A Hoopoe (pronounced who-poh, scientific name: Upupa epops) is a colourful African bird which has a distinctive ‘crown’ of feathers. The species is highly distinctive, with a long, thin tapering bill that is black with a fawn base. The strengthened musculature of the head allows the bill to be opened when probing inside the soil. The hoopoe has broad and rounded wings capable of strong flight; these are larger in the northern migratory subspecies. The Hoopoe has a characteristic undulating flight, which is like that of a giant butterfly, caused by the wings half closing at the end of each beat or short sequence of beats.

Listen to it sing:

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This is how baby giraffes sleep.


Adult giraffes are even stranger. They sleep very little -- it's estimated that they sleep just half an hour to an hour every day, in short five minute naps through the night. During sleep they rest their neck on their hind legs but usually remain standing.

The kitti's hog-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), also known as the bumblebee bat is the smallest known species of mammal. Its natural habitat is in the countries of western Thailand and southeast Burma, where it occupies limestone caves along rivers. The bat is about 29 to 33 mm (1.1 to 1.3 in) in length and 2 g (0.071 oz) in mass, and is listed as a vulnerable species.

Genetic testing of giant squid corpses discovered all over the world has found that not only are they all the same species, they have surprisingly low genetic diversity. This suggests that some time in the recent past they were pushed to the brink of extinction, but managed to rebound and are now found throughout the worlds oceans.

This is a butterfly gurnard fish. They have a large bony head and a bony rostrum on the snout with a very small median notch with tiny spines.  They are sandy with reddish bands and blotches and often turn red on capture.  The greenish pectoral fins are round with bright blue spots and margins, and a roundish black blotch with a bright blue margin and scattered blue spots inside.

Researchers working to bring back animals like the passenger pigeon and woolly mammoth discuss the implications of their work.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

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In recent posts I have discussed the potential medical and anthropological impacts (mainly benefits admittedly) of genetic modification and research in epigenetic phenomena. Whilst trawling through various journals and publications I constantly bumped into that term ‘pharmacogenomics’ . Then, it occurred to me that a discussion of that daunting subject just needed to be my next venture; it seems that pharmacogenomics is not as well publicized as similar areas of genetic research, yet equally interesting and controversial.

Pharmacogenomics was an idea born out of the aftermath of the human genome project, when it became obvious that sequencing a human genome was very much a feasible idea . Many people thought that by unlocking the information ...