(Sep. 2, 2009) — Reptiles are not known to be the most social of creatures. But when it comes to laying eggs, female reptiles can be remarkably communal, often laying their eggs in the nests of other females. New research in the September issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology suggests that this curiously out-of-character behavior is far more common in reptiles than was previously thought.
Dr. J. Sean Doody (The Australian National University) and colleagues, Drs. Steve Freedberg and J. Scott Keogh, performed an exhaustive review of literature on reptile egg-laying. They found that communal nesting has been reported in 255 lizard species as well as many species of snakes and alligators. The behavior was also documented in 136 amphibian species.
Nairobi — A wildlife conservationists and ranchers’ forum is protesting the presence of British troops on local ranches.
Laikipia Wildlife Forum has called for discussions, following complaints over increased incursions by the British army troops into local private ranches during their training.
The forum says the soldiers’ presence in the area could be detrimental to the fragile ecosystem that supports hundreds of wild animals and tourism.
In a note to all members, LWF’s Uaso Narok Community Liason Officer Dr Max Graham said the units, each comprising about 900 men had increased from three units in 2008 to seven this year and were allowed by individual ranchers to use their facility without consultation with neighbouring ranchers.
“We employ 6,500 people who directly earn Sh228 million; another Sh15.5 billion is earned as revenue from tourism and we contribute a further Sh608 million towards community development projects and conservation annually. We should be cautious as we might be hurting an industry that we have painstakingly built,” he said.
Dr Graham said there was need for a joint approach to the UK army issue to ensure that ranchers are consulted before allowing them into their farms adding that the army’s activities could be hurting neighbouring farms.
“Laikipia is recognised as a wildlife resource where some wildlife species found here are globally endangered. The noise and light pollution (helicopters, live firing, night exercises among others greatly conflict with Laikipia’s unique brand of wilderness-based tourism that has taken billions of shillings and decades to create,” he added.
The UK army men incursions have increased due to the country’s military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have chosen Laikipia due to its climatic conditions found to be similar to those in the identified countries.
The Three Sisters Caves along Kenya’s coast house bat guano knee-deep in some places. The ground skitters with cockroaches and whip spiders the size of a human hand. A frog corpse one morning could be picked clean by the afternoon: here.
A Swedish charity accused US troops on Monday of going on the rampage in a central Afghanistan hospital last week.
During their operations, patients were forced from their beds, staff tied up and doors smashed down in a search for resistance fighters.
Relatives visiting patients were also maltreated.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) charged that the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division violated the neutrality of medical facilities when it entered the charity’s hospital in Wardak province without permission.
SCA director Anders Fange said that the US troops arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night last Wednesday.
As they left two hours later, the troops ordered hospital staff to inform occupation forces if any wounded militants were admitted.
The military would decide if they could be treated, Mr Fange alleged.
Describing the US actions as “unacceptable,” he said that staff had refused to comply because carrying out the order would have “put our staff at risk and made the hospital a target.”
The SCA claimed the troops’ actions were not only a violation of humanitarian principles but also went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area.
It demanded guarantees that the assaults would not be repeated and that this would be made clear to commanders in the field.
The Pentagon said that it was investigating the incident.
‘Extinct’ British subject repatriated after 100 years
* 10:00 07 September 2009 by Sanjida O’Connell
A British subject transported to New Zealand a century ago will shortly be repatriated. The short-haired bumblebee was sent to the antipodes to pollinate red clover – it was originally transported with a cargo of lamb in 1875 in one of the first refrigerated ships. However, the bee subsequently died out in its native country: last seen in 1988, it was declared extinct in the UK in 2000.
Efforts to reintroduce the bee have been thwarted by failures in captive breeding and by “bee jet lag” – the inability of long-haul bees to adapt to the sudden hemisphere shift.
The situation has recently become urgent. The short-haired bumblebee thrives on another non-native species, viper’s bugloss, but the New Zealand government is about to embark on a programme to eradicate this plant.
His breakthrough was to feed captive queens exclusively with bumblebee instead of honeybee pollen, as had previously been attempted. His method has been verified by Vladimir Ptáček, a biologist at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.
“Pollen from bumblebees is much higher quality and the bees are fussy,” says Ben Darvill of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at the University of Stirling, UK. The Trust is presenting its work on the reintroduction at the British Ecological Society meeting at the University of Hertfordshire, on Monday.
