Posts

January 08, 2013

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6:52 PM | Record-breaking heat fuels raging brushfires in Australia

The new year in a large portion of the United States may have gotten off to a cold start, but down under, quite the opposite has been true. Temperatures have been soaring in Australia—so much so that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has had to add new colors to its temperature forecast map, reports the [...]

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5:41 PM | The Fish That Climbs Waterfalls With Its Mouth

Hawaii’s environmental extremes (read a series of active volcanic islands isolated in the middle of the ocean) make it a hotbed of novel evolutionary adaptations. Take goby fish in the genus Sicyopterus, for example. These lowly little bottom-feeders spend their days sucking algae off the rocks of stream beds. But that same sucking mechanism also [...]

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4:36 PM | A quick spin with Sigma’s 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens

I have new piece of gear: the Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM Fisheye Lens. I picked one up on the recommendation of photographers Clay Bolt & Paul Harcourt Davies, whose wide-angle macro eBook makes considerable use of the lens’s close-focus abilities. The Sigma 10mm costs about $650 and comes in versions compatible with Sigma, Canon, [...]

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4:20 PM | Look at This: Robonaut 2 Put to Work Aboard the ISS

It looks like an astronaut. It acts like an astronaut. And here, on January 2, it operates the valves on a task board like an astronaut. Robonaut 2 is the second iteration of NASA’s attempts to put a human-like robot in space, and he is fast approaching his second anniversary aboard the International Space Station. In [...]

January 07, 2013

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9:03 PM | “Potentially Hazardous” Asteroid to Pass by Earth

Apophis is a big name in the world of asteroids, and on Wednesday the famed space object will be making an appearance for astronomers across the globe. A flurry of apocalyptic hoopla was generated in 2004 when astronomers found an asteroid that looked like it may be headed for Earth. Apophis measures almost 1000 feet [...]

January 04, 2013

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5:29 PM | Asteroid May Become Moon for Earth’s Moon

So far our galactic adventures have included landing men on the moon, taking pretty pictures of Saturn, and roaming the surface of Mars. So what’s next on NASA’s to-do list? Perhaps snagging an asteroid to keep in our own backyard. Researchers from the Keck Institute for Space Studies proposed a plan [pdf] in April to [...]

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2:00 PM | Babies Recognize Mother Tongue From Birth

Infants are known for their impressive ability to learn language, which most scientists say kicks in somewhere around the six-month mark. But a new study indicates that language recognition may begin even earlier, while the baby is still in the womb. Using a creative means of measurement, researchers found that babies could already recognize their [...]

January 03, 2013

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5:12 PM | Gas Giant Formation Caught in the Act

Saturn and Jupiter are examples of gas giants—huge, uninhabitable planets composed of gas rather than solid matter. Based on observations of these planets and models of their evolution, astronomers have long believed [pdf] that they form by guzzling gas from young stars. This week, courtesy of a telescope in the deserts of Chile, astronomers reported [...]

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2:22 PM | Thrifty Thursday: Pro Photographer vs. Buzz Lightyear Camera

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. Our Thursday series has typically featured me handicapping myself by attempting to photograph with digicams, scanners, webcams, cell phones and other cut-rate equipment. This week, though, I’ve got something even better. DigitalRev has been kidnapping famous photographers and forcing them to make do with [...]

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2:00 PM | Space Travel May Contribute to Alzheimer’s Later in Life

Thanks to NASA and emerging commercial space flight companies, there will likely be more astronauts in the future, and they’ll be traveling farther and more frequently into space. Space travel has known risks for bones, eyesight and other bodily systems, but a new study is the first to show that space travel could lead to [...]

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12:25 AM | Recipe for a Photograph #1: Reflected Ant on Black

One of my favorite recent projects was a deceptively simple image of an ant on black. Black is easy enough to arrange for the upper portions of a photo. Just make sure foreground lighting is powerful enough to overwhelm the ambient light. Black all around is a challenge, however. The key to a fully black [...]

January 02, 2013

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8:19 PM | Phasing Out Polluting Microplastics

Exfoliation is good for the skin, but the scrubbers in some soaps are bad for the environment. Last week global consumer-goods company Unilever acknowledged the growing concerns of scientists and environmentalists by saying the company will no longer use these plastic beads in its products. The plastics in question are called microplastics, itty bitty pieces of [...]

January 01, 2013

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7:59 PM | Looking back and walking forwards

2012 was a crazy year. Possibly the craziest one I’ve had yet. It wasn’t necessarily the best (there’s been ups and downs) but it’s certainly been memorable. After all, I did kick of the year with a visit to look … Continue reading →

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2:00 PM | The Bat: A Long-lived, Virus-Proof Anomaly

Bats are pretty impressive critters. They are notorious for carrying viruses like Ebola and SARS, but somehow avoid getting these diseases themselves. They are the only mammal that can fly, and they live far longer than other mammals their size. What’s their secret? Researchers in Australia sequenced two different bat genomes and found that these [...]

December 31, 2012

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8:25 PM | Compound Eye Readers’ Best Science and Nature Photographs of 2012

I asked for your best Science/Nature images of the year, and wow. Just, wow. The talent that came in exceeded my expectations. You guys are tremendous! Below, in no particular order, are links to all participants’ selections. If you’ve got a Best-of-2012 gallery you’d like to include, drop a link in the comments and I’ll [...]

