Archives For wildlife

Cute and Colorful Frog Images

Nae's Nest —  June 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

 

Giant Monkey Frog

Giant Monkey FrogCredit: © Dave Northcott, Clyde Peeling’s ReptilandGiant monkey frogs are found in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon. Males call from high above the ground and descend to branches just above ponds to mate. The call is a loud “cluck” followed by several short, lower-pitched notes.

  • Blue Dart Poison Frog

    Blue Dart Poison FrogCredit: © T. Grant/AMNHBlue dart poison frogs grow to approximately one inch in length. They are active during the day and can be found hiding among boulders and debris near streams; however, they lack toe webbing and are poor swimmers, so they are rarely found in the water.

American BullfrogCredit: © Joe McDonald, Clyde Peeling’s ReptilandMore than a century ago, American bullfrogs were introduced into the western United States in the hope that they could be farmed for food. Although the farming efforts failed, the bullfrog adapted to man-made ponds and waterways and is now a threat to native species of fish, snakes, birds, and other frogs—some of them endangered.

Borneo Eared Frog

Borneo Eared FrogCredit: © Joe McDonald, Clyde Peeling’s ReptilandBorneo eared frogs are indigenous to Borneo,Sumatra, and other Indonesian islands. Females lay eggs in foam nests attached to branches overhanging the water. They create the nests by beating a frothy secretion into foam with their hind legs

Bumblebee Dart Poison Frog

Tanya Lewis, LiveScience Staff Writer
Bumblebee Dart Poison FrogCredit: © T. Grant/AMNHA new exhibit featuring live frogs from all over the world is opening at the American Museum of Natural History in New York Saturday (May 17) and runs through January 5, 2014. The exhibition, entitled “Frogs: A Chorus of Colors,” contains more than 150 live frogs from about 25 species. Above: Bumblebee dart poison frogs are also known as yellow-banded poison frogs. Their bright colors serve as warning labels forpredators, distinguishing them as a poisonous meal.

Some of nature’s most fascinating fathers may be at risk of extinction.

Male Darwin’s frogs swallow their offspring in the tadpole stage, incubate their young in their vocal sacs, and eventually spit out fully developed froglets. Along with seahorses, the frogs are thought to be the only known living vertebrates in which dads take on baby-carrying duties with special sacs that make them look pregnant.

But new research shows that these unique creatures may be vanishing as their habitats in Chile’s temperate forests are destroyed

Charles Darwin first discovered the frogs while traveling in Chile in 1834. Scientists who later studied the mouth-brooding animals found that there are actually two species, naming one Rhinoderma darwinii (Darwin’s frog) and the other Rhinoderma rufum (Chile Darwin’s frog).

From 2008 to 2012, a team of researchers led by zoologist Claudio Soto-Azat surveyed 223 sites in the frogs’ historical range, from the coastal city of Valparaíso south to an area just beyond Chiloé Island. R. rufum has not been seen in the wild since 1980, and despite the recent extensive search effort across every recorded location of the species, no individuals were seen or heard during the four-year survey, the researchers said. R. darwinii, meanwhile, was found in 36 sites, but only in fragmented and small populations, each with likely less than 100 individuals.

The findings suggest Darwin’s frogs have disappeared from, or at least rapidly declined in, many locations where they were recently abundant, the researchers wrote in a paper published online June 12 in the journal PLOS ONE. Habitat loss and fragmentation may be the culprits.

Changing forests

Native forests are being rapidly destroyed in Chile to make way for pine and eucalypt plantations, which supply the wood and paper industry. These landscape changes can have drastic effects on air temperature, wind speed, soil erosion and humidity, researchers say. And Darwin’s frogs don’t seem to be adapting; the survey showed that the remaining populations were clinging to their shrinking native forests.

The researchers recommended that Darwin’s frogs be listed as endangered by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The species is currently listed as vulnerable. Chile Darwin’s frogs, meanwhile, should get a “possibly extinct” tag, the researchers said.

Other factors could be contributing to the decline of Darwin’s frog. Their populations have taken a hit from volcanic eruptions in the southern Andes, the researchers say. What’s more the African clawed frog was introduced to Chile in the 1970s. That species has been associated with the deadly fungal infection chytridiomycosis, which has wiped out amphibian species across the globe. It’s not clear if Darwin’s frogs have been affected by the fungus in the wild, but the researchers say it’s worth investigating.

Extinct Aussie cousins

Gastric brooding frogs come in two species: Rheobatrachus vitellinus and R. silus (pictured above and last seen in 1985). These frogs had a unique mode of reproduction: The female swallowed fertilized eggs, turned its stomach into a uterus and gave birth to froglets through the mouth. Timber harvesting and the chytrid fungus are the main suspects behind their extinction.
CREDIT: Mike Taylor/Conservation International

Darwin’s frogs once had a close analog in eastern Australia, known as gastric brooding frogs. Female gastric brooding frogs swallowed their fertilized eggs, transformed their stomach into a uterus and gave birth to their sons and daughters through the mouth. There were only two known species and both went extinct by the mid-1980s, likely due to timber harvesting and the chytrid fungus.

“Their phenomenal reproductive strategy disappeared over twenty years ago with the extinction of both species and may never evolve again,” the authors of the new study wrote.

