So imagine that you are Momma North Atlantic Right Whale. You are just one of 350 to 400 of your species, making you officially ”endangered” so you’re feeling pretty desperate about staying alive to reproduce and ensuring that your babies do as well. Which is getting harder and harder - especially around the Boston Harbor area - cause those damn container ships keep on running your friends over, crushing their skulls and slicing off their tails.  Even though you’re like 40 or 50 feet long, those metal mammoths of the sea or about 900. Squishy.

A recent analysis of your population suggests that, unless there are fewer deaths from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements, you and your buddies are never going to recover. Collisions killed 24 of the 67 right wales reported dead (that’s reported only) between 1970 and 2007. Scientists argue over how to fix the problem. Avoid certain areas, re-route shipping channels, just plain slow down...all of these may help. Except the slowing down; a 90,000 ton ship doesn’t have to move that fast to be lethal.

But slowing down DOES make it easier to avoid the whales. If anyone is looking or LISTENING that is. And now they can.

Scientists at Cornell’s Ornithology Lab (yes, that means birds, but who cares) are piloting a project whereby buoys floating around the waters off Massachusetts (and especially in the shipping lanes) detect the sounds of right whales, triangulate their location and then broadcast it to ship captains. It’s called the Right Whale Listening Network and you can enjoy their terrifying interactive graphics and pretty pictures.

Of course the ship captains still have to CARE about the info when they get it, but if some regulatory intermediary is FORCING them to watch and then FINING them millions of dollars if they don’t comply, it might work. Happy Momma Right Whale.

(PS. Right whales are called right whales cause they float to the surface when dead, making them easier to harvest..hence the “right” whale to go after. Huh)

(PHOTO: PAPARUTZI)
I am in London at the moment with the boyfriend (though we are heading to see my baby niece in Heidelberg tomorrow) and we’ve been watching some Errol Morris documentaries. He is probably best known for his amazing 1988 crime documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” in which Morris essentially reveals that inmate Randall Adams had been wrongly convicted of killing a Dallas, Texas cop. It’s fuckin’ amazing. Of course it made me want to track down the prosecutor and court psychiatrist and have THEM sit down on the electric chair to which they had condemned Adams. Annnnnways.

Morris also made a film called “Gates of Heaven” about the pet cemetery business. It’s pretty odd. Or shall we say, the people who feel passionately about pet cemeteries are pretty odd. Of course this brings up the question, what DO you do with your pet after they die. There are the obvious choices: burial in either the backyard, illegally in the favorite park, in a proper pet cemetery or scattered as ashes wherever you choose.

Alternatively (and I do mean alternatively) you could:

Have them stuffed. Nothing says eternal love like a taxidermied tabby cat perched upon the mantle

Have them stuffed and ROBOTICIZED. If a life-life expression isn’t lively enough for you, add some animatronics to your stuff pet. Have them sit on their favorite kitchen chair and paw at your arm for dinner....the options are endless.

Or...or....USE THEIR FUR TO KNIT A SWEATER. The closest thing to snuggling up to Fido? Of course if you have a small cat, this might only make a hat or single mitten. Start collecting stray hairs now.

We always joke (half joke) that our office cats keep our stress levels nice and low.

But it’s true. They really do, according to a recent study out of the Minnesota Stroke Initiative that found that cat-less souls had a 40 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease.

Here’s what the lead researcher, who owns a cat, had to say in Twincities.com: “There may be an effect even on blood pressure but we haven’t looked at that. It could clearly have a beneficial effect that we don’t completely understand at this point.”

The study didn’t find such a protective effect in dog owners, but I don’t know. Dogs keep me pretty happy too. 

Sooo my google news alerts came up with this headline: ”Snakes on the Great Plains? Fort Collins researcher says 20-foot-long pythons could be moving north from Florida”

And needless to say it grabbed my eye. Because Gordon Rodda, a zoologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, projects that escaped Floridan pet pythons could grow to 20 feet in length and snake their way up the American lines of latitude - up the coast of California for example. Next up, is a study examining how the giant constrictors - including boa constrictors and yellow anacondas - could invade the continental US.

Nothing like wittle snakey wakey slithering away in a bid to freedom. 

