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August 2008 Archives

Who Do We Call When There's a Big Hurricane?

Posted on August 28, 2008 | 0 Comments

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One of the most vivid memories I have of Hurricane Katrina harks back to the morning of August 28, 2005--exactly three years ago today. Turning on the television in my bedroom, I saw the news that a Category Five hurricane was barreling directly toward New Orleans.

In almost the same instant I reached for the phone to call our contributing editor Willie Drye. "I was just calling you," he said when he picked up on the other end.

That launched what remains the most viewed disaster coverage in the eight years since we started National Geographic News.

Photo of Willie Drye with Beaucat courtesy Willie Drye, 2002

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Lizards Start Each Day With Vigorous Push-ups

Posted on August 27, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Forest anoles on the Caribbean island Jamaica defend their territory at sunup and sundown with impressive displays of reptilian strength, including push-ups, head bobs, and threatening extensions of their dewlaps.

"The lizards are the first animals known to mark dawn and dusk through visual displays, rather than the much better known chirping, tweeting, and other sounding off by birds, frogs, geckos, and primates," says Terry J. Ord, whose research was funded in part by the National Geographic Society.

Photo Terry J. Ord/Harvard University and University of California, Davis

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World Governments Subsidize the Wrong Fisheries, Survey Suggests

Posted on August 26, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Small-scale fisheries produce as much annual catch for human consumption and use less than one-eighth the fuel as their industrial counterparts. They discard comparatively little bycatch and are far less destructive to deep-sea environments. They employ many more people.

"They are our best hope at sustainable fisheries," says Daniel Pauly, director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre and co-author of a study published in the current issue of the journal Conservation Biology.

Then why is it that small-scale fisheries (characterized by UBC as fishers operating in boats 50 feet or shorter) receive at most only 20 percent of the world's total government fishery subsidies?

Photo Dean Conger/NGS

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How Horns Can Drive Beetles to New Species

Posted on August 25, 2008 | 0 Comments

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In the horned beetle world there is a bizarre evolutionary trade-off: The bigger the horn on the head, the smaller the male genitalia on the other end of the animal--or vice versa.

As horns evolve to be larger, genitalia become smaller, eventually limiting sexual compatibility and creating a new species of horned beetles.

 

Photos courtesy Armin Moczek/Indiana University Bloomington

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Mosquito Virus Could Be a Weapon Against Malaria

Posted on August 23, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Does hope for a strategy to control malaria lie in a virus that can kill or program the mosquitoes that transmit the disease?

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Malaria Research Institute have identified a previously unknown virus that is infectious to Anopheles gambiae--the mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting malaria.

The virus is apparently harmless to mosquitoes, but researchers have already demonstrated that it can be manipulated. They successfully altered it to express harmless green fluorescent protein in adult mosquitoes which could be easily spotted under the microscope.

Image courtesy Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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"Worrisome" Number of Polar Bears Seen Swimming in Open Sea

Posted on August 22, 2008 | 0 Comments

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2007 had the lowest sea ice coverage in recorded history, seriously impinging upon the habitat of the polar bear. This image released by WWF is not one of the bears spotted in open water last week.

Image courtesy WWF

While looking for whales in Alaska's Chukchi Sea last week, U.S. government officials noticed an unusually high number of polar bears swimming in the open sea. Some were apparently heading for shore and some were heading toward ice. Several of them were 15 to 20 miles from either destination.

Polar bears are good swimmers, of course, and they do cross water to get out to the ice, which they use as a platform to hunt marine life.

Biologists have predicted that polar bears might be in trouble as global warming causes the Arctic ice to retreat.

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Earthquakes Endanger New York More Than Thought, Study Says

Posted on August 21, 2008 | 0 Comments

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The risk of earthquakes to New York City is substantially greater than formerly believed, seismologists said today.

Among other things, new research has found that the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones.

The scientists are based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which runs the network of seismometers that monitors most of the northeastern United States. Their findings were published in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The researchers analyzed past quakes plus new data on tremors, most of them perceptible only by instruments, to produce "evidence of unseen but potentially powerful geological structures whose layout and dynamics are only now coming clearer."

