Discovery and description of a new monkey species- the Lesula- (Link of the day):

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Link of the day today is to this article about the discovery of a new monkey species in the Democratic Republic of the Congo-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/monkey-species-discovered-africa-015119021.html

The creature is known locally as the Lesula and-now, scientifically as Cercopithecus lomamiensis and has a striking "owl-shaped" face. Its closest relative is Hamlyn's monkey, Cercopithecus hamlyni: a rare species which also has an owl-shaped face ,but sports different colouring from the Lesula. The original scientific article about the Lesula is by John A Hart and colleagues and was published online yesterday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

Cheering up bird - 25: The Atlantic Puffin

Puffins, (c) Dr J. Meade, all rights reserved

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful. Happy Monday.

Cheering up bird today is the Puffin: or- more accurately, the Atlantic Puffin, Fratercula arctica: a ridiculous little creature, if ever I saw one. Sometimes called the "penguin of the northern hemisphere", puffins are in fact a small species of Auk. The picture above is by the research zoologist Dr Jessica Meade and used here with permission- thank you, Jess.

Happy Birthday, Alan Turing

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Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, so links-of-the-week are to articles about him. The first, by computer scientist Vint Cerf summarises Turing's acheivements and points out that his should be a house-hold name:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17662585

the second is  a link to "The Alan Turing Year" project's homepage and the articles it contains-
http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/

Looking back, over history, it is easy to find examples of geniuses who suffered personally on account of the climate of the times in which they lived. The persecution and house arrest of Galileo Galilei for heresy is perhaps the most obvious example, but it seems to remiss to write about Alan Turing without noting that he- too- was treated appalingly by the authorities and the state for whom he worked. In a mere 41 years of life and just over 20 years of working-life, Alan Turing laid the foundations for much of modern computing and work into artifical intelligence, so it is hard not to wonder what else he might have devised and how mankind might have benefitted, had he lived in kinder times and lived out his natural life-span.

Dogs, Wolves, Foxes and Psychopaths

Recently, the news seems to be a depressing parade of real-life horror stories of cannibalism and psychopaths. Clearly, there is very little in any of this that could be decribed as remotely beautiful, but the mindset of a psychopath is certainly very weird. In recent years, though, advances in our understanding of human and animal brains are finally giving hope of understanding the "causes", or, at least, the neuroanatomy of psychopathy. What the legal system chooses to do with this information, of course, is an entirely different issue. In any case, one of the better articles on the brains of psychopaths online is this piece: Anatomy of a Psychopath..: by Dr Jonathan T. Pararajasingham-->

http://nirmukta.com/2011/09/30/anatomy-of-a-psychopath-the-neurobiological-basis-of-evil/

For a long time, it has been known that it is possible to breed "tameness*", even "empathy" (apparently empathetic behaviour), into animals (compare the average golden retriever with a wolf...), which strongly implies a genetic component to tame and apparently affectionate behaviour. In this case, can "we" find a genetic component to the lack of empathy and shallowness of emotions that characterise psychopaths?

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*The most famous experiments on this subject were Dmitri Belayeav's studies on the domestication of silver foxes-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Konstantinovich_Belyaev

Spring in Belgium

So, Spring is here again, and providing a wealth of photographic opportunities for anyone so inclined and masses of cute young animals for anyone biologically minded or just plain-sentimental to admire; these are a few pictures I took around 30th April, mostly in North Eastern Belgium, near the Dutch border.

Rain-soaked Berberis sp. in bloom

Light green new-growth of spring foliage

 

Female moorhen, Gallinula chloropus beside her nest

Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus, and nest

Moorhen egg (from a different nest)- the mother was foraging for more nest-lining leaves nearby

 

Spring blossom

 

Broom in bloom (tribe: Genisteae) 

 

Ornamental White Broom. 

 

Pansies, Namur. (Viola tricolor subsp.)

All pictures taken in North East Belgium, near Peer except pansies, pictured in Namur. Taken with what I like to call my"lightweight, throwing camera*" (the Panasonic Lumix DMC LZ3); as I may have said before, I really like this camera and it is small enough to pack conveniently when "the proper camera" is not, however, this (above) is about the limit of what it can do. I think its macro capabilities are better than its landscape pictures, but I am sure that is partly because I have a great deal more experience of macro photography than landscape work. 

