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Whiplash the Cowboy monkey
He is an 18 yr old Capuchin Monkey and he is one of the biggest little monkeys in the world. Whiplash has been riding since he was two yrs old and has been a part of our family since he was born......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source What Keeps Lizards' Blue Genes from Fading?
In side-blotched lizards, three throat colors correlate with strikingly different behavior in the males.
Credit: Suzanne Millls and Barry Sinervo Side-blotched lizards, it turns out, come in three different throat colors--blue, orange or yellow. Sinervo had previously demonstrated the three throat colors in the males correlate with strikingly different behaviors. The blues form partnerships, while the oranges are aggressors and the yellows are sneaky. Say a pair of blue-throated males, for example, is protecting its territory from roaming orange-throated bullies. In a true act of selflessness, one blue throat steps forward to battle an intruding orange aggressor--thereby sacrificing his own chances to successfully mate. Meanwhile, as blue throats and orange throats battle it out, yellow throats quietly sneak into unprotected territories to find females. In nature, altruism seems contradictory to an animal's goals of survival and passing on its genes, so scientists have been trying to understand why one of the blue males in a partnership will put himself in harm's way to allow the other to reproduce. Even though it may forfeit their own reproductive chances, the fighting blue throats secure the persistence of their genes in future generations by enabling their blue buddies to avoid the aggressors and go on to mate......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Fossils Links from Ape-men
The fossils found at Middle Awash, Ethiopia, date between 4.1 million-4.2 million years old and come from Australopithecus anamensis.
Credit: Photo © 2005 Tim D. White\Brill Atlanta Still, 'it is fair to say that some species of Ardipithicus gave rise to Australopithecus," said Tim White, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California-Berkeley and one of the team leaders. White and coworkers from 17 countries have published their findings in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature. The fossils are from the most-primitive Australopithecus species, known as Au. anamensis, dating from about 4.1 million years ago, said White, and push the species closer in time to its last known ancestor. "This new discovery closes the gap between the fully blown Australopithecines and earlier forms we call Ardipithecus," White said. "We now know where Australopithecus came from before 4 million years ago". Even though the two are separated by only 300,000 years, Au. anamensis could have rapidly evolved from Ardipithecus. Or, fossils placing the two hominid types on Earth at the same time may yet be found. Nevertheless, White said, the new fossils show clear descent from the genus Ardipithecus, two species of which have been identified over the genus's 2 million years of existence......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Drilling Into Fossil Magma Chamber Deep Under the Ocean
The scientists, affiliated with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), published their findings on April 20 in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science. Eventhough gabbro has been sampled elsewhere in the oceans where faulting and tectonic movements have brought it closer to the seafloor, this is the first time gabbro has been recovered from intact ocean crust. The borehole into the magma chamber took nearly five months to drill, and mandatory the use of twenty-five hardened steel and tungsten carbide drill bits. Getting there "is a rare opportunity to calibrate geophysical measurements with direct observations of real rocks," said geophysicist Doug Wilson of the University of California at Santa Barbara, lead author on the Science Express paper. "Finding the right place to drill was probably the key to this success". Wilson and his IODP colleagues observed that place by identifying a region of the Pacific Ocean that formed some 15 million years ago when the East Pacific Rise was spreading at a "superfast" rate of more than 200 millimeters per year, faster than any mid-ocean ridge on Earth today......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Hyena Mothers Give Dose of Hormones
The report, published in the April 27 issue of Nature, is the first study in mammals to demonstrate a relationship between a female's social rank and her ability to influence her offspring's behavior through prenatal hormone transfer. Previously, this phenomenon had only been documented in birds. Michigan State University's Kay Holekamp, together with her colleagues, spent almost 10 years sampling androgen levels from free-ranging hyenas in Kenya. Androgens are hormones, such as testosterone, that control development of typically masculine characteristics like aggression, muscle development and sexual behavior. The team found that alpha females had higher androgen levels late in pregnancy when compared to the subordinate, pregnant females in the pack. Consequently, the cubs of the alpha females were more aggressive and exhibited more sexual play, characteristics that elevate the chances for life-success in both sexes. In hyena packs, male-female social roles are reversed from what is normally found in nature--that is, female hyenas are larger, more aggressive and dominate the group. They even have deceptively male-like genitalia, leading to the misconception that they are hermaphrodites......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Fat Regulating Hormone Found in Amphibian
