Black Wolves

Many millennia ago, man created dog. As the story goes, gray wolves in East Asia took to the comforts of human camp life somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago. People bred their new canine companions for docility and other favored traits. Dogs then accompanied humans crossing the Bering Strait into the Americas 12,000–14,000 years ago.

Our genetic tinkering, says a new study in today’s issue of Science, has left a dark legacy on modern wolves. Thanks to our domestication efforts, many North American wolves now have black and not their typical silver coats. Paradoxically, the trait may help wolves cope as we tinker with their natural habitat.

The international team of researchers argues that the trait of black fur was passed to North American wolf populations as they mated with domestic dogs, perhaps those that belonged to the first Native Americans. Genetic sequencing by the researchers showed that both black wolves and black dogs lack three units of DNA on one chromosome. In wolves, this mutation suppresses a gene on a separate chromosome that is linked to gray coat color.

Black wolves are common in forested habitats such as Yellowstone National Park. But they’re rare in the snow-covered Canadian tundra, where gray and white coats prevail. “This work may provide an explanation,” said University of Calgary-based co-author Marco Musiani in a press statement. As climate change and human development deplete snowy habitat for wolves, we may see more “black sheep” in northern wolf populations in the future. While the trait may confer better camouflage, geneticists offer another possible explanation: better immunity. The mutation for black coats is found in a type of gene that helps fight infection.

Whatever the reason, black fur “has proven to be a valuable trait for wolf populations as their Arctic habitat shrinks,” said Musiani. “It also shows that human activities can help enrich the genetic diversity of wild animal populations, which is a very unexpected finding.” In this instance, as humanity taketh away, it also giveth.

Wolves now have black coats instead of there silver coats, and this trait may help the wolves cope as people tinker with there natural habitat.

Millennia- period of a thousand years.

Suppresses-forcebly put an end to.

Geneticists-person who studies genetics.

FLORA FACT: SNAKEWEED

From a distance, the mounds of golden yellow flowers cloaking roadsides and fenced pastures this month provide fall color for travelers on Texas highways. But don't be fooled by their pretty disposition.

Long despised by ranchers, broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae) ranks among the state's 106 most toxic plants. Cattle, sheep and goats can get sick and even die after grazing the perennial shrub. Cattle may also abort, or give birth to stillborn or weak calves, according to Toxic Plants of Texas. Loss of livestock attributed to snakeweed poisoning costs ranchers millions of dollars annually.

On the flip side, desert mule deer occasionally browse the plant. Many small birds and mammals eat its seeds and use the foliage as protective cover.

Drought tolerant, broom snakeweed prefers the sandy, chalky and clay soils of dry ranges and deserts. Its tiny yellow flowers – produced in clusters called corymbs – bloom profusely from August through November. In the winter, snakeweed dies back, leaving brittle stems that make great kindling; hence, its other common names of "matchweed" and "matchbrush." In bygone times, dry snakeweed tied to sticks also served well as brooms.

Native American Ethnobotany lists a multitude of medicinal uses for snakeweed, including as a treatment for indigestion, bee stings, headaches, diarrhea, painful menstruations, colds, fevers and nosebleeds, not to mention snakebites, too.

The snakeweed flower although looks nice is actually a very toxic flower. Ranchers dispise this flower because it can get livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats sick after they eat the flower, but some animals get a benefit from the  plant. Birds and mammals eat the seeds from the flower. They grow in dry places mostley

I didn't know this flower was toxic. I think ranchers probably have a hard time keeping there livestock away from the flower so they don't get sick.

1. Corymbs-A usually flat-topped flower cluster in which the individual flower stalks grow upward from various points of the main stem to approximately the same height.

2. Attributed-To relate to a particular cause or source

3. Cloaking-covering or concealing.

Jellyfish in a lake

JELLYFISH IN A LAKE

Quarter-sized freshwater jellies show up sporadically all over the state.

By Dyanne Fry Cortez

John Newman was consulting on an East Texas ranch when he saw something he never expected: a flock of round, whitish blobs bobbing in the clear water of a spring-fed lake.

Newman, who owns Newman Wildlife Management near Frankston, had a hunch what the blobs were. "I was in the Navy for four years, and I know what jellyfish look like," he says. The things in the lake were "just like a miniature saltwater jellyfish, but about the size of a quarter." Short tentacles rimmed the near-transparent bell. Internal organs formed a cross at the center.

That was August 1997. Newman called the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Jim Matthews, exhibits curator at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center, came out with fisheries biologist Rick Ott to collect specimens. Newman found out about the existence of a freshwater jellyfish - not a true jellyfish, but a member of a related family. Biologists call itCraspedacusta sowerbii, and it's found in lakes and ponds all over the world.

