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Endangered Species Saved by Captive Programs

Many animals have been saved from extinction by captive breeding programs. A creature of the desert, the Arabian oryx, became extinct in the wild in 1972. It has symbolic significance for Arabian people. Individual animals were brought together from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

A watershed occurred in 1982 when some oryx were released into the wild. By 2011 the number of wild oryx reached more than 1,000. The species is no longer endangered. It is now classed as vulnerable.

Much has been learned from this successful intervention. This has been done before. In the 19th century the American bison was saved. Today there are 30,000 in the wild and another 30,000 have been bred for meat.

In Australia only 50 helmeted honeyeaters were alive in 1990. The Healesville Sanctuary has bred these birds releasing about 20 every year. Australia has adopted a policy of releasing endangered animals onto islands because cats and foxes easily kill native species. The greater stick-nest rat was saved in this way.

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Wildlife

Bear Boy

"Just enjoy the wildlife son."

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Funny Animal Photos

Labels: animal , bear , boy , coat , dad , hat , red , son , water , wildlife

A Large Rise in Sea Level Is Forecast

Though some scientists still hold onto the "myth" that coastal water will rise only a few centimeters, In a thousand years land area will be much smaller in comparison with the ocean. Some estimates put sea rise as high as 40 meters. This will devastate low-lying land. Countries as we know them today will be unrecognisable.

Research is in train to find out sea height 3 million years ago by studying coral reefs, sand dunes and fossils. This will enable more accurate forecasts to be made. The extent of ice sheets that will be left with global warning and higher greenhouse gases will be ascertained. A collection of sediment in the Lamont-Doherty Core Repository, the world's largest, is being used in the study.

The frequency of ice ages has already been identified more accurately. They occurred every 41,000 years. It had been believed that the time frame was every 100,000 years. Furthermore, rising mountain ranges cool the Earth's temperature. It is now obvious that less land area will warm the planet.

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Science

Globe Foals

"It was there last night."

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Funny Animal Photos

Lines Like Those in Nazca Found in the Middle East

Nazca lines are not only in South America. Similar lines have been found in the Middle East. Satellite-mapping brought the lines to light in Jordan. The lines are not composed of base desert cleared of stones. They are made of stone and go from Saudi Arabia to Syria.

Many designs can be seen, the most common being spoked wheels. They go through lava fields and are 2,000 years old. This is much older than the Nazca lines. The area covered is more extensive than Nazca.

The sections with the spoked wheels have a function. They are part of kites which "funnel" animals thus trapping them. Other lines are cairns that run from burial sites. Walls and other structures have no apparent purpose. Some areas have clusters of spoked wheels. They are believed to have ritual significance linked to the seasons as in Nazca.

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Archeology

Windy Dog Tongue

"It sure is windy."

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Funny Animal Photos

High Blood Pressure Caused by Many Genetic Variants

It is now common knowledge that the propensity to get high blood pressure is genetic. A billion people in the world suffer from it. Persistent high blood pressure ultimately leads to heart disease and stroke.

The genetic work is complicated. Sixteen new genetic variations have been identified. These genetic factors can be counted: the greater the number people have the more likely they are to suffer from high blood pressure.

There are three kinds of genetic variants predisposing hypertension. One regulates blood pressure. Another affects pulse. The third type controls arterial pressure.

It appears that the modern diet has happened too fast for humans to stop the selection of these gene variants. Children are now suffering from this complaint. The variants will only be "selected-out" if these children do not reach child bearing age. This is a hard fact to accept, but this is the way natural selection works.

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Science

Cry Dog

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

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Funny Animal Photos

New Dolphin Species Found in Australia

It is amazing that a species of dolphin has been living along the coast of Australia and scientists did not know it - until now. The Burrunan dolphin is the third new species to be identified since the 1800s. Named Tursiops australis, the new mammal is represented by two small groups living among bottle-nosed and common dolphins living off the Victorian coast.

They are quite distinct from other dolphins having different body shape, skulls and DNA sequence. The discovery came as quite a shock and shows that new species of other animals could be living unidentified in regions already extensively examined.

Man may be going into space but much of our planet still remains unexplored. New species still need to be classified in South America. The behavior of some creatures is not yet fully understood. For example, giant catfish in Asia are suspected of taking people swimming across rivers.

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Biology

Safe Food

"This looks like a safe place to hide."

