The World’s Most Dangerous Bird

Dang, it even looks like it’s saying “I’m gonna open ya real slow like…”

Neatorama:

“Don’t try to make friends with a cassowary! The Guinness Book of World Records named it the world’s most dangerous bird.

The Cassowary lives in the rain forests of Australia
and New Guinea and are actually pretty shy animals if undisturbed, but
if you get to close and it thinks you’re a threat you could receive a
bone-breaking kick or get sliced by its dagger-like sharp claws. During
WWII, soldiers stationed in New Guinea were warned to stay away from
these birds, but some of them still became victims.

Zookeepers who take care of the endangered species are in danger themselves from the threat of job-related injuries.”

Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Study: Octopuses Lie, Cheat and Kill for Sex

Digg: “Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and
violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and
once-in-a-lifetime sex.”

ARTICLE

Google Sky Lets You Browse Nearby Galaxies

i09:

“Last night Google rolled out its latest mapping application, which
allows you to browse the night sky and zoom in on nearby galaxies and
stars. Called Google Sky, it’s just about the most fun I’ve had with a
mapping application since . . . well, Google Earth. But unlike Earth,
Sky doesn’t require you to download a bunch of software. You can browse
the heavens as easily as you browse your neighborhood on Google Maps.
And there are no annoying little pushpins — only helpful information
boxes about what astronomical objects you’re gawking at. You won’t be
able to look away.”

[Google Sky]

A Battery Made by Bioengineered Viruses

i09:

“All viruses have an organic outer shell, but it turns out that with
a little genetic tinkering they can be trained to produce an inorganic
outer shell made of gold or cobalt oxide. Angela Belcher’s lab at MIT
has created an entire factory of trained viruses whose genes have been
reprogrammed to grow battery ingredients. They’re also growing
ingredients for solar cells, as well as computer monitors and
water-purification systems.

Belcher told a rapt audience at the AAAS conference over the weekend
about how she could create a liquid full of these altered viruses, dip
a thin sheet of plastic into it, add a few more ingredients, and wind
up with a translucent, ultra-thin battery. After working on this
project for just over a year, her team got the battery to power an LED,
and now they’re scaling up to something that could power your next
laptop or cell phone.

“Let’s see what we can get biology to do for us,” she said. “It’s
just a matter of giving biology new opportunities, new materials to
work with.” One audience member asked if Belcher is concerned about the
viruses mutating and perhaps replicating on their own. Not possible,
responded Belcher. The only mutations she’s seen so far have been
viruses reverting back to their old state (ie, making regular virus
shells instead of battery components), and viruses making depolarized
battery components.

So we won’t be seeing a plague that turns your lithium ion batteries into piles of virus any time soon.”

Biomolecular Materials Group [Angela Belcher's Lab]

Parasite Makes Ant’s Butt Looks Like a Berry

Neatorama:

“Biology
is nothing if not fascinating. Here’s a story of one parasite which has
to infect both birds and ants in its lifecycle. But how does it get
from one host species to another? Here’s how:

To perpetuate its life cycle, a newly identified parasite morphs its
ant victims to such a degree that the infected ants resemble red, ripe
juicy berries that birds are more inclined to pick, according to the
University of California at Berkeley.

Eggs from the parasite then pass through the unwitting birds when
they defecate. Ants consume the waste, become infected, and the whole
cycle starts anew.

The transformation from black ant to red berry form represents the
world’s first known example of fruit mimicry caused by a parasite. In
this case, the victimizer is a parasitic nematode, or roundworm.”

Link - via Scribal Terror

First Clone Made from an Adult Human

Here we go….

io9: “Yesterday, the chief executive at biotech company Stemagen became
the first adult human to see his clone mature into a viable embryo. No,
Samuel Wood isn’t planning to raise his own baby clone — he’s just
doing research into a new way of creating stem cells from adult DNA.
But scientists pointed out that the embryo he created was viable enough
to be implanted in a woman’s uterus, IVF-style. There’s no reason to
believe it wouldn’t mature into a human baby.

