Monterey Bay Aquarium's giant octopus

Okay, I’m biased. I definitely have my favorite animal in the Steinhart Aquarium and I visit him often. The first time I saw him come out and swim around was magical. It was just before we opened to the public and it had been a long day. I was taking a break in the Aquarium and after strolling for a spell; I sat down by his tank. He was hiding just out of sight in the bottom of the tank squeezed between the glass and the rocky outcroppings. I saw a tentacle, red and furtive and then another one. His face poked up and then dipped down quickly. His tentacles stilled roamed, creating a beautiful line against the glass. He got braver and would peek at me for longer and then dip down yet again. Of course I would be biased –- considering I was able to play peek-a-boo with a red octopus!

That was almost a year ago and I still visit regularly. I can count on two hands the amount of time that I’ve visited his tank to find him out and exploring. Most often he is hiding within one of the corners of the tank. But I catch him out — hunting a crab or opening a jar the biologist gave him to play with. His elusive nature makes the times I get a glimpse that much more special. He has grown quite a bit over the course of the year and now when he comes, he spreads out and takes up much of the span of the tank. His red coloring, mottled skin and white suckers make him look like a dancing underwater firework.

I am in great awe of his shape and the intelligence he shows in manipulating his form. On the Red Octopus, the only hard substance on its entire body is its beak. These species are invertebrate cephalopods; most species lack either an internal or external structure. Most often them can squeeze into spaces no bigger around then their beak. Which explains why he can fit into such a small corner despite his large size.

Astro-turf is also carpeting the rim of his tank. It is a deterrent against him crawling out of his tank into another tank to feed. A previous octopus on display in the old Steinhart Aquarium did just that, much to the chagrin of the biologists caring for the tanks. There is also a weight on top of the octopus tanks at the tidepool. This is to insure they do not get out and eat the residents of the tidepool. The weight is a couple of pounds, and without it the small octopus could easily open its jewel tank.

Octopus species are considered the most intelligent invertebrates in the ocean. In captivity, they have shown play, problem solving and short and long term memory. In the wild, their intelligence, flexibility, camouflage, and problem solving makes them a formidable predator. They have even been known to prey on sharks! The best time to see an octopus “on the hunt” is at night. They are nocturnal and the octopus at the Academy is no different. The majority of the time I have seen him out is after 5pm. So if you visit during the extended hours in August, stop by the Octopus tank. The glimpse of red and dance of tentacles is well worth the visit.

Volunteers have a whale of a time working to save our seas. Join the fun this weekend!

Friday may be National Doughnut Day, but the real party this weekend is on June 8th in celebration of World Ocean Day. WOD, the brainchild of our Canadian brethren, is a worldwide effort to raise awareness and promote personal connection with the oceans that sustain life on this planet. Because we are lucky to have the ocean as our neighbor here in the Bay Area, there are a number of incredible events surrounding the celebration:

Ocean Beach Cleanup
When: Sunday, June 7th, 10 AM -12 noon
Where: Ocean Beach at the Judah Street Entrance, San Francisco
OceanHealth.Org teams up with the San Francisco Chapter of Surfrider for our annual World Ocean Day beach cleanup in San Francisco at Ocean Beach. There will be gloves and bags. Just bring yourself and dress for variable weather. The event is co-sponsored by the California Academy of Sciences & the Aquarium of the Bay.

I have quite the personal connection to SF’s Ocean Beach. For the past 2.5 years, I have led the Ocean Beach Foundation, working to preserve the beach with the fire pit installations as well as organizing weekly cleanups. It’s quite amazing what you can find out on the beach during cleanups…I’ve found everything from a huge Barbie dollhouse to an old school Radio Flyer (the toy of my youth!). I hope you’ll take part in the Ocean Beach cleanup.

World Oceans Day Film Festival
When: Wednesday, June 10th, 7-10 PM
Where: Victoria Theater, San Francisco
OceanHealth.org is celebrating World Ocean’s Day by screening a few short ocean films. We hope that you'll join us in this great location to share our love of the oceans and to view a variety of films showing perspectives on the ocean.

Purchase advance tickets at http://www.victoriatheatre.org or purchase tickets at the box office on the day of the film. Cost $10.

