Natural Selections podcast
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Natural Selections: Continental Drift
The theory of continental drift?the idea that the continents are islands of rock adrift on the earth's molten core?first gained acceptance in the 1960s. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about the consequences of their extreme slow motion collisions?earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
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Natural Selections: Spider Webs
Spiders from big to tiny use their webs to snag and trap prey in fascinating ways. One spider even then reels in tiny gnats that come to "roost" on the web. The silky constructions are wonders of engineering and construction. They're also highly specialized, spider to spider, as Martha Foley hears from Dr. Curt Stager in this week's edition of Natural Selections.
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Natural Selections: Porcupines
Dr. Curt Stager tells co-host Martha Foley why and how porcupines climb trees?and why it can be a dangerous job. Plus, what to do when one lives under (and gnaws on) your porch. Get up close, but not too close, to porcupines.
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Natural Selections: Passenger Pigeons
Once so numerous they darkened the sky for days while migrating, passenger pigeons arrived in this region in early May each year. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley remember this once ubiquitous species wiped out by human hunting in the nineteenth century.
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Natural Selections: Pollen
Is a bad year for pollen allergy sufferers a good year for plants? Why does some pollen cause stronger reactions? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager look at the birds and bees, as practiced by the flowers and trees.
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Natural Selections: Leaf Cutter Ants
Why do Leaf Cutter Ants cut leaves? Nesting material, food? As Martha Foley and Curt Stager explain, these ants are composting. What they actually eat grows on the rotting leaves.
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Natural Selections: Whirligig Beetles
Watching whirligig water beetles, found in circling clumps on the surface of calm fresh water, is a favorite childhood activity of many, including one-time child Martha Foley. Dr. Curt Stager explains the method behind their madcap collective behavior. (Note: Dr. William Romey teaches at SUNY Potsdam.)
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Natural Selections: Exploding Flowers
Some flowers open quickly, and some are even spring-loaded?like the venus fly trap?but the floral deployment speed record belongs to the lowly dogwood relative, the bunchberry, which when triggered opens its tiny four-petal bloom in less than a millisecond. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss flower power.
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Natural Selections: Dandelions
Martha Foley mows her lawn just before the dandelions go to seed, hoping to keep their numbers down, but there's another whole crop right behind?why? Dr. Curt Stager dug into the story and found the answer in the sex life?or lack thereof?of dandelions.
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Natural Selections: Ancient Adirondacks
"Old as the hills" is a relative term. The Adirondacks may be relatively young mountains, but their distinctive grey granite, anorthosite, originated 1.1 billion ago, so deep in the earth's crust that only continental collision could have formed it. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss Adirondack geology.
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Natural Selections: Sunfish
A common sight is fresh water shallows, sunfish provide an excellent opportunity to observe fish behavior. Dr. Curt Stager talks with Martha Foley about the two main varieties, the pumpkinseed and the bluegill. It may be hard to tell one from another, unless of course, you're a sunfish.
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Natural Selections: Solar Weather
Solar weather does more than create light shows at polar latitudes. When the sun acts up, the effects can range from communications interference on earth to lethal doses of radiation for unprotected astronauts. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about heavenly weather.
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Natural Selections: The Treeline
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about the timberline, the usually abrupt termination of forest growth above a certain altitude. While it results from a combination of unfavorable factors, the final straw seems to be the length of time free of hard frost. When the growing season is too short to overcome damage from the harsh climate, the trees die out.
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Natural Selections: Volcanoes and water
Water is not what comes to mind when thinking of volcanoes, but steam can be up to 90 percent of the output, "virgin water" from deep in the earth's cust. Geologists speculate that volcanoes may be the source of all the surface water on earth. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about what happens when lava and water meet.
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Natural Selections: Ice Age mammals
During the last Ice Age North America was home to many varieties of "super-sized" mammals, megafauna. Giant beaver, 'possums, bears, sloths and other creatures joined the more familiar wooly mammoth in the land bridge migration. Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at the question, "Why so big?"
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Natural Selections: Tryptophan
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about tryptophan, and why you may need a new excuse for falling asleep after a turkey dinner.
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Natural Selections: Native pollinators
With the collapse of the population of the European honeybee, introduced to North America in colonial times, many growers are looking for aids in pollinating their crops. But the honeybee may not be the most effective bee. Bumblebees and other native pollinators do a better job on crops like blueberries and cranberries. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss.
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Natural Selections: More about moles
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk more about three different types of moles that inhabit the region, and their habits. The Eastern American Mole and the Hairy-tailed Mole prefer dryer soils and consume up to half their weight a day in worms and grubs. Their star-nosed cousin prefers a wetter environment
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Natural Selections: Moles
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager reveal some interesting facts about the semi-aquatic insectivores that tear up your lawn every year?moles.
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Natural Selections: Ginkgo trees
Martha Foley and Dr Curt Stager talk about the ginkgo tree?an ancient species native to China. They do not spread naturally anymore, but during the time of the dinosaurs there were many types of ginkgo tree all over the world.
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Natural Selections: Fungal Lurkers
Martha Foley and Dr Curt Stager discuss fungal lurkers- fungi that live inside plants. Fungal lurkers are a new discovery and scientists believe that this type of fungus helps the plant it lives on but may harm animals and people.
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Natural Selections: "Burning" calories
While the human body does not "burn" calories, in the sense of having a fire in the belly, it does produce energy by combining food with oxygen just as burning a piece of wood does. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the heat engine of life.
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Natural Selections: Flames
What is a flame? Why is it shaped like that? How does it keep going? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager answer some burning questions about rapid oxidation.
