FINE Things 63

How lizards shed their tails. (Video and text) [link]
 

Do birds have "culture"? Find out by viewing this webinar. [link]

The calorie counter. Evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer busts myths about how humans burn calories-and why. [link]

February 22, 2022: A Twos Day on a Tuesday. The date, when written in the m-dd-yy format, consists only of twos: 2-22-22. It also falls on a Tuesday! From:[link] 

How warp-speed evolution is transforming ecology. Darwin thought evolution was too slow to change the environment on observable timescales. Ecologists are discovering that he was wrong. [link]

From Linda: A parasitic wasp unmasked: one species is actually 16 species. [link]

What drives sea level rise? US report warns of 1-foot rise within three decades and more frequent flooding. A sea level scientist explains the two main ways climate change is threatening the coasts. [link]

How poisonous mercury gets from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat. The Biden administration is moving to revive mercury limits for coal-fired power plants. A scientist explains mercury's health risks and the role power plants play. [link]
 

FINE Things 62

The extinction crisis that no one’s talking about. Coffee, wine, and wheat varieties are among the foods we could lose forever. [link]

 
Deluge of dog pee and poo harming nature reserves, study suggests. Urine and feces creating nitrogen and phosphorus levels that would be illegal on farms, scientists calculate. [link]

Bumble Bee Short Course for Community Scientists: building skills of community scientists. Anyone interested in bumble bee biodiversity, ecology and conservation will want to join us on six consecutive Fridays from 1PM to 2:30PM EASTERN, March 18th — April 22nd. Register once, attend any session. A weekly schedule will be forwarded to registrants. (If you miss an episode it will be available later as a recording to those who registered.)
Register here.
 

Thanks to David Miller for this link. This discussion of world demographic trends with Dr. Darrell Bricker should be viewed by everyone. (30 min presentation followed by a great Q and A.) [link]

The world of the dragonfly. (~50 mins) [link]

 
Sneaky Orchid Tricks a Wasp | The Green Planet | BBC Earth [link]

These Seeds Can Walk! | The Green Planet | BBC Earth [link]
 

Parasite in the Poo | The Green Planet | BBC Earth [link]

The fastest carnivorous plant in the world. [link] 

Book Excerpt from Endangered Maize [link]

Sunflowers' bee-attracting ultraviolet also helps retain moisture. The dual purposes of the plants' hidden colors may conflict as the climate warms, authors of a new study suggest. [link]

 

A practice, which hasn't been previously observed among nonhuman animals, may be a display of empathy. [link]

The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity
A technical paper, but you can read the summary and view the video at the beginning. Those of you with a little more botanical background can read further.
[link]

 

FINE Things 61

Bumblebee (or Bumble bee)
(photo by Don Hunter)

Outstanding webinar on Bumble bees and native plants. Don't miss this!  [link]

 

Why gardeners should stop using peat, and what to use instead [link]
 

Study explores how temperate rainforests can aid the fight against climate change. [link]
 

Grasslands more reliable carbon sink than trees [link]

99 million-year-old flowers found perfectly preserved in amber bloomed at the feet of dinosaurs [link]
 

Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are on the rise. But why? [link]
 

Losing amphibian diversity also means losing poison diversity [link]
 

Heroes, not headaches: reframing the reputation of harvester ants. [link]
 

National Butterfly Center closed for indefinite period. [link]
 

While the cicadas of 2038 slumber, scientists are reviewing what they learned from 2021’s Brood X. [link]
 

FINE Things 60

Is the omicron variant Mother Nature’s way of vaccinating the masses and curbing the pandemic? [link]

Saitis barbipes signaling
photo by Kaldari,
CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

This colorful jumping spider can't see its beautiful red face and legs. [link]

 

Dinosaurs in Alaska? Ted says you should watch this. [link]  

 

Quinoa, potatoes, and llamas fueled emergent social complexity in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes. Read the summary of this interesting article.  [link]

Richard Lenski explains his mutation experiment that has run for over 34 thousand generations. [link]

 

Western monarch butterfly populations grew over 100-fold in 2021. Why?
The beloved butterflies had fallen to critical levels in recent years. Experts weigh in on what might be causing their remarkable return. [link]

Butterfly Blueprints: Explore how the scientific secrets of butterflies are inspiring technological innovations. [link]

