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Posts

June 19, 2013

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12:04 PM | The Roots Of Our Animal Family Tree
Biology concepts – porifera, last common ancestor, placozoa, cladogram, lower metazoan, bilaterians Bonobo apes (Pan paniscus) are very closely related to chimpanzees. They have longer legs than common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and are also distinguished by having pink lips. I think this makes them look significantly more human-like. Also like humans, the families seem to be run by the mothers.Humans are descended from primates; we share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and Bonobos (pygmy […]

Dohrmann, M. & Worheide, G. (2013). Novel Scenarios of Early Animal Evolution--Is It Time to Rewrite Textbooks?, Integrative and Comparative Biology, DOI:

Schierwater, B., Eitel, M., Jakob, W., Osigus, H., Hadrys, H., Dellaporta, S., Kolokotronis, S. & DeSalle, R. (2009). Concatenated Analysis Sheds Light on Early Metazoan Evolution and Fuels a Modern “Urmetazoon” Hypothesis, PLoS Biology, 7 (1) DOI:

As Many Exceptions As Rules
Biology | Evolution
Citation
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12:04 PM | The Roots Of Our Animal Family Tree
Biology concepts – porifera, last common ancestor, placozoa, cladogram, lower metazoan, bilaterians Bonobo apes (Pan paniscus) are very closely related to chimpanzees. They have longer legs than common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and are also distinguished by having pink lips. I think this makes them look significantly more human-like. Also like humans, the families seem to be run by the mothers.Humans are descended from primates; we share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and Bonobos (pygmy […]

Dohrmann, M. & Worheide, G. (2013). Novel Scenarios of Early Animal Evolution--Is It Time to Rewrite Textbooks?, Integrative and Comparative Biology, DOI:

Schierwater, B., Eitel, M., Jakob, W., Osigus, H., Hadrys, H., Dellaporta, S., Kolokotronis, S. & DeSalle, R. (2009). Concatenated Analysis Sheds Light on Early Metazoan Evolution and Fuels a Modern “Urmetazoon” Hypothesis, PLoS Biology, 7 (1) DOI:

As Many Exceptions As Rules
Biology | Evolution
Citation

June 18, 2013

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1:37 PM | Phylogenetic Position of the Ctenophores (Comb Jellies)
With the Cnidaria out of the way, the next big clade on the animal tree is the Acrosomata, a clade that combines the Ctenophora and the Bilateria. Ctenophores are the comb jellies, and they superficially bear a strong resemblance to jellyfish. However, once you look past the body shape, they are completely different. On the […]
Teaching Biology
Biology | Paleontology
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12:00 PM | Three Wattled Bell Bird - Costa Rica via...
Three Wattled Bell Bird - Costa Rica via thekidshouldseethis: This is the Three Wattled Bell Bird, recorded in Costa Rica, Central America. Because of the secretive behavior of this bird, it is often only detected by the distinctive bell-like call given by the males. At close range, the vocalization of many in Costa Rica is heard as a complex three-part song, the “bonk” giving the bird its name. This hollow, wooden “bonk” is thought to be among the loudest bird calls on Earth, audible […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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1:00 AM | This Week in Science (TWIS) - Episode 416  Dr. Kiki,...
This Week in Science (TWIS) - Episode 416  Dr. Kiki, Justin, and Blair explore the world of science with a few of the past week’s popular stories. Clones among us, Spider cooperation, Gravitational waves, Subterranean Galapagos, and more!!! Listen to the full episode in audio or check out the show notes at our website: http://www.twis.org ! Duration: 02:00:51 via This Week in Science. Follow on Twitter! @TWIScience
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 17, 2013

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6:00 PM | Super Cute Baby Cheetahs In this bonus episode, Elizke and...
Super Cute Baby Cheetahs In this bonus episode, Elizke and Desmond are thrilled to welcome four new fluffy faces to the Camp Cheetah family. Shadow’s newborn cubs provide hope for the future of the project, as these endangered cats will be prepped to eventually roam free in the surrounding reserve. But raising cheetah cubs is no easy feat, and everyone from surrogate cheetah mom Yakira to the family dogs gets involved. via Earth Touch.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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12:00 PM | After the Devastation: Is There Hope For Large Wildlife Conservation Following Mountaintop Removal?
By David Jachowski Photo by biotour13 via Flicker and a Creative Commons License <!--StartFragment-->     What if the future of biodiversity conservation isn't in National Parks and protected areas, but in abandoned places? The played-out farm fields or remains after mountaintop removal for a seam of coal. Those overused and now typically overlooked parcels of land that saw a brief boom in

