Tuesday, November 13, 2012
oarfish
Oarfish are large, greatly elongated, pelagic Lampriform fishes comprising the small family Regalecidae. Found in all temperate to tropical oceans yet rarely seen.
One of these, the king of herrings (Regalecus glesne), is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest bony fish alive, at up to 17 metres (56 ft) in length.
enbryogenesis in humans
conodonts
Vent sea anemones
Caption: Vent sea anemones: a large, so far uncollected and therefore undescribed species, whose tentacles, 1 m in length, are orientated into the current.
Artist: Violaine Martin
Gage, J.D. and Tyler, P.A. (1991). Deep Sea Biology: A natural history of organisms at the deep-sea floor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jaguarundi
Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi)
by Jessica Rick
Compared to other small neotropical felids, jaguarundis have a more elongated body, smaller, more rounded ears, and shorter limbs relative to body size. Jaguarundis are slightly larger than domesticated house cats. The head and body length may range from 505 to 770 mm. The tail is long, ranging from 330 to 600 mm. The weight ranges from 4.5 to 9.0 kg. Males are slightly larger and heavier than females of the same population. Two color morphs are present in H. yaguarondi. One is dark grayish-black, and the other is reddish in color.
Jaguarundis are known as very secretive animals. It was once believed that they were solitary except during the breeding season. Recent reports of pairs suggest that they may be more social than once thought. Pairs are often sighted in Paraguay, but individuals in Mexico are believed to be solitary. They are mostly diurnal, with their peak in activity occurring around 11 in the morning. Some activity does occur at night, and they are often reported as being nocturnal and diurnal. Jaguarundis are terrestrial but are also good climbers and swimmers…
Monday, November 12, 2012
20 women in the senate
Twenty women are coming in to the United States Senate in January, the most we’ll have ever had as a country. Here they are:
- Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (New!)
- Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin (New!)
- Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska (New!)
- Democrat Mazie Hirono of Hawaii (New!)
- Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota (New!)
- Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri
- Democrat Kristen Gillibrand of New York
- Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
- Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
- Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California
- Democrat Barbara Boxer of California
- Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington
- Democrat Patty Murray of Washington
- Republican Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire
- Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
- Republican Susan Collins of Maine
- Democrat Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
- Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
- Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
- Democrat Kay Hagan of North Carolina
This historic group of Senators includes, but is not limited to, the first openly gay United States Senator in history, the first Asian-American woman, the first Buddhist, and even a Republican or four.
limnoscelis
Limnoscelis is a genus of large (1.5 m), very reptile-like diadectomorph (a type of reptile-like amphibian) from the Early Permian of North America. Contrary to other diadectomorphans, Limnoscelis appear to have been a carnivore. Though the post cranial skeleton is very similar to the early large bodied reptiles like pelycosaurs and pareiasaurs, the digits lacked claws, and the bones of the ankle bones were fused like in other reptile-like amphibians. This would not allow them to use their feet actively in traction, but rather as holdfasts, indicating Limnoscelis primarily hunted slow moving prey.
(images: T - Dmitry Bogdanov; B - S. W. Williston)
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
romney on climate change
This story is part of a two-part series about the presidential candidates' climate policies. Click Here For The Story About President Obama
Neither presidential candidate mentioned climate change during their three debates — in fact, the issue is nearly absent from the entire campaign. That's because the issue poses challenges for each candidate.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has accepted the scientific consensus that the planet is warming up. But he has not accepted another element of that consensus: that humans are largely responsible. His position is well-grounded in politics, but not so in logic.
Romney rarely speaks of climate change; he has written that he believes the planet is warming up. But why it's happening is another matter.
"My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet, and the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try and reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us," he said at a private fundraiser early in the campaign.
In other written comments, he has since said humans play some role, but he hasn't embraced the sweeping scientific consensus — backed by thousands of studies and accepted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and its counterparts around the world — that humans are largely responsible.
You could look at this simply as a political position to appeal to Republicans skeptical about climate change. But to a philosopher, this is also an example of faulty logic.
