Whales Evolved in the Blink of an Eye, Only 5 Million Years
Posted on June 10, 2010 Comments (0)
Whales Evolved in the Blink of an Eye
…
Around 35 million years ago, when modern whales began to appear in the ocean, whale evolution ignited. Whales began as basically similar body types and evolved into everything from porpoises to blue whales over the next 5 million years, said study lead author Graham Slater of UCLA. “Five million years is like the blink of an eye,” Slater told LiveScience.
The finding supports what’s known as the explosive radiation hypothesis. The idea is that a few key traits allowed the earliest ancestors of modern cetaceans – marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and porpoises – to explore new ways of living. Once these ancestors branched out into a new body form, they stayed the course.
The key traits credited with the explosive evolution include sonar, large brains, baleen (the stringy looking stuff across some whales’ mouths that filters small animals from sea water), and complex sociality.
Related: Your Inner Fish – What Dogs Reveal About Evolution – Simple Webcasts on Evolution and Genes – Tracking Narwhals in Greenland
Updated Black and Decker Codeless Lawn Mower Review
Posted on June 7, 2010 Comments (2)
Update: Less than 2 years old the battery can’t even mow 1/2 of what the old lawn mower battery could mow after it was much older. Unfortunately it seem that even my pessimistic expectations were too high. They managed to provide worse battery product after years of breakthroughs in improving batteries. I would recommend avoiding Black and Decker.
Better options: Toro 20360 e-Cycler 20-Inch 36-Volt Cordless Electric Lawn Mower – Earthwise 60120 20-Inch 24-Volt Cordless Electric Lawn Mower
The bag is indeed much better than the old version but it is the only improvement. The other problems I mentioned do indeed continue to annoy as it is used.
My old version of this mower just stopped working and the repair guy said it would cost $250 for a new starter, new battery… So I bought a new one: Black & Decker 19-Inch 24-Volt Cordless Electric Mulching Lawn Mower #CMM1200. He said that the new ones were not as well manufactured. I couldn’t imagine how you could make things worse (it is a simple product and just adopting improvement over the years should be really easy).
But, the starter on this model is horrible. You have to tun this incredibly cheap key in a very poorly designed socket. Fails over 80% of the time. The old model started easily essentially every time. The design was just as you would expect, foolproof. Whatever pointy haired boss approved this design needs to go into another line of work.
The ability of the mower to cope with high grass is very poor – much worse than the previous model. I had a good test at first given the time between my mower breaking and getting the new one. Not often an issue, but still not a good thing.
They had a poor indication of the charge left in the battery previously. They now provide no indication of the charge left. It makes you realize that a poor indication was much better than none.
Battery technology has improved a great deal, and that was one of biggest the weaknesses of the last one. Well they seem to have managed to provide worse battery performance after 5 years of improvement in that technology. Pretty sad.
Read more
All About Circuits
Posted on June 6, 2010 Comments (0)
All About Circuits is an online textbook covering electricity and electronics. Topics covered include: Basic Concepts of Electricity’ OHM’s Law; Electrical Safety; Series and Parallel Circuits; Physics of Conductors and Insulators; Solid-State Device Theory; Binary Arithmetic; Logic Gates; Switches; Digital Storage? It is a great resource. Enjoy.
Related: Textbook Revolution – Open Access Education Materials – High-quality Curricula and Education Resources for Teachers – Online Mathematics Textbooks
Tags: electricity,learning,Open Access,physics,science education,Students,teachers
Mycoremediation and its Applications In Oil Spills
Posted on June 2, 2010 Comments (3)
The webcast shows a talk by mycologist Paul Stamets on Bioremediation with Fungi (an Excerpt from Mushrooms as Planetary Healers). In response he to the British Petroleum/Halliburton oil spill he posted a message, Fungi Perfecti: the petroleum problem
..
My work with Battelle Laboratories, in collaboration with their scientists, resulted in TAH’s (Total Aromatic Hydrocarbons) in diesel contaminated soil to be reduced from 10,000 ppm to < 200 ppm in 16 weeks from a 25% inoculation rate of oyster (Pleurotus ostreatus) mycelium, allowing the remediated soil to be approved for use as landscaping soil along highways. [paper]
…
Aged mycelium from oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) mixed in with ‘compost’ made from woodchips and yard waste (50:50 by volume) resulted in far better degradation of hydrocarbons than oyster mushroom mycelium or compost alone.
…
Oyster mushrooms producing on oil contaminated soil (1–2% = 10,000–20,000 ppm)… Soil toxicity reduced in 16 weeks to less than ~ 200 ppm, allowing for plants, worms and other species to inhabit whereas control piles remained toxic to plants and worms.
…
New crop of mushrooms form several weeks later [after contaminating with oil]. The spores released by these mushrooms have the potential – as a epigenetic response – to pre-select new strains more adaptive to this oil-saturated substrate.
…
I proposed in 1994 that we have Mycological Response Teams (MRTs) in place to react to catastrophic events, from hurricanes to oil spills. We need to preposition composting and mycoremediation centers adjacent to population centers
…
On a grand scale, I envision that we, as a people, develop a common myco-ecology of consciousness and address these common goals through the use of mycelium. To do so means we need to spread awareness and information. Please spread the word of mycelium.
Related: Saving the World with Science and Mushrooms – Fun Fungi – Thinking Slime Moulds
Tags: Energy,Engineering,Fungi,pollution,Science,science explained,science webcasts,scientific inquiry,Students,TED
RSS Feed