Thursday, December 30, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the Angel Winged Clam.

The angel wing clam gained a bit of fame in the movie Sahara, where Dirk tells Dr Rojas about the clam, calling it Petricola Pholadiformis and stating that the river they were in is the only place on earth that they occur. He goes on to state that they glow in the dark, and that science has been unable to determine why. He continues that he thinks they glow, because they can.

Unfortunately the clam he identifies, doesn’t glow in the dark, is actually called the false angel wing and is found in many fresh water rivers. The angle wing clam is Cyrtopleura Costata, is found only in salt water and while some of these shells will glow if exposed to ultraviolet light, they do not produce their own light.

Some molluscs do have a bio luminance organ and produce a green light. This light can be seen glowing through the shell. In some species of molluscs this light shines brighter through the shell than others and the shells have been shown to amplify the light produced. The technique used by the molluscs for laying down material in the shells are have been determined and the method is being used by LED producers to increase the output of their devices.

As to why these creatures produce light, it seems that the brighter the light, the less predation the animals suffer in the wild. It is thought that the green light produced hides them from their predators, effectively hiding them in plain sight. It has been confirmed that at least some of these predators cannot see the frequencies produced.

Friday, December 24, 2010

I'm a bit late in posting the 23rd's interesting fact. I did give the fact to Nick yesterday face to face though.

Today's interesting fact has to do with faecal transplants.

Faecal transplants have been performed since the 1950's, on patients with infected colons with unstoppable diarrhoea who have failed to respond to conventional treatments. At this time, it is a sort of last resort, but it may become more common place after a new set of medical trials are finished later next year.

There are an estimated 25,000 different type of bacteria, fungi and viruses that normally live in the large colon. This vast colony of micro-organisms for the most part live in a symbiotic relationship with us, increasing the nutrients available for us to absorb from our food. These creatures also work with each other, supplying compounds and nutrients that others cannot synthesise.

When the mixture of types of micro-organisms are disturbed, such as from antibiotics, poor diet or disease, harmful bacteria and viruses can take hold and cause us problems. It has been suggested that the appendix harbours a collection of good bacteria that gets released when this happens, but if the balance is too far out of whack, the colon colony cannot recover.

C. dificile is one such bacteria, and cause death.

Faecal transplants, from individuals with healthy bowel colonies, have been shown to correct this type of problem, within 48 hours of administration. One medical clinic has done over 1500 faecal transplants, all of the patients recovered from their debilitating conditions.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with exploding toads and frogs.

It was noticed some years ago, that toads and frogs were exploding in gardens, parks and along river banks in parts of Europe. No one could explain at first why they were exploding and there were a considerable number of theories advanced, including one that required visiting outer space men.

One biologist noticed that the samples he studied had no livers. So he and several of his colleagues set up blinds and cameras in various frog and toad habitats to determine what was going on. After several weeks of investigation, they realised that the culprits in the case of the exploding frogs and toads were crows.

Crows would fly into the areas, settle down on the ground, and stand still. Toads and Frogs seem to have trouble seeing anything that doesn’t move. They are primed to see movement, so if something stands still, they don’t notice. When a frog or toad got close enough, with surgical precision, the crows would stab the amphibian in the stomach, and remove the liver, which crows seem to really enjoy. This didn’t kill the frogs and toads immediately, but left a wound, that would often partially heal, until the frog or toad decided to make their calls. They would fill their throats, the wound would burst and the poor creature would explode.

This behaviour was only found in certain areas of Europe, but the behaviour seems to be learnt by crows watching other crows, and the actions have been reported in the US now, a world wide phenomenon.
I’m posting yesterdays interesting fact today, as yesterday was a bit hectic. It has to do with the weather and climate.

Weather is what happens from day to day. Climate is what happens globally. For what ever reason, the world’s overall temperature is rising, even if in parts of the world, it is getting colder.

In England has experienced a lot of swings in the weather patterns over the past 50 years or so and seems to come and go. This has been shown to be because of changes in the jet stream, a river of wind that runs around the world.

Models suggest that as the overall temperature of the world increases, the jet stream will meander more. This seems to be happening, which has been causing the swings in weather, such as the droughts and subsequent forest fires in Russia, the cold winters in some parts of the world, as well as the warm winters in other parts.