(* don't throw it- mine has survived being accidentally dropped twice, but this is not recommended.)

Cheering Up Bird- Black Heron

 

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Today's Cheering-up bird is The Black Heron, Egretta ardesiaca: an African species famed for its bizarre "canopy feeding" technique, whereby it creates a patch of shade with its wings; the shade attracts fish and the heron feeds upon them. The picture above was taken to the East of Antannarivo in Madagascar, by Neil Strickland;it was posted to wikipedia [here] and has a creative commons attribution 2.0 license- for details, click [here].

Pacific Eels, The Fukang Meteorite and Plastic-eating Fungi

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First link-of-the-day today is to an article by Paul Rincon on the discovery of an eel species in Palau, Oceania --> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14547942 .
 The eel, which has very "primitive features" is called Protoanguilla palau and is the first known member of a new zoological family, genus and species. More details can be found in the article [here ]

 Second link-of-the-day is to this video and article -->
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/more-mere-magic-mushrooms-154207424.html 
about two fungi- one of which (Pestalotiopsis microspora) can survive on a diet of polyurethane and therefore play an important role in breaking down plastics in landfill sites. The article and accompanying video also discusses the development of a natural Styrofoam-type material essentially from fungal "roots" (mycelia) and agricultural waste. The comany producing this material is Ecovative- their website is http://www.ecovativedesign.com/


 Last but not least, link number three is to an article and series of pictures of a huge, weird and beautiful meteorite-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2129747/The-beautiful-mysterious-Fukang-pallasite-meteorite.html

that fell in Fukang, in the Chinese part of the Gobi Desert. The meteroite, which was discovered in 2000 , is described as containing "translucent golden crystals of ... olivine..[gleaming] among a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron".

Poisoned dolphins, Einstein's Brain and Face transplants- Links of the week

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful. My pick-of-the-latest science and wildlife stories starts with the tale of the Bataria Bay Dolphins...

Dolphins- mother and calf - photographed in Israel by Faraj Meir, 2006. This image has a GNU Creative Commons attribution 3.0 license (details here) and was taken from wikipedia [here].

The New York Times has quoted America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as having "suggested" that Dolphins in Barataria Bay off Louisiana are seriously ill and that their ailments are probably related to toxic substances in the petroleum , which was released in that area by the BP oil spill in 2010. The full article is online here-->

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/gulf-dolphins-exposed-to-oil-are-seriously-ill-agency-says/#

Unfortunately, the New York Times is starting to restrict online readers to only viewing 10 articles per month without paying, so there will probably be a lot few links to their reportage and their stories from this blog in the future.This is a shame, because their coverage of science stories- in my opinion, at least- is generally the best of all newspapers; however, they are not the first newspaper to take this route- The Times (of London) has been charging for online content for some time. It will be interesting to observe how this move affects their visibility and the online "chatter" about their articles, since so many people, bloggers and writers now access newspapers online and I suspect many will favour free papers over their pay-per-view rivals.

I believe that one of the most interesting developments in medicine in recent years has been the advent of face transplants. The remarkable improvements in the surgical techniques- quite literally from one individual patient to the next- are plain for all to see. The most recent and extensive such transplant is the case of Richard Lee Norris: a man from Virginia, USA who had been badly disfigured in a gun accident. As well as the face transplant; surgeons at the University of Maryland's medical centre gave Mr. Norris teeth, a tongue and upper and lower jaws from a donor. You can read more details of the case online in a yahoo news article [here].

In February, The New England Journal of medicine published a paper by Bohdan Pomahac and colleagues reveiwing three such transplants- unfortunately, the ful text is not available without payment to the journal, but the abstract is online [here]

                                                    Andrea Versalius's "Base of the Brain" from "Fabrica" (1543)- copyright lapsed due to age- image taken picture uploaded to wikipedia here by Ancheta Wis.

Final link-of-the-day today is to this article by Shernah Noah in today's Independent newspaper, reporting that Albert Einstein's brain is to go on show as part of the "Brains: The Mind As Matter" exhibition in the Wellcome Collection on London's Euston Road. According to the Wellcome Collection's website The Exhibition runs from 29th March to 17th June 2012 and admission is free.

Link of the day- Electro convulsive therapy and how it works....

Welcome (back) to Weirbeautiful.

