ecology
scientificactivist | August 9, 2006From the archives:
(19 January 2006) Today's issue of Nature features several interesting articles about the effects of global warming. Two are research articles, with one revising estimates of the expected increase in sea level due to global warming and the other demonstrating how certain important marine ecosystems could be vulnerable to changes in ocean currents due to global warming. The journal also contains an editorial and a news feature about the need to monitor ocean currents more closely to better assess the consequences of global warming and to warn us of impending climate…
scientificactivist | August 8, 2006From the archives:
(13 January 2006) What do global warming and epidemic diseases have in common? Apparently they have a lot, at least when it comes to amphibians.
Microorganisms have a knack for showing up in unexpected places. In the 1980s, two scientists discovered a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori that causes over 80% of stomach ulcers, once thought to be primarily caused by stress. This turned medical dogma upside-down and earned them the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . Even microorganisms aren't safe from other microorganisms, with bacteria, for example under constant…
tsmith | August 7, 2006Sure, the midwest could become a tropical paradise. But then there's this:
Bathing was banned along 15 kilometres of the Italian Riviera yesterday when more than a hundred holidaymakers were taken to hospital after being infected by toxic tropical algae.
Doctors at Genoa, where most of the victims were treated, said that the poisonous micro-organisms were almost invisible. Ostreopsis ovata are single-cell algae normally found in tropical waters but they have migrated to the Mediterranean because of rising sea temperatures.
Doctors at the San Martino Hospital in Genoa said that the…
clock | August 4, 2006We have recently covered interesting reproductive adaptations in mammals, birds, insects, flatworms, plants and protists. For the time being (until I lose inspiration) I'll try to leave cephalopod sex to the experts and the pretty flower sex to the chimp crew.
In the meantime, I want to cover another Kingdom - the mysterious world of Fungi. And what follows is not just a cute example of a wonderfully evolved reproductive strategy, and not just a way to couple together my two passions - clocks and sex - but also (at the very end), an opportunity to post some of my own hypotheses online.…
chaoticutopia | July 27, 2006I love trees, but trees covered in insects aren't usually my cup of tea. 'Till now.
One of the reasons I chose my house was the giant maple tree by the front porch. The foliage provides shade and privacy in the summer and a terrific Halloween backdrop in the fall. So, a few weeks ago, when I noticed the tree was infested with something, I was a bit concerned. Ok, maybe that's putting it lightly. I threw science out the window and freaked out. "The tree's covered with insects! It's gonna die! Ew!! Call somebody! Quick!"
The homeowner's association sent out an arborist to take a look, and I…
tsmith | July 25, 2006 I've mentioned previously the potential role that mild or asymptomatic infections with influenza may play in transmission and evolution of the virus. Right now, most of our reports of H5N1 have been due to serious infections that caused a patient to seek medical care. These cases are the tip of the iceberg in a normal influenza outbreak, when most of us don't have physician-diagnosed influenza. Instead, we recognize the signs and symptoms, and stay at home to ride it out. Is this happening in Indonesia, Thailand, and elsewhere? For every person who shows symptoms of H5N1 infection, are…
chaoticutopia | July 24, 2006What could a magnificent but arrogant dragon have to do with ecological change? Everything, perhaps, if we can be influenced by myth and metaphor.
I won't be able to return to my series on urbanization for a day or two, so I've brought a few pieces out of the archive and dusted them off. First, I'd like to share a light tale which fits perfectly with recent themes. I wrote it this last spring as a Mother's Day present. It's actually my mom's story--she told it; I wrote it--but we share similar views on the subject. It turned out so well, I think we ought to collaborate more often. It is, of…
clock | July 22, 2006A question from Fred Gould:
Density dependence or just food limitation - Does anyone know of studies that can determine if the long length of development and small size of adult Aedes coming from containers in natural situations is due to competition among the larvae in the containers for food, or just due to the food resources being so diluted in the containers that each larva has a hard time filtering enough water to get sufficient nutrients?
If you know the answer, leave a comment on his blog.
tsmith | July 18, 2006 I've mentioned previously the role, or potential role, that bats play in disease transmission. They have long been suspected, and recently identified, as hosts for the Ebola virus. (Whether they're the main reservoir species and what--if any--role they play in transmission of the virus to humans remains to be determined). They've also been implicated in the emergence of SARS and Nipah virus, and of course, have long been associated with the maintenance of rabies virus. A new paper reviews the role of bats in the maintenance and emergence of novel viruses.
Bats represent a huge portion…
tsmith | July 13, 2006I mentioned in this post on Ebola that I thought the authors were doing a bit too much extrapolation regarding their statement that the evolution of sociality in hominids has been constrained by pathogens such as Ebola. I didn't elaborate on that topic because it's a bit too far afield from my areas of expertise, but John Hawks has much more on the topic of pathogens and fitness in primate groups.
clock | July 13, 2006Kevin sent three new reports. This is the first one. Next one tomorrow and the third on Monday. All exactly at noon!
