By a one-vote margin the International Whaling Commission, with a push from a lot of new member nations recruited by pro-whaling countries, resolved Sunday to support eventual resumption of commercial...
By a one-vote margin the International Whaling Commission, with a push from a lot of new member nations recruited by pro-whaling countries, resolved Sunday to support eventual resumption of commercial hunting. The vote had been expected. It feeds hopes for a wider harvest by Japan and Norway and other nations that still authorize limited whale hunts, and raises worries among nations that don't and among many environmental organizations with observers at the meeting on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Lots of ink and air time for this one and mostly from non-US media. The resolution is a move toward more whaling but further, high barriers remain. The issues are argued in scientific terms. Economics and politics are the drivers. For previous posts put "whaling" in ksjtracker's search.
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At the New England Aquarium whale research has gotten a boost from two dogs with an unusual skill: to detect, by their odors, floating scat left in the ocean by endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. The Globe's Beth Daley talks with a marine mammologist who specializes in studying whale poop to...
At the New England Aquarium whale research has gotten a boost from two dogs with an unusual skill: to detect, by their odors, floating scat left in the ocean by endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. The Globe's Beth Daley talks with a marine mammologist who specializes in studying whale poop to learn more about their diets, health, genetics, and burdens of pollutants or toxins. Lately, she's been using trained dogs Bob and Fargo, to lead her small boat to whale-pies before they sink.
See also: 5/22 Post Seattle PI: Can a Scat-Seeking Dog Learn to Sniff Out Orca Poop?
The Times's James Glanz reports from Baghdad that the government, frazzled by war and insurgent sabotage, is desperately dumping vast quantities of heavy black oil in several mountain valleys near the Tigris River, at one point setting it on fire. The result is a "black swampland of oil-saturateed...
The Times's James Glanz reports from Baghdad that the government, frazzled by war and insurgent sabotage, is desperately dumping vast quantities of heavy black oil in several mountain valleys near the Tigris River, at one point setting it on fire. The result is a "black swampland of oil-saturateed terrain" and large standing pools of oil that are not only local environmental hazards, but could severely contaminate the river. The fires are now out, but the pumping of oil into open land continues, Glanz reports. The mess, an Iraqi government technical expert tells him, is dreadful.
This is a small and tight story, just a snapshot really. But it's worth noting primarily in appreciation of...
This is a small and tight story, just a snapshot really. But it's worth noting primarily in appreciation of one of the smaller dailies when it runs an enterprising bit of spot science writing, and when it (one supposes) has editors who appreciate it. The Empire's photographer Michael Penn ran into a man with an unusual piece of exotic equipment up by the Mendenhall Glacier not far from Alaska's capital. Hearing of this, staff writer Tony Carroll asked around a bit, and spun a tale of gravity, glacial melt, and continental rebound.
Growing discovery of genetic predisposition to certain diseases means a growing medical business in preemptive treatments. And for one family, that means prophylactic removal of their stomachs. The AP's Alicia Chang and Malcolm Ritter, and the Bee's Dorsey Griffith...
Growing discovery of genetic predisposition to certain diseases means a growing medical business in preemptive treatments. And for one family, that means prophylactic removal of their stomachs. The AP's Alicia Chang and Malcolm Ritter, and the Bee's Dorsey Griffith, profile a family in which several members have died of stomach cancer, the discovery of the gene (first found among Maoris in New Zealand) at fault, and the decision by eleven family members, all cousins, to have their stomachs removed. Biopsies showed several of the organs already had growing tumors.
Sacramento Bee Dorsey Griffith; AP Alicia Chang, Malcolm Ritter;
Grist for the Mill...
This isn't strictly a science story, but it's a charmer on the side-effects of scientific discovery. The Times's Jia-Rui Chong talks with some people who have made a living painting, etching,...
This isn't strictly a science story, but it's a charmer on the side-effects of scientific discovery. The Times's Jia-Rui Chong talks with some people who have made a living painting, etching, video-imaging, and otherwise portraying the wonders of outer space as seen through the minds' eye and imagination. But the space telescope and various other instruments, including spacecraft with marvelous cameras, are outdoing much of the artists' output. What would Chesley Bonestell have done were he around today?
Blame it on the anti-fur movement, writes the Monitor's Richard O'Mara (only partly tongue in cheek) in a long review of this aquatic Patagonian rodent's spread through the US. It is in 40 states...
Blame it on the anti-fur movement, writes the Monitor's Richard O'Mara (only partly tongue in cheek) in a long review of this aquatic Patagonian rodent's spread through the US. It is in 40 states now, weakening levees coast to coast with its burrowing and its dining upon the roots of marsh plants on which a lot of the local, native fauna have depended. Some people cook them, hoping to generate a market for their meat and some incentive to hunt them. They do taste better than muskrat, it says here. And a few places have managed to get rid of them.
With recent FDA approval of Gardasil, the Merck vaccine that prevents a viral infection that often leads to cervical cancer, medical writers are adding detail and reminders to readers about how it works and why it is best given to girls before they become sexually active. Shari Roan's piece in the...
With recent FDA approval of Gardasil, the Merck vaccine that prevents a viral infection that often leads to cervical cancer, medical writers are adding detail and reminders to readers about how it works and why it is best given to girls before they become sexually active. Shari Roan's piece in the LA Times warns that the vaccine still does not get all forms of the virus, and that the cancer can arise for other reasons, so that pap smears should still be part of the health regimen even among women who have had the pricey vaccination.
