February 2008. The breeding season of the kakapo, New Zealand’s most endangered bird, is off to a great start with at least two fertile eggs having already been laid on Codfish Island and two female birds, previously thought to be too young, also laying eggs.
Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick says these are the first eggs laid by kakapo for three years, and it is hugely exciting that two six-year-old kakapo have laid eggs, because it was previously thought that the minimum breeding age was nine years.
Picture of Helen Keller as a child revealed after 120 years
By David Usborne in New York
Friday, 7 March 2008
Photographs of Helen Keller, the world-renowned advocate for the deaf and the blind who suffered from both handicaps herself, are not hard to come by. After all, she only died in 1968, at the age of 87. However, an image of the pioneer which has surfaced this week is a little bit different. Above all, there is its age.
The image, released by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was taken 120 years ago and shows an eight-year-old Keller holding the hand of Anne Sullivan, whose legacy is almost as important. She was the teacher who first taught Keller how to understand and articulate language. More important still for Keller scholars, the black and white photograph shows her holding in another hand a doll. The word “doll” was the first Keller ever spoke – the fruit of her lessons from Ms Sullivan, whose technique included spelling out words on the palm of the little girl’s hand.
The picture, apparently taken at Cape Cod in July 1888, was found in an album by Thaxter Spencer, 87, whose mother was a childhood friend of Keller.
In many representations of her, those aspects are omitted. Like with Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful”: about whom it is often conveniently ‘forgotten’ that she was a feminist, a lesbian, a Christian socialist, and an anti-imperialist. Like with Albert Einstein, whose socialism is neglected … Etc.
The richest four hundred American taxpayers have amassed immense wealth, and that amount is steadily increasing, according to figures reported by the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.
The Journal piece and the latest celebration of the world’s billionaires carried out by Forbes magazine point to an increasingly and malignantly polarized American and global social order, with fabulous riches accumulated at one pole and widespread social wretchedness at the other.
The data published in the Wall Street Journal article come from an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) study of wealthy US taxpayers in 2005, an update of a report conducted five years earlier. The study reveals that the 400 super-rich—who represent approximately .0003 percent of the nation’s 134 million taxpayers—reported total income of $85.6 billion in 2005, an average of $213.9 million each.
To be a member of this exclusive crowd, “the Fortunate 400,” as one academic terms the group, an individual had to report an income of at least $100.3 million in 2005, a sharp increase from the $74.5 million such membership would have required only the year before.
Drive mounts for US government bailout of banks: here.
Britain’s rich get richer even as recession begins to bite: here.
A bird that was known only from two records from the 1920s has been discovered in the Pacific after a gap of 79 years. Sightings of the Critically Endangered Beck’s Petrel Pseudobulweria becki – published by the British Ornithologists’ Club – have finally proven the species is still in existence, and delighted conservationists.
A voyage into the Bismarck Archipelago, north-east of Papua New Guinea, successfully managed to photograph more than 30 of these elusive seabirds. This included sightings of fledged juveniles – suggesting recent breeding. A freshly dead young bird salvaged at sea also becomes only the third specimen in existence. “This re-finding of Beck’s Petrel is exceptional news and congratulations to Hadoram Shirihai [the finder] for his effort and energy in rediscovering this ‘lost’ petrel,” commented Dr Stuart Butchart, BirdLife’s Global Species Programme Coordinator.
Mr Shirihai first visited the area in 2003, where he observed ‘possible Beck’s Petrels’ – inspiring him to return four years later. Explaining this decision, he commented: “I was eager to know about these amazing petrels… and to understand better how we may conserve them”.
The small tube-nosed seabird was first described by Rollo Beck, an ornithologist and collector of museum specimens. The petrel, which now bears his name, was previously only known from two specimens he collected in 1928 and 1929 during an expedition to the region.
Confirming the existence of Beck’s Petrel was difficult because it is similar to Tahiti Petrel Pseudobulweria rostrata, few people have looked for it at sea, and it may be nocturnal at the breeding grounds. “There are numerous atolls and islands where it may breed”, said Dr Butchart. “However, the remaining population may be small”.
Like other tubenoses, Beck’s Petrel is potentially threatened by introduced cats and rats at its breeding sites, and by logging and forest clearance for oil-palm plantations. Until the breeding sites have been identified the threats remain speculative.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 