Sci-Tastic!

The platypus is among nature’s most unlikely animals. In fact, the first scientists to examine a specimen believed they were the victims of a hoax. The animal is best described as a hodgepodge of more familiar species: the duck (bill and webbed feet), beaver (tail), and otter (body and fur). Males are also venomous. They have sharp stingers on the heels of their rear feet and can use them to deliver a strong toxic blow to any foe.

The platypus is one of only two mammals which lays eggs (monotreme), the other being the echidna, also known as the spiny anteater.

I love these little guys.

(via scinerds)

sciencecenter:

Here’s some eye candy. Enjoy your weekend!

octopuuuuuuus

theseablog:

This is Hinea brasiliana, one of only a handful sea snails that are bioluminescent.

How come we don’t get to be bioluminescent?

(via scinerds)

jtotheizzoe:

Hey Kids! Measles are Marvelous!

At least that’s what a new anti-vaccination children’s book would have you believe. Outright lying wasn’t enough for the anti-vaccination movement. Deceiving parents just wouldn’t do it. Now they are aiming square at the kids.

From the book’s description:

This book takes children aged 4 – 10 years on a journey of discovering about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations, while teaching them to embrace childhood disease, heal if they get a disease, and build their immune systems naturally.

“… build their immune systems naturally”? Do you know WHY we developed vaccines for measles? Because measles is not marvelous (just look at the symptoms).

Just like this book, it can be deadly.

Cant’ make this stuff up. Head -> desk.

(via Skepchick)

This is a dangerous, dangerous way of thinking about healthcare. Children are dying of diseases that should have been wiped off the face of the earth by now because of people like Stephanie Messenger. I don’t know what they hope to gain by it, but there are people out there spreading lies about vaccinations and their imagined risks. They are wrong. There is absolutely no reason to not vaccinate your children.

(via jtotheizzoe)

sciencecenter:

Embryonic turtles communicate to coordinate when they hatch

Murray River turtles communicate with their siblings while they are still in their shells, buried under the soil, in order to coordinate when they hatch.

Achieving this synchronicity isn’t easy. Although the eggs are always laid at the same time in the same nest, those at the top of the nest near the sun-drenched soil develop much faster than those buried deeper in the cooler soil. However, Murray River turtles are able to tell whether their fellow hatchlings are more or less advanced and adapt their pace of development accordingly, allowing the slow-coaches to play catch-up. […]

The team concluded that the embryos must be able to communicate with each other while they are still in their shells, but it’s not clear how. They suggest that it could be down to changes in the nest that trigger certain hormones that change the turtles’ metabolism. Embryos produce more thyroid hormone when oxygen levels fall. The fast-developing embryos could use up the oxygen levels around the next and emit more carbon dioxide. The reduction in oxygen could cause the slower developers to produce more thyroid hormone and therefore grow faster.

I’m inspired. When’s the last time you put that much effort into cooperating with your siblings?

Look at its little shell!

14-billion-years-later:

Mammoths V2.0

Finally! Okay so I’ve grown up hearing about the possibility of cloning mammoths so this is exciting news. Two teams in Japan and Russia have finally taken the plunge and decided to attempt to clone a mammoth using an elephant egg injected with mammoth DNA. One of the major problems with cloning mammoths is finding the DNA (that isn’t to say it is the only problem), but thankfully we may now have some from the thigh bone of a dead mammoth found in Siberia. The teams are projected to have a baby mammoth by 2017, the first in nearly 10,000 years. Still let’s not get our hopes up, it’s a long way yet and certainly a difficult challenge.

I know what I want for my 31st birthday.

electricorchid:

moon jelly | +

Let’s start with one of my favourite animals of all time. <3