This is because as the jet stream kinks, cold air from the north is dragged south, bringing cold and snow, and then warm air is dragged north, bringing the warm weather.

You can see this in a pot of water on a stove or cooker. When the water simmers, hot water rises, and cold water settles down to the bottom to warm and rise again. The more heat applied to the bottom of the pan, the faster this rising and falling occurs, until eventually you get a rolling boil. This is basically what is happening to the air.

As the tropics get warmer air rises and goes north, where it settles and then moves south. Because the earth is spinning, this causes the various trade winds. The hotter the tropics get, the further north the warm air goes, the more violent it moves and the faster cold air from the north, along with the snow and freezing rain, goes south.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the element carbon.

There are three common isotopes of carbon that are found on earth, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. Around 99% is carbon-12, about 1% is carbon-13 and carbon-14 is found in trace amounts.

Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays into nitrogen-14. You might think that this is why carbon-14 is so rare and that it might eventually disappear, but carbon-14 is produced when cosmic rays enter the atmospheres, produce neutrons, through a reaction convert the nitrogen-14 into a carbon-14 atom and a hydrogen atom.

Carbon-14 is constantly replenished, so that in the there is always about the same amount in the atmosphere at any time. Carbon-14 gets picked up by plants and through herbivores enters the animal food chain. Once an animal or plant dies, the ratio of carbon-14 to the other carbon isotopes doesn’t remain constant, as the carbon decays.

Because we know the half life of carbon-14, and the amount of carbon-14 is thought to remain constant (which remains true as long as the amount of cosmic rays remains constant), by determining how much carbon-14 remains in a sample, can determine how old the sample is, which is how radio-carbon dating works.
Today’s interesting fact has to do with atoms, elements and isotopes.

The simplest atom, hydrogen, has one electron and one proton. The proton is in the nucleus with the electron circling around it. But there isn’t just one form of hydrogen, there are three. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that has a neutron in the nucleus with the proton. Tritium has two neutrons with the proton. Hydrogen is also the only element with separate names for the various isotopes. The simplest form, without any neutrons, is also known as protium.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with Echinacea and Ginseng.

These herbal remedies have been used for thousands of years. Echinacea by American Indians, Ginseng by those in the far east.

Many claims have been made about the potent powers of these two herbs and few of them have been confirmed, but one fact has been scientifically proven in blind tests. The use of these two herbs in combination have been shown to reduce the length an individual has a cold and a case of flu, by at least a third and sometimes by half.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with the pygmy sloth of the Caribbean.

These diminutive creatures are much smaller than the land bound version. They were separated from the land about ten thousand years ago and have become a new species very quickly.

Unlike their relatives, these regularly swim and can be found paddling in the ocean, although they don't yet know exactly why.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with T-Cells.


T-Cells are used by the body to attack bacteria and viruses. Many of them are produced by the Thymus. T-Cells seem to rewrite some of their DNA, to produce small circles of RNA, which are used to help them do their job.

Recently they have worked out that the number of these T Cell Receptors found in T-Cells can be used to determine how old someone is. Blood samples, found by the police, can now give them the age of whoever lost the blood. This technique has already been used to rule out individuals in some cases.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with Dogs.

As most people know, the domestic dog seems to be a descendant of a species of wolves that lives on and around the Himalayas, with the occasional input of genes from other wolves or wild dogs throughout the world.

Short legged dogs seem to all descend from one genetic change, that is felt to have originated in the middle east, anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with Global Warming.

Not the global warming that is being discussed today, with some stating that it doesn't exist and others stating that it does. But the global warming that occurred some 50 million years ago.

No one is quite sure how it happened, but around 50 million years ago, the temperature of the planet sky rocketed. The shores of the Arctic ocean had palm trees lining it. Hippo's and Elephants lived in the Arctic circle. And perhaps most importantly to us, the number of primate species boomed, and eventually resulted 50 million years later in humans.

There are a number of theories as to why the planet warmed at that time. One is a meteorite that struck some high carbon content rocks. Another are some volcanoes that came up through other rocks that had a similar content. Another one is a methane burp, from the sea floor.

Whatever it was, the world warmed over the course in the matter of a few thousand years, and instant in geological time frame.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with the past two posts.

