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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 7:44:20 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1575274

Not sure. Certainly further than we do now. We've killed off 50% of the species of the world in like the last century or two. We have? We must be horrible people. Serial insect killers.

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 8:37:37 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575274

"Not sure. Certainly further than we do now. We've killed off 50% of the species of the world in like the last century or two." Link or lie

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 8:43:20 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575274

Z, > Not sure what I denied. You were the one dismissing my entire post with the simple denial, "These are extreme examples." Hence my question. How far do you want to take the crusade to save species? Further than we do now? I've already given you examples of how we take it too far. > We've killed off 50% of the species of the world in like the last century or two. Easy to explain when you consider that there is now seven billion people in this world. Maybe you think that's too much. Tenchusatsu

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 11:48:18 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575274

52 new species discovered on Borneo Island Over 400 species have been newly identified on the island since 1996 By Eliane Engeler GENEVA - Scientists have discovered at least 52 new species of animals and plants on the southeast Asian island of Borneo since 2005, including a catfish with protruding teeth and suction cups on its belly to help it stick to rocks, World Wildlife Fund for Nature International said Tuesday. “The more we look the more we find,” said Stuart Chapman, WWF International coordinator for the study of the “Heart of Borneo,” a 85,000-square-mile rain forest in the center of the island where several of the new species were found. “These discoveries reaffirm Borneo’s position as one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world.” Much of Borneo, which is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and the sultanate of Brunei, is covered by one of the world’s last remaining rain forests. However, half of the forest cover has been lost due to widespread logging, down from 75 percent in the mid-1980s. The discoveries bring the total number of species newly identified on the island to more than 400 since 1996, according to WWF, known in North America as the World Wildlife Fund. Other creatures discovered between July 2005 and September 2006 were six Siamese fighting fish, whose unique colors and markings distinguish them from close relatives, and a tree frog with bright green eyes. The catfish, which can be identified by its pretty color pattern, is named glyptothorax exodon, a reference to the teeth that can be seen even when the its mouth is closed. The suction cups on its belly enable it to stick to smooth stones while facing the current of Indonesia’s turbulent Kapuas River system. On the Malaysian part of the island, slow-flowing blackwater streams and peat swamps are home to the paedocypris micromegethes, which is 0.35 inch long. The creature, which gets its name from the Greek words for children and small, is tinier than all other vertebrate species on Earth except for its slightly more minuscule cousin, a 0.31-inch-long fish found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to WWF. The discoveries further highlight the need to conserve the habitat and species of Borneo, where the rain forest continues to be threatened by rubber, palm oil and pulp production, WWF said. “The remote and inaccessible forests in the Heart of Borneo are one of the world’s final frontiers for science, and many new species continue to be discovered here,” said Chapman. He added that the forests were also vital because they were the source the island’s major rivers acting as a natural break to fires burning in the lowlands this year. Jane Smart, who heads the World Conservation Union’s species program, said the discovery of 52 species within a year in Borneo was a “realistic” number given that scientists guess there are about 15 million species on Earth. “There are still many more species that remain to be discovered there,” she said. Borneo is particularly important for biodiversity because the island has a high number of endemic species, creatures which only occur in that one place, she told The Associated Press. “So if you wipe out a small area, you’re going to wipe out a lot of the species’ habitat,” she said, adding that once these creatures are destroyed, they are gone forever. “This is a real concern when forests are ripped out for rubber plantations or oil palm plantations,” Smart said. msnbc.msn.com

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 11:51:08 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 1575274

Three New Species Discovered On Deep-sea Voyage New species of carnivorous sea squirt that "looks and behaves like a Venus fly trap," according to researchers. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an international team of collaborators have returned from a month-long deep-sea voyage to a marine reserve near Tasmania, Australia, that not only netted coral-reef samples likely to provide insight into the impact of climate change on the world's oceans, but also brought to light at least three never-before-seen species of sea life. "It was truly one of those transcendent moments," says Caltech's Jess Adkins of the descents made by the remotely operated submersible Jason. Adkins was the cruise's lead scientist and is an associate professor of geochemistry and global environmental science at Caltech. "We were flying--literally flying--over these deep-sea structures that look like English gardens, but are actually filled with all of these carnivorous, Seuss-like creatures that no one else has ever seen." The voyage on the research vessel RV Thompson explored the Tasman Fracture Commonwealth Marine Reserve, southwest of Tasmania. The voyage was funded by the National Science Foundation and was the second of two cruises taken by the team, which included researchers from the United States--including scientists from Caltech and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which owns and operates the submersible Jason--and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The first of those voyages was taken in January 2008, with this most recent one spanning 33 days from mid-December 2008 through mid-January 2009. Up until now, the area of the reef the scientists were exploring--called the Tasman Fracture Zone--had only been explored to a depth of 1,800 meters (more than 5,900 feet). Using Jason, the researchers on this trip were able to reach as far down as 4,000 meters (well over 13,000 feet). "We set out to search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters," notes scientist Ron Thresher from CSIRO's Climate Adaptation and Wealth from Oceans Flagships. The cruise had two main goals, says Adkins. One was to try to use deep-sea corals to reconstruct the paleoclimate--with an emphasis on the changes in climate over the last 100,000 years--and to understand the fluctuations in CO2 found in the ice-core records. Investigators also wanted to look at changes in the ocean over a much smaller slice of time--the past few hundred to one thousand or so years. "We want to see what's happened to the corals over the Industrial Revolution timescale," says Adkins. "And we want to see if we can document those changes." The second goal? "Simply to document what's down there," says Adkins. "In one sense, the deep ocean is less explored than Mars," he adds. "So every time you go to look down there you see new things, magical things." Among the "magical things" seen on this trip were a new species of carnivorous sea squirt that "looks and behaves like a Venus fly trap," says Adkins; new species of barnacles (some of which Adkins says may even belong to an entirely new family); and a new species of sea anemone that Adkins calls "the bane of our existence," because it looks just like the coral they were trying to collect. The sea anemone was particularly vexing for the researchers, because they were hoping to find deep-sea (or abyssal) samples of the fossilized coral, but were unable to find the coral much below 2,400 meters (nearly 7,800 feet). The look-alike sea anemone, on the other hand, kept popping up all over the place on the deep-sea floor, raising--and then dashing--the scientists' hopes. "Not being able to find the coral down deeper was our single biggest disappointment on the trip," says Adkins. Still, the 10,000-plus samples collected will help the researchers begin their work of deciphering just what has been happening to the ocean throughout the centuries of climate change, and during and between glacial cycles. First up: dating the fossils collected on this trip in order to determine which slice of history they came from. "The deep ocean is part and parcel of these rapid climate changes," says Adkins. "These corals will be our window into what their impact is on climate, and how they have that impact. The info is there; now we just have to unpack it." sciencedaily.com

