Caribbean crustacean named after Bob Marley

This video is about the crustacean, recently called after Bob Marley.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Better than nothing? Bloodsucking parasite named after Bob Marley.

Gnathia marleyi, a tiny crustacean that feeds off the blood of reef-dwelling Caribbean fish, has been named in honor – for lack of a better term – of the Jamaican musician Bob Marley.

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor / July 10, 2012

The late Jamaican musician Bob Marley has joined the “I have a species named after me” club, as a parasitic crustacean has been donned Gnathia marleyi, researchers announced today (July 10).

This blood feeder infests certain fish that live among the coral reefs of the shallow eastern Caribbean Sea.

“I named this species, which is truly a natural wonder, after Marley because of my respect and admiration for Marley’s music,” Paul Sikkel, an assistant professor of marine ecology at Arkansas State University, said in a statement. “Plus, this species is as uniquely Caribbean as was Marley.”

Marley now belongs to a club that includes President Barack Obama, whose name inspired Caloplaca obamae, the moniker for a lichen growing on Santa Rosa island in California. Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert has two insects named for him, while Mick Jagger‘s name was given to an extinct trilobite, Aegrotocatellus jaggeri. Even singer Beyoncé is a card-carrying member, with a species of horse fly with a golden rear now named Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae. [StarStruck: Species Named After Celebrities]

Juvenile gnathid isopods hide within coral rubble or algae so they can launch surprise attacks on fish, and then infest them. As adults, the parasites don’t eat. “We believe that adults subsist for two to three weeks on the last feedings they had as juveniles and then die, hopefully after they have reproduced,” Sikkel said in a statement.

With reports suggesting coral reef communities in the Caribbean are declining due to diseases, Sikkel’s team is examining whether there’s a link between reef health and gnathid populations. G. marleyi, like other gnathids, is similar to blood-sucking ticks or mosquitoes.

And like the land-lubbing ticks, gnathids are responsible for many diseases, in thise case those afflicting coral-reef fish, the researchers said. “We suspect that coral degradation leads to more available habitat for external parasites to ‘launch attacks’ on host fishes,” he said. “And as the number of potential host fish decreases, each remaining host will become more heavily parasitized.”

Sikkel first discovered the newly identified gnathid about 10 years ago in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where it was so common he assumed it had been described. Not so, according to Nico J. Smit of North-West University in South Africa, who later examined a specimen of the species. Next, the research team raised the organism from its juvenile stage through adulthood.

Sikkel and his team describe all of G. marleyi’s life stages in the June 6 issue of the journal Zootaxa.

See also here.

The Bob Marley parasite and 6 other species named after famous people: here.

The Life, Music and Legacy of Bob Marley: here.

Lady Gaga Inspires Names of New Fern Species: here.

With sea ice in the Arctic melting to record lows in summer months, marine animals living there face dramatic changes to their environment. Yet some crustaceans, previously thought to spend their entire lives on the underside of sea ice, were recently discovered to migrate deep underwater and follow ocean currents back to colder areas when ice disappears: here.

Related articles

• Bob Marley brings prisoners for Palma (midnightraverblog.com)
• The Underappreciated “Smaller Majority” that Dominate Marine Ecosystems (livescience.com)
• Danny Sims, Producer Who Signed Bob Marley, Dies at 75 (repeatingislands.com)
• Get up, stand up – seek out the Bob Marley documentary (seattletimes.com)
• Of Myth And Man: The Legacy Of Bob Marley – OpEd (eurasiareview.com)
• [VIDEO] The Ryan Cameron Show 3:00 Energy Shot: “Stir It Up,” Bob Marley (v103.cbslocal.com)

Big fossil turtle discovered in Colombia

From the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama:

Fossil turtle from Colombia round like car tire

Paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo‘s group at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and colleagues at North Carolina State University and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a new species of fossil turtle that lived 60 million years ago in what is now northwestern South America. The team’s findings were published in the Journal of Paleontology.

The new turtle species is named Puentemys mushaisaensis because it was found in La Puente pit in Cerrejón Coal Mine, a place made famous for the discoveries, not only of the extinct Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, but also of Carbonemys, a freshwater turtle as big as a smart car.