Space view of New York City by NASA

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Rare Vanilla Had Roots in Maya Gardens, Genes Reveal

Posted on August 21, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Vanilla is the No. 1 flavor for ice cream in the U.S., which consumes most of the world's vanilla supply. The spice is produced from the fruit, or "beans," of two orchid species, Vanilla tahitensis (in the photo) and Vanilla planifolia. Only about five percent of natural vanilla used in food comes from V. tahitensis, commonly known as Tahitian vanilla.

Photo Lubinsky/UC Riverside

Scientists may have solved the mystery of the origin of the Tahitian vanilla orchid, the rare plant that produces a richly-flavored spice esteemed by vanilla gourmets.

The orchid is known to exist only in cultivated or feral stands, primarily on the French Polynesian island Tahiti. Natural, wild populations have never been found.

But now botanists think they know where it came from, and how it got to Tahiti hundreds of years ago.

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Bloodsucking Fish Follows Chemical Trail to Breeding Grounds

Posted on August 20, 2008 | 0 Comments

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With its jawless toothy mouth adapted to suck the blood of fish, the sea lamprey is a ferocious parasite.

Like many of its prey, lampreys spend their early lives in rivers, where they are more protected than in the sea.

Scientists assumed that lampreys behave like other fish that return for breeding to the river where they were spawned. But this is not the case, new genetic research suggests.

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The Day of the Mosquito

Posted on August 20, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Pause for a moment on World Mosquito Day to reflect on the little bloodsucker that probably causes more human suffering than any other organism.

Observed annually today, August 20, World Mosquito Day originated in 1897 by Dr. Ronald Ross of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, according to the American Mosquito Control Association, a nonprofit based in New Jersey.

Ross is credited with the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the mosquito, and was honored with a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902.

Each year 350-500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But malaria is not the only disease spread by mosquitoes. There's also West Nile virus, various strains of encephalitis, Dengue Fever, Rift Valley Fever, Yellow Fever.

Photo courtesy Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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US Droughts May Last for Centuries, Cave Find Shows

Posted on August 19, 2008 | 0 Comments

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A 7.9-inch stalagmite from a West Virginia cave suggests that eastern North America experienced several century-long droughts over the past 7,000 years.

Ohio University researchers who examined the stalagmite found evidence of at least seven major droughts, according to an article published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

It is the most detailed geological record to date on climate cycles of the region. And it confirms a theory that fluctuations in the sun's activity every 1,500 years causes the cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean, which in turn impacts rainfall over North America.

"This really nails down the idea of solar influence on continental drought," said Gregory Springer, the research team leader and an assistant professor of geological sciences at Ohio University.

The climate record suggests that North America could face a major drought event again in 500 to 1,000 years, the researchers said. However, manmade global warming could offset the cycle, they added.

Photo courtesy Greg Springer, Ohio University

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Sewage Used to Water Crops Near Many Third World Cities, Survey Finds

Posted on August 18, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Widespread use of raw sewage to irrigate crops threatens to expose millions of people in developing countries to epidemics, an international conference on water heard in Sweden today.

The news was presented to the annual World Water Week conference in Stockholm, capital of Sweden, where 2,500 experts from 140 countries are pondering solutions to the world's water crisis.

The International Water Management Institute told the conference that more than half of farmland near three dozen cities surveyed in developing countries is watered with untreated sewage.

Photo David Alan Harvey/NGS

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New Bird Species Discovered in Gabon

Posted on August 16, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Breaking news for birders: Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to science.

The olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) measures 4.5 inches in length and averages a little more than half an ounce in weight.

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Smithsonian Ornithologist Brian Schmidt with a female specimen of the newly discovered bird.

Image courtesy Carlton Ward/Smithsonian

More details and pictures of both male and female specimens are in the extended entry.

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Lasers, Computers Help Reconstruct Ancient Greek Art

Posted on August 15, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Thirty-six centuries after a volcano buried civilization on Santorini, computers, scanners, and laser measuring devices are helping archaeologists reconstruct the shattered artifacts of the Mediterranean island's ancient way of life.

