Cool Science News: insomniac reindeer and poop-eating plants

A couple of stories caught the eyes of our students over the weekend, and this is the perfect forum for bringing them to the attention of a wider audience.
The advanced biology class recently covered the role of the pineal gland and melatonin in the control of circadian rhythms (better known as your "body clock"). Melatonin secretion fluctuates during a 24h period to signal when to sleep and when to be awake. Anyone who has made the trek across the atlantic is all to familiar of the consequences of a confused pineal gland, with scientific fingers pointing at it as the culprit behind jet lag. Our circadian rhythms are affected by day length, so what happens when you don't have any nights (or any days), like the reindeer of the arctic? Researchers have discovered that they have switched off their biological clock, and you can read the full article here. (Thanks to Kent Hayes for bringing this to my attention).

In the environmental science class, we looked at how useful poop can be. Electricity can be generated by fermenting cow waste, and our near neighbors in Washington are investigating this option (the NPR story and broadcast can be found here). Avid gardeners are adding manure to their soil as spring arrives, and it turns out that we are not the only ones making use of others' waste. Carnivorous plants are famous for their elaborate mechanisms for catching and digesting animals to supplement their nutrient supply from the soil (think of venus flytraps and pitcher plants), but it now seems that some of them are more coprophagous than bloodthirsty: researchers in Malaysia have discovered that the giant pitcher plants found there are more interested in the rodent droppings than the rodents themselves - click here for the full story.