Articles
Science, Vol 220, Issue 4599, 868-871
Copyright © 1983 by American Association for the Advancement of Science
"Isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from a patient at risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)"
F Barre-Sinoussi, JC Chermann, F Rey, MT Nugeyre, S Chamaret, J Gruest, C Dauguet, C Axler-Blin, F Vezinet-Brun, C Rouzioux, W Rozenbaum, and L Montagnier
A retrovirus belonging to the family of recently discovered human T-cell leukemia viruses (HTLV), but clearly distinct from each previous isolate, has been isolated from a Caucasian patient with signs and symptoms that often precede the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This virus is a typical type-C RNA tumor virus, buds from the cell membrane, prefers magnesium for reverse transcriptase activity, and has an internal antigen (p25) similar to HTLV p24. Antibodies from serum of this patient react with proteins from viruses of the HTLV-I subgroup, but type-specific antisera to HTLV-I do not precipitate proteins of the new isolate. The virus from this patient has been transmitted into cord blood lymphocytes, and the virus produced by these cells is similar to the original isolate. From these studies it is concluded that this virus as well as the previous HTLV isolates belong to a general family of T-lymphotropic retroviruses that are horizontally transmitted in humans and may be involved in several pathological syndromes, including AIDS.
Sunday, 1 December 2019
Saturday, 2 November 2019
In honour of tree week... the world's rarest tree
There is an interesting thread and discussion on the world's rarest tree here-
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg0115503821754.html
People often think the rarest tree is Australia's Wollemi Pine: a tree which was actually long thought extinct, until a National Parks Officer stumbled upon a secluded gorge with Wollemi Pines near Sydney. However, thanks to a propagation programme, Wollemi Pines are no longer quite so rare. London's Kew Gardens even has one on public display- their website gives more information on the Wollemi pine and pictures here-
http://www.kew.org/plants/wollemipine.html
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg0115503821754.html
People often think the rarest tree is Australia's Wollemi Pine: a tree which was actually long thought extinct, until a National Parks Officer stumbled upon a secluded gorge with Wollemi Pines near Sydney. However, thanks to a propagation programme, Wollemi Pines are no longer quite so rare. London's Kew Gardens even has one on public display- their website gives more information on the Wollemi pine and pictures here-
http://www.kew.org/plants/wollemipine.html
Friday, 18 October 2019
A week in the life of a Wildlife Writer
This month, I am back in Jerusalem for the first time in over a year. My visit is primarily to see friends, but, now that I am freelancing, I cannot afford to let such a golden work opportunity slip by.
Before I left Britain, I had all sorts of grand plans of what I would do on the aeroplane and how I would schedule my work and writing around times with friends, as one does. Of course all of that has fallen by the wayside now. After a week of much fun and little productivity, I am soon playing catch-up. My first port-of-call is the city’s botanic gardens. Having been there several times previously, I am familiar with the layout and hoping to add to my image database with photographs of some of the many wild birds that frequent the place. Really good images can be sold to various image libraries or compiled into books, but they can also serve as inspiration or illustration for an article on the animal pictured.
My guidebook says that, to date, some 46 bird species have been spotted in the botanic gardens. I have personally seen kingfishers, jays, white spectacled bulbuls, Palestinian sunbirds and many ring-necked parakeets but the guidebook also mentions purple herons, Nubian shrikes, lesser white throats etc. On this visit, I see a Syrian woodpecker (Dendrocopus syriacus) (distinguishable from its better known and more northerly cousin- the Great Spotted Woodpecker- by the rhythm of its tapping) and several flashes of something I suspect may be white breasted kingfisher, Halcyon smyrnensis (another known visitor to these gardens).
As part of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Botanic gardens has an active public education department; during this visit, there is an exhibition of botanical watercolours in one of the buildings and a seed- and postcard- stall manned by enthusiastic elderly ladies, who are somehow the same, the world over. I end up buying new guidebook on local butterflies for the pictures, since almost the entire text is in Hebrew..... Israel’s butterflies, much like its birds, are a mixture of familiar British and European species, with more exotic, Asiatic and African species and the odd endemic thrown in for good measure. Pictures of familiar British species like the red admiral and small skipper jostle for space in the book with more exotic creatures, like the Levantine Marbled White (Melanargia titea), Turkish Meadow Brown (Maniola telmessia) and Large Salmon Arab (Colotis fausta). For the details of each species, I am reliant on the internet or Israeli friends translating the appropriate text. It is very strange, as a writer, to find myself in a land where I am functionally illiterate.
In the event, I do not see any butterflies but I do use two sets of batteries photographing plants and birds in the botanic gardens and surrounding area. I sort through the images that evening and update this blog. I have recently started updating the blog in batches and automatic arranging time- release on articles, which is a great way to run any blog, as it regularises things and saves so much time.
The next day, I arrange interview with an eminent scientist/documentary maker for later in the week, then I search internet for information on the following interviewee. It takes more research and thought to prepare the right questions for an interview than I would ever have imagined before I started interviewing people regularly. My background as a research scientist is a huge help in terms of understanding the priorities of the scientists I interview, understanding the science and the contacts I made- rather than spending time searching for experts on the internet, I can often think very quickly of an ex-colleague who works in a particular field and then contact them to ask about- say- a news story in their subject area.
