30 JAN 2015 by ideonexus

 Squid Skin is Like an LED Screen

Television images are sometimes displayed on giant LED (Light Emitting Diode) hoardings. Instead of a fluorescent screen with an electron beam scanning side to side over it, the LED screen is a large array of tiny glowing lights, independently controllable. The lights are individually brightened or dimmed so that, from a distance, the whole matrix shimmers with moving pictures. The skin of a squid behaves like an LED screen. Instead of lights, squid skin is packed with thousands of tiny bags ...
Folksonomies: biology explanations
Folksonomies: biology explanations
  1  notes
 
21 SEP 2011 by ideonexus

 Australopithecus afarensis' Hip Bone Indicates She Could ...

When Lucy’s hundreds of fragments were assembled, she turned out to be a female of a new species, Australopithecus afarensis, dating back 3.2 million years. She was between 20 and 30 years old, 3.5feet tall, weighing a scant 60 pounds, and possibly afflicted with arthritis. But most important, she walked on two legs. How can we tell? From the way that the femur (thighbone) connects to the pelvis at one end and to the knee at its other. In a bipedally walking primate like ourselves, the fem...
Folksonomies: evolution bipedalism lucy
Folksonomies: evolution bipedalism lucy
  1  notes

The bone tilts to bring the knees inward, like it does in humans, but not in chimps, who waddle because they are bow-legged.