burpees4water:

I will keep this photo posted for 1 week.

Every time someone Reblogs this photo I will donate 10 cent to charity: water

charity: water provides clean and safe drinking water to those who most desperately need it.

After the money is donated I will post proof of donation.  

Show you care & Reblog.

Click the photo to donate.

$20 provides 1 Child Clean & Safe Water for 20 Years

 www.burpees4water.tumblr.com

(via shapefutures)

animalworld:

MINER BEE as a “Pollen Vector” - by request
Families Andrenidae & Anthophoridae
© Alliec2007

Pollen vectors are animals, usually insects, that transport pollen of plants when using the flowers for feeding, breeding or hiding. The pollen is found adhered to insect’s body parts such as face, legs and mouth parts or to mammal’s hairs, resulting or helping in the pollination of many plant species. An example are wasps, which can transport pollen and contribute for the pollination of several plant species, being potential or even efficient pollinators.

This is an unusually good shot of pollen grains adhering to a miner bee.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollination

Other posts:

 American Honeybee

Pollen covered wasp

Saving our bees

animalworld:

TURTLE FROG
Myobatrachus gouldii
© Julian Bentley/frogs.org.au 

NOT A TURTLE, NOT A FROG - this is a mash-up of both - turtle and frog with a little alien thrown in for good measure. It’s a real animal the aptly named Turtle Frog and is endemic to Southwestern Australia.

A very peculiar frog with a body shape resembling a small turtle with its shell removed. The head is very small, with reduced eyes, and quite distinct from the body, unlike most other frogs. The limbs are short but muscular. This species burrows forward through the sand, unlike most of arid-adapted burrowing frogs that use their hind feet and descend backwards in to the soil. The back color ranges from pink to a uniform light to dark brown.

Lays up to 50 eggs. There is no tadpole stage as the embryo goes through its entire development in the egg capsule and emerges as a small but fully formed frog.

Source: http://frogwatch.museum.wa.gov.au/Southwest/SouthwestForests/434.aspx

Other Australian Animal posts:

Walking Insects

Numbat

Honeypot Ants

cwnl:

Albino Cyclops Shark Confirmed Authentic

Cut from the belly of a dusky shark by commercial fishermen off the Gulf of California, researchers and experts have agreed that the remains are real; one of less than 50 known examples of a working optic nerve in cycloptic sharks.

Via: Shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana, of Mexico’s Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar, told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing: “This is extremely rare. As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded.”

Researchers said they had examined the shark and found that its eye was made of functional optical tissue. It is unlikely that it would have survived.

Dr Magana and his colleagues will soon publish a scientific paper about the find.

Seth Romans, a spokesman for Pisces Fleet, told LiveScience that the fisherman who caught the shark was “amazed and fascinated” by the attention and was hanging on to its remains.

(via ikenbot)

spacetimecontinumm:

Planet in Progress?

A new picture of a gassy disk around a young star suggests that unseen planets may be forming about 456 light-years away. The near-infrared image of the star SAO 206462 was captured by the Subaru Telescope in Hawai

 Astronomers think that planets are born in the disks of debris that circle young stars, but the material is often too dense to see newly forming worlds directly. 

Image courtesy NAOJ/Subaru

scinerd:

What Makes Sea Anemones Immortal?

They’re tiny sea creatures who attach themselves to rocks, and look a bit like colorful sacks topped with delicate tentacles. They’re one of the most ancient animals on Earth, and share a common ancestor with humans (along with all other vertebrates). And they’re immortal. No, really.

I spoke with genomics researcher Daniel Rokhsar, who worked with a team to sequence the scarlet sea anemone genome in 2007, and continues to study the tiny, tenticular creatures in his lab at UC Berkeley. After he and his colleagues analyzed its genome, they discovered that sea anemones have closer ties to vertebrates than anyone had realized, making them more closely related to humans than they are to flies and worms.

Also, according to Rokhsar, one of the things that surprised the researchers was the complexity of the sea anemone nervous system. Though the creatures don’t have brains or central nervous systems, they do have genes that create specialized nerve cells. It’s unclear why, or what those cells do. He calls it the “cryptic molecular neuroanatomy of the sea anemone.” But that’s not the only cryptic aspect of sea anemone biology.

“As far as we know these are immortal animals,” Rokhsar said. “You can cut them in half, and they’ll create two new anemones.” Even if you cut off the tentacles and mouth at the top of the anemone, the remaining sac will eventually regrow its “head.” And if they aren’t eaten or killed by toxins in their environments, they can seemingly live forever. Rokhsar continued:

They live a very long time – one was documented to have lived a hundred years. They don’t have old age. They live forever and proliferate, just getting bigger.

(via scinerds)

sciencecenter:

Mystery of the miracle-berry is cracked

Popping a squishy red miracle berry into your mouth is almost like hacking your taste buds. For up to an hour, the juices coat your tongue and previously sour foods like lemon and vinegar magically taste deliciously sweet.

The berry and its plant (Richardella dulcifica) grows in West Africa. While the local population has been using its miraculous properties for centuries, it was only in 1968 that the all-important protein miraculin was extracted and sold in tablets. They’re now available the web and often feature in “taste tripping” parties where brave souls dine on pickles and limes.

However, the exact mechanism that miraculin uses on your taste receptors, allowing it to magically turn sour into sweet, has been a mystery to science for almost four decades. Until now, that is, as a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo — headed by Keiko Abe — has uncovered the miracle berry’s secrets.

Miraculin binds to the sweet tastebuds and is activated by the acidity of food, turning “on” the sweet sensation and drowning out the sour. Click through to read more about the science.

(via sciencecenter)

cwnl:

Father of Artificial Intelligence Dies at 84

Another Inventor Dies Without Much Mention Throughout Mainstream Media Yesterday (Oct. 24)

The American scientist invented the computer language LISP. It went on to become the programming language of choice for the AI community, and is still used today.

Professor McCarthy is also credited with coining the term “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955 when he detailed plans for the first Dartmouth conference. The brainstorming sessions helped focus early AI research.

Prof McCarthy’s proposal for the event put forward the idea that “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it”.

The conference, which took place in the summer of 1956, brought together experts in language, sensory input, learning machines and other fields to discuss the potential of information technology.

Other AI experts describe it as a critical moment.

“John McCarthy was foundational in the creation of the discipline Artificial Intelligence,” said Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield.

“His contribution in naming the subject and organising the Dartmouth conference still resonates today.”

(via ikenbot)

sustainable-sam:

Loving the Chambered Nautilus to Death