The Tracker has noted a few stories recently on collection of fecal samples from birds in Alaska, part of the program to detect any avian flu arriving in North America aboard wildfowl migrating from Asia. Now AP's Marilynn Marchione fills us in on where those swabs are going: a US Geological Survey...
Category: Environment & Energy Stories
Show only environment and energy story posts
The Tracker has noted a few stories recently on collection of fecal samples from birds in Alaska, part of the program to detect any avian flu arriving in North America aboard wildfowl migrating from Asia. Now AP's Marilynn Marchione fills us in on where those swabs are going: a US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center on 15 acres of restored prairie just outside Madison, Wisconsin. It expects to run tests on 16,000 samples from Alaska, taken from both live, temporarily trapped birds as well as from ducks and geese shot for food by Eskimos and other village hunters. The piece has a fair amount of detail on how they'll be tested, too.
Isolation in a more or less fixed environment, and time, are key ingredients for the rise of new species, evolutionary biologists will tell you. But lately, the human-aided spread of exotic species from place to place, and the constant shifting of environments and blurring of biological boundaries created by human...
Isolation in a more or less fixed environment, and time, are key ingredients for the rise of new species, evolutionary biologists will tell you. But lately, the human-aided spread of exotic species from place to place, and the constant shifting of environments and blurring of biological boundaries created by human development, may mean fewer opportunities for distinct new species to arise, reports Carl Zimmer in the Times. A key bit of evidence, he reports, comes from studies of stickleback fish in lakes in western Canada, where researchers find evolution of emerging species seems to be running in reverse.
The Tracker is a sucker for tales of wildlife reclaiming old territory. They are rare bits of good news from the biosphere. But a trail of bloody sheep, smashed chicken coops, and other mayhem are...
The Tracker is a sucker for tales of wildlife reclaiming old territory. They are rare bits of good news from the biosphere. But a trail of bloody sheep, smashed chicken coops, and other mayhem are taking some of the sheer delight from the arrival of the first wild bear seen in Germany since the mid-1800s. Bavarian Environment Minister first said the animal, a migrant into the Bavarian Alps from Austria and nicknamed Petzi, was welcome. Now he's talking about capturing it, or maybe just shooting it. In a perfect illustration of modern techno-progress, the photo was taken by a local landlord with his mobile phone.
Earlier this month the National Marine Fisheries Service for the first time put two species of Caribbean coral on the US list of endangered species. The Times's Rick Lyman went down to Key...
Earlier this month the National Marine Fisheries Service for the first time put two species of Caribbean coral on the US list of endangered species. The Times's Rick Lyman went down to Key Largo to find out more about them, and about ways that the feds hope to stem the tide of destruction. Immediate reasons for the corals' decline include several diseases, but rising water temperatures appear to be underlying them.
You don't get quite this kind of science-in-action story every day. The Post-Intelligencer's Robert McClure leads on an Australian cattle dog, perched on the bow of a Boston Whaler, zipping along in Puget Sound while researchers watch for signs he smells some killer whale poop afloat nearby. Turns...
You don't get quite this kind of science-in-action story every day. The Post-Intelligencer's Robert McClure leads on an Australian cattle dog, perched on the bow of a Boston Whaler, zipping along in Puget Sound while researchers watch for signs he smells some killer whale poop afloat nearby. Turns out, so far, the pooch is not much good at it, not yet anyway. There is hope, as dogs have been used to find floating offal in the wakes of Right Whales in the Atlantic. The odd tableau is hook enough. The story dives into the arcane specialty of canine scat scouts that lead wildlife biologists to droppings, most commonly on dry land, whose analysis reveals much about the health and, from DNA, ancestry of the creatures who left them.
Biologists outside Anchorage are scouring the coastal marshes for bird to test for avian flu winging its way in from Asia. So far, migratory birds seem not to have brought it to North America. AP's Dan...
Biologists outside Anchorage are scouring the coastal marshes for bird to test for avian flu winging its way in from Asia. So far, migratory birds seem not to have brought it to North America. AP's Dan Joling reports on the testing from Alaska in a good wrapup of the issues. On NPR Elizabeth Arnold, a reporter for National Geographic Expeditions, provided listeners with an account from the scene complete with sounds of birds, and the difficulties that will ensue in deciding what to do about if an infected bird shows up. Tracker readers may recall that the Anchorage Daily News reported the basic story first. It also had a more explicit explanation than does AP of how samples are obtained from the birds' (AP says their "backsides" are swabbed, a circumspection that seems unnecessarily seemly).
...
A little know fact about smog is that it fertilizes the ground. Nitrogen compounds sifting down from air dirtied by car exhaust, power plant emissions, and such-all change soil chemistry....
A little know fact about smog is that it fertilizes the ground. Nitrogen compounds sifting down from air dirtied by car exhaust, power plant emissions, and such-all change soil chemistry. Grasses often then outcompete flowers in the artificially enriched soil. The Post's Juliet Eilperin weaves such arcane bits of pollution and atmospheric chemistry to tell the tale of researchers seeking to solve the puzzle of the plummeting bay checkerspot butterfly population in the hills west of San Francisco Bay. Big factors include nitrate fertilization from nearby freeways that stimulated grasses over flowers, and cutbacks in cattle grazing. The cattle, it seems, had eaten enough grass to give the butterflies' favored plants a chance to hang on. It's a good story on the twists and turns of ecology.
