Ow, CARP!

Apparently invasive Asian silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) get stirred up by the sound of the motorboat accompanying the rowers.

It’s too bad the person recording the scene is so prone to thoughtless profanity, as that will limit the appeal of this video.

Brontosaurus is BACK

I’m back from Boston, and Brontosaurus (Marsh, 1879, Brontosaurus excelsus) might be back too.

The name “Brontosaurus” was made a disreputable synonym for “Apatosaurus” by the Peabody Museum in 1981, belatedly acknowledging a 1975 paper by McIntosh and Berman claiming that Othniel Marsh (who named both dinosaurs) had incorrectly mounted a Camarasaurus skull on an Apatosaurus skeleton in his famous 1883 Brontosaurus restoration. Fans of the Flintstones were quite naturally appalled, and Stephen Jay Gould wrote a couple of popular essays about it.

Earlier today Emanuel Tschopp published a thesis detailing an exhaustive analysis of all the existing Diplodocid type specimens.

“The present paper increases knowledge about the phylogenetic relationships of diplodocid sauropods. In order to resolve relationships within Diplodocidae, a specimen-based phylogenetic analysis was performed, which included all holotypes that have been identified as belonging to a diplodocid sauropod at some point in history.”

“The numerical approaches established in the present analysis allowed a reassessment of the validity of the numerous taxonomic names proposed within Diplodocidae. Thereby, it was found that apatosaurine diversity was particularly underestimated in the past. One genus previously synonymized with Apatosaurus is considered to be valid based on our quantitative approaches: Brontosaurus forms the sister clade to Apatosaurus in the present analysis. On the other hand, Elosaurus and Eobrontosaurus were found to be junior synonyms of Brontosaurus, and one more cluster of specimens was recovered at the base of Apatosaurinae, which might even represent a further, new apatosaurine genus. Apatosaurus was found to include only the two species A. ajax and A. louisae. This results in three genera and six species belonging to Apatosaurinae. In a less inclusive and less detailed specimen-based analysis of Apatosaurus, Upchurch, Tomida & Barrett (2004) found five species as probably valid, but did not include Eobrontosaurus yahnahpin. The species count recovered by our analysis is comparable to that proposed by Upchurch, Tomida & Barrett (2004).”

The analysis combined pairwise dissimilarity and results from TNT, the latter of which seems appropriately named since we’re talking about resolving taxonomic problems left over from the Bone Wars.

Along with the resurrection of Marsh’s original type specimen of genus brontosaurus excelsus, this research has spawned a proposal to the ICZN that the type species for Diplodocidae be changed from D. longus (due to the “undiagnostic, fragmentary holotype specimen”) to D. carnegii.

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lego bug racks

Technically tuned to torturing transfixed termites.

Bug rack in use

“We believe the insect specimen manipulators presented here are a valuable addition to any entomologist’s toolbox and that the use of any insect manipulator is in the interest of anyone dealing with valuable specimens as the actual handling of the specimen is reduced to a minimum during examination.”

Orwell meets Disney

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MMS Separation

See http://mms.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for mission updates!

Crystalline Crustacean Carapaces

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Jimmy Wales was born with a tail.

Although the Wikipedia founder’s extra appendage was removed shortly before his first birthday, it was reputedly prehensile and covered with short silky fur. I know this is true because I read it on Wikipedia!

follow the sun-wheel

A fine Imbolc, St. Brighid’s day, Candlemas, St. Mary’s feast, or Groundhog day, as you prefer! Midway between the solstice and the equinox, it’s as good a day as any to start looking for snowdrops and winter aconite.
The wonder of flowers, to be covered, and then to burst up“Snowdrops, snow, Winter Aconites and Silver Birch” photography by Reggie Thomson.

Octopus escape

A healthy cat can fit through a hole the height and width of his whiskers. A mouse can fit through any hole a dime can fit through. An octopus can fit through anything her beak can fit through.

My favorite animated film of all time is Oktapodi, so I was rooting for the octopus all along. The tasty, tasty octopus.

beeb afraid

Hilariously inaccurate infographic from the BBC tells you what you should be terrified of, and how soon.

For starters, bees are not the only crop pollinator

Apparently Schneir was right when he said humans are fundamentally bad at evaluating risk.

ode to a white cat

Pangur Bán was written in the margins of a copy of St. Paul’s epistle by an eighth century Irish monk.

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I have mine and he has his.

Dump Cleanup Begins

The Delaware Department of Transportation, who have been willing to step up where Delaware’s corrupt Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control will not, started cleaning up the Pike Creek dump today. That dump was being run by a Wilmington police officer with the full knowledge of DNREC.

DelDOT workers begin removal of Pike Creek dump debris

The leader of the dumping ring will be charged for the cleanup, so I guess my neighbors and I should prepare for more police harassment.

Holiday Dump Status Report

Thanks to State Representative Michael Ramone, last week the Delaware Department of Transportation served a “cease and desist” order on the leader of the illegal dumping ring that’s been filling the wetlands on Upper Pike Creek Road with construction debris. He was given seven days to remove the fill or DelDOT will do it for him… and charge accordingly.

