Archives for August, 2009
Gathering Beneath the Human Family Tree
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 29, 2009 Genographic Project team colleagues were up in New York’s Queens borough landmark Astoria Park Monday night for an outdoor world premiere screening of The Human Family Tree. The documentary chronicles the globe-spanning ancestry of seven Astoria residents whose cheeks were swabbed on the same day. New York City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., welcomed viewers to…
Posted by Alien cultures might be happy to know that if we humans ever do start colonizing the universe, we may have a few problems going forth and multiplying. A team of Japanese scientists has found that microgravity significantly lowers the birth rate in mammals, based on their study of mice embryos subjected to space-like conditions in…
Posted by More than a mile of ice core was pulled from the Greenland ice sheet by scientists this summer, setting a new record for single-season deep ice-core drilling. The researchers, from 14 countries and led by the University of Copenhagen, are on a quest to recover ice formed 120,000 years ago, the last time our planet…
We spend a third of our lives asleep, but sleep researchers still don’t know why. Some researchers regard sleep as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science, even though all animals do it in one form or another. NGS photo by David Boyer “Theories range from brain ‘maintenance’–including memory consolidation and…
Posted by Yesterday I opened an oft-ignored cabinet in my apartment and cringed: My personal junk graveyard was overflowing. Old remote controls, cell phone chargers, computer cords, and anything else I’d feel guilty about tossing in the trash were all tangled in a disorganized mess, waiting to be recycled. Of course, many of my fellow Americans don’t…
Plan a Play Day for Kids
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 26, 2009 Andrew Howley, who deftly manages National Geographic’s homepage, gave me a shout to ask if I knew about KaBOOM! (exclamation point included) and their Play Day 2009 campaign. I didn’t, so he filled me in: KaBOOM! is a non-profit devoted to helping communities find resources to build outdoor play spaces for kids, and to encouraging…
Cave divers and scientists exploring the Tunnel de la Atlantida, the world’s longest submarine lava tube, on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, have discovered previously unknown species, including an ancient form of eyeless crustacean. Picture of Speleonectes atlantida by Ulrike Strecker (Naturalanza) The newly discovered species of crustacean was named Speleonectes atlantida, after the cave…
Mangrove forests thrive in the salty tidal zone between ocean and land. They play an immensely important role in stabilizing the coastline against erosion, moderating storm surges, and as a nursery and sanctuary for hundreds of species of fish, birds, and other animals. It’s too bad then that in many parts of the world mangrove…
Photo Camp: The Video
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 24, 2009 Director Kirsten Elstner and others describe National Geographic Photo Camp, a global program sponsored by the Geographic’s Education Foundation through which Nat Geo photographers train students to document their communities and local environments with photography. Recent Photo Camp settings include Botswana’s Okavango Delta … … Jhadol in northwestern India … … Vinalhaven and North Haven…
The first cases of swine flu have just been reported amongst Amazonian Indians, raising experts’ fears of a devastating contagion among peoples with no immunity to outside diseases, Survival reports. “Seven members of the Matsigenka tribe living along the Urubamba River in the Peruvian Amazon have tested positive for the virus, according to the regional…
Nine out of ten banknotes circulating in cities in the U.S. and Canada are tainted with cocaine, according to a news report published by National Geographic News. “What’s more, researchers were surprised to find hints that more Americans are using the illegal drug,” writes our staff editor, Christine Dell’Amore. University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth researchers collected banknotes…
It’s what you’ve been waiting for…Boyd Matson of the radio show National Geographic Weekend gets a one-on-one interview with Melissa Brandts, who took the famous squirrel photo that’s been catching like wildfire on the Internet. Catch the full interview this weekend on National Geographic Weekend, on the Salem Radio Network, XM/Satellite Radio, or as…
Crasher Squirrel Popping Up Everywhere
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 19, 2009 Even if you somehow managed to miss my recent blog post on “Crasher Squirrel,” by now you’ve likely seen the famous image of the photogenic fur ball, or one of the thousands of Photoshopped, squirrel-enhanced images sprouting up like acorns across the Web. Now Boyd Matson, host of National Geographic Weekend, has gotten a one-on-one…
A River Runs Through It
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 18, 2009 Yesterday afternoon at around 2:30, the headwaters of the Okavango met up with the river flow down the Selinda, joining up the Selinda Spillway for the first time in 30 years! It is, in our small part of the world and for our concession, a momentous occasion. The spillway runs right through our concession from…
The squirrel that crashed the family picture in Banff National Park, Canada, appears to have made a habit of this, showing up in a number of famous photographs of history. Photo of squirrel crashing Banff picture by Melissa Brandts It all started when Melissa Brandts and her husband were hiking in Banff and decided to…
This post is part of a special National Geographic news series on global water issues. Without major reforms and innovations in the way water is used for agriculture, many developing nations in Asia face the politically risky prospect of having to import more than a quarter of the rice, wheat and maize they will need…
Autumn leaves of trees in North America often turn red. But in Europe the leaves mostly go yellow. Scientists think that the regional difference can be explained by the geographic orientation of each continent’s mountains. NGS photo by Robert Sisson A new theory provided by Simcha Lev-Yadun of the Department of Science Education-Biology at the…
—Image courtesy NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Those of you who think it’s cool to drill into Google Maps and find, for example, your car sitting in your driveway, probably know that it’s all about coming to a resolution. The higher a camera’s resolution, the more details you can capture in a single image, and the deeper…
On trees, fall leaves wow us with their eye-pleasing palette. On the ground, though, a layer of leaves can smother your grass and over time render your lawn lifeless. The solution used to be easy: Just drag out the rake, make a giant leaf pile, and either burn the waste or dump it at the…
Air pollution in eastern China has reduced the amount of light rainfall over the past 50 years and decreased by 23 percent the number of days of light rain in the eastern half of the country, according to research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. The results suggest that bad air quality might be…
Dozens of skins of various species, including Sumatran tigers, were seized and suspects were arrested in the latest raids on illegal wildlife traders by Indonesian authorities, the Wildlife Conservation Society said today. Photo courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society The most recent raid took place in Jakarta on August 7 and recovered two complete tiger skins and…
New Life for Faded Blues
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 13, 2009 National Geographic Kids magazine readers and website visitors set a Guinness World Record yesterday for contributing the most clothing ever for recycling—33,088 pairs of denim jeans. The project, in partnership with the Cotton: From Blue to Green denim drive, will transform cotton fiber in the jeans… … into home insulation. The insulation will in turn…
Photographer Emilio Morenatti, whose work has been featured in National Geographic Magazine and on the National Geographic Web site, was among the journalists and U.S. soldiers who were wounded and evacuated to a hospital in Afghanistan yesterday when the vehicle they were traveling in ran over an explosive device. Here is a report about the incident from…
Rogue Rodent: ‘Ready for My Close-Up’
Posted by Ford Cochran on August 12, 2009 When Melissa Brandts positioned her camera for a timed self-portrait with her husband on the banks of Canada’s stunning Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, she didn’t expect a squirrel to steal the scene. “This curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot,”…
The photo of this squirrel crashing its way into the photograph of the couple posing in the background is becoming viral across the Web. Photo by Melissa Brandts Melissa Brandts and her husband were hiking in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, and decided to take a portrait of themselves with spectacular Lake Minnewanka in…
