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Daily Digest Archive for February 4, 2004
Q: (Initially posted February 2, 2004) FROM STUDENT
MEMBER ALEXIS K. IN VA
I just returned from the JASON Project's live telecast at National
Geographic. This year's expedition was to the rain forest of
Bara Colorado
Island, Panama. I recommend getting involved with JASON if you
like
science, math, tech, engineering. You can always sign up as
a home school
person and self pace yourself through the material but will
then have access
to the incredible web site. I highly recommend this stuff. It
could also
help you think of science fair projects. I teach it to younger
girl scouts
and have a lot of fun with it. Go to www.jasonproject.org
Anyway, through Girl Scouts I am going on an Outward Bound Costa
Rica
trip this summer (can't wait). I have done some research about
Panama's rain
forest and some about Costa Rica's, but after today telecast,
I decided I
wanted to learn more about common products and medicines that
we have as a
direct result of rain forest research or use of rain forest
plants, animals,
and insects. I could use some recommendations for websites about
this. Also,
I would like to know a lot more about rain forest insects, hummingbirds,
and ocelots and could use some sites for that. By the way, did
you know that
rain forest sloths live way up in the canopy but climb (slowly)
all the way
down to the forest floor to poop. Because of this they only
poop about once
a week. Go figure. I also recently learned that penguin poop
is pink.
Seriously now, this is the stuff that can make science a riot! |
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February 4, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR LAUREN BATTE
IN MD
Alexis, just as the rainforest is a source of natural products
and compounds, so are other "extreme" environments.
Deep ocean
exploration is yielding new compounds that are being used
as medicine.
Deep-water marine habitats constitute a relatively untapped
resource for
the discovery of drugs derived from natural products. For
example, a
team of scientists at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
have
discovered the compound discodermolide in the tissue of a
sponge. The
compound is an antitumor agent and testing on it entered Phase
I
clinical trials in 2003.
For links to information on biotechnology related to the deep
ocean,
check out...
http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/03bio/welcome.html
http://www.hboi.edu/news/press/oct2703.html
http://www.hboi.edu/dbmr/dbmr_home.html
**********
February 3, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN
RI
Years ago I heard from a friend who visited the Amazon that
sloths even
_swim_ slowly - but I didn't know about pooping slowly! I
wonder what
penquins eat to turn their poop pink - I thought they eat
fish, but maybe
they enjoy an appetizer of some pink Antarctic shrimp? It
seems more likely
to me that the pinkness comes from their food than that they
synthesize a
pink compound themselves. The northern version of the penguin,
the puffin,
has normal drab poop, at least when I visited them on Machias
Seal Island.
And I don't recall pink poop from the penguins in the Providence
Zoo.
About 5 pages into a Google search on rainforest + biology,
I found a very
comprehensive site, http://www.rainforestweb.org/.
You can connect to a lot
of different geographical locations and to sections on the
animals. The
search turned up some very attractive vacation tours, too,
good for
dreaming.
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