#Coloring Easter eggs with Natural Dyes Fun Science Experiments Easter is the time of year when many of us do something special with our breakfast food.
In this experiment we are going to use science to color eggs using natural dyes. While using natural dyes is a bit more time consuming than those little tablets you buy at the store gathering
and preparing them can be an interesting alternative. Begin by looking through your kitchen for brightly colored materials that stain
when spilled. Coffee tea grape juice and red wine make interesting egg dyes. Plant materials from fruits vegetables
and kitchen spices can also be used to make interesting dyes. To get different colors use these materials:
Other materials that you can try include spices like cayenne pepper dill seed and turmeric. You could also try grated orange or lemon peels.
It is helpful to chop or grate the plant materials into small pieces as you prepare your dye.
You also may want to add white vinegar to your dye. With liquids use 1 part vinegar to 3 parts dye.
#Black mamba Facts The black mamba has quite a reputation. It is one of the world s deadliest snakes;
it is the fastest land snake in the world; and it is Africa s biggest poisonous snake.
This snake s potential danger has been the subject of many African myths and it has been blamed for thousands of human deaths.
The black mamba's reputation is undeserved not. These snakes are fast skittish and highly aggressive when threatened.
Their venom is potentially lethal and though antivenom exists it is not widely available in the black mamba s native habitat of southern and eastern Africa.
For this reason they are considered a top killer in a land where nearly 20000 people die from snake bites every year.
The black mamba is one of four species of mamba. Others are Jameson s mamba eastern green mamba and western green mamba.
Mambas are slender agile and active with smooth scales and powerful venom. They all live throughout Sub-saharan africa.
Contrary to what its name would suggest black mambas are actually brownish in color ranging from olive to greyish tones with paler bellies.
The snake gets its name from the blue-black color of the inside of its mouth
which it displays when threatened. Black mambas have shaped coffin heads and are lithe athletic snakes. They can grow to be 14 feet long (4. 25 meters)
though their average length is around 8 feet (2. 4 m). Black mambas can live up to 11 years in the wild.
Black mambas reside in South and East Africa s savannas rocky hills and open woodlands. They like low open spaces
and enjoy sleeping in hollow trees rock crevices burrows or empty termite mounds. These speedy serpents can move faster than most people can run a fact that partly explains why they are feared so.
Black mambas can reach speeds of up to 12 mph (19 kph) making them the fastest snake on land
but still slower than the myths of them outrunning horses would suggest. Over longer distances they average about 7 mph (11 kph.
They slither quickly in short bursts over level ground and can zoom along with about one-third of their bodies off the ground
and their heads proudly held high. The black mamba racing along with its head nearly 4 feet (1. 2 m) in the air is a terrifying and amazing sight.
However black mambas use their incredible speed to escape threats not to hunt. Black mambas hunt and are active during the day and return to the same place every night to sleep.
They are often found in pairs or small groups though they are fundamentally shy around humans.
They get nervous and will run away quickly if a human approaches unless of course they feel threatened.
In that case they may become aggressive If they feel threatened black mambas will lift the front third of their bodies 3 to 4 feet (0. 9 to 1. 2 m) off the ground open their mouths hiss
and expose the dark foreboding interior of their mouths. They spread their flat cobra-like hoods and shake their heads.
This is a defensive posture aiming to scare away the threat. If black mambas need to attack to defend themselves they will strike quickly several times then scurry away as fast as possible.
The black mamba has no specific predators. Its greatest threat is habitat destruction. Black mambas typically eat small mammals
and birds though there have been reports of mambas found with whole parrots or full-grown cobras in their stomachs.
Black mambas hunt small animals by biting them and holding on until the prey becomes paralyzed.
If hunting a larger animal black mambas strike their prey and then release it. They then follow it until it becomes paralyzed
or dies at which point they eat it. It doesn t usually take prey very long to die after being bitten by a black mamba.
Black mambas devour their food whole. They have flexible jaws that they can dislocate in order to fit food up to four times the size of their head into their mouth.
Black mambas usually mate during the spring or summer. Males fight for the affections of females.
After mating females lay between 6 to 25 eggs in a damp warm burrow. The female then leaves her eggs
and never sees them again. Babies hatch about three months later and are born measuring between 16 and 24 inches.
