One Animal’s Trash Is A Vampire Squid’s Dinner! From A Larvacean Into The Marine Snow, A Vampire

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

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky

I have been following @rachelignotofsky on Tumblr for several years, and I’m truly happy to see her creative art of brilliant scientists now being in a book. These amusing illustrations together with educational information make a fantastic combination. I’m getting the book for my little sister but it’s definitely a great read for everyone.  You can order the book HERE.

Microbial art shows how bacteria became the most successful organism on Earth

In an attempt to unravel bacteria’s remarkable adaptive abilities, the late UC San Diego theoretical physicist and chemist Eshel Ben-Jacobs also stumbled upon a new form of art.

Ben-Jacobs grew species of bacteria in his lab and exposed them to stresses such as temperature changes, antibiotics and food scarcity in an effort to understand how they behave and cope under different environmental conditions.

What resulted were formations that indicate the different ways bacterial colonies communicate, react and make decisions about where to expand in a petri dish.

While the colors are his artistic addition, “the strikingly beautiful organization of the pattern reflects the underlying social intelligence of the bacteria,” said Ben-Jacobs.

Take a look at his gallery of microbial art

Microfilter allows non-invasive diagnosis of fetal abnormalities

A new method could allow physicians to diagnose fetal genetic abnormalities during pregnancy without the risks involved in current techniques.

A team of scientists at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has fabricated a microchip that can filter fetal red blood cells from the mother’s circulation. Retrieving these isolated fetal cells could allow the early diagnosis of fetal genetic abnormalities.

The technique, which would require drawing only a few millilitres of blood from an expecting mother, could be used from the eighth week of pregnancy; earlier than current prenatal diagnostic procedures.

The Ocean Turnover

These are brachiopods, a type of filter-feeding organism that first evolved in the Cambrian era oceans. Although they look a lot like modern-day bivalves (clams), they are a very different organism, found in a totally different phylum. They can readily be distinguished by their shell shapes; brachiopods have sort of a “kink” in their shells whereas bivalves have more rounded shapes. Clams are molluscs, while brachiopods come from the phylum brachiopoda. These two types of filter-feeding organisms have an interesting interplay in the geologic record; if you pick up a limestone from the Paleozoic it is likely to be dominated by brachiopods, while Mesozoic and Cenozoic bivalve shells dominate limestones.

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Shark finning is the gruesome act of catching sharks, slicing off its fins, then throwing the body back into the ocean to drown or bleed to death. Without fins, sharks cannot balance or move, so it slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it suffocates or bleeds to death.

Sharks kill only 6 people each year. Over 100 million sharks are killed yearly, and 11,480 hourly. Because of this, shark populations are plummeting very, very fast. Some shark species are close to extinction, with some populations being dropped by 99%.

Sharks are greatly misunderstood, and are absolutely crucial to healthy ocean ecosystems. But some species of shark are in danger due to hunting and over fishing. There’s a lot to be done to make sure these vital predators have a secure position in the oceans. As a starting point, here are seven small ways you can help the cause.

Here’s a good resource for anyone questioned about the science of climate change.

Detailed at the link above are quotations from more than 140 of the World’s major Scientific Academies, Societies and Association, that agree that Climate Change is real, and humanity is to blame. Every major Scientific group or association on the planet agrees on this.

A starfish walking back to the water.

Inside the Rugged Lives of Mongolia’s Nomads 

Filmmaker Brandon Li captures life in western Mongolia in his film Nomads of Mongolia. Watch the nomadic Kazakh people train eagles to hunt, herd yaks, and race camels in this visually stunning short.

By: National Geographic. Donate to the National Geographic Society

Behemoths of the ancient past…and future?

One thing that many known prehistoric creatures have in common - and the thing that most people find fearsome - is that a lot of them were huge. Everyone knows about the gigantism of T-rex, Diplodocus, and Megalodon. But there were also ground sloths the size of modern-day elephants, dragonflies the size of hawks, and cockroaches the size of domestic cats (!)

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