Morsels for the mind – 4/10/2013
Every day we provide you with #SixIncredibleThingsBeforeBreakfast to nibble away at. Here you can fill your brain with the most intellectually stimulating “amuse bouches” from the past week – a veritable smorgasbord for the cranium. They’re all here for you to load up your plate – this week’s “Morsels for the mind”. Enjoy!
If you do nothing else, make sure to check out the “Reads / views of the week”.
Feather, fur & fin – birds, beasts, fishes, and the things they do
Hitting the high notes. Aggressive singing enables a mouse to mark its mountaintop territory. Love this Elizabeth Preston story: “Julie Andrews mice” singing scares low altitude species from climbing every mountain. There’s an awesome video of the singing mouse here. Read of the week.
Hard luck story? While a caustic lake makes statue-like bird corpses, these “petrified” birds belie natron lake’s rich life. “Deadly” lake also supports vibrant life - like flamingos, and fish swim happily in its waters.
A matter of pride. Lion hunting habits.
Gone to the dogs. Canines adorn the pages of medieval manuscripts. Illuminating.
Le petit mort? Do other animals have orgasms? What everyone’s dying a small death to know.
Tearful separation. Young mouse tears ward off sex.
Fertilisation fight. When sperm do battle.
Able semen? Hens jettison undesirable sperm.
Finch feels the pinch. Darwin’s finches at risk from parasitic fly.
Paradise found. Birds-of-paradise extraordinary courtship moves. View of the week.
It’s not easy being green. Yet lizard has toxic emerald blood.
You’ll get a charge out of this. A new genus of electric fish.
Land ho! Fish lays eggs on terra firma.
Escape claws? Nobody knows how remarkable crabs got to Ascension Island.
Arms race? Without an active immune system, how do octopuses outrun pathogens? Katherine Harmon Courage on amazing cephalopods. Speaking of which…
Koala killer. Charismatic animals to fall prey to climate change.
A change for the worse? What impact will a changing climate have on gorillas?
Change for the better? Should genetic engineering be used to save species at risk? Michael Thomas and colleagues pose a provocative question. Carl Zimmer follows up with a good perspective piece.
There’s a catch. The tension between sustainability, fishing, & employment.
There be monsters? What is really the likelihood of cryptic species like bigfoot? Kyle Hill looks at the odds.
Bugs’ life – insects and other things that creep, crawl and otherwise delight
Digging in the past. Uncovering the natural history of an ant-mimic jumping spider. Chris Buddle shares a wonderful story that spans more than a century. Read of the week.
“Good Heavens what insect can suck it?” Darwin, orchids, & moths. Evolution’s predictive power. Superb piece by Dave Hone.
It knows nose. A nostril-riding tick.
Stepping it up. Clawed spider’s ladder-like web.
They feel under the weather? Sci Curious tells us how insects base sex lives on the forecast. Sarah Williams expands on insects’ stormy relationships. Brian Owens discusses how rain storms turn insects off. Cloudy, with a chance of abstinence?
What’s that smell? If it’s like rotten coconut, or Roquefort cheese, it may be ants.
Scrumpdillyiscious! Marc Lallanilla highlights seven insects that should be making their way onto menus.
“A celebration of the diversity of all things tiny & crawly.” Bug Girl launches her awesome blog Charismatic Minifauna with Wired.
Fossil finds – organisms of times past – dinosaurs and beyond
Pollen’s past. Flowering plant origin 100M yrs earlier than thought.
Tender trap. Frog fossil has astounding soft tissue detail.
Beautiful botanicals – wonders of the photosynthesising world – that is, mainly plants
Pit stops. Bordered pits ensure trees don’t bleed to death.
Making flippy floppy. Seaweed’s bendy joints survive thrashing.
Microscopic marvels – smaller than the eye can see, but big in action – bacteria, fungi and viruses
The hole truth. Spelunking may lead to new drug discoveries from cave microbes.
Molecular machinery – the toils of the macromolecules of life – nucleic acids and proteins (and others) – from molecules to cells to organs to organisms (including genetics & genomics)
Pass it on. Folate deficiency impact carried for generations.
Night of the living dead. Like zombies, endocrine disruptors regroup in the dark. Mark Peplow delivers the frightening find.
