Million to one apple is half red, half green

A fruit grower was left stunned when he found a golden delicious apple on his tree split exactly half green, half red down the middle. The fruit's coloring is thought to be caused by a random genetic mutation at odds of more than a million to one.

Experts believe that the odds of finding an apple with such a perfect line between the green and the red are more than a million to one. In such cases, the red side usually tastes sweeter than the green side – because it has seen more sunshine during its growth.

Scientists note that this is known as a chimera where one of the first two cells has developed differently giving rise to one half of the apple being different. It is unlikely to be a stable mutation but it is worth checking next year to see if it recurs. There are instances of some striped apples and pears where the mutation remains stable.

Original article here.

Side note: This is the 300th post to the blog!

Butterflies Use Antenna GPS to Guide Migration

Scientists have finally located the 24-hour clock that guides the migration of monarch butterflies. Instead of being in the brain where most people expected, it turns out the circadian clock is located in the butterflies’ antennae.

Every fall, monarchs make an impressive 2,000-mile trek south, using the sun to guide them to the exact same wintering spot in central Mexico. But because the sun is a moving target, changing position throughout the day, biologists have long speculated that in addition to having a “sun compass” in their brains, butterflies must use some kind of 24-hour clock to guide their migration. Now, researchers have located this special GPS system.

The scientists had been studying the ability of butterfly antenna to sense odors when they uncovered something surprising: When they clipped off the insects’ antennae and tethered them in a flight simulator, the butterflies no longer flew in a uniform direction. Without their feelers, the butterflies lost the ability to navigate using the sun, as if they could no longer adjust their direction based on the time of day. This raised the prospect that the timing mechanism may actually be in the antennae.

The researchers tested their hypothesis by painting the antennae of half their butterflies with black enamel, which blocked all input from the sun, and the other half with clear paint that allowed the sun’s rays through. While the monarchs covered with clear paint kept flying south, the butterflies with blacked-out antennae started to drift consistently north, suggesting that their molecular clock was running about an hour off schedule.

The new finding not only changes how scientists think about butterfly antennae, but may also suggest a similar role for an antennal clock in other types of insects, such as bees and ants, that also operate elaborate navigation systems. Like butterflies, honeybees use a sun compass to find flowers and communicate their specific position to the rest of the hive, and they could be using a circadian clock in their antenna to adjust the sun’s position to the time of day.

Original article here.

Strange Animals Bred for Business Purposes

Breeders around the world covet certain animals for their economic potential. Some produce a lot of meat. Some are iridescent. Others fit well into small spaces. All of the animals featured below have highly unusual attributes that make each a potentially lucrative business proposition:

Giant Guinea Pig

Cuy meat is lean, protein-packed, and versatile. Cuys, or guinea pigs, reproduce quickly, offering a steady supply of meat. One Lima, Peru official said that guinea pigs will feed a family of up to eight people for only USD $3.20. Peruvians eat about 65 million guinea pigs per year. Scientists in Peru supersized the guinea pig, introducing a giant guy weighing about 2.2 pounds, twice the usual size.



Belgian Blue

Known as the Incredible Hulk cow, Monster cow, and Schwarzenegger cow, the Belgian Blue takes the world’s blue ribbon for buffness. The cow’s hereditary myostatin defect results in excessive muscle growth known as “double muscling.” As a result, the breed produces a large amount of lean beef.



Fainting Goat

Fainting goats are bred to fall over. A hereditary disorder, myotonia congenita, causes their muscles to freeze when they’re scared, often resulting in them collapsing on their sides. Their small size makes them ideal for small farms, where they won’t hop fences—or will scare themselves into collapsing when they try. According to oral history, the fainting goat was a good asset protector. Handlers would keep them with other (more valuable) animals, like sheep. When a predator came around, the fainting goat would collapse, effectively sacrificing itself so that the other animals could safely run away.



German Giant

The German Giant, one of the biggest domestic rabbit breeds on Earth, can grow to the size of a dog. Breeders covet giant rabbits for their looks, their fur, and their meat.



Minicow

German Shepherd-sized minicows cost only a few hundred dollars. They are tiny, meaty and fit in your backyard. Homesteaders can choose from Irish Dexter, Mini Hereford, or Lowline Angus cows.



Jersey Giant

The Jersey Giant chicken was originally bred as a replacement for turkey. The breed, originally crossbred from three other kinds of chickens, produces hens weighing an average of 11 lbs, and cocks of 13 lbs. The meat industry initially took to the idea, but then cast Jersey Giants aside because they don’t grow fast enough.