Jet lag can be avoided by keeping the queens cold to induce hibernation during the journey.
The Zoological Society of London is carrying out a risk assessment of the reintroduction, however, as the bees may carry diseases – perhaps even a British disease that they took with them and has since mutated. …
The planned release site is Dungeness, on the south coast of England, the last recorded site for the bees. Local farmers and landowners have been recreating a flower-rich habitat suitable for the bumblebee.
The first recorded attempt to establish bumblebees in New Zealand was in 1875. Charles Darwin had discovered that only the long-tongued bumblebees were capable of pollinating red clover.
I myself have seen bumblebees on red clover near Christchurch, New Zealand.
Bumblebees to be re-introduced at RSPB Dungeness: here.
Britain: The government must commission research into the impact of certain pesticides on bees, which have seen numbers declining in recent years, the Co-operative has urged: here.
USA: Killer bees may increase food supplies for native bees: here.
Male Dawson’s bees, one of the world’s largest bee species, are so aggressive that they kill each other en mass in a bid to mate with females: here.
A species of bumblebee has been spotted in Scotland for the first time in 50 years.
The Southern Cuckoo bumblebee was found near the border with England at St Abbs in Berwickshire.
Inbreeding is seriously bad news for Britain’s bumblebees: here.
October 2010. The five most threatened bumblebees in England have made an unprecedented comeback this year thanks to environmental work by farmers: here.
Franklin’s Bumble Bee, Bombus franklini, is classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. Known only from southern Oregon and northern California, between the Coast and Sierra-Cascade Ranges in the USA, Franklin’s Bumble Bee has the most restricted range of any bumble bee in the world: here.
The populations of four species of North American bumblebee have declined, a new study has confirmed. The study also found that fungal infections are more likely to plague these bees than other, more stable bumblebee species: here.
The pay gap between men and women in the workplace has been widely documented. But women may also be discriminated against in other places as well, like the drycleaners or car dealers.
A laddish culture translates into lower pay and fewer opportunities to advance, an investigation finds
By Robert Verkaik, Home Affairs Editor
Monday, 7 September 2009
Britain’s financial institutions are bastions of sexism in which women work long hours for less pay and in segregated conditions, according to a far-reaching investigation of discrimination in the City released today.
The findings, described as “shocking” by the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), show a financial sector dominated by a “macho” or “lads’ culture” where bonuses paid to women are just a fifth of those received by men.
Women working in banks and other financial institutions told the EHRC that workers who become pregnant routinely face redundancy, and that recruitment was all about “jobs for the boys”. Clients were often “entertained” in lap-dancing clubs, hostess bars or at sports such as golf, from which women were excluded.
Male doctors earn £15,000 a year more than women, study reveals: here.
Women doctors working in the NHS earn thousands of pounds less than their male counterparts because of “endemic” discrimination and a “hostile” workplace culture, researchers have warned: here.
The proto-punk trailblazers have announced two shows in which they will play their landmark 1973 album in its entirely
* Sean Michaels
*Monday 7 September 2009
Iggy Pop has reunited with guitarist James Williamson, re-forming the Stooges’ early-70s lineup to play their legendary album Raw Power at two shows next year.
Williamson remembers Iggy calling him earlier this year, while he was in his dentist’s parking lot. The pair had not spoken in two decades. “[Iggy] asked me if I wanted to play guitar again,” Williamson told Rolling Stone. “I was about to take early retirement from my job in Silicon Valley, so I figured ‘What the hell, let’s do it.’”
This weekend, Williamson played his first concert since the Stooges broke up in 1974. It was with San Jose band Careless Hearts, with whom he has been jamming since Iggy made that call. Williamson also practised with the Stooges – minus Iggy – in Los Angeles in August. Those rehearsals will resume on 20 September, this time with Iggy at the microphone. Mike Watt, formerly of the Minutemen, has replaced the late Ron Asheton on bass. “We’re rehearsing songs from Raw Power, The Stooges, Fun House and Kill City,” Williamson said. “It kind of naturally came back to me.”
This is no small miracle. Iggy and Williamson had a “blowout” during sessions for Iggy’s 1980 album, Soldier. Williamson quit music, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and got into computers.
A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea.
A team of scientists from Britain, America, Hawaii and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.
The discoveries are being seen as fresh evidence of the richness of the world’s rainforests and the explorers hope their finds will add weight to calls for international action to prevent the demise of similar ecosystems. They said Papua New Guinea’s rainforest is currently being destroyed at the rate of 3.5% a year.
