Anigozanthos flavidusThank you to Andreas of Bogotá aka Quimbaya@Flickr for sharing today's images of an Australian species cultivated in Colombia (original image 1 | original image 2). As noted by Andreas in the comments to his photographs on Flickr, the palms in the background are Ceroxylon quindiuense (if you're curious – they're not part of this series on Australian plants). Thanks again, Andreas
Tall kangaroo paw or evergreen kangaroo paw is........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/19/2007 10:37:05 PM)
How Plants Manage CalciumA new understanding of how plants manage their internal calcium levels could lead to modifying plants to avoid damage from acid rain. The pollutant disrupts calcium balance in plants by leaching significant amounts of the mineral from leaves as well as the agricultural and forest soils the plants live in.
"Our findings should help researchers understand how plant ecosystems respond to soil calcium depletion and to design appropriate........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/14/2007 10:15:02 PM)
Explosive Growth Changes Salmon IndustryA new report, the first to take a comprehensive look at market competition between wild and farmed salmon, sheds new light on the contentious and complex issues surrounding farmed and wild salmon.
The Great Salmon Run: Competition Between Wild and Farmed Salmon, released by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of World Wildlife Fund and IUCN-the World Conservation Union identifies two important trends that have remade the salmon........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/14/2007 10:06:18 PM)
Animal bookmarksWhen it's time to stop reading, I usually grab the nearest flat object that's lying around to use as a bookmark: a train ticket, beer mat, Kraft cheese slice, almost anything will do. My books have been starting to smell a bit though, so I should probably invest in one animal bookmarks. An animal bookmark clips onto the front cover of your chosen reading material, allowing you to jam the animal's long tail between your desired pages to keep........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/13/2007 10:24:56 PM)
Disease opened door to invading speciesPlant and animal diseases can play a major and poorly appreciated role in allowing the invasion of exotic species, which in turn often threatens biodiversity, ecological function and the world economy, scientists say in a new report.
In particular, a plant pathogen appears to have opened the gate for the successful invasion of non-native grasses into much of California, one of the world's largest documented cases of invading species and one........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/12/2007 9:11:47 PM)
Lifting the Chinese tiger trade banWASHINGTONAny easing of the current Chinese ban on trading products made from tigers is likely a death sentence for the endangered cats, as per a new TRAFFIC report released recently by World Wildlife Fund and TRAFFICthe wildlife trade monitoring program of WWF and IUCN.
The report warns that Chinese business owners who would profit from the tiger trade are putting increasing pressure on the Chinese government to overturn its successful 1993........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/12/2007 8:58:07 PM)
Fritillaria imperialis 'Rubra'In a typical year, the highlight of yesterday's discussions among staff members would have been news of the first magnolia blossom of the year. That always happy-event was overshadowed by a different topic: the theft of a crown imperial, Fritillaria imperialis. From what I've been able to determine, it was the last remaining individual of this species in the garden. It is even more discouraging to note that this theft will likely have killed........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/10/2007 8:21:59 AM)
Amazonian Basin Not Well-PopulatedThere's a scholarly debate brewing about whether pre-Columbian Amazonian populations settled in large numbers across Amazonia and created the modern forest setting that many conservationists take to be 'natural.'.
This view has become fashionable among many archaeologists and anthropologists, and is challenged in a recent paper from Dr. Mark Bush of the Florida Institute of Technology. The findings of Bush's research may rekindle a debate........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 3/6/2007 3:38:51 PM)
Tundra disappearing at rapid rateForests of spruce trees and shrubs in parts of northern Canada are taking over what were once tundra landscapes--forcing out the species that lived there. This shift can happen at a much faster speed than researchers originally thought, as per a new University of Alberta study that adds to the growing body of evidence on the effects of climate change.
The boundary, or treeline, between forest and tundra ecosystems is a prominent landscape........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 3/6/2007 4:40:36 AM)
Migration Of Avian Flu VirusUC Irvine scientists have combined genetic and geographic data of the H5N1 avian flu virus to reconstruct its history over the past decade. They observed that multiple strains of the virus originated in the Chinese province of Guangdong, and they identified a number of of the migration routes through which the strains spread regionally and internationally.