Unlike DelDOT, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control continues to do nothing, but State Senator Karen Peterson has bluntly told DNREC’s David Small that she will be instigating a senate inquiry if they don’t stop shirking their responsibilities.

State Representative Timothy Sheldon has engaged the New Castle County Department of Land Use. If past history is any guide, Land Use won’t be taking any back talk from contractors or local corrupt cops. The status of the County action can be tracked by looking up complaint #201409617 here.

What a lovely Xmas present for me and my neighbors!

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Dumb and Dumber

I am not so secretly amused by the emergence of the term “warmist“.

“Global warming” is a dumb name for a single, highly academic globally averaged measure of one of the many harmful effects of mankind’s pollution of our environment. Focusing on global warming is like focusing on smoke damage to your drapes during a house fire. Pollution is the problem to be solved.

The big polluters are very pleased that the rest of us are wasting time calling each other names instead of looking for a sensible common ground.

Geminids on 12/13/14

The number sequence only works in the stupid US date format, though. Anywhere sane it’s 2014-12-13.

Here on the Mid-Atlantic Coast of the USA, the Geminid meteor shower should start to be visible just after dark, and best viewing will be between about 10:00pm and moonrise which will be around midnight, when up to 120 an hour may be visible. The Geminids are bright, often producing fireballs, and while 65% are white, about 25% are yellow, and about 10% are blue, red, or green.

Dodder interfaces at the mRNA of the host plant

Dodder, the parasitic strangleweed, was already pretty damn interesting. It can find and choose between host plants by smell for one thing. Now I find out it does bidirectional cross-species mRNA transfers.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a short-lived carrier mechanism that copies instructions from an organism’s DNA and takes them to a ribosome where those instructions will be used to create and chain together amino acids. Amino acids are basic building blocks of living organisms, so being able to read and write mRNA means being able to direct what gets built – for instance your body could build muscle cells, or blood cells, and in either case your mRNA would provide the patterns for the chemical factory that we call a ribosome.  Dodder can literally hijack the command and control communications that govern a host plant’s growth.


Image by Phil Gates

The scientists who carried out this study were specifically looking for mRNA. They theorize that other sophisticated chemical communications may be going on as well. But this is pretty impressive by itself!

That pink stuff in your bathroom

No, a pink residue is not a problem with your water quality, and is not harmful in this situation. It is evidence of bacteria that are common inhabitants of our environment. The most typical of these bacteria is one known as Serratia marcescens. These bacteria come from any of a number of naturally-occurring sources, such as soil, mulch, dust, and surface waters, and they thrive in an environment that is moist and high in phosphates.

Serratia infection is responsible for about 2% of nosocomial infections of the bloodstream, lower respiratory tract, urinary tract, surgical wounds, and skin and soft tissues in adult patients.

Until the 1950s, S. marcescens was erroneously believed to be a nonpathogenic “saprophyte”, and its reddish coloration was used in school experiments to track infections. It was also used in biological warfare testing by the U.S. military as a substitute for weaponized tularemia bacteria. On September 26 and 27, 1950, the U.S. Navy conducted a secret experiment named “Operation Sea-Spray” in which S. marcescens was released by bursting balloons of it over the densely populated San Francisco Bay Area in California. Although the Navy apparently believed the bacteria were harmless, beginning on September 29, 11 patients at a local hospital developed very rare, serious urinary tract infections, and one of these individuals, Edward J. Nevin, died. Cases of pneumonia in San Francisco also increased after S. marcescens was released.

Concerning Nature’s “open access”

Earlier this week the Intartubes were boiling with the news that Nature Magazine would open its archives back to 1869. Which would, indeed, be marvelous and unexpected.

But it’s a little more complicated than that… it seems Nature’s publisher, Macmillan, is going to let paid Nature subscribers use (yet another) foredoomed-to-failure “read only sharable format”.

The content-sharing policy, which also applies to 48 other journals in Macmillan’s Nature Publishing Group (NPG) division, including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Nature Physics, marks an attempt to let scientists freely read and share articles while preserving NPG’s primary source of income — the subscription fees libraries and individuals pay to gain access to articles.

That sounds pretty great for everybody, right? Win-win!

ReadCube, a software platform similar to Apple’s iTunes, will be used to host and display read-only versions of the articles’ PDFs. If the initiative becomes popular, it may also boost the prospects of the ReadCube platform, in which Macmillan has a majority investment.

Starting to sound a lot dodgier now… we may have a reality disconnect going on…

Although the screen-view PDF cannot be printed, it can be annotated — which the publisher says will provide a way for scientists to collaborate by sharing their comments on manuscripts.

Yep, reality check sorely needed. Hey, look, smartphones have cameras!

ReadCube -> monitor screen -> camera phone -> email -> PC -> printer.

There are no formats that can be viewed but not printed. If you think such a thing exists, everything you’ve built is suspect, because you’re apparently not entirely aware of what’s going on around you. The odds are good that Macmillan’s “read only format” can be trivially defeated, and that script kiddy hacks will be available in short order.

Any questions?

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