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 May 4, 1:26pm  (6 reviews) environment http://littlehenrescue.co.uk/
"Homes needed for 11,000 Battery hens by 29th June!!"
Little Hen Rescue are attempting to find homes for ex-battery hens. I hope they succeed; they've got quite a task. For details of how you can help, visit the website.
Thanks karemb2 for alerting me to this.
- Geological Society - Maintenance
- Dec 28, 2008 2:39am
 (2 reviews) http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/londonlectures
Shell London Lecture Series - 2008
View a series of lectures, organised by the Geological Society, from 2008. Obviously the blurb about attending the meetings is out of date, but the lectures themselves are well worth taking a look at.
The programme for 2009's lectures can be found here.
- It's that time of year again... · Dec 23, 2008 3:01am
- UC Berkeley Press Release
- Dec 23, 2008 12:07am (3 reviews) http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...
Snails and humans use same genes to tell right from left
A yellow and brown side-by-side pair can be seen at the right; the one closer to the
middle of the photo is dextral, and the other is sinistral. (Nipam Patel/UC Berkeley)
"Biologists have tracked down genes that control the handedness of snail shells, and they turn out to be similar to the genes used by humans to set up the left and right sides of the body.
"The finding ... indicates that the same genes have been responsible for establishing the left-right asymmetry of animals for 500-650 million years, originating in the last common ancestor of all animals with bilateral body organization, creatures that include everything from worms to humans."
- Did Neanderthal cells cook as the climate warmed? - life - 27 November...
- Nov 27, 2008 8:43am (2 reviews) genetics http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16...
Did Neanderthal cells cook as the climate warmed?
Another hypothesis as to why Neanderthals died out has been proposed:
Mutations in mitochondria which helped Neanderthals cope better with the cold in Ice Age Europe may have been detrimental once the climate started to change.
Read this short article to see why this has been suggested and how it fits in with existing hypotheses.
- UC Berkeley Press Release
- Oct 28, 2008 12:07am (11 reviews) biology, ants, ecology, zoology http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...
"Inland ants prefer salty snacks to sweet"
Mammals are limited by the availability of salt, and now researchers have shown that ants are too. In experiments in North, Central and South America, ecologists have shown that plant-eating and omnivorous ants living more than 60 miles inland are more interested in salt than sugar, with the preference greater the farther they live from the coast. Carnivorous ants show no such preference.
"Ants will always go for the sugar because they need sugar to provide the basic energy for life and for their activity, but when you see ants spending increasing amounts of time or employing increasingly large numbers of individuals foraging for salt, it suggests that salt is a resource that is limiting to them. Their ability to be competitive and maintain themselves in different environments could be limited by a resource like salt." ~ Steve Yanoviak, co-author.
The researchers suggest that what holds true for ants may well be true of all insects and even microbes - pointing to a role for salt, or sodium chloride, in the ecosystem that has not been recognized before.
- Foragers should beware unknown mushrooms, warns fungi expert - Telegraph...
- Oct 16, 2008 11:48am (2 reviews) nature, fungi http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jh...
"Foragers should beware unknown mushrooms"
Small fungus in beech leaves by nutmeg
Some sound advice from Richard Fortey:
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Few people realise that there are literally thousands of species of mushrooms and, unless you are in France where pharmacists offer a mushroom identification service to make sure the average citizen does not poison himself, the risk of misidentification is high."
I enjoy going out looking for fungi - but just to photograph them. The more I see and try to identify, the more I realise just how little I know... I really don't have the confidence to eat any of my finds!
- Oct 9, 2008 2:59pm
We have a new family member - he's called Rebel and he's a four year old retired greyhound. It's early days yet, but so far he and Phoebe, our Leonberger, seem to be getting on fine :-)
Many thanks to Fen Bank Greyhound Sanctuary for letting him come to live with us.
- Lepidoptera Life Cycles
- Oct 9, 2008 2:36am (7 reviews) nature, insects, lepidoptera http://www.ukleps.org/morphology.html
Lepidoptera Life Cycles
A nicely illustrated description of the life cycle of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). A useful comparison is made between the larvae of Lepidoptera and sawflies - which is how I came to find this site.
  
Small Tortoiseshell caterpillar, pupa and adults (by nutmeg)
- Making Metabolism More Inefficient Can Reduce Obesity
- Oct 4, 2008 6:44am (5 reviews) medical-science, physiology http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...
Making metabolism more inefficient can reduce obesity
"In a discovery that counters prevailing thought, a study in mice has found that inactivating a pair of key genes involved in 'fat-burning' can actually increase energy expenditure and help lower diet-induced obesity. These unusual findings might lead to some new roads in weight-loss therapy."
Certainly looks like a different approach -- the inactivation of normal fat-burning brought about the activation of less-efficient pathways, meaning that the mice had to burn more fat than normal to stay warm. The analogy given is that you burn more wood by warming your house with an open fire than with a well designed wood stove.
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