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Natural Selections: Cosmic Rays
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss cosmic rays. While many people may think cosmic rays only affect astronauts or satellites?objects in space?computers and other electronic equipment on Earth can be affected too.
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Natural Selections: Camels
Do camels really store water in their humps? Well, not really. And they aren't native to the deserts of the Middle East and Asia, either. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the different ways camel physiology adapts them to survive in desert conditions, and where this family of mammals originated.
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Natural Selections: Burl wood
Burl wood, the knobs of complex grain that some trees form, is prized by woodworkers for its beauty and utility. What causes wood grain to deviate from the straight and narrow in this way is something of a mystery. Martha Foley and Curt Stager try to untangle the knot.
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Natural Selections: Three things about squids
Squids are ten-tentacled cephalopod cousins to the octopus. They are remarkable in many ways, but three features stand out for Dr. Curt Stager, who fills in the details with Martha Foley: the way they propel themselves through the water, and the air, their amazing use of changing color, and their unique methods of self defense.
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Natural Selections: Why is the sky blue?, take 2
Dr. Curt Stager tries once again to answer the classic child's question. It is a poser that was worthy of Einstein's time, who eventually came up with the best answer. But it's complicated. And when the sky isn't blue, why not? What's up with that? Martha Foley wants to know.
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Natural Selections: Whales and land mammals
Whales are relatively new to the ocean. Fossil evidence allows evolutionary biologists to trace the whale's transformation from land mammal into air-breathing ocean dweller. Today's whales still carry a legacy of their landed past in a vestigial pelvis, femur, and other typical anatomical traits. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager dig into a big topic.
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Natural Selections: What is a plant?
Mushrooms grow out of the soil like plants, but are fungi. Lichens may look leafy, but they are symbiotic colonies of fungi and algae. Seaweed looks like a plant, but is an algae colony. And Indian Pipe looks like a fungi, but is a plant. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the ins and outs of botany.
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Natural Selections: When evolution GOES WRONG!
Not all evolutionary change is good. Genetic changes can be neutral or harmful, as well as beneficial. And some change can be both, conferring benefit when a single copy of a gene is present, and causing a life-threatening disease when copies are inherited from both parents. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager roll the dice on evolution.
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Natural Selections: Polar bear fur
Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about polar bear fur, what color it really is, and how it relates to our tendency to wear light colors in the summer and dark colors in winter.
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Natural Selections: Did a dinosaur drink my water?
In an earlier conversation on the natural world, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talked about the longevity of atoms, and how atoms within our body may have once been in the bodies of dinosaurs. But the question remains, is that true of water? How old is it, really?
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Natural Selections: Lake monsters
Dr. Curt Stager is back from a conference in Scotland where one of the topics was the possibility of lake monsters such as the famous denizen of Loch Ness, or Lake Champlain's Champy. Could the commonly reportedly long-necked monsters be plesiosaurs, left over from the Jurassic era? Probably not.
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Natural Selections: Skunks
This nocturnal nuisance can spray its cruel brew about as far as it can see: Ten feet. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager get down to the basics: "How do you get rid of the skunk under the porch?
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Natural Selections: Tree growth
Trees may live for hundreds, thousands of years, but there are limits on their growth. Trees can only move so much water, and only to a certain height. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the hydrology of trees.
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Natural Selections: Buckwheat, the un-wheat
We use buckwheat flour for many of the same purposes as wheat flour, but the plants they originate from are not even closely related. And that's a good thing for people who suffer from gluten allergies.
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Natural Selections: Hover Flies
A common invasive species, the hover fly, or drone fly, looks remarkably like a honeybee. But in its youth, it carries the loathsome monicker "rat-tailed maggot". Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss Batesian mimicry: innocuous creatures who imitate more dangerous species.
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Natural Selections: Pitcher Plants
Most carnivorous plants, such as the pitcher plant commonly found in Adirondack bogs, live in poor soils. Unwary insects are drawn to a sweet bait to supplement their diet. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss these botanical oddballs, which may live as long as fifty years.
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Natural Selections: Fallout and carbon dating
Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss radiocarbon dating. Fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has distorted the background levels of the radioactive isotope carbon-14, used by archaeologists to date organic materials. But it has an upside, providing a new scale by which to date more recent events, helping researchers track cell turnover in different parts of the body and in testing the age of everything from vintage wine to elephant ivory.
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Natural Selections: stellar distances
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about stars and the very clever ways we can tell their distance from the earth.
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Natural Selections: Black squirrels
Black squirrels are becoming more common throughout the St. Lawrence Valley. They are a normal variation of the more familiar gray squirrel species. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss melanism, an increase in the pigmentation of some species that can be a response to environmental factors.
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Natural Selections: Turtle anatomy
Turtles breathe backwards; that is, when they relax their diaphragms, they inhale rather than exhale. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the oddities of anatomy that arise from living in armor.
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Natural Selections: Turtles
Snapping turtles aren?t really that vicious, unless they are provoked. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about their peculiar anatomy, safe ways (for turtle and human) to help them across highways, and more.
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Natural Selections: Plant blood
Do plants have blood? How does the human circulatory system compare to that of plants and trees? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager tackle the question.
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Natural Selections: Ice Age mammals
During the last Ice Age North America was home to many varieties of "super-sized" mammals, megafauna. Giant beaver, 'possums, bear, sloths and other creatures joined the more familair wooly mammoth in the land bridge migration. Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at the question, "Why so big?"
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Natural Selections: Extreme bacteria
Some bacteria like it hot, geyser hot, and some like it cold, refrigerator cold. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at bacteria that thrive in extreme environments.
