Posts

May 15, 2013

2:00 PM | I am one of the winners of a ScienceSeeker award!

The winners and finalists of the inaugural ScienceSeeker awards were announced yesterday, and I’m honored to announced that two of my posts were selected! I won Best Biology Post for The Narcissism of De-Extinction, which was published on this very blog, and was a finalist for best science-art post for Photos of Starfish Up Close: What [...]

2:00 PM | Autorotating seeds: to fly or to die

Maples rely on wind, upward currents, and gusts to spread their seeds over long distances that can reach several kilometers. Maple seeds are able to […] Read moreThe post Autorotating seeds: to fly or to die appeared first on Mapping Ignorance.

1:47 PM | Bronze Chimp @ Play

BronzeChimpbaby, a photo by russlings on Flickr.NC Zoo photo by Mary K. Vidaurri.

1:43 PM | How are humans like ants?

Last year, I wrote about how some ants can find their way home after finding food. They have the remarkable …Continue reading »

1:36 PM | Why Humans Took Up Farming: They Like To Own Stuff

Did private property invite agriculture?

1:33 PM | Video Tip of the Week: Influenza Research Database (IRD)

It may not be traditionally what you think of as flu season, but lately there’s been a great deal of talk about some viruses that are concerning public health officials and infectious disease specialists. You might have heard of the H7N9 situation in China, and the NCoV virus in France that made headlines. But researchers [...]

Squires, R., Noronha, J., Hunt, V., García-Sastre, A., Macken, C., Baumgarth, N., Suarez, D., Pickett, B., Zhang, Y., Larsen, C. & Ramsey, A. (2012). Influenza Research Database: an integrated bioinformatics resource for influenza research and surveillance, Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, 6 (6) 404-416. DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00331.x

Pickett, B., Sadat, E., Zhang, Y., Noronha, J., Squires, R., Hunt, V., Liu, M., Kumar, S., Zaremba, S., Gu, Z. & Zhou, L. (2011). ViPR: an open bioinformatics database and analysis resource for virology research, Nucleic Acids Research, 40 (D1) DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkr859

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1:00 PM | A 40-year plan for energy - Amory Lovins In this intimate talk...

A 40-year plan for energy - Amory Lovins In this intimate talk filmed at TED’s offices, energy innovator Amory Lovins shows how to get the US off oil and coal by 2050, $5 trillion cheaper, with no Act of Congress, led by business for profit. The key is integrating all four energy-using sectors—and four kinds of innovation. View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-40-year-plan-for-energy-amory-lovins Talk by Amory Lovins. via TED Education.

12:37 PM | “There are immediate wins” – protecting science spending in austere times

These are difficult times for the economy. Next month, the Government is set to announce the results of its recent Spending Review, looking at how much it is going to spend on each area of the UK’s economy. Yesterday, at … Continue reading →

12:36 PM | Cadmium: toxic to mammals, harmless to a bacterium, helpful to an alga

Heavy metal poisoning is a major health concern across the world. Heavy metal ions frequently leak into the environment from industrial waste causing multiple health problems in humans, animals, and other organisms. While there is no universally accepted definition of … Continue reading →

Bertin G. & Averbeck D. (2006). Cadmium: cellular effects, modifications of biomolecules, modulation of DNA repair and genotoxic consequences (a review), Biochimie, 88 (11) 1549-1559. DOI: 10.1016/j.biochi.2006.10.001

Schwager S., Lumjiaktase P., Stöckli M., Weisskopf L. & Eberl L. (2012). The genetic basis of cadmium resistance of , Environmental Microbiology Reports, 4 (5) 562-568. DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-2229.2012.00372.x

LEE J.G., ROBERTS S.B. & MOREL F.M.M. (1995). Cadmium: A nutrient for the marine diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii, Limnology and Oceanography, 40 (6) 1056-1063. DOI: 10.4319/lo.1995.40.6.1056

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12:00 PM | How Do Tornadoes Form? Every year tornadoes rip through the U.S....

How Do Tornadoes Form? Every year tornadoes rip through the U.S. Midwest, leaving death, injury and billions of dollars of damage in their wake. Where do these twisters come from, and just how nasty can they get? Scientific American editor Mark Fischetti reports. via Scientific American.