How Monarchs can migrate explained in a comic book. [link]

A well-known wildflower turns out to be a secret carnivore. Triantha occidentalis sets a deathtrap for small insects just beneath its flower. [link]

Big dog, little dog: mutation explains range of canine sizes  [link]

An Arctic hare traveled at least 388 kilometers in a record-breaking journey. The trek is the longest ever recorded among hares and their relatives. [link]

Where did Omicron come from? Three key theories. [link]

Searching for the future of sunscreen. [link]

A soil-science revolution upends plants to fight climate change.
This article is an important discussion of carbon capture. If you read it be sure to scroll to the bottom and read the comments!  [link]



 

FINE Things 59

Short Video: What do Bluebirds eat? [link]

What is a vernal pool, what lives there and why, plus, how to build one in your backyard. A podcast. [link]

 

What causes dandruff? [link] 

 

Signals from sweeteners and sugars are relayed from the gut to the brain by different neural pathways. [link]

 

A new study suggests that migratory birds have lighter colors than other birds. This difference may help them stay cool on their long journeys, when they are pushing themselves to their physiological limits.  [link]

 

A plant fools bees with 'fake' female pollen. [link]

There is a war of words in the scientific world about whether plants are listening, or even talking back. [link]

 

Why would a moth lay eggs on a plant that is already being consumed by caterpillars? Shouldn't she seek out a plant with fewer competitors?  [link]

Anatomy and history collide in glass sculptures. [link]
 

Handmade blown glass flora and fauna. [link]

Beavers offer lessons about managing water in a changing climate, whether the challenge is drought or floods. [link]
 

Dinosaur food and Hiroshima bomb survivors: maidenhair trees are 'living fossils'  [link]

Lighted nets dramatically reduce bycatch of sharks and other wildlife while making fishing more efficient [link]
 

"Nothing but fish nests": Massive icefish colony found in Antarctica [link]

Vulture bees discovered in Panama and Costa Rica. [link]

 

FINE Things 58

How does the Leopard get its spots? [link]

DEEP LOOK takes a closeup view of how slime molds move. [link]

George Washington Carver, a plant scientist's perspective. [link]

What everyone should know about flowers and bees. [link]

A recent paper challenges a long standing assumption about mutations: they occur independently of their effect on fitness. The new research, summarized here, suggests that important genomic regions mutate less often than do other regions. [link] (Note: the article may be pretty technical.)

Climate change threatens coffee as we know it, but there is a delicious wild species that could help save your morning brew. [link]

 

Newly discovered patterns in evolution may help scientists make accurate short-term predictions. [link]

Studies that map the adaptive value of viral mutations hint at how the COVID-19 pandemic might progress next. [link]

Can we really be friends with an octopus? When octopuses are social, are they reaching out or simply reacting? [link]

 
Read this account in the New Yorker of crisscrossing Siberia in the age of climate change [link]

As climate changes, so does life in the planet’s soils. To understand what might be lost, a microbial ecologist taps molecular methods to explore Earth’s underground microbes, from the permafrost to the grasslands. [link]

Here is a video of Doug Tallamy presenting the ideas in his book, Bringing Nature Home: The Importance of Native Plants [link]

Nature Rambler Heather Larkin made a video of tips for macro photography last year, just as the pandemic was starting. "With the newest wave, more people are at home again and macro photography is a great way to enjoy the natural world around us," she says. [link] 

Why are January days so cold? The day length has been increasing since before Christmas and its still cold. The Conversation sums up what you were taught in school, but forgot.  [link]

FINE Things 57

This week offers 13 different FINE experiences for your enlightenment and enjoyment.

