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Trends in Plant Science 'Obligate biotroph parasitism: can we link genomes to lifestyles?' →
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New species of Amorphophallus
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SALP COLONY shuts down a Nuclear Plant off Southern California
©Richard Hermann PhotographyThe workers of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Southern California received a very slimy surprise this week when they discovered hoards of jellyfish-like creatures clinging to the structure, leading to the shutdown of the plant.
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Salp, a barrel-shaped, planktonic tunicate, moves by contracting, thus pumping water through its gelatinous body. The salp strains the pumped water through its internal feeding filters, feeding on phytoplankton. Salps appear similar to jellyfish because of the simple body form and planktonic behavior, however, they are structurally most closely related to vertebrates, animals with true backbones. Source
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The influx of salp was discovered as part of the plant’s routine monitoring system, according to Tom Cuddy, the senior manager of external and nuclear communications for the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric.
The salp were clogging the traveling screens in the intake structure, which are meant to keep marine life out and to keep the unit cool.
“Safety is the highest priority,” Cuddy said. “We will not restart the unit until the salp moves on and conditions improve. No priority is more important than the safe operation of our facility.”
The plant consists of two units. Unit 1 was shut down previously because of refueling and maintenance work and will not be functional for several weeks. Now that Unit 2 has been shut down because of the influx of salp, the plant has ceased all production.
The plant’s strategy? Wait until the salp move on and resume production once the filters are clear. Source
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GLASS FROGS and EGGS
Hyalinobatrachium valerioi
©Elke VockenhuberHyalinobatrachium valerioi is a species of frog in the Centrolenidae family. It is found in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, rivers, and heavily degraded former forest. It is threatened by habitat loss. Source
Glass frogs are mostly arboreal. They live along rivers and streams during the breeding season, and are particularly diverse in montane cloud forests of Central and South America.
The eggs are usually deposited on the leaves of trees or shrubs hanging over the running water of mountain streams, creeks, and small rivers. One species leave its eggs over stones close to waterfalls. The method of egg-laying on the leaf varies between species. The males usually call from leaves close to their egg clutches. The eggs are less vulnerable to predators than those laid within water, but can be affected by parasitic fly species. As a result, some glass frogs show parental care. After they hatch, the tadpoles fall into the waters below. The tadpoles are elongated, with powerful tails and low fins, suited for fast flowing water. Outside of the breeding season some species live in the canopy. Source
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One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. GLASS FROGS <3
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![animalworld:
WHY ZEBRAS DEVELOPED STRIPES?Equus zebra©Edgar Angelone, Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest
Researchers from Hungary and Sweden claim to have solved the mystery of zebra stripes. The stripes, they say, came about to keep away blood-sucking flies.
“We started off studying horses with black, brown or white coats,” explained Susanne Akesson from Lund University, a member of the international research team that carried out the study.
“We found that in the black and brown horses, we get horizontally polarised light,” making dark-coloured horses very attractive to flies. The light that bounces off the horse’s dark coat - and travels in waves to the eyes of a hungry fly - moves along a horizontal plane, like a snake. Horseflies, or tabanids, were very attracted by these “flat” waves of light.
“From a white coat, you get unpolarised, light [reflected],” she explained. Unpolarised light waves scatter along any plane, and are much less attractive to flies. As a result, white-coated horses are much less troubled by horseflies than the dark colored horses.
Having discovered the flies’ preference for dark coats, the team then became interested in zebras. What kind of light would bounce off the striped body of a zebra?
We painted different patterns onto boards,” then placed a blackboard, a whiteboard, and several boards with stripes of varying widths into the fields of a horse farm in rural Hungary. “We put insect glue on the boards and counted the number of flies that each one attracted.”
The striped board that most closely match to the pattern of a zebra’s coat attracted the fewest flies, “even less than the white boards”. “That was a surprise because, in a striped pattern, you still have these dark areas that are reflecting attractive horizontally polarised light.
To test horseflies’ reaction to a more realistic 3-D target, the team put four life-size “sticky horse models ” into the field - one brown, one black, one “zebra-striped”. The researchers collected the trapped flies every two days, and found that the zebra-striped horse model attracted the fewest. Source
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WHY ZEBRAS DEVELOPED STRIPES?
Equus zebra
©Edgar Angelone, Smithsonian Magazine Photo ContestResearchers from Hungary and Sweden claim to have solved the mystery of zebra stripes. The stripes, they say, came about to keep away blood-sucking flies.
“We started off studying horses with black, brown or white coats,” explained Susanne Akesson from Lund University, a member of the international research team that carried out the study.
“We found that in the black and brown horses, we get horizontally polarised light,” making dark-coloured horses very attractive to flies. The light that bounces off the horse’s dark coat - and travels in waves to the eyes of a hungry fly - moves along a horizontal plane, like a snake. Horseflies, or tabanids, were very attracted by these “flat” waves of light.
“From a white coat, you get unpolarised, light [reflected],” she explained. Unpolarised light waves scatter along any plane, and are much less attractive to flies. As a result, white-coated horses are much less troubled by horseflies than the dark colored horses.
Having discovered the flies’ preference for dark coats, the team then became interested in zebras. What kind of light would bounce off the striped body of a zebra?
We painted different patterns onto boards,” then placed a blackboard, a whiteboard, and several boards with stripes of varying widths into the fields of a horse farm in rural Hungary. “We put insect glue on the boards and counted the number of flies that each one attracted.”
The striped board that most closely match to the pattern of a zebra’s coat attracted the fewest flies, “even less than the white boards”. “That was a surprise because, in a striped pattern, you still have these dark areas that are reflecting attractive horizontally polarised light.
To test horseflies’ reaction to a more realistic 3-D target, the team put four life-size “sticky horse models ” into the field - one brown, one black, one “zebra-striped”. The researchers collected the trapped flies every two days, and found that the zebra-striped horse model attracted the fewest. Source
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Museum graduate student Edward Stanley recently used high-resolution x-ray images of tiny “armor” bones to help an international team of scientists discover a new species of lizard from remote, war-torn mountains in Central Africa. This CT scan of Cordylus marunguensis shows the lizard’s osteoderms, tiny bony plates of armor in the animal’s scales. Read more here.
© AMNH/E. Stanley
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