Searching for Longevity-Related Genes in the Genomes of Parrots
One way to identify the important mechanistic links between metabolism and longevity is to examine the genomes of unusually long-lived species. This has long been underway for naked mole rats and some smaller bats, species that live many times longer than similarly sized near relatives. The same sort of longevity occurs in parrots; other birds of their size live for perhaps a decade or two, but parrots exhibit a similar life span to that of humans, given a safe and supportive environment. Scientists here report on their initial investigations of the parrot genome, and a comparison with less long-lived birds. As for the cas...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 13, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Goldfinch Dynasties
LIFE ON THE FEN EDGE – WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBRADLEY
EPISODE 2: GOLDFINCH DYNASTY
from the BBC, the British Bradcasting Corporation
All the leaves may be brown but the sky certainly isn’t grey It’s early December in this Cottenham garden on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens. A family of Goldfinches are keeping the winter chills at bay by eating the abundance of high-energy nyjer seeds from a feeder hanging in the beech tree.
There is a definite avian hierarchy at play with the dominant members of the group perching in prime position to nibble at the tasty but tiny black seeds with their seed-crushing be...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 5, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Goldfinch Dynasty
LIFE ON THE FEN EDGE – WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBRADLEY
EPISODE 2: GOLDFINCH DYNASTY
from the BBC, the British Bradcasting Corporation
All the leaves may be brown but the sky certainly isn’t grey It’s early December in this Cottenham garden on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens. A family of Goldfinches are keeping the winter chills at bay by eating the abundance of high-energy nyjer seeds from a feeder hanging in the beech tree.
There is a definite avian hierarchy at play with the dominant members of the group perching in prime position to nibble at the tasty but tiny black seeds with their seed-crushing be...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 5, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Knots Landing the Video
Knots Landing (and taking off) at RSPB Snettisham, on The Wash, North Norfolk. Evening High Tide 20th October 2018, with Mr and Mrs Sciencebase. Video and music by Dave Bradley.
Red Knot (Calidris canutus) – another bird with red in its name when it is so obviously orange. See my post on avian fake news. (Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science)
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 24, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Fake bird news
This is a version of my bird report for our local village newsletter scheduled to appear in December.
At the time of writing, the summer visitors, such as the swifts, swallows, house martins, and various migratory warblers were all long gone. Indeed, it is still sunny and warm during the day, but the nights have turned decidedly damp and chilly and one friend reported early-morning frost on his car windscreen (it was 90 days until Christmas, at the time).
Well, speaking of Christmas for the birder can mean only one thing, and I don’t mean turkey, nor do I actually mean the winter visitors such as the fieldfare, redw...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 24, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Knots Landing
They’re naming the new hide at RSPB Snettisham “Knots Landing” in honour of the bird, Calidris canutus, that flocks in vast numbers in and out over The Wash there with each turning tide.
The bird is named for King Canute (it’s not a long way from ca-nute to k-not and then dropping the k, in Dutch they’re called “Kanoeten”) because these medium-sized waders, which breed in the tundra and the Arctic Cordillera of Canada, Europe, and Russia will whoosh from the mudflats and sandbanks as the tide rises until they are ankle deep at high tide periodically forming vast flocks tha...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 23, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Avian ancestry
Our feathered friends, the birds, are all descended from the dinosaurs. Specifically, birds evolved from the hollow-boned theropod dinosaurs which includes the Tyrannosaurus rex. All 10500 species of bird alive today and all the many thousands of others that are extinct came from the dinosaurs. But. Didn’t the dinosaurs die out 65 million years ago when a huge asteroid hit the Earth, you ask? Well, most groups that were still around at the time did, allowing the mammals to fill the ecological niches left empty by their sudden absence. However, the lineage of those hollow-boned dinos would persist too. The question is...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 19, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology Birds Source Type: blogs
Barn Owl pellet
Barn Owl (Tyto alba) hunting over Rampton, VC29
If you have ever stopped to think about the gustatory habits of owls, then you have perhaps wondered what happens to all the bones and fur from the little creatures on which they predate after they eat them.
