cwilcox | February 27, 2009Heart the size of a Mini Cooper.Mouth big enough to hold 100 people.Longer than a basketball court.Weighing as much as 25 large elephants.It is the largest creature ever to inhabit the earth.But we know precious little about it.That's right, folks! Yours truly (and a few other awesome bloggers) have been given the opportunity to screen National Geographic Channelâs new TV program “Kingdom of the Blue Whale,” which premieres Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, thanks to a very kind and wonderful Digital Consultant, Minjae Ormes.
Instead of posting repetitive reviews, Daniel Brown at…
cwilcox | February 27, 2009
This giant freshwater stingray was caught as a part of a National Geographic expedition in Thailand this week. It weighed in at a whopping 550 to 990 lbs and was as wide as a full grown man is tall. For the record, that would be one huge, painful barb to be stung by. The expedition was searching for "Megafishes" as a part of a documentary on Earth's 20 largest freshwater fish.
The gargantuan ray is one of the 200 species of rays and is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN red list. Little is known about their ecology since fishing decimated their populations. The National Geographic…
cwilcox | February 25, 2009Sure, seeing gators is cool. And the Jellyfish was a personal fetish. But this - this is so much cooler.
Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain. In Florida, we have these slow-moving, cow like sea creatures called Manatees. They're cute in an ugly sort of way. Anyhow, when it gets colder out, they like to travel upstream or to just about anywhere warm. As it turns out, a local power plant happens to make the water around itself pretty warm while cooling its systems - about 80 degrees F, which is upwards of 10 to 30 degrees warmer than the bay water temperature during the colder months…
cwilcox | February 25, 2009I thought I'd try to build some suspense for a future post (that, and I want an excuse to post some nice pictures). So, I'll just leave you with these clues:
1. Tom Selleck.2. A heart the size of a mini-cooper.
And these images:
What am I going to write about? You'll have to see... or go ahead, try to guess!
Which also reminds me, in general. Check out the footer to my posts - I successfully added some "reactions" and "ratings". It'll make me feel a whole lot more special if people use them!
cwilcox | February 24, 2009Can't find that perfect piece to tie your living room together?
How about your DNA?
A company called DNA 11 offers you the opportunity to turn your genes into works of art. They're actually quite attractive, too. Kind of modern-styling with a nerd edge:
Of course, it'll cost you at least $169 a piece, but hey - that's the price of a quality artwork! I guarantee you when I stop being a broke scientist*, I'm going to get me one of these for my house that I'll be able to afford*. They're just too cool
*wishful thinking, I knowHat-Tip
cwilcox | February 24, 2009"Sleep, and dream of large women..."
Westley might have been talking to a giant, but he could have said the same thing to the humpback whale population that spends every December to April in the "four-island" region off of the coast of Maui, Hawaii. Researchers from the Dolphin Institute in Honolulu have been monitoring, photographing, and recording information about humpbacks in the area for years. They wanted to better understand the mating behavior of these immense aquatic beasts.
Humpback whales are one of the largest whales in the ocean, but even still observing and recording data on…
cwilcox | February 24, 2009My college friend, Mike, has applied to the best job in the world. He's a great guy and a total nerd, so vote him up and give him the chance of a lifetime: Vote NOW!!!
cwilcox | February 23, 2009Ok. So, as a marine biologist, I happen to know a few things about marine organisms. Whenever I walk on a beach and find something interesting, I happen to enjoy talking about those few things I know to whoever is unlucky enough to be walking with me. I love finding marine life on the beaches - it just never gets old. So you can imagine my excitement when we're strolling along Casey Key near sunset and we see this:
It was about a foot across - it was huge! I had a total nerd moment.
At this point, I have a confession to make. I've heard that admitting you have a problem is the first step to…
cwilcox | February 22, 2009Gotta love Zooborns for always finding great cute baby photos. I think these guys are simply the cutest in that weird, funny-looking sort of way!
They're Tawny Frogmouth chicks. Below is an image Allie took when we went behind the scenes at SeaWorld of an adult. They're similar to owls, but are not true "owls". They are raptors, like owls, but they catch their prey with their beaks instead of their talons and have a few physiological differences. Like many species of birds, they're monogamous, and will stick to their mate until death do them part. And, as far as conservation is concerned,…
cwilcox | February 21, 2009So I live in Florida. It has its benefits. For example, last weekend I went walking around Myakka State Park with Barry and his family. Whenever you walk in a park in Florida with water, you're really looking for one thing: Gators. Luckily, just about every body of freshwater in Florida has them, so you're not disappointed:These guys were hanging out, sunning themselves about 30 feet away from us. I wanted to get closer for a good head shot, but Barry said I shouldn't... Oh well.
