該早期的寒武紀海洋 (542-488 萬年前的) had a plethora ofstrange and bizarre creaturesalmost unimaginable to even the best sci-fi dreamer. 為可能的前體的中的一個，以的節肢動物門 (還 Onychophora 和 Tardigrada), lobopodian譜系代表一個群怪 “蠕蟲，帶腿” that once roamed the ancient sea beds. Exactly how close they are to the true arthropods is up for debate (tree below), but this newly discovered genus and species, Diania cactiformis(walking cactus), represents the most well sclerotized and arthropod-like of any known to date.
This whopping two and a half inch monster helps us understand the transition from a soft bodied worm like creature into a hard-shelled arthropod; it also gives a better impression of how diverse these lobopodian appendages may have been. It’s a fascinating question because the advantage of jointed, sclerotized, limbs was one that exploded and diversified amongst the creatures we know today. Exactly how this happened is not any closer to being resolved, but it appears as if the legs of this animal were sclerotized before the body (arthropodization vs. arthrodization). One small fossil discovered and yet another small insight into evolutionary history.
參考文獻
Liu, J., Steiner, M., Dunlop, J., Keupp, H., Shu, D., Ou, Q., Han, J., Zhang, Z., & Zhang, 點¯x. (2011). An armoured Cambrian lobopodian from China with arthropod-like appendagesNature, 470 (7335), 526-530 DOI: 10.1038/nature09704
唉呀, 看起來像我錯過了我的的的第一個'blogoversary'! 21日（星期一）是一個轉折點，我的博客; 和我敢令人難以置信的快樂的，，以已今年度過了最後一個的一年分享我的的一些漫記與你們中的的所有的的. I’ve somewhat lost track of how many hits I’ve had since I moved everything over to The Southern Fried Science Network, but it’s more than I ever could have ever imagined as a newbie blogger twelve months ago. When I look over the last year a few posts come to mind as my favorite:
令人震驚的是, 令人震驚, 令人驚訝; 在 monarchs are back (但沒有共同盯著朱麗安·摩爾). 行, 這並不是說驚人; I pretty much predictedthis would be the case last March when everyone was running around terrified because the butterflies hit an all time low (since counting started在 1993). 其實，我相信我說 “我敢打賭未來幾年人口會復蘇…”. 所以, how about anything = beer, and who’s buying?
Perhaps I am celebrating a bit early. Maybe the news isn’t so good that I can run a victory lap quite yet, but preliminary surveys look like the overwintering populations have doubled this year. That’s a pretty good start, but we still haven’t hit the 18 year average (not an impressive statistic). But don’t misread my intentions – I’m not claiming this one year somehow has proven the decline insignificant. It may or may not be, all we can really say is that it’s just another data point. The fact is that our dataset is very weak and there are factors such as local weather that create massive margins of error. It’s also nearly impossible to extrapolate from what little data we do have. So is the monarch a very good “canary in the coal mine”?
I would say poor at best. How is one insect species that roosts in massive singular colonies a good indicator of our ecosystem? 是, they migrate from all reaches of North America, but their recent high mortality rates have nothing to do with the lives they lived outside of Mexico. Perhaps if millions of butterflies died of some strange toxin we could heed the warning, but such was not the case. Those poor monarchs are at the mercy of winter storms that are likely to become more frequent with a warming climate. So can we say that climate change is negatively impacting these animals? Turns out we can’t, at least not yet. If this were to be so then our data is telling us that the1996-1997 seasonwas a really healthy one where clouds of pollution parted and nature rejoiced. Did the 2010 season then become a post apocalyptic blade-runner-esque world where acid rain melted the orange off of butterfly wings? Clearly not. Neither climate nor pollution were drastically different in those years. The monarchs just had a really good year followed by some really bad ones. Maybe we should just find a better canary if we’re trying to blow the whistle on global warming or deforestation.
As a last thought here is a video from the above story. Just as you’d expect, it’s over dramatized and a bit hilarious.
I’ve uploaded a new header as you can see – how does it look? I’m playing around with the settings, but please let me know if the moth on the right gets cropped awkwardly, and what your screen resolution is if that is the case.