Manual reconstruction of Santorini's wall paintings started forty years ago. At the current rate of progress it would take at least another century to complete the task. The "Virtual Archaeologist" could accelerate this dramatically.

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Mass Extinctions Loom in Ocean Habitats, Scientist Warns

Posted on August 14, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past, a sea scientist warned this week.

Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in the photo on the right, believes that overfishing, pollution, and climate change must be addressed to halt the spiral of the world's oceans into catastrophe.

"Only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing," he said in a paper published by the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

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Python Invasion of U.S. Unlikely, New Study Says

Posted on August 13, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Giant snakes may not be about to invade much of the United States, after all. 

One of the more dire predictions of the consequences of climate change came from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) a few months ago: The giant Burmese python currently wreaking havoc in the Florida Everglades could find itself "comfortable" in as much as a third of the nation once temperatures rise as projected.

A new study using a different computer model released this week suggests otherwise. Climate change will actually seriously impact the current range of the reptile in the U.S., confining it to the swampy southern fringe of Florida.

Read more and see a snake "climate match" map and pictures in the extended entry.

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Elephants' Legendary Memories May Be Key to Their Survival

Posted on August 12, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Since I was a boy growing up in Africa I have heard that elephants "never forget."

Their reputation for remembering may be based in part on their habit of visiting and seemingly mourning the dried bones of their relatives.

Elephants have long been known to teach their young the ancient knowledge they received from their elders of seasonal feeding grounds and when and how to get to them.

A few years ago National Geographic News published a story about Africa's desert elephants that survive by following an arduous circular migration route between water holes. Leaders need to know what they're doing. An error in timing could result in the death of the herd.

See an interactive map of this age-old desert elephant migration and read the latest news about elephant memory, in the extended entry.

 

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Geographic Explorer Gets His Photo in Spite of Machete Attack

Posted on August 11, 2008 | 0 Comments

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National Geographic grantee Cagan H. Sekercioglu and a colleague were on a night-time mission in Costa Rica last week, in quest of photographing a rare owl. Instead, they were attacked by a machete-wielding mob who thought they were thieves.

Cagan, a senior researcher at Stanford University, California, and colleague Jim Zook, one of Costa Rica's leading ornithologists, survived the attack, although Zook was cut in the hand and bruised, and their car was badly damaged by big rocks.

At the height of the drama, the elusive screech-owl flew into view, and Sekercioglu, "while my heart was pounding ... managed to focus on the owl in near complete dark."

Read Sekercioglu's story and see his photos in the extended entry.

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Snake Plague on Guam Impacts Trees

Posted on August 8, 2008 | 0 Comments

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When the brown tree snake was transported accidentally to the Pacific island of Guam sixty years ago it slithered into paradise: a banquet of birds that had no fear of snakes--and no predators to keep snakes in check.

Today Guam is the text book example of what invasive species can inflict on an ecosystem. The brown tree snake has wiped out most of the island's indigenous birds and is making serious inroads into Guam's other small animals.

Photo courtesy Isaac Chellman/University of Washington

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Researcher Licks Poison Frogs in Pursuit of Science

Posted on August 7, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Valerie Clark has a quick way to determine whether a frog is toxic or not. She licks them.

If it is not dangerous it is certainly nasty. "I don't recommend this," Clark told National Geographic News earlier this year. "If you lick the wrong frog it can be very bad." (Read the story.)

Clark studies frog chemical defenses. She earned her master's degree at Columbia University in New York City, and has received funding from National Geographic to do research on the ecology and evolution of chemical defense in the poison frogs of Madagascar.

Watch a video and read more about Valerie Clark's research in the extended entry.

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Clinton's Charity to Focus on AIDS in the U.S.

Posted on August 4, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Mexico City--President Clinton addressed the International AIDS Conference here today.

"AIDS is a very big dragon," he said. "The mythological dragon was slain by St. George, the original knight in shining armor. But this dragon must be slain instead by millions and millions of foot soldiers."

