Giant Rats and Severed Tails

Two awesome findings in the world of biology today. Firstly biologists in the crater of a volcano found a new species of Rat that is almost a meter long.. Meanwhile, a study shows that severed gecko tails perform complex movements.

The giant rats, having never encountered mankind until now, are completely tame and unafraid of man. knowing how good pets rats make, I have to admit wanting one of these as a pet just so I could have a pet that is as awesome as a pet rat but the size of a cat or small dog...

The gecko tail thing, however is just amazingly cool and yet another example of evolution coming up with great and weird solutions to problems. if the gecko's tail just falls off, the predator is likely to still go after the rest of the gecko, if it moves rhythmically, the predator is likely to ignore it after a few seconds once it sees it is a pattern, by having complex non-deterministic movements, the tail can lure the predator away from the gecko, and given how fast it is, can perhaps even evade the predator itself.

Like I said, totally awesome!

Being Smart About Extinctions

People worried about animal extinctions always slightly troubled me, not that I don't agree, I don't like the thought of animal X going extinct, but its also inescapable. on a long enough time line, all species go extinct, extinctions happen all the time. evolution keeps marching on. How do we couple the problems of ecological disaster due to key species going extinct and yet always be aware of the process of evolution and how to manage the ecology Well, like all good things, Google has the answer! According to Wired, scientists have used a modified version of the Google search algorithm to determine which species are key to the survival of an ecosystem. Now we can look more closely at where to tailor our conservation efforts not in a vain attempt to save every species but instead to save ecological diversity.

now that you are helping us save the planet, I have one question, Google, is there anything you cant do?