Deep Look: Australian walking stick insect [link]
 

Here is an exciting and interesting podcast about flowers that explode. The podcast interview lasts about 50 minutes. There's even a movie! Well worth your time. [link]

 

When landscapes are abandoned, do butterflies flee? Agricultural intensification affects butterfly populations, but so does the abandonment of farmland. [link]

Resilience of crops confirms that drought alone did not cause a 'collapse' in Mayan civilization. In the 800s, Mayan cities in southeastern Mexico and Central America were abandoned - just as drought hit the region. But a botanical study shows that the connection between drought and depopulation was not simple. [link]

From Linda George: The gift shop in the Visitor Center at the Garden has a display case with fanciful creatures made from acorns and other natural materials. This link is a short movie featuring interactions between acorn fairies and actual birds. It's fun! [link]

Two recommendations from Linda Chafin: 

Saving old-growth trees (WAPO) [link]
Fires swept through a nature preserve with a managed forest and an adjacent, unmanaged forest in Oregon. Compare the side-by-side results. [link]

Life in a Wingstem stem. Take a look at all the critters that can inhabit the stem of a common fall-flowering plant. [link]

Chalk is made of the remains of unicellular, planktonic organisms in the oceans of the world. For shelter, each individual cell builds a protective house from 'bricks' it makes itself. And what beautiful bricks they are! This short piece tells you about these creatures and their importance in storing CO2. [link]
 

And peaking of chalk, a recent article in Nature suggests that variations in Earth's orbit can affect the abundance of coccolithophores enough for them to actually cause alterations in the cycles of glaciation. [link]

Acorn weevil 'snouts' inspire strong materials that are simultaneously flexible. [link]

What's in a name? Kathy Keeler, at A Wandering Botanist, ruminates over what we should call the Poinsettia. [link]
 

In 1629, the Batavia, a ship of the Dutch East India Company, met disaster off the coast of Australia. A new analysis of the shipwreck's tree rings uncovers how such vessels were built and where the wood that built them came from. [link]

 

FINE Things 56

 Why these Mexican fish do the wave. [link]

Wasps in your yard. Getting to know them. [link]

Can single cells learn? [link]
 

Hydra with a bud
Peter Schuchert, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

Sleep evolved before the brain. Ask the Hydra. [link]

 

How the swine flu epidemic of 2009 developed. [link]
 

Do birds have a sense of smell? Turkey Vultures can smell carrion, but what about other kinds of birds? [link]

Ted LaMontagne thought this WAPO article was worth reading. [link]

Monarch butterflies may have another trick up their sleeves to avoid being preyed upon. [link]

FINE Things 55

I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope we all can get out from under the thumb of the covid virus. Paraphrasing Spock: "Be well and prosper!"

 

Gary and Ted both recommend this article on tornado weather in a warming climate. [link]

From National Geographic: The 12 most intriguing animal discoveries of 2021; From ants that can regrow their brains to the world's tiniest reptile. [link]

Zebra Finch
The original uploader was Nv8200p at English Wikipedia.
Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Gary Crider says this article is fascinating! While still in the egg, Zebra Finch chicks  alter the way their mitochondria work in response to their parents calls.  [link]

David Miller recommends this broader perspective on Covid from Nicolas Christakis, Prof of Social and Natural Sciences at Yale. [link]

This piece, from Nature, tells, in detail, the story of how mRNA vaccines were developed. (The covid vaccines are mRNA based).  [link]

 

The winter solstice is noticed by honey bees. Learn more at honeybeesuite.com: [link]

Can animals understand magic tricks? The New Scientist has an article about European Jays that can be fooled and what that tells us about their mental processes. [link]
 

Ted LaMontagne liked this article about a fossilized dinosaur embryo still in the egg shell. (From the Washington Post): [link]

This article in the New Scientist discusses the problems in understanding how the ancestors of New World Monkeys could have traveled from Africa to the New World.  [link]
 

A history of European mistletoes. [link]

FINE Things 54

 Posted Dec. 18, 2021; Poinsettia link added Dec. 20,

About Poinsettia, [link]
 

Science writer Ed Yong explains why he cancelled his 40th birthday party. [link]

Emily wanted to share this story about 80,000 bees in a shower wall. [link]

At long last a millipede that lives up to its name is discovered. [link]

Rufus Hummingbird
Photo by Kameron Perensovich,
CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

Gary Crider recommended this article about winter hummingbird sightings. [link]

Rosemary Woodel recommended this article about tech that permits researchers to track the movements of animals as small as wasps. [link]

Tick removal (Australian study) after killing in place: [link]
Taylor, B.W.P., Ratchford, A., van Nunen, S., and Burns, B. (2019). Tick killing in situ before removal to prevent allergic and anaphylactic reactions in humans: a cross-sectional study. Asia Pac Allergy 9, e15.

