Xpandyourhorizons-blog - Xpand Your Horizons

Massive whale faces extinction with just 100 breeding females remaining

Despite legal protection, North Atlantic right whales keep getting struck accidentally by fishing boats and entangled in gear.

For decades, whaling ships targeted right whales. Now that they’re protected, they are still victims of human activity, and it may be too late to save them. The WWF says that their population shows no sign of recovery.

Outrage after Kyrgyzstan reburies its only ancient mummy

Scientists have called for Kyrgyzstan’s only mummy to be immediately dug back up after the 1,500-year-old relic was taken from a museum and hastily reburied on the eve of a presidential election in a decision celebrated by self-professed psychics.

The female mummy was put back in the ground in mid-October in the same dusty corner of southern Kyrgyzstan where it was discovered in 1956 after a sudden ruling by a state commission.

The decision was made despite strong opposition from the only archaeologist on the commission and culture minister Tugelbai Kazakov, who played the decisive role in the call, resigned on Saturday. 

Kazakov said the mummy had been largely neglected by scientists and the country lacked the finances to keep it in good condition. Read more.

2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert

Archaeologists rediscovered a giant geoglyph of a killer whale, etched into a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru, after it had been lost to science for more than 50 years.

The 230-foot-long (70 meters) figure of an orca — considered a powerful, semimythical creature in ancient Peruvian lore — may be more than 2,000 years old, according to the researchers.

They said it may be one the oldest geoglyphs in the Palpa region, and older than those in the nearby Nazca region, which is famous for its vast collection of ancient ground markings — the Nazca Lines — that include animal figures, straight lines and geometrical shapes.

Archaeologist Johny Isla, the head of Peru’s Ministry of Culture in Ica province, which includes the Palpa and Nazca valleys, explained that he saw a single photograph of the orca pattern for the first time about four years ago. He’d seen it while researching studies of geoglyphs at the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn. Read more.

Incredible footage of the critically endangered Hooded Grebe in a full mating dance. This species was not even discovered until 1974 due to the remoteness of where they live in Argentina. Hopefully as more people learn about this species it can help boost conservation efforts to help them! Knowledge is power and we hope to facilitate these kind of connections to the public in the future! Learn more on our website www.keyconservation.org (link in bio) | Repost @sirovenbird | The seldom seen, full mating display dance of the Hooded Grebe, Podiceps gallardoi. @moomgene and I were luckily enough to see a breeding colony develop out of nothing in a few days, and see the whole social dynamic of displaying to pair formation to nest building and egg laying play out less than 10m from us. #patagonia #argentina #proyectomacátobiano #hoodedgrebe #dance #tango #amazing #dramatic #SouthAmerica #discover #travel #bird #birds #birding #criticallyendangered #endangered #wildlifebiologist #wildlifephotography #wildlifeconservation #wildlife #conservation #conservationoptimism #nature #animal #fieldwork #hope #endextinction #KeyConservation

More good news from this nightmare in which we are living…

Trump Poised to Shrink Two National Monuments

Trump is expected to eliminate nearly 85 percent of Bear Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, cutting more than 1 million acres from its current boundaries. He’s also set to halve the nearly 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (E&E News PM, Nov. 30).

The move is being praised by Republicans who have long argued that the Antiquities Act—the 1906 law that allows presidents to set aside public land—is being used unlawfully to lock up tracts of federal land. On the other side, Democratic allies have vowed to take any monument reductions to court.

Scientists who have studied the region, especially Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, say redrawing its boundaries could be detrimental to scientific research and discoveries.

“The monument has been demonstrably a very, very important scientific laboratory to learning and understanding on many realms,” said Mike Scott, a retired U.S. Geological Survey researcher.

Scott and his colleagues have spent time in Grand Staircase-Escalante studying how different management policies and activities on rangelands—there are many different kinds across the ecologically diverse monument—affect the health of those ecosystems. Rangeland activities include anything from how grazing affects soil quality to the health of different soil types.

As climate change brings warmer, drier conditions, understanding how to keep soils and grassland ecosystems healthy in arid landscapes is crucial to avoid desertification, Scott said. Grand Staircase-Escalante has been “a really critical living laboratory,” he said.

Just 1°C of ocean warming can upend marine ecosystems 

For 9 months, the researchers monitored the distribution and growth of marine species that settled on the heated boxes and compared them with those that lived above unheated boxes. All it took was one look to notice the difference, Ashton says. In the 1°C increase experiment, a single species of moss animal, Fenestrulina rugula, doubled its growth rate. Within 2 months, the calciferous shelves it created dominated the community, the team reports today in Current Biology. What’s more, overall species diversity plummeted by 50%.

Me in my house welcoming you with excitement

Hawaii Becomes the First State to Pass a Bill in Support of Universal Basic Income

Hawaii's government is going to evaluate UBI.

As the threat of automation grows, governments will have to deal with growing unemployment. UBI is growing in interest, and while there’s still research to be done, I’m glad that people are at least having the conversation.

Also, since automation is coming for middle and upper class jobs too, I expect to see progress to be made a bit more quickly. Hopefully.