Clinton cited his HIV/AIDS work in Africa and specifically mentioned the case of the 15-year-old boy and the boy's sister, Eugenie, whom Clinton had visited in Rwanda earlier on the trip. The former President said he had told the boy, Jean-Pierre, not to give up hope and to keep up with his education. Jean-Pierre said he wanted to be a doctor so that he could help others, Clinton said.

Reacting to the recent announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that there are 56,000 more new HIV infections a year than had previously been reported in the U.S., Clinton said: "For Americans, this should be a wake-up call. Even as we fight the epidemic globally, we must focus at home. And I intend to do so with my foundation."

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Clinton Announces AIDS Initiative in Senegal

Posted on August 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Dakar, Senegal--
The final stop in Africa lasted only a few hours.

Essentially we flew here to listen to President Clinton and others make an announcement about new guidelines to treat infants born with HIV.

 Read the National Geographic News story about it.

 

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In Liberia for a Few Hours

Posted on August 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Monrovia, Liberia--We were up at 3 this morning for the flight to Monrovia, capital of Liberia. In something like 30 hours we will have set foot in four countries: Rwanda, Liberia, Senegal, and Mexico.

After interviewing Clinton last night I found there was no electricity in my hotel room. This is a major problem in the digital age because so much of our equipment needs overnight recharging. I packed for the early morning departure by keeping the room door open so I could see by the light of the hallway. After only three hours' sleep I shaved, showered, and dressed in the dark.

The media are no longer using the "Flying Palace." Clinton and his delegation have taken it over. We and the staff are on a chartered Ethiopian airliner. Seating is standard economy class, but the journalists still managed to set up the cabin like an airborne newsroom. Equipment is spread across the seats, and cables snake over the floor.

The cabin crew are excited about being part of the Clinton adventure and several asked how they could get their picture taken with the former President.

We were in Liberia for only a few hours. Click on the extended entry to see photos and a video.

 

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An Interview With Bill Clinton

Posted on August 3, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Kigali, Rwanda--Back in the capital last night, a few of us rushed to visit the Kigali Memorial Center, which was opened four years ago on the tenth anniversary of the genocide.

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The memorial is built on a site where 250,000 victims of the genocide were interred by Kigali authorities after countless unidentified people in shallow graves were found buried all across the city.

We began the visit with a somber viewing of one of 15 giant vaults that hold the remains, bowing our heads in silence for a moment to think about the enormity of what was in front of us.

While on a guided tour of the exhibit, I received a call from Clinton's staff that the President would give me the interview I had requested right away. So still in my field clothes from the day 's various outings around Rwanda, I was taken to Clinton's hotel.

Read about the interview (and click on an MP3 file at the bottom to listen to the interview) in the extended entry. 

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New Rwanda Hospital to be "Most Modern in Africa"

Posted on August 2, 2008 | 0 Comments

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DSCN3040a.jpgButaro, Rwanda--
Hundreds of people lined the hills and streets of Butaro, a small town across the border with Uganda in the Burera district of Rwanda, waiting all day for President Clinton to visit for a groundbreaking ceremony for the district's first hospital.

Burera is in the only one of Rwanda's 30 districts still lacking a hospital. The 130-bed facility will support 12 satellite health centers and provide a full range of health services, including mental health care, for the region's 400,000 residents.

Until a few months ago the site of the new medical facility was a military camp. Local workers cleared the installation and flattened the hill top in readiness for the hospital, which is expected to open its doors in about 15 months.

Watch a video of Clinton's speech at the groundbreaking ceremony in the extended entry:

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Clinton Visits Cassava Farm and Boy with AIDS

Posted on August 2, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Rinkwavu, Rwanda--The Clinton mission flew on Rwanda Air Force helicopters to the eastern highlands of the country today to visit cassava farmers and then to join a home visit by a health care worker to a 15-year-old boy being treated for AIDS.

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Villagers gathered in small groups to watch the first wave of helicopters land on a football field.

The Clinton Foundation in partnership with the U.K.-based Hunter Foundation is assisting the farmers of this region to cultivate cassava. More than 5,000 farmers -- nearly 80 percent of all the farmers of Rinkwavu -- have received millions of cuttings of a drought-resistant variety of cassava from the charities, helping improve food security and incomes for thousands of families.

