Long-eared Owls take up residence in Chicago city park

Seeded on Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:39 PM EST (Chicago Tribune)

"The long-eared owl is one of the hardest birds in America to find," he said as people gathered around to hear. "There are people who have seen 700 birds in a year, and haven't seen this bird."

chicago, birding, long-eared-owl

Egyptian hospitality

Seeded on Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:10 AM EST (NorthernLife.ca)

Even in this post-9/11 world in which we live, Egypt's deeply rooted instincts for harmony remain. A nice account of some much-needed international accord.

travel, egypt, cairo, nile, international-travel

Despite the concerns of biologists, polar bear cub is bottle fed

Seeded on Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:42 PM EST (Business Week)

Zoogoers at Nuremberg Zoo in Germany were horrified when polar bear mother Vera dropped her cub to the ground in early January. The cub was summarily removed from its mother's presence and hand rearing by zoo staff commenced.

science, zoos, polar-bear, conservation-biology, animal-captivity, nuremberg-zoo

An amoeba robot could be just the thing for extraterrestrial exploration

Seeded on Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:57 AM EST (astrobio.net)

A new form of robotic locomotion, inspired by amoebas, is in the works at Virginia Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory. Imagine a planetary explorer that hugs the Martian rocks, reaching extraterrestrial locales of which its bumbling robotic cousins could only dream ...

mars, robotics, science, astrobiology, space-exploration, locomotion

our ancient home

Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:03 PM EST

An enormous cottonwood stands in front of my house. It has five massive limbs that split away from the trunk ten feet up its height; each is a tree in its own right. At times, this tree looks like an enormous wooden hand, grasping for the sky.

Continue reading this entry ...

cottonwood, earth-history

Canada's boreal forest is one of Earth's few remaining seatbelts

Seeded on Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:43 PM EST (The Globe and Mail)

The boreal forest of Canada is a significant carbon sink, currently storing "27 times the world's annual greenhouse-gas emissions". Protecting this massive forest from the axe is becoming of interest to more and more conservation groups around the world.

canada, global-warming, science, wilderness, boreal-forest, carbon-sink, conservation-biology

Asteroid rain 470mya drives a major biodiversification event

Seeded on Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:35 PM EST (Cosmos online)

In the Early Paleozoic two evolutionary events, whose importance cannot be overstated, took place. The relatively well known Cambrian explosion, popularized by Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life, produced a world that was suddenly filled with a new diversity of life.

science, biodiversity, asteroids, cambrian-explosion, great-ordovician-biodiversification-event

The Little Owls and Athena

Seeded on Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:56 AM EST (BBC News)

Introduced to Britain in the late 1800s, the Little Owl was often depicted on ancient Greek coinage. In a dual association with wisdom, the Little Owl and goddess Athena were often linked, which is reflected in the Little Owl's binomial Athene noctua.

birds, wisdom, athena, wildlife-conservation, little-owl

Archaea eat oil and release that greenest of green fuels ... methane?

Seeded on Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:37 PM EST (Ars Technica)

Ah, the Domain Archaea, those tiny unicellulars that find themselves positioned neatly between bacteria and eukaryotes on the Tree of Life. Some of these little guys apparently have the ability to digest oil and produce methane as a byproduct.

energy, oil, science, greenhouse-gas, archaea, carbon-emissions

Petition to pardon last 'witch'

Seeded on Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:45 PM EST (BBC News)

A petition on the Scottish Parliament website calls for the posthumous pardon of medium Helen Duncan. She was jailed during World War II on the grounds that, during a seance, she revealed the sinking of a British warship before official news of the event was released.

odd-news, world-war-ii, witchcraft, seance, witchcraft-act-of-1735

DNA of the often-innocent stored on a massive scale in England

Seeded on Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:27 AM EST (BBC News)

The Human Genetics Commssion in England is considering the ethical implications of continuing to archive the more than 4 million (!) DNA analysis records it currently holds in its National DNA Database.

police, england, dna, world-news, biological-ethics

Hidden skull still under investigation

Seeded on Tue Jan 8, 2008 12:04 AM EST (Independent.ie - Frontpage RSS Feed)

A follow-up to an earlier story. The hidden skull discovered in an Irish house with a haunted reputation is still under investigation. A pathologist has found no evidence to support the idea that the skull had been subjected to a violent act.

ireland, odd-news, skull, haunted-house, forensic-science

A cryogenic DNA zoo

Seeded on Mon Jan 7, 2008 10:44 AM EST (The Walrus)

At the American Museum of Natural History an important new collection is being amassed. Bits or whole bodies of thousands of organisms are being preserved in vats of liquid nitrogen.

science, cryogenics, american-museum-of-natural-history, conservation-biology

In lieu of established religion, send science fiction

Seeded on Fri Jan 4, 2008 11:03 AM EST (sfcrowsnest.com)

Jeet Heer makes a convincing case for the idea that, beyond entertaining us, science fiction embodies a new search for transcendence. In other words, the embarrassing example of Hubbard's Dianetics may not be an anomaly.

entertainment, science-fiction, philip-k-dick, l-ron-hubbard, robert-heinlein

Virus threatens mass extinction of frogs

Seeded on Tue Jan 1, 2008 1:11 PM EST (Telegraph)

Species of chytrid fungus are infecting and killing large numbers of amphibians. Efforts to prevent the spread of this "frog killer" have thus far been largely unsuccessful. In order to buy time, the creation of an Amphibian Ark has been proposed.

science, amphibians, conservation-biology, chytrid-fungus, chytridiomycota-chytridiomycosis

Taking on the E-Waste Problem

Seeded on Mon Dec 31, 2007 5:28 PM EST (triplepundit.com)

The large amount of energy expended to produce electronic items, the small amount of time elapsed before we dispose of them, and the difficulty of effectively recycling the materials used to produce them make the surging influx of e-waste into the waste stream an environmental pr …

technology, recycling, consumerism, e-waste

Mystery skull found in 'haunted' mansion

Seeded on Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:29 PM EST (Independent.ie - Frontpage RSS Feed)

Recent renovations of a late 18th century house in Ireland uncover a tumbling skull. The house has a reputation of being haunted. Irish gardai intend to perform forensic tests that may provide clues regarding the provenance of the skull.

ireland, odd-news, haunted-house

Modern beetles predate dinosaurs

Seeded on Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:06 PM EST (msnbc.com)

The ancientness of Order Coleoptera suggests that the success of beetles is tied less to the rise of flowering plants during the Cretaceous than it is to "high survival rate" and non-stop diversification in response to a changing Earth.

evolution, science, beetles, phylogenetics

Vanishing wild bees will sting ecosystem

Seeded on Sat Dec 29, 2007 2:49 PM EST (Toronto Star)

This is a nice primer on the ecological confusion produced by climate induced shifts in the timing of natural events, such as migration, blossoming, reproduction, etc ... The chief example is the frightening mass disappearance of managed bees.

science, climate-change, bees, conservation-biology

Barcoding An Entire Ecosystem

Seeded on Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:13 AM EST (ENN)

Using genetic markers, or barcodes, a team of US and French researchers aim to inventory all non-microbial species on the small South Pacific island of Moorea.

evolution, science, ecology, conservation-biology, biocode, genetic-barcode