George W. Barlow,
a professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a well-known expert on Cichlid Fishes, died July 14, 2007.
being loaded after be caught by fishermen at a bluefin tuna farm around the mid Adriatic Croatian town of Zadar.
an invasive plant native to the Amazon region of Brazil, has invaded Caddo Lake in Texas.
420-million-year-old fossils of the earliest known bony fish—about the size of a sardine (above)—show the animal grew teeth from its jawbones.
Animal behaviorist and evolutionary biologist George W. Barlow, a professor emeritus of
integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a well-known expert on cichlid fishes, died July 14
at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula after a massive stroke. Barlow, a resident of Berkeley, was 78.
"George was the preeminent figure in fish biology in North America, if not in the world, throughout his career," said
David L. G. Noakes, Barlow's first Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley and now a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon
State University in Corvallis. "He wasn't an ichthyologist in the sense of cataloguing fish; he was always interested in
what the animals did, about evolution, and with comparing behaviors." As a boy growing up in the sand and surf of Long
Beach, Calif., Barlow scoured the beaches for hermit crabs and sea anemones and raised them in water-filled jars. He
acquired his first 10-gallon fish tank at the age of 10 to raise tropical fish, Click
Bluefin tuna tagged within minutes of each other off the coast of Ireland have provided fresh evidence of
the endangered creature’s incredible trans-oceanic journeys. One of the giant fish, weighing close to 250 kilograms,
showed up off the coast of Cuba eight months after it was tagged. The other ended up more than 5,000 kilometres away in
the Strait of Gibraltar. "It’s quite astonishing," says biologist Michael Stokesbury of Dalhousie University in Halifax,
who says he and his colleagues were amazed to see tuna from the same school of fish end up on opposite sides of the
Atlantic. The researchers say the findings attest to the need for fish managers to have a global view of the creatures. Click
Aeroplanes of the future could be protected from the cold by an anti-freeze paint that takes
its inspiration from the Arctic fish proteins. The protein-based coatings would prevent ice from forming on the wings of
aircraft, a process that increases drag, and can create dangerous turbulence during take off and landing. Antifreeze
proteins found in plants, fish and insects, have already been synthesised in the lab, and used to prevent foods from
being damaged by icing up in the refrigerator. Ingo Grunwald, and colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute for
Manufacturing Technology and Applied Materials Research in Bremen, Germany, have now succeeded in incorporating such
proteins into a coating that could have a range of applications in technology and engineering. For example, in addition
to protecting aircraft, the paint could be used to prevent ice from dragging down power cables. It could even prevent
freezers from icing up so that they need defrosting. Click
At first glance, it looks like a beautiful addition to the water: a
floating fern with small, bright green leaves. But when Robert Speight saw just a few sprigs of the plant on Caddo Lake
for the first time late last year, his heart sank. “When I saw it here,” Speight says, “I knew we were in for a long,
tough battle.” Click here
A team of researchers at Arizona State University's Polytechnic Campus in Mesa is involved in a project
to turn oil produced from algae into military jet fuel. Qiang Hu and Milton Sommerfeld, directors of the school's
Laboratory for Algae Research and Biotechnology, will search for oil-rich strains of algae, evaluate their potential as
oil producers and develop a production system that will yield competitively priced oil. UOP, LLC, a Honeywell company,
is leading the project, which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is backing with a $6.7 million grant. "We
believe, at a minimum, that 100 barrels of oil per year per acre of algae is achievable," Sommerfeld said. Click
We went down to the "snorkeling hole" last weekend in the
Conasauga River, just across the Georgia line in Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest, to look for some of the most
colorful fish you'll find anywhere outside a coral reef or tropical river. The snorkeling hole is an amazing place,
harboring at least 45 native species of freshwater fish. Some of them are endangered; some you'll find nowhere else in
the world. If you're wondering how significant this is, consider that the entire Colorado River system out West contains
only 33 native species; the entire Columbia River system in the Pacific Northwest contains only 25 native species.This
is true despite the fact that the Western river systems are enormous compared with the Conasauga. The Columbia, for
instance, drains 258,000 square miles; the Conasauga, only 770 square miles in Georgia and Tennessee.
