross the road?
bleimanb | July 24, 2009The leading spider scientists have long been flabbergasted by two things: 1) Why they aren't swimming in women with their own condominiums and 2) why some spiders seem to cover their otherwise see-through webs with junk. The scientists may now have an answer to question two, the one that, unfortunately, does not add to their genetic fitness. It appears as if spiders put leaves and other forms of organic garbage on their webs in order to fool predators into believing that the junk is in fact them, sitting in wait.
It's my web and I'll do what I damn well please with it.
A new study found on…
kthompson | July 24, 2009The fear mongers over at National Geographic are at it again. They have released what they claim to be actual prehistoric photographs of nightmarish creatures. Just think of your most feared animal and combine it with either a cooking utensil or a wood shop tool. That might give you an idea of how National Geographic came up with these things.
The CraftsMan-Eating Shark, known for its ability to sever the limbs of its victims with a straight or beveled cut.
I smell "evolution" and I don't like it.
I came up with one of my own:
check out the rest here.
zooillogix | July 20, 2009In this groundbreaking film, a greater Egyptian jerboa hangs out in a kitchen to a tune from Dragon Quest 3. Set expectations to "low."
Thanks to Adam Bedient for the important tip
bleimanb | July 17, 2009While we're on the topic of whales, I've got something a little less whimsical for you all to suck on. Seagulls off the coast of Argentina have recently learned in large numbers how to attack Southern right whales when they come up to breathe at the surface of the water. When the whales emerge, the seagulls land on their backs and peck at their skin, opening up huge cankerous sores which then can become infected.
This seagull claimed to be conducting "scientific research" when questioned.
Big whoop, you yawn. But according to researchers, seagull attacks on these whales is up from 1% in…
kthompson | July 17, 2009Herman Melville has nothing on the researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. For one thing, you can read their article in the time it takes to leisurely eat a banana... I could never get past the first sentence of Moby Dick.
It all started when Delphine "Ishmel" Mathias and Aaron "Ahab" Thode from Scripps were called on by a snarling mob of Alaskan cod-fishermen who demanded something be done about their missing cod. The belligerent fishermen reported seeing groups of sperm whales loitering around some of their equipment and cod missing from their lines. Since sperm whales usually…
zooillogix | July 16, 2009In the Midwest they have a game called "cornhole" which involves throwing bean bags into holes in boards. Growing up on the East Coast, cornhole had a completely different meaning, but living in Chitown for three years now, I am doing my best to blend in.
As a patron of the arts, I recently had a very special cornhole board commissioned featuring the likenesses of my two hunting dogs, Izzy and Mathman. I wanted to share the glorious result.
zooillogix | July 16, 2009Whether you call them Little Penguins or Fairy Penguins, the name rightfully suggests that this species is not the most formidable of their flightless family. In fact, standing at about only 16" high, they are the smallest of all penguins. Therefore it might not be surprising that they are picked on by other species.
The "McFly" of the penguin world
Well wedgies are one thing, but a string of grisly fairy penguin murders, nine so far, has prompted Australia to break out the big guns, literally. Two professional snipers have been dispatched to a national park near Sydney Harbor to even the…
jchosy | July 14, 2009According to a paper to be released in the September issue of the journal "American Naturalist", the number of sperm a male ejaculates may be correlated to his attractiveness as measured by the females in the population. The idea came forth after scientists at University College London and the Oxford University mathematically modeled the optimal "sperm load" to maximize daddiness across a range of mating patterns. The research, which took place late one Friday night at the corner bar, was one of several proposed ideas to "settle a bet" between two of the scientists.
The results suggest that…
zooillogix | July 13, 2009If millipedes were not adorable enough on their own, they are often teeming with special little mites. The millipede and the mites typically have a symbiotic relationship wherein the millipede provides the mites with a home and the mites provide an extra layer of terror in the event that an elementary school child on a field trip actually builds up the courage to hold the Giant African millipede.
Who's seen Cloverfield?
zooillogix | July 13, 2009Many of you have asked... what's up with Zooillogix? Over a month between posts... Rambling, incoherent responses to inquiries from the Royal Society... Dark bags underneath our eyes... Hair loss and tooth decay... Some of you might have thought it was drugs. Well you were right. It took Jane Goodall finding my brother, Benny, face down in a back alley puddle in San Francisco's Chinatown to get us back on track. She brought him home and nourished him with rare sunbittern soup, an old Amazonian home remedy. Restored to his former strength, but missing many teeth, I am proud once again to call…
bleimanb | July 11, 2009A new study in one of our favorite bathroom reading publications, Insectes Sociaux, has revealed that ants are indeed taking over the world and our role as ants' masters will soon be upended. The group looked at a species of Argentinian ant, Linepithema humile, that has hitchhiked to other continents in the last century or so on human vessels (ships, planes, etc.) to form invasive colonies. Previously, scientists had examined the relationship between these different colonies within countries and continents. When Linepithema humile from different colonies come into contact in Argentina, they…
bleimanb | June 2, 2009A new study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has shed some light (oh... ZING!) on how squids may use another organ, along with their eyes, to see.
Some squids have a light organ on them which they use to camoflauge themselves from predators below them. The organ is filled with a luminous bateria that the squid can activate to light up. The idea is that the squids can illuminate their organs to match the light coming from the surface of the water, thus confusing a rising, hungry fish or giant crab monsters recently loose from attacking deep sea oil drilling stations.
By studying the…
bleimanb | May 21, 2009It seems like we've been covering zombie bugs a lot lately. The newest story comes from Texas, where researchers are trying out a new form of pest control on invasive fire ants: using parasitic flies to lay eggs in the ants brains, zombify them, and then explode their heads with emerging larvae. Seems reasonable.
We're under attack!
Researchers at Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas are experimenting by releasing four different species of phorid flies (a native predator of fire ants from their native South America) into fire ants' new habitats. The flies…