如果你碰巧住在旅遊Yolo, 索拉諾或薩克拉門托縣，你應該把頭伸出的淨. 博士. Art Shaprio has offered for the 40th year hiscabbage white butterfly competition. 如果你是第一人趕上白菜白 (菜粉蝶 – invasive) before Dr. Shapiro he will buy you a pitcher of beer! You have to deliver the specimenaliveto the receptionist in the Department of Evolution and Ecology to confirm the identification (I assume to prove you didn’t just save last year’s dead butterfly and cheat).
Over the last 30 years the butterflies have been emerging earlier – two weeks on average now. You better hurry, the first cabbage white of 2010 was collected on January 27th.
我做了, 這聽起來像它是由佩林. 其實, 我碰到這個薈萃分析過 22,000 horoscopes over onInformation is Beautiful. 它的壯觀 – 但我會跑下來幾點:
從這些 22,000 八字來的圖表最常見的詞語 (底部), 90% of which happen to be exactly the same regardless of your sign. David McCandless also generated a meta prediction using these most common words. It goes something like this.
“Ready? 肯定? Whatever the situation or secret moment enjoy everything a lot. Feel able to absolutely care. Expect nothing else. Keep making love. Family and friends matter. The world is life, fun and energy. Maybe hard. Or easy. Taking exactly enough is best. Help and talk to others. Change your mind and a better mood comes along…“
Everyone, 希望, should know that horoscopes and astrology have always been steaming piles. Seeing the data like this just makes it that much easier to laugh in the face of wackiness. I also love McCandless’s interpretation of star traits. I’m a “gemini” (or at least was), and the most common words for me are “party, stay, issues and listen certainly”. Interpreted as “emotionally disturbed party animal who never says no”. Love it.
You might have also heard recently about thescandalous storyof wrong star assignments. As it turns out our earth wobbles slightly in orbit; meaning the stars are not exactly where they are in the night sky tonight as they were a few millennia ago when the zodiac was first derived. So if the stars mold who you are at birth then they do so based on where they are now and not 2,000 years ago. Surprise – many people should now be assigned to a new sign! Oooohscandal! The science of astrology didn’t even come close to predicting this (it greatly pained me to even mockingly call astrology science). But that’s OK it won’t perturb them, they are well adapt at dodging hard science and spinning BS, and have been doing so for hundreds of years. 早在 1781 astronomers threw a wrench at the heads of astrologers with the discovery of Uranus – and a generation later Neptune appeared on the scene. Oh don’t worry! Astrologers fudged their own numbers, whined about different “charts and systems” and snuck in two extra star signs to agree with the world as science understood it. 哦, and never mind the rest of the billion, billion stars and planets…
Yet, I can still hear a faint cry down the street here in Berkeley – someone slaps hand to head and exclaims “oh now it makes sense, I was a Taurus所有 along!”
You should go explore his blog and take a closer look at the analysis. 更妙的是, if you have a friend who loves their astrology, you should forward this in their direction.
我一直都知道，在世界許多地方, 特別是人跡罕至的地方, 飛蛾和蝴蝶的毛毛蟲是菜單上. FromAfrica 至 澳大利亞there are dozens of species that might taste good enough to be reasonably edible or even delicious. But here in the US insects rarely if ever make it onto our tables (at least not to our knowledge) – but occasionally into our bottles. I’m sure that many of you have seen the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle: which is actually the caterpillar of the Cossid mothHypotpa agavis. I have even heard reports that migrant Mexican workers dig up native plants on their lunch break to snack on the large pink larvae of a related moth; probably in the genusComadia. Despite my previous knowledge, I was a bit surprised by a recent article discussing the massive diversity of Lepidoptera used as staple food sources throughout Mexico.
Ectoedemia rubifoliella 3.3毫米
斯蒂格·梅拉ostryaefoliella 3.1毫米
斯蒂格·梅拉aceris (鏈接到圖片的信用)
Stigmella悖論 (鏈接到圖片的信用)
(labanderia, 1994)
(黑子, 1987)
