Lizards’ tails, original and regenerated, research

This is a video about green anole lizards around a house.

From ScienceDaily:

Regenerated Lizard Tails Are Different from Originals, Researchers Discover

(Oct. 9, 2012) — Just because a lizard can grow back its tail, doesn’t mean it will be exactly the same. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona examined the anatomical and microscopic make-up of regenerated lizard tails and discovered that the new tails are quite different from the original ones.

The findings are published in a pair of articles featured in a special October edition of the journal, The Anatomical Record.

“The regenerated lizard tail is not perfect replica,” said Rebecca Fisher, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, and at the UA College of Medicine — Phoenix. “There are key anatomical differences including the presence of a cartilaginous rod and elongated muscle fibers spanning the length of the regenerated tail.”

Researchers studied the regenerated tails of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis), which can lose its tail when caught by a predator and then grow it back. The new tail had a single, long tube of cartilage rather than vertebrae, as in the original. Also, long muscles span the length of the regenerated tail compared to shorter muscle fibers found in the original.

“These differences suggest that the regenerated tail is less flexible, as neither the cartilage tube nor the long muscle fibers would be capable of the fine movements of the original tail, with its interlocking vertebrae and short muscle fibers,” Fisher said. “The regrown tail is not simply a copy of the original, but instead is a replacement that restores some function.”

While the green anole lizard’s regenerated tail is different from the original, the fact that lizards, unlike humans, can regenerate a hyaline cartilage skeleton and make brand new muscle is of continued interest to scientists who believe learning more about regeneration could be beneficial to humans in the future.

Bird crime in Malta, Scotland

This video from a zoo says about itself:

The baby [greater] flamingo that was born on July 30 this year grows up well. This is “Dance of pleasure”.

October 2012. For the second time in less than a week illegal hunters have shot at and killed at least two Greater Flamingos flying off the coast of Malta, this time hunting the protected birds at sea, while BirdLife Malta received three more shot protected birds recovered at sea over the weekend: here.

October 2012. RSPB Scotland has condemned the shooting of a golden eagle, found barely alive, by a walker in Dumfriesshire. The bird was discovered on Saturday 6th October on a grouse moor near Wanlockhead, close to the Southern Upland Way. However, it is not clear precisely where the shooting occurred: here.

October 2012. A man has been convicted of illegally trapping a heron following a joint investigation with the Scottish SPCA and Dumfries and Galloway Police: here.

October 2012. Environmental groups have expressed deep concern about the sector-led planning that threatens to sideline Scotland’s marine environment and the national sustainability agenda. Members of Scottish Environment LINK – an umbrella group for Scotland’s environmental organisations – argue that delays to finalising a National Marine Plan will favour short-termist, large-scale development without ensuring due consideration of wider environmental impacts and the interests of broader marine activities: here.

JK Rowling’s first post-Harry Potter book

This video is called J.K. Rowling Interview on ‘The Casual Vacancy‘: ‘Harry Potter’ Author on Rihanna‘s Influence.

By Julie Sherry in Britain:

Tue 9 Oct 2012

The Casual Vacancy exposes the reality of middle class prejudice

I read J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books when I was 13 years old and found them gripping.

They fed my imagination, bent reality and turned the idea of what was possible on its head. But I appreciated Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, on a completely different level.

The Daily Mail newspaper denounced the book as a “socialist manifesto”. It isn’t really, but it’s certainly much more overtly political than I expected. It explores the themes of death, sex and relationships warped by society—the human drama of everyday life.

The book takes time to delve into the sharp contradictions of human relationships. And class inequality is the backbone of the storyline.

It opens with the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother, leaving a “casual vacancy” on a parish council in the south west of England. His death comes at a pivotal point in a war on the idyllic town’s council.

One faction is angling to cut The Fields housing estate out of the town’s catchment area. This is led by the Mollinson family—small business owners who see the sleepy town as a perfect model of society.

They feel entitled to run the town and keep it ‘untainted’. So they hate the fact that working class children can share classrooms with their own.

They are also desperate to slash funding for an addiction support clinic that the “junkies” and “scroungers” on the estate use.

Charismatic

Barry was the most charismatic of the opposing faction, which fights to keep The Fields within the town boundary and to defend welfare services. This political battle is fought out over the casual vacancy.