Just two drops of potent black mamba venom can kill a human. Black mambas have a neurotoxic venom
which shuts down the nervous system and paralyzes victims. Without antivenom the fatality rate from a black mamba bite is 100 percent.
Victims can die within 20 minutes to 4 hours and if antivenom isn t administered within 20 minutes it can be a death sentence.
The World's 6 Deadliest Snakes The other mamba species are all smaller and slightly less venomous than the black mamba though still very poisonous.
These snakes are all brilliant green. They are also all arboreal species residing in trees.
All are solitary snakes. Jameson s mamba This is a slender snake that lives in trees
and actively and speedily pursues its small animal prey during the day. It can grow up to 8 feet long (2. 4 m) and lives in West and Central africa.
Eastern green mamba This is the smallest mamba usually measuring about 4 or 5 feet (1. 2 to 1. 5 m). It is common in the forests throughout East Africa.
Western green mamba The largest green mamba this snake can reach 10 feet (3 m). It is the second-longest venomous snake in Africa after the black mamba.
Snakes of the World Fun Facts About Snake e
#Can Backpacking Flies Rescue Queensland's Farmers?(Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Conversation.
It had a crocodile-like head a moveable neck and nostrils for breathing air. The close of the Devonian period is considered to be the second of the big five#mass extinction events of Earth s history.
Dragons fairies and giants oh my The list of top new species also includes some that seem to come out of a fairy tale.
The mother of dragons tree (actually known as Keweesak's Dragon tree) is a gorgeous 40-foot-tall (12 m) monster found in Thailand.
The tree has elongated leaves and creamy white flowers with orange filaments reminiscent of dragon fire. A world away but seemingly from the same tale is Tinkerbella nana an unbelievably small parasitoid wasp with feathery delicate wings.
Finally Australia provides a home for the last new creature on the list the leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius eximius.
along with a new golden skink and a frog that live in boulder fields during a National geographic-sponsored expedition.
The nocturnal gecko has large eyes and slender limbs and lurks on rocks and trees during its nighttime hunts.
of sea snake goes without a drink for months on end gradually dehydrating before refueling with freshwater
</p><p>Perhaps six or seven months of the year these snakes are living thirsty said Coleman Sheehy III an evolutionary biologist at the University of Florida
Sea snake Dehydrates for Months</a p><p>A 3000-year-old skeleton from a conquered territory of ancient Egypt is now the earliest known complete example of a person with malignant cancer spreading from an organ findings
#Chasing Alligators, Dodging Parrots: A Zookeeper's Life (Op-Ed) Christopher Scoufaras is a zookeeper at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)' s Queens Zoo.
During my teen years I was involved in the agricultural program at the school working with chickens goats lizards and other animals.
Part of my job is transporting alligators on and off exhibit during the changing of the seasons. We've trained them to walk into crates.
Like any animal alligators are motivated by food: We've conditioned them to run toward the sound of clanking tongs
We'll put tongs at the end of the crate to draw the alligators in and then close the sliding doors.
I'm not scared of the alligators but I do sometimes get goose bumps from a few of the parrots.
How Two Women Brought a Sea Change to Conservation (Op-Ed) A Crocodile Hunt Redefined in Southeastern Cuba (Op-Ed) Stepping up Conservation in Fiji in Stilettos (Op-Ed
and fruits but they will also munch on eggs small insects caterpillars small animals and even young snakes.
This included diverse small animals such as hares fish turtles hedgehogs and partridges as well as larger prey such as deer boars horse goats sheep extinct wild
Some monkeys also eat meat in the form of bird's eggs small lizards insects and spiders.
They can smash nuts with rocks insert branches into crevices to capture food and use large branches to club snakes.
when a 600-year-old canoe with a turtle carved on its hull emerged from a sand dune after a harsh storm.
The turtle carving on the boat also seems to link back to the settlers'homeland.
Turtle designs are rare in pre-European carvings in New zealand but widespread in Polynesia where turtles were important in mythology
and could represent humans or even gods in artwork. In many traditional Polynesian societies only the elite were allowed to eat turtles the study's authors noted.
