{ Discoveries }

Top 10 New Species of 2008 Named

Last Friday, Arizona State University followed up to it’s first year of spreading word of their new science division, which is the discover and naming of new species. This new division, called Taxonomy, has officially named the top 10 species of 2008:

1. A Madagascar palm that literally flowers itself to death.
2. A new insect that is the world’s longest at 22 inches.
3. A tiny seahorse discovered off Indonesia.
4. The world’s smallest snake (about the size of a quarter), from Barbados.
5. A pale slug from Wales.
6. A weird snail from Malaysia.
7. An ugly blue fish found in the North Pacific Ocean.
8. An extinct fish said to be 380 million years old.
9. A caffeine-free coffee plant.
10. A bacteria found in hair spray.

Hit the read link to view some of the images.You can see the rest of the images by visiting Arizona State University online. Read more

{ Discoveries }

Microbes Found Under The Taylor Glacier in Antarctica

As a wise Ian Malcolm once said, “… life finds a way.” This statement couldn’t be further from the truth. In an article by John Tierney of the New York Times, I learned that Jill Mikucki, a researcher, found that microbes have been living under the Taylor Glacier for over two million years. What’s most interesting about the story is that they’ve been living in a saltwater lake under this glacier without sunlight and without any nutrients commonly found in regular soil.

In addition, I found a statement made by a commenter named Martin Richard, rather grounding and adding to the fact that life is precious. But, it’s true, so I guess we have to deal with it. His comment can be read below.

This evidence for the ubiquity and tenacity of microbial life also reinforces the point, that the great mass of life is on the micro-scale. We mistake the forms most visible to us as life itself, when in fact all we readily see are superficial and temporary manifestations of the deeper flow of life.

We are doodles on the bacterial sketchpad, easily erased, easily replaced.

Creepy? Yes. True? You bet.

{ Discoveries }

End Of The Rainbow Caught On iPhone Camera. Pot of gold? Nah.

Damn those filthy leprechauns for lieing about there being a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. A man named Jason Erdkamp was driving on a highway and was lucky enough to catch the first shot of an end of a rainbow. And although there’s no gold, there’s at least a $40,000 SUV. Sweet!

[via Gizmodo]

{ Discoveries }

The Lost City of Atlantis Found Through Google Earth

Say what? Yeah, you read right, some oceanographers believe they’ve found the lost city of Atlantis on the bottom of the ocean using Google Earth‘s new ocean extension. The extension, which integrates ocean terrain maps and other boring pieces of technology, has found a patch of land “the size of Whales” with perfectly squared terrain.

If you check out the picutre, it actually does look like it could be streets. But, my guess is it’s not, just because for that image to show streets, ancient people would have had to dig streets out of the ground. Personally, I don’t think they would have done that. Anyway, the article is pretty interesting.

The site, which is about three miles below the ocean and is about 620 miles west of Spain and Africa. The article explains that Pluto, an ancient philosopher, said that the lost city of Atlantis would be found in this area.