Rosemary also recommends this article on tick-transmitted disease: [link]

Just in time for the holidays: 12 Things to know about mistletoe: [link]

And don't overlook this podcast by the Nature Guys [link]

Other kinds of "farmers." [link]

From Small Things Considered: how organism tell which way is up and which way is down. [link]

A New Yorker review of books about fungi. [link]

Making photosynthesis more efficient, a New Yorker piece by Elizabeth Kolbert. [link]

 

Have a happy, safe holiday!

Dale

FINE Things 53

Here are the links to articles and videos for this week's FINE Things. Let me know which ones you enjoyed the most and I'll try to find similar types next week.

 

Sea Otter preening
Photo by "Mike" Michael L. Baird,
CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

How Sea Otters keep warm in the frigid Pacific waters: [link]

From Science magazine: German forests have been devastated by drought and fires. What lessons can be learned from their experience? [link]

From The Scientist Daily: Ancient and modern human genomes reveal that a variant of the human growth hormone receptor likely helped our ancestors survive when food was scarce. [link]

From Knowable Magazine: Around the world, marine creatures from the smallest to the largest rise from the depths after dark to eat and reproduce. When the great vertical migration reverses before daybreak, the organisms bring carbon from the upper ocean into the deep sea, and scientists are working to disentangle what motivates these important movements. [link] 

From the New Humanitarian: Bangladesh's annual monsoon rainfalls submerge lowland areas for months on end. But in the rural southern district of Pirojpur the crops rise with the floodwaters. [link]

Your metabolism and what it means. [link]

Is ethanol production worth it? [link]

The genes vampires lost. [link] 

 
Why the ocean needs salt. [link]

David Miller recommended a video on Plate Tectonics: [link]

From Quanta magazine: Wildfires can have mixed effects on ecosystems. [link]

From Knowable Magazine: Why there's no such thing as pristine nature. [link]

 

Until next week,

Dale

FINE Things 52

A male Glassfrog guards his eggs.
photo by by Juan Camilo Manquillo Franco,
Wikimedia Commons

 

Hi Ramblers!
I thought it would be appropriate to continue FINE Things while we're on hiatus. Just to refresh your memories, FINE stands for Fun, Interesting, Novel and Exciting articles and videos available on the internet.

If you come across any on-line, nature, science or environmental resources that you think other Ramblers would enjoy, send me the links and I'll share them with everyone.
Here are the FINE Things for this week:

Linda recommends this article about "imping." If you don't know what that is (I didn't), read this article from the StarTribune.

Ed Wilde and Emily recommend this article about a suburban Long Island couple who have given up their lawns, replacing them with native perennials.

Science writer Carl Zimmer  talks about whether viruses are alive or not. You will learn some mind-blowing things about viruses. (link to video)

Embryos of many different animals listen to their environment and react to the things they hear. [link]

That's all for now. I'll post some more links next week.

FINE Things 51

This old Oak in Alexandria, VA, is producing two crops this year. The first is the mass of periodical cicada "shells" at the base of the tree. (The second crop will be the acorns in the fall.) Photo courtesy of a Rambler's relative in VA.

1, A Black scientist was an early cicada researcher. His work has been mostly overlooked. [This website also has a short podcast on the same subject] (link)

2, The Lysenko affair (link)

3. Fewer car crashes with deer in Wisconsin, perhaps thanks to wolves. In areas where gray wolf populations have grown, motorists have fewer collisions with deer, likely due to the predators keeping deer away from roadways. (link)

4. Rosemary passed this on: Wonderful video showing how Hydra regenerates. (link)

5, 6, 7. California pipevine swallowtail and its relation to the California pipevine. We have the same species of swallowtail here in Georgia, but different pipevines. (link)
More about the California pipevine swallowtail here: (link)
Meet the scientist who's been counting California butterflies for 47 years and has no plans to stop. (link)

8. The Quiet Rescue of America's Forgotten Fruit. One man is responsible for roughly half of the country's stone fruit collection. (link)

9. Planting for Pollinators: Native pollinators are facing growing threats. Here are some fun and easy ways you can help them! (link)

10. A Gene Facilitates the Evolution of an Animal Weapon. A single gene regulates not only the size and proportions of a water strider's massively long third legs, but also how it uses the limbs in fights. (link)

