All posts by erin

Technology Takes A Look At A Pliosaur Skull

BioTechnology, New Research
Source: Flickr

The article “Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner,” caught my attention because it describes an interesting new use for existing technology. Researchers took the skull of a pliosaur, a creature that lived in the oceans during the Jurassic period, and scanned it to learn more about the fossil remains – which may belong to the largest pliosaur yet to be discovered.

The creature is estimated between 10-16m, based on the skull which is 2.4m long. By comparison, a killer whale is 5-8m and a human is only 1.5m. Needless to say, these things were big. According to the BBC article, a pliosaur would have had the jaw strength to bite a car in half.

The CT scanner used for the research belongs to the University of Southampton in the UK. The machine is one of the largest of its kind, which was necessary to beam through the dense fossil to form a 3D image of what the inside of it looks like. The findings may be able to help researchers establish if their fossil is a different species, or just an abnormally big example of a pliosaur. 

Elephant Species

Genetics, New Research, Sequencing
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Photographer: Johnny Liunggren.

Researchers have put an end to debate about whether the African Elephant is one species, or two. New findings published in the journal Public Library of Science Biology show that the African Elephants that dwell in the savannah are a distinct species from those that dwell in the forests.

Loxodonta africana, the savannah dwellers, are much larger and in some cases twice as heavy as Loxodonta cyclotis, the forest dwellers. The debate about whether the elephants were separate species has been going on for at least a decade. The research shows that the two species diverged from their common ancestor around the same time that humans and chimpanzees evolved. How long ago the species split was a surprise for the researchers.

What Happened to Amelia Earhart?

New Research, Sequencing
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bones found on an island in the South Pacific are being tested against surviving members of Amelia Earhart’s family to see if the remains could belong to the famous aviator. Earhart disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. Her mysterious disappearance has been the topic of books, movies, and enough speculation to make her a household name – even today.

Along with other artifacts found on the island including makeup and glass bottles, a DNA confirmation that the bones belong to Earhart would finally put to rest the mystery of what happened to her. If the bones are Earhart it would be valid to conclude that her plane crashed, and that she survived as a castaway for some time before dying on the island.

If DNA can give an ending to the story of Amelia Earhart, it will definitely be a win for genetics, and scientific research in general. The question that would be left (at least for me) is what happened to her plane (or her navigator for that matter)?

Woodpeckers From Space

My Personal Life, New Research

The article Space Laser Spies for Woodpeckers by Jonathan Amos for the BBC caught my eye today due to the way that I woke up this morning. I’m home in New Jersey for the holidays, and the back side of my parents house is wood so we’ve had a few woodpeckers stop by in the past.

Source: New Jersey Birds.com

This morning I fell out of bed, startled by what sounded like an attack from robotic woodpeckers. I stumbled out into the hall, only to figure out in my half-asleep state that the noise was radiating from the inside of the house, from the plumbing. Following the noise, I found my Mom in the basement doing laundry. Apparently the noise the sink next to the washer makes is very similar to a robotic woodpecker attack. I know you all appreciated that little anecdote, but now on to the scientific side of woodpeckers.

Researchers at the University of Idaho are developing lasers that can be attached to satellites to woodpeckers in the state to determine which parts of the forests they favor. The researchers hope the satellite guided lasers will be a better way to track the woodpecker, which is an indicator species. Being an indicator species means that if the woodpecker is healthy and thriving in different parts of the forest, then it is likely that the forest itself is healthy and doing well.

If the laser-satellites prove to be a successful way of surveying for a species, it could eliminate more labor-intensive and costly means of surveying like sending people into the forest on foot to assess the environment’s health. This is an instance where I have to say, even though we still don’t have flying cars, we are definitely living in the future.

Do Flies Exercise Free Will?

New Research

The question of whether or not organisms with less brain power than humans can exercise free will, essentially the ability to think for themselves, has long been a scientific curiosity. New research out of Berlin Free University suggests that fruit flies may have some level of free will.

Drosophila melanogaster. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The idea is that an organism that doesn’t have free will, always reacts in the same way to stimuli due to the way their brain has programmed them to react. Yet, experiments with fruit flies show some unpredictability to the way that fruit flies react. This suggests that fruit flies “think” on a different level that previously believed.

Now the ability to react differently to stimuli, does not mean that organisms with less brain power than humans are sentient. Sentience is the ability to be self aware, and to understand and think critically about yourself and what goes on around you. Whether or not organisms are sentient – and to what extent they may be so, remains a controversial topic.

Flying left instead of right when poked isn’t the same thing — at all. But it does suggest that we still have a lot to learn about the brain, even in teeny tiny organisms, because researchers have only scratched the surface of understanding the ability to make choices, and what it means about the capabilities of the brain.