ME student discovers a unique fact about polar bears

http://coe.berkeley.edu/engnews/fall02/3S/polarbear.html

by bane • 15 years ago

83 15 15 years ago

coe.berkeley.edu

gujk• 15 years ago

Huge PR miss for Science Exchange. She says she could only do her experiment because she had access to some fancy rare scope.

xbryanx• 15 years ago

...in 2003.

miahi• 15 years ago

There are probably a lot of unique facts about many many animals, but almost nobody has the equipment (money) and the time (money) to do it. Lots of scientific biology missions are now out of funds. It's more profitable doing soap operas with animals for TV shows.

dskhatri• 15 years ago

There's actually a lot of research money and time put into the field called biomimetics.

One of the more publicized examples of this research was Stickybot [1], a gecko-inspired robot that can climb vertical surfaces. Commercial examples in robotics are not hard to find either: Boston Dynamics' robots, ASIMO, Festo's Seagull UAV etc.

The Ortiz Lab does fascinating research [2] on the material properties of exoskeletons.

Then there's the study of the camouflage exhibited by cephalopods. This video report on Science Friday is worth watching: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201108053

[1] http://bdml.stanford.edu/twiki/bin/view/Rise/StickyBot [2] http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/

jpwagner• 15 years ago

That had better not be a knock at Meerkat Manor.

philwelch• 15 years ago

It took until a year ago to figure out how a cat drinks water. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11...

JoeAltmaier2• 15 years ago

Botany = even worse. I remember when it was discovered how trees communicate infestations - through the air. The experiment involved two plants separated by glass - the soil, then the air. This experiment could have been performed in the 1700's.

My Scotch Pine trees are all dying. The extension guy says "just plant different trees". 20 years of invenstment dismissed. Probably because nobody knows squat about treating trees.

Mz2• 15 years ago

Do you know what they are dying from?

keithpeter• 15 years ago

Whole animal biology tends not to get the resources that the DNA hackers get. This narrowing of the facts base may be problematic if we want to preserve the fauna for the offspring.

jschuur• 15 years ago

This headline sounds like copy for a sleazy weight loss ad.

scott_to_s• 15 years ago

Another interesting fact about polar bears: They have black skin, but layered with fur comprised of fibre-optic-like hairs which allows them to soak up heat radiation from the sun.

portentint• 15 years ago

So, if you see nothing, there could be a polar bear RIGHT THERE.

Evgeny• 15 years ago

I'm wondering if this fact is indeed unique to polar bears. Did they check other mammals that live in similar conditions, i.e. Arctic fox would be a candidate.

ME student discovers a unique fact about polar bears

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