Mount Baker Wilderness wallpaper
Mount Baker Wilderness, all 117,000 acres is in northern Washington.
Climate link to amphibian decline
Amphibian populations at Yellowstone – the world’s oldest national park – are in steep decline, a major study shows.
The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change.
The results, reported in the journal PNAS, suggest that climate warming has already disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on Earth.
The disturbing thing about news like this, and maybe a favor to the public, is the awareness that National parks and wilderness areas are not nice protected islands of nature. The activity in areas around parks and global warming can have consequences for those areas set aside for protection.
Remember yesterday story about eBay banning the sale of elephant ivory; while I was over reading this news I found this story about the legal sale of ivory. The idea has been around for a while as one way to discourage poaching. Whether it will work or not is yet to be seen, Ivory auction opens amid concerns
“We implement our international obligations to protect endangered wild animals, and we have always honoured our international obligations,” China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters as the auction opened.
This is contested by some environment groups, which argue that Chinese controls remain lax.
“We are deeply concerned that these sales will open the floodgates to additional illegal trade,” said Will Travers, CEO of the Born Free Foundation.
While the overall African elephant populations are in decline, in southern Africa, diligent wildlife management has lead to a 4% per year increase in their population. While they haven’t started yet, southern Africa has agreed to some controlled culling of elephants. Note that the ivory for this new sale came from elephants that died of natural causes and has been stored for years.
A couple of the Leonardo drawings I promised,
Leonardo giant crossbow 2. From this bottom picture, using the male figure as size reference it looks as though Leonardo da Vinci entertained the idea of using a giant crossbow as something like a field cannon.
Sarah Palin’s latest swat at science
A troubled look crossed her face. “And sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good, things like …” she grinned, shaking her head side to side, her voice rising to a facetious pitch “… fruit fly research in Paris, France.” Feeling in tune with the guys in her audience, she added, “I kid you not.”
[ ]…One could recommend that Palin read Jonathan Weiner’s wonderful book, “Time, Love, Memory,” about the scientists who pioneered the studies of the insect known as drosophila. Or maybe she should just hop on the Web site of the great San Francisco science museum for kids, the Exploratorium, to read about the fruit flies’ starring role in genetics. Either way, she would learn that many of the human genes that have been implicated in birth defects and serious diseases have counterparts in the insects.
To scientists, fruit flies are ideal subjects because they have a short life cycle and breed like, well, flies. In a matter of weeks, biologists can determine how flies with defective genes behave, giving them a good indication of how a gene therapy may be designed. As many scientists have pointed out since Palin heartlessly mocked the insect, fruit fly research has been key in understanding autism, a subject about which Palin perpetually broadcasts her interest, as she has an autistic nephew.
tangledwing 