Archives for November, 2009
Choose the Adventurer of the Year
Posted by Ford Cochran on November 30, 2009 The educator? The astronaut? The scientist? The ultra runners? The veteran? The surfer? The filmmaker? Or perhaps the road trippers? Who will become National Geographic Adventure‘s first-ever Readers’ Choice Adventurer of the Year? You decide. The magazine has already named eleven “Adventurers of the Year” for 2009, people who “dreamed big, pushed their limits, and…
Posted by Here’s one extinction we can celebrate: Rinderpest–an ancient disease that has roiled civilization for thousands of years, starting famines and sparking massive unrest and human migration–is about to go the way of the dodo, thanks to a determined global campaign to isolate and kill the virus that causes it. When rinderpest is declared officially extinct, expected to…
60 Minutes Dives Deep With Robert Ballard
Posted by Ford Cochran on November 27, 2009 Sunday night, the popular CBS news program 60 Minutes plans to profile pioneering oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard. Pictured: ROV control console Best known for the discovery of RMS Titanic, Ballard has led more than 120 oceanographic expeditions. He located the wrecks of the battleship Bismarck, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, John F. Kennedy’s…
By James G. Robertson The day was dark and dreary in Washington, D.C., as men in dark suits guarded the prisoner awaiting his fate. Bleachers were set up for the public to watch the scene unfold. Then a voice boomed over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.” The mood turned lighthearted…
If you require still more evidence about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, here’s another finding to consider: Cutting emissions will have a beneficial impact on human health, medical experts say. Researchers say cost savings realized from improving health will offset the cost of addressing climate change and, therefore, should be considered as part…
President Obama is prepared to put on the table a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020, the White House said in a statement today. The White House also announced today that Obama will travel to Copenhagen on December 9 to participate in the United Nations Climate…
Posted by Wow. Just… wow. It looks like a computer animation, I know. But that, my friends, is an actual movie of Saturn’s northern auroras taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Witness the tallest northern lights in the solar system, stretching more than 746 miles (1,200 kilometers) above the planet’s polar limb (marked by the white hazy bit…
The last remaining population of Siberian tigers has likely declined significantly due to poaching and habitat loss, The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said today. A report released by the Siberian Tiger Monitoring Program, which is coordinated by WCS in association with Russian governmental and non-governmental organizations, suggests a 40 percent decline in the cat’s numbers…
A Five-Year Cruise Aboard Tahina
Posted by Ford Cochran on November 24, 2009 As creator and editor of the Google Earth Blog, Frank Taylor has spent the last four years viewing and exploring the world from above, monitoring the latest in satellite imagery, geospatial tools, and storytelling on the increasingly rich digital marvel. Now he’s sold his house and embarked on a new adventure. For the next five…
As part of its target to cut emissions from land-use changes by 80 percent by 2020, Brazil aimed to reduce annual deforestation in the Amazon to no more than 7,000 square kilometres by 2013. Environment Minister Carlos Minc explained today that his country is four years ahead of schedule with that plan. By Stuart L.…
Listening to Brazil’s Environment Minister, Carlos Minc, on a conference call with the international media today (see the write-up about it by blogger colleague Stuart Pimm), I started to appreciate the magnitude of Brazil’s struggle to adapt to climate change. And then I saw the opportunities. We tend to think of this country as the…
By James G. Robertson Andrew Marshall was surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest in Tanzania as a conservation researcher when he disturbed a snake along his path. The snake was snacking on a chameleon at the time, and hastily left its lunch sitting in front of him. Photo: Andrew Marshall/African Journal of Herpetology Marshall took…
More than 125,000 western lowland gorillas discovered last year in a large swamp in the Republic of Congo are becoming increasingly threatened by human activity, the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said today. A study commissioned by WCS recommends protection of the swamp forests adjacent to the southwest border of Lac Télé Community Reserve after…
On the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, today, November 24, Charles Darwin’s revolutionary, evolutionary ideas are still shaping modern science as it moves into the future. In a lecture tonight, Webcast for the global audience, leading minds Terrence Deacon (anthropology), Gerald Edelman (neurobiology) and Paul Ekman (psychology) celebrate Darwin and explain how…
We’ve all observed the intensity with which dogs sniff poop, and how they often stick their noses into where poop is excreted. Apparently their powerfully sensitive noses gather much useful information from whatever fragrances exude from scat, and presumably this tells them a lot about the individual who dropped it. Now conservationists are putting this canine talent to good…
Sustainable Eating This Thanksgiving
Posted by Tasha Eichenseher of National Geographic on November 20, 2009 If you are looking for a few green tips this holiday season, check out Green Guide writer Eliza Barclay’s new story on returning to green and grateful this Thanksgiving. We often hear that going vegetarian is the single best thing you can do to help the environment. Well, it may be true. But if you…
Today is World Toilet Day. Yes, that’s right, there’s a special day for toilets. But while it may be fodder for scatalogical jokes, for the many millions of people who do not have access to toilets it’s no laughing matter. Imagine what it would be like if we weren’t able to flush away the vast amounts of human waste…
National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen’s YouTube video “Face-Off With a Deadly Predator,” an account of his scary encounter with a leopard seal in the Antarctic, has been downloaded more than a million times. In this subsequent video interview with NatGeo News Watch, below, Nicklen shares his thoughts about leopard seals–and other polar predators he has studied since he…
The Mudmen Cometh: It’s Terra Cotta Time
Posted by Ford Cochran on November 19, 2009 Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor opened today at the National Geographic Museum. By the time NatGeo staff welcomed the first ticketholders at 10 a.m., the Society had sold more than 105,000 tickets to the spectacular exhibition. Just before the opening, the first wave of exhibition visitors stretched outside Geographic headquarters along M…
It’s World Toilet Day–Yes, That’s Right
Posted by Tasha Eichenseher of National Geographic on November 19, 2009 Chances are you have a toilet that is easily accessible and fully functional. Thank your lucky stars, because 2.5 billion people around the globe don’t, according to experts on such things. November 19 was designated World Toilet Day by the World Toilet Organization (WTO) to bring awareness to a lack of sanitation service, and its…
Hubble’s WFPC-2, now on display at Air and Space —Picture copyright Smithsonian Institution “The difference between an artifact and an instrument is that, now that it’s an artifact, you can’t touch it anymore.” So General Jack Dailey told astronaut John Grunsfeld during the opening of a new gallery in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space…
Even in his wildest dreams, China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi (Chin She-hwong-dee), could never have imagined that terra cotta warriors made to guard his tomb in the afterlife would travel the world as ambassadors of friendship between nations. Those were the thoughts today of Xie Feng, minister and deputy chief of mission of the Chinese…
Chicken Soup for the Mind: Home Zone
Posted by Ford Cochran on November 17, 2009 Families wait hours to get free H1N1 flu vaccinations for their children outside Virginia’s Fairfax County Government Center. The H1N1/swine flu outbreak has prompted officials to close hundreds of schools across the United States and left thousands of kids and teens (both sick and well) stranded at home. The U.S. Department of Education has recommended…
Finding orchids in Colombia’s other rainforest
Posted by Stuart Pimm on November 17, 2009 Colombia has made impressive progress in declaring a large part of its Amazon rain forest protected for conservation. But there’s another rain forest in Colombia, the Chocó, on the Pacific side of the country. This forest teems with even more species than in the Amazon forest, but it is not as well protected. Conservation biologist…
In an age of strip malls, fast food chains, and big-box stores, every small town in America looks the same. Or so it would seem if you roll down any interstate highway. But linger and ask about local festivals, and soon you will find that the U.S. is a richly diverse country that celebrates cultures…
