Tag: biology

The colossal squid

I don’t know how you feel about calamari, but it’s always been a little too rubber-band-like to be one of my favorites. However you feel about it, though, I’m pretty sure you can agree with me that it’s far better to eat calamari than to have the calamari eating you. That unsettling prospect was raised …

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Coast redwoods

Imagine a tree taller than the tallest building in Regina–by several stories; a tree as tall as a 30-story building. Imagine a tree trunk so massive you could easily live inside its hollowed trunk. Now imagine a whole stand of such trees, a valley filled with them. That’s the amazing reality of the Coast Redwoods. …

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Geese–and Goosezilla

Canada Geese are among the most identifiable birds on the prairies, but we tend to have a love-hate relationship with them. We love to see and hear them honking overhead on a quiet autumn evening–but we hate what they do to our parks, lawns and golf courses. But if you think today’s geese are a …

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Spring again

  Someone recently sent me pictures of the campus of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas (my alma mater), showing it practically buried in beautiful spring flowers. Yes, spring is creeping northward, and soon multicolored flowers and rich green grass and leaves will replace our landscape’s current predominant shades of gray, white and brown. Exactly when …

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Extremophiles

We humans like to think we’re pretty tough, able, thanks to our technology, to live in the most severe habitats on Earth. But the fact is, there are other forms of life on Earth that have us beat hands down. They not only live all the places we live, they live in searingly hot water …

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Sharks

It’s that time of the year again. The weather is turning cooler, the leaves are changing color, Canadians are leafing through travel brochures featuring sandy beaches, blue water, and warm sunshine. Except… …except, there’s been a lot of news about shark attacks coming from those very same sunny beaches. Some could be excused for wondering …

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Purring

I’m a cat person.  Don’t get me wrong; I like dogs.  But I like cats more.  (It’s an odd thing: although many dog people absolutely hate cats, I’ve seldom met a cat person who hates dogs.  But that’s probably a topic for another column.) One of the nicest features of a cat is its purr.  …

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Plant communication

“I talk to the trees, but they don’t listen to me…” sings one of the characters in the musical Paint Your Wagon. Maybe he’s just not speaking the right language. Far from being inert lumps, plants can and do communicate–both with other plants, and, interestingly, with insects. Of course, we’re not talking Shakespearean sonnets or …

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Animal communication

The fact that animals can communicate with each other is pretty obvious to anyone who has ever watched a pack of dogs or a group of farm cats interact, or listened to crows calling to each other in the treetops. But just how complex is animal communication? Can anything animals do to communicate with each …

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Animal intelligence

People with pets find it hard to believe, but scientists continue to debate whether or not animals are conscious–that is, whether they’re aware of themselves as individuals. Some still claim that anything animals do is strictly the result of conditioning. Others are willing to grant animals a certain amount of intelligence, but argue that animals …

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Lake monsters

Now that summer is winding down and people are heading home from the lake, it’s time to ask, “Did you see anything weird out there?” It wouldn’t be surprising if you did, since Canada has more lake monsters than any other country in the world. “Lake monsters” are large unknown creatures said to inhabit many …

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Extraterrestrials

On the television program The X-Files, FBI agent Fox Mulder is always searching for proof of extraterrestrials, mostly by exploring old warehouses with his trusty flashlight and cell phone. But as an article by Ron Cowen in the November 1 issue of Science News points out, the real search for non-terrestrial life is taking place in university and …

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