Polar bears older than biologists used to think

This video is called other Polar Bear and Cubs Emerging from Den – BBC Planet Earth.

From Science:

Nuclear Genomic Sequences Reveal that Polar Bears Are an Old and Distinct Bear Lineage

Frank Hailer1,
Verena E. Kutschera1,
Björn M. Hallström,
Denise Klassert,
Steven R. Fain,
Jennifer A. Leonard,
Ulfur Arnason,
Axel Janke

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the polar bear matriline (mitochondrial DNA) evolved from a brown bear lineage since the late Pleistocene, potentially indicating rapid speciation and adaption to arctic conditions.

Here, we present a high-resolution data set from multiple independent loci across the nuclear genomes of a broad sample of polar, brown, and black bears.

Bayesian coalescent analyses place polar bears outside the brown bear clade and date the divergence much earlier, in the middle Pleistocene, about 600 (338 to 934) thousand years ago. This provides more time for polar bear evolution and confirms previous suggestions that polar bears carry introgressed brown bear mitochondrial DNA due to past hybridization. Our results highlight that multilocus genomic analyses are crucial for an accurate understanding of evolutionary history.

See also here. And here.

July 2012. An analysis of newly sequenced polar bear genomes is providing important clues about the species’ evolution, suggesting that climate change and genetic exchange with brown bears helped create the polar bear as we know it today. The international study found evidence that the size of the polar bear population fluctuated with key climatic events over the past million years, growing during periods of cooling and shrinking in warmer times: here.

Will more climate change mean more pizzlies (polar bear-grizzly bear hybrids)? Here.

Poem on Spanish king’s elephant killing

This video from 18 April 2012 says about itself:

Spain’s King Juan Carlos apologies for hunting trip

This is Spain’s King Juan Carlos standing proudly in front of a dead elephant on a hunting holiday in Botswana a few days ago. Critics say the holiday cost twice a Spaniard’s average annual salary.

Belgian poet Didi de Paris wrote a poem, in Dutch, about the recent killing of an African elephant by the king of Spain, while most people in Spain suffer from the Rightist government’s austerity policies.

The poem is also on the poet’s website.

My translation is here. With remarks added; and with hyperlinks added, like I usually do on this blog:

ELEPHANT MAN

Hold on, thou who must tighten
your belts:
do not hold it against him!

Already, the price for the trip
is almost priceless
for the ordinary mortal

Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill,
or an elephant out of a gnat
- An elephant skin helps.

There is nothing wrong:
King Juan Carlos
honorary member of the World Wildlife Fund.
just went on safari
in Swaziland – Happens in the best of families.

No, in Botswana; not in Swaziland. The king making trouble there is not Juan Carlos, but Swaziland’s own king Mswati.

& He who is burdened by the weight
of the memory of an elephant

forgets the assassination
of five anarchists by the garrote,
on September 27, 1975
Burgos, Basque Country.

The five people executed by the Franco regime on September 27, 1975 were not anarchists, but members of the “Maoist” FRAP and the Basque nationalist ETA. The killing was by firing squad, not by garrote. These executions were not in the Basque Country, but in Burgos, Madrid and Barcelona.

The garrote had been used the year before, in 1974, to kill Salvador Puig Antich, who was indeed an anarchist.

forgets the assassination
in Madrid of Admiral Prime Minister
Luis Carrero Blanco

whom Franco prefered as successor to, then Prince, Juan Carlos

Oh elephants in the china shop,
forget what came then!
A transfer, like in a bankrupt
Spanish football team,
the designated substitute:
King Juan Carlos.

Everything beautifully appointed
by Generalissimo Franco

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Update: meanwhile, Didi de Paris has said on his blog that Swaziland fits better in a poem (not a report) than Botswana. “Don’t forget that a poet is a liar”.

King’s Elephant Hunt Is Disgrace to Spain, Humanity: Commentary by Mike Di Paola in the USA: here.

Meanwhile, King Juan Carlos has apologized for his elephant killing.

