Evolution’s Surprise Bag: The African Naked Mole Rat
Posted 11 September 2014 by Joe Dramiga
This beauty wouldn’t win any pageants, but it is a fascinating animal. ... Read more
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RECENT POSTS 
Felista’s Fable Shows a Woman Struggling with the Stigma of Fistula
Posted 3 September 2014 by Joe Dramiga
Felista’s Fable swept the second annual Uganda Film Festival Awards held on Friday. It took home the awards for Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Isaac Kuddris), Best Feature Film, Film of the Year and Director of the Year (Dilman Dila). ... Read more
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Is Dog Barking the Result of Human Artificial Selection?
Posted 25 August 2014 by Joe Dramiga
The Basenji also called the Congo Terrier is native to the Central African forest. Since ages he is used by the pygmies (thought to be the oldest of all humans) to hunt lions. Therefore the basenji is one of the oldest breeds of dogs. He does not bark, but he can make all the same noises that a wolf or coyote can make. He can scream, cry, howl, whine and growl. ... Read more
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I Love You To Bits: Female Sex Cannibalism and Male Counter-Adaptation in the Redback Spider
Posted 3 August 2014 by Joe Dramiga
The redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) is a nocturnal venomous spider found in Australia which displays sexual cannibalism during mating. Female Sex Cannibalism and Post-Copulatory Paternity Choices For the female, killing the male is not such a big deal because she can easily raise the offspring on her own and is able to store the sperm in her reproductive tract called spermathecae for as long as two years to fertilize its eggs later. Females mate with multiple males and research has... Read more
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A Tetragametic Woman
Posted 27 April 2014 by Joe Dramiga
A case report by Yu, et. al. in The New England Journal of Medicine narrates the discovery of a tetragametic woman; that is a woman derived from four different gametes, not just two. The 52-year-old came to the doctors' attention because she suffered from focal sclerosing glomerulonephritis and needed a kidney transplant. In preparation for kidney transplantation, she and her immediate family underwent a histocompatibility antigen blood test. The Histocompatibility Antigen Blood Test A histocompatibility antigen blood test looks at... Read more
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Your Inner Ant: How Popularity on the Web arises by Trail and Error
Posted 12 April 2014 by Joe Dramiga
Every animal needs food and every animal likes food. Food is quite popular one could say. For foraging, some species like ants use the so-called trail-laying and trail-following behavior for finding the shortest path between a nest and a food source. The trail-laying and trail-following behavior consists of the following three basic principles: 1. Each time an ant moves, it lays a pheromone trail. 2. For finding its way, it senses its environment and a) follows existing trails, if there... Read more
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Lupita Nyongo’s Documentary “In My Genes”
Posted 6 February 2014 by Joe Dramiga
With a radiant smile and an unassuming demeanor, actress Lupita Amondi Nyong’o has walked into Hollywood's limelight and taken the film industry by storm. The Oscar-nominated actress made her American film debut in Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" (2013) as Patsey. Nyong'o received rave reviews for her performance, and has been nominated for several awards including a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and two Screen Actors Guild Awards including Best Supporting Actress. While her quick rise to... Read more
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The Amniotic Egg: An Adaptation to Land Life
Posted 3 January 2014 by Joe Dramiga
Amphibians never succeeded in becoming fully terrestrial because ... Read more
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Raw and Uncut 3: Red Cylindrical Confervae
Posted 24 May 2013 by Joe Dramiga
We sailed from Bahia. A few days afterwards, when not far distant from the Abrolhos Islets, my; attention was called to a reddish-brown appearance in the sea. The whole surface of the water, as it appeared under a weak lens, seemed as if covered by chopped bits of hay, with their ends jagged. These are minute cylindrical confervae, in bundles or rafts of from twenty to sixty in each. Mr. Berkeley informs me that they are the same species (Trichodesmium... Read more
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Raw and Uncut 2: The Flashes of Fireflies
Posted 23 May 2013 by Joe Dramiga
All the fireflies, which I caught here, belonged to the Lampyridae (in which family the English glowworm is included), and the greater number of specimens were of Lampyris occidentalis. I found that this insect emitted the most brilliant flashes when irritated: in the intervals, the abdominal rings were obscured. The flash was almost co-instantaneous in the two rings, but it was just perceptible first in the anterior one. The shining matter was fluid and very adhesive: little spots, where the... Read more
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