Nature involves Science, too! (Nobody Cares...)

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Arctic Dragon by Carina Letelier Baeza

No, this isn't a promotional still for a video game. It's part of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 shortlist, organised by the Royal Observatory Greenwich

 

[Isabeau]

This is kind of neat!

Landsat - NASA Science

The NASA/USGS Landsat program provides the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence.

landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov

Landsat - NASA Science

The NASA/USGS Landsat program provides the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence.

landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov

 

[Free]

This is kind of neat!

I like that they don't have just one image loaded up and ready to go for each letter.

 

[Isabeau]

Lost biblical plant with medicinal properties resurrected from 1,000-year-old seed

You have to scroll further down to see it bigger than the seedling in the first picture. It hasn’t flowered or grown fruit, yet.

Anyway, kinda cool to grow, well, anything from a 10 000 year old seed.

Unearthed during an archaeological dig in the lower Wadi el-Makkuk region north of Jerusalem, the ancient seed was determined to be in pristine condition. But the scientists conducting the new research weren’t able to identify the type of tree from the seed alone. The team, led by Dr. Sarah Sallon, a physician who founded the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, planted the seed to further investigate more than a dozen years ago.

Sallon said it was possible that the tree could be the source of the biblical “tsori,” a medicinal plant extract associated with the historical region of Gilead north of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley, a mountainous and forested area that was intensely cultivated and is now part of Jordan.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Isabeau]

Microburst. Pretty

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

As funny as this is on paper, this actually is a very important discovery. Probably will tell us a lot about that dinosaur's diet and digestive track.

 

[Noodles]

As funny as this is on paper, this actually is a very important discovery. Probably will tell us a lot about that dinosaur's diet and digestive track.

And possibly if they had anal sex.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

LOL

 

[Casey Pelous]

And possibly if they had anal sex.

Chuck Tingle is probably already at work on his next novel. Guess the topic!

 

[Free]

Butt science! So, buttholes or potty mouths - which was the best choice of evolution?

 

[Rose Karuna]

I think we need a thread for stuff that makes your skin crawl.

This made my skin crawl for sure!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/20/americas/smuggler-tarantulas-peru-intl-scli/index.html

Police in Peru have arrested a man caught trying to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants strapped to his body.

The 28-year-old South Korean national was stopped at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima on November 8 after officials noticed that his stomach area looked “bulky,” according to a statement from the country’s national forestry and wildlife service, SERFOR, published November 13.

Also, what person in their right mind would keep bullet ants as pets?

 

[Isabeau]

Wearing A Salmon On Your Head Is Back In Fashion For Orcas, After A 37-Year Break

In 1987, there was a strange trend amongst killer whales. Recent sightings show it's back in fashion.

www.iflscience.com

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Kilauea is going OFF tonight.

It's been erupting on and off...like it'll erupt for a day, and then not for week, and then erupt again. But tonight - it's really kicking, I don't think I've ever seen the fountain that high! It's gotta be more than a couple hundred feet tall, that fountain. At the time I'm posting this, that is.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Damn, it didn't look like that when I was there.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Damn, it didn't look like that when I was there.

Still going, but it isn't even close to how it was. When I made that earlier post, at the current camera FOV, the top of the lava fountain was out of frame. I should've taken some screenshots.

 

[Free]

Cancer sucks in nature, too.

New research shows bigger animals get more cancer, defying decades-old belief

Larger species face higher cancer risks but those that reached that size rapidly evolved mitigating mechanisms.

arstechnica.com

A longstanding scientific belief about a link between cancer prevalence and animal body size has tested for the first time in our new study ranging across hundreds of animal species.

If larger animals have more cells, and cancer comes from cells going rogue, then the largest animals on Earth—like elephants and whales—should be riddled with tumours. Yet, for decades, there has been little evidence to support this idea.

Many species seem to defy this expectation entirely. For example, budgies are notorious among pet owners for being prone to renal cancer despite weighing only 35 g. Yet cancer only accounts for around 2 percent of mortality among roe deer (up to 35 kg).

Peto’s paradox is that bigger, longer-lived species should have higher cancer prevalence, yet they don’t seem to. Back in 1977, Professor Sir Richard Peto noted that, on a cell-by-cell basis, mice seem to have much higher susceptibility to cancer than humans. This has led to speculation that larger species must have evolved natural cancer defenses.

Several examples of these cancer defenses have since been identified. For example, Asian elephants, a species with notably low cancer prevalence, have over 20 copies of a tumour suppressor gene (TP53) compared to our own lone copy. However, scientists are yet to find broader evidence across a range of animal species.

Our new study challenges Peto’s paradox.

As they say, more at the link.