Wood, P. & Williams, J. (2013). Impact of Valley Fills on Streamside Salamanders in Southern West Virginia, Journal of Herpetology, 47 (1) 119-125. DOI:

Larkin, J., Maehr, D., Cox, J., Bolin, D. & Wichrowski, M. (2003). Demographic Characteristics of a Reintroduced Elk Population in Kentucky, The Journal of Wildlife Management, 67 (3) 467. DOI:

Living Alongside Wildlife
Conservation | Ecology
Citation
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12:00 PM | After the Devastation: Is There Hope For Large Wildlife Conservation Following Mountaintop Removal?
By David Jachowski Photo by biotour13 via Flicker and a Creative Commons License <!--StartFragment-->     What if the future of biodiversity conservation isn't in National Parks and protected areas, but in abandoned places? The played-out farm fields or remains after mountaintop removal for a seam of coal. Those overused and now typically overlooked parcels of land that saw a brief boom in

Wood, P. & Williams, J. (2013). Impact of Valley Fills on Streamside Salamanders in Southern West Virginia, Journal of Herpetology, 47 (1) 119-125. DOI:

Larkin, J., Maehr, D., Cox, J., Bolin, D. & Wichrowski, M. (2003). Demographic Characteristics of a Reintroduced Elk Population in Kentucky, The Journal of Wildlife Management, 67 (3) 467. DOI:

Living Alongside Wildlife
Conservation | Ecology
Citation
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9:35 AM | How did sauropods get blood up their necks?
Sauropods are the largest animals to have ever lived, surpassing whales even though they lived on land. Their unique anatomy, including their extremely long neck, has long been the subject of speculation and study, as their physiology must have stretched the limits of regular vertebrate capabilities. The topic of circulation is one central issue: how […]

Seymour, R. (2009). Raising the sauropod neck: it costs more to get less, Biology Letters, 5 (3) 317-319. DOI:

Teaching Biology
Biology | Paleontology
Citation
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9:35 AM | How did sauropods get blood up their necks?
Sauropods are the largest animals to have ever lived, surpassing whales even though they lived on land. Their unique anatomy, including their extremely long neck, has long been the subject of speculation and study, as their physiology must have stretched the limits of regular vertebrate capabilities. The topic of circulation is one central issue: how […]

Seymour, R. (2009). Raising the sauropod neck: it costs more to get less, Biology Letters, 5 (3) 317-319. DOI:

Teaching Biology
Biology | Paleontology
Citation

June 16, 2013

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12:00 PM | Whale Shark Highway There’s some major underwater traffic...
Whale Shark Highway There’s some major underwater traffic along South Africa’s eastern coast: dozens of massive whale sharks — the world’s biggest fish — have been spotted powering their way along it each day. The Earth Touch crew dives in to investigate. via Earth Touch.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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1:00 AM | Breaking Bio Episode 29: Beards! we talk with Mike Kasumovic...
Breaking Bio Episode 29: Beards! we talk with Mike Kasumovic about spiders and crickets and video games – and that’s just the science! Plus, Mike’s tips on getting ahead in science and how to have a great academic beard. Duration: 29:38 via Breaking Bio.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 15, 2013

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2:00 PM | Giant Green Mantid Armed with razor-like predatory legs,...
Giant Green Mantid Armed with razor-like predatory legs, powerful compound eyes and a knack for camouflage, the giant green mantid is built for the kill. Our crew uses their iPhone 4S to capture this stealthy hunter in action. via Earth Touch.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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12:00 AM | Kako životinje preživljavaju ekstremne uvjete okoliša? Pustinja...
Kako životinje preživljavaju ekstremne uvjete okoliša? Pustinja i led, dva su ekstrema okoliša gdje malo tko preživljava. Oni koji tamo žive prilagodili na poseban način, o čemu je riječ u ovom predavanju. trajanje: 01:19:56 via Hrvatska CFI.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 14, 2013

