Still Life
Commencement across Penn State: Spring 2012
Spring commencement 2012 under way
Penn State, Moroccan students problem-solve together
Finals Week Spring Semester 2012
Children explore career options at University Park
Painting the Lines at Beaver Stadium
Did They Get It Right? - RedTails
Iconic Penn State elm taken down over spring break 2012
We ... are Penn State (December 19, 2011)
Disease stricken matching elm tree slated for removal
Penn State's creamery, from the cow to the cone
In a single new scientific publication, 24 new species of lizards known as skinks, all from islands in the Caribbean, have been discovered and scientifically named. According to Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University and the leader of the research team, half of the newly added skink species already may be extinct or close to extinction, and all of the others on the Caribbean islands are threatened with extinction. The researchers found that the loss of many skink species can be attributed primarily to predation by the mongoose -- an invasive predatory mammal that was introduced by farmers to control rats in sugarcane fields during the late 19th century. The research team reports on the newly discovered skinks in a 245-page article published April 30 in the journal Zootaxa. (more)
Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University, has been selected to receive the 2011 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers reviews nominations and selects candidates.
More information online at http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2011-news/Hedges3-2011 (more)
Haiti is on the brink of an era of mass extinctions similar to the time when dinosaurs and many other species suddenly disappeared from the Earth, reports a biologist at Penn State, who announced on Nov. 16 the establishment of a species-rescue program for Haiti's threatened frogs and other species, including captive-breeding and gene-preservation efforts. (more)
The scientists who put an innovative "tree of life" online last year now have made that same resource available -- for free -- for iPhone users. The new "TimeTree" application lets anyone with an Apple iPhone harness a vast Internet storehouse of data about the diversity of life, from bacteria to humans. The intuitive interface is designed to answer a simple question, quickly and authoritatively: how long ago did species A and species B share a common ancestor? (more)
Blind snakes have been discovered to be one of the few species now living in Madagascar that existed there when it broke away from India about 100 million years ago, according to a study that was published in the March 31 issue of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. "Blindsnakes are not very pretty, are rarely noticed, and are often mistaken for earthworms, nonetheless, they tell a very interesting evolutionary story" said Blair Hedges, professor of biology at Penn State and a leader of the research team that made the discovery. Photos and more information are online at http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2010-news/Hedges3-2010. (more)
this is a story going into the database that won't be posted on Live (more)
Scientists and nonscientists now have easy access to information about when living species and their ancestors originated, information that previously was difficult to find or inaccessible. Free access to the information is part of the new Timetree of Life initiative developed by Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University, and Sudhir Kumar, a professor of life sciences at Arizona State University. The Timetree of Life project debuted this week with the simultaneous release of a major online resource called "TimeTreeWeb" (www.timetree.org), and a book titled "The Timetree of Life" (Oxford University Press), which is written by a consortium of 105 experts on specific groups of organisms and is edited by Hedges and Kumar. (more)
It doesn't tick, it doesn't have hands, and it doesn't tell you what time of day it is. But a molecular clock does tell time--on an epoch scale. The molecular clock, explained S. Blair Hedges, is a tool used to calculate the timing of evolutionary events.
Instead of measuring seconds, minutes and hours, said Hedges, Penn State professor of biology, the molecular clock measures the number of changes, or mutations, which accumulate in the gene sequences of different species over time. Evolutionary biologists can use this information to deduce how species evolve, and to fix the date when two species diverged on the evolutionary timeline. "Unlike a wristwatch, which measures time from regular changes (ticks), a molecular clock measures time from random changes (mutations) in DNA," Hedges noted. (more)
The world's smallest species of snake, with adults averaging just under 4 inches in length, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The species -- which is as thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter -- was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State. Hedges and his colleagues also are the discoverers of the world's smallest frog and lizard species, which too were found on Caribbean islands. The most recent discovery will be published on Aug. 4 in the journal Zootaxa. (more)
Whether snakes lost their legs while living in the sea or on land has been a matter of great debate among evolutionary biologists, explain Penn State biologists Nicolas Vidal and S. Blair Hedges. (more)
