Fish Feet Word Cloud

Word clouds are a simple visualization tool used to display text. Words that appear more frequently in the source text greater prominence in the cloud. This is a word cloud created for Fish Feet.



Word clouds can be easily creating using online tools such as Wordle which allows you to make clouds from text or URLs with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Polar Bears Hunt Belugas

Feeling a little uninspired today, I hope you don't mind a repost from March on an amazing topic that few people believe until they see the footage (the most popular source is David Attenborough's Planet Earth).

Polar bears live a feast and famine lifestyle. They are large animals (an adult males weighs 300-600kg) that live in the freezing tundra so they have huge metabolic needs. They normally prey on ringed seals but will eat almost anything they can catch, including walruses, birds, eggs and occasionally they supplement their diet with a big, juicy, beluga whale!

Beluga whales are distinctive for their pale skin and large melon shaped head. These animals can grow up to 5m (16ft) in length and live in large pods, mainly in the Arctic and Canadian Subarctic. Belugas live close to coastlines and in winter they occasionally become trapped in savsatts, small openings in ice packs. Belugas can find themselves the victims of shrinking savsatts, which they use to breath. Each animal will take a turn coming up for air and in the worst of winter, their movement is all that keeps the savsatt open.

Hence an opportunity that a wandering polar bear may chance by and certainly one he can’t resist. The bear will jump in the water, clubbing the trapped whale with his paw and gorging it with his claws. It may take several attempts but the bear usually succeeds in his catch and drags the whale’s carcass on to the ice for a feast. Other polar bears will share in the prize and any leftover kill will be happily devoured by scavenging arctic foxes and gulls.

If you find this post interesting I encourage you to also check out Darren Naish’s very cool post on Wolf-Hunting Eagles

More information can be found at Polar Bears International.

Twins: Identical, Mirror Images, Fraternal and Chimeras

Cloning is not a human invention; nature has been creating clones for millions of years, among all organisms including humans. Nature’s clones, identical twins, are born in approximately 1 / 1000 births. Identical twins come in two varieties: identical and mirror images. Both share 100% of their DNA and but in mirror image twins, small differences are ‘reflected’. Examples include skin variations such moles, dental patterns, hairlines and handedness.

The development of a truly identical twins versus mirror image twins comes down to timing. A single sperm will fertilize a single egg and begins development by splitting into more cells. If this group of cells, now called blastocyst splits into two separate parts in the first 9-12 days, identical twins will be born. But if the split occurs after that, they will be mirror-images of each other.

Fraternal twins are an entirely different matter. Fraternal twins are no more identical than any other sibling pair and are the result of two separate sperm fertilizing two separate eggs. This is can occur naturally, the result of the mother releasing more than one egg at ovulation. It may also be the result of medical intervention as many women take fertility drugs to improve their chances of conception. There is also a hereditary link as the incidence of fraternal twins do occur more often within a family.

Many people have seen the popular American television show CSI (Crime Scene Investigators) and may recall the episode with the Chimera, a man who had two sets of DNA. This phenomenon occurs when the blastocysts of developing fraternal twins fuse, resulting in a single individual with two sets of DNA. This condition usually results in a fully functional individual and is not detected unless a clear abnormality prompts testing. Though it has been considered a rare condition, it is found to be more common than originally thought in a variety of animals, including humans. And the condition is more common among children conceived through in vitro fertilization than naturally.

By the way, you can read about the amazing birth of identical quadruplets from my hometown, Calgary, Canada here.

Long Absence

Sorry I have been absent for so long. Life has been getting pretty busy, with grad school and a new baby on the way. But I hope to be back to blogging (at least once a week, if not more often) and Tangled Bank has given me the kick in the pants I need to get back to it! Visit us on August 15 to check Tangled Bank #86!

Complete Book of Life from Aardvarks to Zorilla

The Encyclopedia of Life project will detail 1.8 million known plant and animal species in the format of an online archive. Each species will have its own page with descriptions, photographs, videos, and maps, compiled by experts.

It is hoped that the $100m USD (£50m GBP) archive will be complete in 10 years and that in addition to an educational tool, the archive will have value for conservation efforts.

The project will begin by harvesting information from existing databases, such as FishBase, which contains details of 29,900 extant fish species. Data input will begin with animals, then plants, fungi and microbes last. It is not clear when fossil species will be added.

Encyclopedia of Life began development January 2006 and is reminiscent of other ventures such as the Tree of Life, Catalogue of Life and Consortium for the Barcode of Life. The last was launched in 2005 and is attempting to identify all species through unique genetic markers (called ‘barcodes’) found in the mitochondria of cells. This project has so far identified more than 27,000 species.