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 11:52:18 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575274

New Bird Species Discovered in Southern China An international conservation group says the discovery of a new bird species in southern China suggests the region could be home to many other unknown birds. Birdlife International Thursday announced the discovery of a new species of babbler in China's Nonggang region near its border with Vietnam. Ornithologists Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first spotted the fist-size dark brown bird with white specks on its chest in 2005. They later determined it was an undescribed species and have since named it the Nonggang babbler, after the region where it was discovered. The new species resembles a wren-babbler in that it prefers running to flying, and seems to spend most of its time on the ground foraging for insects. Nigel Collar, an ornithologist at Birdlife International, says the discovery is "exciting evidence" that there could be many more unknown bird species in the region. Ornithologist Zhou Fang warned the country's rapid development could threaten many biologically diverse areas in China before further discoveries are made. About 100 of the babblers have been identified so far in the Nonggang Natural Reserve in southwestern China. voanews.com

To: SilentZ who wrote (456782)	2/15/2009 11:55:17 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 1575274

Science team finds 'lost world' An international team of scientists says it has found a "lost world" in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of new animal and plant species. "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the group. The team recorded new butterflies, frogs, and a series of remarkable plants that included five new palms and a giant rhododendron flower. The survey also found a honeyeater bird that was previously unknown to science. “ It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence ” Dr Bruce Beehler, Conservation International The research group - from the US, Indonesia and Australia - trekked through an area in the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains, located just north of the vast Mamberamo Basin of north-western (Indonesian) New Guinea. The researchers spent nearly a month in the locality, detailing the wildlife and plant life from the lower hills to near the summit of the Foja range, which reaches more than 2,000m in elevation. "It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence up in these mountains," Dr Beehler told the BBC News website. "We were dropped in by helicopter. There's not a trail anywhere; it was really hard to get around." He said that even two local indigenous groups, the Kwerba and Papasena people, customary landowners of the forest who accompanied the scientists, were astonished at the area's isolation. "The men from the local villages came with us and they made it clear that no one they knew had been anywhere near this area - not even their ancestors," Mr Beehler said. Unafraid of humans One of the team's most remarkable discoveries was a honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face - the first new bird species to be sighted on the island of New Guinea in more than 60 years. The researchers also solved a major ornithological mystery - the location of the homeland of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise. First described in the late 19th Century through specimens collected by indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea, the species had been the focus of several subsequent expeditions that failed to find it. On only the second day of the team's expedition, the amazed scientists watched as a male Berlepsch's bird of paradise performed a mating dance for an attending female in the field camp. It was the first time a live male of the species had been observed by Western scientists, and proved that the Foja Mountains was the species' true home. "This bird had been filed away and forgotten; it had been lost. To rediscover it was, for me, in some ways, more exciting than finding the honeyeater. I spent 20 years working on birds of paradise; they're pretty darn sexy beasts," Dr Beehler enthused. The team also recorded a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, which was previously thought to have been hunted to near-extinction. Mr Beehler said some of the creatures the team came into contact with were remarkably unafraid of humans. Two long-beaked echidnas, primitive egg-laying mammals, even allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to their camp to be studied, he added. The December expedition was organised by the US-based organisation Conservation International, together with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. The team says it did not have nearly enough time during its expedition to survey the area completely and intends to return later in the year. The locality lies within a protected zone and Dr Beehler believes its future is secure in the short term. "The key investment is the local communities. Their knowledge, appreciation and oral traditions are so important. They are the forest stewards who will look after these assets," Dr Beehler told the BBC. A summary of the team's main discoveries: A new species of honeyeater, the first new bird species discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939 The formerly unknown breeding grounds of a "lost" bird of paradise - the six-wired bird of paradise ( Parotia berlepschi ) First photographs of the golden-fronted bowerbird displaying at its bower. A new large mammal for Indonesia, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo ( Dendrolagus pulcherrimus ) More than 20 new species of frogs, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14mm long A series of previously undescribed plant species, including five new species of palms A remarkable white-flowered rhododendron with flower about 15cm across Four new butterfly species. news.bbc.co.uk