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awkwardbotany:

Charles Darwin and the Phylogeny of State Flowers and State Trees

This is a guest post by Rachel Rodman. Photos by Daniel Murphy.

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Every U.S. state has its own set of symbols: an official flower, an official tree, and an official bird. Collectively, these organisms form the stuff of trivia and are traditionally presented in the form of a list.

But, lists…well. As charming as lists can sometimes be, lists are rarely very satisfying.

So I decided to try…

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I guess Colorado and South Dakota are bros; I approve

Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (HCF) wrote a paper in 2002 entitled The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? It explicitly introduced an important distinction between the Faculty of Language in the Broad Sense (FLB) and the Faculty of Language in the Narrow Sense (FLN).

FLB is made up of all the components used in language, e.g. ability for vocal learning, ability to conceptualise, a sensori-motor system, a computational system (syntax) capable of recursion etc. FLN is a subset of FLB, i.e. everything in FLN is also in FLB but not vice versa. More specifically, FLN contains only those components of FLB which are uniquely human. HCF hypothesise that FLN only contains recursion and that all other aspects of language (i.e. what constitutes the rest of FLB) can be found in non-human species.

You might not agree with HCF in terms of what to assign to FLN, but the general distinction is both useful and perhaps necessary for tackling the issue of language evolution. The first question of HCF’s title (what is it?) involves filling in the FLB category – and obviously we need to know what it is we are trying to explain the evolution of! The second question (who has it?) involves deciding whether something belongs to FLN as well. If we put something in the FLN box, we are saying it is uniquely human. This can be tested (in principle – how easy it is to test is another matter!) and this is one place where interdisciplinary research between biology and linguistics can be very fruitful and informative. Basically, from an evolution of language perspective, we want to know what exactly (if anything) makes human language special. This then leads to the third question – we can ask how the uniquely human part of language evolved, i.e. we can ask how did FLN evolve rather than the much larger question of how did FLB evolve.

Of course, having done all that, FLN might turn out to be empty! Perhaps human language is not qualitatively different, only quantitatively different. But let’s wait to see what we find!

How a dragonfly nymph eats. In real time, this strike takes only about 10 milliseconds. At the larva

How a dragonfly nymph eats. In real time, this strike takes only about 10 milliseconds. At the larval (nymph) stage, dragonflies live underwater, are extremely badass, and extremely strange.


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In an attempt to bring up early human’s discovery of cookingwith fire in a discussion about evolution, I fumbled my words and accidentally implied that I believed that humanity gained some evolutionary advantages from eatingfire.

Can you imagine, though.

currentsinbiology: compoundchem:Foxgloves: both poison and medicine! More info/high-res image: htt

currentsinbiology:

compoundchem:

Foxgloves: both poison and medicine! More info/high-res image: http://wp.me/p4aPLT-1Tk

One of my garden favorites!


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corporisfabrica:The vasculature and underlying musculature of the neck and surrounding regions. As

corporisfabrica:

The vasculature and underlying musculature of the neck and surrounding regions. 
Ascending the side of the neck is the common carotid artery. When you take your pulse at the side of your neck (try placing a finger just beneath the rear corner of the jaw), it is the pressure wave caused by ventricular systole of the heart that is felt in this vessel. 
Illustration from Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme comprenant la médecine operatoire by Jean-Baptiste Marc Bourgery.


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currentsinbiology:

Inner Life of a Cell | Protein Packing (NT TImes)

Two years ago, BioVisions and Xvivo set out to upgrade their animations by capturing some of the messy complexity of protein movements. They wanted to cram a virtual cell with proteins at a more realistic density, and then have them jitter and collide

In this movie, we enter a neuron by diving through a channel on its surface. Once inside, we’re instantly surrounded by a swarm of molecules. We push through the crowd until we reach a proteasome, a barrel-shaped molecule that shreds damaged proteins so their components can be used to make new proteins.

Once more we see a vesicle being hauled by kinesin. But in this version, the kinesin doesn’t look like a molecule out for a stroll. Its movements are barely constrained randomness.

Every now and then, a tiny molecule loaded with fuel binds to one of the kinesin “feet.” It delivers a jolt of energy, causing that foot to leap off the molecular cable and flail wildly, pulling hard on the foot that’s still anchored. Eventually, the gyrating foot stumbles into contact again with the cable, locking on once more — and advancing the vesicle a tiny step forward.

This updated movie offers a better way to picture our most intricate inner workings. For one thing, it helps us to understand why we become sick. A number of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, are caused when defective proteins clamp onto other proteins, creating toxic clumps.

#science    #protein    #animation    #biology    
 Lions Sync When They Ovulate—But People Don’t Kristin HugoThe African big cats give birth aro

Lions Sync When They Ovulate—But People Don’t

Kristin Hugo

The African big cats give birth around the same time so that they can take care of each other’s cubs.

While researching lionsinZambia, biologist Thandiwe Mweetwa noticed that lionesses within a pride will all have cubs around the same time.