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Natural Selections: exploring cave life
Curt Stager and Martha Foley do some imaginary spelunking and talk about the peculiar variations of animal life in caves.
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Natural Selections: Foxes
Join Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley for a discussion about foxes?their homes, their diets and other fox facts.
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Natural Selections: American robins
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the varieties and habits of American robins. There are half a dozen different kinds, including albinos. How do they arrive so early in the spring? Sometimes it's because they never leave.
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Natural Selections: Diatoms
Diatoms are fascinating creatures that share some qualities of both plant and animal. Dr. Curt Satger and Martha Foley talk about these water-borne oddities that inhabit the base of the food chain in geometric "glass houses" of their own construction.
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Natural Selections: Spotted Salamander
The first warm, rainy night of spring is the best time to spot this amphibian, while they migrate to forest pools for mating. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss this northern forest native and its curious boreal nuptials.
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Natural Selections: Tickling, pt. 2
Some people claim immunity from tickling, and no one seems to be able to tickle themselves. The ribs, underarms and feet are the most effective tickle targets. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley continue their discussion with the anatomy of tickling.
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Natural Selections: More on tickling
How you react to tickling depends on who is doing the tickling. Martha Foley and Curt Stager return to their continuing conversation on this sensitive social topic.
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Natural Selections: Tent Caterpillars
A common (if unwelcome) sight on trees in the apple and cherry family is the nest of the tent caterpillar, whose voracious appetite can completely strip a tree of foliage. These moth larvae are unusual, both in their engineering feats and their social organization. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager explore the life cycle of this nemesis of orchard and yard.
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Natural Selections: Breathing
We all take thousands of breaths each day without thinking about it, yet it's one of the human body's most complex and interesting functions. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss what is actually happening when we breathe.
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Natural Selections: Soundscapes
The sound environment has a big effect on animal behavior. The prevalence of low-pitched machine sounds in an urban environment may cause male birds to raise the pitch of mating calls. And birds in an environment where the sounds of predators are common will be less successful in breeding and nesting. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss soundscapes.
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Natural Selections: Atom supply
In Song of Myself, Whitman says, "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." Given that the world atom supply is finite, more or less, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager explore the notion that all of us are made up of some atoms that were found in William Shakepeare, the dinosaurs, and each other.
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Natural Selections: Convergent Evolution
We think of evolution as moving in a linear progression from the sea to the land. But some creatures, such as whales and dolphins, clearly adapted to the land, then returned to the sea. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about convergent evolution.
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Natural Selections: Hive economy
In the second in our series about the biological marketplace, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager look into the beehive. While some worker bees might try to "cheat," introducing their own eggs into the genetic pool of the hive, other workers will detect and destroy them. The queen presides over a society that shares her DNA, but it is run more like a police state than a family.
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Natural Selections: Symbiosis, part 1
Symbiotes are species that must collaborate with another to survive. But some partners are more equal than others. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about how organisms can monitor cheaters in symbiotic relationships. It's the first of two conversations about the biological marketplace.
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Natural Selections: New cells, old cells
With our bodies replacing most cells over a period of a few years, it raises the question "Is any part of us original equipment?" According to Curt Stager and Martha Foley, the answer is yes?parts of the eyes and teeth, as well as many nerve and (bad news for dieters) fat cells.
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Natural Selections: Moving without bones
Vertebrates get around by using their muscles to apply leverage to the bones. But how does an animal move when there are no levers, only muscles? Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at some boneless examples: the worm, the elephant's trunk, and the squid.
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Natural Selections: Chipmunk language
Chipmunk, cluckmunk? Chipmunks and many animals have a variety of sounds used to express different things. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager sample the vocabulary used by this common denizen of North Country woods and villages.
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Natural Selections: Antlers and horns
Horns and antlers are more than different variations on animal head gear. Antlers are temporary and contain no actual bone. Horns are for keeps. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss pointy-headed creatures.
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Natural Selections: How do cats purr?
As the secrets of the natural world give way to science, it's nice to know some mystery remains. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley explore one of the last great conundrums: How do cats purr? Science has theories, but no definitive answer.
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Natural Selections: Way Cold
In some places, winter is just too long to ignore. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley explore some ways to have fun in extreme cold?from thowing hot water up into the air to guessing the temperature by the facial-hair scale.
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Natural Selections: More on Shrews
Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley revisit this feisty predator, whose fierce reputation comes from a high metabolism and the need to consume 80-90 percent of their body weight in food each day to survive. The small insectivore is active throughout the winter, shrinking in size until spring.
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Natural Selections: Bioluminescent Bunny
Gene sculpting is gaining cautious acceptance for purposes of medical research and treatment, but a bioluminescent rabbit created by a "transgeneic artist" for esthetic purposes is pushing the limits of the debate. Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss the implication of Alba, the glowing bunny.
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Natural Selections: Pencils and diamonds
Pencil leads and diamonds are chemically identical?the difference is in the crystal structure. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about carbon crystals, and what it take to form a natural diamond.
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Natural Selections: a relaxing Thanksgiving feast
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about tryptophan, and why you may need a new excuse for falling asleep after today's Thanksgiving dinner.
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Natural Selections: Daddy Long Legs
This familiar household "spider" is not a spider, but an ancient near relative in the arachnid family. Martha Foley and Curt stager discuss its characteristics, and how it differs from other creepy crawlies.
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Natural Selections: Mutants
Mutants are neither the creepy brain domes of science fiction, nor the smart-mouth turtles of the cartoons. Mutations arise all the time from environmental exposure to mutagenic substances and from imperfections in cellular reproduction. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk change?genetic change.
