Ecology & Zoology

Can Loud Noises Really Kill Squid?

Hot new squid research has the world of cephalopod reporting all abuzz! The press release came out last Monday, so I'm a bit late to the game, but hey, that means I get to meta-report on the way everyone else reported it. ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 21 2011 - 1:25pm

New Crowd Sourcing App for Backyard Biodiversity Research

Discovery Communications ' Science Channel recently launched a new iPhone application to engage citizen scientists as mobile field observers right from their own back yard. With the " sci.spy " app, users can venture into their little domai ...

Blog Post - Matthew T. Dearing - Apr 17 2011 - 9:46pm

Tsunami vs. Squid?

So this is puzzling. The headline is Jumbo flying squid feels impact of tsunami, but after reading the article about a dozen times, I still can't tell what the "impact" is. ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Apr 21 2011 - 1:41pm

Why Is Squid Skin So Complicated, Anyway?

It's not exactly news--the Navy's decision to fund a huge, interdisciplinary research project on squid skin is so last year--but the topic cropped up again and started me wondering: why do squid use different techniques to make different colors? ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 26 2011 - 10:30pm

Squids In Space--Seriously

The last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour will be both manned and squidded. ...

Article - Danna Staaf - May 12 2011 - 10:18am

Happy May Day! (Circus Of The Spineless #62)

Welcome to the month of May! The time of Beltane and Walpurgis Night, flowers and maypoles and springtime dancing. Want a May Basket? Well, um, how about a nice gall instead? Dave Hubble zooms in with some exquisite photos and shows us just what a gift a g ...

Article - Danna Staaf - May 2 2011 - 12:04pm

Equisetum- Scouring Rush Is The Oldest Extant Genus Of Land Plant?

Over 100 million years ago, late Mesozoic forests were chock full of a diverse group of plants of the class Equisetopsida, though only one genus, Equisetum, commonly called scouring rush or horsetail, still exists today.   It is unclear about the evolution ...

Article - News Staff - May 5 2011 - 10:12am

Squid Not Very Helpful With Earthquakes

Many people are confident that their dogs and cats can sense impending earthquakes. Could squid provide humans with the same service? Let's examine the "connections" that have been drawn between squid and earthquakes. In La Jolla in 2009, a ...

Article - Danna Staaf - May 11 2011 - 2:22pm

I'd Like To Teach the (Fisheries Science) World To Sing In Perfect Harmony

As soon as you start studying fisheries science, you hear about the importance of getting fishermen and scientists to talk to each other. It's a truism once you think about it--fishermen know a lot about fishing, and scientists know a lot about scienc ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - May 14 2011 - 7:49pm

Species Extinction Rates Wildly Overstated

A new paper in Nature says the  most widely used methods for calculating species extinction rates are "fundamentally flawed" and overestimate extinction rates by as much as 160 percent. ...

Article - News Staff - May 18 2011 - 1:09pm