Making Progress One Ass Landing At A Time

“this is way too sweet”

“they’re remaking that movie already????”

“my back hurts”

“wait, people get mad about that now?”

“I can’t eat that, its gone fuck my stomach up”

“hold on let me check my calendar first”

Off the scale - new species of gecko with tear-away skin

A new species of gecko which evades predators by shedding its massive scales has been discovered by scientists working in Madagascar. 

The species, named Geckolepis megalepis by the team of American German and Colombian researchers, is a type of fish gecko. 

It has the largest scales of any gecko and skin specially adapted for tearing away at the slightest touch. The scales can grow back without scarring in a few weeks. 

In fact, they are so adept at shedding scientists have had to use bundles of cotton wool to catch them in the past so they wouldn’t shed all their scales. 

And the ease with which their scales come away makes describing and identifying the species a ‘nightmare’ according to the researchers because the scale pattern is one of the main ways to tell species apart. 

In the end they decided to resort to using micro-CT scans to get a 3D picture of their skeletons, and were able to identify some skull features that establish these geckos as a new species. 

Read the paper

Glomerida sp.

Geneva Benton on inprnt and Tumblr

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For American science, the next four years look to be challenging. The newly inaugurated President Trump, and many of his Cabinet picks, have repeatedly cast doubt upon the reality of human-made climate change, questioned the repeatedly proven safety of vaccines. Since the inauguration, the administration has already frozen grants and contracts by the Environmental Protection Agency and gagged researchers at the US Department of Agriculture. Many scientists are asking themselves: What can I do?

And the answer from a newly formed group called 314 Action is: Get elected.

The organization, named after the first three digits of pi, is a political action committee that was created to support scientists in running for office. It’s the science version of Emily’s List, which focuses on pro-choice female candidates, or VoteVets, which backs war veterans. “A lot of scientists traditionally feel that science is above politics but we’re seeing that politics is not above getting involved in science,” says founder Shaughnessy Naughton. 

“We’re losing, and the only way to stop that is to get more people with scientific backgrounds at the table.”

https://twitter.com/AltNatParkSer/status/824070855206600710 

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/upload/ClimateChange_01-05_DigitalPrelim.pdf

https://twitter.com/AltNatParkSer/status/824081620240056321