The story develops by jumping between characters’ thoughts to explore their contradictions, weakness and strengths. When we first meet Terri, a mother and heroin addict, we only see her through the eyes of her desperate child or scrutinising social worker.

But later her past full of poverty, neglect and abuse is revealed. She is so crushed that she’s barely still there. Yet the battle to strip away the remaining threadbare support for her has already begun.

Sexism is prominent in almost every relationship. One teenager is terrified of his abusive father and frustrated by his cowering mother. Other women live in the shadow of their husbands— bitter at their disregard for their opinions. Women face pressure to be reduced to sexual objects.

Racism appears in classroom bullying as well as racist abuse shouted in streets and in the hurtful jokes of teenagers. But the barely veiled distaste of white middle class characters, especially Shirley Mollinson, towards the Sikh Jawanda family is the most enraging.

The book is grim in many places. There are some purely detestable characters and moments that seem hopeless. But human kindness, compassion and fighting spirit are all also at the centre of the book and it’s well worth the read.

Bahraini persecuted journalist gets award

By Charley Hannagan, The Post-Standard in the USA:

Bahraini journalist to receive Syracuse University free speech award

Published: Tuesday, October 09, 2012, 1:31 PM Updated: Tuesday, October 09, 2012, 1:46 PM

Syracuse, NY – A journalist who has kept up her criticism of the government in Bahrain despite having her home attacked by pro-government forces will receive the 2012 Tully Award for Freedom of Speech.

Lamees Dhaif, an independent journalist and human rights activist, will receive the award from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Oct. 15. The award is given to a journalist who has faced a significant threat to free speech.

The ceremony will be at 7 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. Dhaif will visit classes and meet with students while on campus.

The public event is free. For more information, call Audrey Burian at 443-1930 or aaburian@syr.edu.

Dhaif has worked for several newspapers in Bahrain, including Akhbar Al-Khaleej, Sadaa Al Isbou’a, Al-Qabas, Al-Afaaq and Al-Waqt.

Following widespread government censorship in response to anti-government protests in the nation’s capital Manama, Dhaif covered the events of the Arab Spring in Bahrain via Twitter, Facebook and her blog. She writes a weekly column for the Saudi newspaper Alyaum, and presents a television program on the Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai.

When she wrote a series uncovering allegations of bias against women in Bahrain’s family courts, a legal complaint was brought against her for insulting the judiciary. The case was dropped, but the government indicated it could revive the charges at anytime.

She was called into court again for criticizing the regime following large-scale anti-government protests in the spring of 2011.

Those charges were also dropped, but pro-government forces with Molotov cocktails attacked her home.

Dhaif has received several awards for her reporting, including a 2008 Excellence Award in Journalism form the Regional Conference on Women. She has also been honored by the Women’s Union at the 2009 International Women’s Day.

Dhaif has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kuwait, several post-graduate degrees in media, a master’s degree in media legislation from Ahlia University in Bahrain and a master’s degree in information and public relations from Cairo University.

The opposition in Bahrain is closely watching the aggravating situation created through opposition-bashing by regime officials in state media and press. The opposition is also following the drawback in governmental statements, after the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, and its latest was the Minister of Justice Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al-Khalifa statement on the conditions for the claimed dialogue, which has not begun yet: here.

British Lord compares gays to nazis

This video is about “The forgotten victims of the Nazi Holocaust, gay people.”

By Ned Simons in Britain:

Gay Marriage Could Turn Britain Into Nazi Germany, Lord Carey Tells Rally At Conservative Party Conference

Posted: 08/10/2012 15:49 BST Updated: 09/10/2012 14:34 BST

Britain risks becoming a totalitarian state as a result of gay marriage and could go the way of Nazi Germany, Tory opponents of the government’s plans have heard.

In Hitler’s Germany, in fact, LGTBQ people were massively murdered in concentration camps. They did not have the right to live, let alone any right to marry.

Addressing an anti-gay marriage rally in Birmingham Town Hall on the fringes of the Tory Party conference on Monday, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey said Christians had so far been “too timid” in their opposition to the government’s plans.

the government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron

Rallying the crowd with a speech that ended with her arms raised in the style of an American pastor, Widdecombe said the restrictions on peoples’ freedoms that would come from gay marriage were “the hallmark of a totalitarian states down the ages”.