By knowing where H5N1 strains develop and migrate, health officials can better limit........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 9:54:57 PM)
Pulmonaria rubra 'Redstart'
Red lungwort is native to southeastern Europe. A popular garden plant for many centuries, it can now be found as an introduced exotic in places such as Finland and Poland. Unlike the other dozen or so species of Pulmonaria, red lungwort does not have blue flowers (hence the Latin and common name).''Redstart'' red lungwort was evaluated by the Chicago Botanic Garden in its Appraisal of Pulmonaria for the Garden (PDF)........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/4/2007 8:14:46 AM)
Why do birds migrate?Why do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all? .
One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior.
Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity.
"It's........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 9:45:13 PM)
Improved Predictions Of Warming-induced ExtinctionsIn the March 2007 issue of BioScience, an international team of 19 scientists calls for better forecasting of the effects of global warming on extinction rates. The researchers, led by Daniel B. Botkin, note that eventhough current mathematical models indicate that a number of species could be at risk from global warming, surprisingly few species became extinct during the past 2.5 million years, a period encompassing several ice ages. They........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 5:06:00 AM)
Light On Blue Whales And Their CallsUsing a variety of new approaches, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are forging a new understanding of the largest mammals on Earth.
In one recently published study on blue whales, Scripps scientists used a combination of techniques to show for the first time that blue whale calls can be tied to specific behavior and gender classifications. In a separate study, scientists used recordings of blue whale songs........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/27/2007 9:37:32 PM)
Size matters if you're a rodentPromiscuity is common among female rodents, leading to competition between the sperm of rival males over who fertilizes the eggs. It now seems that possessing a longer penis may give males an advantage in this competition, as per new research would be reported in the recent issue of The American Naturalist. Dr. Steve Ramm, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, compared the relative size of the penis bone in several........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/27/2007 7:53:56 PM)
Lost cuckoo breaks its silenceA team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
The bird was captured by a trapper and handed over to WCS biologists, who recorded the birds call while it nursed an injured foot. Once fully recovered, the bird will be released back into the wild.
Known only by a handful........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 6:57:10 PM)
Warming Climate, Cod CollapseEcosystems along the continental shelf waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, from the Labrador Sea south of Greenland all the way to North Carolina, are experiencing large, rapid changes, reports a Cornell oceanographer in the Feb. 23 issue of Science.
While some researchers have pointed to the decline of cod from overfishing as the main reason for the shifting ecosystems, the article emphasizes that climate changes are also playing a big........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/22/2007 10:18:15 PM)
Influenza Virus Genomes Now AccessibleThe Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced recently that it has achieved a major milestone. The entire genetic blueprints of more than 2,000 human and avian influenza viruses taken from samples around the world have been completed and the sequence data made available in a public database.
"This information will........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:41:33 PM)
New Bird, Bat Species From Extensive DNA Barcode StudiesAt unprecedented levels of difficulty involving highly biodiverse and continent-sized landscapes, researchers have successfully tested their ability to identify and DNA "barcode" entire assemblages of species -- the prelude to a genetic portrait of all animal life on Earth.
Revealing their results in the UK journal Molecular Ecology Notes, they report having assembled a genetic portrait of birdlife in the U.S. and Canada, and announce the........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 5:03:06 AM)
Link Between Food Odors And Lifespan In Fruit FliesScientists hoping to learn why organisms tend to live longer if their intake of calories is restricted have made a startling discovery - in fruit flies, just the smell of food can have a negative effect on longevity.
Researchers have known for decades that restricted dietary intake can increase the lifespan of a number of species, but the mechanism that causes this is not understood. Short-lived organisms like the fruit fly, Drosophila........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 4:59:38 AM)
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Medspiration project For biodiversityMaps of the sea surface temperature around Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island in the Pacific Ocean are being produced daily and are available online in full resolution in near-real time as part of the Medspiration project, an ESA-funded effort to represent the most reliable temperature of the seas on a global basis.
Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island have been integrated into Medspiration until 31 March in order to support the study of........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 3/19/2007 10:34:46 PM)
Diverged from Its Cousin 1.4 Million Years Ago?A bizarre type of animal that has been spotted on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo was, till date, believed to be a cousin of a leopard. But, on Thursday, the WWF has confirmed it to be a completely new cat species.
American scientists have determined that the two populations of leopard and this new species diverged some 1.4 million years ago. To make this finding, they compared the DNA of this new leopard with its mainland cousin,........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/15/2007 6:51:56 PM)
New Mammal From Mesozoic Eran international team of American and Chinese paleontologists has discovered a new species of mammal that lived 125 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era, in what is now the Hebei Province in China.
The new mammal, documented in the March 15 issue of the journal Nature, provides first-hand evidence of early evolution of the mammalian middle ear--one of the most important features for all modern mammals. The discovery was funded by the........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/14/2007 10:12:47 PM)
New Species of Snapper Discovered in BrazilA popular game fish mistaken by researchers for a dog snapper is actually a new species discovered among the reefs of the Abrolhos region of the South Atlantic Ocean.
The international science journal Zootaxa recently published the discovery of Lutjanus alexandrei, a new snapper species that belongs to the Lutjanidae family, by scientists Rodrigo Moura of Conservation International (CI) and Kenyon Lindeman of Environmental Defense. The study........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/13/2007 10:23:24 PM)
About Caribbean extinctionsSmithsonian researchers and his colleagues report a new study that may shake up the way paleontologists think about how environmental change shapes life on Earth. The scientists summarized the environmental, ecological and evolutionary consequences for Caribbean shallow-water marine communities when the Isthmus of Panama was formed. They concluded that extinctions resulting when one ocean became two were delayed by 2 million years.
........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/12/2007 9:06:43 PM)
Global Law Prohibiting Whale-hunting Under Danger of Being DumpedRecently, a ban prohibicommercial hunting of whales grabbed attention when a proposal to depose it was supported by nearly 33 countries attending a convention over the issue of whale-hunting though nearly 32 nations voted against it. But the ban is still prevailing as three-fourth of the total participating countries must support its termination.
The outcome of the conference has disappointed many animal rights activists and environmental........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/12/2007 8:28:08 PM)
Large-billed Reed-warbler Bird Rediscovered in Thailand After 130 YearsAfter 130 years of its hide-n-seek with scientists, the wetland bird — large-billed reed-warbler has been spotted once again at a wastewater treatment plant in Thailand, the Birdlife International informed
It has been discovered in 1867 in the Sutlej Valley of India, and since then it had not been seen. Thus, little is known about the bird. I6ts being so rare had kicked up debates among scientists on
if it represented a true........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/11/2007 12:20:28 PM)
New View On Biology Of FlavonoidsFlavonoids, a group of compounds found in fruits and vegetables that had been thought to be nutritionally important for their antioxidant activity, actually have little or no value in that role, according to an analysis by scientists in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.
However, these same compounds may indeed benefit human health, but for reasons that are quite different the body sees them as foreign compounds,........Go to the Plant-science-blog (Added on 3/6/2007 4:52:34 AM)
How buddies help alpha males get the girlWhy do some individuals sacrifice their own self-interest to help others? The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behavior is a classic puzzle in evolutionary biology. In some animal societies, cooperation occurs in close-knit family groups and kin selection explains apparently selfless behavior. Not so for the lance-tailed manakin. Males of this little tropical bird cooperate in spectacular courtship displays with unrelated partners, and........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 10:05:07 PM)
Scientists Expand Microbe "Gene Language"An international group of researchers has expanded the universal language for the genes of both disease-causing and beneficial microbes and their hosts. This expanded "lingua franca," called The Gene Ontology (GO), gives scientists a common set of terms to describe the interactions between a microbe and its host.
The Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology (PAMGO) consortium and the GO consortium staff at the European Bioinformatics Institute........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 8:41:43 PM)
Evolutionary History Of Vespid WaspsResearchers at the University of Illinois have conducted a genetic analysis of vespid wasps that revises the vespid family tree and challenges long-held views about how the wasps' social behaviors evolved. In the study, reported in the Feb. 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found genetic evidence that eusociality (the reproductive specialization seen in some insects and other animals) evolved independently in........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 9:59:39 PM)
A frenzy of fruit fly methodsFor the past century, fruit fliesor Drosophilahave provided innumerable insights into the genetics and biology of development, learning and memory, behavior, vision, and other processes. But for scientists who conduct these studies, the logistics of housing and feeding the hundreds or thousands of flies needed for experiments can be daunting. To address this concern, the current issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocolsreleased online........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 9:48:02 PM)
Iron and phytoplankton, fish populationsA new study suggests that the iron-rich winter runoff from Pacific Northwest streams and rivers, combined with the wide continental shelf, form a potent mechanism for fertilizing the nearshore Pacific Ocean, leading to robust phytoplankton production and fisheries.
The study, by three Oregon State University oceanographers, was just published by the American Geophysical Union in its journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
West coast........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:44:00 PM)
Brain maps onlineDigital atlases of the brains of humans, monkeys, dogs, cats, mice, birds and other animals have been created and posted online by scientists at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience.
BrainMaps.org features the highest resolution whole-brain atlases ever constructed, with over 50 terabytes of brain image data directly accessible online. Users can explore the brains of humans and a variety of other species at an unprecedented level of detail,........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/27/2007 9:22:32 PM)
Why migrate? It's not for the fruitWhy do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all? One textbook explanation suggests that eating fruit or living in nonforested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior. Not so, report ecologists W. Alice Boyle and Courtney J. Conway of the University of Arizona, Tucson, in the recent issue of the American Naturalist. Conway........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/27/2007 7:56:46 PM)
how marine turtles return to the same beach?Marine turtles almost always return to the same beach to lay their eggs. The egg-laying sites are often far from the feeding areas and the females cross several hundred kilometers of ocean with no visual landmarks. How do they manage to return to the same spot? A study by Simon Benhamou of the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology at Montpellier1, France, together with other groups (CNRS, IRD, IFREMER, CEDTM2, University of Pisa),........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 8:54:28 PM)
A cockroach mom shelters her newbornOne of the defining differences between the sexes is in the size of their gametes. Males make a number of tiny sperm while females make only a few large eggs. This suggests that sperm are cheap while eggs are expensive. Yet sperm can be very long lived, while eggs degenerate quickly after they are made if they are not fertilized. Why don't females take better care of their expensive eggs? After all, if the females don't use their eggs they have........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 6:21:02 PM)
Disappearing, Wild Elk Return to OntarioAfter disappearing from Ontario due to over hunting in the 19th century, wild elk have returned to the province thanks to the efforts of the Ontario elk restoration program. According to a report on the program's success, published in the recent issue of Restoration Ecology, 460 elk were brought from Alberta and released in various Ontario sites between 1998 and 2001.
"The Ontario elk restoration program has met with great success primarily........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:30:40 PM)
Lizards 'shout' Against A Noisy BackgroundLizards that signal to rivals with a visual display "shout" to get their point across, UC Davis scientists have found.
Male anole lizards signal ownership of their territory by sitting up on a tree trunk, bobbing their heads up and down and extending a colorful throat pouch. They can spot a rival lizard up to 25 meters away, said Terry Ord, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis who is working with Judy Stamps, professor of evolution and........Go to the Animal-science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:06:42 PM)
Protein key to organ growthhen amounts of a small protein called TCTP (translationally controlled tumor protein) are reduced in the cells of fruit flies, they are smaller than normal, indicating that the protein plays a major role in the growth and proliferation of cells, said scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in a report in current issue of the journal Nature.
Work in his laboratory shows that TCTP plays a role in regulating Rheb (Ras homologue enriched in........Go to the Biology-blog (Added on 2/20/2007 7:27:52 PM)
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