![]() Panthera zdanskyi is an extinct species of pantherine, and the oldest known extinct species of tiger to have ever lived. The skull was found in 2011 and is the oldest complete skull found of any pantherine cat, and may hold the key to our understanding of big cat evolution. The skull dates back to the early Pleistocene period, approximately 2.5 million years ago, and was found in the Longdan Gansu Province of northwestern China. The skull was compared to 207 tiger, 66 jaguar and 100 leopard skulls, which lead to the conclusion that the cat was in fact a very primitive tiger species. It was similar in size to a large jaguar skull - a little smaller than that of a modern tiger skull. It had a relatively long nose, a flat forehead and unusually long upper canines which were proportionally much larger than lions, leopards, jaguars and even tigers! The skull provides evidence that tigers originally evolved in China, and that as the size of prey increased, so did the size of tigers. Illustration Credit to Jagroar Source: earthcats
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![]() Mark Moffett (born 7 January 1958) “…has developed a career that combines science and photography, in spite of being a high school dropout. Although his family was not academic, encouraged by his parents he sought out biologists by the age of 12. He continues to travel to conduct research on ecology and behavior, photograph and write for National Geographic and other magazines, author books, and lecture and appear on television as an ecologist-storyteller. He has been compared to Jacques Cousteau and Jane Goodall, and National Geographic has called him “the Indiana Jones of Entomology” Moffett received his B.A. in Biology at Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1979, where he was elected into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in 1989, funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He came to Harvard to study under Edward O. Wilson, who had developed the field of sociobiologyand was at the time popularizing the concept of biodiversity. After receiving his doctorate, Moffett became curator of ants under Dr. Wilson at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, which has the largest collection of these social insects in the world. He remained at the museum as a Research Associate through most of the 1990s while continuing his efforts for National Geographic Magazine. Afterward, he became a Research Associate at Department of Anthropology at Harvard (1997–2000) and Visiting Scholar at Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at University of California, Berkeley (1998–2005). Moffett is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian Institution. He travels the world looking for new species and behaviors while studying social behavior and the structure and dynamics of ecosystems, particularly their canopies. Moffett taught himself photography to document his doctorate on ants. National Geographic published these novel photographs, and he went on to become a leading photographer and frequent writer for that magazine, with more than two dozen articles and hundreds of images to his credit. Source: Wikipedia ![]() Las plantas son como esponjas que captan materiales gracias a las raíces y lo incorporan a su organismo. Según un estudio publicado en la revista Nature Communications y realizado por científicos australianos,comprobando la presencia de oro en las hojas de ciertas plantas, se puede saber si unos metros bajo la superficie existe un yacimiento de este preciado metal. Previamente a este estudio ya se había observado la posibilidad de que las plantas absorbieran ciertos elementos y los incorporasen a su tejido biológico. Sin embargo esta es la primera vez que consiguen testearlo en especímenes naturales, lo cual abre una puerta al desarrollo de nuevos métodos biogeoquímicos de exploración de los suelos. El eucalipto es un árbol perfecto para este tipo de investigaciones, pues funciona como una especie de bomba hidráulica, con raíces profundas y extendidas por todo el sustrato. Además, como es probable que el oro sea tóxico para la planta, tiende a trasladarla a las ramas y las hojas, donde es más fácil su expulsión. Y ahí es sencillo comprobar su presencia gracias a las nuevas tecnologías. Sin embargo, que existan trazas de oro no significa que sean aprovechables directamente, ni que justo excavando unos metros los buscadores de oro puedan encontrar su preciado tesoro. Como explica Mel Lintern, geoquímico de la Mancomunidad de Investigación Científica e Industrial de Australia (CSIRO) y coautor del estudio, "las hojas pueden usarse en combinación con otras herramientas para hacer la exploración más rentable y ecológica". Y es que gracias a esta técnica podrían hallarse depósitos de oro enterrados decenas de metros bajo tierra tapados con sedimentos de hasta 60 millones de años. Pero la búsqueda de oro no es la única utilidad que los investigadores han encontrado a este estudio. Como apunta el propio Lintern "los eucalipto son tan comunes que esta técnica podría ser usada más habitualmente, incluso se podría utilizar para encontrar otros metales como el zinc y el cobre". Source: Muy Interesante. |
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