While that amazing ability may never evolve again, one group of scientists thinks it could be resurrected.

Earlier this year, scientists from the University of New South Wales announced that they had created early-stage embryos of gastric brooding frogs that were already forming hundreds of cells. The team said they used cloning methods to implant the DNA-storing nuclei of preserved gastric brooding frog cells in the eggs of Australian marsh frog eggs.

Amphibians are on the decline worldwide. Besides being at risk of deadly fungal infections, frogs, salamanders and their relatives are more vulnerable to environmental changesbecause they have permeable skin and a complex water-and-land life cycle. In a recent report on the sharp decline of the creatures in the United States, researchers found that amphibians have been disappearing from their habits at a rate of 3.7 percent each year.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

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Zombie Plants

Nae's Nest —  June 11, 2013 — Leave a comment

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BY AMINA KHAN

Frozen zombie plants from Little Ice Age revived after 400 years

 

Given the short half-life of DNA, we may never have a Jurassic Park – but could we one day boast of an Ice Age Garden?

Scientists have brought back to life a collection of roughly 400-year-old frozen plants recovered from melting glaciers in the Canadian Arctic. The feat, described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that certain plants might be much tougher than previously thought, able to regenerate after centuries under ice.

“Their structural preservation is exceptional,” the study authors wrote.

The plants were dug out from Sverdrup Pass, where the Teardrop Glacier has been melting at faster and faster rates – from 3.2 meters per year between 2004 and 2007, up to 4.1 meters from 2007 to 2009. Both of these are roughly double earlier calculated rates from just a few decades ago. The melt has been exposing long-frozen Arctic plants, whose blackened and discolored remains were long considered dead.

But researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who were collecting these dried-out plants for study began to notice something strange: Some of their samples were sprouting new growth – little green branches and stem buds – straight out of the supposedly dead material.

At first, this seemed unlikely – after all, these plants had been entombed since the Little Ice Age, a frigid 300-year period between AD 1550 and 1850. So the researchers dug up a sample of various bryophytes – hardy plants, including mosses, that lack the vascular tissue that other plants use to transport fluids around the body. Based on radiocarbon dating, their samples ranged in age from roughly 400 to 600 years old.

This is not the first time apparently dead plants have been brought back to life – Russian scientists recentlyrevived a 30,000-year-old Ice Age plant known as Silene stenophylla and even coaxed it into flowering.

But that effort  was a complicated process, which involved extracting placental tissue out of seeds, cloning it, and then growing it on a special bed of nutrients to stimulate the growth of shoots, the authors pointed out. For the current finding, the researchers essentially ground up stems of leaves of their hardy plants and sowed them into potting soil or another growth medium.

“Our contribution demonstrates that bryophytes buried in ice 400 years ago can remain dormant and provide an unrecognized pathway for recolonization of deglaciated terrains (recent and ancient),” the authors wrote.

Follow me on Twitter @aminawrite.

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Article: Did Humans Really Eat Neanderthals? Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor

Nae's Nest —  June 5, 2013 — Leave a comment

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Written by: Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor

No clear evidence suggests modern humans ate Neanderthals, much less that they did so enough to drive Neanderthals to extinction, despite recent claims from scientists in Spain.

Neanderthals were once the closest living relatives of modern humans, ranging across a vast area from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East. Their lineage went extinct about the same time modern humans expanded across the world, leading to speculation that modern humans wiped them out.

Scientists Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro and Policarp Hortolà at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain, noted the migration of modern humans across the globe may have played a role in the extinction of more than 178 of the world’s largest mammal species or megafauna, such as woolly mammoths.Homo sapiens can essentially be considered “a worldwide pest species,” they write in the May 8 issue of the journal Quaternary International. “No other species has ever developed such a killing potential.”

No evidence  Humans today also hunt and eat chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, humans’ closest remaining living relatives, the researchers noted. As such, they suggest ancient modern humans may have killed and even devoured Neanderthals to extinction to get rid of competition. There is also fossil evidence that Neanderthals at times cannibalized other Neanderthals and ancient modern humans sometimes ate other ancient modern humans, they added.

However, there is no clear evidence that ancient modern humans ever ate Neanderthals, they noted. For instance, scientists have not discovered Neanderthal bones with cut marks on them from ancient modern human stone tools.

There is even very little evidence there was any violence between ancient modern humans and Neanderthals, “and the two or three possible examples there are are controversial and can be interpreted different ways,” paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London, who did not take part in this study, told LiveScience. “I would not say this has been one of the mainstream arguments for why Neanderthals died out.”

For instance, in Shanidar Cave in Iraq, “there’s a rib wound that’s suggested to be from a spear that came from above, and spear-throwing appears to be an advance linked with modern humans,” Stringer said. “The problem is, we don’t know if there were any modern humans in the vicinity at the time, so that could’ve been produced by another Neanderthal, perhaps one standing over and thrusting downward against a victim who is on the ground.”

Human-Neanderthal contact?

Moreover, there is growing doubt there was ever much overlap between ancient modern humans and Neanderthals. For instance, recent findings suggest Neanderthals in Europe died out thousands of years earlier than before thought, perhaps never crossing paths with modern humans there.

