Clipmarks | mickfinn's 'nature' clips

Monty goes pop after large lunch

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:18:58 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps

The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded

The predators died in the clash

Enlarge Image

The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park

The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain

The python's remains were found with the victim's tail protruding from its burst midsection. The head of the python was missing

Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species

Prof Frank Mazzotti

"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild... And here we are,"

He said the alligator may have clawed at the python's stomach, leading it to burst

Burmese pythons - many of whom have been dumped by their owners - have thrived in the wet and hot climate of Florida's swamps

Tags: nature, predators

Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature" (1899) on the web

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:06:33 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: An incredible collection of illustrations of strange and beautiful shapes taken from nature: microscopic organisms, fungi, sea animals, etc. Hard to describe, but worth a look.

Clip Source: caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de


	Ernst Haeckel: Kunstformen der Natur 1899-1904 HTML-Version herausgegeben von Kurt Stüber, 1999 Vollständige elektronische Faksimile-Ausgabe. Index aller 100 Tafeln Dieses Buch ist ein Teil von Kurt Stübers online-Library.

Tags: random_sh!t, cool, art, science, history, image, post:facebook(clip)

When is a shrew not a shrew?

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:35:52 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: "Elephant shrews are only found in Africa. They were originally described as shrews because they superficially resembled shrews in Europe and in America."

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A new species of mammal has been discovered in the mountains of Tanzania

The bizarre-looking creature, dubbed Rhynochocyon udzungwensis, is a type of giant elephant shrew, or sengi

The cat-sized animal, which is reported in the Journal of Zoology, looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small ant eater

It has a grey face, a long, flexible snout, a bulky, amber body, a jet-black rump and it stands on spindly legs

"This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career," said Galen Rathbun, from the California Academy of Sciences

Despite its name, the creature, along with the 15 other known species of elephant shrew, is not actually related to shrews

The animal uses its long snout for scooping up insects

In fact, the creature is more closely related to a group of African mammals, which include elephants, sea cows, aardvarks and hyraxes, having shared a common ancestor with them about 100 million years ago.

weighing 700g (25oz) and measuring about 30cm (12in) in length

Tags: africa, elephant shrew, nature, tanzania

The 'Anthropocene Age' ?

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:02:53 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: To some, it may seem obvious that humans are massively changing the environment, but what Zalasiewicz had to do was show that 10, 100, 500 million years down the line, if you were to slice through a chunk of sediment you would be able to identify a distinct layer that corresponds to our reign on Earth.
The group says there is enough evidence around to suggest this will be the case. Ocean acidification, if it continues, could bring an end to corals which will change the nature of ocean rocks. Humans activities have triggered huge amounts of erosion, generating a new layer of sediment.
Widespread agriculture is replacing natural vegetation with large expanses of single crops. Cutting down forests, draining marshlands and peat bogs, transforming the prairies have pushed out the animal and plant species that live there and caused them to go extinct. All of the above will mean that one day, the fossil record of our time will look very different to the pre-Anthropocene record.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

What does it take to bring on a new geological age? According to members of the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London, one way of going about it would be to:

1. Change the atmosphere's composition, thus modifying plants
2. Change the distribution and diversity of species, thereby changing the future fossil record

3. Acidify the oceans, which will modify mineral deposits on the ocean floor

Sound familiar? Yes, you guessed it – maybe this is the new geological age

The suggestion that the overtaking of planet Earth by one species – humans – kicked off a new age was first made by Paul Crutzen in 2002

Crutzen, a Nobel prize-winning chemist, said we should now consider that we are living in the Anthropocene, an age dominated by human activities

Stick it in Google and you get over 42,000 hits. It's got its own Wikipedia entry.

In spite of all this, and the apparent logic behind it, declaring the advent of a new geological age is no small matter

Tags: science

Hop to it

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:47:03 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Hop to it
10 most endangered amphibians

Tags: nature

Kilimanjaro - Stunning

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:25:41 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: Beautiful nature

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

To many climate scientists and glaciologists who have probed and measured, the disappearance of Kilimanjaro's ice fields is inevitable and imminent

Photo: Neil Modie

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Kilimanjaro has six established routes to the summit, some of them demanding mountaineering routes

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In the moors are the region’s most distinctively weird plants

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A lobelia deckenii plant

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Chagga — the people who inhabit Kilimanjaro’s southern foothills

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Lava Tower is a black volcanic plug rising some 300 vertical feet above the plateau

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Sunrise at Stella Point, at the lower lip of Kibo’s summit crater

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Trekkers at Uhuru on Mount Kilimanjaro’s Kibo peak

Photo: Tom Norring

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

At 19,340 feet, Uhuru is the highest point in Africa. Hemingway once described the mountain “as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun.”

