Maine Lobstermen Give Farming Sea Scallops A Try. Hide captionAs lobster prices plunge, scallops offer fishermen an alternative to make money. Levi Bridges for NPR As lobster prices plunge, scallops offer fishermen an alternative to make money. If you don't love scallops, you probably just haven't had one that's cooked properly. That is, pan fried with some garlic and butter and herbs. They are very tasty. In Maine, scientists and fishermen are learning how to farm, instead of catching, these tasty sea critters. That could be good for business and the environment. Out on the water off Stonington, Maine, Marsden Brewer is motoring his lobster boat through the crowded fishing harbor.
"You see all the boats and stuff? Brewer says there just aren't as many scallops to catch these days close to shore in the areas these boats fish. An Aquaculture Experiment Brewer would like to see more of these boats return to scalloping — this time by farming scallops. Outside the harbor, Brewer motors over to one of his green and orange lobster buoys. Water supplement for bees is claimed to prevent Colony Collapse Disorder. Around the world, honey bees have been vanishing at an alarming rate. Since bees not only provide honey, but are also vital for pollinating crops, this is not only distressing, it also puts agriculture at risk. The reasons for this decline are still unknown, but a Florida-based company claims to have found a solution in the form of a concentrated organic feed supplement.
BeesVita is purported to not only protect bee colonies in danger of collapsing, but actually causes them to grow and thrive. The mysterious, wholesale vanishing of bee colonies leaving behind deserted hives is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It affects the common European honey bee (but not the Mason bee) and was named in 2006, though reports of CCD go back to at least 1900. Its main symptom is striking - the sudden, uncharacteristic disappearance of bees from the colony as if the population is collapsing. BeesFree’s BeesVita is a honey bee feeding formulation that claims to arrest CCD. Source: BeesFree. Dead Reefs Can Come Back To Life, Study Says. Hide captionCoral polyps feed in the plankton-rich waters by Santa Catalina, Panama. A new study of coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Panama shows that dead coral reefs may be able to recover from rising ocean temperatures and other environmental disasters. laszlo-photo/Flickr Coral polyps feed in the plankton-rich waters by Santa Catalina, Panama.
A new study of coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Panama shows that dead coral reefs may be able to recover from rising ocean temperatures and other environmental disasters. Coral reefs may be able to recover from disaster, according to a study that provides a bit of reassurance about the future of these endangered ecosystems. Coral reefs around the world are at risk as the ocean's temperature continues to rise. 'Shocking' Reef History The study focused on beautiful coral reefs off the Pacific coast of Panama.
Hide captionFish swim by a colorful variety of coral near Indonesia's Komodo island. Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images Shifting Climates. Museum of Endangered Sounds. Lending a Helping Paw: When Animals Cooperate [Slide Show] Color This Chimp Amazing. Killer Insect Virus Helping to Decimate World's Bee Population. A new study published in the journal Science has revealed that, in addition to the destruction of natural habitats and the widespread use of industrial chemical pesticides, the global bee die-off witnessed in recent years is also caused by a deadly virus carried by bloodsucking parasitic mites. Varroa destructor is a bloodsucking parasite that feeds on honeybees and has spread globally, destroying colonies worldwide.
(Photograph: Alamy) The report in Science is available to subscribers only, but according to The Guardian's Damian Carrington, the researchers who conducted the study warn that the virus, called Varroa destructor and carried by the varroa mite, is now one of the "most widely distributed and contagious insect viruses on the planet. " Equally troubling, the new dominance of the killer virus poses an ongoing threat to colonies even after beekeepers have eradicated the mites from hives. Reuters: Bee-killing virus gets supercharged by mites. Ancient Birds Wiped Out Huge Insects. The Crow Paradox : Krulwich Wonders... Here's a surprise: Wild crows can recognize individual people.
They can pick a person out of a crowd, follow them, and remember them — apparently for years. But people — even people who love crows — usually can't tell them apart. So what we have for you are two experiments that tell this story. First, how do crows tell us apart? Now, our second experiment. There are crow scholars who raise, study, and even live with a crow. So let's see how well you do: If you want to hear researchers describe what it's like to alienate a crow, and then be razzed and harassed by its family and neighbors wherever they go — tennis courts, ATM machines, parking lots — listen to our radio story. An all-natural animal orchestra. 31 May 2012Last updated at 16:27 ET By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Los Angeles Bernie Krause records the sounds of a tide pool A landscape may look healthy, but how does it sound, and what does that say about how its wildlife is doing?
