biology

Jul 1, 2013

Is This Mouse a Pirate?

Did a field researcher somehow capture a pirate mouse? No! This raffish rodent is part of a study that is evaluating how harvesting plants for use in biofuels is affecting ecosystems. The photographer, NC State Ph.D. student Sarah Fritts, took the photo – and explains what we’re looking at. “Renewable energy likely will become the dominant… 

Jun 18, 2013

Scientists Seek to Solve Oystercatcher Mystery – and You Can Watch Online

Oystercatchers are beautiful birds, but to biologists they are also a mystery waiting to be solved. And the solution will be gradually revealing itself online over the next couple of years. Wildlife biologists are particularly interested in oystercatchers because they are a good indicator species for determining whether a natural space is being well managed.… 

Jun 3, 2013

That Four-Leaf Clover You Found May Not Be a Four-Leaf Clover

Are four-leaf clovers becoming more common? That was the question put to me by a reader recently. Apparently her kids are finding four-leaf clovers on a daily basis as they walk home from school. What gives? While it is possible that her children are simply amazing four-leaf clover finders, it’s more likely that the “four-leaf… 

May 2, 2013

Paper Offers Framework for Amazon Oil and Gas Development

Oil and gas development continues to press into the most remote corners of the western Amazon, one of the most biologically and culturally diverse zones on Earth. Now a study proposes a new 10-point, best-practice framework that combines technical engineering criteria with consideration of ecological and social concerns to reduce the negative impacts of Amazonian… 

Apr 16, 2013

Cretaceous Cold Cases No. 1: A Case With Legs

This is the first post in a series called “Cretaceous Cold Cases” in which the science of taphonomy, or prehistoric forensics, is explained and exemplified by fascinating cases from the files of Terry “Bucky” Gates, a research scientist with a joint appointment at NC State and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Summer, 2001. It… 

Feb 28, 2013

New Species of Plant-Eating Dino Was Lunch for Prehistoric Crocs

Sometimes, the fossil record gives us some really exciting insights into prehistoric life – including grisly details of prehistoric death. Paleontologists have found evidence not only of a new species of herbivorous, or plant-eating, dinosaur, but also that these dinosaurs were preyed upon by the prehistoric forebears of crocodiles. Seventy-five million years ago, southern Utah… 

Jan 7, 2013

Drawing on Real Life

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Jennifer Landin, a teaching assistant professor of biology at NC State who teaches a course on biological illustration. Check out why she thinks biological illustration is valuable – and some of the art created in her classroom. While other universities have biological illustration courses, as far as I… 

Dec 19, 2012

Visualize This: Inside a Dinosaur’s Brain

Want to know how well a dinosaur could see, hear and smell? Get inside its head! That’s what a group of researchers from the U.K. and U.S. did when they recreated the brain of a therizinosaur called Erlikosaurus andrewsi – a 10-foot-long feathered theropod that lived in what is now Mongolia during the Cretaceous period,… 

Nov 15, 2012

Thanksgiving: Simple Tips Can Keep Foodborne Illness at Bay

Thanksgiving is the only U.S. holiday that revolves entirely around food. We spend all day in the kitchen or dining room with loved ones, so it makes sense to pay special attention to food safety this time of year. Why should you care? The CDC estimates that 128,000 people were hospitalized in 2011 due to… 

Nov 7, 2012

Navel-Gazing Researchers ID Which Species Live in Our Belly Buttons (But Don’t Know Why)

Researchers have discovered which bacteria species are most commonly found in our bellybuttons, but have still not discovered what governs which species will be found on which people. These are the first published findings of the Belly Button Biodiversity project led by NC State’s Dr. Rob Dunn. The researchers swabbed the belly buttons of 66 study… 

Oct 15, 2012

Probing the Brain’s Chemistry

Our brains are constantly awash in chemicals that serve as messengers, transporting signals from one neuron to another.  It’s a really nifty system, although scientists still aren’t clear on how, exactly, those chemical messages end up being converted into behaviors like kicking a ball or doing really complicated mathematical computations. If scientists could get a… 

Oct 5, 2012

Bringing Bugs Into the Classroom

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Dr. David Buchwalter, a researcher in NC State’s Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology. Every so often, The Abstract likes to highlight outreach efforts by NC State researchers. This one sounded like fun. Last month, I teamed up with other biological researchers to conduct a workshop for high school… 

Sep 17, 2012

Estimating ‘Regions of Attraction’ Should Improve Computer Models of Biological Systems

Researchers have found an effective means of estimating the “regions of attraction” (ROA) when developing computer models of biological systems – improving the ability of these models to predict how a system will respond to changing conditions. But to talk about that, we probably need to explain what an ROA is – and why it… 

Aug 24, 2012

Needle Ant Invasion Spreads Coast to Coast

A crusade to invade that began in North Carolina has spread to the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and even to an island packed with concrete and glass – Manhattan. So go the travels of the Asian needle ant, an invasive species native to Japan. Citizen scientists connected with the School of Ants project – which asks… 

Jul 20, 2012

What’s the Deal With Seedless Watermelons?

Seedless watermelons aren’t seedless. They have those little white seeds that don’t have hard black shells, like the seeds in seeded watermelons. How do they do that?  Glad you asked! In seeded watermelons, the seed develops its hard seed coat (or testa) once it is fertilized. But, because seeds in seedless watermelons cannot be fertilized,…