12:00 PM | Biodiversity Counts!

Biology concepts – biodiversity, kingdoms of life, animalia, plantae, fungi, protist, archaea, bacteria, extant, extinctIt seems that contests counting things in jars always involve food. M&Ms, jellybeans, candies, and gumballs are common things to estimate. I like another estimate game – how many grains of sand can be held in one human hand? Amazingly, only about 10,000.At some point in our lives, we have all tried to win the prize by guessing how many jellybeans are in the jar. Number […]

Mora, C., Tittensor, D., Adl, S., Simpson, A. & Worm, B. (2011). How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?, PLoS Biology, 9 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

ADL, S., SIMPSON, A., FARMER, M., ANDERSEN, R., ANDERSON, O., BARTA, J., BOWSER, S., BRUGEROLLE, G., FENSOME, R., FREDERICQ, S. & JAMES, T. (2005). The New Higher Level Classification of Eukaryotes with Emphasis on the Taxonomy of Protists, The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, 52 (5) 399-451. DOI: 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2005.00053.x

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11:00 AM | Jump! Go Ahead, Jump, Little Springtail.

And here it is. Behold the best blog-banner ever – created by Nils Cordes*! Of course, the premiere of such a great banner also requires a blog post that explains it. So let me try. The animal featured in this blog’s banner is a springtail from the hexapod lineage Collembola. Collembola are not insects but […]

11:00 AM | Just for fun: Chris Hadfield edition

By now, many of you know that rock star Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield has returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS). Why do I call him a rock star?While he was up there, one of his jobs was to answers questions from the public, and he did a delightful job. Frankly, I never even thought about many of the issues he addresses.For example, have you been itching to know how astronauts brush their teeth in space? Besides telling us how […]

10:00 AM | Visual Riches of BHL Dazzle those Outside the Biodiversity Domain

Museums and the Web poster. Trish Rose-Sandler.This spring BHL staff member Trish Rose-Sandler participated in two conferences which were outside of the biodiversity community but whose attendees were very much interested in the natural history illustrations found within the pages of BHL books and journals. These included the Visual Resources Association (VRA) annual conference held in Providence, Rhode Island, April 3-5, and the Museums and the Web (MW) conference held in Portland, Oregon, […]

9:24 AM | Let's Abandon Significance Tests

By his own admission, this is not only the first blog post Jim Wood has ever written, […]

9:13 AM | Een slim museum kent zijn bezoekers

Wie het Drents Museum in Assen bezoekt, krijgt sinds kort bij binnenkomst een toegangskaartje met daarin een chip. Die chip zorgt ervoor dat de beweging van de bezoekers gevolgd kan worden door middel van sensoren die op verschillende plekken in het museum hangen. Het museum verzamelt op deze manier een schat aan data. Maar wat doen ze vervolgens met die enorme hoeveelheid data? Ik sprak met... Lees meer op www.sciencepalooza.nl

9:10 AM | Update: New Pest & Disease Records (15 May 13)

We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include recent multiple introductions of the gall-forming aphid Pemphigus bursarius into Japanese islands, the distribution and characterization of Streptomyces species causing potato common scab in Germany and the first report of Endoclita signifer as […]

8:29 AM | A systematic review in non-clinical research: a case of pathogen metabolites

Posted by Kasra Doctors and scientists in the field of clinical research are well acquainted to systematic reviews and their importance in clinical research. The important difference between a normal review and a systematic review is that in the latter the authors make sure (or at least try very hard) to include and cover all the […]

Bos, L., Sterk, P. & Schultz, M. (2013). Volatile Metabolites of Pathogens: A Systematic Review, PLoS Pathogens, 9 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003311

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8:00 AM | Exposure to stress hormones in the womb linked to mood disorders

Stress hormones released by a pregnant mother can cause the placenta to shrink and can directly affect the developing brain of the foetus. Now, researchers have identified the mechanism through which stress may damage an unborn child in the womb. An enzyme in the placenta of the mother and the brain of the foetus acts […]

8:00 AM | La vie d’un couple de choc (2) ! / The life of a high-powered duo! (2)

It seems that for some plants and insects the attraction is so strong that they could not live without each other. This post is in both English and French.Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)The post La vie d’un couple de choc (2) ! / The life of a high-powered duo! (2) appeared first on AoB Blog.

