Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Seven Awe-Inspiring Aircraft Hangars
House Made of Shipping Pallets
Architects Andreas Claus Schnetzer and Pils Gregor designed “Slumtube” — an affordable house built out of discarded shipping pallets and insulated with clay and straw. It’s designed to be comfortable in the widely-varying temperatures of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Outcry over giant Noah's Ark
A plan to build a real-life replica complete with animals puts Kentucky's governor in the hot seat.
Also: Invisible invasive species
While Asian carp, gypsy moths and zebra mussels hog invasive-species headlines, many invisible invaders are altering ecosystems and flourishing outside of the limelight.
For all those idiots that deny that global warming exists
Global Warming means the Summers are hotter and the Winters are colder, not that everything is just plain hotter.
The Barn
A lawyer and two friends--a Rabbi, and a Hindu holy man--had car trouble in the countryside and asked to spend the night with a farmer.
The farmer said, "There might be a problem. You see, I only have room for two to sleep in the house. So one of you must sleep in the barn."
"No problem," chimed the Rabbi. "My people wandered in the desert for forty years. I am humble enough to sleep in the barn for one evening." With that he departed to the barn, and the others bedded down for the night.
Moments later a knock was heard at the door; the farmer opened the door. There stood the Rabbi from the barn. "What's wrong?" asked the farmer. He replied, "I am grateful to you, but I just can't sleep in the barn. There is a pig in the barn, and my faith believes that is an unclean animal."
His Hindu friend agrees to swap places with him. But a few minutes later the same scene reoccurs. There is a knock on the door. "What's wrong?" the farmer asks. The Hindu holy man replies, "I, too, am grateful for your helping us out, but there is a cow in the barn. In my country cows are considered sacred and I can't sleep on holy ground!"
That left only the lawyer to make the change. He grumbled and complained, but went out to the barn. Moments later there was another knock on the farmer's door. Frustrated and tired, the farmer opens the door, and there stood the pig and the cow.
The farmer said, "There might be a problem. You see, I only have room for two to sleep in the house. So one of you must sleep in the barn."
"No problem," chimed the Rabbi. "My people wandered in the desert for forty years. I am humble enough to sleep in the barn for one evening." With that he departed to the barn, and the others bedded down for the night.
Moments later a knock was heard at the door; the farmer opened the door. There stood the Rabbi from the barn. "What's wrong?" asked the farmer. He replied, "I am grateful to you, but I just can't sleep in the barn. There is a pig in the barn, and my faith believes that is an unclean animal."
His Hindu friend agrees to swap places with him. But a few minutes later the same scene reoccurs. There is a knock on the door. "What's wrong?" the farmer asks. The Hindu holy man replies, "I, too, am grateful for your helping us out, but there is a cow in the barn. In my country cows are considered sacred and I can't sleep on holy ground!"
That left only the lawyer to make the change. He grumbled and complained, but went out to the barn. Moments later there was another knock on the farmer's door. Frustrated and tired, the farmer opens the door, and there stood the pig and the cow.
Pre-Dinosaur Predator Found with Fangs Intact
Nicknamed "Wet Willi," the skull and fossils belong to a reptile that's often mistaken for a dinosaur.
Mistletoe Could Vanish Within 20 Years. Then again, it could not.
Image credit: designatednaphour, used under Creative Commons license.
From the very rare Mexican walking fish to the most obnoxious bird in the world, there are so many species out there disappearing that it is easy to get a little numb to what we are losing. But news comes from the Guardian that one species many of us rely on at this time of year is likely to be much harder to come by within 20 years. Mistletoe, it seems, is going to be in short supply. The confusing thing is, however, that it is actually doing great right now—so what's up with that?Article continues: Mistletoe Could Vanish Within 20 Years. Then again, it could not.
‘Greener’ climate prediction shows plants slow warming
A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback — a cooling effect — in the Earth’s c…
Climate Change Threatens Archaeological Treasures
- Melting ice can help unlock ancient secrets, but warming temperatures could imperil many more historic sites.
Titanic Being Eaten by Destructive Bacteria
- A new bacterium isolated from the Titanic wreck is accelerating the wreck's disintegration into a pile of dust.
