Me, On A Date: So What's Your Opinion On Sharks?

The Micro Monsters Beneath Your Beach Blanket

Little things live big lives between grains of sand...

Slithering and clawing and swimming through the liquid film between individual grains of sand, mud, and other sediment, is a thriving ecosystem of microscopic organisms that spend their entire existence in a world so miniscule that, as Rachel Carson once wrote, a droplet of water separating two grains of sand is “like a vast, dark sea.”

Unicellular organisms coat the sediments and ride the water between the grains. And animals, microscopic to us yet behemoths to the bacteria, algae, and protists they share these interstitial worlds with, take the roles of herbivore, carnivore, and detritivore to create rich and complex food webs…

Brain guardians remove dying neurons

By adolescence, your brain already contains most of the neurons that you’ll have for the rest of your life. But a few regions continue to grow new nerve cells—and require the services of cellular sentinels, specialized immune cells that keep the brain safe by getting rid of dead or dysfunctional cells.          

Now, Salk scientists have uncovered the surprising extent to which both dying and dead neurons are cleared away, and have identified specific cellular switches that are key to this process. The work was detailed in Nature on April 6, 2016.

“We discovered that receptors on immune cells in the brain are vital for both healthy and injured states,” says Greg Lemke, senior author of the work, a Salk professor of molecular neurobiology and the holder of the Françoise Gilot-Salk Chair. “These receptors could be potential therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative conditions or inflammation-related disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.”

Salk scientists show that two immune cell receptors, called Mer and Axl, are responsible for consuming dead or dysfunctional brain cells. An accumulation of dead cells (green spots) is seen in the subventricular zone (SVZ) – a neurogenic region – of the brain in a mouse lacking the receptors Mer and Axl. (Blue staining marks all cells.) No green spots are seen in the SVZ from a normal mouse. Credit: Salk Institute    

Viking men were also heavily tattooed but their most striking and fearsome fashion statement was their gnashers.

They would file horizontal lines into the enamel on their front teeth and paint in red resin. Gareth Williams (curator of the exhibition, Vikings: life and legend) says: “That’s like your punk sticking a safety pin through his nose. It would have been very uncomfortable and it’s quite deliberately saying ‘If I’m prepared to do this to myself, what am I going to do to you?’.” (Source)

The Mud Dragons of Calvert Island, BC

Shedding light on these mysterious marine creatures.

by Josh Silberg

Spiky headed dragons roam the ocean floor from the poles to the tropics. But these are not winged beasts from the pages of science fiction. These strange creatures are Kinorynchs, aka “mud dragons“, and they are very real.

Roughly the size of a grain of salt, mud dragons are often overlooked, but a team from the Hakai Institute and the University of British Columbia (UBC) hopes to give them the spotlight they deserve.

“Canada has very few reports on these animals. The first step is to know what is there,” says Dr. Maria Herranz, a Hakai post-doctoral scholar and resident mud dragon expert at UBC…

(read more and see video: Hakai)

images by Marria Harranz

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Canaries do not hate these spicy treats. In fact, they would be more than willing to eat jalapeno peppers. These are rich in vitamins A and C. / via

Plate 12. Jellies. Histoire naturelle des zoophytes. Acalèphes. 1843.

The Lemon Grove Mummies: Ancient Corpses from Mexican Cave Found in California Garage

On an ordinary day in 1980, a Californian mom decided to spend the afternoon cleaning out her garage – a long neglected chore. She found a lot of trash and plenty of knick-knacks; some forgotten memories arose but nothing unusual. That is until she came to a carton buried in the back. Inside, she found the corpse of a young girl and an infant. Horrified that something so ghastly was lurking in her garage, the mom called the police at once. The Lemon Grove PD arrived ready to investigate a murder. Instead, they stumbled upon a mystery. The two bodies found in that California garage may have been victims but their deaths had taken place centuries earlier.

Read more…

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