...
It's been more than 50 years since President Harry Truman authorized a 40-acre preserve for the only place where the Devils Hole Pupfish lives--a spring of that name 100 miles west of...
It's been more than 50 years since President Harry Truman authorized a 40-acre preserve for the only place where the Devils Hole Pupfish lives--a spring of that name 100 miles west of Las Vegas. But the population is shrinking, and AP's Ken Ritter reports the latest moves to try to boost it with captive breeding. Nine of the fish now reside at an aquarium on the strip.
Al Gore is getting attention from the documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," about his campaign to rouse the US to vigorous action against rising greenhouse gases and global warming. The Times's Andrew...
Al Gore is getting attention from the documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," about his campaign to rouse the US to vigorous action against rising greenhouse gases and global warming. The Times's Andrew Revkin, whose own reporting reveals an intense worry about climate change, interviews Gore, reviews the film, and talks with experts about its accuracy. Minor errors aside, most of his sources tell him, it's an accurate documentary. The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, he mentions, thinks that extra CO2 is good for us.
See Also: Scientific American column by...
As noted a few days ago, the Advertiser's longtime science...
As noted a few days ago, the Advertiser's longtime science writer Jan TenBruggencate is on a NOAA ship with a load of scientists, filing reports during a 25-day expedition to study how marine life reaches and populates islands, including the Hawaiian chain. It's a news gamble to try such a thing, and so far things are looking a little iffy. His latest leads on how rough waves near the rocky island of Nihoa made for risky work on the ship's small boats, bringing science to a slow crawl. So it's a profile of real science on those maddening days when the notebooks don't get many notes. TenBruggencate scrambles to fill his dispatch with some decent science anyway. The Tracker will try to check for any momentous events in...
Hard as birdwatchers, including professional ornithologists, have tried, they just can't confirm that the reportedly extinct ivory billed woodpecker is not extinct after all. Most notably disappointed are the Cornell researchers who...
Hard as birdwatchers, including professional ornithologists, have tried, they just can't confirm that the reportedly extinct ivory billed woodpecker is not extinct after all. Most notably disappointed are the Cornell researchers who last year stunned the bird world with evidence that at least one of the magnificent birds was still around, living in an Arkansas swamp. But after a $1 million effort to get more conclusive evidence, with 20 pros and more than 100 amateurs wielding binoculars and sensitive audio recorders, nothin'. Maybe it's back to the misty netherworld of rumor and hope for the ivory billed's survival.
Stories:
Chicago Tribune John Crewdson; NYTimes...
The NOAA research vessell Hi'ialakai is at sea for a 25-day expedition, and Advertiser science writer ...
The NOAA research vessell Hi'ialakai is at sea for a 25-day expedition, and Advertiser science writer Jan TenBruggencate has started filing stories on what the researchers on board are doing. He has to be a little nervous, promising a day-by-day series before there is even any news. The first day: Not much but talk and stowage of gear. The the expedition's aim is to sample sea life on seamounts, atolls, and other features near the Hawaiian Islands to see how their populations mix and migrate. One focus is to learn how quickly species wiped out in an area that gets hit by natural calamity, overfishing, or other event, will repopulate it by moving in from elsewhere.
...
This may not be news to wildlife biologists, but it is to The Tracker. Y'all know there are alligators native to the waterways around Dallas? Neither do a lot of Texans in the area, particularly those just moving in. The Star-Telegram's Bill Hanna reports that the area is on the western edge of their range, but...
This may not be news to wildlife biologists, but it is to The Tracker. Y'all know there are alligators native to the waterways around Dallas? Neither do a lot of Texans in the area, particularly those just moving in. The Star-Telegram's Bill Hanna reports that the area is on the western edge of their range, but people around Dallas and Fort Worth "come unglued" when they see one.
Another day, another story of a bird flu pandemic that, so far, is mainly for the birds. This one takes readers along with federal biologists as they monitor sandpipers and such passing through Alaska for...
Another day, another story of a bird flu pandemic that, so far, is mainly for the birds. This one takes readers along with federal biologists as they monitor sandpipers and such passing through Alaska for signs they are carrying the virus in from Asia. It's quite nicely done, even the part that the Daily News's Doug O'Harra has about where they stick a Q-tip, or some such thing, to get a sample from a bird without harming it, much.
Other avian flu news:Bird Flu confirmed in Indonesian Family, Reuters Achmad Sukarsono.
This is a melancholy one. Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits have been known only from Douglas County in Washington. There weren't many, so biologists captured 16 of them some years back for a captive breeding...
This is a melancholy one. Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits have been known only from Douglas County in Washington. There weren't many, so biologists captured 16 of them some years back for a captive breeding program that has not worked. They seem to have vanished from their native fields, and with the death of Ely, the last male in captivity, only females Lolo and Bryn remain. Efforts will now begin, reports AP, to breed them with relatives from Idaho. The story has no byline. Usually that means AP picked it up from another media outlet but if so, The Tracker cannot find it.
Related Editorial...
©2010 Knight Science Journalism at MIT. All Rights Reserved.