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Natural Selections: What makes a new species?
What draws the line between one species and another? New species are said to diverge when mutations occur that make it impossible to interbreed. Sometimes it's not much ? case in point: humans and chimpanzees. Curt Stager tells Martha Foley the key difference came when two short chromosomes in the chimp joined to form one long chromosome in humans.
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Natural Selections: Blister Beetles
Blister beetles are common in many parts of the world, including the Northeast. Oily secretions from their joints can raise blisters on skin. The oil has other qualities?being the source of the highly toxic male aphrodisiac, Spanish Fly. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss the life cycle and habits of this beetle.
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Natural Selections: Climate and carbon dating
Scientists use isotopes of carbon?carbon-13 and carbon-14? to study the age of organic material. But the activity of humans is distorting the clock. Curt Stager tells Martha Foley how added carbon in the atmosphere, pollution, and nuclear testing have made it harder to study the natural world.
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Natural Selections: eye shine
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about eye shine, and why some animals' eyes reflect light and others' don't.
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Natural Selections: Fat
Between the ages of 20 and 50, the average American doubles his or her body fat. As turkey and trimmings are placed on the table and visions of sugar plums dance, get "the skinny" on fat from Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley.
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Natural Selections: Taste
The old school biology map of the tongue, with discrete areas sensing salt, sweet, etc., has been replaced by a more complex picture where the brain averages out chemical reports that vary in accuracy and intensity from many different taste buds. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley savor the nuances of sensory perception.
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Natural Selections: Moon Watching
Why does the moon look bigger when it's on the horizon, than it does when it is high in the sky? Curt Stager shares some theories with Martha Foley.
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Natural Selections: Why is the sky blue?
Martha Foley poses the classic child's question. According to Dr. Curt Stager, the answer lies in the composition of the atmosphere, and in the refractive qualities of different wavelengths of light.
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Natural Selections: Red Squirrels
Small but aggressive, red squirrels are most at home in conifer forests where they prefer a diet of cones supplemented with whatever else is around. But, they are perfectly willing to share our homes as well as long we don't mind them filling our eaves with winter fodder, chewing on our wires and raiding our bird feeders. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley share their ambivalence.
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Natural Selections: Porcupine Quills
While the porcupine quill is hollow, like a feather, and is made from the same material, it is actually a modified hair. African porcupines can weigh as much as 60 pounds and have quills as thick as soda straws. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about "prickly" matters.
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Natural Selections: Forest, old and new
There is actually more mature forest in the Northeast now than there was a century ago, but it is a very different kind of forest from the ancient pre-colonial woodlands. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley take to the woods.
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Natural Selections: Dragonflies, part 2
The Japanese trap dragonflies with weighted silk threads, treasuring their association with the virtues of happiness, courage and strength. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley continue their discussion of dragonflies and their habits.
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Natural Selections: Dragonflies, part 1
Dragonflies, the largest flying insect predators, can be startling, but are not known for biting humans. As Dr. Curt Stager tells Martha Foley, however, one is reported to have killed a hummingbird.
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Natural Selections: Softshell turtles
The Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle is rare in the north, but a small population lives at the top of Lake Champlain. Shyer than their armored cousins, the encroachment of human activities is making it harder for them to breed. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss this uncommon holdover from the days of the dinosaurs.
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Natural Selections: Aeroplankton
This week, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about aeroplankton and all of the stuff we constantly see (or don't see) floating around in the air, from pollen and bugs to bacteria and other particles.
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Natural Selections: Places with no snakes
Were there really no snakes before St. Patrick showed up? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager ponder this and other questions. They explain that there are, in fact, places with no native snakes, particularly isolated places like New Zealand and Greenland.
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Natural Selections: more about bird eggs
This week, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager continue their discussion about eggs, exploring the color and shape of birds' eggshells, from green, white and brown to pointy and ovoid.
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Natural Selections: Seagulls
Where do all the seagulls come from? Martha Foley talks with Dr. Curt Stager about the population boom of seagulls in the last few decades, particularly ring-billed gulls found in the northeastern United States and the Great Lakes region.
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Natural Selections: bird eggs
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about why birds? eggs look the way they do.
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Natural Selections: Deerfly
As painful and annoying as they are, Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss deerfly - their beauty, the multiple species and why their bites hurt so badly.
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Natural Selections: the evolution of birds
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager study the evolution of birds and discover that some unlikely species are very closely related.
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Natural Selections: Snapping Turtle
The Eastern Snapping Turtle can reach a size of three feet and 50 lbs. Martha Foley and Curt Stager introduce us to this large and testy reptile found throughout the eastern US.
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Natural Selections: Hearing Pitch
Do we all hear the same things? Is middle-C on a piano the same for you as it is for someone else? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager look at how we hear what we hear.
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Natural Selections: Animal Extinctions, pt. 2
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager continue discussion of animal extinction with a look at the book The Ghosts of Evolution.
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Natural Selections: Ghosts of Evolution
Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss plants that have outlived the animals they co-evolved with.
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Natural Selections: Bird Monogamy
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the manners and morals of avian mating.
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Natural Selections: Animal Extinctions
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss mass animal die-offs, such as the one ending the age of dinosaurs.
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Natural Selections: Anthills
Wood ant colonies create noticeable hummocks in clearings and fields. The elaborate structures create a temperate micro-climate ideal for protecting larvae, the queen and her workers. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about insect architecture.