As I don’t know all details, I am not 100% sure how to comment on that.

At least, an apology is better than the arrogant attitude of the sons of US billionaire Donald Trump when challenged about their killing of elephants and other African wildlife.

On the other hand, public opinion would never have known about the Spanish monarch’s elephant killing, if His Majesty Juan Carlos would not have been injured on the safari. So, the apology very presumably did not originate in the king’s own brains, but was a reaction to the storm of public indignation in Spain and internationally.

The king has said he would never do this again. I’d say, he would only be credible as honorary World Wildlife Fund president, if he right now would completely break with his trophy hunting past, and would start a vigorous campaign among his fellow rich people to immediately stop trophy hunting.

Australian Leadbeater’s possum endangered

This video from Australia is called Leadbeater’s Possum Clips.

From Australian Geographic:

Leadbeater’s possum on the brink of extinction

TIME IS RUNNING OUT for the once thought extinct Leadbeater’s possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri).

The possum, named after taxidermist John Leadbeater, was first declared extinct in the 1950s but was given a second chance at survival when a colony was rediscovered in a forest in Marysville in the 1960s. So significant was the occasion that Victoria made the small marsupial its state faunal emblem.

About 40 to 50 per cent of the Leadbeater’s habitat was wiped out during the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, which devastated the Marysville community.

Leadbeater possum expert Professor David Lindenmayer, an ecologist from the Australian National University in Canberra, says that for there to be any chance of long-term survival for the small marsupial we must act urgently.

“It’s pretty stark and it’s pretty certain at this point: it’s going to be extinct in 25 years,” he says.

Only 1500 Leadbeater’s possums remain

Endemic only to Victoria, Leadbeaters number fewer than 1500 individuals, so the conservation of their habitat is now more important than ever. Their last remaining sanctuaries are the mountain ash forests in the central highlands of Victoria.

The possums live in tree hollows, but not just any hollow. They’ll typically choose an old tree – often dead – and one that is in an advanced state of decay.

David completed his PhD on the possum back in 1990 and has been studying it ever since.

“We can’t claim ignorance in this case. We know the biology of this species more than any species in Australia,” he says.

As the best homes for Leadbeaters also correspond with popular logging sites, new habitat is very difficult to redevelop. Rotations between logging operations vary between 50 and 80 years but it takes around 200 to 400 for an appropriate Leadbeater’s hollow to develop, David says.

Forests are being rapidly overcut by the logging industry, David adds. “Loggable forests will be completely cut within 15 years,” he says.

And without the forests the Leadbeater’s possum won’t have a chance.

German religious dance bans under fire

This video is called Baby Dancing to Beyoncé – ORIGINAL!

From Der Spiegel weekly in Germany:

04/19/2012

Protecting Tradition

German Dance Bans Under Fire

Dancing can get you in trouble in Germany. Laws on the books prohibit the practice on certain religious holidays — and the bans are taken seriously. But this week Bavaria moved to weaken its law and a Cologne dance-in was allowed to go ahead on Good Friday. Religious leaders are concerned.

Some would argue that Bavaria is as backward as it gets. The German state is famous for its ongoing love affair with lederhosen and dirndls and even old grannies yell at pedestrians that dare to cross the street at a red light. In the rest of the country, Bavarians are looked down upon in much the same way that New Yorkers view the Deep South.

This week, however, the state took a step which seems tantamount to admitting that times just might have changed. Laws prohibiting dancing on certain Christian holidays are to be relaxed. Slightly. Instead of criminalizing dance club gyrations as of midnight on the eve of religious celebrations, the state said party-goers will now be allowed to boogie until 2 a.m.

Of course, many might be left wondering why Bavaria doesn’t just ditch the dance rules entirely. But far from being forgotten relicts of centuries past, dance bans reflect the state’s deep ties to tradition and, though weakening, the Catholic Church. Indeed, Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx expressed his dissent on Wednesday, saying that easing laws protecting the sanctity of religious holidays is unacceptable.

