New plant species in Bolivia

Blog assignment
Eight New Species Discovered in Bolivia National Parks

In the Madidi National park and the surrounding areas scientists from the Missouri Botanical Garden and their colleagues discovered eight new plant species. These plant species were found on the slopes of the Andes Mountains in Northern Bolivia. The scientists have been conducting an inventory of all of the plant species in the park. Prestonia leco, Passiflora madidiana, Siphoneugena minima, Siphoneugena glabrata, Hydrocotyle apolobambensis, Weberbauerocereus madidiensis, Styloceras connatum and Meriania horrida are the names of the plant species that were discovered in the park. All eight of these species of plants were given vulnerable status because they are only found in certain places in the park.
For the entire inventory since 2000 the scientists and their colleagues have discovered 132 new plant species, 32 of theses plant species have been published as new species and these eight most recent plant species that were discovered are all in preparation to be published as new species as well. Once these plants get published as new species they will most likely be put under the vulnerable status as well because of their remote location.
The Andes mountains is one place that has the potential for many new plant species to be discovered because of the remoteness of the park and the areas that have yet to be explored. Other areas in the world like Madagascar, the Amazon Jungle, and the Congo Jungle all have the potential for many new species to be discovered. The discovery of these new plants and animals can lead to many great things. Most importantly the discovery of new plants is key because of the potential for cures to diseases and sicknesses that can be rendered from certain plants in the jungles of the world. Plants are the key to the discovery of many new substances and medicines.

- Justin Hall

Boa Constrictors Can Have Babies Without Mating, New Evidence Shows.

This article discusses a new discovery at North Carolina State University, where a female boa constrictor gave birth to not one but two broods of all female young who were essentially clones of their mother with a rare recessive coloration they obtained from the mom. In other words this female who has reproduced sexually before, switched over and reproduced using parthenogenesis. They know this because snake males have two ZZ chromosomes and females have a Z and a W chromosome. Well these babies were born with two WW chromosomes a combination thought impossible until now. This genome has only been obtained before through complex lab manipulation, but even then they hadn’t been able to do it with snakes just in fish and amphibians. They are unsure why this occurred, stress normally is the trigger for asexual production in species that are capable of it, but this female was under no stress. In fact males were presented too her she just didn’t mate with them, she chose to reproduce by herself. They are unsure of what will happen to these young snakes as they age, they are most interested in how they will reproduce when they get older. Will they reproduce strictly by parthenogenesis or will they do both like their mother? I find this particularly interesting as I have been studying sexual and asexual reproduction in my Biology 315 class. For the most part we have only seen insects that reproduced this way so to see a large mammal reproducing this way is astonishing. Also makes me wonder what percentage of the boa constrictor population is capable of doing this and whether or not it is a recent development? This discovery is obviously going to call for big redo in the way we look at boa constrictor reproduction. Though it is possible that this is just a one of a kind female, it is unlikely that such an ability would work its way into a population at pure random. I think they have been doing things this way for a while we just never noticed it because they don’t do it often. After all if there are suitable males present then why should they reproduce asexually?

Adam Morehead.

Smoke from a Distant Fire

Smoke from a Distant Fire
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/64474/title/Smoke_from_a_Distant_Fire

This article is about how large wild land fires can be contained into the stratosphere and then develop into the atmosphere. The smoke is also known to cause dangerous weather and can be carried a long ways before being released. The smoke in the stratosphere were cent to cause random volcanic eruptions and also the smoldering of a fire causes the smoke to release in the stratosphere. The planes that fly over the fires to dump water takes a numerous number of gas to run and the gas is considered to be released into the stratosphere also. Scientist think that smoke causes numerous amount of precipitation and this is what causes thunderstorms. I feel that the smoke heats up the atmosphere while it is being cooled down at the same time but the other clouds are cooling the earth's surface. Also the fuels from the planes flying over causes gases to get into the stratosphere along with the fire's smoke combining together to make terrible weather. The smoke from these fire's build up and flow up stream to the stratosphere but while building up it also pulls in the humid air around it. This then moisturizes the earth's atmosphere and then a random volcanic eruption can occur at any time. I also feel that this article was interesting because it help audience's view how smoke can create bad weather and also create volcanic action in the atmosphere. The why that scientist determined that smoke from fire's causes this action to happened was that these fire's set of different amounts of satellite's. Each satellite had a different reason to go off and the smoke set all the satellites off that were placed by the wild land fire.

Zack Bossio

Sound Waves Too Loud in the Ocean?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noise-reduces-ocean-habitat-for-whales
The article I chose was titled, "Noise Reduces Ocean Habitat for Whales [Video]" by Elizabeth Grossman from Scientific American, October 22, 2010. This article is about how human interference and technology is creating noise pollution in the oceans of the world, which is harming the oceanic life living in the waters. I choose this article because I have had an interest in whales and marine life for years.

The problem this article discusses is that ships, boats, offshore drilling, and other human activities in the ocean are creating sound that is traveling throughout the ocean. The ocean carries sound waves very easy. There are natural sounds that travel through the ocean from waves, wind, movement and sounds of marine life, etc. However, human-made sounds interfere with these natural sounds and make it harder on the marine life. These sounds create a barrier of the marine life's sound waves. Many creatures in the ocean use sound as a way to establish their surroundings, find food, call to each other and their young, as well as to mate. When outside sounds block their sound waves, it makes them unable to communicate or to find food, which then becomes a major threat of their survival. According to John Hildebrand, a professor from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the stress this causes the marine life may also affect developmental and immune system heath, which then endangers them even more.

