Archives for May, 2009
Posted by An eight-month-old western lowland gorilla ventures away from his troop while foraging for food in his exhibit at the San Diego Zoo yesterday, according to the caption the zoo sent with this photo. “The baby, named Frank, joined his family in the Gorilla Tropics exhibit two months ago and is starting to show more of…
Read the whole post »“Living Building” Opens Today in St. Louis
Posted by Tasha Eichenseher of National Geographic on May 29, 2009 Here’s a breath of fresh air—one of North America’s first “living buildings” opened today in at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The new Living Learning Center, set in the woods at an environmental-research facility on campus, is also in the running to become the first building to meet the Living Building Challenge. The initiative,…
Read the whole post »Uncontacted tribes were in the world spotlight exactly one year ago when photos were released showing Indians, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, aiming bows and arrows at a government aircraft circling overhead. Photo of the uncontacted tribe photographed last year in the Brazilian Amazon, near the Peruvian border. © Gleison Miranda/FUNAI “The photos made headlines…
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Posted by —Image courtesy NASA Thankfully this is not a very odd sort of suppository. This is a squirrel monkey called Miss Baker, sitting in a NASA bio-capsule. On May 28, 1959, Miss Baker and a rhesus monkey named Able became the first primates to survive a trip into outer space. Both monkeys flew onboard a Jupiter…
Read the whole post »Many Mammal Migrations Are at Risk of Extinction, Research Finds
Posted by Stuart Pimm on May 28, 2009 There’s an urgency to find quality food and water that forces many large mammals to migrate. A new study finds that human activities increasingly threaten their ability to do so. Photo of zebra migration by Stuart L. Pimm By Stuart L. Pimm for NatGeo News Watch Midnight and there’s no moon. The elephants moving near my…
Read the whole post »Rule Number One
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 28, 2009 I’m gearing up for a National Geographic Expeditions Weekend Photography Workshop that begins tonight, and asked my good friend and fellow staffer Tim Greenleaf (who manages the Nat Geo Expeditions website) if I could borrow some equipment. He obliged—thanks Tim! When I stopped by his office this morning to pick it up, he asked if…
Read the whole post »After years of lobbying, planning, and months of hard work, conservationists have built the first island ever created in Turkey for wildlife. Ruddy sherduck is the flagship species at Lake Kuyucuk, where researchers have documented 10-12 percent of the bird’s world population. Photo © Cagan H. Sekercioglu “It may be the first artificial island in…
Read the whole post »Great Sandy, Australia, photo © Fraser Coast South Burnett Tourism The International Coordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere Programme, meeting this week in Korea, decided to add 22 new sites from 17 countries to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The network now counts 553 sites…
Read the whole post »—Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech Today NASA announced that its next flagship Mars rover has been granted a name: Curiosity. Sixth-grader Clara Ma of Lenexa, Kansas, penned an essay about the concept of curiosity that won her the right to name the new probe, an SUV-size rover that will be the largest, most technically capable craft yet…
Read the whole post »African Wildlife Safari in Google Earth
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 27, 2009 Frank Taylor, author of the Google Earth Blog and an avid sailor, stopped by headquarters today. Over the past four years, he’s published thousands of posts about the latest features in, and innovative uses for, Google’s 3D virtual globe. Given Frank’s ringside seat on geo-technology and the planet, I was eager to meet him! I…
Read the whole post »Among the most popular books published by the National Geographic Society are its books about birds. The Society’s latest book in its bird series is “Complete Birds of the World.” (National Geographic Books, April 2009, ISBN: 978-1-4262-0403-6, U.S.$35.00 hardcover.) It features every one of the 193 bird families on the planet and profiles another 500 “representative”…
Read the whole post »Photo courtesy Save the Elephants This post is part of a special National Geographic news series on global water issues. The future of a rare herd of desert elephants in Mali is under threat from one of the worst droughts in living memory, according to Save the Elephants, a conservation organization based in Kenya. Water…
Read the whole post »Oceans to Cross: Roz Savage
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 24, 2009 What’s it like to be a million oar strokes from your destination, tossed alone in a tiny boat? Ask Roz Savage, the one-time management consultant turned full-time rower, environmental advocate, and inspirational speaker. Roz departs Hawaii today bound for Tuvalu on the second leg of her trans-Pacific journey. She’s already knocked off the Atlantic, a…
Read the whole post »A Bagful of Wallaby
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 21, 2009 On his way to victory and a perfect score in yesterday’s National Geographic Bee, Texas seventh grader Eric Yang had to answer questions related to two animals brought all the way to Washington, D.C., for the occasion by their SeaWorld San Antonio handlers. I snuck out back to visit before the finals. Robert Trejo reached…
Read the whole post »Kissing Cousins to Humans: Lemurs?