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Natural Selections: Return of the Black Fly
This pest of the northern spring can travel up to twenty miles on the wind. How to get away? Dress in yellow, some suggest, or tie a dragonfly to your hat. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager consult.
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Natural Selections: white-throated sparrow
Dr. Curt Stager describes the differences between two variations of the white-throated sparrow - the white-striped form and the tan-striped form. Though the birds are from the same species and are complementary in some ways, their looks and behaviors are very different. Martha Foley asks: which is more competent?
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Natural Selections: fish out of water
From catfish to killifish, can some fish actually survive outside of water? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the old cliche "like a fish out of water" and the truth behind the saying.
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Natural Selections: Poison Ivy
"Leaves of three, let it be." Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about poison ivy. They discuss whether it's really an ivy, why we call it "poison," and how humans and animals react differently to the plant.
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Natural Selections: Lampreys
Lampreys - are they fish or eel? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about this jawless fish with a mouth full of teeth and a sucking mouth.
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Natural Selections: Pond Life
Martha Foley's recent discovery of an old Golden Book on pond life inspires this discussion of some new discoveries that Dr. Curt Stager has made in the same Adirondack pond that he's been researching for 20 years.
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Natural Selections: animal behavior through a human...
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about understanding animal behavior and the natural world through the human perspective.
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Natural Selections: Octopus Intelligence
The octopus has held a fascination for people throughout the ages. Martha Foley describes a surfside encounter with beauty, and Dr. Curt Stager talks about the unusual qualities of this shelless mollusk, from its discernible intelligence to its idealistic anatomy.
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Natural Selections: Kangaroos
Kangaroos, and marsupials, are commonly known as mammals who use a pouch to raise their young. What most people might not know is that the birth of kangaroos in a pouch is in some ways more complex than the birth and development of other mammals. Martha Foley talks with Dr. Curt Stager about kangaroos.
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Natural Selections: Hognose snake
The Eastern hognose snake is better known by its nickname, puff adder, derived from its agressive display when disturbed. Its bite is mildly venomous, capable of sedating small prey, such as toads. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss this common northeastern reptile.
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Natural Selections: More About Bees
Bees need to be warm in order to fly. Thats usually not a problem, since it takes millions of round trips to flowers to make a pound of honey. But should they fall idle long enough to cool down, bees fire up their wing muscles by shivering. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley, with more about bees.
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Natural Selections: Pristine Lakes Revisited
Martha Foley talks with Dr. Curt Stager about his ongoing quest for a pristine Adirondack Lake ? one not affected by stocking programs, liming, logging, mining, etc. He thinks he has found one.
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Natural Selections: Barred Owl
The barred owl is often heard but seldom seen. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss the habits of this nocturnal hunter, and Curt demonstrates his own highly-regarded version of its distinctive call.
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Natural Selections: Ocean CO2
Most of the concern about carbon dioxide is focused on the quantity in the atmosphere and its effect on climate. But rising CO2 levels in the oceans can have equally significant effects on the ecosystems of the seas. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the changing aquasphere.
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Natural Selections: Squirrel diet
Red squirrels do well in an abundant year for spruce and balsam cones, eating as many as fifty a day. Introduced to Newfoundland for the first time in the 1960s, squirrels eat as much as two-thirds of all the black spruce cones produced. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about the eating habits of squirrels and their impact on the environment.
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Natural Selections: Sense of smell
Humans arent naturals at tracking smells like dogs, but they can, in fact, track by scent just like dogs. The main difference is humans get better with practice. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about peoples sense of smell.
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Natural Selections: Hottest and Coldest Places
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the hottest and coldest places on earth.
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Natural Selections: Field Guide to Bacteria
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss Betsey Dexter Dyers new book, A Field Guide to Bacteria, and the distinctive traits of individual bacteria that are visible to the naked eye.
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Natural Selections: Muskies, Part 2
The muskellunge, or muskie, is a popular fighting fish found in Northern waters?and so is its cousin, the Northern Pike. Martha Foley and Curt Stager continue their discussion about primitive fresh water predators.
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Natural Selections: Muskies, Part 1
The muskellunge, or muskie, is a popular fighting fish found in Northern waters. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about this primitive fresh water predator.
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Natural Selections: Bacterial "quorums"
Bacteria have an awareness of when they are part of a large population, and change their behavior as a result. In the sea, bioluminescence is governed by this phenomena, known as "quorum-sensing." In the body, it may trigger the disease-causing effects of large infections. Martha Foley and Curt Stager get together with microbial crowds.
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Natural Selections: Elders
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about the role of individuals once they are past fertility. Elders help hold communities together by acting as the living histories and resource libraries.
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Natural Selections: Feathers and irridescence
While most color in nature is the result of pigments that reflect a particular wavelength of light, others colors are created by physical structures that scattter and interfere with light. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about one of natures flashier displays?irridescent bird feathers.
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Natural Selections: Bold Chipmunks
Chipmunks arent exactly shy?their metabolism runs too high to turn down a free lunch?but neither are they social among themselves, once beyond the nest. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about this aggressively territorial backyard fixture.
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Natural Selections: Seeing Colors
The notion that all colors mixed together make white can be disputed by any child who has made a stew of his paint set, but that is what a prism shows us. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about colors, and how they differ to different eyes.
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Natural Selections: "Alternative" animals
In general, plants make food from sunlight, and animals fuel themselves by "burning" oxygen. But some animals think outside the box. Curt stager and Martha Foley look at a photosynthetic slug that hijacks the genetic machinery of the algae in its diet, and at a jellyfish that needs no oxygen, burning the alternative fuels of hydrogen and sulphur.