 

11. The origin and rapid diversification of flowering plants is a long-standing “abominable mystery”, as Charles Darwin put it. Part of the puzzle – the origin of the protective covering of flowering-plant seeds – is nearing resolution. (link) 

12. An absolutely wonderful film about fungi. Time-lapse photography, brilliant colors, shapes, sizes, glow in the dark fungi. Don't miss this! It will be one best half hours you've spent. (Thank you, Kathy Stege.) (link)

 

FINE Things 50

1. Ted recommends this article with videos: Why Your Kid Likes Comparing Neptune to a Dust Mite. (link)

 

2. Eugenia recommends this article about microplastics. (link)
 

3. Linda recommends this article about duckweed. And so do I. (link)
 

4. At Mating Time, These Ants Carry Their Young Queen to a Neighbor's Nest -- The royal matchmaking service may help these insects avoid inbreeding. (link)

5. Recommended by Linda: Global Cactus Traffickers Are Cleaning Out the Deserts -- A recent raid in Italy involving rare Chilean species highlights the growing scale of a black market in the thorny plants. (link)

7. Hitchhiking with Bloodworms. Invasive species are sneaking around the world, nestled in the seaweed used to ship bait worms. An easy solution exists, but the industry is resisting change. (link)

8. If you read the article above you might be interested to know that bloodworm is also the common name for the aquatic larval stage of a non-biting midge, an insect. (link)

 

9. How a bearded dragon STI controlled the minds of a cricket colony. The discovery, made by accident, tells us about insects' behavior and gives insight into our own. (link)

10. Mating plugs and other weird butterfly sex habits. Male butterflies want monogamy. Females, not so much. (link)

11. There's a neurological reason you say 'um' when you think of a word. These little utterances, called disfluencies, can shed light about what's going on in the brain as we speak. (link)

12. Controversial forestry experiment will be largest-ever in United States. At the Elliott State Forest in Oregon, researchers will explore how best to balance timber production with conservation. (link)

13. How much can forests fight climate change? Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but growing evidence suggests they might not always be climate saviours. (link)

14. Sleep Evolved Before Brains. Hydras Are Living Proof. Studies of sleep are usually neurological. But some of nature's simplest animals suggest that sleep evolved for metabolic reasons, long before brains even existed. (link)

15. Two New Coronaviruses Make the Leap into Humans ---Two viruses from dogs and pigs were isolated from human patients, but neither was proven to cause severe disease or to transmit to other people. (link)

16. Long time Ramblers may remember two Witch Hazels next to the sidewalk in the Shade Garde. Each year we point out the Witch Hazel conical leaf galls that are either green or red in color. We finally have an answer to what makes the color difference: an aphid salivary gene may regulate gall color. (link)

 

17. Fireflies need dark nights for their summer light shows – here’s how you can help. (link)

FINE Things 49

A Multipurpose Gene Facilitates the Evolution of an Animal Weapon. A single gene called BMP11 regulates not only the size and proportions of a water strider's massively long third legs, but also how it uses the limbs in fight. (link)

Warming is clearly visible in new US 'climate normal' datasets. The US is shifting to a new set of climate 'normals' - data sets averaged over the past 30 years. But normal is a relative concept in a time of climate change. (link)

 
Mushroom That Eats Plastic May Help in Fight Against Plastic Waste, Pestalotiopsis microspora can turn polyurethane into organic material, naturally (link)

Pollen is not plant sperm.(link)

 
This Old Bee House: Study Deems Hive Boxes Drafty, Inefficient. (link)

Plant Story--Ground Ivy, Creeping Charlie, Glechoma hederacea. This post from one of my favorite Botanical bloggers tells you most of what you'd want to know about this pest of lawn and garden. It also used to preserve beer. (link)

 
Just when you think you've read about the most bizarre animal along comes Ramisyllis. It lives inside wild sponges, but that's not what makes it so unusual. I won't spoil it for you. You'll have to visit the website to see the FINE animal of the week, maybe of all the FINE posts. (FINE stands for Fun, Interesting, Novel, Exciting.)(link) 

Think the 17 yr. periodical cicadas are strange? Ace sience writer Ed Yong (The Atlantic) tells us about the microbes that the periodical cicadas must host. It is, paraphrasing J. B. S. Haldane: "Not only is nature stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." (link)

