Archives for February, 2009
Posted by Famous for his paintings — the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa — Leonardo da Vinci was also a brilliant scientist and thinker who lived 500 years ago. He contemplated geology, physics, aeronautics, hydrodynamics, meteorology, and physiology hundreds of years before such disciplines were imagined. His designs included a helicopter, submarine, and a telescope —…
© David Hall/seaphotos.com This newly discovered species of frogfish doesn’t so much swim as hop, bouncing like a ball along the seafloor, scientists said this week. “Each time they strike the seafloor they use their fins to push off and they expel water from tiny gill openings on their sides to jettison themselves forward. With…
Posted by In the animal world, the fight-or-flight instinct is a pretty common response to danger. But when you’re a multimillion-dollar spacecraft, caution is usually the only response you get preprogrammed with. Adding to poor beleaguered NASA’s spate of recent glitches, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter went into safe mode on Monday after suffering what appears to have…
—Image courtesy ESO Going supernova is arguably the most popular way for a star to die. But stars like our sun actually end not with a bang, but a whimper [nods to T.S. Eliot]. These mid-size stars don’t explode at the end of their lives, they swell, releasing shells of gas as they blossom into…
Photo of Naked Mole Rat in the IZW by Stefan Günther Life in a naked mole rat “palace” hums along just fine under the firm rule of the queen. But when she dies the succession can be a bloody contest that may end in death for those trying to claim her throne. Researchers at the Berlin…
© Farid Belbachir/ZSL/OPNA The first camera-trap photographs of the critically endangered Saharan cheetah in Algeria were released today. The Northwest African cheetah is found over the Sahara desert and savannas of North and West Africa, respectively, including Algeria, Niger, Mali, Benin, Burkina-Faso and Togo, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a news statement. “The populations are very…
It is only relatively recently that it has dawned upon humans that the ocean is not something that can be taken for granted. Vast, deep, unfathomable in so many ways, the great body of liquid that envelops our planet at an average depth of some six miles acts as the main regulator of our weather…
By Rebecca Byerly in Ghat, Libya On the road to the start of the race! Cold, cold, night with very little sleep. I cannot imagine that we will not sleep again until Friday or late Thursday. Now on the bus going to the start of the race. I am sitting next to Mudar and his…
Right now people in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the last few weeks when Venus will shine bright in the night. Around the end of March the “evening star” becomes the “morning star,” and the planet won’t grace the dusk skies again until next year. (Read more at EarthSky to find out why Venus makes…
TRAFFIC photo by Chris R Shepherd Unregulated trade — at 10 to 100 times legal levels — has caused Southeast Asian Box Turtles almost to vanish from parts of Indonesia, where once they were common, according to a report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. “The turtles are used for meat and in traditional…
By Rebecca Byerly in Ghat, Libya We made it to Libya. Actually got to cross into Libya in the cockpit of the plane. The people here seem so happy to see Americans. A lot of other runners were surprised we made it through customs. The camp looks over miles of sand dunes and the Akakus…
Japan proposed, and Kaguya said yes. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) yesterday released what’s being touted as the first ever picture of a penumbral eclipse as seen from the moon. —Image copyright JAXA/NHK The moon-orbiting probe Kaguya (named for a lunar princess in Japanese folklore) snapped the high-definition footage on February 10 as Earth…
Billie Jean, a three-year-old female spectacled bear, made her debut at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Weighing about 113 pounds and still growing, she is quite agile — climbing high in the new structures in her yard, the Zoo said in a news release. “The installation of the new climbing structures are part of the Zoo’s…
It seems fitting that in a year being celebrated worldwide as the 400th anniversary of telescopic astronomy, NASA and ESA have chosen one of Galileo’s first loves, Jupiter, as their next top planet. Cut-away images show the insides of Io, Ganymede, … In January of 1610 the famed Italian Galileo Galilei pointed a homemade ‘scope…
The New Electric Mini-Cooper
Posted by pmcrandle on February 18, 2009 By Shannon Arvizu The Mini Cooper is fun and sporty–but what if it was also the greenest car on the market? This year marks the field trial of the new Mini-E, an all electric Mini Cooper. It consumes no gas, releases zero-emissions from its tailpipe, and has lots of high torque for a zippy pick-up…
The Cretaceous pterosaur Anhanguera (wingspan 9-13 feet) cutaway above shows lungs (red), air sacs associated with the neck (green) and with the wings (blue). Below: life reconstruction of Anhanguera. Illustration by Mark Witton, University of Portsmouth Balloon-like air sacs, which extended from the lungs throughout the body, hollowing out many bones, paved the way for…
U.S. runners are competing this year for the first time in the Libyan Challenge, a grueling 125-mile ultramarathon through some of the most inaccessible parts of the Sahara Desert. “The Libyan Challenge is very pleased to host the first American team on the event,” said Laurent Locke, Libyan Challenge UK representative. “Libya is only just…
Ivory on sale in Vietnam is commonly mixed in with pig teeth and carved bone, perhaps in an attempt to dupe government inspectors, the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC said in a report. © Daniel Stiles/TRAFFIC Indochina’s few surviving wild elephants are under increasing threat from booming illegal ivory prices in Vietnam, according to a…
Chionodraco hamatus, one of the Antartic’s ice fish, can withstand temperatures that freeze the blood of all other types of fish, Census of Marine Life scientists reported today. The ice fish is sometimes called a bloodless or white-blooded fish, because it lost its ability to make hemoglobin during its evolution.This makes the fish a medical…
Sand-fleas such as Hyperoche capucinus, are common predators swimming in polar waters. This specimen is about the width of a finger. Russ Hopcroft, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Census of Marine Life. Earth’s unique, forbidding ice oceans of the Arctic and Antarctic have revealed secrets to explorers, who were especially surprised to find at least 235…
Without decisive action, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted, according to a leading member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from…
An elephant strikes a seismic sensing stance. Placing one foot on tiptoe enhances the sensitivity to seismic signals when using the bone conduction method of sensing, according to Researcher Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell. Photo courtesy Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell Elephants can communicate with one another miles apart by making subsonic calls that vibrate the ground, researchers established a few…
In keeping with the spirit of Valentine’s Day, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates New York’s Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium, sent these pictures today: Photos by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS Paprika, a male red bird of paradise, presented a challenge for senior wild animal keeper, Patti Cooper. Upon his return from a…
FFI photo by Zhao Chao “With only about 100 cao vit gibbons remaining in the world, the recent birth of this baby has extra significance,” Fauna & Flora International said today. “This species is only found in one location in the world, on the international border between Vietnam and China,” the UK-based conservation charity said…
The birds and the bees don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, of course, but some certainly have bizarre mating rituals. Some of the stories National Geographic News published about this over the years included pandas watching porn, damselfly mating games that turn males gay, spiders that glow with fluorescence in the presence of potential mates, gorillas mating in the…