Proponents claim the Encyclopedia of Life will be much more through and flexible in regards to structure compared to its predecessors and will include dynamic features such as live searches. Fast internet technology has meant that such a large-scale endeavor has only recently become possible.

It is unknown how many species currently live on our planet but estimate range form a modest 2 million to 100 million.

Sneezing in the Sun

After eight years and I am still learning new things my husband: we were walking down the street when the clouds parted, revealing a bright sun and he consequently sneezed! And now I realize that this phenomenon affects a significant number of other people I know. So in case you were ever wondering why looking at the sun on a bright day makes you sneeze here is the answer:

When a nerve cell is stimulated it passes on a chemical / electrical message to the next nerve cell in the chain. However, if it is a very strong message, this might also leak out and stimulate nearby nerve cells. So, when you look at the sun or a bright light, your eyes (and their nerves) suddenly have a lot of very strong information to pass to the brain. In addition to passing on their message, they also 'leak' a bit. Part of the path for the optic nerves (from your eyes) happens to be close to your sneeze reflex and so it can be triggered by accident.
-This text was originally contributed by David Hone on Ask a Biologist

Anecdotal evidence also seems to indicate that this unusual reflex has a genetic link, so may be common among members of the same family. This is confirmed by R. Eccles of the Common Cold and Nasal Research Group who says that this phenomenon (which he terms the ‘photic sneeze’) affects between 18-35% of the population. And that the photic sneeze is a well known hazard to fighter pilots when they turn towards the sun or are exposed to flares from anti-aircraft fire.

Arrogant scientist to represent all of humanity

American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, died on 12 Apr 1897.

Cope is best remembered for his rivalry with O.C. Marsh, called the Great Bone Wars; he also led many great expeditions into the American West and was prolific in the naming of dinosaur species.

When a new species of dinosaur (or any other organism for that matter) is discovered, scientists choose a holotype specimen, this is an example of the new species that will forever define it. Usually it is the first example found, for example, the holotype for T. rex was collected by Barnum Brown in 1902 and is housed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is important to remember that a holotype is usually the first example of a new species and it is not necessarily the best or typical example (although ideally it should be). Sometimes when a new species is found and the holotype named, there are only very poor or fragmentary examples available. But it is the practice that even if a better specimen is subsequently found, the holotype is not superseded.

But back to our story now, which began back in 1735 with Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus. Linnaeus was fascinated by the diversity of life around him and became obsessed with categorizing it. This is very difficult to do since there are millions of species in the world but Linnaeus went about it in a very systematic way. He devised a hierarchical system for categorizing plants, animals and minerals. Interestingly, he named, described and classified human beings as a part of this system. He named humans Homo sapiens, Latin for man and wise. The concept of a holotype had not been invented yet but the humble Linneaus did consider himself to be the best example of Homo sapiens.

Then in 1897, an equally humble scientist, Edward Drinker Cope died. In his will, Cope had a final request: that his remains be used as the holotype specimen for Homo sapiens. However, Cope’s dream did not materialize. His brain was saved and preserved in a jar for future study at the Anthropometric Society. But unfortunately, when his skeleton was stripped and cleaned, taxonomists found evidence of incipient syphilis in Cope's bones, a discovery that led his suceedors to deem his remains “unsuitable” to be the type specimen for humanity. His bones were discreetly filed away and perhaps even conveniently ‘lost’ for almost 100 years.

Then in 1991, while working on a story, National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos discovered Cope's bones stored at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Psihoyos borrowed the bones to use in his story and while out in the Western United States, he showed the bones to palaeontologist Robert Bakker who was a great admirer of Cope. Bakker began a mission to fulfill Cope’s last request: that his remains be used designated the type specimen of Homo sapiens. Bakker published his description in the Journal of the Wyoming Geological Society.

Unfortunately, Bakker and Psihoyo's efforts were not successful and Cope's remains are unlikely to receive official status for a variety of reasons: the standards for type specimens are very strict and complex and not only do Cope’s bones bear marks of syphilis, they have also suffered damage from their travels: his skull has been dropped, broken and even repaired.

To make the situation more complicated, in 1959, another palaeontologist wrote a paper declaring Carolus Linneaus the holotype of Homo sapiens, especially as his body is well-preserved in the Cathedral in Uppsala, Sweden. Well since nobody can agree, the job still remains open and there is no official holotype for humanity, but is it likely that when (if) a holotype is chosen it will be an arrogant scientist that represents humanity?