http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/biology-blog.html Biology blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Fri, 08 May 2009 04:16:06 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/biology-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/biology-blog.html 96 95 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/cutting-cattle-methane.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/cutting-cattle-methane.html Fri, 08 May 2009 04:16:06 GMT Beef farmers can breathe easier thanks to University of Alberta scientists who have developed a formula to reduce methane gas in cattle. By developing equations that balance starch, sugar, cellulose, ash, fat and other elements of feed, a Canada-wide team of researchers has given beef producers the tools to lessen the methane gas their cattle produce by as much as 25 per cent........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/what-makes-a-cow-a-cow.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/what-makes-a-cow-a-cow.html Fri, 08 May 2009 04:16:06 GMT Scientists report today in the journal Science that they have sequenced the bovine genome, for the first time revealing the genetic features that distinguish cattle from humans and other mammals. The six-year effort involved an international consortium of scientists and is the first full genome sequence of any ruminant species. Ruminants are distinctive in that they have a four-chambered stomach that with the aid of a multitude of resident microbes allows them to digest low quality forage such as grass........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/4182009.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/4182009.html Fri, 08 May 2009 04:16:06 GMT The coincidental sequence repeated itself! After we had crossed the dam (see yesterday’s post), we continued hiking around the lake. I steered my feet deeper into the forest though. I was hoping to see anything that might be blooming. On the drive down we passed many trees with white flowers on them — serviceberry perhaps? — and I wondered if there might be some in my forest. There weren’t that we found, but there was a nice log to sit upon and contemplate the universe for a ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/fish-with-transparent-head.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2009/fish-with-transparent-head.html Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:35:28 GMT Check out this fish called Macropinna microstoma.
It has tubular eyes and a see-through head. ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/ecosystem-changes-and-climate-warming.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2008/ecosystem-changes-and-climate-warming.html Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:52:11 GMT Unparalleled warming over the last few decades has triggered widespread ecosystem changes in a number of temperate North American and Western European lakes, say scientists at Queen's University and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The team reports that striking changes are now occurring in a number of temperate lakes similar to those previously observed in the rapidly warming Arctic, eventhough typically a number of decades later. The Arctic has long been considered a "bellwether" of what will eventually happen with warmer conditions farther south........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2008/everywhere-i-look.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2008/everywhere-i-look.html Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:52:11 GMT Remember the early days of this humble blog when I anguished about the lack of walnut trees in my woods at Roundrock? There was a point where any time I happened upon a walnut tree, it gave it a post of its own, keeping a count. I even tried plotting their location on a map ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/primates-scent-speaks-volumes.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/primates-scent-speaks-volumes.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT Perhaps judging a man by his cologne isn't as superficial as it seems. Duke University researchers, using sophisticated machinery to analyze hundreds of chemical components in a ringtailed lemur's distinctive scent, have observed that individual males are not only advertising their fitness for fatherhood, but also a bit about their family tree as well........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/gravity-defying-bird-beak-mystery.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/gravity-defying-bird-beak-mystery.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT As Charles Darwin showed nearly 150 years ago, bird beaks are exquisitely adapted to the birds' feeding strategy. A team of MIT mathematicians and engineers has now explained exactly how some shorebirds use their long, thin beaks to defy gravity and transport food into their mouths. The phalarope, commonly found in western North America, takes advantage of surface interactions between its beak and water droplets to propel bits of food from the tip of its long beak to its mouth, the research team reports in the May 16 issue of Science........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2008/some-migratory-birds-cant-find-success.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2008/some-migratory-birds-cant-find-success.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT New research finds fresh evidence that urbanization in the United States threatens the populations of some species of migratory birds. But the six-year study also refutes one of the most widely accepted explanations of why urban areas are so hostile to some kinds of birds. Most ecologists have assumed that common nest predators in urban areas - such as house cats and raccoons - were destroying eggs or killing young birds in greater numbers than in rural areas, said Amanda Rodewald, co-author of the study and associate professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2008/giant-fossil-frog-from-hell.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/2-2008/giant-fossil-frog-from-hell.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT A team of researchers, led by Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist. The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2008/global-nitrogen-budget-dont-forget-fish.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/1-2008/global-nitrogen-budget-dont-forget-fish.