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More Rotiferology!

I truly love these little guys!  This is an awesome video!

How beauty was found in a slimeball

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Facebook: Tiny Peacock spider 

This is such a beautiful tiny spider (that's a fingernail on the left). I can't see how even spider haters couldn't love the way this little guy looks.

Credit: Jurgen Ott

Octavious Pickard-Cambridge noted in his original description that "it is difficult to describe adequately the great beauty of the colouring of this spider".

The red, blue and black colored males have flap-like extensions of the abdomen with white hairs that can be folded down. They are used for display during mating: the male raises his abdomen, then expands and raises the flaps so that the abdomen forms a white-fringed, circular field of color. The species, and indeed the whole genus Maratus have been compared to peacocks in this respect. The third pair of legs is also raised for display, showing a brush of black hairs and white tips. While approaching the female, the male will vibrate his abdomen while waving raised legs and tail, and dance from side to side.

Both sexes reach about 5 mm in body length. Females and immatures of both sexes are brown but have colour patterns by which they can be distinguished from related species

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Printed robot moves with a beat | Technology | Science News

Printed robot moves with a beat | Technology | Science News:

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Ok - is this a robot at all? Or is it some sort of between life and machine? It's pretty interesting if you ask me.

Hey there - where's my suet???

This afternoon I heard a fussing noise on the front porch. It didn't sound like a squirrel and it sure wasn't a chickadee or a chipmunk. So I went and peaked out. There was a pileated woodpecker standing on the railing making all kinds of racket - not the usual jungle-bird call they make - but a really fussy fuss. Then it hopped up the post, looked at the window, pounded on the post, looked again and pounded again. I understood perfectly. The suet container that we fill throughout the winter was empty and he was letting us know. I didn't get a chance to get a picture this time. However, the suet is now filled.

Pileated woodpeckers are very large birds and are very gregarious (you can tell from the story above). They are common in the Upper Peninsula and are responsible for the square holes on trees. 

Can you literally throw away unwanted thoughts?

I'm going to try this!  Not that I have lots of negative thoughts but I do have some and this might just be a good way to dump those forever!

Can you literally throw away unwanted thoughts?:



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NASA - NASA Researchers Discover Ancient Microbes in Antarctic Lake

NASA - NASA Researchers Discover Ancient Microbes in Antarctic Lake:

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Maybe there IS life out there. Of course, the chance there isn't is pretty minuscule give the amount of galaxies, stars and planets out there. But here in our own solar system? Maybe there's a whole evolved group of advanced chemosynthetic critters living under the ice of Europa. Hmmmm...

Jumping Spiders are Watching You!

http://news.discovery.com/animals/spiders-watching-eyes-121016.html

I loved this article. In particular I have always loved to watch these little guys and I always thought they were looking at me - "you lookin at me???" And lo and behold, they were!  I'll have to take them in my living room (in a container of course) to watch TV - or the cats. Watching the cats should be interesting. Watching the cats watch the spider might be even more interesting.

Classification of Archaea

The first thing I learned is that I chose a very confusing topic. Archaea classification is somewhat up in the air. A recent report of an international meeting (http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5296/10.1016/j.resmic.2010.11.007)  it was pointed out again and again that Archaeans are more like Eukaryotes (multi-celled organisms) than they are like true bacteria. This is true in many aspects of cell function and structure/chemical makeup. Another thing I learned is that some researchers refer to groups of archeans as Phyla and others as Kingdoms.

Some of the ways Archeans differ from other bacteria are in the cell wall chemicals; DNA replication, transcription and translation; cell division; vesicle formation; and other aspects and in all these the Archaeans are very similar to Eukaryotes.

My thought: maybe bacteria are the aliens and Archeans and Eukaryotes were here first.

Archaea: I've got friends in LOW places

This is my first Archaea entry. The questions I want to know the answers to are:
1. What exactly makes them unique among living things?
2. What about the genetics - how many genes, how many are shared with other bacteria, how much variation, etc.
3. Morphology - physical characteristics
4. Respiration -how do they get their energy?
5. How do they survive such extreme environments?
6. What environments are they found in and are there vast differences between those from the different environments?
7. Did they come from outer space?
8. What do we NOT know about them?
9. What research is being done currently?