Protest Events Banned

There are currently nine days on the Bavarian calendar when dancing is outlawed, including the four days from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter. The state’s neighbor to the west, Baden-Württemberg, is even more restrictive, banning bop during parts of 18 days — including from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Every other state in the country, including the famously debaucherous city-state of Berlin, has dance bans on their books too.

Germany’s upstart Pirate Party discovered this year just how serious those prohibitions are taken. The group chose this year’s Good Friday, a day on which dancing is forbidden in every single German state, to stage a series of dance-ins to protest the laws. One of the protests went ahead as planned, with scores of people gyrating to music coming out of their headphones in front of the Cologne Cathedral. But two other events — in Frankfurt and Giessen — were forbidden by the authorities. A legal complaint the Pirates filed with Germany’s high court was rejected.

cgh — with wire reports

Racing team won’t race in dictatorial Bahrain

This video is called Bahrain – Nurse Got Shot By Bahrain Dictator Government and Saudi Military.

From F1technical.net today:

Porsche team withdraws from Bahrain race

A team from the Porsche Supercup, a supporting series during the upcoming Grand Prix of Bahrain this weekend has cancelled its participation in the race, outing its doubts about the safety at the middle-east country.

The MRS team has decided not to travel to Bahrain and therefore skip the first race of the Porsche Supercup.

“It is the first time in our team history that we have to cancel a race of the Porsche MOBIL1 Supercup,” team boss Karsten Molitor said. “In the end we have the responsibility for our employees.

“The race in Bahrain is for us one of the seasons highlights, therefore it was not easy to come to a decision. According to our drivers and partners we have reached the conclusion to start only at the second race in Barcelona on 13th of May.”

See also here.

Another Murdoch underling arrested by police

This video from the British Parliament is called MP Tom Watson Calls James Murdoch A Mafia Boss.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Police arrest Sun royal editor for phone-hacking

Thursday 19 April 2012

by Paddy McGuffin, Home Affairs Reporter

The Sun newspaper’s royal editor and a former member of the armed forces were among three people arrested on Thursday by detectives investigating alleged illegal payments to public officials.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s Operation Elveden carried out dawn raids on homes in Kent and Lancashire.

A total of 26 people have now been arrested since last July as part of the operation, which is linked to the Metropolitan Police’s continuing phone-hacking investigation.

Police said detectives arrested a 42-year-old former serviceman and a 38-year-old woman at their home in Lancashire at about 6am.

A man was held on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and a woman on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office. They were being questioned at a police station in Lancashire.

Sun reporter Duncan Larcombe was arrested at his home in Kent on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office. He was being questioned at a police station in Kent.

Scotland Yard said: “Today’s operation is the result of information provided to police by News Corporation’s management standards committee.

“It relates to suspected payments to a public official and is not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately.”

Meanwhile Labour MP Tom Watson, in a new book Dial M for Murdoch co-written with the Independent‘s Martin Hickman, has detailed the pressure applied to MPs to hold off from investigating the phone-hacking scandal.

In particular the book will highlight the behaviour of News International towards members of the Commons culture, media and sport committee while it was challenging the cover-up.

See also here.

Murdoch – part of the corrupt political establishment: here.

Salford-based hip-hop duo Class Actions return with their latest single “Rip Up The Sun”. The track doesn’t stop short at attacking the newspaper—it mounts a scathing onslaught on Rupert Murdoch’s entire empire: here.

British Conservative austerity and its opponents

This video is called The scandal of child poverty in Europe.

Britain: Swingeing government cuts to the welfare system could leave over 350,000 impoverished children without free school meals, a leading charity warned on Thursday: here. And here.

Hundreds of disabled protesters will be massing at two key sites on Friday to fight what has been called the most callous of the government’s savage cuts – shutting Remploy factories: here.

Internal emails leaked to a union have exposed double-dealing by the government in its hypocritical handling of the closure of hundreds of railway ticket offices: here.

