We-are-all-paranoid - Microbe Nerd Alert

Like humans, these big-brained birds may owe their smarts to long childhoods

Human beings typically don’t leave the nest until well into our teenage years—a relatively rare strategy among animals. But corvids—a group of birds that includes jays, ravens, and crows—also spend a lot of time under their parents’ wings. Now, in a parallel to humans, researchers have found that ongoing tutelage by patient parents may explain how corvids have managed to achieve their smarts.

Strange question for all my biologists out there, no matter what your specialisation is.

Does anyone know any good books about biology? The more accurate, the better, they can be academic essays even, it’s all good.

I’m looking for a Christmas gift for my sister, who is absolutely in love with biology, and she studies it in uni too, it’s not only a hobby.

Unfortunately, having very very little knowledge in hard sciences, I cannot determine whether a book about biology is good or not, not by looking at people’s reviews and whatnot. And… I trust people on Tumblr more.

I’ve read a few reviews of some books, but I can’t decide. Please help a poor soft-sciences-lover in need!

Stop the ban on blood donation of gay men

Stop the ban on blood donation of gay men

Plz reblog, I need to know I'm not alone in this.

scientists of tumblr, what is a concept that no matter how may times you study it, you'll forget it within 24 hours?

Therocephalians were a group of synapsids very closely related to – or possibly even ancestral to – the lineage leading to modern mammals. They were a diverse and successful group of carnivores during the latter half of the Permian, but suffered massively during the "Great Dying" mass extinction, with only a handful of representatives making it a few million years into the Triassic.

Tetracynodon darti was one of these rare Triassic therocephalian survivors, living in what is now South Africa around 251 million years ago. Only about 25cm long (~10"), it had slender limbs and strong claws that suggest it was a scratch-digger. Its long snout was lined with pointed teeth, and it was probably an active predator hunting by snapping its jaws at fast-moving prey like insects and smaller vertebrates.

Its combination of small size, burrow-digging habits, and unspecialized diet may be the reason it scraped through the Great Dying when most of its relatives didn't – but unfortunately it seems to have been a "dead clade walking", disappearing only a short way into early Triassic deposits.

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References:

Fontanarrosa, Gabriela, et al. "The manus of Tetracynodon (Therapsida: Therocephalia) provides evidence for survival strategies following the Permo-Triassic extinction." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 38.4 (2018): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2018.1491404

Sigurdsen, Trond, et al. "Reassessment of the morphology and paleobiology of the therocephalian Tetracynodon darti (Therapsida), and the phylogenetic relationships of Baurioidea." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32.5 (2012): 1113-1134. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254315180_Reassessment_of_the_Morphology_and_Paleobiology_of_the_Therocephalian_Tetracynodon_Darti_Therapsida_And_The_Phylogenetic_Relationships_of_Baurioidea

Wikipedia contributors. “Tetracynodon” Wikipedia, 21 Aug. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetracynodon

Wikipedia contributors. “Therocephalia” Wikipedia, 01 Oct. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therocephalia