The Taste of Scientific Progress

Seahorse: Oscar Alexander

Also in today's links: booming bunnies, cold calls and more.

• It's like the mongoose in Hawaii all over again! The rabbit population on an Australian island has exploded after the cat population was eliminated for eating too many birds. Now the wascally invasive species is gnawing on too much of the island's mega-celery and other mega-herbs, and causing erosion.
• What's the biggest threat to understanding some of the nation's health issues? Cellphones, say some epidemiologists.
• The Supreme Court is hearing a case over a permit to dump tailings from a gold mine into a lake in Alaska, which could set a precedent for how mining waste is disposed of in the nation's waterways. Maybe they should all take a look at the Berkeley Pit, and let the waste become a tourist site.
• Researchers are using fluorescent polymers to tag seahorses so they can better study their behavior. I'm really just including this link because the slideshow shows close-ups of seahorses, and they're very neat, and somehow delicious-looking, creatures. My thought at seeing the pictures was "no wonder people make chocolates and gummy candies shaped like seahorses. Look at their fat little bellies!"
• Astronauts get to have lots of enviable experiences, but eating space food is not among them. A group of Chinese scientists are making a case for a food even more exotic than dehydrated ice cream: silkworms. The creatures grow quickly in a small amount of space, and their pupae are rich in protein.