I finish my day by spending several hours adjusting the layout of my forthcoming book – an adapted form of this blog- also called “Weirdbeautiful”. The book is only about half finished and I am still trying to balance the aesthetic appeal (photographs) and the scientific content. The structure, and arrangement of a blog is very different from those of a book so developing one from the other is more of a challenge than it sounds.
The week ends with my conducting the interview that I arranged earlier in the week. Unlike my previous interviewees, today’s subject asked for a phone interview (rather than responding to a set of written questions). This is a skill I have yet to master. With the help of a friend, I spend an couple of hours working out how to do it and fiddling around with various recording devices and software packages. The interview will appear on paper but I cannot type fast enough to be sure of catching everything. The main problem is being able to record at a high enough volume for me to transcribe the audio files later. The volume is a problem- I have to strain to catch everything my subject says, but otherwise, the interview goes well and my subject is genial and informative. I have now to transcribe and edit (condense) his responses to fit my editor’s requirements.
Before I left Britain, I had all sorts of grand plans of what I would do on the aeroplane and how I would schedule my work and writing around times with friends, as one does. Of course all of that has fallen by the wayside now. After a week of much fun and little productivity, I am soon playing catch-up. My first port-of-call is the city’s botanic gardens. Having been there several times previously, I am familiar with the layout and hoping to add to my image database with photographs of some of the many wild birds that frequent the place. Really good images can be sold to various image libraries or compiled into books, but they can also serve as inspiration or illustration for an article on the animal pictured.
My guidebook says that, to date, some 46 bird species have been spotted in the botanic gardens. I have personally seen kingfishers, jays, white spectacled bulbuls, Palestinian sunbirds and many ring-necked parakeets but the guidebook also mentions purple herons, Nubian shrikes, lesser white throats etc. On this visit, I see a Syrian woodpecker (Dendrocopus syriacus) (distinguishable from its better known and more northerly cousin- the Great Spotted Woodpecker- by the rhythm of its tapping) and several flashes of something I suspect may be white breasted kingfisher, Halcyon smyrnensis (another known visitor to these gardens).
As part of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Botanic gardens has an active public education department; during this visit, there is an exhibition of botanical watercolours in one of the buildings and a seed- and postcard- stall manned by enthusiastic elderly ladies, who are somehow the same, the world over. I end up buying new guidebook on local butterflies for the pictures, since almost the entire text is in Hebrew..... Israel’s butterflies, much like its birds, are a mixture of familiar British and European species, with more exotic, Asiatic and African species and the odd endemic thrown in for good measure. Pictures of familiar British species like the red admiral and small skipper jostle for space in the book with more exotic creatures, like the Levantine Marbled White (Melanargia titea), Turkish Meadow Brown (Maniola telmessia) and Large Salmon Arab (Colotis fausta). For the details of each species, I am reliant on the internet or Israeli friends translating the appropriate text. It is very strange, as a writer, to find myself in a land where I am functionally illiterate.
In the event, I do not see any butterflies but I do use two sets of batteries photographing plants and birds in the botanic gardens and surrounding area. I sort through the images that evening and update this blog. I have recently started updating the blog in batches and automatic arranging time- release on articles, which is a great way to run any blog, as it regularises things and saves so much time.
The next day, I arrange interview with an eminent scientist/documentary maker for later in the week, then I search internet for information on the following interviewee. It takes more research and thought to prepare the right questions for an interview than I would ever have imagined before I started interviewing people regularly. My background as a research scientist is a huge help in terms of understanding the priorities of the scientists I interview, understanding the science and the contacts I made- rather than spending time searching for experts on the internet, I can often think very quickly of an ex-colleague who works in a particular field and then contact them to ask about- say- a news story in their subject area.
I finish my day by spending several hours adjusting the layout of my forthcoming book – an adapted form of this blog- also called “Weirdbeautiful”. The book is only about half finished and I am still trying to balance the aesthetic appeal (photographs) and the scientific content. The structure, and arrangement of a blog is very different from those of a book so developing one from the other is more of a challenge than it sounds.
The week ends with my conducting the interview that I arranged earlier in the week. Unlike my previous interviewees, today’s subject asked for a phone interview (rather than responding to a set of written questions). This is a skill I have yet to master. With the help of a friend, I spend an couple of hours working out how to do it and fiddling around with various recording devices and software packages. The interview will appear on paper but I cannot type fast enough to be sure of catching everything. The main problem is being able to record at a high enough volume for me to transcribe the audio files later. The volume is a problem- I have to strain to catch everything my subject says, but otherwise, the interview goes well and my subject is genial and informative. I have now to transcribe and edit (condense) his responses to fit my editor’s requirements.
