Biology Fact of the Day

[Cecilie]

I'm never going to South America...

Big place South America. There are a lot of places where you won't get bitten by bugs that then defecate on your face!  

[Tank]

I'm never going to South America...

Big place South America. There are a lot of places where you won't get bitten by bugs that then defecate on your face!  

But you'd never see one of these! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Anteater



[youtube:2eucb6xr]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tmIpmCI4I8[/youtube:2eucb6xr]

[Thumpalumpacus]

(Nov. 11, 2009) â€" Were dinosaurs "warm-blooded" like present-day mammals and birds, or "cold-blooded" like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you'd snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter's evening.

In a study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded.

It may be old, but I love dinosaurs.

[cerror]

Ant chat!
The genus Polyergus is neat. They lack a proper worker caste and are all either the queen, a drone (male), or a soldier (female). Their sharp dagger-like mandibles aren't useful for caring for a brood or even feeding themselves. So, Polyergus has developed a parasitic relationship with the ant genus Formica. Polyergus will routinely organize "slave raids" on Formica nests. This rarely results in violence though. The Polyergus will approach the target nest en masse and give the inhabitants time to evacuate. They'll then steal all the eggs and larva they can from the hatchery and carry them back to their own nest where they'll be raised by the current Formica servants. Once they become adults they take on the mixed-species scent of the nest and become full-fledged members of the Polyergus nest.

[pinkocommie]

(Nov. 11, 2009) â€" Were dinosaurs "warm-blooded" like present-day mammals and birds, or "cold-blooded" like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you'd snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter's evening.

In a study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded.

It may be old, but I love dinosaurs.

This is for you, buddy.

The world's largest dinosaur graveyard has been discovered in northern Alberta, Canada, according to David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and other scientists working on the project.

The Vancouver Sun reports that the massive dinosaur bonebed is 1.43-square miles in size. Eberth says it contains thousands of bones belonging to the dinosaur Centrosaurus, which once lived near what is now the Saskatchewan border.

http://news.discovery.com/dinosaurs/worlds-largest-dinosaur-graveyard-found.html

[Tank]

Scientists Watch as Bacteria Evolve Heat Resistance Under Stress:New Details of Evolutionary Mechanism

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2010) â€" Scientists in Munich report evidence that high concentrations of the molecular "chaperone" proteins GroEL and GroES -- intracellular machines that can stabilize folding proteins under stress -- play a critical role in increasing the maximum temperature at which E. coli bacteria can grow. Massively and permanently elevated levels of the GroE proteins were found in bacteria adapted, step-wise over a period of years, for growth at 48.5 degrees C. This genomic change persisted for more than 600 generations, and molecular analyses ruled out other mechanisms that might account for the increase in heat resistance...

[Tank]

World's Oldest Fig Wasp Fossil Proves That If It Works, Don't Change It

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2010) â€" The world's oldest known example of a fig wasp has been found on the Isle of Wight. The fossil wasp is almost identical to the modern species, proving that this tiny but specialized insect has remained virtually unchanged for over 34 million years...

[Thumpalumpacus]

(Nov. 11, 2009) â€" Were dinosaurs "warm-blooded" like present-day mammals and birds, or "cold-blooded" like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you'd snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter's evening.

In a study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded.

It may be old, but I love dinosaurs.

This is for you, buddy.

The world's largest dinosaur graveyard has been discovered in northern Alberta, Canada, according to David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and other scientists working on the project.

The Vancouver Sun reports that the massive dinosaur bonebed is 1.43-square miles in size. Eberth says it contains thousands of bones belonging to the dinosaur Centrosaurus, which once lived near what is now the Saskatchewan border.

http://news.discovery.com/dinosaurs/worlds-largest-dinosaur-graveyard-found.html

Whoa, amazing.  Thanks!

[Tank]

Fin to limb evolution clue found

A study has shed light on a key genetic step in the evolution of animals' limbs from the fins of fish, scientists say.

A team of researchers identified two new genes that are important in fin development.

