How to Subscribe and Comment

At the bottom of this page, if you scroll down all the way to the bottom, you'll see a thing that says, "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)." I have no idea how that works. Maybe one of yu smart people do.

Anyone can leave a comment. If you're not familiar with commenting, underneath each post is the word, "Comments." After that is the number "0". (You get the drift.) Click on "Comments" and it'll give you a box where you can let me know what a fabulous stie this is, what side of my head I should part my hair on, who's gonna win the Ashes, or what have you.

First commenter gets a free copy of my CD. Makes a great gift for someone you really don't like.

UPDATE: We have a winner. We here at Boxing Kangaroos are happy to announce that Anonymous is the winner of one CD from me. Conratulations, and enjoy.

UPDATE II: I didn't mean to say "conRATulations. Honest.

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The Sadie Project

Photo by Dave Hampton

The Sadie Project is an attempt to take two pictures per day of my new baby Sadie—one of her face and one of her whole body—in an effort to make a time lapse movie of her development.

Sadie's from two of the finest humans and players of music I know, Sage Meadows, whose voice you'll want to hear again, and Dave Hampton, singer, songwriter, podcaster, all around undeserving of Sage, but hey—some guys get lucky. They make up 55% of the New Autonomous Folksingers (they always give 110%). Go listen. Browse. Leave a comment.

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Golden Crocodile

Crocodile basking in the setting sun in the shallows of the South Alligator River, Kakadoo National Park in the Northern Territory, Australia. Photos taken from a boat, October, 2006.


Photo by Me

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What Are you Looking At?

East of Canberra got out of the car for some reason or other, saw this little guy not far from the road digging a little hole. I don't know what type of lizard he is. I'll try and find out.

Look at the back legs on that sucker.

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Sign on a Bus in Sydney

There was a bad feeling in the genes of the universe on the day this sign was deemed necessary.

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Infected Shrimp on YouTube Treadmill

This story and its associated video, and the story of its rise to internet stardom through YouTube, make it all seem kinda silly. But biologist David Scholnick is doing important work.

Worldwide animals are at an increased risk of opportunistic pathogens. Elevations in temperature and increased areas of low oxygen, suggest that pathogen exposure of lower vertebrates and marine invertebrates are escalating.

The central hypothesis underlying my research is that infectious disease can compromise the respiratory systems of lower vertebrates and invertebrates and thereby limit the ability of animals to sustain and recover from normal activities.

Here's Scholnick at LiveScience:

"As far as I know this is the first time that shrimp have been exercised on a treadmill and it was amazing to see how well they performed," Scholnick told LiveScience. "Healthy shrimp ran and swam at treadmill speeds of up to 20 meters per minute [66 feet per minute] for hours with little indication of fatigue."

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Sick shrimp, however, had reduced aerobic performance.

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"These studies will give us a better idea of how marine animals can perform in their native habitat when faced with increasing pathogens and immunological challenges."

I may have to give the good professor a visit. More later.

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The Jesus Bird

From a recent trip to Australia and the Northern Territory: The Comb-crested Jacana, according to the very knowledgeable and perfectly-talkative guide on the South Alligator River in Kakadoo National Park (part of the Yellow Waters cruise), has the longest feet, per bird size, of any bird in the world. Allows in to "walk on water."

The Comb-crested Jacana [check out the illustrations circa 1800 by John Gould], also known as the Lotusbird, has a red fleshy forehead comb, a black crown, back and breast and brown wings. The belly, face and throat are white, and there is a faint yellow tinge around the eye and throat. Both sexes are similar in appearance, but the female is larger than the male, and slightly brighter in colour.

At a distance, the Comb-crested Jacana appears to have the ability to walk on water. In fact, it is walking on floating plants. Its extremely long toes help it to spread its body weight over a larger area. In flight, the long legs and toes trail behind the body.

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No, This is Not the Hindquarters

I didn't take this photo, but I love this photo. It was taken by one Ken Catania, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt.

I used to find Star-nosed moles while scrummaging in the woods and marshes on hands and knees when I was just a good kid in Western New York.



Seeing that makes me think everything is going to be okay.

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Kangaroos. Boxing.

The first post on this blog is, oddly enough, kangaroos. They're boxing.

We'll have other cool stuff like this for your marsupugulistic and other interests as we get cool stuff in.

This was taken in Canberra in October, 2006.

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