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Showing posts with the label animals

The Cabrières Biota: an Ordovician Snapshot

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When I saw "epic importance" and "fossils" in the same headline, I figured whatever'd been found would be at least somewhat out of the ordinary. I've learned to take journalistic puffery with at least a few grains of salt. But this time, the fossils really were something important: exceptionally well-preserved samples from a 470,000,000 year old biome. "Epic Importance", Fabulous Fossils, and a Calamitous Crisis Down a Rabbit Hole — — And Out again Welcome to the Cabrières Biota Lobsters Do It, Maybe Trilobites Did It Lobopodians and Other Seriously Weird Critters Cabrières Biota Fossils: What's the Big Deal? Heraclitus and Life in a Changing World Ordovician Climate and Getting a Grip Two Biota and Increasing Diversity Gradual Cooling, Occasional Meteor Showers, and an Ice Age Living in a Vast and Ancient Universe ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Almost 400 fossils will show how life worked in a polar bio

T. Rex, or Not T. Rex, That is the Question

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Headlines about Tyrannosaurus rex, scientists, and "what we thought we knew" being wrong started showing up in my news feed last week. It's been a while since I talked about dinosaurs, and I found Nicholas R. Longrich and Evan T. Saitta's research paper: a pre-publication copy, at any rate. So this week I thought I'd talk about T. rex, Nanotyrannus, and what they'd learned. That's what I thought. Here's what I wound up with, after diving down delightfully diverse rabbit holes: Tyrannosaurus, Nanotyrannus: New Study, Old Debate T. Rex, Tyrant King Lizard; something else; and King Kong Trix the Tyrannosaur Takes a Walk 'What is Wrong With This Picture?' A Hodgepodge of Oddments A Skull, a Caption, and As-Yet-Unsolved Puzzles Best Supporting Monster? T. Hawkins, H. P. Lovecraft: and a Little Science Great Western Seaway: From Hadrosaurs to Prairie Chickens "...There is a Great Deal We Do Not Know...." Growth Rates

Frog and Spider are Friends

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I've decided to list this post in the "Science News" category, although it doesn’t feature a current news item. That's because some of the tarantula-and-frog research has been news, and current spiders-have-pet-frogs videos remind me of human interest stories, back when print-format newspapers were more common. It's been an interesting week. “ Update: Air Conditioner Fixed 🙂 ” (August 3, 2023) “ Power Failure Last Week, Now Equipment Failure ” (August 2, 2023) That may, or may not, explain why this week's post is a mix of science and creature features of days gone by: Picking This Week’s Topic Big Spider, Little Frog: Helping Each Other Names, Senses and (Maybe) Mutualism Tarantula Research “SCIENCE’S DEADLIEST ACCIDENT”: “Tarantula!” (1955) “Vox Populi…” One Phrase, Two or more Viewpoints Special Effects and Speculation Harmony, Understanding and Medieval Bestiaries And the Moral of this Spider is — More at A Catholic Citizen in
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I'd been planning on writing about chimps, strength, muscles, and assumptions this week. Then, a few hours later, I noticed that I'd been talking about horses, digestion, etymology, cephalic index and other assumptions. Which, for me, is about par for the course. Eventually, I got back to what we've been learning about chimps and muscles. Horses Aren't Human Scientists, Science, and Assumptions: Old and New Phrenology and the Superiority of 'Folks Like Me' Scientific Scientists: An Etymological Excursion Cephalic Index: Numbers, Notions and Aryan Angst Assumptions, Attitudes and an Opportunistic Omnivore More Assumptions and Attitudes Using Our Brains, Seeking (and Accepting) Truth Making Sense and Other Options Chimpanzee Sort-of-Super Strength: It's the Muscles Reviewing the Evidence Twitchy Chimps And Finally, Malu Malu: the Slow Loris More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (How ho

A Trilobite With a Hyper-Compound Eye

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It's barely over two weeks since scientists at the University of Cologne published what they'd learned about a trilobite's unique eye. Their research vindicated an amateur paleontologist's observations, and very likely will raise more questions than it answers. That's par for the course. Answering a few questions and raising many more, I mean. So is discovering something new. New to us, that is. This trilobite's 'hyper-compound' eye last saw the light of day — or dark of the ocean floor — 390,000,000 years ago. I had fun writing this, and hope you enjoy reading it. Who knew trilobite eyes could be so entrancing? More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Florida Indoor Fish Farm: An Aquaculture Alternative

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A few groceries have been offering delicacies like elk steaks for decades, at least. But the odds are that hunters aren't supplying your grocery's meat department with wild game. That's not surprising, or shouldn't be. I'll be talking about an indoor Florida fish farm, wild rasberries, chickens, and why genetically modified foods don't fill me with fear and foreboding. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .
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Today's Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time. It's also Saint Apollonia's feast day.... ...St. Apollonia isn't on my diocesan or national liturgical calendar. Not that I've seen, at any rate. That's not, or shouldn't be, a big surprise. The Catholic Church is literally catholic, καθολικός, katholikos, universal. Some things we do, like reading the Bible, are universal. Some aspects of our worship are regional or local. 1 ( September 30, 2018 ) I figure devotion to St. Apollonia hasn't been part of my place and time's life. Which is okay. Today's reading — right! That's what got me started. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

