Tag: biology

Scientists have identified the oldest living thing on Earth, a patch of seagrass growing underwater in the Mediterranean.

9:25 am

Scientists have identified the oldest living thing on Earth, a patch of seagrass growing underwater in the Mediterranean.

Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus.

The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.

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Unconfirmed reports in the Russian press today claim that the drilling team in Antarctica has successfully reached Lake Vostok more than two miles under the icecap.

1:39 pm

Unconfirmed reports in the Russian press today claimed that the drilling team in Antarctica has successfully reached Lake Vostok, more than two miles under the icecap.

No results yet. And since the story above spends more time talking about old silly stories about a hidden NAZI hideout in Antarctica than it does the Russian science effort there it should be taken with a grain of salt.

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A U.S. government panel today unanimously recommended that scientists limit publication of results relating to bird flu.

9:53 pm

A U.S. government panel today unanimously recommended that scientists limit publication of their results relating to bird flu.

We found the potential risk of public harm to be of unusually high magnitude. In formulating our recommendations to the government, scientific journals and to the broader scientific community, we tried to balance the great risks against the benefits that could come from making the details of this research known. Because the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) found that there was significant potential for harm in fully publishing these results and that the harm exceeded the benefits of publication, we therefore recommended that the work not be fully communicated in an open forum. The NSABB was unanimous that communication of the results in the two manuscripts it reviewed should be greatly limited in terms of the experimental details and results.

As much as I am almost always in favor of the free flow of information, in this case this recommendation seems quite reasonable. The situation is in many ways identical to the government’s policy to routinely limit publication of the engineering details of its weaponry.

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A 33,000-year-old dog skull found in a Siberian cave, when compared with other ancient dog remains found in a Belgium cave, suggest to scientists that the domestication of dogs took place separately in many different places.

10:27 pm

A 33,000-year-old dog skull found in a Siberian cave, when compared with other ancient dog remains found in a Belgium cave, suggest to scientists that the domestication of dogs took place separately in many different places.

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New research suggests that a body-snatching parasitic fly might be the culbrit in the decline of the honeybee population in the U.S.

1:21 pm

Alien on Earth: New research suggests that a body-snatching parasitic fly might be the culprit in the decline of the honeybee population in the U.S.

The parasitic fly lays eggs in a bee’s abdomen. Several days later, the parasitized bee bumbles out of the hives—often at night—on a solo mission to nowhere. These bees often fly toward light and wind up unable to control their own bodies. After a bee dies, as many as 13 fly larvae crawl out from the bee’s neck. The bees’ behavior seems similar to that of ants that are parasitized—and then decapitated from within—by other fly larvae from the Apocephalus genus.

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Scientists last week published a paper claiming that the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown caused 14,000 U.S. deaths.

9:53 pm

Junk science: Scientists last week published a paper claiming that the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown caused 14,000 U.S. deaths. You can download the paper here [pdf].

I expect the mainstream television press to push this story in the coming days. The story however is crap. I’ve read the paper, and all it shows is a small statistical increase in deaths in the fourteen weeks after the earthquake/meltdown, compared to the previous year. The scientists provided no context with other years, nor did they factor in changes in total population or a host of innumerable other variables that would influence these numbers. Worse, they presented no direct evidence linking the fallout from the meltdown with the deaths.

In other words, this is agenda-driven science, designed mainly to attack nuclear energy. We should not give it much credence.

One more point: the lead author of the paper is the executive director of Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization whose only purpose appears to be to prove that low level radiation has a negative effect on human health. From a science perspective, this is not a good way to do science. The only way the scientists in this organization can justify their fund-raising and research is to find evidence to prove their theory.

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For as yet unexplained reasons, scientists have been finding isolated colonies of little brown bats — once the most common bat species in the region and the hardest hit by white nose syndrome — surviving and healthy.

2:42 pm

Hope for North America’s bats: For as yet unexplained reasons, scientists have been finding isolated colonies of little brown bats — once the most common bat species in the region and the hardest hit by white nose syndrome — surviving and healthy.

In Vermont, biologists have identified 15 colonies in the western part of the state where the numbers of little brown bats, while still far fewer than before white nose appeared, are surviving, said Vermont Fish and Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling. “We visited each and every one of those colonies and to some degree, much to our surprise, they seem to be healthy,” Darling said. “It begged the question, ‘Why are you the lucky ones?'”

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