MigrationsMigrationsCells, birds, and musings from a biologist 
Articles
Small Changes
2009-01-02 17:43:00 Please note three small changes for how this blog is run: I’ve created a long-overdue list of Rules of Discussion (aka, a “Comment Policy”). I’ve created a separate page for News Articles, to both encourage links to interesting articles in the news in a way that is accessible to the comment feed, and to keep the post ... More About: Small
White-Headed Duck
2008-12-31 10:33:00 Last week, on Boxing Day, I went along with for an outing to Larnaca to see a bird that had been reported there - White -headed Duck (Oxyura leucocephala). Why is this duck interesting, you might ask. For its rarity, mostly. This species’ population was probably over 100,000 in the early 20th century, falling to an ...
After a Year in Cyprus
2008-12-30 12:38:00 Today marks one year since I expatriated to Cyprus , and it is also the end of the calendar year - making this an ideal time for me to pause for a moment to reflect on life here. The main obstacles to the year for me have been things that I would have had to face ... More About: Year
Obama and his Science Team
2008-12-21 12:24:00 Obama pledges to embrace scientific advice, no matter how inconvenient. It’s just common sense - listen to the scientific experts for advice on science-related issues, no matter how inconvenient. But after 8 years of the Bush administration and the Republican war on science, common sense seems like a revolutionary idea. More About: Science , Politics , Obama , Team
In Memoriam
2008-12-20 11:28:00 Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was a Cornell astronomy professor and author. Most significantly, in my mind, is his use of the image of Earth from the edge of the solar system, which is partially attributed to starting the modern environmental movement. Simply put, he helped us as humans rethink our place in the Universe. He also ... More About: Carl Sagan , In Memoriam
Evolution as a Lens Through Which to View the World
2008-12-16 20:28:00 Why does giving mineral supplements to undernourished, anemic individuals cause many of them to die of bacterial infections? Why did Dr. Heimlich need to develop a maneuver to dislodge food from peoples? windpipes? Why does each of your eyes have a blind spot and a significant tendency for retinal detachment, but a squid?s eyes, which ... More About: Evolution , World , View , The World , Lens
Birdwatching in Kidasi
2008-12-14 14:02:00 Yesterday, my wife and I made it out for a birdwatching trip with Birdlife Cyprus . That meant an almost 2-hr drive from Nicosia past Petrou Tou Romiou to the Asprokremmos Dam to meet up with the group, before caravanning up the valley some 10km. Some notes on the birds we saw below the fold: At the dam, ...
What Are Ecosystem Services
2008-12-09 21:34:00 Via Action Bioscience, a very educational primer on Ecosystem services reprinted from a factsheet from the Ecological Society of America: Natural ecosystems and the plants and animals within them provide humans with services that would be very difficult to duplicate. While it is often impossible to place an accurate monetary amount on ecosystem services, we can ... More About: Services
Poacher Caught in the Act
2008-12-04 20:45:00 I hadn’t seen this in the news anywhere, but heard about this through the monthly newsletter from Birdlife Cyprus. In the newsletter, Colin Richardson writes: A poacher was arrested, his 22 limesticks and 20 dead birds confiscated after being caught in the act, at the scene of the crime at the Paphos Sewage Plant fields on ... More About: Caught
Is Every Species on the Planet Deserving of Protection?
2008-12-03 11:19:00 Is Every Species on the Planet Deserving of Protection? This is a question that I posted on about 28 months ago, and while I then found the question to be almost naïve - certainly we should do what we reasonably can achieve to protect as many species from extinction as we can - it is still ... More About: The Planet
Contemporary Creationism as a Form of Folkbiology
2008-11-30 14:05:00 I think anyone familiar with science will realize that Intelligent DesignCreationism is not science. For various reasons, calling it philosophy doesn’t seem right either. Theology? Well… maybe it could be called Natural Theology (many called it that in William Paley’s time, anyway). None of these does justice to the inductive processes that go on in ... More About: Form , Contemporary
What Do We Know About the Evolution of Birds
2008-11-23 16:07:00 Via Ball State University in Indiana, I found an informative article on the basis for current theories of avian evolution: Comparative anatomists during the 16th through 19th centuries noticed that birds were very similar to traditional reptiles. In 1860, shortly after the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, ... More About: Evolution , Birds
Dispersal of Phoenicians Left a Mark
2008-11-16 11:14:00 Relevant to Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean, and tracing migrations of human history, geneticists have recently published conclusions that the Phoenicians left deep genetic mark in this part of the world. Scientists reported Thursday that as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe may have a Phoenician ... More About: Left , Mark
The Bricks and Mortar of Life
2008-11-13 21:57:00 PZ Myers waxes poetic in The Mason’s Apprentice: Much of modern developmental biology has a bias for grand visions of form and structure. Our major model organisms are creatures like fruit flies and mice and zebrafish, but these are the elaborate edifices of evolution, far out on the extreme edge of multicellular complexity. While it is ... More About: Cell Biology , Life , Bricks
A Biological Law of Everything
2008-11-11 21:13:00 ?The articulation of truly great ideas, of the laws of nature, begins with simple premises that all of us see every day. From simple beginnings, ideas like these extend to explain the really big stuff, like the movement of the stars or the workings of time. In that spirit, I can share with you one ... More About: Evolution
Salmon and the Dams They Cross
