Nerdy Science Blog

In 1859, a book titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published by Charles Darwin. In this book, which also known as The Origin of Life, Darwin proposed that the term natural selection, which is a mechanism for evolution. The publication of Darwin’s books had triggered a chain of reactions opposing his theory of evolution.

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. —— A History of Western Philosophy

The impacts of evolution still remains. Although the theory of evolution fits many widely accepted scientific theories, there are still many social and religious controversies. One of them is the groups that proposed the theory of creationists. It is hard to determine and conclude that whether we are created by higher-living-creationist, however, I personally think that that is the reason why we need to look into and develope the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. Banning it is not a wise choice.

Dr John van Dyne from University of Cambridge is a director for the project The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. This project is launched to collect and share the manuscripts of Charles Darwin, and also any audio, video, reviews, books about Charles Darwin. You can download everything about Charles Darwin at one click, for FREE.

Link: The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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For some people, tarantulas make them feel creepy due to their larger than normal spiders size, and hairy bodies and legs. But at the same time, they can be exotic babe in most of the people’s eyes, arachnid enthusiasts keep them as pet.

All tarantulas are predaceous, feeding largely on insects. Differ from web-building spiders, tarantulas don’t use web, they ambush, and grab their prey with appendages, and then immediately paralyze their prey by injecting paralyzing venom. But they are toothless, they can’t chew, so they secrete and pump in digestive enzymes to liquefy victims so that they can suck the body contents out in liquid form through their straw-like mouth openings, we call this external digestion. Yummy right? Oppss sorry, is creepy right? Yak…

A tarantula (Aphonopelma chalcodes) feeding, Photograph by Paul Zahl, adopted from National Geographic.

Bigger tarantulas target on bigger game, the prey on small animal such as frogs, toads and mice and even birds! Yup, they attack small animal as well. The goliath birdeater tarantula of South America is the biggest spider in the world, they can grow up to 30 cm long. 30 cm, it is equivalent to a long ruler that we used during our school day. Amazing right?

Perhaps you would like to enjoy this video: “World’s Largest Spider” Stalks South American Jungles, watch yourself how a mice being prey by this birdeater tarantula from National Geographic.

While waiting for video to load using your streamyx line (for Malaysian), are tarantulas dangerous?

Though are creepy, tarantulas, as well as other spiders including famous black widow is harmless to human being like you and me, they are actually allies with human by destroying injurious insects. They are indeed human’s friend. They seldom bite human if we don’t kacau them, and their venom is mild, occasionally fatal. But, their bite, according to sources, is painful.

After watching the video, I was wondering, maybe we can pet a big and yet harmless birdeater tarantula in house when we have uninvited mouse hiding in our house. Or perhaps we can train them as perfect biological deadly-weapon in allies with us in the matter of controlling mouse population, release the tarantula military into SS2’s food street, and attack all the mouse roaming around! I’m sure they do a better job than nowadays-useless-because-too-pampered-cats.

Ok fine, too much crap already. Hope you enjoy this Nerdy Science blog.

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Antibody & Beyond has collected links related to antibody, such as the knowledges, methods, applications, reviews and even where you can find these antibody. E-book in .pdf forms are also available for download on the web. There is also a forum for the global community to discuss about antibody.

Link: Antibody & Beyond: Methods and Techniques For Life Scientists

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Under Malaysia (other countries as well) immunization program, none of us can escape from being immunize, conventional method for immunization is injection. Injection, what a terrifying word, some (I think should be ‘most’) of us rather sick to death than seeking help from doctor which might end up facing consequence of delivering medication into our skin through a NEEDLE! We got no choice but trying very hard to stay calm despite adrenaline is producing like crazy, because we don’t want sudden contraction of our muscle lead to NEEDLE breakage into two and left part of it inside our body…

However, thanks to Afendi Dahla, a 27 years old young Malaysian researcher currently pursuing his PhD in the University of London for providing an alternative to needles! This Malaysia-born-handsome-genius has invented a device which allow increasing permeability of the skin by applying low-frequency ultrasound together with sodium dodecyl sulphate on the skin, allowing the skin to absorb liquid-form-vaccine on the skin surface which applied later by using a dropper.The test had proven successful with tetanus vaccine on rats.

THIS WON’T HURT: Afendi demonstrating a jab with a probe sonicator at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. As an undergraduate at Universiti Malaya four years ago, he was so traumatised by the nurse taking his blood sample for Hepatitis B screening that he vowed to find a solution that would do away with needles. — Picture courtesy of AFENDI DAHLAN

What a genius. He MUST success in order to save million of life! Let wish him all the best!

For the full story, please continue reading. Read more »

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