Natural Selections

(Jul 11, 2019) An article in Science magazine highlighted the work of a French scientist who was the recipient of a 2017 Ig Nobel Prize. He posited that because cats can fill up the shape of whatever container they are put in, they must be liquid.

(Jun 27, 2019) Not all evolutionary change is good. Genetic changes can be neutral or harmful, as well as beneficial. And some change can be both, conferring benefit when a single copy of a gene is present, and causing a life-threatening disease when copies are inherited from both parents. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager roll the dice on evolution.

(Jun 20, 2019) Dr. Curt Stager went to a conference in Scotland in where one of the topics was the possibility of lake monsters such as the famous denizen of Loch Ness, or Lake Champlain's Champy. Could the commonly reportedly long-necked monsters be plesiosaurs, left over from the Jurassic era? Probably not.

(Jun 13, 2019) What if dogs gave birth to kittens, and those kittens grew up to have puppies? That's similar to what some species, such as haircap moss, do. Each alternate generation has a different form and function. Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley explore the biological oddity "alternation of generations."

(May 30, 2019) In an earlier conversation on the natural world, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talked about the longevity of atoms, and how atoms within our body may have once been in the bodies of dinosaurs. But the question remains, is that true of water? How old is it, really?

(May 30, 2019) Vertebrates get around by using their muscles to apply leverage to the bones. But how does an animal move when there are no levers, only muscles? Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at some boneless examples: the worm, the elephant's trunk, and the squid.

(May 23, 2019) Squids are ten-tentacled cephalopod cousins to the octopus. They are remarkable in many ways, but three features stand out for Dr. Curt Stager, who fills in the details with Martha Foley: the way they propel themselves through the water, and the air, their amazing use of changing color, and their unique methods of self defense.

(Apr 4, 2019) We think of evolution as moving in a linear progression from the sea to the land. But some creatures, such as whales and dolphins, clearly adapted to the land, then returned to the sea. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about convergent evolution.

(Mar 28, 2019) Can birds hear each other sing in the city? Birds listen closely to other bird songs and learn many things. Are they the right species? Do they sound healthy and attractive, like a good mate? But the loud urban environment can interfere with all that. In one study, male birds raised the pitch and volume of their mating songs in order to be heard over the urban din. Unfortunately, the females of the species seemed to prefer the traditional deeper-voiced song. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the mating and dating woes of city birds.

(Mar 7, 2019) Birds and other creatures have a sly side and will use deceptive communications to create an advantage for themselves in finding food and finding mates. Blue jays can imitate the sound of a hawk, scaring other species away from the feeder. Some birds mimic the alarm cries of other species, making them think that another of their kind is warning them about a predator. But they can't pull the trick too often. "Crying wolf" has the same consequences in the animal world as it does in the fairy tale. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the "tricksy" side of birds, and of cuttlefish.

(Feb 28, 2019) What can take on the big agressive poisonous fire ants that invaded the U.S. decades ago? The tawny crazy ant, also an import from South America. This new "superorganism" is immune to fire ant poison, and they are displacing the previous invaders. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss a new addition to the invasive species list.

(Feb 21, 2019) While the North Country is not exactly the tropics, we do have our share of exotically-colored birds. Blue creatures, for example, are rare in nature but we have the bluebird, the blue jay and the indigo bunting. Then there are the goldfinches and the cardinals, the ruby-throated hummingbird and more. Martha Foley and Curt Stager celebrate a little of the local color in colder climes.

(Feb 7, 2019) The battle for survival among insects is not always carried out with mandible and stinger. This branch of the animal kingdom also employs chemical warfare.

(Jan 31, 2019) While much of this winter's extreme weather has been blamed on polar vortex weather systems reaching farther south into North America, there is a another polar vortex in the Antarctic.

(Jan 24, 2019) Opossums may be thought of as a southern animal, but they are becoming more common in the North Country as they expand their range north and west. They are the only marsupial, or pouched mammal, in North America. Martha Foley tells Curt Stager that they look a little weird, as if they were made from parts of other animals: the tail of a rat, the pouch of a kangaroo, funny little hands.

(Jan 10, 2019) Fresh ice, sometimes called black ice, can be nice and clear and great for skating, but after a while ice gets kind of funky.

(Jan 3, 2019) While genetically modified crops are the result of the intentional introduction of "foreign" genes by humans for a specific agricultural purpose, it turns out that nature uses the same trick all the time.

(Dec 27, 2018) Contrary to longstanding theories, the human sense of smell is roughly as acute as that of other mammals, with an equivalent amount of neural hardware devoted to the detection of odors. So why do we seem to be so nose-blind compared to the family dog? Martha Foley quizzes Curt Stager about a sense that often operates unnoticed by our conscious minds.

(Dec 20, 2018) Flowers get pollinated, bees get nectar; that's supposed to be the deal. Except that some plants cheat. Known as "food decepters," they advertise rewards they don't deliver. Orchids are notorious for variations on bait and switch, with fully one-third of species giving bupkis to the hard-working insects that help them to propagate their kind.