Africanized honeybees, or hybrids between African and European bees, are also known under the moniker ‘killer bees’. As this name suggests, they aren’t very nice. Unless, so new research shows, they’re found on an island. Colonizing an island has a wide range of implications for the evolution of the colonists (see island biogeography). Killer bees […]
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Dark matter. It’s mysterious. And the term has a nice ring to it. No surprise then, that the phrase is often co-opted in fields other than physics. Biology is no exception. The expression ‘biological dark matter’ is used mainly in two contexts: Large parts of the genome are so-called ‘junk DNA’, apparently not coding for […]
Deadlines, we all know them. Whether self-imposed or inescapably determined by others, they form a part of many lives. Work and study are obvious fields in which they occur, but certainly not the only ones. Anyway, there’s a somewhat ambiguous reaction towards them (at least for me there is). Deadlines, why like them? Few things […]
To start with a cliché: in nature, everything is connected. Organisms are eaten by each other, waste material (including dead organisms) is used by others, and the impact of animals, plants and other life forms on the environment alters their habitats and those of others, and so on. Human interference can impact these chains. A […]
New research has shown that people can control a robotic arm with their thoughts. Telekinesis? Nope. Brain-computer interface. Two people suffering from paralysis due to strokes had a sensor implanted that recorded the activity of motor cortex neurons (some of the brain cells that control movement). The signals this sensor records can then be used […]
Update: New research on coelacanths shows that ‘beyond the cover’ things are going on. Some organisms show little change over a (very) long period of time. Often, species that have undergone little morphological change are known as living fossils (for more about the possible definitions, and a list of examples, check the Wikipedia page). Perhaps […]
Women are picky. Because they can’t afford not to be. The general idea is that females invest more in reproduction, and, as such, need to be more selective about their partners. This purportedly has its root in anisogamy, a complicated word to say that egg cells are more expensive to produce, and lesser in number, […]
A few days ago, the Map of Life went… well… live. It’s an interactive map that aims to… well… map global biodiversity. At present, it’s a beta version, so there are probably some bugs that need fixing. For now, the focus lies on fish and land vertebrates, but there are plans to add other groups […]
There is a lot of plastic in the world’s oceans. This is widely known, even though it’s a fairly recent development, tracing back a few decades. Most of this plastic, however, is quite small and, as such, is known by the name microplastic (diameter below 5 mm). For a while now, it has been known […]
What a nice way to start your day… From youtube (user CPHPHIL): In April 2012 Copenhagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester) surprised the passengers in the Copenhagen Metro by playing Griegs Peer Gynt. The flash mob was created in collaboration with Radio Klassisk (http://radioklassisk.dk/). All music was performed and recorded in the metro.