Cerrejon’s fossil reptiles all seem to be extremely large. With its total length of 5 feet, Puentemys adds to growing evidence that following the extinction of the dinosaurs, tropical reptiles were much bigger than they are now. Fossils from Cerrejon offer an excellent opportunity to understand the origins of tropical biodiversity in the last 60 million years of Earth’s history.

The most peculiar feature of this new turtle is its extremely circular shell, about the size and shape of a big car tire. Edwin Cadena, post-doctoral fellow at North Carolina State University and lead author of the paper, said that the turtle’s round shape could have discouraged predators, including Titanoboa, and aided in regulating its body temperature.

The width of the turtle’s shell probably exceeded the maximum expansion of the Titanoboa’s mouth. Its circular, low-domed shape would have increased the area of the body exposed to the sun, helping the cold-blooded turtle warm to a temperature at which it was more active.

Desperate Indian workers’ suicides in dictatorial Bahrain

This video says about itself:

The ILO’s Guy Ryder speaks to Al Jazeera about the mass sackings of workers in Bahrain following a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

From the International Business Times:

26 Indian Workers Commit Suicide In Bahrain, Nass Corp. Under Fire

Wage disputes and a travel ban have trapped many workers in the Gulf state.

By Nish Amarnath

July 11, 2012 4:07 PM EDT

Pasupathi Mariappan, 33, originally from Tamil Nadu in South India, became the twenty-sixth Indian expat to commit suicide in Bahrain this year. The blacksmith who worked at Manama-based construction giant Nass Contracting Company, a subsidiary of the Nass Corporation, a wealthy Bahraini company, was found by police three days after he hung himself with a rope from a palm tree in a public garden in Hamad town last month.

“He (Mariappan) was one of many workers stranded in Bahrain after the Nass Group imposed a travel ban on them in 2006,” an Indian Embassy spokesman said.

More than 100 Indian laborers are trapped in the clutches of Bahrain over a wage dispute with Nass Corporation. The workers say that they had to take extra jobs to make ends meet because they were paid just BHD 45 ($119) every month rather than the promised BHD 100 ($265). 128 Nass workers complained to the Indian Embassy about the Abdullah Nass Construction Company, which lodged a grievance against them years ago, for not showing up at work.

A court ordered Nass employees to pay a fine ranging from BHD 400 ($1,061) to BHD 600 ($1,591) for allegedly heaping losses on the firm by violating their contracts. Disgruntled and broke, many workers left the company long before they realized they were impeded by a travel ban. They found they were stuck in Bahrain only in 2010, when they attempted to leave during an amnesty for illegal workers.

Unable to work or leave, some workers have been languishing in pain, poverty and debt. Killing themselves is the only option when they find they have no money to support their families in India and no hope of escape from the fetters of their captivity.

Nass Corporation has been notorious for hiring scores of semi-skilled and unskilled Indian workers by transferring them illegally with promises of visa sponsorship — a pledge that leaves its workers severely indebted. The company earned a net profit of $5.11 million in the first quarter of 2012 — a 6.1 percent jump from the year before.

Nass Contracting recently joined hands with a Scottish company, Braemar Golf, to introduce golf to rich Bahraini residents. Nass, which slapped its travel ban to prevent Indian workers from returning home, has turned a deaf ear to the Indian Embassy’s request to reverse its policy. The company is now facing pressures from lobbyists and human rights groups that are threatening to petition its business partner Braemar to consider the plight of Indian workers in Bahrain and back out of its agreement.

Bahrain remains a home to more than 350,000 Indians. International human rights organizations say that 70 percent of them work in deplorable conditions for wealthy Bahraini companies like Nass that abuse, underpay and impose travel bans on their staff.

In recent years, travel bans on foreign workers in Bahrain have become an increasingly common feature of exploitation under the shield of Bahrain’s Kalafa system, a scheme that encourages slave trade. Often companies pay their employees pittance or take a massive cut from their wages for sponsoring their work visas. When workers attempt to leave or find new jobs, these companies approach the courts with claims of contract violations — a move that wins them the right to forbid workers from leaving.