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Natural Selections: more on pigeons
The ubiquitous bird of cities and towns was designed for a different environment. The pigeons distinctive style of flight is adapted for maneuverability in tight places?near vertical takeoffs and quick changes of direction. This adaptation to cliff and mountainside environments serves them well among our urban cliff dwellings. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss.
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Natural Selections: Pigeons and doves
Pigeons and doves, both domestic and feral, are the same species. Todays urban environment mimics their original favored habitat, seaside cliffs in Europe and Asia. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss this commonest bird companion in densely settled areas.
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Natural Selections: Hyena
Martha Foley wonders, "Is there a more maligned and mischaracterized animal than the Hyena?" Dr. Curt Stager, a hyena fan, gives the real lowdown on this social animal.
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Natural Selections: Hermit thrush
One of natures most beautiful singers is the hermit thrush. The opposite of "good children," they are often heard but seldom seen. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about this elusive insectivore of northern forests.
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Natural Selections: Human hair
Animals in the wild do not need haircuts; why do humans? And why just on the head? Our scanty (by comparison) body hair grows only for a couple of months, then stops. Head hair will grow throughout its life of several years, and doesnt stop until it falls out. Martha Foley and Curt Stager have a longhair discussion.
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Natural Selections: Northern Flicker
The Northern Flicker is one of the most recognizable birds. This distinctly-marked member of the woodpecker family, instead of browsing wood for their food like their relatives, digs for food in the ground. Martha Foley and Curt Stager explore its habits.
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Natural Selections: the evolution of breathing
All creatures breathe in some fashion, but how the job gets done has changed from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. Curt Stager and Martha Foley chart the evolution of animal respiration.
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Natural Selections: Invasive Earthworms
Earthworms, friend to lawn and garden, are actually an invasive species in northern forests which developed in the worm-free evironment of retreating glaciers 10,000 years ago. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss their return, and the consequences for boreal soil, trees and wildflowers.
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Natural Selections: Spiny Water Flea
Native to the Caspian Sea in Asia, this tiny critter was first found in US waters in Lake Huron in 1984. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about less-visible invasive species and their effects on home waters.
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Natural Selections: Predicting Volcanos
Database analysis shows that winter, in addition to its other woes, is volcano season. Martha Foley wonders why. Dr. Curt Stager points the finger at the Pacific Ocean, which piles water on the North American coast and lightens the load on Asia. The stress comes out it crustal acne.
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Natural Selections: Flood-plain forest restoration
Trying to put nature back the way we found it can be more complicated than just leaving things alone. Dr. Curt Stager talks with Martha Foley about attempts to restore "green tree reservoirs," flood-plain forests that have been reduced 80 percent in size by human encroachment.
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Natural Selections: Winners and Losers
Animals, like humans, keep an eye on their fellows, particularly when the action is hot. Siamese fighting fish who witness a conflict treat the winners and losers differently. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about nosiness in nature.
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Natural Selections: Lion Manes
Why would a heavy fur cape, like a lions mane, be appropriate on a tropical savanna? As with male fashion in humans?it appears the that the lionesses of the Serengeti like it?the thicker and darker, the better. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk hair.
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Natural Selections: Gecko feet
Geckos have a remarkable ability to run up vertical surfaces, and even across ceilings. But their feet do not form suction cups, nor are they sticky with any kind of secreted glue. Dr. Curt Stager tells Martha Foley the secret of the lizards gravity-defying feet, which has as much to with atomic physics as biology.
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Natural Selections: Rattlesnake Poison
Rattlesnakes and its other poisonous cousins in the US seem to be getting more toxic. Dr. Curt tells Martha Foley about one theory: that habitat loss and hunting pressure are reducing the average size and age of the reptiles, who have stronger venom when younger.
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Natural Selections: Laughter
What is laughter? Is it exclusive to human? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss "the best medicine.
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Natural Selections: Exploding lake
When local legend in Africa spoke of an exploding lake, western researchers scoffed. They were wrong?Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about the exploding lake, Lake Nyos.
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Natural Selections: Animal hearts
From worms to whales, most creatures have hearts. In the worm its a simple tube, in the whale it can pump 60 gallons of blood per minute. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss the variety of hearts in the animal kingdom.
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Natural Selections: Bird vocabulary
Birds we think of as quiet will sometimes raise a ruckus. And Curt Stager noted that European birds seem to have a wider and more improvisational range of songs than their American cousins. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the vocabulary of birds.
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Natural Selections: Pollination
We know about the "birds and the bees," but how about the bats? One flower encourages bats to pollinate them by forming perfect sonar reflectors, a sort of bat mirror. Jewelweed flowers are perfectly shaped to accommodate a hummingbirds bill. Martha Foley and Curt Stager explore pollination.
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Natural Selections: Fungus
Tall trees may be the kings of the forest, but there is another kingdom of forest life that passes unnoticed. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about the arboreal network of fungus.
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Natural Selections: Continental Drift
The theory of continental drift?the idea that the continents are islands of rock adrift on the earths molten core?first gained acceptance in the 1960s. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about the consequences of their extreme slow motion collisions?earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
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Natural Selections: Spider Webs
Spiders from big to tiny use their webs to snag and trap prey in fascinating ways. One spider even then reels in tiny gnats that come to "roost" on the web. The silky constructions are wonders of engineering and construction. Theyre also highly specialized, spider to spider, as Martha Foley hears from Dr. Curt Stager in this weeks edition of Natural Selections.
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Natural Selections: Porcupines
Dr. Curt Stager tells co-host Martha Foley about porcupines and what to do when one lives under (and gnaws on) your porch. Get up close, but not too close, to porcupines.