2008-11-09 15:26:00 I’d been meaning to mention this article for a few weeks, Rethinking Dam: Pacific Salmon Recovery May Rest on Other Factors. The story of Chinook and Steelhead salmon has been one of the best known migration stories. It has also been one of the iconic stories of species decline. Approaching the confluence of the Snake and ... More About: Cross
Science and the truth about rare birds
2008-11-03 19:09:00 In Germany, there are than 100 breeding pairs of these birds left. It is therefore patently obvious that the killing of even a single bird like this can have significant conservation implications, and the killing of Sigmar would most certainly have had a significant impact on the small German breeding population. More About: Science , Truth , Birds , Rare , The Truth
Open Season in Cyprus
2008-11-01 17:50:00 With bird hunting being such an entrenched part of Mediterranean culture that illegal hunting continues at high levels in countries such as Cyprus , Birdlife Cyprus has some information clarifying just what legal open season is. August. Season usually opens around 20th of August every Wednesday and Sunday (4-6 hunting days). Legal species: Turtle dove, Woodpigeon. September - October. Daily ... More About: Conservation , Open , Open Season
Cypriot Mass Bird Poisoning
2008-10-27 22:26:00 Cypriot mass bird poisoning blamed on poachers. I hadn’t seen this, but Grrlscientist delivered: “Morons of the Year” Award: The 2008 Morons of the Year Prize has been awarded to Cypriot poachers who, in their infinite stupidity, decided to take revenge upon the government of Cyprus for arresting bird poachers by .. what else? .. ... More About: Bird , Mass
Our Cognitive Traits and the Religion Instinct
2008-10-24 18:11:00 For the atheists and agnostics out there struggling to understand why religion persists, Pascal Boyer has an essay in Nature on being human: Religion : Bound to Believe. The editor’s comment is as follows: “Atheism will always be a harder sell than religion, Pascal Boyer explains, because a slew of cognitive traits predispose us to faith.“ So ...
Obama on the Brain
2008-10-22 20:16:00 NeurObama 08 by gpot9883 “Scientists agree that Obama has their best interests at heart and will lead this country along a pathway of innovation and discovery.” More About: Politics , Brain , The Brain
Endemic Bird Areas in Cyprus
2008-10-20 12:07:00 Via Bird Life International, there is a factsheet available on Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs) in Cyprus : Restricted-range species: The two restricted-range species occur in a wide variety of habitats, with Cyprus Warbler (Sylvia melanothorax being absent when breeding from the drier central plain, favoring Cistus scrub mainly in the Troodos mountains. Both species are migrants: Cyprus Wheatear ...
Three Articles Worth Reading
2008-10-18 17:20:00 How We Evolve: A growing number of scientists argue that human culture itself has become the foremost agent of biological change. When the previous generation of life scientists was coming up through the academy, there was a widespread assumption, not always articulated by professors, that human evolution had all but stopped. It had certainly shaped our prehuman ... More About: Reading , Articles , Worth
Lower Than Angels
2008-10-15 14:24:00 Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man. Broadcast as a documentary series in the early 1970’s and then published as a book, The Ascent of Man has inspired subsequent documentaries by the likes of Carl Sagan and Sir David Attenborough. Episode/Chapter One, “Lower than the Angels ,” covers the following topics: Animal adaptation | The human alternative ... More About: Humanism
Philosophy as the Missing Link
2008-10-13 16:49:00 The following is a guest post by Kimberly Wickham, who is the author of the books Angels and Horses, and Summer of Magic Horses, which can be found on her webpage [Here]. Philosophy as the Missing Link ? An Eye-Opening Audit of Our School?s Curriculum The question might be asked, ?Why would anyone want to teach philosophy ... More About: Education
State of the World?s Birds
2008-10-11 12:51:00 At present one in eight of the world?s birds ? 1,226 species - are Globally Threatened according to the IUCN Red List. Of these, 190 face an imminent risk of extinction. More About: World , Birds , The World , State
Passage of Raptors
2008-10-05 16:52:00 This morning I went out with fellow birdwatcher Stavros, who is much more knowledgeable, and others from BirdLife Cyprus . We went to Akrotiri and the surrounding area, and what a treat we had. We were there in a parking lot between a small but dense area of trees where hundreds of raptors had apparently been roosting ... More About: Birding , Raptors
A Week of Birds
2008-10-04 10:02:00 Bee-Eaters trapped with lime sticks in Cyprus [Photo credit: Cyprus Week ly] Bases clampdown saves migratory birds but slaughter still continues - Cyprus Weekly Six hunters arrested after information from birdwatchers - Times of Malta CABS records the shooting of a black stork on video - The Malta Independent Stepping out in the line of fire - Times of Malta Malta: ... More About: Birds
Crackdown on Trapping
2008-09-26 21:37:00 In the English-print newspaper Cyprus Weekly, some good news: Bases clampdown saves migratory birds, but slaughter still continues: Recent raids in the east and west of the island highlight the determination of SBA authorities, the game fund and Cyprus police to eradicate the phenomenon. A Dhekelia SBA illegal poaching dragnet across the villages of Ormidia, Achna and ... More About: Crackdown
Excerpt: No Way Home, and migratory stopovers
More articles from this author:2008-09-24 11:49:00 Few scientists would dispute the importance of protecting oases in the Sahara (for Old World birds heading to Africa), lush streamside vegetation in the deserts of the southwestern United States (important to many migrants in the western United States), or migration hot spots like Cape May, New Jersey. But for the vast majority of stopover ... More About: Europe , Books , Home , Malta 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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