If you’ve ever tried traveling with a dog on a road trip, you’ll know it can take some extra planning to ensure you find a hotel that accepts pets. Especially if your pet is a large, lovable stinky type, such as a Labrador Retriever. But there is one lab that is always welcome at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, because, well, she actually she lives there. Catie Copley resides in a warm little bed by the St. James street entrance, where she waits patiently for guests to take her on her favorite walks around town. Heh. But seriously. Had I known, I would TOTALLY be staying at the Fairmont for the AAAS meeting. 

It’s all win-win.

See, we’re major fans of polar bears here. Oh yes. They’re beautiful magical, and in juvenile form, adorable, creatures. But they’re also getting screwed over what with the melting arctic ice. So buy yourself one of Eleanor Grosch’s (she’s the lady who designs all those fab Keds critter pattern flats) polar bear prints for $40. And she’ll donate all the money to the global warming awareness group Stop Global Warming.

Cool huh? Like I said. It’s win-win. 

Who says that us humans are always biased towards those charismatic megafauna. Here I was thinking that the poor little iceworm was a neglected creature (on two counts: it’s both small, and sort of gross looking) when it turns out that they’ve got their VERY OWN FESTIVAL, in Cordova Alaska going on this weekend! Now I’m already in love with Cordova for a number of reasons - this just seals the deal really. Apparently they have a large ice worm puppet that weaves through the main street just like a Chinese new year dragon. I love it!

The first iceworms I saw were almost mistaken for “yellow ice” only they were a shade too neon and we were high up in the BC mountains far from other hikers, and hence pee-ers. There was a little clump of them on this ice field. Way the hell in the middle of nowhere. Up close they were kind of gross in that way that swarms of little niggly things are. But from a distance there was something quite beautiful about the vision they presented.

Well I’ve since learned about these frigid worms. Get this, if their temperature reaches 5°C their membranes liquefy - good bye wormie. They’re just such strange creatures. So they burrow up from the bottom of the glacier and descend again to its depth in the morning and evening. It’s been suggested that they excrete some sort of antifreeze to facilitate their movement through the snow. They feed on snow algae (of course). And there are MANY of them around. There are some seven billion of them occupy the Suiattle glacier in the North Cascades alone, reports the North Cascade Glacier climate project. That’s like the entire human population. Turned into tiny worms. Stuck in a glacier. Craziness.

Anyways, so now that you know how rad these creatures are join me in celebrating ice worms from afar this Saturday. Huzzah!

Did you know there is a species of hummingbird called Anna’s hummingbird? Me neither. But did you also know that the males have this swoopy-diving-lady-attracting dance where they chirp at the bottom of the swoop and that chirp is actually generated by their TAIL FEATHER flapping around in the 50 mph airstream? Yeah. Me neither.

Thanks Berkeley news office!

I saw this headline and just had to share it. I mean how often does royalty get inducted into the higher echelons of chicken researchers? Exactly.

Dean of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture’s School of Husbandry did Prince Akishino the honours at the institute’s campus in Bogor, West Java last week.

Here’s what the institute’s spokesman Agus Lelana had to say according to The Jakarta Post: “Prince Akishino has shown his great concern for research of Indonesia’s local chicken, which has helped us describe in detail the genetics of the animal.”

Now I’ve dug around a bit and I can’t find exactly what it is that the Japanese prince did that was so valuable to local chicken breeds. But I’m sure it was pretty significant?

In any case it would make sense that the chicken breeds of Indonesia are of particular interest to chicken researchers, seeing as their initial domestication probably happened here some odd 5,200 years ago according to the delightful and forthright website Food Timeline. Seriously, it’s an amazing website. It can tell you that teriyaki chicken was first served in the 16th century. And chicken kiev in 1938. The same year “chicken and waffles” cropped up (I don’t know what this is. Nor do I want to. But I am glad to know about it).

(PHOTO:MYLERDUDE)
I present to you a mini photo essay on the amazing jumping biomechanics of canines. Did you know they have dog high jump competitions? Well they do. (There is also a Guinness World Record for a pig jump)

Well, anyways. Four legged folk such as dogs, or pigs, can jump so high because of the design of their legs. Long, muscley (though very light) legs are better for jumping, as are legs with more joints. Insects do it best, really, having evolved a “catapult” type mechanism whereby they store up elastic energy and spring up. For example, in this 1967 paper on the mechanics of flea jumping, the authors estimated that some could jump 20 cm or 8 inches - more than a hundred times their own body length.

(PS. I found this photo while searching for “chicken”...HA)