Clipmarks | tabsey's 'nature' clips

Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:17:41 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Hard to clip but worth a look. Great humour

Abstract

Penne Rigate will spontaneously insert itself into Rigatoni (order pasta) under liquid to gas transition conditions of H₂O to create the previously unobserved species Noodleous doubleous. The estimated probability of this spontaneous generation event is too low to be explained by thermodynamics and therefore apparently represents intelligent design.

Introduction

It has been claimed by Intelligent Design advocates^* that patterns observed in nature with a sufficiently low probability provide direct evidence for intelligent design, i.e., God. Here I report evidence for the spontaneous formation of a new life form in a prebiotic pasta soup.

Materials and Methods

Tags: humour

Cold sore virus secret revealed

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:19:18 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Many a person would love this to end their viral experience

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The secret of how the cold sore virus manages to persist for a lifetime in the human body may have been cracked by US scientists.

The herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) can lie dormant in facial nerves, emerging periodically to cause sores.

A Duke University Medical Center team may have uncovered how it can reactivate itself from a dormant state.

The finding, published in the journal Nature, could eventually lead to new treatments.

When fighting a virus, the immune system relies heavily on the protein chemicals produced by the virus which it uses to help mark it for destruction.

Herpes viruses manage to evade the immune system by shutting down production of these proteins completely, and remaining in this state for long periods before starting to replicate again.

Wake-up call

This is why patients, once infected, have occasional flare-ups of cold sores or genital herpes, and can never get rid of the infection completely.

Tags: medical

Extinction risk 'underestimated'

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:11:23 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: To quote a famous philosopher, "Mmmmmmm."

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The risk of extinction for many species may have been seriously underestimated, according to new research published in the journal Nature.

Current methods used to assess species on the brink overlook some key factors, a team of scientists claims.

These include the ratio of males to females in a population, which can have a profound influence on survival.

For some species, the risk could be a hundred times greater than previously thought, the team calculates.

Currently, two key factors are used to estimate risk - the birth-death ratio, and environmental conditions such as habitat destruction.

But the US researchers - Brett Melbourne and Alan Hastings - believe other elements are under-weighted.

As well as the male-to-female ratio, they point to the physical size of individuals in a species, and some aspects of behaviour.

They found that when populations are small and vulnerable, changes in the sex ratio can have a huge impact on survivability.

New model

Tags: oceans, are, dying

Malagasy Chameleon Spends Most Of Its Short Life In An Egg

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:42:40 GMT

clipped by: tabsey

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2008) — There is a newly discovered life history among the 28,300 species of known tetrapods, or four-legged animals with backbones. A chameleon from arid southwestern Madagascar spends up to three-quarters of its life in an egg. Even more unusual, life after hatching is a mere 4 to 5 months. No other known four-legged animal has such a rapid growth rate and such a short life span.

"It really is a huge surprise," says Christopher Raxworthy, Associate Curator in the Department of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History. "Adding to that, until now, the short life span of chameleons in captivity has always been considered as a failure to thrive. We need to rethink this."

Tags: nature

When Craving Is Better Than Getting

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:30:33 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The calming strategy cut the physiological arousal (measured by skin conductance response) nearly in half. Additionally, they found marked reductions in the activity of the left and right striatum—a brain region involved in reward processing.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

In a recent article about brain cells, Joshua Freedman a U.C.L.A. neuroscientist, noted that a monkey feels maximal reward not when he eats a grape but rather when he gets it in his possession, anticipating he can eat it.

Reward anticipation is very strong and can have a negative impact, (think: addiction), according to researchers from Rutgers and New York universities. They studied the effect of cognitive therapy on the physiological reactions to anticipating positive reward, and the results are published in Nature Neuroscience this week.

To get a handle on these cravings, researchers presented human subjects with cues for a monetary gift. For each presentation, they were asked to either think of the reward or think of something calming that was the same color as the cue (which was blue).

Tags: production, of, saliva, sates, brain??

Biometrics picks up the penguins

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:04:22 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: These little ones will be facing a food shortage too.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The problem of keeping track of thousands of near-identical African penguins may have been solved.

Researchers have developed surveillance technology that can identify individual birds and then monitor them over long periods of time.

The team says the system will boost our understanding of the animals; it could even help ecologists solve the mystery of how long penguins live.

The researchers say it could also track other species, from cheetahs to sharks.

The technology is on display at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition.

Peter Barham, professor of physics at Bristol University, who developed the Penguin Recognition System, said: "Until now, if you wanted to follow penguins you would use metal flipper bands, which have an ID code."

To read them, ecologists need to capture the animals and record the tag number.

But this is time intensive and error prone, says Professor Barham.

Tags: nature

Docker River (Australia) pictures

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:10:22 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The hills are actually the oldest mountains in the world. Erosion has changed the size. A grader must have done the roads, normally corrugated such that when you find a speed which isn't too rough, that becomes your speed. Beautiful country.

Clip Source: outdoors.webshots.com

Tags: nature

Fossil of most primitive 4-legged creature found

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:54:31 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: From the report "It looked like a small alligator"

Clip Source: richarddawkins.net

The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Even though Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.

While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish. The fierce-looking creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.

