Frog Embryos Hatch Early to Escape Predator. In this amazing strategy for survival, frog embryos will hatch early to escape from an egg-eating snake by recognizing the vibrational cues of such attacks!
Research by Karen Warkentin at Boston University:
The hatching response to egg predators depends on physical disturbance of eggs…
Dangerous and benign disturbances overlap in both frequency and temporal pattern elements. However, they can be distinguished using a combination of features. Embryos use at least two temporal pattern elements, the duration and spacing of vibration events, as well as a frequency cue, the presence of frequencies within a certain low range, to assess risk. These components are all necessary for a vibrational cue to induce hatching. Additional features of vibrations appear to further modulate the escape hatching response.
While we’re on the subject of weird things found in Mars, how about this photo of a … bunny on the red planet?
Like a rabbit in a hat, the identity of an oddity that looks like "bunny ears" in a picture from Mars has eluded the science and engineering teams. The public, also fascinated with the mysterious object, has asked in a slew of e-mails: What is it?
It is a yellowish object measuring about 4 to 5 centimeters (about 2 inches) long that made its debut when Opportunity’s eyes welcomed Earth to a new neighborhood on Mars in her mission success panoramic image. Meridiani Planum is a landscape unlike any other stop on our decades-long tour of the red planet. Still, it wasn’t the conspicuous bedrock outcropping near the horizon that initially fascinated many people. It was the "bunny ears."
This photo, taken by Wolfgang Hinz in Lukla, Nepal, shows these stunning crepuscular rays or sun rays [wiki]. (Jacob’s ladder, or rays of light shining through holes in low clouds, are a form of crepuscular rays.) From the website:
This gorgeous photo showing pre dawn crepuscular rays was taken from Lukla, Nepal in November of 2000. As the Sun rises (or sets), rays of light interspersed with darker bands (shadows) can on occasion be seen in the direction of the Sun. Rarely are they as spectacular as these. The shadows result from clouds below the horizon but can also be caused by mountain peaks, as is the case here. Crepuscular rays seem to converge toward the horizon, but in actuality, they’re parallel.
Last week, a giant wall of dust rolled across the Arizona Valley:
The wall of dust, which stretched from Apache Junction to Avondale, preceded a storm that dropped a quarter-inch of much needed rain in Tucson. The rainfall was a record for the date.
The temperature there dropped 25 degrees in 90 minutes, from the day’s high of 101 to the day’s low of 76.
The Worldwide Fund for Nature’s motion-triggered camera trap caught sight of this rare rhino in the jungles of Borneo:
The rhino is believed to be one of a population of just 13 whose existence was confirmed last year in a remote part of Malaysia’s Sabah state, according to WWF. Very few other rhinos are believed to survive elsewhere in Borneo.
"The rhinos in Sabah spend their lives in dense jungle where they are rarely seen, which accounts for the lack of any previous photographs of them in the wild," WWF said in a statement.
A curious new trend in body modification is implanting magnet in a finger. Apparently, this gives the "implantee" a new sense of being able to "feel" electromagnetic fields.
According to Huffman, the magnet works by moving very slightly, or with a noticeable oscillation, in response to EM fields. This stimulates the somatosensory receptors in the fingertip, the same nerves that are responsible for perceiving pressure, temperature and pain. Huffman and other recipients found they could locate electric stovetops and motors, and pick out live electrical cables. Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says.
We think it’s natural to base our perception of time on our body’s orientation and locomotion: we place the future ahead of us and the past behind us.
It turns out that this isn’t universal: for the Aymara people of South America, time is the other way around – the past is ahead and the future behind!
"Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world – from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on – have not only characterized time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front of ego and the past in back. The Aymara case is the first documented to depart from the standard model," said Nunez.
This is a paper model of da Vinci’s mechanical hammer:
This is one of the simplest machines designed by Leonardo in order to improve the human performance. A lever connected to the hammer is moved by means of an eccentric cam. At each turn of the handle, the hammer gives a stroke. As a matter of fact, the real hammer is supposed to be powered by a water paddle-wheel.
To impress potential female mates, the male Lyrebird can immitate the songs of 20 other bird species, and other sounds like camera shutter, car alarm, chainsaws, and so on! BTW, that’s David Attenborough, not his brother Richard.
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