All in the family? The internet & DNA testing have made genealogy a privacy minefield. This is a spectacular extract of an amazing article by Virginia Hughes.
The secret to a long life? For naked mole rats, it may be near-perfect proteins. They seem to have perfected protein production.
A leg up on pain. Centipede venom powerful painkiller.
Wanna new drug? The genome hasn’t been the most fruitful place to look.
Fitter happier. Exercise better than drugs for treating some diseases.
Taking others’ lives in their hands. Choosing *not* to vaccinate is like drinking & driving.
Meat of the matter. Designing chicken that’s not fowl.
Earth, wind and fire – planet shaping – geology, meteorology, oceanography, the environment & climate
As pure as the driven snow? Observing snow dusting & its implications. Superb long read.
Stupendous stacks. Hawaiian islands are like layered lava crêpes.
Star attractions – the final frontier, space
Cloudy day. Seen on an exoplanet. Astonishing.
Density intensity. Astonishingly dense galaxy.
Out for a spin. Pulsar missing link is spinning star.
Curious chemistry. Hydrocarbon rain falls on Titan.
Dancing with the stars. Celestial pair spin together.
Beautiful blue bubble. In space. Wow!
They rocked their world. Literally. Ancient supervolcanoes, made marvellous work of the Martian surface. These lava-spewing supervolcanoes erupted on Mars billions of years ago. They likely contributed to shaping the Martian climate. Oh, but please be careful calling them “supervolcanoes”.
Blast from the past. Mercury’s sunken volcanoes.
X factor. Eclipse in X-ray from space.
Showing its age? Our moon is 100M yrs younger than thought. View of the week.
Dawn of humanity? Did our hominid forebears see the light of a supermassive black hole?
Forces of nature – big-ticket items – cosmology, mathematics, computation, chemistry, physics, ecology & evolution
A chip off the old space-time continuum. Gravitational lensingon a microchip!
Hair-raising thoughts. Imagining a black hole with hair could help test general relativity.
Get outta here. Velocity needed to exit the Milky Way.
Ironing out the details. Iron-based crystal revives superconductivity hopes.
Solid understanding. The number that proves that even solids go with the flow.
Up & atom. Building elements. Awesome interactive.
Ironing it all out. Fe + CuSO4 -> FeSO4 + Cu Beautiful.
Who rejects a Fields Medal, the International Congress of Mathematicians prize, and the $1M Clay Millennium prize? This guy. Jennifer Ouellette delivers a story of the mathematician who was happiest with his discoveries without the fuss.
Divided by a common language. When words of mathematics don’t equate with common use. Evelyn Lamb shares a problem with definitions.
Diversity in adversity? Might Anthropocene invasive species raise biological diversity?
Why the change? New hypothesis to explain evolution of human menopause. Intriguing, but unconvinced.
Matters of mind – how we, and other animals, perceive our world and our place in it
“There is a growing sense that connections with the natural world are vital to digital well-being.” From an outstanding, thought-provoking piece on “technobiophilia” by Sue Thomas. Read of the week.
Who gives a hoot? Night owls should, as they could be suffering from permanent jet lag.
To err is human. Why do our brains create false memories?
Dizzying discovery. How dancers are able to spin & avoid falling down.
Eau de bébé? The scent of a baby, and the implications thereof.
The real bionic man. Rewired nerves control robotic leg. Amazing.
Here’s a thought. The meme as meme.
Behind the scenes – the workings of the museum – discovery and communication
For the record. What journalists want from scientists & why they want it. Useful insights from Esther Nakkazi.
Breaking news? Hypotheses are designed to be falsified. It’s not news when they are.
A hit & a myth. How science successes transmogrify into fables. Excellent.
Running smoothly. How the charity “Run For The Cure” directly supports research.
Don’t take it for granted? How crowdfunding could support unfunded research.
Leading the crowd? University establishes its own research crowdfunding site. Is this a good thing?
Making it big time. Interdisciplinary partnership is the big challenge in big data science.
Better natured. The best thing about being in the field is the connection with nature. I compiled this piece that contains wonderful quotes from a group of super researchers. Their words are worth a read.