To escape being a snake's lunch, tree frog embryos listen out for bad vibrations.
The jelly-coated eggs of the Central American red-eyed tree frog are laid on vegetation overhanging ponds and can hatch up to three days early if they sense that a snake is approaching. Michael Caldwell at Boston University and colleagues wanted to know how they distinguished between predators and false alarms like torrential rain.
Earth Changes
© Cameron Wells, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
This Tasmanian devil, photographed at Healesville Sanctuary, is part of the Save the Devil program that has been established to help protect Australia's Tasmanian devils which are at risk of extinction from devil facial tumor disease.
This Tasmanian devil, photographed at Healesville Sanctuary, is part of the Save the Devil program that has been established to help protect Australia's Tasmanian devils which are at risk of extinction from devil facial tumor disease.
A genetic analysis of tumors from Tasmanian devils widely separated geographically shows that all the tumors are virtually identical and distinct from the animals' own genomes, researchers in the United States and Australia reported in the journal Science. The tumors probably arose from Schwann cells, which normally play a role in protecting and cushioning nerves.
The analysis provides clues to a way to diagnose the disease early and represents a major step toward the development of a vaccine that could protect the remaining animals in the wild, said biologist Elizabeth P. Murchison of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., and the Australian National University in Canberra, lead author of the paper.
© AFP
Snow fell as temperatures plummeted outside the conference halls
Snow fell as temperatures plummeted outside the conference halls
The deal itself was anything but historic. But the implications of how the Chinese handled this negotiation well might be.
In a disastrous result for the world's environment and for 19 years of difficult and painstaking environmental diplomacy, China undoubtedly won.
Chinese chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua said China was leaving Copenhagen "happy", before walking out of the Bella conference centre late on Friday night with his clearly cheerful team .
In a statement, Xie, who is also vice-chairman with China's National Development and Reform Commission, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was also happy with the agreement.
© AP Photo/Ben Margot
Tourists watch sea lions on boat docks at Pier 39 in San Francisco.
Tourists watch sea lions on boat docks at Pier 39 in San Francisco.
Just last month, Pier 39, famous in San Francisco for its sea lions and the throngs of tourists they attract, was groaning under the weight of more than 1,500 of the animals. The record number delighted tourists and baffled experts.
Marine experts suspect the sea lions came and stayed for the food, then left largely for the same reason.
"Most likely, they left chasing a food source," said Jeff Boehm, executive director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, which runs an information center and gift shop at Pier 39. "It's probably what kept them here in the first place."
An earthquake of moderate intensity, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, jolted parts of India's North-East today.
This was the second quake in the region in the past three days, after a tremor, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, had rocked some parts of the North-East on December 29.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said today's quake was felt at 1527 hours and had its epicentre at latitude 27.3 N and longitude 91.4 E in Bhutan at a depth of seven km below the earth's surface.
There were no reports of damage to life or property.
This was the second quake in the region in the past three days, after a tremor, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, had rocked some parts of the North-East on December 29.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said today's quake was felt at 1527 hours and had its epicentre at latitude 27.3 N and longitude 91.4 E in Bhutan at a depth of seven km below the earth's surface.
There were no reports of damage to life or property.
Researchers have new insight into the sex lives of the much-maligned mosquitoes that are responsible for the vast majority of malaria deaths, according to a report published online on December 31st in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. In finding a partner of the right species type, male and female mosquitoes depend on their ability to "sing" in perfect harmony. Those tones are produced and varied based on the frequency of their wing beats in flight.
"Everyone must be familiar with the maddening whine a mosquito makes as it hones in for a bite," said Gabriella Gibson of the University of Greenwich at Medway. "There's no doubt many of us have wondered why it makes its presence so obvious - surely, after all of these centuries of blood-feeding, selection should have favored a more stealthy approach that would leave mosquitoes less vulnerable to the defensive attacks of its unsettled host. Our findings suggest that mosquitoes rely on the sounds they make to attract a mate of the right species, a behavior that is far more vulnerable to selection than avoiding the risk of being squashed by the rare host that is still awake at feeding time."
The Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in fact include a considerable amount of genetic diversity, representing a complex of seven species and several chromosomal forms. And that diversity comes with real consequences for humans, explained Gibson and Ian Russell of the University of Sussex. The complexity of malaria epidemiology and control is due in part to the mosquito's remarkable genetic plasticity, enabling its adaptation to a widening range of human-influenced habitats.
"Everyone must be familiar with the maddening whine a mosquito makes as it hones in for a bite," said Gabriella Gibson of the University of Greenwich at Medway. "There's no doubt many of us have wondered why it makes its presence so obvious - surely, after all of these centuries of blood-feeding, selection should have favored a more stealthy approach that would leave mosquitoes less vulnerable to the defensive attacks of its unsettled host. Our findings suggest that mosquitoes rely on the sounds they make to attract a mate of the right species, a behavior that is far more vulnerable to selection than avoiding the risk of being squashed by the rare host that is still awake at feeding time."
The Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in fact include a considerable amount of genetic diversity, representing a complex of seven species and several chromosomal forms. And that diversity comes with real consequences for humans, explained Gibson and Ian Russell of the University of Sussex. The complexity of malaria epidemiology and control is due in part to the mosquito's remarkable genetic plasticity, enabling its adaptation to a widening range of human-influenced habitats.
Typical high temperatures this time of year are in the low to middle 20s, but with an arctic boundary pushing across the region, temperatures will be 20-25 degrees below normal. Friday will be the coldest of the next two days with highs in northern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota below zero.
Nights will be frigid with furnaces getting a workout. Temperatures will be 10-20 degrees below normal for overnight lows. When normal lows are in the single digits to begin with, anything below normal is bitterly cold.
And that's not all, for the week ending Dec 13th, there were 815 new snowfall records set. December 2009 is shaping up to be quite the snowmaker. Here's a map showing continental USA records:
Continental USA Snowfall Records 12/20/09-12/27/09
Continental USA Snowfall Records 12/20/09-12/27/09
© Nigel Bennett
Police block off access to the M62 motorway after the fatal crash which claimed the lives of three men
Police block off access to the M62 motorway after the fatal crash which claimed the lives of three men
The men killed in the crash, who are believed to be from the Preston area, died after their Mitsubishi left the westbound carriageway of the M62 near Huddersfield in snowy conditions and collided with the nearside barrier.
Britain's deep freeze also claimed the lives of two climbers in an avalanche on Ben Nevis. It was one of three to hit Scotland within a matter of hours. The second, in Torridon, Wester Ross, claimed the life of a 53-year-old climber from Derbyshire. He had been found alive but died later from internal injuries in hospital.
The deaths came as forecasters warned temperatures are set to drop below freezing on New Year's Eve with sleet, snow and rain almost certain to plunge the country into chaos once again.
Beyond the old margarine commercial's warning that "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature," we're now learning that it's also dangerous to fool with her.
She doesn't take kindly to puny old mankind's absurd attempts to manage the climate through laws and treaties.
A case in point is Mother Nature's icy blast on the heels of the Denmark conference on global warming, a gigantic hoax now known as "climate change," because it starting getting colder around what the superior class calls the fin de siecle - a Frenchified way of saying the turn of the century.
As the delegates met and dined well and drank well - thanks to the generosity of their country's national treasuries - while hearkening to the wisdom of former Vice President Al Gore, in the words of the old song, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. The weather outside [was] frightful."
She doesn't take kindly to puny old mankind's absurd attempts to manage the climate through laws and treaties.
A case in point is Mother Nature's icy blast on the heels of the Denmark conference on global warming, a gigantic hoax now known as "climate change," because it starting getting colder around what the superior class calls the fin de siecle - a Frenchified way of saying the turn of the century.
As the delegates met and dined well and drank well - thanks to the generosity of their country's national treasuries - while hearkening to the wisdom of former Vice President Al Gore, in the words of the old song, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. The weather outside [was] frightful."
