.. but perhaps not for the squeamish, not over lunch anyway! Grant & I were e-chatting about some of the great science images we’d seen, & I thought of this one: via PZ comes some stunning imagery of a python digesting a rat. Here’s my favourite from that gallery. (Come to think of it, one […]
Continue readingCategory: animal diversity
conspicuous facultative mimicry in octopuses
Or should that be octopodes? Anyway, this is so much more interesting than so-called psychic octopuses: an octopus whose mimicry can make it more conspicuous, not less. The ‘mimic’ octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus – now, there’s a name that Terry Pratchett would appreciate) is arguably the best colour-changer on the block, & it combines its colour-trickery with […]
Continue readinga solar salamander
This is a new story & potentially a very exciting one (& I must thank Grant for drawing this story to my attention!). A Nature News item (Petherick, 2010) describes the discovery of green algae apparently living within the cells of salamander embryos. I’ll wait with interest for the published paper, but if this finding’s […]
Continue readingarctic foxes in arctic winters
I saw a news story today on a bacterium that can withstand very high radiation exposure, freezing cold, & exposure to vacuum. Cool stuff. Said bacterium isn’t alone in this, mind you, as I know from my colleague Allan Green that lichens have had much the same treatment, shot up into space & reviving once in […]
Continue readinggiant scrotal elephantiasis
Some of the things lecturers say make a lasting impression on students’ memories (albeit not always for the desired reasons). I remember, when I was a biology undergraduate, hearing about some of the undesirable effects of filiarid worm infection. According to the lecturer, in extreme cases this could lead to infected men having to ‘carry […]
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