Link of the day today is this tabloid article describing a recent study that sheds light on Electro Convulsive Therapy- an effective, if very drastic and unpleasant treatment for severe depression.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2117246/Electro-convulsive-therapy-How-electric-shock-treatment-treat-severe-depression.html

Giant insects- past and present

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This week's links are both to popular science articles about giant insects- 
the first-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2108736/Extinct-tree-lobster-alive-clinging-Pacific-rock-taller-Empire-State-Building.html
- tells the story of  the world's largest stick insects being found on an isolated rocky outcrop near Lord between Australia and New Zealand, some 80 years after the species was thought extinct.

Meanwhile, scientists in China have unearthed the fossilized remains of giant prehistoric fleas-three or four times larger than modern fleas. As the yahoo news-article explains, "Nine perfectly preserved fossils were unearthed from 165-million-year-old Jurassic deposits in Daohugou, northeast China, and the 125-million-year-old Cretaceous strata at Huangbanjigou, China." You can find the full text here-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/monster-fleas-sucked-the-blood-of-jurassic-dinosaurs.html

Link of the day- Sloth Documentary and Interview with Tamsin Stone

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

Link of the day today is to this tabloid article on sloths-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4156134/TV-sloths-take-the-nation-by-storm-slowly.html

The article has an excellent embedded excerpt from an Animal Planet sloth documentary that is due to air on Sunday.

The other thing I want to mention is that the new issue of Small Furry Pets magazine is on sale in the UK now (and internationally by subscription)-
http://www.kelseyshop.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=35_263

I have a regular interview column in this magazine- this month's interviewee is Tamsin Stone , author of the excellent pet care book "Understanding your Rabbit's Habbits". This month, it's a 6-page spread, so it's one of the longer interviewees I have done in a while.

The Arizona Desert, Bhutan's Wildlife; Pests of the Coffee Farm and Problems in science publishing

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.
 There are 4 links today-

The beauty of the Arizona Desert-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/secret-sandstone-terrain-in-desert-captured-685193

The wildlife of Bhutan-
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/wwf-footage-of-snow-leopard-reveals-684497

and the pests and wild animals found on Costa Rica's coffee farms-
http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-problem-with-coffee-pests/?ref=science

Finally, over 5000 researchers have joined a boycott of Elsevier's journals in protest at the publisher's behaviour- specifically the way Elsevier profits by selling the rights to see scientific papers. Since the company receives the copyrights and much of the copy editing for nothing- courtessy of the scientists involved and the reviewers, the fact that they (and other academic journal publishers) charge such high prices to view those papers has long been a bone of contention. Not least since the research published was often government- or charity- funded. A fuller account is given in the IHT here-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/researchers-boycott-elsevier-journal-publisher.html?ref=science

Links of the day- Koalas, travel photographs and the harm of spanking children

Welcome (back) To Weirdbeautiful!
Today's beautiful creature is this baby koala photographed by Erik Veland at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. You can find more pictures by Erik Veland on his portfolio [here]. The picture above was taken from Wikipedia, where it is listed as having a creative commons 3.0 attribution license. For details of the license, click [here]

 Today's weblinks are to an article reporting research that shows that spanking children is harmful for their long-term development and mental health-

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/spanking-kids-can-cause-long-term-harm-canada-study

And to the impressive results of National Georgraphic Traveller's annual photography competition-
http://travel.uk.msn.com/exclusives/exclusive-national-geographics-photography-competition#image=1

Link of the day: Solar Storm, Frozen sea and lion cubs

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful
Today I have 4 links for you: the first three being meterological.

First is this picture of frozen waves in Romania-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/photos/european-big-freeze-what-sub-zero-looks-like-1328270265-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Feuropean-big-freeze-what-sub-zero-looks-like-1328270265-slideshow%252F9-photo-1328271227.html
- one of the more picturesque consequences of the current pan-European freezing temperatures.

the second also shows frozen waves of the black sea-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/photos/european-big-freeze-what-sub-zero-looks-like-1328270265-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Feuropean-big-freeze-what-sub-zero-looks-like-1328270265-slideshow%252F5-photo-1328271189.html

The link today is to more distant bad weather in the form of a solar storm that is predicted to affect The Earth's climate-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/biggest-solar-storm-since-2005-pummels-earth-185646088.html

Finally, cute picture of the week is this lion cub from a review on the french msn homepage. The review (and the picture) relates to Disney's programme "Felins"("Cats")
http://divertissements.fr.msn.com/cinema/lhebdo-cin%c3%a9-de-la-semaine-du-01-f%c3%a9vrier#image=5

Oppinion Piece- Giraffe Hunting and Darwin's Fossils

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful...