Fossils of sardine-size fish that swam in ancient oceans are the earliest examples of
vertebrates with teeth that grow from their jawbones, according to new a new study. The fish, which lived 420 million
years ago, are a "very modest" beginning for the jaw-and-tooth pattern widespread in nature today, said study co-author
Philippe Janvier, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. "It's really the first
evidence that we have of the earliest bony fishes—the earliest ancestors of all the fishes that have the[ir] bones and
teeth implanted in the bones of the jaw," Janvier said. Modern bony fish such as cod, herring, and coelacanths have this
tooth arrangement. So do tetrapods—four-limbed creatures such as frogs, crocodiles, and humans, which are all
descendants of bony fishes. When a bony fish or a tetrapod loses a tooth, a new one grows from the bone below the void,
whereas other jawed vertebrates, such as sharks, have teeth that grow from inside their gums. Sharks have skeletons of
cartilage instead of bone. Click
The oil company that spent years promising to take us "beyond petroleum" has suddenly found itself at the
center of a growing storm brought on by a severe case of hypocrisy. Instead of a public atonement, BP is digging in its
heels. Odds are that this is a losing game, one that will leave both corporate and political reputations battered and
broken. BP has spent millions promoting itself as the greenest oil giant. But soon, the company plans to start dumping
1,600 pounds of ammonia and nearly 2½ tons of contaminated sludge each and every day into Lake Michigan from its
refinery in Whiting, Ind., a mile from where 11 cities get their drinking water. BP says its discharge is 99.9 percent
water. But this merely dilutes the truth about what all those total tons of pollution will do to our lake. Ammonia is
toxic to fish, frogs and other amphibians, and it can cause oxygen-gobbling algae blooms that smother aquatic life.
Toxic metals in the sludge -- which likely include mercury -- will accumulate in the tissues of fish and anything (or
anyone) eating them. Click
Special thanks to
Joshua from Okemos, MI, for the link to this story.
A couple of weeks ago, during the National Governor’s Association conference in Traverse City, a Michigan
columnist asked EPA administrator Stephen Johnson about the President Bush's commitment to the Great Lakes. "Thank you for asking me,
because we're making very good progress on our commitments as part of the collaboration across not only the federal
government, (but also) states, tribes, as well as cities," Johnson told George Weeks, whose column appears in the
Traverse City Record-Eagle. "We are continuing to meet our commitments. We identified as part of the federal
government's portion of the collaboration … 48 near-term objectives that we were going to achieve. To date, we have
completed 12 of those, and we are continuing to make progress. And, of course, we are looking forward to state and
tribal officials to continue efforts to get the Great Lakes cleaned up."
Concrete word came Wednesday about the president’s commitment to that collaboration, that progress,
those efforts, and those - well - commitments. He said he will veto the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, a bill
that would authorize Congress to spend money erecting a permanent electronic barrier that would keep Asian carp out of
the Great Lakes. Every region these days, it seems, has its own fish that spawns tales of horror from wildlife
officials, sportsmen and environmentalists. Out east, the snakehead - given the nickname "Frankenfish" - has conjured
images of local fishing holes being cleaned out by a nasty, voracious predator. For the Great Lakes, it’s the Asian carp
that has hearts going a-pitter-patter. The fish has a nasty reputation for leaping out of the water and at boats. This
might sound like the stuff of slapstick until you learn that it’s resulted in people being seriously injured. But, the
most frightening thing about the fish is that it spreads quickly, establishes itself easily and replaces native species
wherever it goes. If it were to get loose in the Great Lakes, it’s expected that in many places it would supplant
whitefish, lake trout, perch and walleye. That means putting the Great Lakes’ $4 billion fishing industry in greater
peril than it’s already in. The fish spread up the Mississippi River, and is now found in a canal that connects the
Great Lakes to the Mississippi. What prevents its spread further is a temporary electronic barrier erected in 2002.
Special thanks to
Joshua from Okemos, MI, for the link to this story. Joshua continues to send us links to important
stories about the Great Lakes. Thanks, Joshua !!
A Big Sincere Thank-you
for calling during the show to
Jason from Louisiana,
David from Hungary,
Bill from Kentucky, and
Jay from Indiana.
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