“Even if Neanderthals and modern humans overlapped in terms of territory, they may not have contacted each other that much,” Stringer said. “When modern humans came out of Africa, they did so in quite small groups, and they were spread out.”

Recent genetic evidence suggests there was some interbreeding between ancient modern humans and Neanderthals, confirming there was at least some contact. “However, while such interactions could’ve been violent encounters, they could also have been peaceful as well,” Stringer said. “We don’t know for sure.” [Fight, Fight, Fight: The History of Human Aggression]

When ancient modern humans encountered Neanderthals, “it may have been near the end of their time,” Stringer said. “They were rather thin on the ground by then — the level of genetic diversity we see in Neanderthals suggests their population size from Spain to Siberia was at most 20,000 people, which by modern standards would make them an endangered species, really.”

“In my view of the Neanderthal disappearance, we don’t need to invoke violent causes for their demise,” Stringer said. “There are already two main factors they had to contend with.”

The first factor is very rapid climate change.

“Most of the north Atlantic was switching from bitterly cold to nearly as warm as the present day every few thousand years, sometimes in less than a decade, and so Neanderthals had to deal with an extremely unstable climate in western Europe before modern humans arrived there,” Stringer said.

Second, Neanderthals had to compete for resources with modern humans.

“Modern humans were hunting the same animals and wanting to live in the best real estate. You don’t have to kill off other species intentionally — just take over their environments, take away their food, and they die without lethal warfare.”

There might have been some violent encounters between ancient modern human and Neanderthal groups, or within those groups — “that’s human nature, and has happened throughout history,” Stringer added. “But the evidence is pretty thin that violence was a major mechanism for their disappearance.”

Find out more about this article and others at: http://www.livescience.com/37130-did-humans-eat-neanderthals.html?cmpid=527235

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6 Extinct Animals That Could Be Brought Back to Life by LiveScience Staff

Nae's Nest —  June 5, 2013 — Leave a comment

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/037/827/i02/mammoth-head.jpg

Woolly mammothCredit: A. TikhonovThere are some extinct species — such as the woolly mammoth, shown above — that may be brought back to life if scientists can overcome some practical hurdles and thorny ethical questions. This gallery shows six of the species that researchers talked about reviving at a March 2013 forum called TEDxDeExtinction in Washington, D.C.

Woolly mammoth Credit: Photo by Jonathan S. Blair/National Geographic

This photo shows a museum worker inspecting a replica of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), a relative of modern elephants that went extinct 3,000 to 10,000 years ago. Scientists in Russia and South Korea have embarked on an ambitious project to try to create a living specimen using the DNA-storing nucleus of a preserved mammoth cell and an Asian elephant egg.

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Tasmanian tigerCredit: Photo courtesy of The Tasmanian National Museum and Art GalleryThylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, were found throughout most of the Australian island of Tasmania before Europeans settled there in 1803.

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Tasmanian tigerCredit: Photo by Robb Kendrick/National GeographicStarting at the end of the 19th century, the Tasmanian government paid bounties for thylacine carcasses, as the animals were believed to prey on farmers’ sheep and poultry. The marsupials were hunted to extinction by the 1930s. The last known individual died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936. This photo shows a taxidermic specimen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York

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Passenger pigeonCredit: Photo by Robb Kendrick/National GeographicPassenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) once blanketed the skies of eastern North America, but hunting and deforestation brought them to extinction 100 years ago. Martha, the last one, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/037/817/i02/gastric-brooding-frog.jpg

Gastric brooding frogsCredit: Mike Taylor/Conservation InternationalGastric brooding frogs come in two species: Rheobatrachus vitellinus and R. silus (pictured above and last seen in 1985). These frogs had a unique mode of reproduction: The female swallowed fertilized eggs, turned its stomach into a uterus and gave birth to froglets through the mouth. Timber harvesting and the chytrid fungus are the main suspects behind their extinction.

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/037/828/i02/carolina-parakeet.jpg

Carolina parakeetCredit: Jonathan S. Blair/National GeographicThe Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was the only native species of parrot in the eastern United States, having ranged from southern New York to the Gulf of Mexico, and as far west as Wisconsin. The birds went extinct in the early 20th century.

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Saber-toothed catCredit: Body puppet, George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los AngelesSaber-toothed cats (Smilodon fatalis) were lion-size ambush predators, best known for their long canine teeth. The cats went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch some 11,000 years ago. This saber-toothed cat replica is a creation of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop

 

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De-extinctionCredit: National GeographicNational Geographic magazine covers de-extinction in its April 2013 issue. The National Geographic Society also hosted a forum on the subject, TEDxDeExtinction, in Washington, D.C., on March 15.

 

 

 

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InnerSelf

Nae's Nest —  May 31, 2013 — 8 Comments

http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/nautilus.html

Without you on my side, how can I make it?  What do I do when those I love have given up? They are the ones whom I draw my strength on.  My burden in on overload. I draw too much.  I am breaking them down as they struggle to hold me up.  Over four years back and forth the war rages.  Exhausting us all.  We have  traveled  the stages – skipping 1, hitting two, leaped over 3,  dead-stop  #4.

 please don’t give up on me.

4 is the final stop. The new number for bad luck. A miracle can save, treatment extends life.

 please don’t give up on me.