Tags: short, legs, -, don't, fall, far

Women Have Not Adapted To Casual Sex, Research Shows

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:37:42 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: More at the site, if interested. hehe

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) — The sexual and feminist revolutions were supposed to free women to enjoy casual sex just as men always had. Yet according to Professor Anne Campbell from Durham University in the UK, the negative feelings reported by women after one-night stands suggest that they are not well adapted to fleeting sexual encounters.

These findings are published online in the June issue of Springer’s journal, Human Nature.

Men are more likely to reproduce and therefore to benefit from numerous short-term partners. For women, however, quality seems to be more important than quantity. Also for women, finding partners of high genetic quality is a stronger motivator than sheer number, and it is commonly believed that women are more willing to have casual sex when there is a chance of forming a long-term relationship.

Tags: men, able, to, cope, with, casual, sex

Immortal Invaders Infect World's Oceans

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:12:19 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: I always find out something I didn't know, when looking at nature sites. How do you measure how much information there is?

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The rock star mantra of "live fast, die young" works in reverse too - you can trade off enjoyment for endurance. Don't smoke, drink or eat meat and you can extend your life by decades, though what you're going to do with all that time is another question. Now it seems that an animal has taken this to the logical extreme, and can live forever - the only drawback being it lives forever as a small clump of jelly.

The Hydrozoan, a small predatory sea creature like a jellyfish but without all their well known exciting higher functions, can achieve the dream of millions and become a child again. When adverse environmental conditions threaten death it can collapse into a rugged blob of cells to survive. When it re-emerges, it does so as a child - literally building itself up all over again. Since this isn't just a shell to hide in, but a complete structural restart, it seems possible that it could keep this up forever.

Tags: nature, bloody, marvelous

Unlikely Heroes: Goats Rescue N.Y. Bog Turtles

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:23:49 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Lateral thinking works

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Jason Tesauro holds an endangered bog turtle.

All Things Considered, June 24, 2008 · The last of New York's wild bog turtles live in swamps that have long been sunny, mucky places full of low green plants and waist-deep mud pits. But an invading foreign weed threatens to transform the swamps and wipe out the turtle population.

The old-fashioned way to save endangered species such as the bog turtle was to build a fence around them to keep people and farm animals away. That method has been turned upside down in New York's Hudson River Valley, where domestic goats and cows are instead trotting to the rescue of the turtles and their murky swamp home.

Jason Tesauro stands in a swamp in New York's Hudson River Valley, which is one of the last homes of the bog turtle.

The mud pits that fill the region's swamps are actually a mess of hidden streams that the bog turtles use like freeways, says Jason Tesauro, who works for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Tags: nature

Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Column

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:48:31 GMT

clipped by: tabsey

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.

According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.

Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.

How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?

Tags: why, are, you, reading this, nothing, better, to, do?

Natural 'Invisible' Gold Found In Nanoparticles

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:48:12 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: “On investigation of these crystals, there appeared to be a dark band across them. However, high magnification imaging showed the band was in fact, a mass of gold nanoparticles and nanoplates. These are identical to those being manufactured in laboratories around the world for their unique properties.”

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Scanning electron microscope image of the gold triangles showing their well defined crystal shape (Credit: CSIRO)

ScienceDaily (June 24, 2008) — Nanoparticles of gold too small to be seen with the naked eye have been created in laboratories, but up until now, have never been seen in nature.

The search for these natural but ‘invisible’ nanoparticles is important. If they can be proved to exist, the knowledge will help give us a deeper understanding of how gold can be transported and deposited by geological processes, and therefore help explorers to find new gold deposits in Australia.

Now, hard evidence that gold nanoparticles have finally been seen in nature is presented in a paper published in GEOLOGY and authored by CSIRO Scientists from the Minerals Down Under National Research Flagship and CRC LEME, in collaboration with scientists from Curtin University and the University of Western Australia.

Tags: nano technology, is, a, small, field

Effective Treatment For Sickle Cell Underused By Doctors

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:45:53 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Info on Sickle Cell treatment.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2008) — Uncertainties about proper use and possible long-term effects of hydroxyurea in the treatment of sickle cell anemia may be wrongly influencing doctors to avoid prescribing it to those in serious need, according to results of a literature review by specialists at Johns Hopkins.

"We know that many people with sickle cell disease aren't being offered this drug, which is the only one we have to treat this disease," says Sophie Lanzkron, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Sickle Cell Center for Adults at Johns Hopkins.

In a bid to heighten awareness about the nature of the uncertainties and correct clinical use of the drug, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services selected Lanzkron and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins to gather information from previously published studies on hydroxyurea.

Tags: medical

Drug Reverses Mental Retardation Caused By Genetic Disorder; Hope For Correcting How Autism Disrupts

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:45:55 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Hope for 50% of those with autism as a companion.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2008) — UCLA researchers discovered that an FDA-approved drug reverses the brain dysfunction inflicted by a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Because half of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer new hope for addressing learning disorders due to autism. Nature Medicine publishes the findings in its online June 22 edition.

Using a mouse model for TSC, the scientists tested rapamycin, a drug approved by the FDA to fight tissue rejection following organ transplants. Rapamycin is well-known for targeting an enzyme involved in making proteins needed for memory. The UCLA team chose it because the same enzyme is also regulated by TSC proteins.

Tags: medical