Terry Peard, who studies C. sowerbii at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, lists some 50 Texas sightings on his Web site. Freshwater jellies have appeared in Lakes Amistad, Cisco, Grapevine, Joe Pool, Limestone, Nacogdoches, Medina and Travis, as well as several private lakes and ponds.

The free-floating medusa is the most visible stage of the jellyfish's complex life cycle. In most seasons, C. sowerbii lives in colonies of tiny, stalked polyps attached to underwater surfaces. A polyp reproduces by budding. It may produce a branch that remains connected or a frustule larva that breaks off and crawls away. Every so often, the polyps will bud off a crop of medusae, which develop sex organs and go looking for mates.

Both the medusa and polyp forms of C. sowerbii feed on zooplankton. Like its saltwater relatives, the freshwater jellyfish uses stinging cells to capture its food. The stingers aren't tough enough to have much effect on a human, although some people have reported a tingle when one touches a sensitive spot.

Newman observed medusa "blooms" at his client's ranch each summer from 1997 through 2005. The sight reminds him of bubbles in a boiling pot. "They just appear from the depths and come up toward the surface," he says. "Sometimes you don't see more than 10. Sometimes, there are hundreds."

This dance may not accomplish much, in biological terms. Peard's research suggests that most United States populations are all male or all female. All the jellies in a given water body may be descended from a few dormant polyps (podocysts) that arrived on a bird's foot or in a hatchery tank with stocked fish.

Blooms last only a few weeks, and they don't happen on a predictable schedule. If you want to get lucky, Newman suggests gazing into water on a still day in late summer when the sun is high in the sky. "The hottest dog days of summer are when we see them," he says. "The hotter the water, the more active they are."

A guy named John Newman discovers jellyfish while consulting on an East Texas Ranch. The rest of the story explains about what kind of jellyfish they are and there details.

Thats pretty crazy that a jellyfish can be in as small of a place as lake. I usually thought they could only live in oceans or saltwater. It makes you wonder what other things could live in lakes.

Lions and bears-oh my

This article is very intresting. I didn't know all these tips about when you encounter a mountain lion or a black bear.

Wild Thing: Brainy Beast

WILD THING: BRAINY BEAST

The wily octopus can not only change its color and texture — it can also escape from tightly sealed boxes.

By Sheryl Smith-Rodgers

Even sturdy straps topped with heavy concrete blocks can't get in the way of an octopus. In the early 1980s, Jennifer Mather, then a visiting researcher at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, recalls how tightly she and her colleagues secured a lidded plastic box containing an Octopus vulgaris.

The next morning, they found the octopus on the lab floor, still alive. "We named him Houdini!" laughs Mather, now a psychology professor at Canada's University of Lethbridge.

Surprise! Octopuses — Hollywood's favorite "monster of the sea" — boast not only strength and dexterity but smarts as well. What's more, these eight-armed invertebrates — kin to brainless clams, oysters and other mollusks — lack a hard shell. So they can easily compress and squeeze through spaces only as wide as their eyes.

In the Gulf of Mexico, an average Octopus vulgaris measures 3 feet wide and weighs 20 pounds. Reclusive and shy, this master of disguise hides in a lair it camouflages with shells, rocks and other debris. Using suckers beneath its muscular arms to feel and taste, an octopus forages the ocean bottom for fish, crabs and other crustaceans. Predator coming? A fast switch in skin color and texture blends the octopus into its surroundings.

Despite their cunning, this species of octopus lives only 12 to 18 months. After mating, males go senile and waste away. In their den, females guard and tend more than 100,000 rice-sized eggs, then die shortly after the young hatch. Only a few survive and mature; most fall prey to crabs and fish.

I think that this is pretty cool. I didn't know octopuses could do other things than just swim around. Also they only live 12 to 18 months. I would like to watch it escape from the box.

Real Bionic Woman

A girl is taking a ride on a motorcycle with her friend and the bike spins out of control and her arm is severed by a highway divider. The doctor tries to reattach her arm but it won't work. The put a prosthetic arm on her, but she wasn't able to control her arm. For a while she was depressed because she thought she would have to go the rest of her life with just one arm. She went and had nerve surgery done and one day while she was in the shower she realized that she could feel the hot water on her left hand. She began to feel things that she couldn't anymore because of the nerve surgery done.  

This is a major medical breakthrough. There's no telling what they could do in the future. I think that it would be a very good thing for soldiers that have been wounded and imobalized. I fell kinda sorry for the girl tho, she probably cant do all the things she used to with her arm just some.