Photo: Tom Norring

Tags: africa, kilimanjaro

Postcard from South Carolina

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:44:33 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: Mike Huckabee is not the only one pandering to them. Bob Jones III himself has endorsed Mitt Romney, while Fred Thompson - remember him? - has been pandering away here for most of the past fortnight.

He has justified ignoring New Hampshire and Michigan by pointing out how he has kept his limbs warms in the South while "they're up there fighting blizzards", adding: "Now, who's the most qualified to be president, with judgment like that?"

Thompson thinks he is going to pull off a little miracle by winning here, not least because it is his turn after Huckabee in Iowa, John McCain in New Hampshire and Romney in Michigan.

I was pondering the nature of mircales in a post Bob Jones visit sort-of-way over a large drink when the barman pointed out that it was snowing here, for the first time in five years (or "ten years", as he said later).

Maybe Thompson should have kept his mouth shut about the blizzards. South Carolina's miracle quota may just have been used up.

(Times Online)

Clip Source: timesonline.typepad.com

Where else but a Christian fundamentalist university can you meet an normal-looking 18-year old girl who says she would not vote for Hillary Clinton because the God teaches us that men should rule over women?

The Bob Jones students were really nice, laughing at my slightly deranged, certainly inappropriate, jokes about the quantities of booze, fags (that's English for "cigarettes") or other sinful behaviour I indulged in at university

I'm sure there are other places. Iran is one that springs to mind. But where else can you meet LOTS of normal-looking teenagers who, in my secular eyes, have the most extraordinary views (yes, Iran again, I suppose)

And they were hugely articulate in the way that all Americans are

But then one of them says: "I'm backing Huckabee because he stands for 'No Gays'." What - none at all? "No, they're only doing it for attention."

These presumbably heterosexual students are not allowed to hold hands, let alone kiss each other, at Bob Jones university

Tags: bob jones university, south carolina

Beautiful Skies, Beautiful Clouds

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:05:23 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: Nature's canvas

Clip Source: cloudscapes.antville.org

Sunrise in Brasilia

Rain coming over Brasilia

Ilhabela, September 2007

Going to Interlaken, August 2007

Riomaggiore (Cinqueterre), July 2007

Hamburg, March 2006

From Salzburg to Brussels, January 2007

Brücken, Rheinland-Pfalz

jena, germany

Darmstadt 09DEC07

over the rhineriver near leverkusen

serpimora

Bottrop, December 2007

Brasilia, October 2007

Tags: photos

Madagascan Giant Palm Puzzle

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 02:33:04 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: It is possible that the palm, which now numbers less than 100 examples, has quietly gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80m years ago.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm in Madagascar which is so large that it can be seen in satellite photos

The plant, which only exists in the remote north-west of the island, is unlike anything else ever found on the island

The tree resembles an Asian palm

Although villagers had known about it for many years none had seen it flower

When this finally happened last year, botanists found that the tree spent so much energy flowering that it died

The palm is 20m high with leaves 5m long

but for most of its life - around 100 years - it is fairly unremarkable

"At first there's only a very long shoot like asparagus from the top of the tree

later, this unique shoot starts to destruct

The branches then become covered with hundreds of tiny flowers, which are pollinated and turn into fruit

But the tree expends so much energy on flowering that it eventually collapses and dies

It bears a resemblance to a species of palm found in Asia but that is 6,000km away

Tags: madagascar, nature, palm

First Bioartificial Heart

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:17:52 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: Because a new heart created by decellularization could be filled with the recipient's own stem cells the researchers believe it's much less likely to be rejected by the body

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Doctors have stripped down and refurbished a dead heart so that it can beat again, an unprecedented feat that could signal the beginning of the end of organ shortages

The revolutionary research could overcome the shortage of replacement hearts and other organs, and do away with the need for antirejection drugs

The world's first beating, retooled "bioartificial heart" is described today in the journal Nature Medicine by University of Minnesota researchers in research that could pave the way to a new treatment for the 22 million people worldwide who live with heart failure

The team took a whole heart and removed cells from it. Then, with the resulting architecture, chambers, valves and the blood vessel structure intact, repopulated the structure with new cells

"We just took nature's own building blocks to build a new organ," says Dr Harald Ott

"When we saw the first contractions we were speechless."

although "years away" from using the method in hospitals, she is ready to grow a human heart

Tags: health, science

Patterns in Nature: Animals

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:56:13 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: Photos by: Tim Laman (2), Michael Nichols, George Grall, Steve Winter, Mattias Klum, Sam Abell, Chris Johns, Bobby Model, Rich Reid.