I see hope slipping away from family and friends. No longer able to hide behind the mask. I see the color drain from their faces, even when my eyes close.  It grows more difficult  to hold onto the positive. When many around me are shattered, my diagnosis such a blow. I am truly placing my body into healing hands, words, thoughts  ointments  and prayers. When I feel  pulled  down and depressed I  look  for a reason to lift myself out.

 please don’t give up on me.

I look toward my faith, my  spirituality, my soul.  I am reaching within my essence, the core of my being. I meet myself for the first time. My  reflection  shines in my inner pool.  The pool is infected, but I am still there.  I find life and happiness. Memories, some good – some bad.  I see a good loving life. A good heart. Full of love. Grace, sensitivity and life.

Please don’t give up on me.

I am saddened for causing such grief to others. This hurts as  much as my outward pain. Pain both inside and out. The physical and emotional.

Please don’t give up on me

I reach inside my pool of life. I form words while I destroy cells. Pop,pop, pop like packaging bubbles.  Busting bad cells finding myself, my being, my words. God I pray my words bring strength back into all of those eyes which are upon me.

Please don’t give up on me

I hold onto happiness, onto my inner self tight.  I clasp the hands of God.  I will be saved, I will survive.  Whether my feet will continue to walk this path, or whether they crossover into a land I’ve only imagined, I will be OK. I will find happiness again.  I will be  awaiting  for you.  I will unite with those waiting for me.

Please don’t give up on me. 

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Spirits and Psalms

Nae's Nest —  May 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljxfxnKNd51qacpzzo1_1280.png

 

There is a Flame in the woods

The wolf struggles to see

He must find the fire

He must save the trees

*

He once guarded the Flame

She was wild and free

She sang with the wind

She danced with the trees

Her Flames told of dreams

The wolf could make come true

The Flame was his lover

His heart she consumed

*

One night he awoke

His Flame was gone

The wind whispered in his ear

“She was taken by Kahn”

*

Kahn was a Cancer

From planet Disease

He would slip through the gateway

Bringing the strong, to their knees

*

Wolf’s heart was breaking

As the news sank in

His Flame lost forever

He feared Kahn would win

For  there would be war

Flame must be found

The land was at stake

Kahn would take more ground

Never happy with one flame

Kahn would want more

Using her to burn the forest

Every grove he’d explore

Wolf called up the pack

He called in the herds

He gathered all the troops

Even imploring the birds

We stand united

Together as one source

We can destroy Cancer

Using natural force

The Herbs lead the way

Followed by Spice

Candles were lit

Prayers were said twice

Miracles and blessings

Magical chants

Healers and crystals

Shamans who dance

They followed the smoke

Of Flame’s palms

Cancer was called out

With Spirits and Psalms

Kahn backed up

Having no choice

Unable to beat

This natural force

It was a hard fight

It was a long battle

Kahn finally let go

Turned tail and saddle

In his haste

Kahn dropped Flame

Wolf carefully caught her

Before the woods inflamed

*

Saved by the land

Wolf’s heart again warm

His Flame returned home

Defeated Cancer by their storm

Renee Robinson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Animals In Space, Then & Now

Nae's Nest —  May 24, 2013 — 2 Comments

This image shows scientific equipment for studying mice, BIOS MLZH 01, to be flown on the Bion-M1 mission. CREDIT: Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences

 

A Russian space capsule carrying lizards, mice, gerbils, fish and other creatures has safely returned to Earth, but not all of its animal passengers survived the month-long spaceflight, according to news reports.

The Bion-M1 space capsule launched into space on April 19 atop a Russian-built Soyuz 2 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On Sunday (May 19) the capsule came back to Earth, guided with the help of a parachute system to the ground in Russia’s Orenburg region. It is the longest animal astronaut mission of its kind.

The Bion-M1 space capsule, which will carry animals into space in April 2013, is seen during mission preparations at its Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan.
CREDIT: Russian Federal Space Agency
View full size image

Space officials reportedly discovered that more than half of the 45 mice aboard the spacecraft died during the flight, the AFP reported. All eight Mongolian gerbils and many of the other critters also did not survive, but all 15 geckos did survive, the news service reported. [See photos of the Bion-M1 space animals mission]

According to Russian scientists, some losses were to be expected during the flight, and the mission still promises to yield valuable data from experiments on how space travel affects living things. The capsule spent 30 days orbiting 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth. Scientists planned to humanely euthanize the animals after their return to Earth in order to complete the experiments.

A Russian Soyuz rocket soars toward orbit carrying the Bion-M1 animal-carrying space capsule on April 19, 2013 after a smooth launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
CREDIT: TsENKI

Animals have been launched into orbit in the past. In the early days of spaceflight, both the United States and the Soviet Union launched animals to space to test the safety of launching humans into orbit

But the Bion-M1 mission marks longest experiment of its kind.

“This is the first time that animals have been put in space on their own for so long,” Vladimir Sychov of the Russian Academy of Sciences was quoted as saying by AFP in announcing the capsule’s return. Sychov added that “less than half of the mice made it — but that was to be expected.”