Britain’s jobs market emerged tattered and ragged into the harsh economic realities of massive underemployment today – with women bearing the brunt of the dole queue: here.

Nearly a third of mothers go into debt after taking maternity leave and others cut short their time off because they can’t afford to live on the meagre allowance, an alarming new study revealed on Thursday: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Pensioners say Labour has disappointed them

Thursday 19 April 2012

by Will Stone in Parliament

Pensioners yelled at shadow chancellor Ed Balls during a meeting in Parliament on Thursday for Labour’s failure to vote reverse changes to upgrade pensions from RPI to CPI.

Sitting alongside One Foot In The Grave star Richard Wilson, who did not speak, and shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves, Mr Balls attempted to defend Labour’s legacy in light of cruel coalition budget proposals targeting pensioners.

The rally and lobby held by the National Pensioners Convention came ahead of a debate on the Finance Bill and an Opposition amendment to withdraw the “granny tax” – the government’s decision to freeze age related tax allowances.

Ms Reeves said: “This tax raid on pensioners is going to be used to cut the tax for the very wealthy.

“They are putting multi-millionaires first and pensioners second.

“In Parliament today myself and all Labour MPs will be voting against this tax grab,” she added.

But Ms Reeves and Mr Balls were challenged by two pensioners who reminded them that last month only 33 MPs voted to reverse changes which link pensions from Retail Price Index to the lower Consumer Price Index, which will give smaller pension increases each year.

“I don’t believe in Father Christmas,” said Barnet pensioner Dave Shepherd in response to pledges by NPC members to work with Labour to improve policies for pensioners in the future.

NPC London chairman Barry Todman added: “Most people can understand the disillusionment towards MPs if Labour would not commit to reverse this current problem.

“We want some guarantee and only 33 MPs voted to change the uprating of pensions back again to RPI. The Labour Party should be supporting the people. I think that’s an insult.”

Thousands of BBC staff will be balloted for strikes over pay, with unions warning on Thursday of disruption to coverage of the Queen’s diamond jubilee if action goes ahead: here. And here.

In the spending spree to mark the run-up to the queen’s diamond jubilee, a million pound row barge has been launched on the River Thames: here.

Madagascar’s vanga birds, new study

From the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Germany:

Evolution: Vangas Beat Darwin’s Finches in Diversity

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) — The diversity of the Madagascan vangas is unique. The bird family only consists of 22 species, but these cover the whole range of body size of the passerines, the bird group vangas belong to (6,000 species). Whereas smaller species use their comparatively small bill to feed by picking up insects, the largest among the vanga species may even catch amphibians with its very large bill. Thus vangas are much more diverse than Darwin’s finches, known to be a model for rapid evolution.

As a study published now in The Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences shows, Vangidae are the only known birds which experienced two peaks of rapid diversification. For birds, only one such peak is common.

The 22 Madagascan vanga species differ considerably from one another. Each species looks different, has a different body size and a different kind of bill specially adapted to their diet. The Nuthatch Vanga (13 centimeters small) usually feed on insects which it picks up in bushes using its small bill. Sickle-billed Vangas (30 centimeters large) on the contrary have a large curved bill which allows the birds to scratch under tree bark in their search for edible insects. Last but not least, Helmet Vangas are equipped with a stunningly huge blue bill in which lizards, frogs or even geckos may end up. The song birds which are endemic to Madagascar are therefore even more diverse than the well-known Darwin’s finches. Researchers from the German Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt, the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and other German, Swedish and French research institutes have now constructed a complete, dated species-level phylogeny to discover how this diversity came about.

