Apparently, marsupial pouches come in two basic configurations: rear facing, and forward facing. Marsupials with rear-facing pouches give birth to multiple young. The Tasmanian devil gives birth to up to 50 babies, but having only four nipples, 46 of them don't make it. The mother is unable to interact with the babies while they are in the pouch, and once they leave, they do not return. Quoll's behave in about the same way, and have the same rear-facing pouch configuration.

Kangaroos, on the other hand, have a forward facing pouch. They give birth to one baby, and they are able to interact with it during its stay in the Pouch & Breakfast Inn.

It rained here today. A lot. I kept thinking I might get out at lunch and take a walk, but everytime I looked out the window, it was either pouring or threatening to. So I stayed in and wrote code.

The DMA driver I'm working on started giving me fits. As soon as I tried to make it do anything other than the easy move-data-from-point-a-to-point-b schtick, it quickly fell apart. I ended up rethinking its internals, and may have come up with a decent, and perhaps easy-to-use solution. The balancing act is to make it easy to use while preserving its ability to do bizarre things. I thought about it quite a bit while staring out the window watching the rain come down.

After I got home I helped David a little more with his science experiment. We have a large plastic tub filled with water sitting in the dining room floor. We attached the aquarium filter to it and got that going. The trick remaining was to position a sample beneath the stream pouring out of the filter. David attempted to build a Lego tower to set the sample on, but its propensity to float overcame the friction holding it together. He had weighted the base down with a three-pound rock, but the upper part continually kept breaking away and floating off.

We solved it by putting a glass pitcher on top of an upturned glass casserole dish, and putting the dish's lid atop the pitcher. The height was perfect, and with both the dish and the pitcher filled with water, it was negatively buoyant. He positioned the chalk on the lid right under the stream, and within minutes little chalk particles were accumulating on the edge of the dish lid. Cool.

We then turned our attention to wind erosion. For that, the plan was to use an aquarium air pump and direct the stream onto the sample. Unfortunately, the pump does not make much of a stream. And while we were working on that, Penny came ambling into the dining room and started drinking the water out of the tub! She drank his science experiment! Not enough to matter, but that still makes a great headline!

I doubt we'll be able to simulate wind erosion. I am not buying an air compressor for this!

But it's more a Holly Valance sexy than Nicole Kidman sexy. It's all new and shiny and wow, and then you realise, it can't sing, act, or dance.

According to the article:

The results, published in the international scientific journal PLoS ONE this week, showed that the thylacine Col2a1 gene has a similar function in developing cartilage and bone development as the Col2a1 gene does in the mouse.

But the University of Melbourne researchers say:

“As more and more species of animals become extinct, we are continuing to lose critical knowledge of gene function and their potential.”

Right. Critical knowledge, like thylacine gene acts the same as a mouse gene.

Okay. I'm being harsh. It is a little sexy. Looking at how extinct genes behave could turn out interesting. But inserting genes into mice isn't news. And neither is sequencing genes from extinct animals. So combining the two just isn't that exciting for me.

I am a bit curious though why they are using Mus musculus embryos, and not Monodelphis domestica - your friendly neighbourhood laboratory marsupial research subject.

Then we went outside and discovered how to recreate animal tracks in the dirt.

Then we watched a PLANET EARTH dvd, which Miss 6 loved, in which the presenter mentioned Marsupials - a perfect introduction.  After discussing that all marsupials have pouches, we made these cute paper plate pouch Kangaroos with Joey. It involved some paper folding from one of my resource books I've had for years.

Following from this, I found a great new website while I was looking for Lapbook ideas http://www.homeschoolshare.com/wombat_stew.php with a whole study unit dedicated to WOMBAT STEW full of Mammals & Marsupials. We started by reading the book then went on an excursion looking for the ingredients to make our own stew.

Here's the girls cooking their Wombat Stew on the campfire of sticks they made.

Luckily, I had some puppets suitable for this story and we made it into a Puppet play.  It was a great opportunity for the girls to learn about being organised, sharing roles, props and re-telling a story.  They did the show (after a few practices) for their Dad that night.  Miss 6 painted the sign, Miss 4 did the stars.

The SHOW!

It was also  great opportunity to introuduce 'shy i' and 'tough Y'.  Both girls managed to read all these words from the book.  Miss 6 sorted them into groups of same sounds.

This book also presented a chance to talk about friendship and what being a friend means.  We discussed what the animals in the story did to help their friend then did this little fold-up person booklet.  I got the girls to draw pictures of things they could do to be a friend.

We all really enjoyed this little unit of study.

-Sarah Manguso, Poem of Comfort

If evolution has taught us anything, it's that if there's a niche, something wiill fill it, no matter how grisly or yucky from a human standpoint. (I remember learning that many people have almost-microscopic parasites living around the roots of our eyelashes. Squatters! How dare they?)

Others have blogged about the non-fatal Canine Transmissible Venereal Cancer. It was mentioned by Azra Raza at Three Quarks Daily and Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science) and before us all, Carl Zimmer at The Loom. It was written up in Cell* as the oldest known living cancer. Cell Press online also mentions that Tamanian Devil tumour might be another transmissible cancer. [I know that this comment will be delayed because of all the links, but I want to give everyone credit.]

To save the Tasmanian Devil, increasing the genetic diversity sounds like a good idea, but expensive and time-consuming. It will take time to identify candidate animals and arrange matings or investigate artificial insemination for TDs.

In the meantime, it might help to identify any areas of the Tasmanian Devil range that are not yet effective; and sling up a few fences to isolate them as much as possible from infected or partly infected areas. Fences are expensive, too, but people who know what they're saving (a tourist draw, for one thing) might be willing to spend the money. Roads are a gap in the fence unless the public agrees to some kind of double-fence "airlock" system or bridges that are only down when there is traffic. And then hikers and hunters will cut holes in the fences unless there are gated stiles. But I think we'd be talking perhaps three fence lines in the whole island. Maybe one if there's a heavily infected area that could be isolated to slow things down and give the other plans a chance.

I'm just brainstorming here; it's probably not practical. But perhaps we could put our collective mind to imagining solutions and then seeing if any of them can be made practical.

*Reference: Murgia et al.: "Clonal Origin and Evolution of a Transmissible Cancer." Publishing in Cell 126, 477-487, August 11, 2006. DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2006.05.051)