Shifty winds A separate recent study examined the climate conditions that may have made possible the long journeys between the central East Polynesian islands and New zealand.
and more than 850 in neck snares including mountain lions river otters pronghorn antelope deer badgers beavers turtles turkeys ravens ducks geese great blue herons and even a golden eagle.
and trees and competing with native fauna, such as giant tortoises. After having eradicated pigs from the island,
) Last week the company fired chief executive Harry Stylli and Elizabeth Dragon, senior vice-president of research and development. Chief financial officer Paul Hawran and another unnamed executive resigned,
covering a total of nearly 13 hectares, in the northern states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Tamaulipas.
In Sonora where Monsanto has begun planting, transgenic maize is kept 500 metres away from conventional maize fields,
says Geoff Ridley, ERMA's acting general manager of its new organisms group. Agresearch currently holds two approvals to develop and test GM cattle in containment.
A fire at a research centre in S £o Paulo, Brazil, has destroyed a leading collection of dead snakes.
contained around 80,000 preserved snakes and thousands of spiders and scorpions that were used for biomedical research.
They were reporting the results of a field trial of transgenic Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in a town on Grand Cayman
On 8 december, its reusable'Dragon'capsule was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape canaveral, Florida.
hopes to dock Dragon with the station during its next demonstration launch, scheduled for 2011.
Left turn saves snails from snakes: Nature Newsevolutionary advantage often makes for show-stopping stuff a cheetah's speed, for example,
however, it's simply down to a poor fit with a snake's jaw. Some species of Satsuma snail have shells that coil to the left, Â
because the snakes that prey on them have specialized jaws for feeding on the molluscs'right-coiling ancestors,
thanks to the fact that common snake predators that can easily eat dextral snails struggle to consume the sinistral ones.
Hoso and his colleagues first looked at how effectively the snake Pareas iwasakii preys on Satsuma snails.
They found that the snakes, which have more teeth on the right side of their jaws than the left,
Comparing the global distributions of both snakes and snails, the researchers found that sinistral snail species have evolved more often in areas in
We knew the snakes had trouble picking up sinistral snails, says Menno Schilthuizen, an evolutionary ecologist at the National Museum of Natural history of The netherlands in Leiden,
But Masaki has shown the snake might actually speed up the fixation of sinistrality, suggesting this is a very plausible speciation mechanism.
After the iconic giant tortoise died last month, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa mourned the reptile s loss in an address to the nation,
expressing hope that one day, science and technology will be able to reproduce him, to clone him.
George was the last of the Pinta tortoises (Chelonoidis abingdoni), and it is too soon to know
George s death is already offering hope for other giant tortoises. Last week, Nature joined experts in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa cruz for an international workshop dedicated to the memory of Lonesome George. The meeting aimed to galvanize efforts to prevent the loss of other Galapagos tortoise
species and their habitats.""One species is very important, but most important are the ecosystems,
Conservationists launched a long and frustrating campaign to persuade the reptile to mate with females from other Galapagos islands1.
Within hours, Llerena was helping to carry the tortoise s corpse, trussed onto a wooden frame, into a chilled storage chamber.
Cruz found nothing obviously wrong with the tortoise; she concluded that he probably died of natural causes.
ten species of Galapagos tortoise remain. The reptiles populations have suffered as a result of hunting, habitat destruction and the introduction of destructive species over the past few hundred years;
some are now on the increase as a result of conservation efforts, but with a tortoise typically taking 20-30 Â years to reach sexual maturity,
recovery has been very slow. Last week s workshop took several years to organize, and one subject on the agenda was what to do with George in the event of his death,
will be a single set of recommendations that can be delivered to the Galapagos National park. The meeting also began work to review the status of the Galapagos tortoises on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species
. The tortoises Red List entries date from 1996 and are need in urgent of revision, says Peter Paul Van dijk, co-chairman of the IUCN/Species Survival Commission Tortoise and Fresh  water Turtle Specialist Group,
who attended the meeting. Some Galapagos tortoises could have their threat categories downgraded. But the Pinta tortoise  still listed as Extinct in the Wild  will be recategorized as Extinct.
To some visitors, the giant tortoises on one island of the Galapagos might look much the same as those on another.