The case of the travel ban on workers is yet to be resolved. Some workers have left the country. However, most of them remain shackled to Bahrain, unable to leave until the case is resolved, the Indian embassy told media groups. The Indian Embassy earlier forwarded the case to a law firm in a bid to mediate between the company and its workers to resolve the dispute. However, it remains unclear how many individual claims will be settled.

Update: “Goodwill gesture” by Bahraini firm sets Indian laborers free: here.

Bahrain urged to allow peaceful protest | Amnesty International: here.

Bahrain: Prominent Human Rights Defender Nabeel Rajab Imprisoned for 3 Months for Tweet: here.

Bahrain Feature: The “Security” Web — The Kingdom Talks with Saudi Arabia, Britain, and the US: here.

Rare mushroom found in the Netherlands

Translated from the Dutch Mycological Society:

Very rare russulas after it rained cats and dogs

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

In the Reigersdaal area in Heerhugowaard after the abundant rain recently the very rare Russula elegans appeared. Russula elegans is an endangered species on the Red List. Only a few times it had been found with certainty in the Netherlands. Although most russulas appear later in the year, it seems that Russula elegans especially responds to abundant precipitation whether in summer or in autumn.

US military prisoners drugged

This video from the USA is called Military Could Detain Americans Indefinitely.

EXCLUSIVE: Department of Defense Declassifies Report on Alleged Drugging of Detainees. Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold, Truthout in the USA: “Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that ‘could impair an individual’s ability to provide accurate information,’ according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general’s report that probed the alleged use of ‘mind altering drugs’ during interrogations”: here.

See also here.

Alyona Minkovski, The Alyona Show: “For years, current and former detainees from Guantanamo and other US military sites, as well as their attorneys, have argued that they were forcibly given pills and injected with unknown medications…. And now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by Truthout, a report from the DOD’s deputy inspector general has confirmed much of it. Alyona Minkovsky talks to Jason Leopold, lead investigative reporter for Truthout.org about what the FOIA exposed”: here.

The last British resident in Guantanamo Shaker Aamer may have been forcibly given mind-altering drugs by his US captors, recently declassified documents have revealed: here.

Reprieve sues Britain’s spies for Shaker Aamer lies: here.

Related articles

• Guantanamo man in UK libel action (bbc.co.uk)
• An Impossible Suicide at Guantánamo (alhittin.com)
• A Photo of Shaker Aamer After Eleven Years in Guantánamo (alhittin.com)
• Gitmo Detainee Death Mystery Deepens With News of Drug Overdose (my.firedoglake.com)
• Pentagon’s secret Guantanamo videos will stay classified (rt.com)
• Cops to quiz Aamer over claims Britain complicit in torture (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Comic announces Guantanamo Brit is suing MI5 and MI6 (itv.com)
• Aamer supporters demand his return after 11 years in jail (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Reprieve – Frankie Boyle announces that Shaker Aamer is to sue MI5 & MI6 for defamation (worldwright.wordpress.com)
• 10/30/12 Jason Leopold (scotthorton.org)

English poem on seabirds and fashion

This video is called This Demise of Ice, eco poem. Live reading by Helen Moore at the Bath Poetry Cafe, Mission Theatre, Bath, January 2008.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

A Wake to the Kittiwakes During London Fashion Week

Wednesday 11 July 2012

by Helen Moore

A collage poem inspired by two articles juxtaposed in the Guardian [16.9.06]

Sprats are out this season
and Lerwick feels absolutely the new Cannes
now the North Sea’s turned Mediterranean.
This is how it looks:

gaunt forms,
breast-bones protruding,
they strut and posture against a fabulous cliff-edge location –

and it’s a muted palette:
Kittiwake white and grey
jostling Guillemot penguin suits,
with narrow neck-bands and those Cleopatra eyes,
o, and lots of retro ruffles,
feathers decidedly dishevelled.

An avian style of heroin chic,
it turns the spotters’ heads
as the chicks lose their grip,
and, like Naomi on platform heels,
totter
and slip –

all
the
way
to double zero,
body-mass stripped,
make a splash where no flash-bulbs ever venture.