At home on Madasgascar

It is now 25 million years ago that an originally African ancestor of the Vangidae arrived on Madagascar. Many potential predators and competitors had not reached the island at this time. This allowed the vangas to quickly occupy ecological niches, diversify and spread across the island. “This first bout of rapid diversification resulted in vanga species which differ considerably in terms of body size. These older species feed on insects which they catch in mid-air or in vegetation” says one of the authors of the study, Dr. Susanne Fritz, at the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F). Once the ecological niche space was filled by the new species, the rate of diversification decreased significantly. Well-known examples of this evolutionary pattern on islands are the Darwin’s finches found on the Galápagos islands. Until now, Madagascan vangas were also viewed to be a textbook example of this process.

New foraging strategy led to second peak of diversification

However, the new study shows that the first peak of diversification was followed by a second one around ten to five million years ago – something that is highly unusual for birds. “Our computer-based models indicate that this unexpected second peak of diversification was caused by an increase in available ecological niche space. One potential explanation might be that the birds simply spread into new areas. However, the vangas only occur on Madagascar. Instead, we show that this second peak of diversification most probably followed the morphological key innovation of a new shape of bill” explains Dr. Fritz. At that time, a group of vangas with very long, sometimes curved bills emerged, such as the Sickle-bill Vanga. These bills enabled the new species to retrieve insects hidden under the bark of trees, and so occupy a new dietary niche.

First evidence for old ideas

The fundamental study by the international team indicates for the first time that the amazing diversity of the vangas evolved in a two-step process. The study also illustrates how much of Madagascar and its unusual biodiversity is still not fully understood, and what exciting scientific discoveries may await there. Furthermore, the study shows that a morphological key innovation and related new foraging strategy may result in a burst of speciation, even after the group has already reached its ecological limit. Previously, researchers had thought this to be possible, but it had never been demonstrated. However, the high specialization of the vangas might now be their doom: the habitat to which the birds have adapted over the past 25 million years is shrinking quickly as a consequence of land use and climate change.

Journal Reference:

K. A. Jonsson, P.-H. Fabre, S. A. Fritz, R. S. Etienne, R. E. Ricklefs, T. B. Jorgensen, J. Fjeldsa, C. Rahbek, P. G. P. Ericson, F. Woog, E. Pasquet, M. Irestedt. Ecological and evolutionary determinants for the adaptive radiation of the Madagascan vangas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1115835109

Beak Heat: Evolutionary Theory of Bird Bills May Need Revision. New research on song sparrows offers a new take on bird-beak evolution that is more nuanced than earlier ideas based on finch studies: here.

May Day in occupied Haiti

From the blog of cartoonist Stephanie McMillan in the USA:

Help Support May Day 2012 in Haiti!

April 19, 2012 at 9:07 am

Following is a letter from a member of Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) requesting support for their activities for May Day. I’ve volunteered to collect donations for them through my Paypal account.

Please pass this along to friends and contacts who might want to contribute.

Thank you for any support you can provide!
–Stephanie

* * *

Batay Ouvriye, (Worker’s Struggle, www.batayouvriye.org), a labor movement in Haiti, is planning a series of activities to commemorate International Worker’s Day (May Day), 2012.

The objectives of these activities are to:

· Continue to build the workers federation known as May First Trade Union Federation/BO.
· Reinforce the combative capacity of the trade unions inside BO (so that members are better prepared to fight for worker’s interests).
· Plan a national meeting of all union delegates.
· Elect the new executive committee of the newly formed union SOTA/BO. (Sendika Ouvriye Tekstil ak Abiman, Creole for Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union).
· Organize a march on May Day in Port-au-Prince.
· Organize marches throughout Haiti of sweatshop factory workers, peasants, and agricultural workers.

To organize these series of events, urgent funding is needed and we ask for your financial support and solidarity. It is not easy for workers to organize themselves across great distances in a land which is constantly attacked by natural disasters, foreign intervention, and brutal regimes. The Haitian workers, who are constantly in danger of repression, ask for your help and support. Any contribution which you can make will benefit Haitian workers in their struggle to better their conditions. Thank you for your help!

Please send contributions to the Paypal account of supporter Stephanie McMillan: here.

