#temperature extremes

When correcting your pet, there are two ways to go about it. Kind and harsh punishment are two vastly different, but equally effective, methods of correcting your pet’s behavior. That is, if they are used properly.

Unkind punishments are your usual torture. Sarving, beating, waterboarding, freezing, and shocking your pet are examples of unkind punishments. These are used as a standalone correction, and the punishment is over when the torture is over. This type of punishment is meant to cause your pet to fear both you and making the same mistake twice.

Kind punishments can be used for every little mistake your pet makes. Kind punishments are meant to be as gentle as corner time, looking at their mistakes, fixing damage they’ve done, and telling them the effects of their misstep. This is meant to cause a sense of guilt so that the pet may torture themselves or slowly grow to hate themselves for how often they mess up. Make sure to be strict and harsh with what qualifies as a big enough misstep for a punishment for this to work properly.

It has also been requested of me to remove some lil bits of residual soap from the shower soap holder so that'll be... Fun... Especially in this weather/temperature 🥶

New genome reveals how Arctic microbes survive in cold extreme habitats

Scientists at the University of Bristol have revealed how a tiny Arctic microbe, crucial to shaping the surface of glaciers, survives in such extreme conditions.

For the first time, researchers at the Bristol Glaciology Centre sequenced the genome of Phormidesmis priestleyi, which belongs to the cyanobacteria, an ancient group of photosynthetic microorganisms capable of transforming energy from sunlight into sugars using carbon dioxide and water.

Their research was published in the open access journal BMC Genomics.

Lead author Nathan Chrismas a PhD student from the Bristol Glaciology Centre, said: "Many cold adapted organisms, or psychrophiles, have distinct signatures in their genomes related to how they are adapted to survival in the cold. By isolating and sequencing its genome of Phormidesmis priestleyi, we could look for distinctive signatures at the genome level. We found its genome is similar to related organisms from much warmer environments. This new genome suggests that Phormidesmis priestleyi mainly survives in cold environments by producing a special protective coating made from sugars."

Nathan A. M. Chrismas, Gary Barker, Alexandre M. Anesio, Patricia Sánchez-Baracaldo. Genomic mechanisms for cold tolerance and production of exopolysaccharides in the Arctic cyanobacterium Phormidesmis priestleyi BC1401. BMC Genomics, 2016; 17 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12864-016-2846-4

The Status of Cold Temperature Extremes for Antigua

Dale C. S. Destin |

Last week we had an extremely cold night (relative to our climate) and a few cool nights which led some persons to ask with “tongue-in-cheek” if we going to have snow. Are cold extremes becoming more or less frequent? What can we expect as our climate changes?

When I was growing up, I remember it was very common place to see our breaths (as mist) in the mornings, due to…