

ME student discovers a unique fact about polar bears - bane
http://coe.berkeley.edu/engnews/fall02/3S/polarbear.html

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miahi
There are probably a lot of unique facts about many many animals, but almost
nobody has the equipment (money) and the time (money) to do it. Lots of
scientific biology missions are now out of funds. It's more profitable doing
soap operas with animals for TV shows.

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JoeAltmaier
Botany = even worse. I remember when it was discovered how trees communicate
infestations - through the air. The experiment involved two plants separated
by glass - the soil, then the air. This experiment could have been performed
in the 1700's.

My Scotch Pine trees are all dying. The extension guy says "just plant
different trees". 20 years of invenstment dismissed. Probably because nobody
knows squat about treating trees.

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Mz
Do you know what they are dying from?

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JoeAltmaier
Some nematode spread by a moth. Attacks the roots I believe.

Its hard to treat trees. Their circulatory system is primitive, doesn't
circulate much, is anisotropic. So not much leverage to apply treatments even
if they existed.

~~~
Mz
I don't know much about plants but have resolved health issues of my own that
doctors said couldn't be resolved. I read a book some years ago with a true
story in it about a man in a village saving a fruit tree by starting an ant
war. The tree was being destroyed by an infestation of (I think) large red
ants. The villager kept bringing leaves with black ants to the area. Even
though the black ants were smaller, they eventually won and the tree was
saved.

So I'm wondering if you can research natural predators/enemies and import them
to kill off the nematodes?

The other thought that occurred to me: I am wondering if you can get the soil
tested and if there is some way to determine there is a nutrient deficiency
that could be remedied. Again, I don't know much about plants so that I don't
know where you would need to go to get info like that. But my best
understanding is that a nutrient deficiency can compromise an immune system.
Alternately, a high availability of something desired by the predator can
attract them. So I am wondering if that would be a helpful approach.

Just thinking out loud.

Best of luck.

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scott_to_s
Another interesting fact about polar bears: They have black skin, but layered
with fur comprised of fibre-optic-like hairs which allows them to soak up heat
radiation from the sun.

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xbryanx
...in 2003.

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jschuur
This headline sounds like copy for a sleazy weight loss ad.

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keithpeter
Whole animal biology tends not to get the resources that the DNA hackers get.
This narrowing of the facts base may be problematic if we want to preserve the
fauna for the offspring.

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Evgeny
I'm wondering if this fact is indeed unique to polar bears. Did they check
other mammals that live in similar conditions, i.e. Arctic fox would be a
candidate.

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portentint
So, if you see nothing, there could be a polar bear RIGHT THERE.

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gujk
Huge PR miss for Science Exchange. She says she could only do her experiment
because she had access to some fancy rare scope.

