Project Noah

Check out Project Noah: According to Jill Priluck's article in Slate, it is "a database of spottings, a field guide, and a repository for ecology surveys." You could spend all day viewing the massive collections.

Project NOAH has found the sweet spot between professional scientists and casual naturalists. It began as an app for people to share their nature sightings but has evolved into a scientific and culturally relevant tool for both the masses and the experts. Project NOAH functions as a kind of Foursquare for flora and fauna, a way for amateur nature spotters to record the bugs, leaves, and birds they've found. Those data, in turn, have become a valuable tool for professional researchers.
The good news? "The platform is about to go global with a cross-media blitz, in hopes of turning wildlife spotting into a cultural sport."

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Sperm Wars

Based on new evidence, it shouldn't be long before Las Vegas oddsmakers start accepting wagers on the intense battles that have now been observed within the sex organs of females. According to the March 19, 2010 issue of Science (available online only to subscribers; it is page 1443 in the print edition), sexual selection continues on in the most intimate of arenas in at least some species in which the females sometimes mate "more than once in quick succession, filling their reproductive tract with rival sperm that must compete for access to the unfertilized eggs." The Science article, by Elizabeth Pennisi, is entitled "Male Rivalry Extends to Sperm and Female Reproductive Tract." According to Pennisi, two recent studies have shown that the seminal fluid of some ants and bees contains "toxins that impede rival sperm." She also notes that some female fluids seem to counter these toxins. The studies cited in science indicates that "the competition between males continues in a very fierce way inside the female."

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