A week after San Francisco’s Genetic Savings and Clone revealed the sale of their first cat to a customer, GS&C acknowledges it has been hired by anonymous buyers in Hollywood to bank genes of show business animals
American Indians are poised to take a step back into history when they begin managing portions of the nearly 100-year-old National Bison Range in Montana. The range is one of about 540 wildlife refuges in a 38 million-hectare National Wildlife Refuge system from Alaska to the Caribbean
Researchers in the top end say they may have discovered the first natural predator to the cane toad, according to experiments conducted in captivity, a local frog species, Litoria dahlii eats infant cane toads as well as the tadpoles without any apparent side effects from the cane toads’ poison. Whether the same occurs in the wild is still to be seen, but researchers believe the frog could play a large part in slowing the spread of the cane toad into the Northern Territory and into fragile eco systems like Kakadu’s National Park
A cheap modification to supertankers could help prevent devastating oil pollution if the vessels sink. The new system makes it quick and easy to empty the tanks if the ship ends up on the seabed
If it walks like a flamingo and looks like a flamingo, it is not necessarily a flamingo — or even a close relative. A controversial genetic study suggests we have completely misunderstood how the majority of birds are related, and that some species that look almost identical are not related at all. The discovery comes from an analysis of the evolution of the bird gene beta-fibrinogen. It suggests that the Neoaves, a group that includes all modern bird species except waterfowl, landfowl and flightless birds, actually comprises two distinct lineages called the Metaves and Coronaves, and that many birds which look alike are not in the same lineage
A lone whale with a voice unlike any other has been wandering the Pacific for the past twelve years. Marine biologist Mary Ann Daher of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and her colleagues used signals recorded by the US navy’s submarine-tracking hydrophones to trace the movements of whales in the north Pacific. The partially declassified records show that a lone whale singing at around 52 hertz has cruised the ocean every autumn and winter since 1992. Its calls do not match those of any known species, although they are clearly those of a baleen whale, a group that includes blue, fin and humpback whales
A new study reveals that Wolf eradication in the US has had a far more devastating impact on the genetic diversity of remaining populations than previously thought.
With the Canadian wolf population at a relatively healthy 70,000, it was assumed that the human impact of past mass eradications had been minor. But scientists found a 43% drop in genetic variability in the modern wolves. It is impossible for the wolf populations to recover this important diversity, which enables them to adapt to different environmental challenges.
A brain
, grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a single rat embryo, has been taught to fly an F-22 jet simulator by scientists
A database of badger DNA is being created to snare criminals who set dogs on the animals and dig-up setts. The RSPCA project, which will cover England and Wales, is the first of its kind for a wild species. It is hoped the database will help bring successful prosecutions against people who dig and bait the animals — via Paul Mellen
In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from The Island of Dr Moreau, the 1896 novel by HG Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.
Biologists call these hybrid animals chimæras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail. They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal foetuses. Chimæras are allowing scientists to watch, for the first time, how nascent human cells and organs mature and interact — not in the cold isolation of laboratory dishes but inside the bodies of living creatures. Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology and pointing the way toward new medical treatments.
But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers above the work: How human must a chimæra be before more stringent research rules should kick in?
An amateur palaeontologist has unearthed the biggest dinosaur to be discovered in the British Isles — and possibly Europe — from a cliff overlooking an Isle of Wight beach. Scientists who have just finished analysing the dinosaur’s two neck bones believe it grew to about 66 feet long and weighed up to 50 tons. It lived around 130 million years ago when Britain was subtropical and still connected to Europe and North America
Fuji, a 34-year-old mother dolphin that lost 75% of her tail due to a necrotic disease, is jumping once again with the help of what is believed to be the world’s first artificial fin
Police in Peru have seized about 700kg of cocaine hidden in frozen giant squid bound for Mexico and the US. The drugs — worth about $17.5m — were sealed in several layers of plastic and other wrapping material and covered in pepper to divert sniffer dogs
The US Interior Department on Friday gave final approval to a plan by ConocoPhillips and partner Anadarko Petroleum to develop five tracts around the oil-rich Alpine field on Alaska’s North Slope
Mango growers in northern Australia are being urged to consider using green ants as an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical pesticides. A three-year study funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research has found the ferocious predators are a cost-efficient way to keep most pests away from the fruit
Coyotes, the rangy animals associated with the American West, have been spotted in the US capital for the first time, sparking gossip in precincts where talk usually turns on politics
Swirly scratching posts for your cats, leather recliners and wheelie beds for you dogs and other gorgeously designed stuff from Postmodern Pets.
It ranges from the hideously expensive to the easily affordable — via boingboing
The irises I bought last year from Isabella’s Iris‘s Norma Hart have started to bloom.
Next off the mark is Duranus in a dark blue purple.
It’s only put its first flower out and should be flowering for the rest of the week.
The irises I bought last year from Isabella’s Iris‘s Norma Hart have started to bloom.
Second to bloom is Almost Dark in a dark violety purple.
It’s flowering quite nicely.
A small bushy-tailed animal was at the centre of a fresh Commons row after penetrating right to the heart of the Palace of Westminster. A fox was discovered padding past MPs’ offices on the fifth floor of Portcullis House. The animal had somehow eluded tightened Westminster security to get to the top of the building. It was unclear as to whether the fox could have been smuggled in as part of a pro- or anti-hunting protest. It was later removed by the RSPCA to a wildlife centre in Essex after it was established that it was not a local fox
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