 

Firefly Tourism Can Put Insects in Peril. A new study shines light on how bug spray, flashlights, and foot traffic can spell disaster for the fragile creatures behind brilliant synchronous displays. (link)

Nature Curiosity: Why and How Do Turtles Breathe With Their Butts? (link)

And, just to let you know, even mammals can breathe through their intestines. (link)

FINE Things 48

1. First US Field Test of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Begins in Florida. After years of push back, the first batch of Oxitec's engineered mosquitoes, designed to reduce population numbers, have been released in the Keys. (link)

2. Mixing It Up in the Web of Life. Many types of marine plankton are either animal-like or plant-like. But a huge number are both, and they are upending ideas about ocean ecology. (link)

 

3. Picozoans Are Algae After All. Phylogenomics data place the enigmatic plankton in the middle of the algal family tree, despite their apparent lack of plastids -- an organelle characteristic of all other algae. (link)

4. Opinion: Western Canada Must Stop Clearcutting Its "Mother" Trees. Feeding the world's insatiable appetite for wood products is sacrificing the future of a crucial ecosystem. (link)

5. Book Excerpt from Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. In the book's introduction, "Connections," Suzanne Simard relates how her "perception of the woods has been turned upside down." (link)

6. Fatal attraction to light at night pummels insects. Summary only; the rest of the article is behind a pay wall. (link)

7. How many Giraffe species are there? A new study suggests four. (link)

8. What is ethical beekeeping and why should we care? An excellent, lengthy discussion of many aspects of beekeeping in relation to other people and other bees. (link)

9. The climate solution actually adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. New research shows that California's climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren't achieving real carbon savings. But companies can buy these forest offsets to justify polluting more anyway. (link)

10. This recommendation comes from Rosemary Woodell. It's an effusive meditation on a new book about hummingbirds, by Sy Mongomery, the author of The Soul of An Octopus.  (link)

11. Parasitic plants often share a common structure, the haustorium, that connects them to their host plant. But is it a root? Or a stem? Find out what is known about this structure. (link)

12. Secrets of the dead wood: ancient oaks hold key to new life. (link)

FINE Things 47

1, Eyes on the deep. Decades of exploring the seafloor have helped UGA professor and oceanographer Samantha Joye tackle marine issues - from the underwater movement of oil from Deepwater Horizon to the biology of remote microbial communities. (link)

2. Beware Of Humans. We - not animals - are the coronavirus carriers now. (link)

3. Preventing the next pandemic: Exploring the origins and spread of animal viruses. EVENT: Watch Knowable Magazine's conversation about how infectious agents are transmitted from one species to another, and what can be done to prevent future pandemics. (link)

4. Show me you care: female mate choice based on egg attendance rather than male or territorial traits. (link)

5. Thriving Together: Salmon, Berries, and People: The salmonberry plant has nourished and healed Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest coast for countless generations, but its significance goes far beyond its value as food. (link)

6. A Tiny Gecko with a Big Personality and Even Bigger Problem. In the United States, the Florida reef gecko could be the most vulnerable reptile to sea level rise. (link)

7. Can Single Cells Learn? A controversial idea from the mid-20th century is attracting renewed attention from researchers developing theories for how cognition arises with or without a brain. (link)

8. Hybrid Animals Are Not Nature's Misfits. In the 20th century, animals such as mules and ligers that had parents of different species were considered biological flukes, but genetic sequencing is beginning to unravel the critical role of hybridization in evolution. (link)

9. Some Viruses Use an Alternative Genetic Alphabet. In a trio of studies, researchers follow up on a 40-year-old finding that certain bacteriophages replace adenine with so-called diaminopurine, perhaps to avoid host degradation. (link)

10. When Pursuing Prey, Bats Tune Out the World. As they close in for the kill, the flying mammals use quieter echolocation to focus on the chase. (link)

11. Bill to Greatly Expand Wolf Hunting in Idaho Heads to Governor
If signed, the law would boost funding for independent contractors to kill wolves and would allow for more than 90 percent of the population in the state to be taken by hunters. (link)

12. Why we faint and other animals don't. (link)

13. More about Periodical Cicada broods and mapping. (link)