Weekend Reading Oct. 25, 2013

It's ARACTOBER!  Your fun fact for the week is about that spider bite you got.  You know, the one your doctor told you was a spider bite (or your cousin or your friend or a friend of a friend).  The one that was actually a bacterial infection?  Yeah,  That's right.  Spiders very rarely bite people and your doctor is definitely NOT an expert on telling the difference between spider bites, other insect bites and various skin infections.

http://arthropodecology.com/2012/02/15/spiders-do-not-bite/

Where are all the females?  Turns out that studies of Whale Sharks, the largest sharks in the world, have been looking almost exclusively at "teenage" males.  Shark researchers don't know where the  young sharks live, or the females or the mature adults. It's impressive how the largest fish in the sea can basically hide most of its population.

http://deepseanews.com/2013/10/where-are-all-the-ladies-at/

Wildlife is adapting to living very close to humans.  Seen a coyote lately?  One has probably seen you! Now there is a cougar living in Griffith Park in the center of the sea of urbanity known as Los Angeles.  And in order to get there he had to cross two of the busiest highways in the country.  The kinds of highways where you might be able to do the speed limit at 2 am but definitely not anytime between 5 am and midnight.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-griffith-park-lion-20131005,0,3681647,full.story

Think evolution works to perfect an organism?  To improve it?  Think again.  Humans could design better eyes, feet, backs...

http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2013/02/human-evolution-gain-came-pain

Organism of the week:  The Hero Shrew, a Brain Scoop Video.  A shrew that can support a man's weight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP3GPHdx9v8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUkyfHZ6bY2TjqbJhiH8Y2QQ

BONUS COMIC.  A comic about speciation.  Specifically about allopatric speciation (which we just covered in lecture!).

http://buzzhootroar.com/jumping-spiders-an-evolutionary-love-story/

Arachtober Fools Day

What? Fools Day is supposed to be in April?  Could've fooled me.

The news from Britain lately is about the invasion of the False Widow Spider, a deadly spider that is rapidly spreading all across Great Britain and has even led to some school closures (students: don't get any ideas!).

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andre Karwarth

The problem with this?

1.  False Widow Spiders are not poisonous.

2.  False Widow Spiders are not new to Great Britain

3.  False Widow Spiders are not spreading like crazy.

Bug Girl explains:

"It’s difficult to convey why this is so incredibly silly without using a lot of four letter words, arm waving, and spittle. These spiders are NOT that dangerous. Headlines have used words like “rampaging killer spiders” and “flesh-eating,” but those claims are ridiculous and false.

These little spiders are related to black widows, but other than genetics and web structure, that’s about the end of the resemblance. They do not have venom that dissolves your flesh. They are not “flesh eating,” unless you are a fly or a cricket. They can’t “kill humans with a single bite!“; and there is NO record of their ever having killed anyone in the UK (or elsewhere, best as I can tell)."

Here's the deal.  Spiders seldom bite people and very, very few of them can actually cause any harm to  humans. Mostly they are beneficial; they eat insects. 

My biggest problem with spiders? When they leave they don't clean up after themselves and I end up with cobwebs in the basement that I have to go clean up. Slobs.

Weekend Reading Oct. 18, 2013

How long can you keep moving?  These birds probably flew for over 200 days without perching!

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/08/three-swifts-probably-flew-non-stop-for-200-days/

Why shouldn't you let your cat outdoors?  Not only do cats that go outdoors have a significantly shorter lifespan (at the most half that of cats that stay inside) but they are also the leading cause of death for wild birds.

http://io9.com/cats-are-the-leading-cause-of-death-for-canada-s-birds-1442037841

That spider bite?  Yeah, probably not from a Brown Recluse.

http://buzzhootroar.com/a-spider-did-not-bite-you/

Afraid of the coming zombie apocalypse? Never fear, Mother Nature has your back!

http://boingboing.net/2013/10/14/zombiesvsanimals.html

Parrot intelligence and social structure.  Or, why you don't really want that pocket parrot for a pet!

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/problem-solving-parrots-understand-cause-and-effect/

Halloween season bonus image.  Do NOT Try This at Home! [Can you believe that people buy these snakes as pets, albeit when they are much, much smaller]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dejeuxx/8506846921/

Buyer Beware

I recently ranted about the real definition of "all natural" on food labels.  At least with food products you do have to put the CORRECT ingredients on the label.  Turns out this is not true for herbal supplements.

A recent study1 showed that 59% of herbal supplements contained products other than what was listed on the label.

That's over half.  This off label product includes things like fillers and weeds.  Including plants known to be toxic!  Want some poison ivy with your Ginko?

On the positive side just over 2/3 actually had the herb listed on the label.

But if you do the math that means that almost 1/3 don't contain the plant product listed on the label.

So, uh...