But as Charles darwin came to appreciate after his brief sojourn in the Galapagos in 1835,
each island or main volcano seems to have its own distinct type of tortoise, and all are diverging into separate species. Genetic differences suggest that Lonesome George s own ancestors somehow travelled to Pinta from the island of Espa  ola about 300,000  years ago,
and had been diverging from their relatives ever since. From a management perspective,"each island is totally different,
who was one of the first researchers to carry out an in depth study3 of the behavioural ecology of giant tortoises, in the early 1980s."
In a study4 based on blood samples from a few dozen individuals, she found evidence that tortoises from Espa  ola and San Crist  bal had crossed more than 250  kilometres
in an effort to locate the Floreana-and Pinta-like tortoises. In theory, these animals could be taken off Wolf volcano for captive breeding.
and has been without tortoises for more than 150 Â years. But the Floreana-like tortoises on Wolf could help with a long-term project to restore the island s ecology.
The situation on Pinta is more urgent and waiting for a captive-breeding programme to bear fruit may not be an option.
but without tortoises  once the island s dominant herbivore  there is a danger that some plant species could be choked out and lost.
If a rapid solution cannot be found using tortoises of Pinta pedigree, it looks increasingly likely that conservationists will introduce a species from another island."
"Given that tortoises from Espa  ola founded the original population that landed on Pinta
and evolved into the Pinta tortoises, I don t see a problem with us repopulating that island with Espa  ola tortoises,
says Cayot. The Espa  ola tortoise was once on the brink of extinction, but now there are more than 1, 700 of the reptiles,
and conservationists can afford to consider transferring some of them to Pinta. This kind of deliberate introduction is unprecedented in the Galapagos,
however, so researchers are cautious. As a precursor experiment, almost 40 Â sterilized hybrid tortoises have been introduced to Pinta
and are being tracked by satellite to see what impact they have on the ecosystem. For Cayot, introducing a breeding population of tortoises to Pinta is a much more rational proposal than a plan that relies on cloning Lonesome George."In 100,000 Â years, through evolutionary processes,
we ll have a Pinta tortoise in Galapagos, she says.""100,000 Â years is a time frame
I can deal with
Food science deserves a place at the tablealthough it typically commands less attention than many areas of government-funded research,
the Dragon craft was due to dock with the space station on 10 october. The launch saw one engine fail,
so groups such as rodents and primates never shared the planet with the prehistoric reptiles. This conclusion is backed up by the fact that no one has ever found fossils of placental mammals from before the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago
This ark maintained at a steady-197 degrees Celsius, holds the cells of 503 mammals, 170 birds, 70 reptiles and 12 amphibians and fish out of an estimated 10 million animal
Luis Javier Sandoval/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013'Dive buddy'by Luis Javier Sandoval depicts an endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas.
Drillers will spend several weeks boring through layers of rock that house the fossils of tiny early dinosaurs and giant crocodile-like phytosaurs,
Since 2004, for instance, several skeletons have been unearthed of an extinct crocodile-like animal called Revueltosaurus, previously known only from its teeth.
One additional worry is that a weakening and eventual reversal in the field would disorient all those species that rely on geomagnetism for navigation including bees salmon turtles whales bacteria and pigeons.
and turtles are going to be confused very. Just when this will happen how long it will take and
#Are Crocodiles Secret Fruit-Lovers? Seed dispersal by animals is important for plants to help them occupy new areas of land.
Now we can add crocodiles to that list. A new study reviewed the diets of crocodiles
and showed that 13 of 18 species ate fruit of some sort and a wide variety of plants.
In other reptiles seed dispersal is a well-known activity although not as well understood as for insects mammals birds and even in snakes.
The recent study published in the Journal of Zoology shows that for crocodiles almost a quarter of the fruits consumed were of the âÂ#Âoefleshyã¢Â# kind.
However none of the recordings were of direct observations of fruit eating so exactly how
Most of the evidence come from dissection of crocodiles'stomachs and their faeces. So there is some chance that these crocodiles are indirect eaters of fruit who feast on fruit-eating animals.
But direct observations (see video) have been made many times to believe that they might actually like eating fruits.
First researchers that crocodiles learnt this behaviour from alligators in captivity. But the review makes note of observations in the wild.
Perhaps this odd phenomenon might help in part explain why crocodiles are such successful animals.