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT Like bank accounts, the nutrient cycles that influence the natural world are regulated by inputs and outputs. If a routine withdrawal is overlooked, balance sheets become inaccurate. Over time, overlooked deductions can undermine our ability to understand and manage ecological systems. Recent research by the Universite de Montreal (Canada) and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (Millbrook, New York) has revealed an important, but seldom accounted for, withdrawal in the global nitrogen cycle: commercial fisheries. Results, published as the cover story in the recent issue of Nature Geoscience, highlight the role that fisheries play in removing nitrogen from coastal oceans........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/deadwood-in-winter.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/deadwood-in-winter.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:31:43 GMT Sky and snowpack are two kinds of white, and the pale skin of arboreal fungi makes a third. Within a year or two after death, a log or snag has already become an extension of the ground in one respect: it is shot through with networks of fungal hyphae, the mycelium. This is not a root structure - remember that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Rather, it is like a skilled miner who has adapted to the job so well that he has become almost indistinguishable from the ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/cavanillesia-arborea.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/cavanillesia-arborea.html Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:20:37 GMT Inspired by the photographs of baobab a few weeks ago, Nikolaus von Behr sent along these photographs of the “Brazilian baobab”, or barriguda, from the country''s dry interior forests (map). Thank you, ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/hemical-triggers-for-aggression-in-mice.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/hemical-triggers-for-aggression-in-mice.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:21:27 GMT The work, reported in an advance, online issue of the journal Nature on December 6, 2007, furthers the broad and important goal of elucidating how the neurological system can detect and respond to specific cues in of a sea of potential triggers. These results are a really exciting starting place for us to understand how pheromones and the brain can shape behavior, says team leader Lisa Stowers of the Scripps Research Department of Cell Biology........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/flying-fish-unmanned-aircraft-takes-off.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/flying-fish-unmanned-aircraft-takes-off.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:21:27 GMT Flying fish were the inspiration for an unmanned seaplane with a 7-foot wingspan developed at the University of Michigan. The autonomous craft is thought to bethe first seaplane that can initiate and perform its own takeoffs and landings on water. Funded by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it is designed to advance the agency's "persistent ocean surveillance" program........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/toll-of-climate-change-on-world-food-supply.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/12-2007/toll-of-climate-change-on-world-food-supply.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:21:27 GMT Global agriculture, already predicted to be stressed by climate change in coming decades, could go into steep, unanticipated declines in some regions due to complications that researchers have so far inadequately considered, say three new scientific reports. The authors say that progressive changes predicted to stem from 1- to 5-degree C temperature rises in coming decades fail to account for seasonal extremes of heat, drought or rain, multiplier effects of spreading diseases or weeds, and other ecological upsets. All are believed more likely in the future. Coauthored by leading scientists from Europe, North America and Australia, they appear in this weeks issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2007/sunday-sampling.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2007/sunday-sampling.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:21:27 GMT Some sort of mushroom, I think. We saw this baseball-sized fungus growing on the ridgetop at Fallen Timbers on our last visit. It bloomed from the recent rains, I suppose. On first glancing at it, I really thought it was a baseball that had found its way to the middle of the forest ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/nervous-birds-take-more-risks.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/nervous-birds-take-more-risks.html Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:15:45 GMT Researchers have shown that birds with higher stress levels adopt bolder behaviour than their normally more relaxed peers in stressful situations. A University of Exeter research team studied zebra finches, which had been selectively bred to produce three distinct types laid-back, normal and stressed based on their levels of stress hormone. The group was surprised to find that the stressed birds were bolder and took more risks in a new environment than the group that was commonly more laid-back. Their findings are published recently (26 October) in the journal Hormones and Behaviour........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/acer-japonicum-o-taki.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/acer-japonicum-o-taki.html Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:15:45 GMT Along Upper Asian Way in UBC Botanical Garden is one spot that is a favourite of mine in October. Here, two poorly-known cultivars of downy Japanese maple face each other on opposite sides of the path: Acer japonicum 'O-taki' and Acer japonicum 'O-isami'. Both colour in rich shades of gold and red, and, to my memory, reliably so in Vancouver's ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/not-just-humans-benefit-from-animal-biotechnology.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2007/not-just-humans-benefit-from-animal-biotechnology.html Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:32:49 GMT Laboratory animals are the source of major discoveries and breakthroughs in biology, not just in tackling disease but also unravelling fundamental molecular processes. Delegates at a recent research conference organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and Wellcome Trust heard how technology capable of analysing animal genes across the whole genome is yielding a number of benefits for agriculture and human society........ ]]>