But alligators aren't the only wildlife that Myakka has to offer. Check out these shots we got of some turkey…
cwilcox | February 21, 2009This isn't the first time I've mentioned Parasitic Wasps. They're a rude sort of parasite, laying their eggs inside unwitting hosts to grow up and eat them from the inside out. While it sounds gross and, frankly, a little evil, it makes them also really good at one thing: biocontrol.
When Sarah Palin made her off-putting remark about research on fruit flies, everyone assumed she meant the bio model Drosophila. But she was actually referring to research on the Olive Fruit Fly, Bactrocera oleae. The pest infiltrated Californian olive groves in the late 1990s, and has been wreaking havoc ever…
cwilcox | February 19, 2009Men see scantily clad women as objects according to new research.
...Anyone shocked?
To be entirely scientific, the research, presented at the AAAS annual meeting , showed that the parts of the brain responsible for tool use and action lit up when Princeton college undergrads were shown images of women in bikinis (without their faces) for a fraction of a second.
"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," said…
cwilcox | February 18, 2009Sure, no one wants to think they're ugly. Statistically some of us have to be, but no one wants to think they're below average. But most of us, save a few that Carly Simon might have sung about, think we're pretty accurate about how we look. We know if we're a 2 or a 10 - whether we like to admit it or not. Or, do we?
An ingenious study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PDF) looked at how well people knew their own face. They took neutral photos of people and morphed their images to different degrees to either be more "attractive" (like a composite face) or "less…
cwilcox | February 18, 2009I take a big issue with breed-specific legislation. Politicians target innocent breeds that they claim are "dangerous" because they're too small-minded to look at the facts of how dogs become aggressive. If you were to outlaw "dangerous" breeds, you'd have to start with the most aggressive - like Dachshunds, Chihuahuas, and Jack Russell Terriers. Pit Bulls don't even make the list - and have only ranked higher than 5th on the Vicious Animal Legislation Task Force's Reports once (in 1992, and were still below Cocker Spaniels). People are killed often by other breeds, including the ever-lovable…
cwilcox | February 16, 2009Been feeling under the weather? Nose all stuffed up, barely able to breathe? Well, at least one doctor recommends that you get yourself off to treat that nasal drip, any way you can. Seriously - the suggestion was even published in Medical Hypotheses, a real journal.
The author, Sina Zarrintan from Iran, points out that sex and masturbation might be safer means of relieving nasal decongestion than medications.
The basic argument is simple. Stuffy noses are caused by the nasal membranes becoming swollen from inflamed blood vessels. Orgasms, by nature, turn on the sympathetic nervous system,…
cwilcox | February 15, 2009I can has cheezburger has too many cute photos. Like this one:
I just want to give it a hug.
But you should give it your best LOL caption!
cwilcox | February 14, 2009If I ask you what group of organisms is an exhibition of evolution at its finest, what would you say? Most people, I think, would say human beings, or at least apex predators. After all, we have staggering intellect compared to our prey items and clearly dominate the planet, eat what we will, etc. Not only that, we're insanely complex. Ask some scientists, and they might give you any number of answers. Cockroaches are likely to exist long after we do, as are rodents, so maybe they get the title. Or, being scientists, they might be biased to whatever organism they study. Maybe algae and plants…
cwilcox | February 14, 2009hat tip Linda Lin
Some good science/love quotes:"In science as in love, too much concentration on technique can often lead to impotence."â P. L. Berger
"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."â Henry Louis Mencken
"When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before."âBlaise Pascal
"Love is a better teacher than duty."âAlbert Einstein
"To make love work, understand where it comes from.""Falling in love may be natural, but that doesn't mean it's not exceptional."âCarl Zimmer
And, while I'm at it...According to Heisenberg's Uncertanty Principle of QM…
cwilcox | February 13, 2009Happy Valentine's Day! Though, I doubt this post fits well into your lovely romantic images of the day...
I promised another vertebrate, so here it is, a parasite so cruel it's sure to make you cringe: The Candiru.
It looks innocent enough. It's a little catfish. Heck, it's so little it's known as the "toothpick fish", and yet it's more feared in the Amazon River than the fierce Piranha.
To understand why, you have to understand what this parasitic catfish does. It's intended hosts are other fish. When it finds a host, it burrows its head in to its gills and eats the blood, tissues, or mucus…
cwilcox | February 13, 2009When I first saw the headline, I just shook my head. Then I looked at the picture of the kid - and I really do mean kid. Look at him! He looks like he's 8! Heck, I know adults that don't seem to know the consequences of unprotected sex, but for a 13 yr old and a 15 yr old to have to deal with them is heartbreaking. The couple got pregnant after only 1 night of unprotected sex, and didn't tell their families until she was over 18 weeks pregnant.
What's saddest is that it's clear from the way he and the baby's mother talk about sex and parenting that they were never really taught about sex…