GloFish

Genetically engineered GloFish come in a variety of colors, such as Sunburst Orange, Starfire Red and Electric Green. These colorful zebrafish are the world’s first genetically modified pet. In 1999, scientists inserted fluorescence proteins from coral and jellyfish into a zebrafish embryo, resulting in the GloFish’s luminescent qualities. The idea was to create a fish that would fluoresce when it came near toxins, allowing it to detect pollution. When businesspeople caught wind of the glowing fish, they saw great potential for consumer sales.



Original article here

Spider-Man lookalike lizard

The vivid red-and-blue coloring of the Mwanza Flat-headed Rock Agama is almost uncannily like that of Spiderman, and comic book fans have been flocking to exotic pet shops to snap them up.

Agamas make good pets as they become tame and docile if handled regularly. They can grow up to a foot long with a balanced diet of locusts, crickets, mealworms and waxworms.

Native to Kenya, the rock agama is unable to throw webs, but can change color – the brightly colored males will change brown at night or if frightened. They can also run on their hind legs can scale vertical walls like Spider-man.

Original article here.

UPDATE:
More pictures of the lizard can be seen here.

Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys

After receiving injections of genes that produce color-detecting proteins, two color-blind monkeys have seen red and green for the first time.

Except in its extreme forms, color blindness isn’t a debilitating condition, but it’s a convenient stand-in for other types of blindness that might be treated with gene therapy. The monkey success raises the possibility of reversing those diseases, in a manner that most scientists considered impossible.

The team injected their monkeys’ eyes with viruses carrying a gene that makes L-opsin, one of three proteins released when color-detecting cone cells are hit by different wavelengths of light. Male squirrel monkeys naturally lack the L-opsin gene; like people who share their condition, they’re unable to distinguish between red and green.

At first, the two monkeys behaved no differently than before. Though quick to earn a grape juice reward by picking out blue and yellow dots from a background of gray dots on a computer screen, they banged the screen randomly when presented with green or red dots.

But after five months, something clicked. The monkeys picked out red and green, again and again. At the biological level, scientists can’t say precisely what happened — the monkeys, named Sam and Dalton, are alive and healthy, their brains unscanned and undissected — but their actions left no doubt.

Read more about the implications of the findings here.

How to make a Band-Aid from Tree Fungus

If you're out in the wilderness without a first aid kit and need a band-aid, according to this tutorial you can make one out of birch tree fungus in a pinch.

The author notes that Birch polypore, also known as Piptoporus betulinus, makes a for a good emergency band-aid. Check out the link for details on how to properly identify the fungus needed and pointers on avoiding additional injuries while making the band-aid.

Original article here.

Insects Emit Universal Death Stench

Scientists have discovered that insects from cockroaches to caterpillars all emit the same stinky blend of fatty acids when they die, and this sinister stench sends bugs of all kinds running for their lives.

A biologist made this morbid discovery while studying the social behavior of cockroaches. When a roach locates a great new abode (like your kitchen cupboard), it gives off a chemical signal to attract its cockroach friends. To determine the chemical composition of these pheromones, the scientists and his team started crushing dead cockroaches and spreading around their body juice. Cockroaches avoided places treated with these extracts "like the plague."

The team found that their concoction repelled not just cockroaches, but ants, caterpillars, woodlice and pill bugs. And even though they’re technically crustaceans rather than insects, dead woodlice and pill bugs produced the same set of fatty acids as the other animals.

Insects and crustaceans diverged from each other 400 million years ago, so the researchers think their death mix represents a universal, ancient warning signal. Recognizing and avoiding the dead could reduce the chances of catching the disease.

The scientists hope the right concoction of death smells might protect crops against pesky invaders. For instance, a log treated with the fatty acids repelled wood beetles in a forest for a full month.

Original article here.

See-Through Glass Frog

The see-through skin of an inch-long glass frog reveals her eggs. Native to Venezuela, the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams. Tadpoles hatch, then tumble into the current to be swept away.



Taken from gallery here.

How to Photograph a Bat

Bats fly very quickly and only at night. Taking pictures of them is therefore very difficult. Check out the pictures below to see what steps this photographer took to get these great shots:

High-Speed Video of Locusts Could Help Make Better Flying Robots

A new study may inspire aeronautical engineers to be more "flexible" with their designs. The study shows that the bends and twists in locusts’ flexible, flapping wings power the insects’ extraordinary long-distance flights.

Even though researchers have been studying how insects and other creatures fly for a long time, the aerodynamics and architectures of wings is still not fully understood. The new work uncovers the flight signatures of flapping, flexible wings.

The research focuses on the flight of the pestilent locust, an insect renowned for its efficient flying style. The four-winged insects are built to fly hundreds of miles at a time.

Researchers used high-speed cameras to capture the details of how wings of the locust Schistocerca gregaria deform as they flap by bending and twisting.