December 30, 2012

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5:35 PM | My personal best photographs of 2012

Since I’m asking everyone else to pony up a selection of their best science & nature photos of the year, I figure it’s only fair I participate. Here are 10 images I consider my personal favorites of the last 12 months. This image made the cut because it is a cleanly-executed studio shot that illustrates [...]

December 28, 2012

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9:17 PM | Nations Race to Drill Into Hidden Antarctic Waters

On Christmas day the British Antarctic Survey announced that it is pulling out of the race to drill into the pristine waters of an underwater lake in Antarctica, but Russia and the United States are hot on their heels to explore similar subglacial waters. These underground bodies of water are sealed below two miles of glacial [...]

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5:00 PM | “Chemo Brain”: Another Side Effect of Chemotherapy

Among the many unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy treatment, researchers have just confirmed another: chemo brain. The term refers to the mental fog that chemotherapy patients report feeling during and after treatment. According to Jame Abraham, a professor at West Virginia University, about a quarter of patients undergoing chemotherapy have trouble focusing, processing numbers, and [...]

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2:00 PM | Bumblebees Aren’t Picky Eaters, But They Do Like Variety

As global pollinator populations decline, the pressure is on for scientists to figure out what makes these buzzing insects tick. While bumblebees do not pollinate much of the food we humans eat, their fuzzy bodies move a lot of pollen for native plant species, which makes them an essential part of many an ecosystem. Tracking [...]

December 27, 2012

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10:18 PM | Ocean Waters Ablaze With Flame Shells

A massive colony of these bad-hair-day shellfish, called flame shells, has been discovered off the coast of Scotland. Its inhabitants are thought to number over 100 million, making it possibly the largest grouping of flame shells in the world. The critters are a species of saltwater clam (Limaria hians), named for the fiery orange tentacles [...]

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7:57 PM | Biogeography Map Updated After 136 Years

Modern biogeography—the study of the distribution of species—still relies heavily on the above map, despite the fact that it was drawn by the field’s founder, Alfred Russel Wallace, in 1876. The map indicates regions of historical species mixing, pointing out, for instance, that a mouse in North Africa is more likely and able to mix with [...]

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3:18 PM | Monkey Brains Respond to Social Rewards

Gift-giving is at its peak this time of year. As much as we all enjoy receiving gifts, there is also joy in giving gifts to others. Seeking such selfless enjoyment is an important social behavior, and thanks to a new study published in Nature Neuroscience this week, there’s evidence that humans may not be the [...]

December 26, 2012

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9:48 PM | Hijacking Worm Guts to Produce Tiny Semiconductors

When it comes to producing nanoparticle-sized semiconductors called quantum dots, scientists are now looking to earthworms to do their dirty work. Like all semiconductors, the conductive properties of quantum dots are very specific to their crystals’ size and shape. But quantum dots have an advantage because scientists can precisely control the size of the crystals formed, and [...]

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4:19 PM | Show us your best science/nature images of 2012!

I can tell from the requisite end-of-year retrospectives that 2012 must be stumbling to a close. The best of this, the worst of that, the most interesting of the people, the sexiest of the gadgets. Here at Compound Eye we’d like to follow the crowd by crowd-sourcing our own list. If you are a science [...]

December 20, 2012

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9:00 PM | Mistletoe Makes Holidays Happier and Forests Healthier

Despite its romantic holiday association, mistletoe has long been villainized in ecology circles for being a parasite—the vine wraps itself around trees and steals nutrients from them to survive. Nobody likes a mooch, but researchers in Australia have found that this parasitic plant is not all bad. In fact, their findings [pdf] published in the [...]

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6:25 PM | Are You Fit Enough to go to Space?

Doctors have taken a first stab at outlining medical advice for a type of travel that will likely become much more common in the years ahead: ordinary people taking trips to space. The advice, published last week in the British Medical Journal, focuses on those individuals with pre-existing conditions who might want to travel to [...]

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4:05 PM | Arachnid Artist Spins a Mega-Me

This is not a spider. Nor is it a spit wad target or a child’s miscalculated attempt at a paper mâché skeleton. This spider-shaped mass is actually a clever decoy. The inch-long assemblage of leaves, twigs, and dead bugs was meticulously arranged by a spider less than a quarter its size. The arachnid artist created [...]

December 18, 2012

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10:00 PM | Restarting the Heart with a Virus

By inserting a genetically modified virus into a guinea pig’s heart, researchers have come up a new kind of pacemaker. Of the billions of cells in the human heart, a mere 10,000 pacemaker cells—collectively called the sinoatrial node—are responsible for sending the electrical pulse through the remaining heart cells. Pacemaker cells are differentiated in the [...]

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8:09 PM | Everest in Two Billion Pixels

If you do nothing else today, click on this: David Breashears created this composite image in the spring of 2012 as part of Glacier Works’ effort to document the response of glaciers to a changing climate. Click on it to enter the rarefied air of the high Himalayas and to play a rousing game of [...]

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7:52 PM | Termites Strike Gold in Australia

Scientists in West Australia struck gold when they found high concentrations of the precious metal in termite hills. These gold-laden sediments are a good indication of deposits underground. Enlisting the earth-moving skills of the termite takes some of the guesswork out of modern gold prospecting. Gold has been mined in this area of Australia for [...]