Sunday, 15 September 2019
Morpho-like optical phenomenon in the neotropical lycaenid butterfly Mercedes atnius
I recently received my copies of a scientific paper to which I contributed. The paper is in a journal with (apparently) no web presence, so I’m posting the title, reference, abstract and some more information here-
“Morpho-like optical phenomenon in the neotropical lycaenid butterfly Mercedes atnius”,
Zsolt Balint, Serge Berthier, Julie Boulenguez & Victoria Welch,
Published in: Atalanta (sic), 40 (1/2), 263-272, Wurzburg, 2009 (ISSN 0171-0079)
Abstract: We report a study of two distantly related day-flying lepidopterous insects [Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae: Mercedes atnius (Herrich-Schäffer, 1853)., Nymphalidae: Morpho rhetenor (Cramer, 1775)]. Their wing dorsa generate superficially similar blue structural colour. Cover- and ground-scale layers in the wings of the species involved were investigated using optical and electronic microscopy to detect micro- and nanostructures. The layers of the scales in the two species are qualitatively different in terms of their morphologies and pigmentation. Wing reflectivity was measured using spectroscopic and sociometric techniques and simple models were proposed to analyse the measurements taken. Optical properties of the two butterflies are not as significantly different as their morphologies.
We hypothesise that the different wing-beats of the species examined have an important role and explain how the two optically similar phenomena can work differently in nature.
Background/ Significance of this paper: The Neotropical butterfly genus Morpho (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Morphinae) has received particular attention from entomologists, and physicists. The latter tend to focus their investigations on detecting micro- and nanostructures in the wing scales and on the mechanism by which these structures manipulate light.
Quite a number of papers have been published in the last decades on this topic in scientific journals in the physics literature. One of the most studied species is Morpho rhetenor (Cramer, 1775), probably because it has a relatively simple scale morphology compared with related species. However, some other Neotropical butterflies also possess Morpho-like vivid blue on their wing surface, including those in the genus Mercedes.
The full text of this article is available in the journal Atalanta, 40 (1/2), 263-272, Wurzburg, 2009 (ISSN 0171-0079).
“Morpho-like optical phenomenon in the neotropical lycaenid butterfly Mercedes atnius”,
Zsolt Balint, Serge Berthier, Julie Boulenguez & Victoria Welch,
Published in: Atalanta (sic), 40 (1/2), 263-272, Wurzburg, 2009 (ISSN 0171-0079)
Abstract: We report a study of two distantly related day-flying lepidopterous insects [Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae: Mercedes atnius (Herrich-Schäffer, 1853)., Nymphalidae: Morpho rhetenor (Cramer, 1775)]. Their wing dorsa generate superficially similar blue structural colour. Cover- and ground-scale layers in the wings of the species involved were investigated using optical and electronic microscopy to detect micro- and nanostructures. The layers of the scales in the two species are qualitatively different in terms of their morphologies and pigmentation. Wing reflectivity was measured using spectroscopic and sociometric techniques and simple models were proposed to analyse the measurements taken. Optical properties of the two butterflies are not as significantly different as their morphologies.
We hypothesise that the different wing-beats of the species examined have an important role and explain how the two optically similar phenomena can work differently in nature.
Background/ Significance of this paper: The Neotropical butterfly genus Morpho (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Morphinae) has received particular attention from entomologists, and physicists. The latter tend to focus their investigations on detecting micro- and nanostructures in the wing scales and on the mechanism by which these structures manipulate light.
Quite a number of papers have been published in the last decades on this topic in scientific journals in the physics literature. One of the most studied species is Morpho rhetenor (Cramer, 1775), probably because it has a relatively simple scale morphology compared with related species. However, some other Neotropical butterflies also possess Morpho-like vivid blue on their wing surface, including those in the genus Mercedes.
The full text of this article is available in the journal Atalanta, 40 (1/2), 263-272, Wurzburg, 2009 (ISSN 0171-0079).
Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Quote of the Week- Thomas Huxley - science, art and comittees
In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them.
Thomas Huxley
It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy.
Thomas Huxley
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
Thomas Huxley
Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.
Thomas Huxley
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
Thomas Huxley
The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.
Thomas Huxley
The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.
Thomas Huxley
The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley
Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy.
Thomas Huxley
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
Thomas Huxley
Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.
Thomas Huxley
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
Thomas Huxley
The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.
Thomas Huxley
The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.
Thomas Huxley
The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.
Thomas Huxley
Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.
Thomas Huxley
Friday, 7 June 2019
Quote of the week- Albert Einstein- order in nature
"Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature."
- Albert Einstein
- Albert Einstein
Monday, 26 August 2013
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Discovery and description of a new monkey species- the Lesula- (Link of the day):
Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!!
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.
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.
Monday, 25 June 2012
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.
Friday, 22 June 2012
Happy Birthday, Alan Turing
Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!
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.
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.
Sunday, 3 June 2012
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
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?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*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
Sunday, 13 May 2012
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
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.)
Monday, 16 April 2012
Cheering Up Bird- Black Heron
Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!
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].
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Pacific Eels, The Fukang Meteorite and Plastic-eating Fungi
Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful!
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".
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
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.
Monday, 19 March 2012
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
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
Friday, 2 March 2012
Giant insects- past and present
Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.
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
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
Monday, 27 February 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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
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
Friday, 10 February 2012
Links of the day- Koalas, travel photographs and the harm of spanking children
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
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