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Black-and-white stripes ripple across the hide of a Grant's zebra

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

A map puffer fish's (Arothron mappa) eye appears like coral to casual observers in Indonesia's Tukangbesi Islands

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

A giraffe's spots form irregular patterns

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Bird feathers create a colorful show

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Intricate rings and dots mark the coat of a jaguar (Panthera onca)

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

A moth's wings appear iridescent when photographed close-up in the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysia

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

The sensory glands on the side of an Arctic char are used by the fish during its annual spawning migration

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

A close view of a cheetah's wet coat

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

An African elephant's skin can be up to one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Boa constrictors use their heat-sensitive scales to locate prey

Photo of the Day

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:48:24 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: photography.nationalgeographic.com

Butterfly, Polynesia, 2003

Photograph by Tim Laman

Blue-and-white eyespots adorn the velvety black wings of a butterfly on a Polynesian island. The diffuse Pacific islands make up some 1,400 specks of land scattered across an expanse of ocean more than twice the size of the continental United States. Unique ecosystems here force animals to adapt into subspecies that are often endemic to a single island.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Islands of the Pacific," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)

Tags: nature, pic

Insects may have killed the dinosaurs

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:16:20 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

the downfall of the dinosaurs may be attributable to nothing more fearsome than the humble biting insect

Disease spread by mosquitos, ticks and mites could have been a major factor in the demise of the ancient reptiles

Research by George Poinar, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University in America, also found an explosion in the number of insects would have changed the nature of plant life on Earth, making it harder for dinosaurs to survive

Bees and other pollinators helped to promote the rapid spread of flowering plants, leading to the loss of vegetarian dinosaurs' traditional food sources

As the plant-eating dinosaurs declined, so would their predators

The theory helps explain why dinosaurs took so long to die off, according to Prof Poinar

The most widely-accepted explanation is that they were wiped out by a catastrophic asteroid strike off the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago

But dinosaur extinction was drawn out over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.

Tags: nature

100m year old mushroom ate meat

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:02:04 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: A case of the biter bit?

Clip Source: www.mirror.co.uk

Scientists have found meat-eating mushrooms from the dinosaur age.

The fungi were preserved in fossilised tree resin at a French quarry.

They lived 100 million years ago in the Cretaceous period and ate tiny worms called nematodes that got trapped in sticky rings on its surface.

The mushrooms, 70 different species, were discovered by experts from Berlin's Humboldt University, along with fossilised nematodes.

Team leader Alexander Schmidt said: "We are sure it's a fungus with no living relatives."

Tags: fungi, mushroom, nature

Three new salamanders: "ballistic," bright, tiny

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:12:34 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Three previously unknown salamanders—one with a bold streak (pictured), one with a "ballistic" tongue, and one no longer than a fingernail—have been discovered in remote Costa Rican cloud forests, scientists announced today

This species above, found in La Amistad National Park, is probably unique to the remote rain forest region, which straddles the border with neighboring Panama, according to expedition leader Alex Monro of London's Natural History Museum

The amphibian's eye-catching coloration resembles the warning markings of deadly poison-dart frogs, also native to Central America

But whether this nocturnal salamander's coloring is an evolutionary ploy to fool potential predators isn't yet known

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Located along the Panama border, Costa Rica's La Amistad National Park lies shrouded in clouds

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Measuring 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) long, this newfound nocturnal salamander hunts insects at a snail's pace but with a “ballistic tongue,"

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

recently discovered in Costa Rica

Tags: beautiful nature

Clipmarks | mickfinn's 'nature' clips

Monty goes pop after large lunch

Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature" (1899) on the web

Ernst Haeckel: Kunstformen der Natur 1899-1904

Index aller 100 Tafeln

When is a shrew not a shrew?

The 'Anthropocene Age' ?

Hop to it

Kilimanjaro - Stunning

Postcard from South Carolina

Beautiful Skies, Beautiful Clouds

Madagascan Giant Palm Puzzle

First Bioartificial Heart

Patterns in Nature: Animals

Photo of the Day

Butterfly, Polynesia, 2003

Insects may have killed the dinosaurs

100m year old mushroom ate meat

Three new salamanders: "ballistic," bright, tiny

Ernst Haeckel:
Kunstformen der Natur
1899-1904