Some of the great films you'll see:
A Sea Change, End of the Line, Silent Snow, Keeping Coast, Favela Surf Dreams, Papa Tortuga, Revolution of the Crabs

Sustainable Seafood at Cal Academy’s Nightlife
When: Thursday, June 11th, 6-10 PM
Where: California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
The Academy and its partners in the San Francisco Seafood Watch Alliance are pulling out all the stops to encourage visitors to make sustainable seafood choices.

Local celebrity chefs will whip up tasty treats during sustainable seafood cooking demonstrations: Eric Magnani from Global Gourmet Catering, Kin Lui and Casson Trenor from Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar, Craig Stoll from Delfina, and Loretta Keller from COCO5OO and The Moss Room. Also, we’ll host a screening of “The End of the Line,” a new film about overfishing that received rave reviews at Sundance.

Nightlife often sells out, it is suggested to buy your tickets ahead of time.

For even more events, check out OceanHealth.org

The California Academy of Sciences' homepage

For the last forty-five minutes, I have been perusing the California Academy of Sciences website, trying to think of a topic for this blog piece. It is 10 PM on the day before my entry is due, and I am doing what I have been doing since college – procrastinating! But now the Internet makes that so much more time consuming. Going through the pages and sifting ideas to see what might work, I am drawn into how technology and the Internet are making so much available to the public, and how information interacts at so many intersections. You just need to look at the Academy's website for examples.

There is a page on the Academy website dedicated to blogs. It follows researchers in the field, or discusses nuances of climate change; one blog category is dedicated to being a fly on the wall. One of these "fly on the wall" blog entries notes that Claude (the albino alligator) is doing well after being pulled off the floor for an injury.  Because these blogs feature a way to leave comments, we can streamline them to answer specific inquiries, and also bring light to the concerns of the public.  People can watch specific animals online through streaming video, such as the Penguin Cams.  The videos and images are not wholly staff generated either; YouTube video and flickr photo uploads are linked in, as well as social commentary from Facebook and Twitter. There is even a  survey (on the bottom right of the homepage) that lets you test your science knowledge against a recent study.  I got all six of them correct, compared to an average of 4.1 right answers, a fact I found out immediately after taking the quiz.

Last week, Google unveiled it's new Google Ocean feature (for its Google Earth software) at a press conference in our building. A great deal of technical set-up went into the day to have the press conference virtual. A link to the story about the process of creating it is referenced on the homepage. You can also take a quiz to test your Google Earth acumen, again directly from our homepage.

None of this surfing and procrastinating led me to a finite topic, but it did give me a "huh" moment. I remember when the Internet was just disparate websites. Information that before would take me hours to find, if I could at all, I can now access from a home base on one website. Websites and information are integrated, and help form communities along with advanced interactivity. There are now Social Networking Coordinators at various institutions — including the Academy — who work to maintain and enrich this virtual and ever-growing community.

In just getting lost on the Academy site, I was emmeshed in a rich diversity of content and feedback. Evolution has put down strong roots online.

The film follows Kavanaugh and his collaborator, University of California-Berkeley doctoral candidate Sean Schoville, as they search for the beetle, then put possible candidates to the test by dissecting them under the microscope and doing genetic testing on them.

It's rare for a biologist to predict the discovery of a new species – even for someone like Kavanaugh, who has discovered 73 new species. For his prediction, he drew inspiration from Charles Darwin's own prediction, which the English naturalist and founder of modern evolutionary biology made in 1862.

When Darwin saw an orchid from Madagascar with a foot-long nectare, he predicted that a pollinator would be found with a tongue (called a proboscis) long enough to reach the nectar inside the orchid's very thin, elongated nectar "pouch." Darwin's prediction was based on his finding that all living beings are related to each other and that some of them evolve closely together. His prediction came true in 1903, when a moth was discovered in Madagascar with a long, thin proboscis, which it uncurls to reach the nectar in the orchid's nectare. In the process of feeding from the orchid, the moth serves as its pollinator. The moth was given the scientific name Xanthopan morganii praedicta, in honor of Darwin’s prediction.

"Chasing Beetles, Finding Darwin" is QUEST TV's contribution to the celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book "On the Origin of Species."

