#Biologists

[todays-xkcd]

A lot of these are actually non-venomous, but I can see which species you mistook them for. If you pause the crane for a sec I can give you some ID pointers for next time!

Presents for Biologsts [Explained]

[ascher-dasher]

biologists are just a bunch of cells that talk about other cells

[blueiscoool]

A Rare Orchid Thought Extinct Rediscovered in Vermont after 120 Years

The small whorled pogonia, a federally threatened species of orchid, has been rediscovered in Vermont – 120 years after the plant was last spotted in the state.

The plant was last documented in Vermont in 1902, Aaron Marcus, an assistant botanist at Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, said. Naturalists had searched extensively for the small whorled pogonia in Vermont but come up empty-handed.

The small whorled pogonia is “one of the rarest orchid species east of the Mississippi,” said Marcus. The rarity of the species may have to do with its dependence on fungi in the environment, a relationship that is still little understood by scientists.

“One thing that’s really cool about our orchid species is that most of them are really, really dependent on fungal species, species we can’t see underground, connected to our root system, which makes it so hard for us to understand orchids and what they need,” Marcus said.

The last known documentation of a small whorled pogonia in Vermont was a photograph of a plant that had been dug up and placed in a flower pot, Marcus said.

The discovery of an outcropping of the plant in Vermont is “a really great and exciting bright light,” said Marcus. The population is “perhaps the most northerly population in the whole range of small whorled pogonia,” which are found in southern Maine south to Georgia and west to southern Ontario, Michigan, and Tennessee.

The orchids are threatened by climate change, habitat loss, and collection or trampling by humans.

Marcus explained that the population of small whorled pogonias in Vermont was discovered by a retired greenhouse manager who posted pictures of the orchid to iNaturalist, an online platform for amateur naturalists to identify plants and animals around them. Then Marcus and Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Botanist Bob Popp visited the site and confirmed it was indeed a small whorled pogonia on May 25. The department made the discovery public in a news release published on June 8th.

“It was very exciting” to discover the orchid, said Marcus.

The “most important thing is to protect the plants where they are,” Marcus added. “That’s really our first priority, for them to be able to thrive in place.” The plants are located on publicly protected lands in Winooski Valley Park District, and the department is keeping their exact location a secret to ward off would-be collectors.

For Marcus, the discovery is an “incredible and humbling” reminder of how much scientists have left to learn about the natural world. “There’s more to find out there,” Marcus said. “There’s so much right in our backyards that we just don’t know, or that we once knew and we need to relearn.”

Botanist Bob Popp shared Marcus’ excitement at the “amazing find.”

“Things like that don’t happen that often,” Popp said. “I’ve been in my position for 32 years, and more often than not I’m documenting the decline of species,” he said. “Things going the other direction – it’s just phenomenal.”

Going forward, Popp said his team members hope to monitor the population. They found evidence of damage from slugs on some of the plants, and the orchids may also face threats from browsing by animals like deer.

Popp also emphasized the importance of naturalists “reporting what they see” in the outdoors. “There’s no substitute for eyes and ears in the woods,” he said.

By Zoe Sottile.

[writingwithfolklore]

Research game ask;

Hi, I’m having trouble finding the average volume of human limbs and organs. I specifically need to know the space an arm, leg, eyeball, and spine takes up to properly calculate the weight of some cybernetics. I’ve gone to excessive lengths to find an answer to this, but have stopped due to a lot of the sites being utterly useless or really sketchy.

Calling for Biologists/Anatomists!!

We have questions we need answered!! Please reply or reblog this if you know the answer (and where we can verify it!)

Everyone else, let's get this around until we find someone who knows things! If you have any connections who might, feel free to send it to them.

(Read the rules of the research game here)

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Frankenstein continues his efforts to persuade biologists to accept parental responsibility, this time in a British cartoon from the Guardian, which accompanied an article on regulations for genetic manipulation.

"Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture" - Jon Turney

[kai-herondale]

Academia romance is like falling in love with a new subject as well as a person. It's starts by them telling you about it, then you read a few papers, maybe a book, then you're forwarding them new articles and sending photos from museums and buying every trinket to do with their subject for them. And before you know it, you're almost as interested as you are in your own area if study.

[booksperience]

(via Animals in the World - A Study of Aristotelian Biology by Pierre Pellegrin)

"While all his previous classic Greek biologists were either purely mechanists or formalists, he understood the true diversity of the animal world and formulated his theories with a more realistic outlook..." (Read more on Booksperience site)

[acertainrandomguy]

Can a real life person whose name I don't even know be a blorbo?

[thorst]

I think I will look into writing to Laurence Frank to let him know I was 7-8 years old when the Lion King came out and it started my lifelong love of hyenas. Although I also agree with him that they deserve positive depictions in media

I might be a little biased but I’m honestly starting to believe that there’s no purer form of love than the defensive spite you see from biologists that have devoted their life to the study of a maligned or misunderstood species. For example:

The hyena biologist that arranged for Disney animators to come sketch captive  hyenas for The Lion King film (Laurence Frank) was so incensed when the animals were depicted as villains in the movie that he later included boycotting the film on a list of ways the average person could help hyena conservation.

Though it’s commonly known that Charles Darwin’s distaste for parasitic wasps played a role in his development of evolution theory (since he felt no loving God would create animals with such a disturbing life cycle), the biologists who study these wasps find it an unfair characterization. When they were tasked with coming up with a common name for the family of parasitic wasps (Ichneumonidae) that old Charles so disliked, they proposed the name “Darwin Wasps” to spite the famous naturalist who had insulted their beloved family of insects.

Parasitologist Tommy Leung was so frustrated with the way people write about parasites to evoke horror and gore that he started writing a Parasite of the Day blog, that specifically avoids inflammatory or unsettling language to describe them. He also illustrates different species in colorful anime art on Twitter in a series called Parasite Monster Girls—which he calls his “love letter to parasites.”

I guess I’m just saying that if you’re a biologist studying an unpopular species and you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder about it you can always count on me to be in your corner if you want to get a little petty with the public!

[comeguessmethisriddle]

well? can you?

[adiabat]

my phd supervisor is notoriously lax on fieldwork safety but he’s also 6’7 so it’s like yeah dude no wonder you’ve never had to worry about bears they see you coming and are like oh fuck it’s the slenderman

[just-living5]

To be fair, I would have too.

Dude has a death wish

[muladona]

about me!!

hello my name is tash, (they/them).

i live on unceded Kaurna country — otherwise known as Adelaide.

i am currently completing my plant biology degree, but i have more of an interest in insects at this point (unfort my uni doesn’t offer any entomology courses at the undergrad level…), but i’ve had the pleasure and luck to work on some summer placements and internships with Dr. Katja Hogendoorn and doing some research on native bees in SA.

this video above is me measuring all the bees we captured (over 200!!)

i love native bees, but honestly since beginning my bug learning journey, all bugs are interesting to me now.

other than that, i also have a graphic arts and graphic design background and used to be freelance illustrator (not anymore tho!)

wanting to meet other people who are bug freaks hehe

[nameless-didelphis]

I should have known, that in biology nothing would be simple, given the fact that biology is the science of life and that life itself is already hard. So I'm wishing strength to all my fellow biologists, may nothing ever stop you in your pursuit of knowledge! 💜✨

[greatwyrmgold]

Scientists make the best puns, because they know nobody will groan at them for it.

the current featured article on wikipedia is really really really really good