It's a question Bernie Krause has spent much of his life trying to answer. He coined the word "biophony" to describe these recordings. It wasn't what he originally planned to do. Moog master Bernie Krause started as a classic musician. George Harrison, Simon & Garfunkel and The Doors all learned from Krause and his partner Paul Beaver. Beaver and Krause composed and played the Moog synthesiser with the Monkees and provided soundtracks for big Hollywood blockbusters. But it was a chance encounter while recording an album that put Krause's life on to a different track. "I just went out into the field and the first time I switched on the recorder it changed my life, because the stereo space opened up in a way I had never heard before. Continue reading the main story. Do Plants Smell Other Plants? This One Does, Then Strangles What It Smells : Krulwich Wonders...
"Plants smell," says botanist Daniel Chamovitz. Yes, they give off odors, but that's not what Chamovitz means. He means plants can smell other plants. "Plants know when their fruit is ripe, when their [plant] neighbor has been cut by a gardener's shears, or when their neighbor is being eaten by a ravenous bug; they smell it," he writes in his new book, What a Plant Knows. They don't have noses or a nervous system, but they still have an olfactory sense, and they can differentiate. This talented plant is commonly known as the dodder vine. Here it is at Penn State University — look for the stringy, wiggly thing on the left — sniffing. Ewww, you say. The Fake Tomato Experiment When she placed a dodder vine between an empty pot and a fake plant with no odor, the dodder didn't lean toward either... Robert Krulwich/NPR The Real Tomato Experiment The Dodder-In-A-Box Experiment When she had her students put both the dodder vine and the tomato plant into a box connected by a hose, like this...
Why Is That Undulating Blob Of Flesh Inspecting My Oil Rig? : Krulwich Wonders... Every so often, the Internet astonishes. Things I wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't expect, sometimes happen. Take this, for example: On April 25, somewhere in the ocean off Great Britain, a remotely operated video camera near a deep sea oil rig caught a glimpse — at first it was just a glimpse — of an astonishing looking sea creature. It was a green-gray blob of gelatinous muscle, covered with a finely mesh-like textured skin, no eyes, no tentacles, no front, no back. It moved constantly, floating up to the camera, then it backed off and disappeared.
The camera operator tried to find it, and then, suddenly, out of the darkness, back it came. What was this thing? It had no mouth. You'd figure a video like this, once it went on the Internet (which it did last month) would produce the usual wild explanations from people who know little but post madly, rumors masquerading as knowledge, a great riot of misinformation and silliness. "Dr. Did Dr. Whales have a sensory organ unlike anything we've ever seen. Scientists Find Thousands Of Previously Undiscovered Species Cowering In Amazon Rainforest. MANAUS, BRAZIL—A team of scientists studying the Amazon Rainforest announced the remarkable discovery this week of thousands of previously undiscovered mammals, reptiles, birds and other species desperately cowering for dear life under rocks and assorted foliage. According to biologists, the 16-month expedition in search of new indigenous lifeforms in the Amazon River basin was a remarkable success, uncovering over 2,300 varieties of heretofore unclassified lemurs, tarantulas, and porcupines as they convulsed in terror under flora and frantically scrambled up trees for safety.
"Our expedition has shown that the Amazon Rainforest is simply teeming with a multitude of creatures never before glimpsed in this region," said lead researcher professor Courtland Gere, who personally observed a rare form of spider monkey as it huddled, shaking, inside the stump of a freshly felled tree. Graphic: New Life In The Amazon. Kakha Bendukidze Holds Fate of Gene-Engineered Salmon. Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times Jars of zebra fish are stacked on shelves at a lab in San Diego. Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times Xavier Lauth, a scientist, working with zebra fish in a lab at the Center for Aquaculture Technologies. That man, Kakha Bendukidze, holds the key to either extinction or survival for AquaBounty Technologies, the American company that is hoping for federal approval of a type of salmon that would be the first genetically engineered animal in the human food supply.
But 20 months since the Food and Drug Administration tentatively concluded that the fish would be safe to eat and for the environment, there has been no approval. And AquaBounty is running out of money. Mr. “I understand politically that it’s easier not to approve than to approve,” Mr. He is now trying to move his herd to Brazil, where he has obtained funding. The animal biotechnology industry is anemic to begin with. Utah paleontologists discover new raptor dinosaur. Learning from foul eating habits. Down in the dark, with the mud and the dead fish, lives a quiet eel-like creature called the hagfish, also known as the slime eel. Apart from having a less-than-attractive name and a not-so-attractive exterior, the hagfish is a carrion-eater with special food preferences. About 50 cm long, the hagfish eats by swimming into a dead animal and then slowly consuming its way out of the carcass after it has covered the whole of its coming meal in a thick slime excreted though pores in its skin.
This prevents other animals from eating the prey. Rare meal When the hagfish is about to devour its prey, it ties itself into a knot that it presses up towards its jawless mouth. This allows the hagfish to take a large mouthful of the carcass it will eat. A hagfish can eat several times its own weight – an important ability, says Henrik Carl of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, a biologist and fish expert. Sucks nutrients through its skin Separates good from bad Hagfish resembles us. Better Bird Nesting Also Good For Giant Manta Rays. Map of Life. Map of Life shows distribution of any species throughout the world. Map of Life is a new Google Maps-based website, which indicates the distribution of almost every species of vertebrate animal in the world (Photo: Shutterstock) Image Gallery (2 images) Ever wondered if a certain species of animal can be found where you live?
