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I’m no twitcher, and before last weekend the closest I’d ever come to the world of birding was watching the surprising blockbuster The Big Year. But that all changed when I plunged into the 16th Annual Spring Wing’s Festival. The event draws thousands of birders from all over the globe to Fallon, Nevada, a small…
A Blue Vision and the Politics of the Ocean
Posted by David Helvarg on May 24, 2013 “Our oceans face an unprecedented set of challenges from climate change, pollution, energy extraction, and more,” warned Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the opening speaker at the 4th Blue Vision Summit in Washington D.C. held earlier this month. He went on to suggest we have the power to move from, “takers to caretakers of…
Posted by The dysfunctional Bluth family returns this Sunday with 15 new episodes of the canceled sitcom Arrested Development via Netflix. And you know what that means: more chicken dancing! Arrested Development is built on recurring jokes but one of the biggest crowd-pleasers of all is the Bluth family chicken dance, deployed to taunt other family members,…
Posted by National Geographic goes inside the Chelsea Flower Show, one of the world’s biggest gardening and horticultural shows. Even the Queen comes.
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On our radar today: 1) A star mystery is solved; 2) U.S. amphibians are disappearing at an alarming rate; 3) You can now rent a launch pad from NASA, and…
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The mysterious arrival of a zoo anteater has some talking virgin birth, or parthenogenesis. See what other animals have babies without fathers.
With Oklahoma Tornado, Questions Swirl about Climate Change Link
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on May 23, 2013 Hours after a powerful tornado tore through an Oklahoma suburb, killing dozens, some renewed speculation about such storms’ connection to climate change. In recent years, researchers have been working to assess what causes these storms and whether manmade global warming could be affecting them. Plain geography is a factor. Moore, Oklahoma, is in the middle of what is known as Tornado Alley—an area where cold,…
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Invasive Asian lady beetle kills off its competition with the help of a fungal parasite.
Posted by Dino-fanatic author Brian Switek grew up in New Jersey, dreaming of Jurassic celebrities like Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus (now known as Apatosaurus). An imaginary pet Brontosaurus figured in carefully crafted crayon portraits of his family. He discusses his passion in the new book My Beloved Brontosaurus. Switek, who writes the Laelaps blog for National Geographic online,…
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With illegal ivory trade at its highest level in almost two decades, and large-scale ivory seizures more than doubling since 2009, a new commitment to submit ivory shipments for DNA testing is a welcome development. “The single most important thing we can do is figure out where the killings are taking place,” says Samuel Wasser, Director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington. Wasser and his team innovated techniques for extracting and analyzing DNA from ivory. The team also developed a DNA map for African elephants that allows the geographic origin of a tusk to be ascertained within a 160-mile radius.
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Tracking rarely seen wild dogs on the run across the waterways and islands of Botswana’s Okavango Delta was almost impossible. These painted canines are swift hunters and despite our high-powered safari vehicle we had trouble keeping up with them. African wild dogs hunt with formidable speed in tightly coordinated packs that seem to think and…
Posted by Sustainable Chicago: Competitive, Livable, and Leading on Climate As Mayor Rahm Emanuel reaches his second anniversary leading the City of Chicago, our “city in a garden” reflects on dramatic progress and continuing efforts to make Chicago one of the most competitive, livable, and environmentally sustainable places on the planet. In two short years, Chicago has…
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I was honored to be asked to speak at the Caribbean Challenge Initiative’s Summit of Political and Business Leaders, which took place in the British Virgin Islands May 17th and 18th. (See AP story for an overview of the event.) I spoke from the heart, and here is what I said: At the risk of…
On our radar today: 1) Astronomers spot two galaxies merging; 2) An octogenarian has become the oldest to reach the summit of Mount Everest; 3) A speedy new dinosaur has been found in Canada, and…
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By Monika Freyman, water program manager at Ceres Proposed standards that the U.S. Department of Interior announced last week for hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) on federal and Indian lands are hugely important, especially in the arid West where water is gold. Unfortunately, water protection gets short shrift in the rules that, once finalized, will apply to…
