What Killed the Lechuza Polo Horses?

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Polo is a demanding sport for both horses and riders, and the top international polo teams, sponsored by fabulously wealthy patrons, compete every year in South Florida. The culmination of the Palm Beach polo season is the US Open Championship, played at the International Polo Club grounds in Wellington. This year, a shocking [...]... Read more »

DNA Repair During Spermatogenesis: Gimme a Break!

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Although we often tend to attribute infertility to dysfunction of the female reproductive process, approximately 50% of cases are likely to result from abnormalities in spermatogenesis, or male sex cell production. After puberty, spermatogenesis continues throughout the life of a male mammal, proceeding from mitotic division of spermatogonia, through meiotic division of spermatocytes, to [...]... Read more »

Teaching Tuesday: Theatrum Anatomicum

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

No, it’s not a bar on Bourbon Street, but rather a novel medical teaching facility at Ulm University in Germany. Recent legislation on study fees in Germany has provided funding for the development of improved medical education facilities. For the faculty in the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Ulm University, this [...]... Read more »

Nightmare? That’s a Horse Seeing Different Colors!

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Most of us are aware that cats, dogs, and many different wild mammals, birds, and reptiles have better night vision than we humans do. However, we might forget to include domestic horses, cattle, and sheep in this group of animals that possess eyes adapted for sensitivity and acuity in low-light conditions. The large [...]... Read more »

China Month 2. Satellite Tracking of Siberian Cranes

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Siberian Cranes (Grus leucogeranus) are critically endangered birds that breed in northern Russia, and winter in Iran, India, and China. Although the populations that migrate to Iran and India have dwindled to just a handful of individuals, the population that winters in Poyang Lake, in southern China, numbers between 2500 and 3000 cranes. [...]... Read more »

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

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Get Off Your High Horse: Lightning Injuries and Equestrians

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

In New Jersey this week, two humans and six horses were struck by lightning at a polo match (from Ashbury Park Press):

COLTS NECK — Two people and six horses were knocked unconscious Sunday after lightning struck a horse trailer they were working near at Bucks Mills Park. Both men, as well as the horses, were [...]... Read more »

Toxics Thursday: Bisphenol A and Early Oogenesis

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Last week, I discussed the effects of the estrogenic polymer, bisphenol A, on comb development and spermatogenesis in male chickens. Over the next few weeks, I’ll cover several recent studies implicating BPA in the disruption of gamete formation (oogenesis) in female mammals. In both male and female mammals, the germ cell precursors for [...]... Read more »

Toxics Thursday: Rooster Combs and Bisphenol-A

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Bisphenol-A (BPA), a plastic compound used in dental sealants and to coat food and drink containers, has been in the news lately, in large part because of concerns over its effects as an endocrine disruptor. Specifically, BPA is thought to cause feminization of male mammals, including humans, through its ability to mimic estrogens and [...]... Read more »

Spotted Owls and Barred Owls: Whoooo Has Malaria?

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

In the US, we’re often concerned about invasive and range-extending species entering ecosystems through waterways (zebra mussels, hydrilla), across our southern border (fire ants, nine-banded armadillos), or as escapees from gardens and yards (Chinese tallow, Nandina). However, one owl species-the Barred Owl, Strix varia-has expanded its range over the last 50 years eastward through ... Read more »

Fish on Friday: Good Day, Sunfish

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

The Ocean Sunfishes, members of the family Molidae, are related to pufferfish, and possess a number of unique anatomical features. The most distinctive feature is the lack of almost all the bony elements of caudal fin structures, which have been modified to form the clavus. Ocean Sunfishes also lack ribs, pelvic fins, and ... Read more »

Anatomy Week: Brain Heaters in Marlins and Sailfish

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Like many children, I was fascinated with the ocean and its wildlife, whether along the beach and jetties, or in tidepools, coral reefs, submarine-explored depths, and surface waters. Few of the teleost types captured my imagination as did the billfish: marlins, spearfish, sailfish, and swordfish. Swift, strong, and sleek, a billfish was exactly ... Read more »

Anatomy Week: Stupid Yogi Tricks, the Valsalva Maneuver, and Hypoxia

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Health care professionals working with a variety of patients have reported beneficial effects from yoga and meditation practice. For example, an integrated yoga program was found to reduce anxiety, perceived stress, depression, and even DNA damage levels, in patients undergoing radiotherapy for breast cancer (Banerjee et al., 2007). Similarly, Kjellgren and colleagues (2007) ... Read more »

Anatomy Week: Anabolic Androgenic Steroids, East German Athletes, and the Amygdala

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

In 1976, I remember watching Olympic athletes from the mysterious German Democratic Republic, a relatively small country shrouded in Iron Curtain secrecy, win medal after medal, particularly in the women’s swimming events. As a child, my summers revolved around swimming: I was obsessed with the sport and the competitions, and in my late teens ... Read more »

Anatomy Week: Connecting the Thalamus and the Cerebral Cortex

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

The vertebrate brain has evolved, in large part, to integrate and process multiple types of sensory information (”input”), and to produce and execute a response, or coordinated program for action (”output”). The thalamus develops from the embryonic brain region called the diencephalon, which also gives rise to the retina of the eye, and to ... Read more »

Got Milk? Lactation and Placentation Replace Yolky Eggs

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

Most non-mammalian vertebrates produce eggs with stores of yolk platelets, to provide nutrients to the developing embryo until it can feed on its own. The amount of yolk, and its influence on morphogenetic processes such as gastrulation, vary greatly across vertebrate species, but the production and storage of yolk during oogenesis share common genes ... Read more »

Don’t You Step On My Blue Sulid Shoes

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

While the benefits gained by female birds paired with males exhibiting bright, sexually dimorphic colors may include territorial resources, parental care, and more attractive offspring with better viability, the functions of colorful traits that continue to be exhibited after pair formation in monogamous birds are unclear. One possibility is that the colorful traits evolved ... Read more »

Pigment Cells and the Silver Locus: Where’s the Beef?

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

As for most other mammals, coat color in cattle depends on the ratio of eumelanin (black/brown pigment) and pheomelanin (red/yellow pigment), though few of the genes and mutations that affect pigmentation of bovine skin have been characterized at the molecular level. Wild-type coloration in cattle, as observed in the Jersey and Brown Swiss breeds, ... Read more »

The Leopard Complex Changes Spots in Appaloosa Horses

by barn owl in Guadalupe Storm-Petrel

In the US, Appaloosa horses are culturally associated with the Native American tribes whose range stretched along the Palouse River in Washington and Idaho. However, spotted horses existed for hundreds of years in the Old World prior to their American debut, particularly in the Fergana region of the Central Asian steppes, and these leopard-patterned ... Read more »