Watch Chasing Beetles, Finding Darwin online. You can also see additional photos for this story.

Photo credit: California Academy of Sciences Library

The Foucault Pendulum first demonstrated in February 1851 that the Earth rotates by turning on its axis when French Philosopher Leon Foucault unveiled it in the Meridian Room of the Paris Observatory. His most famous pendulum was exhibited beneath the 279-foot dome of the Pantheon in Paris, hanging from a 219-foot wire. A replica of this famous pendulum swings in the East Pavilion of the Academy, though from only a 30 foot cable. A weight known as a "bob" on the end of a wire swings in a straight arc in relation to the laws of inertia and gravity. Below the constant back and forth arc of the bob a circle of pins set 6 degrees apart rotates. As the Earth rotates the pins come into contact with the constant arc of the bob and are knocked over.

At the Academy located in San Francisco (latitude 37.7°N), the pins will be knocked down every 39 to 40 minutes over a 24 hour period. In twenty-four hours, the pendulum will only knock over 220 degrees worth of pins. Knocking over 360 degrees worth of pins in San Francisco would take 39 hours, where at the North Pole (90° N) it would only take 24 hours.

Why is there a difference? This is because at the North & South Poles, Earth's rotation is enough to explain the change in the pendulum's apparent direction of swing. But as soon as you leave the poles and change latitude, something called the Coriolis Effect comes into play. The Coriolis Effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating frame of reference, and its strength varies with latitude. Freely moving objects on the surface of the Earth experience a Coriolis force, and appear to veer to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern. Over time, this continual veering-off-course causes the swing of the pendulum bob to gradually precess, or rotate. This precessing is tracked as the pendulum knocks down pegs set up in a circle beneath it. The farther a pendulum is located from the pole, it will take gradually longer and longer for the pendulum's swing to precess a complete 360°. At the equator, the Coriolis effect is so weak that the pendulum is unaffected – the swing would never precess and therefore the pendulum would never knock over any pegs.

Intestingly, the Coriolis Effect also explains the spiral shapes of hurricanes, cyclonic weather systems, and oceanic gyres and which way they spiral in the northern or southern hemispheres, so the physics works for various natural phenomena, not just for pendulums.

Over two hundred Foucault Pendulums around the world were made in-house at the California Academy of Sciences. In 1958, Academy staff built a Foucault Pendulum for the Smithsonian. In 1960, Foucault Pendulums began to be produced en masses for clients around the globe. Four to five a year were produced in the instrument shop and are still being created today by a retired staff member – Cary Ponchione under "Academy Pendulum Sales". So the Foucault Pendulum on display at the Academy today is just one of many that demonstrate the axis rotation of the Earth and the specific laws of physics that affects arc, tilt and rotation.

A Baobab Tree

Baobab is the common name of the genus Adansonia. The genus contains eight species of tree – six are native to Madagascar, while one species occurs in Mainland Africa and one in Australia. The Baobab tree is the national tree of Madagascar and is also known as the boaboa, bottle tree, the monkey bread tree, or the upside down tree: It looks as if someone took a tree out by the roots and turned it upside down. Throughout most of the year, its branches are bare, making them resemble a network of roots. All Baobab tree species occur in naturally dry areas and shed their leaves in the dry season to survive harsh drought conditions. Baobab trees can reach a height of 80 feet and a trunk diameter of 23- 36 feet. The trees store water inside the trunk during the dry season. During the rainy season, the trunk will increase or decrease in girth depending on rainfall amounts. It is difficult to determine how long these trees live, as their wood does not create growth rings, but current evidence points to a lifespan of up to 400 years.

The Adansonia grandidieri is the largest and grandest of the Baobab family. It has a massive cylindrical trunk covered with smooth, reddish-grey bark. When in bloom, the flat crowns of the trees bear bluish-green palm-like leaves and dark brown floral buds or spectacular flowers with white petals. It produces leaves from October to May and flowers from May to August. The flowers open around dusk and they all pollinate on the same night they flower. Nocturnal animals pollinate the trees by licking the nectar from the flowers and repeating this process from tree to tree. Scientists believe only lemurs are now capable of pollinating these trees. Before the colonization of Madagascar, other nocturnal animals and the elephant bird also were seed dispersers, but these species have long gone extinct.