So, unless you are growing it yourself you can't be sure what's in that herbal supplement you just bought. Remember, these products are NOT GOVERNMENT REGULATED.  Think about that next time you support a smaller government.

ginko leaf by Magnus Manske via wikimedia commons

1. Steven G Newmaster, Meghan Grguric, Dhivya Shanmughanandhan, Sathishkumar Ramalingam and Subramanyam Ragupathy. DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products. BMC Medicine, October 2013 DOI:10.1186/1741-7015-11-222

Weekend Reading Oct. 11, 2013

Got digestive issues?  Try the new Poop Pill.  [wait, what?]

http://news.yahoo.com/pills-made-poop-cure-serious-gut-infections-150405405.html

I'm just going to copy the title here.  Sometimes you just gotta punch a deep-sea squid with a toilet brush.  Now with VIDEOS.

http://deepseanews.com/2013/09/sometimes-you-just-gotta-punch-deep-sea-squid-with-a-toilet-brush/

Found a poisonous snake?  Here's what to do and what NOT to do in order to reduce your risks of a snakebite!  [EXCELLENT advice]

http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/2013/10/the-only-good-dog-is-dead-dog-why-it.html

Where entomology (study of insects) and crime intersect OR do you want to become a maggot wrangler?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/when-crime-scene-evidence-crawls-away/

A controversial look at Breast Cancer and Early Detection.  Should you be getting yearly mammograms?  Maybe, but then again maybe not!  (winner of the 2012 National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Award )

http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/02/08/komen/

What does THAT mean?

I was making lunch one day recently and looked at the bottle of mustard.

See what it says?  Right there, in BIG letters.

100% NATURAL.

What does that mean?  Produced by nature?  Like the ingredients were harvest off plants, blended and bottled?  That's what I would think.

But when I turned it over and looked at the back I saw this...

Ummm...  Distilled vinegar?  Distilled?  That's not what I would consider a natural process?  It's not like you can go to your vinegar plant and pour out distilled vinegar.

So what does 100% Natural mean?

Absolutely nothing.  There are no government regulations about putting this label on foods.  I could have The Husband (who is a Chemist) whip something up in the lab (he is certainly capable of distilling vinegar!) and label it 100% Natural.  No problem.

I think this is deceptive advertise, don't you?

Weekend Reading Oct. 4, 2013

Did I mention I have a fondness for parasite?  They may be disturbing but they are disturbing in some seriously unique and totally wicked cool ways!

http://therevscience.com/?p=1488

I guess I'm not a "real" biologist since I have yet to get a bot fly infection...

I just want to cuddle up to this cutie!

http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/09/common-cuttlefish.html

For anyone who thinks parenting is a role reserved for those of us with bones, just because mom doesn't have a spinal cord doesn't mean she's spineless!

http://entomologytoday.org/2013/09/27/can-beetles-make-good-mothers/

Great, easy read on some very early research into a pooly studied bird - the red throated Caracara, complete with video!

http://ibycter.com/2013/09/30/nest-camera-study-of-the-red-throated-caracara/

Alien intelligence?  How the octopus can educate us about intelligence, computers and possibly aliens.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/how-the-freaky-octopus-can-help-us-understand-the-human-brain/

Looking for Alien Life....

Tree Lobsters for the win!

LINK

What does the Affordable Care Act really mean?

Since I teach biology, including classes related to human health, I often get this sort of question.  I know this means lots of people have the same questions, so here's my understanding.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) means that everyone in the US must buy health insurance.  If you get health insurance from your job NOTHING WILL CHANGE except that you will have to tell the IRS that you have health insurance next time you fill our your taxes.

If you do not have health insurance you can go to www.healthcare.gov to look at your options. The government has created "exchanges" so that people with low incomes can find low cost insurance programs.

But, you say, I'm young and healthy, I don't need insurance.  Sure, unless you fall down the stairs and break your leg, or get in a car accident or grow older.  We will all need health care at some point in our lives.  The goal of insurance is that if enough people pay into the system when they are healthy, then when you DO get sick you will have to pay less.  It's a way of spreading out the cost.

But that's SOCIALISM. 

Yep.  And I'm good with that.  My husband had to have gall bladder surgery recently and his medical bills totaled over $10,000.  This was a relatively simple illness.  Could you afford to pay for that all at once?

What else do you get?

The insurance companies have to spend 85% of their income on health care.  Which limits overhead (things like CEO pay and paperwork) and profit.

If you have a pre-existing condition the insurance still has to cover you - things like allergies, asthma, or even that ankle you sprained when you were 10 and that you re-injured as an adult.

There is no lifetime maximum cap.  This means that if you are in a horrific car accident when you are 20 - something and it costs $1 million (not out of the question, sadly) but then when you are 65 you need hearth by-pass surgery the insurance company will still have to pay.  Before the Affordable Care Act they could refuse to pay for your by-pass because you had already cost them too much money.

This type of health care bring the US more in line with the rest of the "industrialized" world.  Countries where people don't have to worry about a single health care problem causing them to go bankrupt (the number one cause of American bankruptcies is health care costs!).  Countries where people live longer, healthier lives.  It may not be ideal to everyone's viewpoint but the system has been proven to work in other free countries, why don't we give it a try here?