Awesome Photos

Where can you look at photos of fossilized giant bird-poop, nano-dreadlocks, and animals who look like plants? In the NYT's science slide-shows! The photographic quality is beautiful, not to mention the science behind them. Here, take a look:

These are "Sea Squirts," who actually start of looking a lot like tadpoles. At one point in their development they grip onto the ocean floor and tranform into these tubular guys. I must say they look somewhat like alien-tubas.
Nanodreadlocks! Now even teeny tiny college students can "find an identity." Harvard scientists, notorious followers of Rastafarian culture, grew these nanobristles into hellical formations. I kid, but this is really neat stuff. Pictured are the nanofibers (yellow) wrapped around a very tiny polystyrene sphere (blue).

And, as promised, fossilized bird dookie. This actually is the…ahem… property of the giant moa, an extinct bird of massive porportions. Here he is on a post-stamp:

Then…
Now!

Emission Mission and the BEES!

With the U.S economy laying on the floor like a deflated balloon from that party a week ago, many are asking whether environmental issues should be put on the backburner until everything's sorted out.
The answer of many biologists (and me!) is an empathetic no. In fact, if there is a time to begin, it is most certainly now. What many policymakers and companies don't seem to grasp is the environment's hand in the economy. One example: No bees? Not only no honey, but no bee-powered pollination. No pollination? Egads our crops! Infact, the value of honey bees and native bees combined is estimated at over $19 billion smackeroos a year, in the USA alone! The value of insect pollination worldwide (mainly propelled by bees) is estimated at $217 billion! Yowzas! Those little guys are fuzzy flying lumps of gold.