Ants And Carrying Weight
Alligators Breathe Like Birds, Study Find
University of Utah scientists discovered that air flows in one direction as it loops through the lungs of alligators, just as it does in birds. The study suggests this breathing method may have helped the dinosaurs’ ancestors dominate Earth after the planet’s worst mass extinction 251 million years ago.
Flying Copepods
When threatened by fish, some copepods can jump straight out of the water and shoot over many times their own body lengths. From the fish’s point of view, its prey suddenly disappears. Flying fish use the same tactic to escape from predators…
Brad Gemmell from the University of Texas, Austin filmed flying copepods (Anomalocera ornata) both in the field and with a high-speed camera in the lab. As they escaped from approaching mullet, they kicked back with their legs, pulled their antennae back, and left the water.
I’m personally impressed that they can overcome the surface tension.
Unpolished, 150 million year-old agatized dinosaur bone cells at 42x magnification. By Douglas Moore of University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.
This image won 10th place in the 2011 Nikon Small World Competition.
Bioluminescent firefly squid
Very cool photo, and a fitting final image for the top of the blog today. There’s a little information about these creatures in Wikipedia, and a post about them in Atlas Obscura.
Via Reddit. I’ve tried without success to track back to the photographer for credit, but most “similar image” searches wind up in Japanese tumblrs that I can’t decipher.
See also the incredible image of a shoreline in Australia glowing with bioluminescent algae.
Is this narcissistic, or science appreciation? I couldn’t sleep with a painting or photo of myself above me, but the thought of my DNA above me doesn’t trigger the same reaction.
I wouldn’t want this in my bedroom, but kitchen? HELL YES. It will go nicely with my beaker dinner glasses, petri dish plates, and periodic table table.
How Mosquitoes Fly in Rain
Mosquitoes are as adept at flying in rainstorms as under clear skies. But how is that possible? Wouldn’t rain crush a mosquito to the ground since mosquitoes weigh 50 times less than raindrops?
David Hu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his graduate research assistant Andrew Dickerson have found that while mosquitoes do get hit by raindrops, they don’t get crushed by them.
The question I haven’t been asking has been answered. But it’s nice to know anyway.
