Horseshoe crabs and the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Hi. Welcome to Weirdbeautiful.
Image of the week this week is this picture of Horseshoe crabs that I took during my recent trip to London Aquarium.


Limulus polyphemus Image by V. Neblik, 2010. (Copyright V. Neblik, 2010, all rights reserved)with thanks to London Aquarium.

These creatures- more closely related to spiders than crabs have a number of weird attributes- not least their blood, which is literally blue and spider-like "book-lungs". The reason for their blue blood is that, like the blood of molluscs and some arthropods- it contains a copper-based compound- haemocyanin- which transports oxygen and carbon dioxide, rather than haemoglobin, which fulfils the same function in human blood (and which gives our blood its characteristic red colouration). More information on this particular species-Limulus polyphemus- can be found here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limulus_polyphemus )

I am probably one of only a small number of individuals to own one of these creatures, having been given the body of one some years ago by a Canadian icthyologist friend. It is a fascinating, if slightly grisly, gift. My friend had found it dead on the seashore many years prior to that, yet, the creature is in pristine condition despite never having been preserved. I find this surprising - insects keep very well without preservation, but the body of the horseshoe crab is fairly fleshy, underneath its exoskeleton, so it is interesting (to me, at least) that it remains so well intact.

Science Update.
The big science news this week also has a marine theme- it is the story of the enormous oil-spill in the gulf-of Mexico. The best article I have seen on this in the last few days is this one-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100504/sc_livescience/hurricaneseasoncouldhaltoilspillcleanup

One possible solution to the problem, which, oddly, has received no coverage so far, would seem to be that of seeding the spill with large quantities of the oil-slick-eating bacterium A. borkumensis. You can find out more information on this wonderful marine germ here- http://ezinearticles.com/?Bees-and-Bacteria&id=2883002 - this is an older article (the relevant section is towards the end of the article).

Emperor Tamarins, Chimpanzee Grief and Pollen Grains

Hi. Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful. Image of the day is this bizarre, moustachioed creature- the Emperor Tamarin, Saguinus imperator.

Emperor Tamarin, Saguinus imperator. Image (c) Victoria Neblik, 2010, all rights reserved.

The emperor Tamarin is a South American species, found- specifically, in the rainforest in parts of Eastern Peru, Northern Bolivia and Western Brazil, where it lives in groups of around two to eight animals. Both males and females have “moustaches”. This particular individual is part of London Zoo’s, impressive new display-“Rainforest life”. The zoo is calling this new exhibit/enclosure, which also contains golden headed lion tamarins, sloths and cardinal pope birds, their “flagship” display for 2010.

It has been a really busy couple of weeks for me- I am still treading the path/tightrope between art and science, fitting interviews in around finishing several books simultaneously (never a good idea), but, as you can see, I did manage to schedule a visit to London Zoo. I also visited London Aquarium, which launched a new exhibit- “Rainforests of the World”- fairly recently. The aquarium's exhibition is nicely presented, but not as big as I was expecting. Perhaps I have just been to too many aquaria and am getting confused, but I can't help thinking that London Aquarium in general used to have more in it.

I have 2 “links of the week” this week; the first is this popular science article by Henry Fountain in the New York Times-
“Like Origami, Pollen Grains Fold Just So”-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/science/27obpollen.html?ref=science
which talks about recent research describing the way the surfaces of pollen grains fold as they dry –the article comes complete with embedded video.
The second link-of the week is this article (with two videos) about Grief in Chimpanzees-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8645283.stm
In the case of the latter article, I claim pride-by-association as it talks about some of the great research done in Guinea by my good friend and former office-mate, Dr. Dora Biro. Dora is one of those scientists who works incredibly hard (in her case pursuing research in 2 fields simultaneously) and gets great results, but remains modest with it. You can find out more about her work here- http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/staff/academics/biro_d.htm and here - http://oxnav.zoo.ox.ac.uk/