Crocodiles are obligate carnivores âÂ#Âtheir primary diet is meat âÂ#Âand as such fruits are classed often as anomalous food items
That the review study picked up so many independent instances of crocodiles feeding on fruit and having ingested seeds is solid evidence for this.
Virgin births sometimes occur among hammerhead sharks turkeys boa constrictors and komodo dragons. But nearly all animals engage in sex at some point in their lives.
even if it means less land for the rattlesnakes. Starz Your concern seems to be with the way the magnetic field in space affects that of the core
So do sea turtles whose long lives which can easily exceed a hundred years means a single generation could feel the effects.
Cechetti an engineer at the water-sports-equipment manufacturer Cobra International is always hunting for techniques to make surfboards stronger and lighter.
A middle ear still attached to the jaw is more reminiscent of reptiles and the structures of its anklebones and vertebrae look very similar to other mammal-like reptiles.
We cannot say that Megaconus is our direct ancestor but it certainly looks like a great-great-grand uncle 165 million years removed Luo says.
and feels exaggerated like the tortoise and the hare but plays on people's positive conceptions of space exploration:
Just Like Lizards'Tailssome lizards and amphibians have the ability to regrow severed tails or limbs--in fact the blue-tailed skink abandons its tail intentionally to distract predators.
But humans despite our amazing advancements in the field of spying on each other are thought typically to lack this superpower-like ability.
But in fact we're more like blue-tailed skinks than you'd think! Back in 2010 a woman named Deepa Kulkarni lost the tip of her finger to an altercation with a slammed door.
When bloodletting Europeans stumbled on Turtle Island North america shores the Landowner North american Amerindians had a complete Pharmacopea inferiorly chemically immitated
When bloodletting Europeans stumbled on Turtle Island North america shores the Landowner North american Amerindians had a complete Pharmacopea inferiorly chemically immitated
You want your poop to be soft like a snake one of them advises. Rhinehart says he still poops on Soylent just much less.
-archosaur-You seem to be operating under a misconception. You are right in that cutting down trees does not release CO2
but you miss archosaur's point. Cutting down forests is carbon-neutral; it doesn't release carbon.
Literally every insectivorous animal in the northeast--songbirds carnivorous birds (hawks owls) opossums foxes cats shrews snakes spiders and even dogs--will gorge on cicadas.
Our bodies therefore reflect a continuously jury-rigged system with echoes of fish of fruit fly of lizard and mouse.
Oh the alligator tears over taxation...Seriously. Yes I understand that life has evolved over millenia under different climates
You still see that in birds crocodilians and snakes he explains. Like other placental mammals we humans lost our yolk somewhere along the line
but our eggs still come with a vestigial yolk sac. Have a burning science question you'd like to see answered in our FYI section?
and reptile species that reproduced via eggs. Thus the egg existed long before the chicken.
and seeds before 400 million years ago amphibians before 360 million years ago reptiles before 300 million years ago mammals before 200 million years ago
Thank everyonehttp://al. ly/3jfhttp://al. ly/3jfhttp://al. ly/3jfhttp://al. ly/3jf Hmmmmm NYC has too many rats Florida has too many pythons
Pythons eat rats...Pinky are you thinking what I'm thinking? Gee Brain I thick so...
anything inherently dangerous which includes venomous animals (snakes lizards) huge animals (hippos elephants) and animals that would prefer to murder you than let you pat them on the head (big cats bears baboons) are outlawed all.
Class 3 includes venomous reptiles and all species of bear big cat and wolf. All three classes are legal!
and after spending over $260000000 he met with complete failure a failure that glares like a death dragon from the old discarded machinery
Once you pass the Malinowski ranger station where visitors must sign in civilization drops away for good with caimans
Sometimes it s the work of external forces as with the atomic testing that gave rise to Godzilla in the original 1954 film and the glowing ooze that turned garden-variety turtles into man-size martial artists.
In reality the road to monstrous success would be paved with the corpses of almost-Godzillas and near inja Turtles.
#'Chameleon'Vine Looks like Whatever Tree It Climbschameleons aren t the only species that excel at mimicry as biology professor Ernesto Gianoli discovered in Chile s temperate rainforests.
These results indicate a shift from the standard bird knee-driven bipedal locomotion to a more hip-driven locomotion typical of crocodilians (the only other extant archosaur group) mammals
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