Archives for October, 2009
Young Explorers Savor Obscure Festivals
Posted by Ford Cochran on October 30, 2009 Some of the freshest faces at National Geographic are here at headquarters this weekend for a Young Explorers Grant workshop. Last night, NG Live hosted an event titled “Exploration: The Next Generation” with four up-and-coming Society grantees: Katherine Amato, a biologist studying howler monkeys in Mexico’s tropical forest; Pat Walters, a journalist who’s documented the…
Posted by Bronx Zoo and other zoos in New York City know how to lay on a party for their animals. Halloween is too good an opportunity to miss. Zoo photographer Julie Larsen Maher frequently submits photos for our “Zoo News” feature on this blog. Halloween 2009 is no exception. The animals were photographed in the Bronx Zoo,…
A Hawaiian company’s plan to raise millions of pounds of sashimi-grade tuna in giant “environmentally friendly Oceanspheres” two miles off Hawaii’s Big Island has been approved by state regulators, the company confirmed today. The state Board of Land and Natural Resources voted last week 4-to-1 to give Hawaii Oceanic Technology permission to install three large underwater cages…
Chimps in Mourning
Posted by Ford Cochran on October 29, 2009 By now, you’ve likely seen Monica Szczupider’s photograph of grieving chimpanzees at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center. The image—which Monica submitted to Your Shot, and which appeared in the November issue of National Geographic magazine—is resonating with people everywhere. Over the last few days, it’s turned up in newspapers, on television, and on blogs worldwide.…
Khaliah Ali, daughter of legendary boxing icon Muhammad Ali, is honoring the 35th anniversary of the historic “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Ali and George Foreman by making a humanitarian visit this week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This marks the first time that an Ali family member has returned to Kinshasa,…
Fifty years ago representatives from twelve nations meeting in Washington signed the Antarctic Treaty “in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.” Now, on that anniversary, on December 1, an Antarctic Treaty Summit is being convened in Washington. Representatives of governments, nongovernmental organizations, commercial entities,…
By choosing to allow the Soviet Union to be the first nation to launch a satellite into orbit, Sputnik, in October 1957, the United States found a way to engage its Cold War nemesis where there was no dialog before, says Paul Berkman, chair of the International Board for the Antarctic Treaty Summit. The Antarctic…
The lesson of fifty years of the Antarctic Treaty System is that the nations of the world can set aside their political and territorial aspirations to share in the management of a vast region of the planet, says Paul Berkman, chair of the International Board for the Antarctic Treaty Summit. In this final part of…
Vila, the third-oldest western lowland gorilla in the U.S., celebrated her 52nd birthday at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park today by unwrapping presents full of fruit, nuts and seeds, and eating a peanut-butter frosted banana ice cake topped with carrot “candles,” the zoo said in a caption sent to us with this photo.…
Google recognized five “heroes” this week who use Google Earth software in their efforts to conserve wildlife, clean up pollution, and protect natural resources. The winners, all nonprofits, used the mapping and geotagging software in innovative ways to educate people about their projects. The heroes program, in its first year, encourages groups and users to…
A fly that buzzed around during the time of dinosaurs is being described as a new family, genus and species of fly never before observed. This artist’s rendering of a 100-million-year old insect shows the unusual horn on its head topped by three eyes. Image by George Poinar/Courtesy OSU “A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of…
NatGeo Wins Environmental Legacy Award
Posted by Ford Cochran on October 27, 2009 National Geographic President and CEO John Fahey traveled to Hollywood this weekend to accept the Environmental Media Association‘s Legacy Award on behalf of the Society. Explorers-in-Residence Beverly and Dereck Joubert—whose years of filmmaking, photography, and conservation efforts on behalf of the world’s endangered felines inspired the new Big Cats Initiative—joined Fahey for the ceremony. Actor…
By James G. Robertson, National Geographic Digital Media Mantis shrimp eyes could be the inspiration behind a new way to store and read digital data, say scientists from the University of Bristol who have studied the complex vision system of the stromatopod, which is not really a shrimp. The mantis shrimp Odontodactylus scyllarus. Photo courtesy…
Leading tiger experts, wildlife conservation charities, and representatives of governments of countries that have wild tiger ranges are meeting in Nepal this week to begin a global dialogue about the threats facing tigers as the world prepares to mark the Year of the Tiger in 2010, WWF says in a news statement. Amur or Siberian…
Exploration 101: The dream jobs begin with a slog
Posted by Stuart Pimm on October 25, 2009 Conservation biologist Stuart Pimm has a long and brilliant career as a scientist. Author of numerous research papers and books, he has given lectures in distinguished forums across the world. Yet he is never happier than as a teacher and mentor. In this blog entry Pimm addresses what it takes to be a young explorer in…
The global warming movement finally went global yesterday, said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, in reaction to the International Day of Climate Action, marked yesterday by more than 5,000 demonstrations in 181 countries. A 350 is mowed into a meadow 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Copenhagen, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held this December. This…
In the latest crackdown on nonnative giant pet snakes in Florida, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) investigators have confiscated an 11-foot, albino Burmese python living uncaged in a private residence. Photo courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission Acting on a tip that a Crestview resident had a “large snake” that had escaped before,…
Posted by It’s time to sweat the small stuff—at least when it comes to global warming. So says a new study that gives teeth to those oft-heard energy-saving suggestions, such as installing low-flow showerheads or carpooling to work. If everyone adopted these habits, we could slash carbon emissions now—and prevent an estimated 123 metric tons of carbon…
Two male calves have been added to the giraffe herd at Walt Disney World Resort’s Animal Kingdom in Florida. Photo courtesy of Walt Disney World Resort Weighing 153 pounds, Bolo (in the picture above) was born October 12 to second-time mother Big Girl, who first birthed a female calf in November 2005, Disney said on its Web site.…
A 37-million-year-old fossil primate from Egypt, described in this week’s issue of Nature, moves a controversial German fossil known as Ida out of the human lineage, Nature News reports. “Teeth and ankle bones of the new Egyptian specimen show that the 47-million-year-old Ida, formally called Darwinius masillae, is not in the lineage of early apes and monkeys…
Geographic Society’s Center for Sustainable Destinations and National Geographic Traveler magazine have teamed up again this year to rate the world’s most popular destinations on environmental and ecological quality, social and cultural integrity and outlook for the future, among several other categories. The big winner this year is Norway’s fjord region, which topped the chart…
The Akuntsu tribe in the Brazilian Amazon has lost its oldest member, Ururú, leaving the tribe with only five surviving members, Survival, a UK-based charity that supports tribal people worldwide, said this week. “Ururú was the oldest member of this close-knit, tiny group and an integral part of it,” Survival said in a statement. In…
Flat Stanley has become something of an icon in children’s literature, boosting literacy and geography education as young readers have followed the character’s global adventures for more than four decades. This week Flat Stanley made an “official” visit to the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., where third graders from Washington’s Sheridan School helped induct the…
By James G. Robertson, National Geographic Digital Media Large algae blooms could have been a major contributing factor to the last five mass extinctions and smaller die-offs throughout history, researchers at Clemson University announced yesterday, challenging the theories that a major cataclysmic event, like an asteroid strike, alone caused the extinctions. Today, a change in…
Hooked on Sawfish: Zeb Hogan
Posted by Ford Cochran on October 19, 2009 National Geographic Emerging Explorer, aquatic ecologist, and megafish-finder Zeb Hogan travels to lakes and rivers the world over to document and protect the planet’s largest freshwater fish. Tonight, the National Geographic Channel premieres a new episode of Hooked that follows Zeb into the Australian outback in search of one of the most critically endangered—and peculiar-looking—fish…
