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scientists say they’ve found and studied a complete fossil of a primate that is likely to be an early ancestor of the human species. this exciting finding may be an important “snapshot” from the time when humans, apes and monkeys diverged from the other primates such as lemurs.

a brand-new documentary, titled “the link” is set to air soon in the US, UK, norway and germany. a trailer and air dates are presented at revealingthelink.com.

Early Primate Provides Evolution Clues
Scientists say a 47-million-year-old fossil found in Germany may be a key link to explaining the evolution of early primates and, perhaps, telling them about developments that led to modern human beings. [more...]

warning: the following links and videos show some things that you are probably going to find gross. watch them at your own risk.

someone once told me, that buddhism says “once a year, you should do something you’ve never done before”.
i’ve had so many different things inside my nose lately that i think that counts for 2009.

some time ago, i discovered two fairly large masses in my nostrils.
searching for information on the internet returned lots of websites that were talking about either nasal haematoma (see photo quiz of the aafp, pictures at meduweb) or haemangioma (e.g. blog post and corresponding picture).
it wasn’t likely to be a haematoma because that is usually caused by being hit on your nose (which i hadn’t been), and the “balloons” in these pictures originated in the septum, while mine seemed to originate on the opposite side.. i didn’t know about the tumours, though.

i was relieved to hear my ENT doctor tell me that i just had very large turbinates (or nasal conchae). turns out this is why my nose had been more or less constantly congested for several years.

in terms of treatment, i had two choices:
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on february 12 1809, a little boy named charles robert darwin was born in shrewsbury, england. he was to become one of the greatest naturalists and scientists in history.
in his book “on the origin of species by means of natural selection”, published in 1859, he expressed his theory of evolution¹, which would provide a scientific and logical explanation for the diversity of life on earth.

today is his 200th birthday, and the 150 year anniversary of that famous book that revolutionized the entire field of biology.

i’d like to take the opportunity to include a few quotes from the book:

it is a truly wonderful fact that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group, namely varieties of the same species most closely related together, (…) species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes and classes.

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here’s a comment that was recently submitted to one of my frogspawn time-lapse videos over at youtube:

“frogs are a good example of evolution seeing as it only take a month or 2 for them to grow”

ontogeny (the development of an individual organism) may be a glimpse into the evolutionary history of a species, but on the other hand, evolution has nothing to with one soft, translucent piece of frog spawn developing into a tadpole.
while evolution is a shift in genetic information during hundreds or thousands of generations, a tadpole growing legs is just part of its existing genetic programme.

i think if people actually knew what the theory of evolution is all about, there wouldn’t be half as much agitation against it.

ever since the 2008 nobel prize in chemistry went to a team of scientists who discovered and modified the green fluorescent protein (GFP), everybody seems to be interested in the crystal jelly (aequorea victoria) that produces it.
here are three pictures of aequorea victoria that i took in 2006:

please contact me if you are interested in using them.

last week, i took part in a practical class dealing with specific kinds of microscopy – namely confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
while we’re still waiting for the results of the second part, we’ve had plenty of time to play around with the CLSM.

here’s one of the numerous animations:

it shows part of a leaf of arabidopsis thaliana, that was genetically modified in a way that makes certain structure molecules within the cell walls visible.

to be more specific, the sequences of the green fluorescent protein (GFP, originally a gene of the crystal jellyfish, aequorea victoria) and a corresponding microtubule binding domain were inserted into the plant’s DNA, so that the cell walls would emit green light when exposed to light of a particular frequency (not all cells actually produced these molecules).
autofluorescense of chloroplasts is displayed in red.

using the CLSM, about 20 images were recorded at different levels of the leaf. these layers were then rendered in an animation that highlights its tridimensionality.

the image width equals 150 μm, that’s approx. 1/7th of a millimeter.

i’ve recently had the chance to see the ASIB: Algensammlung am Institut für Botanik der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck (algal collection of the institute of botany).
in the little laboratory room, there are some 1500 specimens of aeroterrestrical algae and cyanobacteria (cyanoprokaryotes) stored and cultivated. every strain is grown in its own little test tube, and the entire chamber is cooled down to 12 degrees celsius to slow down their metabolism and make them low-maintenance.
the oldest specimen was collected in 1920.

apart from the scientific importance of such collections, i was impressed with the beautiful array of algae in nearly every colour.
 

[view photos: algal collection of the institute of botany]