Researchers took DNA from one of Wood’s skin cells, injected it into
a human egg cell from the fertility clinic next door to Stemagen, and
created a multi-celled embryo — essentially the same size embryo that
a fertility clinic would implant into a woman undergoing IVF
treatments. Wood, however, emphasizes that he’s horrified by the idea
of human cloning and wants only to use this new technique to make stem
cells for therapeutic purposes.

I say, bring on the human clones. Kerry MacInthosh, a law professor, has recently written a fascinating book, Illegal Beings,
about how the biggest problem with human clones is their legal status.
She argues that when a human clone is born its identity will have to be
kept secret — under current law, the clone’s existence is illegal and
therefore it would have no human rights and would have to be
confiscated by the government if found out. So there might be human
clones out there right now, but the frightened parents would never
reveal it for fear of losing their child.”

Mature Human Embryos Created from Adult Skin Cells [Washington Post]

Evolutionary Arms Race: Butterfly vs. Ant

Neatorama:

“There’s an evolutionary arms race going on between a rare species of butterfly and ants:

Maculinea alcon butterflies infect the nests of
Myrmica ants by hatching caterpillars nearby, hoping that the
caterpillars will be ‘adopted’ and cared for by ants that mistake them
for their own young. The caterpillars achieve this by mimicking the
surface chemistry of the ants. Getting this chemistry right is
important: if an ant doesn’t recognize a caterpillar as one of its own
it will eat it, says David Nash, a zoologist at the University of
Copenhagen in Denmark.

Successfully adopted caterpillars are bad for the ant colonies,
as ants may neglect their own young in favour of the intruders. But the
ants are fighting back. “The ant larvae seem to be evolving as a result
of being parasitized,” says Nash. “It’s an ongoing evolutionary arms
race.”

Link (Photo: David Nash) - via 3quarksdaily

Scientists Create Zombie Cockroaches

Another instance of the sick, yet fascinating, side of the insect world…

Slashdot: “Zombie insects might sound like a B-movie plot device
(quicktime video) but to the emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa
), they’re a tried and tested way to provide food for their hungry
larvae. The wasp relies on cockroaches for its grisly life cycle but
unlike many venomous predators, which paralyze their victims before
eating them, the wasp’s sting leaves the cockroach able to walk, but unable to initiate its own movement.
Researchers have discovered that the wasps sting the cockroaches once
to subdue them, then administer another, more precise sting right into
their victim’s brain. The venom works to block a neurotransmitter
called octopamine with a similar action to dopamine,
which is involved in preparations to execute complex behaviors such as
walking. Then the wasp grabs the cockroach’s antenna and leads it back
to the nest ‘like a dog on a leash’, says one researcher. The team
found that they could restore spontaneous walking behavior in stung
cockroaches by giving them a compound that reactivates octopamine
receptors in the insects’ central nervous system. Researchers were also
able to create their own zombies by injecting unstung cockroaches with
a compound that blocks the receptors producing a similar effect to that
of the venom.”

Plants form networks to communicate

Boing Boing:

“Researchers at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands have
found that certain types of plants form underground networks of runners
that they use for communication with neighboring plants of the same
species. From Science Daily:

Recently [Josef] Stuefer and his colleagues were the first to
demonstrate that clover plants warn each other via the network links if
enemies are nearby. If one of the plants is attacked by caterpillars,
the other members of the network are warned via an internal signal.
Once warned, the intact plants strengthen their chemical and mechanical
resistance so that they are less attractive for advancing caterpillars.”

Link (Via ComDig)

Germs That Go Into Space Return Deadlier Than Ever

New scifi flick, anyone?

Neatorama:

“What happen when germs go into space on a rocket and come back to Earth? They become stronger and deadlier than ever:

Scientists wanted to see how space travel affects germs, so they took some along — carefully wrapped — for the ride.

The result: Mice fed the space germs were three times more
likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs
that had remained behind on Earth.”

Link - via Super Punch