hi everyone
sheepfilms
noise dept.
cherry valley forever
Peter Solarz

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Xuebing Du

#extradirty
todays bird
trying on a metaphor
Jules of Nature
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One Nice Bug Per Day
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

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@paleontologue
hi everyone
favorite developmental biology colloquialism: calling embryos “bros” for short.
inlovewithgeosciences:
“Holotype skeleton GCP-CV-4229 of Spinophorosaurus nigerensis at the digging site. From Remes et al., 2009.”
Geological time: Middle Jurassic
Discovered in Republic of Niger
Could you imagine that moment when you start digging a tiny insignificant bone you found in the middle of the desert and you start uncovering a bit more…and a bit more…. and then a bit more… and you realize you have just unearthed this beauty? This is freakin’ brilliant.
Being in the home institution of Louis Agassiz, I naturally had to learn about his role in establishing Harvard’s Natural History Museum. I found this anecdote of him as a teacher which I found inspiring which I post here. Now I now tumblr is made for quick distracted glances. However, I felt like this couldn’t be condensed. I hope you’ll read and enjoy.
“It was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laboratory of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in the scientific school as a student of natural history. He asked me a few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To the latter I replied that while I wished to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself specially to insects.
"When do you wish to begin?" he asked.
"Now," I replied.
This seemed to please him, and with an energetic "Very well," he reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol.
"Take this fish," said he, "and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen.
"With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit instructions as to the care of the object entrusted to me."
No man is fit to be a naturalist," said he, "who does not know how to take care of specimens."
I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray,and occasionally moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground glass stoppers, and elegantly shaped exhibition jars; all the old students will recall the huge, neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects and begrimed with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of the professor, who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish, was infectious; and though this alcohol had "a very ancient and fish-like smell," I really dared not show any aversion within these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it were pure water. Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed, when they discovered that no eau de cologne would drown the perfume which haunted me like a shadow.
In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and started in search of the professor, who had however left the museum; and when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate the beast from a fainting fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of the normal, sloppy appearance. This little excitement over, nothing was to be done but return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour passed--an hour--another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face--ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at a three-quarters view--just as ghastly. I was in despair; at an early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free.
On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the museum, but had gone and would not return for several hours. My fellow-students were too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me--I would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the professor returned.
"That is right," said he; "a pencil is one of the best of eyes. I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet, and your bottle corked."
With these encouraging words, he added, "Well, what is it like?"
He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknown to me; the fringed gill-arches and movable operculum; the pores of the head, fleshy lips and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the spinous fins, and forked tail; the compressed and arched body. When I had finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air of disappointment: "You have not looked very carefully; why," he continued, more earnestly, "you haven't even see one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!" and he left me to my misery.
I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the professor's criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly, and when, towards its close, the professor inquired:
"Do you see it yet?"
"No," I replied, "I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before."
"That is the next best," said he earnestly, "but I won't hear you now; put away your fish and go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish."This was disconcerting; not only must I think of my fish all night, studying without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be; but also, without reviewing my new discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory; so I walked home by the Charles River in a distracted state, with my two perplexities.
The cordial greeting from the professor the next morning was reassuring; here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that I should see for myself what he saw."Do you perhaps mean," I asked, "that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?
"His thoroughly pleased "Of course! of course!" repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically--as he always did--upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do next.
"Oh, look at your fish!" he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a little more than an hour he returned and heard my new catalogue."