The project was run by Russia’s Federal Space Agency, also called Roscosmos, but an international team of scientists was overseeing the mission’s experiments. It was the first Russian space mission to launch animals into orbit in 17 years. Prior to Bion-M1, the most recent animal space mission for Russia was a Bion flight that sent rhesus monkeys, geckos and amphibians into orbit for 15 days in 1996.

Geckos will fly on the Russian Bion M1 space mission for the purposes of biological research.
CREDIT: Roscosmos
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Nicole Rayl, project manager for NASA’s portion of the Bion-M1 animal astronaut mission, told SPACE.com in April that the flight would be important because of its duration and because it would allow scientists to analyze data with tools that weren’t available to them during previous similar missions.

Scientists had prepared a battery of experiments designed to test how space travel would affect the bodies of the animals. One of the NASA experiments was aimed at studying how microgravity and radiation would impact sperm motility in mice. With eye toward long, interplanetary missions, Rayl said that test would be important to help determine if humans can procreate from sex in space.

According to the Associated Press, the animals were to be flown to Moscow after landing to undergo a series of tests at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, where Sychov is deputy director.

Animals have been launched into orbit in the past. In the early days of spaceflight, both the United States and the Soviet Union launched animals to space to test the safety of launching humans into orbit.

In the early days of rocket science, no one knew what the effects of weightlessness would be. Animals — mainly dogs, monkeys and chimps — were used to test the safety and feasibility of launching a living being into space and bringing it back unharmed.

Since then, animals have continued to play an important role in understanding the impact of microgravity on many biological functions. Astronauts have studied all kinds of animals — wasps, beetles, tortoises, flies, worms, fish, spiders, rabbits, bees, ants, frogs, mice, crickets, rats, newts, snails, urchins, moths, brine shrimp, jellyfish, guinea pigs, butterflies, scorpions and cockroaches.

Sputnik and Muttnik
Laika was a young, mostly-Siberian husky. She was rescued from the streets of Moscow. Soviet scientists assumed that a stray dog would have already learned to endure harsh conditions of hunger and cold temperatures. Laika and two other dogs were trained for space travel by being kept in small cages and learning to eat a nutritious gel that would be their food in space.

The dog’s name was originally Kudryavka, or Little Curly, but she became known internationally as Laika, a Russian word for several breeds of dog similar to a husky. American reporters dubbed her Muttnik as a pun on Sputnik.

Unfortunately, Laika’s trip into space was one-way only. A re-entry strategy could not be worked out in time for the launch. It is unknown exactly how long Laika lived in orbit — perhaps a few hours or a few days — until the power to her life-support system gave out. Sputnik 2 burned up in the upper atmosphere in April 1958.

The first animal astronauts
Although there is no distinct boundary between the atmosphere and space, an imaginary line about 68 miles (110 kilometers) from the surface, called the Karman line, is usually where scientists say Earth’s atmosphere meets outer space.

The first animals to reach space — not counting any bacteria that may have hitched a ride on previous rockets — were fruit flies. On Feb. 20, 1947, the United States put fruit flies aboard captured German V-2 rockets to study radiation exposure at high altitudes. In 3 minutes and 10 seconds, the fruit flies reached a distance of 68 miles.

The first mammal in space was Albert II, a Rhesus monkey. Albert I’s mission had been unsuccessful, but the second Albert reached a distance of 83 miles on June 14, 1949. Albert was anesthetized during flight and implanted with sensors to measure his vital signs. Unfortunately, Albert II died upon impact at re-entry.

While the United States was experimenting with monkeys, the Soviet Union was experimenting with dogs. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union had slots for at least 57 dogs. However, because some dogs flew more than once, fewer than 57 actually participated.

The first dogs launched, Tsygan and Dezik, were aboard the R-1 IIIA-1. The dogs reached space on July 22, 1951, but did not orbit. They were the first mammals successfully recovered from spaceflight.

After Laika, the Soviet Union sent two more dogs, Belka and Strelka, into space on Aug. 19, 1960. The animals were the first to actually orbit and return alive.

Ham the chimpanzee after his successful suborbital spaceflight of Jan. 31, 1961.
CREDIT: NASA
View full size image

Other members of the first space menagerie include:
Gordo, a squirrel monkey, launched 600 miles high on Dec. 13, 1958. He died on splashdown when a flotation device failed.
Able, a Rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, were launched together on May 28, 1959. They flew 300 miles high and returned unharmed. However, Able died during an operation to remove an electrode from under her skin. Baker lived until 1984, dying of kidney failure at age 27.
Ham, a chimpanzee trained to perform tasks during spaceflight. Ham, named after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, became a celebrity after his flight on Jan. 31, 1961. Ham learned to pull levers to receive banana pellets and avoid electric shocks. He successfully became the first animal to actually interact with a space vessel rather than simply ride in it.
On Oct. 18, 1963, French scientists launched the first cat into space. Felix was successfully retrieved after a parachute descent.
Two Russian dogs, Veterok and Ugolyok were launched into space on Feb. 22, 1966. They orbited for a record-breaking 22 days. Humans did not surpass the record until 1974.

Animals in other space research
Although the early animal astronauts achieved great fame, many other animals have quietly contributed to the body of scientific knowledge about life in space. As humans have grown more accustomed to space travel, fewer animals make the front-page news. Still, their contribution are important.