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9:00 PM | Great Minds - Goodall, Fossey & Galdikas via scishow: Today...
Great Minds - Goodall, Fossey & Galdikas via scishow: Today we know that humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA and that we have a lot in common. Not just how we look, but how we behave, form groups, defend our turf, and love each other. People didn’t always see other primates this way, but in the 1960s and ’70s, some amazing intrepid women came along to turn primatology on its hairy head. Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas studied chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 13, 2013

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6:00 PM | On the Hunt for Tiger Sharks Would you take a dip with a tiger...
On the Hunt for Tiger Sharks Would you take a dip with a tiger shark? The Earth Touch crew dive into the waters of South Africa’s Aliwal Shoal to get up close with these fear-evoking predators. via Earth Touch.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 10, 2013

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6:00 PM | Smarter Every Day - 93 - STRANGE but GENIUS Caterpillar Speed...
Smarter Every Day - 93 - STRANGE but GENIUS Caterpillar Speed Trick While in the Rainforest we discovered a “Caterpillar Turbo Mode” How much faster can a group of caterpillars travel than an individual caterpillar on the same course? Here is the raw video of the encounter!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YehR0wSUioY I was on a tour run by Rainforest Expeditions (http://www.perunature.com) Thanks to Rainforest Expeditions for inviting me down, if you’d like to go down to the Amazon […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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5:54 AM | Trench Fever: An Ancient Zoonosis
Trench fever is an ancient disease with a surprisingly short history. Named after its discovery in the trenches of World War I, its case history is only about a century old. Yet, the louse transmitted Bartonella quintana that causes trench fever has been found in human remains as old as 4000 years and is one […]

Li H, Liu W, Zhang GZ, Sun ZZ, Bai JY, Jiang BG, Zhang YY, Zhao XG, Yang H, Tian G & Li YC (2013). Transmission and maintenance cycle of Bartonella quintana among rhesus macaques, China., Emerging infectious diseases, 19 (2) 297-300. PMID:

Contagions
Microbiology | Public Health
Citation

June 09, 2013

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5:04 PM | Ghosts of the Appalachians or the Missing Actors?
<!--StartFragment--> When we pass through the Appalachian Mountains along its vast extent from the humid southeast of Alabama and Georgia to the cold and barren of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, we cannot help but marvel of its beauty and extensiveness.  Unlike its western cousin, the Rocky Mountains, which is a mixture of forested ranges imbedded in a matrix of lowland shrub and grass

Laundré JW (2010). Behavioral response races, predator-prey shell games, ecology of fear, and patch use of pumas and their ungulate prey., Ecology, 91 (10) 2995-3007. PMID:

RIPPLE, W. & BESCHTA, R. (2004). Wolves and the Ecology of Fear: Can Predation Risk Structure Ecosystems?, BioScience, 54 (8) 755. DOI:

Living Alongside Wildlife
Conservation | Ecology
Citation
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5:00 PM | Onychophoran - The World’s Weirdest Worm Don’t let...
Onychophoran - The World’s Weirdest Worm Don’t let the plush, downy appearance of the velvet worm fool you, these curious creatures hunt their insect prey by spraying them with an adhesive mucous before sucking out their insides! Equipped with an olloclip macro attachment, our iPhone camera gets up close and personal with the writhing plushness that is the velvet worm. via Earth Touch.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 08, 2013

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9:00 PM | The Brain Scoop: Episode 26 - Mammalian Diversification via...
The Brain Scoop: Episode 26 - Mammalian Diversification via thebrainscoop: As part of a collaboration with the AllTime10s channel, we created this episode about one ‘unanswered’ question from science!  If we don’t have a fossil record, how can we know that we share a common placental ancestor?  This has been a hot topic in the science world, and you can read more about the hypothetical placental mammal.  Check out the other videos in the collaboration here! 
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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3:00 PM | How giant sea creatures eat tiny sea creatures - Kelly...
How giant sea creatures eat tiny sea creatures - Kelly Benoit-Bird It’s a paradox of ocean life: The largest mammals, like dolphins and whales, survive on the tiniest food, like krill. (Picture trying to make a full meal out of flying kernels of popcorn!) So how do these big animals gather enough food to live? At TEDYouth 2012, Kelly Benoit-Bird discusses new research that shows large sea animals actually herding their tiny food into big, bitable chunks. View full lesson: […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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1:00 AM | Breaking Bio Episode 28: Bats! Our guest Patty Jones from UT...
Breaking Bio Episode 28: Bats! Our guest Patty Jones from UT Austin joins us to talk about frog-eating bats, the joys of field work, and the crew hatches a plan to rid the world of Justin Bieber! Duration: 30:01 via Breaking Bio.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 07, 2013