May Day’s Radical History: What Occupy is Fighting for This May 1st.
Jacob Remes, AlterNet: “The history of May 1 as a workers’ holiday is intimately tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement, and to the long tradition of American anarchism…. Yet May 1 lives on, and indeed has been rejuvenated in the United States in the past few years…. Immigrants, mostly from Latin America, had brought May 1 back to its birthplace, and in so doing they resurrected its history as a day specifically for immigrant workers”: here.

Another black Libyan tortured to death

This video is called LIBYA War Crimes: Black Town Tawergha A Ghost Town After Ethnic Cleansing By NATO Rebels & NATO.

From Amnesty International:

Libya: NTC Must Investigate Death of Another Tawargha Man Under Torture

19 April 2012

press release

The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) must act immediately to investigate and prosecute abuses against the Tawargha community of black Libyans, said Amnesty International today, after another Tawargha man was tortured to death in a Misratah detention centre.

The body of 44-year-old father of two Barnous Bous’a was delivered to his family on 16 April. It was covered with bruises and cuts, including an open wound to the back of the head.

Barnous Bous’a was a civilian who fled his home in Kararim in western Libya during the armed conflict, settling in Sirte.

After his arrest by Misratah militias in October 2011 while fleeing further fighting in Sirte, he was reportedly held at a detention facility under the control of Misratah’s Security Committee, a committee created under the Misratah local council.

“This brutal death highlights the continuing dangers to detainees in the new Libya,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

“How many more victims will die from torture until the authorities realize the gravity of the situation, and deliver on their promises of investigating, prosecuting and putting an end to such crimes?”

Amnesty International has documented more than a dozen deaths in custody at the hands of armed militias since September 2011, amid widespread torture of suspected al-Gaddafi loyalists and soldiers. A high proportion of the victims were Tawarghas.

The entire population of the city of Tawargha, some 30,000 people, has suffered abuses at the hands of armed militias in revenge to for their town’s perceived loyalty to the former government, and for crimes some Tawargha are accused of having committed during the siege and shelling of the neighbouring city of Misratah by al-Gaddafi forces.

Militias from Misratah drove out the entire population of Tawargha in August 2011, looting and burning down their homes. Since then, armed militias from Misratah have been hunting down Tawarghas across Libya, snatching Tawargha men from camps for displaced people, homes, checkpoints and even hospitals.

Those abducted are brought back to detention centres in Misratah, where they are routinely tortured, in some cases to death. Hundreds of Tawarghas are believed to be detained in Misratah with fresh arrests reported to Amnesty International this week.

At least two Tawargha men have been taken from Tripoli since 12 April: one was arrested shortly after he left an IDP camp and the other was captured near his workplace. Their relatives have not been able to locate their exact whereabouts, but heard that both had been transferred to Misratah. There, they are at serious risk of torture and even death.

One relative pleaded to Amnesty International: “We are so afraid for the safety of all Tawarghas once they are taken to Misratah. We cannot bear to hear more bad news…We are not safe anywhere, we can’t leave home, we are trapped. If we go out, we risk arrest too. We can’t even leave and search for our relatives.”

On Monday, Misratah’s local leadership denied widespread reports of torture and other abuses committed by the city’s militias, signalling that “reconciliation between the two towns [Misratah and Tawargha] was probably impossible at the moment” and that “some alternative solution for the Tawargha people” was needed.

“The leadership in Misratah is turning a blind eye to the mounting evidence of abuses committed at the hands of Misratah militias, arguing that only ‘individual mistakes’ take place,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“It is imperative that the NTC now reins in these militias, investigates all abuses and prosecutes those responsible – on all sides – in accordance with international law. Only then will Libya begin to turn the page on decades of systematic human rights violations.”

See also here.

British intelligence conspired with Libyan spooks to pressure asylum seekers to work as spies for both countries, leaked documents show: here.

Information published by the Sunday Times has revealed how the [British] Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown facilitated the deportation and torture of opponents of the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi: here.

Africa: Libyan Govt Must Protect Kufra Residents From Militia Clashes: here.