Saturday - August 30, 2008

Are All Marine Scientists Moonbats?

Get a load of this bit of silly. Some scientists find a new species of giant clam up in the north end of the Red Sea. There aren’t very many of them ... perhaps that’s why they haven’t been found until now? So right away they spin up a theory ... no, not global warming, not yet ... but that the clams were over fished by early man when they first go the hell out of Africa all those thousands of years ago. Yup, the only reason they can figure that the clams aren’t wall to wall under the sea is because evil humans ate them all once upon a time. Funny though, if most of these wonder clams were eaten up then, then why haven’t they made a comeback since? They’ve had 125,000 years to do it. Even clams must be able to breed better than that.

Giant clams two feet long might have helped feed prehistoric humans as they first migrated out of Africa, new research reveals. The species, Tridacna costata, once accounted for more than 80 percent of giant clams in the Red Sea, researcher now say.

Today, these mollusks, the first new living species of giant clam found in two decades, represent less than 1 percent of giant clams living there.

This novel clam, whose shell has a distinctive scalloped edge, was discovered while scientists were attempting to develop a breeding program for another giant clam species, Tridacna maxima, which is prized in the aquarium trade. The new species appears to live only in the shallowest waters, which makes it particularly vulnerable to overfishing.

“These are all strong indications that T. costata may be the earliest example of marine overexploitation,” said researcher Claudio Richter, a marine ecologist at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Fossil evidence that the researchers uncovered suggests the stocks of these giant clams began crashing some 125,000 years ago, during the last interval between glacial periods. During that time, scientists think modern humans first emerged out of Africa, Richter said.

These mollusks could have played a key role in feeding people during that crucial era, serving as a prime target due to their large size, the scientists added. Indeed, competition for these clams and other valuable sea resources “may have been an important driver for human expansion,” Richter told LiveScience.

Underwater surveys carried out in the Gulf of Aqaba (north of the Red Sea, between the Sinai Peninsula and Arabian mainland) and northern Red Sea revealed this long-overlooked clam must be considered critically endangered. Only six out of 1,000 live specimens the scientists observed belonged to the new species. This mollusk could be the earliest victim of human degradation of coral reefs in this region, the researchers added.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/30/2008 at 01:16 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Nature •  
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   Thursday - August 07, 2008

Arctic Heats Up - politically at least

Running down a bunch of links from Peiper’s Global Warming post the other day lead me to a great news site. Called The Barents Observor, it’s all about business and politics up in the Barents Sea area. For those who don’t have a globe handy, that’s the northeast end of the Atlantic Ocean, up east of Greenland, off the coast of Norway and Finland, and over to the northwest corner of Russia. You might tend to think of this area as one of the ends of the Earth, but if it is it’s also one of the busiest ones. You see, why Nancy Pelosi is braying on about saving the planet, what she really means is SCREW AMERICA. Because the people who live up there are working just as fast and as hard as they can to fish and farm and mine and drill the hell out of it, environmental impact be damned. Hey, just like China, Brazil, Africa, India ... and the whole rest of the world.

Just a few examples of what’s going on up in the great white Euro North:

• Overfishing is common. Although Norway has a Directory of Fisheries, the chances of being caught are just about zero. And the Russians are doing it every day.


• In a complete reversal of the way things work in American, Russian oil company Lukoil-Komi has sealed off vast areas of land around it’s drilling operations, preventing hunters and hikers from using the areas. And the courts let them get away with it.


• Norway has just located an enormous copper vein. Believe me, they will mine it.


• Russia is opening up the Kamal Penninsula to drilling, and is laying thousands of kilometers of pipeline. There are 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas there. And where there is gas there is often oil. And jobs; there is employment for 50,000 skilled workers.Meanwhile, Norwegian hippies tried to protest the pipeline, and got themselves fined.


• Oil production a bit to the east in Kharyaga is increasing, drilling and pumping more, even at wells co-owned by the French.


• Illegal aliens are trying to rush the area. I guess they’re willing to do the jobs Russians and Norwegians won’t. But the Russian border guards have been catching Afghans, Chinese, Lebanese, and Uzbekistanis left and right. All trying to sneak into Norway! Funny, I thought the jobs were over in Russia.


• The highly profitable Norilsk Nickel foundry continues to pollute like mad. Sulphur dioxide levels 500 times the limits. Enough to corrode umbrellas if you were out walking around.But they’re making a ton of money (enough to build 5 new ice breaker frieghters), and they employ lots of people. So they get away with it. And when Norilsk needs more power to run their foundries, they just go right ahead and build a new one. What the hell, coal is cheap.


• Russia is chopping down it’s forests as fast as they can, and Finland is only too happy to buy the wood. Which they turn into pulp for paper and plywood. Who cares if it’s all illegal? Finland brought in over 5 million cubic meters of illegal wood last year.

But the big news concerns the Arctic basin itself. With the kindly assistance of a bit of Global Warming (and if you lived or worked up there you’d want to believe in GW harder than children need to believe in Tinkerbell, cuz it’s so freakin cold all the time.) getting some of that damned endless ice out of the way for a while last year, geologists were able to get some decent surveys done of the seabeds up there. And they found oil. And gas. And lots of other resources. So now the race is on. Why is Russia building a new aircraft carrier? Well, one reason is that they’re trying to sell the old one to India. That’s assuming they can put out the fires onboard first. Another reason might be strong arm politics. Russia is looking for oil and gas around Svaalbard (Spitzbergen) Island. And when Russia drills a hole, they usually plant a flag. This could be a problem brewing.