She added a direct appeal to David Cameron warning him he had done a “lot of damage to the party” and to “drop this measure now”. …

The former shadow home secretary dismissed the concerns of the protesters outside the event who had greeted guests with shouts of: “You say Tory, we say bigots” and “Your son might be gay – and that’s OK”. …

Gay marriage may be creating divisions in the country but it is also a source of deep divisions within the Conservative Party, whose leadership has sought to embrace its gay members and shake off the legacy of Section 28, and other pieces of legislation viewed as anti-gay.

Senior Tories including Cameron and George Osborne have forcefully set out the case for gay marriage, however opponents have been very vocal at the Conservatives’ conference and a poll of local Tory chairman [sic] showed that 71% oppose the plans. …

One Tory party member in his 20s, who said he was heterosexual, told HuffPostUK that he could not believe the “bonkers” anti-gay marriage voices he heard around the conference centre.

But another attending the rally in the Town Hall repeatedly ordered this reporter to write down the strongest anti-gay marriage lines “in capitals”.

How dinosaurs slept, discoveries

From Dinosaur Tracking blog in the USA:

October 9, 2012

How Did Dinosaurs Sleep?

Bone by bone and study by study, paleontologists are learning more than ever before about dinosaurs. But there are still many aspects about prehistoric biology that we know little about. In fact, some of the simplest facets of dinosaur lives remain elusive.

For one thing, we don’t know much at all about how dinosaurs slept. Did Apatosaurus doze standing up or kneel down to rest? Did tyrannosaurs use their tiny, muscular arms to push themselves off the ground after a nap? And, given the discovery of so many enfluffled dinosaurs, did fuzzy dinosaurs ever cuddle up together to stay warm on chilly Mesozoic nights?

Since we can’t observe living non-avian dinosaurs directly, some of these questions have to remain in the realm of speculation. But a handful of fossils have shown us that at least some dinosaurs curled up just like birds. In 2004, Xing Xu and Mark Norell described the tiny, early Cretaceous dinosaur Mei long–a feathery troodontid dinosaur with big eyes and a little switchblade claw on each foot. What made Mei special, though, was the way the dinosaur was preserved.

Many articulated dinosaur skeletons are found in the classic dinosaur death pose, with their tails tilted up and their necks thrown over their backs. The nearly-complete skeleton of Mei was different. The foot-long dinosaur rested its head over its folded arms, and its tail wrapped around the dinosaur’s torso. Mei died sleeping in a roosting position similar to that of modern birds. The dinosaur’s name, which means “sleeping dragon,” is a tribute to the behavior.

Now another Mei specimen has confirmed that the first find was not a fluke. Last week, paleontologist Chunling Gao, of the Dalian Natural History Museum in China, and colleagues described a second, slightly smaller Mei that was preserved in a nearly identical sleeping position. Much like the first, this Mei probably died in a prehistoric ashfall that both killed and preserved the dinosaur in delicate detail without jarring the snoozing troodontid out of position. Some feathery, non-avian dinosaurs not only looked like birds, but they slept like them, too.

The two Mei specimens aren’t the only dinosaurs found in such positions. Gao and colleagues also point out that a specimen of another troodontid found in the Cretaceous rock of Mongolia, Sinornithoides youngi, was found in the same sort of sleeping position. And while not mentioned by the authors of the new study, the sleeping positions of Mei and Sinornithoides remind me of the early Jurassic dinosaur Segisaurus. Described in 1936, the partial skeleton of Segisaurus was found with its legs tucked beneath its body and arms apparently in a resting position. Perhaps this dinosaur, too, died while dozing, and records an even older record of how dinosaurs rested. Such glimpses are rare, but they help fill in some of the most elusive moments in Mesozoic history.

[Check out artist Julius Csotonyi's blog for a lovely new illustration of the second Mei specimen.]

Reference:

Gao C, Morschhauser EM, Varricchio DJ, Liu J, Zhao B (2012). A Second Soundly Sleeping Dragon: New Anatomical Details of the Chinese Troodontid Mei long with Implications for Phylogeny and Taphonomy. PLOS One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045203

Romney wants more wars

By Joseph Kishore in the USA:

In bellicose speech, Romney outlines bipartisan drive to war

9 October 2012

In a bellicose foreign policy speech Monday, Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney threatened war with Iran, expanded military intervention in Syria, an unending occupation of Afghanistan, and the reintroduction of US troops into Iraq.