“It was mind-blowing to be there and it is clearly time we pulled our finger out and decided these habitats are worth us saving,” said Dr George McGavin who headed the expedition.
The team of biologists included experts from Oxford University, the London Zoo and the Smithsonian Institution and are believed to be the first scientists to enter the mountainous Bosavi crater. They were joined by members of the BBC Natural History Unit which filmed the expedition for a three-part documentary which starts tomorrow night.
They found the three-kilometre wide crater populated by spectacular birds of paradise and in the absence of big cats and monkeys, which are found in the remote jungles of the Amazon and Sumatra, the main predators are giant monitor lizards while kangaroos have evolved to live in trees. New species include a camouflaged gecko, a fanged frog and a fish called the Henamo grunter, named because it makes grunting noises from its swim bladder.
“These discoveries are really significant,” said Steve Backshall, a climber and naturalist who became so friendly with the never-before seen Bosavi silky cuscus, a marsupial that lives up trees and feeds on fruits and leaves, that it sat on his shoulder.
“The world is getting an awful lot smaller and it is getting very hard to find places that are so far off the beaten track.”
A pristine New Guinea wilderness nicknamed “The Lost World” has just yielded multiple new animal species that seem more cartoon fantasy than flesh and blood reality: here.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade: Britain is the fourth largest arms dealer in the league of countries trading in weapons of mass slaughter, with over £5 billion of sales annually.
The UK government is fully embedded in this deadly trade. Its UK Trade & Investment department has more staff devoted to supporting the arms trade than all other industry sectors combined.
The job of these civil servants is to help private companies sell arms.
The arms trade is notorious for its corruption and it has no qualms about who it sells its weaponry to, whether it is to countries involved in conflict or repressive regimes classified as ‘major countries of concern’ in the UK government’s own human rights report.
Every year our govenment actively supports one of the largest arms fairs in the world, the Defence Systems and Equipment International, or DSEi.
Arms fairs such as DSEi play a key role in the devastating global arms trade; a trade which fuels conflict, undermines development, and exacerbates poverty and human rights abuses. While arms fairs cost the taxpayer millions of pounds through government support, arms companies make massive profits from the violence, death and destruction the arms trade perpetuates.
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has long campaigned for the closure of DSEi — which is staged every other year — and for an end to the British government support for the arms trade.
This year DSEi takes place at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands, beginning Tuesday 8 September and CAAT will hold a demonstration on that day from 11am, calling for an end to the fair.
In the afternoon of Tuesday 8 September, CAAT will take its protest to UKTI DSO’s office to expose its role in perpetuating this deadly trade.
For further information about CAAT, Britain’s involvement in the arms trade and the 8 September demonstration, see CAAT’s website: www.caat.org.uk
Bernard Gray’s suppressed report on arms procurement, originally commissioned last year by former defence secretary John Hutton, seems to have caused a minor sensation by opening up a can of worms on cost overruns standing collectively at £30 billion, and delays that run into years if not decades. So what’s new? Here.
USA: Executives at financial firms bailed out by the government received on average $13.8 million in compensation last year, according to a study of bank earning statements released last week: here.
According to a much publicized study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez, the income gap in the USA between the rich and poor is at its greatest level since 1917: here.
As California’s economy plunges, state employees are feeling the devastating effects of furloughs: here.
USA: Out of Work, Too Down to Search On, and Uncounted: here.
Recent strikes and occupations in Ireland have involved dockers at Dublin ports, medical workers in County Tipperary, Health Services Executive employees and workers at Coca Cola: here.
Britain: It’s the poor who are paying for this rich man’s recession. That was already evident from the growing dole queues, the huge sums thrown at bankers and the threats to cut public services: here.
People in the most deprived areas of Britain can expect to live up to 23 years less than rich counterparts, according to a damning report released: here.
This video from the USA in 2008 says about itself:
The closing keynote speaker of the Netroots Nation convention in Austin last month was environmental and social justice activist Van Jones.
Responding to pressure from the extreme right over his aide’s previously held oppositional views, Obama dismissed “environmental jobs czar” Van Jones: here. See also here.
Van Jones Resigns from White House; Targeted by Oil Interests: here.
The Van Jones Saga: White Liberals Need to Keep Their Eye on the Prize When Racism Comes a Knockin’: here.
