40 Years of Hydrothermal Vent Exploration Jump to Navigation Photos & Video Ship Location De-Extinction in Action: Scientists Consider a Plan to Reinject Long-Gone DNA into the Black-Footed Ferret Population In 1987 only 18 black-footed ferrets were known to exist, but thanks to captive breeding and intensive management, the animals are a few hundred strong now. Yet like many species that bounce back from such small numbers, all the individuals are basically half-siblings—genetic near clones, with the same susceptibility to hereditary health problems, to potential pathogens or to environmental changes that could lead to population collapse. In an effort to boost the ferrets' genetic variability and odds of long-term survival, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering something extreme: a plan to reintroduce DNA that was lost to the population but still exists in long-dead specimens stored in zoos and museums.
Deep-Sea Skates Incubate Eggs Near Hydrothermal Vents Jump to Navigation Photos & Video Ship Location San Pedro, USA Full-Length Broadcast Scientists are learning how we can edit memories—and delete our worst fears. This program premiered on February 10, 2016 on PBS. Memory is the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, we’d be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future.
Avibase - La base ornithologique mondiale I am excited to announce a new important addition to Avibase, called myAvibase. This is a new section of the site that provides tools for planning your next birding trip and manage your own personal checklists. You can use maps and graphs to quickly see how many species can be found in a given region and at various times of year, for instance. If you import your own sightings in myAvibase, you can also view how many new species (lifers) you could add to your lifelist on your next trip and decide when and where you should go. For some additional details on the types of reports available, please click here. People who participate in eBird can very simply import their lifelist from their eBird account with a click of a button.
What can cavefish teach us about the world? During the Age of Enlightenment’s scientific revolution, naturalists went out into the world in large numbers to take a census of the earth’s flora and fauna: collecting different plants and animals, identifying the ones never before seen, and naming and classifying them according to the taxonomy system devised by Carl Linnaeus. Centuries later, Louisiana State University marine biology professor and Senior TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty (TED Talk: Clues to prehistoric times, found in blind cavefish) is continuing the search for new species — of marine and freshwater fish, in his case — by traveling to bodies of water and swimming, trawling and diving through them to catch and examine specimens by hand. But thanks to 21st-century technology and knowledge, he’s able to do much more than just name them — he can evaluate a fish right down to its genes and use this information to find its relatives, redraw the Tree of Life, and learn more about our planet’s geological history.
Orchid Bees Blend Their Own Perfume Humans aren't the only ones that create intoxicating perfume blends, as new research finds that male orchid bees also practice this time-honored craft. The bees from the genus Euglossa formulate their unique perfumes for reasons similar to ours: to attract mates, establish a signature identity, and smell good in a crowd. They do this by gathering a variety of carefully selected scents from their environment, and then douse their bodies with the perfume. "The males expose them at the places where mating occurs," said co-author Thomas Eltz of Ruhr-University Bochum, "so the perfumes may be chemical signals to females." Plant These Flowers to Power Bees: Photos
Thailand Venomous Snake Photos - Thailand Snakes Here is a collection of venomous snake photos. These snakes can be found in Thailand. King Cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) This is the biggest venomous snake on the planet, and they get to around 6 meters long (19 feet!). Their length isn’t the scary part, it’s the amount of venom they can inject with one bite – which can kill an elephant. We worked out what it would take to wipe out all life on a planet – and it's good news for alien hunters The first exoplanet was spotted in 1988. Since then more than 3,000 planets have been found outside our solar system, and it’s thought that around 20% of Sun-like stars have an Earth-like planet in their habitable zones. We don’t yet know if any of these host life – and we don’t know how life begins. But even if life does begin, would it survive? Earth has undergone at least five mass extinctions in its history.