VS BOTANY

Unlaid egg discovered in ancient bird fossil By John Pickrell Mar. 20, 2019 , 6:00 AM For the first time, researchers have found an unlaid egg inside a fossilized bird. The find— belonging to a sparrow-size flyer that lived in northwestern China 110 million years ago—is especially remarkable because fully formed eggs typically only stay within an adult bird for about 24 hours. Researchers were initially puzzled by the discovery, as they never suspected the unusual, squashed mass within the headless fossil’s abdomen (seen as a flattened brown layer in the center of the picture) could be an egg. But a microscopic analysis of a fragment revealed it to be eggshell. Further study suggested structural abnormalities that hint that the egg may have been the cause of this bird’s demise, the paleontologists report today in Nature Communications. The fossil eggshell’s structure doesn’t have the correct proportions seen in healthy eggs and consists of multiple layers

Upper figure: The first global map of species richness of trees, as produced by the new model. It illustrates the number of tree species that can be expected within areas of one hectare. The highest number of tree species (orange to yellow) can be found in the hot, humid tropics. The remaining white spaces are unforested areas. Lower figure: When tree diversity is observed on the scale of larger regions, the picture changes. A particularly high number of species (orange to yellow) can now be observed in mountainous areas like southern China, Mexico, or in the Ethiopian highlands, which all have high beta diversity. The biodiversity of our planet is one of our most precious resources. However, for most places in the world, we only have a tiny picture of what this diversity actually is. Researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have now succeeded in constructing, from scattered data, a world map

Continental Drift Theory First person to think the continents fit together – mapmaker, Abraham Ortelius First to propose the idea of Continental Drift was meteorologist – Alfred Wegener – Hypothesis that continents were connected but broke apart 200 million years ago and drifted to current position Pangaea Wegener suggested the continents were once connected as one large landmass called Pangaea The Earth appears to be cracked into pieces called plate tectonics. (Like a cracked egg shell) 5. Some plates move in opposite directions (Divergent). Some plates collide (Convergent) Some plates slide past each other (transform boundary) Divergent Boundaries Two plates that are moving apart. This is seafloor spreading Hot material rises to create new lithosphere Volcanoes and earthquakes common Rift valley – the crack Deep-sea trenches Ex: Mid-Atlantic Ridge Convergent Plate Boundaries Two plates move together A: Continental plate vs. continental plate – Same densities, neither sin

In situ and Ex situ method of conservation Conservation is the protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and natural resources such as forests and water. Through the conservation of biodiversity and the survival of many species and habitats which are threatened due to human activities can be ensured. There is an urgent need, not only to manage and conserve the biotic wealth, but also restore the degraded ecosystems. Types of Conservation: Conservation can broadly be divided into two types: 1. In-situ conservation 2. Ex-situ conservation In-situ conservation is on site conservation or the conservation of genetic resources in natural populations of plant or animal species, such as forest genetic resources in natural populations of tree species. It is the process of protecting an endangered plant or animal species in its natural habitat, either by protecting or cleaning up the habitat itself, or by defending the species from preda

Bees ‘get’ addition and subtraction, new study suggests By  Alex Fox If math is the language of the universe, bees may have just uttered their first words. New research suggests these busybodies of the insect world are capable of addition and subtraction—using colors in the place of plus and minus symbols. In the animal kingdom, the ability to count—or at least distinguish between differing quantities— isn’t unusual : It has been seen in frogs, spiders, and even fish. But solving equations using symbols is rare air, so far only achieved by famously brainy animals such as chimpanzees and African grey parrots. Enter the honey bee ( Apis mellifera ). Building on prior research that says the social insects can count to four and  understand the concept of zero , researchers wanted to test the limits of what their tiny brains can do. Scientists trained 14 bees to link the colors blue and yellow to addition and subtraction, respectively. They placed the bees at the entrance of a

To form an egg or sperm cell, a cell splits into two during meiosis so each resulting cell only contains half the chromosomes of the original.   ED RESCHKE/GETTY IMAGES Gene-swapping in human sperm and eggs can increase genetic mutations in children By  Erika K. Carlson Jan. 24, 2019 , 4:00 PM When parents pass their genes down to their children, they give the kids remixed versions of their own chromosomes. And that remixing of chromosomes can increase the chances that the child’s DNA will also mutate in certain locations, according to a high-precision study of the DNA of more than 150,000 people. The data in this study may be helpful for understanding mutation rates in humans and measuring how quickly we are evolving. “The scale of the study is just unprecedented,” says geneticist Molly Przeworski of Columbia University, who was not involved in the project. “The resource alone is going to be a boon for the field.” Your genome consists of long strands of the double

The ocean is full of drifting DNA. The United States needs to collect it, researchers say By  Alex Fox Jan. 22, 2019 , 1:25 PM U.S. government agencies monitoring fisheries, endangered species, and environmental impacts ought to leverage the DNA present in every drop of seawater, say the organizers of a conference on marine environmental DNA (eDNA), held at Rockefeller University in New York City in November 2018. Biological surveys based on eDNA are reliable and poised to cut costs and save time, they argue in  a report  released last week. The report calls for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other government agencies that survey marine life to add the technology to their standard palette of assessment techniques. “We are exploring all pathways to get the critical information of what animals are where and how many there are,” says conference attendee Michael Weise, who manages the Office of Naval Research’s Marine Mammals and Biology pro

Study of Planktonic forms of lakes of Mysore city “Phytoplankton” is the collective name for the group of microscopic, aquatic photosynthetic organisms which are abundant in freshwater Lakes. During favourable conditions dense aggregations called “blooms” occurs which often causes fish kills or render the water unfit for any use. They have very high biological activity and are important is sustaining life in Lake waters. They are influenced by climatic changes and by variations in the physical and chemical constituents of the water and the uncontrolled conditions lead to water pollution. The presence of phytoplankton in freshwater bodies is a widely accepted indicator of water quality. However, identification of the algal species, the knowledge of the algal cell number, or the physiological state of cells may also be important in providing a true picture of the water quality or trophic state. The samples from both the lakes were collected in 30 mL vials. Few drops of Lugol’s i

A plant’s sap is responsible for transporting sugars from the site of their manufacture (the leaves) to growth centers (further up the branch or trunk of the plant). And the system has to strike a delicate balance: if the sap has a low concentration of sugars, there isn’t much energy flowing to the plant; if, on the other hand, there are lots of sugars in the sap it becomes too thick to pump efficiently. It’s a situation a lot like transporting any payload through a traffic artery, be that a paved highway or a canal with kayakers. So what’s in a plant’s best interest? Researchers  reviewed  41 species of plants and found that, though most plants have sugar concentrations of 18 to 21 percent, the optimal sugar concentration is a bit higher: 23.5 percent. That’s pretty sweet—twice as sweet as a Coke, for instance (10 percent sugar). At the other end of the spectrum, maple syrup—a distillation of the watery maple sap—is quite viscous with a sugar concentration of 65 percent. Int