Year after year, monarch butterflies make Mexico’s Sierra Madre their winter home. For years, scientists struggled to figure out how they knew where to go. They recently discovered the answer: the butterfly’s antennae. (In Spanish with English subtitles)

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Mexican Monarch Reserve

Bark Beetles in Mexico

 

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http://www.vimeo.com/7457522

After spending numerous meetings with Maya Lin at the Academy and seeing how she distilled the stories told by some of the most venerable figures in the field of conservation biology into a final artwork, it seemed fitting that we should give a voice to someone who took a chance to give a different perspective to science. Shaped like a giant megaphone, the “Listening Cone” unveiled September 17, 2009 on the Academy’s East Terrace is not just an art exhibit, nor is it just a memorial. It is at once a portal to planet Earth and a sounding device to the work that is currently being done to conserve its resources. Take your shoes off and step inside!

The Listening Cone is part of a multi-site memorial called “What is Missing”. To learn more about what others are doing and what you can do to prevent species and habitat loss visit a selection of the institutions and organizations that played an advisory role to the “What is Missing” project.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology
National Geographic Society
Conservation International
National Resources Defense Council
World Wildlife Fund
Freedom to Roam

-Lindsay

 

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Gene therapy has proven to cure color blindness in squirrel monkeys— can the same process work for humans?

We’ve been tracking a lot of vision stories lately… What have you found?

 

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Meet Swima Bombaviridis, a newly discovered species found at great depths of the Pacific Ocean. They drop green bioluminescent “bombs” to evade predators.

 

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Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? Perhaps. Last week, scientists announced the discovery of the amino acid, glycine, on the comet Wild 2. Amino acids provide key components for life here on Earth, but this is the first time we have definitive evidence of these molecules occurring in space.

 

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