Biosentients - Science Biology… etc

I interrupt my fall field trip adventures to direct your attention to a really helpful article article in the latest Delicious Living magazine that discusses what products or product ingredients that you should buy organically if all possible. The article goes beyond the usual health reasons and explores the environmental reasons for buying organic as ………

2008 Is the International Year of the Potato. The potato has been consumed in the Andes for about 8,000 years. Taken by the Spanish to Europe in the 16th century, it quickly spread across the globe.

Today potatoes are grown on an estimated 75,000 square miles of farmland, from China’’s Yunnan plateau and the subtropical lowlands of India, to Java’’s equatorial highlands and the steppes of Ukraine. In terms of sheer quantity harvested, the humble potato tuber is the world’’s No. 4 food crop, with production in 2006 of almost 347 million tons.

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Up to 20 meters long and weighing as much as 20 tons, its enormous size gives the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) its name. Known as the gentle giant for its non-predatory behavior, this fish, with its broad, flattened head and minute teeth, eats tiny zooplankton, sieving them through a fine mesh of gill-rakers. Listed as a rare species, relatively little is known about whale sharks, which live in tropical and warm seas, including the western Atlantic and southern Pacific. However, a new study combines computer-assisted photographic identification with ecotourism to study the rare species and suggests whale shark populations in Ningaloo, Western Australia are healthy. The study appears in the Ecological Society of Americas recent issue of Ecological Applications……..

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered a gene in plants that disrupts fertilization only when mutations in the gene are present in both the female and male reproductive cells. Their discovery, detailed in a paper that appears online today in the journal Current Biology, has been named the “abstinence by mutual consent” mutation because of its unusual properties……..

Thailands Western Forest Complex a 6,900 square mile (18,000 square kilometers) network of parks and wildlife reserves can potentially support some 2,000 tigers, making it one of the worlds strongholds for these emblematic big cats, as per a new study by Thailands Department of National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. The study, which appears in latest issue of the journal Oryx, says that to make these numbers a reality, better enforcement to safeguard both tigers and their prey from poachers is critical……..

Most parents would hotly deny favouring one child over another but new research suggests they may have little choice in the matter. Biologists studying a unique species of beetle that raises and cares for its young have observed that parents instinctively favour the oldest offspring. The University of Manchester research published in Ecology this month supports the findings of studies carried out on human families but is significant in that it suggests a wholly natural tendency towards older siblings……..

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is one of the most successful invasive species in the world, having colonized parts of five continents in addition to its native range in South America. A new study sheds light on the secrets of its success. The findings, from scientists at the University of Illinois and the University of California at San Diego, appear this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences……..

Locks of hair from more than 400 grizzly bears are stored at Montana State University, waiting to tell the tale of genetic diversity in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Ranging from pale blond to almost black, the hair is filed in a chest freezer where the temperature is minus-77.8 degrees. Some of the tufts are almost 25 years old……..

Homeowners dogged by household fleas need look no farther than the broom closet to solve their problem. Researchers have determined that vacuuming kills fleas in all stages of their lives, with an average of 96 percent success in adult fleas and 100 percent destruction of younger fleas. In fact, the results were so surprisingly definitive that the lead scientist, an Ohio State University insect specialist, repeated the experiments several times to be sure the findings were correct. The studies were conducted on the cat flea, or Ctenocephalides felis, the most common type of flea plaguing companion animals and humans……..

The journal Science has published a paper today that is the most comprehensive review to date of the effects rising ocean temperatures are having on the worlds coral reefs. The Carbon Crisis: Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, co-authored by seventeen marine researchers from seven different countries, reveals that most coral reefs will not survive the drastic increases in global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 unless governments act immediately to combat current trends……..