Sea Creature With Eyes of Rock

In the depths of the ocean, one probably wouldn't imagine discovering a sea creature with rocks as eyes. Surprisingly, you could find sea mollusks with calcium carbonate crystal eyes underwater somewhere. This mollusk with many eyes was actually found a few decades ago, but scientists were not sure what the eyes were made of or whether they could see properly. "It turns out they can see objects, though probably not well," researcher Daniel Speiser states. These fascinating creatures are known as chitons. Even though they were actually living on the Earth for the past five hundred million years, chitons didn't have these eyes until about twenty-five million years ago. They most likely had evolved in order to be able to determine their surroundings and defend themselves from predators. Researchers decided to study some three-inch West Indian fuzzy chitons to figure out how they defend themselves. They used hovering discs to see the chitons' reactions. They only seemed to clamp down when the hovering discs were one inch or larger. The researchers are still not too sure whether they were only responding to the removal of light. Still, the mollusks were able to see just enough to react. They have the same abilities in water and air, so they must be able to see underwater. These creatures are still to be further researched, and so far their abilities are interesting to think about.

http://www.livescience.com/13713-primitive-sea-creature-rock-eyes.html

Dead Skin Cells Clean the Air

According to research, believe it or not, the amount of about five hundred million dead skin cells actually help clean the air that surrounds you. These cells that come off of your skin every single day really benefit your environment. The oil, squalene decreases the ozone level inside of your home from about two to fifteen percent. The bonds that are contained in the molecules break apart the ozone. It actually protects the Earth from harmful pollutants and cleans the air. The ozone is formed by many human interactions, and the amount just keeps on increasing. Skin cells are one of the things that are reducing the risk of the ozone from coming too close to the Earth's surface. Otherwise, people would be under severely dangerous conditions. The chemist, Charles Weschler and a few others had collected dust samples from many places and analyzed for the squalene. They figured out how much of a significant impact dead skin cells really have on the removal of the ozone. Other chemicals containing double bonds also can contribute to ozone reduction. Earlier research from an office states that about ten to twenty-five percent was removed from dead skin cells in a thirty cubic meter room. Of course, they also say it doesn't mean you should let your home collect dust. Overall, these are just some new facts about how skin cells clean the air discovered by some reasearchers. Squalene in dust will continue to remove the ozone the same way it has been.

http://www.livescience.com/14178-dead-human-skin-helps-clean-air.html

Toothpick Fish

Throughout each generation, there are always changes in population. The toothpick fish lab was completed in order to determine the way this might happen. There are four colors of fish, which are red, yellow, orange, and green. The phenotype of the fish being green could have the genotype being GG, Gr or Gy. Red would need to have rr, yellow would have yy, and orange would have ry. The green allele is G, red is r, and yellow is y. The lab started out with twelve fish and with all the alleles in the gene pool. There are no fish in the morgue yet. In the first generation, the results were six green fish, one red, three yellows, and two being orange. The yellow fish were put into the morgue. The population of yellow fish had now decreased. The second generation consisted of six green fish, three reds, no yellows, and one orange. The reason for there being no yellows could be because of the death of the yellow fish in the last generation. The third generation included six green fish again, one red, and two orange. Again, there were no yellow fish. There were many heterozygous fish and most turned out to be green because of its dominance. In addition, there were a few heterozygous orange fish, but there weren't many. All the reds and yellow were homozygous, because both of those traits are recessive.

The changes in environment could greatly affect the lives of various creatures. In this lab, some of the toothpick fish were killed off because of factory waste that killed the seaweed and algae, which made it harder to camouflage for green fish. The red and orange survived because the green allele doesn't show up in any of them, and all had good camouflage. Only three were left. If this instance were to be altered, for example, if the red and orange were not exposed to good camouflage, the onsequences wouldn't be the same. The green fish may over populate and if the green fish have good camouflage for a long time, the yellow and red alleles would slowly disappear. Or even if just the red fish would vanish, the yellow or orange would end up vanishing at some point as well. Overall, the genes of different living things make a huge difference in their environment.

Glowing Plants

Roses that glow could reduce the need of street lights, according to the company Bioglow, Inc. A few reasearchers realized that this was possible after transplanting the genes of marine bacteria that allow them to light up into tobacco plants. After doing this, the researchers discovered that the tobacco plants were able to show a faint green glow. One of the researchers, Krichevsky, says this is the first time that plants have been able to glow by themselves. Glowing plants that were created before were sprayed with chemicals or had a temporary glowing effect. Right now, these plants can only glow a little bit, but Krichevsky assures that Bioglow will be able to make them glow even brighter. There are numerous living things that can produce a glow on their own, and Bioglow decided to transplant the gene of marine bacteria. The glow's color could be determined by the luciferase. This could be altered to show various colors on the plant, such as red or blue. Some people believe that this may cause nuclear contamination, but Krichevsky still needs to research further about this. Even though this fact has been discovered, the researchers say that these glowing plants will most likely not be found at a local florist and that this is more of just a visonary thing.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/technology/glowing-plants-101129.html

A Devastating Virus

Crickets that are raised as food for reptiles and other animals are dying because of a terrifying virus. This virus is quickly spreading around throughout cricket farms everywhere in North America. It has already brought millions of crickets to their death. This would assure at least one cricket producer to become bankrupt or out of a job. The cricket producer Elizabeth Payne says that there is no way to cure the virus and because of that, she was forced to go out of business. This virus has also affected crickets in Europe in 2002. In Canada, this destructive virus killed 60 million crickets. This virus came from a certain cricket. Although it is very deadly, it does not effect the other animals that eat crickets. Overall, the year for animals has not been very easy. Many of the cricket producers are now thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing the barns in the cricket farms to prevent more diseases to spread. Hopefully this disease will somehow be stopped from spreading further out, or many crickets will be in danger.


Source: http://www.livescience.com/animals/etc/110112-virus-paralyzes-crickets-and-pet-food-industry.html

This Tree's Niche

This tree may seem small, but it still has a role in the community. It's niche is to serve as a source of food for many birds with its berries and insects living in it. It gives insects food as well with the leaves. Also, it provides shelter for different birds and insects. They may create a nest in this tree. One another niche is to give out oxygen for different creatures. It absorbs sunlight by photosynthesis and absorbs water and minerals from the soil. Many of these different things it provides are in order for certain organisms to survive. Without it, they may not be able to, and die.

Limiting Factors In My Community

These flowers are a biotic limiting factor. This is because they are food for certain animals, such as bunnies. They are a source if nectar for insects. The flowers limit oxygen for many creatures. All these flowers together make a population.