omglog

Animal Specimens with Transparent Skin and Rainbow Skeletons

Original article (japanese site, obscure english translation)
Enlarge title image

[via:NOTCOT]

Newly discovered “cookie-shaped” fossils of early multi-cellular life form

[via:zefrank]

Could omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids reduce psychosis in at-risk people?

[via:HBL]

Scientists turn human stem cells into early-stage sperm and eggs

[via:Dvorak]

An Alien God (on evolution)

“In a way, Darwin [...] discovered a strange alien God – not comfortably “ineffable”, but really genuinely different from us. Evolution is not a God, but if it were, it wouldn’t be Jehovah. It would be H. P. Lovecraft’s Azathoth, the blind idiot God burbling chaotically at the center of everything, surrounded by the thin monotonous piping of flutes.”

[via:Hacker News]

Tamarins respond to music expressing monkey feelings: deep evolutionary roots for the musical elements of speech?

The catch is that they don’t care for “human” music. Tamarin optimized music samples are included with the article.

“…music based on soothing, friendly monkey calls tended to calm cotton-top tamarins, a species native of South America. Music based on fear and threat calls stimulated anxious behavior.”

[via:Tiede]

New knowledge on arctic jellyfish

See also: accompanying photos.

[via:ath]

Stray dogs learn how to ride subway

“Scientists in Moscow say stray dogs have learned to use the subway to travel into the city’s center in search of food.

Biology professor Andrew Poyarkov said he has seen dogs exhibiting commuting behavior, as the dogs travel into the center of the city where they can more easily find food each morning, then travel back to where they live each evening.”

[via:Robert Wiblin]

Do crabs have rights?

[via:Trent]

The Psychedelic Frogfish

See also: Wikipedia

[via:Charris]

Bow, the grammatically correct chimpanzee

“Bow’s development shatters what everyone has believed so far about the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees.”

See also: Primate-Jobs Positions Available

[via:Dragu]

Synthetic hybrid of protein and DNA, could be basis of new class of drugs and artificial life unlike anything in nature

“A synthetic molecule called peptide nucleic acid (PNA) combines the information-storage properties of DNA with the chemical stability of a proteinlike backbone.”

[via:Slashdot]

‘Water bears’/Tardigrades are first animal to survive space vacuum

“Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are known for their virtual indestructibility on Earth. The creatures can survive intense pressures, huge doses of radiation, and years of being dried out.”

[via:URSA]

The Genetic Map of Europe

[via:mummila]

Apes get legal rights in Spain

“The Spanish parliament is to back legal rights for great apes, that’s gorillas, chimpanzees and orangs. The parliament’s environmental committee has thrown its weight behind the Great Ape Project, which aims to provide apes with a “the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture”. As the resolution passed by the committee on Wednesday has cross-party support it is expected to become law, says Reuters, and experiments on great apes will be outlawed.”

See also: The times