Helen Moore is a poet based in Frome, Somerset. Her work has been published in various anthologies and journals, including Magma, The Wolf, PAN (Philosophy, Activism, Nature) and Emergency Verse (The Recusant). She has also been guest poetry editor and honorary poet in residence for Resurgence Magazine. Regularly performing her poetry at events and conferences around Britain, Moore also works as a children’s author, community artist and Forest Schools practitioner. This poem is from her collection Hedge Fund, published by Shearsman.

Spanish conservatives impose austerity violently

By Tony Patey, Industrial Reporter:

The true face of austerity Europe

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Austerity Europe reared its ugly head today when a volley of rubber bullets fired by police injured scores of protesters and members of the media during Spain’s “Jarrow March.”

Coalminers and trade union activists angry over government subsidy cuts had massed by the gates of the Ministry of Industry in Madrid and were making their voices heard.

Riot police guarding the building charged using their batons, leaving about a dozen wounded.

Witnesses said some supporters who had joined the demo at the last minute then began to throw stones and firecrackers at police – who replied with rubber bullets.

Reports said that “several” demonstrators, members of the media as well as some policemen had been injured.

One witness said: “At least one photographer had severe bleeding from the head, and a television camera operator was lying on the floor and looked unconscious.”

Police were reported to have arrested five people and at least 23 people were said to have been tended by emergency services for injuries after the charge.

Around 25,000 miners had converged on Madrid and linked up with union activists to protest against a 63 per cent cut in government subsidies to mining companies.

Most reached the capital in 500 buses – but many had walked for weeks in what observers were calling their “Jarrow March,” an echo of the October 1936 protest march against unemployment and extreme poverty in north-east England.

Miners wearing hard hats and carrying walking sticks marched with relatives and sympathisers under a hot sun surrounded by huge puffs of firework smoke.

They were chanting: “No to the closure of coal mining – yes to the reactivation of the mining regions” and were greeted with applause from passers-by.

Unions say cuts will completely destroy coal mining in Spain.

On Tuesday night the miners had been received as heroes in Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid’s main plazas.

David Menendez, who has worked down the pits for 10 years, came from Asturias in the north by bus with relatives and fellow miners. “I’m here to defend my work,” Mr Menendez said.

He said he was outraged by tax rises and austerity measures announced by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government just before the protest.

He said: “Rajoy is committing crimes against the economy and killing it.”

Spanish coal’s state subsidies are due to be eliminated by 2018 under EU agreements.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “This is the true face of the European banks‘ austerity measures against some of the poorest people in Europe.”

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Yorkshire area chairman Chris Skidmore said: “We condemn any action taken against the miners.

“We are sympathetic with the Spanish miners – we were labelled the enemy within and now they have been.”

And Labour MP and former NUM president Ian Lavery said: “I salute the Spanish miners in their efforts to secure a future for themselves and their families.

“I urge miners from across the world to support the strikers by whatever means they can. Solidarity forever.”

See also here.

England: Durham Miners’ Gala welcomes Spanish comrades: here. And here.

The “black march” of Spanish miners, which was welcomed by more than 25,000 in Madrid, was brutally attacked by riot police: here.

This week right-wing prime minister Mariano Rajoy unveiled the biggest attack on Spain’s welfare state in history in a move described by radical opposition MPs as like “pouring gasoline onto the streets”: here.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing Popular Party announced a new €65 billion package of cuts Wednesday, the fourth since his election last November: here.

Thousands of Spanish civil servants left work and took to the streets in angry protest against new sweeping austerity measures including wage cuts and tax increases: here.

Survivors of violence or sexual assault suffer mental health problems that last much longer than their physical injuries, doctors warned today: here.

The global capitalist crisis is increasingly affecting the German economy: here.

Hillary Clinton in still bomb-sick Laos

This video is called Children and cluster bombs: Laos.

Laos calls to Intensify Destruction of Warlike Explosives: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Clinton’s Laos visit makes history

Wednesday 11 July 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Hillary Clinton became the first US secretary of state to visit Laos in more than five decades when she arrived there today.

Ms Clinton met the Communist government’s prime minister and foreign minister in the capital Vientiane today as part of a week-long diplomatic tour of south-east Asia.

