When Viruses Pay Us A Visit, They Sometimes Leave Parts Of Themselves Behind. Silently Tucked Away In

Snails in the genus Julia have a bivalved shell, like a clam!

Even though they have a clam like shell, with 2 sections, they are in fact snails (class Gastropoda). They are marine snails, found throughout the Ino-Pacific. There are 6 species which are various shades of green. Julia are tiny, only reaching a length of up to 6 mm long. They feed on algae, and incorporate the chloroplasts from the algae into their bodies. Some of the chloroplasts remain photosynthetic, and the snails are able to feed on the products of this photosynthesis. This process is called kleptoplasty.

Photos: Julia sp. from Australia  - profmollusc | Inaturalist cc; Julia exquisita from Reuinion Island - Alexandre LaPorte | Wikipedia cc

sea lemons 🍋 are my new favorite thing

and I know I can’t eat them but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to

ScienceAlert

Concerning Levels of Arsenic And Lead Found in Tampons in World First Study

Weighing up the pros and cons of different sanitary products requires sound knowledge of what risks and benefits each poses.

Weighing up the pros and cons of different sanitary products requires sound knowledge of what risks and benefits each poses. For the first time, researchers have measured concentrations of various metals in tampons, finding worrying levels of several toxic types, including lead, for which there is no safe level of exposure. The walls of the human vagina are lined with a highly absorptive tissue that has the potential to soak up stray pollutants – like metals – that would circulate in the bloodstream without being filtered by the liver first.

Continue Reading.

“The Herd on the Move”—William Jacob Hays.

This painting simultaneously breaks my heart and fills me with awe and hope. When people speak about how prevalent the bison were across Turtle Island I’m not sure if it fully HITS just how many were slaughtered, how much this land relied on them for proper ecological balance….

if we want our land to thrive, if we want the next seven generations to survive then we must help the bison (and the indigenous peoples who love/rely on them) to expand and grow until they are once again found all across the land.

Made by Sea-Blog

NEXT UP ON THE SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Glass animals!

These real animals have transluscent properties, where their skin is see through and you're able to see their skeleton and insides... of course I tried my best to cutify them for you all!

This is a series of charms that utilises the transparency of the acrylic to make these creatures pop out, and with the addition of double sided epoxy it gives the effect of holding a real animal (pretty weird to experience!)

With 8 designs I'm sure there's some which catch your eye 👀

ScienceAlert

Lost Age of Monotremes Revealed by Fossils From 100 Million Years Ago

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for 100 million years. The resulting fossils now provide evidence that there really may have been an Age of Monotremes, before other mammals came to dominate. "It's like discovering a whole new civilization," says Australian Museum paleontologist Tim Flannery. "Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes." Only five of these rare mammals still cling to existence: one platypus and four echidna species, shared between Australia and Papua New Guinea. But due to their reptilian-like egg-laying feature, it has long been thought these animals evolved before placental mammals like us and marsupials.

Continue Reading.