Joe Lapp

This digitally painted piece honors the survivor spirit of the coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our landscapes today. Below the horizon, carefully chosen ancestors mark pivotal moments in adaptation, each contributing to the form and survivor we see today. Above the horizon, Coyote stands alert at the center, framed by both Denver’s skyline and a mountain backdrop, symbols of their ability to thrive in cities as well as wilderness. Embedded in the ground are the skulls and bones of carnivores whose lineages ended long ago, emphasizing Coyote’s persistence in contrast.

"I Contain Multitudes"

This digitally painted piece honors coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our cities and the wilderness today.

The thread gives descriptions of all the extinct organisms shown in this piece (not to scale)

And that's how you integrate digital elements into an exhibition. Part of the temporary "China's Dinosaur World" at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, China. Closing this November.

Video source: Shanghai Let's Meet

The question of how DNA encoded proteins "stimulated great excitement. Here was a cryptogram set up by nature that, after more than 3 billion years of evolution, could finally be solved by one of the products of evolution—human beings." (Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 7th ed.)

I had a dog who had three mast cell tumors removed over two years. Visits to the vet were so stressful for her that I decided I wouldn't put her through that again -- and she never had another mast cell tumor. She died years later at 16.5 from some autoimmune condition acquired from a dead Opossum.

This is Google Docs. I still have tremendous trouble with Word even for more common words.

A is my clear fav. I'd rank B as the least readable.

The mispelling "phospohdiesterase" is underlined in red, and the correct spelling "phosphodiesterase" is recommended instead.

I'm taking notes in Google Docs, and I've been impressed with how it recognizes all the technical jargon of molecular biology.

DNA nucleotides appear to average a mutation rate ranging from 1 to 3 out of every 10 billion copied. This likely restricts organisms to having at most 30,000 genes that are "essential," placing an upper limit on the complexity of organisms. (Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 7th ed.)

LOL! The book isn't arguing for random chance though. It lists six ways nucleotides can change.

Your point is valid, but I don't believe the quote make any claim about what persists.

Right. The text talks much about conserved regions. The claim isn't that the base pairs we have now have all changed in that time, only that replication has failed for each base pair during that time during some attempt at replication.

It sounds like you're saying that although these base pair changes may have been "tried", many have not likely survived. Does that change the reported stats?

From Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 7th ed. (2022)

"DNA [is] inherited with such... fidelity that... only about one nucleotide pair in a thousand is randomly changed in the human germ line every million years. Even so, in a population of 10,000... every possible... substitution will have been [tried] on about 20 occasions [every] million years."

The human genome “[resembles] your garage/bedroom/refrigerator... little evidence of organization; much accumulated clutter... virtually nothing ever discarded; and the few patently valuable items indiscriminately... scattered throughout.” - unattributed quote in Molec. Biology of the Cell, 7th ed.

Packaging human DNA in a cell nucleus "is geometrically equivalent to packing 40 km (24 miles) of extremely fine thread into a tennis ball." - Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 7th ed. (2022)

Species Identifications: Common Pitfalls Some thoughts about Identifications. How do we identify properly? How do we avoid mistakes?

I started a blog and my first post is online!
The posts will try to explore topics which are not typically covered by introductory literature and textbooks, e.g. because they are considered to be "too basic". Let me know what you think!

weevil-see.github.io/taxonomy/Ide...

Bluesky right now ...

Are there any authors on here? They might want to take a look at this, and take action by Sunday:
www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

An orb web spritzed with water to make it visible, attached at the high end to the outside of the driver's side mirror, at the other end on the door just below the window, and below lower on the door. The spider is not visible because it is a daytime shot.

This web has been on my car for about 3 weeks now, surviving all my driving, including once for 2 miles at 60 mph. It sometimes catches small flies at slow speeds. The spider stays behind the mirror during the day. I visited at 4am once to try to ID, but I wasn't sure. Maybe a young Neoscona.

Well, if found north of Mexico, we can say it's Mecaphesa.

A funnel weaver is making a grand living on the 6th floor of a new, well-sealed office building. Body length ~5mm, its web is about 10" wide, 10" high in the pot of a tall plant. The plant has scale insects producing honeydew, and the fruits people bring for lunch provide a regular supply of flies.

An interesting find today, because a juvenile Xysticus sp. was just hanging out in an Argiope bruennichi web! She tolerated it too as it was moving around a lot and she paid it no heed. At one point it even walked across her. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Text post: Moths are the foundation of the terrestrial food web. Moth caterpillars transfer more energy from plants to animals than any other food source. Moth populations are declining and one concrete thing you can do to help is turn off your outdoor lights at night OR switch to “bug bulbs” (yellow LEDs) that don’t disrupt their lives. I love simple actions that really benefit nature.

Spiders and mites are hard to ID.

We also need a chart of user contentedness.

I just read that the arguments between gradualism in evolution and punctuated equilibria were so heated that biologists bandied about the phrases "evolution by jerks" and "evolution by creeps." 🤣

"The Administration is proposing to modify the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to exclude effects to species’ essential habitats... limiting public comment to just 32 days... [Use the link] to request that the public comment period be extended to 90 days." savetheesa.org

This study was:
-done by immigrant scientists, who are now being turned away from the United States by the Trump regime,
-funded by the U.S. Dept of Energy, which is being defunded and purged by the Trump regime
-hosted at a public university experiencing vast Trump regime funding freezes