Cassava roots are rich in carbohydrates, calcium, and vitamin C. The leaves are also edible.

Watch these videos about the cassava project, including one in which Clinton suggests that, because cassava is gluten-free, it might have potential for export to the developed world, where many people have developed an allergic reaction to the gluten found in wheat products.

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Rwandan Farmers Aim to Produce World's Best Organic Coffee

Posted on August 2, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Kigali, Rwanda--Hours after arriving in this capital city of Rwanda, we were invited to observe President Clinton and daughter Chelsea sipping coffee with some rural coffee farmers.

It was planned for the Clinton delegation and the media to fly by helicopter to a coffee plantation earlier in the afternoon, but that was before the breakdown of Clinton's aircraft in Addis Ababa made this impossible. Instead, the farmers were brought to Clinton's Kigali hotel.

"Rwandan Farmers Coffee" brand was launched in the United Kingdom a few weeks ago. There are plans to roll it out in the United States soon.

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Bill Clinton's Ties to Rwanda

Posted on August 2, 2008 | 0 Comments

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DSCN2306a.jpgKigali, Rwanda--
Some 800,000 people were killed in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It happened on Bill Clinton's watch as U.S. president .

On a visit to Rwanda ten years ago, Clinton publicly acknowleged that the United States and the world community "did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred." History may judge that this was one of the worst lapses of the Clinton administration

Clinton has talked about this a bit on this trip to Africa, including at a dinner he hosted last night for the press.

He says he has a lifelong responsibility to help Rwanda recover from the genocide.

William J. Clinton Foundation initiatives include assistance to develop a national rural health network and partnering with community, farmers, entrepreneurs, hospitals, and health care facilities to support a sustainable economy.

The 2008 Clinton tour of Africa is to look at some of these projects. We started with a meeting with some Rwandan coffee farmers.

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The President's Plane Breaks Down

Posted on August 1, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Kigali, Rwanda--One hour  on the way to Rwanda on the "Flying Palace," as we call our plane, we made a wide turn and headed back to Addis Ababa.

"The President's aircraft had to abort take-off after an engine malfunctioned," a staffer told us. "We're going back to pick him up."

Read more in the extended entry.

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President Clinton's Boeing 767 was on loan from Google.

Photo by David Braun/NGS

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Clinton Visits Health Care Center

Posted on August 1, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Debre Zeit, Ethiopia--Godino Health Center, serving the community of Debre Zeit 40 miles (70 kilometers) south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, is a modest health care facility by developed world standards.Yet it represents a big idea for Ethiopia's system of health care, and President Clinton came here today on the first leg of his Africa trip to make it a powerful symbol.

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President Clinton greets health extension workers at Godino Health Center.

 Photograph by David Braun/NGS

"I am honored to visit the Godino Health Center to launch my Foundation's Ethiopian Millennium Rural Initiative in partnership with the Government of Ethiopia," Mr. Clinton told hundreds of people gathered on a dusty field to see him. "Working together, we can improve health care for millions of people who live in rural areas of Ethiopia, and also enable future generations to live free of HIV/AIDS."

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With Clinton in Africa

Posted on August 1, 2008 | 0 Comments

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We woke up in our luxury airliner to the smell of coffee. The crew served breakfast before touching down in Malaga, Spain, for fuel.

The second leg of the flight sped us over Libya and the Sahara Desert toward the setting sun.

On the ground in Addis Ababa we boarded buses directly from the aircraft. A member of the advance team told us that President Clinton was waiting for us in the hotel restaurant. It was already past midnight in Ethiopia, seven hours ahead of New York time.

"What a nightmare for you," Clinton said when we finally caught up with him. "We've been working hard to bring you to us."

The staff briefed us about the program for the day. We had about five hours to sleep and then we were to accompany the delegation to a rural clinic. From there we would go directly to the airport for an afternoon program in Rwanda.

I spent one of the five hours in the hotel business center trying unsuccessfully to access my email and upload to my blog.

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