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Funny Animal Photos

Wild Cockatoos Are Swearing at People

Australian wild cockatoos have been "infiltrated" by domesticated cockatoos who have escaped. Wild birds are copying words learned by escaped household pets. Cockatoos are not the only wild birds being affected in this way. Galahs and corellas shout out words that startle people. Escaped birds breed with their wild counterparts and chicks learn to talk from parents.

The parrot family is extremely good at mimicking sounds they hear. Songbirds and hummingbirds can also do this to a degree. The problem is cockatoos and parakeets are social animals. To wild birds a word is just a new sound to be learned and used socially. Human babbling to learn language is called subsong in birds, where chicks learn by trial and error.

Like humans, cockatoos continue to learn "words" all through their lives. "Natural" cockatoo sounds go together to form a language which has its own grammar. Human words are being integrated into this language.

A pet bird may only hear a word once and the word is remembered for life, particularly swear words that are spoken with some gusto.

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Wildlife

Messy Dog

"I'm ready to come in now."

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Funny Animal Photos

Penguins Moved to Africa Many Times But Died Out

Penguins are funny little creatures though they are interesting to study. They first made landfall in Africa millions of year ago but they went extinct. They had a second go at colonization. This failed as well.

They preferred Antarctica, South America and Australia living there for a very long time. There are two ocean currents that could have brought penguins to Africa. Neither goes further north than the equator so colonization would have occurred only in south west Africa.

The third or perhaps fourth intrusion onto the African continent was successful. Blackfooted Penguins live their today. They are related to other banded penguins found in South America and the Pacific. There is evidence that four other types of penguins once existed in Africa. These were analysed to see if they were related. Two of the four were sufficiently complete for this. They were found not to be related to Blackfooted penguins or to each other, so colonization happened many times.

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Science

Post Cat

"I'm leaving as soon as the postman arrives."

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Funny Animal Photos

Childcare Makes Men More Effeminate

Men become more effeminate after marriage. When men marry, particularly when they have children, the level of testosterone in men's bodies falls. Tests on Filipino men highlighted this phenomenon. It appears that the more men care for children, adopting female behavior, the lower their testosterone.

Research subjects were 21 years old on average. They were tested at the beginning and after 4 years. At the latter time 50 per cent were married. These married men had very high testosterone levels initially, which indicates that testosterone makes men more attractive as marriage partners.

Very low testosterone was found in married men with a child less than one month old. Males who cared directly for a child had 80 per cent of the testosterone level of men who left childcare to mothers.

Obviously behavior drives hormone level. This is a new discovery. If testosterone is affected by behavior it is possible that other hormones levels are determined by the way people act.

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Society

Kitten Float

"I meditate then I float."

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Funny Animal Photos

Free-Range Eggs Definition Questioned by ACCC

Law is just pedantic. Legal proceedings are to be undertaken to define the precise meaning of "free to roam" chicken. Can chicken roam freely when they are packed into barns? The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is arguing that the high population density of barn chicken prevents them roaming freely. Turi Foods, Baiada Poultry and the Australian Chicken Meat Federation are accused of misleading advertising.

The court case could fall either way. There is no doubt television adds showing chicken wandering with large spaces between them are not showing the true condition. However, a chicken is free to move if another chicken moves out of the way first in normal barn chicken egg production. Of course free-range chicken supporters are in favor of the ACCC action.

There isn't much doubt that the real truth about barn production is not being shown in the advertisements. Other products are also not telling the truth in advertising either and the ACCC is not going after them. For example, hamburgers shown in adverts have plastic and paint in them and they are shown larger than actual size. Perhaps the Government is at fault here - there are no clear guidelines on what free range actually means.

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Agriculture

Dog Biscuit

"I'll take just one."

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Funny Animal Photos

The Dingo Came To Australia Through Indonesia

It was believed that Australia's dingo dog arrived here via Southeast Asian or Chinese seafarers. Then an overland journey was proposed through Taiwan and the Philippines. Genetic evidence now shows that they originated in South China and got to Australian by way of Indonesia.

How they crossed the ocean is still a mystery. The oldest evidence for the presence of the dingo in Australia is 3,500. This is a long time after the ice age and sea levels were about the same then as they are today.

The dingo is really an ordinary dog. It "split" from the pre-modern domestic dog 5,000 years ago. This older domestic dog spread out from South China 16,000 years ago. The dingo is closely related to the New Guinea singing dog. Genetic evidence shows that these two variants moved into Southeast Asia before ordinary domestic dogs accompanied humans as far as Polynesia 3,000 years ago. Whether dingoes travelled with humans is not clear. Dingos have a different genetic mutation than domestic dogs so interbreeding did not occur.

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Biology

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