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rhamphotheca:

Arctic Squirrels Use Steroids to Bulk Up But Don’t Suffer the Consequences

Fat alone couldn’t get these squirrels through hibernation in burrows that get almost as chilly as -10 degrees Fahrenheit

by Marissa Fessenden

Steroid abuse can give men breasts and infertility, while it strikes women with excessive hair and a deepening voice. Anybody injecting too much testosterone and other muscle-building anabolic steroids risks heart enlargement, liver cancer, high blood pressure, heart attacks — and the mania and delusions called ‘roid rage. 

Squirrels, however, do fine.

Some squirrels running around with extremely high steroid hormone levels, which help them build muscle before hibernation. But how do they avoid all the negative effects that steroids have on other mammals, like, oh, us? That’s the question that a team of Canada-based scientists have addressed in a new paper, published in Biology Letters. 

Arctic ground squirrels, male and female, can ramp up the concentration of androgens in their blood to levels that are 10 to 200 times higher than normal. These androgens—testosterone and other hormones typically higher in males—allow the squirrels to pack on 30 percent more muscle mass before they start their eight-month winter hibernation, the team, led by Rudy Boonstra, reports. These squirrels are carrying an amazing amount of muscle mass—four times that of related Columbian ground squirrels…

(read more: Smithsonian Magazine)

photo: James Hager/Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis

Tags:

#squirrel #biology #the more you know

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libutron:

Common Wonder Gecko – Teratoscincus scincus

Also known as Frog-eyed Gecko, Teratoscincus scincus (Gekkonidae), is a fairly robust species with a broad head, long and powerfully built limbs, a rather short tail, and large eyes, lidless and quite prominent. 

The Common Wonder Gecko has a fairly wide distribution within the Caspian Basin, being found in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzistan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Its distribution extends as far as western China.

References: [1] – [2]

Photo credit: ©Solovyeva Evgeniya | Locality: Tajikistan (2011)

Tags:

#lizard #adorable

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

hchlns:

 

sirlestrange:

#that is a human as a rat as a cup

 

fuckyeahdeathlyhallows:

That was a long 12 years for Wormtail.

 

thatgirlonstage:

Can you imagine how differently their lives would’ve gone if Ron, in trying to transfigure Scabbers, had actually transfigured him back into a human?
Just take a moment to imagine McGonagall’s reaction if Peter Pettigrew had abruptly appeared in her classroom from Ronald Weasley’s rat.
Take a moment.

 

elidyce:

Or if Ron had fucked it up a little worse and couldn’t get ‘Scabbers’ back and McGonagall had take him to disenchant him and next thing we know there’s a naked Peter Pettigrew sitting on McGonagall’s desk and the kids in that class learn six new swear words, a hex they will never dare to use, and a fear of Minerva McGonagall’s wrath that will be with them until the day they die.

Ten and twenty years later first years are being pulled aside and warned never mess around in Transfiguration seriously the last time a kid mucked something up in that class Professor McGonagall used two semi-legal hexes, took down a Death Eater and sabotaged the rise of the Dark Lord before Potter had time to get his wand out.

Tags:

#Harry Potter

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