My Top 10 Science News Stories For 2020

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I'm seeing "The Best of," "Top 10" and "2020 Top" headlines in my news feed: as usual for late December. Instead of waiting for someone else to highlight this year's science news stories, I'm making my own 'top 10' list. Each item is something that caught my attention, seemed important, or has been lurking in my 'to do' folders. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Brains and Ethics

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Revived pig brains, memory backups and ethical questions have been in the news. It sounds like a B movie scenario, but the research is quite real. So are the questions. I'll be talking about research, technology, and I'm glad that folks at MIT decided that brain backups were a dubious goal. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Early Birds, Unisex Fish

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We still don't know exactly how birds got their wings. Literally and figuratively. But we're learning more about when and how they started. Scientists in Europe and China found fossils of birds that lived roughly 120,000,000 years ago. Other scientists found genes with some 'feather' instructions in alligators. That's old news. What's new is that one team coaxed alligator embryo scales into growing as something like very simple feathers. Part of a simple feather, anyway. I'll be talking about those birds, alligator feathers, and why discovering something new doesn't upset me. Also a chimp, the French Revolution something Benjamin Franklin said and evolution.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Smoke and Monkeys

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Folks in the United Kingdom may be changing their rules for wood and coal fires. Or maybe not. It depends on whether their rules match Europe's. Volkswagen paid researchers to mistreat monkeys and people. Or maybe not. We know the research happened. It's complicated, a bunch of folks are upset, and I'll get back to that. Fireplaces, outdoor grills, and coal-burning furnaces aren't basically bad. Neither is learning how stuff in the air affects animals. And us. But having smoky fires upwind of our neighbors isn't a good idea. Neither is mistreating critters. Or people. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Swatting Fast Flies

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We're a lot smarter than flies, which probably helps us swat them. But the insects are very good at being somewhere else when the flyswatter or newspaper hits whatever they were on. I've run into a few reasonable speculations. One was that flies are hypersensitive to air movements, and feel an approaching object. That may be part of the answer. Scientists found another piece to that puzzle recently. "Recently" by my standards, that is. Flies live a whole lot faster than we do. Or, in a fly's eyes, we move in slow motion.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

A Mixed Bag

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I picked a mix from 'science news' this week: tardigrade genes, fertility fears, and what is probably the world's oldest living culture. Folks in Western civilization have known about our neighbors in Australia for about four centuries. Understanding their beliefs became easier, I think, when some of us realized that respecting them makes sense. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Old Truths, New Aspects

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The biggest critters with backbones are living today: baleen whales. Finding the largest of them started getting harder about a century back. We didn't quite drive the blue and fin whales to extinction, happily. We're learning when they got so big, and maybe why. We're also learning more about origins of dinosaurs and the domestic cat. It's not the same origin. One happened around the time we started storing grain, the other 200,000,000 years ago. Give or take a bit. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

SETI: What If?

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Contacting extraterrestrial intelligence, meeting people whose ancestors developed on another world, has been a staple of pulp fiction for generations. Lately, it's become a matter for serious discussion. I'll be looking at an op-ed's take on how learning that we're not alone might affect folks with various religious beliefs. I'll also share what I expect: and what I don't.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Brain Implants and Rewired Monkeys

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Someone from the Netherlands gained a small measure of freedom after learning to use a prototype computer-brain interface. I see that, and experiments with rhesus monkeys, as a good thing.... ...As usual, I'll also talk about why I don't think God is offended when we help folks.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Right-Handedness and Evolving Jaws

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At least one Homo habilis was right-handed, about 1,800,000 years ago. It's the earliest evidence of handedness in humanity's history. So far. Our jaws may have started out as armor plate, not gill arches. Paleontologists found a second Silurian placoderm species with surprisingly familiar jaws.... ...Before talking about Homo habilis, and new evidence showing how jaws evolved, I'll do my usual explanation for why science doesn't upset me.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Earth Overshoot Day and Pollinators

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Australia's Earth Overshoot Day happened earlier this week. It used to be called Ecological Debt Day, involves a lot of math, and assumes that Earth's glaciers, deserts, and oceans, are pretty much all the same thing. The basic idea, that we shouldn’t waste resources, isn't silly, and I'll get back to that. Some other scientists say that we should pay attention to pollinators. I think they're right. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Bulldogs, Transgenics, and a Robot

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English Bulldogs aren’t what they used to be: which is a problem for folks who want the breed to survive. A team of scientists says that the British mascot’s bloodline is more than a bit too pure. Other scientists developed MouSensor, mutant mice with open slots for plug and play genetic code. Finally, a tiny robot with rat muscles that swims like a fish. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Sandra and Tommy: Apes and Ethics

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A court in Argentina said that Sandra the orangutan is "una persona no humana (non-human person)" in 2014. 1 Or maybe 2015. I'll get back to that. Instead of going ape over that news, I learned a little about Sandra, the Buenos Aires Zoo, and the curious case of Tommy the chimp More at A Catholic Citizen in America .