Finding ingenious design in nature

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Joanna Aizenberg holds the skeleton of a deep-sea sponge made entirely out of a natural glass. The tube acts as a kind of high-rise apartment building for shrimp that live symbiotically in the sponges tissue. Staff photo Matt CraigHarvard University
Joanna Aizenberg holds the skeleton of a deep-sea sponge made entirely out of a natural glass. The tube acts as a kind of high-rise apartment building for shrimp that live symbiotically in the sponge’s tissue. Staff photo Matt Craig/Harvard University

“This,” Joanna Aizenberg says slyly, picking up a latticed tube from her desk in Pierce Hall, “is a glass house you can throw stones at.”


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All News summaries for February 22, 2008

The Panic of '08: What made investors run for the exits?

1 hour ago | User rating: not rated yet
"In a few months, I expect to see the stock market much higher than today," Irving Fisher, America's most illustrious economist, predicted in the middle of October 1929. Two weeks later, the Dow Jones index fell by 23 percent ...

Large population of endangered dolphins found off Bangladesh

Oct 11, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
The world's largest population of vulnerable Irrawaddy dolphins -- famed as aquarium attractions -- has been found in Bangladesh's waters, according to a five-year wildlife study.

Endangered Miss. frogs get a break in the weather

Oct 11, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(AP) -- Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what's coming next. And for at least a decade, it's had a good reason not to look.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. George Palade dies at 95

Oct 11, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(AP) -- Dr. George Palade, who won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work isolating and identifying cell structure and helped create one of the leading cell biology programs in the nation at the University of ...

Lost manatee headed to Fla. after Mass. rescue

Oct 11, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(AP) -- A wayward manatee is headed home to Florida after being pulled from frigid Cape Cod waters in an early morning rescue.