Science Snapshot Two: Skulls and Crossbones

Science Week kicked off yesterday in Ireland. For more details of events taking place around the country, you can visit here.

Here on Communicate Science, for the duration of Science Week, along with our usual posts, we'll be posting a 'Science Snapshot' every day. If you have a Science Snapshot you'd like to share, you can email here and we'll post the best later in the week.

The next picture is a selection of skulls on display at University College Cork's Schools Open Day which took place last month.

The skulls are part of the School of Biological, Earth and Environmaental Sciences' (BEES) extensive zoological museum.
 

Science Snapshot One: Copper Coast Geopark

Science Week kicks off today in Ireland and runs until the 14th. For more details of events taking place around the country, you can visit here.

Here on Communicate Science, for the duration of Science Week, along with our usual posts, we'll be posting a 'Science Snapshot' every day. If you have a Science Snapshot you'd like to share, you can email here and we'll post the best later in the week.

The first shot is an image of Colette O'Brien's sculpture along Waterford's Copper Coast in the Copper Coast Geopark.
The sculpture, entitled Ice, Fire and Water, is designed to represent the common forces that shaped the Copper Coast and the other European Geoparks in north west Europe.

It is a massive piece of limestone, carved and shaped by the artisit in various places with mosaic areas attached.
Collete O'Brien is based in Co. Kilkenny and her work in the Copper Coast Geopark overlooks Dunabrattin Head near Boatstrand.

The Copper Coast Geopark is located between Tramore and Gungarvan and comprises of 25 kilometres of spectacular coastline consisting of scalloped beaches and dramatic, rocky headlands.

My Secret Life: A teacher affects eternity

My latest guest post for PBS NOVA's Secret Life of Scientists blog is now online. This week's episode features theoretical physicist and jazz saxophonist Stephon Alexander talking about his love of music and how he was inspired to become a scientist.

You can read the post and watch the episode here.

George Boole Petition

As of this evening, close to 700 people have put their names to a petition to show support for the urgent repair and/or restoration of George Boole's house at Number 5, Grenville Place, Cork.

As first reported by the Communicate Science blog, the building suffered significant structural damage last month when the roof and a number of floors began to give way. Engineers and contractors have since examined the building and have removed the roof and and number of floors from part of the house. For pictures of this work, see here.

Barry O'Sullivan of the Cork Constraint Computation Centre and the Department of Computer Science at University College Cork (where Boole worked) set up the petition which describes the house as being of "enormous importance to the legacy of George Boole and UCC, Cork and Ireland's connection with him".

As of 5pm today, the petition had been signed by 698 people, many of them academics with interests in computing, mathematics and science but many also outside of academia. A quick glance at the petition shows that those interested in supporting this cause include people from as far away as Florida, Vienna, Harvard University in the US and Uppsala University in Sweden, to name just a few.

While the details of saving, restoring and refurbishing the building (which is in private ownership) are complicated, it is great to see such support being shown for a worthy cause.

You can view and sign the petition here.

Girl Power: Female Boa Constictors Reproduce Alone

New evidence shows that boa constrictors can reproduce without sex. But one boa constrictor had babies asexually and the old-fashioned way. Her sexually produced snake (left) is shown beside one of the asexually produced females (right). [NCSU]

Scientists in the US have made a discovery which revolutionises the way we thought reptiles reproduced, by showing that female boa constrictor snakes can produce offspring without mating.

It was found that a so called "super mom" could produce large litters of all-female babies which show no evidence of male influence. The offspring has no genetic fingerprint that males were involved in the reproductive process and they all retained the distinctive recessive colour mutation.

This is the first time that asexual reproduction (producing offspring without mating) has been seen in boa constrictors.

Dr. Warren Booth, lead author of a paper just published in Biology Letters describes why boa constrictors may use both sexual and asexual forms of reproduction: "Reproducing both ways could be an evolutionary ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ for snakes. If suitable males are absent, why waste those expensive eggs when you have the potential to put out some half-clones of yourself? Then, when a suitable mate is available, revert back to sexual reproduction.”

Whereas mammals are well-known for having X and Y sex chromosomes (males have one X and one Y; females have two X chromosomes), snakes have Z and W chromosomes.

Male snakes have two Z chromosomes and females have a Z and W. The female babies produced asexually in this study all had two copies of the W chromosome. This has never been seen before and was previously believed to be impossible.

Booth pointed out that the "super mom" snake had the opportunity to reproduce the "old-fashioned way", as there were a number of male snakes available. He also doubts that environmental changes triggered this rare change in behaviour in the snake.

Further studies will look at the development of the new offspring to determine how they reproduce when they reach sexual maturity.

Irish Scientist Investigates The Plague

An international research team led by an Irish-based scientist have shown for the first time that Plague originated in China and stems from a single bacterium that has mutated many times.


The Plague has devastated many parts of Europe, Africa and Asia in various waves throughout history and still exists in various parts of the world, including the west coast of the USA.

Professor Mark Achtman, based at the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, and his team have just published the results of their studies in the scientific journal Nature Genomics. More on this story here.

Professor Achtman explains it all in this video from UCC:

Communicate Science @ The Eircom Spiders

It is with some degree of shock and surprise that I can announce that Communicate Science has been nominated for an Eircom Spider 'Big Mouth' award.

The 'Big Mouth' category is decided by a public vote so if you like what you've been reading then go and vote for Communicate Science here.

The full shortlist is a 'who's who' of Irish bloggers all worthy of their place, but special mention must go to fellow science bloggers Jeremy Stone and Humphrey Jones from The Frog Blog. It is great to see two science blogs in the shortlist.

So, click here and vote for us, it will take just a few seconds, and spread the word - we need all the votes we can get!

Thanks,
Eoin.