Qianjiaping Report
(tian-jia-ping)
30 June
There were rumors that Dr. Li and Dr. Stanford and Emma were arriving later this afternoon. They were expected around 6:30pm. By the time 7pm rolled around and no one showed up. Vanessa and I decided to get some food at a new restaurant (what we are calling the Red Lantern Restaurant). The restaurant was one of the more scenic restaurants in town. You have to cross a bridge in order to get to it, and due to all the rain, the river…
hrynyshyn | July 13, 2006A study just published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management concludes that the Prince William Sound ecosystem has fully recovered 17 years after the Exxon Valdez struck a reef and lost 11 million gallons of crude to the Gulf of Alaska. That's not the most interesting part of the study, though.
No, that would be the disclaimer, which I reproduce in full for your convenience:
Disclaimer--The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by ExxonMobil for the time needed to prepare this article; however, the opinions and conclusions expressed herein are…
tsmith | July 12, 2006 The good Dr. Flea has taken some flack previously for comments he's made regarding the treatment of ear infections (or rather, the non-treatment of such). As he notes, most ear infections resolve without antibiotics. Despite this, ear infections are the most common illness for which children visit a pediatrician, receive antibiotics, and undergo surgery in the U.S., at a huge economic cost. A new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests at least some of that cost is wasted, because the bacteria are present in the form of antibiotic-resistant biofilms.
A biofilm…
chaoticutopia | July 11, 2006I used to play among these tall grasses with my imagination running wild, pretending to be a warrior princess--nearly a decade before Xena hit the air. When I wasn't running, I'd often sit near the little lake by the railroad tracks, or wander through the abandoned greenhouse. Here, I learned to be a poet and a philosopher, a dreamer and a lover of nature. I'd watch the prairie dogs yip as the red-tailed hawks swept across the field, sometimes to catch a snack from the birdfeeder in my backyard. Sometimes, on hot summer days, I'd drag an inner tube down to lazily float down Big Dry Creek.…
chaoticutopia | July 3, 2006I seem to have chosen an odd time to take a break from blogging. I'm returning on a holiday Monday, as everyone else is starting their vacation. Just leave it to me to do it the weird way. I've missed posting, especially the Friday Fractal--my apologies to anyone who looked for it. While I've been gone, the world has moved on as usual. Pollution has been getting worse, naturally, and the effects are beginning to show in our National parks. Meanwhile, parks like Mesa Verde (which is celebrating its 100th birthday) are expanding their borders.
While some are working at protecting the wilderness…
razib | July 1, 2006A few years ago there were reports of a new great ape in the Congo, perhaps a chimp-gorilla hybrid. As the story unfolded it seemed more and more plausible that this was a local morph of the common chimpanzee, and genetic tests have confirmed that hunch. It is a subspecies of common chimpanzee, though with unusual morphological features. The latter is important, we see a wide range of phenotypes among humans across small distances, so it should not surprise if chimpanzees also exhibit variation.
clock | June 29, 2006I hope you have heard the Diane Rehm Show on NPR this morning at 10EDT (the first hour of the show). The guest was the presiding Episcopal Bishop-Elect Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church. She is an amazing woman. You should listen to the show here (Real Audio) or here (Windows Media) (the best parts are starting at about 8th minute). I especially liked the way her training in oceanography influences the way she looks at the world and the way her church should be organized.
For instance, she is aware that greater species diversity makes an ecosystem more…
clock | June 23, 2006Here is the fourth part of Kevin's journey. I have just realized that I posted the previous two in the wrong order, thus post #2 should be third and post #3 should be second. I was going by the order in which I received them instead of dates in the journal. And I am doing these things late at night (having them automatically published at a preset time - noon), doing all the HTML for italicising the species names, running the spellcheck, expanding IM-style contractions into full-length words, breaking long paragraphs into multiples of shorter ones for ease of reading on a computer screen,…
clock | June 21, 2006Here is the first of Kevin's e-mailed reports from China, dated June 1-3, 2006. In it, you will be able to see pictures of some natural beauty he saw in China, then another kind of natural beauty he saw in China, then yet another kind of natural beauty he saw in China....
I love the way he writes - he should (will?) be a great blogger. What a combination of a travelogue, a personal diary, and lab notes of a research scientist - all in one, the three aspects of it connected seamlessly into a single narrative. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. So, without further ado, here is Kevin:…
clock | June 20, 2006Let's see how many people incapable of spelling 'plane' arrive here by the way of Google. But I am talking about a real 'plain' - a big one, in China, and about some very real live snakes as well!
A good friend (and ex-neighbor) of mine, Kevin Messenger, is in China right now, surveying herpetofauna (that is - reptiles and amphibians, for the non-biologists here) in a remote area of central China, rarely visited by Weesterners, and never before surveyed by scientists.
He is one of those natural-born herpetologists - he lives, breathes and dreams snakes. When I lived in Raleigh I would often…