Posts tagged nature

A huge, softball-size eyeball that washed ashore in Pompano Beach, Fla. may have come from a deep sea squid or a large sword fish, the Associated Press reports.

A man spotted the eyeball Wednesday and reported it to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has sent it off for study to identify the creature to which it belongs.

The internet and marine biology community has been buzzing about the eye since the commission shared a photo of it on its Facebook page. People are suggesting it came from everything from a giant squid to Bigfoot.

The blue eyeball may have come from a deep sea squid or a large sword fish, said Heather Bracken-Grissom, an assistant professor in the marine science program at Florida International University in Miami.

“Any time something weird and crazy washes up on the beach, it’s definitely interesting,” she told the AP. “It’s going to be very interesting to see what the genetic analysis shows.”

The professor and her colleagues concluded that the eyeball’s lens and pupil are similar in shape to that of a deep sea squid. She noted that a deep sea squid’s eyeball can be as large as a soccer ball and can easily become dislodged.

Officials won’t really know where the eyeball came from until testing at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg is complete.

(Source: futurenow321)

For the first time, scientists have successfully plotted the paths of sperm in 3-D, revealing corkscrew, like trajectories and “hyperactive” swimmers. By placing sperm on a silicon sensor, not unlike those found in smartphones and digital cameras. Then the researchers set red and blue LED lights on the sperm. The sperm cast two different-colored shadows, which they recorded. Later, they used a computer program to reconstruct the movements of the sperm cells based on the shadow movements, producing a holographic image.They found that most sperm move in straight, linear directions. But some are what they called “hyperactive,” with jerky direction changes and sometimes careening in reverse. Others swam in corkscrew, cyclical patterns, which had only been hinted at with microscope results.

(Source: futurenow321)

Conservationists have built an artificial bat cave deep in the Tennessee woods to see if it can be a blueprint for saving bats who are dying by the millions from a fungus spreading across North America.

The $300,000 project by The Nature Conservancy is believed to be the first manmade hibernating structure for bats in the wild. Unlike natural caves, it will be cleaned annually to keep the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome from reaching lethal levels.

(Source: futurenow321)

A supercell thunderstorm rolls across the Montana prairie at sunset. This was a winning shot in the 2010 National Geographic Nature Gallery Photo Contest

(Source: futurenow321)

West Nile virus is sweeping the United States this year. So far in 2012, 47 states have reported West Nile virus activity in mosquitoes, birds or people - all but Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont.

There have been a total of 1,118 human cases of West Nile virus reported, including 41 deaths. About 75 percent of all cases come from 5 states: Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. Dallas County, Texas has been hit especially hard. According to state health commissioner Dr. David Lakey, the county has had 270 cases of West Nile and 11 deaths. To put that in perspective, Dallas had only seen 10 total West Nile virus deaths from 2003 through 2011.

In this image, mosquitoes are sorted at the Dallas County mosquito lab in Dallas, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012

(Source: futurenow321)

Amur tiger Iris licks its 7-week-old cub the Royev Ruchey zoo in ]Krasnoyarsk, Russia

(Source: futurenow321)

Scientists have identified a new species of African monkey whose coloring “is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” as one of the researchers put it. The monkey, known by people in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the lesula, has a blond chin and upper chest, in contrast to its dark limbs. It has a reddish colored lower back and tail. The first lesula seen by researchers was a captive one, the pet of a schoolgirl. Although it bore a strong resemblance to another species, the owl faced monkey, the unusual coloring made the researchers suspect it was something new. They were able to identify more lesulas in the wild and locate hunters with specimens of the monkey. They analyzed tissue samples to confirm that the lesula is in fact genetically distinct from other species.

(Source: futurenow321)