What is the difference I was asked, between Epigenetics and Lamarckism or Lysenkoism.

Epigenetics changes the way genes work, sometimes for several generations, but is eventually reversed, and the genes go back to the way they worked. No change to the genetic code is made. These changes allow the following generations to cope with specific changes to the environment. For instance, if a generation or two of an organism is given limited access to nutrients, epigenetic changes allow successive generations to survive by increasing the way they take up nutrients and how they utilise them. When the conditions that cause the change are reversed, eventually the epigenetic changes are reversed.

For both Lamarckism and Lysenkoism it was postulated that changes made to an organism, affects its offspring. Lamarck suggested that cutting off several generations of mice tails, would eventually lead to tailless mice. If this were true, breeds of dogs that had their tails docked for hundreds of years would now not have tails when born, yet those tails still exist.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Today’s interesting fact has to do with Trofim Lysenko, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the theory of the heritability of acquired characteristics.

Lysenko was a follower of Lamarck, a French Biologist who came up with Lamarckism, or the idea that an organism can pass on traits that it develops during its life, to its descendants. These traits were thought to be passed on at the time of conception.

Lamarckism fell out of favour in the 1920’s when evidence that seemed to support the theory, was shown to have been tampered with.

Lysenko claimed to have developed a better agricultural system through Lamarckism, which the leaders of the Soviet Union felt better supported the ideology of Communism. Lysenko was placed in charge of agriculture and denounced biologists that suggested other systems might work better than Lysenkoism, particularly geneticists, many of whom were executed or sent to labour camps.

Genetics was eventually declared a pseudoscience and effectively outlawed, and this was rescinded only in the mid 1960s.

Monday, December 06, 2010

Today's interesting fact, has to do with Epigenetics.

Epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in appearance, or gene expression by mechanisms other than changes to DNA. Or in other words, how genes turn off and on from generation to generation. It has also been used to describe how genes turn on and off during the lifetime of an individual. In a foetus, genes switch on and off as the body grows.

It has been shown that when genes have methyl groups added to them, the action of that gene can be turned off or even have their actions changed.

While it was thought that these changes could not be passed on from one generation to another, its been determined that these changes can pass on through two or more generations. Changes the way that a set of genes work, that occurred to your grandparents, can show up in you and possibly your children.

The study of epigenetics is still in its infancy, but many are suggesting that the recent obesity epidemic might have at least some of its roots in the starvation of some of our ancestors.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with Swarm Intelligence.

If you have watched a cloud of starlings, a swarm of ants, or a shoal of fish turning and moving, you might be forgiven for thinking that some form of intelligence was required. But it has been shown that simple equations can explain the behaviour.

Swarm Intelligence is shown however when a group of animals makes a decision that affects the whole group. Such as when bees swarm to find a new home.

But humans also can display swarm intelligence. Take a jar, fill it with beans, and then ask various individuals how many beans are in the jar, without letting them discuss their guesses. Apparently, more often than not, an average of the answer, is likely to be closest to the correct answer.

This only works when discussions are not allowed, as a percentage of the population seems to be able to sway others opinion, to such a degree, that the others will accept these opinions, without actually guessing.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with Culture and how it affects those who live within them.

Culture affects much more than many people think. The way we perceive colour is determined by culture. The way we express emotions on our faces is determined by culture. The way we react to issues is determined by culture. There are apparently only two facial expressions that are innate, that everyone expresses. All the others are learnt by the culture we grow up in.

The way we perceive images is also affected. There is an interesting picture of two lines, with lines forming arrows at the ends. the two lines are both the same length, but depending on the culture we grow up in, determines if we see the one line larger than the other. Those raised in western cultures, will think one line up to 22% longer than the other. The San, African bushmen, shown the same image, correctly identify them as being exactly the same length, as do Australian Aborigines.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Today's interesting fact has to do with the largest and smallest living organism.

The largest one seems to be a fungus, known locally as the "humongous fungus", a honey mushroom. The mycelium of this fungus covers almost 1000 hectares of forest. DNA tests from portions taken throughout the forest has shown that it is all one creature

The smallest one (and note that it self replicates without outside help, in other words, is not a parasite) is a bacterium that is 200 nanometres in diameter. It was found in hot, arsenic filled mine effluent.