From the monthly archives:

February 2010

A Moment of Zen: The Clark’s Grebes’ Romantic Weekend

February 28, 2010

I’ve been at an awesome wedding out of town this weekend, so here is a sweet treat that fits with that theme from the latest in our Pre-Life trailer series.

“. . . And they lost some points for under-rotation on the feather preen and a bit too much splash on the takeoff, but still a solid 8.5 [...]

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Tolkien the Botanist and the Tale of the Larch

February 25, 2010

I am rereading The Lord of the Rings, as I do every four years. You only get to read it so many times before you die, and I have determined four years is the ideal interval for me. As always, I am struck by what a fine botanist Tolkien was for a man with a [...]

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Extreme (Plankton) Closeup!

February 22, 2010

Most people have only seen plankton in crappy, fuzzy photos in college textbooks, if they’ve seen it at all. If you have heard of it, it’s probably in the context of the stuff baleen whales eat, and that’s about it. I personally was lucky enough to see an entire jar of the delicacy when I [...]

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The Mushroom that Sleeps with the Fishes

February 19, 2010

NOTE: Correction below.
Well, this brings new meaning to the concept of gilled mushrooms. Scientists have stumbled upon the first mushroom that fruits underwater, as proudly displayed on the cover of this month’s Mycologia. Notice the little bubbles on the outside of the mushroom. On aquatic plants (like the moss to the left), bubbles form because [...]

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The Seafaring Killer Bacterium

February 14, 2010

Vibrio cholerae is a bacterium of surprising adaptability, tenacity, and Olympic-class swimming ability. Cholera bacteria can swim in both freshwater and saltwater (a feat most fish cannot manage), and somehow also manage to do the backstroke through stomach acid without kicking the bucket. The historic killer has just popped up again in Papua New Guinea [...]

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Site News: Underwater Blogger, Dividing Amoebae, and a Biology Blog’s Host (Server)

February 12, 2010

Can there be too many jellyfish at one biology blog? No. No, there can’t. This is the famous Jellyfish Lake on the island of Palau, where jellyfish cut off from the sea 12,000 years ago have evolved into docile migratory creatures that live off the food produced by their symbiotic algae. That shot downward into [...]

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Upupa, Oprah. Oprah, Upupa.

February 8, 2010

Good news, everyone! No, really! The approximate U.S. release date for BBC’s new nature-glam documentary “Life” has been set. It will be sometime this March on the Discovery Channel, according to wikipedia, but sadly, BBC has willfully ignored my helpful suggestion *not* to replace David Attenborough’s narration with a pedestrian American track by Sigourney Weaver, [...]

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Dinosaur Color: No Longer a Wing and a Prayer

February 6, 2010

Something happened this week and last that I never thought I’d see in my lifetime — or ever. Scientists discovered the colors of some dinosaurs.
After the first article I saw, I figured it was a one-time fluke. Then this week, I saw this article about Anchiornis huxleyi close on the heels of this article last [...]

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Oceans: A New Film by the Greatest Nature Documentarian of All Time (IMHO)

February 2, 2010

I can’t say enough about the work of Jacques Perrin. The French filmmaker has been making nature documentaries of the highest order since 1996, when “Microcosmos” was released (though unlike films I will mention later in this post he only produced, not directed the film). The film, a triumph of bringing the daily dramas of [...]

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