city
dr. dolittle | August 17, 2016 Photo of a pigeon (Columba livia) by Wardrin - Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5739797
With reported lead poisonings in cities such as Flint Michigan, methods to detect risk of exposure are desperately needed. Since pigeons live in close proximity to humans, could pigeons be the 'canary in the lead mine'? Researchers at Columbia University in New York City measured the concentrations of lead in the blood of 825 ill or injured feral pigeons to determine whether the animals could serve as bioindicators of levels in the environment. Their results were …
dr. dolittle | August 23, 2014A new study from researchers at the University of Sydney shows that golden orb-weaving spiders (Nephila plumipes) that live in the city are larger and produce more offspring as compared to country living.
When they say the spiders are big, they mean really big. The females can reach up to 20-25mm (males are only ~5mm).
Image from Spiders of Australia http://ednieuw.home.xs4all.nl/australian/nephila/Nephila.html
The researchers speculate that the urban heat island effect, which is attributed to a lack vegetation and hard surfaces, may lead to the increased body size as invertebrates in…
esiegel | June 9, 2012"Art has never been a popularity contest." -James Levine
Sometimes, you might feel like you've heard it all, seen it all, and that nothing's original anymore. But I beg to differ. Just because great things have come before doesn't mean that there aren't great things happening right now. While it might "only" be a cover of a Kanye West song (which itself heavily samples a Ray Charles song, at one time featured here), I encourage you to listen to the Automatic's brilliant version of
Gold Digger.
And while the stories of the Universe I tell you about here don't tend to be my personal, original…
edyong | May 19, 2009While the rapid expansion of human cities has been detrimental for most animals, some have found ways of exploiting these brave new worlds and learned to live with their prolific inhabitants. The Northern mockingbird is one such species. It's very common in cities all over America's east coast, where it frequently spends time around humans. But Douglas Levey from the University of Florida has found that its interactions with us are more complex than anyone would have guessed.
The mockingbird has the remarkable ability to tell the difference between individual humans, regardless of the…
grrlscientist | April 10, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature
Tulip blossom, UWS, Manhattan, NYC.
Image: GrrlScientist, 10 April 2009 [larger view].