| To Bee Or Not To Bee The transcript of this podcast wil be posted in two to three weeks. In part 2 of our bee podcast, we talk with May Berenbaum, entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and inspiration for the X Files fictional entomologist Bambi Berenbaum, about bees, other insects and how life history analysis can make us rest easy during scary scifi invasion movies. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Countdown to Copenhagen: Despite doubts about a treaty, 2009 shapes up as pivotal year for renewable energy Beginning with the Obama administration's $70-billion commitment to ramping up the U.S.'s reliance of wind, water and solar power (not to mention hybrid vehicles) in February through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and ending with December's international climate conference in Copenhagen , this year promises to be pivotal in the worldwide development and adoption of renewable energy sources. Pivotal in the sense that 2009 could go down as the moment the green revolution gained substantial footing thanks to a swelling of political and financial support or as a colossal missed opportunity due to power grabbing and misguided policy. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Another Reason to Save Coral? Reefs Are Responsible for Ocean Biodiversity The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth. It might also represent the most prolific cradle for new types of animals on the planet, according to new research published in the January 8 edition of Science . [More] rss.sciam.com |
Readers Respond on "Expanding the Limits of Life" Lost Nucleotides Although Alexander S. Bradley’s article “ Expanding the Limits of Life ” provides a fascinating account of the discovery of microbes in a previously unknown kind of hydrothermal vent ecosystem on the seafloor, it does not substantiate his claim that the findings hint that life may have originated in an environment like the Lost City hydrothermal vent. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Reading Between the Lines: How We See Hidden Objects Imagine that you are looking at a dog that is standing behind a picket fence. You do not see several slices of dog; you see a single dog that is partially hidden by a series of opaque vertical slats. The brain’s ability to join these pieces into a perceptual whole demonstrates a fascinating process known as amodal completion.It is clear why such a tendency would have evolved. Animals must be able to spot a mate, predator or prey through dense foliage. The retinal image may contain only fragments, but the brain’s visual system links them, reconstructing the object so the animal can recognize what it sees. The process seems effortless to us, but it has turned out to be one of those things that is horrendously difficult to program computers to do. Nor is it clear how neurons in the brain’s visual pathways manage the trick. [More] Neuron - Brain - Dog - Biology - Animal rss.sciam.com |