romunov’s blog et al

You’ve got to see this video on evolution. Great animation and cute commentaries.

Wouldn’t you want a sharp person like the one below to be running the country? And he’s a Republican! It’s just that he doesn’t fondle rich people, hence he has to fight screaming to get on a ballot. Ron Paul’s grass root supporters have been strong, but not strong enough. He would certainly get my vote.

Most of us remember what we were doing on the day the planes hit those two towers. Hardly no one remembers where they were the day before. Especially when former Sec. of defense Donald Rumslfed announced that the Pentagon can not account for about 2.3 trillion dollars in transactions. But the next day changed everything, and news about this was forgotten. Coincidence or did they knew something we didn’t?

It may seem like unrealistic that we’ll one day have to make a big ball of garbage, stick it onto a rocket and launch it into space. But could this be the only answer for the garbage vortex, more specific mostly plastic, the size of Texas that has been gathering momentum in the Pacific ocean?

Apparently there is a giant vortex of garbage left by humans. Researchers from Oregon are studying the mass. They have found that microorganisms grow a lot faster on plastic surface than in the water column. Animals that feed on these organisms eat the plastic. At least part of it will eventually end up on our dinner plates. There are also other problems. For instance, turtles think of plastic as jellyfishes. The plastic can wreck havoc in their digestive tract, even kill it.

A random thought on organisms growing on plastic. Any marine aquarium keeper will tell you that algae start growing on plastic surfaces a lot faster than glass or carbonate (rocks).

A friend of mine returned from Switzerland, where an arachnological conference (conference on spiders) was held. With him, he brought news about some funny new species named after movies. There is one named afther The big Lebowski, Anelosimus biglebowski n. sp., brought to us by Agnarsson and Zhang. The spider is from Tanzania. Also from there is a species from the same genus, Anelosimus dude n. sp. One has to wonder, if Dude, where’s my car had any influence on authors’ inspiration (if you want to call it that).

It’s common practice to name new species after people. There’s a cave beetle named after Adolf Hitler, Anophthalmus hitleri (all known locations from Slovenia), Angelina Jolie has a spider, Aptostichus angelinajoleae, a naturalist Karl Ziga Zois has a plant Campanula zoysii (see some info here). Sometimes even geni are named after people. In memory of a botanist Franc Hladnik, higly endemic genus with only one species Hladnikia pastinacifolia was named after him (more over here). A few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert had a trapdoor spider named after him (it may not be a unique species, though).

There are many more organisms named after people. Do you remember any?

See reference:

Agnarsson, I. & J. X. Zhang. New species of Anelosimus (Araneae: Theridiidae) from Africa and southeast Asia, with notes on sociality and color polymorphism. Zootaxa 1147: 1-34.

I don’t know what all the circus about the McCain running mate, Alaskan Sarah Palin? I read that McCain should drop her as a running mate, because she’s not fit to be the next in line for the presidenet of the United States. After seeing George Bush in action, twice, I think everyone’s qualified to be CC.

And who cares if it’s her baby or her daughters? Like you have nothing better to read?