Category: Biol / Genetics
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Return of the Auroch?
Move over bison burgers, the ancestor of cows is coming back. Scientists edge closer to bringing back the aurochs, the fearsome cattle breed last seen in the 1600s The creature, the ancestor of modern cattle, once roamed forests and marshlands from Britain to the Balkans and beyond to Asia and North Africa. But it disappeared from…
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Cats Present Dead Animals
Lots of people claim the reason cats present dead animals to their humans is because they are trying to teach the human to hunt. (Mental Floss, IFLScience, LiveScience) At one point I probably agreed with this. This conclusion rests on cats treating their human as a kitten. I wonder if there is something else at…
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Missing Hydrocarbons
Cosmology, origin of life, and astronomy are topics about which I read quite a bit. Any NASA and JPL discovery makes me stop whatever to read more about it. This is not something new as one of my school science fair projects was on O-Rings and Challenger. Before that I even attended Space Camp. (This…
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Healing Is Anti-Entropy
The Science of Healing Places was on the radio this morning. A statement near the end to the effect that healing is life or a part of life reminded me of something. Entropy, aka the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is the force behind why when you break a glass it cannot be reversed and come back…
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Blue Blood
One of the many times at the beach as a teen, I recall a horseshoe crab and something blue on the sand near it. Years later I learned their blood is blue. Our blood is red due to hemoglobin which contains iron. Iron binds with oxygen to make rust. Rust is red. So our blood…
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How Many Lives Do Squirrels Have?
I was driving to dinner earlier today when I saw this event. Mr. Squirrel leaped ran to the side of the road and paused. At first I thought, “Hey a smart squirrel. He’s realized the car in front of me would hit him if he tries to make it.” No such luck. A truck approached…
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TED Talk: Re-engineering mosquitos to fight disease
Don’t be afraid of sharks or tigers. Well, you should fear the tiger mosquito. I love living this far north where one does not have to plan life around not getting bitten. What I hate about spraying to kill them because the insecticides kill off other good insects. When I was young, I could catch…
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The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence
Everything changes when your normal environment is total blackness. If the video below does not work, then try Edith Widder: The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence.
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TED Talk: Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color
Nina’s book Skin was a great read. It was the first time I understood melanin and vitamin D. And cancer. If the video below does not work, then try Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color.