Data from the high-resolution flight images allowed the researchers to create a near-perfect mathematical model of how the flexible, twisting wings propel the insect through the air. With the model in hand, they could predict the shapes of the air currents around the flying locusts. Tiny packets of smoke released near a flying locust showed air swirls similar to swirls predicted by the model. Tweaks to to the model indicated that stiffening and/or straightening the wings caused flight performance to suffer.

The study provides sound experimental evidence that flexible wings add to flight performance. Figuring out the details of how locusts and other insects fly may help researchers design tiny robotic fliers (or "micro air vehicles").

The picture below shows patterns of air movement caused by a flying locust (middle and right columns) are similar to air patterns predicted by a computer simulation (left column). Air swirls beneath the locust’s wings as the wings move downward from the beginning of a stroke (top panels) to the end (bottom panels).



Original article here.

Coconut Crabs

The coconut crab is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, and is probably at the upper limit of how big terrestrial animals with exoskeletons can become in today's atmosphere. The species inhabits the coastal forest regions of many Indo-Pacific islands.

Generally nocturnal, they remain hidden during the day and emerge only on some nights to forage. The crab is known for its ability to crack coconuts with its strong pincers and eat the contents.

It is also called the robber crab or palm thief, because some coconut crabs are rumored to steal shiny items such as pots and silverware from houses and tents.

The picture below gives a good in indication of how large coconut crabs are:

Bacteria Used To Make Radioactive Metals Inert

The Lost Orphan Mine (PDF) below the Grand Canyon hasn't produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but a biochemistry professor is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.

The bacteria being studied are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance that will sink to the bottom of a lake or stream. The professor is looking into the bacteria's water cleansing ability and how long the changed material would remain inert.

The research could also be beneficial to heavy metal pollution from storage tanks and industrial waste. The bacteria are already present in more than 7,000 heavy metal contaminated sites, but they live in a specific range of oxygen and temperature, making them difficult to control.

According to the professor, knowledge of the way bacteria live in microbial communities is still in its infancy and relatively little is known about the communication systems among microbes. Researchers are investigating the bacterium's basic genetics and hope to learn how to make its interactions with metals sustainable. They have already identified a few genes that are critical to converting uranium.

Original article here.

Birds "Transform" Themselves in Preparation for Migration

As fall approaches, millions of birds across North America prepare for their migration to warmer climes. Many species fly for thousands of miles, often without stopping.

At their baseline state, migratory birds are already equipped with evolutionary tools such as hollow bones and optical compasses and lungs that provide purer oxygen than is breathed by any mammal. But when dwindling sunlight triggers their migratory physiology, they undergo many more fascinating changes.

In just a few days, their food intake rises by multiple orders of magnitude — the equivalent of having a hamburger for lunch on Monday, and 100 hamburgers on Friday. Even seed-eaters switch to insect-heavy diets rich in energy-dense polyunsaturated fats.

The fat is packed on aerodynamically, tucked in the lower back and wherever else it won’t add much drag. Some species, such as warblers, which can weigh less than an ounce but fly 2,500 miles without resting, double their body weights in preparation for the voyage.

In order to keep pace with the dietary influx, the birds’ digestive organs expand. Even the cells of their stomachs swell. But shortly before takeoff, with no more need for this extra bulk, their guts shrink back to size.

In the meantime, the birds’ pectoral muscles become thicker and denser. The pecs of the red knot, a shorebird that makes 2,000 mile-long migratory flights, swell by 40 percent.

Much of this added muscle mass will be burned for in-flight energy, but most of their fuel comes from fat. Unlike mammals, who fuel endurance exertion with protein and carbohydrates before switching — a transition felt as “hitting the wall” — birds start by burning fat, and use only the minimum of protein needed to keep their brains running. They never hit the wall.

To better turn fat to fuel, their bodies boost production of fat-metabolizing proteins. In sparrows, levels of the proteins double from their usual rates. To further feed their cells, extra oxygen-carrying hemoglobin protein is pumped into the blood, right up to the limit where it would be too thick to flow.

Some species do rest during migration, stopping for a few weeks before crossing some especially vast and barren expanse, such as the Sahara. Even in this brief time, red knots’ pectorals will shrink at first, and their legs and stomachs swell. When the birds are done eating and ready to fly again, the process will be reversed. Their hearts grow the whole time.

Read more in the original article here.

Videos Show Spread of Swine Flu

By analyzing the mutations in swine flu samples, scientists have assembled the most complete model to date of the pandemic’s birth.

Traditional modeling — the pins-on-a-map approach — relies on formal reports of a disease. Although these convey the big picture, they don’t always give a clear picture of how the disease spread.

But because flu viruses constantly pick up genetic mutations as they multiply, scientists can deduce a family tree by comparing the shared ancestry of their genomes. This helps reveal hidden information about the spatial spread of the virus.