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Natural Selections: Pollination
We know about the "birds and the bees," but how about the bats? One flower encourages bats to pollinate them by forming perfect sonar reflectors, a sort of bat mirror. Jewelweed flowers are perfectly shaped to accommodate a hummingbirds bill. Martha Foley and Curt Stager explore pollination.
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Natural Selections: Passenger Pigeons
Once so numerous they darkened the sky for days while migrating, passenger pigeons arrived in this region in early May each year. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley remember this once ubiquitous species wiped out by human hunting in the nineteenth century.
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Natural Selections: Leaf Cutter Ants
Why do Leaf Cutter Ants cut leaves? Nesting material, food? As Martha Foley and Curt Stager explain, these ants are composting. What they actually eat grows on rotting leaves.
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Natural Selections: Ancient Adirondacks
"Old as the hills" is a relative term. The Adirondacks may be relatively young mountains, but their distinctive grey granite, anorthosite, originated 1.1 billion ago, so deep in the earths crust that only continental collision could have formed it. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss Adirondack geology.
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Natural Selections: Dandelions
Martha Foley mows her lawn just before the dandelions go to seed, hoping to keep their numbers down, but theres another whole crop right behind?why? Dr. Curt Stager dug into the story and found the answer in the sex life?or lack thereof?of dandelions.
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Natural Selections: Whirligig Beetles
Watching whirligig water beetles, found in circling clumps on the surface of calm fresh water, is a favorite childhood activity of many, including one-time child Martha Foley. Dr. Curt Stager explains the method behind their madcap collective behavior. (Note: Dr. William Romey teaches at SUNY Potsdam.)
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Natural Selections: Exploding Flowers
Some flowers open quickly, and some are even spring-loaded?like the venus fly trap?but the floral deployment speed record belongs to the lowly dogwood relative, the bunchberry, which when triggered opens its tiny four-petal bloom in less than a millisecond. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss flower power.
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Natural Selections: Warblers
An astonishing variety of warblers return with the northern spring from tropical climes. Some cross the Gulf of Mexico without a rest stop. Martha Foley asks Dr. Curt Stager, why? What do we have here that cant be found in Mexico or Martinique?
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Natural Selections: Solar Weather
Solar weather does more than create light shows at polar latitudes. When the sun acts up, the effects can range from communications interference on earth to lethal doses of radiation for unprotected astronauts. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about heavenly weather.
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Natural Selections: Ice Age mammals
During the last Ice Age North America was home to many varieties of "super-sized" mammals, megafauna. Giant beaver, possums, bear, sloths and other creatures joined the more familair wooly mammoth in the land bridge migration. Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at the question, "Why so big?"
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Natural Selections: Sunfish
A common sight is fresh water shallows, sunfish provide an excellent opportunity to observe fish behavior. Dr. Curt Stager talks with Martha Foley about the two main varieties, the pumpkinseed and the bluegill. It may be hard to tell one from another, unless of course, youre a sunfish.
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Natural Selections: Volcanoes and water
Water is not what comes to mind when thinking of volcanoes, but steam can be up to 90 percent of the output, "virgin water" from deep in the earths cust. Geologists speculate that volcanoes may be the source of all the surface water on earth. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about what happens when lava and water meet.
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Natural Selections: Crab Spiders
Crab spiders are small, camouflaged arachnids that drink nectar from flowers. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss these "freeloaders."
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Natural Selections: Ginkgo Trees
Martha Foley and Dr Curt Stager talk about Ginkgo Trees- an ancient species native to China. They do not spread naturally anymore, but during the time of the dinosaurs there were many types of Ginkgo trees all over the world.
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Natural Selections: Fungal Lurkers
Martha Foley and Dr Curt Stager discuss fungal lurkers- fungi that live inside plants. Fungal lurkers are a new discovery and scientists believe that this type of fungus helps the plant it lives on but may harm animals and people.
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Natural Selections: Cosmic Rays
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss cosmic rays. While many people may think cosmic rays only affect astronauts or satellites- objects in space, computers and other electronic equipment on Earth can be affected too.
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Natural Selections: a relaxing Thanksgiving feast
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about tryptophan, and why you may need a new excuse for falling asleep after todays Thanksgiving dinner.
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Natural Selections: The Treeline
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about the timberline, the usually abrupt termination of forest growth above a certain altitude. While it results from a combination of unfavorable factors, the final straw seems to be the length of time free of hard frost. When the growing season is too short to overcome damage from the harsh climate, the trees die out.
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Natural Selections: One small change can greatly affect...
Why do ponds with fish have more plants around them? When just one small part of an ecosystem is changed, everything is affected. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss some examples.
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Natural Selections: Northern Shrike
Sometimes the bird at your feeder is looking to feed on other birds. Dr. Curt Stager tells Martha Foley about a recent rare visitor outside his window, the northern shrike.
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Natural Selections: Camel Spiders
Like Martha Foley, you, too, may have seen a picture of this spider in your e-mail inbox. Is it real, or an imaginary creature come-to-life on the computer? Dr. Curt Stager gets the facts.
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Natural Selections: Burl wood
Burl wood, the knobs of complex grain that some trees form, is prized by woodworkers for its beauty and utility. What causes wood grain to deviate from the straight and narrow in this way is something of a mystery. Martha Foley and Curt Stager try to untangle the knot.
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Natural Selections: Whale anatomy
From the bones of their fins to the free-floating and functionless pelvis, the bodies of cetaceans show clear signs of having once lived on land. Why go back to the sea? Dr Curt Stager and Martha Foley examine the tale of the whale.
