When I set essays for my first-year students to write during the semester, I try to give them a scientific paper on each topic to start them off. This means that I need to do some extra bedtime reading as I need to select those papers carefully. Today’s post is based on one of those: […]
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stunning biological images
.. 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 readingconspicuous 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 […]
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