It wasn’t just propaganda that made the Russians plant a flag on the seabed under the North Pole almost exactly one year ago, even if their photos were faked. The race is on, and the prizes are huge. Various groups are trying to settle seabed land claims before the shooting starts, but it’s going to be a rough ride. The US will not be getting a big slice of the pie no matter what, but Denmark looks to be in line to become a new world power due to the size of it’s allocation. And tomorrow Canada will attest that the Lomonosov Ridge, a hump of seabed right under the North Pole, is actually part of the North American land mass ... the implication being that Canada should get control of it. And that ridge is where a huge part of the Arctic resources have been located.

There will be no flag-waving or patriotic chest-thumping, but Canadian scientists are quietly set to make one of this country’s most important assertions of Arctic sovereignty in decades on Friday at a geology conference in Norway.

A year after Russian scientists planted their nation’s flag on the North Pole seabed - a controversial demonstration of their country’s interest in securing control over a vast undersea mountain chain stretching across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Ellesmere Island and Greenland - the Canadian researchers have teamed with Danish scientists to offer proof that the Lomonosov Ridge is, in fact, a natural extension of the North American continent.

Their landmark findings, the initial result of years of sea floor mapping and millions of dollars in research investments by the Canadian and Danish governments, are to be presented at the 2008 International Geological Congress in Oslo under the innocuous title “Crustal Structure from the Lincoln Sea to the Lomonosov Ridge, Arctic Ocean.”

But the completion of the study represents a key step in Canada’s effort to eventually win rights over thousands of square kilometres of the polar seabed, a potential treasure trove of oil and gas being made more and more accessible as melting ice unlocks our High Arctic frontier.

Yeah right, no chest-thumping indeed:

And on Wednesday, the Department of National Defence detailed plans to conduct a “sovereignty operation” in Nunavut later this month.

The Aug. 19-26 exercise, similar to one conducted last summer, is intended “to project sovereignty in the eastern Arctic” and to test the military’s ability to respond to oil spills and ship emergencies, the department said.

The really frightening part of this whole land-grab situation is that the UN will have to solve it. Worse, it will be under the Jurisdiction of their Law of the Sea Conventions (UNCLOS). That’s not the Law of the Sea Treaty, but it probably isn’t much better or different.

This is a big story, and it’s going to take years to play out. And about the only place I’ve found enough information to be able to put even a few pieces of the puzzle together has been at the Barents Observer news page. It’s like some huge untapped natural resource, just waiting for exploitation. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/07/2008 at 04:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Nature • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices • Politics •  
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   Friday - July 18, 2008

The incredible moment a leopard attacks a crocodile

Clash of the Titans: The leopard attacks a crocodile in Kruger National Park

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:49 AM on 18th July 2008

These are the incredible pictures which show the first ever leopard attack on a crocodile.

Hal Brindley snapped the amazing moment a leopard snatched a crocodile at a South African game reserve on the only occasion this behaviour has ever been documented worldwide.

The American wildlife photographer was taking pictures of hippos from his car at a waterhole in Kruger National Park when a speeding shape came out of the bushes and headed for the water.

After an initial struggle, onlookers stared in disbelief as the leopard emerged dragging a thrashing crocodile up the bank.

With its’ snout pointing upwards, the crocodile snapped and attempted to fight back as the predators flipped and tumbled in a dramatic battle.

But the leopard, who had it caught by the throat, remained in control as the crocodile’s legs clawed frantically at the cat’s belly, its jaws snapping at air.
There have been recorded cases of crocodiles killing leopards but never the other
way around as the meat a crocodile provides is not sufficient enough to justify the risk.

http://tinyurl.com/5coo89

Posted by Drew458     on 07/18/2008 at 10:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Nature •  
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   Wednesday - July 02, 2008

Colourful Kingfisher caught , some awesome photography of a beautiful bird.

Pictured: Colourful Kingfisher caught before being ringed

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:28 AM on 02nd July 2008

Beak wide open and clearly in distress, this bird appears to have hopelessly trapped itself in garden netting.

In fact the tiny kingfisher in this extraordinary photograph was captured by experts recording bird numbers and movements.

They used a fine-mesh ‘mist net’ to trap 26 more specimens including goldfinches, wrens, robins, starlings, goldcrests and reed warblers.

The work was carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology on the Axe estuary in East Devon last week.

Mike Tyler, who led the exercise, said his team caught five kingfishers in three hours.

‘This is the highest number we have got in one go,’ he said. ‘Kingfishers travel so fast that people tend not to see them.

‘These photographs were taken with a very fast digital camera.’

The birds were added to the trust’s database which every year logs 800,000 specimens across Britain and Ireland.

All the captives are weighed, measured and given a visual health check before being released with a leg ring (circled right) to identify them if they are found or caught again.

Mr Tyler added: ‘It’s important we do not harm the birds because the idea of ringing them is to see how far they go, where they go, and how long they live.’

http://tinyurl.com/5exgp6

Posted by Drew458     on 07/02/2008 at 03:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Nature •  
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