While framed as a criticism of the policy of the Obama administration, the main contours of Romney’s speech were in line with the agenda proposed by the current president. Romney’s remarks highlighted the bipartisan conspiracy against the American people, as both candidates plan an aggressive expansion of US militarism abroad, behind the backs of the public.

Romney delivered his speech at the Virginia Military Institute, continuing a tradition, shared by the current president, in which foreign policy speeches are delivered before a military audience. The military is treated as—and indeed is in fact—an independent and overriding power in the American political establishment.

After his speech, Romney held a closed-door meeting with retired generals, in which the war plans of a potential Romney administration were no doubt discussed with even greater candor.

Romney declared that the US needed to “change course in the Middle East” and said that “our words” must be “backed up by deeds.”

Tom Engelhardt on the mystery of the failure of American military power in a world without major enemies: here.

Mitt Romney’s Bain Made Millions On Big Tobacco In U.S., Russia: here.

Greek trade unions defy Merkel march ban

From daily News Line in Britain:

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Greek TUC to defy march ban

THE GSEE (Greek TUC) has declared that it intends to defy today’s ban on demonstrations and marches which was announced by Athens Area Chief of Police late yesterday morning.

The police chief claimed the ban, which coincides with the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and covers a large area around the German Embassy as well as on the streets and the motorway to the airport, is for ‘reasons of public safety’.

The GSEE (Greek TUC), which has called an anti-Merkel mass rally outside the Vouli (Greek parliament) at lunchtime today, issued a statement saying the rally will go ahead.

The statement condemned ‘the police’s prohibitions, the show of force, the police’s violence, the riot police’s attacks, the injuries and arrests of strikers and trade union cadres, all of which aim to annul our democratic rights’.

At midnight on Sunday armed riot police squadrons stormed the Computer Centre building of the State Electricity Board (DEH) in Athens which had been occupied by DEH workers in protest against a ‘households tax’ imposed through electricity bills.

Eighteen workers were arrested including executive members of the YENOP (the DEH trades unions federation) and its president Nikos Fotopoulos.

Earlier, Fotopoulos had stated that the purpose of the occupation of the DEH Computer Centre was to find evidence of who pays the households tax, implying that the rich do not pay.

Almost a year ago, in November 2011, DEH workers had occupied the Computer Centre building and were evicted by the riot police.

Then Fotopoulos and other YENOP executive members were arrested and charged with offences. Their trial has been postponed three times.

YENOP called for workers to demonstrate yesterday at the Public Prosecutor’s Office demanding the release of those arrested.

Early yesterday morning, workers at the Dromokaiteio Mental Hospital in Athens barricaded the main gate with bricks and mortar in protest against the government’s health cuts.

Riot police attacked the workers picketing the hospital’s entrance; three arrests were made. Michalis Yiannakos, a hospital doctor, said that the riot police ‘attacked us and beat us’.

He said that the hospital does not have medicines, syringes not even gloves because provider firms have not been paid.

Yiannakos said that doctors and workers have suffered huge wage cuts and many have been sacked or forced into early retirement.

At the same time, he emphasised, ‘mental disturbances are growing due to the social crisis’.

Greek police collude with fascist Golden Dawn group: here.

Unbelievable! German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Athens wearing a lime green jacket. A jacket she also was wearing when she watched the football match between Germany and Greece: here. (And I don’t think that is because Ms Merkel applies the principles of austerity also to herself, making that she has money for just one jacket …).

Report from Athens this Tuesday: here. And here.

Merkel greeted by furious protests: here. And here.

GREEK WORKERS DEFY RIOT POLICE AND CONDEMN MERKEL: here.

Related articles

• Greek workers keep fighting austerity (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Greek workers confront German politician (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Greek nazi murder attempt (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Protesters break into Greek-German conference in Thessaloniki [update] (ekathimerini.com)
• Cartoon: Merkel in Athens (englishblog.com)
• Greece: Clashes at high school rally (mysanantonio.com)
• ‘Nazis out!’ Greek protesters attack conference, throw coffee at German diplomat (rt.com)