They report in the journal Nature that the loss of these genes could have been an "important step" in the evolutionary transformation of fins into limbs.

Marie-Andree Akimenko, from the University of Ottawa in Canada, led the research.

She and her colleagues began their study by looking at the development of zebrafish embryos. They discovered two genes that coded for proteins that were important in the structure of fins...

[pinkocommie]

In a lab at Yale University, a rat inhales. Every breath this rodent takes is a sign of important medical advances looming on the horizon, for only one of its lungs comes from the pair it was born with. The other was built in a laboratory.

This transplanted lung is the work of Thomas Petersen and a large team of US scientists. Their technique isn’t a way of growing a lung from scratch. Instead it takes an existing lung, strips away all the cells and blood vessels to leave behind a scaffold of connective tissues, and re-grows the missing cells in a vat. It’s the medical equivalent of stripping a house down to a frame of beams and struts and rebuilding the rest from scratch. The whole process only took a few days and when the reconstituted lung was transplanted into a rat, it worked.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/24/lungs-rebuilt-in-lab-and-transplanted-into-rats/

[Tank]

In a lab at Yale University, a rat inhales. Every breath this rodent takes is a sign of important medical advances looming on the horizon, for only one of its lungs comes from the pair it was born with. The other was built in a laboratory.

This transplanted lung is the work of Thomas Petersen and a large team of US scientists. Their technique isn’t a way of growing a lung from scratch. Instead it takes an existing lung, strips away all the cells and blood vessels to leave behind a scaffold of connective tissues, and re-grows the missing cells in a vat. It’s the medical equivalent of stripping a house down to a frame of beams and struts and rebuilding the rest from scratch. The whole process only took a few days and when the reconstituted lung was transplanted into a rat, it worked.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/24/lungs-rebuilt-in-lab-and-transplanted-into-rats/

Wow!!!

[Tank]

Ecological Change in the Abyss: The Amperima Event

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2010) â€" Even in the dark abyss of the deep ocean animal communities can undergo rapid, widespread and radical changes. Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre are at the forefront of monitoring these changes and understanding the mechanisms responsible. Their latest research is published in a special issue of the journal Deep Sea Research II...

This sort of thing just goes to show that the most interesting planet in the solar system is the one we already live on.

[Davin]

Animals That Live Without Oxygen

Scientists have found the first multicellular animals that apparently live entirely without oxygen. The creatures reside deep in one of the harshest environments on earth: the Mediterranean Ocean's L'Atalante basin, which contains salt brine so dense that it doesn't mix with the oxygen-containing waters above. Previous samples taken from the water and sediments in the basin showed that single-celled life was present, but a new study published  this week in BMC Biology has identified multi-cellular animals that apparently live and reproduce in the sediments under the salt brine.

[Tank]

^^^ Very interesting!

[pinkocommie]

Behold!  The mighty Leviathan!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/30/behold-leviathan-the-sperm-whale-that-killed-other-whales/

In today’s oceans, killer whales hunt other species of whales, working in packs to take down their much bigger prey. But living whales have it easy. Those that swam off the coast of Peru around 12 million years ago were hunted by a far bigger predator, a recently discovered animal with a very appropriate name: Leviathan.

Leviathan melvillei, named after the Biblical sea monster and the author of Moby Dick, was a giant sperm whale that has just been discovered by Belgian scientist Olivier Lambert. At between 13.5 and 18.5 metres in length, it was no bigger than the modern sperm whale, but it was clearly far more formidable.

[youtube:3j3jco1i]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECqBBLcFNNc[/youtube:3j3jco1i]

Leviathan was at the very top of the food chain and it must have needed a lot of food. While modern sperm whales mainly eat squid, Lambert thinks that Leviathan used its fearsome teeth to kill its own kind â€" the giant baleen whales. At the same point in prehistory, baleen whales started becoming much bigger and they were certainly the most common large animals in the area that Leviathan lived in. Lambert thinks that the giant predator evolved to take advantage of this rich source of energy. He says, “We think that medium-size baleen whales, rich in fat, would have been very convenient prey for Leviathan.”