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On February 2 every year, we watch the skies to see if they are clear enough to throw a scary shadow over our local groundhogs. But how much do you really know about these rodents? They’re not endangered, they don’t chuck wood, and they’re not all that great at predicting weather. On the one day of the year that we pay attention to groundhogs, find out more about the habitat and lifestyle of these critters at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Matt MacGillivray)
It’s not unusual to have a pet rodent, but Melanie Typaldos’ pet Caplin Rous is no ordinary rodent. See, Caplin is a Capybara, the world’s largest rodent:
The second part of his name, which Typaldos pronounces like "rose," stands for "Rodent of Unusual Size" (a reference to the movie "The Princess Bride"). He’s also a rodent of unusual abilities. He can walk on a leash and even do some tricks, but Typaldos says it’s important not to exaggerate any similarity to a dog doing tricks.
"Dogs have thousands of years of being trained to be subservient to people," she says. "A capybara will not do a trick just to make me happy. The quality of the trick is very dependent on the quality of the treat."
Link | More at Caplin’s blog Capybara Madness
There has never been a documented case of cancer found in a Naked Mole Rat, which is unusual as they can live to be 30 years old. Now biologists at the Unversity of Rochester believe they have found the reason.
The findings, presented in today’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the mole rat’s cells express a gene called p16 that makes the cells “claustrophobic,” stopping the cells’ proliferation when too many of them crowd together, cutting off runaway growth before it can start. The effect of p16 is so pronounced that when researchers mutated the cells to induce a tumor, the cells’ growth barely changed, whereas regular mouse cells became fully cancerous.
“We think we’ve found the reason these mole rats don’t get cancer, and it’s a bit of a surprise,” say Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov, professors of biology at the University of Rochester and lead investigators on the discovery. “It’s very early to speculate about the implications, but if the effect of p16 can be simulated in humans we might have a way to halt cancer before it starts.”
Further research might reveal whether the findings will be applicable to humans. Link -via reddit
