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)

TIA MARIA GOSLINE, MARCH 31st 1994 - JAN 21 2008)
Oh oh how we love our pets. And oh how sad it is when they are gone. More than three years ago, Anne lost her best canine friend Lamont. Two years ago, Katie lost her favourite cat, Boots. Today my family lost our standard poodle Tia. She was almost 14 (more than half my life!) and in complete kidney failure and not really eating any more. For a dog to refuse roast beef, gravy, pork chops and her even her favourite curry, we knew something was very wrong. My parents and I sat around crying like a bunch of preschoolers, but there you have it. She is gone.

I could cite papers about pet bereavement, pet bereavement in children or the fact that an Ontario court actually awarded damages to some lady for emotional distress after her pet was killed by tainted food. I mean it’s all very interesting.

I guess we could even clone her. Hopefully they’d be able to edit out that part where she howls when left alone (with anyone other than Mom and Dad), or starts to pant and shake when Mom puts in her curlers (because that means she was going to be left alone ALL NIGHT). But really I am just sad. There is a hole where a big fluffy poodle face used to be.

I always wanted to be a veterinarian at a zoo. In fact, I still do, really. But let’s be honest and admit that probably have a child’s imaginary dream of what the job would be - a lot of cuddling with baby animals. Maybe feeding them, probably having to bring them home to sleep in my bed with me at night (please note: large, furry mammals are the only ones ever to appear in said fantasies).

I guess seeing a tiny tiny baby polar bear, Snowflake, having her butt milked and then cleansed by two keepers at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany (what’s with the Germans and their polar bears, eh?) kind of ruins the fantasy.

Okay but THIS ONE is so cute, I nearly lost it - BABY POLAR BEAR SNORING. SNORING. Just don’t wake it up. That thing brays like a donkey. 

(PHOTO: DONALD COOK)

So this year my dad and I are in charge of turkey duties. And we’ve decided to follow the recipe for cajun turkey from Hill Country Texas Guru Rebecca Rather’s new Pastry Queen Christmas book (all recipes so far excellent. Anna and I made the red velvet cupcakes with mascarpone cream cheese icing and nearly passed out after eating one).

I am dutifully following her recipe. So when she asked me to brine the bird in a brown sugar and salt solution, I followed her instructions. But then I started to wonder exactly what the brining was doing. I was reminded of all that cell osmosis stuff we were peppered with in cell biology classes and started wondering: is the brine isotonic, hypotonic or hypertonic? I would guess what with 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of brown sugar it’s hypertonic. But this got me confused because then osmosis should draw water out of the turkey into the brine solution and wasn’t the whole point of brining your bird to make it more moist?

After a quick google search it appears I’m not the only one thus confused. Enter many helpful websites, my favorite of which is ”Cooking For Engineers.” The Exploratorium has a good page on it too.

Initially when meat is placed int he brine, the cells int eh meat are less concentrated than the brine solution. So water flows out of the meat and salt flows in. But here comes the rub (or in our case Cajun spice rub). The recently migrated salt then denatures some of the proteins in the meat, and so the meat’s cell fluids become more concentrated. This way the levels of solute in the meat rise, and water is drawn back into the meat. Hence the end product of a more tender, salty, and moist meat.

I’m off to baste the sucker. Will update you on taste later.

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy feasting to you. 

Really, there isn’t much to this post. Other than to point you to Northern Arizona University biologist Kiisa Nishikawa’s fabulous web page where you can see all manner of lizards eat at lightning quick speed. There are cute ones. Pebbly ones. Horned ones. They eat harvester ants, fire ants, and crickets: crunch.

Now just to clarify: when I say lightning speed I’m not kidding. The videos you’re watching are already slowed down to 1/15th of real time. And they go by real quick.

The female fringe-toed lizard for example can catch her prey in one fifth of a second. Some of them have to take the time to properly chew and ingest their prey (ie. the juvenile bearded dragon is slowed down by over a whole extra second and a half). But not the Desert horned lizard. This little fella hoovers up harvester ants and eats them in one swift movement that takes just under half a second. That said the single feeding event in of the Australian thorny devil (pictured above) is fastest of any iguanian lizard studied to date. Ant on ground to ant in belly takes it a mere 350 milliseconds. I don’t think an ant could even register getting eaten at that speed. Wouldn’t that be nice. To be eat living things so fast it didn’t hurt them? 

(PHOTO: Jasper Greek Golangco)

Last month I was writing some stuff for New Scientist about animal societies - their hierarchies, their squabbles, their loves and cooperative labours lost - and how they are kind of like us. It will be published sometime soon, so sorry for the vagueness.