When she looked into it further, Mweetwa learned lionesses sync their fertility cycles so that they can all raise their young together.

There’s a reason for that. “Synchronized estrus is thought to increase reproductive success in the pride,” says Mweetwa, a National Geographic emerging explorer and Big Cats Initiative grantee. Having cubs at the same time means that mother lions can rely on each other to nurse, babysit, and protect the youngsters.

This safety in numbers also allows more lions to survive to adulthood. Predation is a great threat to small, vulnerable babies in any species, but if all babies are born at the same time, there are only so many that predators can eat.

If young are born at different times throughout the year, predators could use them as a steady source of food.

Even so, many still die: More than half of all African lion cubs don’t make it past their first year. They’re at risk from predation, disease, abandonment, starvation, and being killed by an outside male.

When male lions strike out on their own, they will challenge another male for control of his harem. If the interloper succeeds, he’ll kill all the cubs, which brings the females into estrus, or heat, again. (See “Why Do Animals Sometimes Kill Their Babies?”)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Though many other animals come into heat at the same time, fewer species go into heat when their young die. Instead, most go into heat seasonally, including most wild species of hooved mammals, which only give birth in the spring. Male deer testosterone peaks in fall, during the “rut,” when they will compete for and mate with females. Does are pregnant during the winter and give birth around May and June, when warmer weather helps fawns survive.

If lions had periods, lionesses within a pride might get them at roughly the same time. But lions don’t menstruate: The only mammals that menstruate overtly the way that humans do are some other primates and a few species of bats and rodents.

A persistent myth is that people living in close proximity—such as several women sharing a dorm in college—synchronize their estrus cycles, which is evidenced by having periods around the same time. This idea, which caught on due to research by psychologist Martha McClintock in 1971, has been discredited in several studies since.

In 2006, Zhengwei Yang and Jeffrey C. Schank found the chance that a woman would share a cycle with someone living with her is about as likely as sharing it with anyone else. (Read “The Scientist Who Said Periods Weren’t a Big Deal.”)

Because women have slightly different menstrual cycles, there is a good chance that, if two women spend enough time together, they will eventually match cycles.

“It’s just a mathematical property of irregular rhythms, and rhythms of different lengths,” says Schank. He adds that it’s human nature to notice when things match, but not to notice when they don’t match.

Since menstruation also wastes nutrients and can attract predators, with all the other problems that lion cubs face it’s lucky that at least lionesses don’t have periods.


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nikkitajiri:

“All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries when she is a four month old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent 5 months in our grandmother’s womb. And she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother’s blood before she herself is born.”

- Layne Redmond, When the Women Were Drummers

Art by Design by Duvet Days

I can’t believe the IB Bio exam is completely done! We did it, guys!This is an annotated hea

I can’t believe the IB Bio exam is completely done! We did it, guys!

This is an annotated heart diagram of pulmonary and systemic circulation that I made a couple nights ago to study :)


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biology notes: transport in the phloem of plants a little less than a month until my IB exams! i&rsq

biology notes: transport in the phloem of plants

a little less than a month until my IB exams! i’m studying very hard over spring break :)


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The other day I saw something I’ve never seen before- a Sandhill crane who was missing an eye.

This beauty is still able to carry on with normal crane life, visualized here with her guarding and feeding her very cute little chicks.

Her other eye is normal and functioning, and it seems her mate is happy to keep watch of her blind side for her.

Sandhill cranes mate for life so I hope this pair is able to raise many healthy colts together throughout the years. They seemed a lovely couple.

In honor of Gopher tortoise day (April 10th), here’s one of my favorite patients, Danny Devito the gopher tortoise! He was hit by a car and required long term care to repair the damage to his shell. This involves surgical correction of the shell fractures (hence the screws), along with supportive care and pain medication. This is him enjoying his daily outside time in the sun! After recovery in the hospital this animal was released into the wild near where he was found. Please always watch for tortoises and other reptiles when you’re out there on the road!

Wait for it… there it is- the WIGGLE! This wiggly bird is the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), and this video demonstrates a very cool behavior that’s usually called “neck-swaying”. This is a somewhat uncommon hunting behavior where the bird quickly weaves its head and neck side to side as it approaches a prey item. We’re not entirely sure what the purpose of this hunting method is, but it is suspected to help the bird more accurately assess the distance of their prey, though others believe it is used to distract or disorient prey before the bird strikes. In any case, several studies in foraging behavior of this species suggest that strikes preceded by head-swaying are actually less successful than normal strikes. Although this video ends too soon (my camera was not cooperating), I can say that this particular wiggle did end successfully, as this cattle egret snatched up a very big bug.

#birblr    #animals    #flora and fauna    #nature    #animal behavior    #birds in the wild    #cattle egret    #bubulcus    #biology    #zoology    #wildlife    
Loss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator declineThe first ever Britain-wide assessmentLoss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator declineThe first ever Britain-wide assessmentLoss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator declineThe first ever Britain-wide assessment

Loss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator decline

The first ever Britain-wide assessment of the value of wild flowers as food for pollinators shows that decreasing floral resources mirror the decline of pollinating insects, providing new evidence to support the link between plant and pollinator decline.