"Leptin likely sets the stage for growth and development, both signaling to the brain that there are sufficient energy stores and directly promoting tissue growth and development," said University of Michigan biologist Robert Denver. "Given its central role in energy balance, leptin may play a role in timing tadpole metamorphosis, a critical amphibian life history trait". Leptin is secreted by fat cells and helps regulate food intake in humans and other mammals. However, the recent findings are the first linking leptin to limb and digit growth, and the first to reveal the hormone in a cold-blooded animal, the South African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). Denver and his postdoctoral fellow Erica Crespi, now at Vassar College, published their findings in the June 27, 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation. Crespi and Denver gave doses of leptin to frogs at different developmental stages, from tadpole to adult. As in mammals, leptin acted on the amphibian's brain to suppress appetite - older tadpoles stopped eating and even lost weight. But the hormone had a different effect on the younger tadpoles. After a dose of leptin, they did not lose their appetites, and instead, began to grow limbs prematurely......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Amphibian Declines
Researchers are presenting results of this research at the annual Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Memphis, Tenn, Aug. 6-11, 2006,. Ecological research results supported by NSF are highlighted below. All research results are embargoed until the time of their presentation. Amphibian Declines: Rainfall and bait shops affect disease transmission. Disease plays an important role in amphibian declines, biologists believe.The interactions between amphibian disease hosts and pathogens are influenced by complex characteristics of the host, the pathogen, and the environment. Ranaviruses are particularly linked to epidemics of amphibian disease. Researchers James Collins, NSF assistant director for biological sciences (on leave from Arizona State University), and Amy Greer of Arizona State looked at ranavirus infection in a salamander species that lives in ponds on the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona. They observed that variation in infection prevalence, and subsequent salamander deaths, are likely correlation to differences in water availability.During wet periods like those in 2005, ponds flooded for an entire growing season, which decreased disease transmission. In 2004, a dry year, infection rates and deaths were much higher......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Microbe In The Depths Of Ocean Life
The Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) will facilitate collaborations among the previously separate disciplines of oceanography, microbiology, ecology and genomics. These new alliances will enable a deeper understanding of the seas, including their potential response to global environmental variability and climate change. C-MORE, which will receive approximately $19 million from the National Science Foundation over the first five years, is based at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Participating institutions in addition to MIT and UH Manoa are the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oregon State University, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the Hawaii Department of Education. "A central objective of C-MORE will be to increase understanding about how biological diversity detected at the genome level expresses itself at the ecosystem function level, and then to transfer this knowledge to policymakers to assist them in their decision-making process," said MIT Professor Edward DeLong, C-MORE associate director for research. "Marine microorganisms are invisible to the naked eye, but their presence enables all multicellular life to exist, including human populations," said DeLong, who holds appointments in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the Biological Engineering Division. "Novel methods in molecular biology combined with satellite- and sea-based remote sensing technologies provide an unprecedented opportunity to study microorganisms across broad spatial scales ranging from genes to entire ocean basins"......... Posted by: Erica Permalink Source New Mammal Discovered
Darin A. Croft
With Federico Anaya from Universidad Autónoma Tomás Frías, Croft reported on the new mammal find named Hemihegetotherium trilobus in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology article, "A New Middle Miocene Hegetotherid (Notoungulata: Typotheria) and a Phylogeny of the Hegetotheriidae." It is named for the distinctive three lobes on its back lower molar teeth. The animal belonged to a group of animals called notoungulates—hoofed mammals native only to South America. The group originated in South America soon after the dinosaurs went extinct and evolved to include hundreds of species over a span of more than 50 million years; all of them are now extinct. Eventhough most notoungulates were gone before humans got to South America, some of the earliest humans to journey to that continent may have seen the last living notoungulates......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Antioxidants against tick-borne illness
Ixodid tick
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, part of the National Institutes of Health, awarded the University of Rochester Medical Center $2 million for a five-year study of the antioxidant theory. The grant caps more than a decade of rickettsia research led by Sanjeev Sahni, Ph.D. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is the most frequently reported illness in the United States caused by the rickettsia bacteria, which is transmitted by tick parasites. It commonly afflicts otherwise healthy adults and children who are bitten by wood ticks or dog ticks. The illness can become life threatening if left untreated, and spotted fever can be difficult for physicians to diagnose because the earliest signs mimic less-serious viral illnesses. Limiting exposure to ticks is the best way to prevent the disease. If it does develop, in most cases doctors can treat it with antibiotics. Typhus is another rickettsial disease spread by lice or fleas. Eventhough less common, typhus remains a threat in crowded jails and in other poor hygienic environments......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source |
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