Sunday 24 July 2011

Sweet Peas, Endangered Butterflies and The Emperor Water Penguin,

Having posted earlier this week about Gregor Mendel and his peas, today I have a picture of another of the historic "work horses" for curious geneticists: the Sweet Pea, Lathyrus odoratus, which I am posting purely for aesthetic reasons.


The Sweet Pea, Lathyrus odoratus.

First of this week's "Pick-of-the week" science stories is "Bright and Beautiful"- an article by Jonny Beardsall in last Sunday's Telegraph on the decline of Britain's Butterflies. For some reason, the online version of this article goes by a different title from the print version, which is sitting on my desk in front of me now.
In any case, you can find "Bright and Beautiful" (aka "The CLA Game Fair: Butterflies Need your help") online here- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8640902/The-CLA-Game-Fair-Butterflies-need-your-help.html

Elsewhere in the same issue of the Telegraph is/was an article on the perils of reintroducing locally extinct species, such as beavers, wolves and bears, to their former habitats. The paper version of this article has the title "Back from the brink and causing mayhem", you can find the online version (retitled "The extinct species back from the brink and causing mayhem") here- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8642359/The-extinct-species-back-from-the-dead-and-causing-mayhem.html

Finally, one animal that is in no danger of being introduced anywhere anytime soon is the "Emperor Water penguin" Inkayacu paracasensis: an enormous red-feathered creature that lived in Southern coastal Peru around 36million years ago. Fossils of the Eocene-period penguin species were discovered a little while back in Peru's "Reserva Nacional de Paracus" and more details- notably evidence of the shape and colour of the creature's feathers- were published in the journal "Science" last September. You can read the abstract of the original "Science" article, by Julia A. Clarke and colleagues, online [here]: an illustrated popular science account of the finding are available on The New York Times website here- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/science/01penguin.html

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Thanks to Barbara W. for the Sunday Telegraph articles.

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