I have just two links-of-the-day for you today; the first being this account of hundreds of lost fossils collected by Charles Darwin and fellow workers having been found in a neglected wooden cabinet of the British Geological Survey-

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/darwins-lost-fossils-found-desk-drawer-152821335.html

The second, is this thoroughly depressing and shameful story about giraffe hunting for entertainment-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4065464/Giraffes-gunned-down-for-family-holiday-fun.html

Even scientists, I am told, are human beings and, therefore, subject to irrational follies and whims the same as the rest of mankind. Even the (ficticious) arch-scientist Sheldon Cooper admits to having a soft spot for koalas. Personally, I have a weakness for giraffes. There is something wonderfully appealing about their gentle and peaceble lives; their biology is pretty quirky, too, as the Animal Autopsy programme revealed a little while back - you can see details of the programme [here- WARNING!! Link contains Gory Pictures]. It seems such a shame to slaughter them for entertainment: just mindless violence that should be as far beneath our dignity as it is beneath theirs.

The World's Smallest Vertebrate, Cranes over Venice and Beyonce the Horse-fly

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!

 First link-of-the-day today is to this news article on the World's smallest vertebrate-->
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/diminutive-frog-wins-tiniest-title-044522082.html

Second link-of-the-day today is to this short video of Cranes Flying over Venice on dogwork.com -->
http://www.dogwork.com/crafly9/
(thanks to Patricia V.P. for the Crane link)

Final link of the day is to an article about a new horse-fly species named after Beyonce (of all people)-->
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/beyonce-gets-fly-golden-booty-named-her-090557475.html

Science Updates- Bear pictures, Skin cancer treatment cream & mental deterioration in mid-life

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

Two of the top science stories this week are the use of a new radioactive cream used to treat skin cancer non-invasively-->
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2082826/Radioactive-paint-cream-clear-skin-cancer-surgery.html

and reports of a study indicating that mental decline in aging people is a longer, slower and earlier-onset process than once thought (with cognitive decline already detectable by middle age (45-49 years))-->
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/mental-decline-seen-middle-age-233534243.html

Meanwhile, the science section of the IHT website has the cyber-equivalent of a photo-essay on Borneo's famous Orang Utans here-->
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/01/04/science/Borneo.html

The essay and pictures were taken in Borneo's Tanjung Puting Nature Park: a place also known for its Sun-Bears, Ursus malayanus. Although Sun-Bears are the smallest of the 8 extant Bear species*, they have a reputation for ferocity. You can find more details about the Sun Bear on the BBC's website [here].


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(* the other 7 species are the Giant Panda, The Spectacled Bear, The Sloth Bear, The Asian Black Bear, The American Black Bear, The Brown Bear and the Polar Bear. Various hybrid bears and subspecies exist.).

There is a link to pictures of two adorable polar-bear cubs in the blog post immediately before/below this one.

Cherring up birds- blackbirds and apples

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

Today's cheering up bird is a common (Eurasian) blackbird a creature with the unfortunate biological name Turdus merula. (Turdus relates to a genus of "thrush"es).

Every winter, I visit Northallerton station at least once and every year I see the same apple tree still covered in the summer's apples (and often coated in snow as well), it always seems to be a fairly unusual scene- cultivated apple trees usually have their appples picked and untended ones tend to have either very small apples or to have them blown away by the wind- or both. In any case, this year I got a picture of it-this was just one of a whole group of blackbirds (not quite a flock, but several) feeding on it.It is not as flamboyant as the usual "cheering up birds", but it's nice to see wildlife in unpromising places.

Link of the day today is to this article (complete with pictures and video about twin polar bears bred in LHT Polar Aquarium in China-->
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082143/Twice-cute-Newly-born-polar-bears-snuggle-paw-paw.html

Narcissus tazetta

Narcissus tazetta,

Cultured specimen, Huji, Jerusalem, Dec 2011