biology

I want them. They're backordered. I can't have them. Cry. Mad Scientist Blocks from Xylocopa: "At Xylocopa, we know that the key to a successful education is to begin learning at a young age. Like many of you, we are concerned about the state of science education in the public school system, especially in the lower grades. Specifically, we have noticed that there is absolutely no training in the K-6 grades that prepares students to become mad scientists."

Mark this on the list of "things to expect in 2009." Craig Venter and his team expect to create the world's first artificially synthesized organism: One likely announcement, which may happen any day of the year, is of the world's first artificial living creature. The announcer will almost certainly be Craig Venter, an American biologist who has been working on making such a creature for over a decade. It will not be quite as billed. Mycoplasma laboratorium, as the bacterium is expected to be dubbed, will need the shell of a natural bacterium to get going. But the genes themselves will have…

Neivamyrmex nigrescens, Arizona Army ants have a decidedly tropical reputation.  The term conjures spectacular images of swarms sweeping across remote Amazonian villages, devouring chickens, cows, and small children unlucky enough to find themselves in the path of the ants.  Of course, the habits of real army ants are not nearly so sensational, but they are at least as interesting. The approximate range of army ants in North America. Few people are aware that more than a dozen army ant species are found in the United States.  Most belong to the genus Neivamyrmex, a diverse group that…

What should humanity anticipate from WWIII? To find out, check out the Invitrogen-sponsored ScienceBlog, What's New in Life Science Research. This week our group of experts and seasoned ScienceBloggers will explore the way biological warfare is developing in our modern world as new technologies emerge—and what we should do to defend ourselves.

Emerald Damselfly Martin Amm, 2008 Martin Amm's beautiful photographs are perfect bioephemera: insects bejeweled with droplets of dew. The crisp iridescence of these photos is simply mesmerizing. Ugly Beauty Martin Amm, 2008 I particularly love the way the droplets of water on the head of the red-veined darter below magnify the facets of its eyes (click on the link for a larger image). These photos look too good to be real! Red-veined Darter II Martin Amm, 2007 Martin Amm/Stephen Amm, Naturfranken.de

The physicists are getting rather jubilant over the selection of Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy. Sure he's the Director of LBNL. Sure, he has a Nobel Prize in something involving lasers (ho hum - I don't know any physicists that don't work with lasers). But I'd like to point out that he also has a cross-appointment at my old stomping grounds, Berkeley's Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. And he's like the father of optical tweezers (for which he won the 1995 "Science for Art" Prize!) So we biologists should be a little smug too! I will not exploit this opportunity…

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that retaining DNA samples from innocent individuals in a national law enforcement databank violates human rights. The ruling is a direct blow to Britain's DNA databank, which holds samples and data for 7% of its citizens (4.5 million people, including children and crime victims). In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, police are authorized to collect and hold samples from citizens arrested for any recordable offense, whether or not the offense leads to formal charges or conviction, and hold them for the lifetime of the…

full-size ad Mercury 360, Bucharest, Romania Illustrator: Andrei Nedea, 2008 More anti-drug ads, this time from Romania. Note that these ads' message is a little less obvious than that of the last batch. There's also an optics problem with the perception of each object - its representation should be upside-down in the mind's eye, so to speak. I can see how that detail might have confused the layperson and detracted from the message, but it still bugs me. Also, I'm not quite sure why the ads need to look antiqued and da Vinci-esque. Via adsoftheworld full-size ad full-size ad

This coming June, the NIH Office of Medical Applications of Research is holding a three-day course entitled "Medicine in the Media: The Challenge of Reporting on Medical Research." The agenda is here. Amazingly, course registration is free, and meals and lodging are provided - all you have to do is get yourself to Bethesda, Maryland. What's the catch? Well, the application process is competitive; only 50 spots are available, and in recent years, only 1/3 to 1/2 of applicants have gotten in. So if you're a science journalist whose "primary target audience is the general public" - and yes, that…

Bravo to the Brits' Channel 4 for coming up with this series of videos, which addresses kids' inevitable questions about whether their bodies (breasts, acne, periods, sex, penises, etc.) are normal. The take-home message of these educational videos? Almost certainly you are normal, so don't be ashamed of your body. And don't let embarrassment stop you from being honest with your doctor or asking questions. It's refreshing to see internet videos depicting genitalia that AREN'T porn. Who knew they even existed? I just hope enough people eventually link to them that they'll show up in a Google…

