The Best of the Web- Today’s Link- Fish Parasite

Today I just have one link for you- to this very engaging, informative (and simultaneously disturbing) essay entitled "it pays to be nice to your tongue-eating isopod, unfortunate weaverfish"-

http://runningponies.com/2009/09/19/it-pays-to-be-nice-to-your-tongue-eating-isopod-unfortunate-weaverfish/

Best of the Web- Today's Links- Getting Brain Injuries, treating them and the wonders of ice

Good morning!

I have three links for you today, as usual- the first is a news story summarising research on brain injuries that shows that protein-rich drinks can help recovery from brain injuries. I always feel very 'depressed' about [posting about] this kind of animal-experiment, which is a huge debate, all by itself. In this case, I really just want to say that the biology behind it is interesting-

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091207/thl-protein-drink-may-aid-brain-injury-d831572.html

The second link is to a tabloid news story about what boxing and "wrestling" (WWE-style) does to the brain - the article talks about "chronic traumatic encephelopathy" and the finding of Tau proteins (associated with Alzheimer's disease) in the brain of a 33-year old wrestler-
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/2765141/The-brain-of-ex-WWE-star-Test-resembled-an-Alzheimers-patient-according-to-new-report.html

Today's final link is more upbeat- I would like to highlight a blog with a series of pictures and an essay (for want of a better word) about some bizarre, hair-like ice formations (also known as "hair ice"). The more I learn about water and ice and their strange properties, the more impressed I am- sometimes, it seems, that the things right under our noses and all around us-like water- are just as interesting and weird as the world's more obscure and exotic substances:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2qofhD/my.ilstu.edu/~jrcarter/ice/diurnal/wood/

Best of the Web- Today's Links- Robotic Hands, Hooded crows and bald parrots

The first of today's links is to a short story about an amputee being fitted with a robotic hand and learning to move it with his mind. This was the stuff of science fiction just a short time ago.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091202/tsc-man-controls-robotic-hand-with-mind-4b158bc.html

The second link is to a lovely image of a stand-off between a cat and one of my favourite bird species: a hooded crow, Corvus cornix. Actually, I have just spent this afternoon writing about the hooded crow for a feature in the "weirdbeautiful" book. Found across Eurasia, not only are they elegant, but, like a lot of the crow family, they are highly intelligent birds. The image is here-

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_photophile/100614.html

Finally, thanks to the tabloids (in this case the British newspaper "The Sun") , we have a heart warming story about a bald parrot .... so, if you have ever wondered what a parrot would look like without any feathers (odd and more than a little ungainly, it has to be said), the images and story are here- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2765753/Parrot-with-no-feathers-lives-happily.html

The Best of the Web- Today’s Links

The first of today's links is the blog of Vermont-based wildbird enthusiast Chris Petrak : "Tails of Birding"
http://tailsofbirding.blogspot.com/
which is an entertaining read.

As an arachnophobe it is rare that I have anything positive at all to say about spiders and I certainly never expected to be encouraging people to look at pictures of them, but here is a picture of a very small (4mm) and extremely colourful spider that is as close as an arachnid may ever get to "cute" or beautiful-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2749828/Amazing-mating-display-of-the-Australian-peacock-spider.html

- the beast in question is an Australian Peacock Spider- one of a group of highly coloured spider species- you can find a little more information and several more photographs of it here-

http://www.phenomenica.com/2009/11/jumping-peacock-spider.html

The Best of the web: Today’s links

It is not hard to find good wildlife images on the internet, but there are some really magnificent pictures of birds and flowers on this flikr photostream- http://www.flickr.com/photos/natural_wonders_photography/

There’s a lovely picture of the truly ridiculous-looking “Madagascan leaf-nosed snake” (Langaha madagascariensis) here-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/g-na/3212269140/
Generally, in the animal kingdom, it is the males who have the more outlandish ornaments – horns, headwires, peacock’s tails and so on- but in this case, the males have a comparatively discrete thin, pointed snouts, making them look like twigs, whilst the females have the more elaborate leaf-shaped noses for which the species is famous. These weird creatures live on tree-living animals, such as lizards, frogs and bird nestlings and grow to around a metre long.

This week’s educational link is to this article on snakes of Madagascar -
http://www.wildmadagascar.org/wildlife/snakes.html

Extra weblinks- photography competition winners and renewable fuel

The winning entries for National Geographic's International Photography Contest are now online- there are some really lovely images- an elephant swimming with his driver standing on his tusks, photoluminescent coral, an Indonesian volcano.....

you can find the pictures at this address, on the website of The Boston Globe- http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/national_geographics_internati.html

One of the day's odder wildlife stories is this article talking about a man who was attacked by a kangaroo, whilst trying to rescue his dog from it...
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091123/twl-kangaroo-slashes-drowning-dog-s-owne-3fd0ae9.html [STORY REMOVED BY YAHOO DEC09]

Finally, there is a story here - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091124/tts-uk-norway-osmotic-ca02f96.html [STORY REMOVED BY YAHOO DEC09] about a new, renewable energy power plant in Norway that generates power from osmosis.

The Best of the Web- Today’s Links

One of the more depressing wildlife stories to hit the news this week was that of the pet shop in Yokohama, which sells all sorts of rare, difficult-to-care-for and (allegedly) endangered species to the general public. That story was published in a British tabloid newspaper (The Sun)- you can find it here- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2667441/Pick-up-a-penguin-sloth-or-alligator-at-worlds-most-exotic-pet-shop.html.

Of course, not all animals adopted by individuals have a bad life – the story of “Christian-the-lion” (a captive bred lion cub bought in Harrods’ Pet Shop and eventually released into the wild by his owners) is wonderfully uplifting (http://victorianeblik.blogspot.com/2009/08/christian-lion.html)- but, on the whole, this trade clearly does not benefit anyone.

I think the most interesting science story this week, however, is this scientific study by Craig Bennett and colleagues at The University of California and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire measuring brain activity in a dead fish. The point of the publication (a scientific poster), of course, is to show that fMRI (a tool used in a lot of studies of brain activity) can give false readings and should be used with caution. There’s a synopsis of the study and paper on “Wired” –here- http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
The article’s dry tone and some of the comments are pretty good: nerd-humour at its finest.