Clipmarks | reimers's 'nature' clips

Rare albino eagle found in Colorado

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:33:22 GMT

clipped by: reimers

A part-albino Golden Eagle has been found in Southern Colorado and 850KOA has obtained exclusive, copyright photos of the bird just before he was transferred to the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo.

The male eagle is thin and is being treated for parasites. The eagle's feathers are in such poor condition that it cannot fly. However, Raptor Center Director Diana Miller believes the rare eagle will recover and will be released in the Hoehne area in about three months.

The eagle was found in the Pinon Canyon area of Southeastern Colorado by Rancher Tony Hass. His wife, Connie, took the photos as they waited for Division of Wildlife District Manager Jeremy Gallegos to capture the eagle and take it to the Raptor Center in Pueblo.

China holds funeral for panda killed by earthquake

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:09:01 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.breitbart.com

Nearly a month after China's devastating earthquake, the Wolong Nature Reserve held a funeral Tuesday for a panda that was crushed in the temblor

The world famous panda center was badly damaged by the May 12 quake but officials initially thought all 64 pandas had survived. They later discovered that two were missing.

Nine-year-old Mao Mao, the mother of five at the breeding center, was found Monday, her body crushed by a wall of her enclosure when the river behind it swelled with landslide debris.

On Tuesday, panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and wheeled her quietly to a patch of ground outside the breeding center where a freshly dug hole waited.

The center's director, Zhang Hemin, stood with his cap in hand and then shoveled in a few spades of dirt. Mao Mao's keeper, He Changgui, stepped forward, crying, and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave. There were three minutes of silence.

Thomas Jefferson - Sally Hemings DNA Study

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:44:22 GMT

clipped by: reimers
clipper's remarks: See also: http://www.tjheritage.org/dna.html

Clip Source: www.angelfire.com

In November 1998, the British science journal Nature published the results of Dr. Eugene Foster's DNA Study. This study resulted in a great deal of controversy on the issue of Thomas Jefferson's paternity of the children of his slave Sally Hemings.

There are many people who feel this DNA study, either alone or combined with other historical evidence, resolves the issue once and for all. The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation issued a report in January 2000 concluding that there is a strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson was the father of at least one and perhaps all the children of Sally Hemings.

These resolutions and conclusions are based on subjective and incomplete historical information. This web site was created to provide the misinformed public with the other side of the story and to highlight information that tends to exonerate Thomas Jefferson of these allegations.

CBS in serious talks to contract out 'most of its news reporting to CNN

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:58:25 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions with Time Warner about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN, two executives briefed on the matter said Monday.

Over the last decade, CNN has held intermittent talks with both ABC News and CBS News about various joint ventures. But during the last several months, talks with CBS have been revived and lately intensified, according to the executives who were given anonymity because of the confidential nature of the negotiations.

Broadly speaking, the executives described conversations about reducing CBS’s news-gathering capacity while keeping its frontline personalities, like Katie Couric, the CBS Evening News anchor, and paying a fee to CNN to buy the cable network’s news feeds.

Another possibility, these people said, would be for CBS to keep its correspondents in certain regions but pair them with CNN crews.

Science vs. Religion: The Ultimate Smackdown

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:54:55 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.wired.com

When you're looking to buy a car stereo -- a device beloved of religious folk and rationalists alike -- do you get into long musings on the nature of stereoness, or consider whether you'll be able to plug your iPod into it after you're dead? No, of course you do not. You turn to the most powerful epistemological tool available: the checklist.

Here, then, is a checklist to help you decide between the warm embrace of heartfelt faith or the cool reassurance of the scientific method.

Food

Religion has brought us the Easter ham and the Passover brisket.

Music

Religion gave us Bach, gospel and rock 'n' roll. (Hey, Satan is part of religion.)

Sex

Science, taken as a whole, is remarkably silent on the question of whom you should sleep with, when you should sleep with them and how guilty you should feel afterward.

Stuff

Clearly, if you like owning things other than dirt clods and intestinal parasites, science is ready to step up and give it to you

'Fitna' pulled from Web

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 07:41:40 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

AMSTERDAM -- The controversial anti-Muslim film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been removed from the Web by its British Internet provider, which said its employees have been seriously threatened.

"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature and some ill-informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, LiveLeak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove 'Fitna' from our servers," the company said.

The 15-minute short film was posted Thursday and taken down Friday and had been seen by some 3 million people. In the film, presented in Dutch- and English-language versions, Wilders claims that the Koran provokes violence, using Sept. 11, the attacks in Madrid and London and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh as examples.

Hubble Lives On!

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:38:08 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Dec. 21, 2007 -- If it is true that what does not kill you makes you stronger, the final incarnation of the Hubble Space Telescope may fundamentally change what is known about existence.

After reversing a decision to cancel a shuttle servicing mission to Hubble, NASA is putting the finishing touches on a flight planned for August to overhaul the world's most popular observatory one last time.

The expectations seem giddily high. Astronomers want to use the refurbished telescope to peer back to when the universe was a mere 460 million years old -- a fraction of its current 13.7 billion years. They plan to hunt down supernova explosions to serve as bookmarks in time and space in an attempt to figure out why the expansion of the universe has sped up in the last 4 to 5 billion years or so.

Some scientists are even putting forth most audacious proposals to chemically analyze the atmospheres of planets circling other stars.

Tags: space, science. exploration, nasa, nature, technology

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:34:24 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.

Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding.

Tags: science, nature

Giant Rat Discovered in 'Lost World'

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:45:01 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: news.aol.com

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Dec. 17) - Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science, underscoring the stunning biodiversity of the Southeast Asian nation, scientists said Monday.

Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status.

The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said U.S.-based Conservation International, which organized the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science.

"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip."

The possum was described as "one of the worlds smallest marsupials."

Tags: science, nature