In her meetings Clinton discussed environmental concerns over a proposed dam on the Mekong River and efforts to clean up the tens of millions of unexploded bombs the US dropped on Laos during the Vietnam war.

Laos is the latest test case of the Obama administration’s efforts to “pivot” US foreign policy away from the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Ms Clinton had her work cut out and many fences to mend.

The US dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on the impoverished country during its “secret war” between 1964 and 1973 – about a ton of ordnance for each Laotian man, woman and child.

That exceeded the amount dropped on Germany and Japan together in World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed nation per person in history.

Four decades later US weapons are still claiming lives.

When the war ended about a third of some 270 million cluster bombs dropped on Laos had failed to detonate, leaving the country awash with unexploded munitions.

More than 20,000 people have been killed by ordnance in post-war Laos and contamination is a major barrier to agricultural development.

The US is spending $9 million (£5.7m) this year on clean-up operations for unexploded ordnance in Laos, but it is likely to offer more in the coming days.

Related articles

• The Capital of Laos..NOT “L” – Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep (travelpod.com)
• First day in laos – Laos Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep (travelpod.com)
• Laos & the Secret War. (deadfishflowagain.wordpress.com)

English great white egret baby news

This is a great white egret video.

From Wildlife Extra:

Second Great white egret nest hatches chick in Somerset

More egret success at Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset

July 2012. Natural England staff have confirmed a second Great white egret nest has hatched another great white egret chick. This follows three chicks fledging from June’s nesting attempt; the large, heron-like bird had not successfully bred in Britain until this year.

Natural England’s project officer for the species, Kevin Anderson said; “This species has never bred in Britain before – to have two successful nests in the first breeding year is remarkable.”

Volunteers have kept up a round-the-clock vigil to ensure that both nests have not been disturbed. Kevin added, “We’d like to thank our volunteers for their commitment and determination, especially during the continued wet weather – they’ve been brilliant.”

With another chick to keep an eye on, the volunteering effort will continue throughout July. The hope is that the new arrival will have successfully fledged within a few weeks and that Shapwick will soon be able to confirm a record season for its most exotic new breeding bird.

More about Shapwick Heath is here.

Read about Great white egret nests in Britain for the first time here.

About great white egrets

The nest is made up of a mound of reeds lined with softer plant material, and concealed deep in the reedbeds. Usually 3 – 4 eggs are laid with the young looked after by both adults.
‪
European population are estimated at over 24,000 pairs (Birdlife, 2004). The great white egret is the size of a grey heron, with similar habits but can be confused with the much smaller little and cattle egrets.
‪
Great white egrets feed on a range of aquatic animals including fish, frogs and insects. In the breeding season the tip of their yellow bill turns black on both sexes, and they develop beautiful long plumes along the back.
‪
The great white egret is distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world, but is rather localised in southern Europe.

Mercenaries problem growing

This video is called Blackwater Mercenaries Murdering Unarmed Civilians – Testimonies Iraq.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Use of mercenaries ‘out of control,’ warns watchdog

Wednesday 11 July 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Watchdog Global Policy Forum warned on Tuesday that the United Nations is using too many private military and security companies.

The forum said that the increasing UN use of these companies is “dangerous,” may increase rather than reduce threats and attacks on UN buildings and personnel and suggests the system is “unaccountable and out of control.”

Even incomplete UN data shows a steady rise in the number of security contracts, with the value increasing from $44 million (£28.8m) in 2009 to $76m (£48.8m) in 2010, the latest data available.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky claimed that it is appropriate to use armed private security contractors if the organisation ensures “due diligence” in its operations.

…

But the forum insisted that, “in the absence of guidelines and clear responsibility for security outsourcing, the UN has hired companies well-known for their misconduct, violence and financial irregularities – and hired them repeatedly.”

The forum said that the UN insists that most companies are used for unarmed security services, but warned that contractors are increasingly being used for risk assessment, security training and logistical support.

This effectively allows the companies to define the UN security strategy “and even its broader posture and reputation.”

It also urged a UN reassessment of its dealings with such firms to assess whose interests contractors serve and if they help the UN promote democracy, the rule of law and human rights.