8:00 AM | What can neuroscience teach education?

Do we really only use 10 per cent of our brain at any one time? And do we use one half of our brain more than the other? The answers are no and no, but that doesn’t seem to stop these claims circulating. The Wellcome Trust’s new education and neuroscience project seeks to banish these […]

7:00 AM | Well-Nigh Wordless Wednesday: Eggs on Pipevine

In my post on Friday I mentioned that I got to see a pipevine swallowtail laying her eggs on the woolly pipevine at work. Here’s proof! I took this with a point and shoot camera, so you can imagine how … Continue reading →

4:49 AM | New Zealanders – opportunity to learn how our immune systems work

If you’re interested in immunisation, vaccines or viruses*—or all of these—here’s your chance to hear Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty speak on The Killer Defence to disease at Palmerston North, Auckland, Dunedin, Hastings and New Plymouth.** More details and the booking form (click the large blue ‘Register now’ button) are available on the Royal Society of New Zealand website. His [...]

4:32 AM | Live from the Middle of Nowhere

Today was a successful day at the Placerias Quarry! The weather was perfect, the company pleasurable, and the bones plentiful. We arrived on site and began work around 7:30 AM, working through the morning until lunch at noon. We returned to work and finished out the day, packing up the van to head back into […]

1:52 AM | Identify this rare red and white dog

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1:30 AM | Four color problem, odd Goldbach conjecture, and the curse of computing

For over twenty-three hundred years, at least since the publication of Euclid’s Elements, the conjecture and proof of new theorems has been the sine qua non of mathematics. The method of proof is at “the heart of mathematics, the royal road to creating analytical tools and catalyzing growth” (Rav, 1999; pg 6). Proofs are not […]

Rav, Y. (1999). Why Do We Prove Theorems?, Philosophia Mathematica, 7 (1) 5-41. DOI: 10.1093/philmat/7.1.5

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1:00 AM | Learning Space - Space Apps This week we talk with Jonathan...

Learning Space - Space Apps This week we talk with Jonathan Roberts about the Space App Hackathon and his winning entry from the New York region. We go on to explore Hackathons in general and his wonderfully geeky side job. Space App Challenge: http://spaceappschallenge.org/ SpaceCal App: http://spacecalnyc.com/ Intro video for SpaceCalNYC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ACQqKDbQMQ (Voting for the international challenge starts this week!) NYC Big Apps: http://nycbigapps.com/ “Brian Cox […]

12:07 AM | The SpongeMaps Project

Contemporary collections of sponges in the Indo-west Pacific have escalated substantially due to pharmaceutical discovery, national bioregional planning, and compliance with international conventions on the seabed and its marine genetic resources beyond national jurisdictions. These partially processed operational taxonomic unit (OTU) collections now vastly outweigh the expertise available to make them better 'known' via complete taxonomy, yet for for many bioregions they represent the most […]

12:00 AM | Eugenie Scott: Deja vu all over again: Denialism of climate...

Eugenie Scott: Deja vu all over again: Denialism of climate change and of evolution Eugenie Scott, a former university professor, is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. She has been a leading activist opposing creationism/intelligent design for over twenty-five years, and is an expert on the educational, legal, scientific, and religious issues surrounding evolution. Eugenie is the author of Evolution vs Creationism and co-editor of Not in Our Classrooms: Why […]

May 14, 2013

11:03 PM | Malawania from Iraq and the Cretaceous Ichthyosaur Revolution (part II)

Tet Zoo readers with supernatural memories will doubtless recall the January 2012 article ‘Rigid swimmer’ and the Cretaceous Ichthyosaur Revolution (part I) [link below]. I’ll refresh your memory by telling you that the article was all about the PLoS ONE paper on Acamptonectes, a Cretaceous ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the UK and Germany described by Valentin [...]

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