The Ed's Up #40
Sleeping Through the Blitz
It's not just antibiotic-resistant bacteria that we have to worry about. Hit bacteria with antibiotics and they can evolve tolerance: they can sleep through the drug assault with an astonishingly precise timer. They keep their head down for exactly the right time, wait for danger to pass, and start growing again. And once they evolve this way against one antibiotic, they could potentially withstand any of them. (Image: Sean McGrath)
Lionfish Have a “Let’s Hunt Together” Signal
The hunts "always begin when one lionfish swims up to another, points downwards, flares its pectoral fins, and quickly undulates its tail. After a few seconds of this, it slowly waves one pectoral fin, then the other. The partner almost always responds by undulating its own fins, and the pair moves off in search of victims." (Image: Jens Petersen)
The Bird That Paints Its Eggs With Bacteria
Look under the tail feathers of any bird and you’ll find the uropygial gland, or preen gland. It secretes oils and waxes that birds use to clean and waterproof their feathers. But the hoopoe's gland is different--during the breeding season, it becomes exceptionally large and makes a weird dark brown fluid that smells of rotting meat. The bird paints this stuff on her eggs, which have weird pits unlike anything seen on other bird eggs. The pits are condos for defensive bacteria... (Image: Dûrzan Cîrano)
More good reads
- Beautiful piece by Jon Mooallem on the unflinching reality of an eagle-cam and the nature of our relationship with animals.
- How do you inventory the zoo in your mouth? Wonderful post by Carl Zimmer, on the history of shoehorning bacteria into our concepts of species.
- "Life arose from minerals; then minerals arose from life." An amazing Aeon essay by Robert Hazen, on the intertwining of geology and biology.
- Vitamins are worthless. Or they save lives. Melinda-Wenner Moyer looks into the controversy behind the health claims, and the backlash against them.
- A truly beautiful poem about living with autism.
- One doctor's quest to save people with cancer by injecting them with scorpion venom. Great story by Brendan Koerner.
- After a walk in the woods, Virginia Hughes muses about how the brain codes subjective and objective experiences
- Astronomers find 11 billion year old diamond the size of Earth. By Nadia Drake.
- Rose Eveleth’s lovely ode to a town she has never been to but that shares her name. More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science
More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science
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And that's it! Thanks for reading.