not to be positive on main but sometimes things really are ok. sometimes you really will be happy and safe and warm. sometimes you really will be giggly and blushy and full of love. sometimes the night is chilly and your home is cozy and your tea is perfectly steeped and your phone lights up with a message from someone you love. sometimes life really is quite lovely.
The zebrafish is used as model in developmental biology. Here two juvenile fish of just two days old. © MPI für Entwicklungsbiologie/ Jürgen Berger/ Mahendra Sonawane
via Frans de Waal - Public Page http://ift.tt/105kgEA
A tiger bursting to freedom after being rescued from a poacher’s snare in the Russian Far East.
Not to self diagnose but something is wrong
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i found another specimen of a super rare organism yesterday!
this is a rare and remarkable ciliate, a single-celled organism called Metopus verrucosus.
a few neat facts about it:
it’s an anaerobic organism! this means it prefers to live without oxygen
it lives deep in the mud of sulfur- & methane-rich bodies of saltwater. this one was found in the salt marsh estuary on the side of the garden state pkwy in south New Jersey!
it couldn’t survive in these noxious conditions by itself, though! the fuzzyness covering it’s cell is actually a type of bacteria that symbiotically lives on M. verrucosus.
this bacteria has the ability to metabolize sulfur and/or methane, processing these volatile stinky chemicals and turning it into energy, that it then shares with M. verrucosus!
i’m the only known person with this kind of footage of M. verrucosus! the paper The Santa Barbara Basin is an Oasis of Symbiosis has the only other photo i’ve seen of this organism, and it’s actually an HVEM (electron microscope) photo of a cross-section of the cell showing it’s endosymbiotic bacteria.
here are some more photos i took of other specimens:
Using a slime mold, an electrically conductive single-cell organism, researchers created a smartwatch that only works when the organism is healthy, which requires the user to give it food and care.
Devices such as cellphones, laptops, and smartwatches are constant companions for most people, spending days and nights in their pocket, on their wrist, or otherwise close at hand.
But when these technologies break down or a newer model hits stores, many people are quick to toss out or replace their device without a second thought. This disposability leads to rising levels of electronic waste—the fastest-growing category of waste, with 40 million tons generated each year.
Scientists wondered if they could change that fickle relationship by bringing devices to life—literally.
After creating the slime mold watch, they tested how the living device affected its wearer’s attitude toward technology.
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biologists will be like this is a very simplified diagram of a mammalian cell
chemists will be like this is a molecule
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