That is good, that is good!" he repeated; "but that is not all; go on"; and so for three long days he placed that fish before my eyes; forbidding me to look at anything else, or to use any artificial aid. "Look, look, look," was his repeated injunction.
This was the best entomological lesson I ever had--a lesson, whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part.
A year afterward, some of us were amusing ourselves with chalking outlandish beasts upon the museum blackboard. We drew prancing star-fishes; frogs in mortal combat; hydra-headed worms; stately crawfishes, standing on their tails, bearing aloft umbrellas; and grotesque fishes with gaping mouths and staring eyes. The professor came in shortly after and was as amused as any at our experiments. He looked at the fishes.
"Haemulons, every one of them," he said; "Mr. ----- drew them."
True; and to this day, if I attempt a fish, I can draw nothing but haemulons.
The fourth day, a second fish of the same group was placed beside the first, and I was bidden to point out the resemblances and differences between the two; another and another followed, until the entire family lay before me, and a whole legion of jars covered the table and surrounding shelves; the odor had become a pleasant perfume; and even now, the sight of an old, six-inch, worm eaten cork brings fragrant memories!
The whole group of haemulons was thus brought in review; and, whether engaged upon the dissection of the internal organs, the preparation and examination of the bony framework, or the description of the various parts, Agassiz's training in the method of observing facts and their orderly arrangement, was ever accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with them.
"Facts are stupid things," he would say, "until brought into connection with some general law."
At the end of eight months, it was almost with reluctance that I left these friends and turned to insects; but what I had gained by this outside experience has been of greater value than years of later investigation in my favorite groups.”
Samuel Hubbard Scudder// Look at Your Fish!
i’m fuckING CRYING
Arachnids of Florida Poster
Species listed:
1. Southern House Spider, Kulkucania hibernalis 2. Green Lynx Spider, Peucetia viridans 3. Banana Spider, Heteropoda venatoria 4. Brown Recluse, Loxosceles reclusa 5. Brown Dog Tick, Rhipecephalus sanguineus 6. Varroa Mite, Varroa destructor 7. Southern Cattle Tick, Rhupecephalus microplus 8. Carolina Wolf Spider, Hogna carolinensis 9. Magnolia Green Jumper, Lyssomanes viridis 10. Pantropical Jumping Spider, Plexippus paykulli 11. Gray Wall Jumper, Menemerus bivittatus 12. Black and Yellow Garden Spider, Argiope aurentia 13. Golden Silk Spider, Nephila clavipes 14. Tropical Orbweaver Spider, Eriophora ravila 15. Spinybacked Orbweaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis 16. Giant Vinegaroon, Mastigoproctus giganteus giganteus 17. Red Widow, Latrodectus bishopi 18. Brown Widow, Latrodectus geometricus 19. Black Widow, Latrodectus mactans 20. Florida Bark Scorpion, Centruroides gracilis
Emma Roulette
May 2014
Just kidding, I know I can’t buy extinct marine reptiles in a pet store, do you think I’m stupid?. I’ll get mine fom a shelter for abandoned pliosaurs. Those guys need our help.
Don’t buy. Adopt.
Ideally, the pliosaur has been fostered in a home environment similar to your own if you have small children or pets. The home study for adopting a pet pliosaur is very vigorous. And if you do decide to buy a purebred, make sure you do your research and not buy your pliosaur from a guppy mill.
That’s good advice!, thank you!, but don’t worry: my pliosaur will have all the small children she could eat.
ADOPT
Mitosis and cell plate formation in a flattened endosperm cell of the african blood lily Hamenathus katherinae observed with phase contrast microscopy.
My cell biology professor showed this video in class. Look how amazing.
re-amping, re-amping. I promise.
This is a video of a four-toed salamander embryo going through neurulation. Neurulation is simply the process in which the cells from the outer surface of the embryo invaginate to create a tube which will serve as the future nervous system. Think about it, every vertebrate embryo must turn on and off a predetermined intrinsic orchestral circuit of genes and processes for this folding to occur. Not just this embryo, but also you, I, your parents, their parents, their parent’s parents, the neanthertals, australopithecus afarensis, the birds that wake you in the morning, snakes, turtles, all the fish in the sea, all the way to back to beginning of vertebrate evolution (525 MYA). Later during development, obviously, this tube must fold and make its cells proliferate to create a brain, ganglia, etc. I saw this video earlier and I couldn’t help but just ponder and geek out a little.
X-ray specs, Carrie Witherell
You know what's cool? When you walk around the library and you see a picture of Richard Lewontin as emeritus faculty.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of British palaeontologist, Mary Anning.
Anning was born on the 21st of May, 1799, and is best known for discovering the first ichthyosaur fossil to be correctly identified, the first two plesiosaur fossils ever found and the first pterosaur...
Essentially, the Rosa Franklin of Paleontology. Happy Birthday Mary Anning!
A History of Ideas In Evolutionary Theory Milestones in the history of evolutionary thought highlight the contributions of key Harvard figures including Asa Gray, Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin and E. O. Wilson. This video appears in the HMNH exhibition Evolution
If you're staying in on a Friday as I am, here's a neat video with Niles Eldredge (who as you know co-founded the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium with SJG) discussing the origins of Punctuated Equilibrium, giving SJG annecdotes, and why he prefers for the word "equilibria" instead of "equilibrium".
lcresearchcenter:
July 26th, 2013
There have been revolutionary advances in our knowledge of genetics in the past 30 years. This is particularly true in a field of endeavor called developmental genetics, which strives to understand how genes work to put us together. To make a...