Some animals have been sent up as part of experiments designed by students, others by NASA and other countries. By 2004, the space shuttle program had flown over two dozen SpaceLab experimental packages. Nearly all of the experiments were designed with one main purpose in mind: to study the effects of microgravity on the biological functions of earth creatures.

Some of the biological functions that have been studied are (to name just a few): brain states, behavioral performance, cardiovascular status, fluid and electrolyte balance, metabolic state, tissue development, and mating in zero gravity.

Here are some examples of specific experiments:
Nov. 9, 1970: Two bullfrogs were launched on a one-way mission to learn more about space motion sickness.  Some water bears eat microscopic animals, while others consume algae.
CREDIT: Daiki Horikawa, NASA Ames
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July 28, 1973: Two garden spiders named Arabella and Anita were used to study how orbiting earth would impact spiders’ ability to spin webs. Arabella spun a fairly symmetric web even though the thread thickness varied — something that earthbound spiders don’t experience.

July 10, 1985: Ten newts flew on board the Bion 7. Their front limbs were amputated in order to study regeneration in space to better understand how humans might recover from space injuries.

April 17, 1998: More than 2,000 creatures joined in 16 days of neurological testing alongside the seven-member human crew of the shuttle Columbia.

September 2007: Microscopic creatures commonly known as water bears (tardigrades) survived a 10-day exposure to open space. The creatures are known to have the ability to withstand extreme conditions, including dehydration, and still recover and reproduce. The animals were dried out and re-hydrated after surviving cosmic rays, a near vacuum, and freezing temperatures.

— Elizabeth Dohrer, SPACE.com Contributor

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Secret Life of Plants

Nae's Nest —  May 22, 2013 — 2 Comments

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By James F. Coyle, Author of Beyond Belief: The Ultimate Mindpower Instructional Manual

In 1966 a very strange event occurred. Cleve Backster, America’s top polygraph (lie detector) expert was working late in his New York office. His secretary had installed a Dragon pot plant to brighten the office.

Backster noticed that the plant needed water, and on impulse attached the leads of a lie detector to one of the leaves. The lie detector measures skin resistance and Backster knew that it would indicate when water reached the actual leaf. He poured water over the root system and waited to see how long before this moisture reached the leaves.

Nothing happened. In fact after a while the instrument appeared to indicate less moisture in the leaf. The pen-tracing equipment attached to the lie detector was trending downwards with a fair amount of “saw tooth” motion.

Backster was puzzled as this was exactly the same response expected from a human being experiencing an emotional stimulus of short duration. He wondered if the plant could be displaying emotion.

Backster knew from long experience that the best way to make a polygraph needle “jump” was to threaten the subjects well-being so he dunked the plant leaf in his hot coffee. There was no reaction. He thought about this for a couple of minutes then conceived a worse threat. (He used to work for the CIA). He would light a match and burn the leaf. The instant he conceived this thought something dramatic happened – something that has had far reaching scientific implications all over the world…

…THE POLYGRAPH REACTED VIOLENTLY!

The pen-traced graph moved off its centerline into a pronounced upward curve.
Backster was staggered. He was some distance from the plant and he wondered if it could possibly have been reading his thoughts.

As later events will prove… IT WAS!

This was the start of an incredible reaction from the scientific community. And the interesting fact is that thousands of people have been able to duplicate this experiment. All you need is a “Wheatstone Bridge” circuit and a sensitive multimeter which any competent electronics enthusiast can easily assemble. With this simple equipment you can carry out your own experiments.

Backster initially wondered if his equipment was faulty but thorough tests over the following weeks eliminated this as a coincidental effect.

Backster discovered a further vital fact. When he only “pretended” to burn the leaf there was no reaction. In other words the emotion and intent had to be genuine.

Backster advised associates around the country as to what he had discovered and they were able to replicate his results which proved that it was not a “one off” effect between Backster and his plant and quelled the skeptics who claimed he had faulty equipment.

That was the start of an amazing series of experiments on different types of plants, fruits and vegetables such as bananas, oranges and onions.
Backster named this strange new effect – Primary Perception.

At this point Backster realized he was on to something with enormous potential so he converted his offices into a full scale scientific laboratory.

Over the following months all sorts of plant matter was tested. In one instance a plant leaf was totally shredded but when reattached to the electrodes it still exhibited the same response.

It was discovered accidentally that the plants also reacted to unexpected stimuli such as the sudden appearance of a dog in the room or a person who did not like plants.

It was also found that the plants reacted to the attempts of a spider attempting to escape from the close proximity of humans which it perceived as a threat. The plant reacted JUST BEFORE the spider made any movement – that is, it picked up the spiders intentions.

Backster concluded that while plants may be in “tune” with each other they are more in tune with animal life which is mobile and may present a threat.

Another interesting observation was that when a plant was seriously threatened it tended to “pass out” from “emotional” overload. The plant appears to go into a “deep faint” for a while and then recovers. Backster discovered this while he was demonstrating his effect to a group of visiting scientists. The plants simply would not respond on this occasion and it was discovered that one of the scientists in the group roasted plants in an oven to get their dry weight for experiments.
Forty five minutes after this person left the building the plants came back to normal. This “fainting” effect has been replicated on many occasions.

