#biology

See tagged statuses in the local bookrastinating.com community

How it started: Life is DNA, which uses rna to send messages and make proteins that do stuff.

How it's going: Life is RNA, which uses dna as a long-term data storage medium optimized for replication and repair.

People ask me what I would advise them to do in preparation for their own funeral. I tend to say they can leave their loved ones to decide the service if they write a . And if you are + write a will & do it now. If you are or write your will. If you are feeling you are too or not needing to think about it yet *write a will*. Look into the eyes of the people you love, write it for them. If we don’t write a will, will win over . Please

We're just migrated from another instance, so here is our (re)introduction:

Neurofrontiers is a bilingual blog about interesting neuroscience topics that tries to be accessible to the broader public while still maintaining scientific accuracy. It's run by a team of three people: a computational neuroscientist, a psychologist, and a graphic designer. We think that being on social media allows us to stay up-to-date with the most recent discussions in science and hope to be able to connect with like-minded individuals.

Posting interests below so we show up in mutual searches:

Indigenous Tribes Engineered British Columbia’s Modern Hazelnut Forests More Than 7,000 Years Ago
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https://www.science.org/content/article/indigenous-tribes-engineered-british-columbia-s-modern-hazelnut-forests-more-7000-years <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402304121 <-- shared paper
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[not my usual ‘sort of thing’ to post - as broad as that is - but I found this fascinating; it reminds me, in a sense, of the Incas incrementally selecting corn stock that can handle higher and higher altitudes, in ‘research stations’, although those were a domesticated crop]

charts - Clustering results of hazelnut individuals obtained by discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) and Bayesian-based structure analysis. (A) Plot of the first two axes from a principal component analysis (PCA) of 219 hazelnut samples genotyped for 9,650 SNPs showing differentiation between South Coast, Interior, and North samples. Groups are shown as different colors and inertia ellipses (95% of variance), while dots represent individuals. (B) Structure plot showing the posterior probabilities of assignment of individuals to the different clustering groups.
map - Six genetically distinct clusters of hazelnuts are represented in the study region, with four groups in the “isolated” northern region. Considering ethnographic and archaeological records of hazelnut management among Ts’msyen, Nisga’a, Gitanyow, and Gitxsan, this genetic diversity very likely reflects ancient management and cultivation efforts.
photo - hazelnut seed in tree, British Columbia, Canada
photo - First Nation member in a hazelnut kitchen, British Columbia, Canada

TIL: The West African Crocodile (or Sacred Crocodile) Crocodylus suchus only was recognized as a separate species from the Nile Crocodile in 2003, despite being discovered as a seperate species in 1807 by a French naturalist who compared mummified crocodiles to common crocodiles.

They aren't even particularly closely related.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_crocodile

This week's at the library: Once a year @princetonupress has their autumn sale, knocking 70% off prices (it's still on!). Thus I bagged myself four very different books: The Last Muslim Conquest, The Pivotal Generation, The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars, and The Hidden Company That Trees Keep

@princetonnature

A photo of four books, standing upright next to each other in a half-circle on a small, brown, wooden table. These are from Princeton University Press and in their autumn sale: The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe, The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now, The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living Worlds, and The Hidden Company That Trees Keep: Life from Treetops to Root Tips. The out-of-focus background shows shelves full of books.

“When you’re sure of what you’re looking at, look harder.” - Richard Powers, Generosity

Forty-four years ago I enrolled in a field biology class where we went out to survey wildlife using transects and quadrants for plants, binoculars for birds, and paint dabbed onto abdomens for ants. We wrote into our college notebooks what we observed of bird behavior. There were formulas to be used later for estimating plant species dominance and ant colony population size from data we collected. Today, inspired by those memories, by the delightful observations of humans by author @georgepenney, and the writings of novelist Richard Powers, I venture out far too late in the day when it is already hot in Texas.

I find a spot to sit on a limestone outcropping of an escarpment above the dry bed of Slaughter Creek in Austin. A Carolina wren calls from out of …

A view of the rocky escarpment where I sat while making these observations. My legs and hiking shoes appear in the lower left-hand corner. The background plants are mostly Texas ironwood, Texas persimmon, Texas live oak, and Honey mesquite.

We all know giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) can display some pretty incredible patterns, but this kaleidoscope of colour is next level! 🩷

Cuttlefish's incredible ability to change colour, shape, and texture helps them camouflage, mate, and even hypnotise prey.

However, they're not the only creatures in the animal kingdom with the ability to camouflage… https://ausgeo.co/camouflage

🎥 Terence Tong


/ picks of the day:

➡️ @base - Multi-disciplinary academic web search engine run by Bielefeld Univ in Germany

➡️ @PeerCommunityIn - NGO hosting scientific communities, recommending articles in open archives

➡️ @physics - -related journals from SciPost, non-profit open access foundation

➡️ @OJ_Astro - Open Journal of , published by Maynooth

➡️ @TrendsEcolEvo - Concise reviews in all areas of ecology & evolutionary

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