In recent years, there have been considerable concerns over threats to wild bees and other insect pollinators which are vital to the success of important food crops and wild flowers.

Amongst the many pressures facing pollinators, a key factor is likely to be decreasing floral resources in Britain. 

The study, published in Nature combines vegetation survey data recorded over the last 80 years with modern day measurements of nectar to provide the most comprehensive assessment ever published. 

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Scientists solve plant sperm puzzleChloroplasts are where plant cells perform photosynthesis and whe

Scientists solve plant sperm puzzle

Chloroplasts are where plant cells perform photosynthesis and wheat, like many other plants, inherits chloroplasts only from the mother through small precursors called plastids.  

But how this happened was unknown – why didn’t the male’s chloroplast DNA travel with the rest in sperm? 

By tagging plastids in wheat with a protein that glowed green scientists at Rothamsted Research and the University of Manchester could watch them in developing pollen grains. They saw for the first time that plastids are degraded in sperm cells just before fertilisation, meaning only plastids from the mother plant are inherited by the offspring.

In the image above the top line shows the protein attached to the plastids in wheat pollen, in the bottom row it is untargeted.

The finding could be used to help breed better strains of wheat, one of the world’s most important and valuable crops.

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Image: Huw Jones, Rothamsted Research


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Physical attraction is linked to height genesScientists have discovered that who you find attractivePhysical attraction is linked to height genesScientists have discovered that who you find attractive

Physical attraction is linked to heightgenes

Scientists have discovered that who you find attractive is partly down to the genes affecting your height.

In a study of more than 13,000 heterosexual couples they found that 89% of the genetic variation that controls a person’s height also influences their height preference in a partner.

Generally people are attracted to partners of similar heights to themselves.

Did you know that our choice in partners can have important consequences for human populations? This study brings us closer to understanding the complexity of sexual attraction and the mechanisms that drive variation in humans. 

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Images: Susana Fernandez, Boris SV


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Plants vs Petrol!

Our dependence on fossil fuels is complex and it’s increasing. We need a sustainable solution. What about using the sun’s energy to power our cars? We already use the sun’s energy to create electricity but it’s difficult to store and it isn’t available on demand: so we need a liquid fuel.

Plants make liquid fuels from sunlight using a chemical reaction, but they’re not very good at it. Scientists are trying to make an improved version of this process using artificial leaves. If we could improve it to make fuel more efficiently, and pack all this fuel producing leaf power into a much smaller space, we could have a bottomless supply of sustainably produced liquid fuel.

Plants can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but in the hands of some forward thinking scientists, they could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and on the list of global problems worth addressing: that’s a big one.

For more information, visit www.bbsrc.ac.uk/plantpower

#plants    #petrol    #photosynthesis    #synthetic biology    #biology    #science    #science video    #leaves    #fossil fuels    #sustainability    #green fuel    #sustainable fuel    
Space sleep study to understand ageingTomorrow the first official British astronaut Tim Peake will bSpace sleep study to understand ageingTomorrow the first official British astronaut Tim Peake will bSpace sleep study to understand ageingTomorrow the first official British astronaut Tim Peake will b

Space sleep study to understand ageing

Tomorrow the first official British astronaut Tim Peake will blast into space for 6 months.

He’ll be doing lots of experiments and tests that aren’t possible on Earth because of the unique conditions on the ISS 400km above Earth. He’ll even be running the London Marathon from space.

But living in microgravity for so long will take a toll on his body; astronauts experience bone and muscle loss, diminished immune systems and increased inflammation, complaints that also are common in the elderly.

To help find out why this happens an experiment at the University of Surrey with the European Space Agency is mimicking the effects of microgravity. Young healthy men will spend two weeks living in the lab ‘normally’ before spending 60 days constantly in beds that are slightly tilted to simulate the microgravity on board the ISS.

By investigating how these conditions disrupt sleep and body clocks, the study will help figure out the genetic processes that contribute to the health problems experienced by both the elderly and astronauts in space.

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Photos: NASA and Victor Zelentsov


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How peckish penguins find their food Animals have used the same technique to search for food that’s How peckish penguins find their food Animals have used the same technique to search for food that’s How peckish penguins find their food Animals have used the same technique to search for food that’s

How peckish penguins find their food 

Animals have used the same technique to search for food that’s in short supply for at least 50 million years, a BBSRC-funded study suggests.

Creatures including penguins search for food using a mathematical pattern of movement called a Lévy walk. It might sound complex, but it is a random search strategy made up of small steps and a few larger steps. Although a Lévy walk is random, it’s the most efficient way to find food when it’s scarce.

Finding food in a timely fashion could be a matter of life or death. Choose the wrong direction and it could be curtains. But moving in a random search pattern is mathematically the best way to find isolated food. 

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Image credit: Christopher Michel

Stay tuned for more (biological) festivities…


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