Thursday, March 05, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The fish with an invisible head!!!!!
Today there's a new addition to the "real life is stranger than fiction" category. Check out the fish Macropinna microstoma. It has tubular eyes and a see-through head.
Image: © 2004 MBARI
Barreleye1-350
These photos blew me away today. Here's another:
Image: © 2004 MBARI
Barreleye2-350
The common name for the fish is "barreleyes." Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute investigators recently figured out why this species has such an unusual head. Its eyes can actually rotate within its "skull," so the transparency allows the wary swimmer to keep a literal eye on happenings above it, as well as to the sides and directly in front.
Using video cameras, MBARI researchers Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler revealed the fish's eye movements. When remotely operated vehicles approached the fish, its eyes glowed a vivid green shade in the bright lights of the ROVs. Usually the fish were just hanging out motionless under the deep waters offshore California's central coast.
Here's a "face-on" view showing the green glow.
Image: © 2006 MBARI
Barreleye4-280
Although the fish has a tiny mouth, it possesses a large digestive systems. Two net-caught individuals contained fragments of jellyfish, which must have been their last meal.
A siphonophore jelly
Image: © 2001 MBARI
Apol-3-400
Such a potentially painful dinner requires incredible stealth, so it's now thought that barreleyes carefully maneuvers its body near such stinging organisms, keeping its "eyes on the prize," as the researchers said, throughout the entire hunt. Its tiny mouth then picks at the victim while a transparent shield protects the fish's eyes.
Image: © 2004 MBARI
Barreleye1-350
These photos blew me away today. Here's another:
Image: © 2004 MBARI
Barreleye2-350
The common name for the fish is "barreleyes." Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute investigators recently figured out why this species has such an unusual head. Its eyes can actually rotate within its "skull," so the transparency allows the wary swimmer to keep a literal eye on happenings above it, as well as to the sides and directly in front.
Using video cameras, MBARI researchers Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler revealed the fish's eye movements. When remotely operated vehicles approached the fish, its eyes glowed a vivid green shade in the bright lights of the ROVs. Usually the fish were just hanging out motionless under the deep waters offshore California's central coast.
Here's a "face-on" view showing the green glow.
Image: © 2006 MBARI
Barreleye4-280
Although the fish has a tiny mouth, it possesses a large digestive systems. Two net-caught individuals contained fragments of jellyfish, which must have been their last meal.
A siphonophore jelly
Image: © 2001 MBARI
Apol-3-400
Such a potentially painful dinner requires incredible stealth, so it's now thought that barreleyes carefully maneuvers its body near such stinging organisms, keeping its "eyes on the prize," as the researchers said, throughout the entire hunt. Its tiny mouth then picks at the victim while a transparent shield protects the fish's eyes.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Vatican endorses Darwin, slights intelligent design
Here's an interesting article that shows how theology "evolves" over time, how crazy is that????
Creationism is a cultural phenomenon - like Paris Hilton
By Joe Fay
Posted in Biology, 11th February 2009 13:02 GMT
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The Vatican gave the Creationist lobby a left right sign of the cross today, announcing it would stage a conference on Darwinism next month and declaring that it was one of the Fathers of the Church that thought up the idea in the first place.
At one point the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University wasn't going to give Creationism or Intelligent Design a hearing at all. But apparently the organisers have relented, and will consider Intelligent Design as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than as a valid scientific theory, giving US-based IDers the chance to be smirked at by a room full of Monseigneurs, Cardinals and Bishops.
Previewing the conference yesterday, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Church's Pontifical Council for Culture, conceded the Church had been hostile to Darwin on occasion. But, he said, the Church had never formally condemned Darwin, and he noted that in the last 50 years a number of Popes had accepted evolution as a valid scientific approach to human development.
Indeed, he said, evolution could be traced back through Scholastics such as St Thomas Aquinas to St Augustine in the fourth century, who had noted that "big fish eat smaller fish".
Augustine is probably more famous for praying "God, make me good - but not yet." Which also has some evolutionary overtones if you think about it.
Marc Leclerc, a natural philosopher at the University went further, saying Creationists were mistaken in arguing that that Darwinism was "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".
The conference, and the Church's endorsement of Darwin, represents another curve ball from the Holy See at other, arguably more fundamentalist, streams of Christianity. In December Pope Benedict tipped his hat to Galileo - who definitely was condemned by the Church - while simultaneously going all New Age by blethering on about the Solstice.
Last May, the Vatican astronomer really went out on a limb, claiming there was nothing incompatible between being a Catholic and believing in Aliens. He even suggested Aliens could be free of the stain of original sin, the stubborn blemish that has condemned humanity to a progressive decline from the Garden of Eden, through slavery, the dark ages, religious strife, atomic war, and now, the credit crunch and Simon Cowell.
But a wholesale worldview rejig this is not. Other branches of modern science get shorter shrift, with genetic manipulation fairly high on the Vatican's current don't-like list. ®
Creationism is a cultural phenomenon - like Paris Hilton
By Joe Fay
Posted in Biology, 11th February 2009 13:02 GMT
Claim up to £100 Cash Back on selected Toshiba laptops
The Vatican gave the Creationist lobby a left right sign of the cross today, announcing it would stage a conference on Darwinism next month and declaring that it was one of the Fathers of the Church that thought up the idea in the first place.
At one point the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University wasn't going to give Creationism or Intelligent Design a hearing at all. But apparently the organisers have relented, and will consider Intelligent Design as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than as a valid scientific theory, giving US-based IDers the chance to be smirked at by a room full of Monseigneurs, Cardinals and Bishops.
Previewing the conference yesterday, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Church's Pontifical Council for Culture, conceded the Church had been hostile to Darwin on occasion. But, he said, the Church had never formally condemned Darwin, and he noted that in the last 50 years a number of Popes had accepted evolution as a valid scientific approach to human development.
Indeed, he said, evolution could be traced back through Scholastics such as St Thomas Aquinas to St Augustine in the fourth century, who had noted that "big fish eat smaller fish".
Augustine is probably more famous for praying "God, make me good - but not yet." Which also has some evolutionary overtones if you think about it.
Marc Leclerc, a natural philosopher at the University went further, saying Creationists were mistaken in arguing that that Darwinism was "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".
The conference, and the Church's endorsement of Darwin, represents another curve ball from the Holy See at other, arguably more fundamentalist, streams of Christianity. In December Pope Benedict tipped his hat to Galileo - who definitely was condemned by the Church - while simultaneously going all New Age by blethering on about the Solstice.
Last May, the Vatican astronomer really went out on a limb, claiming there was nothing incompatible between being a Catholic and believing in Aliens. He even suggested Aliens could be free of the stain of original sin, the stubborn blemish that has condemned humanity to a progressive decline from the Garden of Eden, through slavery, the dark ages, religious strife, atomic war, and now, the credit crunch and Simon Cowell.
But a wholesale worldview rejig this is not. Other branches of modern science get shorter shrift, with genetic manipulation fairly high on the Vatican's current don't-like list. ®
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Sometimes the majority is wrong!!!!!
Belief in creationism seems to be quite popular among British people, the article in the link below suggests that the theory of evolution is not as persuasive as some scientist would have us believe. What do you think? lets run our own little poll and see.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/Poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-Charles-Darwins-theory-of-evolution.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/Poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-Charles-Darwins-theory-of-evolution.html
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