So sad...grad student shot in Mexico for being in the wrong place at the wrong time

When I first entered college in 1984, my plans were to study social impacts on the environment and was majoring in biology heading towards a specialisation in oecology, as well as sociology as a second major. I never would have dreamed it was dangerous at all. My heart goes out to the family of this graduate student, Gabriel Trujillo. He sought to make the world better by finding a way to bring back the buttonbush to its native environment. Such an innocuous but important endeavour, and he died being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

U.S. Grad Student Brutally Killed on Mexican Field Trip: Gabriel Trujillo’s father says his 31-year-old son was shot seven times.

[PS While I kept the sociology major and paired it with history instead of biology, the change was because during Animal Biology my teacher chloroformed a lab rat in front of me...and dissected it right then. I was sick and dizzy. I love animals. This seemed so cruel. I got out of biology the next semester, although I loved it otherwise. I cannot abide that sort of indifference to animals.]

Ooooohhhh

Giant lizard species discovered in the Philippines

The striking reptile has bright yellow, blue and green skin, and survives on a diet of just fruit, yet until now it has escaped the eyes of biologists.

Although well-known to locals, who hunt it for food, the monitor stayed under the radar of biologists, many of which study in the Phillipines.

Just last year, a large species of carnivorous pitcher plant was found in the Phillipines as well as a few other new fungal and plant species:
Giant 'meat-eating' plant found

So the Phillipines is apparently quite the place to be for those on the frontier of cataloguing new species, with remote areas with wonders unknown to Western science.

I was telling the game group about this a couple of weeks ago

These sea worms release glowing globs of themselves like bombs to distract predators. I'd read about it, but here are some actual images:


Nifty, hmm?

Rats of Unusual Size discovered in Papua New Guinea

Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

We're talking almost three feet long--32 inches long--from nose to tail. In the accompanying video with the story, they show the explorers petting the rat, which had no fear of humans. No word on whether the area has gouts of flame spurting up like in the swamp in Princess Bride, but the area is volcanic. :)

Isn't it cute?

Pint-sized primates were first in North America: Leaping, furry mini-monkeys crossed Bering land bridge long before humans

Check out the page above for a drawing of Teilhardina magnoliana, a tiny primate (weighing about one ounce) whose fossil remains have been unearthed near Meridian, Mississipi (which is kind of funny, because they crossed the Bering Strait, as did the American Indians, and I know someone from Meridian who believes in parallel co-evolution of races. Of course, he's also blond, blue-eyed, and keeps doing creative genealogical math to prove he's more and more Indian than he really is. and muttering about what the White Man did to his ancestors, totally ignoring that he's more white than Indian. But I'll reserve judgement on the town for crazy factor and not just base my opinion on Mike.)

Speaking of blonds/blondes (one is masculine, one is feminine, just for those of you confused by proper English--nowadays it often seems to be used randomly regardless of gender, mostly as 'blonde'), there was a blonde hoax a few years ago claiming that natural blondes would die out in a few years. Several news agencies were taken in by the story, including the BBC. I guess they didn't really do their basic genetics portion of high school biology.

Listening to

'These Hard Times' by Matchbox Twenty


and from the 80s--
'What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)' from Information Society


I woke up cramping and promptly vomited a couple of times because I started my period. It happens sometimes that I get really nauseous, usually when the cramping is bad. But I feel rather lucky. One co-worker's husband had an appendectomy, another co-worker had 2 feet of her colon resected due to a tumour (and she's in her 20s!), and then one of my friends is having a hysterectomy/a bit resected from her colon, too, next week. What is it with the GI tracts? Seriously, I hope everyone does well with their surgeries, and it made me feel better about just dealing with a little cramping and nausea.

I feel better now, although I'm a little sore (I had a box fall on my head at the gas station today, and although I think everything's alright, my neck's bothering me a little) and the cramping has eased but settled into my back. I'm headed to bed. The worst thing about picking up a friend from a second shift job is that when he gets paid, we go grocery shopping in the middle of the night. Fortunately the store knows us and opens up a lane when we come up with two cartfuls of stuff. I'm glad we only do it a couple of times a month. I just got bread tonight. I can't imagine actually having a stocked kitchen--or at least it hasn't been in awhile. I hope to rectify that next week. But I'm ready for bed tonight--so much so, that I'm going to do my religious obligations tomorrow night (I can do so within the first three days of my menstruation).

So, good night. Remind me that I have a story about pheromones to tell you tomorrow. Oh, well, I might as well give you the link, now...

Scents and Sensibility

Summation:

The secret to sexual attraction is in our genes, specifically in the sequence of more than 100 immune system genes known as the MHC, or major histocompatibility complex. Their main job seems to be helping the immune system recognise pathogens. But they also play a big role in choosing a mate. In tests, people chose others based on having some genes in common, but otherwise a very different matrix. That selects for diversity, without being so different as to be alien. They also found that those with too similar of an MHC tended to have higher divorce and adultery rates, as well as miscarriage and fertility problems. Here's the kicker: all this is based on smell, but our society is obsessed with perfumes and scents in practically every product we use, which undermines the MHC's role. And even more interesting, being on birth control pills makes men less attracted to the women, and women more attracted to men with similar MHC patterns, probably because hormonally the Pill mimics early pregnancy. Strippers, conversely, garnered far more tips if they 1) weren't on the Pill and 2) were ovulating. Oh, and women had a more discriminating sense of smell than men in terms of choosing a mate.

Interesting, huh? No word on whether this works for homosexual couples. But I guess the upshot is use unscented products and if you're looking for a mate, don't use the Pill for awhile but rather other means of birth control.