A skeptical reporter was invited by Backster to assist in an experiment to see if a philodendron could “read his mind”. The idea was to find the reporters year of birth by naming each of the 7 years between 1925 and 1931. The reporter was instructed to answer “no” to each question. Each year was read out and the plant responded strongly (via the polygraph) when the reporter answered no to the correct date. The resultant article created so much impact that it eventually appeared in the Readers Digest. Further tests indicated that plants could reliably indicate when a person was telling a lie, however this is fraught with legal dangers as the plant could easily be sabotaged by the subject mentally picturing the plant being burnt.

In another experiment a group of Backster’s students drew a folded slip of paper out of a hat. The instructions on one of the slips told its bearer to totally destroy one of two plants placed in the laboratory. This was to be done in secret at some point during the day, without anyone else knowing. The surviving plant was attached to the polygraph and the students were paraded past it. When the culprit approached the plant reacted strongly, positively identifying the “murderer”. The conclusion was that the plant could remember and identify the person who destroyed a sister plant.

Backster also noted that a bond appeared to develop between a plant and its owner. He used a synchronized stopwatch while he was making a trip out of town to New Jersey. The moment he made a conscious decision to return to his lab he triggered the stopwatch. When he returned he noted from the polygraph recording equipment that the plant had given a response at that critical instant he had pressed the stopwatch.

After years of testing Backster concluded that if a person genuinely liked a plant it would respond to him or her which might explain why some people have “green fingers” and others don’t. It appeared that a communication “bond” developed which was totally unaffected by distance and there is now considerable evidence that this communication is not limited to the speed of light (as radio waves are) but is instantaneous.

Obviously segments of the scientific community are wondering if this could be used for deep-space communication where a radio signal takes years to reach us, even traveling at the speed of light. Even the signals from our deep space probes out beyond Mars can take hours to reach us and we haven’t really started serious space probes yet! In a speech Backster made to the American Congress he indicated that it might be possible to modulate (overlay information) on signals between plant and human life.

His further experiments indicated that once a plant is “linked” to a particular person it seems to be able to maintain that link, no matter where that person is or how big a crowd of other people they are in.

Tests were carried out with the plant in a Faraday cage and a lead container. Both block out radio waves. The communication still went thru unchecked. Backster concluded that this primary perception was outside the usual electromagnetic spectrum.

On one occasion Backster cut his finger and as he applied iodine to the wound the polygraph attached to his plant reacted. It also reacted when somebody poured boiling water down the sink. After months of tests it was concluded that the plants were sensitive to the destruction of living cells and the bacteria in the sink plug-hole. This lead to lengthy experiments on single cells and simple cell structures including scrapings from a human mouth. When these scrapings were centrifuged and attached via fine gold electrodes to a polygraph it was found that they reacted to the emotions of their human donor – even when he was miles away! That is, human cells react in the same way that plants do!

This was quite an astounding finding because it explained for the first time how a persons emotions and thoughts might affect the individual body cells – and hence the functions and health of that body! In fact there is some doubt as to whether our body cells are individually controlled from the brain by electro-chemical impulses – it is considered a possibility that the cells receive “operating instructions” via this “primary perception” in a manner not yet understood. Which might explain why people who “know” that they don’t catch colds… don’t! And people who “know” that they are always sick… are!

In a well thought out scientific experiment, designed to quell the skeptics, Backster and his staff designed an automated device that dumped live, healthy Brine Shrimp into boiling water. At the instant the shrimp died in this boiling water, the three monitored plants reacted. The Brine were dumped automatically at random intervals so there was no human interference with the process. Light and temperature conditions were strictly controlled and a fourth polygraph (with a fixed value resistor in place of a plant leaf) was used as a control, to indicate possible fluctuations in power supplies or electromagnetic fields.

Backster’s 1968 report in the International Journal of Parapsychology drew more than 7000 queries from scientists around the world, wanting more information. Most of the news media ignored Backster’s work until the February 1969 edition of National Wildlife featured a story about this strange new effect.

This attracted worldwide attention and everywhere housewives started talking to their plants!

Another event led Backster onto a different path. One evening he was about to feed a raw egg to his dog. He cracked the egg in preparation and as he did this noticed that one of his plant/polygraph mechanisms reacted quite violently. He decided to attach a store-bought raw egg to his equipment and his chart recorder indicated that it was pulsing with the same rhythms as a chicken embryo, with a frequency between 160 and 170 beats per minute. However the egg was unfertilized and when it was broken open there was absolutely no sign of a circulatory system. Backster appeared to have discovered the same force which has been noticed in Kirlian Photography.

After some years of experimenting Backster’s work indicated that when connected to polygraph equipment plants register pleasure, fear and relief. They respond to the threatening intentions of other life forms that they are attuned to. This is where the term PRIMARY PERCEPTION evolved in relation to the apparent interconnectedness between organic and other living matter.

Furthermore it has now been firmly established that human cells respond in the same manner to various emotions displayed by their “host’ body, even when these cells are miles from their “host”. Human brain neurons (made up of cells) share a common consciousness with other human brain neurons via this “primary perception” which would explain why mind-to-mind contact in the form of Subjective Communication works so well. Rupert Sheldrake calls this a morphogenic field.