Annnnnnyways. One point that I touched on very briefly was Robert Sapolsky’s pioneering work on the physiological ramifications of living at different rungs on the dominance ladder. Sapolsky, a Stanford University neurophysiologist, worked primarily with baboons in Kenya, showing that the baboon’s social rank can determine how stressed they are - as measured by levels of stress hormones called glucocorticoids, the best know being cortisol.

Exactly who is stressed out (high or low ranking) varies on a number of different things, both between and within speices. For example, different baboon (or gorilla or chimp) troupe leaders have different dominance styles; those who keep their power by constantly physically attacking their underlings are often pretty stressed out. Leaders who govern with just the threat of violence all the time - intimidation - are pretty likely to stress the crap out of their subordinates.

No matter who is stressed out, though, the health effects are the same. Chronic activation of the stress response (which is supposed to kick in only sporadically to help you out of a tight spot..ie the fight or flight reaction), takes a serious toll on the primates’ immune system, can exacerbate heart disease and diabetes and just generally suck.

The human literature has shown similar findings. Very stressful jobs - defined as those that DEMAND a lot but give very little CONTROL - can lead to heart attacks, and then some more heart attacks.

I bet you’re wondering where I am going with all this. Well here you go: I woke up with a dreadful cold on Friday. I am stressed out of my mind at the moment, really deep down existential life crisis kind of stress. And I just don’t seem to be getting any better. I really FEEL like a stressed out primate, panting away under the constant threat of some big bad baboon busting my ass (at least metaphorically). Let’s just cross our fingers and hope that I don’t have a coronary tomorrow.

I think it’s time for a bottle of red wine.

(P.S. Sorry for the self indulgent. Aren’t sick people so selfish, grumpy and boring?)

Sure it’s cute but does it work?

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has called for a total ban of Dolphin Assisted Therapy, or DAT.

The Dolphin Assisted Therapy industry has flourished in recent decades under the guise that interactions with dolphins will heal ill and disabled people. It sounds nice. And uber fluffy. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t want to pet a dolphin and become BFF with one and swim through the deep blue sea hugging its fin and grow up to become a marine world animal trainer with a really really perky pony tail? I did, since grade two.

According to the Dolphin Assisted Therapy website “Dolphin Assisted Therapy is not a miracle” but a “feeling of a joy and harmony during the treatment sessions in the hearts of children, their parents and support team is a guaranteed outcome.”

According to the WDCS and scientists, the only thing therapeutic dolphin petting does is stress out dolphins and increase their captive numbers. Just earlier this month some 28 dolphins were captured in the Solomon Islands and shipped over to Dubai where they are believed to be employed as schmealers (as in healer, schmealer).

I think Big Willy’s producers just got fodder for a golden sequel. Can’t you see it? Dolphin loving kid has magical experience with dolphin but it’s SO magical that he stages dolphin uprising in all those dolphinarium’s in Florida and the Mediterranean. Or he injects them with the same virus that turns Britain into an aggro zombie nation in ‘28 Days Later’ which would mark the beginning of the dolphin gore film genre. Dolphins with fangs and wild eyes exacting revenge on the measly bipeds… can’t you see it now?? 

PHOTO: TAKIS KOLOKOTRONIS
We’re both dullards in the morning. Really, it’s true. The only exams I ever flunked were in the a.m. I’ve got no motor coordination when I wake up. I forget things - it takes me about four takes to leave the house with what I think is everything. And um, just ask anyone who knows me, I’m just plain dumb for the first hours of the day.

Well, cockroaches are just the same. According to a batch of Vanderbilt researchers, cockroaches are fast learners in the evening, and stupidheads in the morning:

“This is the first example of an insect whose ability to learn is controlled by its biological clock,” said Professor of biological sciences Terry Page, who led the study with undergraduate students Susan Decker and Shannon McConnaughey…

“It is very surprising that the deficit in the morning is so profound,” said Page. “An interesting question is why the animal would not want to learn at that particular time of day. We have no idea.”

And the exact same thing could be said of my brain’s fogginess upon rising. How walking into door frames first thing in the day is adaptive? I’ve got nothing. 

ME, I LOVE ANY EXCUSE TO GIVE MY FAVORITE GIRL RAP GROUP A SHOUT OUT

German scientists decided to see whether playing some romantic tunes would kick start the flagging libidos of captive sharks. Apparently it did.

Here are the top five shark love songs:

1.  Salt’n Pepa -Push It
2.  Joe Cocker - You Can Leave Your Hat On
3.  James Last - Traumschiff (German version of Love Boat)
4.  Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body
5.  Bob Marley - No Woman, No Cry

VIA Digital Journal