Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Eyeless Creature Discovered in Undersea Tunnel

A previously unknown species of an eyeless crustacean was discovered lurking inside a lava tube beneath the seafloor.
The creature, named Speleonectes atlantida, lives in the Tunnel de la Atlantida, the world's longest submarine lava tube on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands off the western coast of northern Africa. The discovery, which has implications for the evolution of an ancient group of crustaceans, will be detailed in September in a special issue of the journal Marine Biodiversity.
While in the cave, the international team of scientists and cave divers also discovered two previously unknown species of annelid worms.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090825/sc_livescience/eyelesscreaturediscoveredinunderseatunnel

Both the creatures and the tubes under the sea are interesting from an RPG point of view.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Giant 'meat-eating' plant found

A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.

The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.

During the same expedition, botanists also came across strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms they could not identify.




http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8195000/8195029.stm

Monday, August 10, 2009

Two Worlds Collide in Deep Space

Two distant planets orbiting a young star apparently smashed into each other at high speeds thousands of years ago in a cosmic pileup of cataclysmic proportions, astronomers announced Monday.

Telltale plumes of vaporized rock and lava leftover from the collision revealed its existence to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which picked up signatures from the impact in recent observations.



http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090810-planet-smash.html