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Shapeless sacks and oblong paper-knives: meet your cousins
The lancelet resembles a lancet, a double-bladed surgical knife. Few people will find delight in the dredge that is hauled from the ocean floor. But for the British biologist Ray Lankester, such hauls...
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MolBio Carnival #16!
Welcome to the sixteenth edition of the MolBio Carnival! Some great blog posts on cellular and molecular biology have been submitted, many of them written by first-time contributors, so I urge you to...
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Globin duplication was the key to a healthy heartbeat
Summary: Scientists show that vertebrate-specific globins originated in two rounds of genome duplication. We vertebrates work for our O2. Whether we’re a fish or antelope, we all have gills and lungs...
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Frog-killing fungus is a skin-loving hybrid
These are not the best of times for amphibians. All around the world, populations of frogs, salamanders and newts are declining. At least 489 species (7.8% of all known amphibians) are nearing...
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Yeti Crabs grow bacteria on their hairy claws
Deep beneath the waters of Costa Rica, dozens of crabs are waving their claws in unison, in what seems to be a rhythmic performance. It’s almost as if these crabs are locked in a ritual dance. But...
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Evolving between the echoes
This bumblebee bat could be the smallest mammal in the world. Isolation can be a blessing. I am most productive when I’m not connected to the web. If I’m writing in a train or plane, severed from the...
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Return of the Yeti Crab
Remember the dancing Yeti Crabs? They’re back! Check out this amazing illustration of two farming Yeti Crabs by Irene Goede: So white, so hairy.. I want to pet them! Irene is a freelance illustrator...
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Heads before Tails: Ancient Fish Evolved Head-First
Protobalistum imperiale from around 50 million years old of Bolca, Italy. Like most evolutionary tales, this one could have started on the Galapagos Islands. Instead we find ourselves in an ancient...
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My first year as a MSM science writer
Happy belated new year everyone! 2011 was a wonderful year for me. Not only did my blog move to its shiny new abode at Scientific American, I also joined the science desk of NRC Handelsblad, a daily...
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More than Just Pretty Faces
The bald uakari has a distinctive, but simple, face. Photo by Ipaat Specks. Stripes. Red fur. Black fur. Eye masks. Bald spots. Beards. Moustaches. New World monkeys are nature’s motley crew. Their...
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Coelacanths are not living fossils. Like the rest of us, they evolve
This stuffed coelacanth, described by Smith in 1939, achieved worldwide fame. Source. It was supposed to be extinct. Yet here it lay, with fins round and fleshy, scales as hard as bone and a tail...
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The tragic fate of the Brighton octopus
These are good times to have tentacles. Thanks to the internet, even the most ordinary of octopuses can be catapulted to worldwide fame. Exceptional skills or abilities are not required. A simple...
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Did life evolve in a ‘warm little pond’?
Geothermal pond near the Mutnovsky volcano, Kamtchatka. Copyright Anna S. Karyagina “But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric...
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Antarctica’s Erratic Climate Shaped Icefish Evolution
Larva of a crocodile icefish. Photo by Uwe Kils. Few fish would survive a swim in Antartica’s ice-covered waters. Temperatures can drop to -1.9 ℃, whereas a typical fish starts to freeze at -0.8 ℃. If...
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Thanks to Extra Genes, Eels Transform from Ribbons to Tubes
A wild eel in the Grevelingenmeer. Photo shot by Arne Kuilman, all rights reserved. Few animals travel so far to have sex as the European eel. When autumn comes, these eels leave their lakes and rivers...
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A Spoonful of Molybdenum, some Ulysses and the Origin of Life
The robotic submarine Hercules explores Lost City, a hydrothermal vent system in the center of the Atlantic Ocean. Image courtesy Deborah Kelley (University of Washington), Institute for Exploration,...
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Livestock bacteria are as old as the livestock they kill
Aurochs were the ancestors of domestic cattle. Photo Marcus Sümnick Animals were wilder then. Horns were longer, temperaments fiercer. These wild things had forever been free when humans took control...
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Ancient fish had the backbone of a landlubber
Evolution has a knack for confronting us with strange and unexpected questions. One of them echoed through the halls of the Collections Centre of the National Museum of Scotland, not too long ago:...
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Terrestrial hermit crabs only smell their favourite snacks when water is around
Terrestrial hermit crabs love peanut snacks, but can only smell them when it's wet. Illustration Irene Goede. Used with permission. The Caribbean hermit crabs in Anna-Sara Krång’s laboratory are no...
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The floor is yours!
Carving blog posts one by one. Photo theangryblender Today, the Scientific American blogging network celebrates its very first birthday. It has been a tremendous ride so far, and I would really like to...
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The grandmother and her genes: a grandson’s perspective
Photo by redwood1 Somewhere deep in my grandmother’s veins, a blood clot breaks free. Her blood carries the clot past her heart, to her lungs, where it becomes stuck in a pulmonary artery. This is when...
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Book review: Survival of the Beautiful
Satin bowerbirds decorate their bowers with all things blue. Picture by thinboyfatter. Sometimes all you have to do to make me buy your book, is think of a good title. Survival of the Beautiful by...
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Animal vision evolved 700 million years ago
All animal eyes and eye-spots contain opsin, a protein that captures light. This is the compound eye of Antarctic krill. Photo by Gerd Alberti and Uwe Kills Gaze deep into any animal eye and you will...
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How genetic plunder transformed a microbe into a pink, salt-loving scavenger
The Pink Lakes in Australia are coloured pink by salt-loving microbes. Photo by Neilsphotography. Most cells would shrivel to death in a salt lake. But not the Halobacteria. These microbes thrive in...
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The sexy sabercat: how the sabertooth got its teeth
Homotherium was a sabercat that survived until the last Ice Age. This skull is from the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. Many sabertooths have stalked this world. The first sabertoothed...
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