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Columbus Dispatch Misti Crane; LA Times Shari Roan; Eugene Register-Guard...
Last week when Pres. Bush ordered creation of the world's largest marine reserve in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, that looked like the end of commercial fishing in its huge swatch of...
Last week when Pres. Bush ordered creation of the world's largest marine reserve in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, that looked like the end of commercial fishing in its huge swatch of the Pacific. It stretches from the north end of the main chain all the way out to Midway. Not so fast, reports the Advertiser's Jan TenBruggencate. Reps of local commercial fishers say they hope they can get a variance, in effect, so that they can keep on taking bottom fish with hook and line from the area. Enviros say that's a bad idea. The story is informative but has so much to-and-fro among various interests that it may easily leave one undecided on how to figure out what to think.
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Two men with two wildly different opinions on how to care for a forest anchor this piece by the Bee's Tom Knudson. The scene is a grove in Giant Sequoia National Monument in California's Sierra Nevada. An 89-year-old environmentalist watches skidders and other heavy equipment stacking fresh-cut...
Two men with two wildly different opinions on how to care for a forest anchor this piece by the Bee's Tom Knudson. The scene is a grove in Giant Sequoia National Monument in California's Sierra Nevada. An 89-year-old environmentalist watches skidders and other heavy equipment stacking fresh-cut pine, cedar, and fir logs and finds it abhorrent. The 78-year-old man running the crew is deadly earnest in belief that the thinning promotes a healthy forest and protects the area's famed Big Trees. It's a good vignette, but could have used moderating input from a park service or other expert on prescribed culling, burning, and that sort of thing.
19Jun 2006
Nobody has yet filled any animal with enough human cells or genes to confer anything close to human traits, and nobody plans to do so (or if they do, it's their secret). But the list of experiments that implant human cells into monkey, goats, rats, and other creatures is steadily growing, reports Newsday's ...
Nobody has yet filled any animal with enough human cells or genes to confer anything close to human traits, and nobody plans to do so (or if they do, it's their secret). But the list of experiments that implant human cells into monkey, goats, rats, and other creatures is steadily growing, reports Newsday's Paul Elias. Much of the work, he writes, overlaps "hot button" issues such as human cloning or creation of "human-animal hybrids."
If one were somehow to be able to return living flesh to fossil birds that Chinese and US scientists found in 100-million-year-old lake deposits in northwest China, they would look pretty much like a...
If one were somehow to be able to return living flesh to fossil birds that Chinese and US scientists found in 100-million-year-old lake deposits in northwest China, they would look pretty much like a gaggle of loons (some say that's an asylum). Or maybe of ducks. That, and their skeletal detail, make them the oldest members of the lineage directly ancestral to modern birds yet found. The results are in Science magazine. The fossils include webbed toes and feather imprints but no heads. But if one looked closely, one suspects from the account of the Washington Post's Guy Gugliotta, something out-of-time would hit the eye. Their wings bore tiny claws. This one benefits from a substantial publicity campaign including a news conference. Press material includes a full-fledged painting of the creature, a highly fanciful one. The Carnegie Museum of Natural...
A Russian and two US scientists report in Science magazine that permafrost soils in Siberia hold as much as 30 times as much carbon as non-permafrost...
A Russian and two US scientists report in Science magazine that permafrost soils in Siberia hold as much as 30 times as much carbon as non-permafrost soils. As climate warming thaws them and other arctic soils, they fear, billions of tons of their stored carbon will rise as CO2, methane, and other gases. A University of Florida prof tells the LA Times's Janet Wilson the soil is so full of organic material that warming it is "like taking food out of your freezer....leave it on your counter for a few days, and it rots." The result will be a further, positive feedback loop intensifying the CO2 greenhouse effect from human combustion of fossil fuels.
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SF Chronicle...
It's hard for residents of developed nations to imagine a city of 4.5 million people with almost no sewage treatment and hardly even any drains except in the homes of the wealthy. But that's Luanda, capital of Angola in southwest Africa. Drinking water is from the Bengo river, a muddy course of garbage and trash....
It's hard for residents of developed nations to imagine a city of 4.5 million people with almost no sewage treatment and hardly even any drains except in the homes of the wealthy. But that's Luanda, capital of Angola in southwest Africa. Drinking water is from the Bengo river, a muddy course of garbage and trash. Cholera is spreading through the broad slums where children play in filth, killing 1,600 people since February. The Times's Sharon LaFraniere takes readers there for a look at how this struggling but corrupt nation, despite hefty oil income, has little sign of the sort of public health infrastructure that most industrial nations have had for more than a century. An experienced aid doctor told LaFraniere he never had seen a city with such bad conditions on such a wide scale.
Scientists are amazed at a two-year-old, and dead, Beluga whale found up an Alaskan river nearly 1000 miles from the sea. First up with the story, it appears, is Kris Capps of the Fairbanks News-...
Scientists are amazed at a two-year-old, and dead, Beluga whale found up an Alaskan river nearly 1000 miles from the sea. First up with the story, it appears, is Kris Capps of the Fairbanks News-Miner. AP's Dan Joling filed on it too. The canoeists who found it at first joked among themselves that they'd found a prehistoric salmon, or maybe a big dead seal. A closer look suggested beluga. Experts were called and confirmed it. No beluga or other whale has ever been found so far up river before, they said, although belugas are known to venture fairly far up rivers chasing salmon. The surmise is that this one too was trailing a meal up the Tanana River until it got trapped in winter ice near Fairbanks. The body was rank, so it had been there for awhile.
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