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POPSRevealing the complexity behind things we take for granted..astonishing forms "Viewed at extreme magnifications of 1,000 times or more, the natural world acquires a surreal beauty, rich with astonishing forms and spectacular patterns. A new book, Nano Nature, gives us a rare glimpse into this bizarre 'nano' world. Using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), which can view objects at extreme magnification, Nano Nature explores this hidden world, revealing the complexity behind things we take for granted - a butterfly wing, a polar bear's hair or a fruit fly's eye. The images are produced in monochrome and then hand tinted to enrich their detail.'
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POPSThe Origins of Halloween... the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter. "To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
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POPSMacaques make democratic decisions Whether or not the individual monkeys were successful in getting the rest of the group to follow them didn't seem to relate to their age, sex or status. "Even the children can get the group moving," says Cédric Sueur, a graduate student who worked on the study with Petit. The style of decision-making most frequently documented in the animal kingdom is dictatorial. In mountain gorillas, for example, the obedient tribe will follow the dominant male silverback. Horses, mongooses and wolves also follow despotic leaders. But theories are emerging which suggest that mammals who make democratic decisions may have an evolutionary edge because they can pool the experience of each group member.
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POPSMetagenomics http://www.realitysandwich.com/metagenomics_accessing_aliens_inside_us_all
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POPSAre Meerkats Naturally Altruistic?
For centuries, there's been a debate over whether true altruism exists among humans. Helping others at our detriment is risky behavior, evolutionarily speaking. Say you're overcome with an urge to give your last piece of bread to someone else. The other person eats, but you don't. Ultimately, after enough of these selfless acts, you'll starve and die, and your dangerous habit of helping others should die along with you. In the animal kingdom, altruism poses an equally prickly problem to explain. Why some animals exhibit generosity is a real mystery to biologists. It's not like they're thinking about the tax write-off they can get by donating money. Meerkats have one of the most cooperative societies in the animal kingdom. These African desert dwellers are perfect subjects for an investigation into altruism. For one, they live in a harsh habitat, quite a long way from easy street. Danger lurks around every corner because they sit at the bottom of the food chain.
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POPSBisexual Species: Unorthodox Sex in the Animal Kingdom Nevertheless, the study of homosexual activity in diverse species may elucidate the evolutionary origins of such behavior. Researchers are now revealing, for example, that animals may engage in same-sex couplings to diffuse social tensions, to better protect their young or to maintain fecundity when opposite-sex partners are unavailable—or simply because it is fun. These observations suggest to some that bisexuality is a natural state among animals, perhaps Homo sapiens included, despite the sexual-orientation boundaries most people take for granted. “ the categories of gay and straight are socially constructed,” Anderson says.
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POPSBisexual Species Summary: homosexuality is a natural behavior in the animal kingdom and also occurs in captive situations, suggesting bisexuality is natural for birds, mammals, and other animals...and for humans as well
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POPSSo You Think You Can Dance?: PET Scans Reveal Your Brain's Inner Choreography To explore that question, we conducted the first neuroimaging study of dance movement, in conjunction with our colleague Michael J. Martinez of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, using amateur tango dancers as subjects. We scanned the brains of five men and five women using positron-emission tomography,
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POPSCelebrities and their Muppet lookalikes :D The resemblances are remarkable! Too funny! The last two sets of lookalikes are Adrien Brody & Gonzo and Hippy guitarist Janice & Donatella Versace. Go to the source to see the pairs side by side.
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