How do owls turn their heads around as much as 270 degrees? And what’s with their superpower hearing abilities? Emily Graslie, host of The Brain Scoop, shares the lowdown on these solitary, nocturnal creatures — sometimes feared by the superstitious, although also revered as wise and noble.
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Dung beetles do their dance at the ball. Language alert. H/T Ze Frank
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In nature, rare and endangered animals fight for their lives against poachers and predators. In publicly owned zoos, they face different but no-less lethal dangers: politics and budget woes. That problem will only get worse as local governments come to terms with decades of out-of-control spending and declining tax revenues.
For six years straight, notes Leonard Gilroy, the Reason Foundation’s director of government reform, cities have seen declines in overall revenues – and that situation isn’t expected to improve dramatically anytime soon. In such an environment, says Gilroy, city governments rightly focus on core activities such as law enforcement and infrastructure. Given that public zoos on average get 40 percent of their budgets from taxes, shrinking public dollars means reducing operating hours, deferring maintenance, raising ticket prices, cutting education programs, and laying off workers.
The best solution? Privatize the zoos by turning over most or all of their operations to nonprofits and other groups that generally have more interest, resources and expertise in caring for animals and drawing crowds.
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Yesterday we presented Part 1 of Vice’s special report on underground gambling in Afghanistan, focusing on dog fights. Today’s second part in the series examines an even more exotic form of gambling — quail fights at the Ka Faroshi bird market, where rival teams prep their fighting quails for the next morning’s match.
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It’s not the cockroach, but tardigrades, also known as water bears and moss piglets. These tiny creatures can withstand radiation, extreme temperatures and pressures greater than found in the deepest ocean trenches. They can survive without water or food for up to 10 years, and even have lived through the vacuum of Outer Space. Alex Dainis of Bite Sci-zed explains why she has a crush on the lowly tardigrade.
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The James Bond of the animal kingdom, the chameleon boasts Nature’s coolest spy toys, chief among them its rotating eyes and its sticky, darting tongue.
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What’s in a name? Quite a lot actually. Sally Le Page with Shed Science shares the stories behind six of the most interesting animal species names from the misconceptions around apes and monkeys to the downright bizarre Beyonce horsefly.
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For Valentine’s Day, Bite Sci-zed has dug up three short love stories from the animal kingdom.
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You could always be reincarnated as this dog, caught in the snow and locked in a Sisyphean vise — trying to hustle your favorite stick past a gate that just won’t give way no matter how often you approach it. H/T IMAO
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This feisty canine has received a new pair of boots and aims to show them off. H/T Pleated Jeans
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