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Natural Selections: Tree growth
Trees may live for hundreds, thousands of years, but there are limits on their growth. Trees can only move so much water, and only to a certain height. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the hydrology of trees.
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Natural Selections: Buckwheat
Although we use buckwheat flour for many of the same purposes as wheat flour, the plants they originate from are not even closely related. And thats a good thing for those suffering gluten allergies. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager on kitchen science.
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Natural Selections: Hover Flies
A common invasive species, the hover fly, or drone fly, looks remarkably like a honeybee. But in its youth, it carries the loathsome monicker, the rat-tailed maggot. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss Batesian mimicry?innocuous creatures who imitate more dangerous species.
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Natural Selections: Adirondack Anorthosite
Anorthosite, the signature grey rock familiar to climbers and hikers in the Adirondacks is an ancient form of granite formed 15 miles below the surface more than a billion years ago. Pushed to the surface by recent mountain building activity, its deep cracks form the valleys and deep lakes of the region. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about the areas "ancient bones."
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Natural Selections: Red-backed Salamanders
This northern forest species is so common that its biomass would outweigh all the large mammals and birds in its habitat combined. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager look at forest amphibians.
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Natural Selections: Guppies, Bright and Drab
If male guppies use bright colors to attract mates, why are there still lots of drab guppies? Bright colors may attract the attention of more than just potential mates. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss the upside and downside of male flash.
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Natural Selections: Fallout and carbon dating
Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss radiocarbon dating. Fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has distorted the background levels of the radioactive isotope carbon-14, used by archaeologists to date organic materials. But it has an upside, providing a new scale by which to date more recent events, helping researchers track cell turnover in different parts of the body, and in testing the age of everything from vintage wine to elephant ivory.
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Natural Selections: Pitcher Plants
Most carnivorous plants, such as the pitcher plant commonly found in Adirondack bogs, live in poor soils. Unwary insects are drawn to a sweet bait to supplement their diet. Curt Stager and Martha Foley discuss these botanical oddballs, which may live as long as fifty years.
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Natural Selections: Hamsters
All the pet hamsters in the world derive from a small wild population collected in Syria in the 1930s. Martha Foley and Curt Stager talk about hamsters, in the wild and working the wheel.
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Natural Selections: stellar distances
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about stars and the very clever ways we can tell their distance from the earth.
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Natural Selections: Black squirrels
Black squirrels are becoming more common throughout the St. Lawrence Valley. They are a normal variation of the more familiar gray squirrel species. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss melanism, an increase in the pigmentation of some species that can be a response to environmental factors.
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Natural Selections: Emerald Ash Borer
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about the Emerald Ash Borer, the insect behind those purple traps were seeing hanging from trees all over the North Country.
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Natural Selections: the Pleaides
The Greeks called them "The Seven Sisters," but a look at the Subaru logo shows the Japanese saw them differently. This familiar star cluster constellation actually contains thousands of stars when viewed through a telescope, as well as brown dwarf proto-stars and dust nebulae and newly-forming solar systems. Martha Foley and Curt Stager look at the night sky.
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Natural Selections: Turtle anatomy
Turtles breathe backwards; that is, when they relax their diaphragms, they inhale rather than exhale. Martha Foley and Curt Stager discuss the oddities of anatomy that arise from living in armor.
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Natural Selections: Turtle Crossing
For turtles, crossing the road is a common danger, and it can also be one for the good Samaritan who tries to shepherd a snapper through traffic. Martha Foley and Curt Stager share safe technique, and try to answer the immemorial question, "Why did the turtle cross the road?"
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Natural Selections: Wintergreen Oil
Wintergreen oil is best known for its fresh minty flavor, but it also has a long history as an effective herbal painkiller. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley talk about this home remedy which, like its chemical cousin aspirin, can be hard on the stomach, and is toxic in high doses or with prolonged use.
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Natural Selections: Extreme bacteria
Some bacteria like it hot, geyser hot, and some like it cold, refrigerator cold. Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley look at bacteria that thrive in extreme environments.
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Natural Selections: Plant blood
Do plants have blood? How does the human circulatory system compare to that of plants and trees? Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager tackle the question.
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Natural Selections: Adirondack Trout, pt. 1
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk about trout biology and habitat in the Adirondacks.
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Natural Selections: Exploring cave life
Curt Stager and Martha Foley do some imaginary spelunking and talk about the peculiar variations of animal life in caves.
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Natural Selections: Foxes
Join Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley for a discussion about foxes?their homes, their diets and other fox facts.
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Natural Selections: American robins
Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss the varieties and habits of American robins. There are half a dozen different kinds, including albinos. How do they arrive so early in the spring? Sometimes its because they never leave.
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Natural Selections: Leaf Cutter Ants
Why do Leaf Cutter Ants cut leaves? Nesting material, food? As Martha Foley and Curt Stager explain, these ants are composting. What they actually eat grows on rotting leaves.
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Natural Selections: Tent Caterpillars
Dr. Curt Stager and Martha Foley take a look at the voracious caterpillars that make their homes in silky "tent" structures in trees.
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Natural Selections: Diatoms
Diatoms are fascinating creatures that share some qualities of both plant and animal. Dr. Curt Satger and Martha Foley talk about these water-borne oddities that inhabit the base of the food chain in geometric "glass houses" of their own construction.
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Natural Selections: Spotted Salamander
The first warm, rainy night of spring is the best time to spot this amphibian, while they migrate to forest pools for mating. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager discuss this northern forest native and its curious boreal nuptials.
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