Star Trek 4: Fishermen want humpback whales off endangered list

[Celethiel]

I don't know about any of you but i've been seeing bee hives everywhere....(this year) so the honeybee disappearing i find unlikely.

 

 

What the hell kind of research would require 815 whales to be killed?.......a year?

 

Sounds like bullcrap to me.

one that thinks with the pocket book and not the head....

[iSimba]

Personal observations can't speak to world trends

 

We spent 30 minutes discussing it in my bio lecture the other day. It's definitely happening and it's pretty bad.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgc5w-xyQa0

[Celethiel]

oh the bees aren't disappearing, they're just going home... <---Doctor Who

[hh5]

oh i would hate to mess with this bug

 

Jump start: tiny planthoppers' gears make it first off at the lights

Philadelphia: A jumping insect has gears, scientists have discovered, a rare instance in which man and nature independently converged on the same idea.

It was not easy to verify.

The planthopper (Issus coleoptratus) is tiny, just a bit larger than a flea, and it jumps extremely fast, with an acceleration of 200Gs, a level close to the highest ever survived by a human.

But neurobiologist Malcolm Burrows and engineer Gregory Sutton, both of the University of Cambridge in England, used a high-speed camera attached to a microscope to capture the bugs in action. They put their tiny subjects on their backs on sticky wax and gently rubbed their bellies to provoke them to jump.

They found that the insects have toothed gears at the base of their hind legs that intermesh and rotate to perfectly synchronise the timing of each limb's release during a jump.

''It's remarkable that these gears look so similar to the gears man has designed, even the individual teeth are so similar,'' said Professor Burrows, author of the study that was published online in the journal Science.

With this mechanism, the legs are locked and coupled together. The time delay from moving one leg to another is as short as 30 microseconds, or 30 millionths of a second, allowing the insects to leap faster and farther.

Without synchronisation, the insect's body will spin instead of going straight forward due to the orientation of its hind legs, Professor Burrows said.

For example, using the most extreme case, a single-legged planthopper can only helplessly spin around in the same spot without getting anywhere.

A normal two-legged insect will still be able to leap even when its timing is off, but precious energy is wasted on rotational motion instead of a straight-ahead trajectory.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/jump-start-tiny-planthoppers-gears-make-it-first-off-at-the-lights-20130913-2tq91.html#ixzz2enwALzdq

 

 

[iSimba]

[hh5]

Honeybees' ability to find flowers could be hampered by a chemical in diesel exhaust, say scientists.

 

Tests showed that exhaust degraded some floral scent chemicals the bees "home in on" when they are foraging.

 

The study, published in Scientific Reports, also revealed that a specific group of chemicals found in diesel exhaust, known as NOx, diminished the insects' response to floral scents.

 

They say the results are evidence that air quality should be improved.

 

"We got into this, because we were aware of the impacts of airborne pollutants on human health, so it didn't seem so wild that there may be impacts that extended beyond human health," said University of Southampton neuroscientist Dr Tracey Newman, who was involved in the work.

 

They then used a diesel-powered generator to create a mixture of air and exhaust that closely matched levels of exhaust found on a busy road, and mixed this lab-made air pollution with the floral scent mix.

 

"We saw that there was loss of two of the components [of the floral odour mixture]," Dr Newman said.

 

The two odour chemicals that were "lost" had chemically reacted with a component of the diesel exhaust, mono-nitrogen oxide, known as NOx.

 

Having worked out how the pollution affected the chemistry of floral scents, the team set out to discover if the bees were affected by this change.

 

"Bees need to decipher the chemical messages they're getting [from flowers] to be able to home in on the flowers they know will give the best yield [of nectar]," said Dr Newman.

 

 

[Celethiel]

is it me... or are those fiber optics sticking out of it's butt....

[hh5]

what does it mean if we have no moose?

North American Moose Die Off, Climate Change 'Plays A Huge Part'

North America’s moose are dropping like flies, their populations declining at an alarming rate. No one is quite sure why the animal is dying off, but scientists say the culprit is likely climate change.

In Minnesota, for example, one moose population started declining by 25 percent a year several years ago, the New York Times reported. The animal’s mortality rate used to be 8 percent to 12 percent a year. Another of the state’s moose populations has nearly disappeared, down from 4,000 members in the 1990s to currently just 100.

 

[hh5]

See a giant 18-foot oarfish that was discovered off the coast in California

It could have been up to 50-feet long.

A marine science instructor at the Catalina Island Marine Institute in California got perhaps the biggest catch of her lifetime when she came across an 18-foot oarfish while snorkeling on Sunday. Jasmine Santana was about about 2 miles from Avalon, California when she noticed the large fish, KTLA reported.

 

“It took 15 or 20 of us to pick it up,” said Jeff Chace, a program director with CIMI told the TV station.

The rarely-seen oarfish died, according to reports, of natural causes. While this one seemed large, they can grow up to 50 feet. The scientists are now trying to figure out exactly what to do with their large catch.

 

 

[hh5]

ready for this discovery ... blame scotty for the transporter malfunction

HUMP BACK DOLPHINS!!!

 

[Celethiel]

ready for this discovery ... blame scotty for the transporter malfunction

HUMP BACK DOLPHINS!!!

 

aren't most dolphins kind of humpbacked....

[Palantir]

YAY FOR DOLPHINS!!

[hh5]

Border Field State Park in San Diego received the dead guest again when 45 ton heavy, 57-foot long dead fin whale washed ashore on Saturday.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it is the same whale that arrived at the shore last Monday. They said it after taking the measurements of this great big mammal.

Last Monday, the area present near Point Loma was the arrival place of this dead whale. On Wednesday, it was sent back to the sea but when the officials reached 14 miles away from the shore, the rope broke. Initially, it was in the plan to take it further but because of this incident, these 14 miles were considered enough.