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3:00 PM | How a fly flies - Michael Dickinson An insect’s ability to...
How a fly flies - Michael Dickinson An insect’s ability to fly is perhaps one of the greatest feats of evolution. Michael Dickinson looks at how a fruit fly takes flight with such delicate wings, thanks to a clever flapping motion and flight muscles that are both powerful and nimble. But the secret ingredient: the incredible fly brain. (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.) via TED Education.
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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12:00 PM | Unraveling Mysteries of the Common Loon This podcast provides...
Unraveling Mysteries of the Common Loon This podcast provides insight in to the life of the common loon as captured by research scientists with USGS using modern technologies. Scientists used satellite telemetry and archival geolocator tag technologies to gain critical information on migratory movements of breeding loons in the Upper Midwest to guide conservation planning. Critical pieces of the puzzle included identifying migration staging areas and wintering areas, and also important […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science

June 06, 2013

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6:54 PM | 24h blogathon!: The Eumetazoa
Post 13/48 of the blogathon, for those who can’t count. I especially encourage those with low counting skills to click on the Donate button at the bottom. Be liberal with the zeroes, as long as they’re not leading zeroes or after a decimal. In the ongoing series about the systematics of animals, we’ve looked at sponges […]
Teaching Biology
Biology | Paleontology

June 05, 2013

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7:00 PM | Bite Sci-zed - Echinoderm Show & Tell Look what I brought...
Bite Sci-zed - Echinoderm Show & Tell Look what I brought back from diving! via Alex Dainis. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BiteSciZed Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexDainis
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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5:19 PM | It Depends on Your Point of View: “A Water Moccasin Tried to Get in My Boat” (Guest Post)
<!--StartFragment-->     Besides the myth that Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus, on right) bask in trees along waterways and plop into boats and the unfounded legend that Cottonmouths are aggressive and attack people, the next most common misconception about the Cottonmouth is that they try to “get into” boats. At first glance this may appear to be a variant of the “falling into boats”

S.P. Graham (2013). How frequently do Cottonmouths bask in Trees?, Journal of Herpetology,

B.C. Savitzky (1992). Laboratory Studies in an Opportunistic Pitiviper, the Cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus, Biology of the Pitvipers, 347-368.

Living Alongside Wildlife
Conservation | Ecology
Citation
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5:19 PM | It Depends on Your Point of View: “A Water Moccasin Tried to Get in My Boat” (Guest Post)
<!--StartFragment-->     Besides the myth that Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus, on right) bask in trees along waterways and plop into boats and the unfounded legend that Cottonmouths are aggressive and attack people, the next most common misconception about the Cottonmouth is that they try to “get into” boats. At first glance this may appear to be a variant of the “falling into boats”

S.P. Graham (2013). How frequently do Cottonmouths bask in Trees?, Journal of Herpetology,

B.C. Savitzky (1992). Laboratory Studies in an Opportunistic Pitiviper, the Cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus, Biology of the Pitvipers, 347-368.

Living Alongside Wildlife
Conservation | Ecology
Citation

June 04, 2013

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9:00 PM | The Brain Scoop - Episode 26 - Chicago Adventure, Part Two:...
The Brain Scoop - Episode 26 - Chicago Adventure, Part Two: Catalogue Dialogue via thebrainscoop: In this installment of our Chicago Adventure episodes, Bill Stanley shows me the earliest records of the mammal collection.   Seeing Carl Akeley’s handwritten lab notes was definitely a highlight.  After years of reading anything I can about him, to actually stand there and get this very special insight into his average work day was a fascinating privilege.  I could just imagine him sitting in […]
SkepTV
Biology | General Science
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965 Results