"The flaw in that argument is that contrary to what he says, there is a consensus among climate scientists about the extent of human-induced warming and the degree of risk to the planet," says Gary Gutting, a science philosopher at the University of Notre Dame.
He says since Romney is not a climate expert, he has to make the same decision the rest of us non-experts do. Do we trust the National Academy of Sciences and other experts or not?
Gutting says once you decide to trust an expert, you can't just bail out anywhere, as if you were in a cab.
"You have to stay for the whole ride that the driver's taking you on," he says, borrowing another philosopher's metaphor. "You can't accept their authority for one dimension of the discussion and then say, well, we'll forget about it for another dimension of the discussion."
Logical or not, that's exactly what a lot of Americans do.
Anthony Leiserowitz at the Yale Project on Climate Communication finds this factual cherry-picking in his polling data. Some 70 percent of Americans think that climate change is happening, but only about 54 percent of Americans believe it's caused by human activities.
Often, people don't even know there's a strong scientific consensus, so they aren't actually rejecting science here. Instead, Dan Kahan at Yale Law School says people tend to base their judgments largely on what their peers think.
After all, if you decide to buy a gas guzzler because you don't accept climate change, that decision won't have big consequences for the planet.
"It's just not important enough to matter, so it's costless for [people] to make mistakes on that," Kahan says. "But what they believe about climate change can make a big difference to them in their communities. If I go back to New Haven and march around the old campus with a sign that says 'climate change is a hoax,' that's not going to be very good for me in my community."
Kahan says it's actually rational for people to reject climate science if their peers are rejecting it.
"That's probably not bad for them [personally], although it's not good for society."
Shading Language
Looked at this way, it's rational for Mitt Romney to tell his conservative base what it wants to hear about climate change. Leiserowitz says that at least makes sense in the current political climate, which is different from what it was during the last election.
"Four years ago, John McCain, the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, had been the primary champion of climate change action in the U.S. Senate for over a decade," Leiserowitz says.
Romney was strongly in that do-something camp when he was governor of Massachusetts. But he eventually changed his tune, as he eyed a 2008 run for president and staked out some more conservative positions.
Yet Leiserowitz says Romney doesn't want to alienate the majority of Americans, who see climate change as a real issue, so he's shading his language, "and so he's trying to walk that tightrope between those two very different positions."
That position paves the way for Romney to say he doesn't intend to reduce carbon emissions. The Romney campaign would not provide a spokesperson for this report. But the campaign's domestic policy adviser, Oren Cass, laid out Romney's climate policy at an event at MIT, webcast by E&E TV.
"When Gov. Romney talks about a no-regrets policy, what he means is the policies that we can pursue, that will move forward, particularly with technological innovation, to find solutions without having negative effects on our economy in the interim," Cass said.
In other words, research, but no action — other than rolling back some of the Obama administration's climate policies.
That again goes against the consensus of the National Academy of Sciences, which concludes that time is rapidly running out to take action if we are to prevent some of the serious consequences of climate change. But philosopher Gutting says Romney recognizes that scientists don't get the last word here.
"He does say this, and he's right about this: In the end, policymakers and the public, and not scientists, have to decide what relative balance of risks and costs they think they can live with."
And that plays out in the nation's broader political debate.npr
Thursday, October 25, 2012
electoral math as of october 24th 2012
Electoral Math 10/24/12: Obama 277, Romney 235
No Leaners: Obama 281, Romney 257
octopus babies
When we picked up the shell from the ROV’s arm, to our surprise, a small octopus came out of the shell. It was a female that laid her eggs inside the shell. We put shell and octopus in a tank with seawater, and after one minute thousands of octopus larvae started to stream out of the shell. The octopus eggs were hatching! That was the first time we had observed such a magnificent show. The larvae were changing coloration from transparent with dark spots to brown, and swimming like squid – although on a millimeter scale.natgeo
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
ammonite graveyard
“Ammonite graveyard” by John Sibbick
“John Sibbick’s detailed interpretation of a graveyard of extinct swimming mollusks called ammonites. An acclaimed artist, Sibbick has even been honored with a newfound pterosaur named after him, dubbedLudodactylus sibbicki.” boingboing
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