The Map of Life website aims to answer this question. Built on a Google Maps platform, it lists virtually all of the vertebrate animals that can be found at any one point in the world. Map of Life is currently accessible in a debut version, and is the result of a Yale University-led collaboration between several institutions and organizations. Users can either select a species and then see where it occurs, or they can select a location and then get a listing of almost all the mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles that can be found at that location – freshwater fish data is currently limited to North America.
A screenshot from the Map of Life website The project was initially funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Early-Adopting Dolphin Uses iPad Touchscreen to Communicate with Humans. Steve Jobs promised us the iPad would change our lives, and while it hasn't been all things to all people – what about that front-facing camera, Steve? – the beauty of such a device is that developers (to the extent that Apple will allow them, anyhow) are free to get as creative as they want with the device. Just ask Merlin the bottlenose dolphin. He loves the iPad, and thanks to a symbol-based human-dolphin communication interface being developed for the iPad's ample touchscreen, he could one day be able to tell you so himself.
The program, being developed by a non-profit called Speak Dolphin at Dolphin Discovery's swim facility in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico, is being tested on both the iPad and a Panasonic Toughbook. Merlin, a two-year-old bottlenose, uses his rostrum (that's his elongated beak) to operate the touchscreen, learning to associates symbols with objects. [SpeakDolphin via BoingBoing] Talking to Dolphins: New "Dolphin Speaker" Produces Full Range of Dolphinese Sounds. Communication with dolphins is getting better all the time — they've been using iPads, for one thing, and humans have been working on a type of Rosetta Stone-like two-way translation device. A new gadget could improve matters even further, by allowing humans to produce the full range of dolphin sounds. The acoustics researchers who developed it call it the Dolphin Speaker. Plenty of work is being done with dolphin sounds, but they have mostly focused on dolphin vocalizations and their hearing anatomy.
Dolphins can not only hear and produce clicks, whistles and burst pulses well outside of the range of human hearing, but they can vocalize at several different frequency ranges at once. To better understand how these sounds are produced, how they travel and even what they mean, researchers need to be able to play them back, watching how dolphins react. The next step is to play back a whole sequence of dolphin noises to dolphins and watch what happens. Patterns from space: beautiful satellite images of river deltas around the world. We lose control of our DNA at age 55. When we’re young, it’s easy for our bodies to repair cell damage. That’s why the injuries rarely develop into cancer. Once we reach the mid-50s, however, the repair work starts to deteriorate. (Photo: Colourbox) Our bodies are born to die, and the decay starts to kick in after we have turned 55. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive genetic study, carried out by a large international consortium, which includes a research team from the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI).
The findings have just been published in the scientific journal Nature Genetics. “The study shows that our bodies are really good at repairing DNA damage until we reach the age of around 55,” says Professor Mads Melbye, the executive vice president at SSI, who headed the Danish contribution to the project. “After this point, our ability to fight off foreign or diseased cells starts to decline gradually.” Eternal youth – a thing of the past This study, however, is different, says the professor. Mads Melbye Bjarke Feenstra. Carnivorous killer algae found in Danish waters. DATA GARDEN QUARTET – LIVE AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART. Amid Rural Decay, Trees Take Root in Silos. Bacteria, Insects Join Forces Against Pesticide.
Lack of oxygen led to first mass extinction. Polar Bears Older Than Previously Thought. Insects Covered In Tough Stuff. Baboons Show Their Word Skills. Forage Fish Catches Should be Reduced, Report Says. The Black Queen Hypothesis: Basis of a new evolutionary theory. ‘Creatures of Light’ at American Museum of Natural History. International Shark Attack File. Rachel Graham - The Aquatic Jane Goodall, Speaking Up for Sharks. Researchers Discover the First Known Virus That Preys on Other Viruses. The Yin And Yang Of Male Pattern Baldness. Industrial Roar Changes Nearby Plant Reproduction. Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections - StumbleUpon. Corpse Flower Blooms At Cornell University, Causing Stink And Spectacle. Harmful bacteria invade the groundwater. Feral Pigs Plaguing Upstate New York. Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years : Krulwich Wonders... The curious seeds of an invasive tree - Imprint. Sardine Fishery May Be In Peril. Creatures of the deep: terrifying macro pictures of polychaetes or bristle worms.
Massive dolphin party caught on video off California coast. Cheers! Fruit Flies Drink To Their Health, Literally. Hier das zweite ND (Forum für Naturfotografen) 'Fountain of youth' enzyme lengthens mouse life - life - 22 February 2012.