Humans have not only affected the number of animals that can pollinate the tree, they have changed the tree's environment and exploited its various parts. These trees historically prospered in dry, deciduous forest, especially near seasonal river or lakes. Today, they are mainly found in open, agricultural land because of the increased demand for farming. Many trees are scarred from pegs hammered into the bark by humans, who use them to climb up the trunk to collect seeds. The bark is stripped to make rope and the wood is carted away to use for thatch. Because of the changes made to their environment and the exploitation of their resources, there are few young baobab trees, which could seriously hinder species survival. Numerous organizations and researchers, like those at the Academy, along with the Malagasy government, have realized the importance of conserving the unique biodiversity of Madagascar and are working to protect this hotspot. One measure, which will help the Grandidier's baobab, is the 2003 pledge from the President of Madagascar to triple the number of protected areas in the region. This will not only help restore an incredible area of biodiversity but also help the Malagasy people. Their livelihoods depend on the continued preservation of their watersheds and forests.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

newly discovered Rhynchocyon udzungwensis
the grey-faced sengi

Sengis are commonly known as elephant-shrews. They were first associated with elephants because of their long flexible snouts that resemble that of an elephant's trunk. Moreover, recent molecular research has shown that sengis have more in common with elephants that the shrews they were originally associated with. Their closest relatives include elephants, sea cows, and the aardvark. Until now only 15 species of sengis were known to science. In 2005, the new sengi was first caught on film. Francesco Rovero of the Trento Museum of Natural Science had been setting up camera traps inside the remote Ndundulu Forest in Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains in order to survey the region's forest mammals. When the camera recorded the unfamiliar sengi, he sent the photos to Rathbun for identification. Rathbun was sought after for his expertise – he has studied the ecology, social structure, and evolution of sengis for more than 30 years. Rathbun believed the sengi to be a new species and embarked on a two week expedition with a team of colleagues in March 2006 to confirm his belief.

There were a few setbacks confirming the new sengi species. Rathbun had planned their trip for the dry season but the rains came early making the shrew harder to spot. The size of the sengi also posed a problem as the traps that were brought proved too small for the giant sengi. The grey-faced sengis weigh close to 1.5 pounds which is 25 percent larger than any other documented sengi. Therefore, more traditional twine snares had to be built to contain the giant sengi. Victory prevailed and the team was able to catch 4 animals and make 40 observations thus confirming the new species. "This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career," Rathbun says. "It is the first new species of giant elephant-shrew to be discovered in more that 126 years. From the moment I first lifted one of the animals into our photography tent, I knew it must be a new species – not just because of its distinct coloring, but because it was so heavy!" More information about this expedition and other Academy expeditions can be found at http://www.calacademy.org/academy/expeditions/.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

Cal Academy scientist Kelly Herbinson
collects ants with a Bay Area science teacher

I was first introduced to the pooter, an insect catching device, last July at the California Academy of Sciences Nature Journaling workshop in the Trinity Alps and little did I know where it would lead.

The Nature Journaling workshop blended sketching and watercolor techniques with information about the natural area in which we camped. In addition to discovering I could actually be artistic (not one of my strong suits in the past) and falling in love with vegan cashew chili (I’m a big fan of meat), the highlight for me was learning how to catch small insects by sucking them into a vial at the end of a long rubber tube.

This contraption, which includes a small piece of gauze between the vial and the rubber tubing, so you don’t suck the insect all the way into your lungs, is the aforementioned pooter. By the end of the workshop, we had planned a joint educator workshop using QUEST media about invasive species with the hands-on ant collecting activities from the Bay Area Ant Survey and the California Academy of Sciences.

QUEST's Jessica Neely
collects ants with a pooterFast forward 4 months. In early December, 29 Bay Area science educators gathered at the California Academy of Sciences to learn about Bay Area invasive species. We started the day off with QUEST’s television story San Francisco Bay Invaders, moved to some discussion about how to help our students become “media savvy” in the 21st century, and then it was time for the pooters.