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 20, 2009 University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, a member of National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration and president-elect of the Paleontological Society, is part of the team that documented a breakthrough fossil find that’s earning world-wide attention. The fossil bridges the evolutionary split between higher primates such as monkeys, apes, and humans and their more…
Read the whole post »Routed in Rehearsal by Alex Trebek
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 20, 2009 Exciting times at headquarters, as state champions from across the nation have descended on Washington for the National Geographic Bee finals. All of these kids are winners who know an astonishing amount about our world. To make it this far, students in grades four through eight had to answer increasingly tough questions and outlast a…
Read the whole post »The National Geographic Society announced that ten students have won through to the final round of the 2009 National Geographic Bee. Today’s finalists (see the full list below) will compete tomorrow at National Geographic headquarters in Washington to determine this year’s National Geographic Bee champion.
Read the whole post »Terra Cotta Trauma
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 19, 2009 First-graders from Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School, a Chinese-language immersion school in the District, assembled in the courtyard at National Geographic headquarters last week for the opening of individual ticket sales for the upcoming exhibition Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor. The charming munchkins donned masks and performed two songs in Mandarin…
Read the whole post »Everest: Headed for the Summit
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 18, 2009 Mountaineer Peter Whittaker—nephew of Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Everest—has reached Camp 4 on the peak’s South Col with teammate Ed Viesturs, veteran of numerous high mountain ascents and the first individual to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peaks without bottled oxygen. Watch daily video dispatches, read the full chronicle…
Read the whole post »More than 1,200 species were identified in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore bioblitz this weekend. The number is expected to rise significantly as scientists crunch data and examine specimens in laboratories in coming weeks. Among the species found that were previously unreported for this national park were 20 types of rove beetles and a handful…
Read the whole post »Dunes Learning Center Executive Director John Hayes talks about the partnership with the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and its role in building the community around the park. Video by David Braun Much has been said by many people during the bioblitz about the importance to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore of the surrounding community, and how…
Read the whole post »This is the official tally board of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore BioBlitz when the species count ended after 24 hours, at noon on Saturday, May 16. Species totals were expected to continue to come in throughout the weekend and coming weeks, raising the numbers seen here significantly. Photo by David Braun
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Posted by Ford Cochran on May 16, 2009 The clock’s struck 12, but Team BioBlitz is still crunching data in the Indiana Dunes Inventory Tent, and the tally continues to climb. Shortly after noon, the total stood at 788 unique species for the official closing ceremonies. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore superintendent Costa Dillon passed the BioBlitz flag to a representative from Biscayne National…
Read the whole post »Photo copyright Project Exploration, all rights reserved Among the thousands of students participating in the Indiana Dunes BioBlitz was a small group from Project Exploration. Founded in 1999 by paleontologist Paul Sereno and educator Gabrielle Lyon to make science accessible, Chicago-based Project Exploration inspires minority youth and girls with the wonders of science and discovery.…
Read the whole post »Your Garden-Variety Cockroach
Posted by Ford Cochran on May 16, 2009 “We were looking for beetles, but couldn’t pass up some wood roaches,” says Drew Carhart, here with Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. He holds up a small glass vial with a bug inside. “We found this under a dead log here at West Beach,” he tells me, “at the start of the Succession Trail.”…
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