http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1776372.htm

Did two-footed dinosaurs walk like emus?

Footprint made by a two-legged dinosaur that walked
along a sandy beach 165 million years ago
(Image: Bureau of Land Management Wyoming)

“Scientists studying how emus walk have brought to life the mysterious moves of two-footed Jurassic dinosaurs travelling along a long-lost beach.

Computer models have been developed to simulate the gait, and therefore the possible tracks, of specific dinosaurs.

But live emus allow scientists to directly compare complex tracks to specific behaviours, say researchers looking at the thousands of tracks left behind 165 million years ago by dinosaurs at Red Gulch in northern Wyoming.”

If emus make suitable proxies for these dinosaurs then the observations made make quite a bit of sense. I’ll have a think about this…

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http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061028/bob8.asp

Why play dead?

A Nathusius’ pipistrelle playing dead (Image: Bat Detective)

“The list of animals that play possum [the strategy scientists call ‘extreme immobility’] includes not only the Virginia opossum, of course, but also some 21 snake species and plenty of other creatures as different as bison on the prairies and brittle stars in the oceans.

Many of these animals freeze when a predator appears, and standard wisdom maintains that predators lose interest in prey that doesn’t move. Yet some biologists now question that truism and are looking for a fuller explanation for the roles that feigned death might play in animal interactions.”

Interesting article about predator-prey interactions and the ‘playing dead’ response.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061021/bob11.asp

Spirals of triangles crinkle into intricate structures

Two arms. The spiral arms of a spidron consist of alternating
sequences of equilateral and isosceles triangles. (Erdly)

A spidron is a remarkable geometric shape made up of a sequence of triangles — a spiral polygon that resembles a seahorse’s tail. Discover more about spidrons in this easy to follow article.

This elaborate polyhedral structure is made up of 120 spidrons.
(Pelletier, Erdly, van Ballegooijen)

Last Thoughts | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/226587515/in/pool-theeyecandyshop/

Stunning photo of a juvenile red-tailed hawk dining on a bemused meadow vole
~ by jurvetson.

Via the wonderful moderntimes.

http://collections.plos.org/plosmedicine/socialmedicine-2006.php

A collection of articles on social medicine in the 21st Century (the little of it we’ve had so far!). One essay that I enjoyed reading is ‘How Did Social Medicine Evolve, and Where Is It Heading?’, by Dorothy Porter.

I’m heading off to Belgium for a few days to visit my boyfriend. I have no plans at all to stumble while I’m over there 😉

Please send me loads of new science and other stuff (you know what I like) while I’m gone!

Update: Oct 25 – Back home and working my way through the stuff I’ve been sent – thanks for all that 🙂

Belgium trip was great. Managed to do some walking in fantastic beech woodland near Brussels (Fort de Soignes) – saw loads of fungi and even three chipmunks (lovely to see and incredibly cute, but no idea what effects they have on the local ecology…). Probably a good job we did plenty of walking because we ate rather too much pizza…

Beast of the Sediment – Gran Ehlm

Gran Ehlm’s photo of a walrus feeding among the seafloor sediment is the winner of the 2006 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) competition. A refreshing change from the usual photos of walruses crowded on a beach.

From Fins to Wings – National Geographic Magazine

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/feature4/

“Flowers, flagella, feathers. Life is rife with complex features–structures and systems made up of many interacting parts. National Geographic magazine asked me to take a tour of complexity in life and report on the latest research on how it evolved. What struck me over and over again was how scientists studying everything from bacteria to humans are drawn back to the same concepts–making new copies of old parts, for example, or borrowing parts of one complex trait to evolve a new one. And in each case, complexity opens up the way to diversity, because something many parts can be rearranged in many ways. There’s not yet a general theory for the evolution of complexity, but scientists are certainly converging on some of the same themes.”

(Carl Zimmer – commenting about his essay in The Loom)

Some interesting photos accompany the feature.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1767096.htm

“Fred the Thread”

“‘Fred the Thread’ is vying for a place in the record books as the world’s thinnest caterpillar, its discoverers say.

The New Zealand caterpillar is barely 0.9 millimetres wide and is the larval stage of an entirely new genus and species of moth Houdinia flexilissima.”

‘Fred’ completes its life cycle within the confines of a 5 millimetre wide stem. Such a feat, as well as the remarkable way the species has managed to elude detection for so long, prompted the new genus to be named after the renowned escapologist Harry Houdini.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1766434.htm

“Horny beetles have tiny testes”

Beetles in the genus Onthophagus, with their horns coloured.
(Image by Douglas Emlen, University of Montana)

Horned dung beetles, of the genus Onthophagus, can have big weapons or big testes, not both. Scientists say this finding is clear evidence of an evolutionary trade-off between the ability to fight off sexual competitors and reproductive potency.

If horn development was inhibited during development, the pupa compensated by developing larger testes. The principle is known as a resource allocation trade-off.

Men and flashy cars – need I say more? 😉

See also: Virile crickets can’t have it all
Big brain means small testes, finds bat study