These anti-drug ads featuring risk-taking vermin, by Above the Influence, are rather clever, don't you think? I'm trying to figure out the aesthetic - the grungy clothes could be contemporary, 80s, or 90s, but the interiors seem older - like 60s. (Check out the rotary phone in the teenager's room!) Anyway, it's the sort of cultural/temporal mishmash you see on a sitcom set, where all the elements are so familiar, they fade into the background in a vague approximation of "American Life." It's kind of a neat effect.

UK Reef (detail) - with candy striped anemone by Ildiko Szabo (foreground) and anemone grove by Beverly Griffiths (background). Photo by George Walker.source This afternoon at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, physicist Margaret Wertheim of the Institute for Figuring will be giving a lecture and workshop on crocheting coral reefs with the "hyperbolic crochet" technique. While her creations can't replace the real reefs that are rapidly disappearing, they are purdy, and some of the forms are remarkably similar to real species of coral, diatoms, and anemones. More about the crochet…

tags: birds, hatching chick, streaming video This is a really interesting little video that features a chick hatching out of its egg. It also includes some really fun banjo playing as background music [1:17]

Nicholas Wade (a friend of mine's Dad actually) was on the Colbert Report talking about cloning wooly mammoths. Colbert asks the obvious question: why don't we just staple shag carpeting to an elephant? */ The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Nicholas Wade Colbert at ChristmasColbert Christmas DVD Green ScreenBill O'Reilly Interview

Body Swallows World Aurel Schmidt Aurel Schmidt's ethereal drawings depict green-man like figures whose visages dissolve at a closer glance into writhing snakes, larvae, and beetles, disturbed landscapes, and birds. Haunting work. Via IBL3D Untitled Aurel Schmidt

I've long had an interest in World War II history. Ever since I was around 11 or 12 years old, a major portion of my reading diet has consisted of books and articles about World War II. Back when I was young, my interest was, as you might expect, primarily the battles. The military history of World War II fascinated me, and I build many, many models of World War II fighter aircraft and warships when I was in my early teens. (No cracks about how the airplane glue obviously affected me, although it is true that back then it was real airplane glue, chock full of toluene and lots of other organic…

Kai reports from an on-going exhibition at the Stockholm Museum of Natural History on homosexuality among non-humans. It is based on Bruce Bagemihl's research. I am impressed by the gay dolphins' invention of nasal intercourse. To pull that off, one human would have to be hugely endowed in the nose department and the other very petite indeed elsewhere. I wonder what happens if you sneeze? In the title of his entry, Kai reminds us of the Flintstones, who of course had a gay old time. Now, the bit that I've been wondering about is "they go down in history". On whom? In other news, I came up…

Well, it looks as though I've stepped into it yet one more time. Believe it or not, I hadn't intended to stir up trouble among the ScienceBlogs collective, both English- and German-speaking. Really. Oh, I'll admit that there are occasionally times when I actually do mean to stir up trouble. One recent example is when it was rumored that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might be chosen to be Secretary of the Interior or, even worse, Director of the EPA. Much to my surprise, I actually did manage to stir up a goodly amount of blogospheric reaction, too. Although I believed it to be a good cause, this…

Today is World AIDS Day. Globally, 33 million people are living with HIV infection - most of them in developing nations. An estimated 2.7 million were infected with HIV in 2007 alone. In the United States, more than 1 million people are living with HIV. Still think AIDS isn't your problem? If you're a blogger, consider joining BloggersUnite, an initiative to harness social media and spread the word about AIDS prevention. You can grab a badge to add to your blog like the one in my sidebar at left. More on World AIDS Day 2008 and the state of the HIV pandemic here.

Video footage of a rare "elbowed" squid taken remotely from a Shell Oil Company drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico went viral this weekend. The squid is of the genus Magnapinna, has tentacles over 20 feet long, and is one of only a handful of its kind to have ever been observed by humans. It has been described as The footage may have been available for a year or longer, but only recently gained massive viewership when it was featured by National Geographic Nov 24.