The researchers ran 242 viral genomes, collected around the world between late March and mid-July, through algorithms that determined their most likely evolutionary path. From hundreds of trillions of possible configurations, the program arrived at the models below.

The bottom video below is newer, but doesn’t clearly show swine flu spread outside North America. The top video above is older and contains fewer data points, but gives a more complete sense of the virus’ global jumps.





Original article here.

Severed Gecko Tails Have a Mind of Their Own

Even after they’re no longer connected to a lizard brain, gecko tails can flip, jump and lunge in response to their environment — and may even be able to evade predators.

Researchers have known for centuries that some animals can voluntarily shed parts of their bodies to keep from being eaten, but few studies have looked at the behavior of disposable body parts once they’ve fallen off. Now, using high-speed video and a technique called electromyography, scientists have discovered that severed gecko tails exhibit complex behavior and even seem to react to environmental cues.

They expected a series of rhythmic movements that would slow down over time, but they found, that the tail would flip left-right-left-right for awhile, and then do a jump, pivot around, and do another flip, etc.

The scientists say that figuring out what controls the jumping gecko tail may help us understand why the paralyzed muscles of spinal cord injured patients sometimes exhibit spontaneous muscle contractions, which they hope could someday lead to treatments that restore some control over such movements.

After attaching electrodes to the tails of four adult leopard geckos, the researchers gently pinched the lizards to encourage them to shed their tails. As soon as a gecko felt threatened, its tail began to twitch and eventually detached from the rest of its body in an amazing, but nearly bloodless, feat.

The researchers immediately placed the severed tails into a recording arena, as shown in the video below.



Rather than using up all their energy in a single short burst, the gecko tails seemed to modulate their muscle movement to conserve energy and maximize the unpredictability of their behavior. The tails also changed direction and speed depending on what they bumped into, which suggests that the tails can independently sense and respond to their environment. The tail is buying the animal that shed it some time to get away.

Original article here.

Cell Phone Cricket Census in NYC

If you are in New York on September 11 and you have a cell phone and a good pair of ears, you can help with the first-ever comprehensive cricket census of New York City.

Biologists from the US Geological Survey are asking citizen scientists from the Big Apple to help them track the city’s cricket and katydid population. Participants in the NYC Cricket Crawl will go out between dusk and midnight to record cricket calls for one minute, and then immediately send their results and location to the scientists by cell phone.

The researchers are hoping to find evidence that the Common True Katydid, once plentiful in New York City but now rare, is still thriving in some regions of the city.

Scientists came up with the idea after reading a brief report on the mysterious disappearance of the common katydid on Staten Island, written in 1920. Although nearly 90 years have passed since the report, no one has solved the mystery of the missing katydid.

You don’t need any special equipment to become a Cricket Crawler, and there are two options for submitting your data: Either ID your own cricket songs and call or text in the results, or if you have access to a phone or digital camera with video, you can record what you hear and send the file directly to the scientists. Real-time cricket census data and interactive maps will be available as the night continues.

Original article here.

Google Algorithm Predicts When Species Will Go Extinct

Biologists have figured out the most efficient way to destroy an ecosystem — and it’s based on the Google search algorithm.

Scientists have long known that the extinction of key species in a food web can cause collapse of the entire system, but the vast number of interactions between species makes it difficult to guess which animals and plants are the most important.

Now, computational biologists have adapted the Google search algorithm, called PageRank, to the problem of predicting ecological collapse, and they’ve created a startlingly accurate model.

Using a modified version of PageRank, the researchers were able to identify which species extinctions within a food web would lead to biggest chain-reaction of species death.

Unlike previous solutions to the coextinction problem, the Google solution takes into account not only the number of connections between species, but also their relative importance. In other words, grass is important because it’s eaten by gazelles, and gazelles are important because they’re eaten by lions.

The scientists have found that the importance of a species can be connected to the amount of matter that flows to it. If species eat a lot of things, and a lot of things eat them, they tend to be important. Previous solutions to the problem tended to underestimate the importance of species that are lower on the food chain, and hopes are that the new solution will encourage conservation biologists to take a broader view of species extinctions.

Original article here.

Portraitist of Non-Existent Wildlife

Artist Scott Musgrove has created a portrait gallery of extinct animals, fish and birds that exist only in his imagination. He fancies himself as carrying on the tradition of 19th-century naturalist James Audubon (see the National Audubon Society), except the Seattle artist doesn’t actually kill wild birds and prop them up against picturesque tree stumps before he starts painting.

The pages of The Late Fauna of Early North America present a gallery of fantastical creatures including the Dwarf Basket Horse, the Humble Bighorn Blackfoot, the Hairy Brook Trout, the Tubby Sea Tiber, Swamp Island Ibex and the Lesser Plant Sampler, along with the floating ponies pictured above.



Original article here.