Dry Barn Owl pellet, obtained from WWT Welney
Well, avian digestive enzymes do not have the capacity to break down bones and fur and as the flesh and organs are digested those materials accumulate in the upper gastrointestinal tract forming a hairy bolus, a pellet, that ultimately the owl will regurgitate. A pellet forms after six to ten hours following a meal in the bird...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 2, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology Birds Science Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Weapons grade chilli oil
UPDATE: Turns out these are Scotch Bonnets, up to 400,000 Scoville units in terms of capsaicin concentration. I’ve now chopped, deseeded and blanched half a pound of them to freeze and pickle.
I wore rubber gloves, a facemask and goggles while I did so, but the house is now full of their volatiles and neither Mrs Sciencebase nor myself can stop coughing and sneezing. I just touched my face with a formerly gloved finger that I thought I’d washed thoroughly and the skin there is sizzling gently…why do we use these weapons on mass destruction in food again, remind me?
UPDATE: I was talking chillis in the p...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - September 25, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Weapons grade chilli dressing
UPDATE: I blitzed them in the food processor today and converted the jar of pickled chillis into a lethal cocktail for drizzling into curries and marinades etc. Thought I had better put a hazmat type sign on the bottle.
Turns out these are Scotch Bonnets, up to 400,000 Scoville units in terms of capsaicin concentration. I’ve now chopped, deseeded and blanched half a pound of them to freeze and pickle.
I wore rubber gloves, a facemask and goggles while I did so, but the house is now full of their volatiles and neither Mrs Sciencebase nor myself can stop coughing and sneezing. I just touched my face with a formerly g...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - September 25, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
A piece of sh*t moth
Regular Sciencebase readers will, by now, have realised that moths and butterflies (lepidoptera, meaning scaly wings) have become a focus of my macro photography in recent weeks. Indeed, I’ve photographed and identified about 80 different species of lepidoptera, mainly in our back garden over the last month or so (23 July onwards, with a week off in August and a few missing days to give the moths a rest from overnight actinic light trapping).
Anyway, you will also have realised that many moths have some rather outlandish and intriguing common names: Elephant Hawk-moth, Angle Shades, Dark Arches, Yellow Shell, Canary...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - August 29, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
The Nouveau Mottephile
Mid-July 2018, I set a trap, a Robinson moth trap, constructed by my friend Rob. He’d had lots of success capturing, photographing and ultimately releasing hundreds of different species of moth when his kids were young around 2006. We got quite a haul of moths on a trial run in his garden, including an enormous Poplar Hawk, Rustic, Brown-tail, Buff Ermine, Burnished Brass, and many others, here’s an open gallery of some of the moths we saw.
Robinson moth trap with actinic light
Another friend, erstwhile moth expert, Brian, named some Rob and I hadn’t put a name to and highlighted the taxonomic discrepanci...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - July 25, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Moths Science Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Tropical Travel Trouble 009 Humongous HIV Extravaganza
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
aka Tropical Travel Trouble 009
The diagnosis of HIV is no longer fatal and the term AIDS is becoming less frequent. In many countries, people with HIV are living longer than those with diabetes. This post will hopefully teach the basics of a complex disease and demystify some of the potential diseases you need to consider in those who are severely immunosuppressed. While trying to be comprehensive this post can not be exhaustive (as you can imagine any patient with a low ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 7, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Amanda McConnell Tags: Clinical Cases Tropical Medicine AIDS art cryptococcoma cryptococcus HIV HIV1 HIV2 PEP PrEP TB toxoplasma tuberculoma Source Type: blogs
Springwatch in your back garden
It’s like SpringWatch in our garden sometimes…seen in the last year or so: Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Redpoll, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Starling, Rook, Jackdaw, Magpie, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Prize Pigeon, Grey Heron, Green Woodpecker, Robin, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Sparrowhawk, above us Swallow, Swift, House Martin, Hobby, Kestrel, Buzzard, Black-headed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull.
Non-avian vertebrates: Common frog, hedgehog, pipistrelle bat, cat, dog.
Apologies if I didn’t ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - June 25, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Source Type: blogs
Uncovering Genes that Might be Sabotaged to Block Metastasis
Cancer research will accelerate meaningfully towards the goal of control of all cancer only when a majority of researchers are working on mechanisms common to large number of different cancer types. There are too many subtypes of cancer and too few scientists to make real progress when tackling cancers one by one. Shutting down metastasis is one grail of cancer research, as the majority of cancer deaths are caused when cancer spreads throughout the body, not by the initial tumor. Thus a search for common mechanisms of metastasis is one of the few presently viable approaches to the production of broader cancer therapies. Re...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 21, 2018 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