Sperm Whales Cleared Out After Gulf Oil Spill
- Sperm whales showed good sense after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, acoustic surveys show. They left.
How Did Whales Evolve?
Hundred of millions of years ago, sea creatures crawled up on land and started to become mammals. Then much later, a few went back into the sea, but left few fossils to show us how they did it -or at least that’s what we used to think.For more than a century, our knowledge of the whale fossil record was so sparse that no one could be certain what the ancestors of whales looked like. Now the tide has turned. In the space of just three decades, a flood of new fossils has filled in the gaps in our knowledge to turn the origin of whales into one of the best-documented examples of large-scale evolutionary change in the fossil record. These ancestral creatures were stranger than anyone ever expected. There was no straight-line march of terrestrial mammals leading up to fully aquatic whales, but an evolutionary riot of amphibious cetaceans that walked and swam along rivers, estuaries and the coasts of prehistoric Asia. As strange as modern whales are, their fossil predecessors were even stranger.These fossils raise almost as many questions as they answer. Read more at Smithsonian magazine.
The Impressive Array Of Colors Found In Underwater Coral
One of the most beautiful features of underwater coral lies in their impressive array of colors. Both the soft coral, that are akin to the trees and plants of the underwater world and the hard coral, that are part and parcel to the coral reefs are filled with life and bursting with color.
Thriving Biosphere Found in Rocks Deep Underneath Seafloor
Photo credit: M. McCarthy via University of California, Santa Cruz
There's a reason for leaving "no stone unturned" when it comes to scientific exploration -- there's probably life underneath even the most unlikely rock. Even if that rock is well under the seafloor. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found evidence for a biological community of living organisms camped out in porous rock deep underneath the seabed. The microbes are "chemoautotrophic," getting their energy from chemicals rather than sunlight or sunlight-dependent organisms. With a whole new-to-us biosphere that fixes carbon in a similar way that grasslands or forests fix carbon, the findings could change what we know about the ocean's carbon cycle, Article continues: Thriving Biosphere Found in Rocks Deep Underneath Seafloor
Abandoned white lion cubs being brought up by nurse
Taking wobbly steps, these rare white lion cubs are lucky to be alive. Their young mother abandoned them just days after they were born at a wildlife reserve in South Africa. They were then transferred to an Animal Rehabilitation Center near the eastern coast. Here professional care is being provided to build up their strength and immunity. There they are fed by a nurse, who always wears a white sweater.
"You will see Zane our vet nurse here, when she feeds them, she always wears a white sweater, a white fleece. The reason for that is their mother is obviously white and we want to integrate them with the mother again, bond them with the mother before we release them, but it's very important that they don't get too habituated to humans," said Johan Joubert, head veterinarian, Shamwari Game Reserve.
They will be weaned off milk at 4 months of age when they will be returned to the reserve where they were born. They will have minimum human interaction so that they can successfully re-integrate with other white lions.
"For a captive lion to survive in the wild is actually very difficult, because they don't have a strong instinct like a leopard to hunt, they very often lose that. The only chance we've got here to get it right, is to bond them with a wild lion, in this case we are going to take them back to the mother and we must get the bond built again amongst them, they must stay together when we release them and then the mother will teach them to hunt, so we are not going to teach them, the mother must teach them," said Shamwari Game Reserve's head veterinarian.
"You will see Zane our vet nurse here, when she feeds them, she always wears a white sweater, a white fleece. The reason for that is their mother is obviously white and we want to integrate them with the mother again, bond them with the mother before we release them, but it's very important that they don't get too habituated to humans," said Johan Joubert, head veterinarian, Shamwari Game Reserve.
They will be weaned off milk at 4 months of age when they will be returned to the reserve where they were born. They will have minimum human interaction so that they can successfully re-integrate with other white lions.
"For a captive lion to survive in the wild is actually very difficult, because they don't have a strong instinct like a leopard to hunt, they very often lose that. The only chance we've got here to get it right, is to bond them with a wild lion, in this case we are going to take them back to the mother and we must get the bond built again amongst them, they must stay together when we release them and then the mother will teach them to hunt, so we are not going to teach them, the mother must teach them," said Shamwari Game Reserve's head veterinarian.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
