Eideard

British photographer, James Appleton from Cambridge, has spent the past seven years capturing the volatile landscapes of Iceland – and was rewarded with shots of an erupting volcano and the northern lights. He says: “I became aware of the Fimmvörðuháls volcano through a friend of mine who is an Icelandic vulcanologist. I knew immediately I had to try and get out to see it. On the plane flying over to Iceland I had in my mind’s eye the perfect image I wanted to see, which was exactly this combination of an erupting volcano and the Aurora Borealis. I never dared to hope it might actually happen, but seeing it for real put all the hairs on the back of my neck up. When I saw the photographs come through the camera I was jumping around with excitement.”

Wow!

Click on photo to enlarge
Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Southern elephant seal bulls bellow for the chance to mate with females on South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. Only one in three of these bulls, each weighing between 2,200 and 4,000kg, will get a chance to mate.

I’ll refrain from political analogies.

 
Thanks [very much], Ursarodinia

Sir David with schoolchildren aiding the Big Butterfly Count

City-dwellers are now so “divorced from nature” the only wild animals they are likely to see is a rat or a pigeon, according to Sir David Attenborough. The veteran presenter, who has introduced viewers to some of the most spectacular wildlife in the world through his television programmes, said most people are unlikely to see animals in the wild.

“Worldwide we are estranged from nature,” he said. “Over half of the world’s population is now urbanised which means that more than one person in two is to some degree cut off from the natural world. There will be some people who do not see a wild creature from one day to the next – unless it is a rat or a pigeon – and they aren’t wild.”

The 86-year-old, who is planning a visit to the rainforests of Borneo for three weeks, admitted that most people are unable to travel to exotic places. But he said the wildlife on our doorsteps is just as important…

The natural world is around us all the time in our houses and gardens. And it is not just a question of standing back and looking at it in a passive way it is about getting involved in an active way and that transforms your attitude.”

Sir David urged people to take part in the Big Butterfly Count, which asks people to count butterflies in their local park, woodland or even the garden for 15 minutes over the next couple of weeks. He said the scheme, now in its second year, is the perfect opportunity for even “townies” to reconnect with nature.

“This enables you to get involved in the natural world, in your own garden. If you start counting butterflies, you become aware of them…

“Butterflies are in danger and we are doing our best to try and help them but we cannot help them unless we know what is happening to them. So the Big Butterfly Count is very important…

If my heart is not going to be lifted by a butterfly because they’ve gone my life is going to be much the poorer.”

I tell folks the story of being at a high school [American] football game in the Texas Oil Patch at twilight. As the powerful lights clattered on to illuminate the contest, insects gathered in clouds around the brightness. I expected next to see swifts and other birds knifing through the schools of flying bugs – but none appeared.

He said, “Breathe deeply. We call that the smell of money.”

The Holy Ghost Panel rock painting in the Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park in San Juan, Utah, with the Milky Way in the background

Click to view enlarged image.

When viewing the larger version, you can click on that one as well for a still larger pic. Fun for the whole family.

Similar to the classification of blood types, the bacteria in our guts appear to fit into one of three categories that have no relation to our nationality, age, sex and other characteristics, new research indicates. The study combined genetic information from about three dozen people in six countries, revealing that everyone falls into one of three categories they dub enterotypes, which they believe are spread around the globe just like blood types.

Humans’ guts are home to swarms of bacteria. Members of this internal ecosystem help us with all sorts of important tasks, such as digesting food, assisting our immune systems and producing nutrients such as vitamin K. And research indicates there is a connection between these micro-organisms and some health problems, including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.

Using an approach called metagenomics, researchers sequenced genetic material collected from fecal samples from 22 people in Denmark, France, Italy and Spain, and combined that with existing data from residents of Japan and the United States.

Their analysis revealed three enterotypes determined by the relative abundance of different networks of species, according to study researcher Peer Bork, a unit head at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany…

While the type of bacteria present in the gut showed no connection to the host’s characteristics, this was not the case for the bacteria’s function. For instance, the presence of bacteria capable of breaking down starch appears to increase with someone’s age. And men seem to carry more bacteria with the machinery to synthesize aspartate, an amino acid.

The findings, detailed in the most recent issue of the journal Nature, have implications for personalized medicine, in which treatments can be tailored to an individual’s needs…

Knowledge of enterotypes may also help with the development of techniques to restore healthy gut communities, rather than killing off all of the bugs living there with antibiotics…

I imagine we’ll have about as much cooperation with political systems and corporations with a vested interest in profitable processed foods in educating folks about enterotypes – as we do with anything else found to aid in healthful living.

OTOH, this study is miniscule – and expansive work is needed to corroborate anything more than an educated guess at this stage.

The quest to generate replacement tissue in the lab faces questions over mature cells whose DNA is “reprogrammed” so that they grow with youthful vigour into new cells.

Cellular reprogramming last year emerged as the new frontier in the heavily promoted search to grow cells to replenish heart, liver, muscle or other tissue damaged by disease, age or accident.

In 2010, scientists announced they had been able to wipe out the DNA programming of mature (also called adult) cells, yielding versatile stem cells that would be the raw material for organ-specific cells.

That announcement sparked great excitement. These reverse-engineered cells seemed to look and act as an alternative to stem cells from human embryos — a miraculously potent but controversial and limited source.

But a new study, published in Nature on Thursday, suggests the hoped-for substitute, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), does not become a completely blank slate, as thought. Instead, peripheral parts of their code are riddled with indelible marks, “a consistent pattern of reprogramming errors,” its authors said.

“Embryonic stem cells are considered the gold standard for pluripotency,” said lead researcher Joseph Ecker of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, referring to the ability of stem cells to form different types of cells found in the body…

The researchers found that the transformation from adult to stem cell was invariably incomplete or inadequate, leaving telltale “hotspots” in the DNA code.

Moreover, these reprogramming quirks were passed on when iPSCs were then coaxed into a more specialised cell type…

The new work added to previous research that shows iPSCs are indeed different from embyronic stem cells.

Science discovers more – and moves on. Ideologues, demagogues, who consider themselves somehow ordained to pass judgement on knowledge as “good or bad” will continue to march backwards into their particular historic dead-end.