I believe that humans are interacting in the ocean too much and we are becoming more and more of a disturbance to the natural life present there. In some areas of the ocean, Chris Clark, director of Cornell University's Bioacoustics Research Program, has seen pods of whales leave an area solely due to noise pollution. They will even leave a rich food source just to get away from the noise. Humans are endangering animals all the time with our reckless behavior that we do not always understand the effects and consequences of. However, when the evidence presents itself, like it has in this situation, I believe it is best for us to do whatever it is we can to stop our endangerment and harmful effects on other species. We should be striving to preserve life, not destroy it.

Joy Doughty

Old tracks show protodinosaurs emerged millions of years earlier than previously though

Before a few months ago, scientists believed that the oldest set of fossils found after the massive Triassic extinction was around 248 to 242 million years ago. Recently, paleontologists have found fossils that date all the way back to about 250 million years ago. Scientists have taken samples of the three sets of tracks in modern day Poland and have discovered that the fossils cover a span of four million years and lived in three different ecosystems. These fossils that were found are not from bigger dinosaurs like the T-Rex but from smaller dinosaurs.The tracks that were found in Stryczowice were from a dinosaur that was around 20 millimeters long. The second set of tracks found in Baranow were around 120 to 140 millimeters long and date back to 246 million years ago. This find represents the earliest find of bipedality in dinosaurs which is basically using two limbs to move around instead of four. The last set of tracks were found in Wiory and date back sometime in between those that were found in Stryczowice and Baranow. Dinosaur tracks are often rare finds and most known fossils were left by the bigger dinosaurs which lived for the first 20 to 30 million years of dinosaur history and were more like their crocodile-like cousins. The oldest dinosaurs were small and very rare. Scientists believe that dinosaur tracks might be an important place to look for nw clues about earlier dinosaurs, especially since the fossil group is so small. I bleieve that this article is important because it not only has to deal with ancient creatures that lived on earth, but also evolution in those creatures. There will always be those people who think evolution is a scam but for those of us who believe it, finds like these can help us better understand how evolution works and how long it takes for it to take place.

-Bryan Poole

Desperation Drives to Bubious Autism Treatments

I chose to read and discuss the article pertaining to autism, because many people are poorly informed about the disease and no one knows exactly how to treat this medical illness. Unfortunately the diagnosis of Autism has been increasing over the last couple of years. Many parents in today society are dealing with the trials of raising a child with autism. An example of a family facing this unfortunate situation is the Laidlers and their oldest son Benjamin who was diagnosed with autism. The Laidler family had gone from physician to physician looking for something to cure their son’s autism. Jim Laidler and his wife looked for help but the neurologists were telling them that they didn’t know what the cause was and they didn’t know what the outcome would be for Benjamin. They searched the web and found dozens of biomedical treatments that promised to improve or even cure Benjamin’s inability to talk, interact socially, and control his movements. They tried everything including the vitamin B6¸ digestive hormone secretions and chelation. Benjamin also had a younger brother who was diagnosed with autism. None of the treatments worked except for dieting. From this post I learned that there are currently no prescription medications that help with symptom of autism. There are certain vitamins and diets that show promise in weakening the symptoms of autism but research continues to try and find a real cure. Scientist are currently searching for the cause of this devastating disease that effects hundreds of families every year. Currently about seventy five percent of autistic children are receiving alternative treatments not developed by a conventional medicine. Autism has affected the lives of millions over the year and is becoming increasing more common. I think that this disease deserves more attention from the national media so that we can find a cure immediately.
-Danesha Walton

Science News-For the First Time, Monkeys Recognize Themselves in the Mirror, Indicating Self-Awareness

In this article, scientist talked about how they were trying to figure out if monkeys of all kinds noticed themselves and their reflections when looking in a mirror.They don’t seem to recognize that it is their own image though when they see their selves in the mirrors. Its almost as if they just think it’s another monkey. The way that the scientist tested this was with the mark test. The mark test is when the scientist places something on the monkey as marking or “implant” as they stated in a spot where the monkey would most recognize the mark. They then place the monkey in front of a mirror to see if the monkey notices it or not. The main monkeys that pass the test are Chimpanzees and scientist believes this because they are the closets to the human species. The ones that notice it, as mentioned in the article, may even turn upside down to grasp a better look at their own image.
After reading this article I learned that, some monkeys obviously recognize these markings and some don’t.A study that was published in September stated that a scientist did an experiment on the rhesus macaque monkey and said that this monkey would normally fail the “mark test” but under certain circumstances the monkey would still recognize itself in the mirror. The reason I picked this article is because monkeys are one of my favorite animals. Also, I think its cool as of the fact that monkeys can somewhat have the same “mind set” as humans do such as the mark test. Even though the monkey may not completely know what is going on, some of them recognize when there is something abnormally on their face just as humans do. Why wouldn’t we recognize something on our face?


Shelbie Hall