Posts
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| Nihoa Millerbird / Photo by S. Plentovich (USFWS) |
- Using GPS receivers, scientists have gained some insight into how albatrosses are able to fly so efficiently with the use of four-step soaring cycles. The research was published in PLoS ONE.
- A columnist writes about the harassment and violence that have accompanied the ORV regulations on North Carolina's Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
- Scientists are investigating whether mate choice among Magellanic Penguins depends on the presence of genes that help resist disease.
- One wind energy company based in New Jersey is trying to redesign wind turbines to reduce bird and bat fatalities. The new turbines have internal blades that turn and produce energy when wind is compressed through a cone.
- The recently discovered Antioquia Wren and the threatened Military Macaw will lose habitat if the Pescadero-Ituango hydroelectric dam is built in Colombia.
- Oil leftover from previous spills (including BP's 2010 spill) has coated several birds on the coast of Louisiana.
- When a Western Scrub-Jay dies, other jays gather around its body and vocalize, seemingly to mourn their dead companion. Describing this activity as a "funeral," however, probably goes a bit too far.
- Scientists are trying to restore Millerbirds to Laysan Island in Hawaii through a capture and translocation project.
- The British Trust for Ornithology is asking birders to monitor what sorts of berries birds eat in their gardens.
- Laelaps: Tiny Carboniferous Steps
- History of Geology: I can tell you about Mars
- Extinction Countdown: Japanese River Otter Declared Extinct
- Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds: Leucistic Piping Plover
- 10,000 Birds: A Tale of Two Tropical Terns: Sooty and Bridled
- Anything Larus: 2nd Cycle American Herrings in Michigan
- The Birders Report: New Scientific Report Documents the Impacts of Mercury Pollution on Adirondack Loons
- Stokes Birding Blog: Hawk Migration Is Starting, How To ID hawks
- Outside My Window: The Calico Bird
- South Jersey Butterfly B/Log: Southbound & Historic?
- The Smaller Majority: Leaf-eating Leaves
- Why Evolution is True: A gynandromorph cardinal: one half male, the other half female
- American presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney answered 14 questions on science and technology policy, some of which touch on environmental issues. Speaking of the presidential campaign, both parties have largely avoided the issue of climate change at their conventions, with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama being among the few speakers to refer to this major problem. Democrats have backtracked significantly on climate change from their positions in 2008 and continue to support bad solutions like "clean coal," while Republicans remain stuck in climate change denialism.
- The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is planning drastic changes to Bull's Island, including the clear-cutting of a large but unspecified number of mature sycamore trees. Bull's Island was historically a nesting site for Cerulean Warblers and continues to be a nesting site for other uncommon bird species. (See also the discussion on Bill Wolfe's blog.) To speak out against this change, please sign this petition.
- Hurricane Isaac churned up oil and tar balls left over from BP's 2010 spill following the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Louisiana has closed 12 miles of beaches in response until the oil is cleaned up.
- Scientists have created remote-controlled cockroaches.
- Franciscan manzanita has been added to the federal endangered species list. Until recently, the species was thought to be extinct, until it was discovered growing on a traffic island near the Golden Gate Bridge. The plant was moved to the Presidio, and it remains the only known specimen of the species. Here is a close-up of its flowers.
- Multiple pilot whales have stranded off the coast of Scotland, and several of them have died subsequently.