Educators paired up and we took a field trip to the alley behind the Cal Academy – not the most ideal location to find ants, but it was the best we could do with limited time. It was so cold that day that Kelly Herbinson, our ant expert, had to set out bait for the ants in the morning. We poked, prodded, searched high and low, and a few of us were able to capture the cagey little critters with our pooters. Kelly led us through the identification process (yes, I’m sorry but some ants were harmed) and introduced everyone to the Bay Area Ant Survey, an amazing citizen science project where just about anyone can contribute to scientists’ understanding of the distribution of ants in the Bay Area by capturing, labeling, and sending in their ants.

Teachers study ant samples to
help identify the ants they collectedA few post-workshop take-aways:

• Despite what you hear on the news, science teachers are doing wonderful work with students

• Students are getting their information from an increasing number of sources and teaching them how to be media-savvy is tricky (not something that is currently tested on standardized tests…)

• Most importantly, ants are AMAZING! Did you know that the trap-jaw ant can snap its mandibles shut so hard and fast on an object that it can propel itself backwards 2 feet to escape predators?

Want to participate in an upcoming QUEST Educator Training? Visit our list of upcoming workshops and register.

And please add a comment if you know of a great educational resource for teaching about Bay Area invasive species. And please share your story if you use QUEST with your students!

Jessica Neely is a Project Supervisor of Science Education.

latitude: 37.781891, longitude: -122.403327

Photo credit: Dr. Richard Mooi

It is not often that the public is able to see the components and care that go into creating a museum exhibit. However the California Academy of Sciences hosted a lecture on Tuesday, From the Depths: Creating a Science and Art Exhibit at the Academy, which delved into why the creation of an art exhibit at a science museum has been such a meaningful project for both painter Tiffany Bozic and Dr. Rich Mooi, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology at the Academy.

Both Bozic and Mooi grew up surrounded by the natural world and remain passionate about exploring it today. Bozic grew up on a farm in Arkansas where she was involved with animals every day. Throughout her career, she has drawn on the natural world to create a dialogue about a universal human condition, often expressing her ideas through animal imagery. Mooi began sketching early in life in the forested areas outside of his home in Ontario and has continued to paint and illustrate all his life. He views illustration as a tool to capture complex processes, like how minute currents travel along a sea urchin's spines — a process that cannot be adequately captured with photography or other media.

Fine art often raises questions and allows people to look inward, while science is tasked with solidifying answers and methods. But rather than focus on differences between the two fields, Bozic and Mooi are excited by the commonalities they share. During the lecture on creating the exhibit, each demonstrated how they are inspired by both science and art. Though photos don't do the actual paintings justice, here's a taste of what's on display: http://www.calacademy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=13658.

In listening to the lecture and talking with Bozic and Mooi afterwards, both stressed how important and unusual the "dialogue" between art and science is. They are each fascinated by the beauty found in the natural world, though they work with it in unique ways: one opens it up to interpretation, while the other clarifies its ambiguities.

What they found working together on this art installation was a deep commonality. Bozic related how they were both just completely blown away by the vast number and diversity of specimens in the Academy's collections. It was like being a five year old again and exploring. Mooi added that both artists and scientists share a love and appreciation of objects. So much detail goes into working with specimens — both the artist and scientist must have a passionate drive to work with such intricacies. Both Bozic and Mooi feel their work is fueled by inspiration and awe.

They expect that many questions will arise among people viewing From the Depths. As visitors go through the art installation, they will also observe the process of what inspired the exhibit in the first place, and perhaps wonder about the relationship between science and art. It will open the visitor up to appreciating the beauty of nature, and the need to convey that beauty. Art and science are just two perspectives of conveying nature: one by questioning and the other by answering, but both open up new worlds.

Mooi ended our talk with a reminder of how much there is to observe and learn among the millions of real objects within the walls of the California Academy of Sciences. These real things in and of themselves are objects to be appreciated, and this art installation puts them in the limelight as things of beauty, similar to Bozic's paintings.

To join in on the process, come to the opening reception of From the Depths: Inspiring Science and Art on Thursday, November 15th from 5pm to 9pm. The exhibit will be open from November 15, 2007 to January 6, 2008 when the Academy's Howard Street location closes.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.7819, longitude: -122.404