There appears to be a common life-force here which has yet to be identified and explained. We have discovered it, but we don’t know what it is or how to use it….yet! It is like the discovery of electricity and magnetic fields. We were able to manipulate and use them in the 19th century but didn’t even come close to understanding them until well into the 20th century. And 18th century people knew about them in the form of static electricity and lodestones. (Natural magnetic rock). So it has taken around 200 years to get magnetism and electricity up and running properly.

It is likely to take a lot less time than this to commercially utilize primary perception because of the scientific protocols and equipment available. The speed of progress will be restricted only by the same human restrictions evident in the 18th and 19th century ….. “closed minds”. It has been suggested that primary perception is a universal communication handshake in the same manner that gravity is a universal force field handshake.

The main problem with this primary perception business is that it only appears to work if the intent is genuine. It seems to be linked to survival and doesn’t respond to play acting. Genuine skeptics also have a lot of trouble getting a response. In fact this applies to virtually all mind-power forces – if you believe in it …. it works!

The big problem with the investigation of primary perception is that it seems to work only when genuine emotional intent is involved or when there is a question of survival in living organisms. Scientists are having a hard time with it because results are not uniform and sometimes not even capable of being replicated. All other forces known to science can be reliably measured in any laboratory anywhere, which has the right equipment. Not so with the Backster Effect. So mainstream science understandably finds it hard to deal with.

If a scientist sets up a Backster style experiment in his laboratory and gets it running perfectly …. and then demonstrates it to a group of his fellow scientists only to find it doesn’t work, he ends up with a certain amount of egg on his face.

This non-replicability is a serious problem for the scientific community. Science works on protocols – which can best be described as regulated pre-formatted procedures. When you approach a plant with this procedural protocol firmly fixed in your mind the plant perceives no serious emotional intent or genuine threat so it does not respond. And if the same test is applied repeatedly to the same plant its response quickly drops off. These are only some of the problems that will have to be overcome before plant life can be used for, say, interstellar communication.

There is one exception to this response-dropping factor …. and that is the death of human cells. The plants seem to respond consistently to the death of healthy human cells. At one point during Backsters experiments he was noticing that the polygraph would give irregular emotional responses which didn’t seem to tie in with any of the tests being done. It took some time to discover what is was. There was a men’s urinal next door to the lab. Every time it was flushed, the plant reacted. It was finally concluded that the disinfectant in the cistern was destroying cells in the body’s excretions. But the strangest thing was that when the person using the urinal was aware of this effect there was no reaction from the plant!

There have been a multitude of tests by different researchers in an attempt to ascertain the effects of love and hate on plant systems and almost without exception they report that feelings of love toward a plant enhance its growth and wellbeing, something that every “green thumb” already knows!

Experiments of this kind with plants started long before Backster made his amazing polygraph discovery but did not make any substantial public impact until America’s top lie detector expert announced his findings.

Meanwhile research goes quietly on – it will be most interesting to see just where it ends up!

James F. Coyle is the author of
Beyond Belief: The Ultimate Mindpower Instructional Manual

Learn more in this fascinating video:  http://youtu.be/wt3smrXkVpE

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Introducing Shadows and Flames Book Net

Nae's Nest —  May 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

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Shadows & Flames Home.

Check out my new book net. It is a tool for emerging writers to present their book tours,events, etc. For those who love to read, it is a great way to take advantage of winning free ebooks & books.

Author’s are encouraged to do book reviews for each other, non-writers are certainly encouraged to. As a new author, it is difficult to get a book “out there” and noticed.  Reviews are the single most important thing needed to help get a book be recognized by stores such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles, and Kobo.

I also hope to get information creating eBook covers. I would like to see illustrators, editors, publishers…anyone within the book/arts or “reading” industry come to offer your experience, knowledge and expertise. I am also looking into creating a bookstore allowing the author to sell books directly through your publisher, just like in Amazon. Shadows & Flames would not be cutting checks, handling monies or charging fee/percentage of payment.  I will only ask for a donation to help me to meet the monthly expenses needed to maintain the site.

Please join the site, membership is always free. http://phoenixwriter.spruz.com

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Lightning Hitting The Grand Canyon

Nae's Nest —  May 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

Striking Photo: Lightning Hits Grand Canyon

Striking Photo: Lightning Hits Grand Canyon Credit: Travis Roe/U.S. Department of the Interior In one of the most amazing images you’ll ever see, a photographer standing near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon captured lighting striking the famous landmark.

Carved by the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon is one of the most famous and flocked-to natural features in the world. The canyon is 277 miles (446 kilometers) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and over a mile (1,800 meters) deep. Some 2 billion years of history are seen in the canyon’s walls.

Lightning is common at the Grand Canyon, especially during late spring and summer thunderstorms, which bring needed rain to the Colorado River. From 1997 to 2000, lightning struck somewhere in Grand Canyon National Park 104,294 times, averaging 26,073 strikes per year, according to the National Park Service. The canyon’s rims, rocky outcrops and other open areas are particularly vulnerable to lightning strikes. [7 Amazing Grand Canyon Facts]

About 600 deaths have happened in the Grand Canyon since the 1870s.

- Brett Israel, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor

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